A Big Chunk 'o' Happiness

The following wonderful boost of my self esteem comes to courtesy of the Weblog Review.

I'd like to personally thank the reviewer, Magz. She made me blush, and that's hard to do.

I got a five out of five...I must be doing something right. I think so, anyway.

The review reads:

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Am I a lucky reviewer or what? Corgan Dane ROCKS! I'd advise that you get his autograph, now, so we don't make him late for his date with destiny. This young man is going places! He's not just toe-dabbling in the prose pond, he's making a big cannonball leap, and I predict he'll make a helluva splash.

This is his personal blog: it includes links to 2 previous self-designed websites that are well worth visiting. Watching him evolve as a writer, cartoonist, and designer feels a lot like seeing a behind-the-scenes documentary called Birth of an Author. At the age of 24 he's already showing a great deal of wit and wisdom, and seems to have something interesting to say about a variety of topics. Even the more mundane semi-rants about school, traffic, and cyberspace seem fresh and entertaining through Corgan's eyes and words. There is a powerful will to write expressed in everything he does, and he shows a real grasp on the nuances of the English language. He has a knack for side-stepping the pitfalls so many of us bloggers are prone to, such as the serializing of dull events, the aimless aggrandizing and self-conscience soul searches we do to fill up pages. He shows a refreshingly uncynical ability to poke fun at himself and others without whining, or smirking.

His design is a fairly simple blogspot template: easy to read, logical, and grammatically correct. His more experimental efforts are seen on his previous pages, which are easily linked along with other things that amuse or entertain him. He's also a cartoonist and poet, with examples of all his work very accessible from this blog. He's kept the main page quite free of anything that might distract from his focus, his writing. There is enough personal information everywhere to get the impression that he's a pretty cool guy with a very busy life and a real passion for writing.

A few of the standouts in my memory are his recent entries titled American Dream, Winter Species, Internet Crack, and I Just Like Stuff. Each of those writings demonstrate a different facet of his style from introspective to humorous, and very few of his entries bogged down the reader at all. I found myself totally absorbed in his pages, following every single link and even reading all the poetry he's written for a college class. He plans to write his second novel in November during the National Novel Writers Month and I plan to read it as he blogs it... this is a guy with ambition!

I believe that with just a bit more seasoning we'll be seeing Corgan Dane on the New York Times Bestsellers list and I'm looking forward to reading and hearing a lot more from him. "Bob-On" Mr. Dane, may I have your autograph on this napkin please?

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I have to make one small addendum, though. The novel in November will be my first novel. I've done short stories and bad poetry, (you've seen the poetry), but not a novel, as of yet.

I wish I already had one done, though.

Ooooh....Ch-Ch-Changes...

Change is in the air, once again.

Life has been crazy lately. Yes, I know that's always the excuse a blogger uses when they haven't written an entry for a while, but it's really true with me, as of late.

In the last week:

1.) Bob, my car, broke down. Radiator got a hole in it. Changed the radiator. Assume that wasn't the only problem since water spews out of the radiator cap like Old Faithful the minute you start it.

2.) My wife quit her job, (and that's not a bad thing), and is now looking for another one.

3.) I thought one of our two cats, Bart, was going to die. He has problems involving his urinary tract. I'd go into it more, but no one really wants to hear about that.

It's all going to work out. I'm getting the car fixed, and my Dad loaned me his truck until Bob gets fixed. Pamela will find a job, I'm sure. No problem there, and Bart's better now.

...but I'm still thrown off by it all.

I'm a creature of habit, probably more so than most people. I fall into patterns and I stick with them. My mind finds the little patterns in my life and works around them, creating a nice little schedule that I keep, just naturally.

For example, sleeping. I have to have a fan to sleep. I have to have two pillows. I have to lay on my right side for a while, then my left, and then my right again before I can fall asleep. I have to have a fairly regular schedule of sleep, or I start to fall into insomnia. I never sleep well in a bed or place that isn't my own.

Having something change is a good thing, usually. I've rarely had changes happen in life where in the end, things didn't come out better. I'm not worried about the outcome.

Really. I'm not. It's the time of flux is what always gets me.

Once everything settles down again, it'll take me a few days to find a new pattern, and I'll stick with it until I'm forced to change again.

Rhapsody in Blues

Music is just incredible.

It constantly amazes me just how much music can effect me. Us. Everyone.

Some people don't organize their cd's. I've been one of those for a while, not because I don't want to, I just never have thought to do it since I got my super-huge cd case.

People who do organize their cd's, (and I say "cd's" because that's the main form of music media now), do so differently depending on the person. Some do alphabetical. Some do chronological, by release date or purchase date.

Me? I used to do it by mood, then alphabetical.

