You'd better come with Cash

Tonight I had a drink with a girl a girl I had a crush on in high school. There were times I felt like I missed out not dating her. But I realized that now she is working a crappy job, divorced with three kids, and she's just as sad as me but can't admit it just yet. Often times I feel like I am not single by choice. But sometimes I wonder if maybe I've avoided commitment so I don't end up living in the same small town I grew up in with three kids and an intense hatred for having chosen the normal path. It makes you question things. I feel like a loser most of the time but I still get to cruise along. I'm horrible at relationships, I'm horrible at meeting people. I feel like I will be alone for the rest of my life. And for the first time in a long time that actually seems like sort of an advantage.

I daydreamed today about being in the Wild West and just being a traveling trader. Riding a horse, living outside, making just enough to make it to the next town. No home, no responsibilities. Just the open road, so to speak. I could be doing that now. Not exactly that, I'd probably take a car. But why not? Just live on the road? Forget all this crap.

I should just wander. It was wrong of me to try to settle in one place. I think I'm going to leave soon. I want to leave soon.

Wishful Drinking

I want to write a detective novel. I don't think it would be very good, but I totally want to do it. I more or less have the main character figured out in my head. And if I've learned anything from watching and reading detective stories over and over and over it's that they can't be that hard to write. The trick seems to be to give the reader enough information so they can solve the mystery, but not enough to give them any real proof. Maybe I'll start with a novella, like an eighty page mystery. That way I can throw in twists but not have to completely overwhelm the reader with them.

What it's missing is a plucky sidekick. Although I just thought of one. That was easy.

Now I just need someone to get muuuurrrdderred. Wait, I'll base it on that WikiLeaks guy. He's got a lot of enemies. Wait... too many enemies. And from all over the world. That sounds like a good idea for a second novel, once I've gotten my barrings.

Well, I'll think about it. Don't want to give away too much.

My mom is not doing well with this round of radiation she's getting. She's not immobile, but she's definitely far from full strength. And sad. Much sadder than she's been in a long time. The only thing that seemed to perk her up was trying to calm me down as I was yelling at the idiots on the road as we were driving back from Reno today. I guess she felt good having a chance to just be my mom for a while. Also, turnabouts are simple, people. If the flow of traffic is going to the right go to the right. And don't slam on your breaks every time you see another car. My god.

My dad was also in the hospital today getting skin lesions removed. He was pretty out of it when he got back. He'll recover, but he has a lot of lesions, and they all have to go away, what with it being skin cancer and all.

My sister is about ready to quit her internship that she needs to finish her PhD because she can't stand Ohio and she is stuck there till next August.

I drink and smoke too much and I make myself miserable just by being around myself.

My Aunts doing fine. It's her birthday in six days. Happy Birthday!

So that's it for the blood-related Moore's. One out of five ain't good.

This really hasn't been a banner year for my family. Usually I feel like I'm in the worst shape out of all of us, either emotionally or physically, and while being fat has its disadvantages, I think cancer has that beat out. Let's put it this way, if you know me personally, does it make any sense to you at all that I'm having the best year out of all of my blood relatives? And if you don't know me - no, it doesn't.

I'm gonna start work on that detective novel. Maybe I have just the right combination of skill, luck, and hackneyed cliches to make myself a bestselling mystery writer. But now I am at a point where I sort of want to look down on literary writers from my mansion in the Alps. It could happen. How hard can it be?

I hate iTunes

This blog has taken a hit as it isn't really the first place I go to spew out my opinion on things anymore. But it still exists, it still will occasionally get some original content.

I've never been able to really articulate my political stance in the past. But I have one. I hate politics. People tell me I am just being an idealist or I need to do something else in order to even have the opinions that I have. But I fucking don't. Why the fuck can't I hate the fucking political system and not be actively trying to change it at the same time? Why is it that when someone votes for someone because they are slightly better than someone else and I choose to not vote for either of them I am the fucking bad guy? It's fucking mind boggling! And I realize I've overused the word "fucking" but I fucking want to, so deal with it.

Our system is shit. And anyone that thinks its good is a fucking moron. It doesn't work. It ends up with bickering and crappy compromises. It ends up with Republicans and Democrats basically having to run as moderates forever. I know what I want the government to be doing, but that is irrelevant to this conversation. What I know is that what it is doing isn't what anyone really wants. We are the frogs that have been in the pot. The water keeps getting hotter and we don't notice anymore. The system is broken. Buying into the crappy logic that if we don't indulge the system we will be fucked further is horrible logic. I'm choosing passive resistance. I'm choosing to say that I refuse to participate until it gets fixed. And yet the people I know that are most political "aware" seem to think I am some sort of idiot that doesn't know his ass from his hairnet. I'm not the smartest guy, but I am really, really good at putting shit together. I can see what is happening, and I can see everyone getting sucked into a national dialog when what we need is a conversation. A dialog is between two sides, but there are hundreds of sides to America. Why are we limiting ourselves to two sides?

The liberals are the bad guys, or the conservatives are the bad guys. There is no middle ground. News flash, there is actually some gray area in life and in politics. Why the fuck do smart people think that if they don't vote for the candidate they endorse the system will collapse on itself? I have no fucking idea, other than that they have bought into the idea that there are always only two choices. There are a million choices. Your choosing to follow. It's time to trail blaze.

I'm not an idiot, and I'm not hopelessly uniformed, and I'm not crazy. The system is broken. I'm choosing not to feed it anymore. And I'm not starting a campaign or backing a politician. I'm talking. I'm complaining, I'm raising my voice. And that may not be much, but its something. Maybe I'll always be the crazy voice on the fringe but I know I'm right. And that is all that really matters. I'm standing up for myself and my beliefs. And there are few things I fight for these days, but I fight for what I believe in. So fucking bring it on. Just be ready to get yelled at.

Politicing

I just read a list of eight things voters "know" that are false. It's interesting because Paul and I were discussing this the other day and I think we hit on all eight of these things. Especially #5 which is about how tax cuts don't create jobs. And #8 about how taxes are actually good for the economy.

That one pisses me off the most. Sharron Angle is running all these ads about how evil Harry Reid is because he voted for tax increases during his long career, but that is exactly what I think politicians should be doing right now. The government is broke, which means the country is broke.Higher taxes means more jobs (in schools, hospitals, police departments, fire departments, city offices, etc.), it means more public works projects (thus even more jobs), it means health care could get fixed (which means I could go to a doctor and not have to pay a fortune, which means more money I can spend on retail and entertainment which means more money for business which means more jobs), it means a lot. I could probably come up with more examples, but you get my point.

It seems so obvious to me that when Bush came in and the GOP was in power and they kept pushing for smaller government and less taxes that what came out of that was a depression. Why do people keep insisting that small government and less taxes are better? I honestly have no idea. I theorize that it is the fault of history teachers. In public school they teach about the American Revolution, but what they end up doing is drilling it into the kids heads that we fought a war to stop paying taxes to the British. Which is sort of true, but its like saying that the only reason for the Civil War was slavery. Sure, it was the main cause, but there were a lot of other economic factors in play. It's just easier to tell kids "we didn't want to pay taxes, so we fought a war" and then move onto Lewis and Clark. But it wasn't that we didn't want to pay taxes, it was that we didn't want to live under a Monarchy, especially one that was across the ocean when being across the ocean meant something. Now-a-days the Queen could fly back and forth to "the colonies" every other day if she wanted to, but back then it wasn't like anyone important was coming over and seeing what was going on. We just wanted to be independent, and that was what we fought over. It wasn't like they thought they could start a whole new government and never have to pay taxes again. They just wanted more control over what those taxes would take care of.

I just get sick of this notion that taxes are inherently bad. That is the marching song of the GOP and the Tea Party and Democrats don't even really bother to try to dispel it at all. I mean, when was the last time you heard of a Democratic leader going on TV and saying "taxes are a good thing, we actually really need tax money in order to fix the economy"? I can't think of an example. Even Obama pussy-footed around the issue by constantly saying he was only going to raise taxes on 1% of the population. And then not even doing that. It's fucking stupid. Am I really the only person around that sort of wants to pay more taxes? I mean, there are a lot of things the government does that I don't particularly agree with, and I certainly would like them to stop spending so goddamn much on the military, but lets just fucking give them some more money so that they can get the country back on track. Its not like its charity, I would definitely benefit from living in a more fiscally sound society.

I'm not really sure how much the government takes in in taxes each year. Lets say its around 2.5 trillion dollars. So a 1% increase across the board would be 2.5 billion more dollars. A school district of around 50,000 students is going to cost about 800 million per year. So a one percent increase would fund a year worth of school for over 150,000 students. So lets say you paid 5,000 dollars in taxes last year, with a one percent increase that comes to 5,050 dollars. And 150,000 more students can go to school. Or a hospital can get built. Or they can fix the roads. Or something. And you may say "but I still am out another fifty dollars!" But if you have to pay taxes at the end of the year it means you are making more than you really need to live on, so what would that fifty have gone to? What is fifty dollars, really? Dinner for two at a casual dining establishment: $20, Two movie tickets: $20, a tub of popcorn at the movie and two sodas: $15. Thats already over fifty and thats assuming you didn't have wine/beer with dinner. So instead of taking the significant other out you stay home, eat a sandwich, watch Die Hard and pop your own popcorn one night out of your life and the economy gets a needed boost. Does that really sound so evil? When you put it that way does a slight increase in taxes really seem all that bad? How bad can anything be that gives you an excuse to watch Die Hard again?

