Ordinarily Uninteresting

Fin

2010-05-24T15:43:00.001-05:00

This is my final post. I am a little anxious that I will miss my heart, but I will gladly take a moment of discomfort over a lifetime of misery.

There will be no more at a later time. I hope that I am worth more dead than alive.

I'm man, you're man, all man just man, man.

2010-05-20T14:56:00.002-05:00

Living in South Dakota, I've never had the chance to hire a prostitute or escort, never paid for sexual services rendered or even a hand to hold. In fact, I don't think I've ever met a working girl.

But that won't stop me from giving my opinion and speculating on what, exactly, a situation like that can bring about in a man.

Because here's the deal: sex isn't just sex. You can whinge and gnash all you want, but there is now way to separate sex from emotion, or at least perceived emotion, or (at the very least) some sort of attachment. I mean, if you've gone ahead and made a conscious decision to engage in intercourse with another person, then you have at least a tenuous bond with that person.

Here's the thing: our sexual preferences and activities are closely guarded, and to tell another person what one or all of those preferences or activities are takes a certain amount of trust, and that trust, no matter how insignificant the amount, is perhaps the deepest sort of trust we as individuals can bestow.

I'm saying that we as a(n American) society are sexually repressed and maybe even confused, and when we allow another person into that precious little bubble, whether we've paid, were paid for the service, or have a happy and healthy relationship with a significant other, that modicum of trust and the fact that your bubble has been penetrated (pun intended) means that the both of you have been connected, have been brought together, and no amount of denial or rationalization can deny you your emotion or connection.

And that will spawn jealousy. That tiniest of connections, that smallest amount of trust, is enough to ignite in a man the most fierce of protection. What a man's is is his own, no matter how petty. Even if that is a girl paid to work for him at a moderate price for sexual services rendered, that connection is enough to grow a gnarled green spike when it is perceived to be desecrated or infringed upon.

We are all helpless in the face of personal destruction. We fall as lambs before wolves as personal security, integrity, honor or pride eat us alive, rotting us to the very core. The world in not naive and humans are not invincible. As the world burns around us, we spare no time for the living, and none for ourselves.

More another time.

new model

2010-05-17T15:38:00.004-05:00

RE: That commercial you wanted about the new product.

Voice over a scene of hands washing themselves in a porcelain sink w/ hands frothing white soap and a clear picture of Dial soap:

Voice: We're not saying that some soaps you use leave hard-to-clean residue after you've washed your hands.

Move to a scene with hands palms upward over the same porcelain sink w/ spots of soap sticking in sink beneath hands while a bottle of Dial soap is precariously placed in the upper left-hand corner of the scene.

Voice: But we are saying that our New-and-Improved Non-Grease Anti-bacterial and -microbial Hypoallergenic Hand-and-Face Wash (Safe for Children!) has never been accused of doing so!

(Bolded text indicates Closed Captions for the Hearing Impaired.) Show hands over same sink after washing w/ thumbs up and spotless porcelain sink and very clearly a bottle of the new Product in the upper-right side of the scene.

Voice: Not only will our New-and-Improved Non-Grease Anti-bacterial and -microbial Hypoallergenic Hand-and-Face Wash (Safe for Pets, too!) take care of your hands and face, but it will save your sink from oily deposits of soap and keep you sink cleaner, longer!

This is voiced over a scene that moves from a boy washing his dog w/ the Product in the yard while the boy uses a hose to rinse a shaggy and frothy Golden Retriever, the a pair of man's hands caked w/ mud and dirt or greened with grass using a bottle of the Product in the left corner of the scene w/ a switch to those same hands over the same sink (this sink a metal sink w/ crank handles for hot and cold) clean and seemingly smooth rubbing themselves while dry to show hands that are tough but well-taken care of. Finally move scene to a kitchen scene over a sink with two basins (both stainless steel and one large over-hanging faucet over the right basin and a bottle of the Product on the left side) while a pair of hands and arms (up to elbows) use a gesture to display a spotless stainless steel two-basin kitchen sink.

Voice: Whether you just need a rinse, or you've really done some work, new Non-Grease Anti-bacterial and -microbial Hypoallergenic Hand-and-Face Wash (Not tested on animals!) will keep your hands feeling fresh, clean, and smooth while saving you the hassle of washing out your basin or sink after using our soap.

Final scene has man w/ safety goggle in red shirt and blue jeans using a weed eater near a tree and white picket fence then segues to a woman taking clean dished from a dishwasher on a tile floor and finally over the same porcelain sink as in the first scene, this time a woman's hands with no ring rinsing hands with no froth and a bottle of the Product on the upper-left section of the scene. Finally place picture of Product on a pedestal with yellow sunburst behind it and a blue background with the writing on Product very clear and the Logo and Product Name On the bottom of the Screen holding for three seconds. End scene.

Running time is approx. 60 seconds from start to finish.

Hope this is what you were looking for.

Just a few days late

2010-05-12T01:46:00.002-05:00

As you may or may not know, my birthday just passed--the ninth of May, actually--making my twenty-five years old. Right now I am sitting in my parents' basement drinking the fourth of six one-pint (sixteen ounces) of Natural Ice I bought tonight in order to become intoxicated. I am also listening to The Hound of the Baskervilles on tape; I absolutely love being told a good story, and the next best thing to reading those stories is being read those stories. Brilliant. I love them, and since I lose the ability to read shortly after beginning to drink, this is probably the best solution ever.

On the other hand, I have just turned twenty-five years old, and no matter what system of measurement you subscribe to, that is a long fucking time to be around without accomplishing not a fucking thing.

And on the third hand, I'm getting some rest.

More another time.

bit of everything, really

2010-05-04T22:40:00.003-05:00

Okay, so here I am on my iBook once again, trying to type away on this flat, small keyboard while also keeping in mind that the Shift key on my right hand side doesn't return to its original position after I push it--very disconcerting.

Let's do some tech talk right now. I had a different topic in mind but after I wrote that little introduction I forgot entirely what it was I was going to say. On the other hand, I could always use a better short term memory.

Today I continued working on the first PC I've gotten in two weeks. Yesterday I received the compy at around 1730h and began work promptly; I have been very excited to get more business, as I love doing my job. She told me that her computer was getting slow, and that she couldn't install some programs from disk, and also that her computer would stop responding after some time. So I told her I would take a look and make it all better.

So I started with a virus scan, as always. Nothing, nada, zip. Good news! Then I started digging around, rooting out superfluous programs and features, editing the startup programs and so on and so forth. Then I did the disk cleanup thing, and the defragment thing (why I still do, I can only imagine). Then last night at around 2300h I began to install the program she was having difficulty with. It took a while to install, but I got the damn thing to do it. But the program wouldn't start.

I did a little research on the program and found that it was created by a farmer and programmer in Minot, North Dakota, and that the tech support was actually the creator of the program, and he had his own 800 number to call for support. I gave it a call but, of course, there was no answer. I glued my glasses back together after some days of tolerating a partially broken frame and resolved to get some sleep. I didn't actually fall asleep until 0300h, and anyone who has stayed in bed for hours on end without prevail will know that the next day will always start late.

And it did. My first alarm went off at 0900h,the second at 0914h, the third at 0923h, and each alarm had a five-minute snooze recurring alarm that I took advantage of. And I hit each alarm until 1100h this morning before finally dragging my fat, tired, lazy (and ugly) ass out of bed and making some bad coffee. I ran out of Starbucks coffee, so I'm stuck with Java City junk. I go back to my 'shop' and sit behind my computer (also the compy which I'm working on; you've got to see this setup) and decide to uninstall the program yet again and reinstall after reboot. No dice.

So I finally call the guy up at like 1130h and tell him what is going on. He tells me that there are some extra folders installed by the program to prevent data loss in the event of an accidental uninstall, and so I ask where that is, and he tells me, so I delete the folder after uninstalling for probably the seventh or eighth time. And then I reinstall, and lo and behold! the first error message has been erased. But there are two more to deal with.

And while I was at it, I wanted to know why the computer was so god-awful slow. And also why the DVD drive seemed to be making noises, and why the computer froze when I placed different DVDs into the drive. Of course, she had a faulty DVD read/write drive. Well, that should be easy to fix, seeing as how I bought two defunct computers just last week with DVD drives!

So I switch that motherfucker out and put the new drive in and hook it up and so forth, and there you go: the DVD reads perfectly and begins installing like a real champ. But I am still getting two error messages. I've also had to run some errands for my mother, including but not limited to: getting the mail, going to the back, go back to the post office, pick up a prescription, &c. So by now it's like 1330h and I'm beginning to run out of patience. After all, I installed the program onto my personal computer without error or hiccup. So I call the guy again, and tell him that I'm having a different error this time, and he directs me to a site from which I can download the program directly to disk and install from there. We chit chat a bit and he says I should send him an e-mail with my business name and so forth because he may be interested in selling his product through me, since he is trying to get a bigger audience and I'm stuck at the crossroads of corn field and cow-shit central.

And anyway, that takes care of the second problem. So I'm only left with a single error message, but I figure that will sort itself out once a database is created for their farm business. I don't figure incorrectly often. What I'm trying to say while retaining modesty is that I fixed the problem without fully understanding what the problem is, and that I will be proven correct at a time in the future. It happens all the time, so don't be discouraged.

Anyway, then I begin to install the other program, and I am getting the same sorts of issues: the drive is a bit slow (not as bad as it was), the program hangs during installation, and the machine is so fucking slow--and it shouldn't be! And during this time I've already talked to the owner of the PC twice telling her what the issues are, what I can do to fix them, and how much it will cost her for me to fix it properly, and yet the program installed. And then I talked to Sabby, and ate dinner and had a drink with my family, and still the program installed. Then I sat in front of my father's fourty-seven inch high-definition television and turned my PlayStation 3 on and played the God of War games--and still, the program installed.

What I noticed all the while was that Norton 360, the owner's virus protection, was running, and was continually putting up status messages, reminders, and all sorts of annoying bullshit, and that each time something popped up in the corner of her screen, the install process would hang or simply stop. I thought to myself, "Self, what are the odds that this program, this king shit of all shits, that this motherfucking piece of worthless software is what is hanging her system, preventing installation of files, and generally causing this fine (damn fine!) piece of hardware to act like a piece of Dell hardware?"

So I booted into Safe Mode. The program I had been installing for the last six hours finished installation--including removal of previous files--in fewer than twenty minutes. I shit you not.

So now I have to tell her that not only was her DVD drive shot to shit, but also her two-year antivirus subscription (with about 15 months remaining) is completely worthless. I know sixty bucks isn't much to spend on a PC, esp. when it is as important as virus and malware protection, but in South Dakota, especially in the rural areas as where I live, sixty dollars is a big god damn motherfucking deal. It is almost unheard of to spend sixty dollars on a computer. Or a telephone. Or a television. Or the various services that are run through those appliances.

I mean seriously, in all seriousness now, the people I deal with each day are the ones who run computers for five, ten, even fifteen (I wish I was joking) years without any tech support, without virus protection, ,without updating, without so much as thinking about how and why that computer works.

I have some real horror stories when it comes to computers. For instance: you've all seen those people who put their computer in a corner, or under a desk, or those who pile paper and objects high upon their towers. But in this area, most of them have their towers in tight spaces inside of desks with closes doors. That is the norm around here: buy a desk with a cupboard, and run all of your wires through either a hole in the top of the desk or a hole out the back, and seal your desk up nice and tight around that pesky computer tower, so that people don't have to look in on your computer room and see how messy and disorganized you are. It is fucking frightening, I tell you.

And worse than that is the sheer stupidity surrounding technology. The other day I had to go to a man's house in order to see why he was having difficulty sending e-mails to his friends and family. I asked him what e-mail he used. He didn't know. I asked him his ISP. He didn't know. I asked him how he connects to the Internet, and he said to me, "You know, I used to be a biology teacher here--I taught your mom and dad, actually, but I'm not used to keeping up with all the jargon and computer stuff. Can you tell me: what is the Internet?" I told him it was a series of computers connected with one another that share data over a network. He looked confused. Then I told him that the Internet was what allowed him to send e-mails. He smiled and nodded and said he got it.

How about this: I went to a client's home and told her that she probably needed a new computer. It was a little old and wasn't functioning correctly, and since it would cost more to fix the damn thing than replace it, I gave her the options and prices, and she asked what could she keep and what she could throw away. I told her she should keep the LCD monitor and speakers, as well as the mouse and keyboard, since that was expensive (as I said, sixty dollars is unheard of around here), and she asked what information I could save and if she would lose anything, and I said it would all be fine. I reiterated that she needed to keep her keyboard, mouse, speakers, and LCD screen, and that all she needed to replace was the tower. She looked, then pointed at the LCD screen: "You mean this I need to keep? Isn't this what runs everything?"

So there you have it. That is what I deal with when I work with my clients. I do not I would not be the proud owner of a tech business if I didn't have them. Also, I find it a really fun challenge to explain to them what they want to know in terms they can understand. In fact, that is one of my biggest selling points: I don't give them jargon or excuses, I take time out of my day to meet them personally and explain what it is they want to know, and I stay with them and guide them until they understand what it is they wanted.

Because I'm that kind of guy. Sure, I could go around and fix problems by treating symptoms, but I can't do that when I know that there is an underlying issue, and I can't do that when I know it will happen again. And most of all, I do not simply solve problems for people: I give them the power to solves issues for themselves. It will hurt my business for them to have that knowledge, that is true, but I cannot give up my belief in the basic goodness of the human being.

And that's all I've got for tonight. More another time.

in which jesus fucks the shit-eating prophet muhammed

2010-05-03T22:09:00.003-05:00

A country in which a man can't live by the work of his own hands because there are none willing to pay for those hands to work is not a country in which I would like to live.

This is precisely my predicament. There are certain things which I would like to posses, those things only available through currency, that currency only available through work or theft. Since I'm not a thief (I've no intent to land in jail again) that means I must offer my work to another who will exchange currency for service. Only, in America, these days employers aren't keen on spending money--on anything. That includes buying new inventory, research and development, and employees, either full time or part time. And so I, an honest working American, who wants nothing more than to put currency in my pocket in exchange for my services, am unable to eek out a living, because in America, life is money, and money is life. He who controls the money controls the universe.

Money is the source of all problems. This is taught to all Americans across all walks of life. One cannot be happy, successful, popular, intelligent, or good-looking without money. It flows in everything, and nothing flows without it.

So here's the story: I am living out of my parents' basement in small town SD, trying to operate my own business after spending a month in jail, dropping out of school, spending a summer as an alcoholic, and finally a failed suicide attempt coupled with a broken jaw and two weeks spent in a behavioral health center. I wrecked my car while sleep driving a couple months ago, meaning I have no mode of transportation that I don't have to borrow, no money that isn't spent, no business coming through to me, and no job--more importantly, no opportunity for a job.

Which basically boils down to the fact that I have no currency. I can't buy a car without it, I can't rent a house or apartment without it, and I can't operate my business effectively without capital. I am stuck between a hard place, a rock, an immovable object, and an unstoppable force. For all intents and purposes, I am stuck, buried, effed in the a.

I'm on Zoloft. I'm also on Welbutrin. I'm not sure how to spell them, but what they spell for me is depression. I've had it, have it, will probably continue to have it, and must needs stay medicated to avoid the consequences. Sure, I'm seeing a therapist about every two weeks and am taking my meds regularly, but I am fucking miserable. Absolutely unhappy. I am thinking back and wishing that my attempt had been successful. I encumber everyone I know, everyone in my life, and that hurts me. I can't repay the debts that I've racked up, either to my parents or to medical staff. Breaking your jaw is expensive work, as it cracks teeth and requires extensive work as well as some serious surgery.

This is all too much stress for me. I can't sleep, I can't concentrate, I don't know how to keep on living in this situation without becoming drastic. I feel like a vagrant, a vagabond, a mooch, and a leech. I dislike who I am and what I've become.

And all this, all of this, can be solved with currency. That's the true American Spirit, the real American Dream. Forget white fences, a happy family; throw away owning a home and getting a pet; disregard a productive career and hobbies to pursue in leisure: it all comes down to money. Everything requires currency, and it is my inability, no, the refutation of my services, that binds me to this existence.

Maybe I am a little picky when it comes to employment, but I believe my ideals are not out of line: I want to help customers, not solicit them. I want to be honest, no sell my soul. I want to be productive, not bureaucratic. I want to be the best person I can be and simply make money. But that isn't possible in today's America.

More at another time. I can't focus anymore tonight.

prestissimo

2010-04-17T18:19:00.002-05:00

Well not exactly so much as to what is normal or whatever as to what can or is considered to be found within reasonable bounds of societal acceptance. So not really meaning this or that per se but just sort of in the vicinity of, you see, and then that makes it all fine.

Because we all see ourselves the way we want to be seen, or the way that we want to see us. And but so the thing is that we each think ourselves different or rare or even unique when the actual thing about it is that we are not, in fact, any of those things--that you or I are in fact just another face or piece of the puzzle in the crowd or what have you, that even though you and I are right here, that we may not look or act alike, but you can bet that out of the over seven billion people on the planet that there has to be at least one other person out there who represents you or I in exactly the same way we present ourselves here and now. Or even if you look back through time then there is almost an infinite number of people from which we can choose to match ourselves up with.

It's not discouraging, I'm not discouraged by the idea but I just think that we need to come to terms as it is with exactly who and what we are as humans, that even though we're all told that we're special or above average or we're cards or characters or jokers or what have you that the reality of it is that we are just one of the many people who are taught exactly those same things around the world and that even within our own country or state or county we are simply another person probably no different than the guy down the street. What I'm saying is that sure, a few of the people who grow up thinking they are special will actually be special and unique or rare, but the large number of those people will be just regular Janes and Johns.

I think there is a time in every person's life when he or she sits down and examines his or her life and looks on the achievements he or she accomplished and asks his or her self a very serious question, that being: Am I a genius? And it's a completely rational question, is what I'm saying, because we're conditioned to be thinking that what we as individuals have accomplished is somehow or some way not as easily or even at all accomplished by other humans on the planet, which is a small was of looking at the place but that's how we're raised and what we are taught to believe, and not exactly taught like as in taught in school but just the general zeitgeist around the whole attitudes we have of ourselves because that's the way our peers and parents have shown us to behave.

And so here we are, sitting in front of the mirror just looking into the beautiful eyes we have staring back at us looking into ourselves and we have to ask if we are true geniuses or not. And then the question is probably never answered, but not because we don't want to maybe, but more like fear of the actual answer, like the agony not of defeat but of just being a normal, everyday Joe Schmoe who hasn't done anything that some other jerk down the way can't do. That our accomplishments are meaningless, basically. And what's more is how many geniuses do you actually know, and how would you know a genius if you met one, and how could you tell that of yourself? Is it akin to being crazy, like only the crazy people believe they aren't actually crazy, and so what, asking yourself if you are genius just proves that you aren't genius because you had to ask in the first place? And where does that leave us, I mean, not you are me per se, but us as in like a society or culture or even a species, that we are all to afraid to answer our own questions because the answers to them are already answered by asking the questions.

Okay? And but here's the thing, is that how many of us sit down and then ask in the same serious manner or tone or attitude and then seriously ask ourselves if we are fools or idiots? And if we do do the same rules apply as to that of the genius or crazy question, like if we ask do we have to ask or is just asking itself a sort of answer? I mean, if you are an idiot would you know it, or would you really have to ask, since you're a complete fool? I mean if we sit down as individuals and ask if we are as individuals genius, then we should also ask in the same manner or tone if we are fools, but the reality of it is that we are just as individuals somewhere in the middle.

And don't take this as like a nod to eugenics or fascism or like the Nazis or whatever but shouldn't we also have to ask whether or not we as individuals should even be breeding, I mean like, do we have what it takes to get in and through the gene pool or do we have the kind of genetic garbage that should be avoided when it comes to our race, you know? Because there are a lot of people I know and individuals I've seen that I see and I think that you know, maybe the world would be better off, our race would be in better shape, you know, if maybe those particular people would maybe use some protection--and not for just them but, you know, for us as well--or maybe at some time maybe they should have the vas deferens cut or the tubes tied of whatever, you know, for like the betterment of all of humanity. Like I knew this guy who is a cousin of one of my friends, but the guy lives like out in Florida of whatever, right, and he's like, the worst thing I can imagine. Like, smokes lots of cigarettes--not so bad in itself--and lots of drugs, right, and just sort of can't keep his life in order, and can't keep a job, and then he goes out and gets this girl, right, this chick whose already had three kids with different guys, and so but then he gets together with her and then the two go ahead and have yet another kid and so now they're together and will probably have you know like another kid, but like how did it get like that, I mean, wouldn't you just use a condom or something after the first couple of accidents. Because I mean like I don't think either of them were really planning on kids, you know, like they wouldn't really have the means or ways to raise or efficiently care for their children, like one kid, let alone you know four of them.

So but like wouldn't you if you were one of those two just sit down one day after asking yourself if you're a genius or not also sit down one of those days and ask if you are a fool or moron or simply unfit to reproduce, like would the world really be in a better place if there was another one of you running around out there, doing the same things you did in your youth, living the same general life, or whatever? Or even if you have like an obligation to the rest of the planet and the race to maybe you know butt out this time or take one for the team, you know? Or even not even like beyond that would be the question like, if you would even have the ability to raise another human being in this world on this earth or anywhere else, like if you have the individual responsibility or ability to actually bring a child up in a healthy and responsible way to grown into an adult and you know like contribute to the rest of humanity. I mean wouldn't that be one of the questions you'd ask yourself if you were in a position that would be like close to conception for either your end or mine? I mean it can get you know pretty exciting or whatever but I mean when you look in the long run maybe taking five or ten minutes just to get some fucking silicone or whatever that maybe that would be a better idea than ricking having this kid that not only can you not bring into this world in a responsible and caring sort of way but that wouldn't even be able to atone for the sins against humanity that you've committed in your life like up to this point?

Well whatever I'm sure it will all get sorted out like one way or the other like maybe over time or whatever.

More at another point in time.

big things

2010-04-15T16:53:00.003-05:00

I wanted very much to update the last couple of days, but owing to some unfortunate circumstances, I was unable to do so. Esp. yesterday, since I had a fierce case of the flu--and not the namby-pamby "Oh, I ache and am tired and bed-ridden" flu, but more along the line of "I didn't know I had that much fluid in my body" type of flu. It wasn't pretty.

I had considered trying to update last night, at about maybe 0130h, but I figured it was more important to rest and get well than fuck around on my iBook for a little while. Plus I can't watch netflix on my iBook since I'm not running an up-to-date OS on the damn thing. That reminds me: I need to see if I can run netflix instant streaming on Linux.

The self is the center of the universe. Always and forever. So when considering how big and important everything within the known universe is, the self should be the biggest thing there is. I mean, when taken in perspective. But what happens when teh view of that self is destroyed or left to dilapidation?

I must have been over it a thousand times. Why and why not, or perhaps how and when, perhaps there's a history, or maybe something new, or maybe there isn't an explanation, but that would seem the least probable. Taking the razer to it.

A thousand times doesn't seem like much. What I've come up with are a few possible avenues. I was going to number them but now I'm feeling like I don't want to.

I'm not an attractive man. At six four and two hundred fifty pounds, I am neither short nor slim, and rather stick out in a crowd--or more like all crowds. Unless I was in a crowd that was composed of tall and heavy men. I am also not a pretty person, either, having this complexion full of freckles, and since I avoid the sun as often as possible, I am never very tan. And I've got these beady eyes that, although hazel in appearance, I would caution anyone to get close enough to see within them. Simply an uncomfortable appearance.

I have a poor disposition. On the whole, I dislike humans. I like even less idle chatter, meaningless talk, and inane gossip. I prefer to speak when necessary or in order to exchange information which is of interest to either me or my party. I am quite a selfing human, which probably accounts for most of the reasons I perceive myself as what is traditionally called a loser.

Labels are trite and never really cover the way we perceive either ourselves or each other. But I'm going to continue. I have a wide range of interests, none of which are shared with the general public, and my sense of humor is dark and deadpan; I find humor in ironic situations and laugh often but usually inappropriately. I also make obscure references, meaning that communication with me is close to moot unless you've come with a specific goal. I am arrogant--or I was, maybe not so much now as I have been--and unforgiving, as well as intolerant and abrupt.

I didn't finish college, and that doesn't help my position--that of being an outcast. My self awareness is neither appealing nor attractive, and even though I have begun my own business, I have since learned that that is exactly what college dropouts who've no ambition or direction in life go on to do. I am highly unimpressed by myself, and expect nothing more from other humans. Also, I posses little empathy, which if you haven't run into someone who has little enough, you would know.

And that's about all I have for now. I would probably keep on going but I think this is all I can do when I am trying to watch this movie in French. It's pretty good, but I keep missing the subtitles as I type here.

More another time.

and the dead shall walk the earth

2010-04-04T20:56:00.002-05:00

Well, it's Zombie Day once again, and we gather to increase our chances of survival as usual just in case the dead rise as the legend of Jesus indicates they may. I, for one, will not be unprepared.

And in spirit of the holiday, I took out my mosin nagant today in order to sight that mother fucker in, and I have to say, that's deadly. Before I was shooting probably six or seven inches to the right at a hundred meters, and probably a foot right at three hundred fifty meters (the reason I use inches for up close and meters for distance is because the iron sights on my mosin are made for meters, but I am a better judge with American standards with small measurements).

Iron sights are sights that are built into the gun itself, so there is a small pin sticking up at the front of the barrel and a V shape left at the back of the barrel to put that pin in. You level them off to look sort of like a w and shoot with the middle pin on your target.

In order to adjust iron sights, you have to move either the back or front sight, depending on what your gun allows. If you move the front sight, you move in the direction you are shooting off--I was shooting right, so I would move it right. If you have to move the back sight, you move it in the opposite direction.

And in order to move the front sight on my gun, I had to use a flat-tipped screwdriver and a hammer and tap the butt of the screwdriver until I moved the sights only a couple millimeters--that's all it takes. First I moved it too far, then I moved it back, then moved it back nearer the original position, but then moved it slightly back and voila--I now shoot two-inch groups of five at a hundred and fifty meters. That's outstanding, considering most people would shoot that only with a scope. Scopes are for chumps!

In fact, my gun is deadly accurate now, shooting within less then five centimeters of the target center. It's brilliant. I probably shot out forty-five rounds today, but it only took fifteen to get it sighted in properly. And now that it is sighted in, I won't have to adjust it any further, even if it took a drop or fall in the field. That's the beauty of iron sights, as opposed to a scope--the damn things are always going off one direction or the other, and it's hard to anticipate. This way if you miss the target, you can take full responsibility and know that you are simply a bad marksman.

Even better is the news that I will be turkey hunting this year, and that I will be taking my mosin out to shoot one of the giant birds. They are seriously big fucking birds. And since my gun is so accurate and the iron sights are dead on, I could probably take a bird with confidence at three hundred or even five hundred meters. That's a long shot; I would even chance it with a scope on my other rifles, but this gun, my gun, is different. I simply love this firearm, the first that I bought and paid for by myself for my own reasons. And the fact that the thing is seventy-two years old this year is even better; I know plenty of guys who have brand new rifles that aren't half as accurate--or deadly. I've got a big caliber. It's a 7.62 x 54r, which if you know anything about ammunition, is bigger than a .308 Winchester--the round used by snipers the world over, often considered overkill for game like deer and more suitable for elk or moose or even bear. And I'm going to use it to take a tom turkey. Awesome!

Also, since I've got the gun all sighted in now, I'll be able to take it out with my good friend Sabastain and do some just-for-fun shooting. You know, plinking cans and picking off small items of no import at medium and long range. Today I used empty air cans and cardboard, and later old tractor oil filters. Lots of fun to be had there, I can tell you, esp. since you know when you hit the damn things because they jump in the air and make a loud ping sound as your round passes through unhampered.

Anyway, that's all I've got for this year's Zombie Day. Remember: keep your gun sighted in, your leathers close at hand, and the gas tank full as we approach the impending Day of the Dead. Because if I see a dead man rising from the ground, I'll be the first to shoot him in the head, and double tap for safety.

More at another time.

april will make fools of us all

2010-04-02T11:59:00.002-05:00

And how.

Now, back to yesterday.

It turns out that my theory of why the computer I was working on was not able to connect to the Internet--that is, I assumed correctly that someone accidentally or otherwise linked Windows Family Filter to their own Windows Live ID so that only when that person was signed in could the 'net be accessed. So I went into Safe Mode, disabled the application from startup, then booted into regular mode and uninstalled the damned application. If the family has a problem with keeping their kids off porn sites, then I'll introduce something a little more user-friendly.

The reason I was a little irked after my phone call was basically because I exhausted my material for the post I was making, and thus lost the stream I wanted to continue with. Also, I was rolling the ideas about what I could possibly do to counteract that Internet filter, so when I got off the phone, my mind was ready to solve the problem--so I didn't have much choice. I have to do what I am ready to do.

And this brings me to why I wish my brain worked more like a computer. There is something I don't like, I can delete it. Format the drive when it isn't working properly. Reinstall the OS if it seems buggy. Defrag to find information faster. Keep notes in a word processor. Get a fucking spell checker. These things would be much more useful than what I've got right now. It's like I have a multi-core processor and I'm always running it at full speed trying to execute multiple programs. And that means that when something is finally done, when I've finished letting my brain do whatever it needs to do, then I must go with that particular process or risk losing the final product. I've already forgotten where exactly I wanted to take this particular diatribe.

As for finding an appropriate blog description, I have to say that it is a tricky thing, indeed. It has to be a balance between actual description and gripping enough to pull in a reader at a glance. I think that using 'struggling' at the beginning of my own is--well, I'm ambivalent. But I really do feel that this whole thing has been an exercise in finding an identity. Which is because America doesn't have proper role models.

And since I've come back from where I started--in my mind, that is--I'll have to wrap this up. It's only 1200h but I've been up for far too long driving a car around the state. And if you knew how boring the landscape was, you would be dead tired, as well.

I'll get back to you at another time.

brain garbage

2010-04-01T18:59:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I feel like my brain is full, and not full with, like, funny jokes or philosophical arguments or classy shit, but just junk and thought processes half thought through and plans made but never begun and basically all that stuff we usually assign to losers like myself. You know, the people who never succeed in life. Apparently I am one of those people.

Usually I sit down and I've got a pretty clear idea of what I'm going to write and where I'll be going to take it and maybe (if I'm lucky) how I'll end up. Then I begin writing and begin how I wanted and veer off in a completely different direction. It's not perfect, but it's how I work. It gets the job done, I feel pretty good about it sometimes (until I read over my own work) and then go on with my life. But today, not today. I have about a million things I wanted to write about when I sat down at approx. 1900h. I can tell you that the first thing wasn't how about how excited I was to unplug my keyboard because my L key wasn't working.

So, a couple of the topics I was rolling around my head were:

1. Role models in America
2. I wish my brain worked like a computer
3. Brainstorming about blog descriptions
4. What you should avoid on web pages to assure quality
5. some other useless points of personal interest.

And now I'm getting distracted as I fix this computer next to me. I have this train of thought going on w/r/t what the hell is going wrong. Unfortunately for me, it wasn't the 1000+ (that's one thousand plus) viruses I've already rooted out. A new personal record! Actually, what I think happened was one person--be it father (I doubt it, actually), son, or daughter, accidentally installed Windows Live Family Filter and then, through some chance of misfortune, turned it on, and linked it to one of their Windows Live accounts. So far, it looks as if the daughter is to blame, since her account has an auto-sign-in and I can only access the Internet when she is signed in on that computer. And this feature goes for all accounts on the computer, so it looks as if she probably did the whole thing to secure her personal browsing on her personal account, but the security was implemented for all users across all accounts, because what the father told me was that one day the Internet worked (he could access the 'net through an appropriate browser), and the next day it didn't.

Very suspicious behavior. I expected a virus or some sort of malware or even rogue software to be at the heart of the problem, but since almost every case is unique, I was wrong. Or, it appears that I'm wrong.

See? This wasn't even on my

Damnit, I got a call and now need to get back to work so I can get up at 0500h tomorrow. More later on.

new blog post for 2010!

2010-03-30T18:54:00.002-05:00

I'm typing off my Mac once again, so there are bound to be mistakes all over the place--but I'll do my best to correct them.

Anyway, I figured it's about damn time I got back here and did a little writing of my own, since I've been basically lost for a couple weeks in a haze of work, play, and more work and play. My friend Sabastain moved back a couple weeks ago from across the state, so I had to spend some time with him immediately. I'm not really clear on what he's doing back here or for what reason, but I figure he's got some good ones. I guess I missed the details while excited at the prospect.

How has work been, well let's see: I set a new personal record for viruses found on a machine--eight hundred and thirty-seven (837)! And then, a couple days later, shattered that record with nine hundred and seventy (970). I couldn't believe it. Most of this happened because of the Security 2009 rogue spyware, which if you haven't heard or found out about it, you should go ahead and do so now. Basically what happened to both of these clients was that they got this virus through whatever means--one was through Outlook Express, my arch nemesis--and when the virus kicks in, its first priority it to make all antivirus software ignore this new virus. Then it tells you that your system is infected with X number of viruses, keyloggers, what-have-you, and asks if you want to remove them. So of course, my clients clicked 'Yes,' which basically just lets in all sorts of new and interesting programs, none of which are healthy for your poor PC. I managed to permanently fix one computer, but the other I haven't had as much luck with--it appears that one or more registry entries that run at startup has been corrupted first by the intrusive software, then by the removal thereof, rendering explorer.exe inert at startup. You can still start it by going through Task Manager, but I wouldn't expect my clients to do that just to get to their desktop. However, the computer didn't even work when I began on it, so I think I'm making progress. It's what I do.

What nobody told me when I started this business was how difficult public relations would be. I've worked in PR positions before, but mostly it was sending out letters or telling people who they can complain to or just dealing with people going in and out of a business. But now I've got a new sort of interaction going on: I have to delicately handle telling people they are dumb. One client in particular comes to mind: she has an age-old Gateway laptop and told me it wouldn't work. It didn't ever boot to the desktop, but remained in the 'loading' phase. I asked her what she uses for e-mail and what documents she wanted saved since I was going to reinstall Windows. And she told me she wanted her pictures and some documents, so I went ahead and saved them to a flash drive before I formatted the drive.

But now she can't find her e-mail, because before, 'It said e-mail on the screen and I clicked it and that was [her] e-mail.' That leads me to believe that she didn't use Santel, as she mentioned--though she does have a Santel address--but instead used Microsoft Outlook, the most evil creation ever to curse the computer industry. Because now she doesn't have her contact list, she doesn't know how to log into an e-mail provider's site, she can't browse through her e-mails, and all of these other problems, which would seem trivial if she tried to understand what I'm telling her. But instead of resolving these issues over the phone, I have to go over to her place and open the computer and say, 'Yup, this is gone,' or, 'well, just push that button.' And the whole time, I have to be the bad guy who fucked everything up and is now being condescending even though I'm trying my best to use simple enough language to clearly explain just what the problem is. Unfortunately, I do not posses those critical skills in great abundance. Normally my explanations are geared towards those who have an inkling of understanding about the realm of computers, but this is a new beast.

I've also come across a number of problems w/r/t ISPs. Notably, Santel Communications, the bane of tech workers everywhere. I often ask, 'what kind of Internet do you have,' usually trying to get at if it is cable, or DSL, or dial-up, but usually the only answer I get is, 'we have the fast one that doesn't use telephone lines.' So then I am prepared for cable service--a jack in your house connected by ethernet to a modem which then goes out to either your computer or a router. Instead what I get is a phone line connected to a converter connected to a television box connected to a router connected to a computer. If I'm lucky. Most of the time the router goes off wirelessly to a receiver in the computer, and normally it's a USB receiver. Now, if it was a cable connection, easy as pie: unhook modem or router, reset modem or router, reconnect. Problem solved. But with this monstrosity, I have to go piece by piece, and most of the time I can't do shit about it. They say they don't have to dial out, but just why are they connected through a phone line? And then there is the TV box, which I'm not sure how that works, so I can't really reset it or turn it off or even bypass it, and then I get to the router, which most of the time isn't getting a signal from said TV box and so isn't broadcasting wireless Internet in the first place. I'm pretty lucky if that's the case, because then it's the ISP's burden. But no, it isn't that simple. Then I go on the computer and make sure that one LAN is open but not set to default, and then another separate broadband connection is also open but set to default, and then I have to make sure the damn thing doesn't dial out through a phone line but also you need to use a name and password to start the service. Then I have to make sure that both connexions work at the same time every time, and that they are turned on in a specific order, and that the computer doesn't think that just because it is connected to a LAN and also a broadband Internet that it is not using a wired connection, which then some wireless networks you have to connect to via a program for the USB receiver or some Windows function, it varies.