I'll give you an example.

In the "melancholy, sad, and/or depressed" section of my cd case, the following would all be found:

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Johnny Cash - American IV: The Man Comes Around

New Radicals - Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too

Oasis - What's the Story, Morning Glory?

Red Hot Chili Peppers - One Hot Minute.

Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

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Let's take it one at a time.

Johnny Cash. His voice is pure sadness when he's not trying to be upbeat and funny. If you haven't heard this album, stop reading this right now and go buy it, or find it by any other means you may have.

New Radicals. This hits in this category because I connect it to a time period where I was depressed. It also makes me think of snow, and winter-after-Christmas. It's for those times when I'm feeling chronological-introspective-depressed. That's when you look back at your past, and rethink each and every move and decision you made, and somehow latch onto that, and add to your depressed state. It's...a sweet, lonely feeling.

Oasis. Yes, I know, some of you hate them. I, personally, don't. I found them when I ran out of Beatles, at a very, very difficult time in my life. I have trouble listening to them anymore. It makes me too sad. I sink too low. I take it only in measured doses.

Red Hot Chili Peppers. I'm betting no one else in the world would have this in the "sad" section of their case. I like two songs on the album. That's it. One is halfway perky, and okay. The other is track number four. "My Friends." This is my deep, sad, dark song. When I'm really, and truly depressed, as deep as I go, this song comes out, and goes on repeat. I own the cd just for that song. It's played very infrequently.

Smashing Pumpkins. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I don't actually have this album right now. I did for years. I got it after the problems connected to the Oasis, but before the echoes of those problems had died. The discs are full of thoughtful songs. The kind of thing I want to listen to while I write or draw. Music you can fall into, and still find your way out quickly.

Wow. That was a huge off-topic ramble, but I suppose it does help illustrate what I basically said in the first sentence.

Music has an incomparable interaction with the human mind. A single song can symbolize and file away a relationship until it's heard again. A song can bring back smells, tastes, sights, feelings, and any other number of things. A song can take us over, and make us sing it, and repeat it in our heads, like a demonic possession. A song can make a person fall in love with you. A song can make a person leave you. A song can make a person hate you. A song can change the entire mood of a room, whether it contains a drunken party, or two orderly rows of pews and a pulpit. A song can bring back smells, tastes, sights, feelings, and sounds, even if one has forgotten those things completely.

It is the closest thing to magic that we have.

It's incredible...but I've said that already.

(Also, notice how big of a dweeb I am. I made them in alphabetical order by name, using last names for solo artists, even in my little list I put on here. Sad, sad, sad.)

Comedy versus Stupidity

Old movies are wonderful, specifically, old comedies.

I hate to say this, but they just don't make 'em like they used to.

Who're the biggest names in comedy movies these days? Ben Stiller, Will Ferrel, and that whole gang.

The movies are stupid. Let's be honest here. Dodgeball? A movie where the main joke revolves around people being hit with random objects. Anchorman. A movie where the main joke revolves around bad 70's cliches. They're just...brainless. A monkey could watch these movies, and laugh like mad.

Where's the wit? The snappy dialogue?

Where's the comedy?

Yes, there is a place for slapstick comedy. If it's done right, a guy getting hit in the (insert genital slang here) is funny. If it's done right, jokes about a time period can be great.

Just watch the Wedding Singer. In that movie they used the time period jokes to good effect, and it was funny, because when that movie came out, it hadn't been done to death.

What I'm saying is that comedies today can't even compare to a lot of older movies.

Take, for instance, the Philadelphia Story.

It's brilliant. The dialogue is witty and snappy, the premise is funny, and the actors don't have to resort to crotch-knocking to get laughs.

Some quotes:

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Macaulay Connor (Jimmy Stewart): Doggone it, C.K. Dexter Haven. Either I'm gonna sock you or you're gonna sock me.
C. K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant): Shall we toss a coin?

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Macaulay Connor (Jimmy Stewart): I'm testing the air. I like it but it doesn't like me.

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C. K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant): Sometimes, for your own sake, Red, I think you should've stuck to me longer.
Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn): I thought it was for life, but the nice judge gave me a full pardon.
C. K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant): Aaah, that's the old redhead. No bitterness, no recrimination, just a good swift left to the jaw.

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Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn): You're too good for me, George. You're a hundred times too good. And I'd make you most unhappy, most. That is, I'd do my best to.

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Macaulay Connor (Jimmy Stewart): (drunk, to driver) Well, this is where Cinderella gets off, now you hurry back to the ball before you turn into a pumpkin and six white mice, goodbye.

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It's wonderful stuff. You can't even compare the belch, burp, fart, fall, disgusting, and bad-fashion jokes that seem to be the only way to get laughs anymore.