I know it wouldn't fix everything, and there are a lot of things that need to be done, but I am just so fucking sick of this collective notion this nation has that taxes are always bad. I like having a government, damnit. I'd rather have to watch idiotic Senators screw over important legislation from time to time by slapping in some bullshit addendum at that last second then to live in a country with a government that doesn't have the ability to do anything because they never have any damn money.

I know I'm ranting, which is why this is on my blog and not something I researched to put on my website, but I just get so upset about this. Especially in the middle of an election season. Good lord I hate election season. Maybe the solution to the economy and the solution to not having to hear people bitch about taxes can be one in the same. Lets make every candidate have to match whatever they pay in ads during a campaign with a charitable donation of some sort. So not only would we get half the ads, but we'd also get a shit ton of money into social programs every time someone ran for something, which is pretty much constantly anymore. Thats actually an idea I've had for a long time. I think it could work. I knew who I was voting for in the upcoming Senate election long before the primaries were finished. I don't need to see attack ads on Sharron Angle or on Harry Reid every ten minutes. In fact, I was totally on board with voting for Reid until he started running so many attack ads. Now I don't want to vote for him at all not because of what the GOP is saying about him or his politics, but because of his fucking campaign. I probably will vote for him only because I feel quite confident that Angle is an idiot and would get absolutely nothing accomplished in the Senate, whereas Reid, though timid, gets a lot of shit accomplished.

I try not to pay attention to politics as much any more. But I can't help it. Fucking politicians piss me off and try as I might I can't stop caring that they are always going to piss me off.

A short Repose

I had to call in sick last night since I was hacking up large yellow globules of mucus for the better part of the day. I'm feeling better today, not great, but I really have to make it into work. Mostly because I was pursuing craigslist and I saw that they were advertising for my job. Chances are its a coincidence, there are a lot of positions identical to mine at that company, but it is still sort of scary. I only work there two days a week, so having to miss a day is the same as missing half a week.

Although last time they advertised for that job and I got the position the person who was working where I am now got promoted. So it might be a good sign. Or I could show up and find out that I have been let go. Which would really suck, as this isn't exactly the type of job it is supposed to be easy to get fired from.

In other news, Tin God is getting some more voices coming in. I'm hoping that there will someday be about ten people writing intermittently on the site. That would be sweet. Now all I need is some way of actually getting more people to come to the site and start to read it. What I need is someone with some knowledge of generating traffic on the web. I think the site is good enough now to be worthy of being read by a larger audience. I just have no idea of how to get that larger audience.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

Part of me feels cheated by life and part of me feels like I'm cheating life. There really isn't much sense to make out of that.

The other night I had a flashback episode. I just kept zoning out and remembering random crazy things from my past. There wasn't much of a narrative going on when I went back to present time, so chances are it was a filler day in my life. I don't know what triggered all the random memories, but now it feels like I have a lot of things that I have to confront coming up. I'll probably have to confront them during sweeps.

For anyone that doesn't understand what the hell that last paragraph meant, you need to watch more TV.

I'm trying out Pandora radio right now. I'd recommend it. And I know I am years behind the curve on this. But I'm enjoying it.

I really don't want to be alone anymore. About a year ago I realized I was ready to be married. I like being by myself, but I am no good to myself when I am on my own. I've been throwing full trash bags into a closet because I'm too lazy to walk down to the dumpster. I use the dryer as a closet. My fridge is filled with beer, cheese, bread, and diet coke. And, most cliched of all, I have Chinese to go containers all over the house.

I sometimes feel like I have lived my whole life on my own. My parents were around but they never paid much attention to me. I was smart enough to do okay in school, I was dull enough to entertain myself for hours bouncing on a trampoline, I stayed out of trouble for the most part, and I was a good liar when I did get in trouble. Basically I grew up as though I were a cat. I was there, but it didn't really matter if you paid any attention to me so long as you fed and watered me from time to time.

As a result I don't expect anyone to ever pay any attention to me. But I need at least one person to pay attention to me. I don't know who that person is, but there has to be a woman out there that wants to see what the hell I get up to at all hours of the day. I'm not exactly holding my breath on finding that woman, but she is probably out there.

The Escape

Today I watched "Memoir of an Invisible Man" for the first time in probably ten years. Something about that movie I missed when I was younger was how Chevy Chase was already an invisible man before the accident that made him transparent. I'm not quite like that. I have family, friends, people who care about what is going on in my life. But I do feel invisible sometimes. I suppose everyone does from time to time. Just that feeling that other people wouldn't really notice if you were there or you weren't.

I just want to flee sometimes. I entertain a notion often that I will have a small ocean side bar in some tourist filled country. I'd hire some cute local girl to tend bar. I'd build a little studio apartment into the back of the bar and I'd live there and occasionally wake up with a bottle of rum in my hand and the warm morning sun on my face just inches away from the ocean. There it wouldn't matter if people noticed me. They'd come and they would drink at night and I'd just sort of be there. Eventually some of my friends would join me, and help out at the bar or start small businesses of their own. Someone would buy a boat and take tourists out fishing and they would bring me back fresh fish every day and I'd hire someone to cook them up and then we'd sell them. And occasionally I would write something and get it published. But it would be a simple life. I'd live off of the profits of the bar and my friends would live off of the profits of whatever they were doing and everything would be nicely self contained.

That probably won't happen. I am a coward. I am probably not going to actually take a chance on something like that. I should. I really should. Dealing with the occasional tropical storm would be better than dealing with the rest of the crap that life keeps throwing at me.

I keep looking for ways to turn myself into a professional in some field but more and more I realize I will never be qualified for anything. And I'd love to occasionally wake up with the ocean lapping at my feet with a bottle of rum in one hand.

The Solution

Things were looking up there for a while for me. Then everything went to shit. Which proves a theory I was so desperately trying to disprove. The theory: Never try for anything because achieving it will make you feel only marginally better then if you had just never tried at all and gotten nothing out of it. Wanting something means you might not get it, not wanting anything means you already have it. If you get it in the end you are really no better off then if you just didn't want it in the first place.

Fucking Buddhists, this is their goddamn philosophy. I can't really blame them for coming up with it so long ago and me only now coming to a point where I only sort of kind of understand it. But I'm going to anyway.

Life seems like it should be all about chasing your passions, but at the end of the day it seems like it is really only about accepting how badly life is going to screw you if you dare to take a chance on anything.

I just wish I knew who the hell I was supposed to be. Obviously everything I've tried so far hasn't worked out.

At least I got a Case

Life shouldn't be that hard. The earth is billions of years old and if we are lucky we get 80 years on it. The first ten are all about development, the next ten are about learning your place in society, and then you have a couple of decades of trying to succeed on your own before you aren't relevant any more. It just doesn't really seem fair.

Thankfully life is full of all sorts of ups and downs and generally the ups outweigh the downs.

I shouldn't be feeling optimistic right now. I have no idea where my life is going or what is going on in it. But I am feeling good. Sometimes things just make sense to me that I don't think other people would be able to make sense out of.

I know this is all very vague, but I am in a weird mood. Sometimes it seems like how I am feeling about things is way more important than what the things actually are.

I shouldn't be in a good mood. I shouldn't feel good about things. I shouldn't, but I do. It doesn't make sense. That makes me happy.

In the dark hours of Sunday morning I watched a woman dance to absolutely no music. Other people seemed to be annoyed as she was stomping around, stomping out a beat you could say, yet I found it quite fascinating. There are some people who would dismiss such an act as an annoyance, there are those that think that she is merely crazy, but I saw something different. An identity, a purpose. And though those might have been vague even to her, I think that it was there. I was not interested in this girl, I had no intention of trying to go home with her, I just liked to observe her personality. It was a personality that I had never seen before, and that is a gem to me. So many people spend so much time trying to be something that they aren't. I just like people who can take a moment to be unique from time to time.

Maybe that is what life should be about. Trying to connect with people you find it hard to understand. We are all about the same when you boil it down. We just want food and sleep and love and we need a few ways to blow of stress. Maybe I just sound crazy right now, but I'd like it if that were true. Because then there wouldn't be any reason for any of us to not want to know each other.

It's This Blog!

HEY, IT'S THE
SNEEZE THEME SONG!




by Cloud Cult
(Visit their website.
Love them a lot.)

I stole that from The Sneeze, which was a great website until it mysteriously died five months ago. The guy who wrote it was a modern day Dave Barry, which is strange to say because Dave Barry is still alive. Also, he was friends with Adam from the Mythbusters. I know I am referring to him in the past tense, but I should point out that I have no idea if he is living or dead at this moment. Only that he stopped posting to his blog a while ago. And I really like that song.

