Saturday, August 14, 2004

Weee represent... The lollipop, uh...

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Google search:

fleshlight too big

I don't have a Fleshlight, but I'll bet that even I wouldn't suffer from this problem. Hopefully. This guy clearly needs some official Fe boxers.

Friday, August 13, 2004

I like how we keep hearing exactly this, and it never seems to sink in. People hear "tax cut," their eyes glaze over, "Durrrrrr, he said tax cut, tax cut good," and then Bush is god. Nevermind the fact that we know that all kinds of reports show that his tax cuts emphasize his favoritism of corporations and the rich. As long as he's cutting taxes, that's good -- nevermind where he's making those cuts.

And I am just getting so bloody sick and tired of taxes being the end-all, be-all of elections. Don't people fucking realize that taxes pay for shit that we all enjoy having, like roads and schools? Now, I'm not saying that the tax system is perfect, but the bottom line is that all that shit has to get paid for somehow. Still, the right sells taxes as the most evil fucking thing ever. You cut taxes, you're good. You raise taxes, you're automatically bad.

I don't like paying taxes, and I'm not aspiring for someone who's gonna go apeshit with raising my taxes. But I've at least learned to accept the notion of paying taxes. Of course I don't want them astronomically higher, and yes, it would be nice if I could keep more of the money I earn. But hey, shit happens. In the end, the thing that pisses me off isn't that they take tax money, it's how they fuck up when it comes to spending it. Find me a candidate who is pushing for lower stupidity in spending instead of lower taxes, and I might get on board.
Oh yeah, Dubya and Laura -- you know, his cunt of a wife -- were on Larry King last night. Why the fuck is it that Bush can't go anywhere without someone holding his hand? Yes, that was rhetorical. Bush had Cheney when they met with the 9/11 commission, and Laura with him when big, bad Larry King wanted to ask some questions.

There were (naturally) so many fucking times where Larry asks a question, Laura answers it, and I'm yelling "Shouldn't HE be the one answering that question?!?!" Like when Larry asks if it's hard to send troops into battle. Laura wasn't the one who made that decision, Dubya (ostensibly) did.

Like usual, there was at least one question that Bush had a lot of trouble answering. I can't remember one biggie -- might have been when Larry asks if Bush was considering McCain for the national intelligence director position that's being discussed. Whatever the question was, Bush stumbles around for an answer, and even says "You caught me off guard" or something to that effect. What that signaled to me was that Larry King jumped the script, and it's gonna be hard for him to get an interview with Bush again. Because, as has been proven time and time again, Bush is too stupid to be able to handle anything unexpected, even if it's something simple.

The rest of the interview was filled with the expected bullshit, answering questions in the same manner as they've been answered before. "We're fighting them over there to avoid having to fight them at home." Yeah, whatever. So it was pretty much par for the course. There were even a few times where I was able to settle into a groove with not being too pissed, but then that stupid smirk would start showing up. I wish they could hire someone to follow Bush around and just punch him in the arm or something any time he starts that shit. Nothing drastic, just some negative reinforcement to help him break that habit.

Watching Bush in a forum like this, I get to thinking: you know, Bush, as a person, isn't all that bad. He seems like a nice enough guy. I don't really hate Dubya, I just can't stand the fact that he's so dumb an ignorant. Now Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rove, people like that -- those motherfuckers I hate. But it's kinda hard to hate Bush as a person since he's so child-like. Well, until he starts talking about Jesus, and then it's back to hate. So nevermind, I do hate George W. Bush.

One thing's for certain, though: get that dumbass out of office and back on the sauce, and he'd probably be a good time.
Speaking of "He's not Bush"...
Another big thing in the past couple of weeks has been the "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth" campaign, which (if you haven't seen it but probably have if you follow this shit) shows a series of Vietnam swiftboat vets talking about how Kerry betrayed his country, blah blah blah. Well, "talking" is somewhat of an exaggeration; it's nothing but unsubstantiated one-liners saying what a bad guy Kerry was.