Is it the movies themselves that are going downhill, or are they dumbing it down because they have to, in order to hit the average person's humor?

I don't know.

(Incidentally, I also suggest watching Bringing Up Baby, the Court Jester, any of the Rock Hudson/Doris Day movies, and a movie with Don Knotts called the Love God.

...and a million others.)

The Sophomore Slump

Every band goes through this. Okay. Maybe not every band, but most bands.

It's the sophomore slump.

A band will come out with a first album that hits the bell at the top of the charts so hard the bell cracks.

Then, nothing. Their second album isn't worthy of the case it comes in. The album gets tucked away, never to be listened to again, though it does give you the sad bragging rights that, "I have all their albums."

Why is there a sophomore slump?

...because they spent years getting that first album ready. A band works hard, plays the local venues, and slowly move up until they hit the point where people will pay for an album of their music. They've been doing those songs for a while. They know which ones the people like. They've tweaked those songs to make people yell and clap at their gigs.

Then, they go to write the second album, and they do one of two things. They either use the songs they didn't use on the first release, which are usually not as good, or they make all new songs, under pressure in a record deal, and they hurry them out without that kind of intensive customer testing.

Then they bomb out.

What I stumbled across earlier today was that the phenomena of the sophomore slump is a lot like a mid-life crisis.

Not just men go through the mid-life crisis. Women do it too, or there wouldn't be any market for face-lifts outside of Hollywood. These men and women hit a point in their life where they have a great, best-selling, chart-topping life, where they've followed their primary, obtainable, society-approved dreams to fulfillment.

Where to go next? To the secondary dreams. The ones that are just a little more wild, a little more adventurous, and often, a lot more expensive. They go for it. They buy a convertible, etcetera, etcetera.

...and it's not what everyone was used to. It's different. It's good to them, and what they like, but it's not what the public, or the people around them want to see.

It's a mid-life crisis.

It's life's sophomore slump.

I Just Like Stuff.

It's not that I'm materialistic.

At least I don't think I am. To me, materialistic people are those people who have to own everything, and have everything they own be bigger and better than everyone else's everythings, and show off their everything constantly.

Me? I just like stuff. I like having stuff. It doesn't have to be bigger and better than other people's stuff, or cost a lot.

I just like stuff! Pointless things.

For example, we went to Target recently, and I bought this, an official toy Batman grappling hook. Why? Because it made me think of Jay and Silent Bob. So I got it. It's a cheap plastic thing. It's hanging in my office now, and I love it. Just having it makes me happy.

Which leads logically to the flip-side of that coin. If I can't get stuff, it depresses me. That's why I hate window-shopping.

That's right. I said it. Window-shopping is no fun. What's the point in looking if you can't get anything? It's not just a guy thing, either, so don't try and tell me that. I know women who don't like it either.

I suppose for me the worst part of it is that I get a little annoyed and depressed when I go shopping and can't buy anything. There are plenty of things in life I want, and can "see," but can't have, already. Not being able to get the small, pointless three dollar things I want just reminds me, in a snowballing fashion, of everything that I can't have now that I want...and I don't just mean physical objects.

I mean everything. Hopes, dreams, uncertain plans for the future...they all hit me, hard, one by one, as I stare at that pointless, cheap object and want it, and can't have it.

That's probably not normal. Maybe I should just shush and go back to eyeing that Batarang I want...

Dreaming of Leg Room

My little car is so sad.

I have a '97, (or is it '98?), Ford Aspire. I call him Bob. It's a pattern in my life. Anything that annoys me, I call Bob.

Okay, so sometimes I call things that annoy me other names, but none of them are very nice, or child friendly.

Anyway, poor Bob hasn't been washed since I got him. I refuse to wash the car, partly because I'm stubborn, and partly because when I have the money to wash him, I'd much rather be spending that money on something else.

Also, I had some of that Febreeze for cars, and got some on the inside of the windshield, and so now, the big window is dirty. Everything viewed through it is slightly blurry.

Another problem that plagues poor Bob is that he's filthy inside, too. Not so much dirty kind of nastiness. It's more of a "million empty soda cans" kind of nastiness. I let the cans build up because I'm lazy, for one, and I'd rather use my freetime to work on things like this blog, and my upcoming webcomic than to dredge through the aluminum jungle.

My wife hates to ride in Bob, for all the reasons I've mentioned above.

...and I honestly can understand that. I can.

Her car is immaculate compared to Bob. Heck, most cars not owned by wierd, scuzzy people are clean compared to Bob.

The real problem is that I don't like Bob. I have no pride in him. He has a tiny engine, and very little leg room. I need leg room. I crave a big engine.

I think my last car spoiled me.

