I feel better, I swear

Ok, after today, I’m not going to hate on Penn State anymore. Losing didn’t hurt, the students didn’t riot for JoPa, and I think I have officially quit giving a shit for college football. I still think JoPa is… well, JoPa helped ruin at least eight future young men’s lives. He might not have been the aggressor, but he did nothing. Silence is the greatest killer.

And this is going to sound bad (when did that ever stop me from saying it here?) But the worst part is that lawyers are now involved, and they are going to profit from this carnival of suffering. I read something about JoPa’s lawyer going for a loophole for the impending civil suits.

God, you listening? I rarely ask much of you, because I know You’re busy (or maybe not) and I’m used to carrying the load myself, but please, please send a little thought to these scum buckets’ heads that any money made will go to child abuse prevention. I’m not one to deny someone their coin, but the thought of someone getting rich(er) off of this is a bit much for me.

Even better, JoPa could redeem himself in my eyes by negotiation a settlement and donating a fat bag of cash to this cause. He’s old, and soon won’t need the money anymore.  I can deal with someone buying their way into Heaven this way.

JoPa can go fuck himself

Sorry Gift about making a American Football related post, but I had to say this somewhere…

Penn State, if you guys say that this game is for Joe Paterno, you will officially be my most hated team ever. Joe Paterno fucked up in ways that you cannot even begin to imagine and caused unimaginable, preventable pain. So if you try to make this game about him, I will root against your football team every single game. I will hope your sports programs fail in every way imaginable (especially in bowl games, where I tend to root for Big 10 teams… I won’t any more if you make this game about JoPa.)

Basically, I will hate your team more than Michigan, and Ohio almost went to war with Michigan.

My dating profile

I’ve decided to get serious about the online dating thing. To prove it, here’s the profile I’m going to use (subject to change depending on suggestions.)

Congratulations! By showing interest in a domesticated Jeremy, you have demonstrated that you are a woman of particular tastes. Before you make a decision to bring this “magnificent”* creature into your home, you need know the following things so that you can make an informed and responsible decision.

1) The Domesticated Jeremy is primarily a nocturnal creature, inhabiting that odd place called the “Third Shift.” While he can function during the day, depending  on the time you wake him, he’ll probably be muttering “Mornings happen to other people.”

2) Jeremy will try to eat everything at least once**, but is happiest with good Chinese food. If you try to give him bad Chinese food, he will become unpredictable. Lesson to be learned: Good Chinese food is great, bad chinese food is a crime.

3) Jeremy loves a good story, both telling and listening to them, but sometimes over long conversations will start to lose focus and start fiddling with his phone or tablet or whatever tech toy he can get his paws on. Don’t worry! He is still mostly paying attention, but needs something to keep him occupied.

With that knowledge in hand, now you can decide if a domesticated Jeremy is right for you.

*Your milage may vary.
**Some restrictions may apply.

Worse than the Disease – an STO biography

So I’ve been playing STO pretty non-stop lately. They have added a system called Duty Officer (aka doff, verb doffing) and it’s awesome (to me, at least.) And the fleet that I’ve been in since the beginning is pretty cool, but one of the guys kept asking me to put in my biography, especially after he noticed that my character has a twitch. (Most of the fleet have liberated Borg, since we’re all Lifetimers.) Well, there was a story to that twitch that I have finely got around to telling tonight.

Eventually I want to create a series of missions in STO in a “Choose your Own adventure” format that fleshes out the rest of the story. (“Will you stop the voice in Zwicken’s head, or will you too become its minion?”) I’ll post a rough draft of that later. So anyways, here’s the bio.

Zwicken was an average drone, on an average cube. Ony the Hive knew what planet she originally came from, and she didn’t care. There was the Hive and that’s all that mattered.

And then came an Assimilation that went very wrong. One moment she was in her socket recharging and the next the entire Hive went deadly silent. Her eyes snapped open to see all of the drones around her thrashing. Her own body felt out of control. But that wasn’t the worst part: the emptiness where the hum of the Hive once was threatened to tear her mind apart. She collapsed to the ground, desperately seeking out the comfort that had been the Hive. She felt something that wasn’t the Hive, but it was better than the emptiness, so she headed towards it. The something became a whisper, and then became a voice that said things that made her regret leaving the emptiness…

Some time passed, and she wasn’t alone with the voice. Hands gently lifted her, and a kind voice said, “We have the last live one. Returning back to the ship.” Her eyes fluttered open to see familiar shapes, people in space armor she thought, carrying her on a stretcher away from the place she called home.

It took the Starfleet vessel that found her and her hivemates a long, arduous year to get back to Federation space. The voice was quiet through most of it, and Zwicken was able to regain control of most of her functions, but was left with a twitch that earned her current name, given to her by a German engineer that became almost like a father to her. Her number was forgotten, because the voice made her forget.

