a study in confusion

Thank alcohol for that. (also tait.)

I don't have anything to say, other than restating the fact that I am a blazing moron, and that's not changing any time soon.

Also, rum ftw. See you tomorrow, cirrhosis.

And mostly at myself.

So fucking tired of all the shit I put myself through. I don't even know how to verbalize what I'm thinking right now, other than going outside and screaming the world deaf. I can't fucking /take/ this shit sometimes.

God, I need to get out of this city.

That sounds a lot more emo than it should, but oh well. I blame the music.

I've tried to update a few times in the last.. what, month and a half or so, but it just never really worked.

News:
+I got a pretty decent little job, selling cell phones for about $10 an hour.
+I got myself an iPhone, finally.
-I lost my job 'cause I bought cigarettes for a friend on company property.
-I think I'm about to start working at McDonald's again, at least for a couple months.

Anyway. I've been spending the last.. four or five days pondering whether to pick up and move. I want out of this town again. There are a few things keeping me here, some stronger than others, one that didn't really show up until last night. I have a lot to think about. I have a lot to decide about. I have a lot of cigarettes to smoke, and a lot of beer to drink.

Also, I hate getting ditched.

I. Uh. Yeah.

Last night was pretty fucking fantastic. I got online, and six minutes later, had damn near the entire evening planned.

Me, McCormick, Tanya, and Ron all headed down to Steak'n'Shake for some food around.. eh, 7:30 or so. Hung out there for a while, then we all caravanned down to the city to hang out at Coffee Cartel for a few hours with our friend Ashley, which was pretty Goddamn chill. Free wifi, a white Russian latte (with Absolut, no less!), and decently entertaining conversation? Yeah, let's do that again.

From there, we decided to head back down to Fenton, to watch random YouTube videos and Blue Harvest on Ron's dear-Lord-it's-coming-this-way projector. Unfortunately, the location meant that Ashley, like a bum, had to head back to her place. (Loser.) Anyway, that was a good time, 'cause I soaked up Ron's Internet to get my laptop ready to dist-upgrade to Hardy. (This is going to hurt.) From there, we all went home.

And today was.. eh. Amazing onset of melancholy, for some sick reason. Probably spending the last week or so with people, then.. not. Or maybe it's Amarok playing entirely too much Tom Waits.

Whatever it is, I've spent the entire day wanting to curl up with.. something, and trying to ignore it by pretending to code coherently. I've gotten about 20 LOCs out in.. uh, five hours. Not so good.

Please dear God tomorrow. I need to pass out.

Pain, pleasure, joy, or just rag{e|ing indifference}. Some screaming sounds good right now.

So. My new job is actually rather.. amazing. I honestly look forward to going in, despite having to wake up entirely too early most days.

It helps that a) my paycheck is bigger than it's ever been, and b) I found out that AT&T trusts my credit enough to not want a deposit from me to sign up for a contract.

Which means, uh, totally (totally.) buying an iPhone 3G when they come out, then using my 20% monthly plan discount on the bitch. This is going to be amazing.

Also, decided to indulge myself a tiny bit; bought two Xbox games off of GameCrazy's clearance rack the other day during lunch. Jade Empire, which is (thus far) rather disappointing and boring, and a game I'm keeping mysterious until I hang out with Jen this Sunday. Watch out, kiddo, it'll blow your mind.

I have realized something today. No matter how well-made the game is, no matter how much work has been put into it, no matter anything else, it all boils down to one thing: is it fun? If you don't enjoy playing the game, what's the damn point? Conversely, if the game's fun to play despite any other problems, why the hell not play it for all it's worth?

The last paragraph is only tangentially related to the Xbox. Man, I don't even know, but shit is fun.

Work tomorrow (9-6). Off Sunday. Rock Band, hopefully? Work 9-6 Monday, then Dante's for the Goddamn win, then work Tuesday 12-9 instead of Warped Tour, Goddammit. That's all I've really planned out for now. You bastards know my phone number.

..or something.

( Stories. )

Retail is amusing.

Not anything new. Spending the evening hiding between a bottle of rum and my headphones, soaking in shitty music and alcohol. Honestly, these things, they help.

Actually didn't go to the bar Monday night, but only because I had to wake up for work about an hour after I would've gone home. Probably wouldn't have worked, but God did I miss it.

