Blech! Been way to long since I posted anything here. I guess that computer game may have been a bad idea.

Listening to the Beatles Eleanor Rigby leaves me with a bleak outlook on life. Thinking about my future does that.

I wish I had something to believe in. Would like to be productive for once.
I need to find some more things that interest me. I think the problem was that I may have had a few bad experiences trying to find things that interest me when I was younger.
Now, I just let my youth slowly rot away.

Hanging on just barely
By a very thick thread
I dangle over the precipice
of the permanent sleep.

No one around
but the only one I'm holding onto
Gripping each other tightly
she's always been there

All else I see around me
is
simply
void

Where does that leave you?

other story idea

In case you haven't heard, or I don't have your email address. I was thinking of starting a new blog that would involve people posting comments to add to a story. After posting the comments, I would then add them as a post to an ongoing story. I would like to know everyone's interest level.

Thoughts? Ideas? "Great idea, but I would never participate in that."; "I'd like to, but I don't have the time." (liar)
"This is the stupidest idea I have ever heard." (Jump to Conclusions Mat stupid)

I will get back to everyone when I have the blog setup if I find enough people are interested.

greedy terror

“Spare some change?”

“Spare any change?”

“Spare any change?”

Pink Floyd’s Money starts playing

The amazing contrast between the shack and the mansion do not give rise to Marxist idealogies. Is it simply because we have been convinced anyone can own that mansion on the hill if they work hard enough? Or the incredibly dangerous feeling of powerlessness?

The question is often asked. But what can I do about it?

There were two “natural” rights left out of the preamble. The right to own property and the right to revolution.

I was trying to answer the question of how our values would change over time. Time being several centuries. Perhaps we will feel more of an obligation to help our fellow man.

Why do so many meeting places involve drinking unhealthy beverages? Let’s go down to the local milk bar. I’ll get hot chocolate you can get strawberry.

And then one day – I finally woke up. Problem was that it was around 1 AM and had to go to work the next day. So I went to sleep but never really woke up like that again.

The division of the American people into wrong and right can only make us more vulnerable.

By the way, maintaining the status quo leads to deadly stagnation.

Fighting terrorism isn’t easy. Most countries still seem to be stuck out in huge fields wearing bright red uniforms with muskets while the terrorists are taking cover and wearing camouflage. Ambushing any soldiers that are marching by. Terrorism is not something that can be fought with force. It must be eliminated from within.

How do you end the war that began with Jacob and Esau?

It’s easy to condemn the past. It’s even easier to repeat it.

I’ve got to post more – but that usually leads to shorter posts

from July 28th

Not good
I do not have access to the Internet at home at this time.
My brother calls me up at midnight last night.  I ask him what time it’s there and he apologizes realizing it’s midnight here.  He then tells me he and his girlfriend of four years broke up.  Basically, leaving him to pay the rent to a three-bedroom home by himself.  He is currently looking for a housemate and doesn’t yet have a steady job.  He needs to get his license for body piercing as well as pass the national registry exam to practice as an EMT.  To take the exam he needs to take a course.  Until then, he’s body piercing in another state.  Because of all this, he had to do something he didn’t want to have to do ever again – ask me for money.  I agreed to do so.

I talked with him on the phone for an hour.  That night I didn’t get much sleep – I guess laying awake hoping he’ll be OK.  (my mosquito bites were also bothering me)

He gives me his account number and a bank address near where I work.  I figure I’ll take care of it after I get off work.

While at work I do some searching to find out what the branch’s hours are.  Fortunately, they are open until 6 PM.  Thing is, it’s at a completely different address from the one my brother gave me.  I end up having to call him to verify the bank address I did find on the website.  So I go to make a withdrawal from the ATM and realize I don’t have my ATM card!  I do have a checkbook with me so I go into the bank to write a check.  It’s then I discover I brought a checkbook without any checks left.  My brother finds the nearest bank where my account is.  I go there and put a hold on the card, order a new one, and more checks.  I also make the withdrawal from the teller for my brother.  At my brother’s bank I start to fill out the deposit slip.  I have to call him to ask for his address.  Just as he’s about to give me the ZIP code, my cellphone runs out of juice.  I do successfully make the deposit.

After I get home, I find I still don’t have access to the Internet and one of my teeth is bothering me.  I have a feeling that my tooth bothering me is a bad sign.  Possibly another root canal. Thing is, it seems to have started bothering me rather suddenly so hopefully it won’t be that bad.

