Essentially a repeat event of just four weeks ago, Adam and I entered into the CKA’s third tournament of the year. Everything is scheduled at the same time, the event is held at the same location, every judge is now familiar to me, and most of the competitors were the same. They simply change the name from “RAGE” to “Summer Jam” and that’s that.

Adam has a funny attitude about these tournaments. I can’t tell if he’s even interested in winning, even though he’s won easily for his age group in the point sparring divisions the first two tourneys. And he won today, again. But, he doesn’t seem to get very excited about them, but he puts enough effort in to win first place.

The harder division, continuous sparring for anyone 18 and under AND 121 pounds and under, is where he at least faces competition. He finished fourth last tourney, and managed another fourth place (both times with about eight total competitors), so he won but then got beat pretty soundly in the semifinals and 3rd place match.

He did say he’s been dealing with a hurt little toe, on top of a fairly painful tailbone problem he acquired via BMX tricks. So, hats off to the kid!

As for me, I hadn’t even been to any classes at the dojo all week, thanks to various oddities. So I was a little “rusty” — although it’s not like if I had been to class, I wasn’t going to go Van Damme on anyone anytime soon.

But I felt good for the first event, the continuous portion, and beat some blue belt guy who was in his middle 30s, and really wasn’t that good. It netted me a first place trophy, but I’m not really that proud of the “accomplishment.”

I then got matched up with some younger guy in the point sparring, and lost 4-3. If I wasn’t so tired and hadn’t been stinging from a rib shot, I would have probably won. Next time.

Last night, Laura took me to the Mayan Theatre, a local indie film theater, and we watched Little Ashes, the biography of Salvador Dali and friends during the 1920s-30s.

I don’t know a lot about Dali’s life, so it was principally a learning experience for me. Laura is quite knowledgeable on Dali, and surely enjoyed it more than I did. Not that I thought it was terrible, but it was a little pretentious — and that was probably the point.

I did just view Un Chien andalou, and it’s pretty interesting. I took every available film course offered at UNL between 1996-99 and never saw this, so I’m a little disappointed. But hey, better late than never, right!?

Getting settled into my new place, and we’ve discovered that watching a movie is a bit more enjoyable in the new living room.

But last week, before I had any furniture, Laura and I watched Shutter, a Thai (I think) horror piece. Nothing too groundbreaking, but it was moderately entertaining at times, but my chief complaint would be there were too many dream/fantasy sequences. Still, I’d recommend to anyone wanting to see a fun horror flick.

Last night, we watched He Was a Quiet Man. Definitely funny seeing Christian Slater cast as the balding loner working a menial office job. Oh yeah, and he wants to gun down his co-workers. It’s got some cute plot twists, and some interesting usage of CGI. Overall it does a fine job of conveying the intended message, and I recommend to anyone.

I picked up the keys to my new place this afternoon, definitely a pretty good feeling as I’m quite giddy about moving in. I won’t get the majority of my stuff there until this upcoming Sunday, but I’m actually looking forward to the moving process.

I don’t have a lot of stuff, and the hired movers will make Sunday a pretty simple process. The hardest part will probably be taking apart the foosball table.

I also was really pleased with where I decided on living — the duplex I’m moving into is spacious and is in a pretty cool neighborhood in western Denver, just a couple miles from downtown. Today I got to poke around the place, while empty, instead of just a quick viewing with other people’s stuff in the way. I’m really looking forward to getting all of my shit there and settling in.

It was Christmas 2007, and I had just purchased an xbox 360 for myself. I had been a pretty avid gamer from the time I was given a Nintendo Entertainment System at the age of nine, up until college, when I could no longer afford buying new systems and games.

Finally, I was able to purchase a top-of-the-line system with online play, something that’s always been a favorite of mine.

I played it a lot. Co-workers did too, and my supervisor at work started an employee-only “xbox club” for us all to get online Wednesday nights and play the same game together. It was a lot of fun, but it started to become the only thing I did in my spare time. Really, it equals one of the stupidest things, if not most, that I’ve gotten involved with in my life.

But, at the time, it seemed like what was the best use of my spare time.

Anyways, I have no longer the urge to play video games. It conjures up a lot of bad memories for me now — something I alluded to in my post last night.

Lately, I’ve replaced xbox time with playing poker, because, I don’t really have anything to do now that I’m single. I do see Laura quite frequently, but, that time is definitely shrinking, as she has her best friend living with her now, and she’ll have not much time for me anymore since we aren’t officially seeing each other, or whatever people call it when that happens.

I do anticipate restarting my efforts to have some semblance of a home studio. It’s been about four years since I purchased my microKorg, and I haven’t touched it in three years. Once I am settled in at my new place, hopefully by mid-July, I will get motivated to set all of that up again, and record some music.

It’s time to start enjoying life!