The ad, while not directly Bush-backed, was of course funded by Republican money. Once again, I've gotta hand it to these R fuckers. Back when it became apparent that Kerry was going to be the D nominee, everyone was like "Man, Kerry's Vietnam service is gold. No way Team Bush can touch that shit, especially considering their draft-dodging candidate." Despite the fact that any kind of service is unimpeachable when put up against Bush's (and let us not forget Cheney's) actions (or lack thereof) during 'Nam, the R smear machine is going for it anyway. That's... Fucking balls right there. Hey, it's a shitty, scummy thing they're doing, but even if I detest it we all know that I begrudgingly respect evil genius. I don't like it, but I have to give it some points.

One thing I've been saying all along is that Kerry will get bent over once TB kicks their ad campaign into full-gear, just like they did with McCain. Again, this Swiftboat thing isn't officially a Bush ad, but you know it has their unofficial blessing. I've never seen Kerry as being a guy who has the balls to stand up to this kind of bullshit and, so far, that's exactly what's happening. This article does a nice job of expressing a lot of that sentiment.

John, for Christ's fucking sake, you played nice at the DNC, and now it's time to play hardball (Chris Matthews... Cock punch!). The RNC is only couple of weeks or so away, and once that hits, the R propaganda and smear machines are going to go fucking berserk. And let's not forget the 9/11 anniversary, which will only add fuel to the fire. John, not only do we need you to pull this thing out, but I -- and many others -- need some reason, any reason, to actually believe in you. In other words, it'd be nice to have something more than "he's not Bush." Finally standing up and taking these fuckers to task on this kind of garbage would go a long way towards achieving that goal.

Shit, can you imagine what Kerry could accomplish if he managed that feat? He's already gotten the race to the point where it actually is a race, which is surprising the hell out of many of us. Anger aginst Bush has been a powerful tool up to this point. But if Kerry could actually inspire people out there, showing that he's better in an absolute and not just relative sense, he could lock this fucking thing up.
Among other big stories this week was the unsurprising nomination of Porter Goss to head the CIA. I don't know if putting a Republican congressman whose leanings are more than obvious in charge of the CIA at a time when they continually stand accused of slanting intelligence, but what do you expect from Bush? For him to make a decision that wasn't based partly or entirely on politics? Christ, it's not like Bush gives a shit about actually improving things or actually making us safer, 'ya know.

At least he didn't nominate someone just because they were his friend, à la Tom Ridge. Maybe we can take some comfort in the fact that -- assuming he gets past confirmation -- Goss sorta knows something, maybe, about intelligence and the CIA. We'll see whether or not the democrats decide to fight it.

Regardless of what's going on, Michael Moore is doing what he can to stir up trouble. This is pretty weak, though, Mike. From the sounds of it, Goss was talking about becoming a field agent, not the head of the CIA. There's a bit of a disparity between those two positions. As we all know, management doesn't need any real skills, as opposed to the people in the trenches.

Reluctant moviegoer

Um, yeah. You know what? I'm not so sure this is such a hot idea. A new cartoon movie of the original cartoon would be fine, except that it wouldn't since Ultra Magnus (AKA Robert Fucking Stack) is dead and they just fuck everything up as it is. Besides, what the fuck is the point with Steven Spielberg involved? Yeah, I really want to see Optimus Prime and Megatron duke it out with fucking walkie-talkies. That is if it even is going to be based on the original characters, and not some of that bullshit from Beast Wars et al.

You know what else? Someday (7%), I'm going to make a movie, and it's going to be entitled Quit Raping My Childhood. While we're on the subject of bad ideas, when does the Eva movie come out, again? Because I'm really looking forward to that.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Double your pleasure

Yahoo search:

where the fuck do we find baby furniture

There's some good parents in the making. Also, Fe's good buddy Naked Furniture comes in ahead of us in those search results, and I'm jealous.

Yahoo search:

CHEERLEADERS FUCKING ATHLETES

That never happens.
You've got a funny way of showing it, dickhead.

"The mission is not going to be completed as quickly as possible if the enemy thinks we will be removing a substantial number of troops in six months."

It would be pretty stupid for Kerry to be committing to a pullout so far in advance seeing as how we don't know what the situation will be tomorrow, nonetheless ten months from now. Of course, Kerry's plan isn't just to cut and run, his idea is to get international support to replace those American troops he's thinking of pulling out.