Done next to nothing social lately. Ate out last night with some people, then played Rock Band; probably doing the latter again Sunday. I really can't sing.

I don't think Twitter knows how to count. I type a 130-character-long message, then try to send it, and it says 'OOPS YOUR MESSAGE WAS OVER 140 CHARACTERS, GUESS YOU'RE A SLUT' and truncates it. I blame Ruby; should've been written in Python.

Have to wake up early again tomorrow. Today was the only day all week I got to sleep past 5am. Whee.



Oh, by the way, I got a job.

Falling asleep as soon as I finish this bottle.

The king, even.

it's what i eat, /and/ what i do.

In other news, last night was weird. That's not news, or weather.

I'm thinking about starting a blog, where all I do is review old, obscure, strange video games, especially Super NES games. I'd need to find good image hosting for the screenshots, and updates wouldn't be daily by any stretch of the imagination, but it might be fun. Who of you would read that?

Regardless. I need to nostalgicize.

P.S. If you haven't read Little Brother yet, you should. Doctorow is still God of fourteenth-wave post-cyberpunk. (yes, i counted.)

Good times.

So, yeah, Sunday was Pointfest. Coheed was Coheed. I also saw Ludo's live set, and they were good enough that I bought all three of their albums afterwards. If you get the chance, go buy and listen to their Broken Bride EP; it will destroy you.

Found out Monday night that I'm probably losing my job over someone else's cockup, so rock on. Whatever.

Been listening a lot lately to songs about murderously obsessive love, and I'm not sure why. Wandered around the woods last night, staring up at the full moon, looking for prey to stalk. Think I'm losing a grip, but we'll see where it goes.

( Lyrics to what I was listening to in the woods. )

I don't really want to say a whole lot!

Friday night was the rehearsal dinner/pig roast. Mosquitoes in Illinois, and 'you look just like your father!'

Saturday was waking up far too early (like, 5am for some reason), putting on a tux (which I pray to God I will never have to do again), usher-ing at my sister's wedding, running back home to entertain what seemed like our entire family, on both sides, for about an hour, running down to Arnold to the reception (which was actually pretty awesome) and more of 'you look just like your father!'

Let me tell you how old that gets right now.

Real old.

Real fucking old.

At the end of the ceremony, all of the family who walked past me patted me on the arm and said 'okay, you're next!'

Wanted to scream.

---

Let me get through one more Goddamned night; it all gets better tomorrow. Praying at the local temple of rock (Pointfest) all day. Give me Coheed and I will rejoice praise and cry hallelujah.

Yeah. Bought her about.. two weeks ago now. Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100, 2.0GHz Pentium 4, half a gig of RAM, so on and so forth. Got it running Ubuntu Gutsy right now; will upgrade to Hardy real soon now, when I feel like fucking with ndiswrapper.

Anyway, point of the thread is this: Fuzzy's new baby needs a name. Here is where you make suggestions. Get to it, lazeabouts.

#642: Jackass with a Compaq laptop with an Apple sticker on the lid.
#893: Hipster with an emo bang draping over his eyes. Would be only a little bad, if he didn't have a buzzcut on the rest of his head.

God I love French bread.

Somehow managed to get down to Dante's last night; I realized halfway there that, oh shit, tonight's the Voltaire concert and I'm running late, drive drive drive. But I managed to make it there on-time, and early. The opening was Ego Likeness; I heard their one good song and they quickly left the stage, thank God. Then Mr. Hernandez himself took the stage. I think he was getting a little pissed, 'cause the tour he's on right now is a lot of small club sets, and St. Louisans are drunken, loud, horny bastards. (I love my town.) He kept asking people to be quiet while he was talking, and, uh, unfortunately not. Highlight of the evening: having my arms wrapped around someone while Voltaire and the rest of the crowd (definitely including me) sang God Thinks. Forgot how much I love that man.

For a while, I thought Pointfest was on the day of my sister's wedding, but it turns out it's not, and it's the day after. So there is Coheed in my future! I am happy about this.

Also, Warped Tour this summer; I am happy about this one too.

I got the yearly program for Cornerstone today. I anticipated a fair amount of emo upon reading it, but I know two or three bands on main stage, and.. that's pretty much it. Have I been out of the loop for this long? Am I just.. dare I say it, but old? God. Oh well, not too upset about Cornerstone this year, other than Anberlin on main stage. (am not a loser.)

