Advice for 21 year old Kevin

Today, I dug up my old Livejournal account, which I will not link to, although it would be rather simple to figure out it's url.

I posted to this account during my early years of college, in 2004 and 2005, and reading the entries literally  makes me cringe. I was a very fucked up individual at the time. I have learned and changed a LOT in just 5 or 6 years.

For this post, I will go back to one of my entries from that time, and give my 21 year old self some advice. I have a lot of friends who are around that age or even younger, so maybe they can learn something from my experiences. The text of the 2005 LJ entry will be in italics.

girls are tricky. i think they know what they be doing too.
they can get you to do anything and feel any way that they want, with nothing more than a word.
With a word, they can get you to do something, that you wouldn't do for anyone.
With a word, someone you have completely given up on gives you hope again.


21 year old Kevin, girls are not tricky. They're just completely different from you. But they're just as predictable as anyone else. Most humans have similar basic instincts and drives. Everyone is different, but when you get down to the fundamental biological drive, humans are very similar.

Also, they don't "know what they be doing". I only just realized this myself, but girls are not evil really, as in, they don't make it their goal to ruin your life. Although it often happens that girls will make you miserable, get this, its usually YOUR FAULT. hahaha didn't see that coming did you. "they can get you to do something that you wouldn't do for anyone" ? Huh? No, that's just you being a pushover.

i just finished talking to candice, and she thinks that i should make it my business to find a girlfriend.
as i said to her, having a girlfriend is not essential to my contentment, but i never dismissed the idea.
"Essential to my contentment", shut the fuck up, asshole. You know good and well that you wanted a girlfriend.

I just think its ridiculous to 'go out looking for girlfriends'. like its a game, or i'm going fishing or something. these are people with feeling and lives. not fish in the sea. that metaphor is misleading and cliche. "there are plenty of fish in the sea". What if none of the fish want your bait? What if you dont want any of those fish? What if the fish you want is in a different lake? What if you find a fish, but the fish is pregnant....
You and your esoteric references. If you want fish, and none of the fish want your bait, then change your bait, or lose your desire for fish. That's how it works. I don't think Candice was telling you to "go out and look for a girlfriend", she was telling you to stop ignoring what you obviously want in life and stop being a bitch and going out and actually talking to girls.

you cant compare girls to fish. you cant just go and catch one.
now that i think of it, you HAVE to be friends first. She was telling me "stop trying to be friends with girls", YOU HAVE TO. you cant START out being girlfriend and boyfriend. and if you do, your relationship is destined to fail.
Candice is right, and you are wrong. This is why you are constantly friend zoning girls. Relationships don't start with friendship USUALLY. Relationships start with mutual romantic attraction. You have to make the girl attracted to you in a MORE THAN FRIENDS way from the BEGINNING, or you will be friend zoned every time. If you are a thoughtful and compassionate boyfriend, only then will friendship begin to sprout in the relationship.

thats why i hate the concept of dating. im 'playing the field'...trying to make this girl my girlfriend, even tho i dont even know her! wow.
No, you don't try to make girls your girlfriend, asshole. You go out and meet people and be awesome, and some of these people will find you attractive and you hang out with them and decide if you want to proceed further.

looking for friends is way more practical. especially since YOU HAVE TO BE FRIENDS before you find a girlfriend thats gonna stay. anyway, in college at least, i can be content with friends, and if i make those, its only probably, that one of them will share with me a mutual desire to be more. if not, it will be a rare case.
In fact, its very unlikely, as you will see. You will make many many friends in college, lots of them female, and none of them will want to date you because you are a bitch.

life would probably be easier for me sometimes if i didnt feel obligated to overanalyze everything, but in the end, it doesnt even matter
Thinking before you act is good. And you're probably going to be an analyst at heart for the rest of your life, you just have to be working off of a proper theory.
and dont say it doesn't matter, because it obviously matters to you. 

