the up-swing

so, i was watching this show last night called "iconoclasts" it was on starz or one of the movie channels. it was rad actually, the premise is for every episode (i think) they take 2 different big timers, follow them around, and they both talk about their lives and the other dude.

last night's episode featured tony hawk, and jon favreau. jon favreau talked about how his mom died when he was 11, and how it fucked him up, and how everything we do is motivated by some sort of damage that has been done to us, and we are trying to fix it. tony hawk talked about.........skateboarding. jon favreau was epic, and tony hawks experience lacked inspiration. i may be the only one, but i like stories of struggle, and overcoming adversity.

the one thing that tony hawk offered was his story on the ups and downs of skateboarding, and at the lowest point he was "skating the parking lot of magic mountain for $100 a day". wow man rough life.....you made more than ample money 10, 15, or 20 years ago, to survive today......wow. when i first heard this i didn't know what to think, then when i realized that he made more than me, many years ago when the price of living was lower, i thought to myself "what an ass hole". he then proceeded to mention that story many more times in the duration of the show.

now i think that if the lowest point of my career, or life was skating a parking, and getting paid a hundred bucks a day to do that, my life would have turned out pretty damn well, much like mr. tony hawk.

i don't know how to transition this, but i also wanted to say a few words on the current state of the economy. i slept through the inauguration this morning, but i from what people's status on their facebook profiles are telling me it was quite inspirational.

i am more than slightly concerned about the current state of our economy right now. i have been keeping tabs on a few different stocks for the past while, and the stock price for the company that i work for (bank of america) has dropped from $50 a share to just above $5, and will probably continue to drop before the close of the day.

what does this all mean? fuck.....i don't know. wachovia, washington mutual, indymac, and downey savings have all failed, but they continue to operate, and employ a considerable workforce.

to me its confusing, and scary to think about what is happening, banks failing, but still operating? the government shelling out trillions of dollars, that we don't have. how long can this last? will our economy be able to continue to operate on debt? how long?

top tens '08

Well here you have it. The culmination of everybody's idea of what was rad about '08. This years lists bring a lot of firsts, for example, it is the first time that I allowed somebody other than myself to post more than 10 things on their list, it is the first time that Trevor did not mention me in his list : ( and it is also the first time that Pepe put "being single" in his list...........anyways, here they are:


Name: Robby
Location: Viejo
Fame: nah.

The list (in no real order):

-OC
-new friends
-old friends
-new girls
-Iphone
-sk8ing
-Los Angeles Dodgers
-Rob & Big
-beach ridez
-adversity


name: jeff sagud
fame: tire iron
location: orange county

1.) going to long beach state
2.) smashing weights with robby haight daily
3.) 3 years with sarajean
4.) robby haight moving to orange county...finally
5.) idaho with trev, jane, sara, dave and candy peters
6.) bleeding through- declaration
7.) marc pepe moving to orange county...again....finally
8.) trev suceeding in music and tacking
9.) having the best friends
10.) xmas 08'


name: Trevor
location: oc
fame: the black white supremist

IR Minus All tour
joining combichrist
finally starting my backpiece
new harley
sturgis
art shit
tattoo shit
still edge as fuck
still white as fuck
WP


Name: Dave Peters
Location: Newport Terrace
Fame: Inventor of the Burri-Thai, Sourdough Breadbowl Enthusiast,
Purveyor of Puns, Harbinger of Hanger

Top 10 in no particular order:

1) Sharting
2) One year of marriage
3) Dirty Little Secrets Burlesque Extravaganza
4) Slapping my wife across the tits (informed consent)
5) Colon cleanse *see item 1
6) Smashing insomnia
7) The iPhone
8) Christmas Party + Inappropriate Charades
9) Idaho & Vegas
10) Friends and food associated with 8 and 9


name : Marc Samuel Pepe
location : NOT LA, California
Fame : AIDS

1. xPicassox
2. Euro-Trip 2008
3. Being TRUELY single
4. PORKING!!!
5. Living in OC.... Again....
6. Surfing 2-a-days, summer 2008
7. Looking forward to Declaration World Tour 2009
8. Sweden with Jason Butler
9. LOS ANGELES LAKERS!!!!!
10. My friends - quality > quantity


Jon Vigil
XgundoX
www. myspace. com/theghostinside

xxx.
hockbone.
picasso.
apps hole.
melbourne, victoria. australia.
northstars bets.
WHOS HERE?
playing cards and all things associated with said cards.
not robbie hate.
10...