Life had acheived a new normal for Zwicken. That is until they reached the edge of Federation space and ran into some Orion Syndicate marauders. It was then that the voice awoke again…

Sick and hating it, but still thinking…

I spent the last two weeks on the edges of being sick. Coughing, hacking, sneezing, and being generally miserable. My version of Hell has become mucus, and I’m living that nightmare. (It actually started with my head becoming a snott firework factory… that morning I woke up to an explosion of mucus.) So I had two good sleeps and then this shit.

That isn’t to say that I haven’t been thinking and plotting things creative, just haven’t had the energy nor the time to put thought to keyboard. (5 nights of work, 3 days off, 6 nights of work, and then sick as a dog my nights off.) I’ll somehow make time to get some ideas out there.

One thing I really need to get out of my head is “What is art?” Because I think I figured it out: it isn’t the object, but the conversation about the object. Proof: I have a lost Rembrandt in my attic that noone, not even me, has seen. Is it art? Why? A person might bring up that because it’s made by Rembrandt, so it is art. Two ways to attack this: 1) what if it was Rembrandt drawing two stick figures, just a few lines thrown down, with a verifiable signature? Still art then? 2)  Let’s say it isn’t, but an honest to God painting. But since no one has seen it except Rembrandt, how can we know if it’s any good? How can we appreciate it as art until it can be discussed? Since it’s hidden away and basically unknown, it’s might as well be a collection of oil paint and canvas.

As to how I got to this point, it started with GLaDOS and Josh’s art appreciation class (that was an interesting argument there, not that Josh cared; he just wanted an A.)

Hey, what do you know? My opinion has risen from the dead!

Before I start this rant, I need to remind people that I am not the biggest fan of Obama. I think that he was oversold, and tried to do way too much, and his followers had an unrealistic expectation about what an American President can do. (a semi-related aside: What in the hell is up with “We’re going to take back Washington?” From whom? If you tell me the other party, I’ll go Aaron Burr on your ass. And for who are you taking it back for?  For me? Who thinks I want it back in the first place? You all can keep it.)

OK, with that said, I think Hank Williams Jr. made an ass out f himself when he compared Obama to Hitler, and I think ESPN is correct for wanting nothing to do with him anymore. Something that bugs me about this is people have been abusing the phrase “My First Amendment Rights” way too often lately. The First Amendment only has to do with the GOVERNMENT trying to shut you up, not a private entity like ESPN. This isn’t the first time that I’ve heard about this, and unfortunately won’t be the last. Why can’t people see that you have every right to be an insufferable asshole, but everyone else has the right to either ignore you (my favorite tactic) or completely disavow you (“Look, you are being an asshole. Everyone shout down the asshole!”) I’m not a big fan of this tactic; it brings attention to someone that really doesn’t need it. Paying attention to assholes like that just feeds the trolls. Of course, there are the ones we should be paying attention to, like anyone that seriously wants to do some damage… Yeah, it’s a bit tricky. But honestly, I’d rather the assholes be as noisy as possible, so that way I know where to shoot when they become dangerous.

But that’s just me. And my attitude might change if the asshole tugs on the wrong strings…

It’s been a while…

So in the time since I’ve last typed, my sister’s ex-boyfriend went fucking nuts, I didn’t feel safe leaving her there with him, so she ended up living with me for over a month, along with my nephew. Needless to say, this was very stressful, and it didn’t help that I was finally starting to get my head back in one piece after the couple months long bout of severe depression (I’ve always ran close to the edge, but I finally got knocked down hard.)

So the stress, and the fact a certain person is a bit of a control freak, finally lead to a blow up at work: I self-imploded. There were two parts of that… “conversation” that just broke me down inside: 1) “I know. I read the email and understand what I did wrong.” “Obviously you don’t know or you wouldn’t have done it.” and 2) which is the biggie… he was starting to get mad at me, and I was at the end of my own patience “do you want to go to my office to talk?!” “Let’s.” When we got there, I shut the door, and he laid into me: “There are six things you need to know 1) 2) Do not disrespect me in public! 3) “

Yup, he acted like a complete controlling asshole. Which was exactly the wrong thing to say to me, especially right then. It took me about an hour to get my crying under control. Yup, when I say “self-imploded” I broke out into wailing sobs; it was preciisely like having stitches ripped out, except instead of blood, it was a nightmare 35 years old.

A week later, I talked to his boss about what happened… and I didn’t throw the asshole under the bus. Instead, I suggested that I stay on nights (strangely enough, I’m sleeping better this way. Not perfectly, but better.) I was as calm as a person that had got assaulted can be.  (OK, the irrational anger is starting to come back now. I had tried to be rational about the whole thing, and for a while I was, but now I’m wondering if I was making excuses for the asshole… and the thought of that makes me angry. Why should I have to make excuses for other people’s bad behavior? While I wasn’t innocent in that deal, no one deserves to be treated like,especially not me. Taking the high ground sucks, unless you intend to plant some artillery up there… hmmm, artillery.)

