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May 27th
Dear Internet,
Over the years adults, grown people, have told me that I'm too rude. That I shouldn't say absolutely unecessary rude things like, "I hope you didn't miss your econ class in high school, your understanding of economics makes me cringe", etc.
Well, all I have to say to you is a big fuck you. I'm not going to take my time to coddle you, give you a lollipop, pat you on the head, and completely ignore the fact that you said something extremely retarded. I wouldn't do it to you in real life. The more idiotic your mistake is, the harsher my criticism will be.
If someone is allowed to be stupid, then I should be allowed to be "rude". I don't understand this school of thought where it's ok if someone is being stupid when they clearly are capable of otherwise acting intelligent. If you don't understand simple ettiquette, don't sit there and lecture me on how I should be nicer. You don't understand basic economics? You should be back in high school! Not on the Internet posting what I find to be rather insulting to my sense of rationality. Oh? You lack reading comprehension and make some long winded rant that doesn't have anything to do with what I said in an accusatory manner? I should be ok with that.
No, fuck you. I stand by what I say. Don't lecture me or anyone else about their attitude while you allow some boob to ramble on in a their own way, their own lecturing way, on how you're wrong and they're right, despite the fact that it's probably the exact opposite. I don't care if the area is meant to be for 10 year olds. We know that it's mostly teens and adults on there. Don't kid yourself or anyone else. Find a person willing to become a eunich and ask for their testicles. You'll probably need them.
March 11th
Over the years I've made numerous bad investments in regards to who I choose to keep in my life. I believe, however, to have finally dropped the last bad investment.
I don't hate Melissa. There's too much history there for me to hate her. I'm disappointed, upset, angry, but there's no hate.
She had wanted to come and visit me for my birthday. She is rather short on funds so the deal was I was paying for it. I was 100% ok with that since I do really like this girl and I have on more than average, historically had a good time around her. Now that I look back on things... I just don't know if that's true anymore.
So anyway, the plan was that I give her money for her ticket when she arrives. She wanted to see me. Specifically me. She had mentioned that she wanted to see onf of her other friends that I don't particularly care for, but I thought nothing of it. The last time she was down this way we didn't have to spend that much time around him... No big deal.
Friday arrives. That night we go out to eat and she invites her friend. After dinner they want to hang out some more. After a little bit I put a stop to it. My sister was our DD and she had to get up early to go to work.
Saturday evening arrives. We go clubbing with my sister and her friends. My sisters friends tend to be fun people to hang around. That, and my sister was DD'ing again. Pregnant women make good DD's.
I spend a lot of time getting drunk with Melissa and trying to strike up conversation with her. She really wasn't too talkative and didn't seem interested in dancing with me. Around midnight or so we decide to take a break and head to Denny's to beat the early rush and so we could go back to drinking. We get back to the club around 1 am. Melissa had invited her friend out to see us back at the club upon our return. So we get there and see him. They run off to get drinks. I just want to take some time to sober up so I'm not hung-over. They come back and she's gabbering away like she normally does. Then she starts to dance with him.
So there I stand, giving the evil eye and thinking to myself, "what the hell is this?". I had to look away so that I wouldn't increasingly get angry. She comes over and starts grinding on me and I just ignore her. After I notice her drink is done I announce it's time to leave. I'm not going to stand around and deal with that.
Sunday is pretty much uneventful. Monday rolls around. For whatever reason she's intent on spending the entire day with this guy. I get dragged along everywhere they go. We head back to his place to watch a DVD. After the movie is over he runs to get a drink or whatever. She asks me if she can have some one on one time with him.
Why would I say yes to this? So of course I tell her no. I heard him coming back into the room and I really didn't feel like making a big scene. I decided the best thing to do was to drop it until I had another opportunity to speak to her privately. They decide they're hungry and want to go out to eat. So out we go. I question her why she wanted to spend some private time with him and I get a non-descript answer - "No reason, I just want to." What kind of fucking idiot would I have to be to just accept that. I quickly drop the subject because I realize it's going nowhere.
