Davidhttp://thepowblock.com/david/en-US2012-02-17T20:15:52ZSquarespace Site Server v5.11.81 (http://www.squarespace.com/)Sex in sockshttp://thepowblock.com/david/2011/2/7/sex-in-socks.htmlDavid2011-02-07T05:55:30Z

My friend George and I made this tonight. Our good friend Matt Kondoff, the awesome musician who does the theme song for The POW Block and who's music is featured on the site, did the camera work.

]]>Lovehttp://thepowblock.com/david/2011/1/11/love.htmlThe POW Block2011-01-11T13:39:33Zessay 

This piece is something I wrote on the concept of love one night when I couldn't fall asleep. Though it seems like everything I write is because I lay awake at night thinking about it.

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    Love is a convoluted, confusing, encumbering force that refuses to leave us alone. Don’t read this if you think this may make sense. I don’t know if I can provide that kind of clarity. I don’t have a goal nor do I know what I’m actually trying to accomplish. This is just a way to organize my thoughts as they spill out of my brain. Maybe you’ll see something I don’t.

    Love is a word that is casually thrown around constantly. Some comedian that I watched said that he hates when a girl says “I love you” because he knows they don’t mean it. He watches them as they gush over other things, saying things like “I loooove ice cream,” or something to that extent and that the passion in that line is so much more intense then when it is told to him, that it can’t possibly be true. I have to agree, I don’t understand how you can gush over so many things. Not that I’m innocent.

    I love Scott Pilgrim. I love Tron. I fucking love curry rice. I get why we use love like that, and yet I don’t. I can’t help it. I do fucking love curry rice, it’s probably my favorite meal. It’s not that there aren’t other words to use, but love is always the first thing that pops into my head. Do I mean it? I don’t know. I do really enjoy a nice bowl of curry rice, but is that love? What the hell is love anyway? Clearly my enjoyment for food is vastly different from my enjoyment of another person, so why do I use the same word?

    If it was all about the implied meaning, there would be no problem. So where does the issue come from? What really is the biggest issue is we have no idea what love means. I’ve come to the conclusion that love is the feeling you get when you realize that you want nothing more than to spend the rest of your life with someone. That’s when you love them. So why the hell, knowing this, do I still use the word constantly for meaningless, trivial things?

    If we can love other things, that has to mean that there are different types of love. What we need is different words for those different types of love. Don’t expect me to suggest any, I’m just voicing an opinion. I often say I love someone after they do something beneficial for me. It is in no way the same as what I consider the meaning of love. It’s like the dictionary definition of run. In the English language, run has over a dozen definitions. If someone tried to compile all of the various forms of love I could see that number easily doubling or tripling.

    I could just sit here asking questions over and over again. It all really boils down to, if I accept my previous definition of love as its definition, then any other time I use the word I use it incorrectly. If it’s not love, then it’s just caring immensely, plain and simple. As an aside, I did not write this in one attempt, rather everything before this paragraph at once, then everything else several days later. So love is misused constantly. I plan on attempting to reduce the amount that I do this, but I doubt anyone else will or will care.

    I saw Tangled today. I adore Disney, I always have and this time they didn’t disappoint. That’s not the point though. Every form of media always seems to indicate that not only is love something so amazing that your whole world wraps around it, you know it when it happens and you will do anything to make it work. The world may move to keep you apart, but you’ll just move it back. This is complete and utter bullshit of course.

    I’m not a pessimist, a downer, or a lonely heart. I believe in love and all it’s mysteries. I don’t think people will be lonely forever, nor do I believe that unless we find that one person we will never be complete. There are misgivings about love, but that deals more with our perception of people than love itself. I’ve said in the past that while I believe in love, I don’t think I’ll ever find someone who not only instills that in me, but reciprocates it. I don’t really believe that either though. I’m just so unsure of the future that it’s just easier to make generalizations that ease the present then to actually look.

