How To Tell You're Stoned. Tip #8

If it's past midnight and instead of going to sleep you go out of your way to login to facebook specifically so you can "Like" Chicken McNuggets then it's a good bet that you are stoned!

Obama vs. Osama

Figured for the sake of history or something I should at least mention this though it has no direct impact on my life honestly.

Osama Bin Laden is officially dead.

Killed during a raid in an epic battle... Or so says the news.

Of course I'm happy he's dead. But only a small amount of people saw him dead and they dumped him in the ocean pretty quick. I am not 100% sure I believe it. Trust no one. I also seriously doubt that there's any proof short of me seeing his dead body that would make me believe it 100%. I hope it's true though, if that counts for anything.

I've heard the news, I've read the tweets and posts, it does seem highly likely that he really is dead. Either which way, even if he wasn't, the world believes he is and that's what matters I guess. Because he was an icon or symbol to the terrorists after getting away with 9/11. So as long as Osama as a symbol to them is destroyed then whether or not it really was him becomes not as important. In the end, the U.S. won.

Note above what I said there... The U.S. won. Not Obama. Well trained soldiers risking their lives are why it happened successfully. A friend on facebook posted earlier that this is a win for America NOT Obama. I have nothing against Obama personally, I have nothing for him either. I honestly could care less about the man. But I agree completely this is a win for America not Obama. People need to get that through their heads.

And that's really all I have to say about the whole thing. I'm like less of a "Yay! He's dead!" person and more of a "Yay! We won!" type of a person ya know?

Past, Present, and Future Combine

Well, this has without doubt been a very eventful year on many fronts. From my online gaming life to my real life and everything else along the way. Where to begin on the latest episode...

Let's recap briefly. So far in the last weeks / month I've had the bad, having to put my dog to sleep after 15ish years, having to help and practically take my mom's test for work over several days of hell and problems, fights with Comcast resulting in my no longer getting many stations, stress has caused some medical flare ups here and there. Been broke and poor to the point of having at least one financial crisis this month thanks to my mom again. Multitude of other little things along the way from my cel phone shorting out and shutting off to other various things breaking and not working like the toilet seat. All-in-all several bad things of varying... badness.

The good. Well, sadly mostly online and game stuff. Portal 2 finally released, greatest game ever! 3DS out and got a couple games, amazing device. EverQuest 12th anniversary celebration probably should be under the bad since I never finished that one main quest after weeks and months of trying. Hung out with a couple friends one of which I had not seen in some time, was kinda cool. And of course, my car, my dad gave me his 2009 Honda Accord EX-L V6 with everything. Lots of good, makes for a balance between the extreme good and bad so far these last few months.

Then came Saturday, April 30th. I had recently, specifically the last 2 days, had friends on facebook with birthdays. This had me thinking about my own that is coming early June. I always make resolutions 3x a year, my bday, Samhain, and New Year's Eve. The story behind why is involved and irrelevant to my point. Anyhow, I always make small ones, baby steps, things I am likely to not fail or quit. For example, one year I decided to make the resolution to drink only low fat milk instead of whole milk. Yes, things that lame. So, I was thinking how old I am and how far I am from succeeding at anything I ever wanted to do thanks to my life sucking and massive amounts of medical issues and related problems. So, I figured, this year I'm gonna make a huge resolution or two. I was still unsure of what but I had decided that as of my birthday this year I was gonna make some major changes in my life. Try to fix things that bother me and make things right and different and all that. Was quite motivated but unsure of what I was going to do specifically. Was thinking about it all day on Saturday while doing stuff around the house and getting ready to leave to go to my dad's. Right as I was getting ready to leave, my mom, who was in the other room cleaning suddenly comes banging on the wall to tell me my friend Rodney is here, at my door. I was like whoa, what!?! How very weird that I was wanting something majorly different to happen and right the he shows up, out of the blue.