My last car was a boat of a car. A 1978 Chrysler Newport Custom with a nice big engine that was so loud it would scare cats up trees when I blew by. It was ugly. It was white and rusty, had a dark pea green top and interior.

I loved that car. I could sit comfortably in it, and I'm a big guy. I'm not grotesquely fat or anything, I'm just big. I've recieved several offers for jobs as a bouncer, if that helps you visualize me any better.

...and then, I ended up with Bob, because the Newport finally died, and I couldn't afford to fix it.

I'm like a widower who remarries, and no matter how much he knows the new wife loves him dearly, and treats him well, she'll just never be the love he lost.

Maybe I will wash Bob. He deserves it for putting up with me.

At least while driving him I've never called out my old car's name.

The American Dream

I listen to a lot of talk radio, as many of you know, especially if you've read this post.

This post isn't about talk radio. It is, however, about the commercials I hear on it, over, and over, and over. Actually, just one in particular.

The ad in question is for a local home-builder's association, and they have this pleasant, (but annoying after the thousandth time you hear it), jingle in the commercial. One of the lines in the commercial is that "a quality home is the American dream."

That is totally bloody wrong.

This isn't the first radio, television, or print as I've heard or seen this type of thing in. Leave the American dream out of it. The American dream has nothing to do with whatever good or service you're trying to sell.

The American dream is to have the opportunity to better yourself, and do as you wish, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. That's it. Nothing more. There's no mention of any specific items you must own, or services that must be rendered to you for you to achieve the American dream.

That's not the only place the concept is taken wrongly, either. Political candidates routinely change the use of the term to whatever they currently need to raise their poll numbers one point.

(Okay, so politicians will take anything and use it however they can to get a vote, but that's not the point.)

The American dream isn't about owning things, it's about a state of mind, or a state of being. When you feel that you have bettered yourself, you are living the American dream. Everytime you go to the church of your choice or buy Penthouse, you are a part of the American dream. You are doing what you want, and, (in your own terms), bettering your situation.

That's the end. Now go live the American dream...unless you're not from America, in which case, feel free to live your countries' dream as you will.

...or, heck, hurry up and come over here*, and you can have some of ours.

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*This offer only intended for those who enter the country legally. Terms and conditions apply. For official rules and entry form, please see the United States Immigration Bureau. Member FDIC. May cause drowsiness. If you're still reading, you must really, really be bored. No exclusions, exchanges, coupons, or refunds. Viva la small print.

A Beginner's Guide to Wasting Time Efficiently

Welcome!

Today, we'll be starting with the basics.

First things first, you have to not clean your office in a year. Just let that stuff pile up, and up and up, and don't touch it.

Then you procrastinate as long as possible, until one day you decide, "hey, I'll clean the office, and put up those new posters I bought three months ago!"

Don't go into it with a plan, stumble blindly about doing things in no order whatsoever...oh, and be sure to have someone call you right in the middle of hanging the highest, hardest to reach poster.

Then, you will be wasting time with a proficiency of which you never dreamed!

I know you can do it. Know why?

Because I am, right now. I'm also procrastinating during the process, which doubles my efficiency.

If I wasn't procrastinating, I wouldn't be writing this, though, so you should be happy.

Well, back to work. Maybe I'll just pile it all back up and deal with it later...

A Winter Species in Summer

Fall is upon us, finally, and I love it.

I would say I'm a fall person, but that wouldn't really be true. In the winter, I'm a spring person, in the spring I'm a summer person, and so on.

So right now, I'm a fall/winter person. I can't wait for the cold and the snow, but I'm also ready for the bright colors and hypnotic dark nights of fall.

What is it that makes fall nights so dark and mysterious? I think it's the loss of those long, bright summer nights that you grow accustomed to during the summer months. Suddenly the days seem so short, and the night so long.

Unless you're a morning person, which I'm not. I've never understood how people can enjoy the morning so much. My parents get up at five in the morning almost everyday, even though they have nowhere to be at that hour, and that blows my mind. I'm a night owl, so I guess I'll never understand it.

Some people, though, act like getting up early is some sort of virtue. "Early to bed, early to rise," and "the early bird gets the worm," are just two sayings I would love to never, ever hear again. I don't want to rise early. There's nothing there. It's cold, after being in my warm bed. It's bright, after being in my dark bedroom. I just don't like it.

Back to this virtue thing, though. What's wrong with getting up at ten or eleven in the morning if you have nothing to do until then? What makes that a crime against nature? It's not laziness. It's a personal choice, and, I think, an ingrained quality in people. Some people are born to be night owls, and some to be morning risers. Are the morning risers any better than the others? Not in any way I can see.