    I don’t think I’ve ever felt love and I’m not sure if I ever will. I can say I’ve felt a feeling close to what I approximate love to feel like and it is a wonderful thing. I’m not going to run and hide though. I’ve been burned in the past and I assume I will be burned in the future, but it’s something worth looking for regardless of the hardships. The harder the journey the greater the payoff, right? I was hoping that by writing this I would figure something out, that something would make itself clear. That didn’t really happen, but I still feel somewhat more confident on this topic. I don’t know, nor do I ever plan to.

 

]]>Sex follow uphttp://thepowblock.com/david/2010/12/28/sex-follow-up.htmlThe POW Block2010-12-28T17:13:09ZThis was written by a friend of mine in response to the post I made about sex. He's written other things as well you you can see them on and follow his tumbr.

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I’m staring at a wall. It’s about two inches from my face, so it’s really the only thing I can stare at. Unless I turn around, of course. If I did that I would have to look at her though. I couldn’t help myself. She would be in my field of view and my eyes would naturally be drawn to her. I’m not ashamed of what I did, it’s really the exact opposite, I just don’t want to look at her. I want to go to sleep, but I can’t.

I want to be back in my own bed, in my own room. Yeah I know, I would rather be laying in my bed alone with my roommate sleeping on the other side of the room leaving me to have to silently move around as to not wake him up, then lay beside this girl. I like my bed, it’s mine. It’s covered in my sheets, it has my pillow, it’s surrounded by all of my stuff, and it smells like me. It’s comfortable and familiar. Those reasons are also why I’m here. That’s my area, not a place for her.

I’m not trying to sound like a complete ass, though I feel as though what I say next will do just that. I barely know this girl. She’s in one of my classes. After we wake up and awkwardly say goodbye, that’s all she’s going to be. She told me her name and I told her mine, I won’t forget it but I won’t care about it either. Tomorrow she’ll go back to being that cute girl in the back of class and I’ll go back to being that guy who usually sleeps through lectures. We both got what we wanted out of this. There were no feelings involved. Nothings changed. We both needed a release and we got it, end of story.

The reason I don’t want to be here now is not because I don’t enjoy sleeping with another person. It is always nice to lay down next to someone and fall asleep, having that last thought before you drift off being that you’re not alone. What’s even better is when it’s someone you care about, but that has nothing to do with this. I have class in the morning. If I don’t go, it’s so much easier to just blame her for this. If I’m in my room I know that I can only blame myself for any failures.

I had sex with this girl and the only thing that is different is now I won’t feel the overwhelming desire to do it again for at least a few weeks. It’s been like that since the beginning. When I lost my virginity, my world didn’t change. The only thing that was even slightly different is that my sexual desire increased. I wouldn’t have predicted that. I now know that my sexual desire from before was almost all curiosity, now it’s an addiction.

I don’t mean sex is the same addiction as I have with cigarettes, though I could see it becoming that. It’s more the way I am with oreos. If someone opens a package of oreos near me, I’m going to eat them. Now if someone opens a package of stale oreos, I may think twice. If someone drops some oreos on the ground, I’m not going for that. It’s the same with sex, if it’s presented to me, I have a few factors I have to consider first, then I am more than likely going to do it. It’s a slight issue of self control and a big issue of not caring. I want it and it really doesn’t have consequences if I take the right precautions, so why not?

You say that sex changes things. You say it as a cold, hard, irrefutable fact. Yet how can you say that David, when I say to you that it changed nothing for me. My view of the world remains as it was before. I don’t completely disagree with the points you make, but I do take issue with quite a few of them. You also ask for a response and that’s exactly what I want to give you.

I don’t disregard sex, nor do I fear it. By your opinion, if I had to be put in a category it would be the first, yet I know sex can be meaningful. Meaningful sex is a wonderful thing. To know that the person you are with is sharing themselves with you, not as a selfish way to fulfil their desires, but in a caring and loving way is one of the best feelings in the world. Finding someone to have that with is almost impossible though.