After dinner she wants to go to a bar, so we hit one up with him. During dinner and at the bar she kept mentioning to me that if I didn't want to be there anymore, I could just go home and he would bring her back. Wha...? Why was she being so adamant about it. And now that I think about it, they both seemed to hit the bathroom at around the same time an awful lot, not every time, but often enough to make me wonder... They would never return together, but regardless, that's some fucked up shit.
And then on the way home from the bar she insist that she rides home with him and that they will be right behind me. He has the nerve to turn to me and say, "hey man, you gotta understand that I may never see her again". Like I fucking care? I had one drink the whole night, but that was still enough to nearly push me over the edge. I suck in the anger and just say whatever and head off to my car. My car was ahead of theirs, with a bunch of cars inbetween, so I could see when they'd pull out. After five minutes of sitting in the car I was ready to go back to see what the hold up was, but at that moment they pull out.
Tuesday morning her flight is scheduled to leave, so I drive her to the airport.
Now there very well may have been no funny business going on between them. I don't know for sure. I keep replaying this back in my mind and it all looks and feels so suspicious. With the exception of Sunday, she wasn't really affectionate towards me. And even then on Sunday is just hugging. I'm not saying she had to put out. I wasn't expecting it. I would have loved for it to happen, but it didn't. I just don't particularly like being played. I don't particularly like being the third wheel when the other guy, by right, should have been the third wheel.
How do you even qualify that as a friendship at that point? What sort of friend would do this? I have put up with a lot of crap from her over the years. I listen to all of her problems. I treat her as nicely as my personality allows me to (which is pretty damn nice). In the end what do I get? After I dropped her off at the airport, I sat all day and thought about the best course of action. It was pretty fucking clear to me at that point. The best course of action was to not only talk to her anymore, but to specifically let her know that I no longer wished to speak to her ever again. There's no point in laying down a reason to her because she had to have known what she did was wrong.
Yeah, I'm going to miss her. Like I said at the start, there's a lot of history there. Still, when a relationship turns unhealthy to a certain point, why bother healing it? It's the epitome of suck. Even so, I feel I'm doing the right thing. For years my friends have been telling me to stop wasting my time on her. I finally saw what they meant. There was nothing of value to gain anymore.
January 29th
I've been busy updating the MTG checklists section. I've found a way to speed up the process so it only takes me about half an hour per checklist. Of course, that's assuming nothing distracts me. The entire process used to take upwards to an hour and a half. Being able to cut that much time out is rather nice. I'm not getting burned out as fast because I'm accomplishing a lot in a short period of time. I hope to have everything up to "Shards of Alara" done by tonight, but if not tonight, it will be done by tomorrow. The pre-release of Conflux is happening shortly, so usually the Gatherer database is updated around that time. I'll have that up if I remember to keep up to date with all of the going on's (which I admittedly probably will not).
These checklists have come a very long way. I remember the first one I did. It took me about six hours. It was for Mirage. I did it in a spreadsheet and thought that was a great idea. I started working on a second one and thought that this process was taking way too long. I found a way to do it faster, but still took a long time. I've now come to the point where I have a set format I want to use. I think if I had just stuck with a set format from the start, things would have never taken so long. Hind sight, etc... In any case, I've learned to expedite the process.
I don't know how far I want to take my own personall collection. I definitely want to finish what I have started, but I don't know if I'll tackle anything past the Time Spiral block. I already have thousands upon thousands of dollars invested in this hobby over the many many many years. What's another few thousand more? However, there's a good chance that once I finish Antiquities and Legends that I'll no longer want to spend another dime on this.
The funny thing is, I started this whole checklist project some time ago (long before I started uploading everything for everyone to use) because I wanted to see where my own collections were lacking and where I could finish them. I thought I was very close to completing some sets, if not having them fully completed. After making some checklists, I got into the habit of using ebay and wasting money there by getting more cards.
No, I really don't consider it a waste of time to be honest. I've had some great fun over the years. Some of the booster box tournies I've had with my friends in the past couple of years with some older cards was a lot of fun. I don't know if that will happen anymore, and if it doesn't, I'm ok with that. I think my favorite one was probably the one with cards from Alliances and 4th Edition with Ben. I think other people were there, but I honestly don't remember. All I remember was that he wanted a Balduvian Horde, and I wanted yet another Force of Will to add to my growing collection of Force of Will's. Ben got what he wanted, and I got what I wanted. I think what made that the most fun was the fact that mixing two completely different diametrics of sets together somehow worked.