Maybe it's just a leftover thing, from when people had to work from sunrise to sunset to survive. They'd get up early, hit the fields, get some harvesting done or whatever, and then work until sundown because they had to.

I'd be willing to bet my ancestors would have loved to be able to just sleep in, and rise when they were fully rested, and ready to face the afternoon. Just because someone had to do something to survive at one time, doesn't make that a virtue. It was a necessity then. It's not anymore.

That doesn't necessarily make us more lazy, or less productive. It means that the world has changed, and so have the demands upon our bodies and minds. At one time, it was a question of physical ability to survive. As a species, we have forced our own evolution in a way. We don't rely on nature to provide us with new advances anymore. Instead we create them ourselves. We have taken the basic power of the human mind and multiplied it through computers. We have stretched the limits of the human body's strength by using machines which can lift things a human could never dream of picking up alone.

We are a species working forward for ourselves, instead of waiting for the next evolution.

We are a winter species in the middle of summer, and for us, it's already snowing.

Blogsharing the Night Away

I can't stop.

Someone help me, please!

This internet drug has captured my mind in ways I hadn't imagined it would.

What is it?

Blogshares.

I stumbled across it doing a random search for my blog, and fell right into the rabbit hole. The thing is, by all accounts, I shouldn't like it. Mainly because math and I have never gotten along. I'm an English-major writing junkie, the natural enemy of the numbers crowd, and thus I shouldn't be hooked like this. Heck, I should have ran when I saw the initial page. The whole thing screams, "Math here! Get your math!"

Yet, here I am on a Saturday night when I could be doing something constructive, carefully conserving my twenty transactions so that I can hopefully up my ante and someday reach the top of the Blogshares food chain.

In a way, though, I am doing something constructive. I'm learning. Before I began playing with Blogshares, all I really knew about the stock market was to buy low, and sell high, and I didn't even really understand how that worked. If a stock was low, didn't that mean there was a reason for it? How did you make a stock rise in value?

I know all that now, or at least I like to pretend I do. This game is a learning experience, as well as a game. Another thing I've noticed is that unlike other games I've played online, the people on Blogshares genuinely seem to like each other, and enjoy the game in more than just a "winner takes all" type of way.

In the first hour I was a player, someone dropped some very lucrative stock in my lap, for no reason that I could see. It threw me off. I just assumed something had to be wrong there, for someone to be just giving me things right off the bat. In other games I've played, someone giving you something free was a way for them to cheat through some loophole. From what I've seen though, the person who gave me that boost just did it to be nice. You don't see that a lot in real life, much less in an internet setting.

Incidentally, I believe that gift also boosted my learning process, as I've been able to play around more, and find out how things work more quickly, without worrying about losing everything on a stupid move.

I guess I should take back what I said at the beginning of this post.

I don't want someone to help me quit Blogshares.

Now, I think I'll go transfer some worthwhile shares to a new player, and pass on the good deed that was done to me.

(...and for those interested, my user id# is 20791.)

Warning: Internet Crack Contained Within

People do this just to be cruel, I swear.

They make games, or pointless little things that just make you sit and stare and click for hours, and never really accomplish anything.

Here they are, my list of internet crack sites. Those sites that you just keep playing with, and don't actually do anything, but they're so addictive.

I don't actually do all of these, anymore...but at one time or another I've been addicted to them all.

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1.) Blogshares. If you own a blog, this is highly addictive, and I've just picked up the habit.

2.) Ever wanted to be a little alien and gather mass amounts of pointless things? The Alien Adoption Agency is for you. It's not for me, anymore, thankfully. I was too cheap to pay the fee!

3.) Ever wanted your own nation? Making trade agreements and alliances sound like fun? Then Nation States is for you. Also broke myself of this habit. Just quit cold turkey. Actually, lost my internet connection for a while, then never went back.

4.) The ever popular Neopets. Addictive, if you have time to wait for the millions of graphics to load, and can stand the constant advertising. I couldn't. Yay me!

5.) In the market for a heavy dose of cuteness with a large chunk of pointlessness tied on? Try the games at Orisinal. Fear the Bungee Bear.

6.) One of my earliest internet crack issues was Furcadia. Soon, though, I realized that it involved far too much chatting, and too little of any actual game elements, but it was still fun to explore for a while.

7.) Like Nation States, (see #3 above), Utopia let's you rule a country, but the setting is medieval. It suffered the same fate as Nation States.

8.) Also incredibly time consuming is Space. Take over planets, build fleets of starships, create alliances. Wicked, wicked crack. Also broke the habit due to loss of the internet.

9.) This took forever to escape. It's so simple, and therein lies the addictive qualities. What is it? It's E-blots.

10.)...and the most pointless time-wasting thing of all? The Idiot Button. Despite the name, you just have to push it. Must push button! Must push! Must! (clickclickclickclick...)

