Good News, Bad News

Good News: I graduate in about a month.

Bad News: WTF am I going to do after that?  I have to go out and be a real person now.  I’m not sure I can handle that.

Good News: Finished my thesis.

Bad News: My advisor hates it.  My meeting with him on Friday may end in tears for me.  Dread central.

Good News: Things with Potential Love Interest appear to be moving in the right direction.

Bad News: Suddenly everyone else has a crush on me, too.  Dammit you guys, why do you wait until there’s someone I’m interested in?  Seriously.

Good News/Bad News: Donovan McNabb was traded to my beloved Redskins.  Seriously, WTF.  I spent years hating this guy, and now I’ll be rooting for him.  I was pissed for a while, but after watching McNabb’s press conference yesterday, I feel much better about the situation.  I think we may start looking like a team instead of perplexed five-year-olds.  Who knows though; the Redskins never fail at being the Offseason Champions, so we’ll have to see what happens in the fall.

Good News: Summer seems to have arrived.  It’s 90 degrees outside.  It’s also April 7.  WHAT.

Bad News: I’ve had a fever yesterday and part of today, so I haven’t even been able to enjoy it.

Good News: Have weened myself off of caffeine, so I can actually function without coffee or Pepsi.

Bad News: I am now addicted to Gatorade, which probably isn’t much better.

Good News: REC 2 is out somewhere.  I need to hunt it down and watch it.  The first REC is easily one of my favorite horror movies ever.

Bad News: Watched Paranormal Activity.  Did people really find it that scary?  All I got out of it was a lot of time watching people sleeping, listening to a woman drop f-bombs on her dumbass boyfriend who keeps saying “dude,” listening to random banging that was probably supposed to make me jump, and failing to feel any sympathy for the absolutely stupid and arrogant assholes who were the main characters.  TL;DR Very underwhelming for all the hype that surrounded it.

Good News: Started getting frighteningly good at Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer.  Like, my kill-death ratio was actually going positive.  Once I had the most kills on my team.  WHAT.

Bad News: Now all I want to do is play MW2.

Good News: I’ll probably be keeping the rats after graduation.  SWEET.

Bad News: It would be sweeter if I had a job and a place to live.

Good News: Looking into freelance writing and blogging as a career option.  It sounds like something I would absolutely love doing.

Bad News: I have to look at options like that because there’s absolutely nothing out there for history majors.  Worst major ever.  I should’ve stuck to something practical instead of something I just “liked.”

Good News: I’ve made some new friends.

Bad News: One of said “friends” is my ex’s new girlfriend.  I’m pretty sure she’s trying to validate that she is the better option for him.  She’s probably also threatened because he still talks to me and IMs me a lot.  I always try to blow him off, because A) half the shit he says is ridiculous conspiracy theory bullshit, and B) I stopped caring about him quite a while ago.  She should be concerned with him, not me.  Potential Love Interest >>>> Conspiracy Theorist Ex.

So yeah, that’s my life in a nutshell right now.  Pretty average, yet aggravating.  Growing up sucks, I’m going back to 3rd grade.

OKCupid.com: An Experiment in Hilarity

Why oh why do I listen to dares?  This time it has landed me into OKCupid.com, one of those online dating sites.  While I have met one guy who seems somewhat cool (I’m not going to say anything about him, though, because 1. he’s a cool kid, 2. he has since deleted his OKC profile and we talk on AIM now so he doesn’t count anymore, and 3. there’s nothing to make fun of about him), the vast majority of dudes I’ve run into have been a bit weird.

Literally 30 minutes after I signed up, some guy IMed me.  He was quite odd.  He seemed cool at first, he lives in Fred Vegas, Redskins fan, personal trainer…but after a while the constant “watre u doing” got really annoying and creepy.  I wish I were joking.  I am glad he seemed to get the hint I was no longer interested and stopped contacting me the next day.

Next guy has family in Greece.  I should mention that on my profile I talk about how ancient Greece is my focus in my history degree.  For some reason, people with Greek heritage think I will throw myself at them because of that simple fact.  No.  Also, that was pretty much the only thing I had in common with this kid.  Plus he started getting creepy.  That was the end of that.

Next Greek guy was actually from Greece.  I saved his message for future giggles.  The subject line is, “DiD YOU EVER COME GREECE?”  Instant lulz.  The actual message reads, “HELLO,I AM [deleted] FROM ATHENS.DO YOU EVER VISIT GREECE?”  This guy is also 46. I didn’t even reply.

After that comes Strange Broken Hearted Guy.  This is his message: “Hello.. I hope I'm not bothering u at this time.. My name is [deleted] and after looking at your profile.. It would be an honor to chat with you sometime.. I'm 22 and I'm an aspiring artist. I like games (board, card, video, and sports of course lol) I've had much bad experiences with women and I think I deserve someone sensible. So I hope you consider this note and reply as soon as you can. Take care :)”  Honestly, this doesn’t seem like a bad kid but you shouldn’t just come right out and mention your past relationship issues.  Or maybe that’s just something that bothers me.  Anyway.

Facepalm Guy 1: “I had to actually google your religious view lol "Agnosticism" very interesting but I totally get it.
What are the qualifications for being a nerd ?”  First of all, this has to be the only person I’ve ever met in my life that didn’t at least know the basic idea of agnosticism, and I’m including a couple of 12 year olds in that pool.  Secondly, if you have to ask about nerd qualifications, you are not one, sorry.

HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK Guy: I saw that this guy had viewed my profile one day, but I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on in his profile picture.  So I looked at his profile, and lo and behold, it’s a 45 year old guy wearing a banana hammock, a collar and a leash.  Then he imed me.  I panicked and not only closed Firefox, but shut down my entire computer.  Just……no.

Facepalm Guy 2: (Sidenote: I mention my hydrophobia somewhere on my profile just for lulz) “are you seriously afraid of water? Out of everything there is you are afraid of water? or is it just large bodies of water...”  After I stopped laughing, I had to reply to this guy.  As with my religious beliefs or lack thereof, I usually don’t have to explain it to people; it’s pretty obvious what I mean by it.  I love chugging water and soaking in bath tubs, I’m not going to run screaming in the other direction because someone’s holding a bottle of Aquafina.  I mean, honestly, guy.

Those are all the funny ones so far.  I have learned some shit about myself in the process, which I guess makes this a worthwhile experiment.  Firstly, I have some ridiculously high standards.  I mean, goddamn.  I seriously need to chill out.  It is next to impossible that I will find a guy who is like Thom Yorke, Joel Hodgson, and Eli Manning all wrapped up into one person.  Secondly, I have a severe aversion to replying to people unless I really have something to talk about with them.  I’m fine in real life, which is strange because you’d think talking over the Interwebs would be easier.  Not for this weirdo, apparently.  I suck.  Also, I should be less self-deprecating.  Actually, fuck that, it’s fun and I will never, ever be accused of having a huge ego.

So anyway.  I was totally going to delete this shit after a month or so but I’m receiving so much entertainment from it that I’ll hang around a little longer.  There doesn’t seem to be too many creepers on there, and the matching system seems pretty decent, so why the hell not?  Though I’m not really concerned about relationships at this point (especially because I’m preoccupied with graduating college and actually becoming an adult and shit) I figure what the hell, it’s there.  Hopefully I’ll get some more funny shit soon.