Sure, the Tourney I held for Ben, Jon, and I the one year was pretty bad ass. I don't remember what booster box I had bought, but I do remember buying other random boosters AND throwing in my own cards. That was a lot of fun too, but still not nearly as fun as a complete half and half mix of Alliances and 4th edition. Hmm, maybe I'll have to organize something one day. I don't particuarly need any sets that old now, but Ben and Jon prefer to play with the older sets. Ben will deal with the Tempest Block and sooner, but really prefers Mirage block and sooner. Jon can deal with the Urza block, but prefers Tempest block or sooner. And me? Well I'm game for any block format. My hand denial deck is fairly old school just in terms of the cards I use, but it still managed to beat some fairly well constructed decks that were built far better than it was. I wonder how it would hold up against the top decks now? I can imagine I'd lose pretty fast. Still, I have to say that it's the best deck I've ever assembled. Great strategy really. How can your opponent play if they have no cards in hand?
January 24th
There's a reason why I prefer PC gaming. At least I can try before I buy. If I really don't find the game to be fun, I'm under no obligation to pay for it. If I do like it, I personally feel an obligation to reward the food chain so that they will continue to make things I like.
Really, don't buy Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 on the Wii. It's terrible.
So I finally finished formating my MTG checklists. The next step, of course, is to add new stuff. I downloaded MS Office 2007 to give it a shot and to work on these. I found it couldn't open one file so I had to grab Open Office work on that one, save it, and then test it to make sure I could open it with MS Office. Ugh. A microsoft program incompatible with its own file type. Not surprising...
One strange thing I noticed; whenever I would save a file with Office 2007, the file size was usually cut in half. What this means, I have no idea. I hope people can still open those specific files with whatever version of MS Word that you're using. Really, let me know if you can't. I'm not going to spend time installing every version of MS Office to check for compatibility.
January 22nd
I would like to add a prime example of how useless my boss is. He is stuck up in one of the team leaders asses because said team leader is a whiny cunt whenever he doesn't get anything specifically his way. He micromanages his team. When he's not busy micromanaging his team, he wanders off to do the most mind numbing and simple job. This guy started three months after I did and makes way more than I do. Yet he can somehow get away with doing practically nothing every day, while I bust my ass off day after day, doing far more work in my first two hours there than that guy does all day.
In any case, you get the point. My boss likes this guy and caters to him because he whines a lot.
Incoming product, once it's ready to leave the customer service area, is put onto a cart. Once the cart is full they're sent out to an area to get done. They're generally sent to whiny cunt's area first. This ways always an annoyance, but we all put up with it. Well, since whiny cunt reorganized his area (and took a neutral area as his own and made it harder for everyone to get into that area), where the cart now lands is about two feet from another team leaders area.
So when the whiny cunt is done unloading his product from the cart, instead of pretty much leaving it there for the other guy to take care of it, he pushes it over to my area (and another area which is directly behind me, about two feet away). So I unload my stuff and their stuff, and then I have to push it the whole back to the other team leaders area, just so he can return the cart to the shop (which is by my area) so stuff can get opened up.
As everyone can see, this is highly inefficient. That's a lot of unnecessary foot traffic. I've been saying this since day one. But since whiny cunt fucker lost track of something important one day, he made it a point to get the carts first. Well, the other team leader that he's been snubbing has had the shits of it. He goes to our boss and tells him what bullshit it is, and that he's going to customer service and is telling them to give him all carts first (which is pretty much how it should have been done in the first place!). Apparently my boss tells him, "don't do that!". He just says too bad and walks off to do it anyway.
Now, if I were my boss, I would have never let that be an issue in the first place. However if I did have the momentary lapse in judgement and allowed it to eventually become an issue, I would have corrected it there and agreed with the not whiny team leader. Then, from there, I would have paged whiny cunt to my office and had a frank converstaion with him about his lack of teamship skills.
Now, this isn't some case where the whiny cunt doesn't know who works on what. He might not know everything, but he certainly knows enough to make some sound decision. Between me and the non whiny guy, we know who works on what. We don't expect the other team leaders to know it all. However, there is something called "asking" and "common courtesy". If you fail at those things, why are you in a managerial position again?