Okay so my week has been insane.

Worked Tuesday night from 10p-6a (without a cigarette, mind you; I'm quite proud) and came home. Was about to go to sleep around 10a, when Clare called me and said 'hey, want to come visit Maggie at the hospital?' So we did, and I get home around 5p, Kyle comes over, I buy a laptop from him, I stay up until around 12:30p, and pass out.

Wake up Thursday morning at 8:30a. Stayed up all day, went to work Thursday night 10p-6a, sit in lobby until 7:30a, go to BreadCo with McCormick, wash and wax his car, come home, shower, go out to lunch, drive around for a while, and eventually go to the City Museum, which I just got home from at midnight.

So. I slept Monday night/Tuesday morning. I slept for about 8 hours Wednesday night, and have been up for.. almost 40 hours now. Is that right? God, sleep deprivation's a hell of a drug. So is caffeine; I have been buzzing pretty much constantly for the last fifteen, sixteen hours.

My fingers seem very far away; this is harder to type than it should be.

I've played through a decent amount of video games in my life. Most are stuff like Need for Speed: Most Wanted, or SSX 3, or the Doom games, or the Tony Hawk games. Things along those lines. Some call them 'brogames'; I call them good for short attention spans, like mine. See, I have never been able to play through any game that I can't pick up and put down at will. Do a race here or a goal there, and come back to it on the next commercial.

Yes, this means that I had never finished an RPG. I've started Final Fantasy VI a couple times, Final Fantasy VII a few, and Chrono Trigger at least a good dozen. Castlevania: SOTN, two or three times. Star Ocean, Tales of Phantasia, Chrono Cross, Bahamut Lagoon, and God knows how may others I've dropped along the way.

Over the last two weeks, though, I made a conscious effort to fix that. And with all the fervor in the community lately over the coming fan translation of Mother 3, I thought, hell, why not give EarthBound a try?

I beat it about.. half an hour ago.

I have watched movies or read books where I got so wrapped up in the characters, so engrossed in the storyline, that when good things happened, I cheered; likewise, when bad things happened, I got upset, maybe even got a little misty-eyed. I begin to care about these fictional characters and about what happens to them, and when they get hurt, I feel it.

A video game has never made me cry before. I am not ashamed to admit that EarthBound did.

I will not declare that this is the best game ever. I will not put EarthBound on a pedestal that nothing can match. I will tell you that EarthBound affected me, emotionally, more than any other piece of art that I have experienced in quite a while.

Yes, art. This game is poetry. The localization isn't perfect; the characters sometimes trip over their own words, but when it happens, you don't care much, because you're too busy helping to pick them up and push them on towards their destiny.

If you can stand SNES RPGs, and you haven't played through EarthBound, you need to. This game is the nail in the coffin of the 'games as art' debate, because they can be when made by an artist, or group thereof.

buzz.

Alright so I think I've rediscovered my addiction to caffeine. Been through three 24oz cans of Monster Lo-Carb in the last 24 hours, as well as about 100oz of Coke and 60oz of coffee at work last night, half a 2-liter of Pepsi today, and I don't remember what else. This probably isn't good for my liver, but damned if I don't enjoy my brain working well again. Also fingers; typing at around 120wpm.

Going down to Rolla this weekend for Glitterball (hey I'm wearing a Glitterball shirt right now!) and radio show; if you live in Rolla, tune us in, if you don't, sucks for you. Not really, living in Rolla would be fucking boring. Anyway, hey locals, Glitterball is free, and if you show up I'll buy you a drink somewhere. Call me for information, or just go down the highway an hour and a half and listen for the music.

Spent the last few days doing a lot of thinking about the whole quote-unquote romantic side of my life. Have realized that I've been doing some things wrong; have invested energy into things that are not only unlikely to see any return, but are just black holes (not to insult anyone in particular); there are things that I should probably redirect those attempts at, but damned if I can see any that look any better from here.

I mean, don't get me wrong; there are women! I am attracted to them! But not enough to make me go for anything. I always find some fault, like 'oh, they're not smart enough' or 'oh, they smoke too much pot', or 'oh, they're dating someone else', or some thing along those lines.

All I want is the perfect woman. Pardon me while I blow a hole in my forehead instead of looking for her; it just seems easier, really, and a whole hell of a lot more fun.