About Rodney. You have to understand that this guy and I were great friends, best friends growing up for many years. I did many of my first drugs and other experiences with him and we went though more than most people could ever fathom or imagine in a million years. Around 1997 he had moved and he came back then moved and I had lost touch with him. See around that same time I cut ties with all my old friends and joined some new friends and groups because I wanted to bury the problems of my past. So when he returned a few years later we had lost touch. Nearly a decade had passed when about 2008ish he came back. He was here maybe a month or two, we hung out, it was great. Then he vanished again. In 2009 he returned but only for a few days were we in touch that time. I had a lot going on and he was not here long. I saw him maybe twice before he said he was leaving for a job in Seattle and would see me in a few years. And just like that he was gone again. Then he shows up Saturday, no warning. So I've only seen him maybe 4 or 5 times in the last 14 years and not at all in like 2 years.

Now, another good thing to know about him is that he's always been the life of the party. He always manged to find everyone and get people together. He kept us all going by finding any crazy thing you could think of so we would have something to do. Too many old insane stories to tell and frankly several of them would strike terror into the average person so I won't get into that in this post. So, naturally, being mister social he was already on the way to a bbq with several of our old friends none of which I have seen in 15+ years. I had to continue on to get my mom her meds and to visit my dad so I did not go. However, I got to talk to one of them on the phone later and it was cool. I hadn't spoken to her in many years and we were also very good friends. I've always kinda thought of Val like the female version of Rodney when it comes to her personality. Another person that you feel instantly comfortable with and can do anything with or say anything to cause they both just like to have fun. Up to this point this was all cool and fun and exciting and good news.

This is where things go sour. Sunday, after some sleep and thought I figured lemme see who out of these friends I could track down online. I knew Rodney himself was far from knowledgeable about anything high tech or pc related. But his girlfriend has a mac so figured maybe he at least has a facebook page, I knew his brother did. Well, I didn't find one, but I found his brother, Randy. I thought wow, cool. Yet I felt kinda hesitant to friend him. I'm not the same person these people knew 15 years ago. I have changed so much. I've been code blue 3x, had 13 operations, been hardcore crack addict $1k/day, robbed, done every drug imaginable, broke many laws, did a variety of unspeakable acts. We were all insane back then, we did all sorts of outrageous, unreal things. Now, 12 years of online gaming, disability, medical issues, life issues, physical, mental and emotional issues. From years of avoiding going out due to medical apparatuses and things causing me public embarrassment and such I ended up being somewhat of a neurotic agoraphobe. Despite the fact that I am free of any medical thing and for all intense purposes appear healthy and normal, I still retain several social anxiety issues. Sure, online I'm miss friendly. Someone once referred to me as the "social butterfly of EverQuest". But, in real life. It's like Codex said in one of The Guild episodes, "Sure there's a lot of drama in game, but at the end of the day you can always just logoff. You can't logoff from real life."

Well, it gets worse. Without friending I was still able to see Randy's (Rodney's brother's) friends list. And on there I saw Val. Didn't know her married name but I knew it was her based on the crazy profile pic of a traffic sign saying crazy things. Anyway, I checked out her profile and found on her friends list one other friend I use to know, Marla. I was like wow, since I never even realized that Val and Marla even knew each other. Oddly, no one else we use to know or other mutual friends were on any of their lists. So I went to Marla's friends list and found yet another old friend, April. I was like oh wow at this point, cause I had searched for these people for years and found nothing. And now they were all popping up so easy, right here, in my virtual world, on facebook, like as if they were standing right in front of me the whole time. This is the part that sucked though. On April's friends list was a name I care not to repeat and hoped to never see again. My ex. The one I never got over. The one I was supposed to have been engaged to. The one I was supposed to have had a Wiccan handfasting (marriage) to that apparently only meant anything to me. There, happy, on facebook, smiling, and married, to someone that isn't me. After years of thinking this was all behind me, that I hadn't run into any of them, that I couldn't even find them when I tried. I had figured at this point I'd never see or hear from or know anything about any of them again. Had a knot form in my chest, felt sickened at their happiness. Felt violent almost. A bit light headed even faint. The gamer in me kept thinking things like headshot and nuke their ass and kill, kill, kill lol. But the rest of me was just like wow, I can't believe I found them that easy right there all the time and they're all so happy looking and gah... yeah... hmmph.