Sims 3 - World Adventures EP

I broke down and bought the Sims 3 expansion pack, even I didn’t think it looked all that great and, as previously demonstrated, I’m not crazy about the base game.  However, I am the master of impulse buys and later deep regrets.  The deep regret of this purchase hasn’t quite hit, or at least not yet.

Basically, if you’ve played Sims 1 or 2 and know of Bon Voyage and Vacation/On Holiday, you know what to expect with World Adventures.  You can take your pixel dolls to China, France, or Egypt and immerse them into a very watered down version of the actual countries.  It would have been sweet if your sims had to learn the languages and were standing there holding a translation book mispronouncing everything with the sims who live there just stand there and laugh, but hey, I’m a history major, not a game designer.  Whilst there, the sims can go on these crazy adventures that lead them into tombs and such.  They can also steal precious artifacts so they won’t be taken care of properly and future generations will not understand past cultures and humans and therefore will be doomed to make similar mistakes or just being rock stupid in general.  /historymajor

I actually found these little quests quite fucking tedious.  Maybe I’m just lazy (80% possibility), but it’s not like Fallout 3 or Borderlands where you just point the analogue stick/mouse while holding down WASD to get through one area.  You have to click around each maze to keep the sims from killing themselves.

Like Jimbob McGee here.  First time he was going through a tomb in China I was like, “Oh, he’s probably smart enough not to walk through fucking fire.”  When the Grim Reaper showed up to take away the now toasty Jimbob, I realized I was putting too much faith in the programming.  Sorry, Jimbob.  Again though, tons of clicking.  And if you want more than one person to go through a tomb, expect even more.
The visa system is an interesting new twist, though.  All sims start off with a level 1 visa for each location, and must acquire points through adventuring in order to gain a higher visa level.  On visa level 1, they can only spend three days on location before getting booted into a loading screen regardless of what they were previously doing.  Because I’ve been playing an epic amount of Red Faction:Guerrilla and I’m now back at school, I haven’t managed to get anyone past level 1 yet.  I’m also not trying very hard, so there’s that.

Sims can also enjoy the new hobbies photography and martial arts.  Martial arts is hilarious because they start off fighting with the sissiest half-hearted slapping you’ve ever seen.  Photography is sort of silly because the challenges are pretty weird.  One of them is to take a picture of a tissue box.  Yeah.

With every expansion, of course, there’s new shit to pimp your sims out with.  Such as this hairstyle, and this eyeliner that looks like an earthquake hit in the middle of the application process.

 
Seriously, what the fuck.

There isn’t a ton of new shit, which is understandable given that there are basically 3 more neighborhoods instead.  In general, it’s a few new Create-A-Sim shit like hair and clothing (men are once again largely overlooked unless you want like 12 new hats), as well as some nice Chinese, French, and Egyptian styled furniture and decor.  There’s also a totally bitching moped that made me giggle furiously.  Other than that, gameplay back in the normal neighborhood is pretty much untouched.

Of course, because this is EAxis we’re talking about, there’s some pretty gnarly bugs in this expansion.  The biggest one is the fact that the launcher refuses to install a bunch of custom content, even if it’s content from the Sims Store.  That’s right, if you were willing to pay money for some little pixel furniture, guess what?  You can’t even use it unless you use some insane fix that involves converting files or sacrificing to Odin or something ludicrous.  Great job, EAxis!  Further, I personally have had weird shit like sims not going to school or work and therefore performance slips to ridiculously bad levels, an issue that I’ve only been able to solve by using the Awesomemod’s “backtowork” command at 9 AM, 3 PM, and 8 PM.  That or just letting everyone fail and then sitting back and laughing, but usually I actually want to play the game as they meant for it to be played.  Another weird glitch is that sometimes inventory objects will just vanish.  Shit sucks if it’s an adventuring item that you need in order to get more visa points.  I never thought I would ever actually say “FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU…” in real life, but I did that day.

Honestly I don’t understand EAxis’ bug fixing policy.  Some of the issues people have been having have been around since the base game.  Half the bugs EAxis doesn’t fix are fixed by fan-made mods like the Awesomemod.  I understand the economy sucks and they may not want to hire a whole bunch of testers, but if some regular guy can fix this shit for free and do it within a couple of days, what’s EAxis doing?
I feel like I rant about EAxis every time, but sweet Jesus, I don’t think I’ve ever played a game this buggy that doesn’t get a patch within a few days.  Hell, wasn’t Modern Warfare 2 patched like the day after it was released because there were issues with multiplayer?  Infinity Ward, go help EAxis or something.  Damn.

Anyway.  It’s hard for me to recommend this expansion pack, but I feel like that’s probably because of who I am.  Currently I’m having a ton of fun beating dudes with a sledgehammer in Red Faction.  World Adventures, by comparison, is kinda boring.  If you enjoyed the other “journey to another land” expansion packs of Sims 1 and 2, you’ll probably enjoy this one.  It’s a good expansion, but I wouldn’t have used it as the first one.  I think they should’ve done something like Nightlife/Hot Date and mix up everyday gameplay a bit.  Again though, I study ancient Greece so my opinion is moot, really.

Final verdict: meh.  Hold your money until a patch is released.

Why Can’t We All Get Along?

I started another (YES ANOTHER) blog.  This is the first post on it.  I really just can’t sit still anymore.  Also, behold the first blog post I’ve ever written that contains no profanity.  Now you know I mean serious business.

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I guess the reason I started this blog comes from the news that Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the hospital tonight with chest pains.  I  found this out on Twitter, which as you can imagine, is an infestation of everything wrong with the way we as humans think.  I was rather horrified to see people actually hopeful that this man would die.  Further, those who label themselves as conservatives or right-wing are taking the opportunity to generalize all those who may consider themselves liberals or left-wing.  WHY?

Because human beings, I have determined from 21 years of first hand research, are disgusting.

Seriously, let's all take a look at ourselves.  First we must categorize ourselves into completely ridiculous and arbitrary groups (conservative, liberal, religious, atheist, gay, straight, poor, rich).  Next, hate everyone who does not have the same views, ideas, and/or experiences as we do.  Bash the "other side" relentlessly.  And what does this accomplish?  Absolutely nothing.  This "us-against-them" game never ends.  Neither side will ever be able to get ahead, which in turn makes nothing change.

This is why I created this new blog.  I may only be 21, but I'm already sick of the way we think, particularly in America.  Seriously, try watching Congress or even one of the 24 hour news networks.  It's so reminiscent of high school it's not even funny.  Some of these people are 3 times older than I am and yet act less than half my age.  What happened to calmly discussing things like adults?  Cooperation?  Compromise?  Working together?  Respecting everyone around you just for being human, even if you didn't quite see eye to eye?  Maybe this never happened and I'm just ridiculously optimistic.

I honestly think we could change though.  With work and patience maybe we can start fixing things.  At this point, it's just me and a blog I've started out of anguish and frustration with the world, but I do hope there are others out there just as optimistic as I am.

The world just sucks right now.  I just see all of this fighting and bickering...and for what?  Nothing gets accomplished with screaming contests, insults, and violence.  At least, that's what I was taught in third grade. However, I don't see why that wouldn't work in the real world as well.  I have hope that we humans still have enough good in us to start viewing things in a different way.  Perhaps we'll learn that what we're doing isn't  working.  Perhaps not.