I've been posting more lately because I am quite nervous about things. I honestly think that within the next couple of years I am going to be enjoying the dream life I have been fantasizing about for a really long time. But there is a ridiculous amount of things that can go wrong. But, whatever, for the first time in my life I am starting to feel pretty damn awesome. That's really all I have to say right now. Mostly I just wanted to post that song.

Take a bite of this Apple

Last night I realized that I have had a fairly decent turn around from this summer. I was really depressed for a while there. But things have been looking up for the last few weeks, as I have mentioned.

Last week I mentioned three different girls in my post and predicted some wacky antics to follow. None did. I ended up meeting another girl, one that I am much more interested in pursuing than any of the others. So I shall ignore the others and focus on her and see how that plays out. The dating world is really hard for me to navigate, so I have no idea how it is going to go, but I don't want to even think about attempting to juggle multiple girls at the same time. As I said before, none of this really sounds like me. I'm more of a stay at home and not interact with the world type. I'm also not a great multi-tasker. So I'm making a choice and I'm going to follow through till I succeed, or something goes horribly wrong, but I'm focusing on the succeeding part. Wish me luck internet denizens.

I think I might get an internship sort of thing from a new TV station up in Tahoe. I am going up there Wednesday in order to talk to them and get a tour and learn about TV making. I have no idea if I am cut out to work in television, certainly I am not cut out to be on TV, but I love TV. My relationship with TV is one of the most serious relationships I have had in my life. It is probably time to give something back. And maybe, just maybe, get a chance to make an awesome show someday. I've always wanted to write at least one episode of a show that gets shot. Its sort of a life goal. This could be the first step I need to take in order to achieve that.

So things could go well in the next week or so for me. I hate getting excited about stuff before it happens as I hate being let down, but, damnit, I am going to get excited. Life is meaningless when there is nothing to look forward to.

I Don't Want To Wonder If This Is A Blunder

I couldn't get a handle on the articles I was working on for Tin God, so I instead decided to come here, where there is absolutely zero pressure to produce something even remotely entertaining.

Things have been looking up a bit in the last couple of weeks. I've really stopped caring so much about things. There was a flow, and I was afraid to jump in it, but now I am in it, and I have no idea where it is going, but I am going with it nonetheless.

We shall see how things are going to work out, but I gave up listening to that little voice in the back of my head that tells me I'm an idiot, so it should at least get interesting.

You see, normally I just hate myself, but lately I've learned to be completely indifferent to what I think of myself. I mean, logically, if I hate myself, why the fuck should I care what I think of myself? Right? That sort of makes sense.

Whatever, I'm feeling good. I feel like I could take down a bear. I mean, given adequate prep time. And a bear trap. And a shotgun. And a hunter... a bear hunter.

Thinking about it, there was something that happened recently that I think might have freed me a little from feeling like a worthless human. I sort of got some closure on something. I didn't think it was something I needed to deal with. But I think by dealing with it it gave me back a part of myself I had lost for a while there. Because, for whatever reason, everything is running more smoothly all of a sudden in my life. Maybe it wasn't that, but I just feel more open to life then I have in a long time.

I love this blog. When I go back through old posts (which isn't often) I will find strange paragraphs like the one above and have no idea what the hell I was talking about. It sort of makes me a mystery even to myself. Yet here it is, for everyone to read. Complex, no? No.

If you haven't seen it yet, I got an article published on Cracked.com. I'm trying to get another article on there, but there is a lot of competition and as a result it could take a while. But, as of this posting, there were already 650,000(!) hits on that article.

Goddamn how I wish my website got hits like that.

He Never Seems to Ash

Posting to my blog almost seems like a waste of time anymore. Not because I don't enjoy it, but because I feel like if I am writing something to post online I should be doing it for my site. But some posts just don't feel appropriate for the style that I am going for on my site.

Tonight I started working at Bully's. I don't really know how that happened. I sort of just showed up and said I wanted the job and they said sure. There was more paperwork involved, but that was the gist of it.

It's only two nights a week, which gives me plenty of time to fuck around with writing. I should probably keep looking for another job. I'd love to keep doing the freelance thing but I just haven't been making enough of it because I really don't go after many jobs anymore. I'd love to be able to make a little money off of my website and then make some money/fame writing for Cracked. If I can get to the "veteran writer" status on Cracked I can make a lot of money per article. I figure each article is about 25 hours worth of work, including research, so it would still work out to less then minimum wage, but sitting on my computer looking up shit on the internet and then writing fart jokes about it doesn't feel much like work.

Speaking of, I have no idea when my first article is going on Cracked. Hopefully soon, they say they are falling behind on articles, but I haven't heard from the editors for a little while (which at this stage I take as a good sign) so we'll see.

My feet hurt. I knew they were going to hurt. I'm not used to standing up for six hours at a time. I'm also a little afraid that I won't get used to it because I will have five days of sitting around between my work week.

I'm glad that I'm doing it, though. Not only does it get me out of the house and into contact with people who like Top Gear and attractive women, but it also forces me to be plesant to strangers. I try not to be an ass to strangers, but I normally don't have to actually talk to many people. I might say hello to a random person on the street, but usually they give me a stunned silence instead of a response. I forget sometimes that people are not used to strangers saying hello to them anymore. Whatever, I've sort of given up on giving a shit if I come across as a strange man to people who don't know me. I'm going to, usually, one way or another. Might as well at least try to be nice. Maybe someone will pay it back someday.

What I have noticed about myself lately is that I am a nerd at heart, but I have a bad memory and I know a lot of minor information about a lot of different things. I think of myself as a "Jack of No Trades." Though this doesn't help me very often, it is useful in getting to know people. Because if you know a little about something they are into they will feel more comfortable around you. Or at least that is my current working theory.

I'm trying to count how many jobs I've had at this point in life. I have no idea right now. According to my resume it is 8. But I left a few off of there for reasons relating to me telling bosses to suck it. I sort of think I'm addicted to quiting jobs. I'd probably be on my twentieth job by now if the economy didn't suck so bad.

I think I'm getting good at finding jobs. When I went looking for jobs in Reno this time around I applied to four places. I was going to apply to more, but I sort of got my hopes up for this bookstore job that I was having some progress in the interview process in. Fortunately as it started looking like that wasn't going to happen I got the job at Bully's.

I forgot to mention in the article "How to Find a Job in this Lovely Economy" (yes, I'm promoting my own site again, shut up) that you should really claim to be employed while you are looking for a job. I should look into businesses that people can start up online while they are job seeking. It doesn't have to be something you want to do for long, or something that will make a lot of money. But being able to put "currently employed at" on a resume seems to carry weight, even if you are just employed by yourself. But, hell, you could cut your neighbors lawn once every two weeks and then just make a free blog and call it "(Your name)'s Landscaping" and post some pictures of rocks and grass and trees and make a few blog posts about the best soil to use in an arid environment. Then, when you do get an interview, and they ask about the landscaping, tell them business has just been really down lately. They will believe that, and they will be sympathetic.

The great part about that, too, is that it isn't a lie at all. As long as you have imagined having more clients for your business then you can legitimately say "I haven't been doing as much business as I'd like" and you can walk away knowing that you God didn't smite a kitten because of your immoral lies.

Plus, maybe people will stumble on your blog and email you and say "hey, can you do this job for me?" and you can actually start a business without even really trying. But don't get your hopes up for that happening.

On an unrelated note, this week was strange. Monday started with an enjoyable extended afternoon lunchin for Paul's birthday and then went to me bitching so much to my landlord that I almost got evicted, then went to the hospital to be there with my mom, then went to corporate meeting, then to a booze filled trivia night, then to a brand new job at a bar. I liked it. Linear weeks are boring.

On another completely unrelated note, I watched some of the new Futurama episodes and one had Fry, Bender, and Prof. Farnsworth traveling at a rapid pace through the Earth's future. It's strange, but sometimes I forget how meaningless this era of history really is in the grand scheme of things. The Earth is going to be around for a few million more years at least, and probably a few billion more years. Is there really anything that can be done that is going to have an impact in such a large amount of time? I don't know. I remember my first existential crisis. I was nine or ten. I had never heard the word "existential" before. It focused more on if I really existed or not, but if you start questioning your own existence at that age it does seem unlikely that you will be able to grow up and really think that there is anything you can do that has any meaning. Or maybe everyone has those when they are kids. What do I know?

Comfort Eagle

My new website is up, Tin-God.com. I'm trying to fill it with less personal stuff and more random other stuff, so I'll still be using this blog from time to time when I feel like posting stuff that is a little closer to my heart.

Tanner just moved out. I thought I would enjoy having the place to myself again, but it just isn't the same. Everything seems so big and empty. It took me a while to get used to having a roommate, but when I finally did it was actually kind of nice having someone else around. I suppose I'll probably need to go out looking for someone else at some point. Although I am sort of hoping that instead of that I can actually find myself a girlfriend that would come around often enough for me to not feel so lonely in this apartment.

I had to turn down an opportunity to live with someone else that I probably would have gotten along with pretty well. The problem was that she was a girl that I had had quite a crush on for a while. I figured out that it was never going anywhere and thought that it was fine, but thinking about actually living with her made me realize that there was no way I could actually deal with her being around all the time. Especially considering that she is still dating some guy.