So, now after some time and thought it's become less about my ex and more about the fact that a large part of me wants to contact the others but I have no idea what to say. And moreover, I'm not sure if I want that decade of my life to have any connection to this decade of my life. And, everyone's doing better than me... I mean, some married, some have kids, all making money, at least one teacher, most actually got through college finally, all seem happy. Me, did not finish college, am disabled, have no money, live at my mom's, and have a life that revolves around EverQuest raids and Cafe World catering orders and feeding my cats. When I'm not gaming online I'm gaming offline and when I'm not gaming on my pc I'm gaming on the 3DS. I mean their biggest successes involve family, degrees, and wealth. My biggest successes involve loot chests, raid gear, and 2 blogs that no one reads but me.

And there it is, here I am, that's the story. What the shit do I do now? I wanted a huge change. I missed my past. I dislike my current life. And now I got a huge change, I got a chance to reconnect to a large portion of my past that I was sure was gone forever. But, my life is the suck and there's no playing it off or pretending that it's anything less that uber craptastic. Do I go for it, leap into 15 years ago, old friends, old stories, other things not appropriate for this blog post, etc.? Or do I push it all away, avoid them all and bury the past even more than it was?

My friend Norma summed it up best today on the phone when she said, "Be careful what you wish for." Seriously, no shit. I wished for this, but I never expected it to happen just like that! Now I'm like, do I really want it? And I'm scared. I'm scared being around these people will bring back memories and feelings and lure me into a path I do not wish to go down. When I hung out with them, as mentioned above, I was a terror. I was a danger to myself and everyone and everything around me. There's a reason I quit everything and cut all ties with everyone in 1997. BUT, have they changed? That's the thing. Would it be so bad? Maybe everyone else has changed enough that I can be around them and still be the me of now and not the me of then. Problem with that is there's no way to know until after it's happened. And if not then it's too late cause I will have made that connection and knowing that life is always right there so close could be too tempting to resist. Or should I just dive in and become the terror I once was? Should I just go for it and party out as much as possible and just say screw it all? I tried tonight to bury myself back in EverQuest and Cafe World and it didn't work, this whole situation haunts my thoughts and weighs on my mind heavily.

My life has been stagnant for years. I've had basically 4 friends that weren't online that were actual people I could go hang out with for the past roughly 10 years. I haven't had a serious relationship since, well, hmmmph... it was like 1994, yeah, I know. But, it's been safe. Safe from rejection, safe from stress or situations that I didn't wanna be in. Safe from the many things that could go wrong and the many wrongs I could do. Maybe the change is good? I kinda fear change. I'm OCD, I'm possibly a bit insane, clearly have social anxiety issues, possibly a bit neurotic and agoraphobic, I like things unchanged even if they suck it beats them getting worse. I am not a pessimist I'm a realist. I don't claim everything is negative I am going on proven fact of past experiences that most everything is negative. Then if things go right I can just be happy about it. Less chance of being let down.

At this point you may think I'm just rambling. But this is in fact my brain going through the process of figuring out what the hell I should do about finding friends and a past that I long searched for and missed and now don't think I can handle dealing with since it took so long to find them in the first place.

Not sure what's gonna happen next. Not sure how to feel or what to think. What I do know is Rodney and Val are two of my closest friends I knew for years and we went through some crazy times together and we three at the very least will have no problem hanging out and hitting it off again like as if no time had passed. The others though, those I mentioned and several I did not, I just don't know. But, I'm invited to a bbq at Rodney's in two weeks. I will definitely go, I wouldn't miss it because of Rodney. That and the fact that he is only living like 5 minutes away. But how that goes, how I feel around the others talking about things I wanted to forget and people I don't want to think about. How well that past integrates into my current life is still a mystery at this point.

And then here I am like most of the cast of The Guild all I can think is what about raids? I mean I have raids 5 nights a week. And there's other gaming stuff. I mean ok, so it seems lame when you explain the whole online gaming life to regular people. But, that's what I do. It's my life. And for what it's worth I'm damn good at it! I have gaming obligations! Without those I'd have nothing. It's the only thing I have to plan the rest of my life around. The closest I come to a job or family. Yes, it's sad, but it is what it is, I am who I am. /sigh

Despite my 1337 (leet) gaming skillz (yes the z is intentional), and despite all the insane stuff I did and went through in the 90's; I feel like someone hit the reset button the game of life and set my ass back to n00b status.

Like, OWWW! What The Heck?!?

So, I'm laughing about this now, but it was not so funny about an hour ago.