And so most of the time if I run into the problem, I try to say that it is a problem on the service provider's end of it, but every once in a while I get someone who's already called and verified that the problem is on the client's end. Then things get messy, because I don't like to work while I'm being watched, and I especially don't like carrying conversations while while I wrack my brain for solutions. And even then, most of the time they are asking if I solved it yet or if it works yet or if I found the problem or what exactly causes the problem, most questions to which I have no answers, since I'm trying to figure that out for myself. Fucking broadband.

My greatest solution to these problems with this specific provider has since become universal: get a new provider and get cable Internet. It may be a little more expensive, but the service is more reliable, the connection is faster, there is little to no hassle, and the problem (if ever one arises) stares you in the face so blatantly that even their six-year-old children could solve it. Which means that they spend less money on having someone like me come over and waste my time and their time and then they have to pay me for telling them it's broken and I can't fix it.

So, Santel Communications, if you are out there and reading this, fix your fucking service and stop hawking that shitty broadband of yours. Make things easier for me, for you, and most importantly, for the consumers. Don't tell them it doesn't dial out when it is very clearly connected through a phone line. And for fuck's sake, don't put it all through a TV box, just set up a separate modem--even if they get the phone, cable and Internet package I know you offer--so that when a problem does come up--and they will, if you're on the other side--your people aren't harassed by angry callers, those callers aren't harassed by angry Indians, and I don't have to charge people to tell them I can't do anything. I feel bad for doing that sort of thing, but everyone says I need to get paid for my time, like my time has worth, so I go with it, but I try to be modest at the same time.

Anyway, that's it for right now, but since I've kind of gotten over the new game I purchased--Battlefield Bad Company 2--you can expect more sooner rather than later.

Why it pays to be a pirate

2010-03-17T21:26:00.002-05:00

It is certainly true that being a pirate pays off substantially.

And the reason that is is because the software industry is so focused on catching pirates and protecting their software that they forget that regular consumers are the people who actually matter--the people who give the company money are more important than those that do not, is what I'm saying. And the reason I'm saying this is because I'm tired of being treated like a criminal after paying for software.

You see, I built a new computer for a client of mine last week, and during that build, I had a problem with the original motherboard--it didn't function correctly. So I got a refund and ordered another motherboard--this one was on sale, so I wanted to save some money for the client. What a great guy I am. Meanwhile, however, I was beginning to worry that my client was getting tired of sitting around without a desktop computer. The couple I was building for has a laptop computer, but sharing computers doesn't always work, and they had been waiting for over a week by this time. So I dug out an old motherboard I had laying around--complete with onboard video, some RAM, and a nice dual-core Opteron--and decided to install Windows 7 on that board and offer the ersatz computer to them while I waited for the new part to arrive. I mean, it wouldn't be the powerhouse quad-core 4-RAM machine I have built for them now, but it would run Internet and any type or programs they would need it to, you know, in the meantime.

But they didn't need the computer right away, so I just had it sitting around, making sure everything else works and is steady. Today I received the new motherboard and swapped the old one out, and I booted to Windows 7 with no problem, and it asked me to Active my copy of Windows, since it had detected some hardware changes. I was more than happy to oblige, since it is a valid copy that I paid for, and I have the disk right here in my hands with the unique key code on the package for easy access.

So I entered the number, turned away, and thought that was that. I turned back after ten minutes and saw that I needed to verify again. I thought that maybe it needed to do the same process for the motherboard and then the CPU or whatever, so I squinted again at the minuscule key code typed on the tiny sticker on the package for Windows and typed in the twenty-five unique key code--including numbers and letters--for Windows, and again, turned away as the activation process told me to please be patient while the copy is verified. And when I turned back to see what sort of progress I was making, I saw--now approaching somewhere near my chagrin--that I, again, needed to verify my copy of Windows by entering my twenty-five mixed-number-and-letter unique key code pasted on the package of Windows that came with the disk in order to verify, once again, due to detected hardware changes, that this copy of Windows and this unique key code was, in fact, a legitimate combination, that it was not in any way copied, pasted, stolen, illegal, pirated, or tampered with, and so I again entered that key code in--again squinting at the microscopic letters and numbers printed in block letters on the sticker aforementioned--and pressed enter, and saw again that the verification process was in process, and that I should please wait a moment while it validates my copy of Windows, and so I turned away, very certain that I was rid of this nonsense, and but so I turned back ten minutes later, and found that, again, I was please being please asked to please verify my copy of Windows by typing in the unique twenty-five letter/number combination printed on the sticker which was shipped with my unique copy of Windows 7 and connect to the Internet so that Windows could verify that my copy was valid because it seems that Windows has detected a change in hardware and so it would be nice if I would just please click on Activate Now and enter in that code, would I kindly, and just so we're all sure here, and we can both be on our way?

Well, I clicked on the little link at the bottom of the dialog box and saw that the Windows verification server was unable to use my product key because it was not valid at this time. Okay, so I just payed a hundred and fifteen fucking American dollars so that I could be told that I'm a criminal and have stolen a piece of intellectual property and that, sorry, they are going to take my money and refuse to give me service in return? What kind of thievery is this? And furthermore, how is this supposed to deter pirates from stealing copies of Windows--they steal from you, so you steal from the customer? That's it?

And not only that, but my friend has an illegal copy of Windows 7, and he never once had issues trying to update, with drivers, with verification, never had to connect to the Internet to activate, never had to enter a key code, never once was asked to please would he kindly take five minutes to do such and such so that they can be all good and just go their merry ways. What I'm saying that, in this instance, the pirate wins because his product is actually better than the one hundred American dollar product--which is supposed to be identical--is better because it is illegal, because it is pirated, and that mine is worse, and more of a hassle, because it is a legal and valid copy--nothing more! His copy is superior because it is stolen. My copy is inferior because I paid for it. Something about this situation strikes me as odd.

And that's the whole truth of the matter. There is absolutely no reason to be a legitimate paying customer to a business for services rendered when one can have the same product--only better--for no price at all. This does not deter, but encourages, software pirates to continue pirating.

And as long as I'm on this route, let me add some more. Two days ago I bought Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for my computer. I purchased it through Steam using my credit card. But when I was finished downloading and installing the software, I got a message, saying that I can't play the game because I was unable to connect to the EA servers. Well, that isn't my fault. I mean, sure, I was blocking any and all traffic to and from my computer that I didn't personally allow to come and go, but it isn't my fault that I just paid for a legitimate program and that I don't want some snoopy son of a bitch getting onto my computer to make sure--even after I had given my perfectly legitimate credit card number to another company who distributes that software--that I had, in fact, paid for the software which I cannot run because I would like to keep strangers off my computer? Absurd!

And it's even more absurd and ridiculous when considering that I have, in fact, pirated games for computer before, and that I never once had to ask permission to please run my pirated software, never had to check in with mom and dad if it was okay that I wanted to play my new game, never had to stop by city hall to make sure that the committee was fine with the adjustments I was making to my personal property which no one has or will ever see in the light of day. Are you detecting a pattern here?

Anyway, so now I have to erase the data from the hard drive that I installed for this couple, put it back onto a separate hard drive, format the new one, reinstall Windows, all so that the copy of Windows that I purchased can see that it itself has been paid for and that I'm not trying to steal anything.

Because if I wanted something easier, I would steal it. It pays to be a pirate when you play ball like Microsoft and EA--the only people who suffer are legitimate customers, and I am a first-hand witness.

Shooting Blanks

2010-03-11T23:04:00.002-06:00

I don't know about you, but my brain isn't working correctly. I'm just having problems generating ideas, coming up with any kind of . . . thing to discuss.

Last time I mentioned the television series Breaking Bad, created by Vince Gilligan, writer and producer of The X Files. I am now in the midst of episode five of season one (Netflix), and I have to say I am floored by this show. It had an explosive pilot, followed through wonderfully, and continues to evolve as the series moves forward. The whole idea behind the series is evolution, moving from one episode to the next as the characters make decisions and see those decisions come to haunt or help in the future. One thing that really lead me to this series was how Gilligan talked about not caring how long the series lasted; he is on a mission to tell a story and bring this big bird all the way to the nest. I can see how he hangs each episode for the next to increase viewer appeal. bit I can't hold that against him; he is doing the right thing and trying to make some money while he does it. That's what I do. I suppose that's what a lot of decent people do, you know, instead of chasing that American dream we call wealth.

But I can see that this story is a tragic story. The protagonist has a prominent hamartia--one that the writers try to cover by character evolution--but it is there, and that means that it must end in tragedy. I hope that everyone dies at the end, that would really hark back to the Bard and his stuff. Not that everything he wrote was genius, but enough of it was that I think any sort of homage to him can be called classy, classic, or at least good enough.

Now, the main character is played by Bryan Cranston. I initially thought "That guy from Malcolm in the Middle?" but the way Gilligan talked about him on that radio interview, you would think he was a true chameleon, a brilliant actor, a renaissance man of the highest caliber. Gilligan said the man takes his acting very seriously, that you can never see who he is in his roles until after--or until you've seen him long enough to recognize his traits. I will attest to this. He is brilliant. He is truly one of the greatest actors of this generation. This show is his testament, the true culmination of his talent, and should be have a lasting impression on the very medium of television and storytelling. I can't get enough of this man, and I mean that in the most heterosexual way.

I'm going to switch gears, here. I recently built a computer for a client of mine, and it didn't go as planned. Sometimes you win, but this time I lost. The motherboard was dead on arrival--as near as I can tell. I swapped part after part, booted, rebooted, no POST, no video, nothing. Then it started to work. Then it didn't. Then it did, and didn't. Then I decided to refund the mobo and build a system on an old mobo. It works, but now the DVD drive is having some problems. I will not believe--it is unbelievable--that I would get two defective parts in the same shipment. This is why I feel like my brain is shutting down. I should be able to diagnose and fix this problem in a day, no more, and be on with it. But today was the second day I've had all day to work on this damn rig, and I'm still one component from perfection.

Now, I'm not upset, not exactly. I love building computers, and like I've told many of my clients, the more problems, the more content I am to sit down and find and fix them. But this client has been waiting for this PC for about two weeks, and I am unhappy and anxious that he could be unhappy and anxious about it. I don't like being pressured, but that is what is happening. I realize that I need to have a timely service, and that even though this wasn't my fault--I had issues with billing and shipping from my parts company--I still have to take responsibility in front of my customers. I have to look strong and competent, savvy and confident, that not only can I do this job, that I care about this job, and my clientèle, and that I am willing and able to go above and beyond the service provided by other local computer sources.

That is my mission statement, I guess, and my promise to consumers. Unfortunately, I have never been able to take promises or missions lightly, and so now I will push myself to the absolute edge in order to deliver. I only hope that I can make some money while I do so.

More later on.

Happy 100th, Mr. Barber

2010-03-10T00:08:00.002-06:00

Today is the one hundredth birthday of Mr. Samuel Barber, a composer, gentleman, and fine human being.

A long, long time ago I posted his piece Adagio for Strings, possibly the most famous piece he composed. It has been arranged and rearranged for almost every instrument, in every key, for voices, three parts, four parts, symphonies, orchestras, amateurs, so on and so forth. Everyone has heard it, and it's been played for everything from birthdays to funerals. It is, basically, 'The Barber.' You say, 'Hey, you know that Barber piece,' and the answer will be yes, unconditionally.

Samuel Barber is also one of my favorite composers, being just at the cusp of twelve tone rows, amidst other geniuses like Stravinsky and Schoenburg. But he kept his identity and remained untouched. He did play around with serialism while composing, and in fact I had the pleasure to hear a twelve tone piece today on the way home from the Big City; it was a piece composed for piano, and the pianist was one actually the very same man that played the very same piece at the death bed of Mr. Barber. It was fantastic. He talked a great deal about how the twelve tones are introduced throughout the piece, how long it takes to hit each one, and what makes this particular piece so fantastic. I love public radio, and I wish that South Dakota Public Radio would play more music--I had tuned into Minnesota Public Radio, which accounted for the wonderful music. I can't get that channel where I'm from.

I think I have about three or four country channels, two or three pop channels, and a Christian channel. Every once in a while I will get South Dakota Public Broadcasting, but most of their shows are about politics and political figures. Today I caught an interview with writer/ producer Vince Gilligan, the creator of television show Breaking Bad, a show I haven't had the pleasure of viewing just yet. And I say yet because I mean to watch at least the first couple of episodes. As I've mentioned numerous times before, I don't like television or am at least very picky about what I watch. It just so happens that Mr Gilligan was a writer/ producer for The X Files, and met the star of Breaking Bad (Bryan Cranston) during interviews for the episode Drive, in which he plays Patrick Crump, a man whose wife's head exploded at he drove her to the hospital. He has the same condition, which condition is unexplained throughout the episode until the end. From what Gilligan said, Cranston delivered a performance so great that they hired him for the part on the spot.

I loved that episode, and I remember it well. One of my favorites, it is, but then I can say that about ninety percent of the X Files. Anyway the point is is that I know the background of the writer/ producer, that he had a hand in the X Files, I know the actor--I've seen his work around after X Files--and I've been hearing some good things about the show itself, including the way Gilligan talks about how it evolves over time, and doesn't reset itself each episode at the beginning--like many television shows--X Files not included. I really love the X Files, by the way, except for the eighth season.

Anyway, so today over in the Big City I saw a psychiatrist to talk about the medication I'm taking. I told him that I have been fatigued all day most days, but can't seem to get to sleep on time. I have trouble waking up and am then tired all day, is what I told him. So he gave me this new medicine to give me energy during the day, but which will cause me to crash at night, so that I am drowsy at the appropriate time. I told him that's fine with me.

He also talked about trying a sleep medication with me, but that didn't go so well. First, I don't want to take any sleep meds, not after I wrecked both my car and the local sheriff's car. No thank you. But also, the conversations went something like him asking me if I could try this, and then me telling him that I've already tried it. We went through probably ten or so medications this way until he told me he was going to get some samples out of the cabinet they have there. He came back with Lunesta, which I already tried with no luck. I told him that it was fine if I didn't get any sleep meds, because they are dangerous for me anyway.

I also went to Best Buy just to 'browse,' but I'm terrible at browsing. What I actually wanted was a new keyboard, just a standard USB keyboard, so that I had an extra for working on computers--you know, so I wouldn't have to unhook my personal keyboard and use it on someone else's PC. What happened was that I walked out with a ninety dollar, backlit, multi-macro gaming keyboard. Don't tell anyone.

But I have to say, the thing is absolutely brilliant. The keys light up in the dark! And I can plug my headphones and mic into the keyboard instead of reaching behind my compy to do so.

Anyway, I think that's about all from me for now.

I'll get back to you.

I'm so vain

2010-03-06T01:37:00.002-06:00

I think this blog is about me.

So I'm sitting here in my nice cozy reclining chair with a blanket wrapped up around me while a movie plays on the forty-seven inch high-definition television in front of me, which movie is being streamed over the Internet via the Netflix service to my PlayStation 3. The current movie is called Killer Movie, a movie about a killer on the loose who is, in point of fact, actually on the loose, though none of the crew is any the wiser even as the bodies pile up around them.

Anyway, you may or may not be wondering just then, how, and I connected to the Internet and typing on this little space of mine. Well, the answer is simple and great; I finally got my iBook g4 put together correctly or something, so that the airport card works and I can get onto The Batcave, my wireless network.

Which means I'm pretty awesome. I mean, look at this: I took a broken iBook g4--the hard disk drive was trashed from years of use and no maintenance (they stopped making these particular models in 2004)--and I had no experience with Macs since time began, and then I took the damn thing apart--not only is it a Mac, but it's a laptop to boot--I took it apart, found the problem, replaced the hard drive, joggled some cables, and BAM! it works!

It's one thing to get a desktop computer and fuck around with the innards a bit and finally just make it work via magic as I frequently do, but to take a a completely unknown entity and fix it and nurse it back to full health, now that's something even I can gloat about a bit. Just a bit. I should also mention that the keyboard was busted when I began my work, but I replaced that as well.

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about, and this is unbelievable, is a movie I finished watching a while ago, a movie called Lo. Absolutely brilliant work, and I'm taking this time to make sure that any lonesome soul on this lonesome road of the 'net is recommended the movie by me. See this movie the very next chance you get. Buy it if you find it, rent it if you can, simply go out of your way to get a copy of this movie into your hands and DVD or Blu-Ray player. It is fantastic.

What it is about is this: a guy, a fragile, quirky, insignificant guy has this girl that he absolutely loves. I mean, he's in deep. And she loves him, too, a whole bunch. Until she is abducted by demons. From hell. They show up and take her to hell. Reminds me of the rape or Persephone. You know, where the exact thing happens.

Anyway, this chick is taken to hell by a demon, and her boyfriend wants to get her back. So he takes this book, this book that looks as if bound in human flesh with an eye set in it, and he recreates this ritual. He draws a pentagram and encircles it and draws the necessary inscriptions in it and puts candles around it and follows, much like a cooking recipe, the route to summoning a demon of his own. A demon to call and command to find his girlfriend and bring her to him so that he can rescue her. Pretty sweet, huh?

Only it's not what you think. The demons are dressed up outlandishly, and the situations are absurd: for instance, one of the demons wants to convince the kid that the girl he is looking for is, in fact, a demon. A slayer of humans, a delighter is destruction, a fountain of misery and death. And how the demon goes about this is that he sings a love song about the girl who was a demon in a high-school dance type setting. It's a riot. I mean, the movie is tongue in cheek at times, and serious at others, in just the right amount. And then the demon this boy has summoned summons two forlorn souls that the girl is in command of in hell and makes the two souls explain how they ended up there. They summoned the demon and asked for a baby, and the demon gave them a baby, which later died at birth, and then the could died someway or another and ended up in hell--they sold their souls for a child. And the guy soul says that he is layed on a cheese grater and pulled slowly across it every day, shredding his back. He then has his eyelids cut off and a demon pisses in his eyes, and then rats chew off his neck.

And this is the girl he has fallen in love with. And he still wants to rescue her form hell, even though she is a demon.

I can't go on without massive spoilers, but suffice it to say that it's one of the movies I will be watching time and again, and would in no way not consider this for a great date movie, albeit the girl I would take would have to be as strange as I am. But I found the movie oddly endearing, and I thought it was a really great love story--and I'm a guy that can't stand love stories even in the slightest. Usually if there is a whiff of love story in the air I find a way to fake sick or make myself really sick or find some way to avoid the situation altogether.

The second movie of the night just finished up.

I'm thinking about switching gears up, here. You know, do one of those long winded pieces that just seem to ramble on about the thoughts that go through my own little head and my reactions to those and then I usually end up taking it about as far as I can get with it and never really resolve anything but have had a great time by the time I get to the end. It's sort of my thing. And finally, for the second time on my blog, the first time I've decided to be so boldly selfish and self-absorbed, I am going to go ahead and ask a question and pretend like I expect some sort of relevant response.

What are the opinions on those said pieces? I did one just a little bit ago, but last summer before I moved back home I did them quite regularly. Most of it comes from reading so much David F Wallace since he sort of does the same thing, but I also think one of the big influences for me when I get into that sort of writing styles is James Joyce, as well, since he was the first stream of consciousness writer I encountered, and after I did that one piece way back when I was first reading him I've had that thrill, I got the fever for writing and I keep trying it and so that's how I usually end up, somewhere between the stream of consciousness writing and the self-absorbed long winded phrases and thought experiment type stuff that DFW does so well. Really you've got to read some of his works, if only one. Just brilliant stuff.

I can't believe it's only 0215 right now. I feel vivacious and alive and just not ready to go to bed at all. I am really and truly sick of gaming right now. Of course, I also need to go get myself a cola so that I can drink it and chew tobacco while this next movie plays.

Anyway, if you decided to read that whole thing--and I would not pass judgment or blame you for skipping most or all of it--go ahead and give me your opinion on that styler of writing, maybe how I can make it easier to read or more substantial or add clarity or whatever. Criticism is what I'm looking for. I mean, sure, it helps to know which parts are done well and what's good about it and all, but I've found that the most helpful comments are those that criticize without remorse. Trust me, I can take it.

More at another time, then.

what the heck

2010-03-04T20:56:00.002-06:00

I'm going to pretend that you've been wondering about where the hell I've been, because it sure as shit hasn't been here, writing on my blog, like it used to be, back when I got drunk or high every night and watched movies and talked about 'inspiration' and 'art' and 'creating' a '[piece] of [work]' while sitting behind this computer and 'thinking.' Yes, I've been reading David Foster Wallace's Oblivion, a collection of his short stories. Brilliant work.

Anyway, where I've been is right here, now getting high, or trying new drugs, or getting drunk, or working with comrades or attending the counter at the gas station. I've been here, not talking to vagrants or thugs or mischievous persons, not conversing with the middle-to-lower classes dregs from trailer parks, the race car driving classes, the hard-on-their-luck layed-off people who used to have jobs at the local industrial park and the gals who need babysitters and the men who don't, the construction workers, the people's people. That where I am, right here, living a perfectly boring, honest, sober life.

And I can't stand it.

I hate living this vanilla lifestyle. There's no sleaze, no dirt, no seedy underbelly to this kind of life. All there is is wholesome sobriety, fun-filled board games, an honest day's work, and living by the fruit of my hands. And it is driving me absolutely stir crazy. I mean, the most I've got here is chewing tobacco. And even that is pretty boring--I mean, smoking is smoking, and there's snuff, but chewing tobacco is just so tame compared that what I used to do, what I want to do so badly. I wish they would just legalize marijuana or prescription drugs or ecstasy or something just so I can go get my high on and pretend like I'm some sort of person living in some sort of universe with something resembling something to say to someone out there who thinks something about me. You know, a drug to make me believe I'm anywhere but here and anyone but me. Because right now, I'm pretty fucking bored with myself, with what is available to me. Even the Internet can't entertain me any longer, and that's saying something!

I have been playing a lot of Neverwinter Nights. Great fucking RPG by Bioware, one of my long time favorite companies. The haven't disappointed me yet. Neverwinter Nights, I bought the platimun or whatever edition with all the addons, and then Neverwinter Nights 2 with all the extras, and they've had Baulder's Gate, a number of those, a bunch of which I bought and played, and Dragonage: Origins, and Mass Effect, and KotoR and just a shit-ton of absolutely great role playing games. So that's been my life. Instead of getting high and writing on my blog, I play games. Instead of a normal job, I work on computers. Instead of human interaction, I am a hermit.

And now that my game is done updating, I bid you adieu.

More at a later time.

life, the universe and cheese sandwiches

2010-02-28T01:01:00.002-06:00

i'm typing on a netbook one of my clients ordered through me which he told me to keep until he can pay for it, so please don't mind that i'm not going to capitalize anything if i can help it. the keyboard is small enough that i don't need to try and fit all my digits over the damned thing.

this is precisely the reason that i want my damn ibook g4 to get back online. i repaired it a while ago--needed a new hd and keyboard==and i haven't been able to connect to wireless networks with it, but i can do wired. which then leads me to believe that my airport extreme card needs to be replaced. i would take it to the apple store to check it out since, you know, it's an apple product and i work on pcs, but those guys charge sixty bucks if only to take it apart and say, 'yup, it's broke.' but anyway the reason i want it back is because the keyboard is so much bigger and comfortable. it makes it easier to type.

little arthur dent, poor dent arthur dent, we always think he just couldn't find his place in the universe. could he? didn't he? didn't he, in the end, realize what a sham trying to fit in to this game we called life really is? but how cliche is that all, really, when it crosses my mind i get sick, physically ill from it all, just knowing that knowing and knowing about knowing and knowing about the knowing about the knowing is all just banal and sick and boring and just so run of the mill and middle of the road and ordinary. but that's life for you. i never learned to type properly. i usually only use a few of my fingers and look at the keyboard while i do so, and the only time i need to worry about making mistakes is if i actually see those mistakes as i'm typing away.

just who and what are we? i mean us, as humans, what exactly are we, what makes us tick, what makes us us, and why, and how, and for what reason, and how does us being something or someone i mean for what purpose have we developed into this future of humanity, a future in which humans don't struggle to survive, a future that we don't have use for what we have developed over these many millions of years of evolution in which we were specially designed by trial and error to survive, where does this all fit together? life isn't like a puzzle, life isn't like a box of chocolates, life isn't any of those funny quirky snarky things that we use to describe what it is. life is nothing but the persistence of genes competing to replicate.

but when i put it like that it sounds depressing and scientific and wholly unhappy and a bit bleak. and it is. i forgot to take my medication today and i'm watching this movie in which everyone looking for something dies, and i also read a lot of david foster wallace today--from his book oblivion--so i'm not exactly in the kind of mood that sees the world through violet colored lenses. but i have to tell you that this universe, this world, this life, this is not what it is described it to be, not what it's expected to be, not what is wanted to be. not for me. as a ugly quarter aged man living in his parents' basement with his own compuer repair business, i can say that i never thought it would turn out like this. living life with depression is just so regular.

and i can't stand it, none of it, and especially that i can't stand that i can't stand it and that i think it's banal and dull and run of the mill middle of the road vanilla life. is this my quarter life breakdown, and if so how many other out there also have a quarter life breakdown, and of those how many are male, and living out of a basement, and ugly, and insecure, and without significant other, and depressed, and taking zoloft and whining to their therapist about it all who probably lives life inside her own little world full of the same things i'm describing just now, right now, while others all across the world do exactly what i'm doing rightnow which is sitting down watching a movie and ranting on a blog on a piece of the internet nobody ever stops by whining about my own personal problems and never achieving even a fraction of those dream i had growing up? and the therapist, let's not forget her, because she goes home to her husband and two children and whines and complains about her day at work which is just quarter aged kid after quarter aged kid she diagnoses with a quarter life crisis which then go home to write about it on a blog, and she has to sit through it all day hearing the same sob stories from self indulged individuals who are no more unique or special than the cement sidewalks that line every village town city and metropolis across this very globe. and who would think that these days anyhow, that it is possible or even probable to come anything close to unique or special or even rare, and that if it was possible and did in fact happen how would that individual see life and operate in the universe, and what would make her any different than the average twenty somethings who think exactly the same things about themselves and have their quarter life breakdowns and never an original thought comes through their heads just like every other thought that's thought by thinkers everywhere, and even when they know about those who know about all the knowing well that's really no different from the first position, which remember was that ugly kid who didn't finish college sitting in his parents basement typing on a cheap netbook on his blog that nobody visits typing about how banal and cliche life really is, well, isn't that even less special than thinking yourself unique or special and simply living a deluded life as long as your happy?

`but then the thought comes to mind that that isn't all that special or unique. because maybe everybody else out there is having the same thoughts or has had them and nobody is really as happy as they make it out to be, meaning that everyone goes home at night and all alone they think about how great everybody else has it and how come they have to sit in the dark watching depressing movies about the pursuit of happiness and sit there and think about how pathetic and truly alone and banal their own existence is? because then the original ugly boy would simply be yet another ugly face in the crowd, a crowd who is generally unhappy but tries to make out like they aren't unhappy and then that same ugly boy would have to wonder if that is in fact the case then why can't he do it too, like everyone else, like there is some trick to making life as a normal person, a person who goes home and gets the howling fantods about being depressed and alone but in public looks and acts happy, well then why is he so different, aside from the overweight body he has and the ugly face and personality he has, why can't he be normal as well, by which i mean go out and just look happy like everyone else does instead of being the generally ugly boy who complains about being unhappy and ugly and young and in his quarter life crisis, because then it would be a story everybody is familiar with, and he would be even less normal and outstanding than even he thought was possible before all this introspection came rushing to the surface on accident in front of his television while a horror movie now plays in the background.

so what i want to know is where in this universe did all this come from and for what reason or purpose have we developed the ability to be exactly who and what i am? this is what religion is for, if you believe religion. that's what they'll tell you. they take away those fears and illuminations and god forbid epiphanies and replace them with tried and true visions of the universe and make you feel comfy and cozy and generally at peace with the world. and that's why atheism is so bad, it takes that all away from those poor helpless people who so desperately want to feel at ease and comfortable in this life but who can't go about their daily lives without the guidance of a higher power.

but that's bunk, too. and how depraved and narcissistic and condescending do you have to be to hold that as your own personal view and express that view to others? and that's a loaded question, because i mean not only the idea that religion is good, or the idea that it's bad, or those about atheism, and even about all the other stuff that sort of wraps it up in a nice package. a lit of questions need to be answered, and i'm afraid that i simply cannot do it, and that not being able to do it is not my own personal unique position but a position shared by millions around the globe who are normal and decent and regular people but who have the same ideas and feelings as i do but don't go on about it in their pathetic little blog spaces and whinge to their therapists every two weeks about how pathetic and alone and special they are compared to what, the rest of the world? when in fact it's that very act that makes them even less special and unique than just going ahead and taking the correct amount of noxious drugs and simply erasing their maps like the original plan was.

but no, those drugs i took didn't kill me, they hardly even injured me. i wish i would have crashed my car some nights, wish those drugs would have worked, and i always think about what if, that same question that women ask themselves after an abortion for the rest of their lives, what if. how would everyone else be doing if i had succeeded in taking my own life? i will assume sad for a bit, but better off in the long run, which was what i thought at the time. so have i changed and made any improvement in my lot since then?

this sort of mental battle i imagine rages within every mind on the planet and the same conclusion comes up time after time and who am i to question the ways of the universe anyway?

i'm pretty tired now. 0400h and i have to get up early to go to the big city and look at golf stuff. it should be a fun day.

and i promise, more at a later time.

FRAGILE: DO NOT DROP

2010-02-22T14:34:00.002-06:00

Remember a while back I mentioned writing a post about how the human ego is a fragile thing? Well, that time has come.

What has sparked this kind of thought experiment was a recent delve into BDSM culture. I once had a girlfriend who was in to BDSM, and I am no expert in this area; I am what is usually considered vanilla, though my own preferences I think are not so boring. The reason I think this is an appropriate topic is because the power in the sexual relationship becomes exaggerated, thus freely exposing the interface betwixt human egos.

What makes me imagine this type of situation ideal for my purpose is that sex is typically a sensitive area, an area that is closely protected by the human mind, that this is the closest to the ego we can get while interacting with one another.

What I am trying to get at is this; that I, as what is usually considered a dominant personality, can feel insecure about my own sexual preferences. And this is because I probably have trouble with my own self image and being accepted for who and what I am by another person, because I have not accepted myself as I am. This is important to be aware of as I progress because it may color my own view of what exactly I am exploring.

But so let's assume you are a dominant personality in a sexual position and you are responsible for your submissive partner. How does one go about continuing play in a safe environment. And by safe I mean a place that can be accepted as private between two persons, a place where what happens will not color opinion of one or the other outside the sort of power play that takes place.

I'll admit that this should not be a problem in well developed relationships that have already outlined healthy ways of interacting with one another, such as safe words, what each is comfortable with, &c. But for those attempting to break into a more dom/sub sexual relationship this may be uncomfortable, which it is for me (not being as experienced as I would like), which is why, again, I think this is the perfect place to take a good look at the ego.

Because that is what is getting in the way right now.

How is one able to express a dominant position without feeling scrutinized by the other human taking part in the action? While both may accept--always assuming there are only two partners--the relationship while in context, what will the effect be while not indulging in play? The same may go for the submissive partner. And further, how can one feel that same feeling of safety, freedom from judgement, while the play is still in action? Because that's where the ego will truly come to the surface. Things like punishment the dom issues will rapidly reveal the ego, the most personal of thoughts from the dom to the sub. And this is hard to get over, the feeling that revealing one's true self in sexual deviancy will somehow make that person seem silly or inconsequential or even insecure, that is the ego speaking for its own safety.

Punishments may be an integral part of the power play for the dom/sub couple. It is essential to establish the hierarchy of power--and power is what is important to the ego, I think, the power to remain itself while establishing itself in the eyes of another as serious or not so insignificant or whatever it needs to protect. Total freedom is a scary thing, to be known personally by another human is frightening, and this is because at this point, with the ego exposed, any harm done will be deep and lasting, and any talk that comes about outside of play could be potentially damaging, scarring even.

And how far is too far? I don't mean an act which finds itself outside the physical ability or comfort zone of either partner, but at what point does play become too serious for either player? Things like tying one another up, or using cuffs or whips or burning wax on one another, they may seem in character at the time, but passion is a fierce animal, and we all know too well that sexual acts can carry themselves--it is easy to lose one's self in the type of power play going on, easy to allow the ego to take over the normal guarded personality one usually caries around. And then, when the deed is done, when the relationship comes back around to simple everyday life, then how is the ego going to feel? What sort of anxiety will be caused from worrying about the repercussions of what has taken place?

And on top of that, how is play between partners supposed to keep itself in an environment that doesn't seem silly? Silly, I know, but seriously, it just seems that going along with the play is easy, but both parties really have to buy in to the situation or the whole situation will come off silly. And once this happens, then all thoughts of self and dom/sub relationship could possibly collapse upon itself, thus tainting all other situations which could potentially come into reality.

And how to bring this all into reality anyway? I mean, you know your own preferences, presumably, and your partner knows her own preferences, presumably, and so both of you approach a sexual relationship and circumstances from your own personal view of the whole procedure w/r/t coital interface. So you've both got your egos poised to be exposed and your expectations are playing in the back of your mind and you both want satisfaction w/r/t sexual ecstasy, and yet it is difficult for both parties in this sort of situation to sort of put on the table what those preferences are, what those expectations will be, how to go about getting what both parties want. And any small piece of information which reveals itself at this point in time will have devastating effect on the ego, the way one sees one's self, the way all future coital relationships will proceed.

I think I've pushed this as far as I can within the confines of my own personal mind and space. This really isn't the sort of thing one can do completely alone, but I hope my thought exploration isn't a complete failure, and I don't think it was, but personal experience has taught me that we see things in a favorable light if we so choose.

More at a later time.

Finished Mosin Nagant Stock

2010-02-21T02:02:00.008-06:00

So, this is the first time I've posted pictures on my blog in the two years I've had the place. As I mentioned before, I completely reworked the stock on my Mosin Nagant--I stripped the old boiled linseed oil off and sanded down the whole stock to create an even finish, then I used a stain--Golden Oak--to color the wood (the color I used actually just enhanced what was already there a bit) and sealed it. I then put on my laminate finish to protect against water or other type of wear. These pictures should give you an idea of the finished product.

obligatory post w/r/t vd

2010-02-14T22:52:00.002-06:00

There are limited responses to draw form when considering Valentine's Day. There is, of course, the reaction that Valentine's Day is good or great or that it should be celebrated with a loved one. Some people are ecstatic and overjoyed by the day or gifts received thereon. On the opposite side there are the number of single people who are bitter and resentful over VD in whatever capacity for whatever reason, unfounded or otherwise. There is silence, which really isn't much of a reaction at all.

I'm not here to debate the finer points of VD, praise the day, complain about the day, or offer my opinion in any way concerning VD. What I will say though is this: I am twenty-four years of age, and will be turning twenty-five in May, and I have never once, in all my life, had a significant other on VD.

Make of it what you will, but that is the truth. And it doesn't really bother me one way or the other. I am merely posting this because it is necessary to post about VD when in the vicinity of the holiday.