Work all week except for some lame techno shit Monday night with the normal crew, and that's about all the further I have planned. Reservations encouraged: send to fuck_me@yourmom.gov. (I hear she's cheap.)

Overcome by the memory of walking into the wind down a busy city street, snow falling all around me; watching cars rushing back and forth, headlights casting shadows in the snowflakes that threaten to overtake the solace. Leaning forward, singing to the world, 'I'll take you for everything if you take me for who I am; I'll take you for who you are if you take me for everything.'

Waking back up to reality, realizing I'm just sitting in front of a window, watching the rain fall, wondering how I got from one to the other. Feeling like a Vonnegut character who has been unstuck in time, wandering back and forth between memories old and new.

My brain hasn't reacted quickly to anything all day. Every time I move my head, it's taken a few seconds to catch up; takes twice as long for any thoughts to work their way through, like worms through moist earth.

Seems all I can do today is sit in my basement, plugged ears with headphones blaring God only knows what. Mix CDs I've been given, albums with bad and good reviews, everything from Dean Martin to Depeche Mode, Pantera to Portishead, Jethro Tull to the Juliana Theory, and the Protomen. Bouncing back and forth between the music's contradictions, between hope-however-invalid and 'there are no heroes left in men', and I don't have a decision, no matter how bad I need one. Best I can decide is to stay down here and hide; at least it's easier, right?

I'm just tired. Not even the most optimistic guitar riff in history can cheer me up; it can't send those chills up my spine like it used to. I guess I need something else to do that now? Don't even know if I have that anymore, or if I ever did; the chills, or the spine.

Weasels surround me, overwhelming me. 'They have a lot to say; they have a lot of nothing to say.' Make a commitment to something; make plans or don't. I tell you to decide things because I can't do it myself; at least decide to run. That guitar riff just isn't holy anymore.

Doesn't look like anyone's behind the curtain anymore, and no one's on the levers, but the ride's still going. I'm scared.

I'm in a fucking righteous mood. As in, eight hours of soul-sucking bullshit at work couldn't even bring me down for more than a couple minutes; as soon as I was on my way home, that smile came back to my face.

I am.. insanely proud of myself. I have done good things lately, and they have helped both me and my quality of life.

To the people who stick with me, kick my ass when I fuck up, and celebrate with me when I do righteous acts of awesome: I love you so fucking much.

Tonight, I drink with friends. Not to feel better (less bad), but better (more good). I am pleased with my life.

Q: Why is there a bridge on my road?
Q: Why am I an idiot?

A: Because of the 12-foot creek I just tried to jump across.

Hello sleep-deprived brain, can you be MORE OF A MORON kthx.

I am going to laundry, then music, then sleep.

Then work at 10.

Shoot me now.

(last night was club, was loud music, was a little booze; DJ's girlfriend stripped and danced on the bar; would be a good thing, but Christ the herpes and the ugly; I thought I liked pierced nipples, but I'm not so sure anymore)

Then I say 'fuck you, brain', do those things, have entirely too much fun, and have no regrets about it until much later, if ever.

Went down to Rolla yesterday; hung out for a few hours, moved some shit around, saw a Nazi kid at a rental place (literally; goosestepping and sieg heiling. reminded me of John Cleese in Fawlty Towers), wandered around Rolla, went to a frat house, drank, went on a b-double-e-double-r-u-n, beer run, drank some more, flirted with Rob's girlfriend (and when I say flirted, I mean 'hold her hands together at the wrists above her head so others can molest her easier'; you say potato), drank a lot more, played some game where all I did was drink, sang the Beatles and Queen loudly with a room full of good people, crashed at a hotel with Maggie and McCormick, and then came home this morning.

So! A good time was had all around, as far as I can tell. Might be some trouble later, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

- My job is going super shitty lately. Most nights, there's three of us there, which is the corporate-policy-proscribed minimum to run the store, or even keep the place open. We get everything done, no problem, no worries, and I get off right when I'm supposed to. Thursday nights, though, there's only two of us, and it's bullshit. No one on closing does anything, so we have to clean up their mess, shortly followed by cleaning up our own mess. If we were closed, we could get everything taken care of, but when we have way too damn much business, we can't get shit done, and then we get bitched at in the morning. Is bullshit, and something needs to be done.