For now, all I can change is myself.  I'll be taking on the world though, one person at a time.  It's my 2010 resolution.  Game on.

I am ridiculously sick of papers, so I’m writing about AI fans.

No seriously.  I feel like I’ve done nothing but write papers for the past two weeks.  I’m burned out.  My Anglo-Saxon art paper is total shit right now just because I cannot get it going, or get myself to care.  This is terrible.  Luckily these are only supposed to be rough drafts, because this shit is certainly rough.

Also, the posts on TopIdol about this woman named Holly (latest post here) are really fucking disturbing.  I know people, including myself, enjoy learning about the insane things people do and getting a good laugh out of it (because if I didn’t laugh I’d probably curl up into a ball in a corner and cry that people like this exist).  However, when you think about it, and read about women like this who are even more unstable than most, it really is cause for concern. 

For instance, this Holly stalks every woman seen with David Cook, calling them a bitch, whore, skank, etc.  Just because they are seen with him and happen to have a vagina.  Seriously, what the fuck.  Furthermore, this woman uses a shit ton of sockpuppet accounts to make it seem like there are more people involved in these shenanigans other than just her.  It’s obvious that they’re sockpuppets too, because the writing style is the same, the same spelling errors are made, and when she posts of TopIdol she doesn’t bother to change her IP address.  So basically it’s a woman, a ton of accounts on a message board she started, and a helluva lot of free time.

BUT WHY?  Does she think she’s trying to protect David Cook?  This is what it sounds like from one of her comments on TopIdol.  Can’t remember the exact quote, but it was something to the extent of “we’re trying to protect him from himself.”  That just raises more questions for me.  Why does this woman think that David Cook needs protection? (She’s probably insane.)  What is he doing that is hurting himself?  (Nothing.)  Does she really think there’s a “we” involved in this?  (I wouldn’t be surprised.)

This brings up more points about rabid fans, not just Holly.  Why do so many people get so emotionally attached to celebrities?  They don’t know them personally.  Do they just need something to latch onto, and something about a particular person appeals to them?  Are there issues in their own lives that they’re trying to escape from, and therefore try to live their lives vicariously through these stars?  I really just don’t understand.  Hell, even at my lowest point I was never like, “I MUST MAKE SURE RADIOHEAD IS SUCCESSFUL IN EVERYTHING THEY ARE REMOTELY INVOLVED IN.”  (Nevermind the fact that they’ve been successful for like, 17 years now with little help from me.)  Fuck, the only Radiohead merch I have other than their music is a poster.  I see pictures of women with every magazine Adam Lambert or Clay Aiken or David Cook ever appeared on, dolls they’ve made, t-shirts they’ve bought or made themselves, etc.  You can be a legit fan without completely losing your shit and dignity, people.

And another thing: why come the really off the wall people seem to be older women attached to American Idol contestants?  WTF.  In high school, and even now as a college senior, I only know a few people who actually give a shit about this show.  And those few usually forget about the show once it’s over, though they may still enjoy the music of one or two of the contestants.  Is it the personal light that the show puts on the contestants?  Does that make them more relatable to people who may need a connection such as that?  Still though, it’s not healthy.  This phenomenon also seems to have become more rampant in the past few years, with the exception of Clay Aiken.  Or maybe I just haven’t been paying attention.  I mean, I do feel like there is something happening culturally that affects this, because you can find insane fans of about anyone, but those that stick out the most seem to be AI fans.

But the age thing.  Completely baffling to me.  Why the fuck are so many of these women grown and often with families of their own?  And why are they spending so much time and energy on a celebrity instead of their families, who are right there and may actually need them?  I remember reading on VFTW or Idletard about a woman whose son who was becoming an alcoholic among other problems, blew up at her over her intense Clay Aiken fandom.  She seemed baffled as to why in her post.  It makes me wonder if his problems could have been amplified by the fact that she wasn’t paying much attention to him because she was busy scouring the Internet about Clay.  And many of the husbands have to feel like shit if they don’t like the same person or want to join the fandom.  How many more families are screwed up by this?  I tend to give younger fans a break, because we do tend to latch onto things more as we’re younger, but these obsessive like states usually don’t last too long.  Also, many of them become busy with school or other activities.  They don’t have families to support.  These older women should know better.

If I were a psychology major, this would be the most epic senior thesis ever.  There’s so much weird shit within these fandoms that it’s just mind-boggling.  I’ll probably never be able to understand.  I’ve never known anyone to be so obsessed with something (except maybe Ben and Halo, but he grew out of that 2 years ago because he finally realized that there are much better FPSs out there, thank God).  It’s like a whole different dimension of people for whom these activities are normal, and they cross over into whatever the fuck dimension I’m living in like some Stargate shit and give me epic mind fucks.  That is the only explanation I can come up with.  Stargate. 

Damn my mom completely ruined me for life with the Star Trek/Stargate/MST3K triforce.  Time for class.

Hail to the Redskins? No, go fuck yourselves you guys.

Someone on the official message board had the best response to someone who was bitching at all of us Redskins who are fed up with this franchise: "I didn't leave the Redskins, they left me."

It's strange for me to get so emotionally invested in football, though it has been a major part of my life. However, when your team plays that badly against a team who hadn't won a game in nearly two years, it's upsetting. Yes, the Redskins haven't been that good since the 80s, but at least they tried, and at least it was still entertaining, even if in a MST3K-way. Right now it's just painful to watch. Seriously, save for a few players, they gave up in the 2nd quarter, and I followed suit soon after.

Skins fans are all trying to point fingers right now. It's not a clear-cut issue, but it's quite clear that there are some major issues up at the top. Dan Snyder has no fucking idea how to manage a football team, and needs a general manager who actually knows football to make the big decisions like drafting players and picking coaches. Snyder runs this shit like a Madden 2010 fanboy and just buys the most expensive players because he can, regardless of whether or not they are actually worth that (I'm looking at you, Haynesworth). It'd be a dream come true if Snyder sold the team, but it's his cash cow so I sort of doubt he will unless something drastic happens.

It's pretty clear that Jim Zorn is not head coach material, and I figured that when they first announced that he'd gotten the job. Again, his hiring goes back to Snyder. Why hire someone who has had never been a head coach or even had experience as a coordinator? Who fucking does that, other than a goddamned idiot? Zorn also has had a lobotomy or something, because he runs the same play every fucking time they get near the endzone. Run the ball to the left. Unfortunately the other teams aren't as fucking retarded and know that we're going to that side, thus they defend accordingly. Yet in the post-game conference Zorn said, "It was a very solid play." Fuck you in the neck, sir.

There's also some guy named Vinny Cerrato who has the completely bullshit title of "Executive Vice President of Football Operations." He was hired because he was one of Snyder's racquetball buddies. I'm only semi-joking. He was also the star of some 1994 movie called "Kindergarten Ninja." Basically, dude is a fucking joke. After yesterday's shitfest , a journalist wrote: "As soon as we made eye contact, Cerrato said, 'No comment.' It was the first time in 20 years as a journalist someone declined to answer a question before I even had the opportunity to ask one." He's a useless bitch who should go do something he'd actually be good at, like flipping burgers.