Name: Martin "Chaton" Stewart
Location: Southern California Eternal
Fame: Living & breathing a true DOG lifestyle.

(In no particular order)

Un: Rock Band I & II / Guitar Hero World Tour

Deux: 46" 1080p Samsung LCD HD Television

Trois: Vuze / www. torrentz. com

Quatre: Finally getting over my internet addiction

Cinq: Going to Russia, Japan & Korea

Six: Triumvir clothing

Sept: Playing "Join The Army" on guitar w/ S.T.

Huit: Realizing my real life love for GWAR

Neuf: Summertime partying

Dix: Trapped Under Ice (The band, not song)

Bonus 11

Onze: Always having a way better top 10 than everyone else in Robby's little fantasy.


Name: John Robert Diaz
Location: San Pedro, CA
Fame: N/A

1. Waves
2. Bella, my 2 yr old sister, starting to talk.
3. Friends
4. Reading
5. Hell Run
6. Dancing
7. Camping
8. Full Moons
9. Being Single
10. The Vegan Joint/ Veggie Grill


name: Sara Cunningham

location: Laguna Niguel

fame: Sike

list: In no order:

1) 21st Birthday/Vegas
2) 3 year anniversary with Jeff
3) Trip with crucials to Idaho for the 4th
4) Trip to Florida to be with my best Rebecca
5) Trip to Convict Lake with my family and Jeff
6) Coldplay for Viva La Vida tour with Jeff
7) Passed my last Math class EVER
8) Shot my first gun
9) IPhone purchase
10) Met new amazing people I have become friends with


sean loye
alias: admiral, mubbles, pretty boy loye, house cat, broke knuck.
Location: hella sacramento
Fame: unknown

top ten inventions

10. tools
9. plumbing
8. snowboarding/skateboarding
7. music
6. drugs/alcohol
5. internet
4. birth control
3. soccer
2. lasers
1. hot babes


name: Josh Navarro
location: Santa Monica
fame: Transformers 2 (get into it)
top tens:

1. Graduating College (Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science)
2. xbox 360 / xbox live
3. Tattoos
4. Fucking as many girls as I can before I get another g/f
5. Doing another top 10 since '05
6. Dexter
7. Big Screen TV's
8. Jager Bombs
9. ART
10.Finally Getting a fucking Career.


Name: meL V.B
Location: Strasbourg, France
Fame: escaping from the norm

The List:
1. photography
2. Dexter
3. baby niece
4. amazing job
5. buddhism
6. bike rides
7. pumpkin spice
8. vladimir kush
9. french
10. madame bovary


Name: MickDizzzeth
Location: Holy Wood
Fame: Where do i start?

The list: (in no real order)
-meeting metallica
-death magnetic (record of the decade)
-obama!
-jager tour with hatebreed
-moving to hollywood?
-true friends
-seeing carcass...finally.
-family and slc
-canada with iron maiden
-and of course a dude naming his kid adolf Hitler


Name: Negative Drew
Claim to fame: You're still straight edge?!?!

Top Ten, no order

1. Hockey
2. C.R.A.N.K. Mob
3. What is hardcore?
4. Probably hockey again
5. Mad Men
6. Women (the band)
7. Not being 25 most of the year
8. Paxil
9. /b/
10. Still sleeping during the day, every day




And finally, there were some random assholes who decided to send me a list and not include their name, location, or fame, which as everybody knows is half the fun!

