The porcelain bowl-shaped collection dish of my thoughts

Several months back, Joey checked out.  He had been a childhood friend but we hadn’t maintained any sort of relationship after hitting middle school.  I learned that he hadn’t done so well after a bad break-up with a bad girlfriend, then made the rash decision after having a couple drinks at home.

Many details omitted for relevancy, but I’ll say that the whole ordeal was pretty heartbreaking for everybody that knew him.

Though I’ve grieved for his and his family’s pain, the song above best reflects my feelings on the overall topic.  The background music is distracting, just focus on the words.

To recap:

-I’m on a family plan, my parents pay for the service that my brothers and I use.  In exchange, we send my mom payments every month.

-I use an Evoke QA4.  I like to think of it as a ‘poor man’s smart phone’.  It has GPS, a clunky email app, and a very sluggish browser.

-I’ve had the QA4 replaced once before, due to random hard lock-ups.

-The replacement has been only slightly better.  Randomly reboots (especially when I text too fast), the alarm clock function is unreliable, and the entire phone still behaves very sluggishly.

—

I went in to try and score a phone upgrade at a reduced/free price.  Long story short, I was told the following options:

1) Have the QA4 replaced with a QA4 for free, based on it still being under warranty.

2) Pay for a brand new phone of higher quality, receiving a rebate for part of the cost, and extending my individual plan to 2 years.

3) Pay for a refurbished phone of higher quality, no rebate, but not contract extension.

I opted for a refurbished Droid.  Despite lots of references to the dissatisfaction I’ve had with the QA4, I couldn’t tug on their heart strings to get any slack on the price.  While Tiesha helped me, her manager wandered by and made comments about how it “sounds smarter just to get the brand new phone + contract extension”, to which I replied “True, but based on my shoddy experience with my last two phones, I don’t want to obligate myself [to you] longer with this next one” she wandered off without another word.

$307 (with tax) for a refurbished Droid.  Tiesha was very nice.  I had to wait almost 45 minutes for a rep, but was estimated an hour when I first arrived.

Bewildered from being shafted by Verizon, I unwittingly entered my apartment armed with only some take-out Chicken LoMein.  Within in few moments, it was clear that my premises had been violated.  I could hear the telltale signs of movement within a few feet of me.  Surprisingly, even with my dinner in hand I still felt inept to deal with the intruder.

Manning up to the situation, I calmly exchanged my food in hand for a large binder cookbook.  I took a few quiet steps toward the source of the movement, readying to strike.  I paused to muster up my courage, scraping together my obligation to defend the sanctity of my home.  Knowing what I was about to get into, part of me (most of me?) felt unwilling to proceed.  It was like being compelled to dive off a cliff, but pausing for a precious moment, hoping some divine force would grace me the opportunity to bow out of this inevitable dance.

I raised the book in front of me, it became both my sword and my shield, I closed the remaining space between me and my adversary.  Now entering the dining room, advancing unto the blinded window overlooking my balcony, my body flooded with adrenaline as I lurched forward.  A bellowed roar filled the room, the source of it forever lost between me and thy enemy, I engaged him with my weapon.

scuffling

raspy gasps for air

a grunt (whimper?) from exchanged blows

My familiar heart rate returned, sweat beaded down my brow, I faltered from my exerted strength.  I surveyed what just happened, not from my eyes but from the scene.  Relieved not for my victory, but for the knowledge of strife’s end.  I reached forward, spreading the blinds on my window, I could see the remains of this proud (if not foolish) warrior.  His black-and-yellow striped corpse lay against my window.

“This calls for a celebration” I murmured, then returned to my kitchen to retrieve my spoils of war.

My lease at Lakeview Apartments in Haslett is expired.  It dried up two months ago, but they’ve been nice enough to let me stick around while I sort out future plans.  Normally, it wouldn’t take me this long to find a new apartment complex, but I’ve got a few different events around the corner that are both inconveniently timed and would surely mean a loss in money if I acted too hastily.

I’m going to be moving in with my aunt in Plainwell for a month or two.  She’s awesome and it’ll save me a crapton of money in bills.  During that time, I can carefully plan out where I should be taking up a more permanent(ish) living location.

By reading this blog post, you’ve obligated yourself to help me move.  I need bodies to help load up the truck, unfortunately the ones I’ve had prepared have gone bad.  Now my closet stinks.

My thoughts on it.  Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell if I’m right.

- You couldn’t go back in time for a pre-planned purpose that involves altering the past.  Upon completing the task, you’d undo the whole point to traveling back in the first place, rendering your former self without said goal.