Player wise it's a bit better, but there are some clear weak links. A good chunk of the defense needs to GTFO. London Fletcher is actually my favorite person right now (other than Hunter Smith, who is actually the punter but scored the first touchdown with a fake field goal that made everyone shit bricks and gave me some faith). Fletcher brusied his rib, yet continued playing and played harder than fucking anyone else even when the rest of his team gave up. He is the top player in the NFL for tackles right now. He also just admitted this morning on TV that they're a shit team and haven't been since the late 80s. So yay, Fletcher, for acknowledging that fact (though it's obvious, it's nice to see that they recognize it so they'll hopefully get their shit together) and for being awesome.

Jason Campbell is looking steadily worse as a quarterback, dropping the ball and taking way too fucking long to throw the damn thing. I have a jersey of his, but it's at my parents house in a box somewhere, so that tells you how I feel about him at this point. I also have Clinton Portis' jersey, but he's looking totally worn out these days. They run him entirely too much, and it's showing now. Chris Cooley is another bright spot on the team, but amidst the sea of suck that is the offense he can't really shine like he should. Everyone else just ranges from shit to mediocrity and don't stand out in any way.

It's clear that the team has completely lost heart. They've had some low points, but this is probably the lowest ever. Redskins used to be one of the best and most respected teams out there, now they're a laughing stock and an embarrassment to those of us who still root for them. They play like they don't care anymore. Whatever is happening behind the scenes, in the locker room, or at practice is really doing a number on these guys and it's rather disturbing and upsetting to watch. They have as much ability as other teams, and if they don't want to give it their all...what can you do? I don't want to root for a team that just goes through the motions. I've always been a self-deprecating fan (and person in general), but even I have my limits. They're not even a football team right now, as I see it.

At least I'll have 3 more hours on Sundays to get things done now.

Show Choir: Part of a Series on Bad Ideas

No, I'm not in a show choir. And if I had any desire to be in one, it would have died quickly tonight.

It's Family Weekend here, which means a bunch of performances and exhibitions of "OH LOOK, WE'RE TOTALLY NOT WASTING YOUR MONEY." My roomie from last year and another friend of ours are in orchestra and jazz band, respectively, and both were part of the big musical shindig tonight. I always go to these things because I am a former band geek, I support my friends, and I enjoy live music and I've never seen a bad concert from these guys. So I call up some more of our friends and we get ready to go.

"You realize that between the two, you'll have to sit through show choir, right?" I was told as we headed out into the rain.

A bit of background here: Last year, near the beginning of the term and when my roomie and I were still somewhat awkward around each other, she came in totally ROFL (she was actually on the floor at one point) about show choir. Whatever event she had gone to, she had experienced show choir and it was totally horrendous. According to eyewitness reports the men had on bright blue sparkly shirts and were trying to act ridiculously cool. Roomie and her friend had made the mistake of sitting in the front row and had to hide their faces in their programs because they were laughing so hard.

This year they're supposedly better than the trainwreck last year, but seeing how bad they were tonight I can't imagine it being worse. There were no bright blue sparkly shirts, which was thoroughly disappointing. The ladies had on shirts that had a bit of sequin action around the collar, but nothing completely absurd. The men were boring and just wearing all black. Wardrobe aside, the singing and dancing was absolutely god-awful.

First they did "I Believe" from Spring Awakening. The program said the song was written by Duncan Sheik and as a result I have "Barely Breathing" stuck in my head. Spring Awakening is actually supposed to be a pretty good show, but you wouldn't know it from this performance. It began with them just walking out, but doing what I call the Dance Walk where you step toe-first instead of heel-first. This went on for an entire minute. Then they stood there, with some people in the front sitting down and totally rocking some arm-shelves. Then a jazz box. Then some rainbow arm movements. What I'm getting at is that visually they might as well have just sat the fuck down because watching them wander around seemingly aimlessly was not doing it for me. It would have been nice if, since the dance aspect wasn't there, the singing was good, but it was not. The ladies weren't too bad, and only had a few times when they sounded off. The men, however, were a hot mess. I kept wishing they'd find a key and stick to it, because it sounded like a bunch of cows in a field. But the key was never found, to my bemusement. Finally the song was over, which was good because my ribs were aching already.

Next, "Sing, Sing, Sing." They tried to do swing moves. I was sitting with other swing kids. We cried together. It was an affront to all that is swing. Swing is supposed to be goofy, I know, but goddamn there's a difference between hamming it up and throwing away your dignity. Fuck, you guys. I cut them a bit of slack on the singing, seeing as to how they actually were moving in this song. They of course sounded winded and were dropping out all over the place, which I sort of expect, but you would think that with practice they'd get a bit more used to it. Again, I was too dismayed at the dancing to really pay attention to the singing.

Finally, "I Move On" from Chicago. Oddly enough I've never seen Chicago, and I've done two routines to music from it. Probably should fix that at some point. Anyway, the solo girl was clearly the glue that held this whole thing together. She was this tiny little black girl that had a surprisingly good voice. It was clear why she got the solo. However, some guy also got a solo, but it took me quite some time to figure out who the fuck was singing, since he wasn't prominently displayed like she was. Bad choreography, I think. He sounded like shit compared to her. The dancing was still terrible, so I started looking at the individual performers.

There were a few people who were seriously fucking into it, and then others who looked like they lost a bet and as a result had to join show choir. There was this really tall girl who already stood out, but insisted on making her moves really fucking huge. Close to her was this really short guy who looked like a creeper and threw his whole body into the routine like it was a life or death situation. Looking totally bored was a really tall, lanky black guy, and several brunette girls. Oddly enough, most of the people who were really into it were guys. You'd think that they'd be really concerned about their masculinity with something like this, because there is no way you can look cool doing this shit. I respect that they are comfortable with themselves enough to do this, because I am not.

I half expected some of the older people in the audience to enjoy some cheesy shit like this. However, the group of parents in front of me were laughing as hard as I was. Looking around I saw a healthy mixture of facial expressions: bemused confusion, straight up confusion, incredulous, horrified, totally bemused, laughter, and blank stares. I have never experienced that in any audience before. So I didn't feel so bad giggling uncontrollably, but I still tried to suppress it, just out of respect.

This being my first experience with a show choir of any sort, I had no idea what I was about to watch. I really cannot believe how haughty and arrogant they sounded after the show when we were waiting for our friends to meet up with us. I don't think it's possible to look good while doing that shit. Hell, in swing we know we look retarded and don't even try to pretend that shit is cool. And for the first time ever I honestly have to say that someone else is worse than us. Show choir is just a terrible idea in general. It's awkward to take songs that belong in the context of a full-blown theater show and just throwing in some random choreography. It's also pretty clear that the majority of these people are not dancers, and a good many aren't doing so great as singers either. Putting all of it together, it's only entertaining to the audience for all the wrong reasons.

Random thoughts that I have, and thinking doesn't occur too often for me.