Intel SSD's are awesome. Buy one. Buy five. Buy twenty. Just get one. Imaging have zero wait time to open an application. Oh, you think you have zero wait time now, but you are sorely mistaken! I thought my two 7200RPM drives with large amounts of cache in a RAID 1 could were fast. No, they were monstrously slow compared to this thing. I have those two drives set up in an external bay. They aren't working slower than before, but they certainly feel a lot slower. I think it has to do with the spoiling of the SSD. I can't wait till the price of the 160's drop in price. The 80's that I linked you to are expensive, but the 160's are almost double the price. I can build a PC or two for that price.
Anyway, if you like having things fuck your PC all over the place so that they can meld into a union of awesome, I highly recommend getting an SSD. Intel currently makes the best ones. They're pricey, but well worth it.
January 21st
About two weeks before Christmas I walked out on my job. It wasn't so much of an "I quit!" type of walking out. It was out of anger over stupid policies and being helpless to do anything about it. I was livid. What had happened was one of my favorite shirts got caught on one of the racks and tore. These racks stick out by a couple inches, and that alone is a potential safety hazard.
I work in a very dirty environment. We are specifically told not to wear our nice clothes because of that. I understand that. That's also why they provide us with aprons, if we so choose to use them, that way you can still wear your clothing and not have it get fucked up by any sort of of anything we work with. Imagine my surprise when I was told I would not get reimbursed for the shirt that was ripped by the obvious safety hazard. People cut and scratch themselves on these things all the time. The insurance would be through the roof there if everyone was constantly reporting the scrapes, cuts, bruises, burns, etc... we receive daily. I personally force my guys to report any of their "accidents" unless it looks serious, like a huge burn, or a very deep or long cut. I personally never report any of my own injuries, but I digress.
So with being told we don't reimburse for ruined clothing in any capacity, I realize I have two options on my plate with my anger ever increasing. Continue to attempt to work, only to be pissed off and probably damage equipment, or I can leave and cool off. I chose to leave. I didn't tell anyone I was leaving. Why should I? If they can't give me $20 for a fucking shirt, then they do not deserve to receive my services for the rest of the day.
About an hour after I arrive home, I hear the telephone constantly ringing for a good fifteen minutes straight. Ha!
I go into work the next day. After the first hour of being there my boss drags me into the conference room to ask my why I had left early. Well duh. He gives me that, "are you serious, can you really be so petty" look after I explain why I left. He goes on some rant about how if I walked into wal-mart and ripped my shirt because I bumped into a shelf of theirs, that they wouldn't reimburse me (oh yes they fucking would). Then he tells me I'm lucky I still have a job. I point out to him that the company needs me way more than I need the job. I said that because it's true. I can not work for a year and be ok financially. For them to train someone to my level, it would take a good year, and even then they may not be at my level. I, and only I, know how to run certain controls.
My boss tells me they could rely on the engineering team. Yes, that would go over so well. For starters, those guys are slow. Secondly, I usually end up training them on the stuff they're supposed to be training me on. Thirdly, if they were to train someone else on the stuff I specifically work on, good fucking luck to the person who's stuck working on that stuff. Only one person back in that department knows how to train someone.
I just kinda of laugh and make those points to my boss. I then continue on, telling my boss he's worthless as a manager. That he let's too much shit fly right in front of his face and does nothing about it. He doesn't even take the time to say, "don't do that", or something similar. I start ratting out a bunch of people (because I am frankly tired of seeing them get a free pass just because we need bodies to fill seats to get work out). I also tell him there's quite a few people that work there are do nothing more than just milk that company for money and nothing more (you know the type, people who do the bare minimum, kiss a lot of ass, and pawn as much work as possible off on someone else).
After a bit more arguing he tells me I have a choice to make. I still have my job. However I am being sent home for the day (it was a friday) so I'll have the weekend to think about whether or not I want to continue to work there. If I did not wish to continue my employment there, call in on Monday and let him know.