I do have some worries about the future, though, and I've voiced this many times over the brief period I've been writing here. Worries about being alone, or lonely, or not finding a satisfying relationship, and these diatribes usually go along with my feelings about myself, that I have a negative self image--though justified, as I'll always say--or that I don't like my body form, or my facial features, or that I'm insecure about myself. And I always take into account that I don't have much of a personality outside the exterior I use to portray myself to the outside world. Do I have an inner sanctum filled with emotion, well yes, but I hardly fel the use for it these days. I simply feel that I have nothing to share even if I did have somebody to share it with w/r/t love or happiness or whatever else a relationship is supposed to provide for human beings.

I stripped all the old linseed oil and shellac from my Mosin last night; it took a little while to do so, but it was worth the effort. Today I spent the day sanding down the stock and removing anything I may have missed. Sanding will take out most imperfections, remove any shellac or oil I've missed, and even out the wood to make it look closer to new. This will allow me to add the stain of my choice and later seal it to create a newly finished piece of wood for the stock of my beautiful WWII era rifle. I am proud of my work.

I also did add the finish to the wood today. I had a few colors to choose from, but I settled on Golden Oak. My dad said he didn't really care for golden oak, but it is my gun. Now that the finish has been settling for a day I wish I would have gone with a fruit wood or american heritage stain--it's got a little more red in it that the golden oak--but I'm going to accept my decisions for what they are and be happy that I've got the resources and knowledge to customize my rifle as much as I have so far. Tomorrow I have to put the sealant on and wait overnight for it to dry up, then I can reassemble the gun and shoot it once again.

I also ordered a 440 round case of ammunition at around a hundred wing-wangs for my rifle, which comes out to around twenty cents for a shot, which is much cheaper that, say, a .223 or even a 22 rimfire these days. The only downfall is that the ammo is corrosive, so I've got to clean the gun immediately after taking it out and shooting. Not a big deal for me, though, since I like to take care of my guns meticulously anyway.

I have had an awful cold for almost a week now. Everyone says it's a sinus infection, but since I've never had one before I can't be sure. I do know that my head feels as if it will split open from pressure, my nose can't be used for breathing but still manages to run efficiently, and that I am very tired and worn out. For instance, I woke up at 0930h today, made a waffle, and went to sleep from 1000h to 1600h. I felt a bit better, but this headache is something out of a nightmare. And I had a lot of those, too.

Anyway, this was basically a post to bring things up to date and to mention VD in a sad effort to parody every other person in America.

I'll have more another time.

the big gun show

2010-02-13T20:25:00.002-06:00

Well today was the annual Big Gun show over in the Big City and I have to say, I wasn't all that impressed.

What I really wanted to go there and find was some stripper clips for my new Mosin Nagant. I got lucky and bought one in great condition through my local dealer (local being relative) and got all kinds of neat accessories, like a bayonet, an oil flask, and a little goodie kit with a multi tool and a cleaning rod assembly. The gun was in pretty good shape, and the bore was nice. The only downfall was a couple of forced-match parts, but who cares about that; I'm not looking for a collector's item, I'm looking to take it out and shoot.

The damn thing was caked in cosmoline when I got it=--it's a packing lubricant they use on the guns while taking them oversea so that the salt water doesn't corrode the metal, and it's really tough to get clean. I spent about an hour yesterday just going over the barrel and through the bore and making sure everything was in working order, and today after I went through fifteen shells of corrosive bullets--military surplus ammo for this gun is called corrosive because it corrodes the barrel if not cleaned directly--I decided to get all the cosmoline out of the stock via boiling water. What I wasn't aware of was that pouring boiling water over my wooden stock would also adversely effect the finish on the stock. I'm taking care of it now, and since I got all the cosmoline out, it will look much better when I'm done. Just not now. In fact, it looks a bit shoddy right now, but as I've mentioned before, my father is a carpenter and I can do just about anything with wood to bring it to top notch.

The gun has a little bit of a kick, but not nearly what I've been hearing (reading about) it on the Internet. And it isn't all that loud--lots of people have been whining about having to wear ear plugs and ear protection, but I don't see a need to do that--of course, I've also been shooting trap for a number of years, but I use ear protection then; lots of shotguns going off.

Anyway, at the gun show I wanted to find some stripper clips for my new Mosin, but there weren't any to be found. I couldn't believe it. I also looked around for a new bolt for my gun so that I could mount one of the original sniper scopes on it, but no luck there, either. Finally, I wanted to buy some ammo, since at my local store it was a bit too steep; twenty bucks for twenty rounds. I at least found that for five wing-wangs per twenty shots, so it wasn't a complete waste.

I was underwhelmed by the fact that at this great big show of guns that there were so many antique booths and collector booths. Again, I'm not looking to collect or buy antiques; I want functionality. There was also a lot of wicked fire arms going around, lots of military surplus rifles from WWI and WWII, also some more modern weapons like the AK, FAL, PS90, and some others they are using in Iraq. I do like some of the newer guns, but they are so damn expensive, and the rounds are hardly any better. I suppose it's like the car debate--if you have enough money to buy yourself a Hummer H3, then you probably don't have to worry about how shitty the gas mileage is. But I'm not going to spend fifty bucks on a box of shells just so I can go out and shoot rabbits and coyotes. Anyway.

My dad was looking for a pistol--he wants a .38 in a 1911 style, but he just can't seem to settle. The only gun he found appealing was a little Hi-point 45 ACP, but it only held eight rounds in the clip and one in the chamber, and he said that wasn't enough; he'd rather have a ten round clip at the least. I said I didn't really care about that if I was looking for a pistol; in fact, i wouldn't mind a six-shot revolver, but that's my personal taste.

My brother and his roommate Cory came with us, also, so that was fun. After the gun show--I was the only one that bought anything (the ammo)--we drove the hour and a half back through the grueling weather--it's been snowing like a mother over here--and once back in town Cory, Cameron and I went out to take my gun on its 'virgin' voyage. Hey, it's new to me.

And really, that's about it for the day. I've still got my hands full cleaning up this firearm and I'm I've gotten really sick over the past couple of days, so I'm going to sit back and rest while I still can.

More, as always, at a later time.

set/forget

2010-02-11T20:16:00.002-06:00

In South Dakota forget rhymes with sit. Everyone calls sodas and colas pop. Our coffee is usually weak but nobody thinks it's okay to spend three fifty on a latte from Starbucks--and we only have maybe a half-dozen of the places in the whole state. We are six hundred thousand.

What does it mean to be cliche, cliched, or a cliche? Checking wikipedia works. I just did, just now. And I read the whole article.

So this is sort of the next step to my recent post about how to maintain a web log with fashion. And the topic for today is going to be about cliches and how to avoid them, as well as how to become aware of what you find on the Internet.

First of all, anything you've found on the Internet has been viewed thousands or possibly millions of times by other humans, and it has been posted either because it was a meme or it will become a meme or that, most likely, it was a meme, died, was resurrected, fucked, misinterpreted, killed, reanimated as a new meme, disguised as another meme, and finally put to death before becoming reincarnated as the original meme. Then you found it--the picture, video, phrase, whatever it is that was meme-ized--and decided that it's got real value, either as something funny--as is usually the case when you decide to copy and paste something onto your blog--or it has some deeper meaning which you think has put you and will put others in touch with their emotions. You know, like a great story that really reaches the heart.

Most often, those types of stories are completely made up. No truth. And what's more, they were made in order to fool you one way or the other--whether you're upset that you've been duped, or you feel like it was a touching moment; either way you've fallen for the bait. Get used to it; the Internet is not a nice place and, will beat you up if given the opportunity.

Which brings me to this conclusion: if you found it on the Internet, please leave it there. Submit a link, write a description, whatever--just don't copy and paste whatever you've found and plaster it on your blog. Because even though it's news to you, it isn't news to any body else.

There are rare exceptions, though, to this rule. For instance, let's say you've spent all day looking for a specific video or clip through Google, and you've found one, maybe two vids that meet your criteria. A long time ago I posted a video on here of Samuel Barber's Ave Maria; in and of itself not very hard to find, considering the damn piece was arranged for every instrument in the book {and an few that aren't}. But what I found that I thought was worth sharing was an arrangement of the song for a four-part chamber singing group that was performed by professionals. Now that narrows it down to one, maybe two videos that I've ever glanced.

So you may do the same thing. You saw a piece of art on the Internet, but you aren't sure if it's old or new. Where did you get it? Most often, don't use any image sites or youtube to find content; those are the most frequented sites and have absolutely nothing new. If, however, you've got a good friend that's an art student who has a page on the Internet and she isn't well known (as in the world) but is kind of a big deal (locally) then for the good of the Internet, let people know. It's hard enough to navigate the vast series of tubes in order to find original content, so gives us all a hand.

Did your local choir/band/book club/ DJ recently record a session for something? Post the video online and make a link, or simply host the content yourself and imbed the vid to your page; it is always easier to get to content--and therefore, more desirable to the reader--if there are fewer clicks involved. But don't let this information overstep the previous guideline.

Don't add music which plays upon opening to your site, and I mean under any circumstances. By adding sound or video to your site, people with slower connexions will take a huge hit, and people like me--I can't be the only one--will always assume the worst of you if they open the page and you've got Enya singing in the background before your text appears. Not only is this a great guideline, but also simple etiquette.

Which brings me to the next part: do not type with your Caps Lock on. IT GETS VERY UNCOMFORTABLE BECAUSE WHEN YOU READ IT IT SOUNDS LIKE SOMEONE IS YELLING AT YOU.

that is why I'm concerned about the fonts used on my page description and title, because they are automatically capitalised and I can't adjust it--part and parcel with the theme.

Less is more. Less is always more.

Less is not always more.

Things that you find absolutely mundane in your life can actually be infinitely fascinating to the outside observer. What did you have for breakfast? A blueberry bagel with fat-free cream cheese, an americana with skinny and nutmeg, plus you grabbed a banana on the way out the door for a snack later? It sounds lame to you, but I hear the beginning of a great story. Your whole day come become a playground.

And what I mean by that is, you don't always have to tell the truth. Writing is creating. So you were driving today and you saw some guy running down a side street while a woman approaches the corner he is quickly coming to and neither is paying attention. He runs past her through traffic and she holds her hand to her breat as a gesture of surprise. the day continues.

But not today. You saw a man running down a side street as you tried to take the seedy route to work--the coffee you had went through a little quickly and you were going to be late--the guy was probably some sort of thief, because he had passersby looking at him strangely and was red in the face. As he blazed to the corner a woman approached also, neither aware of the other. He looks over his shoulder. She looks in her purse for her ringing cell. He has a sweater. She's wearing one of those cliche black coats women wear in the winter as they walk from place to place. He looks ahead to see her standing with a phone pressed to her ear. She looks and he helplessly tries to stop. The force generated in the next moment spins him into oncoming traffic. A cell phone is frozen in the air. Horns. A siren--you were late to work today, but at least you had time to eat that banana.

Reality s boring, I'll give you that, but reality is the first place to look for fantasy. Beyond that, reality can also be impressive. Some things are shocking because they are true.

I was deer hunting. I use a 25-06 to kill my deer because it had decent range, good trajectory, and plenty of knockdown power. Normally more powerful than most guns used. A female stood a hundred yards out. She didn't see me. I lay the gun across my forearm and look through the scope. The black cross hairs line up just above the shoulder and behind the neck. My ears pound with silence. Boom.

She jumps into the nearby cornfield--she was only a few yards away, but taking her out through the vitals would have stopped that. My gun must be off. I wait in the tree hut while my dad moves to the end of the corn to track her or scare her out toward me. Five minutes later she is thirty yards directly in front of me. She crawled out of the corn but is now standing. She still doesn't see me, and appears to be bleeding badly. I can't shoot her now; not enough room to get past the meat and hit the vitals. Se stops at fifty yards and looks back as I make a sound. Her neck is exposed--what was that movie about? You can take them through the neck, but the artery isn't big enough to drop them immediately. Only try for the neck if you can't get a better shot. Well it looks like it's the ass or the neck, and I want those damn loins when I'm through here. I line up the second shot. Boom.

Her head whips to the left and blood spills into the air in an arcing mist. She half runs, half wobbles away from me. I line up a shot for the back of her head, trying to salvage the meat and let her die quickly. I feel sorry for her. I take the shot. Boom.

Nothing, she turns down the corn to her right and my father comes out beside me. I said I hit her, but she is still trying to get away. We walk the hundred or so yards down the empty, plowed part of the field. Blood is everywhere. I hit her in the belly the first time, but the shot through the neck is evident by the masses and pools of blood still shining by the light of the waning sun. I see her laying five yards into the corn. She is helpless. One more shot--I didn't bring a knife for the throat, and this would be faster anyway. My dad look at me, "Shoot her in the head." Boom.

So you see, reality can be both played on for effect or simply reported if the story is shocking in its own right. The way you relay these thoughts and stories will also play a big role in whether you will be considered an amateur or a brilliant mind.

Have fun and enjoy the time you take for yourself as you settle into your own piece of this giant truck we call the tubes!

yokey-dokey

2010-02-10T15:53:00.004-06:00

If this text is uncomfortable to read, please leave me a note as I can't determine for myself just yet.

Now see here, I changed some stuff around and messed with the colors and layout of the site. I tried to make it seem more ordinary and less interesting while at the same time maintaining a rare or even unique feel that isn't invasive or persuasive but neutral. I like neutral, because it catches people off guard, and then I let my words do the talking.

I do have a couple of concerns, though. First is that there is a finite number of templates from which to choose for this page, and there is also a finite arrangement of colors and fonts to select from, which means that, no matter how many permutations are available to me, this exact same layout is being used by at least one other person somewhere out there on the big network of tubes. I don't like to appear banal. The other concern is that the template I've selected makes all the fonts on the sidebar and the blog title bar and even the blog description capitalized. So I had to choose sans serifed fonts for the little stuff to make it less imposing, but I did use a serifed font for the title because it feels more subtle and less descriptive to me. I think I have done the right thing but I will preemptively thank any lost soul that wanders across here for input w/r/t the aesthetics of the place.

I have been thinking about adding 'jumps' to my page so that the page you come across isn't so obviously long and it doesn't take an eternity to scroll to the bottom of the page. I find that places that have less scroll to them are more inviting. I haven't figured out how to do that just yet, but be sure that by the time this has been read I've already done my homework.

Now, what I really want to talk about is structuring your own personal blog and making it less fluff and trash and more substance. Yes, this coming from a guy that posts about nothing but his boring-ass life in South Dakota with no regard for the rest of society of the viewing pleasure of others on the Internet.

But what I want to get at is simply being a little more attractive for those of us who want to start a blog or personal space but are overwhelmed by possibility and underwhelmed by creative capacity.

I think I may go ahead and call this little one-way discussion the art of blogging. In the future: the art of flogging. And much later: the art of logging.

First, let's find out what other people are doing. I know that what seems to be the easiest way to do this is simply click the "Next Blog" button at the top of your browser's window, but I have found that there is a finite number of sites for any identified individual that blogger will direct you to through that option. If you are using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, simply go into a private browsing session or surf incognito and then continue to click away to your heart's content. Pun intended. Because this will allow you to visit what is very nearly an infinite number of pages without worrying that you are being directed by your history, by what the logging software of the site thinks you will find interesting, or without fear of solicitation.

Now, I am not positive or even very sure that this will actually affect the sites that are 'randomly encountered' through your clicking, but it has been my experience that this will maximize the number of blogs you can stumble over. And when it comes to step one, you want to be sure to visit as many sites as you possibly can.

Now, you may not like this part here, but you need to go through all those blogs you've found and do some reading and some observation. Look at the profile, look at the pic, read the biography section, the interests section, pick a few posts and make sure to note the url. Do this from blog to blog, and make a note of each one either mentally of physically, but always keep track of similarities and make secondary notes about ideas of what you can do differently or more creatively, just let your mind jive and improvise on these thoughts and you continue to observe, compare, contrast and learn.

Always play to your strengths. Always. I happen to have a decent vocabulary and good understanding of the English language. I know syntax. I use this to my fullest possible advantage when writing in my blog, and so if you are funny, then find a way to communicate that through your blog--but now you should think back to all the blogs you read by people that are funny, are known to be funny, believes themselves funny, or proclaimed funny people, and remember what you thought about them and how each blog was probably less than a dime a dozen. You are not alone, but you want to be sure that your blog is as close to unique as possible to provide a quality experience for your readers. So if you are a funny person, then you will find a new and rare or unique way to express humor in your blog, a way that only you can communicate and express, and that, my friend, is your strength and what will get you noticed in the thousands and millions of bland paste on blogger.

Let's do another example. You're a housewife, and you think it's hard to find time to sit down and write creative posts or you just want to post pictures of your family and discuss day-to-day thoughts and photos. you are not unique in the slightest way, is what I'm saying. But we can do this; you can do this.

Do not, under any circumstances, put the word 'clan' any place on your blog. Not in the title, not the description, not your biography or the url. Don't do it; that's the first thing that will make passersby continue on passing. This is the first sign that you don't have even a drop of thought in your head. Get a thesaurus, get a dictionary, think of another word for a group of people living together and how to describe the interactions of that group.

A happy family is a boring family, and a content housewife sitting at her computer while hubby is away writing about how wonderful life is a beautiful the children are is not impressive of interesting even in the slightest way. People don't want to hear about everyday, normal life from a normal person who has normal thoughts just like everyone else. That's what my blog is; I capitalize on that idea and use what little wit I have to exploit those thoughts. What people do want, however, is a life of trial and error. Are your kids doing something they shouldn't? Did they get beat up in school or pick on some other kids? Husband scratch his car, trip over the dog, did you get in an argument? What are your thoughts and insights into those matters, because that is where your life will differ from every other Joe and Jane Doe out there.

Now, about pictures. Yes, your kids look cute. I think all kids are ugly, but I have accepted that I'm unique in this way. Just because you have a digital camera and your own blog and kids you think and your friends declare absolutely cutesy-wootsy doesn't mean you should plaster their poor faces all over the Interwebs in an attempt to show everyone how great life is for you. Remember that you are a mother and that you have a very biased view of kids--and not just your own, but kids everywhere. You're the one with the vagina; guys don't have to carry around other humans for any amount of time. So when you think there are probably enough pics of your kids and the neighbors' kids and your aunt's kids and maybe even the kids your kids had, then you have too many. Go back and choose every third picture of the same person and delete the other two. This will make sure you don't come off as a lazy blogger who has nothing better to contribute to society than a few amateur photos anonymously uploaded to photobucket.

I am not saying, however, that pictures are a bad thing. If your strength in in art and aesthetics, then by all means, use your vast creativity to show people what real pictures should look like. Break the mold. And if you haven't thought of a better title for your blog than "Smith Family Clan," or "The Unterbrunner Clan" or even "The Chronicles from Clan Truman," please stop considering making yourself a blog and just get on Facebook like every other wanna-be-young again mother in her middle ages. Maybe you just aren't meant to be an interesting and creative soul. And if you think maybe I have a point, then I certainly do.

Another rule to live by is this: if you think you're 'snarky,' you aren't. And you aren't 'funky,' either. Those two words are not part of the new generations of human beings, and that type of vocabulary is not a part of a crowd usually found interesting. At least, not in the literal sense. You may be good at something other than writing, though, which is where my Big Rule of Thumb stems from:

Self observation, inward analysis, and personal identity are absolutely crucial to playing to your strongest strengths, so the more you neglect yourself, the more you neglect the audience. The truer you are to yourself--the more tenacious and honest you are when representing yourself--the most inherently interesting, unique, and likable you will appear, thus making whatever you do seem more rare than it is--if you hare skill setswith millions of other humans, you have, by examining yourself and becoming self aware, given that particular skill set a unique human stamp, one that cannot by definition be replicated, and therefore should be proud of, and your pride is well deserved.

Just follow some of these simple guidlines and you'll be the next big thing in the blogsphere!

I'll get back sooner or later.

in my defense

2010-02-10T02:44:00.002-06:00

What I'm going to do here for a bit is post some links to various sites which represent the general fervor of American religious institutes. This is basically to defend my very strong position against any and all religions, bar none. I've browsed these sites and can confirm that they are not joke sites and are completely legitimate sites devoted to religious causes. These sites are serious and are taken seriously by the American public at large, especially in what we call the Bible Belt. Please, take some time to look through these sites--at least the mission statements--to better understand what free thinking intelligent Americans are up against.

Apple is Evil

The Home Page (Haiti needs solar-powered audio bibles)

Get the kids out (of public education)

Bible in Schools

Theonomic Reformation

Christian Exodus

Constitution Party
This one is a bit tricky, but if you look closely at the Seven Principles you see that marriage is between one man and one woman as divinely instituted, and that the Bill of Rights must be interpreted according to the will of the founding fathers, which will being known only to those have have the secret knowledge given by the Constitution party.

Now, this is a very small sample from over the 'net that I've picked out, but it does give a general representation of the culture surrounding the conservative religious American world view. These people are very serious and very well prepared to defend their 'god-given rights' and have the means to do so.

And that is why I think people overestimate how much I use satire in my works when discussing religion and especially Christianity. The piece I did on Haiti? I'm not exaggerating by much, as it turns out. I hate taking a defensive posture for things like this, so what I'm trying to accomplish instead of simply defending my own stance is also raising awareness of what we have to work against.

Also, if you're first visiting this site, please look to the post below and check out some of my supports' pages; they are more talented and likable than I.

due

2010-02-09T02:24:00.005-06:00

Well I've been doing this blogging thing for roughly a couple of years--I should check my archive but I won't--and I've been mostly silent on the blogsphere I've become a part of. Most of this is because I'm a selfish individual and I keep my own blog as close to the title as possible. Also, I get few visitors as it is-at least as far as I can tell [not narcissistic enough to put a counter up]--so I figure whoever stumbles by this page however accidentally will probably already know that I stop by on their blogs not only out of courtesy but also out of fascination and respect. It isn't easy to sit down and create a post out of your head, no matter how mundane or ineffective. Well, maybe ineffective posts are easier than well thought out and edited posts. I'm arrogant enough to presume I don't write ineffective posts. Then again, I often feel as f I'm all alone out there on the Internet and that I'm really only doing this for myself, and for most of it all I am in this for simply myself. You gotta write if you want to be a writer. Grammar, language, subtlety, vocabulary--these things don't grow if you forget to water the garden.

So anyway, I thought that if there was a lone ranger out there who came upon this blog for what is likely the first and last time, then at least allow me to direct that person towards something a little less Derik and a little more non-Derik. My personality is like my ass: it's big and in your face. I picked up that little nugget from Sleep Talkin' Man. Hope that linked worked; my HTML is a little rusty. Anyway, the blog is about what it sounds like; a guy talks in his sleep, and his wife uses a recorder to capture his hilarious conversations and quotes and then posts them on the Internet. It has become big news in the last week or two and has even got national media coverage overseas. It pisses me off that I've been frequenting the site for a while and only now has it become big news. Why must everything I do become popular?

Another I'd like to give a shout out to is Michelle at Crow's Feet.. She's usually got something interesting going on, and is also a published author--though I haven't picked up her book [sorry!] yet. She's got a way with words, that's for sure, and always has some kind of inspiring insight or comment or position to brighten even a February day. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Another person who has been visiting my little corner of the Internet is the mysterious RA. She's got a space at Sagittiferously Yours and is also a Finland native, which I have always thought is absolutely fascinating and endlessly interesting. But then again I've lived in South Dakota my entire life, which is sort of what my own blog is starting to be about, since I figure we must be misunderstood and there is little known about the true midwest of America.

Another site I frequent is Paula's at west africa wins always. I think she's a wonderful writer and can really tell a good story. She's always got something to write about, it seems, and her experiences are well documented and acutely interesting.

I've got some other sites on the Blogs I Follow little menu there off to the right, but to be honest I haven't updated that in a long time. A few more places I'd like to mention would be The Bewildered Brit, Momma Mia Mea Culpa, and Skepchick.

I only recommend what I believe to be quality sites. I often run around the blogger sphere and try to find sites that are in English and aren't simply those "family clan" picture sites that aren't updated frequently by housewives and lonely mothers. It isn't that I don't respect those women or think them any less capable, but they just don't have sites which match my tastes. I like text, I like a good story, I like personal journeys and exploration--both interior and exterior. I love the English language and the nuances it affords. I love a well-structured sentence and clear syntax. I am a wordophile.

Anyway, now that I've given credit where it is due, I'm going to get on to my own little personal life sphere. Feel free to leave for those other worthy sites now.

My business has been doing well for a new business. Some days are slow, but I usually get a couple calls every couple of days, and that keep me on my toes. I like to spread the work out over a twenty-four hour period or maybe even thirty-six, since a lot of the work I do is very time consuming and hey, a guy has to sleep some time. Of course, it's 0300h right now and I'm wide awake typing on a blog. But I'm also working on a computer next to me. This weekend I didn't have any work to do, I mean other than the overnight Friday/Saturday reinstallation of Windows XP. That was an absolute blast. When I got done with her computer, it wasn't even recognizable as what I left her house with. For starters, she had a FAT32 file system, which is an old and inefficient file system for use on hard disks--it was used in Windows 95 and 98 and even ME I think, but since then NTFS has taken over as the way to go. So I fixed that with a complete format of the main drive. Then she was running XP with only 256mb of RAM, so I got her a 512md stick and popped that bitch in, bringing it up to 768 total RAM. then I reinstalled Windows XP, got her AVG Free antivirus, installed Firefox and updated everything through Microsoft Update. I also cleaned all the dirt and dust from her case, which can actually make a big difference, since if the CPU gets too hot it will underclock itself to reduce heat output. Her fan and heatsink were caked--and I mean that in the most literal sense--with dirt. The rear 80mm fan in her case was so laden with dust that it stopped functioning. After I cleaned that up as best I could, it still didn't run, so to improve her air flow I just took the thing out. It won't hurt to let her PC breathe a little bit.

She also had a second hard disk in her computer, which was originally used for Windows 98, which accounted for the FAT32 file system. She had gotten a virus on that drive, she said, and so had bought a new drive and XP and kept the other one around so she could get her old files off and use it as storage. So I reformatted that one too, then unplugged it from the MoBoto reduce bootup time, since it wouldn't have to read an extra disk. She didn't use it, but now if she ever need another drive she'll have one.

After I was done with all that, I put all of her files and programs back where they were, went to her place, and hooked it all up. Printer worked. Internet worked. Scanner worked. Programs, links, shortcuts, everything worked. All in under twenty-four hours. I am proud.

On Saturday I ordered my military surplus Mosin Nagant. I am stoked that I will finally be the owner of a gun. Not that I don't have any guns, but this will be the first I've bought with my own money. My dad gave me a shotgun--Benelli Nova [I fuckinglove that gun!]--and a 25-06 deer rifle, you know, as I grew up and needed them, so they are technically mine, but I never used my own currency to pay for a gun. The Mosin Nagant is a Russian military gun, and was used in infantry and even some were used for sniping. I have been reading up on them for a long, long time, since I've always had a fascination with Russian weaponry, but this will be the first I've handled. I've been watching videos and reading instructions on how to care for the gun, disassemble it, get the cosmoline out, and bring it up to near perfect condition, even if it started out a bit shoddy.

I have a fortunate background. My dad is an architect and a carpenter. His father was a carpenter. His father was also a carpenter. I'm adopted, but I'm just showing the line of personal knowledge I've gained from living with him. I know my way around a piece of wood, is what I'm saying, and so even if the stock of my gun is scratched and dinged and beat up, I can always strip the lacquer or whatever off the wood, sand it down, and refinish the entire thing to my own personal taste. I've done this before with a desk that I now use--it was an ugly painted green color, and just looked like shit, so I took all the paint off and stripped it down to bare wood to find that it was an oak desk, then I sanded it a bit and refinished it with a natural finish, and the oak desk looks better than ever. It's a big piece in my furniture set.

Now when it comes to bolt action maintenance, I'm not an amateur. I've been using bolt action guns my whole life. I know how to oil down a gun and keep the action clean and free, so that won't be an issue. Cleaning out the muzzle will be a snap since I've got all the necessary tools and chemicals to clean anything out of a barrel. With shooting guns comes the responsibility to clean guns.

Now where my background really starts to give me an advantage is this: I have the curiosity to take things apart and see how they work. With that comes the knowledge of how to put them back together. This isn't a specific skill, but rather an entire set of skills that can be applied to anything. I currently use it on puzzles and computers. I love puzzle games and puzzles, and a computer is basically a 3D puzzle that doesn't work when you put it together incorrectly. Troubleshooting is my favorite passtime. Seriously. I am more excited and happy with difficult problems than with normal issues. If a computer I'm working on isn't fixed the first time, I'm more ramped up to work on it. I love my job.

But so this skill set can be applied to wherever something needs to come apart and be put back together. Cars are great, card games (some of them), computers, and guns. A gun is just a puzzle that can kill animals--and people, if not assembled correctly. I just love taking things apart and putting them together. I remember my uncle once got me one of those puzzles, like the two nails bent and strung together, that you have to work around and get the two separated and then put them back together. I solved it within minutes and spent a couple months just doing it over and over, finding different ways to accomplish the same task.

I'm ramped up on Darvocet right now. My mouth is full of stitches and bone grafts.
So this rifle that will be mine will be more than mine, as are all things I own. I take them apart, I put them together. I customize each and every part to my specifications and make them personal. Guns are no different. My Benelli Nova has been worked and reqorked in my own hands more times than I can count. I use it for trap shooting, dove hunting, pheasant hunting, turkey hunting--the one time I went out--and just-for-fun shooting.

Anyway, this is getting quite lengthy and I need to get some rest before 0400h rolls around again.

More at a later time.

POST SCRIPT: This is bold because it is important. I absolutely can't believe that I forgot to mention Land of Shrimp in my list of quality blogs. I've been around her site quite often and exchange comments with her from time to time, and I've always found something to take away when I visit her space. Please, take some time to visit the links I've listed, because the people I recommend have helped me along more than they know and everyone likes a little ego stroke.

POST POST SCRIPT: There has been a visitor I neglected to mention because I always have a tough time reading his blog--it's in German. He is MartininBroda, and is a great person. He's commented a lot on my site and always has something positive for me, and it always gives me inspiration to continue doing what it is I do. I have a link to his site HERE and a link to a translator for English readers right HERE. I am uncertain if the link I provided will benefit Internet Explorer users, but Firefox users will be able to use the tools.

And also, thanks to everyone who has stopped by here and left a little behind.

time not found

2010-02-06T04:04:00.002-06:00

It is currently 0404h. But only for the minute.

I just can't seem to settle right now. I've been doing the reinstallation of Windows for a while, and now I'm putting the programs back onto the computer and installing the validated software and updates for the operating system, but something strikes me as off. It just seems too easy so far.

Of course, my client wants her computer back by tonight, so I've got like fourteen hours to complete my task. And in that fourteen hours, I also want to be the proud owner of a Mosin Nagant. I can't get it off my mind.

Anyway, I just feel like I need to be writing right now, and I don't really have much to say. The mouth feels fine, but I'm unsettled. Bored. I tried watching television earlier and fell asleep, which is why I'm up at this hour. I slept from like 1900h to 2200h, which is a bad time to take a nap.

Lately I've been considering buying the new Windows 7 x64 OS but the damn thing costs too much--I can't find it for less than about a hundred eighty. And even tough my business is doing fine, and it would be prudent to get the new OS for business purposes, I just can't seem to cough up that kind of dough for an operating system when I've got a perfectly working version of XP x64. The only things I'm missing out on would be Directx 10 and some other stuff that only matters to playing games. I mean, besides the fact that by getting the new OS I'll be forced to reconcile with all the new ways of getting to the same old places. Which helps when trying to fix clients' computers with Windows 7.

My mouth feels gritty from the bone grafting and I keep chewing on my stitches. I took some Darvocet and I feel funny. Not funny ha-ha. I looked over Netflix tonight for some movies to watch but nothing caught my eyes.

Let's talk about Mass Effect 2. This is a new game out by Bioware and is a sequel to--you guessed it--Mass Effect. I bought Mass Effect for my PC a couple weeks ago in order to prepare myself for the sequel. I already owned the first game on my Xbox but since I wanted to import my save files to PC and since the game was only 20 smackers I thought it a deal.

But now I've played through Mass Effect 2 twice, and a funny thing has happened: I don't want to play anything else. I loved Dragon Age: Origins by the same company, but the game is somehow dwarfed by the greatness of ME2. Choose your own way to beat the game, that's the whole deal. And I love it. DA:O allows you to choose some different options, but the game is always the same, and the gear is always the same. Boring. ME2 was fun the first time through, but there isn't enough gear to loot and after a while it just seems too linear. Now I don't want to play any games, really, but that isn't so bad. I should be getting more business done, anyway.

I beat Assassin's Creed 2 the other day in only a couple days. I thought it was much more fun than the original, but too over-the-top in some aspects. For instance, in the first game you got a hidden blade you could use to assassinate guards and targets. So in the second game you get a second blade on the opposite hand to do the same, only this time you can take out two targets simultaneously as long as they stand together. But assassins aren't meant to be flashy; they're secretive and subtle. I didn't like the addition. You do get a poisoned blade this time around, though, and that was a huge help when trying to stay stealthy. You also get a small gun, but it was completely worthless and yet another superfluous addition to the assassin's arsenal. Say that ten times fast.

I tried to play my way through Darkest of Days, which was promising before it came out, but the damn game just doesn't play well. The controls aren't tight enough, the AI is stupid, and the story isn't compelling. It just doesn't have enough substance and functionability to keep me playing. I just made a word up.

But when I look out there at all the other games available, I'm not moved to try anything else. Mass Effect 2 was simply too stunning, too overwhelming, so that everything else pales in comparison. I did get my copy of CounterStrike: Source reinstalled, finally, but even that has lost its luster. I remember the days when I used to sit around playing Unreal Tournament 2004 all day long; that game never got old. I lost my CD key, though, so I can't reinstall the damn game. I played some version of basketball, I can't remember what it was called, but it was pretty much everything I loved about the game. Beautiful, complex yet simple map, bot players set to hard, . . .

I've got to go before someone realizes I'm awake.

More at another time.

it's business time

2010-02-05T15:04:00.002-06:00

Today is a great day.

But let me start two days ago, on Wednesday. I had to get up early--0500h--in order to travel to the Big City and get a tooth implant. For those of you who don't know, a tooth implant is a titanium screw that is placed in the jawbone as an anchor for a permanent tooth approx four months after the implant is embedded. It is the best solution for those looking to replace a missing tooth, the other options being a bridge or no treatment. Bridges are usually fine and have been used for decades, are usually lower cost, but the downside is that you have to ruin two perfectly good teeth in order to install a bridge.

So I didn't go with the bridge, because I am a relatively young guy and I don't want to give up two more teeth--bridges can result in root canals in a long-term run--and my doctor recommended the implant. He's a nice guy, great with oral surgery. Did my wisdom teeth (third molars). The only problem I had with the implant was that I needed some bone grafting done in order to anchor the implant firmly. These days they grow bone tissue in test tubes, so I didn't not have to give up any of my bone for the procedure.

I was a bit scared at first, because I remember when I had my wisdom teeth removed. I had all four teeth growing in, two of them impacted, so I had to have two of them pulled and two of them cut out. It wasn't pretty. I remember waking up after the surgery int he recovery room thinking I was at some kind of party or social event at which I had imbibed too much alcohol. The feeling after being aroused from the anesthesia is remarkably like being intoxicated. The nurses had a hard time getting me to lay back down. I then spent the next two weeks recovering from my procedure, spending lots of time with my mouth open over the toilet as blood and ooze drained from my cavities, suffering pain unimaginable when my codeine ran out or I had to eat--I remember lots of chocolate malts. What a way to spend spring break.

So this time I was a bit unnerved about the whole ordeal. Getting my mouth opened up and having some bone and titanium implanted into my jaw didn't sound like a lot of fun. So I get to the Big City and get into the office and they talk me through the thing and let me choose my anesthesia and I'm looking around at all the tools and stuff laying around the small operating area and I want to ask lots of questions--not out of worry, but curiosity. I don't ask those questions, though, because I'd rather these nurses concentrate on making everything go smoothly as possible. I wake up about two and a half hours later in the recovery room, this time completely ready for the wave of intoxication to wash over me. There is is. I lay back down, knowing that I got little enough sleep the night before and that I've got time here, and now, to get more rest without feeling guilty. I just had a major operation done. So I lay back down, listen to the girl crying next to me--her first time, I assume--and just let the anesthesia work its magic.