• Writing a screening report for the film "Double Indemnity." Good movie, but I had to watch it about 4 times just now to analyze the mise en scene, cinematography, editing, etc. for my film studies course. Fun class because my friends Tommy, Brian and I just sit in a row and MST3K everything. I am Tom Servo, albeit less red and my head isn't transparent. But it does take the fun out of film watching, because I was watching Kill Bill this weekend and I was like, "HOLY SHIT MEDIUM CLOSE UP REVERSE SHOT."
• Chris Sligh's blog post that people are losing their shit about right now is totally the truth and people just want to see everything with rose-colored lenses. Unfortunately, the world sucks and when you accept that fact things seem easier. What I'm trying to say is, if you're offended by anything that he says you should probably just kill yourself.
• Fuck. I've spent too much time on the Internet. Don't kill yourself. However, do feel free to sit down and shut the fuck up, or at least read the entire thing and understand it before you launch into a half-informed fury.
• The dance we are doing for my modern dance class is fucking ridiculous. It's set to Owl City's "Fireflies," which is a totally shitty yet fucking addictive song (I've listened to it way more than I'd like to admit). At one point I have to pick another girl up and swing her around. I'm glad I worked out this summer and thus have some upper body strength, otherwise it'd be bad for her. We also have to run around with our arms stretched out like we're catching fireflies. I feel so retarded.
• In other dance news, swing dance is fucking retarded too. I'm the treasurer this year, but it's shitty when no one else does what they need to so I can beg for money from the school for it. The president wants a budget tomorrow but no one else has given me figures, which they were supposed to give me by Saturday. Thanks, guys. Also, the president is pissing me off, from general disorganization and fucktardery. I mean, she acts like the newbies are in kindergarten and can barely walk. Basic swing dancing is not fucking hard, I taught my dance-retarded roommate swing in about 45 minutes and my bitch looks pro (not really, but still pretty fucking good.) Yet the prez goes through about 3 dance moves in each hour-long lesson and the kids get fucking bored. I'm doubly bored because I've been doing this shit for 3-4 years. And they've all got the moves down, it's just that the prez has no fucking idea what she's doing. I've brought this up to her, and she gave me some half-ass answer. I figure I'm the treasurer so I should focus on money-grabbing/managing and just let the shit fly, but if she doesn't pick up the pace people aren't going to stick around long.
• We got pet rats for our apartment. BITCHES ARE CRAZY. Mine is fucking out of control. She must see everything up close, and learn what it is and if she can eat it. We let them out last night, and while her two sisters wandered around but stayed close to the cage and us, she was all over the living room. I do not know what is wrong with her, but I guess that's a rat for you. I'm so used to reptiles (I haven't had a mammal as a pet since I was six) that I'm like "WHAT IS THIS WARM BLOODED CONTRAPTION WITH FUR?" I really do prefer my reptiles, I have learned that about myself.
• I've also learned that I am a total fucktard. I mean, I had my suspicions before, but now it's just fact. I seriously just do shit that screws myself over all the fucking time. And I never hurt anyone else, because if anyone else is involved it'll be done right. If it's just me, I will fuck myself over. I think I have deeprooted loathing of myself.
• I walked to my Medieval Europe class listening to "Flashdance" the other day. Felt so badass, yet really fucking strange. "What a FEEEELIIINNG...to talk about the Lombard laws!"
• There's a new place in downtown called University Cafe that's sort of an offcampus dining place for students. The first time I walked in I was like, "HOLY SHIT THEY'RE PLAYING RADIOHEAD!" Radiohead played the entire time I was there. I was so fucking happy. A+++ will dine again.
• I think I've just consumed half my body weight in M&Ms. Wait that'd be like 60 pounds of chocolate. Okay, no.
• Speaking of my weight, I lost 10 pounds this summer due to switching my medication. Shitsux because I don't really have that much weight to begin with, and now a good bit of my clothing doesn't fit anymore. Fuck. And I've probably lost more because I haven't weighed myself in a while, and I eat considerably less when I'm at college than at home. I don't look anorexic but I am apparently noticeably thinner. FFFFFFUUUUU...
• I hate being a Redskins fan. Why am I such a diehard fan/masochist? Bitches suck right now.
• And I really, really need to go to bed. My eyes are starting to cross.
  

So. New pets.

I don't know if I mentioned this, but my gecko Draco died in May. Infection. He was badass about everything, but was finally brought down. My entire family was sad. I fucking cried for two days straight. Over a gecko. But I'd had him for seven years, so we'd all gotten pretty attached.

So. Here at MDub. My roommates and I were like, we should really get something, pet-wise. And I mentioned how my best friend owns three, and how awesome they are. Their reactions were "HOLY SHIT YESSSS." And this was all yesterday.

Today, we actually went out and bought them, one for each of them. Talk about an impulse buy. We spent the afternoon reading up on care, and the lady at the store was very knowledgeable and helpful in answering the rest of our questions, and picking out necessities.

So yeah. In less than 24 hours, the population of our apartment doubled.

Mine is named Chryseis. Because, fuck yeah, Homer's Iliad. There's no other reason, really, I just wanted to be really fucking nerdy, as a wanna-be Ancient Greek historian. She is ridiculously curious about fucking everything. My laptop just got a full scan: every key was examined. I too received a very thorough look over. Her little nose goes crazy sniffing everything. It's hilarious to watch. Chryseis also enjoys crawling under my hair and licking my neck, which is awful because I'm am ridiculously ticklish on my neck. She must like me as much as I like her, because when I tried to put her back into the cage she fucking freaked. Like, clinging to me and squeaking. I felt bad, but I wanted to fucking eat and she needs to be with her sisters anyway. I finally got her in, but she gave me this look like, "You bitch."

Pictures coming tomorrow, I suppose. I have a fairly busy day, with our first swing dance meeting of the year (and there are always tons of people for the first couple of weeks, until we weed out the ones that aren't as serious). I also need to go to the lady in charge of club finances to beg for money, and fill out a fuckload of forms. The joy of being treasurer.

More shit later.

Sims 3 Review

So, being a Sims fan since it first came out, I was pretty damned stoked for the third installment of the series. Okay, I was fucking ecstatic. When I sat down to play for the first time, I was giddy with joy and the excitement of something new. However, over time that has mellowed out to "meh" and in some cases, outright disgust. There are great new aspects, but the cost of new things seems to be some of the old that were loved by the gamers and part of the reason why so it grew so huge. Without further ado, the super awesome review.

The Good

• Seamless neighborhood. Seriously, anyone who doesn't like this is a fucking fool. Those goddamn loading screens everytime I wanted to go to the park...grr.
• Traits. I enjoy my excitable, kleptomaniac, inappropriate, friendly vegetarian.
• SOME customization. You can change the Sims' voices, and create a style for interior decorating has killed many hours for me. I'll explain why I say "some" later.
  
• Some cool graphic effects. The light changes gradually throughout the day, instead of "Hey, it's 6 PM! BAM PITCH BLACK OUTSIDE." Also, plants move and sway, and according to some people you can see birds, but I'm not that observant and/or my comp sucks too bad for that.
• Moodlets. Again, just adds a sense of realism. Watching a good movie does make you happier, for at least a while.
• Jobs. I like the opportunities, or little projects that your sim can accomplish outside of work like reading a book, giving a speech, or delivering something to city hall. They boost job performance. While working, you can also choose how your sim spends their time. They can meet their coworkers, hang out and socialize, work hard, or slack off. Pretty nice.

The Bad

• Hardly any base game items. The ones that they have either don't look good or are obvious rehashes of those in Sims 2. But the obvious reason for this will be discussed later.
  