Naturally, all the talk about unofficial "assurances" are meaningless. We have no way of knowing whether or not any of it is true, nor do we know if any foreign leaders would follow through in the end even if they really have given these assurances.

The bottom line is that if things do end up going relatively well and we see this Iraq thing through, there's going to be a military presence there for quite some time no matter what. The only way to ease the burden on ourselves (even though we brought the burden on through our own actions) is to get others involved. Bush clearly will not be able to get this done since he's A) incompetent and B) not exactly popular around the world. Am I saying that Kerry is a surefire bet to get support from other nations when it comes to Iraq? Of course not. But he's got to have a better chance of making something happen than Bush.


And finally...

"The policies I made were on the one hand trying to help as best as we can move science forward, and at the same time keep an ethical balance so that we promote a culture of life,"

Every time I hear that phrase -- culture of life -- I want to get sick. Especially when it comes from someone as lethal injection happy as Bush (to say nothing of the war). Hey, I'm all for the death penalty, and so is a lot of the rest of the country. Then couple that with all the killings going down every day and the fact that our history -- as well as all of human history -- has been driven by assassination and war and all that happy stuff and you can quickly see that calling ours a "culture of life" is about the biggest load of horse shit ever.
Fuck.
Yahoo search:

DVDS ARE SO FUCKING STUPID

No way, dude. DVD is a format-and-a-half.

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Undoubtedly, this guy's family is very proud.
One perspective on the upcoming elections.

Toasty!!!

One thing ETP and I have been eagerly awaiting is the release of Midway Arcade Treasures 2, due for release in a couple of months (Oct. 11th is what I'm seeing today). It looks like they've dropped the original Mortal Kombat from the game, and are instead adding it to the SE version of the new MK game, Deception (due for release a week before Treasures, unless that's changed). That's kinda lame, but not that big of a deal - I never played much (if any) of the original MK, and probably would have just played it for the hell of it every now and then on Treasures. MK II and 3, however, are where it's at. Those are going to get some use.

Outstanding.

I'll probably end up getting Deception, or at least I'll play ETP's copy and then decide since I'm all but sure he'll buy it. Yeah, we may have to wait until it becomes a greatest hit and then I have to yell at him to buy it at Media Play one night, but he'll get it. I haven't gotten all that excited about Kombat in quite some time, though, but maybe playing the old school games and Deception will change that.

Excellent.

I never felt like the Kombat series quite survived the transition from 2-D to 3-D. It just wasn't the same, for pretty obvious reasons. Part of it is probably just personal preference since I spent a lot of time playing the older games, especially the third installment and its various incarnations (3, Ultimate 3, Trilogy).

Animality.

Man, was that one fucking fun. I got pretty damn good at it, partly out of spite. See, there was this one kid who we used to hang out with back in high school, and he was a fucking master at MK games. ETP and I would readily have our asses handed to us by him. But after playing it pretty much constantly, I got really good, and man was it satisfying to eventually be able kick that kid's ass on a regular basis. ETP got pretty good, too, but he didn't get in as much practice as me. He wasn't a lazy shit as he actually had an after-school job back then, whereas I just hung out and played Kombat.

Round two... Fight!

My best characters in 3 were Smoke and Cyrax. I fucking loved those guys, despite the fact that Smoke has the stupidest fatality ever. This in contrast to Cyrax's Predator and helicopter fatalities, which were among the best. Of course, my whole fighting "strategy" with my main men came down to repeatedly doing the following:
  • Smoke: air punch, spear, HP+HP+LK+HK+LP
  • Cyrax: net, HP+HP+HK+HP+HK+HK
And of course, you could get an extra HP in the beginning of the combo if you jumped into it. Christ, am I a fucking loser.

No, here's how big of a loser I am: I used those combos so fucking much that, to this very day, if you pay close enough attention, you can catch me tapping out one of those combos every now and then just out of nervous habit.

Oh, and just for the hell of it (and because it gets some laughs if you know what it's about), I'm going to mention the biggest bullshit combo EVER: Noob Saibot's combo that was nothing more than four low kicks.