(brad)

1. Spent New Years in Paris, France

2. Helped take a group of kids into Siria, Romania to do service work on a campground and paint houses.

3. Visited Pisa, Italy for a week.

4. Spent numerous weekends in Amsterdam, Holland.

5. Turned 23

6. Finished half sleeve.

7. Drove through the Swiss Alps.

8. Learned how to ride a bike again.

9. Drove 120+ mph on the Autobahn

10. Spent Christmas in Madrid, Spain


(jav….obviously)
top ten reasons to go to target

1. its amazing
2. its awesome
3. TBN lady sighting
4. bleeding through cd
5. polaroid film
6. popcorn and a drink for 1.50
7. exclusive DVD sets
8. groceries
9. awesome chapstick
10. great wholesome way to spend a saturday night


(little zack)
1. taco llamas tacos
2. xbox live
3. going to amsterdam and going insane
4. cornhole
5. touring with the best people ever
6. stepbrothers and tropic thunder
7. drugs
8. the feista pack from del taco
9. gaining weight
10. fghihfukojvdfigbjkcjhdfdycczsdupb$(,5:8.rgcc368:,!?,hfjffnng
s..!£€£|||€£€€£££££€


(beau)
2008 sucked. im not doing one this year.

you are an asshole.

i have posted multiple blogs/bulletins/twitt's about shit/people that bothers me.  a few people have told me that they find these lists amusing.  i find enjoyment in posting these, so here it goes.  this one is only about people.  if you do these things that i am listing below, you are officially deemed, as well as certified to be an asshole.  some of these are quite obvious in my opinion, some have exceptions, none are excusable.

fuck you.

YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE if.........

-you wear sunglasses indoors

shits totally obvious.  you're not fucking paris hilton, and the fact that you are going for that look makes you a compleeeeete asshole.  there have been two occasions in the bank where i have been helping people that were wearing sunglasses, and while looking at the card terminal they remarked "why is the screen all black.....oh i forgot i had my sunglasses on"   idiot shivers.

-you have ever or still do wear any sort of fight gear (tapout, hitman etc)

exceptions: you're a sponsored fighter, and get paid to wear it.  that would make you dope.

-you wear gym gear in public 

listen dude, the fact that you work out is not impressive enough to warrant telling everybody that you work out by the clothes that you are wearing.  put on some jeans and a shirt that has sleeves, your arms aren't even that big anyway.

-you violate others' personal space

ok, now i know that in some cultures its ok to stand really close to other people, especially while waiting in line.  but i for one do not enjoy being able to feel you breathing on the back of my neck as if we were cuddling.  also please note that when we are talking, and you see me constantly stepping back that means that you are too close to me, and if i am turning my head so as to not face you, your breath smells.  please learn to floss like the the rest of us, and give me enough space so as to not be able to get a whiff of your rotting molars.

-you choose the middle stall when the outside ones are available

dude, its like, i don't want to leak next to you.  i'm assuming you don't want to leak next to me so why didn't you just choose the outside stall so that i can choose the other outside one, and we can hang our dicks in the air and be confidant in the fact that there another random dude won't be standing inches away from us as we are doing this.

-you are a legitimate bike rider, and wear one of those gay ass tight outfits

let me clarify this.  i actually don't have any problem with you wearing those shitty outfits and spending thousands of dollars on a bike that weighs about as much as a baby chihuahua, an might actually consider doing the same once i retire, if i still live in a similar nice, city wit ample views.  however i do have a problem about your constant complaining, and motto of "share the road".  i would be MORE than happy to share the road with you, given that you did not insist on running every single stop sign/light possible.  if you are going to share the road, you need to obey the fucking signs like the rest of us! fuck you!

-you are a bad driver

i can not even begin to narrow this down into specific things that you do, but a few are: driving in the fast lane and going under the speed limit, stopping in the right hand lane, so that the people behind you can not turn right, stopping so far behind the next car in front of you, so that the people behind you can not navigate between you and the median to get into the left hand turn lane.