• No Body Shop. Yeah, you can't make your own clothes, hair, skintone, eyes, etc. without going in some roundabout way. Excuse me if I'm wrong, but I thought that was the reason why Sims 2 did so well--the vast options to customize our pixel people. But that just gets ripped away.
• Round pudding faces. Everyone has the same damn facial structure and double chins, even if they're the thinnest sims you can make. I readily acknowledge, however, that this may just be because I'm so used to Sims "You can make the eyes bigger than your goddamn head" 2 and I'll get used to it.
• Motive system seems off. While Sims sleep for fucking ever and are hungry all the goddamn time, I've only had to tell mine to pee twice. Um...if that happens to someone in real life they should probably see a doctor/drink way more water.
• Ridiculous behavior at times. After Woo-hoo (sex) they just go back to their "relaxing position" (stretched out on the bed with their arms folded over their torsos calmly) and chat. At least in Sims 2 they cuddled, and in some instances congratulated their partner (I'm not kidding). When feeding babies or toddlers, the bottle is pulled out of thin air, and when finished, vaporizes again. Also, all it takes to change a diaper is to toss the child up in the air spinning like a fucking top and they are instantly clean. I WISH THIS SHIT WERE POSSIBLE IN REAL LIFE. But since it's not, and this game prides itself on realism, and the other two were more realistic in this aspect, I don't understand why it would be so hard to put it in this game. Again, I readily accept that this is just something I'm being picky about and may get used to.
• Community lots. All of them, save for parks, are "rabbit holes" (meaning you can't actually see the interior. This makes since for workplaces and schools, but restaurants and stores? Honestly? Part of the fun of them was seeing your other Sims dining or shopping and having them interact together. I guess this means no hilarious shenanigans at nightclubs anymore, either.
• It's a whole different game. Fuck all this "it's simply a more realistic Sims 2!" Most of the features from Sims 2 ( and by that I mean "all of the good ones") are gone. It plays nothing like it. Playing feels like playing a game that was meant to be on a console ported to PC.
  

The What the Fuck, EA?

• Only one neighborhood and no option to make your own. In Sims 2 I never played the pre-made 'hoods except when I was learning how to play and trying out the new features. Why? Because I like creating ridiculous neighborhoods filled with mentally unstable pixel people and seeing the binary sparks fly. Shit is awesome. Plus I hate pre-existing storylines. I want my Sims to be the most ridiculous soap opera ever. Like Twilight but without all the suck and fail.
• Storytelling mode. This is the thing that has made me rage the hardest. In previous Sims games, you played one family at a time and all the other families were stuck in time, or limbo you might say. You would go back to them later and they'd be doing the exact same things as when you left. Now, however, they all continue living. Meaning they'll grow up, die, get jobs, meet new people, fall in love, wed, AND EVEN FUCKING MOVE OUT when you're not paying attention. No, seriously. I started a nice, charming little family and moved them into a house. After getting them accustomed I switched to another house. The Sim there was reading a newspaper that popped up saying that the other family had moved away. I went to view the neighborhood, and sure enough, the family's house was now occupied by a random family that I did not create nor put there. Needless to say, I was pretty fucking livid. If I create a damn family it's because I want to play them, fuckers. Further, I've also left a sim in a nice, stable spot, and returned later to find her pregnant and nearly broke. She'd apparently gotten knocked up some random townie and went on a book shopping spree.
• The Sims 3 Store. This is just fucking hateful, and what I think is clearly the reason why there's hardly any objects in this thing. They want you to pay more money for their crap! Yes, in this economy with a nearly 10% unemployment rate in this country, they expect you to pay $20 for a fucking binary code furniture set that still looks like shit, on top of a $50 base game. YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME, EA. How fucking greedy are you shitheads? Not to mention a high number of Sims players are teens and young adults, meaning we don't have that much money to spend. We got you to the point where you can boast that you have the highest selling video game. You should be paying us, because without us you'd still be making Sim Ant or whatever the fuck, you fucking twats.

Going off of that last statement, I think EA is just treating their customers like shit in general. When they started putting SecuRom on their disks, which is a copy-protection program that has been sued numerous times for being potentially harmful malware, they tried to silence anyone who lodged a complaint on their forum. They had also started the Sims store shit then, which was not popular, especially since regular players always had better looking stuff, and for free. So it seems like they're trying to force it by making customization much harder and not putting a lot of material in there. And I understand it's a business and they want a profit, but dammit, they've never had a problem before and they seemed to be doing as well as ever before they started this. After...I don't know.

I know I'm not the only person pretty disappointed. Just taking a cursory glance at some forums I see that many people have the same complaints. Many more people are just not buying it. EA clearly didn't understand the concept of "ain't broke, don't fix it." I think I'm going back to Sims 2.

Greatest waste of money ever.

I had preordered the Mystery Science Theater 3000 20th Anniversary Edition a couple of weeks ago, but Amazon had told me, "LOL YOU'RE NOT GETTING IT UNTIL NOVEMBER 3RD, SUCKA!" So what a surprise when I checked the status of my lovely set and found that it arrived today! The day it was released! I love you, Amazon! You facilitate my MST3K infatuation so nicely.

I already had all of the episodes, but I wanted the high quality versions(in other words, not ripped off of VHS tapes that were recorded from the TV, and in some cases still had some hilariously awesome mid 1990s commercials) and to free up some hard drive space. The package was ripped open immediately and I took pictures to taunt my friends who thought there were better ways to spend $50 or some nonsense.

Awesome tin box that will be used for non-MST3K item storage.

CROOOOOOOOOOOOOOW. It bothers me that they made his eyes too small.

Dear God, my nails look awful. Oh, and the front cover.

Back cover, featuring Gypsy.

I put the lobby cards beside my other loves.

Closeup of the lobby cards. And there's something yellow and gross on my wall.

Now I have to go work on a speech. Fun time is over.
----------------
Now playing: Björk - Unison

Oh, come on now.

So aforementioned antisocial friend is now ignoring me. WAT. Like I haven't even seen her in over a week. I was smuggling a cat into my dorm this afternoon (more on that in a moment) and I saw her on campus walk. She looked right at me and didn't say a damned thing. Like, seriously?! I haven't heard or seen anything from her in ages, it's not like I've done anything to her.

And I just got a text message back from her saying she's stressed about a research project. Sure, because that always makes me look right through people. Oh well.

I've got a fucking cat in my dorm. Like, who fuckin cares about people, cats are far superior. A friend of a friend is letting my friend down the hall take care of her 19 week old kitten. His name is Peking and he's pretty awesome. I gave him a ball of yarn to play with and he is having a grand time. We're actually not supposed to have any kind of animal other than fish in the dorms, but somehow these people are keeping this cat. LOL. So that's the excitement of my weekend.

Nothing else going on. Room mate's gone home so I can walk around naked now. YAY. I think I'll watch 300 for lulz.

Srsly u guise. Srsly.

I'm starting to realize that no matter where you are or what you're doing in life, you will come into contact with people who don't know how to deal with others, get problems solved and have a better life because of it.

So one of my chick friends for some reason, seemingly all of the sudden has this issue with one of my guy friends. Completely out of the blue, in my eyes. On Friday she said she wouldn't come to brunch with us because she didn't want to be around him. Note: I'd never heard her voice any issue with him until then, and we've all known each other for 2 years now. Later on she texted me saying that she would be at brunch because she didn't want her feelings to interfere with her friendship with the rest of us. But at this point I'm still like, WTF.

Yesterday I asked her to go into more detail about her problems with this guy. She said that she didn't like the way he "looks through you" while talking, like "he's better than you." This just made me even more confused, as in my opinion this is far from the truth. Dude also had a bad summer, and even if he did that shit before, he sure as hell isn't doing it anymore.

