Well Shit, I'm Old

It just hit me the other day that I am old. I don't need a wheelchair or a colostomy bag, I don't need to watch my diet and get plenty of walks, but I am officially old.

To put it in another way, the world is progressing past me. It's the beginning of being left behind before the inevitable end where you are nothing but a memory. It occurred to me when I was looking for music on the radio. I don't want "Today's #1 Hits" or "Calgary's Hottest New Music" because all that shit is terrible! I look for 80's rock, or usually some sort of grab-bag like Jack has music from the 90s as well. A few days ago at work I switched it to classical because I didn't want to listen to Chad Kruger doing a remix with Nelly featuring R. Kelly and Lil' Wayne about growing up in a small town a missing girls who fuck like panthers but had emotional problems that he overlooked because he has financial wealth. That, ladies and gentlemen, pretty much sums up what new music is and why I hate it.

So, that's it. My days of being a youth are numbered. No more will my generation be defined as a culture of the current music. We are those who stand fast at the edge of the millennium and look out at the musical wasteland. Beneath the shrill cries of underaged girls we breathe;

"Kids these days..."

Backup Strategies

I think the worst thing about backup strategies is that if you have doubts about the success of Plan A, what reason do you have to believe that Plan B will be anymore successful? Plan B is just as capable of failure as Plan A was. So why the hell have a Plan B? Or why not have an infinite regression of alternate plans?

What's worse is when you take a Plan A, swap it for Plan B, because Plan A seems bust, and then when Plan B fails you think you can resort to Plan A as your "Plan B". Well, guess what? It doesn't work that way. When life is in Fail-Mode, no amount of planning in the world can stop it.

My problem with the whole "wing it" strategy is that it lacks commitment. I want to commit. I want to turn things away because I'm already in something. It's kind of like those assignments in school that were completely open. When you can do anything you want, you can't ever think of what you want. There needs to be some restrictions, some limitations. There needs to be boundaries that can be pushed before you're really creating anything. Otherwise you're just making a big fucking mess.

Slim (or less so) Pickings

I have just come to the horrible realization that women are getting married.

There are only a certain number of women in the entire world who are my age. Now, while the acceptable age range grows, availability of women is decreasing at an exponential rate. Women are getting married, turning gay, dying, and becoming bitter, jaded shells of feigned human compassion everyday (see "Independent" Woman, or Female Dick). At any rate, there are fewer and fewer women available and once they're off the market they are almost always lost forever. They are a non-renewable resource until I can be frozen in time and awaken to an entirely new demographic; something which I would be very adamant against. I don't have anything in common with people who were born in 1989. I can't imagine what I wouldn't have in common with someone who were born in 2029.

Part of me says, "Shit, I gotta get on that," but there is the more prevalent problem that women don't look their age. It seems to me that women hit puberty and look anywhere from 15 to 28. Somewhere along the way to 28-hood, they suddenly become much older and fall into the 28-35 range. So I have no way of identifying a woman who is 23 with any degree of certainty that she isn't an old looking 17 year old. Similarly, I have no way of positively asserting that someone who appears to be 28 isn't actually 23.

Perhaps if I can break through the 28 year barrier I can enter a new and wonderful realm of sensible women in their early 30s who look and act their age. Unfortunately, I don't know if, at the age of 28, I'll be able to act mine.

Tax Reasons

I sometimes wonder if the money is worth it. I'm only in classes this semester still for tax reasons. I'll earn more from my tax returns than the classes have cost me if I stay in school. But sometimes I wonder if it is worth it. If I dropped out I could try and work full time and earn all that money back in no time. I guess I've just been trained not to drop out because of how it reflects on one's record (one wonders how my ex's record looks... or even how she managed to withdraw from so many classes in the same program...)

Maybe I just think it builds character to stick things out when they have a definite end. After all, learning never hurt anyone, right? Sometimes I wonder if that's really the case, though.

I guess in the end none of that matters. In a few weeks' time it'll all be over and then next semester will be loads of fun with Zack and then it'll be off to actually do the program I should have done from the start.