-wearing a wifebeater, or one of those shitty cut up shirts that resemble a tank top, in public, or at the gym

look dude, its not cool if you LOOK like you are trying to show off.  

-you have started up a small company, be it a promotions company, or whatever....and you call yourself the "C.E.O."

you most likely don't know what this even stands for, but thats besides the point. calling yourself the "C.E.O." of your own shitty company does not make you a baller to the likes of bill gates, steve jobs, or ken lewis.  those people are highly refined work a-holics.  rest assured that you will NEEEEEEEVER be a C.E.O. to any company ever, and even though you might be able to impress club girls with your business cards that inform of the fact that you are the C.E.O. of a company that does not have an office, much less a listing on the dow jones, i still know that you are a true asshole.

-you practice e.w.l. at the gym

"e.w.l." was coined by my friend jeff sagud i believe, and it stands for "experimental weight lifting".  granted mentioning weight lifting, or the gym 3 times in one blog puts me into serious contention for being an asshole myself, you, my friend are a complete asshole for your total disregard of weight control.  the way you swing your limbs, and throw weight around makes you look like a total shit head to dudes that actually know how to push weight.  we all know you are dropping that 45 pound dumbbell on the ground as if you were heaving boulders in the worlds strongest man competition, in order to gain respect from dudes that can bench more than their weight, but in turn you are just come off as a total prick.  also know that no matter how much i hate you for your gym etiquette, jeff hates you 10 times worse, which actually isn't hard to accomplish.

-you enjoy/mildly enjoy/are willing to watch sex and the city

even if your girlfriend watches it every night on dvd, and you're just there, thats no excuse.  sportcenter can just as easily be turned on in the other room, there's also a million other viable alternatives....including doing anything other than watching the shitty show.  maybe "faggot" is a better term rather than asshole for this one

-you constantly abbreviate, mis-spell, and/or say the word "tatt"

referring to a tattoo as a "tatt" is possibly the worst abbreviation ever.  text messages are n exception.  the fact that you want to save time by communicating through text message not an excuse to use shitty abbreviations like "u" or "r" or "y"  the one word abbreviations being arguably the worst of all.  also shitty is how you constantly misuse the word "your" when no referring to posession "your gay" "your an idiot".  please do yourself a favor if you want to look like you actually passed 5th grade english, stop abbreviating anything, and when you want to indicate that somebody is gay just type all of it out, avoiding any confusion, it would look something like this:  "you are gay".  notice the lack of grammatical error.  now, maybe this one might make me look like i am getting on my high horse or something, because of the fact that i may not use proper punctuation all of the time, and i will NEVER capitalize.....but at least i have a basic understanding of the english language, and the fact that you do not, makes you look like a retard

-note: acceptable abbreviations include: lol, rofl, roflmao, brb, and npt (n00dz plz 

thnx)

anyways, there are much more where that came from, but instead of writing a book, i think i'm gonna cut this one off.

love.

now think about this.

dear concerned voter,

i am writing so that you may think about your choices before you step into the polling place, and hopefully make more informed choices.  my purpose is not to touch on every issue, or candidate, but larger general principals that are facing us today, and our future.

lets talk economics.  has anybody noticed the stock market falling like a lead balloon?  or the large corporations liquidating all of their assets and shutting down shop?  how does this affect us?  does it affect us?  which president will help us right this ship?

first off, i wanted to touch on the subject of the large corporate bailouts, namely to a few banks, and a large insurance firm.  many average citizens have complained about this action, and many think they have better ideas than giving these multi-billion dollar companies loans.  the common thought is "why bail out these companies when they have made mistakes to get here"  this is completely true.  however, has anybody stopped to think about what would happen if all of these companies actually went under?  

i guess an analogy might be called for here.  the easiest one would be a house of cards, or dominoes.  we know what happens to both of those cases right?  say for a second that there was no bail out of any company what so ever.  the people working for these huge companies would be out of a job right?  well boo hoo for those executives living in newp. earning high 6 figures right?  what about those people answering the phones?  or the entry, and mid levels?  the ones that are saving up to buy a condo in anaheim?  they wouldn't be able to afford their mortgages, their houses will go into forclosure, and.....hmmmmm sound familiar?  so lets look at the big picture here.