+ The girl I work with most nights is cute, and has a nice ass. This also goes for two of the other females who work in my store, one of whom wants me to go drinking with her soon.

- I am sick and tired of females, because they are dumb, and are not worth my time, right?

+ I have been listening to Five Iron Frenzy and braveSaintSaturn a lot lately! This makes me happy, because they are awesome.

- I have been listening to Five Iron Frenzy and braveSaintSaturn a lot lately. This makes me emo, because Every New Day, On Distant Shores, Anastasia, Daylight, and Under Bridges. (Yes, those are reasons.)

+ I am going to Rolla for the weekend to drink, drink, dance, and drink. And maybe have a little bit of alcohol, who knows?

- I am coming back Sunday night to work.

+ I am reading a long thread on my video game forums about BDSM, and it gives me nostalgic feelings from 2005.

- I am having nostalgic feelings from 2005.

+ I'm done writing this post!

In the last six months, I've picked up a lot of music. A lot of music. Out of all of that, the best album I've listened to in years is.. not what I was expecting it to be.



Yeah.

My God, this album. It's the perfect storm of snark, sarcasm, and irony, mixed with raw emotion, depression, loneliness, and anxiety. It's.. dear Lord, it's amazing.

Let's take a look at it, shall we?

( Track by track, what the hell. )

AbsolutePunk gave the album a 99%, and I tend to agree. ...is a Real Boy is just about perfect, as far as music goes.

Yes, just about. Yes, I still love In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 more. But only by the absolute slimmest of margins.

EDIT: For bonus points, you should totally click here.

Today, right before I left for work, one of the other employees showed up. I asked why she looked so down, and she said, 'Fuzzy, my girlfriend broke up with me, I really liked her, now I'm alone again, etc.' Normally, in this situation, I would instantly respond with some anti-relationship rant that would wind up convincing the person (for half an hour) that they were better off single.

Today, though, I just couldn't.

All I could do was feel my jaw go up and down, trying to come up with persuasive words, while she bemoaned her love life, or current lack thereof.

Does this mean I want a girlfriend? Surely not. Yeah, it's been a year, but.. no. I don't. I want to stay single!

Right?

Son of a bitch.

Sleep, then plumbing, then God only knows. Hopefully involving alcohol and avoidance.

Getting close to people always scares the shit out of me.

I am so fucked up inside, it's amazing I don't fall over more.

I'm like a wildly spinning gyroscope that just got shot at.

I'm not very good at metaphors. What I mean is this: I try to maintain this constant sense of emotional balance. It feels exactly like walking a tightrope. And, as you'd expect, I've gotten decent at it. Sometimes I fall off, but usually I just stumble a little and catch myself before too many people notice. I hate having such a big audience, though.

I don't know. Drinking tomorrow night. It'll help.

But for booze, I can renege on any morals you want.

( Clubbing? No, surely not. )

Definitely doing that again soon.

And not for the normal reasons!

( Ranting. )

I try to keep my life rather segmented. I have different groups of people who I socialize with differently, who I share certain information with, and I like it that way. I do this because I find it hard to trust humanity, as they're a very untrustworthy species. So when I do trust someone, it's because I think they've earned it.

And when someone who's earned it intentionally and willfully breaks that trust, it hurts worse than just about anything else they could possibly do.

I'm going to be offline for.. a long while. My life will be work sleep work sleep for a few months. I'll pop back up eventually, but don't come looking for me. If you absolutely need to get in touch with me, and you have my parents' phone number, you can try to get in touch with me there. I'd rather you didn't, though.

I need to go to Vegas.

Not only to play Blackjack.

I need to go to the Pinball Hall of Fame and play every one of their machines.

Let's see, they're open from 11am-11pm, or 12 hours a day. They have 142 tables; at an average of five minutes a table, that'll take 11 hours, 50 minutes. They also have another 39 assorted arcade machines, so add another 3 hours, 15 minutes.

In other words, two days and $50. Sounds like a deal. Who wants to go to Vegas?

On a related note, this post is because I saw footage of the museum on John C. Dvorak's weekly vidcast, Cranky Geeks. I haven't always agreed with Dvorak's opinions, but hell, he's a pundit. Who has? He's a smart man, though, and he knows his shit, and so do most of the people he has on the show. Go watch it some time.