I honestly do bust my ass off every day. For the longest time I had to put up with a bunch of bullshit from higher ups telling me I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I had to deal with morons in the QA department telling me the same thing. I had to deal with lazy engineers not completing their projects before releasing them, forcing me to finish it for them so that my team can actually work on these products properly. I had to deal with a boss who didn't give a shit, hid in his office as much as he could, and never wrote anyone up unless he was specifically told to by the president of the company.
Yet I continued my employment. I don't very much like my boss. I don't very much like most of the people I have to work around (I have no problem with the people on my team). The only thing that keeps me there is that I enjoy what I do. I really enjoy what I do. It's been a little longer than a month now since that incident. My boss has actually been useful lately. He's actually managing people like a manager should. I still have to deal with some of the BS that I had to previously, but it hasn't been as bad as it usually is. It could be for the fact that business has slowed down and the President will probably have to make cuts somewhere, so everyone is doing their jobs as they should have been from the start. In any case, things haven't been too bad there since that incident.
It's official. Obama is our new president. Now I realize there are the usual naysayers. Something about the liberal agenda trying to abort your babies, only to stuff them back inside so they can aborted again, and then served up at some grand devil feast, or whatever. No, I won't always agree with Obama. However there's something this man shows over the others of the past. Honesty. If there's any indication, I can only refer to you any of the inaugral balls. Every time he went to dance with his wife, he was trying to get fresh with her. It's a bit cliched to use the whole family argument to show honesty, however it at times seems fitting. Obama is truly showing himself to be an honest family man. He loves his wife and his kid. Every time he speaks of them, you see it in his eyes. His wife is a woman of integrity, as you see the very same thing in hers. Some of that honesty will probably spread over into his political career. Some of it has.
If you have any further doubts, look at his roots. He was raised as one of us. He was nothing more than a pleb. He worked his way to the top. Some of the more recent popular political figures have either fallen ass backwards into money or inherited it. The silver spoon wasn't being dangled in front of them like the proverbial carrot. They didn't have to work too hard for any of it. Obama on the other hand has worked for his achievements.
And if that doesn't convince, listen to any one of his recent speeches. It isn't about an us vs them mentality. A lot of politicians will try to use the very same thing, "it isn't about us vs them", but the majority have failed because they went back to towing to party lines immediately after that. Obama's speeches aren't about that at all. While he does try to cater to his party lines a little, he speaks carefully to not betray his own words. It's not about you versus me. It's about finding a common ground so we can move forward as a nation and rebuild what we've lost. If Obama can only deliver on %50 of his promises, it will be a drastic improvement. Change is necessary. No one is saying you have to agree with everything he does. No one is saying you have to like him. But surely you do not still have your blinders on. Surely you can agree we need change after what's transpired in the last 8 years.
January 19th
Alright. Back in November (around Thanksgiving time) I took a trip to visit Melissa again. Some may question why I did this. Wasn't the punishment I've received from her enough? She's pushed me here, pushed me there. But that was all in the past. After our last falling out things have changed. For whatever reason I've truly never stopped liking her. She is truly one of a kind. I lust for her. I love her. I want her. I yearn for her. Wait, do I really? Do I really lust, love, want, and yearn for her? I honestly don't know what it is. Maybe she's a witch and she cast her spell on me. Maybe I'm a desperate fool. Whatever it may be, I just know that I'm drawn to her. Taking that into consideration, visiting her made a lot of sense.
I'm not going to give a day by day synopsis of what happened like I did last time. As far as I'm concerned, there's only one night that really made a difference for me. It had an impact. For the longest time I've been unsure about myself in a lot of ways. Imagine dating someone for a few years and falling in love with them during that time period. Mostly ups and very few downs. Then you notice she's being distant for you for a while. Then imagine remembering the last time you had sex with her. Her vagina feeling looser than it should considering that the two of you are getting it one once every few months at that point. You know she's been cheating on you but you want to ignore it and try to work through things.
