UPDATE: if you guys are interested, but opposed to paypal, you can sen any donation directly to me through the mail message me either on Facebook, on Twitter, or email me at: daveydz3 [at] gmail.com Thanks again!

in case you're interested here are the specs for the new Xbox 360 Slim:

• Xbox 360 250GB Hard Drive: The internal 250GB hard drive allows you to save your games and store television shows, movies, music, pictures, trailers, levels, demos, and other con tent available from Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
• Built in Wi-Fi: The new Xbox 360 is the only console with 802.11n Wi-Fi built in for a faster and easier connection to Xbox LIVE. Download or stream HD movies, TV episodes, and games from Xbox LIVE Marketplace in 1080p and 5.1 surround sound from anywhere in the house. Compatible with b/g/n networks.
• Project Natal ready: Coming this holiday, Project Natal will make YOU the controller. With a dedicated, specialized port, the Xbox 360 250GB is built to connect seamlessly with the Project Natal sensor— and have you up off the couch and into the world of Project Natal in no time.
• Xbox 360 Wireless Controller: This award-winning, high-performance wireless controller features the Xbox Guide Button for quick, in-game access to friends and music. It has a range of up to 30 feet and a battery life of 30 hours on two AA batteries.
• Xbox 360 Headset: Strategize or trade taunts while playing games, and chat with your friends on Xbox LIVE.
• Xbox 360 Composite A/V cable: Maximize your Xbox 360 picture quality on standard-definition televisions using this S-Video connection for a noticeable image improvement over traditional composite connecters.
• Xbox LIVE: Xbox LIVE brings a whole world of entertainment possibility right to your Xbox 360. Play with friends online, and watch streaming movies and TV from Zune and Netflix, all in crystal-clear HD. You’ll find loads of your favorite music from Last.fm and the ability to connect with friends on Facebook and Twitter right on the best screen in the house.

Copyright 2008 DAP All right reserved. all other copyrights and/or trademarks are property of their respective owners.

I haven’t been able to write about anything. As evident with my absence as of late more than a month has passed and still I find hard to write anything.

Where is my heart in all of this? What do I love? I can’t even tell you anymore beacause so much feels lost. I wanted to write that is what I loved and in some way I still love it but everything feels like a mess and more I think about what I love the more depressed I feel about it.

Today or rather yesterday was probably one of the worst days of my life. I’ll spare you the details but if God was looking for a day to pick on me, he settled on Saturday April 18th. I believed in Karma, I really did but man either its trying to save up to win the lotto or I’m just fucked with being overlooked.

I’m good, I try to do my best and I’ve done a lot for the community I say and I try not to use that as some kind of good fortune currency but c’mon, I could use a break. I believe wholeheartedly in random acts of kindness but now I feel like I’m the only one so no random acts ever find their way to me.

I can get through this I know because I’ve always told myself I’m strong enough to get through this stuff but sometimes I think those are just mind games I’m playing with myself.

I let my Brick Wall in today. yeah I know what you’re thinking. so stupid. and impeccable timing too. The Brick Wall came crashing down too crushing me so hard that i can’t lick these wounds its time for amputation, nay, a closed casket funeral. i always tell myself to give it up, let the Brick Wall fall under the grafitti and into the obscure, but then she comes back and I’m mesmerized like a moth to the flame. Now this time the Brick Wall dictates the end and I feel cheated because that was the only thing I had left.

But fuck it right? tomorrow is another day and I’ll sleep now and my eyes will open tomorrow and I will have to do something. Thats the thing about life, it picks you up, it beats you down and bloodies you and yet it expects you to get up. So better to get up than lie down even if you want to give up.

I can’t give up.

Copyright 2008 DAP All right reserved. all other copyrights and/or trademarks are property of their respective owners.

This post in inspired by the new Kanye West CD 808s & Heartbreak.

The only Kanye West CD I absolutely like. the music matches perfectly with the written material; heartbeats, heartbreak, love, relationship, unrequited-ness, pain. Simple. Not simple in a primitive sense, but in that it is simply driven by emotion. No pretentiousness of earlier CDs songs just a need to express that feeling of love wrapped in whatever facet of love the song is about.

So more specifically this post is inspired by the song Love Lockdown.