You can have a healthy relationship without sex. I wouldn’t call it a normal relationship by any stretch of the imagination, which is what you might have been going for, but it is possible. There are people in this world born without sexual desire (I would hate to be them though). As people, we are able to convince ourselves of almost anything and it is possible for both parties in a relationship to be convinced that sex doesn’t matter. It would just suck.

Separating sex and emotions come from desire alone. If you don’t want to separate sex from emotions, you won’t. You’ll be lost in a limbo that leaves you feeling hurt and empty. You can’t expect it to happen instantly or easily. It comes with proper planning. If you want to have meaningless (or ‘casual’) sex with someone, you need to make sure that’s what they want as well. Stalkers suck, so play your cards carefully.

If you want to have meaningless sex, find someone that does as well and go for it. If you don’t, don’t try because it won’t work. That’s really all I’ve learned from sex. Sex taught me things about sex, not about life. I don’t think I would have wanted sex to have taught me about life. Sex is a complicated and potentially dangerous, but wonderful thing. It has to be approached carefully. The more I think about it, it’s an apt metaphor for life.

]]>Sexhttp://thepowblock.com/david/2010/12/22/sex.htmlThe POW Block2010-12-22T17:15:21ZAs I said in a recent news post, I have been writing quite a bit lately, but utilizing my tumbr for that. I feel as though I should post that here as well. This piece I wrote because I was laying in bed one night and I couldn't sleep. All I could think about was sex and everything that resulted because of it.

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It just happened. It took me completely off guard when it happened too. Just a week before I absolutely hated the person who would take my virginity away from me. I don’t know, it just happened. Far too many people are completely uncomfortable talking about sex. I used to be, now it seems I can’t shut up about it. I’m not an expert or anything, it’s just always on my mind. It’s always on every one’s mind really. Whether it’s in the forefront or shoved down deep, we as a people think about sex more frequently then most would ever admit.

My first time was somewhat planned out. Even though over the course of a few hours I had gone from completely hating the person to wanting nothing more than to lay in bed beside them, we somehow managed to plan it out. It was sudden and unexpected for both of us. We reconciled on a Tuesday and had sex on Friday. It wasn’t as immediate as you might expect, but we did want to try and make something of it. We also both had class all week long. When it was over I expected to feel different. I didn’t but everything had changed, it just took me a while to realize it.

Sex changes things. It’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. My entire life, every piece of pop culture (sans the religious coated ‘gems’), hell even some of the religious stuff all pointed to sex as the end all be all. It was the goal. For a boy, it was the threshold into manhood. For a girl, it was the ultimate act of love and togetherness. For me, when it first happened, it was all I wanted. After that brief month when I experience the sheer wonder of sex, it became this massive disappointment.

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t in love. Maybe it’s because after we stopped, all of my hatred returned. Maybe it’s because sex really isn’t that big of a deal, that it’s been so blown out of proportion that nothing could possibly live up to those expectations. The only thing I can be sure of is that it changed everything and I really miss the way it used to be. My world became a much different place.

Sex taught me several things. The first is that sex is an essential part of every healthy relationship. Before you immediately put this down, let me explain. Emotions are complex, confusing forces. Two of the strongest emotions we are capable of feeling are love and infatuation. They are almost identical and have been confused for as long as they have existed. I’m not even going to bother trying to explain what love is, just know it’s not infatuation. Infatuation feels exactly like love, but once the sex ends, it vanishes.

Infatuation is a nice big, complicated way of saying overwhelming physical attraction. It clouds your mind, infecting every aspect of your brain. You see someone, you find them attractive, you want to have sex with them (whether you are willing to admit it or not) and you convince yourself you are in love with them. Maybe you get married. You have sex with this person. Time passes and you grow tired of them. It ends.

Of course some people refuse to let it and and are just miserable together, but to each their own. The only real way to tell infatuation from love is to stop having sex with the other person. If you still want to spend large portions of your time with them without the promise or even hope of sex, then congratulations you’re in love (try not to get hurt). If not then get out while you still can. There are other factors that play into this, but they don’t factor into the sex aspect.