There was a sort of silver lining in that I made myself feel bad enough about going back and forth on moving in with her that I had to tell her the actual reason for me not wanting to move in. I say that is a silver lining because there were a couple of times after a couple of beers that I almost emailed her confessing my feelings just because I really wanted to get that off my chest so I could move on. I don't know how she took the news. I assume that she already knew, or at least had an inclination that there was some of that going on, but it is one thing to think something and another thing to read it on an email and know for sure.

Whatever, it was one of a line of hopeless romances that I sort of pursued over the years. Every once in a while there comes a girl I become friends with but develop feelings for. I always end up having to pull back from being their friend at some point even though I actually enjoy hanging out with them in a platonic way. It isn't like I spent all my time with them, just a few hours a week usually, but it always got to be too much. I guess I suppress a lot of emotions.

I don't really know why I am writing this all out here. I've just been off my beat the last few days. The last week really. I think it's my mom. I found out last week she had more tumors growing. She's had breast cancer and a brain tumor. Now she has them growing in her liver. I'm trying to take it in stride, but at a certain point it becomes hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel when this shit just keeps coming back. She gets better just long enough to get back to her normal life and then shit happens again. It's really starting to get me down.

Anyway, that is it for now. Take her easy internet folks.

The Return

I've arrived back from my brief vacation into Tahoe. It was enjoyable except for when it wasn't. Sometimes I think that I will never grow out of arguing with my sister. Thankfully my directionally dyslexia got back at her for me. That'll teach her to get directions from me. The great part is that I got her to go the wrong way twice. I swear I didn't mean to do it, but I had to laugh like hell.

While we were coming back from Tahoe (the wrong way) I was explaining why to my sister, who lives in California, why Nevada is way better. One thing I mentioned was that we don't cut off alcohol service. Ever. California stops you at 2. My sister said "but no one needs to drink past two in the morning." And I told her "you do if you live in Nevada."

Last night I saw The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) at the Shakespeare at Sand Harbor. I've seen it a couple of times before. But it's good, it's funny, and it works for people who have only a passing interest in Shakes. They go through the Comedies in five minutes, which is about as much time as they deserve. They did some bullet time for some fight scenes in Macbeth. And my "step dad" got pulled out of the audience to go up on stage and run around. Good times.

A week of lounging around and reading and playing board games makes me feel pretty goddamn dull. I'm just a nerd, ultimately, which is fine. But I do find nerds boring, so I've always tried to be a somewhat more interesting nerd. I've failed most of my tries. I think that underneath all the useless trivia and the hatred of sunlight and the desire to be left alone lies a moderately interesting personality. My goal is to find it, damnit, and to let it run around mindlessly for a while.

Mike has his toes painted green. Someone needs to put a stop to that.

Blerg

I'm tired, I'm angry, and I'm hot. Also, I'm bored.

There is a fairly large over/under on me keeping my car right now. I might be able to get it fixed for a mere $1000, or it could end up costing me in the ballpark of $3600. If the body was in good condition (which it isn't) I would be able to maybe get $5,000 out of it if I sold it after getting it repaired. Not to mention the breaks are beginning to squeak (I just replaced them two years ago, what the hell?) and the shocks are going out. I could get this all fixed and drive the car for several more years, which would make it worth the cost. But I'm growing tired of the Clown Car (for those of you who don't know, it is called the Clown Car because I am giant and it is smallish).

I used to think I was going to keep that car for another five years or so. I also used to think that Toyota was an amazing manufacturer and that I would only ever own Toyota's in the future. Now I'm not so sure. Because they knew about the problem that my car is having years ago and they did nothing to warn me of it. Had they told me about it when they got the first reports of the malfunction, I could have had them fix it for free and there wouldn't have been a chance of it damaging my transmission. But at 150,000 miles there is no chance of a warranty, and there is a very high chance that the transmission is already fucked. This could have been an easy fix. It could have been, but it isn't, and now there is a decent chance I'll have to plop down nearly four thousand dollars to get it repaired.

To put that in context, for less money, I could get a 95 Ford Mustang convertible. Granted I'd have to fly out to New York to get that, but that would be an awesome drive back across country. For some reason I've always wanted a Mustang convertible. I've never even actually driven one.

Looking through those car ads has brought up a pet peeve of mine. How hard is it to run spell check before posting something fairly important? I use Chrome so it does spell check automatically whenever I am typing something online, but even if I didn't have Chrome (which is free, by the way), I have three other programs that I could have run the spell check for me. If I was selling my car online I would make damn sure that the description was at least spelling-error free. Grammar is one thing. I suck at grammar and if I am writing fast I misuse punctuation constantly. But, again if it were an ad to sell something that was in the thousands of dollars, I would give it a once over and make sure that there weren't obvious grammatical errors everywhere.

I'm willing to bet that most Americans don't have that great of a grasp of grammar. We sort of teach it to kids when they are about ten and then expect them to remember it for the rest of their lives. But ten year olds aren't writing that complex of things. They go over it a little in high school, but they expect everyone to already have a perfect grasp of grammar so they don't really drill it in. If it were up to me high school English classes would be 1/3 grammar, 2/3 classic literature. That last part is because, lets face it, if you aren't made to read Moby Dick and A Tale of Two Cities and Pride and Prejudice when you are in high school most people will just never read them.

The website I'm getting set up is coming along. It's off to a bit of a slow start right now since no one is interested in writing for a website that doesn't yet exist apparently. But it will exist soon.

Lately I've been trying to decide if I am going to move out of this apartment once the lease is up. I like it save for the fact that there is no air conditioning. But the lease is up in September, so I'll only have to put up with the heat for another month or so at that point and then I can cost through winter before I have to deal with the heat again. I don't think that I can get a place as big as this for this price anywhere else in Reno. Of course once my roommate moves out it does beg the question of if I need this much space. On the other hand, I lived here for a while before he moved in and it felt like the right amount of space for me. I've moved enough that I have a pretty decent idea of what I need to have in my apartment to be comfortable and I don't think there are any places, even smaller places, that would be any more than fifty dollars cheaper per month than this place. Which doesn't really make it worth it for me. Having two bedrooms gives me the option of taking on another roommate later on if I get strapped for cash again, and not having to move is worth several hundred dollars to me since I goddamn hate moving. I've moved at least ten times in the last eight years. Granted a few of those times was just me moving back in with my mom for a few weeks/months at a time, but I still had to move all my shit. I think I need to try to find some stability in my life for once. I sort of hate Reno still, but I have nowhere else to go. I'm always chasing some mythical idea. Always thinking of nothing but escape. But nothing has come from my dreams of bigger and better things so far. It sort of feels like giving up to admit that I should just stay put in Reno for a while. But it seems like no matter what I try to do with my life I always end up back in Reno. Maybe its time to start making the best of it.

The Internet Be a Dangerous Place, say I

Things don't work out in life by going in a straight line. That is something that I have worked out. I take two steps back for every step forward. I go off in random directions. I can't seem to get anything to work out the way that I would like it to. I probably never will.

I spent some time thinking about what I would like to do with my life. I realized that I was always very interested in fiction and in journalism. So I am creating a site that will sort of incorporate those two elements.

It probably won't work out the way I'd like it to. But maybe it will. I can never tell. I can't work for other people. I just don't have that humble employee mentality. I always think that I know better than my bosses. The fact that I've been proven right more often than I've been proven wrong hasn't helped to get rid of those thoughts.

I used to think I would end up getting a pulitzer and a nobel and some other awards. I've realized that those awards won't be forthcoming in my life. I used to think I was a genius trapped in a lazy mind. I've learned that isn't the case. But I am smart, I am ambitious. I can't work for other people because I like to go my own way. I can't work for other people because they are always just working for someone else. I need to be at the top. I'd rather be at the top of a thousand failed experiments than at the bottom of a successful one.

I'll never be someone that you can tell your grandchildren "well, I knew him when..." I am just going to go my own way. I'll find a way to make money off of it. I'll be content for at least a few months out of my life.

This might not make a lot of sense to other people. I keep a lot to myself. But this is sort of a manifesto for myself. Hopefully it will make sense to others by the time I'm done.

Do You Remember When We Used To Dance?

My last post here generated more interest than this little blog is normally used to. I'm not really sure what to make of that, but whatever. I haven't been posting here for a while because I've been writing more for other places. Mostly stupid little articles that they don't even tell me where they are going to be posted. Anyway, it makes me not want to spend to time to actually write out a blog by the end of the day.

I have a plan to make a schedule for my work hours. I sort of have one now, but it is rather fluid and often depends on if there was anything worth watching on Netflix the night before and what time I bother to roll out of bed. But my goal is to have some more writing going out online by the end of July. In the meantime I am going to try to make a point to update this blog a bit more, mostly because I plan on having another Blog-Off at the end of the year, and I need to pad my numbers.

Aside from the other writing, I did a couple of cracked topic pages since I last posted here. One on Internet Trolls and one on Nuns, thereby completing the ying and yang of humanity. I've been trying to figure out what to do for more topic pages. Suggestions are appreciated.