First off, I have osteoarthritis from taking prednisone and other medications for far too long to control my Crohn's disease. On top of my joints hurting and not always, uh, working right... (like they get stuck sometimes and creek and crack like always) I also tend to um, twitch sometimes. Not bad or anything, maybe once every other day it happens. Not sure if twitch is the best word. For example, I'll reach towards a drink to pick it up and when I start to reach my arm jerks forward at like ten times the speed I had intended causing me to knock the drink halfway across the room.

Well, so I was laying down and had an itch in the inner corner part of my right eye. So I took my glasses off with my left hand and attempted to scratch it with my right. That is so seriously not what ended up happening though lol. My muscles decided to twitch, my right elbow got like stuck, like locked, then cracked rather loudly and painfully and bam my hand flew rapidly towards my eye missing completely and smacking myself in the nose, hard. Next thing that happened could best be described as a yelp! Had a sharp pinching pain in my nose then my left eye watered up insanely out of control and I started chain sneezing, like I didn't have enough happening at that point I needed to start sneezing. By the 5th or 6th sneeze, with one eye freaking out and my nose hurting like crazy and tears running down my face I was huffing and puffing and just stunned and dazed and worn out. Was convinced for a bit that I managed to break my own nose rofl. That was quite the ordeal I must say.

Been about an hour maybe an hour and a half now and I seem to be fine again. Nose kinda sore but I'm not sneezing anymore and my eye quit watering. Although if I grab my nose and move it side to side my eye starts to water again, so yeah I probably shouldn't do that huh? lmao I'm having a total airhead moment right now. Just laughing at my own idiocy right now. I should sleep probably.

Week From Hell Recap

Well, I'm still burnt out from stress and emotional chaos. Woke up about an hour ago after roughly 20 hours of sleep. And I'm just about ready to go back to sleep after I finish typing this.

Began last Sunday. My mom was required by her job to take an 8+ hour test online in order to continue working at this awful part time nightmare of a job that she should've quit by now anyway. Problem with is is several things. She does not own a computer. She will not use mine because it's "too dark and uncomfortable" for her, whatever that means. So, that leaves my dad's house. Next issue, my dad, like me has OCD and has to do everything a certain way. My mom, does not. Well, after several hours of arguing in circles about the light and the chair (you don't want to know) my mom finally got online. Enter the next problem, she couldn't login to the test on the website with the information she was given from work. We spent 3+ hours and could not even get her logged in. It said her username and pw were wrong when we entered it. She tried to register new and it said she couldn't because she already had an account. We tried retrieve lost pw and login and they sent it. We re-entered it like it said and it still said it was wrong. And of course being Sunday there was no one to help. This day ended with us having dinner and fighting for a few more hours over everything and anything imaginable. Mostly because my mom was convinced that her inability to login was somehow my fault or my dad's pc, which is was neither.

Then came Monday. This day involved my mom going to the doctor to discover she has super high off the chart cholesterol and is severely anemic again and the doctor wants her to check into the hospital, which is clearly not going to happen.

Tuesday, Judgement Day... The day the original Terminator movie declared as the day Skynet went live and the machines took over and launched the first attack on the humans. How fitting. We had to put the dog to sleep today. I'm very much not over this yet. My mom's dog (technically) but still was part of the family for 15ish years. Her name was Snuggles. We got her at the Humane Society where they told us she was a Chow. She was not. Well, maybe half? And half German Shepherd. Yeah, she got huge, well over 120 pounds, massive dog you could just about ride like a horse. But she was just a big dumb retarded bear. Yes, retarded. They said when we got her that she had had distemper. I'm not sure what that means honestly but we were told that affects their personality and behavior. Yeah, it does. This dog use to lick the air, walk backwards, breathe like she was hyperventilating all the time, she was quite odd. But, after all 13 of my operations and every long hospital trip my mom would pick me up and the first one to greet me at the door would be Snuggles, every time. Walking around past where she use to lay and eat and stuff is still...disturbing. Anyhow, my mom had a mobile vet come by. They arrived in a huge truck with 2 cars, 4 nurses and the doctor. Seemed like a bit much to me but idk. Doctor gave her something so she fell asleep slowly over 10 mins or so and then gave her another shot after that and well yeah... My mom was a mess, I was a mess, the stupid lawnman was there and even he was upset. If only the week had ended there.