Sub Zero... Wins.

Another reason why Kombat will probably never be what it once was is due to Dead or Alive. And by DOA I'm talking about the fighting game, not Extreme Barbie Doll Dressup (or, if you prefer Jared's nickname for the game, Extreme Beach Titty War). Nothing against that game, of course - we all know how big of a fan of that title I am.

Yeah, Kombat has some cool shit and fatalities and stuff, but it doesn't have Kasumi in a sailor uniform. And, yeah, some other digital hotties and tons of different outfits.

Then again, it will be nice to have the blood and fatalities that Kombat offers, so we'll see. It'll hopefully be fun to play with some of the older characters if they do it right. Like Mileena, who I kicked ass with on II, only for them to fuck her up in 3. Oh, and another thing I'm looking forward to: going online and printing up pages upon pages containing all of the moves and combos.

One thing I was reading about Deception is that the game includes several mini-games. I wonder if those will turn into the flyswatter game from Mario Paint?

Speaking of DOA, there's of course DOA Ultimate on its way. Or, as I'm calling it, DOA 2: Prettier. Alternatively, DOA: Now we don't have to spend time together to play DOA together. That's coming out on October 4th as well, and, fuck, couldn't they have spaced those release dates out a bit? I know that's all marketing strategy, but fuck them all the same. October is going to suck ass in the money department.

AGGRESSOR!!!!

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Finally -- something weird from Japan that has nothing to do with pedophilia. It's about weird ice cream flavors, in case you're afraid to click the link.
I'm still never going to stop being irritated seeing McCain kissing Bush's ass on the campaign trail. In the end, I know, it's politics. And in McCain's defense, he has been sticking up for Kerry on things like this "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" affair.

I saw a clip of one of McCain's introduction speeches today, and he had trouble spitting out the phrase "moral clarity." Of course, anyone can get tripped up during a speech -- Bush knows that all to well. But still, I've gotta wonder if that wasn't some kind of Freudian slip.

McCain, who spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner during the Vietnam War, can help counter Democrat Kerry's military service during the conflict.

I've heard this a couple of places, and this is really fucking stupid if that indeed is what Team Bush is up to. I mean, how fucking desperate is that? "Yeah, the other guy fought in 'nam. Our guy, uh, dodged, ERRR, served in the National Guard. And... Hey, this guy who's hanging out with us fought in Vietnam!" How exactly is it going to help Bush to contrast his non-service with McCain's service?

"During Vietnam George W. Bush served in the National Guard... Bravely defending Texas from Charlie."
- Some bit from The Daily Show
Okay, all kinds of logo shit is back up in the store.

And a couple more things:
  1. I don't get all of the money for each purchase should you actually buy anything - just $2-$3. Maybe that will make some people feel better about buying things. But be warned, I can change the prices anytime I like. On the off chance shit gets popular, prices might rise. Hey, supply and demand; capitalism tells me that I can -- and should -- act accordingly.
  2. I can only put up one of each kind of product, so some things (like bumperstickers) will probably be changed on an irregular basis.
Google search:

Narue no Sekai 10 porn pics

I'm going to find whoever this was, and I'm going to kill them.
And just for good measure:

Something for man's best friend
Something for everyone
Something for the guys
Something for the liberals
Something for people who hate people in visors
And, oh yes...
Something for the ladies (or just people playing Lambs)

I've got the feva' now, so we'll see what other stupid bullshit follows. All the Fe logo shit will be back once I get that image fixed up.

Monday, August 09, 2004

This one's for my dead homie... Even though he ain't dead.

Oh hell YES, bitch! Hot on the heels of saying I was going to update the store, I went and fucking did it. One whole product added, but it's a start. Check this shit out.

You don't need to know why it's funny, you just need to know that it's funny. Also, you need to know that you must buy it. Oh, and ETP, don't go out and die one me, because I'm gonna feel bad if you do.
Woo hoo! Someone actually bought something from the Fe store! I made two bucks on the sale! I'm gonna go buy me my 3-series tomorrow!