On a completely different note, this evening I went for a walk down by Virginia Lake and I spotted a book on a rock down by the water. It was 4GVN by Willie Ramos a.k.a "The Ghetto Preacher" who found Jesus after he helped his friend stab a guy four times. Honestly I am not a fan of the turn around preachers. Unless you are talking about Preacher, but that is different. Look, if you were into some bad shit for a long time and you want to go cleanse your soul and give your heart to Jebus, fine, but don't start a congregation. Join a congregation, learn from people who don't have the same screwed up world view as you, don't just go off on your own. People these days really underestimate the value of having people in their lives that are much less fucked up than they are/they used to be. Just because you lived through some shit doesn't mean that you are suddenly an expert on it, and you probably never will be an expert on it because you can never look at that lifestyle objectionably. I suppose it is just part of the whole Christian ethos, though, that whole complete redemption through Christ, going from one extreme to another. It's just that no extreme is ever going to be good in the long run. No one can live on the edge for long before something snaps.

Now all I need is some witty line to go out on.

Information Co-Op

For the last couple of weeks it seems like there has been more news stories and more people talking about social networking in a different way than I have heard a lot of before. More and more people are starting to get really annoyed, I think, with the fact that we have lost all sense of privacy. Others, such as M. Cheb have taken a slightly more bleak look on the issue. So I figured I would give my two cents on the subject.

I don't really use facebook that much. I read it everyday, but I don't put much up there. I don't send many messages through it, I don't write that many comments, and I hardly ever leave a status update. But it is still part of my daily internet routine. The privacy issues aside, I think it is still a useful way to keep up with people. Still, I wonder if it is worth the risk. Someone that I barely know can be on my friend list and tag me in a compromising photo. That photo is then linked to my page, where anyone else on my friend list can see it. It's sort of like getting your photo on the front page every single time you do something stupid. And if you are me, you do stupid things on a regular enough basis for that to be a problem.

Anonymity is gone on the internet. Where once thousands of faceless dorks gathered and chatted and traded copywriten files, we now have a face. That face might be nothing more than an IP number, but it is still a face. And if people want to, they can find you, and they can destroy you. Granted that part about them destroying you is probably not going to happen, but you never can tell.

The thing is, it was something that probably was bound to happen, one way or another. Not just because the longer people have an internet connection the more information they are likely to put into the web, but because since the beginning people have been trying to find a way to humanize the other users on the internet. We couldn't exist in a digital world where everyone was able to pretend to be anyone. Eventually we had to learn to be ourselves, even while we surfed the web.

People don't like anonymous other people. Some part of our brain needs to know who we are dealing with. There are hours and hours that I could spend on why that is, or at least why I think that is, but I won't get into that now. Suffice to say that the more information we know about someone else the better we feel about that person. The problem comes in when there are things that you don't want other people to know about you.

It seems as though it would be so damn easy to enjoy the internet and not give out too much information. You just couldn't buy things online, and you'd have to set up a free email account that was only to be used when you had to sign up at some website. Avoid social networking altogether and you'd be okay. But then you find out that google is saving every internet search you've ever done (I tried to find a news article to link to that has something about that in there, but I used google search and for some reason nothing came up... but you can read about why you should be terrified of google) and you start to think that maybe, just maybe, privacy isn't an option anymore.

Of course we could all say fuck it. We could collectively say that we don't want everything we are doing to be tracked directly back to us and forgo the internet as much as possible. Or we could all, and this seems more likely, say that we are willing to give up online privacy in exchange for being able to have a computer that can access all the cat related videos we could ever possibly want.

I don't have any answers about any of this. I am a private person. But I have always been pretty paranoid about computer stuff. The fact that they really can and are tracking my searches doesn't surprise me. The fact that the police can create a fake profile and friend a friend of mine on facebook to spy on me doesn't surprise me. The fact that employers will search the webs for me doesn't surprise me.

I will probably have to abandon facebook because it is just too public at some point. And yet, a blog like this, I have no problem keeping up. And here I reveal much, much more about myself than I do on facebook. But at least I am the one who decides what is and is not going to be available from here. I wish people would go back to blogging. Blogging is basically an archaic ritual at this point, and only a few of us seem to remember what the point of it ever really was. Social networking sights are all about what you are doing right then, at that moment. They are all about the day to day life of an average person, being broadcast to the world for some strange reason. But blogs are not about what you are doing, they are about what you are thinking. And what people are thinking, even if it is on a day to day basis, has much more of a lasting impact than me telling all my friends that the sandwich I just ate was a little dry.

Important Noises

I've decided that I need to have a place that I can go and sit and be totally alone. Just a place with a fountain and enough foliage that I can pretend that I don't live in a city for a few minutes. It took me a long time to realize that that was really what I wanted when I was going out to Bibo. I got a few minutes behind the Mt. Rose store by myself and I could think and write out some random thoughts. Then some random middle aged women wandered out and started talking about dog parks and sprained ankles. I have trouble just turning everything off and sitting back in my own apartment, even when I am alone. There are just too many distractions. If I am not writing then I am watching TV or playing video games. I can't seem to sit down and quietly collect my thoughts anymore.

There aren't enough spots like that in the world anymore. I mean, there are a lot of places people can go and sit and be alone with their thoughts, but not in cities. And I don't want to have to drive out to a mountain range and then go on a ten mile hike just to have five minutes to clear my head. Not to mention as soon as I got up there some family with the obligatory two and a half children would wander up, and they'd see me and come walking up and then get all in my face crying about how their child has just been brutally ripped in half by a bear and pleading with me to put the legs back on. Just put the legs back on!

Today has not been a great day. I'm trying to get through it, but it just sort of keeps going on. Every time I sit down to try to write about how pissed off I've been at the world all day it just makes me angrier. I tried to write a joke here, but they come off sounding bitter and self-pitying when I write them whilst feeling angry at everything. I suppose this will have to be enough blog for now.

Probably not Ok

Someone on facebook suggested a page to me called "why test on animals when we have pedophiles in prison?" Now, I have, in the past, suggested that pedophiles be sent to a gorilla infested island twenty miles off of the mainland and their only way off was through shark infested waters. Also, lasers were involved somehow. But that wasn't a real suggestion. More like a pitch for a reality show, a reality show I would probably watch.

I know that sexual molestation of children is possibly the worst crime that could be committed. It fucks people up for life. Even if they grow into successful adults, they are still going to have a lot of horrible things happen to them as teenagers as a result of how their world view got all screwed up from the sexual assault. I'm not defending it. But at the same time, pedophiles are people, too. And although most people would probably rather share a relaxing meal with Osama Bin Laden than with any pedophile, they still have rights.

The criminal justice system, I think, can be used as a way to bring people back into society in a positive way. I think that people really can be redeemed in prison. The problem is that we aren't making any real effort to do that. Changing a person is a process that can take many years. Prisoners, though, have a lot of free time. But the whole system needs to be revamped.

I believe that criminals could be taught to come out of prison and re-join society in a positive way. We can give them job training, counselling, and just some general guidance. And that is what we should be doing. There is no sense in locking someone up if all it is going to do is put them in a situation where the only way they can make money is through more crime.

So long as I am going to be paying taxes I would rather have it going towards a positive outcome for the criminal, in the end, than a bad one. Testing products on people that seem like the scum of the earth might seem like a good alternative to testing them on innocent bunnies, but you are sacrificing everything that makes us human if you do that. The only thing that separates us from the rabbits is that we care about what happens to our fellow human beings. A rabbit doesn't care if some other rabbit gets turned into stew or has perfume sprayed in its eyes. We have to be better than the rabbits. We have to understand that it isn't okay to treat any other human like an animal.

This has to, and does, apply to terrorists as well. Right now terrorists are our enemies. American has had her share of enemies over the years. And you know what happens after every war? We say that we should have treated our enemy with more respect. Sure, kill them if that is what you got to do, but treat the prisoners with respect. We don't need to torture them to get information out of them. We don't need to do things to them that we would never do to another person. We need to treat them like humans. Humans that are on the wrong side of a fight, maybe, but humans none the less.

Testing products on inmates is tantamount to torture. Testing it on animals is tantamount to torture as well. I'm not saying that it is right to test on animals, but I am saying that it is wrong to test on humans.

End Rant.

Angry At Everyone

There are a few times that I just get pissed off at the world. It used to be more frequent. I can't remember the last time that I actually stood up for something though. Everything has gotten so damn confusing. I don't know what to stand up for anymore. It isn't that the world has gotten more complex, it is that I don't really know my spot in it anymore.

Maybe I just don't care anymore. I turn all my anger inwards. I see every side of an argument and then choose to not get involved because I don't want to bother with a fight. That isn't me. It just isn't.

I don't have a fight right now. I don't have anyone that has pissed me off. I'm just pissed off.

I've often thought that a man is only as good as his enemies. Who are my enemies though? I'm adrift in the ocean and the only thing I can do is punch the water.