Any ways, she’s here tonight because she sprayed down some flea killer in her bedroom, and needs time for it to take effect. Oh and her ex-boyfriend is being a dick. I’m tired of egotistical assholes; the boy needs help and is in complete denial about it. Well, if he doesn’t want help, then I won’t give him any. I’ll take care of my sister and nephew, and he can go fuck himself as far as I’m concerned.

Oh, and while I’m at it, an article about the socialogical effects of alcholol on bad behavior. The thing I find tragic is that people in the comments section completely missed the article’s point. People really don’t listen to themselves, do they?

Edit: changed one line to protect the identity of a certain person.

I’m ready to punch a particular person….

I know all about jerks; I have worked with more than my fair share of them. But it seems that there is a only a select few that can consistently push my buttons, but they almost exclusively do it on purpose. I think I have finally met the exception to that rule. There is a certain individual that has  frequently said things that have made me want to punch him in the face, and yet little malice. I have walked away from conversations with himthat have set my jaw into a grinding motion, without any clue he said something wrong.

And today, he has crossed a line. I had told him about my depression, and how it had affected me (there were good reasons for doing this, despite my… problems with this individual.) But he made fun of the effects the depression had on me today. Look, I joke about a lot of things, and I will bow to anyone that lands a clean shot on me, just as long as they take “my revenge” in equal good humor. But my depression? Or fuck, ANYONE’S depression. Or depression in general. It’s an affliction that sucks, that hurts your ability to do anything. And I’m the guy that can joke while a nurse misses the vein on the inside of my arm (a lesson learned during my recent sojourn: the inside of your arm is very, very tender. I will strangle the next nurse that insists on trying it with my own arteries if need be.)

Part of the problem here is the fact that I want to hit him when I talk to him. Yes, I need to voice my concerns, but when I have tried it in the past, he deflects them and minimizes them. Which makes me even angrier. There have been a few times when I have been tempted to… drastically change the situation so that I don’t that deal with him anymore (No, not that drastically. Nor that. Oh hell, I wouldn’t be that drastic even if he was pissing on my head. And you can stop thinking that one too.) I do have one other thing to try, but this is becoming unsustainable. I’m not sure what I’ll do if it doesn’t work. I’m clever, I’ll think of something.

(As for why I’m being so obtuse here… A little case of CYA.)

Facing genocide

It’s funny in a very tragic sort of way, but for some ungodly reason I decided to watch Worse Than War. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was the auction website with German helmets, and my plans to own a German helmet as “a trophy.” The movie made me angry, but not surprised. I’m well versed in the politics of genocide, what drives people to do it.

(Side note: I really shouldn’t be watching something so depressing as I’m trying to claw my way out of depression. Ah well.)

Part of the problem, is us, people that aren’t even involved in the genocide. Watch Devil Came on Horseback. Watch the scene where he showed photos to Arabs, who denied that there were signs of genocide in Darfur. Also, I think about an argument I had once upon a time on the message boards I was admin on about the NATO bombings in Bosnia; the guy was angry about NATO actions, and I had to point out to him that the Serbians were guilty of genocide, and not just their leader. It doesn’t matter that they were mislead, they had to know what they were doing was wrong, yet did it any ways. Worse Than War proves my point with interviews of Hutus that had actually killed Tutsis.

We need to face the fact that the possibility of genocide is within all of us. All it takes is the wrong political leader. In some ways, I worry about it here in the U.S. because of the illegal aliens, an easy outlet… They are outsiders and their cultural isolation make for easy fodder for genocide. Not saying it’s going to happen, but we need to listen for the language of death… Because it’s arrogant to think it won’t happen here.

I hate explaining depression

Everything about depression sucks. From the lack of energy to do things, to the occasional crying spell (I haven’t had many of those during the particular trip to the bottom,) to the anxiety attacks caused by the fact that I need to something in particular and “can’t” to disrupted sleep cycle (which was already fucked up to begin with)… Uhm, I probably forgot something in that list.

But the most awkward part of depression is explaining it to people, especially your boss. “Are you feeling better?” “What caused the depression?” And the unspoken “When are you going to get your act together and do your job properly?!” Yeah, this bout of depression was a bad one, to the point that other people were noticing it, including my boss. And while his questions might be reasonable for something like the flu, my depressions don’t quite work that way. I have my better days, but even those better days are fraught with peril, as something can knock me off my perch of… I don’t want to say happiness, because I’m hell and far from that point. Not sure what word describes my better moods. Not precisely good, content doesn’t work, and stable isn’t so stable. So I guess I’ll stick with “better moods.”

Oh, and getting “grilled” about depression is one of the things that knocks me out of my better moods. Dammit, I was feeling something approximating “OK” before I had that conversation. I was even planning on being productive. Well, the night is still young, so I can still accomplish something tonight, if I can keep myself of Cracked, a website that personally ranks up there with Wikipedia and tvtropes. Reading has always been my drug of choice…

editOh, and I really, reallyhate the phrase “What do you have to be depressed about?” It almost makes me feel like I’m wrong to be depressed. (Comment was’t aimed at me, but I still hate it.)