My mom drives me home after that; I'm not allowed with all the drugs in my system. I brought my mp3 player and listened to soothing music to facilitate more rest, in case the pain kicked in early. Last time we didn't have any drugs and I was in howling torture by the time we got home. Not this time. They gave me some really great pain killing stuff at the hospital. Injected it directly into my mouth.

And I sleep most of the rest of the day, nearly completely pain free. Yesterday I went out to a client's house and hooked up her computer and configured the printer with no problems. I slept early last night and woke up in some pain, but I took ibuprofen for comfort, no Darvocet.

And today, today this glorious day, I get to reinstall Windows XP Home on one of my client's computers! I love reinstalling Windows, and I know what great good it does to a system. It is the end-all procedure to fixing problems with a slow computer. Get rid of all that extra garbage running in the background, take out the viruses if any remain, just plain make it all new. I reinstall Windows on my own machine around every six months, you know, to be sure. And I also get to do some research while I'm reinstalling for a new laptop for yet another client. And my mouth--through full of stitches on the left side and a bit swollen--is nearly pain free. Today is truly great.

In fact, I even treated myself to regular, caffeinated coffee. From my french press. With milk and sugar, of course.

And finally, today the Cabela's up north is selling the Mosin Nagant. It is a Russian military sniper rifle, and also one of my favorite rifles of all time, and it is a mere one hundred wing-wangs. I want one so badly I can feel the kick of the butt already. I can't drive there, because the roads are too bad, but it's on sale for today, tomorrow, and Sunday. I'll get one if I have to walk the twenty miles to the store. One of the best parts about this rifle is that the ammunition is low-cost; with the war we're fighting, ammunition has gone up to a premium, and some types are nearly impossible to find, such as rimfire .22 cartridges. The .22 lr is one of the most popular guns in these parts. Small, fast bullets, good for squirrels, rabbits, any type of small game, really, and cheap. But not as cheap as it used to be.

Lately my brother has been going coyote hunting with his buddies, and they use like .243s or 25-06 or 30-06 guns. If I had a mosin nagant, I could totally go with them and show them how a true rifleman picks off prey! Of course, I've got a 25-06 rifle, but it isn't truly mine; my father gave it to me as a deer rifle, but I want to own a gun of my own, you know, pay for it, baby it, fix the scope with my own hands and clean the action and rub down the wood. Hold it.

I like guns, I like them a lot actually. I like the thrill of the hunt, the adrenaline you get as you line up a sight and take down the animal you've been looking for. I like the fact that it takes serious skill to pick off a running coyote at two hundred yards or more. They're small animals, coyotes, and when running are very hard to hit. But manageable.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Lots of work to do, and a great day to do it.

More at a later time.

majority rule

2010-01-24T22:36:00.002-06:00

I've been reading this book called The New Atheism for about a week now, and I'm almost finished. The synopsis of the book is not what I'm going to write about. Instead, I'm going to do a little analysis on the cultural zeitgeist.

First of all, I'm sick of hearing the phrase 'cultural zeitgeist.' Zeitgeist means, most usually, 'spirit of the times.' It is hard to grasp the exact meaning, since it is taken directly from our German friends, but it in no way needs to be qualified by the word 'cultural,' for the intent is built into the word itself. When borrowing words, be sure to borrow correctly. I am simply tired of having to put up with the ignorance and stupidity of the common man; the man who says that the meaning is changing due to the times, or that everybody else uses it that way, or that I'm simply too strict with our language. Don't give me that. As Americans, or Canadians or French or British, we have the right and the privilege to be educated as we see fit, and education of a language--especially the first language you learn--is just as important as mathematics, sciences, or music. Yes, I'm putting music in there.

Because the problem is that if I started my own little cult--let's say Alabama--and decided that whenever we use math, two and two is always five. Always. It's been that way for years, everybody does it, and since we started our colony the spirit of the times demands that math change over time. I know that this example is shaky at best, considering English was made to be adaptable and changeable, and that mathematics are not, but for all intents and purposes, let's just say this makes sense. Well Alabama wouldn't agree with the rest of American society. And our math would be much easier and more understandable than the rest of Americans' math, because it's ours, we use it every day. And in our little universe, two and two is always equal to five.

And so it will become with English. We play fast and loose with the definitions of our words--and in this case, someone else's--and over time our words lose their meaning, becoming stagnant and banal. We no longer seek the education of language because we all know the meanings of the words found in our dialect, our culture, our country. But what's the point of creativity, then, if all we do is stifle the results? Surely something must be saved lest we lose ourselves in the monotony of everyday life.

So, just use something like the 'spirit of the times,' or 'the hivemind,' or something instead of 'cultural zeitgeist.' I'd be happy if you just used zeitgeist, if you don't mind. Even 'general consensus.' I'm not a thesaurus, do some work for yourself.

Now what I'm really irritated with is this whole 'movement' that is being called the 'new atheism.' I don't have any problems with what the new atheists stand for--taking the liberty of grouping such an eclectic group into a general category--nor is it their policies proclamations I oppose; instead, it is the cloud of culture surrounding the entire idea of the movement.

What I'm trying to say is that the movement is becoming a bandwagon. Atheism is supposed to be about education and choices, considerate scruples, tenacity, and skepticism. Atheism stands for everything that religion takes that it (religion) doesn't deserve. And one of the major forces behind religion is the bandwagon effect, the fact that once it becomes a conglomerate of forces, many more forces join in simply to be part of something bigger than themselves. There is no real choice, no real consideration or skepticism behind a bandwagon; it is getting together for the sake of being together, and the fact that a person knows what the gathering is about--can tell others why they have gathered in the first place--is not enough justification for being there. The credentials don't check out. I don't see them on the list.

I remember growing up Catholic. I remember my first Communion and my first Confession, I remember Bible school, I remember going to class during the summer to learn about the New Testament, and every Wednesday night to our Bible Study groups. I remember being prepared for Confirmation into the Catholic Faith, and I remember sitting through sermons untold, talking seriously about faith and the reasons behind our beliefs with priests. I remember being very afraid of Hell, placing all my trust in God the Father the Almighty. I remember prayer circles and funerals and dust to dust.

And I remember, too, when I was sitting in the balcony of our Irish Gothic church when I thought for the first time, what say does the Church have in our governmental policies? That is the true spirit of the times.

For me, all subsequent choices, all book choices, discussions, all education and hypothesizing, all my skepticism and proclamations, have come from that simple question: why does our church think it has the right to govern America? What right does the church have to tell women they can't have abortions? Why does the church care that Americans smoke too much, that we eat too much, that scientists are studying stem cells in order to cure serious diseases--diseases with which the Church has never in the slightest been able to help?

It has been a slow and difficult path since that day for me. I have given everything I can in order to find the truth for myself, I have found first-hand all the reasons for my choice in atheism. And I was long an opponent to faith before the 'new atheism' came about and started mucking up the place.

Because that's what this is all about: faith. Faith in an unreasonable thing, faith is a poison to our civilizations, a disease to our societies, a bane unto our good vibrations. Faith is the reason we pray to god, faith is the reason we trust in god, and faith is the reason we kill for god. Faith has been a thorn in my foot for much longer than this new atheism has been about, and I feel that my fury, that my anger, that my logic, reasoning, and justification is cheapened by the fact that my ideals, those I worked so hard to define and uphold, are being bandwagoned by none other than those who used to be religious.

Because it is the same spirit which possesses these new opponents to theism that drove them to religion in the first place.

I'm going to say right now that I probably sound a little crazy, that I probably sound like I'm generalizing and that I can't know that every person who is atheist is only there because it's a popular thing to do. I am doing just that. It is better to err on the side of vigilance and integrity than sympathy.

I see now why there are so many different Christian faiths. Can you see? Can you see that from this point of view, that from my perspective, the possibilities spread to a thousand ways of seeing the universe? Am I simply losing my mind? If we start to qualify the atheists now, then we will be stuck, as the religions are, defining each other until this atheism is cast down and a new atheism-theism arises to take its place.

It's a tough message I'm delivering, and it's because my message is fractured. On the one hand I say we have to band together under one banner and fight against the faiths of the world, and on the other I say it is our strength in numbers which diminishes our force. And if we begin to have qualifications of who can and can't be part of the anti-theist movements, then we have already doomed ourselves to defeat.

Religion and Faith are two heads on the same Hydra. Cut one off and two spring in its place. And dissent among those who are meant to stand united will only ensure our doom.

So on the whole, I am both for and against what has been dubbed the 'new atheism movement.' And not only on a semantic basis.

More at a later time.

now listen up

2010-01-21T16:27:00.002-06:00

Well, here I am again. Let me just relate this little story about how absolutely stupid I am.

So, like I said in a previous post, I was frantically working at my own computer because, for one reason or another, my network interface card--the thingy that lets you get onto the internet--was either uninstalled, disabled, hit by a virus, or something. I couldn't use the Internet.

So I used another computer to scour the Internet in able to find a solution to my problem. Site after site, instruction after instruction, reboot by painstaking reboot, I tried each and every method and suggestion I could find. And nothing worked. Nothing.

I edited my registry, I ran shit in Safe Mode, cmd, application after application in order to find out what was wrong and how to fix it. Even after I figured out what was happening, I had to resort to the end-all worst-case scenario: reinstalling Windows XP x64-bit edition. It's mine, I own it. Legally.

And so I did. All day yesterday I spent formatting the hard drive. Disk boot failure. Reformat. Install. Failure. Reformat. Install. Failure. Remove all hard disk drives but the one I want Windows on. Reformat. Install. Alright! Now we're cooking with gas. Let's just go activate Windows and get full functionality here . . . no Internet service.

So, once again, I'm in my Network Places looking at what the fuck is happening that would affect the system even after a fresh, clean reformatted drive with a new installation. I tried to use ExpressGate (a program ASUS integrated in their motherboards) to get on the net. Didn't work; no connection. So I get into my BIOS and look around to find the network interface monitor thingy, and the system freezes. I try again; it freezes.

I slapped myself in the head about then. Very hard. I turned my PSU off and took out the little battery in my motherboard in order to reset CMOS. I played some Tiger Woods on Xbox 360. I reinserted the battery, turned on the power supply unit, and went back into the BIOS to check the LAN connections. Lo and behold! they were all there, no freezes, no problems. Log onto Windows and activate! Yes! Success!

But then it hit me yet a second time: all of my data, all my books, papers, music, video, everything that I associate with my computer, needs to be reinstalled and put back where it was before the reinstallation.

So that's what I'm doing today. I'm nearly done, but it took me almost four days to diagnose my own computer's problems, and even then, I did it in a profoundly stupid way; I could have saved myself four days of work if I would have simply reset my CMOS before trying any other suggestion or repair thread and simply rebooted. I am a complete horse's ass.

But, now that everything is back online and all my programs are almost all there, I am once again working on computers for other people! It's exciting, I've got some hard work ahead, some serious viruses to root out, some hijacking programs, dusty cases and all kinds of shit. I'll be using what I call 'The Works.'

So that's it. My story on how I could have saved myself sleepless nights and endless frustration had I taken five minutes to do a simple little thing like reset the CMOS. Next time, and for anyone else out there trying to fix a computer, that will go first in the Big Book of Solutions.

More at a later date.

this is getting silly

2010-01-20T04:08:00.002-06:00

I can't believe what has happened to me.

First, my computer wouldn't connect to the internet. I tried everything I could find to correct the problem. Nothing worked; driver update, device manager shit, winsock, netsh, reinstall of drivers and chipset stuff, windows repair, system restore, everything. I mean absolutely everything. I surfed the internet from my other computers for each and every solution to this problem that is known to man, and tried each one in turn. No luck.

Finally, Windows decided that there were so many changes to my system that Windows needed to be validated again. I can't validate over the internet because it won't work, and I can't do it by phone because that's a huge hassle to me, an honest paying customer. I can boot in Safe Mode, which is what I'm doing right now, and am currently moving every file of importance to another one of my hard drives in preparation for a full clean install of Windows.

I'm trying to run a business that boasts PC repair, and here I am stuck on a problem with my own fucking computer. Absolutely ludicrous.

And what's worse, is that I can't possibly see any solution to this problem. I tried Hiren's Boot CD for all network solutions, and nothing. I tried the Mini XP thing, and no internet. I tried Ubuntu, and no internet. I tried ASUS ExpressGate and no access to the internet. I have tried fucking everything to connect to the internet from my computer, every program, system configuration, operating system, anything, and all that happened is that my computer ended up worse off than when it started.

And then, to top it all off, when I went into Ubuntu it told me that two of my hard drives were going bad! The old one, the 320, I expected that, since it has been going bad for a while now. But not my new Western Digital 640! I just got that motherfucker and it hasn't even been on that much--like 80 days or something, compared to a couple years for the 320 and the Barracuda--which is still is perfect condition after like three years.

So like I said, I'm in Safe Mode copying all of my data to a different hard drive so I can format and reinstall Windows on my main disk again. For those of you who don't know this, installing Windows is a lengthy process, full of frivolous tasks, boring screens, and the longest installation times of all time. It is a nightmare. And after that, I get to figure out if my internet will even work or if my onboard LAN has gone bad--I don't think it has since the light is still flashing as if it is trying to access my router. And that's if I can get past the Windows Activation thing, because if it asks to activate over the net, I'm screwed.

And then if that isn't enough, given that all of that works smoothly, then I'll have to download all the XP updates since 2005, then reinstall all my programs and drivers, then reconfigure each part of those to fit the customized system I'm used to, and reinstall my games, which is another hassle because I have to track down all my installation codes. It's an all day event, and that's if everything works out well.

And to top it off, I have to tell one of my clients that her Mobo is shot, which wasn't my fault, but even still her compy is only a year and a half old, and that's a shitty thing to happen. I can't use my computer to type up invoices for my clients, I still need to get this Mac put back together before tomorrow afternoon, and I have to drive forty miles to deliver a computer sometime after I have my doctor appointment in a few hours. And I need to sleep some time.

Why this had to happen now, of all times, is beyond me.

There were a lot of other things I wanted to do today, and a lot of things I wanted to write about today, you know, from the comfort of my own computer, but no; I'm sitting behind my parents' laptop slowly plunking away at this flat keyboard looking up ways to fix one of my computers while also scanning another laptop and putting a Mac back together. This day has been nothing but a complete nightmare, made worse by the fact that I bought Mass Effect for PC yesterday and can't install it unless I have internet access, which sort of kicked off the whole god damned event. So I've got this pretty new game and I'm guaranteed not to be able to play it at least for a couple days because my own computer is fracked up and I'm busy with my clientele.

Well fuck.

More at another time.

Letter to an (un)Christian Nation

2010-01-17T17:49:00.002-06:00

Dear hypocritical Americans,

You aren't nearly as Christian as you say you are. The Church is infallible, as it rests on the Word of God, the Most Holy Book of Books, the Works of Jesus, and most importantly the historical righteousness of the True faith.

Today's Christians are a long way off from where we have come. It used to be that we cared about the world, and the Word, and fellow man. But in these dark times I see more blaspheming and compromising than all the years of the Church combined.

Let's think back to when the church has been wrong: never. Because the Word of God is never wrong. He works in Mysterious Ways. But today, the compromised position we have taken to look more beneficial to society--forced on us by the liberals and infidel atheists--has hampered the way we exercise the One True Orthodox Faith.

I am speaking, of course, of Haiti. Haiti was smitten by God the Father Almighty, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Only Most High, whose Son was Jesus Christ, who Rose from The Dead and defeated death who now sits at the Right Hand of the Father. Haiti is a damned place, doomed to destruction by our One True God, for their actions, which is based on the history of God's Works.

Look at Ireland. Ireland suffered oppression, war, famine, and so forth, and all because the Catholic Church hasn't been able to hold the ruling class--the Protestants, the infidels, the unrighteous and blasphemous, have been fighting for power, and so God had cursed the country until the Righteous Catholics take power and rule over the harlots and thieves. God has surely smitten them for their disobedience.

And the Jewish. They have been oppressed and destroyed and killed at every turn, and only for their faith in their false god. If only they turned to Christ and the One Holy Omnipotent Most Highest of Hosts, their struggle for equality and life would cease.

And now we wage Holy War on those most disgusting, detestable, execrable, blasphemous, pagan, worthless of all races, the Muslims. We rain hell on them through the work of God's Hands Alone, as this Nation is a Christian Nation, guided by Faith, and lead into war by only the most righteous. Now the Muslims cannot stand in broad daylight for the fear of Our Lord.

And so it has come to Haiti. God has smitten Haiti for its voodoo and self-righteousness, bigotry, destruction of His Green Earth, and oppression of the One True Ruling Class, the Christian Faith. And so He sent a Mighty Earthquake to tear down their society, as he did with Noah, and Babel, and with the Trumpets, he reached out His Holy Most Prominent Right Hand of Justice and brought upon them His Wrath. They don't seem so indestructible now, do they?

But what I am getting to is this: we need to reconsider the efforts we are making in helping the Haitian people reconstruct their ways of life. Obviously we are not doing as we are told by The Way, The Truth, and The Light would instruct us.

He has surely smitten Haiti, and we are now sending aid in the form of military security, money, food, donations, and look at what we have done: Haiti was left with but one lowly airport, which is now so crowded with "aid" as to be almost useless to the Haitian people. This is God's Hand, one again, smiting the people of Haiti and refusing to allow them reprieve from their deserved suffering. The Haitian people do not need food, or money, or shelter or comfort or even prayer. What the Haitian people need, right now, is the Word of God the Most Holy and High and Hostly of All Kings and Hosts and High. What they need right now is the Bible, and lots of it.

So why are we fighting the Will of God by sending aid such as food money or shelter when we should be sending missionaries and carpenters to build churches and altars? Why are men not in the streets preaching about the righteousness and justice of God the Most Holy One True God in order to save what few souls are left to save among the Wrath of the Kind and Loving God? There is only one way to save Haiti from eternal damnation and suffering, and that is to allow them to start anew, to stop aid in the form of dirty money or useless food and instead bring to them the only true means of aid in the form of preaching and Bible Study.

I am saying that our Christian Nation has been sabotaged by the scientists and atheists and liberal media leftist communists and made us compromise our position on the stance of God the Most Holy and Loving Fatherly of All Kings and Lords and tricked us, as the serpent most surely would, into helping the undeserved, those who most obviously have been destroyed by the Will of God. We have been tricked into offering our help to the Devil's own in helping those in Haiti who have been rightfully smitten.

To My Christian Nation: rethink our strategy. It is not on bread, but by His Word Alone, that man can live.

positively boring

2010-01-09T01:13:00.002-06:00

Just imagine, all these posts and not one repeated title that I didn't intend!

Which reminds me, I've got quite a few stories bound up in the past that I never finished. I think I gave up on them after seeing that they were boring stories. But then again, I always thought James Joyce could be a bit boring, right?

Let's talk reading, I feel really good about that right now. I finished A Wandering Life by Yoshihiro Tatsuki a few days ago; it's an autobiographical manga. I loved it, and it was an intensely fast read for 1000 pages. The art is very good, and it really flows from one page to the next. I love manga, though, and even comic books, so my opinion is biased.

I read The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, also, which is a Batman Story by the famed author of Watchmen in which the Joker kidnaps Gordon's daughter and attempts to drive him insane, while in the background another Joker origin story is told, and Batman struggles with his (own) existence. I loved it, and the fact that it ends with a question is rather impressive.

I finished Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion a couple weeks ago. For me, it was rather like preaching to the choir, but it is an important step in bridging the gap between theist and atheist thinking habits, I think. It also reasons out why faith is so harmful to society, and how we can better treat one another ethically holy texts.

And now I must digress. I dislike faith. I think faith is a poison set against reason, logic, and, above all, intelligence. I am very much anti-theist, and I have a difficult time getting this across to people, if ever the chance arises, since I live in such a staunch Christian/Conservative region. I think a big reason why the two sides can't communicate is because they argue different questions. Feel free to take a stab.

Now I am reading No More Sleepless Nights, since my pulmonologist recommended I do so. Boring stuff.

I am also reading Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, on a recommendation by Douglas Adams, the famed science fiction writer. I love it. It is absolutely stunning in its intricacy and simplicity. It is quite accessible, and not just for a book on evolution. I can't wait to finish it.

And in queue I have Oblivion, by David Foster Wallace. It's a collection of short stories. I didn't much care for his Conversations with hideous men, mostly because it was too close to real life, and thus, a bit boring. Darkly humorous, though, and a riot to read. I am very much looking forward to this work, especially since he is now dead and will write no more. The best I can hope for is posthumous publication.

I finally got QuickBooks on my computer to help manage my new business. I typed up some invoices and statement, and I'll be starting a new bank account soon. I've had good turnout so far, with three customers and a few more queued up. I am so energized by this whole ordeal.

And besides the fact that one of my dogs snores, that's the news for now. there will be more later on.

complacent

2010-01-07T00:54:00.002-06:00

It's the word I was trying to think about last post when I talked about what I didn't want to become while inhabiting a small town. It's a much more descriptive and fitting word than apathetic, though it's easy to see why I came up with such a close synonym.

Last night when I went to bed I was reminded of my past loves. The blond, the brunet, the redhead--no names to protect the guilty.

I should really start writing all my ideas down; I can't seem to remember everything I want to write about once I finish the first subject I'd like to address.

I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep and I thought about who I am, and what determines who a person is and if it is possible to evolve or change over the span of one measly life. I'm lonely, is the problem. Not just lonely, there are plenty of people around me all the time, but in want of love, or maybe intimacy, or maybe just reciprocal feelings. And I lay there thinking these things, and I realized their veracity within one quantum of measurement--but don't measure it now! I thought about my past relationships, all failures, and why, and whom, and what, just thought and thought about them all and how I was changed and how I have changed and what would happen if I entered yet another. And with whom. And how.

Part of living in a small town is the engrossed portions of fame and infamy a person suffers. And all the like-mindedness, really. Every move made is amplified, whether for good or ill, and impressions are nothing if not lasting, and often gossip and hearsay are just as memorable and (to these folks) true as not. And with that comes the fact that you know everyone, and are also known. That no options present themselves but those that are not allowed, that each love is a love forbidden, each golden apple the one that loses the race. Horses for courses, I guess, but I'm the one stuck here.

Anyway, those loves I shared, I do miss them. But I also realize that my life was much better before or after some of them, that my life became more complicated at times, and was more stressful, and changed me at times, and now that I am free of the obligations associated with relationships I can exercise my own will--but my will is to find a satisfying mate. I have this mind, this mind and it drives me crazy, and I want to share it with someone, a physical someone, and I want to touch and to hold, and to be held, and to love and pamper, and to lead a life that isn't so lonely or desperate or sad. There has to be more to this life than rotting away while starting up my own business.

And it only gets worse from there, the chain of thought. How could I possibly attract a female companion? I can't even make friends, I can't maintain the ones I have. I have trouble approaching the check-out counter at bookstores, let alone another human. I simply don't feel that I have the physical ability to meet a new person--the small town--and that I don't have the tenacity to impose my company on another--modesty?--and finally that beneath it all I'm just not a very good person. If there is one thing I've learned from love, it is that I am selfish, jealous, possessive, stubborn, and probably arrogant. And physically unattractive, now that my body has gone to seed.

And it's these things which bother me. It doesn't help that I have no idea what other people my age are doing--outside of the usual marriage and college graduation, that is. At times I feel hopeless and tired and useless and alone. At times. You'd think the Zoloft would take the edge, but it doesn't, not in the middle of the night when I'm laying awake staring at the darkness of the ceiling wondering what the hell happened to get me here.

And so it comes to my classmates. I never liked them, save for a few. They probably didn't know who I liked and did not, but that's because I held so many in disdain. But I would like to see what they are doing, not out of interest, but so that I have something against which to measure myself. In truth, they may be the only people I know that are left in this world. And I don't even like them, not in the least.

I sometimes want to run away, run away into death. Life would be so much easier if I wasn't around to fuck things up. How selfish I am, indeed.

I am a bad person, and I'll be the first to admit it, but the last to apologize. I was raised to understand that there is someone for everyone, that with six billion on this earth there has to be at least one other person who accepts me for who and what I am. Unfortunately, I think I'll never find that person, even if I look to myself.

And now that I've got the pity party out of the way, what else was there? I am seeing my drug doctor today, so that will be fun, and I see my pulmonologist on the 20th, and . . .

Ah, yes! Today we had yet another blizzard in the wonderful state of South Dakota. What was our high temp, I think it was -5 degrees Fahrenheit. And that wasn't including wind chill. We got snowed in again, and this part of the state basically shut down; banks, businesses, roads, government agencies, everything. Even the farmers didn't get out today. Right now the wind is still howling outside, ensuring that whatever snow hasn't been bolted down will become giant impassable drifts by tomorrow morning. And I have to drive an hour and a half to see a doctor I don't even need. He's supposed to give me sleep drugs, but I won't let him, not after the last incident.

Not having caffeine is killing me. And I can't have soda because my parents said we are all going on a diet. I hate water, it's just to boring. And I can't have coffee, even decaf, without being criticized--"It's still got caffeine in it!" And I ran out of chewing tobacco yesterday and haven't been able to get any more.

I just feel like I'm constantly at my wits' end around here. Sure, it may be going well and be stress free, and I'm spoiled and babied and get everything I want, but that doesn't make me happy, it doesn't give me what I want, I don't live a satisfactory life. I just want to be a normal, everyday Joe with a girlfriend, a job, bills, and friends to drink beers with. And I don't have any of that. Of course, in America, you can buy things like those, but not on my budget.

It's funny that a lot of people say that money can't buy love, or happiness, or friendship. But that's because they don't live in America. A capitalist society will always provide what's in demand. Always. You want love? Friendship? There are people you can call and services you can pay. Feeling down? Get drugs. Feeling up? Get drugs. Feeling lonely? Get drugs! Everything can be fixed through the magic of American pharmaceutical companies. And if it can't, then buy something else, or find something illegal. Or move to another country. There is nothing money can't buy, and that's because capitalism is the greatest thing ever created.

But I do worry sometimes, because now that I'm a business owner, I seem to have found a problem: I genuinely want to help my customers and to bring the best service possible to them while keeping my rates low and explanations understandable. I have this urge to be altruistic. But the rest of the world, especially in a capitalist society, eat altruism alive. Because it's equal to naivete. Because it's a sign of weakness. Because in a capitalist society it's eat or be eaten.

Post Script: I should preemptively have a counter-argument for the money buys everything section. The usual argument is that you can't buy true love or true friendship or permanent happiness with money. But I say this: it doesn't have to be permanent, or true, because if you have enough money, you just keep buying it, over and over. Nobody can be happy with the same things for an entire lifespan, it's too long and nothing lasts. Why keep old friends when you can buy new ones? Buy new love, buy new happiness. You'll wear the old one out soon enough. And people who stick to their guns are the people who don't have enough money to understand just how great capitalism is, or just how far money can go in a place like America.

Any way, happy new year, yet again (twenty ten!) and there will be, as always, more later on.

has it been long enough?

2010-01-04T22:41:00.002-06:00

Sorry it's taken so long to do some updating, but I can't seem to get my creative juices flowing. I don't know if it's because I'm still not getting the sleep I need, or if it's because I was never very creative to begin with, or if it could be the Zoloft I'm taking. But I simply haven't felt as if I had anything creative to write or any real need to express myself, which was usually the reason I sat down in front or my empty text field in the first place.

Now I've cleaned all the drugs out of my system, legal along with illegal, and I haven't anything new to report--life in a small town is always the same, always locked in stasis, always paralyzed. I feel trapped, but not rebellious. I'm scared that I'll become dormant or apathetic, but I'm too apathetic to care.

My business is off to a good start. I'll be putting flyers up around town tomorrow, as well as opening a new bank account and starting to file taxes and whatnot for the business. So far I've only gotten friends of my parents to buy into the deal, but in a small town all you need is a couple recommendations before the whole town wants in. And since I'm from this particular small town, it will be an even stronger bond of customer loyalty and word-of-mouth advertising. I'm very confident that soon I will be happily on my way to paying off my student loans or finishing my degree.

The holidays were very run-of-the-mill for me, including, but not limited to: family get-together with card games and political discussions, ham, turkey, potatoes, babies, newlyweds, kids about age 9, and brothers. Not that I didn't have a good time, but it was pretty standard.

Although the entire state did get shut down as declared by a state of emergency over the big week. We had lots and lots of snow, the Interstate System was shut down, towns were out of power, people were snowed in to their homes, travel was completely shut off, &c. So a few of the people in my family that live in town--on my dad's side--came over to our place after the roads were plowed and played some Wii games. It was fun.

Other than that, life is off to a very boring new year. There will be more later on.

time and again

2009-12-24T02:28:00.003-06:00

I don't think I've been especially busy, but I think that actually contributes more to less posting than if I was actually doing something.

Life in South Dakota is often drab and colorless, from the routine spring planting, to the droughts and floods of summer, through the dismal fall and chilling winters. Except, of course, when nature tosses in some unpredictable circumstances; the spice of life!

Today we got freezing rain toppled with light snow, and tonight the snow will drift into large banks and cover the ice as to make it invisible. Tomorrow we have a 100% chance of rain, and the same goes for the two days afterward. This means that wherever one is today, one will remain until after Christmas.

Starting my own business is going slowly. I got my Federal Tax ID the other day, but due to a printer error I was unable to print my confirmation. All state and federal businesses--including the IRS services--are closed for the rest of the week, so I will have to wait a bit before getting in contact with them. I will also have to apply for a state tad ID, because our state charges a 6% sales tax instead of relying, as other state do, on a state income tax. This is an unfair tax, to say the least, and a hassle, but I've got to play by the rules.

I'm currently in the process of creating a logo for my new business, Desktop Wizard. I can't draw to save my life, and I don't have the proper software to create digitally, so I'm working with my mom to make something on paper before I can scan it onto my computer, after which I will print flyers to put up in local businesses. I'm still very excited about doing this, and I absolutely can't wait to begin working on computers and earning a living by the fruit of my labor. I am absolutely ecstatic.

On a related note, I am still having trouble with my sleep. I wake up form time to time, yes, but that isn't the biggest problem; I still cannot get to sleep any earlier than I used to. Sure, I can find eight hours to sleep through, but the best times are usually 0400 to 1200 and 0500 to 1300. Not exactly business friendly, especially when the town starts at 0600 and sleeps at 1800. I don't think I'll be getting any 0300 emergency computer problems.

I've also decided to buy a Philip Glass CD, so I got his Solo Piano album. It's magnificent. I recommend Philip Glass to anyone who likes classical music with a modern spin.

I wish I had more, but I'll wait for stuff to happen and then report back. Christmas is always a time of great awkwardness, and also a time of great debate. I will capitalize on both later on.

specialist

2009-12-16T11:46:00.002-06:00

Well today I saw a pulmonologist in order to see if I should take a sleep study. He didn't think it would help much, and instead gave me a sleep diary. I'll see him again in a month. I'm currently on no meds for sleep, and for that I'm thankful; after wrecking my car and not remembering a thing, I tend to be fearful of further medication.

Anyway, I'm back at home and will soon be opening my own business--since I'm so good with computer-type junk, I'm doing a tech shop-type thing, like fixing computers, finding out why they are slow, replacing parts, building custom rigs, setting up networks and just getting all computery-type stuff working together. People around here need all the help they can get when it comes to technology--of course, unless that technology has something to do with either combines or soil saturation.

So anyway, just thought I'd do a quick update before I take of for the day to the Bigger City around these parts.

More at a later time.

of no concern

2009-12-12T21:24:00.000-06:00

This keyboard is not what I'm used to. Anyway, I've checked myself back into the health center in order to get new medication for my insomnia. It is easiest here to change medications rapidly, rather than waiting days or weeks to see the same doctor for new meds. It turns out that my family doctor wants me to do a full sleep study, and the doctors here agree.

The down side is that now that I've reported that none of the drugs I have been taking work, the doctors are running out of ideas without moving to drastic measures. I have quite literally tried every cure in the book for insomnia, and none have worked. So I will be here for a few days until I can get my sleep tests taken and sleep medications figured out.

Also, please read the post below this one; it is much more interesting and contias lots of info on South Dakota!

PS: Sorry for the typos; I blame the keyboard.

On South Dakota

2009-12-09T17:32:00.002-06:00

First of all, I have to address the idea that America is the same place, through and through. I haven't heard of this actually being expressed or believed in, but I think that there may be an opinion out there that, from state to state, America is basically the same place.

And what I mean to say is that, even from town to town, America is a vastly different place. Different customs, different accents, different beliefs and organizations and dispositions. I say this only so that the views I am about to express and the stories I will relate are not held reliable for the entire country or, even, the entire state of SD.

I'll start by saying that SD is rural. In SD, we average 10 people per square mile. We have about 650,000 people living here, and only four towns over 20,000, I believe. Most of South Dakotans make their living through farming or ranching, but most of that takes place west river. The river which divides the state in two is the Missouri, and this is actually very important to South Dakotans--which side of the river one is from.

Now, my dad's side of the family gathered at his mom's place for Thanksgiving. In this family, only my family and my dad's brother's family do not farm. That is seven people. The others would be my dad's two sisters, who both married farmers, and have three children each, who all wish to be farmers or in field related to farming. In short, most of the talk at the table is about rural activities and ideals.

But what came up was the subject of hunting. This state is, I think, the only state to tout the hunting of the State Bird: the ring-necked pheasant. Look up a picture; they're beautiful. But they are also nuisances. They eat crops and ruin fields, dig up sprouts and such, so we are glad to have annual hunts for in- and out-of staters for the pheasant, and the rules are such: only three pheasants per man per day, and absolutely under no circumstances can a female bird, or hen, be shot.

In SD, almost everyone owns at least one gun and hunts pheasants. I don't know many that own pistols, but pretty much everyone has a shotgun. I have a twelve-gauge pump shotgun which holds two in the clip and one in the chamber. It's a big, heavy shotgun, and is suitable for ducks, doves, geese, pheasants, and even turkeys, granted you are brave enough to shoot one so close.

But the big season for the hunters in the state--the hunters that take the sport seriously and go out of their way to hunt and have fun--is deer season. Deer season is absolutely a blast. I started deer season at the ripe age of 12, just after I got my license to carry a gun. It's the earliest possible age to get such a license, and is pretty much the norm in most of the state. For deer season, a shotgun simply won't do; it takes a rifle. My rifle is a 25.06 (twenty-five ought six), which is enough to take a coyote, deer, antelope, or elk. It may be overkill for vermin, actually, but since nobody likes coyotes--they prey on livestock and such--it's fine to kill them and leave the bodies lay.

Anyway, my rifle is a bit bigger than what most carry, a .243, which shoots a flatter bullet at longer ranges but has less knockdown power. It's a popular gun because it isn't as heavy as my gun and, as I mentioned, shoots flatter due to higher velocity. But these are the rifles used for hunting deer. And many people have them, including everyone in my family, extended family included. But my mom doesn't hunt.

So we had just come back from deer hunting up north, and the subject was ripe for us all: the deer season starts almost at the same time all over the state, at least for east river, and so all of the people at the dinner had tales of deer hunting to be told. I have my own, but that's for another time.

What happened was after this, my uncle-in-law said, "Those boys out west, they won't stand for the government taking their guns. I know one guy, he had the game warden come to him out of deer season. The game warden asked him if he knew that it wasn't the season. The guy said, 'I shoot one every day. I keep -em back there.' The game warden asked (these are federal employees, by the way) if he could take a look (at the deer). The guy said, 'Sure. You can take a look. Might not come back, but you can take a look!' The game warden got back into his pickup and got outta there."

Things operate differently west river, but the point is this: SD may have a lot of podunks or rednecks, sure, but even those like me, will not stand to have our firearms regulated by the government. And I'm east river; the guy out west river are tough sons of bitches that take no guff from anyone. And they also have more guns.