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...and of course, there were more, but most were in beta versions, just don't exist anymore, or I just don't remember them.

Click the links, and look, but don't touch, I'm warning you...

The Winged Thief of Holidays Past

Time flies while you're having fun.

That's most definitely true.

What they don't tell you is that it flies faster as you get older, anyway, and fun has nothing to do with it.

I know I'm not old, okay? That's not what I'm saying here. You're not old until you're at least 75 or 80, I think, and even then, it depends on how you look at life whether you feel that way.

When you're a kid, though, once October hit, it felt like it was ten months until Christmas. It took forever. The time stretched out into the distance, and then, finally, after you'd stared at those presents for what seemed like a millennia, you got to open them.

Now, it's October, and December 25th is just a few paychecks away, a few weeks of college away, a few weekends away. It still holds a sort of mystical, magical quality to me, (like Halloween), but it just comes and goes so fast, because there's so much to do, and so little time to do it in.

...and we don't even have kids. We have cats, but they don't care. Christmas to them is once a day when we feed them. Oddly enough, though, they're always excited about it anyway. Maybe it's the shorter life span. I don't know.

Maybe they're just cats, and I should stop thinking about it so hard.

There are all those movies and television specials around the holidays that show how, if you work too much, or are ambitious, and ignore the simple things in life, you'll lose the meaning of Christmas. What they don't show, though, is that before the hilarious elf/reindeer/snowman/real Santa showed up, the person still loved Christmas...there was just too much to get done to enjoy it. Not things they didn't have to do, but things they did do, mainly to make that magical Christmas available to their kids/nephew-nieces/grandkids.

There's just no time to stop, and do nothing, and play with our toys.

We're not allowed to do that anymore. We're too old, and there are too many things to do.

Time won't let us. It's stingy with the goods.

...and I promise, this will be the last post about Christmas I do until at least November.

(Chuckles)

A Reworked Third Snippet of Possibly Bad Poetry

Last night I stayed up later than I should, studying for a test in my literary criticism class.

Yes, the material in that class is as yawn-inducing as it sounds, but the teacher is funny, and that helps.

Anyway, I had forgotten to print out and turn in the last poem I had written for my poetry class on Monday, so I had to email it to my teacher.

I went to copy-paste it over to the email, and just sort of started reworking it.

This is what came out, and what I sent in.

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Revelations

You're our Father,
but most times I feel,
as your Son,
when we talk you don't listen,
but maybe that's fair.
We do the same to you
when we're all lined up in a stiff pew.

We sang in your Church last sunday,
all of us on that cheap carpet stage.
We did it just for the harmony's sake,
and the song
that we sang,
was "Amazing Grace."

...how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me...

"A personal relationship with the father,"
you said to me once.
"You worship a ghost,"
I replied to you once.
Neither of us heard a word.

You call simply to chat.
We fell a-cross your heart.
Just talk to me once,
without trying to
guilt me down onto my knees.
You know not what we do, but
you think you do.
You exist by your doctrine,
and we live by free will.

You preach your religion
in a trinity each week,
sunday, that night, and
then wednesday.
They listen better than we do,
but you don't know them at all.
Faceless souls to be won.

Look at my face.
You don't really know me.
You don't really know us.
If you really love us,
you must forgive us,
our Father,
for we have sin.
Now, cast the first stone.

---

I'm not asking for comments, again...you...you...non-commenting when I ask readers!

A Few Thoughts on this Blog, and You

The blogosphere, as the blogging community has been called, is a place with it's own little culture, and I have to admit, I haven't quite figured it all out.

I read the Weblog Review and randomly browse other blogs pretty regularly, partly because I bore easily, but also because I want to make my blog the very best I can. I want it to be accessible to pretty much everyone. I don't really care about building up a big readership or anything, but I don't want my blog to be one of those you roll your eyes at, either.

Writing-wise, I think I do alright compared to many of the blogs I've come across randomly. I try not to dwell on the little, unimportant details of my day. The boring quality of my life has been why every pen and paper journal I've attempted to write in daily has been a failure.

I always just become bored with my own words when I write that I went to school, and then work, and then came home. Which is basically my life right now, all total. I'm not an exciting person, and I know it. I think I'm kind of funny, halfway intelligent, and come off as a likeable guy.

Actually, I don't think I've ever had a true enemy in my life. Even people that didn't like me have always had to admit I'm a pretty nice guy, and they've been few and far between.

Most of them have been jealous of something, or someone I had or was involved with.

So, I'm boring to myself, but other people seem to find me amusing, and my words here worth wasting a few minutes out of their day to read. That's all I ask. As long as someone is reading what I write, and finding it at least mildly enjoyable, I'm content.