Kevin's Top Ten Syndicated Newspaper Comic Strips

If you know me, you know I like cartooning. If you know me well, you may know that being a syndicated comic strip cartoonist is pretty much my dream job. You may not be as into the comics page of the newspaper as I am, but I think everyone enjoys perusing through the funnies every now and then. Many of the currently syndicated strips have been around for decades and are no longer done by the original artists/writers so the comics have gotten a reputation for being corny and dry. Also, some of them (*cough* Garfield) just are plain unfunny. So here is a list of my favorite newspaper comic strips, that you may want to check out if you are looking for quality cartooning and writing. Some of these strips may not be available in your local newspapers so you may not be familiar with them, but I still suggest you check them out. You'll notice that all of my favorites are more recent strips from the eighties and beyond. I like some of the older strips as well, like Beetle Bailey and Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, but I much more greatly appreciate the edgier and more intriguing comics of the new era.

10. Calvin and Hobbes
Like the international phenomenon Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes is another classic comic strip that has broken into the mainstream arena. I like it better than Peanuts because of its consistent wit and social awareness.



9. Non Sequitur
Non Sequitur is one of the first strips I became a fan of. I believe it is the first comic strip that made me laugh out loud. True to its name, Non Sequitur switches back and forth between random one-shot editorial comics and a continuous storyline featuring the popular protagonist, Danae and her pet horse, Lucy.

8. Foxtrot
Despite the fact that it began in the 80's, Foxtrot remains notedly "current". While Beetle Bailey is still wearing 1950's era army uniforms, the characters in Foxtrot are watching Harry Potter movies and fiddling with their iPods. Bill Amend, it's creator, must be some kind of geek, as nerd-jokes are commonly found in the strip. It makes this list because it is consistently humorous and almost never corny.

7. Rose is Rose
I originally got into Rose is Rose after reading some old collections and noticing the amazing artwork.
 The original drawing for Rose is Rose are by far my favorite artwork in any comic strip. The dynamic drawings and exaggerated features of the characters really pop off of the page. Now that everything is done completely digitally, the strip has lost a good bit of its flair. I still love Rose is Rose though because it's just so darn cute. It's one of the few comic strips (or fictional mediums of any sort) where the characters are all happy and in love.



6. Zits
Zits has amazing artwork and is hilarious. Wikipedia tells me that it's writer, Jerry Scott is 55 years old. Despite this, he has a dead-on impression of both what its like to be a teenager in todays world, and what it's like to be a parent of a teenager. It's one of those "it's funny because it's true" strips. Zits is also notable for its abstract visualizations of the characters' feelings through surreal exaggeration in the artwork. I love it.

5. The Far Side
Gary Larson mastered the art of the single panel comic strip. It's done, he's got the title. Dennis the Menace, move over. Marmaduke, take a seat. The Far Side wins. The jokes are so clever and timeless and Larson's use of animals for most of his characters only adds to the humor.

4. F Minus
F Minus is a strip that I stumbled upon randomly and it's here for one reason and one reason alone. It is friggin' brilliantly hilarious--and consistently at that. I don't know how Tony Carillo comes up with his ideas, but they are so far out, yet brilliant and often laugh out loud funny.



3. The Boondocks
All the strips in the top 5 are there mainly because they make me laugh out loud on a consistent basis. The Boondocks is no exception. But The Boondocks is also notable for its spot-on satire of the current events during the time of its run. Sadly this comic strip is no more, and Aaron Mcgruder has taken his characters to the small screen. The show, while hilarious, doesn't have the same political voice and smart humor that the strip did, however.

2. Pearls Before Swine
Pearls Before Swine is one of the most daring and in your face comic strips around. It's also side-splitting. I don't even know how Stephan Pastis gets away with some of the stuff he's gotten away with in this strip. Pearls Before Swine is an interesting strip because its characters routinely break the fourth wall--they know they're characters in a comic strip. Pastis is also know for making fun of older, cornier strips (like Garfield).



1. Dilbert
Dilbert is a very crudely drawn strip. Scott Adams doesn't compare to many of the other artists on this list when it comes to drawing ability. Luckily for him, he's a genius at writing jokes. No comic strip has made me laugh as much as Dilbert. The dry dialogue of its wacky repertoire of characters is so brilliantly written and has made me laugh long and hard many times before.



Honorable Mentions: Mutts, Heathcliff, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Get Fuzzy, Peanuts, Baby Blues