I need to fight, and I don't mean a fist fight, I have to fight for something. But I just don't know what to fight for. I'm a passionate guy when you get to something I actually care about. The problem is that I just haven't really cared about anything in a while. Somewhere, though, someone is screwing up. Someone is doing something that I have to stop. I just need to find out where. And what. And then I need to try to stop them.

My soul is dying. I'm treading water. I need to take a stand. I just don't know where to go to make my stand.

Delayed Reaction

I have my iTunes on random and it is playing an awful lot of rock ballads. It's putting me in a sort of weird mood. Sort of morose with a bit of cockiness.

My blogging has gone down quite a bit lately. I've been trying to get some Freelance writing going, and so most of my writing time has gone towards that and I have been neglecting this blog. That isn't really a great excuse, but top that with me feeling like I've been really busy and suddenly it sort of makes sense.

It hasn't been that I was really busy. There was just too much time being consumed during the day. I really need to sit down tomorrow and set up a new schedule for myself so that I can get things done when they need to get done.

I quit my job with AmeriCorps. I took this last week off to sort of test the waters a little bit and see if I could handle working on my own. I sort of can. I got a fair amount done, but not enough. Though that was largely because Aaron was here and there was much hanging out and drinking to be had. I'd like to point out that I do really enjoy spending time with my friends. I had to avoid people tonight because I had some things to sort out in my head. I still wasn't really sure if I was going to quit my job. I would say that I was about 90 percent sure that I was going to. But, as people who have gone to trivia with me know, when I am that sure of something it usually means I am wrong. I'm not really sure if I made the right move. Technically I put in my two weeks over a month ago, so this wasn't like it was a sudden move. But I have to follow my gut on this one. I have a strange window in time when I might be able to actually lay the groundwork for building a solid writing career and that is all I've ever really wanted so I have to go for it.

Over the last few months I have had a lot of conversations with people about my employment status. For a while there I was talking to anyone that would give me two minutes of time to give my little spiel. Most people thought I should keep the job. I'm not a smart man, but I know how my brain works. If most people agree that something is the right thing for me to be doing I am probably going to do the opposite of what they say. I figured that out a long time ago. I'm surprised more people haven't gotten that yet.

I wish that I could post the story I wrote for what will hopefully be my first paid fiction writing gig. I think I would get in trouble if I put it online though. I have no idea what the place is going to think of it. I want them to like it. I'm not used to writing for an audience that is looking for something more like a decent B-movie. Usually I am writing for an audience of know-it-all undergrads. They often get on my nerves. My writing style is more in the vein of ridiculous and they are always trying to read way too much into it. Sometimes something being ridiculous is the point. Everyone outside of a writing workshop seems to understand that.

I was looking over some old stories that I had on my computer recently. I had forgotten about this but for a while I wanted to do a short story collection of linked short stories. I think I will give that a go again.

This is a Big bleeping Deal

Joe Biden, how I love thee. He's just so fucking sincere about everything. I don't know that he'd be able to get a lot done as president, but as Vice President, he is the fucking King.

This woman I work with suffers from chronic pain. And she can't get it treated because she had it before she got onto the AmeriCorps plan. I told her she should be happy this bill got passed since it meant that soon they will have to start covering pre-existing conditions. She told me that she was still against the bill because it was leading us towards socialism.

This country has gone completely mad.

I'm pumped. The bill itself isn't going to really make things a ton better, but once people get used to the idea that having health care isn't a privilege reserved for the elite, things will get a hell of a lot better.

I try not to talk politics on this blog, but, fuck it, I'm happy. This was really the one thing I wanted Obama to do when I voted for him.

These Things I (don't) Know

If I were to post an ad for the job I currently have, it would probably be something along the lines of:

Responsibilities:

You will have to show up and sit at your desk. Loan your co-worker a lighter when they need one, chat with the receptionist about things and realize that she is probably a Scientologist, attempt not to stare at the paralegals ass every single time she walks out of her office.

Occasionally people will ask you how things are going with your work. It is important that you lie to maintain the illusion of the status quo.

It doesn't really matter, ultimately, if you show up or not. Just call in to let people know when you aren't showing up.

Qualifications:

...I'm afraid I don't understand the question.

Compensation:

Let's just say it matches the amount of work we expect out of you.

----

I've become the worst employee I could ever see myself being. I think that there was a veiled insinuation that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if I quit. This coming from my boss. Today. There was more context than just "you don't do shit around here," but it's clear that I'll likely soon be overstaying my welcome. At least that's what I chose to read into it, as I want to quit.

Impulsively I decide that I am going to quit shaving. Let us see how long it takes them to say something about it.

I need to learn to play the guitar again. I want to start a Traveling Wilbury's tribute band. And I want to be lead singer. Hopefully the guitar duties will be light, but I should at least be able to pound out a few of their songs. I should also finally finish learning "Classical Gas," as I think that being able to play that song on a guitar will get me laid. It isn't the sexiest song, but it looks damn sexy when it's played.

This blog post is random and, probably, pointless. You should thank me for writing it for you. Just for you.

I applied to get a job writing romantic/sultry fantasy fiction today. I'll be sure to let you know how that works out. I think that I will use "Saul Garret" as a pen name. Although I might use two t's... Garrett. I don't know.

It is time for House, so I must away.

Wed-Da Sci-Non Ext-Ga pt.3!

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the show that never ends. Well, actually, it ends in a couple hundred words. Still... party. Woo.

I saw an article online today about universities starting to ban laptops from classrooms. For some reason people think that they are distracting. As if being able to update your facebook and twitter account in class is distracting.

twitter example:
ghostmorphine OMG, LOL, ROFL smiley face. I can't believe what my prof just said about evolution. Monkeys! MONKEYS!

The thing is though, people don't realize just how goddamn amazing this technology is. Of course we are going to be distracted! (And by "we" I mean college students and not lazy roustabouts who graduated a few years ago but still consider themselves college students)There is just too much amazing shit online for us to pass up. And as a result, we can't be bothered to take notes while we are learning about, you know, stuff and shit.

There were a lot people on the Fark message boards, the place were I first saw a link to the story from, that seemed to be opposed to such a ban. "How dare they" they screamed "take away our right to fuck around in class!" Listen, buddies, I never used a laptop for notes and I found plenty of ways to dick around. From starring at the boobies of any girl that was in sight, to doodling new and amusing mustaches onto a crudely drawn characture of the professor, there are a million ways to fuck off without a computer.

The thing is, and this is what brings us to "Wed-Da Sci-Non Ext-Ga pt.3!", is that people don't even notice that they are actually communicating with anyone on the fucking planet while they are in a lecture.

I sat behind this guy in one of my classes while I was in college who played WoW all the damn time. He was running around killing, you know, World of Warcraft enemies, while half heartedly listening to the lecture. It annoyed me at times because I would let my eyes wonder over to his screen from time to time to see how he was doing, but for the most part it didn't bug me too much. But the thing was that this guy was playing a game that was un-fucking-imaginable just ten or twenty years ago. He is playing a game populated by millions of other players, with some pretty solid graphics, and the ability to be upgraded whenever the developers wanted it to be. And he was playing it on a laptop. In class. And it didn't seem strange to anyone else that could see he was playing it.

My sister got a Nintendo for Christmas one year. I was young, lets say seven, and she wanted one and my parents got it for her. She let me play, too, and I loved that Duck Hunt, as it was the most amazing thing my seven year old eyes had ever seen. A dog pops up every once in a while! Amazing!

She got that present Christmas morning. We played all day. Then it was time for dinner. In my family we have a tradition of using "poppers" at dinner. If you don't know what that is, imagine the cardboard tube inside a toilet paper roll. Now imagine that all the toilet paper is gone, and someone has filled that tube with a few trinkets. Now imagine they have wrapped it in elaborate wrapping paper. Now imagine that someone, for some reason, has installed strips of cardboard attached to what was, basically, a gun powder filled cap. When pulled apart, this cap "pops!" thus releasing the goodies inside the small piece of cardboard. It's supposed to be fun for the whole family.

That year my popper didn't go off. I pulled on it, but it just sort of ripped. So I got my prizes, but I was curious, 'why didn't mine explode?' I kept asking. So I studied it. Remember that I was six. Or seven, whatever I said before. Anyway, I discovered the device inside the tube that was supposed to explode. I carefully took it away from everything else and studied it for a while. Realizing that friction must ignite the thing like a match, I decided I had no choice but to test my theory by placing the device as close to my eye as possible to actually see the reaction the gun powder had to fire.

Later in the evening, as I sat transfixed watching my sister play duck hunt with a large rag filled with ice cubes covering my right eye, I began to understand the effect that video games have on people. I was in what could only be called "ouchie bad bad pain" and yet I still preferred to watch my sister play that video game, as it was the utmost achievement of human endeavor. Or at least thats what it seemed like.

The point of this story is to illustrate two points. The first is that you shouldn't put explosive items near your eye. The second is that video games, internet, social networking, all that crap is highly addictive. I was in real pain, yet I chose to watch someone else play a video game instead of dealing with the pain. Technology has a hold on us, and we are all still amazed by it. We fight for the right to use that technology whenever the hell we want because we simply can't get enough of it. Yet we are apathetic towards it. Duck Hunt was amazing, but now it is so simplistic it wouldn't last a second against current games.

