When I was 6 and living in Alaska I bowled on a kiddy bowling league. Every Saturday my sister and I would go bowling and try to get a high score. For 7 straight Saturdays we would bowl. In order to get a patch at the end of the season you had to have a score of at least a 50 or better. For 7 straight Saturdays I bowled a 49. I didn't get any patch and felt bad about it. I think this experience is the root of some of my problems. It seems like ever since then I have had this sabetour feeling about competitions, like I am my own worst enemy. In college I was able to bowl 7 games over 200, but it was always during practice. I remember bowling straight 99s at the college tournaments, getting a look of scorn from my fellow Texas Tech Bowling Teammates. And thus I come to Guitarmagedon. The last show I even noted how I lost my technicality when playing solo. I knew that, but yet I didn't try to figure out how to correct that. So I did the exact same thing as last time. I had good showmanship, but this time it just seemed like I was sitting there waiting for my fingers to do all the work. It was like my brain was expecting a technical performance but my body didn't know how, even though in practice I was 10 times better. I think I was already making excuses in my mind before I even got up there. Anyways, suffice it to say I didn't win, but I feel I would've gotten second for just showmanship and cool sounding blues riffs. Sometimes I wonder what drives my lack of perfection. I guess it has to do with being too lazy to practice. Then the real question comes in, what drives my laziness. It might be an ego thing. I am naturally intelligent and I am too lazy to build upon that. When I was in school I would get B's and C's without lifting up a book so I was like, why try harder when I might not do any better anyways - kind of like the bowling experience. My sister always seemed stressed out and I deemed studying as not worth it. Reality is I think I was afraid of success for some reason. I wonder why. It's like the book deal I almost had. I was able to put together a semi-perfect proposal and it got shot down. Then I lost all motivation to put together another proposal even though publisher offered to hear another one. Or like my inventions or company ideas. Some of them are good ideas and would work if I wasn't too lazy to do them. Or like all of the other Guitarmaggedons I've been in. Or like when I quit playing violin because it got too hard. Or like when I tried to sight read in the Church orchestra. I've been taking sight reading lessons, but I haven't practiced for that either. Or like when I was in the math club and lost a computer programming contest because I didn't care. Or like when I was in Computer Science in college and switched degrees because I fell asleep on the Programming final,turning an A into an F(granted the final was over nothing I had studied and I gave up, my head falling asleep on the keyboard typing a million "G"s). I seem to fall apart under pressure. I wonder why. Is it the bowling experience, or something deeper? I bet it's because it's been over a week since I had a hamburger.

Thought of the Day
Now they show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you've got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn't your biggest problem.Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash.
Jerry Seinfeld