No, seriously, thanks to the one person who finally bought something. You'll probably be the last. And, god damn it, I really need to update the stuff in the store so people can not buy some more.
Some semi-random shit I was thinking about today:

I have to chuckle every time I see a VW Beetle -- and I'm talking about one of the new pieces of shit. You see, before he hooked himself up with his phat sled -- the RSX Type-S -- ETP drove vintage Bugs for several years. One day, just after the new Beetles hit the streets, some jackass in one of them saw ETP at an intersection. Thinking that there was some kind of comraderie between the two -- even though the other driver had one of the new pieces of shit and ETP was in one of the vintage, real ones -- he honked his horn and started waving. And how did ETP respond to this guy? By giving him a dirty look and the finger.

That right there is one of the many reasons why I love that kid.
Here's a potentially interesting site that John let me know about: Media Matters for America. Bill O'Reilly sure seems to hate it, so it may be of interest to fellow lefties out there.

Speaking of ol' Bill, John also sent me a link to Sweet Jesus, I hate Bill O'Reilly, International, which, oddly enough, also has a bit of a left-wing bias.
I don't know why we don't just execute criminals like this once they're convicted. Yeah, as we've been over before, it is somewhat nice knowing the treatment that these fuckers get in prison, but still. I say just get them out of the way and get it over with. Not like any of these solutions fix things, but something has to be done.

Question for some of you religious assholes. A 13-year-old girl is kidnapped, repeatedly raped, then stabbed and left for dead. Explain to me: where does the benevolent god who loves us all fit into this picture?

This, too, I've been over, but things like this have led me to narrow the higher being question down to one of three possibilities:
  1. There isn't one.
  2. There is one, but it doesn't get involved in human affairs - guilty of depraved indifference at best.
  3. There is one, and it could do something about things like this, but it doesn't - making it an asshole.
This, of course, is one of the things that Team Bush wants to push hard. So far, it seems to be working pretty well, which I find kinda stupid. Team Kerry - as they have named themselves; I didn't do it - has GOT to know what they're up against. This isn't like Bush in 2000, having no clue as to what was going to happen on 9/11 and then subsequently all the work he and his team would have to do. Kerry, on the other hand, knows what he's getting himself into. I can't see him just fucking around once in office, at least not any more than Bush.
At this point, I'd imagine that anyone who's thought about the potential for another big terror attack knows that it's a matter of "when" as opposed to "if." I'd imagine anyone tasked with counterterrorism operations has the same mindset, or at least I'd hope so. Even if they are, though, we're probably still fucked.
This would certainly suck. It's hard enough to get jobs as it is, but to get a new job only to have your former employer show up and say "nuh-uh"?

I can understand why Seagate is nervous - leaving one company for a competitor and then using confidential info at the competitor unfortunately happens all the time. But to assume that someone is going to do this is kinda unfair; it's not just assuming they're guilty until proven innocent, but assuming they're guilty before they've even had a chance to do something wrong. This is why we have non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) - to put someone under contractual and legal obligation not to do this. That doesn't stop it from happening, of course, but that doesn't mean you can automatically do what Seagate is trying to do. If he does do something illegal (which probably wouldn't be that hard to prove), then you go after people, but not before.
Fairly amusing sig found in some Slashfucker's post:

My other computer is your Windows machine

Sunday, August 08, 2004

For god's sake, post something - anything - to help wash away the taste of that last post

Any guy who makes jokes about dealing with the devil after he dies... That's a good man right there.

Oh yay, more bullshit about BLM's personal life that we don't give a flying fuck about

Mount up.

Okay, I've gotta preface this with a couple of things. One, I'm not trying to make this into any kind of "boo-hoo, woe is me" kind of post. In this endeavor I will probably fail. I've just got so much shit on my mind that I need to get it out in one way or another. Why do I need to get it out here? Well, much like Shinzon was for Picard, this 'blog is a mirror for me. If you don't like it, well, you'll either skip this post or just leave altogether like most people.

Two, I know I'm in pretty good shape right now. I'm feeling orders of magnitude better than I was just over a year ago. Shit, I'm feeling way better than I was just a few weeks ago. This time last month, I was still living in a fucking apartment, I was all alone, my car was all busted up, and I was feeling pretty worthless at my job. Most all of that still stands except for the apartment thing; becoming a homeowner has done wonders for making me feel not woefully inadequate.