Winter Home

So, I'm back in the winter home for, well, the winter. I keep telling myself that I'll have so much more time because I... to be honest, I have no idea how I think I will have more time. Maybe it's just that I'll have more space to spread out. That was my biggest problem back home. It's actually nice to have to enter a different room to play video games after you wake up. It's good to have to walk through rooms to get to things rather than over things to get through rooms.

There is, however, a terrible drawback. I have to start all over again. I need to get my setup right and stock food. I own a bag of crisps and a 7-up. That'll have to last me until breakfast tomorrow. Then hopefully I can buy my weight in groceries.

The biggest change this year will be not having my best friend Thom living so close. I think it might get a bit lonely without hanging out on DnD Tuesday, or bailing on classes for a bro day when the weather is shit. All that space is good for my things, but it could use some friends to fill it out.

Balls.

In a word, Fuck.

In a longer word, FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCKKKK!!

I can't not think about things. It's all fine and dandy to "let things happen," but I just can never not think about what could happen. And then I'm left disappointed when it doesn't. I need a time machine to go back to art school when I was in my first year and do it all differently. I think I wasted my early years worrying about how not to waste them instead of wasting them having fun. Now it seems like I'm too old to have fun. Not that 23 is old, but in the surroundings of almost entirely 18 year olds, I'm ancient.

I guess I have to play catch up on life. Finish school, get a job, and be the same kind of miserable everyone else is. Maybe then I can change it from the inside.

Facebook: The Social Radar System

I've started to notice the total absence of sociability on the Facebooks. It has started to become a weird combination of two things:

1. a training blog
2. a voluntary low-end spy system

It seems we only use it to either post shit we find, think, or feel, or we're scouring it for what other people think, do, or look like. We very seldom talk to anyone other than a forced "It's been a while."

I'm not saying that I'm an advocate for keeping connected with Facebook. If I was I'd be Facebooking all the time and making lots of comments and plans and keeping in touch with all the people from way back when like we always say we will but never actually do. Now I'm finding myself, however, having to keep my head down on the old Facebooks. I suppose it has happened a few times in the past, but it's just an odd feeling. I don't know what is wierder, feeling like I have to keep off the grid or wanting to be on the grid.

For those of you who remember the disasterous Jenn-Charlotte situation, I contemplated quiting the Facebook then. I'm starting to think that it's a not bad idea. Granted, it is a way for people to inform me of things that are happening and for me to look at what other people are up to, but maybe it's time to step up the sociability and kick the network out of this social network. If I want to know how someone is, I should have to try some form of active communication to find out, rather than reconstruct a plausible timeline based on cross referencing photos, comments, and statuses between a number of friends and even friends of friends...

Then again, part of me really likes that. It's like playing Detective. Social Detective. Only like an 8 year old because you don't want to talk to people.

Playing make-believe is fun.

Words and Sounds

As a general rule of thumb, I believe that it is discourteous to produce a sound from your mouth that cannot be spelt.

T'ch is the best facsimile I can use to describe the sound that this girl consistently makes after every mouthful of food she packs into her gob as well as every time she talks, which is entirely too often. It's as if there is residual food in her mouth that she takes every opportunity to suck down. Maybe the noise knocks it loose.

Marvel Decent Alliance 2 2: The Return of Marvel Decent Alliance 2

SPOILER!

It was Ultimate Alliance 1.


God, I'm an idiot sometimes.

Marvel Decent Alliance 2

I haven't rage quit in a while, but UA2 finally did me in.

Who ever thought quicktime events were a good idea? Worse, who thought quicktime events with motion sensors was a good idea? Furthermore, who thought quicktime events with motion sensors and random windows of opportunity so that you never know if you didn't move it the right way or if you were too slow or too fast or if it didn't respond of you're not moving it enough or you're moving it too much or....