A lot of blogs have a single, serious issue or topic around which they revolve. I guess I just don't care about any one thing enough to spend hours writing about the same thing.

Like politics.

I could write a political blog. I know I could...but it wouldn't really matter to me, and thus wouldn't be worth the server space it occupied.

Instead, I write this. This chunk of randomness, that works, largely, the way my mind works. I jump around from topic to topic, writing whatever happens to strike me at the moment I sit down at the keyboard and open up the "new post" page.

So, for those who read this, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. It's a pleasure to entertain you, stimulate you, or whatever it is reading this does to you.

What does it do for me?

It alleviates the boredom, and gives me a place to write, even when I don't feel like writing. It stimulates me, and makes me think a little more indepth about things that I might not view as closely otherwise.

...and it makes me happy to think that I'm writing something that might make someone else think or feel an emotion, either positive or negative, which is the point of writing anything.

At least I think it is...

Talk Radio Killed the Video Star

When the music on the radio becomes a pattern, and you can actually hear the playlist queue they have set up on their computers starting over, what do you do?

You flip over to talk radio, and listen to the assortment of oddities that inhabit that chunk of the airwaves.

It's not so much the hosts. With the hosts, you know what they're there for, and what they're talking about. If they say they're conservative, they're republicans. If they say they're liberal...well, none of them say that.

There are no liberals in talk radio, apparently, at least not around here.

I'm a fence-sitter politically, because I choose my issues individually, and then make my decisions. I don't tow the line of any party.

In the end, 99.9999% of all politicians are in it for the career, money, and power anyway, so let's stop pretending they're actually there to help us, shall we?

What I really want to talk about with talk radio, though, is the people who call in.

You have five basic types:

1.) The pointless agreeing people. They call more to get on the radio more than anything. They call just to thank the host for doing a good job, basically say the same thing the host said, and then say something like "God bless you."

2.) The conspiracy theorists. You know these guys. They think any of the following are secretly pulling the strings:

Democrats
Republicans
The Skull and Bones Society
The Illuminati
Jews
Muslims
Aliens from Omnicrom Delta 4 (or another planet)
The Labor Unions
The Freemasons
...or any big corporation or government agency

3.)The argumental people. They don't agree with the host, and darnit, they think they can prove they're right. They never do. For some reason, they just don't get it that the host of a radio show always has the last word, and you always look foolish in the end.

4.)The off topic people. These are the people that call and try their best to push the host off the topic and onto another one by using what they consider a slick transition. 90% of the time this fails. The hosts are professionals. Most of them can see these guys coming from a million miles away.

5.)The take it too far people, (aka the shockers). These are the guys that think we should have the death penalty for jay walkers. They take everything just that one step too far. They commonly refer to the "slippery slope," and insist on showing us the bottom of the slope, which usually consists of the end of civilization as we know it.

...and I listen, and I laugh.

Sometimes I growl a lot, like other people.

...mostly, though, I just wish the volume down button on my cd player wasn't broken so I could play my own music without people in Wisconsin being able to hear it.

I'd leave the radio altogether, and never come back.

A Snippet of Possible Misc. Happiness

I hate looking for a job.

Actually, I don't think I know of anyone who enjoys hunt for employment.

I have a job already. I work for the Bixler Corporation as an office cleaner, 5 nights a week, from 6 to 9:30.

It's an easy job, and I like it, and it gives me plenty of time to do schoolwork, housework, and to write on here and things. It's a laid back sort of job, and I basically work alone, which I like. The place I clean isn't an office so much as a very clean factory. I clean the Dameron Color Labs building, (who, apparently, haven't ever completed their website).

It's a photo developing place, on a huge scale. They do prom pictures, sports pictures, and wedding pictures mainly. Which, to a janitor, means one thing:

Massive amounts of trash.

I swear they kill at least twenty acres of photo-paper rainforest a day. It takes me an hour just to take out their trash. Then I do the floors in the whole place, and make sure there are no cobwebs in the corners, ceiling and floor.

It's easy, and basically stress free.

So, this afternoon, I applied for a job with the local airport, basically doing the same thing, for $4 more dollars an hour. I can't even imagine making $10.30 an hour. It blows my mind. The job would be from 5-9 pm, Monday through Friday.

I'm so nervous. In the back of my head, there's a part of me screaming, "You'll never get it. You never get the jobs you want!" Then there's the optimistic side that isn't saying anything. He's too busy praying and hoping I get it.

I guess all three of us, me and my two parts, will have to wait and see what happens...

Die, Webscum, Die!

The internet really brings out the worst in some people.

R sent me this link, to show me Laura Prepon now that she's died her hair blonde.