So yeah, I'm not feeling sorry for myself or trying to make anyone feel sorry for me, and I'm not trying to boast or any of that bullshit. For once. But holy hell am I fucking terrified.

Like I said: worthless at the job. Okay, that's of course an exagerration. Basically, there's just more downtime than I'd like to see. This, in many ways, is kinda nice. I'm making decent money and go through periods where I don't do shit. Most people would love that. I kinda do sometimes, but I actually would like some work and challenge. More importantly, perhaps, is that I want to be doing something useful so that I don't fucking get laid off.

Now, I don't think that'll happen. Anyone who knows the saga of my getting hired nine months ago knows that the people I work with had to do some work of their own just to get me hired (namely, arguing with the bastion of logic that is upper management). So it's not like they're just going to let me go with ease. Especially not when I know that they're pleased with my progress thus far when I have work to do. And of course, I have had shit to do, and I know that there's stuff ahead. So, in the end, getting laid off just isn't all that logical, but like I've said: upper management and logic - not exactly good buddies.

The potential of being jobless - however remote - is worrisome for the usual reasons but things are compounded because of the new house. If lose the job, I am so fucked. Since I'm A) a spendthrift and B) haven't been working a regular full-time job for all that long, I don't exactly have any money saved up to fall back on. Sure, there's severance and maybe unemployment, but that's only going to go so far.

The idea of having all my cash sapped by the mortgage and other bills doesn't really bother me, it's the idea of not being able to meet these obligations that has me scared. I'm fine for now; I know this. But as I come from a long line of worry-warts, there's no way I can rest easy. If things would just fucking pick up at work again, I'd feel much better. No problem if I'm busy and vital. But when I'm idle, look the fuck out.

I, of course, don't help matters by going through all this nonsense alone. Yes, of course, I'm not completely alone, but you know what the fuck I'm talking about. This isn't going to change, period. My fault, I know that. As long as I can pay the mortgage, I'll deal.

Matters aren't helped by the fact that I've started re-watching Love Hina again. A quick aside on this fucking show.

Many out there probably don't know what the fuck it is, but I've mentioned it, I dunno, a billion times. It's this fucking anime (read: naughty Japanese cartoon) that centers on a total loser guy who gets thrust into a situation where he's suddenly the manager of an all-girls dorm. Wackiness and pseudo-romance ensues. The TBMF (Total Bullshit Male Fantasy) genre at its finest.

Now, I can't imagine why a show like this would appeal to someone like me. One thing that's probably not apparent, though, is why I'm so emotionally attached to the show. Well, as I mentioned (and as you saw if you read or have read that post from last June), I was feeling really shitty last summer. Of course I was being a drama queen (that's just what I do) with that whole "my life/career are in ruins!" stuff, but that's how I felt at the time. I felt the worst I'd felt in almost a decade with some legitimacy; the worst I'd felt since I was back in high school and all clinically depressed and slicing my wrists for attention.

Luckily, I got past that teenage angst crap, just to move onto early twenties angst. No more self-mutilation for attention, just writing shitty posts for all the world to (potentially) see. Looking back, maybe the cutting thing was better. I'm kidding, of course (right?).

Anyway, yeah... Early twenties angst big time last summer. I felt awful, and one of the few things that lightened my mood, one of the few things that made me laugh and smile amidst those dark June days was watching Love Hina. It's retarded, I know, but I'm kind of a retarded person. Hopefully this helps explain some things, stupid or not.

The other stupid thing about that show is that it always leads to me getting unnecessarily introspective. Again, retarded - we've been over that. A big part of the plot in LH is that the two main characters are trying to get admitted to the University of Tokyo, one of Japan's premier schools. They spend all their time studying their asses off, then taking practice exams and entrance exams. And it got me to thinking: man, it's been fucking ages since I've challenged myself like that.

In fact, I don't know that I've ever challenged myself like that. I know what you're saying: so what? Well, there's this stupid part of me that (if you haven't noticed) always has me feeling that I need to be doing something to prove myself.