Sex taught me that too many people either fear or disregard sex. There is no happy medium. Sex is so hard wired into our brains that we either embrace it with open arms and eventually consider it in the same way we consider getting a hair cut, it’s something that we do periodically, it can wait and still be fine, or we can do it a bit more than we should, or it becomes something that we place on a pedestal like a vengeful deity, living in terror of what might happen may we misuse it.

I find myself forever lost between the two. I can’t pick a side. You know the people who do. You can tell by asking the right questions which side they fall on. Each side tends to immensely dislike the other. Then there are those like myself. We can’t really stand either side. We’re not in the middle. It’s somewhat like giving up. Neither side is appealing, yet they both make complete sense. It’s the atheism of sex. You can’t convince me that sex doesn’t mean anything, but it’s so terrifying that I want nothing more in the world for it to mean absolutely nothing.

Sex taught me that sex really isn’t the end goal. It really just does happen. You might regret it, you might treasure it, you might forget it in a few years. Once we, as a society, moved past the point of sex being something that widely considered solely for procreation and instead recreation, we moved past the requirement for those old ideals. Sex is no longer this event. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

Since it’s so improbably difficult to separate sex and emotions, I would have to consider it a bad thing. Not that we have a choice in the matter. It’s happening whether we like it or not, all we can do is buckle up and enjoy the ride. If we really wanted to, we could hide away from it all, but it still exists, always lurking. For most people (and by most, I mean in the psychological sense) that desire is and will always be there.

I’m writing this because I can’t sleep. I have a make or break test tomorrow and the sleep I require eludes me. Of course, the one thought that is racing through my mind is sex. We’ve all been there frequently. I write this because I hope that by writing it, I can stop thinking about it long enough to actually sleep, though I highly doubt that will happen. No matter what I do, I’m still going to be thinking about sex. It’s the one thought I can’t completely ignore.

Sex taught me things, things I can’t forget. It’s forever altered my perspective and though I long for the time before, I deeply value the knowledge it has imparted upon me. It’s not something instantaneous though. There is no magical button that’s pressed when you lose your virginity that releases the flood gates of knowledge. You have to come to these conclusions yourself. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you reach completely different conclusions. I haven’t, but I would love to have a conversation with someone who has. Who knows…

]]>This week in what the hell I've been doinghttp://thepowblock.com/david/2010/12/20/this-week-in-what-the-hell-ive-been-doing.htmlThe POW Block2010-12-20T14:21:21ZTo continue with my alarming trend of actually posting things on my god damn website, I'm here to tell you what I've been up to this week. Since we recorded the last podcast I've fufilled a desire that has been residing within me since I was ten. Tron: Legacy in IMAX 3D was, well it was a movie. I don't want to say any more than that here. Listen to this week's TPB to hear my thoughts on it. The big deal was this week I turned $200 into ink and labor, then had said ink injected under my skin. This was my first tattoo and I will get around to posting a picture once it's healed. Right now it's red, swolen and bruised in areas, and is starting to peel right now. So instead, check out the concept art of it below.

]]>Captionshttp://thepowblock.com/david/2010/12/14/captions.htmlThe POW Block2010-12-15T00:26:42ZWhile I have been writing, I don't know how I want to present that here. So here are a few captions I made for pictures I found while browsing.

]]>Coming Backhttp://thepowblock.com/david/2010/8/6/coming-back.htmlThe POW Block2010-08-06T13:31:04ZIt’s been quite a while since we’ve been here. Two monthsish. That was pretty much my fault. After Eric left I was wary of immediately starting again. I had been reading up on how to make a successful podcast, that and my own experiences have shown me what works and what doesn’t. Unfortunately I got an idea in my head that we needed three people for the show to really work. I still want to find a third, but Derek and I have good discourse so for now it will just be us.