So after that story another came up, and this one from my other uncle-in-law. We have a military base out west river, and the military boys like to shoot deer one their way to and from camp. Well, one day, some of those boys were seen by the land-owners sons, who didn't take too kindly to poaching on their land--after all, these guys shoot deer, skin them, and eat them for supper. It's a living. Well, the two sons got hold of the military boys--two or three of them, three I think he said--and roughed them up but good. And I mean good. So a couple days later the military officer comes to the land-owner's house and confronts the man. The Officer starts with, "Well, it seems like your two boys roughed up some of my Marines." And the land-owner looks at him and asks, "Are they alive?" The officer says yes, they're alive, and the land-owner says, "Then they're lucky." The officer got in his truck and drove away satisfied.

This is in no way representative of all America, and hardly of the state of South Dakota, but the message stays the same: we like our guns, and not because we're some rednecks or podunks who just like overkill, but because we can and do make a living off the animals we shoot. And also because hunting is a damn lot of fun. We make tons of money--something like over half of our yearly budget--on tourism related to hunting. It's a big business, and everyone profits: the pheasant population is kept in check, the farmers' fields are preserved, and the out-of-staters get a taste of SD birds and some male (or female) bonding time. Hell, even the ladies go deer hunting.

This came about because, as always, politics were beginning to be discussed at the table. All of my family is completely right-wing conservative, but I am a staunch liberal. But here is where we can unite, because I love my guns, and I love hunting, and my life would be different if that tradition was removed or even regulated. My dad said that they the IRS was going to ask up to list what firearms we own next year. You know, for deductibles or whatever. And he said he'll refuse to comply. I support him, and I will do he same. And if the IRS thinks the west-river boys are going to list what guns they've got in their homes and vehicles, then there's going to be a bloody civil war before SD complies with the government.

I don't want to come off as hostile or threatening or even fanatic, because I'm simply relaying the conversation as it took place. I do not, however, support gun control in SD. Maybe in more populated and high-crime areas, but in SD, things like this cannot stand.

So, I hope you've enjoyed this little piece of South Dakotan life and politics. I only want to shed life on what otherwise seems like a lifeless and boring state.

after a while . . .

2009-12-01T20:10:00.001-06:00

1 Dec 2009

1321h

It has been a long enough while since last I’ve written. Most of my time has been consumed by the recent releases of Borderlands, a first-person shooter set in a futuristic wasteland on another planet, and Dragon Age: Origins, Bioware’s latest RPG. I can’t really decide which I like more, since it’s like apples and oranges. I don’t like either apples or oranges, actually, so maybe more like pineapples and mandarin oranges. Or kiwi.

Life has been moving on at a slow rate. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, I feel like I’m in charge of my life, and I know that I can choose what it is I’d like to do, and yet I am such a great procrastinator, it seems a waste to let my talents fade into the annuls of time. I’ve been taking this online class about writing for magazines; you know, like how to act professionally if you’re amateur, how to build a resume, how to be a successful freelancer, things of that nature. But I haven’t actually been online to see what has been going on for a couple weeks. I’m not sure if I’ve missed homework or tests or quizzes or what. I’m fairly confident that I’ll be able to catch up and still ace the class, but at what cost? Education isn’t the only thing at stake, anymore; I feel like my entire life hangs on the fringe of a simple educational tool handled over the Internet by a lady who calls herself a freelance writer, whom I’ve never met or heard of. The situation, when put into regular terms, doesn’t seem to make sense.

But that’s what I’ve been learning about life, at least for the most part. I’ve heard, you know, that everything happens for a reason, that there is method to this madness, to name a few clichés. But I don’t think that there is. I don’t think there is any real reason for cause and event; I don’t believe that there is some sort of master plan behind the existence of everything or anything we know. When something happens, it happens only because it happened. There was no reason beyond it happening that caused it to happen other than the fact that something else happened to cause it to happen. If you say it enough times it becomes meaningless. But what there a motive behind the chain of events, that is what I’m trying to get at, and my opinion is that no, there is no ulterior motive or motive behind the events, no ultimate plan or fate or destiny that has predetermined what the reactions were following. Life goes on, some things happen, and that’s all there is to it.

This brings me to a core philosophy presented by most of the world’s religions: life beyond death. I know, it’s really an interesting segue from one point to the next when you read the previous paragraphs. But what I’d like to get across is that life after death seems silly and downright evil or diabolical. And brilliant, I can admit that. Ask yourself, “How can I raise warriors who are not afraid of death, so that they may never cower in fear or run away in defeat?” I think the answer most of us will come up is, “Promise them rewards beyond rewards not only for winning—that is if they come back—but also a special place beyond our own lives where they will be pampered and treated as kings and gods. Promise them riches and virgins and happiness.” This is the perfect scheme, scam, scandal; the absolute most brilliant idea for raising mindless hordes of minions ever to be conceived upon earth. I can’t say with any proof that this is the reason the concept was first created and touted as a religious theme, but I’ll go ahead and say that is exactly what happened. You can’t take control of people and work them to the bone and treat them as slaves—this is assuming you’re a dictator, as all civilization began—and expect your population to stick around and be happy or not throw a coup. But if you challenge them with the wrath of a god, or numerous gods, if you inflict in them the fear of the unknown, and them tell them this same being, who can punish beyond all imagination, can also reward beyond all dreams, well you’ve got the start of a wonderful was to become an unchallenged dictator. Until, that is, someone else comes up with a rival god who says the first god is a sham, and this new god will promise you even better things, and punish the people beyond what they themselves would be punished for not following this new god. It’s an arms race, you see, a cold war, and it needs no weapon other than charisma and appeal. I mean, if your civilization has been dominated by one race, and another, and another, and another, and you’ve been enslaved by tribe after tribe after tribe, the idea that there is a supernatural dictator who will give them what they’ve got coming—both the slaves and the masters—it brings hope and imbibes the believers with courage and wrath. It gives them a sense of righteousness. And, if you really want to think about it, and I’m not saying that you should or that this is terribly interesting or even not hostile, but if you really think about it, this is the most natural way for human civilization to advance. Because you can make all the laws you want if you’re ruling a large kingdom. But the king is far away, and his wrath has a reach. But there is a being out there, a being which has chosen our king, a being which has predetermined each and every facet of our lives, a being who rewards our good deeds, a being whom will bring his full and unending wrath upon those who do wrong. And this being, he knows, he can be everywhere at all times, he can read thoughts, he can see the unseen, he knows what you’ve premeditated, and he has a plan. He has a plan for you, and for me, and for our king, and he’s on the king’s side. So not only are there laws set forth by the king, but those same laws are enforced not only by the king and his men, but by a supernatural superpower who is omnipotent and all-powerful who has the ability—by now, we’ve established that there is life after death—he has the ability not only to make this life miserable and painful and unendurable, but also the life you have after death. And that life, the life after death, is unending. It is eternal; it will last forever, just as the being who made it that way. So not only will this life be tortuous and unending sadness, but the eternal life awaiting your death will too be even more tortuous and unendurable and miserable, and not for the few years that you lived, no, but until time itself will end.

And that is why the Old Testament was written.

a three-in-one flashlight

2009-11-19T14:48:00.002-06:00

So it's something like 1450h here, and I'm sitting alone in my parents' basement in front of my computer listening to Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass over my dad's surround-sound stereo system while reading various articles from over the Internet and wondering what the hell am I going to write about?

I am understandably excited for my mom to come home because one of these days she'll be getting Microsoft Word from her IT guy at work. She's got a government job, so this stuff is free to her to use on her personal computer. Whereas usually it costs something like two hundred bones.

So yesterday was a big day.I had another session with my therapist--and here's the thing.

I guess my parents have told everyone they know that I was locked up in a mental hospital for a couple weeks. I expected this, since my mother is a terrible gossip and I live in a small town--1500. But she isn't very good at details. This is something that has always pissed me off about my parents. I've got a great example: my mom and I were going golfing a couple weeks ago and I told her, "You know, the other day I came home and saw Dad playing golf on my Xbox, and I said to him, 'Gee, I think you've played more video games today than I have!'" So my mom calls my dad up on her cell phone "to give him shit" and she says to him, "Derik told me that November 6 was a day to remember, because Doug played more games than he did!" But obviously I didn't say these things, and it's the inaccuracy that drives me insane.

Anyway, as it goes, my mom has told everyone that I'm on some drugs and that I've got some problems or whatever, but I'm not sure exactly what everyone has heard, and now I'm thinking that Thanksgiving is going to be very uncomfortable--not only on my mom's side, but my dad's too. Because yesterday I picked up my dad's mom so that we could go to the Big City; I had a session and we were to meet my dad's brother for dinner because they were both celebrating their birthdays. So of course their mother would want to be there. And I pick up grandma and tell her that I've got to see a doctor in the Big City and she asks me if that's the one for me medication. And then I realize how little she knows. So I tell her, "Well, this girl I only talk to. I've also got a doctor for my sleep medication, one for my antidepressants, and one for my cholesterol levels." She seemed surprised.

This is why I don't like small towns, incidentally. I am a master of knowledge control, and I only give out exactly what is needed in any situation. This way I know exactly what other people know about any given subject at any time, and especially when it comes to my personal life. I like to be secretive, it makes me feel safe and comfortable. But now I'm going to have to face Thanksgiving on both sides of the family and have to answer these awkward and weird questions, and the worst part is, they aren't going to be particularly well-informed questions, so not only will I have to do that, I'll also have to run damage control and give out even more information to correct what's been misinterpreted or misrepresented. The whole thing gives me the howling fantods.

So yesterday my dad, mom, and grandma all go to the Big City and I have my session and it goes pretty well; I've been absolutely stressed the past couple of weeks, and I really need to talk it out with someone who isn't in my family. I think it went well, because I felt a lot better after I left. And I'm in the car with my dad, and he's asking me, "Do you think this helps?" And I say, "Yeah, I was feeling pretty stressed out, but now I feel a lot better." And he tells me that he doubts whether I've actually been stressed out before. Anyway, we go pick up my mom and grandma, who've been shopping, and my mom asks my dad how it went, and he says, "Derik told her that his mother was driving him crazy. Says he needs to get rid of the crazy bitch." And he meant it as a joke, no doubt, but my mom didn't really take it as so, and asked me some very awkward questions. It put me in a compromised position. This is why I don't like to share information about myself with the people around me; it always seems to get mixed up or morphed and leads to strange situations in which not all is understood.

After that we go to Granite City, which is a restaurant with a microbrewery. And we decide that while we're waiting for Denny, my uncle, we should have a beer. And it was absolutely delicious beer. I had one before dinner, another with dinner--a different brew--and one after dinner. We were there for almost two hours, I think. But it was a good time, and mostly I sat there and listened; I don't have much to add to these conversations. My aunt--Denny's wife--has better subtlety pr tact than the rest of the family, I don't know why, so I've always liked having her around. It was an enjoyable dinner, all the same, and we went home and to bed. But I still think it was a big day.

When I got home, I wanted to watch this movie, Alice. It's a take on Lewis Carrol's novel, but uses stuffed animals and all kinds of weird shit to depict Alice's travels. It is absolutely bizarre, but it's been on my mind for about a week. I recommend it to anyone. But then again, I also love David Lynch films, B movies, bad films (not purposely bad), and dry humor. What I'm saying is that I'm not a great judge of what other people think is a good movie.

I've tried to explain this to other people, and quite often, actually. An example is this: my cousin Amy wanted to watch a horror movie on Halloween. I told her that she should pick the movie, because I wouldn't pick a good one. She said whatever would work, and that I could just pick one out. The next day I my mom and dad give me a hard time for making Amy sit through such a terrible movie. I said I thought it was good. But this has always been the way of things. Even when I have my close friends over, we rented this movie called Gag, and it was bad. I mean really, really bad. But I thought it was entertaining, and I'd probably watch it again. But those guys hated me for it. They couldn't sit through the movie and simply gave my shit for it--I still haven't heard the last of it. I simply like bad movies.

So these last couple of weeks I've been playing Dragon Age: Origins, the new game out from Bioware. Just let me say this: they have never released a bad game. Never. Every game they've released I've played, and every time I think it's the best thing since peanut butter. I really love peanut butter. So the past couple of weeks that's all I've really been doing. Absolutely great fucking game. A little more accessible than I care for, but you've got to let the guys make money, you know?

Well, I think that's all I've got for now. I just can't seem to settle my mind or focus or find something that interests me. I've now listening to the Foo Fighters, but I'm a little bored.

More later on.

new post

2009-11-10T22:42:00.003-06:00

Well, well, well; here we are again. Right now I'm sitting behind my computer at 2242h and watching a strange film called Brick, which has this chick I recognize from Heroes in it. I'm not really paying attention, though, since first I had to set up an email account for one of my dad's employees--he's completely computer and technology illiterate (happens in SD often)--and so I got him a gmail address and set up his home page and whatever, but now I feel like doing a bit of writing.

I saw yet another psychiatrist last week for my insomnia. I was taking Restoril 30mgs and Seroquel 100mgs, but they didn't work so hot, and the Seroquel left me feeling drugged and drowsy all day. So I go to this guy and I tell him my history and he reads my charts from my hospital stay and all that and I tell him I've actually been taking 45mgs of Restoril to help get to sleep. He says that's fine and tels me to take 150 mgs of Zoloft instead of the 100 I'm on, and writes me a prescription for more Restoril and also proscribes a new drug called Rozerem. It isn't any good. Now I'm usually up--I take my drugs at 2200h--until about two or three in the morning and I wake up by about five, then I'm up and down until about noon, when I decide I can't actually get any more sleep, anyway. If you've been counting, and I haven't, I've taken a lot of drugs for insomnia so far, and it looks as if I'm not yet done.

Let's go through the list: trazadone, Lunesta, Ambien, Ativan (lorezepam), Remoran, Seroquel, Restoril, and now Roxerem. They tried one or two otehr drugs, like Klonipan and Doxipam (not sure of the names, just heard them pronounced) while I was in the hospital, but like I said I was there for two weeks before they released me, thinking the problem was solved. This list doesn't include the numerous OTC drugs I tried before getting professional help with my insomnia, nor the other drugs I used, namely alcohol and marijuana.

But here's the thing, before you go jumping to conclusions: the alcohol and marijuana have helped more than any other drug I've been given or have tried. Why? Because eventually, doing one or the other will absolutely render me unconscious. I get no choice in the matter. Drink enough alcohol, your body will cease to function and you will lose consciousness. Smoke mary jane, and you will eventually be overcome with drowsiness. And I also slept longer when I took those drugs, when compared to the proscriptions I've been given. Now isn't that funny?

So I'm getting very worried here, because I want to be back in school in less than two months and I still have terrible insomnia. I have stopped drinking and using grass because I'm supposed to give these drugs a fair chance, and my mother has stopped buying be delicious Coca-Cola and buys only caffeine free Coke. Also I can't have coffee after noon. Also I've been doing much more exercise than I ever did before, and still--STILL--I can't get to sleep or stay asleep.

So, I've tested every theory that's been given me, and none have worked, as I guessed would happen. I know that I shouldn't pretend to see the future, but I have already done all these things to attempt to get my sleep pattern corrected. Now even the best medical minds on sleep have been stumped.

It just makes me want to go back to drinking. I figure if I drink enough eventually I'll get jaundice and simply poison myself to death.

Here's the thing about anti-depressants, I should bring this up: now that I'm on them, I don't have suicidal thoughts anymore. But I don't care if I live or die now, either. I figure a car crash, a hunting accident, whatever happens, I'll probably be better off dead, but I won't go to any lengths to accomplish the deed. I'm apathetic towards death. I do not think this is healthy or natural, but it is much better then being depressed each and every day.

But again, I want to get back to drinking, not least because it is a method that I know works for sleep. Yes, I wake up early after the effects wear off, but I go back to sleep after that, and I've always felt well-rested afterward, not drugged up, not hung over, just well-rested.

I don't know what to do anymore. I'm so frustrated and untrusting and I still think I'm paranoid, but I'm only suspicious that I'm paranoid. I don't know what to do. I don't think the doctors are taking me seriously and I also think I'm not being given the correct medications on purpose. I simply cannot be convinced that there are no stronger medicines than those I am currently taking.

This is enough for now. More later on.

OK, OK, here's an update

2009-11-05T09:30:00.003-06:00

So last week I bought a new video game, Borderlands, and that is what has happened to my time. The game is great, and I can play both online co-op and alone, but the only problem with online play is that I have no idea who I'm joining up with when I join a party. The other day I jumped on a server only to find that everyone spoke French. Before that I struck a group of Aussies. And before that a Mexican server.

The only problem with all this is that these distant servers severely impact performance because the Internet connection is so slow or far away. I have top-performance Internet; I spare no expense when it comes to online gaming since you are only as good as the components you comprise. But this shit was ridiculous; there is actually no way to tell where a server is coming from so you have to join a game first and then you find out how bad the lag is, whereas usually you have the ability to test your ping before you enter a room so you can sort by fastest ping and join the best server. This is why I'm afraid of the new Modern Warfare 2 no dedicated servers; they want to do a system like XBox has and host all the servers themselves, but the problem is that, once again, they simply don't get that gamers want to be damned sure they have the best performance available for each and every game they join, otherwise you get stiffed when it comes to playability. A typical scenario would be something like this: you've spotted a sniper in the bushes across the way, so you line up your sight and place it on his face. He isn't looking. You slowly pull the trigger, and as you hear your gun go off the sniper turns and pulls his trigger after you yourself have pulled the trigger, only his bullet travels, apparently, faster than yours, and you die. This is not because you're a bad shot, but because the sniper has a better Internet connection and everything you do actually takes seconds more than any other player on the server. This is called hosting, and it's the cheapest fucking gaming advantage ever created.

Anyway, the other day I went to see my therapist again. We decided on every two weeks because, again, I don't feel like I actually have anything to talk about every week. Like in South Dakota is very slow and dull, so the two weeks between appointments I spent slowly and quietly going insane in my parents' basement.

So anyway the night before my appointment I'm all getting geared up for seeing my therapist because, honestly, I need some human interaction outside my parents. Yes, I love them and it's fine to spend time together and all that, but seriously I need some alone time. But I can't tell them this because I don't know how stable I am, as in I'm not sure if the smallest thing that I may think I would be just a little upset about I may end up blowing up because I've kept all the frustration to myself and quiet. I'm pretty ramped up to see my therapist, is what I'm trying to say.

On the way there--the drive is about 1.5 hours--I get my mp3 player out--it is NOT an iPod--and I listen to the music I put on it that morning. Funny thing: when I was looking through the forty gigabytes of music on my computer I didn't know what to put on, because I don't actually know what music I listen to. So I just put a bunch of stuff on hoping I would like the results. The music wasn't bad. Anyway, on the way to the appointment I'm listening to music and just thinking about what I'm going to talk about. I've got a sneaking suspicion that I'm becoming paranoid, so I kinda want to talk about that. And other subjects, nothing really astounding or important, I just need to have a conversation with someone I can vent to, is what I'm thinking.

And I'm also confused about who and what I am these days. It isn't the complete identity crisis I've been suffering from, it's much more mild than that, but I just have troubles resolving reality with my personality. It also doesn't help that I don't have anyone to communicate with outside my therapist every two weeks.

So anyway my mom--who's driving (I just like to ride, actually)--she drops me off at the center and I go up to the counter and tell the girl I'm there to see Sara(h?) at 16:30. I said four thirty, but you know. And I had just gotten there at like four twenty-five. I wait five minutes. I wait ten minutes. I wait thirty minutes. The gal behind the counter asks me again who I am going to see, and I tell her and she says it's funny that she isn't coming out to get me. She then looks around on her computer and tells me that my appointment was actually for the day before. I think OMFG works here. The emotions boiling within me had reached a point that was nigh insurmountable. There was simply no easy way going about it. I must have paled ten shades of white in front of her eyes, because the gal said to me, "But she's done at five, if you just want to wait she can see you then." And I though, "Everything turned out better than expected." And I go to tell the lady my answer, and I tell her, "No, that's okay. I'm just going to call my ride."

Why? Why would I do that to myself, you wonder? Because I hate to inconvenience people and I'm too shy to go out of my way to get what I want. Unless it is gaming, you know.

I call my mother--who got the appointment date wrong, not me(just to clarify)--and tell her to come pick me up, we showed up a day late. So she comes to pick me up and asks if I had rescheduled an appointment. I had not, because I was in such turmoil after the shock I forgot. I also severely dislike talking to make appointments. Or anyone behind a desk who I have to talk to in order to get something I need, not always what I want. This also applies to waiters, telephone calls, hotel check-ins, pretty much anything that involves me talking to someone who is in front of my destination.

My mom goes inside to make another appointment for me, and she comes out and says she has time open now--it's 1700h--and that she could see me if I wanted to. Since it was my mom I told her that's fine. I go inside and I talk to the therapist (people around here say counselor, but I don't feel counseled and it sounds lame) and even though it isn't a full hour I feel tons better at the end and I make an appointment in another two weeks. I walk outside and get in the car.

We ran some other errands that day, but really nothing spectacularly interesting. My mom took me out to eat at Chili's, so that was a lot of fun. And delicious. We stopped at the golf store (I don't know how to spell it, give me a break) because I wanted to get a three wood, since my game needs something between my driver and my three iron. No, I don't have any fairway woods. I did, back when my clubs were new, but I never used them since I could get along with my irons and my dad, who can't use drivers (I don't know why, he just can't hit them well) always wanted to borrow my three wood. So I just let him keep it. He bought the clubs for me, so it was the least I could do. The thing was that he actually broke my three wood one day because he was frustrated with his golf game. There is more behind that behavior, and I'll get into one of these days.

But so anyway he broke my three wood and then repaired it, but in order to do so he needed to shorten the shaft and make a clean break before fixing the thing. The problem is this: I'm nearly six feet four inches these day, six five with shoes on (not including sandals) and I needed each and every inch that club offered. Eve though it must have been only a inch shorter, it was then too short for me to use.

That was years ago, like six or seven, when I got those sticks. In between that time I created my entire game around the fact that I don't carry fairway woods. I didn't have a powerful enough swing to have to club down at the tee box, and so my entire game after driving I could use my irons. I am a spectacular iron player, by the way, and very proud of it. In fact, I'm so proud of it I'm going to brag a bit.

I hit my five iron two hundred yards. That's right. My driver is around three hundred, usually more conservative than that, though. I carry irons 3-9, PW and a SW. I hit my pitching wedge 100 yards. All the other ones I've gauged by time on the driving range and time spent on the course. You see, being brought up where I was (SD) I've also become a great judge of distance, so I've got each and every iron figured out with about a five yard margin of error. My three iron I can hit about two twenty. Seriously.

Anyway, so I shaped my entire golf game around the fact that I didn't carry any fairway woods. My set had actually come with 3, 5 and 7 woods, but what the hell would I need those for? I can really, really hit my three iron if I'm a long way out. Also, I was rarely in the fairway those days. I'm loads better now that I've got lots of games under my belt and my dad helps with my swing.

But now that I've gotten so much better at the game, my driver is actually too long for some holes. On hole 2 I usually drive out-of-bounds behind the green unless I can hook it in to scrap yardage. Sometimes I hit trees. But if I drive my ball straight and directly at the pin I'll have too long a club, do you see? Also, on hole 9 (it's a par 5) the fairway is divided just at the end of about two hundred fifty yards by a creek. So even if I hit my ball straight down the fairway, I roll off the fairway and lose my ball. If I slice it left (as happens at times) the hole is even shorter. So what usually happens is I hit my ball and hook it to the right, putting my at about two hundred fifty or sixty out. I could use my three iron to poke at the green from there, but I usually end up thirty or forty yards off, having to lay up with a sand wedge or pitching wedge. Not that there's anything wrong with that: on the green in three means I can take two putts for par.

So anyway, it's a long effing shot. And I know I could use my three iron, but at that distance I'll probably end up messing up on my shot because I get nervous. So I've tried different three woods--my dad has a nice three wood and he's about my height (little shorter)--and I end up about on the green or just off three or four yards.

Long story, eh? But the deal is this: we go to the golf store to look at three woods but the problem is they close in ten minutes and finding a golf club is hard work. I've got too powerful a swing for most graphite shafts, but steel shafted woods are rare. So I've got to find a stiff-shafted graphite club with a small head that's long enough for me to use. Not an easy task, that. But also I want to make sure we don't spend a lot of money, so instead of looking at new clubs right away I check out the used club section. But the used club selection is huge and there are both left- and right-handed clubs mixed together. Plus the shop closes in five minutes. My mom is looking at new clubs, and when I find her so that we can leave she says, "If you're going to spend a couple hundred bucks you should just get a new set altogether." But I tell her that the used club section has really great clubs at fantastic rates, but that we need to leave so that the guys behind the register can close. We leave without a club.

So today I go to see a psychiatrist for more sleep medication. I ran out two times faster than I was prescribed, which means I was taking more sleep meds than I was prescribed to take.But, in my defense, they weren't working in the first place, so I just took a little more to make them work. They didn't, really. But, since we're going to the same city we get to go back to the store and look at clubs. So I want to take my dad along so he can help choose with me, since he's the golf "expert" in our house. Telling him this last night really cheered him up.

Which bring about the next topic of discussion at some point in the future: The ego is a fragile thing.

More later on.

the eve of all hallows eve

2009-10-30T19:09:00.002-05:00

Well it's come to that time again. I've got to sit down and make myself think and write and create. Or pick. Or have something piqued. I am actually sitting behind my two computer screens after just installed all my components into a new chassis, which is for laymen a new 'box.' It's got a nifty blue light on it.

I often think of writing like stand-up comedy: I literally feel as if someone put me on stage and said 'Be funny.' Of course I mentioned this to my therapist, who missed the comedy. I am fairly certain she missed it. Because going to someone every two weeks and sitting down to talk to them is very difficult indeed for a person like me, who converses for a single reason: to communicate. I believe I always have behaved objectively in this way: I go to the pantry for food, I go to school to learn, I listen to music to listen to music. Currently I have Stravinsky's Rite of Spring blasting in my ear. Funnily enough, I heard a cello come in a bit low and I thought it was my computer malfunctioning for a small moment. I am reminded of Saint--Saens. Maybe music majors don't know.

So I'm taking this online class in order to boost my GPA so that I can go to school next semester in Lincoln, NE.

Horror movie time. More later on.

golfing in october

2009-10-25T21:40:00.002-05:00

My life has become the most interesting this I know of lately. It's getting very funny, and only because I'm the one in it. It's like an ongoing joke.

Here's the thing: last night I got some bottles of wine and drank them, but only after I had taken my sleeping pills. Again, I'm taking this Restoril stuff, a hypnotic, and seroquel, an antipsychotic. The effects of the two increase one another, but here's the deal: the hypnotic makes me really weird. I do things like eat or drink and completely forget about it until I find evidence of my doings the next day. This is similar to when I was on Ambien, but not as bad as all that--I can mostly control what I do on the hypnotic unless I fight the drug, after that who knows what will happen.

So last night I wasn't actively fighting the drug, I mean not to my knowledge; I was watching a movie. I don't remember which one. I think it was called Red Road. But sometime during or after this movie I had gotten it into my head that I needed to drink some alcohol. The appeal is that I can change the way I think and tap into my creative mind as if by accident. This has happened many times, and is the primary reason I like to smoke marijuana: it changes the way I think about the world, which then branches the mind out and allows me to make connections I wouldn't normally work. It is a double-edged sword, I realize, and dangerous to play with, but I take full responsibility for the pros and cons. So I do the same thing with alcohol from time to time--it used to be that I drank for one purpose, and that was to sleep. But I found out that sometimes I would do or say or write something worth doing or saying or writing before I passed out, and so now even though I don't use it to sleep--I was sober for a few weeks, which is a log time for me--it still appeals to me because I can change the way I think about the world.

It's like rolling dice, is the best comparison I can think of. Sometimes you roll the dice and nothing happens. Sometimes you roll and you lose. And sometimes you roll and you win it all. There is a word on the tip of my tongue, a literary word, a word which is better than comparison. It starts with an A. Allegory isn't the one.

But so anyway last night I must have gotten it into my head that I needed to drink, and so I did. I had two bottles of wine and watched some television shows and a movie, but I don't remember any of it. Nothing.

So this morning my mom comes into my room and starts talking to me. And she's asking did I drink wine last night. And I say yes, because I remember it coming into my mind. So she wants to know where the bottles are, and I tell her I don't know. Because I don't. She isn't angry, if you have to picture--this is a very casual conversation we're having, and I feel disembodied by the whole experience, like I'm part of the scene and yet not part of it, like I'm watching how I act in this situation. Laughing in my head.

And she asks me when did I think I wanted to drink. Because I didn't have any wine at dinner, though I could have. And I didn't want any with dinner; we had turkey, which doesn't go with a red wine, as I told my parents. Red meat, red wine. Turkey isn't red meat. So then she asks me when I started drinking. I didn't know. I was hypnotized by the drugs, I guess. And we have this whole conversation concerning the nature of my thoughts and the state I was in and what was going on that may or may not have started me on the drink. And I have no idea of any of it, and so I go on to persuade her that this is not normal behavior for me, because it isn't. But then again I don't think that I would have done anything differently. So this is a pickle I'm in.

But it's a funny pickle. On one hand I am being completely honest with my mother, and on the other hand I'm being completely honest with myself, but the two honesties don't match up, leaving me to be nothing more than a bystander in my own life.

And I'm getting to know my parents more, and letting them get to know me. Today I had an entire conversation with my mother as we golfed. I told her that if I was the only person on the entire course, and I came across a golf ball that wasn't mine, even though I was the only one out there, I would leave the ball. She asked my why, and I told her because I would be too embarrassed. I also confessed that I don't like romantic comedies because I don't think they are funny; they make me uncomfortable. These are things which I have never confessed to others. But when I think abut it I wouldn't know who else to tell.

So my life is becoming a very interesting stage for a very interesting play. And I'm in the audience, is that catch. It's like some kind of weird existence, like something from a movie.

More later on.

i'm typing in a safari shirt

2009-10-23T15:20:00.002-05:00

You wouldn't even believe the troubles I've had while setting up this computer.

First, I couldn't figure out why the computer wouldn't run POST. So I figured I didn't have a good speaker on my chassis so I got my other chassis (previous build) and plugged that one in. And after I couldn't get it to POST once again, I figured maybe the PSU was bad. So I switched PSUs. Then I figured maybe the memory was bad, so I tried with both chassis and both PSUs while moving the RAM around to see what maybe or may not be the problem.

After I had gone through all the possible permutations, I started up the computer--I was breadboarding for a while by this point--and just let it run for ten minutes. Then I uninstalled the CPU cooler as quick as I could and took out the CPU--carefully, I may add-- and put the CPU to my cheek. Ice cold. Damn, the CPU was burned out.

So I ordered a new CPU and a heatsink and fan combo to keep it nice and cool, just in case, you know? I finally got the thing to POST and heard only one beep: code for "No keyboard detected." So I plugged in the keyboard. Unfortunately I also couldn't log onto Windows because it needed to be activated, but it wouldn't bring up the activation window after I said Yes, that's fine. I waited. And I waited.

So I figured I should just reinstall, but you see my big HD was full or precious data, so I installed Windows on my little HD and there it was: everything worked. Well, I couldn't get my second monitor to work and I hadn't tried sound just yet. Also there was the old HD to work with.

So I rooted around all yesterday trying to find out why my second monitor wouldn't work. Turned out to be some sort of driver issue, plus I was too damn dumb to remember which videocard I was running. This was after I had figured that the videocard wasn't fucking with the rest of the system. But, after a long time and many reboots, I got my second monitor to function correctly.

Then today I was able to reinstall Windows on my big HD. Same problem: must activate, no activation window. Well fuck it all anyway. So I logged on to my small HD and salvaged what I could off the old drive and formatted it. Now I'm running tests on it--via the manufacturer website's software--to see if it really is bad or good. Because even though I'd love to get a new HD and tower--sweet sales going on--I would prefer to save my parents, who are funding the operation, some monies. So I want to be absolutely sure at each and every stage that I am doing only what is necessary. Slow economy, you know.

Well I salvaged what I could--you know, my little HD is 80 gigs, and my big one is 320 gigs, so there was a lot of picking and choosing--and decided I wanted to set up my speakers and play some music and maybe watch some videos if I felt like it. I did manage to save some videos, but I basically filled the small drive. Well it turns out the speakers wouldn't work, but I knew the system could detect them: every time I pluged them it it was like, "Hey, you just plugged some speakers in!" So I plugged them into a different computer to see if they would work. They didn't. Then I realized after an hour that I plugged them into the wrong port. So I switched ports and bang: sound.

So then I had to figure what was going wrong internally. Uninstalled some more drivers, installed some more, reboots all around, and eventually I got some songs to play. So much work for so little payoff.

So while I was doing all this I was also watching a movie called Happiness.

I don't know exactly what to say about it, so I'll leave it at that.

Right now I'm watching Palindromes. Don't know what to say about this one, either.

from the midwest

2009-10-22T16:11:00.003-05:00

I got my second monitor hooked up. It actually took me a lot longer than expected, because first I had to uninstall some drivers and then I had to find some others, then uninstall those because I got the wrong ones, then fuck around with some other ones until I found out what video card I was actually using, and then installed the correct drivers and finally used the software I found to configure the two monitors to be used simultaneously.

Lots of rebooting.

And I also found that my primary hard disk is dead. Almost completely dead. I can't even boot my computer if it is hooked up for some odd reason. So much data could be lost. I mean, lots of papers and poems and all kinds of music and video and game saves--there has to be a way to salvage it all. I did boot up in safe mode with it yesterday, so if I can do that then transfer some of the vitals to this disk before it craps out for good . . .

More at a later time.

worst of the best?

2009-10-21T19:57:00.002-05:00

So I finally figured out which part of my computer was broken: the CPU. Too much electricity I, I figure.

Well anyway I got the new CPU installed today and went on to boot Windows, but it wouldn't boot. It said I needed to activate in order to log on, but each time I tried to activate the computer would hang. So I tried to reinstall and repair install and fixboot and fixmbr and some other shit I read about afer booting in safe mode, which worked despite other problems.

But it didn't work. So when my system hung while I was trying to reinstall I figured I had one of two problems: the hard drive was going bad or the CD drive wasn't reading. So I grabbed my backup 80gig hard drive that I normally use only for video files and wiped it (regretfully) and installed Windows. Here I am.

But the problem is now I've only got an 80gig hard drive and shit-tons of data on my 320gig drive. So now I need to figure out a way to get my HD hooked up to my MoBo and get some data transferred.

But for now, I've got this far. No games, no word processor, nothing but Internet access. I don't even have my keyboard and mouse stuff installed. Maybe I'll jump on that.

And maybe my other HD will spark to life on the next boot.

More at a later time.

culturally speaking

2009-10-18T12:39:00.003-05:00

So last night I went to see the new movie Law Abiding Citizen. Many spoilers ahead for those who wish to see it without adulteration; readers beware.

Here's the general plot: two men enter another man's home and kill his wife and child. The father sees both men and takes them to court for murder. One of the men is given the death sentence and the other man serves three years in prison because the attorney cut him a deal for a testimony.

So what happens is that ten years later the father begins his exacting revenge on not only the man convicted and sentenced to death, but also the man who walked, the judge, the defending attorney, the entire justice system, which he sees as broken and ineffective.

Now, the problem is this: America can't have a movie in which the bad guy wins, or the good guy loses something permanent. The bad guy, the writers decided, was the father who was exercising vigilante justice upon the wicked and guilty. It's crude and weak, and suggests banality and whatever the opposite of creativity is. Because here's the twist: the attorney who cut the deal doesn't feel as if he's done anything wrong, he feels that one man getting the death sentence and another man serving three years for slaughtering a little girl is better than nothing at all, and maybe it is. But at the same time, I can't condone a fifty percent conviction rate for violent crimes. If I was the father in this case, I would feel entitled to vigilante justice, but since he wrapped it up in a, "You don't know what justice is and I'm going to teach you to take responsibility for your own actions," sort of speech, then I can't say I'm on his side, either.