But even when I have pushed myself towards something, I still feel like I'm setting the bar kind of low. Take college, for instance. I probably could have gotten into a pretty good school if I had tried, but I didn't. I just resigned myself that I was going to go to CU and that was that. Not that CU was a horrible school, but I probably could have done better. And even if I couldn't have done better, I at least could have tried.

So why didn't I? Was I afraid of failure? Was I afraid of putting in the effort to pass exams and all that? For once, not really. Back then I was in the mode of doing all that shit, so that really wasn't the issue. No, what it came down to was that I didn't want to go to school out of state. I'm a mamma's boy, and I just couldn't be far away from my mother or grandparents. They'd have mad separation anxiety in a situation like that, but so would I.

There, of course, lies one of my biggest problems: not always living my life for myself. Letting myself get tied down by what others want. And not that they'd want me to stay close to home if I really wanted to go elsewhere, but, yeah, it's kinda complicated.

Anyway, that ship has sailed, but still. I haven't done shit on that level to really push myself. Realizing that that wasn't all that important, I extended it to a new bullshit level, namely that I not only wasn't challenging myself, but I wasn't taking any kinds of risks. Risks that, yes, may end in crushing defeat, but risks that might also pay off big. Whether it came to life, love, or career, I was perpetually playing it safe.

But then I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? You just bought a fucking house with no safety net and no (relative) comfort level when it comes to job security. You may not be taking exams or trying to win the girl's affection, but that doesn't mean that you're not fucking gambling.

All this nonsense led me to realize that I'm still going to be facing challenges and finding ways to prove worth to myself in one way or another, but those challenges are naturally going to be different than they were a couple of years ago. I know that this isn't exactly a complex conclusion, but there's just something about saying it for the first time. And hey, if I really need that stupid classes and exams bullshit, I can just go back for my PhD.

Bottom line: maybe this is one of the first steps in actually starting to feel like a goddamn adult (yes, adult, even if cartoons are involved). Sure, graduation, the job, the mortgage, were all helping move me in that direction, but, I dunno, I just haven't felt like I'm actually getting somewhere new.

Of course, as part of this passage into the next phase, I'm entering the mystical land of the "real world." Unlike the annoying MTV show, however, this is actual reality TV. Without, of course, having it on TV. Oh yeah, the "real world" that every adult warned me about for so long. The "real world" that they told me to stay in school in spite of and to avoid at all costs for as long as possible. Yup, the real world, or as I like to affectionately call it, "the big time."

Another thing I realized is that (I think) I'm getting a feel for the essence of why everyone said to avoid this as long as I could. It's not just the dealing with shit, but the worry and the anxiety that comes along with it all. You grow up watching your parents, and you know they're dealing with some shit. But still, having a job, paying the bills, dealing with stuff all seems automatic. Regardless, you feel confident that everything's going to be fine; they're adults, they're not going to screw up or have something bad happen to them. Of course, the image holds because you can't see what they've got going in their minds, you can't see that they're worried about the same shit I'm worrying about now. Okay, maybe this isn't how it was for everyone, but I think this is how I felt.

Naturally, I take the worry and anxiety to unnecessary levels. I just moved into the new place, and I'm already paranoid about having to move out in the near future. I wander around the house telling myself "You know, I really like this place. I hope I don't fucking lose it." Once again, this is who I am and what I do. Irritating, yet sometimes strangely amusing.

Yeah, the big time, indeed. And yes, the beginning. I haven't yet had to spend years dealing with the job and constant obligations like a mortgage. Again, that doesn't really scare me right now (we'll see how we feel about it further down the line, of course), it's not being able to do that which scares me. I'll deal with all that shit, just please, please let me feel like I've actually gotten somewhere. And I have gotten somewhere, and I know this - just like I said at the outset of this post. I just don't want to have to go back, even though I know that a bunch of shit stands ahead of me.

I think Happy Bunny puts it best: "School prepares you for the real world, which also sucks."

Alright, this post is unraveling with a quickness. Not that it didn't start off in shambles, but it's getting worse. There's a whole 'nother part I wrote up that I'm 86'ing for now; if you're unlucky it'll be a follow-on to this piece of shit.