Wednesday, day two of the test. My mom and I returned to my dad's house to attempt this yet again. This time, it let her log right in. I kept telling her see, they fixed it. Cause she called on Monday and they tried to say it was something on our end, but suddenly it was working. Another one of those they fixed something and don't want to admit to anything having been wrong things. I've had that happen to me several times myself on many sites and programs. Anyway, needless to say my mom was still convinced that somehow I caused the problems. Well, every time I tried to leave the room, go out to watch tv with my dad or anything, within a matter of seconds my mom would call me back. Issue one was she was refusing to use the mouse. The test and course was all click on the answer and drag and drop and check the circle and stuff and she refused to use the mouse because she doesn't like it and wants to do everything with the keyboard. I'm like wth. Next issue was that every term, every question, everything that popped up she had to ask my opinion on. To the point where I ended up hearing the entire course and having to help her on every question. This was maddening in many ways. First off, wtf, it's not my job or test. Secondly, there'd be like 10 questions and she'd ask me to answer 6 and she'd get 1 wrong out of 10 and it was my fault of course. Even though I'm sure the ones I answered were right! After 8+ hours of this I started drinking my dad's red wine and taking pain pills. And she didn't finish!

Thursday, I thought was going to be the one day I'd get some sleep, but no. I'll make this short, my mom decided I had to drive her to the bank, Publix, Walmart, Petsmart, CVS, and about 10 other places. I was at this point having medical issues from stress and lack of sleep during this whole week so far. I must have gone to the bathroom 30x that day, at least twice in every store. My insides were trying to escape my body I think. And when it was all done, the one thing I wanted out of all this was milk and the one thing I went home without was also milk. Not to mention the milkshake I got midway through the day to try to calm myself down was like bad or something. Had to go back cause it tasted like just horrible.

Friday, day 3 of this test from hell. The 8 hour test that ended up taking 15 hours. Throughout the day there were multiple issues with the testing program thing that had my mom call tech support 3x, one of which was an hour and a half call. ALL the problems were on THEIR end again btw. At one point it had her locked out for not answering security questions. But it never asked any. Another time it had locked her out completely because she was more than 20 mins on the same page. Each of these required calling and having a person on their end unlock it. I mean seriously, wth kind of online course is that? That's idiotic.

Anyhow, after spending $50 in gas that I didn't have to spend, which my mom reimbursed me a whopping $5 for and my dad gave me $20 at least. I get nothing out of all this but stress, medical flare ups, and sadness. Poor dog is gone. Got Portal 2 this week and have had less than an hour to even play it so far. Oh, and I never did get that milk I wanted. Saturday, slept 20ish hours. And here we are the week is finally over. Past midnight now so it's Sunday. And I'm now going back to sleep. I'm sad. I'm tired. And I feel like crap. And I miss the dog. =(

Almost neglected to mention my mom had me at the laundromat washing the old dog beds at 4am Friday night or Saturday morning after that all day of crap with that test and my dad and so forth.

Common Sense

What's common about it?

From Dictionary.com the first 4 definitions only.

common
com·mon   
[kom-uhn]
adjective, -er, -est, noun
–adjective
1.
belonging equally to, or shared alike by, two or more or all in question: common property; common interests.
2.
pertaining or belonging equally to an entire community, nation, or culture; public: a common language or history; a common water-supply system.
3.
joint; united: a common defense.
4.
widespread; general; ordinary: common knowledge.

If that's true why is it that less than 1 out of every 100 people I meet, encounter, or otherwise have to deal with is capable of adding 2+2 (if they even can) and doesn't have the expression of a drunken bear on their face when asked even the most simple of questions?

I call shenanigans on whoever came up with the phrase "common sense". My experiences show me that the amount of sense that is "common" is barely enough to tie one's shoe.

Pet Peeve #248: Bag Boys That Put Two Gallons of Milk Into One Plastic Bag

Are there any plastic grocery bags capable of handling this? I think not! Not everyone can carry something that heavy even if the bag were to hold, I for one am just such a person. Do they not teach bag boys how to bag things before putting them on the job? Has common sense gone the way of the dodo?