And since the 'good guy' can't lose anything permanent, in the end he suffers no harm, and feels no remorse for his wrongdoings. Also, he breaks a great many of laws which the American constitution has set forth as being unbreakable, which then you have to decide who is worse, the man defending his civil rights or the man breaking them.

And the end is this: the attorney takes a bomb the father has hidden beneath the seat of justice and places it in the father's jail cell so that when the father sets the bomb off he kills himself. The attorney walks away with a clear conscience and his family intact, essentially not bearing any punishment or learning any lesson, no matter the amount of blood shed.

It occurs to me that America is a very backwards country with more problems than health care, obesity, political wars, FEMA, and so forth. Because it isn't just the institution which is killing our society, it is the poison that society bears, the ill will we have for one another which has been created by the competitiveness inspired by capitalism that creates the cancer we so desperately want to cure. But we can't cure ourselves; we're too busy trying to make a buck by telling others we can cure the disease as we scheme in the background how to make the disease last longer.

Essentially we are killing ourselves, is what I'm saying. And American cinema bears this out to the painful and bloody truth, but we are too stupid, or perhaps too close to the problem, to see what is actually happening. I blame religions.

There has been so little happening around me lately, and even less what I can do myself. Going to the movie was a luxury I can't afford, and building my computer takes too much time when I have to wait seven or eight days for the 'Guaranteed Three-Day Delivery!' to get here. It's because I live in the middle of nowhere. And then when I do get the piece, I still have to go through part by agonizing part to find out what, if anything else, is broken. I'm seriously concerned that my memory is going to be fried since my CPU was overloaded. And not that I did anything wrong or that I tried to overclock my system: no, there was a brown out and a power surge and the mosfet on my MoBo broke into flames. Well shit.

Today is about sixty degrees Fahrenheit and we've got about ten mile-an-hour winds, so this is probably the last day of the year to go golfing. So my parents and I are going to go a little later on. Right now I'm going to sit back and enjoy an Ice-Cold Coca-Cola. Ask for it by name; don't accept substitutes!

More later on.

there and back again

2009-10-15T15:05:00.000-05:00

Well, I was gone for a bit for my mental well being, but I'm back now with a slew of drugs for both depression and insomnia. My mood has improved greatly; it's amazing what a few hours of sleep can do to make the human body pleased.

I'm just actually popping by to mention that I'm now building a new computer. I received my motherboard while I was away and was experimenting with it today. It turns out that my CPU is dead, which means that I'll have to buy a new one. So there's another expense.

But, the part should come next week, so that's two of three pieces which were broken. I'm not sure about the third piece just yet; one part at a time is the only way to fix these things. Just ask your local techie.

But that's it for now. I'll be sure to visit all the normal places sooner or later, but I've actually got stuff to do at the moment.

Much more at a later time.

wedding

2009-10-03T22:23:00.002-05:00

Wow, what a terrific audience! So, I just got back from my cousin's wedding. Have you seen this? Have you heard about this? Apparently the groom needed a better reason to stop playing 'Freebird" in his car.

It was a nice ceremony. There was a meal in a decorated hall, followed by a dance. I did not attend the dance, because my jaw--which is still healing--got very irritated after the wedding and even more so after eating. The dishes I could eat were string beans and cheesy potatoes. I also talked a lot between the ceremony and dinner.

The wedding took place in a Baptist church, which is of course much different than a Catholic service.

But everything besides the actual rites, vows, shit like that, was all the same. Bad piano playing coupled with guitar at points and a violin at other points. There were two singers, a man and a woman, and though both had potential, it was little more than amateur. They did a couple pieces meant for two voices, and though the girl had her part mostly down--not like she could own her part, but got close--the guy didn't have a hope in some places. This is because neither singer has learned to read music, but has an ear for tunes. I don't mean to insult them, but that is the sad truth, and part of the reason why I don't like to go to weddings in the first place.

Also there were two sides at in the church, one side for the groom, one side for the bride. We stood around before the ceremony began and when we were meant to go sit--there wasn't any social ques or anything, people just began to take their seats--there was a lot of confusion about where to sit, which side, whose seat am I taking, things like that. I couldn't stop laughing. People are so weird.

Society is weird. Our culture is weird. When the wedding was over--as was indicated by the signing of the marriage license--we clapped. Why is clapping how we celebrate? It doesn't really make sense to me. Everyone is happy, so they clap. I laughed some more. I can't seem to figure out this crazy thing called life.

After that, my uncle Denny, his wife Stacy and their daughter, Megan, joined up with my mom, dad, and brother Cameron down at a sports bar so we could watch the Twins game. Now, I'm not a baseball guy, and I only have one football team--the Dolphins--so I was relieved to see that college ball was playing at the bar instead of the world's most boring game, baseball. My grandma is a Twins' fan, as well as my uncle and father, so I can't blame them.

Anyway, we ordered a round, and I got a Guinness since my uncle ordered one. This uncle is my dad's younger brother by ten years; just clarifying. I like my uncle Denny; he's also my godfather. He's a bit more hip than my dad, and his wife Stacy is a French teacher. They live in a bigger sort of city; he's a civic engineer for the federal government. I guess out of that side of my family they are the least small-town of them all, which is why I like to talk with them and just hang out. So anyway we go to this bar and order drinks and sit around chatting. My jaw was feeling fine for a while, but after the second round--we were there for an hour and a half--and all that talking, my jaw was absolutely killing me.

We got to the dinner thirty minutes early, and my mom was worried that we would have alcohol on our breath--these guys were hardcore Baptists, and my parents thing this is probably the only time the groom's side will get an impression of us. Whatever, I said, it isn't our fault these guys are lame.

We get to the dinner and sit and chat for thirty minutes and, par usual for any gathering in South Dakota, the dinner starts late. My grandmother--father's mother--sat with us, but the thing is we haven't told anyone on that side of the family--outside my uncle and his wife, that is--that I broke my jaw in a fight. My grandma would simply die if she found out, so we're keeping it a secret. But I could sit there two chairs away and tell my mom that I couldn't even eat because my broken jaw hurt too much, so I basically sat there and was in pain, even after a hydrocodone--I'm on Darvoset.

Keeping the truth from someone for the greater good, this is the theme which concerns me. Is it ethical to lie to preserve one's sanity? If you start to hide and lie and generally be dishonest, where can you begin, and when should you stop? What makes one lie fine, and another not as fine?

These are areas which may not have occurred to my family, my father, mother, uncle--but I don't think they care one way or the other, the reasons and justifications--I say they are more concerned with practical application rather than semantic interpretation. Or would it be a more philosophical interpretation?

During the ceremony there was some part when the priest said something about how marriage is meant to procreate or something like that, because that's what god wants. But why? If there was a god, why would he want us to procreate? There are facts that have no reason to be facts, and no institute which investigates the veracity of religious claims or dogma.

I'm going to say something that can't be verified. I'm going to say that there are people growing up in this world who are confused by religions, confused about the numbers or them, the truth behind each one, the histories of them. I'm going to say that this confusion is combated on the religious side by displays of sheer faith--the argument is, "This is true because we say it's true, and we say it is true because it is true. This is why our religion is right for you, because it is right for everyone." On the other side of the confusion, the only other argument against religion is, "I have no proof of any claim, and therefore choose not to believe in any religion."

I believe those are the two central arguments for the souls and minds of the population that is created by the confusion people feel at the sheer number of institutes who try to explain why we are here and what we are doing on earth. Because a metaphysical question causes a metaphysical crisis, and that metaphysical crisis has to be answered, and that is the role religion has taken.

But I don't want to go any further into that area. No. Instead, I want to say that the confusion generation through all this is bad for our society, and that we must find a better way to address and treat this confusion. A better way than atheism or religion. I think the best way to do this is to reduce the number of arguments by destroying all religion.

Because society can't last forever when this confusion lasts. And society will survive even less when, instead of people sitting around saying, "I just don't know one way or the other," people are sitting around in groups saying, "I'm absolutely positive without a doubt that I am right, which means that everyone who doesn't think and believe exactly what I think and believe is wrong."

This is the future we have created.

Why, again, if there was a god, would he want us to procreate? What is the reason that life succeeds and keeps succeeding? Why was this world created--and everything in it--to reproduce? What is the point of it all?

Also, I don't condone the institution of marriage, because I don't believe that any one person can meet the needs of any one other person. I believe that people are too complex. Maybe one day I'll be proven wrong. And maybe one day I'll be proven right.

cook

2009-10-02T23:53:00.002-05:00

There's a few things to address here. It's all boring bullshit, so feel free to skip it all.

I had my first therapy session last week. She asked me a bunch of questions, like when it all started and junk like that, and also what I expect to get out of therapy. I told her that I'm too broken to know which part of me is broken, and that if I knew what was wrong I wouldn't be there in the first place. This was after a lot of talking. Later she assessed me and said, among other things, that I seem to know who I am. I told her that I have no idea who I am, and that this has been persisting for a while.

It was meant to be a evaluation interview. She set me up for another appointment with her on the 8th, and also an appointment with a psychiatrist I'm taking Zoloft right now, but since I'm with a family doctor my psychologist thinks I need more specialized care. I hope that my new guy keep me on the same medication, since SSRIs are long-term medications. Neuroepinehrine regulators aren't as much of a problem. At least we've all determined that I'm not manic.

There's a wedding for my cousin taking place tomorrow. I have to dress up. I have to go back into a church. I'm not pleased.

And since I haven't gotten a job, I have become the house chef. I make foods for the people living here since I love to cook. I think cooking is one of the geekiest hobbies that can be found, so I do it was all my heart.

That's the updates for now. I've got nothing creative to offer. More at another time.

the godfather (rev. and finished)

2009-09-28T01:16:00.003-05:00

So today I had to attend a Catholic mass, the fist I've been to in at least five years, so that I could become the godfather of my cousin's baby. This is a complicated story, and will require pills and drinks. Don't worry; I've done this before. I only wish I could remember where I put that pack of cigarettes--my jaw is too mangled to use chewing tobacco.

Fifteen Minutes Later

So we show up in church early, twenty minutes early, which is par for the course if you know my dad. Only my cousin Amy and her parents don't do the early thing like my dad does, so we wait in the lobby for ten minutes for them to show up.

I know that we've always been early to church, and usually that's because (or a product of) getting in the Rosary. This is a particular practice to the Catholics. But at this church there was no Rosary, and I was thankful for that, but at the same time I have to say that showing up at the time we did, which was almost late but not quite, there were death glares coming from each corner of the place. Judging eyes, glances not quite hidden. Very usual. I remember this was one of the reasons I dislike both small towns and religions. Morals and ethics are simply excuses given for why "they" are worse than "us."

Anyway, we sing the hymn to bring in the priest and he walks down the aisle with the altar boys and goes up to the altar and kisses it or whatever he does, and we sit down. There are always three readings in a Catholic mass, usually two from a saint to a group of people, like John Paul to the Corinthians or something. You get two of these and then a gospel reading, like a reading from the gospel according to Luke. The first two readings are done by regular jack-offs like you and me, but the gospel reading is performed by the priest.

After the gospel, the priest does a little interpretation or story time. This is the sermon, from what I understand. And what the purpose of this is, as I understand it, is to clarify the readings and the gospel, to unite the three passages, and to relate what has been read to our every day lives, drive it home, bring it to heart. As this priest--and I'll say he was pretty young, as priests go--delivered his sermon, I thought to myself, "I've heard sophistry before, and this sounds awfully familiar." Now, I understood where he was coming from, I do, and I also understand where he was getting his message and what, in the text, gave him validation, but there was something wrong in the way he came to his conclusion, some sort of rhetorical dislocation of logic that tripped my sensors--it came off amateurish and naive.

But this is exactly what sells to the people, and that was his brilliance. I can't compete with his charisma, and the reason the Sophists were so popular was because they could relate and sell themselves to the regular people. Being popular is not the same as being correct or logical. Sitting in a church I no longer belong to, I finally understood what I was up against, and I lost hope in my cause. The Enemy is far too great for me alone. Which was why I had a change of plans.

Now, after the sermon the priest sits down and one of the readers comes to the podium and he says things like, "For peace in the world, Lord, hear our prayer," and on the Lord, hear our prayer part, the whole congregation recites the words. But I found these very entertaining, because they prayed for things like world peace, and for unity among all Christians, and things of that nature. As I sat there I wondered if they thought they were actually helping. A funny joke came to me: what's the difference between hoping and praying? Nothing! But that was exactly what these people were doing, just sitting there, hoping all at once that suddenly all Christians in the world would say, "Oh, sorry, we're wrong and you're right, let's all be Catholic like it used to be." I was struck absurd.

After that there's a ritual or something, the priest converts the bread and wine on the altar to flesh and blood==literally. I can't stress this enough. The bread is not a representation of Christ's flesh, it is actually his flesh, as the bread is magically transmogrified into real flesh, and the wine is turned by magic into real blood. And all the Catholics, they line up and go to the front of the church, and the priest holds out the flesh and says, "This is the body of Christ," to which you reply, "Amen," and you eat it. Then you have the option of going to the next guy who says, "The is the blood of Christ," and you say, "Amen," and you drink it. I want to be very clear that these people actually believe that they are consuming real flesh and real blood at each and every mass. It is simply bizarre.

But anyway, after the strange ritual the priest does his benediction, you know, "May you go with the blessing and protection of god," and we leave.

Later on we have to go to my cousin Amy's girl's baptism. I was asked to be godfather, which means I have a few obligations to the raising of the girl, who's name is Amaya. Amy and I have always been close; we're both sort of black sheep on that side of the family which basically means that we've gotten rather close over the years. So we go to the baptism, and as we're going through this, the priest asks us (the parents and godparents--there's more than one baptism going on at once) if we're going to raise this child within the faith and some other stuff, but it sounds an awful lot like indoctrination. This is everything I believe is wrong with religion--if you catch a kid early enough, you can make him believe anything, and the church knows this, and so why do you think altar boys are always around eight or ten years old? Baptism is the earliest possible time to hook a child into the cult, and so I have a very moral and ethical issue with what's going on. But I love my cousin, and I would be honored to help raise her child--albeit not within a particular faith, but all the same.

So I stand through the baptism very uncomfortably, and at the end we take pictures and we go back to Amy's parents' house and we have dinner together and exchange gifts and whatnot. But there is a deep metaphysical issue at odds within me now.

Was it ethically or morally wrong for me to do something for the good of my cousin's baby if it meant pretending in the eyes of a religion? Am I a bad person for lying to preserve the life of another?

I never counted the typos

2009-09-25T13:08:00.002-05:00

Well it's a new day. I took my Ativan last night, but I don't remember much, and so I wonder if that is a possible side effect. I guess I'll find out sooner or later.

Apparently I also bought a game off the PlayStation Network called Smash Cars, and it isn't bad--fun, actually. I also bought a movie called Vexille, but I don't remember doing either of those things. I do know that I went downtown to buy cigarettes for an astonishing seven dollars. The movie is all CGI, so I'm not really excited about it. But then again if it turns out to be a great flick, I can be forgiving.

I guess tonight I'll be seeing Bruce Willis flick, so that's very exciting. There hasn't been a good movie out all summer, just more Disney trash than ever. I mean, add on top of that gaming companies refuse to release games outside the holiday season and I've had the doldrums more than ever. I've got thousands of dollars of entertainment units and all they've done is collect dust, literally. I didn't fire up my Xbox for at least a week or two, and my PS3 even longer. I want to check out Halo: ODST sooner or later, and I've got Wolfenstein here and Katamari Forever both through Gamefly, but the thing about that is I have to wait almost a full week to get games back that I've sent in. Comes with living in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

This movie is turning out to be very Michael Bay. No, Michael, that's not a story line, those are special effects. No, it is not compensation.

My mind is becoming more scattered. Thoughts flit in and out with the changing of the seconds on my watch. Life is an endless ocean and I am a vessel drifting on the waves, up and down, without direction or guidance. Each day is another day is another, all the same, all the same.

I watched State of Play the other night, and I was interested for a little while, but about forty minutes from the end I predicted the outcome and lost interest. I would have figured it out sooner if I was paying attention. My parents must hate watching movies with me because I always spoil the end. I can't be entertained unless I don't know what's going to happen, I suppose.

I want to go eat, but I have no appetite. I want to write but I have no topic. I feel like there should be meaning left somewhere in this world, but you can't be serious in postmodern America without being seen as silly. I guess I don't really take anything serious, anymore, which may or may not be affecting my world view. It's all just a big joke, right?

But here's the punchline, and I'm not laughing.

why I've never liked thursdays

2009-09-24T23:13:00.002-05:00

My face has a bruise on the bottom left with a small cut. This is where my jaw was broken. On the inside of my mouth, along the front bottom teeth, I have stitches holding my skin and gums together. My lips are healing slowly. I get worried when I eat that I may get food stuck in my stitches or in the empty spots left by broken or removed teeth. I have a hunger that cannot be satisfied by soft foods.

Todasy I visited my doctor and talked about antidepressant medicines. HE told me there are two basic categories of antidepressant medicines: anti-serotonin re-uptake inhibitors and another class; I didn't catch the name because I didn't take interest. HE said that side effects most commonly include prolonged ejaculation and that the meds are sometimes prescribed to those with premature ejaculation. The other route of meds didn't have many side effects but worked in a separate manner.

HE asked me what I wanted, how I felt about it. I told him that if I could take a magic pill and make life not suck then I'm all in. He cautioned me against the phrase and said that also one side effect would be a guy coming in and saying that the pills made him stop feeling. I won the lottery. My daughter was raped. I killed my dog. I was burgled--all have the same value. I didn't ask him why that wasn't better than the status quo, but I thought about it.

He wanted to know what I thought was the best route to go down. I'm a bit confused why he keeps asking me, the guy who tried to kill himself, what I think is best. I said to him, "Well, let's start with the serotonin-inhibitors at a basic level and give it some time. If that doesn't work, we move on to the next drug and try that out; isn't that how it usually works?" He told me that yes, that is how it usually works, and that there are no guarantees. I said it really isn't a guarantee market, is it. We agreed.

So I'm taking some generic serotonin re-uptake inhibitor for an antidepressant, which should work in two to three weeks. If it doesn't, then I get another medicine in the same class. This is very simple.

In the short run, the doc put my on Ativan for a short-term temporary sleep solution. I've taken my first does of the drug tonight, which is not a sleep aid as much as an anti-anxiety drug which induces sleepiness. I am also topping off a large alcoholic drink since the drug isn't working, so I'll be back at the doc's in a few days to tell him pills don't work.

I tried this time to be more honest than ever with my health care provider. I told him that if he gives me a sleep drug, then it had better knock me out, or it won't work. Of course, I gave him a humorous anecdote afterward, but what I sad was this: if you don't give me a drug which causes unconsciousness, then I will not sleep. He chuckled at my rhetoric.

It takes weeks, perhaps months, to begin to take effect. I may decide to end my life before then, but my plans cannot afford to be revealed or compromised before then. I don't have any idea to kill myself before these drugs take effect, however; if I can take a pill to make me into a zombie--the doc warned this is a side-effect of the pills--then I will gladly live a life of mediocrity and boredom while also becoming nothing more than a puppet of society. HE warned against that train of thought.

So life isn't looking up for me. Rather, it's looking straight forward. And maybe that's where I should be looking.

I just tried to kill myself. I got the shit beat out of me. I now come with 5% more metal jaw. I haste myself, my life, the world, and everything around me.

Hey, maybe there's hope yet!

the long weekend home

2009-09-23T22:53:00.002-05:00

On Saturday night everything went wrong. Some friends and I went on a huge drinking binge across the state and we--that is my friends and I--got into a big fight with one another. I was black-out drunk by the time the fight happened, so I don't recall a thing. I do know that at some point in the night I broke a windshield with my fist. I also know that on my way home--drunk, bleeding, angry--I called my friend DMF and told him I had plans to go to sleep and never wake up. Literally.

Because I called him and told him my plans, those plans were foiled. I arrived home I estimate around maybe 0200-0300h on Sunday and took as many pills as I could find after scouring the house for a gun and bullets. During my search time I considered writing a last good bye but I didn't want to waste time and so skipped the step. I was not aware at the time that I had been in a fight because I was so drunk I had lost my glasses hours before and couldn't see straight, anyway, and had nothing but a one-track mind. There were no available guns and bullets to me and so I rushed upstairs and opene3d the medicine cabinet to find dozens of prescriptions and other pills.

I opened every bottle and emptied the pills onto the counter in the meager moonlight and poured a glass of water for myself. I took three, four, six, seven handfuls of pills before the pile disappeared. I guess the cop showed up a couple hours later, maybe around four in the morning, and woke me up with lots of effort, from what he told me.

And so he questioned me. I answered. I didn't give any names of people or places. HE asked me more questions. I once watched a movie in which Robert McNamara said don't answer the question they ask, but answer the question you wish they had asked. I don't remember much beyond that point.

The cop took me to the local hospital after gathering all the pill bottles I emptied so that the doctor could help determine my condition. I don't remember the ride to the hospital, but I remember very clearly the cop telling me I wasn't in any trouble. I was thankful at the time. The doctor asked me many questions as I cleaned up. I spit mouthful after mouthful of blood into a basin they kept cleaning out. I laughed. I used the rags they gave me to wipe my face and lips, to clean my teeth and ears. They hooked me up to an IV and kept me off pain killers. I didn't sleep all night, from approx. nine am when I laid down to much later in the day, probably two or three am Monday to sleep.

I couldn't take pain killers. They did blood tests to determine if I had damaged my liver. My suicide had failed and I was laughing. I was not allowed anything to eat or drink after midnight on Sunday because the hospital staff believed I may have surgery Monday to fix my newly established broken jaw. I spit out some tooth parts that day. My jaw was in terrible pain and my face swollen and painful. My memory was and is still blank.

On Monday I was given a double dose of morphine at 1030h before my ride to Sioux Falls, approx 70 miles from my current position. I slept for maybe thirty minutes. I arrived at the maxillary-facial surgeon's office over an hour later with the promise to be seen. My morphine was wearing off. I am notoriously immune to medicines and painkillers.

I took yet another x-ray of my jaw to be sure I had only one break. I did. The doctor said I would be operated on the following morning, Tuesday. By the time I was admitted to another hospital and submitted the proper papers and answered all the same questions at least four times my painkillers were moot. A boy came to take my blood around 1500h or 1600h; I cried when he asked my name and begged with my eyes for my mother to answer him. I spent the night on drugs, not having slept for a couple days at the point, it wasn't too difficult.

I was waked the next day bright and early; my surgery was to take place an hour earlier than expected. The men who took me to the OR and sedated me were very nice and explained the procedure to me numerous times. I was to have my jaw opened and plated, no big deal.

I was put into oxygen while they pumped my IV full of other fluids. I was told to breathe deeply before I was asked how am I feeling. It was four hours later.

I spent Tuesday in the hospital in and out of consciousness due to the drugs in my system. I don't remember much other than bad television being played by my mother, who came for support. My father would have shown up if not for his food poisoning. I laughed.

I spent all Tuesday night awake due to the rest I had caught after the operation. I was awake itching myself because of the painkiller given me by the doctor, scratching my body from 2000h Tuesday to 0800h Wednesday when the doctor visited me. I was informed I was going home that afternoon and told what my diet would consist of. I am now living on 'soft' foods, foods which require little to no chewing. My jaw now has five percent more metal. I now have one failed suicide under my belt.

I was asked, after the attempt, by my parents, why would I do such a thing? I told them I would explain it slowly so that they could understand. I am twenty-four. I have no friends because I shun humanity. I have attended college for five years and have no degree. I cannot find a job and am living at home. I went to sleep in May 2008 at 190 pounds and woke up October 2008 at 250 pounds. No change in diet, exercise, drug use, anything. I live in South Dakota and have no future. I am completely miserable.

Now I have to go to the doctor here tomorrow and explain to him those same reasons and tell challenge him to find me the magic pill that will cure me. I have warned them once; next time there will be no warning and no mistakes.

mirror-man

2009-09-18T11:16:00.002-05:00

I once thought up a very clever little entry for this particular subject. As all those who write, I've forgotten it since I didn't put it down on paper immediately. But last night, yesterday actually, I did have a moment. A single moment in which the nature of this world was revealed to me. And this world, she is sick.

I was getting up from the couch to go and get a quote for some CD player or something with Jake and Josh, and we get in the car and get where we're going--closed. So we find another place. And as we pull up to this place I find I'm suddenly hungry--I haven't eaten yet and I was sleeping for a spell. And we discuss some options, all fast food.

But how sad is a life lived off fast food? How sad an existence going from gas station to gas station, eating junk food and drinking soda or bottled water or just plain juice all from convenience stores, spending money on cigarettes and booze, and pot, always broke and never having the money to enjoy your time on earth--and that's the issue, I think. Money.

Because, even though I've been told plenty of times that money can't buy happiness, I've got plenty of reasons to disbelieve. I've got a giant HDTV, a spendy computer, Xbox, PS3, games, movies, Blu-Ray, all sorts of stuff. And beyond that I've got a place to live, clothes to wear, a bead to sleep in, all thanks in full to money. I'm getting conflicting messages, here.

And why all the fuss over owning the world? I mean, if money isn't all that great and can't buy important things than why do we have big corporations, big governments, people sticking their fingers into as many honey pots as possible, business takeovers, monopolies. all these little rules regulating how much money one can make in a specific manner? I mean, what's the point in slowing down economic takeover when it's simply inevitable that someone somewhere is getting the power to dominate the world over through financial transactions?

I know what I would do with the world in my hand: make a fist. Crush the insignificant blue planet and leave it desolate and empty, finally happy all by its lonesome sitting there in orbit with not a soul to compromise. But it isn't because I love our little planet so much I'd do it, but rather for the disgust I feel when looking at my fellow man.

Look at him, standing there, scheming. Money. He has the money, he wants the money. And slavery. And now that slavery's been abolished here he needs a new way to get the people under his dominion. Money. And look at all the prestigious little things he cherishes. Expensive clothes. Big cars. Big houses, multiple. Businesses across the globe. Foreign cigars. A vacation in a faraway country. Money. A ski resort. Ivy League schools. Money. And what more could he want? Why, the rest of it, of course. And he'll try any means necessary not to destroy his fellow man so much as to own him and to manipulate him into doing or making what he, the real man, needs. Man is nothing more than an animal that preys upon his own kin.

And for these reasons, for this reason, I'd rather our planet be empty than anything at all. Life is too miserable and sad to keep on in this fashion. Our future as a race has nothing but ill news ahead. And sure as well as I bemoan my own fate, the rest of man will be bemoaning his own soon enough.

But how can we stop the future from taking place, I wonder. How to get man to stop killing men, to quit making money from war, to curb the beast that is greed. How to make life more fun without money, is what I 'm saying. Because the only way to man one man happy is to make another unhappy. To reverse the tides would be beneficial to more than most.

To fight the war on their terms is the only way to win. This is what I was getting at last time. How can one hope to defeat a cult than by becoming the leader of one:? there is only one way. To win a war, send more men. To win a country, become more powerful than the government. To win a religion, create a more popular religion. Some things can only be destroyed from within, or by becoming that which you fight. Religion is one of those things. In order to stop valuing money, one must fight until it has no value--to become the one with the most.

The road to happiness is long and terrible and filled with melancholy and tragedy. And death. Because the truth is that the road to happiness leads not to true happiness, but to death. Black, unyielding, unstoppable death. And it's only ironic because you won't realize what you've been looking for this whole time until you've found it. And with your last breath or two I'm sure you'll laugh, just like I'll laugh. That is, unless god comes down and then I'll look up and curse him. That wouldn't be as funny. Because then you spent an entire life in hell wishing for release and then you'll spend eternity also in hell knowing there is no release. But even in this position I would not repent. Never surrender, even in the face of armageddon.

But seriously, there can be no ruler, no king of kings nor god of gods. What cruel, sick bastard creates a race that feeds on its own kind? What disgusting monster makes something as miserable as humanity for his own enjoyment?

So on the death bed, look up and remember to laugh, because the punchline is coming hard and fast, harder and faster than a body full of worms, harder and faster than the speed of happiness released when gods come from heaven to judge the living and the dead. Harder and faster even than the speed of science.

Harder and faster, even, than happiness. Which is sort of my point, I guess.

a mouse that doesn't click

2009-09-15T10:51:00.002-05:00

So last night I stay up and drink just to attempt to forget that I'm completely fucking miserable here, at home. I mean sure, I get free meals, I can stay without paying, but I have to deal with my parents. I'd love them if I didn't hate them.

SO I'm up late--like 2400h is late around here--and just drinking my vodka, and then the Internet goes out. Usually I can sit here and be drunk and no one is any the wiser, but no; the Internet goes out and my entire livelihood is destroyed. So I throw a tantrum, of course. And then I decide I'll just go to sleep. I get in my room, and the TV remote doesn't work, either. Well wtf else could go wrong. So I toss the remote and get another one from the adjoining room--I'm in the basement all alone, by the way--and then my dad comes down. He asks me who am I talking to and grills me like a good Catholic, and I say nobody, but at this time I forget to hide the near-gone bottle of vodka and so he begins to question me about that. Well fuck it all.

Because now it's the next day, and he'll be home for lunch--not like I have anything to do all day but fills out job applications and pretend like I"m busy. Is there any use to worrying about the future? When you're living in a Catholic house, all you tend to do is take guilt trips and worry about things that don't matter.

And the biggest problem is that I don't know where I can go; I don't even have the abilities needed to find myself a new life away from this all. I don't have any money, I have no friends, I have nothing I can call my own, and so I owe everything to them, and so take what they offer out of spite. Because they have given my everything, but have not given me the means to find a way. I don't understand anything about this world, and so how can I make it by myself, I wouldn't even find the way.

The biggest problem is this: I want you to try just one little thing. Just one, tiny, infinitesimal, impossible thing: walk into a Catholic church, and tell them that evolution is a fact of life. Just waltz in, and tell them all that evolution is not a theory, not a guess, not an idea; that evolution exists and has existed since the beginning of life. You can't. You can't because fact, thought, rationale, logic, these are all alien to the religious, these are foreign to a mind dominated by magic and superstition.

And it's true; evolution is a fact of the world, it is how this particular world operates. Gene frequencies change over time, that is true. There is no doubt from any scientific mind whether or not evolution occurs. None. And yet here the Catholics sit and argue about it, saying it will never happen--as if it already didn't! And these are the same people I spend my time around each and every day, not only just sitting around--that would be bad enough--but no, they have to teach me the 'way life is,'and to take lessons from a hypocritical magic-worshiping moron is too much for me to take. If only I had the means. God would come in handy about now--you know, so I could take advantage of him and skip off without paying the bill. God is just a cop-out.

And a fable, at that. Religion, all and any of it, is the worst thing that has happened on the face of this earth, and people who believe in a god or many gods are the cancer that destroys our world slowly each and every day. Just look at America: we pride ourselves on being a christian country, and now we won't allow for scientific discoveries, we can't raise our families, we hate one another, our bodies are not our own; we have destroyed an entire continent with thought alone, what worse could happen? And violence, let's not forget that religion has been the sole factor for wars among mankind since time untold. No, if there was a god, he did not build this world, and he has never taken an interest in mankind, least of all to be adored or worshiped.

The best proof is that if you really want to sell your should to the devil you can't. There is no way to call him up and make a deal, you can't pray to him and bargain, you can't offer up to him sacrifices in the hopes he'll appear and cut you a profit at a loss. It will never happen. The reason is simple: the devil doesn't exist. And because he doesn't exist, god can neither exist. This is the human mind in action. The greatest trick played on man's mind is one man making another believe he wasn't born but created, and that he is not the ruler of his destiny, but a mad man with a penchant for suffering controls his fate.

Religion is sick, and christianity is the cutting edge of human misery. Christians hate each other more than any one else, but most of all they hater themselves. The worst part is that you can't convince them otherwise; religion has completely wiped their minds blank of rebuttal. Reason, logic, fact; these have no effect on the christian mind.

What a disgusting world we live in. The other day I wondered why we reproduce. Now I ask with ever more conviction.

bacon, lettuce, tangelo?

2009-09-14T14:56:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I wonder if we can afford, I mean really afford, to cut words back into just a few letters. I know it's not abbreviation, but I always forget the word. You know what I mean, Automatic Teller Machine becomes ATM. Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato becomes BLT.

I see how effective it is, how convenient and so forth, but I'm now wondering what the effects are, in a longer run, of doing this to our language? Because it seems that our world is getting more idiotic by the generation, and sometimes faster than that. Because sometimes I drive my car down Main and see ATM MACHINE, or I see text messages that are basically unidentifiable as English, and because sometimes maybe I forget what the T in BLT stands for. Just kidding.

But our culture is giving in to more jargon as technology advances, and with more technology comes more vocabulary, and with since3 most of that vocab is mostly jargon, it has to be cut back into a few letters standing for something more complicated. Like DDoS attack. HTML. HD. BDd. Sure, I know what they all stand for. I know that for now. But in five years, in ten years, in twenty years, when these have all run their course and we're moving into strange and new technological areas, who's going to remember what they stood for? What legs will our culture have to stand on when we keep cutting them out from ourselves?

Without a history, we are meaningless. America is young enough as it is, the last thing we need is to cater to the whims of a republic. This is the problem with democracy, that it assumes that at least half the people are right at least half the time. But that's not true; that supports too positive a world view to be realistic, and comes off more as naive or immature.

Because the honest bottom line is: nobody cares about you. Nobody cares about the world. We care about ourselves--singular--and that's it. I care for myself, and if I get an advantage over the next guy I'll take it. And I know the next guy is the same, and the next and so on. And so in our democracy, it really isn't the people who are going to be choosing much any more, but the interests behind those people. Man doesn't care for mankind, but for himself.

We are pissing the planet down our pants, here. And not just because we want to shorten our words into forgettable little nicknames and not just because we don't pay attention to language development. There's too much at stake to forget to take it all seriously. OR treat it like a big joke.

Cat Scratch Fever

2009-09-12T14:23:00.002-05:00

And not in the good way.

I think I had a fever of the brain yesterday. Blood boiling. Skin melting. Eyes rolling. Aches. Pains. Sickness.

And then I had to sleep. I lay down about what? 2100h? I thought you know that maybe since I was absolutely exhausted and sick and in pain I could simply lay down, get some rest, and wake up all better. Never have I been more wrong.

I was there, on the couch, coughing my lungs out, until about 2400h. I may or may not have gotten ten to fifteen minutes of rest; this happens frequently, that I can't tell if I have actually slept or not. But I think I did, because I lost track of time at some point. Unfortunately for me, I take power naps during the school year to rejuvenate my body and mind between classes, so that ten or fifteen minutes is worth a good two to three hours--in other words, it's 2400h, and I'm wide awake a sickly.

SO I got off the couch and thought about tossing my cookies for a second, the pain in my face and head was so bad. And my back. Went to my [temporary] room, and hit the hay. Only I didn't really. Instead I was awake until I estimate three to four, but at some point I must have fallen asleep because when I "woke up" my door was closed. I assume that my dad came downstairs when he got up and closed the door so my coughing was a bit more muffled.

AM I any better today? Well, I can put two rational thoughts together, and I can move without fuss. My sinuses are still congested and I've still got mucus coming out of my lungs, but I think the worst part is over. It's all rehabilitation from here on out.

Today I've got to get some job apps and also enroll for online classes so that by January I can get into Lincoln's school. I'm very excited to be transferring universities, but I also wonder what will happen next, you know? Change is good, great, even. A change of scenery, a change of university, a change of states. A change of majors. But a the same time I wonder if it won't simply break my mind and spirit, if I won't find myself all alone in a large city surrounded by strangers and with no idea what to do with myself or handle the new way of life and be stunned.

Then again maybe it'll all turn out for the best. But the thing about life is that it's most ironic when least expected.