- In the remake of The Time Machine, the main character travels to the past multiple times to try saving his lover from her fated doom.  But in each attempt, he prevents the previous cause of her death but indirectly contributing to her new one.  I forget if the movie actually spelled this out, but I really found that aspect of the story interesting. If she was never killed then he’d have no reason to invent the time machine to save her.  But it made me wonder how things would pan out if he traveled back to leave the time machine’s blueprints for his past self, with convincingly urgent instructions to build it asap.  THEN saved her.  Or would that introduce a new paradox?

- Realistically, if we could ever pull off traveling to the past, it’d have to be in an incorporeal form.  We’d be a ghostly observer of the events with absolutely no means of affecting things.

- The end result of such a discovery would surely spell doom.  The past holds answers about all religions, creation, etc etc.  Even without meddling in crucial past events, simply bestowing “what really happened” upon the masses today would probably lead to chaos.

All in all, this isn’t a product I recommend you invest in.  Just avoid it altogether.  Probably give you cancer anyways.

I’ll keep this simple and short.  Not only to avoid tl;dr, but everybody has a varying degree of know-how on the subject and repeating it all here is a waste.

I agree with the bill.  Illegal aliens bleed the economy in countless ways.  Aside from emergency services and access to stores, illegals shouldn’t be entitled to most rights.  Without citizenship, they shouldn’t be eligible for jobs, cash assistance, non-emergency medical help, general education enrollment (not including whats necessary to learn for citizenship), etc.  If they haven’t completed our requirements for being a part of the country, why should they be entitled to it’s benefits?

On the topic of profiling, I understand and accept that it’s crude, controversial, and potentially insulting.  But I invite any readers to comment on an alternative that still delivers as effective results.

Lastly, we’ve crippled ourselves by wearing ‘kid gloves’ to deal with most of today’s problems.  I’m just happy to see somebody taking them off, we need better results.

In my Earthdawn (DnD) group, my character ‘Malik’ has been compared to a lawyer on Night Court.  I’ve never seen the show, but after being introduced to the following clip I feel it’s safe to agree with the striking similarities.  Sprinkle in a condesending tone and Dan Fielding becomes Malik.

Give it a minute or two.

My efforts for weight loss strengthen and weaken.  I’m doing great with cutting back on pop, alcohol, coffee, and snacks, but I don’t always stick to a consistent workout.  Thanks to a stationary bike I bought from MikeN and a purchase of free weights, I’ve been doing better than before.  Of all the tips I’ve read about, these are some new ones I found interesting:

- Eat all the time.  While seemingly counter-productive, it keeps your metabolism high.  Starving yourself slows it down, so when you finally binge-eat from the hunger, you’ll probably select less-than-stellar food (whatever is easiest to find) and process it poorly.

- Eat breakfast.  I’ve typically avoided it since it makes me hungry faster in the day, but with the knowledge of #1, it all makes sense now.  I’d wager it keeps your mental energy up too, since your body is running on better fuel.

- Drink water before you eat.  Hydrating yourself is obviously important, but the water in your stomach makes you feel full faster.  Resulting in less calories eaten.

- Build muscle.  Increased muscle mass requires more resources than fat.  Even without actually exercising, the presence of stronger muscles will keep your metabolism high.

Ever since my break-up, I’ve only been mildly interested in dating.  The singles life has been great.  I’ve asked out a few girls, nothing that has stuck long though.  Until recently, online dating has been totally unappealing.

To me, using a web service to meet people sounds like a last ditch effort to be introduced to people.  It’s like you’re saying “I’m too [blah] to go out, find a person similar to me and have ‘em send an email”, then you get to exchange messages that either sound like a job interview or are charged with corny flirty messages that may not reflect somebody’s real personality (because it’s over email instead of in person, removing most of the thrill or challenge).

Plus, my only experience from meeting somebody online was pretty disappointing.

Now that I’ve sufficiently trashed the concept, I’m going to contradict myself and say I’m considering it now.  Why?  I want to meet new women.  I have zero interest in dance clubs and I’m not one to approach people in groups to hit on somebody.  Though I don’t actually want a girlfriend, going on a dates would be fun.

Plus, most girls I know are taken.  They’re all with uptight boyfriends that’d probably get all possessive and violent if I suggested hanky panky to their women.

Friends.  Defined as somebody I’d hang out with outside of work, count on for secrecy, and offer up whatever I have to assist however possible.

All horrendous amounts of gloating aside, I seem to fare better with ladies than I do the guys. Friendship wise, obviously.  Of everybody I’ve ever been close to, women have been the majority.  My friend Amanda is the same way, she generally befriends guys instead of girls.

I’m curious why this happens though.  I value my guy friends as much as my girl friends, of course.  But I’m much more likely to pal around with chicks instead of dudes.

I welcome any feedback.  Freud the hell outta it via the comments section.