And this morning I was talking to him, and he mentioned that he saw her in the dining hall one day and she tried to avoid eye contact with him. He said, "I don't understand, it's not like I did anything to her, did I?" And from what she tells me, I don't think he did anything but be himself.

So I'm sitting here just shaking my head. I mean, I'm good friends with this girl and I know she had a tough time last year with a half-psychotic roommate, but why is she all of the sudden offended with this guy, whom I don't think she's even talked to since we got back?

To further the weirdness of it all, this girl continues to avoid my other guy friend, who I'll call B for ease. Last year and the year before she had a crush on him, but then hastily deleted him from her Facebook for some dumb reason (I know I shouldn't, but I still LOL to myself about the absurdity of this). Now she feels bad about it and thinks things are awkward between them, though I don't think they are. I think she's seeing things that aren't there. I also think she's jealous because B and I are quite close, so close in fact that multiple people thought we were dating, but we are not. Our close relationship probably gives her more stress, but I try to include her whenever we hang out. Then if we do hang out she claims it's "too awkward" though I doubt B has even realized the whole Facebook shit. So I mean, what am I supposed to do, stop being friends with B? I've told her multiple times just to add him back with a message like "OOPS LOL WRONG DELETION LOLOLOLOLOL" or something, and B won't know the difference because he's too concerned about XBox and whatnot. BUT NO. I guess that would be entirely too easy and much less fun than worrying about it.

Last year we all got kind of screwed up with a big breakup, with Crazy Psychotic Room Mate wanting everyone to choose sides. This girl claims she doesn't want that to happen, and instead is just isolating herself from the rest of us because she doesn't want to face her own issues. I guess I don't understand this, because I'm one to find solutions to problems before they escalate or I freak about about them, like this girl. Seriously, I think the only reason I see this girl as often as I do is because I call her multiple times in a day to get her out of her room. And I can't keep doing that shit, my AT&T plan is not fit to handle that. So as much as I hate to say it, I may end up having to cut this girl off too. I can't help someone who doesn't want to help herself.

TL;DR Crazy chick is pushing away everyone that likes her for stupid reasons.

Back at UMW.

And the place still fucking sucks. Seriously. The wonderful idiots at my college thought that, instead of using $5 million that was apparently just lying around for something that would actually help the university, its shittastic internet and barely edible food service, it buys a villa in Italy. SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK AM I PAYING FOR?! Clearly it's not for anything that's going to make my college experience better. Goddamn.

Regardless, my dorm and my room mate are awesome. Central air conditioning FTW. Plus my building is 100 years old. Living history, bitches. And my room is pretty big with lovely high ceilings.

So now I'm watching the Democratic convention, listening to Janis Joplin and procrastinating doing work (already, LOL). Basically I'm just waiting for Obama to speak, since I've missed every other part of the convention due to work. Might as well watch the last bit of it.

That's pretty much it. I'm too tired to write anything fascinating. LOL.

Holy God what is wrong with American Idol fans?

Read here, here, here, and here. Or just check out Smartie's entire site.

Do you feel ill yet?

Yes, these people are obsessing over people they have never (and most likely will never) know. Just because some people showed up on their TV for a few months, they feel as if they are these Idol contestants' BFFs. Seriously, writing Mary Sue fan fiction? Stalking on contestants' Myspace pages and even stalking them in their hotels? Barricading the fucking hotel so the AI winner can't get past them? Then trying to justify their pathetic actions and arguing with anyone who points out that they are a waste of humanity?

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

I fully and readily admit that I was a huge NSYNC and Backstreet Boys fan back in the day. But I was like, 10. Some of these fuckers are 40. Besides, I never even saw either band live, nor did I ever sit down and write a bunch of tard letters or fan fiction. Why? Because even as a tween, I had a life. Hell, I ran a *NSYNC fan site, but even that was mostly for the music, not for the members themselves. Plus, that was strictly a weekend activity. I can't even imagine sitting on these message boards for hours on end talking to other people about what the object of our affection is doing at that very moment. Even when I was little that seemed like a pointless waste of time when I had music lessons, homework, and chores to do.

Fast forward to when I was about 15. I can't even remember what I was really digging then. Probably because again, I had a life. I was more concerned with my music lessons, school, friends, and home life. Yet some of these teenaged idoltards waste hours of valuable time online making ridiculous and embarassing Youtube videos that make no damn sense, arguing with other fans, and/or making the same fucking message board posts over and over. What the hell? If my kids ever start that shit I'm going to smack them. It makes you wonder if these kids are even having normal social interactions with others. It can't be healthy to do nothing but sit in front of a computer chatting about the same subject day in and day out. And these kids' grades must be plummetting.

But what about those old bags, the 30+ crowd fawning over people who are in some cases young enough to be their children? Absolutely disgusting. At least with the younger ones there's a chance they will grow out of it. These women should fucking know better. They have their own families, their own spouses, but apparently not their own lives. It also shows the double entendre in this society, because a man their age lusting after a young female in the same manner would automatically be accused of being a pedo. Yet, these women are simply "COUGARS LOLOLOLOL." No, these women are just as creepy as the men. We shouldn't let these stupid excuses go idly by.

But these people would argue until blue in the face that their obsessions are harmless. Bullshit. When it gets to the point where people are running down the halls of the hotel where the idol contestants are staying, banging on the doors so they can't sleep, and barricading the hotel so they can't get past them, it has become VERY serious and potentially dangerous. Just ask the family of Selena how far crazed fans can go. Not to mention that you can't know who's on the other side of the screen. These people are giving out entirely too much information about themselves, and it's very easy to find people from just a bit of information.

Looking back at everything, I kinda hope the world will end in 2012. If this is the way our society's going, we just need to end it now.

SERIOUSLY?!

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080718/tuk-britain-police-crime-a7ad41d.html

Okay, seriously people. As a black person this absolutely disgusts me. If we want to get ahead and stop being seen as subhuman, STOP FUCKING ACTING LIKE A BUNCH OF ANIMALS. What the fuck is wrong with the black culture that makes this acceptable? Biting and attacking police officers because your fucktard ass didn't want to pick up your damn trash? You've got to be fucking kidding me. What the hell did MLK fight for and die for if this is how you're going to act?

It's upsetting for me because I try so hard to defeat these stereotypes and show that not all blacks are like that, and I know many other people who do the same. Then some group of fucktards comes along and pulls some shit like that, then wonder why racism is still so prevalent and holler about stereotyping. Act like the fucking human beings you're supposed to be and we might have a chance of getting rid of most of it. Goddamn.

And yes, I know part of it's the pack mentality mindset that all humans have, but seriously, this violent shit happens way too often in black communities. What is wrong with us?

All faith is gone in humanity.

Basically, over the past few months or so, my faith in humanity has declined at an astonishing rate. Finally, it hit rock bottom. In my eyes, humans officially suck. I include myself in this group, being human of course, and having severe moments of fucktardism. But Christ on a bike, I'm not the only one being a fuckup.