But it doesn't stop there. The two of you go to visit some mutual friends who are getting married. Then would be a good time to talk. To try and possibly patch things up. To hopefully get a little hotel action. But no, she only wants to play some stupid board game with one of her friends. Then imagine after that you can't get a hold of her for two fucking weeks before you actually get any contact from her. You start looking through your e-mail and you see silence is broken. Wondering what it could entail. You're nervous. You're nervous because you already know what it's going to say, but you know you need to read it anyway. *Click* It's open. You start reading it. Your worst fear is upon you. She's breaking up with you. But as you keep going, you can tell she's leaving something out... It's all excuses. Blah blah blah, we've grown apart. Blah blah blah I don't know what I want. Blah blah blah maybe we can get back together in the future. Blah fucking lies blah blah blah bullshit blah blah. Blah-bih-dee-blah blah. Why can't she just tell you the truth?
Two months go by and you get another E-mail. Something about her and her boyfriend moving in with each other.
So it goes, for the next four years, you feel inadequate because of this. You feel inadequate every which way. I really never had the chance for real closure. I never had the chance to call her on her bullshit. I never had the chance to make a plea. I never had the chance to say "fuck you". I never had the chance to say one last "I love you". I just never had the chance... She made sure she didn't have to deal with any face to face confrontation. And the worst part about it was, after all that, for a good solid year, I still loved her, but that never stopped making me feel less than I should.
So this is why that one night, just one special night, with Melissa was more important than the rest of the trip. We were both drunk, so you could maybe blame it on the alcohol, not that she hadn't pushed me away before when she was drunk. I don't think it was a "feeling lonely" thing, as she does get around from time to time, as most normal single people our age do. We didn't have sex, but I did thorougly enjoy the agressive dry hump / make-out session we had. I've really never been with a woman who was into taking charge. I'm not saying I like being dominated, but it's nice to be with someone who knows stuff, someone who is willing to take charge once in a while and say, "this is what I want".
We had spoken a great deal about any sort of relationship beyond friendship numerous times. The last thing I told her was that I did not want to hold back anymore. If there was a moment, she should allow it to happen. There's been a strong connection between us for a really long time. Why not take the time to explore it? If there was no spark, if those feelings weren't real we owe it to ourselves to find out. And so, a moment there was. I sort of initiated it. I was sort of testing the waters. Subtle movements. Lightly brushing against her. Faintly kissing her on her cheek. She turns to me and just bluntly states, "you better not let things get weird between us if I kiss you". Before I even have a chance to respond she was pressing those big full sexy lips against mine.
If you've never kissed someone with full luscious lips before, you need to do so. It's a magnificent experience. It's indescribable. What made it even better was because it was her. Just having that moment with her will be locked into my memory forever. The self doubt isn't there anymore. I don't feel inadequate. I have my confidence back. There's been some sort of explosion where it feels like I'm starting to be reborn again.
I honestly went on this trip expecting nothing to happen. I had no intentions of forcing any issues, which doesn't mean I wasn't going to try and make a move; I was just more interested in trying to get away from my own life for a bit and relax without putting any unecessary stress or drama around me. Even if we never had a little fun, completely pretending like that never happened, I had a wonderful time. Things just felt normal. Normal is a comfortable feeling. It really is. I didn't feel tense. She didn't seem tense. It was like how it used to be, well mostly. Things will never be specifically how it used to be between us. Still, having a glimpse of it back was just comfortable. We've always had fun hanging out with each other and just getting a chance to do that again, well I wouldn't trade that for anything.
January 18th
I realize it's been a while, and I'll get to some meatier portions later. Right now I wanted to talk Left 4 Dead.
I've come to the conclusion that if you play Left 4 Dead, you probably suck. Here's why you suck:
I really can't stress the melee aspect enough. There have been many instances where I've seen someone run over to their teammate who has been pounced and surrounded by some horde, not shoving his way through to rescue his teammate. Rather, they keep firing bullets at the horde until every single last one is dead. By that time their friend is either incapacitated, or dead. Let's get back to the list now.
In fact, you should probably uninstall the game if you fall under any of those categories. Or you could just feel the wrath of my constant TKing. Your refusing to grasp simple concepts in the game will net you some of my ire.
If you run an L4D server, chances are that you should probably stop. Here's why:
And while I'm doing lists, shit Valve needs to fix as of yet:
But in any case, if your team isn't shitty, which is rare by the way, you can have a really really awesome time. Come to think of it, the most fun I've had lately is campaign mode with my buddies. Those guys know how to play. They're not nearly as god-like as I am, but they generally don't fuck shit up.