I also felt as though the site hinged on the podcast. It kinda does, since that’s our only real big thing we have going right now. Though a little bit of insider knowledge here, our highest trafficking post was something Eric wrote about Game Room. So the writings do get hits. We’ll see. I have a lot of big things planned that will roll out over the next few months. So stay tuned.

My life has been pretty uninteresting. I have a job now, so I work a lot. Probably not as much as some of you, but this is a big change for me. Now I get paid to sit at a computer all day. Of course I’m not doing anything near as enjoyable as I used to, but the money makes it a nice trade off. Unfortunately my work will be coming to an end as the fall semester nears and I move back on campus.

This fall semester will bring new things for me and you. It will be pretty damn awesome if even some small minute detail goes according to plan. Waiting sucks, but hey that’s life. Also, Scott Pilgrim is next week, the movie and the game. Hell yeah! I know I’m just kinda babbling, but I promise I will have a more concise update for Monday. See you then.

]]>Some News and an Anecdotehttp://thepowblock.com/david/2010/7/21/some-news-and-an-anecdote.htmlThe POW Block2010-07-21T13:37:04ZSo it's been a while since we updated. Much appologies. Things will be ramping into high gear here very shortly. I know it's not much, but it's better then nothing.

So here is something to entertain you in the mean time. So when I went to see Predators, I was wearing my awesome Scott Pilgrim shirt. The very cute girl at the ticket counter noticed and we had a discussion about Scott Pilgrim. Unfortunately, she had a boyfriend so that was dissappointing. Then when I went to see Despicable Me with my brothers, we were sitting next to two very attractive women. I had a plan to ask one of them out, when during the movie they started to get touchy feely. Then I noticed just how touchy feely and gropy they were getting. So hot lesbians. Oh yes!...oh, yeah. Nothing I can do there.

]]>More Total Awesomenesshttp://thepowblock.com/david/2010/5/31/more-total-awesomeness.htmlThe POW Block2010-05-31T23:36:33ZSo I spent today working on my motorcycle license, then when I get home there is this.

 

Today has been pretty damn awesome. Tomorrow there is big news, so check that out and next week I will talk more about motorcycles, but for now just enjoy Scott Pilgrim.

]]>Ok Gohttp://thepowblock.com/david/2010/5/23/ok-go.htmlThe POW Block2010-05-23T22:39:58ZAs I have discussed on the podcast, May 15th I saw Ok Go in concert. Here is a nice 'little' blog about the experience. I wish the picture quality was not so terrible, but they were taken with my cellphone so that is how it goes.

 

Just a few images of Ok Go being incredibly awesome and playing some of my favorite songs.

The set list was fantastic:

 

  1. Invincible
  2. Needing/Getting
  3. A Million Ways
  4. All Is Not Lost
  5. I Want You So Bad
  6. White Knuckles
  7. Oh Lately It's So Quite
  8. A Good Idea at the Time
  9. Here it Goes Again
  10. What to Do
  11. Last Leaf
  12. Don't Ask
  13. Get Over It
  14. Back From Kathmandu
  15. You're So Damn Hot
  16. Debaser
  17. This Too Shall Pass
  18. WTF?
  19. Skyscrapers
  20. Do What You Want

 

Most of it went normally. The confetti cannon went off numerous times with not just a blast, but a continuous shower. Then when it came time to play What to Do, things changed. Instead of playing the song, they brought out a table with hand bells on it.

Then after that was finished, they wheeled out a platform into the center of the audience, about two feet from where I was standing, and Damian Kulash came out and played Last Leaf.

Then the set list continued. The audience got to sing along during This Too Shall Pass, which was a lot of fun. After that, it seemed like the show was over, then all of the lights dimmed and the smoke machine kicked on. The band came back out wearing jackets with LED lights on the back and letters spun around eventually landing on OK GO. They proceeded to turn around and play the remaining songs on light up guitars with lasers shooting out of the ends. On the bass, above the frets but below the strings was an LED screen that had lyrics and various things scrolling across on it.

It was amazing. I loved every second of it and cannot wait to see them in concert again.

 

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