with all of these huge companies going out of business, that means a lot of things, among them great sales!  but besides that there is going to be a HUUUUUUGE loss of jobs.  perpetuating what i mentioned in the previous paragraph.  as well as a host of other problems, tat will bring about more of the same thing.

people in this country have a tendency/history to do stupid things mostly based on false hopes and misinformation , and business make choices out of greed.  this caused the real estate "bubble"  many people that i know bought houses they could afford, hoping they would gain value, and make them money in the long/short run, many more people bought houses they could NOT afford hoping the same thing.  companies such as a mortgage place that i worked for, and a few banks would lend to these individuals either ignoring the fact that they would not be able to afford these loans, or hoping that the market would just keep inflating so that the people could sell, and the loan would be paid off (with a pre-payment penalty) anyways.  this is irresponsible, however if unchecked the damage from this explosion will be more immense than we can imagine.  

has any of you put money into stock lately?  am i the only one that has lost a little more than half of the money that i scraped by, and lived oh-so meagerly in order to save?  probably not.  maybe none of you know what i am talking about, so imagine this.  imagine not spending money on things considered 'frivolous' for about 4 years in order to save a sum of money that would be considered by many as "ehhhh....not that much", meanwhile racking up decent amounts of credit card debt to pay for school, books, and gas (whole 'nother topic).  now imagine about 6 months ago when the market was slowly creeping down, thinking to yourself "maybe now is a good time to make a move in the market with my entire meager savings"  then lastly imagine yourself right now with a little less than one half of the total sum that was invested previously, with no sign of light.

i am not the only one in this position, ask around, you know somebody directly that has lost a substantial amount of money, just because of the downturn of the markets, and the events preceding.  

this whole economy, and way of life that we live here in the united states is a cycle, and the things that we do, and the outcomes that we receive are based on many  things.  

a bunch of people have asked me who i am going to vote for.  first of all everybody that has asked me that is always in favor of obama.  which is cool, but i always like to question people's motives.  my main beef, was brought upon by hearing an interview by a governor that you might, or might not have already heard of.  jessie ventura.  he talked about how all of the candidates are promising lower taxes for everybody (nothing new) while at the same time offering promises of increased benefits, like social security, and free healthcare for everybody!  doesn't that sound good?  ofcourse it does, but what nobody stops to think about is how the fuck is our government going to pay for this shit?  

the government is a business.  largest in the entire world if i'm not mistaken.....they make revenue off of taxes from us, and in turn they provide us with services, such as roads, public schools, and pay checks on the first of the month (for some.....) anyways, one of the fundamental arguments/differences between the left and the right are "is it worth it to pay all these taxes to get all of this shit"  some people do not collect checks every month, some people pay for their own insurance, yet all of us pay into those services by way of taxes.  so its up to the citizen to decide if government should be providing these services to the people who indeed make use of them.

if you have never turned on a tv your entire life or glanced at a news paper for less than a half a second then you might not know that our government is in huge debt.  to the tune of an amount of money that could be stacked to mars or something.  an amount that can not be paid back by accumulating more expenses (such as providing more services for us at no cost), and lowering taxes (revenues).  just so you know living in a country where the government has no money, and more debt that can ever be imagined, is not a real sound call.  for instance what if the middle east/far east decides to stop loaning us money?  where will the government get the money to pave the roads, or build schools, or pay for your neighbor to keep her 7 children in nikes, and soda?  from the more than substantial amounts of money you and i pay in taxes?  nope.  that goes to laser-guided bombs that are used to blow up small hut villages in afghanistan.  

when you vote today, ask yourself a few questions: 

-which president is going to help heal our economy?

-is it feasible to promise universal health care while at the same time lowering taxes?

-am i voting for this candidate because it makes me appear 'hip' and 'in the know'?