Been a Long Time Since I Rock and Rolled

It's been three months and a day since I last posted on this blog. Some things have happened. I have my doggy Chewy living with me now, for example. Chewy, who just this moment managed to sit on the cord to the only light source other than this computer in this room and knock out the light. I sort of suspect she did it on purpose...

Of course the big thing was that my mother passed away two weeks ago. It hasn't been very easy. In fact its been really fucking hard. It's getting easier now though. I always figured if something like this happened I would be pissed off at the Universe for fucking me over. I'm not real religious, but I have some sort of faith in a just universe. An idea that if you are decent in life you will not be screwed horribly without something else good coming your way. I guess I believe in something like Karma, I just don't really call it that. But most of the time I think its an abstract notion, that occasionally things are going to look really bad but there might be some sort of good that comes out of them later on. But its been much more apparent lately. Even as my mom lay in the hospital bed in our living room some good things were happening to me. Maybe its all just chance, but I don't really believe that. I've never been a great person, but I've been a good person. I have my issues, but I try hard, damnit. And now there are only three people left in the world that I am related to by blood. Sometimes people are like "I barely survived my family at Thanksgiving" but I'm literally barely surviving being in this family. Like some sort of horrible game show. I know that sounds awful, but my god, if I had a revolver I could murder/suicide my family and still have two rounds left. I'm not trying to be grim, it just doesn't seem right.

But like I was saying, the Universe seems to be trying to help me balance out. For instance, I was drinking some beer in Fallon, alone, after a shitty day and just wishing I had a friend in Fallon I could go hit the bars with for a few hours and just as I was sitting there feeling like crap Paul called and said he had to come down to Fallon for a dentist appointment the next morning and we ended up going out for a few drinks. Hey, it may not seem like much, but it was exactly what I needed that night. And the next day when I got out of bed around noon and found a house full of people helping out with the packing and sorting that needed to get done it was perfect, because I had no desire to do any work that day and with all those extra people I was able to putz around and not really do all that much. Which was nice, what with the hangover and all.

The best thing that has happened in this time, though, was meeting Arynn. She's amazing, and completely unexpected. I spent years of my life trying like hell to get girls into me because all I really wanted to be was just a normal, fairly boring, boyfriend and it just never happened. But now I get to act the part. It was her birthday yesterday and I bought her flowers and jewelry. And I fucking loved giving her that stuff. Yeah, its a cliche, but I like cliches. They make me feel good. Like there is order to life. And I like buying girls presents. One time I picked a random date on a calender and marked it as "buy someone flowers day." I didn't end up buying anyone flowers that day because I didn't have anyone to give them to. I guess I was hoping I would have someone to give flowers too by then. It didn't work out. But now I have someone to buy flowers for and it feels good. And I don't care if that seems stupid, I like it.

Chewy is not a night owl. She likes to sleep next to me but if I move around at night she'll go lie on her bed and glare at me, probably annoyed that I'm not going to bed myself. Then she'll get up and plop herself down next to me again and go back to sleep when I sit back down. Oh, the hard life of a puppy.

I've always had this idea for a apocalyptic movie set in the Nevada desert with a massive ground battle in it at some point that is just a bunch of random cars all armored up and full of guns. They'd line up like in old battles, the two armies standing on the open ground facing each other, then it would just be chaos as all those cars got into it. And since it would be a mostly illiterate society with only a vague notion of history, they would find some AC/DC cassettes and believe them to be ancient battle songs, so they'd be blasting the hell out of them from every available speaker. It would be fucking epic. Also, at some point some commandos would parachute in and land in the middle of the battle and just fuck some shit up. I swear, if I ever have an extra 100 grand or so lying around I'm totally going to try to shoot that scene. It wouldn't have great special effects, but all you really need is some people with cars you can paint and a lot of gasoline you could light on fire to make it look like everything was exploding. Hell, I could probably do it for a hell of a lot cheaper, I'd just need a handful of people who knew how to set up some tricky shots that make it look like there is a lot more going on than there really is.

I need to write a script for that movie. I think I could pull it off on the cheap if I'm clever. And I like to believe I'm clever. I'm not, but I like to believe I am.

I still need some more time to get back to my normal wacky self. With grandious plans of making a movie that is ridiculous and awesome, or possibly just ridiculously awesome. But I'm coming back. I think I'm going to be alright. One of the last things that my mom said to me was that she was just sad that she was going to make me sad. I loved her, and I miss her, but she wanted me to have a good life and to enjoy everyday and that is what I plan to do.

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.