How boring this all is. I need to get worked into a fervor before this really starts to stick, I think. Or maybe now that I've gotten all the interesting things out of the way I'm simply reverting to what this place once was--ordinarily uninteresting.

headache

2009-09-11T21:05:00.002-05:00

Last night I got lit the fuck up. I drank a bunch of whiskey and ran up to see Zack and Chris for whatever reason, I don't remember. It was stupid of me, very stupid. I woke up this afternoon still a bit tipsy--I went through a lot of booze--and eventually I realized that I wasn't just hung over, I'm sick.

I should have seen it coming, since yesterday I was coughing all day and I had that taste in my mouth. I couldn't place it then, but now I know it's sickness in my lungs.

So now I've got a bad cough, but I'm afraid to cough since I've also got a splitting headache. On top of that I am sore all over. I think I may have gotten either the flu or pneumonia. The aches would be flu, the lungs would be the latter.

But last night I got a little crazy, too. I don't know if I've ever regretted something, but I think if I ever did it would be those times I got drunk--not that getting fired up isn't great, but I always get crazy and do something embarrassing. I wanted some weed is what I think I went up there for. I got some today, but last night isn't today, and since I'm sick a fat lot of good it'll do me.

I also got a very cryptic message on my phone today. It was from my mom, who's the only person that leaves voicemail for me, and all it said was, "Call me." She sounded dangerous.

Well, when she called again I got my ass chewed and was told to go home immediately. I went home, I mowed the lawn, and we had a talk. If you think the wrath of god is scary, you should get a guilt trip from a Catholic. Hell seems a little more peaceful by comparison.

The thing is I'm tired, very tired. I can't stand South Dakota, I abhor small towns, and my parents drive me mad. Sure, I love them, but I can't spend more than five minutes around them before I go insane.

And here's the thing about christians: logic and reasoning fall off them like water off ducks. A great example is this: my mom thinks that I have switched around my days and nights, that I don't sleep at night because I refuse to sleep at night, or that I have somehow reversed my biology to suit a night life. Unfortunately, this is not the case; I have been a night person since the day I was birthed, and with stress and worry and anxiety it only gets worse; I sleep less and less and go to bed later and later and wake up earlier and earlier. So I go to the doctor, and she gives me some sleeping pills, trazadone. This was after four or five OTC sleep drugs. I try the stuff for two months and it doesn't work. I go back to the doctor and get Lunesta, and she tells me that after two weeks if it doesn't work it will never work. IT doesn't work for two weeks, so I go back to the doctor and she gives me Ambien, some really trough stuff.

She tells me I need to take one pill thirty minutes before bed time and if it doesn't work I will have to go to a sleep clinic. She gives me forty pills, I take one a night for two weeks and then if I need I take two a night for the final week and get my bottle refilled.

The stuff doesn't work. I lose time, amnesia is a side effect. I get more depressed. I take psychedelic trips. LKife gets worse and worse. I'm now staying up later than ever and I don't remember a thing about it. I take two pills, three pills. I take four and five pills. I grind up the pills and put them in glasses of water. I put them in my pipe and smoke them. I drink bottles of whiskey and beer with the pills. I do everything in my power to kill myself on these pills just so I can go to sleep at nine or ten o'clock. But nothing works at all. Nothing.

So even though I've been to the doctor and I was on enough sleeping drugs to kill small children and animals-literally--still I could not correct my sleeping patter. A real doctor, with a real degree, gave me real medication for a real problem and couldn't solve it. And still my mom says this is a choice that I'm making, still with all the evidence and rationale and explanations and facts, she takes all those and explains it away like a real christian and says that it's just voodoo and only her opinion is correct. And when I confront her with this evidence and reason and real fact and logic, she just raises her voice and says she doesn't want to argue. But really, she goes on, I need to go to bed earlier. Because I'm the one that messed it up in the first place.

And this is what I have to live with each and every day. I have never so often thought about how great it would be to die.

And today I was mowing the lawn. While I did so I saw some weeds, and at the top of those weeds were seed pods or something, raised so that the wind would take hold and spread therm around, spreading the life of the weed. So I ran over them and imagined the seeds going into the mower bag, and then I empty the bag into a trailer which is then taken to the dump. And there the plants will flourish and grow and spread.

But for what?

Really, what is the point of life? To live, actually. That's it. Why do we reproduce? What is so important about life? If the entire world and all the inhabitants thereof disappeared over night, all plants, animals, insects, everything, the world wouldn't even change. Nothing would be different without life than with life.

Life is selfish. Life is a frivolity. It's frivolous! There is no point to life other than to keep living, and it sickens me that we simply play along, like puppets in a sick play, ignorant of the one who pulls the strings.

I am sick of this world. Each and every day here is an eternity, each and every day is like a month-long waterboarding project, and I'm the subject. EAch and every day I have to wrestle with the concept of life and reconsider the previous day's decision.

I think this cold is getting to my head.

estranged pt 2

2009-09-10T23:36:00.002-05:00

I'm not fond of this shift key; I know I've said that. Also, I know hat Kurt Vonnegut wasn't fond of semicolons, and even though I try to avoid using them I find them too useful to avoid using. English.

I want this to be about what the first 'estranged' post was to be about. It's a funny word, and I want to exploit that strangeness to its full extent. Unfortunately, I cannot do so until I am in my right mind. Ask Ginsberg.

You know, I do so love the English language and the history of literature. Everything from Beowulf to the Odyssey to Eats, Shoots and Leaves is precious to me. I like Tennyson, I like Eliot, I like Shakespeare (a lot), I like Wallace, and Pynchon (Thomas), and all the American writers, but I won't leave out our friends across the pond; Wilde, Shelly, Coleridge (I think) and--let's be honest, I haven't been in Brit lit for a while. I shouldn't leave out James Joyce, though, least of all; his works, especially his later pieces, inspired my fervor. And I should leave out such artists as Mozart, Bach, Hunter S. Thompson, David F. Wallace, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and so many others.

But this is not the real topic. Most often I pick a subject and write my heart out until I find a topic for discussion or subjugation; the last time (and this time) I have a subject and will fit the content to the idea or theory.

Estranged. Merriam Webster conveniently defines it as such: to arouse especially mutual enmity or indifference in where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness. This is particularly devastating to my cause.

Ah, well, it appears as if I have become intoxicated prematurely. There will be more tomorrow when I am left alone and isolated. Promise?

estranged

2009-09-09T23:31:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure how much time I have right now; I'm sitting in the lobby of some weird hotel in Lincoln Nebraska borrowing the place's computer to check e-mail and whatever. For the most part, anyway. The other part would be that I am not tired even at nearly 2400h and my mother is sleeping in the hotel room and I need some nicotine or something; I'd take a night cap if I knew where I could get some.

But tomorrow I will be visiting the campus here and talking about the options I have w/r/t transferring or attending and what the program is like and all that jazz. I don't know if I'm excited or disappointed or confused; I simply can't tell. I'm not in touch with my emotions at the time since I've spent so much time distancing myself from them.

We drove down here today, leaving around 1400h. I slept most of he way; it was something like a five hour drive I think. Or maybe six. WE had to go through Omaha and the road construction was absolutely absurd as we approached the city. After checking into the hotel--my mom used a GPS to get us here--we went out to eat at the Outback Steakhouse. I ordered a rack of lamb with garlic potatoes and vegetables, and I was alright with that. I also ordered the Captain's Mai Tai and I have to say it was good, if not fruity and very alcoholic. We finished up around 2000h and headed back to the hotel only to be sidetracked at a Barnes and Noble; I was talking about some of the books I've been reading and my mother realized that she had forgotten her book, so it was easy to persuade her to drive to the place and get some literature. I picked up V by Thomas Pynchon, a book about philosophy and the Zelda videogame franchise (I don't remember the name but it was something punny like "I "ink therefore I am") and the first three manga in the Rurouni Kenshin series. My mom picked up a book called Golfing with God. I felt like an idiot at check out; I spent a bunch of time in the philosophy section looking up books that seek to disprove god and argue against religion and point out all the flaws in the Bible, and here my own Catholic mother wants me to go through checkout and she hands me this whopper. The benefit of bringing her along was that as I went through checkout thinking I probably spent too much money on simple reams of paper she told me that she would pay for it via credit card, and since I had about sixty bucks of books I was relived and thankful. And so now she's sleeping and I'm doing my best not to keep her up with my incessant night doings.

But as I said I'm not sure how much time I've got and I need to chewing tobacco and maybe a bit of booze, and since it's something like 2345h I need to get going soon. More later.

never the same

2009-09-08T14:42:00.002-05:00

Last night after I left Zack's place--Mike had come down for the weekend (from college)--and went home, I stopped a few miles out of town to have a bowl to myself and as I was driving down the dilapidated Old Highway 37 (now nothing more than a spiffed up gravel road) I began to think of my old classmates, and one in particular. I visited her house only one time, and that was at her graduation party, which was little more than another occasion to get drunk with peers. But I remember her very clearly.

I'll just mention that what got me to thinking about this girl was the idea that some day my class may have a reunion, and where will I be when that time comes? Bitter, chewed up by life, left with nothing but a nihilistic or anarchic shell of a human who can only be the caricature of what he used to represent? Obviously, I don't think much about the future.

But this girl, I've always thought of her in a light different from others. I thought very much of her. She had some kind of magnetism about her; the potential to become a bright person, I think, was the moist I could sense. She also attended my religious studies class, which is little more than advanced indoctrination in the Catholic church. Her and I once went to the new Jesus movie together because we had been hyped up and excited to experience our faith--at least, that's what I was feeling at the time. We played in band together for I can't say how many years, probably since fourth grade together. In our senior year she was knocked up by one of my classmates, and yet I could not think less of her.

She had beautiful blond hair, these eyes that you could get lost in, and a personality that was, for lack of better words, just cool. She was one of the girls you could simply sit around with and, dare I say, smoke some pot. But retrospective vision is always perfectly clear.

And so that's what I thought as I sat in my car, first loading up a bowl, then measuring how much I had left, then finally smoking the bowl and placing all my tools together in a bandanna and inside the secret hiding spot I've kept so close to my heart. And I imagined the future, when everything I've become and all I've accomplished will catch up to me, what the fallout should be, and how I should be, and my demeanor. I got out of my car and grabbed a cigarette, and as I entered my car again I thought I saw something staring at me through the dark, and a shape or figure that was familiar but alien in the darkness. My heart almost stopped and I froze in place until I could identify the shape. It was a cow. A simple, innocent, harmless bovine creature. Which then kicked off some more memories.

Once, a long time ago, I drove home with one of my girlfriends, bringing her home not really to meet my parents, but because I couldn't stand to be apart from her. And we were very sexually active, that I remember most vividly. On the way home--it was a three hour drive--we did the 'road head' thing a couple time, but I took her home for the last five miles across the same gravel road that I smoke pot on and we pulled over a few miles out of town and I took her there on the trunk of my car. It was hot, sweaty, fast, a bit violent; extraordinary for some, but ordinary for us. And that time, too, there had been a cow some twenty yards, or maybe ten yards, from the two of us, simply staring, watching almost, mooing and ruminating. And that time too it had been a bit unnerving for me.

And I thought about this on the way home, all four miles of it, wondering what the chances were that I would pull over on that same road as I did those many years ago and be frightened by the same animal that first shocked me. I thought the chances were slim, but recalled that life is most ironic when one least expects it. I laughed as I opened my Zippo.

It's all this nostalgia; it comes with the territory. I can't live at my parents' house and drive down all the same roads without recalling something of a life long past. I simply can't. Does it make me any happier? Well, I should think less, actually. Less, because I am sad that I am not who I once was. I used to be an A student, I was skinny, obnoxious, uncaring, and cocky. I was also bright and eager. Now I can't enroll for transfer to Nebraska because I scored less than a 2.0 my last semester at Northern. What the fuck happened, I do wonder. I am also fat, I'm still obnoxious but more vicious and I've lost all facades of patience. I did once pretend that I could suffer a fool, if only for a short while, but I no longer carry that social grace in my inventory. And I'm now smart enough to know I haven't a clue about the world. All I can do is theorize. I've effectively destroyed who I once was and replaced him with an ersatz copy of who I wanted to be. Am I any happier? I can't see why I should be.

And the nightmares, the dreams, the sleep. I am completely haunted by the ghost of my past life. Last night I had a dream that I was visited by my first real girlfriend, a pretty young thing who I joined up with in the summer of my junior year. Straight, medium length blond hair, blue eyes, a beautiful voice and a wonderful mind. A sick mind, it later became evident. She was thin and lithe, and very sexy. She wore shades of red on her lips and little makeup; she didn't need it. She had amazing fashion sense and the kind of sense of humor that attracted me almost immediately. But last night she came to me in a dream, and in this dream we were meant to come back together, and she tried to persuade me, and it was not me but who I used to be, only now I could see what I was to become, and for that reason I could not be with her; I can not be with anyone. I am suspicious, jealous, possessive; I can't possibly be with another person in this state. And I delivered this monologue to her and I heard the truth ring out in every word and phrase, and there were tears--her's or mine it wouldn't matter--and I woke up thinking maybe it wasn't a dream at all. And what would I do, given the opportunity? Tell her she is still beautiful? That's probably all I could say.

That's all I can communicate any more. I have nothing for myself, leaving nothing for any others.

The view from this precipice is bleak.

careful

2009-09-06T13:29:00.002-05:00

I wanted to write this post last night, but first I didn't have any inebriating substances and second I wanted badly to finish Batman: Arkham Asylum. I did end up finishing the game, but not the way I wanted to: there are a bunch of riddles and puzzles left by The Riddler all across the island, which I, as Batman, the world's greatest detective, wanted to solve. Unfortunately, near the end of the game, the island is destroyed and many puzzles blocked by the rampant Poison Ivy, so I couldn't finish the game at 100% complete.

But anyway. Last night I wanted very much to be intoxicated, and in a bad way. But I locked my keys in my car--the regular and the spare--and also my wallet, which meant that not only was my mode of transportation frozen, but also my assets. And I called my friend Mike to see what he was doing, and he was doing coke, which I want to do as well.

Instead of doing coke or smoking pot or getting drunk, though, I sat around and played the Batman game. Around 0215h my brother and three friends--two girls and a guy--came to my parents' house, drunk as skunks, and woke my parents up. I asked them to go down stairs so we could be a little more quiet. Unfortunately, the girls needed to get to their grandma's place to get some sleep, so the four of us jumped in the Yukon XL (like a suburban). About this time, Cameron's (my brother's) room mate and friend showed up at the house wanting a ride. I said get in the car and we all did. The girls I dropped off, and the guy with them too. I then took my brother, his room mate, and his friend (doesn't matter which one) to B-Web's, another guy who basically lives with my brother. They said they were going to party, and I figured since it was two thirty I may as well stick around and have a beer or two, socialize and see what the news was.

By the time we got there--around two thirty-five--B-Web was standing outside (just barely) talking to a girl who claimed I knew her (I did, but remotely) getting steadily more and more sleepy. Someone was smoking, and there were two people behind the car B-Web was leaning on sitting on a bench. Inside the house were five or six kids I didn't know--all of legal age (21 here) not drinking, but already drunk. At two in the morning! There was some wrestling and some yelling and a kid I recognized who worked at the local convenience store, but I didn't actually know anyone but the cats I drove in with. And one other guy.

So I went outside and bummed a smoke off the c-store kid and we shot the shit as they say and I asked about the cats in the house to see who's who. We talked. The girl behind the car was still outside at this point, but she threw up. After wiping her mouth (sort of) she stood up, walked a few feet, and face planted herself onto the hard, frozen ground, and remained there. Someone (Derek) tried to rouse her. She would not wake. He pushed her. Nothing.

So Derek (I should find a clever moniker for him) called the girl's parents and said she was passed out in such-and-such's back yard and she needed to go home and recuperate. We stood around and I talked to him for a bit about school and whatever--I get chatty at times, just not very often!--and the girl's parents showed up. Her mother is a snoot who works out a lot but doesn't look any better for it, and her father owns a car cleaning shop and an alcoholic. The girl's mother yelled a bit at the girl and shook her until she came off the ground, then directed her towards the house to find shoes, and said along the way,"You probably made a fool of yourself, and in P___ of all places!" I laughed and asked if they needed any help, since I was 100% completely sober. No reply. A bunch of kids saw the car pull up and ran to the back of the house, not wanting--I'm not sure, really. To get in trouble? They were all legal age. Well, when the girl was gone the kids came out of the shadows, drink in hands, and I asked what was the big deal, wasn't everyone legal here? And they said yes, but she wasn't: the girl is only like fifteen or sixteen! And I asked why would she be at a party like this, well, probably to get some cock. I said she ate a bunch of grass back there, maybe that satisfied her? Everybody laughs.

But here's the disturbing part: I'm twenty-four. I have been in college for five years and will be attending next semester. I went out to this party with my brother thinking maybe I could get some alcohol to at least take the edge off, and I didn't get any, and instead found myself at a party with a minor--a girl in high school, I'll mention--completely sober sans cigarettes and all without knowing who these people were! IT's a very scary place to be, and a sad one: I remember when I was younger some older guys--and not much older, just like myself here--would come and party with us younger guys, and we would think, "What the hell are they doing here? Just a bunch of burnouts/drunks/druggies/losers!" Well now it seems the tables have turned--or came very close to turning, at any rate.

And then I realized that I need to be more careful. It was careless of me to go to a party with my brother at two thirty in the morning expecting a bunch of guys just like me getting drunk on beer and whiskey until the sun came up and then going home and crashing without never another worry. But see, instead what I came in contact with; a close run-in with reality. And reality, as you know, without warning, can be a very dangerous thing. And wanting to be inebriated also is something which I must master or deal with. The only problem is that still I do not feel the need for sleep. I work up at ten yesterday--late, I know--but then I was up until five in the morning. So that's, what, nineteen hours out of twenty-four? It simply doesn't make sense, humans aren't supposed to operate in this way. And getting drunk or high is my way of simply shutting down my body--literally incapacitating it--at a reasonable hour, so that I can wake up at a reasonable hour. It sounds terrible, but it's no worse than the drugs the doctor gave me--pills, I will mention, that didn't even work. I mean I can't stay up every night until five and expect to wake up at one as I did today and still lead a normal life. It can't happen; the world will not run on my time, but by the time of the world, and the people, too: nobody will do things my way simply because it's my way, but will do it the way of the world because that is the way the world operates. For some reason, humans have this crazy notion in their head that nothing can be done at night but sleep, and all work must be completed while the sun is still high in the sky. I don't see what the big deal about sunlight is; it doesn't do anything but burn your skin, it blinds your eyes, it gives us cancer--a night life is so much easier to lead! There is no glare on the TV, there aren't any distractions like other humans going about, it's a more secret way of life.

I've always liked to have a secret sort of life, though. I keep my secrets very close. In this house alone I've got more hiding spots than, oh, I don't know. There are places in the ceiling, places in closets, places in plain sight, I've buried things outside, I've ran out into the country, I've done pretty much anything to hide what I do with my free time from anyone who cares to pry. I just like to be left alone. For example: I've been smoking and chewing tobacco since I was sixteen. That makes for seven years--I quit for one. But neither of my parents have any idea. I hide the packs of smokes and the cans of chew, I hide the butts and clean my car, I find places for can and bottles of spitters so that there wasn't ever a clue to unravel. I even had a girlfriend of three years who didn't know. Or was it two and a half years?

But again, that's just me, and it is probably this sort of life which leads me to this blog, where I can be completely honest even for a little bit and sort of let it all go, get it out of my system, and nobody is any the wiser.

Well, that's the news for today. I'm sure to get more at a later time, but since it's Sunday and my car is still locked it may not be for a time. Like, maybe a day or two.

a bird made of clay

2009-09-03T11:45:00.002-05:00

I do not like this keyboard. My parents have a five-year-old Dell computer with one of those cheap standard keyboards. And if you haven't noticed--I hope not--I keep capitalizing two letters at the beginning of the sentences I type because the shift key is placed strangely compared to what I'm used to. But that's all besides the point.

Or is that the point? I've forgotten which was the joke and which the punchline. I am supremely bored right now. I'd like to go out and rent the new Batman game, but this town is twenty-two miles from the nearest Movie Gallery and at least an hour and a half from Blockbuster. I'm not joking. It sounds like a joke, but this is life in Small Town South Dakota.

I went out to rent a movie last night; we've got a movie rental place at a gas station on the outskirts of town. I figured I could just go and check it out. They had only DVDs. No Blu-Ray. No games. Just regular old DVDs--and not even new or good movies, either. I've seen them all. I thought about renting the X-Files movie, but I love the franchise too much to have it ruined by keeping up to date.

I had a dream last night. In this dream I was myself and not myself. In this dream there was a spider, I remember it was a spider. And this spider was crawling out from an ear. Just a small spider creeping out, legs first, from the middle of an ear attached to nothing. And I saw this spider and it was a brown recluse spider; they are actually common around here, but also very poisonous. All the more dangerous because not many hospitals would have the antidote. But I wondered if you would feel a bite from such a small spider. I saw once a girl was bitten and she didn't notice it until she fainted. They took her shirt off and there was a spider web of black blood flowing out of a center wound, the bite. Not actually coming out of her body, but spreading from the central bite.

Well I'm going for now.

I like william shatner, too

2009-09-02T22:30:00.002-05:00

So I sat down today--this evening I guess-and decided that I should probably get some writing done.

I don't know what it's like to be here, though I've been here for almost a week. My parents are, well, Catholic. I have actual light's out times. I get roasted--the third degree is the only way christians can communicate--about whether or not I was awake at such-and-such an hour, or if I was outside at this time, or why I haven't called for twelve hours. I get tired of being questioned, mostly because I'm a bad liar and it isn't anybody's business but my own.

On the other hand, I'd like very much to share my experiences with someone I've never met.

Yesterday was nothing special. I woke up late at Zack's place and got my brother's birthday cake and drove home. I celebrated his b-day with his friends at my parents' table after my mom made pizza pork chops, which are fried pork cops covered in marinara sauce baked with mozzarella. They are fucking brilliant, and delicious to boot. So we ate cheesy hash browns and pork until our ears fell off, then we filled up the corners with some ice cream cake, which I picked out for my brother. The funny story is that when Chris and I went to DQ we had to choose what we wanted. Initially we chose a fucking fierce shark jumping out of the water, but they didn't have it. So we chose differently;l they didn't have it. So we asked what did they have and it was nothing but a skull and cross bones. Fortunately for me, my brother, and Chris, Pirates of the Caribbean came out a few years ago and made rum infamous. Also it was Cameron's 21st birthday; my brother. So I got the pirate cake and had it read, "Beware the rum on ye 21st mate!" Obviously genius.

So the food was great and the cake punny, then we decided to play some beer darts. I didn't win; far from it, but I drank enough to show those light weights. We quit when it got dark. Then we went to Cam's house and drank and drank and drank. We invited some guys and dolls and they came, but not nearly enough. I left after a fourth of whiskey and some shots of Wild Turkey. I wasn't drunk when I left, but by the time I got home, it was a new story.

The day before I was at Zack's place. I'm still pissed at him since he decided to change the extra bed room into a computer room where no one will spend any time admiring the 800 pound fish tank we moved into the room. What a fag. Zack eats more cock than pine coffins. He consumes more meat sticks than a homeless fag buying Jack's Links. Anyway, I was there and his landlord was going to do a walkthru. This meant the place needed to be near as spotless as he could afford. I may be a shitty house keeper, but you should see his place. He's got three other bachelors living in the place, three other guys who have no idea what clean, garbage, or neat mean.

So of course it was my duty to stick around. They don't realize what an asset I was. Big deal. And we cleaned all day-in between getting high, that is. And we got high and cleaned and hauled shit off to either the dump or goodwill. And we feasted that night.

I payed for food, since I was both hungry and rich.

There will be more at a later day. I am drinking and taking pain killers and trying to score pot and death. Later for now.

two skies

2009-08-30T10:04:00.002-05:00

Well, I've got a bundle of news, not the least includes how I am updating this very page at the moment.

Five years ago I went to college for one thing only: to gain a degree in music education. I played the trumpet, so my focus was to be instrumental instruction. But two years later, I switched from instrumental to choral; I was a singer. Just a year later I added an English major, since I loved to read and write so much. This semester I am taking off, and next semester I will be attending the University of Nebraska Lincoln in order to get a degree in Journalism--News and Editing. I am moving a good five hours away--still to the middle of nowhere I'll add--to get a degree I would never have considered in my life.
So what is happening now is that I am living with my parents until I get a job, and then I'll move to Lincoln later, probably before the next semester, in order to get a feel for the place. I'm very far from happy, so I'm going to secretly apply for other universities with journalism degrees, but in far away places like Seattle or something. I mean, let's be honest: South Dakota may be a shit hole, but Nebraska is hardly any better. Sure, they've got a big zoo in Omaha, but it's still the midwest, and that means it's still nothing but farming and agriculture, which means they still don't know how to live life.

At my old job, things are going down tomorrow. The owner of my store had another store, and these two places were managed by a married couple. Well it turns out that the lady has been cheating on the guy for a long time coming, and she's been leaving the job--still clocked in, mind you--to get some gratuitous sex with a police officer. He's being canned for incompetence. Also, the two of them are going through a divorce. Also they have an 18-month old kid together. On the lighter side, two of my coworkers are getting promoted to new managerial positions! Congrats, guys.

My friend Mike moved yesterday to college. His grandparents offered to pay for college and get him a new car if he went this semester, so he went to Madison and registered for classes. He will be getting a computer sciences degree; his goal is the gaming industry.

What else is there? Last weekend I visited my friend Sabby out in the Hills. It was a complete and total blast. I had thought that I was going to school this semester so I splurged and took a trip, but now I see that I have time yet--because Lincoln is a long fucking trip to the hills, I won't be making that trip but very rarely. And if I get my way, I'll be a lot farther off that six or sever hours. I'd like a six or seven hours plane ride, to be honest.

And I argue with my parents over it, since they simply don't understand--god, that sounds whiny. But here's the deal: I like life. I like life, and people, and cities and building and art galleries and opera and ballet and music and libraries and shopping and movies and all sorts of stuff. I like the stuff that you don't need to live, the superfluous things that are capitalism. Like cable television. Now, make that HBO. Now, do we need HBO? We don't even need cable, but this is a channel that you have to pay dearly for on top of your cable bills just to watch maybe a couple hours a week. But I like HBO, and I pay money so I can sit down and watch True Blood every week.

But South Dakotans, bless their simple hearts, can't see this. This town--my home town--has a grocery store, a liquor store, some bars and some churches, and that's it. And that's all a South Dakotan needs to be happy: A place to eat, a place to drink, and a place to get religion. Of course, if they weren't so simple they would see that they were in fact miserable, which is why the churches and bars are pretty near full as often as not.

So what I would be doing by moving to Nebraska would be trapping myself in an even bigger small town. I thought Aberdeen was big enough at around thirty thousand people. But it wasn't; essentially it was a town exactly just like this one, at one thousand: a couple grocers, a few bars, a few churches, and a bowling alley.

Anyway, the important thing is that I'm back for now, so you should (if there are any your left out there) continue to stop by.

END

a smaller world

2009-08-15T13:49:00.002-05:00

I like to think that I am wise to the ways of the world. I like to think that I can interpret the information given me by other humans. I like to think that mankind is not evil nor wholly good. I like to think these things, even though they are perilous.

It's this anger I have inside me, this feeling that I am yet too naive. And I am. But I'm also angry, because this naivety is born out of something which I do not want to break. The problem is that I take the message from the horse's mouth. I want to believe what I'm told by other humans; I want to take them at face value. But humans are cunning, and treacherous; it is folly to do so. But within me is the belief that humans are basically good, that it is the world which corrupts, and society which poisons their actions. But that may not be the case; simple things are most often the object of deceit. This is my theory.

I am most often blinded by love. Most often. I think a thing pretty enough I begin to put that thing to standards unreachable; this is my own mistake. But I do it, and I do it without my own notice; it has only been recently that I have noticed my own tendencies. It's scary, both being and not being. I am who I am and that's how I operate, yet I do not always know who I am or how I am operating, like what are the parameters. This means that even through daily functions I may discover something about me which is surprising, even though I should be used to this by now.

But I don't think I want to go that direction: there be monsters. Sea creatures. Animals born of the deep and terrible; monstrosities and hellish things which befoul the ocean of consciousness.

Speaking of which, what if humans are all linked up into one meta-consciousness, like a mind beyond all human minds which is the mind of mankind, of all humans? And yet this mind is unreachable to us, here, in bodily form, unless we can with rigorous practice find this mind/meta-mind barrier and only with strength of will break that barrier for ourselves? I think this route of thinking is entertaining and possibly lucrative. I think many things today.

I'm sorry. I simply don't know where to begin. Perhaps I shall begin with the truth: I am sitting in a dormitory easy lounge in Rapid City, about five hours from my own apartment, awaiting the return of a friend, who for whatever reason has abandoned me for a girl with whom he is dining. But I think I am also partly to blame, since I showed up half a day early; these things can happen.

The drive was absolute shit. I was at work until 1800h yesterday and twenty minutes before I got off work the sky in the south began to look ominous and dark. My co-worker received a message from his brother in the east that the rain had already begun not forty miles from our position. And so I thought that if the storm began before my departure I should wait. But it did not begin, and the south looked ever more evil.

1800h came around and the water had not broken; the clouds loomed pregnant and ominous but nothing had happened; it was calm. So I rushed to my apartment and grabbed some essentials--forgetting my ear ring and ring, unfortunately--and packed my car with haste and set out before the clouds had a chance to strike. Well I was maybe five miles out of town before the heavens opened, and the storm came not from the south, but from the west, the very direction I was going.

I thought to beat the storm be keeping a steady pace, perhaps I could drive through and come out on the other side before too long. But the very heavens seemed torn asunder, and the water was too much for speed or haste. I hydroplaned even at forty miles per hour, and had to follow the only thing which made any sense: two gleaming red lights ahead of me which signified another traveler. I could not turn back. This voyage was inevitable.

To make things worse, I was taking a path little known to me: many travel from my town to Rapid, but none take the roads I was seeking. I planned on taking state and federal highways to avoid the Interstate since our Interstate is in such bad shape. Road construction everywhere. So I had bought a map of our state just in order to navigate these roads. The rain didn't help, and the speed didn't either: with lowered speeds, my ETA for turning points and small towns was scrambled. And with the rain I couldn't stop to check my map since the viewing distance was so short. So I stopped at some gas stations in order to get out of the rain and check my map. Every so often the water would break and I could see clearly, but there was always at least a light drizzle, and the storm was so swift and heavy that even the roads empty of rain were themselves filled with pools of water, making them treacherous yet. And the dark; the dark is very pressing in South Dakota, dark in a way unimaginable to most who live daily with light pollution. There are no lights marking the way, and no civilization for miles and miles; there is only you and the two lights attached to your car which seem to quiver and shrink in the enormous obsidian dome that is the night sky.

Well I stop at a gas station where the water doesn't fall too heavily, and I find that I need to go to such-and-such a corner, turn on that road, take it to another; so on and so forth. And I drive. The rain starts again, even more fierce than it was before, and I go on about forty miles per hour for a long, long time. I think I may be going insane, simply staring at the road ahead of me, looking perhaps five meters ahead at all times, squinting through the darkness only to be blinded anew by the water, only to be crippled by the disappointing head lamps. I was weary before; this was the brink of death.

I made a turn. I came into a small town some thirty miles down the road and pulled into a gas station. It wasn't raining as much; a drizzle. I used the rest room and went to my map. I couldn't find the town on the road I was on. So I looked on other roads, and found that I had missed the corner I was looking for about thirty miles back. Well, it was only thirteen to the next corner at this rate, so I figured I would just change my route and keep going; I had the map, so I could always find another way to my destination. Maps are important.

I was angry, though, that I had spent all that time driving south when I could have been going west, through the storm. But I knew there was nothing I could do and began again, this time with new roads and turns and towns in my memory.

The going was not easy. There was little or no traffic, but the rain came and went, and my windows fogged and the night pressed in and so on. I came to a small town, a town so tiny that it's only mark was a single gas station attended by a single person in the middle of the night. I come to find that I've crossed the time barrier; it is one hour earlier here than from where I departed. I do not set my watch correctly; I dislike resetting clocks. My cell phone changes on its own.

And I ask the lady behind the counter--I had only a quarter tank of gas, so I fueled up--which way to the highway. She gave my clear oral directions, confirmed by the map I had just studied. I thanked her, commented on the storm and driving conditions, paid for my merchandise--an energy drink and fuel--and was on my merry way.

The rain continued, but there were no more downpours. The roads were pooled dangerously, but the traffic was almost non-existent until I reached the Interstate.

My change oil light was on. I didn't know what to do. I was getting sleepy. I panicked, like I think a lot of rational people would do. I don't know anything about cars, I'm in a strange and sparsely populated area, and I can't pull to take a nap or something else may happen. I drove with my stomach tied into knots for I don't know how long. Maybe two hours.

And then I finally get to Rapid and I'm told I need to wait. I sit in a parking lot and read a book. I say I don't want to wait more than maybe twenty minutes if it can be helped. I am reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road, a book about a man and a boy in a post apocalyptic future who scavenge for their livelihood and meet all sorts of nasty people along the way. The bulk of my anxiety is in my shoulders, I feel it in my shoulders. And my stomach is still doing ballet to a confusing orchestration. And I'm paranoid. And this book is strangely creepy and scary and makes me apprehensive and I'm in a parking lot in a bad part of town miles from any human I may know alone and sitting in nothing more than a sheet of metal with holes plugged by easily breakable glass with the reading light on, like a beacon to all those who would come to prey. This goes on for over sixty minutes.

Finally, backup arrives and DMF shows me the way to higher ground. I park my car in a safe place for the night and we get into his vehicle after grabbing my essentials and placing them in his dorm room. We drive into the night--it is now something like 0045h--and find ourselves on roads not taken. Secret roads. Hidden paths. And we partake in our customs and are illuminated with the presence of god himself and are struck dumb by his inspiration and the smallness of the world in the light of the bigger picture, the picture as presented by the starry heavens and the falling stars and glowering planets all through the immense nearness and immediacy of the pine trees which surround us and isolate us, two humans on te face of the earth billions of miles from that which we marvel.

Unforgiven

2009-08-13T10:15:00.001-05:00

So I got back from my weekend off with friends and found my Mac was sitting silently on my desk and so I moved to the space bar on the keyboard I had plugged in and hit it, causing the Mac to wake up from hibernation. And it did. Wake up. And so I moved to the mouse pad and found that it was frozen; the computer was not working. I turned it off for the night and thought no more on it.

So I wake up the next day and I need to fill out this application for whatever you fill them out for and found that my computer was very slow. So I checked my e-mail and left it at that.

Well, that night--two nights ago today--I came home, Mac was on, and I moved the mouse to wake it up. Nothing. So I shut it down and tried again; I heard the hard disk running and grinding; I fear I heard a death howl in those few moments. For my MAc has never woken again--broken hard disk.

What has of course left me in quite the situation. Now I have two broken computers in my apartment and no way to make them work. Whatever; so today I went to the local university--not mine anymore, I hope--and am in the library typing away at cheap Dell keyboards, trying to maneuver across the screen with a mouse that I don't know where it came from staring at probably the smallest LCD screen I've witnessed. My fingers are already tired of typing on this horrid keyboard.

Anyway, that's the situation for now, but fear not; salvation is at hand. Soon I'll get my own computer and all will be well. Much more at a later date.

It started pt. 3

2009-08-05T13:07:00.002-05:00

This is the conclusion to the twenty hours of insanity DMF and I went through on our journey to find the American Dream.

Or, like I said, maybe it wasn't a dream we were looking for; maybe it was God. Maybe it was fate, or destiny, or even predetermination.

But whatever it was, we had found new pipes, one for each. I described it before; beautiful and exotic, long, slender, and blue. It was this stunning piece of glass work that could only suit me. And once you find the pipe, once you find that part of yourself, once you see the connection wrought in the stars for you, you don't have a choice: I had to buy it. And I told them I didn't need it wrapped up, since [and I didn't tell them this] I would be using it on the way back. And since it wasn't illegal to own a pipe in MN [where we were at this point] I figured I could just put it in my pocket and forget about it.