We've lost all appreciation for this level of technology. We feel we are entitled to play stupid games whenever the hell we want. We aren't holding ice bags over our eyes just so that we can stay up an extra hour to watch someone else play a video game. We've lost all sense of proportion. Technology is just to be expected. It does not need be earned. But it can never be taken away, because we have a right to it. We are a society built on a foundation of thinking that we deserve every technological advance that there has ever been.

Tell me now that you don't think we're living in a science fiction novel.

I should be sleeping

There is a time at night, a time that occurs if I haven't really talked to anyone in a while and am getting fairly sleepy, that I feel most at ease with the universe. Not entirely at ease, just the most that I ever feel.

I should be sleeping. I just got back from Vegas last night after going to my sisters wedding. T'was a good time, but tiring. And expensive. And long. Vegas is fun for about two days at a time. At least if you are stuck on the strip the whole time. Crankiness, I'm afraid, got the better of me by the end of the journey.

We drove back from Vegas with my mom and then I had to drive up to Reno from there right afterwards. For some reason I got to thinking about what I was going to do with myself in the coming years. Probably because my sister is 29 and she just got married and almost has her doctorate and her friends have post-graduate degrees and professions. It's strange being around successful people that aren't that much older than I am. A little too strange.

For a bit I was thinking of abandoning every thing that I had wanted to do with my life and pursuing something a little safer and a little more profitable. I contemplated going to law school after college for a few years, before I graduated. I changed my mind about it, but the thought popped back in my head on that drive back into Reno. Impulsively I told myself I'd check out some schools online after I got home, but a little voice in my head told me to hang on for a few days and think it over and see if I actually want to do that. Research couldn't really hurt, but thinking about it would hurt much less.

The thing is that I can't see myself actually going to law school. I'd do well, I do believe, in law school. And I could probably pass the bar in whatever state I wanted to practice in, I mean, not now, but by the end of schooling. And I'd probably be a more competent lawyer than a lot of people out there. But I just can't see myself getting up everyday, putting on a tie, and going to an office or a court room. I can barely manage to put on clean clothes to make it to my job now. Mostly I just can't figure myself for being a nine-to-fiver for the rest of my life.

What hits me on and off from time to time is the fact that I already know exactly what job title I want to have for the rest of my life. A single word that is the culmination of every dream I've had since I was old enough to have dreams that didn't involve action figures coming to life and attacking me. All I've ever really wanted to be was a Writer. And you can throw any old word in front of the word writer, Freelance, Article, Copy, Hack, Creative, Television, Erotic, Mexican. It doesn't really make a difference. I lost sight of that in the shuffle. Got these notions that I had to be a fiction writer, had to do my little stories, had to occasionally fail to finish writing a novel, or maybe actually finish one book one day. But, fuck it, I just want to write for a living.

It's strange that I always thought of myself as sort of having to start at the top. To write something that really grabbed everyones attention and then start making money after I had already sort of made it. That isn't how it works for anything else, though. And when I compared trying to be a writer to trying to be an actor I realized that all they ever tell you is to stop bitching that you aren't famous and start working on getting out there. That's all I needed to understand. I just didn't know where the bottom was for writing. I finally figured out that it is, of course, online. And I've been writing online my entire adult life and most of my childhood, so it's probably not a bad place to start.

All I wish is that I had known earlier what it was that I needed to start doing in order to try and make it. I've never really known what to do whenever I thought of the word "career" before because I always just assumed that I'd make it as a writer or I'd fail miserably. It never occurred to me that I could find a way to work somewhere in between the two extremes. At least until I make it or until I fail. Miserably.

This probably doesn't make a lot of sense to other people. I guess I was sort of in a bit of denial as to what I should be doing with my life. I sort of let myself waste away quite a bit of time and I could never get focused on anything. I still can't stay focused on anything. At least now I can see that there is a pathway to job that I want. To a profession that has a title that makes me feel strangely complete. I can't see myself as a lawyer, but I've always seen myself as a writer. Regardless of how much writing I've ever really done. Again, it may not make a lot of sense.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I have had this same dream, this same goal, this same life ambition, for so long and I never could see how it could possibly come together. But with something so small as doing some freelance writing, a job I really haven't put much time into yet or made much money on, I can suddenly see this whole new world of writing opening up. Being a writer always felt like such a pipe dream before, but now I can see some of the first places finally falling into place and the feeling of contentment I get within me makes the agony of trying to figure out what the fuck I should be doing with myself over the past few years a little easier to swallow. I haven't made it, and I might never make it, but at least I am at a point where it is starting to make sense to really go after it.

Sorry if this was a bit more rambly than normal. Honestly, I should be sleeping.

Commercial Reviews

Watching videos on hulu frequently will make it so that you see the same few commercials over and over again. Recently there has been a video for Verizon that has been showing up a lot.



At first I thought it was sort of funny they used the Big Red song and didn't pay much attention to the rest of it. But every time I see it it bums me out more and more. So the first lady is getting a sculpture made of her and she's checking her phone while she's just sitting there. That is totally fine, sitting around being a model for someone is probably goddamn boring as shit. Plus, the dude sculpting her is wearing a lab coat. Not a smock, a damn lab coat. I sort of wonder if he isn't her doctor and he's going through his artist phase, which would explain why, at the end of the commercial, the finished work looks like it was made by a nine year old. Still, this seems like a good use for an internet phone, killing time while your doctor sculpts you because he said he could score you some Vicodin if you did.

Then it goes to a campground. And what is probably a father who is trying, idiotically, to entertain his three children, who are way more interested in looking at porn on their phone than watching their dad do his Frankenstein impression for the millionth time. Really I don't have a problem with it, except for that I can't shake this idea that it is probably racist. Maybe I'm just racist, so I assume that any time a black person is on TV there is some sort of agenda behind it. But the way he's moving, I just sort of think that his Frankenstein impression includes the phrase "yessa' Masta!" at some point. This might not be correct.

When it goes to the bell boy, though, I start to get pissed. Here is a dude that is supposed to be working and instead he is reading the latest Dave Barry article online, as he looks like such a nerd I can't imagine that he finds anything funny that has been written in the last ten years. Some fat tourist in the background is holding a sign that says "tour," and if I knew how to do a screen capture from youtube I could show you the look on his face if you pause it at 0:11. He seems to be saying "oh, you crazy kids. Fucking assholes with no work ethic. Oh well, I'm gonna get drunk in the hotel bar and hit on my buddies wife in a completely moronic and creepy way." That extra should get his own show, he really knows how to emote with a single expression. Or I read way too much into shit to further my own elaborate agenda. Both of those things might be correct.

The thing that really pisses me off comes right after that. "You'll watch youtube on a horse." Seriously, that may work within the rhyming context of the song but that is possibly the proof I have been searching for that our society is completely unredeemable. I would like to walk you through what that dude must have been thinking, if I may: "my new girlfriend is totally hot, and she thinks I'm a classic romantic. I am going to prove how romantic I can be. I am going to rent a horse, get it to a beach, and then we are going to ride it to a romantic ocean side restaurant where we will drink expensive wine and dine on exotic foods. After that, I will take her back to a beach side hotel room and we will make sweet, sweet love. But aside from that last part where I get to fuck her, that is going to be totally boring. So I'm gonna bring my phone and watch Bill O'Reilly flip out until we get to the boning."

Frankly, though, its the lyrics the song goes out on that really bug me. "Download stupid stuff much better." They say that. They know that getting on the internet on your phone while you are doing social activities is retarded. Every where I go I find people fucking around on the internet on their phones. "I'm at a bar with my friends. Better check my facebook to see if any of my friends have made any status updates!" The mentality seems to be that nothing in the world is as good as fucking around on the internet. I'm of the opinion that people who update their status via a cell phone are way too hooked into social media as it is. But it is one thing to text a message to a blog that says "I am totally drunk and I want to make out with everyone" and quite another thing to be able to sit in a pub and read that status update. It is as though, for some people, it isn't okay to do things. You have to record that you are doing things. I'm not opposed to the internet, but to me phones that allow you to connect to the internet should be treated as flasks. You take a little nip when you need to and you keep it hidden the rest of the time. Chugging down the whole thing and then refilling it over and over and over again seems to indicate that you might have a problem.

The funny thing is that I have a Verizon Envy. It's a great phone for calling and texting and it doesn't call random people when it is in my pocket. It has a good camera on it and the speaker phone is very clear. People don't even know I have them on speaker most of the time. And, yes, it gets on the internet like a pro. I only use the internet on there, though, to check directions or to get other pertinent info, like movie times. Its a handy tool that I could totally live without. Isn't it enough, America, that you can carry something around in your pocket that allows you to call anywhere in the goddamn world? Do you really need to use it to say "no one here is as interesting as my cow in farmville."

We Got Nowhere to Go, We Got Nothing to Do

My sister is getting married next week. I hadn't really thought about it too much. It isn't like its a shock or anything, but its a milestone. Another step on the way to being an adult, one those older siblings start to wed. Next it will be children coming. Hopefully not soon.