You get where I'm going. Beyond that, this game is about as balanced as a Globetrotters/Local Junior High Basketball team mash up. On the one side you have Wolverine, and on the other side you have... everyone else. Wolverine regerates health, causes the most damage, thus kills the most things, thus gets the most xp thus us the strongest character in the party. He's a freight train that never stops. Most of the boss fights include me trying to play my party and having all of them get gang raped because the computer knows who you are and that you'd be pissed if your AI got killed on their own until I'm finally left with Wolverine who runs around and murders everything. Though I wouldn't run into this problem if the AI did something when I was being attacked. But their survival strategy revolves around staying out of the way and not attacking anything.

Here's an example. I put Storm on my team because The Thing got himself killed. I thought that Wolverine could get in there and take the hits while Storm cast down lightning for the back. In the entire duration of a boss fight I saw her use lightning never! Not once! I took control and took down the bosses zipping around the room in 2 minutes. You know what moves I used? Lightning. It's almost as if they are worried that they will run out of power for a time when they'll really need them. Like when we're fighting one single trash mob. It seems like everyone is all over their powers then.

Needless to say, this game is one to save for the never that I will have someone else to play it with. At least I have Arkham Asylum.

The Internet: TV of Our Times

Our children will be defined unlike ourselves. Where we define ourselves from the decade that influenced us the most at the youngest age, our children will be defined by the state of the Internet. Children may one day be recognized by association to a meme. In their teenage years they will regale the wonders of yesteryear that were the events almost self propagated by the Internet; because when you think about it, our children will be the Internet. They will be the creators, moderators, lovers, innovators, and, God willing, destructors of the Internet.

Old People

I know I'm about to sound like "kids these days," but fucking old people.

Seriously, I know that you're old and all, but I don't think we should stand up for their shit any longer. I have places to be and things to do. Life moves fast, and while some things are meant to be enjoyed, some things are meant to get fucking done.

They always say that they were like us when they were young, and that they reached a certain age where they realized none of that matters and that you have to enjoy the little things in life; take your time, no hurry, you'll get there when you get there.

Well I won't fucking get there unless you hurry your old ass up. The reason things don't matter at your age is because you're retired. If lunch takes you all day, what did you miss? Nothing! I have half an hour for lunch and I don't want to spend half of it standing behind you because you can't decide whether you want Homestyle or Grilled chicken. You've had 40 years to decide whether you want Homestyle or Grilled chicken!

If you can't decide then move out of the way. I want a medium Combo #7 with a Fruitopia to go. I'll pay with debit because I know I don't have the change.

Maturation

I must be getting old.

Remember back in the day when you were a teenager and the most important part of a sexy dream is that you totally boned someone? Sort of like how the most important part of a sex scene in a movie was the fact that you saw boobies. But as we grow older we refine our tastes and understand that sometimes less is more. Sometimes an implication is better than a statement (or visual statement, as the case may be). We even come to realize that not getting what we want is often more enjoyable than getting it right away. We no longer have a need for the gratuitousness of sex (on a side note, why is the word "gratuity" used for tips? Shouldn't it be gratituity? I henceforth will object to paying gratuities on the basis that it is completely unnecessary).

I'm not going to go into details about this dream I had. Though I'm sure it is inferred that is was a particularly good dream, I assure you that you assume too much. It was good in the sense that a cup of tea is good compared to the goodness of a Dirty German (French Toasted Cheese and Bacon Pancake Sandwich grilled in Maple Syrup. Don't ask why it's a called that, I don't remember). Again, it wasn't gratuitous.

Some might say that it is boring or sad to have the realism of a dream be not in the vividness of boundless experience but rather in the modesty of situation. While some people have dreams about flying or superpowers or whatnot, I have dreams about attending lectures, volunteering to speak at a seminar, and all my real relationships being exactly the way they are in real life. But in the end, there is always something to be learned, something to be taken away and even shared here on the internet with the people who are even just curious about what I have to say.

From this dream I have learned this: It feels better to be wanted than to be had.

Maybe you can apply this to your lives. I know, much to my chagrin, that I can.

Dinosaurs are awesome but...

Seriously.