• Idletard.com: If you don't hate middle-aged American Idol fanatics who have long lost grip on reality already, you sure as hell will now.
• A girl (name withheld) with whom I used to be best friends with in elementary and middle school, sent me a Myspace message out of the blue to call me, among other things, a "butch dyke" because I had apparently said something not-so flattering about her. In all honesty, I don't even remember thinking about her since I left high school. So I figure, it's some shit from high school that this chick is bringing up. But no, I apparently said this about a month ago. I'm thinking, "Who the hell have I even talked to that she talks to? No one." So bitch is crazy. And I laugh. Yet I have to wonder, why is it that she was so bothered by the idea of me saying something when we haven't spoken to each other in years? Hell, if it'd been the other way around I probably would have forgotten it within the hour. I was done caring what other people thought or said about me quite some time ago. If you live life constantly concerned about what other people think of you and fighting unnecessary battles, you're never going to get anywhere in life.
• SecuROM. This shit royally fucked up my computer, part of the reason why I haven't been online as much. EA Games maintains that this shit isn't malware, yet TWO of my anti-malware programs caught it as a rootkit. Shit started screwing up my CD and DVD drives, my anti-virus, and even caused some memory leakage. Furthermore, Sony, the company who makes SecuROM, got into trouble a few years back because they were putting anti-piracy software that fucked up computers on music CDs. I had to send several CDs back to them so they could be replaced. So I've been buying EA's games, mostly Sim games, since the mid 90s and what I get for my years of support and money is a nearly ruined computer? Fuck you, Maxis. The bitch of it all is that SecuROM is hacked as easily as any other anti-piracy software, and with pirated games you don't get malware shit on your computer. So EA Games can suck my ass, I'm pirating games from now on. ARR.
• Youtube comments. Seriously, have you ever tried to read them? It's like jamming an icepick into your urethra whilst having lemon juice squeezed into your eyes. I've never seen such idiocy nor raping of the English language in one place. What is it about the Internet that turns so many people into total fucktards?
• This dumbass kid. Or, Darwinism at its finest. At 17 years old, he should've known better than to scale 2 safety fences for a fucking hat. The funniest part for me, morbidly of course, is the fact that my friends and I have an ongoing joke using the phrase, "Oops, I forgot my hat." This is said when we say goodbye, but are still present 5 minutes later and/or had to come back for some reason. Thus, when this first hit the press, my inbox was filled with links to the above and "FORGOT MY HAT." Morbid humor. Always grand.
• The fact that someone felt this needed to be studied. I hate the prejudice, racism, sexism and homophobia that still proliferates in the world. People are people, and when people get over petty differences and trying to label everyone things could be much better.

Rant over. I need to sleep.

Long ass week.

So much to say!

Tuesday, my favorite band, The Receiving End of Sirens, broke up. I'm still in a state of shock and depression. Bitches were my anti-anxiety and anti-depressants when I needed them the most. I feel like their music was such a big part of my life, especially the last half of high school when I was really going downhill mentally, and while I was learning to deal with my anxiety problems. So while I'll still love them in whatever they do next, it feels sort of like a chapter of my life is over.

Wednesday, VFTW lost our awesome pick, Amanda Overmeyer. She seemed happy about it though, which is why I wasn't too upset. Plus I know she'll be fine with whatever she decides to do. However, American Idol totally blows now. Best season ever my ass.

I found out today that LiveJournal users are striking for some ridiculously retarded reasons. It reminds me once again of why I got rid of my LJ and the ridiculously stupid drama that the users create. "OH NOES I'M REMOVING U FROM MAH FRIENDS LIST BC U DON'T UPDATE ENOUGH." Seriously, I had that happen at least three times before I decided "screw all of them." Now they're all up in arms because of a technical difficulty ("oh noes I can't have 'slashfic' as one of my interests, PROTEST") and because they decided to get rid of basic accounts, which if I remember correctly were the free accounts without banner ads. Seriously though, LJ users are some of the biggest drama-llamas I've ever seen in my life.

People protested outside of my class last night, which was a lecture about Margaret Sanger, the woman who advocated birth control. These crazy douchebag Christian fundies tried to say that Sanger was a racist. The speaker completely shot down all of their statements, showing how most of the statements they were using were taken completely out of context or simply completely fabricated, and it was beautiful and completely epic. I lol'd so hard. After the lectures they allow the audience to ask questions, and the protestors had nothing to say. Absolutely hilarious.

I met my room mate for next year today and it's definitely going to work out really well. We like a lot of the same things and agree on pretty much everything, so it's going to be a fun year. I was a bit worried at first, but now I think it's pretty fantastic. So yay for that.

MST3K has really brought out the bad movie lover in me, so I'm on a quest to watch some of the most awful movies ever made. The hardest part is finding free copies of them online so I don't have to pay for that shit! Just a few of the movies I need to see: The Blob, Plan 9 From Outer Space, and Starcrash. Starcrash basically because apparently it has David Hasslehoff IN SPACE. Like, holy shit. That has to be absolutely amazing.

So I just got caught up on LOST and holy shit, the Jin/Sun episode made me cry so hard. I partially blame PMS, but goddamn what a sad episode. Tore my ass up. It was beautifully done though, and I seriously loved it. That one and the Michael episode restored my love of this show, which you have to admit kind of went downhill in season 3. I'm glad it's picking back up and once again reminding me of how much I love this show and why I was so obsessive over it during the first 2 seasons.

I've decided that I need to order pizza online. LOL. I'm on my period and I really feel like just relaxing this weekend, as this week has been very long and very stressful for me. And I want to try out the online ordering, and I haven't consumed an entire pizza by myself in a long time. It's a good feeling. Haha.

Anyway. I really need to lay down, or something. Cramps really suck. I'm also going to watch some movies tonight, as my roommate is home this week for Easter. Violent movies can now commence! Later.

Jesus.

And by saying Jesus I mean, "Jesus keep me out of trouble." Because my Dad is getting on my last fucking nerves.

So, last night, as we were preparing to settle down for dinner, my mom and I were discussing how during the summer I'm hardly ever hungry. My dad takes the opportunity to say, "You should teach your mother that." Now, this doesn't seem too bad out of context, but you have to understand the situation in my household: My mother has been battling weight issues (and depression) for years. My dad, being the wonderful piece of work he is, has to remind my mom of her weight constantly. It is a tender subject for her, but he has to make comments about it pretty much every chance he gets.

So after over 18 years of it, I'm tired of him being so disrespectful to my mother. I tell him to stop making cheap shots on her. This erupts into an entire fight, in which my dad can't understand why my mother and I are so "oversensitive" and why what he's been saying to her is so wrong. Seriously. It's getting to be emotional abuse. You just don't pick on someone relentlessly about something like that. He wouldn't do it to his coworkers or anything like that, so why is he doing it to the woman he's been married to for 30 fucking years?!

I took my plate and ate my dinner in my room, mostly because if I stayed back there I was going to lob my plate in his face. Later, he came to give a half-assed apology and then said, "I don't like people telling me to shut up." Well, I don't like you, but I have to deal with you. o_O

Today, I'm still reeling from it. Just a few minutes ago, he acted like it's my fault the whole incident happened, like I'm just supposed to sit back and go, "Oh, it's normal for my father to pretty much abuse my mother with words! Pass the bread, please!" I've done that for too long. Honestly, he sat back there and told me that "If something's wrong you should say something to people before it explodes." Well, motherfucker, I fucking did you son-of-a-bitch. If there's one vital lesson I've learned at college, it's to fight as soon as I see something I think is wrong. And I'm sure as hell not going to let someone take cheap shots at the woman who lugged me around for 9 months before bringing me into this world.