I can't tell the difference between optimism and denial anymore. I tell myself that I'm still young and I have a lot of time to work my life out.

My brain is often so dead after returning from work. I don't realize it till I'm on the way home and wonder where I had lunch. I have to stop and really think. Then this vague memory of me eating at some place will start to return. I wonder if that was really today. I wonder, then I realize it was less than five hours ago and I notice that I haven't really allowed any memories to metastasize to my brain while I was in Carson.

Living has become rather hard. No, it has always been rather hard. I've just grown increasingly aware that I am not ready to subject myself to life being that hard. Really it shouldn't be. I don't particularly deserve a better life, but I should at least enjoy the ride.

Getting a girlfriend seems like a pretty good idea. I can't even imagine my life with a significant other in it. Not to say people in my life aren't significant, but I'm not sleeping with any of them. I see my roommate around his girlfriend and I have to stop and think about how strange it might be for me to have so much of my life spent with another person. Perhaps if I really wanted to be around them all the time it wouldn't be all that bad. But I can't remember ever wanting to be around someone all the time. Hell, if I could I would get the fuck away from myself as often as possible.

The light from my light casts a nice silhouette of me whenever I turn. I feel as though I am in a diamond commercial.

Last week I missed everyday of work. Granted it was a four day week, but I was out all four of those days. When I got back I handed my boss a note from my doctor that said "Matt was sick." It didn't say exactly that. She seemed sort of offended "I knew you were sick" she said, passing the note between her hands as though it were three hundred degrees. I should be apologizing for missing a week of work, you shouldn't be feeling guilty that I thought I should try to provide some sort of proof that I wasn't just playing darts at my friends house all week. Which I was.

Blogging Declared Uncool

I've been getting fired up about politics this morning. Republicans saying its going to destroy the world if we give suspected terrorists trials, Colorado Senators proposing legeslation that would allow creationists the ability to opt out of science classes. Fuck, that is just retarded. I sucked at science in high school (still do suck at it) and if I knew I could have just taken some other elective to avoid taking my science classes if I just said I didn't believe in, you know, SCIENCE, then I probably would have. Because I am lazy and don't mind lying to authority figures.

Haven't religious law-makers ever taken five minutes to research what has happened every single time in history that laws have been passed to try to prevent scientific progress? They always lose, and then they end up looking like total morons. Of course if they were smart enough to learn from history they probably wouldn't think that evolution is an affront to God.

I should just ignore it, but goddamn, that shit is crazy.

Maybe I'll try to write a story today. I haven't written a new short story in a while. It seemed like a had a really good idea for a story the other day, too, but I think it is lost in the Maze of Death that is my memory.

They Took The Others

My blogging has tapered off as of late. I apologize, but only to half of my readers. The other half can kiss my ass. I'll leave it up to you to decide which half you are in.

I accidentally hacked Tanner's password tonight. I could probably get into many of his internet accounts right now. I won't, but I could.

Life has been hard lately. Just in the last week have I rediscovered that I am ready to start trying to live the life I want instead of waiting for it to just happen. I was hopeless there for a while, but I think that I have found relief.

Right now I am too distracted to post one of my traditional long, rambly posts. I am in better spirits these days, but I am not content. I am looking for something better than what I have, and I hope that I will find it soon.

Caution: Magnetic

I think that I figured out exactly what job I want. I made up a job description in my head the other night and started looking for something that suited that description. I didn't think I would find anything, until I realized that I wasn't giving myself enough credit. The job description, essentially, was to find a job with incredibly flexible hours, one that I could work from home, and one that utilized some skill I had that other people don't necessarily have or would at least be willing to pay someone else to do. Since I'm not a handy man I figured that I was boned. But it turns out that there are a shit ton of freelance writing jobs out there, and I aim to get me somes.

I wasn't thinking of writing as a skill, but it totally is. I just take it for granted. I know that many of my blogs would serve as proof that I don't have much skill in writing, but you have to remember that very often when I come here I am either depressed, distracted, or drunk. There might even be other "D's" to throw into the mix (disturbed? disconnected? discontent? dumb? D.J. Wicky Wick?) Point being that what you read here may not represent my best writing. Which is fine, this is a personal blog and it is what it is, there isn't any reason for me to put enormous effort into every single post.

Freelance would work well for me. Give me a little direction and I can get shit done on time and it will be pretty decent. Plus I can do it without having to worry about just up and quiting my job. Honestly if I diverted an hour a night to working on other projects instead of watching tv or reading I could probably get a lot of shit done.

Wed-da Sci-Non Ext-ga(!) is hopefully happening again this week. I'll grant that I have been very inconsistent with it, and I apologize. Not that anyone really cares, but, fuck it, I liked having Wednesday's be my theoretical science days, even though there weren't many of them. I just run out of time to really research and find stuff that fits the profile. Not that there isn't a lot out there, I am still quite convinced that we are living in a sci-fi novel.

Hiding from the Dark Lord

My posting has gone down so much since the end of December. I'm not sure if people are going to be happy or sad about that.

I feel so uncomfortable during my days lately. I'm so intent on getting home from work and turning the rest of the world off. I've never appreciated my friends so much as I do now. Life sucks without people you can relate to. And even though I may not see people as often, knowing that they are there makes things so much easier. I turn my social skills completely off at work. I embrace the inner cog and just do what I have to do to get through the day. Honestly if anyone at work saw me in a good mood where I was laughing and joking and carefree they wouldn't recognize me at all. In some ways I like that because it makes me seem more mysterious. In many other ways I realize that it is just a slow form of death. And not the fun types of slow death, like drinking and smoking. No, this is the kind that is more like being drowned in your own dehydration. You think about that, and if it makes sense, then you, too, probably have had an experience in life like the one I am having now.

Bitching about work seems so pointless. No one really cares. If I bitch about it not paying me anything they say "well, you are basically a volunteer" and if I say I want to leave they say "you can't leave, you made a commitment." There really isn't any middle ground. I either suck it up or I am a horrible person. I know that isn't what people are really thinking, but that is the impression I get. I bitch to whoever will listen about my job. Most people get this tone in their voice that seems to indicate that I am a horrible person for bitching about working as an AmeriCorps. That really doesn't seem fair. Everyone is entitled to bitch about their jobs. I am really, really unhappy doing what I'm doing now and everyone treats me like a fucking asshole for even mentioning that I'm upset at all. Well, everyone but a few.

I'm not smart, I'm not wise, I'm just an average guy who wants to make something out of himself at some point. To that end I try a lot of different things. Working in security, working in restaurants, working in ballparks, serving coffee, trying to sell comics online, being unemployed for long periods of time, driving across country for no reason but to be on my own for a while to try to give myself inspiration to write something that other people might want to read at some point. And as for my romantic life I tend to go after the weirdest chicks I can find. Looking at my life the only constant is that I am always trying to find something new and exciting to get my ire up. Usually that doesn't work out so well. But I deal with it and I move on, because that is really the only other option that is available to me. I notice that I fail at a lot of things I try, and I don't think that it is always because of a lack of effort or because I am just a lazy bastard. Mostly it is because on some level I know the only way to enjoy my life is to get as much misery out of the way now so that I can actually understand what it is that I want and why it is that I want that. The fact of the matter is that I'd rather completely fuck up my life when I'm single and 25 then to suddenly try to drastically change my life when I am married with children at 35. Not that I suspect I'll have kids in ten years, but you never know. When I fuck up my life now the only person that really suffers is myself. Later I will lose that buffer zone. I will start to really screw over people that are counting on me. I can't even imagine anyone counting on me these days.

I really like my life these days, though. Despite my job, things are falling in place pretty well. Tanner living here is so far working out pretty well. And although I've had to adjust a few of my habits here and there to work around him being here, just having someone else around has made my life seem to suck considerably less. Plus Allison is here a fair amount, and I must admit that having a woman in the house from time to time makes it feel much more like a home than just some low-rent hobbit hole that I found. Life is happening here now! It isn't just a sad burnt out man with nothing to lose, now it is a place that people inhabit.

There are, right now, four women that I have made plans to hang out with in the near future. Most of those plans have fallen through already, and I suspect the rest will fall through as well. But, still, for a cynical asshole like me, that is fairly good. I often find myself wondering why I don't ever bother trying harder with women, then I get situations like this were I have cast a wider net and there is some level of interest. Granted it doesn't always turn into anything, but I like to think of it as practice. Much like writing and "publishing" a blog is practice for writing fiction that will be published. It may not amount to much of anything at the time, but in the long run it is helpful. Just knowing that I am doing something, no matter how febily, helps to make me realize that something will work out the way I want it to in the long run.

Speaking of writing, there is a short story I have been sitting on for some time that I feel needs to be published and I just haven't gotten around to sending it off to lit mags. It probably won't get published anywhere, but I need to try. Because I feel like if I get one story published then it is going to make me confident enough to try to start pushing through the rest of my stories. I really want to get paid to be a writer. That is probably the only job that I am really qualified for and want to do. Excuse the metaphor, but if I could get paid for writing it'd be like making a career out of masturbation. I'm going to do it one way or another, might as well get some cash for it.