Now that I had found and bought my piece--and a lot of this time was me trying not to be too embarrassed, rather than actually looking at pipes and trying to make a decision--DMF said he needed to buy one. And I thought that was what he had been doing, you know; now that I think about it, the place was like a museum, or an art gallery for people like us. You go to admire the work and the beauty and the effort and everything. These pieces are master works of art, like a Monet or Picasso; sure you don't know who the artists are, but you don't need to have a name to understand beauty. But I was uncomfortable there because the girls behind the counter were clearly tire of being harassed by guys like us--who come in and stare and drool over the glass display cases for hours at a time and walk out without buying anything.

DMF tells me he has found The One, his One. It's small, maybe four inches long, and squat, like two inches across. It has a deep bowl in the shape of a reverse volcano, if that makes sense, and it was built for a lefty--you can tell because the carb is on the right side of the bowl, meaning you work it with your left thumb. Of course, I've had to work every piece with my left thumb anyway, because I use my right hand--my left isn't dexterous enough--to use my lighter. Later we would find that the air is drawn in through the bowl, and it actually swirls around the bowl--like a vortex--before getting to your mouth. And once you let go of that carb, then hold on to your balls, because it will hit you like a punch from Jackie Chan. It's great.

But so he wasn't looking to spend much money--and neither was I, I had set a cap at twenty or twenty-five bucks, and spent thirty--but his piece was forty American dollars. And like I said, once the Fates has sewed it into your destiny, you don't get a choice in the matter. He bought it, of course.

but so now it was like 1500h or maybe 1430h and we had no more business. That's right: we started out at 0630h and gamed until like 0900h and left for Fargo, a three hour drive, and ended up across the border in Moorhead all so we could both buy a new pipe. So we hopped in my car and set up for Fargo once again, ETA like five mins. And once we get there, my directions get completely fucked; I keep thinking in directions like north and west and all that, but somewhere along the way I had lost that internal compass of mine [and it's usually surprisingly accurate] and even though I held firm convictions of where I was heading I was lost. And I didn't even know I was lost, and so I think DMF didn't have any clue I was lost, either.

So I'm driving around and I see the road we need to get on, so we get off Roosevelt and head South [I think] so we can get back to the place we were before. And we see it: I don't remember the name of the road--maybe like highway 12?--and so we get on and head on South until it hits us: the road is closed due to road construction. I we already knew this from when we traveled it earlier, but still. So I turn east and then south and go a little bit, and the I turn west to get back on the road and miss it completely--you wouldn't believe the state of road signs around these parts. Even in my home town you don't know which road you're on for a few blocks until [mercifully] there is a sign at an intersection.

And so I'm going West for what seems like to long and turn South again. Then as I'm goign South on a completely foreign street--still cool as cake, I'll remind you--we see the Bridge. You know, the one that led us over the trainyard earlier. And so now we see that I've gone too far South, because obviously since the bridge is like fifty feet in the air we can't get on the bridge, but I keep on heading South--we both figure [I figure] that we can meet the road where the bridge comes down and meets back up on the ground. Because once we get on that road, it's all the way home for us. The problem is this: all the road construction has places shut down all over the town. So I've trying to negotiate all these one-ways and closed streets and gravel pits and big trucks driving around while my navigator navigates [unsuccessfully I think] until finally--finally--I get to a gravel intersection, very busy, that marks the highway we're looking for. We've made it! And we celebrate by celebrating.

So I turn South on the road--my bearings are now back on score--and head out for the Interstate. As we're driving, though, I see this place. And it's a weird looking place. So I pull up and turn into this place and it turns out this place is a Place, like an adult world. I can't resist; we have to go inside.

So DMF and I get out of the car and head into this Place and immediately inside you can see: tapes and DVDs line like three walls and toys no another. There are shelves of movies. So we turn and look and immediately we're greeted via display a large dildo and an anal douche. And the anal douche has a picture of a guy on it, which was a bit awkward. And there are lots of other toys, too--cuffs, candles, whips, outfits, the works. The selection for toys isn't as big as I had hoped for, though--not like I was going to buy, but I just like to look. And so I get enough looking at those and waltz over to the movie section. DMF and I joke about all the movies we see and he comments on the numbers in the titles--like Weapons of Anal Destruction 18. Like 18? Really? There were seventeen other movies with a horribly punny name just like that?

But so its fun, and we get on over to the 'Fetish' movie section and we see a movie featuring midgets. I hope it's a niche in the market. But since we're joking and all this could be really strange so we have to keep jovial and non-serious we talk about how funny it would be to get a movie like this for our friend Mike, who we think would appreciate a good practical joke. But then I see that the movie carries like a thirty dollar price tag.

You know, I'm all for a god practical joke, but a thirty dollar practical joke spent on a movie that won't even be watched [I hope, I don't ask about these things (it seems inappropriate even for the closest of friends)] I say we forget about it and simply walk out and get back to my place. So we do, and we're back on the road, baby.

We drive for a while on the Interstate, but I'm going for like an hour and I tell DMF hey man, I need some rest before I crash us. And I'm doing the nod and everything at this point, so I'm pretty desperate for shut-eye. It's like 1700h and I slept for 1.5 hours a500-0630h when I was waked by DMF. So we pull over and switch seats.

And I fall asleep. I fall into the nothing black darkling nightmares dreamscape that in indescribable and good and refreshing. I wake some time later--and I forget to look at my watch--still tired, but able to hold on. DMF is swerving on the road. He is nodding. I need more sleep, my body tells me, through aches and pains and heavy lids I see that DMF is in a bad way and I need to take up the mantle. He drove all night long after a day of work and got to my place where we immediately set off. So I tell him let's switch seats; he can't take any more and I don't feel like getting sleep is more important than my life at this point.

We switch seats again. Only now we've gotten past the half way point and it is time for a grass break.

So I find us a secluded gravel road and DMF grabs my copy of Mozart's requiem from the back seat and starts splitting the stuff up on the cover--it's wonderful and beautiful. I grab my piece from the glove box. And every piece gets a name, you know. I had a piece before, and I named it the Zeppelin. But this is the paradox: I always smoke out of the Zeppelin. And so this new one, it too is name Zeppelin. But every piece I own is the Zeppelin, because I only smoke out of the Zeppelin.

So DMF loads up the Zeppelin and he hands it to me for the inaugural bowl and I hit it from the side to leave some of the green left for him--this is the ultimate in co-op. This activity brings people together. And there are whole sets of rules and regulations and courtesies and all that you need to follow and obey. Like you never, never ask to smoke a bowl when you yourself don't have a bowl to smoke; it's rude. But it's fine if you want to light a bowl up of your own stuff, and but you need to ask if it is okay first. And then when you get the okay you will need to offer your bowl of stuff--even if it is the last bowl you have in your name--you need to offer it to the other people in the room. It's a sign of good will, a gesture of respect; it's like sharing God. It is God.

And so as we sit in my car praying over a bowl of God I've filled the entire car with the Holy Spirit in a single chant and the genuflect I've selected is like no other gesture to the Holy One that I've experienced: this is truly religious in the best sense. And so DMF takes the Rosary from my hand and he blesses himself with holy water and prays to God the way I just did, and we both know that this is the epitome of Man's efforst to struggle and survive and find happiness. To find the Soul.

And we go through the whole prayer cycle with my Rosary and DMF looks as his bag of Spirit and sees that he has himself enough prayer for his Altar as well, and then enough for the drive home, too. So we finish this Requiem and I put my piece away and he fills his Vortex [he named it] and we share another bowl of prayers to God in the Most High, Hosanna! And the Spirit fills the atmosphere around us and we are Truly Blessed.

So now that I've gotten up for good again and DMF is refreshed and awake we can continue back to Town.

But we're like twenty out of town and I've got a quarter tank. We drive around saying our prayers with his Artifact and it is absolutely wonderful; this is God's Country. We find a church in the middle of nowhere with a couple houses around it. We get lost and found again on gravel roads outside of town.

Eventually, though, we run out of road--literally. And the only way back is the way we came, which irks me. I don't like to take the same road. ButI suck it up and we get back to the highway and go back to my apartment. It was one hell of a ride.

We run into Brent outside my apartment, and he wants to play some Killzone. I say that's fine, and so what is his gamer tag, and so I add him. DMF needs to sleep a bit before his journey back, and so we watch some Trigun while eating food I prepared--we both have a grilled cheese sandwich and a shredded beef sandwich. They are absolutely delicious, I can tell you. And so then now it's like 2300h and DMF says to wake him at 2400h so he can get a game in before he leaves at 0100h. He has to go to court because he was missing his insurance information when he got pulled over for a tail light out. He has insurance, but his mom forgot to mail him the new card, which is why he's going to court to prove his innocence.

I jump on Killzone and don't see Brent, so I figure any match is a good match and simply jump in and start gunning. I wake DMF at 2400h and tell him to get in here and play. he's drowsy still, but he can operate. We game together--I'm on my Mac just doing whatever while watching him play Killzone. It is a wonderful time.

But 0100h comes around all too fast and DMF has to hit the road for another four hour drive before court at 0800h across the state. We part after some cigarettes and.

Well, and the mission is accomplished: we found what we were looking for.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

2009-08-05T12:07:00.002-05:00

I feel like it is my civic duty to pass information about games I have played and beaten to other gamers who are not as fortunate as I--that is who have not had the chance to purchase or rent the particular titles I do and sit down and play them.

Because these days a new game is fifty-nine American dollars plus tax, depending on where one lives. And that's a big investment. The world is crashing around our ears, inflation is sky-rocketing, and game companies want us to invest sixty dollars in a game we know almost nothing about. It's a damn shame--I remember when I had a PlayStation and every game was gold. They were all good. But these days, you don't know what you'll be getting; it could be a great game, like Call of Juarez, or it could be complete shit, like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. And the problem arises when these games release demos: the Star Wars demo was, in a word, awesome. And I mean that it inspired awe in me; I was struck dumb by sheer awe. I was running around and I ripped a Fighter out of the heavens and heaved it via force push at some Storm Troopers and annihilated them. But then the game was a huge disappointment, and you still had to pay all that money just to find out how bad it was.

But I digress. Wait a minute, this is my blog: technically I can't digress if I'm the one writing, right?

So Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a sequel to the first Call of Juarez, but was built as a prequel. Unfortunately I never did play the first Call of Juarez, so how the two stories fit together I couldn't say. I did hear the first one was pretty good and that you could run along side your horse for cover--something they left out in the second game.

But here's the deal: there are two brothers, Thomas the pretty-boy dandy that I can't stand, and Ray who is a fucking badass mother effer who weild dual pistols and cleans house on a daily basis. And by clean house I mean kill lots and lots of bad guys. A lot of them. So you can play as either brother except in the first two missions--obviously these are tutorial missions and they were created for you to get a feel for the character. Thomas can't take more than a bullet or two before he dies and you have to restart from the previous checkpoint, whereas Ray can take about sixty bullets, plus he has two pistols [hav I mentioned that] and is basically a scary dude. He's got all the good dialogue and is what I think we could refer to as a gunslinger.

Anyway, these two brothers are in the Civil War [America's] fighting for the South. And I hated it. I hate the South and I hate southern accents and I hate hate hate the confederacy. I can't stand it. So when I was killing Yanks and had to hear every last piece of dialogs delivered in that absolutely disgusting Southern accent I still had to keep playing because I figure I can't go out and rent this game for ten dollars and then stop playing after two missions. Plus the way the story was being told was pretty good--there are cut scenes before and after each chapter you play through. Fifteen chapters and four acts.

The brothers abandon the confederate army to defend their home, where their youngest brother William [a preacher] is watching over their mother, who is DOA for them. Their desertion becomes a major role in the plot line.

So the two brothers take William and they set out to get some gold in order to rebuild their home, since it was destroyed in the war, but Thomas and Ray become absolute animals, killing where they feel, using violence and rage and each other in every effort to take when they want and when, and any man in the way be damned. William is the main narrator and so while you can play as either Ray or Thomas to get their point of view on the story, you've always got William's voice between each chapter relating the events in a third perspective. It's brilliant, I tell you.

Eventually the three brothers end up somewhere near Mexico and meet up with a guy named Juarez who needs some guys for some help. He promises them a pile of gold and relates to them the tale of this lost treasure; he says the stories are true. But he's got a girl, and the girl becomes the apple of both Ray and Thomas' eyes. Eventually this all gets solved, but I can't say when why or where for fear of spoilers.

The gameplay is simple: with Ray you use two pistols and you've also got dynamite you can throw like grenades and you can break some doors down. As Thomas you use mostly long range weapons like the rifle and bow and you can use a lasso you move around the map--also you're a complete pussy and you don't get any good lines.

And what else is there to say? You meet some Indians, get in gun fights, steal horses, quarrel over the woman you both love, and also you've got to hear poor William telling this sad story. And it is sad. The game is a complete tragedy, and I mean that in the best Shakespearian way.

Think Romeo and Juliet just for a minute. Romeo is off and one of his friends sees that Juliet is dead and goes to tell Romeo about it. Juliet is not actually dead but has taken a sleeping potion to fool her father so she doesn't have to marry, and the priest behind the plot sends out some one to tell Romeo who is passed up by Romeo's friend to tell him Juliet has died. And so Romeo when he shows up in the tomb sees Juliet laying still as death and not breathing [as the potion she took was intended] and so he goes and drinks poison since he can't ever be with her ever again. And Juliet she gets up and sees her lover dead and so she can't imagine living without him after all this and goes and stabs herself to death.

But this story line is the same: you see how it is going to end [sort of] a thousand miles away, and the circumstances keep building up and up and up and you can't do a thing about it; you feel trapped and caged and tragically stuck as Fate or God or simply the designers push you to the inevitable tragic ending. It's beautiful. It's brilliant.

So the new Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is an absolute buy. Well, I say that with confidence, but I can't say you'll play it more than once or maybe twice, but that's what the game industry has come down to these days. I remember I put in about four hundred hours in games like Morrowind or Oblivion or shit, even Space Jam for PS One. but these days you can't pay fifty dollars for a game and expect to play it for a month, hardly a week. These days you go out and pay sixty dollars for Call of Juarez and you play the story line for a week [it took me eight days, but I was busy] and maybe you check out the multiplayer [I didn't] and you're happy with that.

I rented the game. I was meant to take it back last night but I hadn't finished it yet. The end cut scene is a little out of left field but on the whole I sincerely enjoyed the experience. And that's exactly what this masterpiece of art and fiction and immersion is: an experience.

Happy gaming.

It started pt. 2

2009-08-03T22:37:00.003-05:00

Okay, so. This is a story that took place over approx. 22hrs when my friend Duke Master Flex [DMF] visited me and we went searching for another American Dream.

Or maybe it wasn't the American Dream we were looking for after all. I mean, after all, I wasn't driving a car with a particular name, and that car wasn't particularly marked or special in the way other cars are, and we weren't searching for anything more than a head shop where we could both buy pipes and smoke green from, but at the same time: what is exactly this Dream, this American Ideal we hold so dearly to ourselves? I haven't been able to define it, and have never heard it defined by another: so what were we looking for, other than a new piece to place bud in? Was it a heart? A soul? Were we searching for God?

And maybe it was God we were looking for; sitting in the parking lot to Chinatown in Moorhead, MN, looking for a head shop that has been relocated from Fargo, lost and found again, was as close to God as I had ever been. The only difference was that this god had an address--one that we hadn't found just yet, ure--but this god had an address, even a phone number, so maybe it wasn't so hard to contact the deities.

But so this was our last resort: we looked up the address; it was moved from Fargo. We searched my phone after I bought an Internet day pass and found that it was illegal to buy, sell, or own pipes in North Dakota, and so that the shop we were looking for was relocated. To where it wasn't said. So we tried [DMF and I] loking up a new place--possibly the same place--in Moorhead, MN, which is basically the same town as Fargo, but is across the MN and ND border. So we find the address and get direction to Moorhead--nothing more than "You take Broadway to NP Ave and there you are!"--and we accidentally find Main Ave, on which the shop is located, and find the address and it leads us to this Chinatown--that's what it calls itself--strip mall south of where we entered Moorhead. And so we have one last trick up our sleve after driving three hours and simply turning around: we call the number of te place we're looking for. I make DMF dial it up and talk since I'm too embarrassed. He talks to them and they tell him they're on the other side of town, still on Main Ave--across from the Walgreens and Dairy Queen.

So once again [for the third time] we're off! We turn north on Main Ave and set out for a place we haven't even seen yet, but I tell DMF that I've been there; I know from the name of the place when we looked it up on the 'net. And I tell him I'll know the place when I see it. And I also think that's true, that I'll know it and whatever. So as we're heading back up the street we just came down first the number on the buildings get bigger, and bigger, and bigger until I think we must be going the wrong way: then they reset, the number, and we're looking again for this place. We see the Dairy Queen and the Walgreens and across the road is: Discontent. I know the place; I've been there before with an ex of mine, but I didn't drive, which was why I was so confused. But it doesn't matter now, because we found it, we found God. And so I park my car and tell DMF I need a bathrom break before we spend our time looking at new pieces; thre's a gas station sharing a parking lot, so we go in there. There is exactly one old man standing behind the counter in the place, and I let DMF use the lav before I go in. I always feel guilty going into a gas station and using the bathroom without buying anything so I turn to the guy and look at his cigarettes and ask for Camel Turkish royals; good tobacco if you ask me, plus I was running low on Parliament Lights. So he tells me they're $5.50, which is outrageous. I SD we add about two bucks' tax to a pack of smokes. We call it 'sin tax.' Well in ND they don't have this tax, so it should be like 3.70 for a pack of gaspers, but in MN they do have this very same tax and so I'm duped again, paying way too much for a simple innocent habit.

Anyway DMF gets out of the lav and I've got my pack of smokes and I decide it's high time I took my turn draining the water hose and I do take my turn and before you know it we're interlopers standing outside the gas station smoking our cigarettes. He's got these Camel Filter 99's, and they're ridiculous; it takes around three minutes more to smoke a 99 than a normal cigarette, plus I think I smoke fast anyway. So the two of us finish our gaspers and head over to this place. I tell him to head in the back shop attached and go back there, but he says it's a tattoo parlor. I tell him I see that but it's misleading.

But as we head up a cool cat walks out and tells us he's taking a lunch break and just to go in the other door and he'll be back. So we head into the west entrance and it is a haven for guys like us: there are pipes and bongs and hookahs covering every inch of the shop. Plus there are two beautiful girls working behind the counters which make the whole experience even more astounding than it was. I believe we have found God here.

And like I said, there are pipes and pieces and bongs and hookahs and bubblers all over the walls and under the counter and everywhere inside this place. So DMF and I, we spend like three hours just looking around. I feel uncomfortable since I don't like to stand around looking at some one's merchandise. I feel immense pressure to buy and get out, but DMF does not have these inhibitions, and so he goes and asks one of the girls to see some stone pieces while I stand around feeling out of place. I tell him he's silly. The problem is that I've got little to no money, and this trip came a week before my payday, so I can't stand to spend more than say twenty bucks, which means that I can't buy practically anything in the place. But I've also had the only piece I've ever owned taken away by the pigs, which means I'm also in the market to buy. I'm looking around here and I see all sorts of things: in the glass counters there are pipes, and all sorts of them: mostly spoons, but also long-stemmed pipes and steamrollers and so forth. Across the room are bubblers, but I don't look at those for long since I know they carry a high price tag. Around the top of the store are shelves filled with hookahs. Glass cases in the store-like pillars, I'd say--have bongs in them, from a few inches to a few feet. While DMf is checking out stone pipes--which are pretty handy and sort of beautiful in a way, I think--I'm just looking around and standing there and trying to see the price tags on various pieces since I can't really make a decision without knowing what I'm spending; it's a serious concern at this point. What I want is something special, something personal, something tribal and exotic and at the same time familiar and alien. I want something which is entirely me and something which is not; something for smoking grass.

And DMF wraps up his stone-piece looking and asks one of the chicks to let him see these small wood pieces that are absolutely tiny; they are like half an inch at the max, and then you can unfold them and they're like a full inch, and there's a little brass bowl you can put stuff in. I think the pieces are brilliant, and I think about what I would feel like holding one all by myself out in the middle of the night on a gravel road smoking some buds out of this tiny wooden piece. I imagine that I'm getting high and holding this tiny personal piece to myself and fitting grass into the bowl and using a green lighter to burn it all out and wonder if maybe this is what I'm destined for, if this is what God wants for me. I believe it is not, but I feel deep in my roots a resonance that is only slightly off-kilter.

But my last piece was a steamroller, and a beautiful clear glass one at that. So I think maybe that's what my future holds for me, but at the same time I'm seeing these wonderful long stemmed pipes and I feel through my own personal history and I believe that this is the way for me. DMF is off somewhere pestering the pretty girls behind the counter, I think. I'm busy thinking about what exactly it is that I want, how I would feel, and imagining myself smoking out of the pipe I'm looking at.

The thing about a piece is that you need to find one that suits you exactly. It isn't easy, because I believe that a guy needs but one piece for himself; it's a part of you and your personality. So it isn't easy to find a piece you'll be with for who knows how long, because you need to know yourself as much as the piece you're buying. Anyway after a long, long time I find a piece: it's long and blue; it's got a bowl in the middle and two long stems protruding from each side. It looks like a possible two-way pipe but it's actually a steamroller, which is exactly what I wanted all in one: it's a solid color, blue but still see-through, it's a steamroller, and it's got a long stem. It's everything I wanted; alien, familiar, old, new, solid, blue, beautiful, utilitarian. I figure the girls behind the counter get hit on all day long by stoners and potheads alike, and also that they get tired of taking out pipes just so some guy can drool over it and then ask them for a number or date. I get this all from surmising; also, the chicks are a bit haughty and distressed at the same time, so I figure that once I ask to see a pipe, only the most dire circumstances could get me to refuse purchase.

So I ask to see this amazing one-of-a-kind pipe thingy. What I really want is to know the price, but I feel too embarrassed to ask outright. I get the girl's attention and say I'd like to see that one, please, and I'm trying to be as polite as possible and also efficient so I don't waste her time, which seems like about all you can do in a store like this one. She takes the piece out and hands it to me and I turn it around a few times and DMF is next to me commenting on what we've got going on here and I turn the thing around and upside down and glance at the price tag, which is thirty American dollars. I say to her, "I'd like to buy this, please." She asks if I want it wrapped and I say no, since I figure I can stuff it in my pocket safely, also we'll be using it on the way back, from the discussion DMF and I had in the car on the way up: if I can't find any stuff then we'll have one bowl for the ride back to town [again 3 hours] and he'll have enough for a bowl back to his town. So I tell her I don't need it wrapped, and so she takes the pipe over to the register across teh room and starts ringing me up and the total is like thirty one dollars American, which I figured wasn't bad and even though it was a little more than I wanted to spend I knew I wasn't getting out of there without that piece; when you find the right one you don't get a choice in the matter.

what the hell is happening

2009-08-02T02:52:00.002-05:00

So. Well. So. I had to work today from 0900h to 1600h, so I didn't have time to update the blog as usual.

So I got home around 1625h and decided to check my e-mail and updates and whatever, and I also saw that I needed to complete what I was writing about last night. I go to type some text and a funny thing happens: my I key doesn't work. So I try to pry off the key and find the problem; everything looks fine. I then go key by key and find that my 8, my I, my K, my M, and my comma and period keys do not work at all--that is, on my Mac keyboard for my iBook. I reboot and try again; nothing.

Anyway, I went out to the monster truck rally and forgot about it. I came back with some beer and hooked up with Brent, a new friend that lives in my apartment complex, and we drank and played some Army of 2 to pass the time. Later, I told him to fire up a single plaer game so I could just sit back and relax and watch some gaming going on. Now I get back to my place and decide to try one last trick: I hook up a USB keyboard into my Macs USB drive and hope that it will work. Success! I am just now typing on a keyboard that is connected via USB port to me iBook. But the deal is that I have no idea what those specific keys stopped working on my Mac, and now I have a keyboard on my lap, a good twelve inches away from the mouse pad I have to use on the lappy. It's a huge hassle, but I guess it's better than trying to substitute letters with number in order to create an understandable language that is also efficient.

I'll have to update a lot on the monster truck show and all the other goings-on around here, and I also want to wrap up what I started last night, but I am simply not up to it--especially not at 0310h. I just finished the last act of Romeo and Juliet--a movie version--and drank a glass of milk after eating a deer burger, so I'm ready to hit the sack (after I make it, anyway).

There will be much more later. I still need to wrap up All Sorts, 6 Mins or Less, and It Started on Sunday, as well as the previous post about home base.

Closer to home

2009-08-01T01:23:00.003-05:00

Home base. Just what is home base, and where, and how do we find it?

Well for me, I can recognize home base only by the defenses I encounter. I believe we all take time to ourselves and explore our inner beings, our conscious mind and what we believe to be the subconscious mind. I believe that we all have the ability to probe ourselves, that we don't actually know who we are until we have discovered it, and this discovery has to come through self exploration.

I realize I'm not being clear at all here, but this is the only way I can explain what I'm trying to say happens. When I explore myself and try to find out exactly who and what I am, and to deal with that information, I will sometimes find that a path is blocked, or that a certain train of thought brings about strange feelings or memories. And it is these defense flags that I find along the way that lead me to guess, hypothesize even, where my home base is located. The fog of war surrounds the inner self, and only through exploration can we clear out this fog. I may have found the boundaries, but I have yet to breach the outer wall.
1600h tomorrow, and not until 1800h the next day, leaving me with approx. 2
What is bringing this all up for me is that I have the option to go back to town tomorrow; I work from 0900h-6 hrs to do go back to town and refill on pots and check the inventory. The problem is that I don't have enough for a scroll of town portal; I need to live on borrowed gold. And this I certainly don't like to do. I especially hate calling my mom up and telling her I'm writing a check for four hundred dollars tonight and that I only have three hundred and eighty dollars in my checking account. It's one of the saddest states of existence I can think of, and this is what makes it so close to home base.
three buttons of th1s board are busted have to stop

Now I remember.

2009-07-31T14:00:00.002-05:00

So I was reading the news paper the other day, and there are a few things going on in the legislature that really bother me.

First, our state is trying to ban smoking in all establishments; bars, casinos, restaurants, the works. This troubles me because where will it end: we're letting big government come into private practices and decide how that business should run. So in order to stop the law from coming into effect we decided to start a petition in order to put the law to public vote. We needed 16, 771 signatures or something in order to do this.

Well they came up with mare than enough signatures and submitted them to whomever they needed to be submitted to. At the last minutes-literally something like an hour before the decision was to be made--the state's something-or-other came in and contested the signatures, saying there weren't enough valid signatures.

So then the state had to do a line-by-line check of all the signatures to verify their validity. It turns out that we are 332 signatures short of the required number of signatures. This would be fine, but here's the issue: the votes counted out were counted out because the notary had expired or something on the signature. This is a problem because the state isn't supposed to check that sort of thing when going over a petition. So obviously somebody in the state office has a personal vendetta against smoking in public, which means that the entire process has been tainted. The South Dakotan People, however, don't find a problem with this, because the People don't want to drink in smoky bars [presumably] because it's bad for the health. And this is all fine and dandy with me, but I believe that government shouldn't be passing a state-wide law that forbids personal businesses from running the way those businesses should be run; i.e. whether smoking is allowed or not should be left up to business owners and getting the government to make this law is stepping over the boundaries.

So this is all going on around here. Then I read the other day that the legislature is trying to figure out a way to lower the drinking age without losing federal funds for the Department of Transportation. The federal government gives us 85% of all the money we spend on repairing our roads, just to give you an idea. Eighty-five percent of all the money we spend is given to us because we have raised the drinking age from eighteen--you could buy 3.2 beer at 18 and liquor at 21--to twenty-one for all alcohol, and we are considering throwing this all away.

Let me explain how bad the roads are around here, and I've said this before: we have exactly two seasons in SD: winter and construction. It is impossible to travel from one point to another for more than ten miles without running into a road under construction. The Interstate is always down--this years there's two-lane traffic for twenty miles, and that's just the forty miles I drive on it. The highways are usually closed for ten or twenty mile stretches, pilot cars and steam rollers and asphalt and guys wearing orange vests with signs that say "SLOW." It's a fucking mess. Last year I had to find a new route home because the one highway I take home was closed for thirty miles, and the detour they set up was just a gravel fucking road, 45mph, with oncoming traffic and no lanes. Yeah, the roads are fucking terrible here.

So that's part of the problem; we're considering giving up eighty-five percent of all the money we spend on roads so we can make alcohol available to minors. The other problem is that as the State balanced the budget for the year, they found that we can't even pay the companies that are currently working on our roads. This means that a lot of places that are under construction won't be finished; they aren't even being worked on. The workers won't work until they have money. I've always thought this was the dumbest way to employ workers: they get paid by the hour to do road construction. So it is in their best interest to draw out the job as long as possible. We don't pay them incentives for finishing a job early, we don't even give them time frames: we sell to the lowest bidder and give them money until it's done. But so now we don't even have enough money to get them to finish what they're working on!

And on top of this all, the bad roads, no money, and we want to cut our budget just to sell booze to minors. Along with that, the legislature is looking for ways we can sell booze 360 days of the year--on Memorial day and X-mas we can only sell beer; no wine, no liquor--but they want liquor and wine available on even those two days, they want to sell booze to minors on every day of the year, and cut our road budget by 85% to boot. And outlaw smoking.

Now, maybe it's just me, but there seems to be a bit of inconsistency in the legislature here. These guys are trying to outlaw smoking because, again presumably, smoking is abd for your health. Bad for the workers int he joint, bad for the patrons, bad for passersby, just bad. And smoking raises health care costs by lots every year. But now they want to turn around and start selling booze to minors? I want to put this out there: South Dakota ranks second or third in the United States for highest number of alcoholics and binge drinking. We have deaths--not just from drunken driving--due to alcohol. Kids go out on their twenty-first and everyone wants them to have 21 shots for 21 years. It kills them by poison. And this is not just common, but regular around here. Or kids wait until the weekend, get beer and liquor, and drink as fast as possible for as long as they can, and pass out. Puking is very common, even expected. And remember that puking is your body's way of telling you to back the fuck off.

Most people in treatment in SD for alcoholism are there not for the first time, or even the second time: statistics show that it takes, on average, seven times through treatment to start thinking about sobriety. And the only way most people end up in treatment is because of the court system. You get a DUI, you go to treatment. You violate parole by drinking, you go to treatment. You skip a breathalyser test, they will put you in treatment if you aren't already in it. When I went through treatment, it was my first time. There were nineteen other individuals, however, in the class with me. There were five people in there for the first time; the other fifteen were on two, three, even four times graduated.

So alcohol is single-handedly tearing apart our society here in South Dakota. I know teen agers who've got cirrhosis swo bad they can't drink even one more beer; it could kill them. I've seen people so addicted to alcohol they can't write a check for the beer at the store because they shake so badly. I've seen swollen faces and red noses and some seriously disgusting shit people have done to themselves because of alcohol; it literally kills. And don't even get me started on drunken driving.

So our legislature, to whom all this information I've gotten through the daily newspaper and observation through class, wants to make alcohol available to more people at a younger age? They say that smoking is killing us, that it's bad for your health, but on the other side of the coin they want to expose our youth to more alcohol at an earlier age?

And that's what I wanted to write about the other day, but I've got this defense mechanism that drives out the stuff that really gets under my skin so I don't have anxiety attacks as often. And trust me, once you get an anxiety attack you'll know it and you won't want another one ever. So I've got this handy part of my brain which operates--and I'm making this all up, there's probably a real explanation for this--solely for the purpose of preserving my sanity by blocking stressful information and memories. Handy.

Alright, I've got work in about eight minutes. More later on.

the hell of it all

2009-07-29T23:45:00.003-05:00

I don't work tomorrow. In fact, I don't work until three o'clock on Friday, and it's only 2345h on Wednesday.

I remember I had a vague idea what I was doing this for, but for one reason or another the reason has been driven from my mind.

I'll just go and see if it comes out in the end. I'm going to start with food. Tonight after work a co-worker [Vicki} asked me to get some monster truck rally tickets for her since she didn't know when she could get to that side of town. I said that wouldn't be a problem; I don't have anything to do anyway. As I'm driving across town I'm thinking that I should get something to eat. I don't know if I want something spicy, or something not spicy; what I'm really thinking is that I'd love to get some Subway. I love Subway, and I especially love to get a Spicy Italian w/ jalapenos and banana peppers and green peppers and cover it with Tabasco sauce. I simply love a spicy fucking sandwich. So I stop at the other place and get the tickets and go back to my store and drop off the tickets, and I'm pretty convinced I should get a Subway sub.

Then I decide that what I really need is a new game or video to rent so that I can sit back and watch the movie [or play the game] while eating my deliciously spicy sub. But I also get into my head that I've got fifteen American dollars in my pocket. Approx five of them would be dedicated to the sandwich alone, and probably something like six or seven or eight for the game, five for a movie. And I also figure that I can't even pay for rent--which is four hundred bones--in a coupe of days, that's I'm probably something like thirty or fifty dollars short, and I don't get paid for six days. So I figure that maybe I should be blowing a bunch of money on a sandwich since I can easily make myself food for much less than that and live for a long time off it. So I think again maybe I could go for a burger; I've got some deer burger in my fridge all thawed out, all i really need are some buns and some ketchup. I don't really mind deer burgers, but I don't want them without ketchup. Also I have some regular bread, which works as well as buns, but I figure getting some buns would be a good idea anyway.

So I get to the store after renting a new game and go to the ketchup isle. I settle on some barbecue sauce. Then I look around and get pickles; this is getting to be great. Then I decide that since I'm going to have pickles I should get some turkey to make some sandwiches of my own. Then I realize I need hot sauce, so I go to the Mexican Foods isle [yes, it does exist here] and find some habenero sauce--it looks like the hottest sauce in the store. I then realize that what I've got in some serious burger shit lined up, and that the only way to properly enjoy all this is to get some real beef and fry it up in a pan, so I grab a pound of ground beef. Then I get some other regular stuff, like bagels and buns and some shells and cheese on sale; I am a bargain hunter, just like my mother is. I grab a gallon of 1% milk and a quart of chocolate milk and check out and head home.

Well, I prepare the burgers--I make two of them out of a pound of beef, if you can imagine that--and on one burger I put barbecue sauce and pickles and cheddar cheese, and on the other I put the hot sauce and pickles and cheddar. I'm excited. I drain the burgers frequently on medium heat and flip them occasionally and cut one open after a time to see if they are done. When done I place them on top of the cheese on top of the pickles on top of the sauces so as to melt the cheese. I decide to eat the spicy burger first, and I'm here to tell you: that's fucking hot. I'm sitting here trying to eat a burger so hot the cheese is melting onto my hands and burning me, but on top of that I seriously loaded that bitch up with some hot sauce and so I'm dripping with sweat, it's coming off my brow and my lip and my cheeks and chin; I've got sweat simply pouring out my pores while trying to down this spicy food, and I simply couldn't be happier. I love food so hot it hurts, and I resort to an entire glass of milk after I finish the first burger.

I sit around and let my mouth cool down before I settle in on the next burger I've prepared. I'm eating it and astonished at how delicious I've made the whole ordeal and when I finish I sit and realize I've eaten absolutely too much. As part of my new 'diet' I go to the lav and throw up everything I've just consumed. I felt loads better after that, and I didn't have to worry about heart burn, which I get occasionally. All in all, I found some fan-fucking-tastic new ways to prepare burgers, and since I've still got that deer burger in my fridge I can do it tomorrow while I do some laundry since I don't work.

I've noticed that my posts are getting longer and longer these days, but the thing is that I've never tried to handle anything long or drawn out unless it was academic. I guess what I'm trying to accomplish with the short stories I'm doing is to eek out some sort of idea of what longevity is, how I can go from poetry to longer forms of writing, and doing what I'm doing is my perception of moving forward.

Well, I think that's actually all I have to write about that isn't one of the stories I'm trying to work out. More later.