Have you ever loved someone, I mean truly loved someone only to feel that it doesn’t feel right. I haven’t even got into how the other person feels. The other person may care about you, the other person may even like you, love you, or the the other person may not give a shit, ready and willing to sell you for a song. Whatever the case there is a brick wall you both must climb or break through. The vibe is wrong.

So what do you do? do you keep pushing forward allowing the Brick Wall to fall on your head only to hurt yourself, to never be the same again? do you move away, get away from that Brick Wall, from that love because if that Brick Wall falls at least you won’t get hurt even if before you left, got away, you painted the most beautiful mural upon the face of that Brick Wall and you called it, "Friendship and Love, Or Something Like It." So now that you’ve ran away to watch it fall from a distance you see that wonderful mural destroyed and still it hurts you, maybe not as if the Brick Wall landed on your head but still it pains you, and maybe you even wish now that it landed on your head instead of seeing it fall and surviving to contemplate the aftermath.

So do attempt to climb the Brick Wall? chinks in her armor like nooks and crannies, handhold and footholds for you to climb to get to the the other side to fulfill this desire to love her, to hold her hand, to kiss her forehead, to feel her hand upon your face, to relish in the sight of the lines of her neck and collar. Even if you attempt to climb this Brick Wall which may be the size of Mt. Everest, the foothold and handholds you trusted on being there may suddenly be gone, they fall from your use and you slip and you hope to find a grip and continue cautious but determined. Or you may slip never to find a grip and you fall and fall and hope to survive.

So you keep your love lockdown, measured and understand that you want her but you must never feel that you need her. And though both are equal in pain, to need her only begets the punishing feeling that you may never have her and to need something means you’re missing something and to love wholly means you must be whole. To love means you must be willing to be loved.

This is the game we all play eventually and many times, as we lose a million times more than we win. I write these words, inspired, but I believe I understand myself well enough to realize that even if I know that I’ll fall every time I climb that Brick Wall at least I’m climbing. I always know I’ll never make it but I continue to climb because… well… maybe I’ll surprise myself.

I write these words knowing I’ll probably never follow them but hell maybe someone will find wisdom in them.

Well its been four years. A little more than that because this blog is a few days late.

I wasn’t sure if I should blog about it. I’m still not sure, its kinda personal.

You see about 4 years ago my friend Jason Casteneda died. A car accident you see.

He is the reason paintball is for the better part of the new millenium’s first decade, my life. He was a loving father, a good friend, a rowdy person who loved life and who I envied in that he just seemingly got what he wanted. We were friends, pretty good ones at that but I was the friend he went to when he was tired of his usual friends. I was a getaway, and he was for me as well. Our common interest, paintball kept our friendship alive and we had grand desires of starting a paintball team and of starting and owning a paintball field.

There was a time when we walked from his house to an In-n-out that was probably like at least three miles away and on our way we just chewed the fat, shot the breeze, shared dreams. We would look at the empty lots, the barren brown parcels of land scattered with oil pumps and defunct machinery and we would envision the paintball field that would go there. Woodsball, speedball, we’d have it all. We came across this pedestrian bridge in construction at the intersection of Telegraph and Norwalk and we stopped our walk to toss quarters down the bridge to see how far they’d go. when we were done with that we continued out walk to In-n-out yeah, to there but really we were aimless. This is what we did when I wasn’t with my main friends, and he wasn’t with his. Of course we called my mom after we ate to pick us up because, fuck that, we were done walking haha.

At his wake, his family and friends spoke. Anecdotes and what not a few words here and there. I had something in mind but I didn’t say anything, only a few knew that Jason and I were friends. The ones that matter knew and I was fine with that. I was fine with being the friend he needed to re-energize his other friendships.

To this day, I still feel like he is there, a phone call away, until I remind myself of his death, that the only time I can see him are in the few pictures I have, or on the inside of my eyelids; close them and the memory movie starts. It still feels like a shock to my system.

The smallest things can spell your end, a blown out tire in his case, a piece of food, a brain aneurysm. Things that don’t give you the chance to put affairs in order, events where you are there one moment, gone the next. So I see that these are things we can only avoid to a certain extent, we must live our lives to the fullest, carpe diem and all that and I can easily say I’ve failed at this a few times but I understand that it must be a priority.