I realize that Howard Stern doesn't draw the classiest people, on his best day, though I did think his movie was halfway decent.

...but, ignoring that, just reading what those guys wrote annoys me.

A lot.

I don't want to beat the feminist anti-meat drum, but that's what they turned her into. Meat.

The internet brings out the worst in people. Yes, the internet offers a better, faster, more wide-scale exchange of information. Yes, it can be very enlightening, and useful.

...but more often it's just crappy, like people.

You have morons who sit and all they do is download porn.

I have nothing against porn, really, but if you're sitting around in your underwear collecting welfare checks and watching that crap like it's a regular movie...you fall into the category of internet scum for me.

You're low.

You fall into the same category as the Spammers, the Cyber-sluts, the Hackers, and the Virus-makers.

You are all so depraved in normal life, (and it may not show there), that when you get on the internet all that natural sick, scummy idiocy comes out and oozes through the web.

The guys who commented on Laura Prepon like that probably don't fall into that category. They're not bottom feeders. Instead, they stay just in the range of respectability, using the anonymity of the net to be the morons they want to be in real life.

Well, actually, some of them probably are in real life.

(Re-reads what he's written.)

I think I need to go to bed. I'm rambling, and being incoherent.

Goodnight.

Christmas Comes but Once a Year, Darnit.

In any conversation where the holidays come up, I always end up hearing someone complain about how much earlier the stores are putting out their holiday items each year.

Right now, they have Halloween and Christmas sections in our local Wal-mart, co-existing peacefully.

I have no problem with that.

I get impatient for the holidays. They give me something to look forward to, even if I don't actually do anything on most of them. They add a little spice, and a little nostalgia for when I was younger, and make me happy.

So why shouldn't stores have out the Christmas trees the first day of September?

For that matter, why shouldn't they have them out all year long, as long as there is someone buying the product?

I don't see the problem, there. If they have the space, why complain about it? Maybe there's some schmuck like me who just likes to walk down the Christmas aisle and think of how nice that time of year is, and how much I enjoy it. I'd love to have a store with a Christmas aisle all year long, so when I'm depressed in June because every week is like the last, I can wander down that aisle and dream of snow and the smell of pine needles.

I realize not everyone loves the holidays like I do, and that's your perogative, (you squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!).

...but don't grump about my little aisles of fun just because you don't like the holidays.

Gripe about people that drive like idiots. At least that's actually a problem.

What? Me Scared? Yep.

I'm afraid of Zombies.

I know they're not real! I know it!

...and yet, I wake up in the night after dreaming, just sure the apartment will be crawling with them, or those creepy, moaning, hand-shadows will be outside the window of the bedroom.

It's ridiculous. Zombies do not exist. (Well, not as the undead. There have been cases in the "Voodoo" countries, but those were most likely cases of some sort of chemical/hypnosis combinations).

I just want to know where the fear came from.

I even have problems at funerals. I'm so afraid the deceased is suddenly going to look at me, and make a low moaning sound.

The point of this little confession, I suppose, is to bring it around so that I can pose a question, as I seem to do quite often in what I write here.

This time, the question is:

What is it that makes us scared, even when the fear can be decimated by simple logic?

For example, people that flip out whenever they see a mouse.

As far as I know, no mouse has ever caused anyone serious bodily injury or death, unless said mouse was being placed in a bad place, which is just nasty and wrong anyway, (and the sicko's deserved to be hurt or die, in my opinion).

It's just a mouse, and yet, as we've seen in a million cartoons, sitcoms, and movies, the minute one shows up, some people just scream and throw a hissy fit. That blows my mind.

It's just a mouse. Heck...I've had them as pets, (and fed them to my pet ball python, but I felt really bad about it).

Okay, so what about...spiders?

I don't like spiders. I'll admit that. If it's bigger than the tip of my pinkie finger and I see it, a spider is history.

...but I know how incredibly miniscule the odds of a spider seriously hurting me are, so I'm not afraid of them. Yes, people die from spider bites, (or stings? Which is it?), but not very often.

Then, we come back to my fear. My pointless, irrational fear. Zombies.

It's ridiculous. I'm 24 years old, and would love to go see Shaun of the Dead, but I know I can't, because I won't sleep for a week. Trust me, I know I wouldn't. I've just watched the trailer and some clips, and in daylight, they're funny...but when I'm laying there in bed, I can only see the zombie parts in my head.

...and since my fear is imaginary, I can't even be confronted with it and get over it that way. People who are afraid of heights go sky diving, and get over it. The mouse people get a pet mouse. The spider people have a tarantula crawl on them.

What can I do? Have a guy in a zombie suit chase me for a while in the park?

I'm just going to have to overcome my fear, irrational as it is in the first place.

Come on, logic...do your thing...