Random Futility

I wish I could think of something to say before the futility takes hold, but already I know it’s too late.  I struggle now to make a post a month.

There is no more dialogue.  I either don’t think I should talk to people.  Others I can’t get myself to say what I’d like.  Or else conversation with anyone is just as hard as it’s always been.

I’m more alone than ever.  Is that by choice?  I need to make new friends.  I need to drag a current friend to some random activity to meet new people.  But what?

Any progress made falls by the wayside so quickly.  Just when I really could start to see.

Better to have lived and died than to have never lived at all.

With just a little twist, your little emo boy could be a psychopath.  What?  You didn’t think he has a dark side?  Just like everyone else does.  Only his id scares him so much he won’t let it surface enough to enjoy life at all.  Maybe that’s why he doesn’t drink.

No photos mean that you’re not secure with your appearance?  Couldn’t it mean that you’re frustrated with judgements based upon appearance.?

Everything starts to become a sign of what I cannot have.  

If I actually tried hard to pursue happiness. . .  Why should I settle for a few moments of being alive or of hapiness?  I still have a a great deal of my life ahead of me.

Finally saw Napoleon Dynamite.  Frankly, I don’t see what the big deal is.  Maybe I’m just deluded by the happy endings I see in movies while reality seems to have of a neutral ending.  

I'm still here

I think I’m beginning to see again.

What does that mean?  Part of it means I can see my future.  (never pretty)
Other times it means I see a particular course humanity will take.  I see a truth about the world.  All too often something I’d rather remain blind to.  I see wisdom and its uselessness.  We’d all prefer it to mean only that I see hope.

I think I’ve become incredibly boring if I wasn’t already.

Ice floes and I’m running out of time.  Maybe I’m too much in touch with my own mortality and fading youth for my age.  I’m supposed to be more obsessed with actually living my life more than anything else.  By the time that happens, I fear it will be too late.

I’ve been way too convinced that I’m doomed.  I supposed medication could change that but wouldn’t really help me all that much.  Not on the self-confidence issue anyway.

Why didn’t I post?  I get lazy or afraid of not posting enough, of something too private, of an incomplete post…

Hmm. . .  How well do you really know yourself?

anecdote +

Older
Wiser
But still never alive

Beginning to think I can never be alive.

Almost all of my activities are the same except this one.  All so passive.  How is watching TV really any better than sleeping or feeling sorry for myself.

I steadfastly avoid whatever would make me a stronger person.  Is that out of fear?  If not then what?

<funny anecdote>
Neil and I store our shoes in the same place – at the bottom of the stairs.  I had just bought a pair of new black sneakers a couple days ago to replace my worn out pair.  Neil also owns a pair of black sneakers.  As I was putting on sneakers this morning, I found that the shoelaces were rather long, which I kinda found odd.  As I was walking to the bus stop, I felt that the shoes fit rather snugly, but I just attributed that to the new sneakers as the old pair fit semi-loosely.  When I’m riding up the elevator to work, I get a call from Neil.  Neil and I rarely call each other so I was wondering what it could be about.  It turns out I grabbed his pair of sneakers!  Fortunately, we fit in the other’s sneakers.
</funny anecdote>

I wonder if I didn’t publish that here if I could send it to Reader’s Digest or something for $50.

Simple little death.   All that could have been.  Need something to believe in.

YOU ARE NOT READY

I am no one. I am  a phantom.  There’s no proof I esist.

The Church of the Superluminals requires quantum computing.

4/22-27

I feel like I’m fighting a losing a battle.  It feels so futile.

I’m fighting against myself and I cannot win.

I have reached a point where it doesn’t matter whether I succeed or fail.  I will still survive a mundane existence where I have been alive.

Nothing left to look forward to.

Every moment I lose more hope.  And I don’t have anyone to turn to.

Everyone else has their own life or is too far away or is too depressed themselves.

How quickly will I be forgotten?

I have seen the past, the present, and the future and it scares me.  50% chance of dying of cancer or heart disease.  “Hen-pecked” as my brother says if I ever find anyone.  My brother thinks it’s going to be a Jewish girl.  I tell him no, it doesn’t have to be, it’s built into my personality.

BTW.  No one ever bothered to answer my question the first time I asked it, so I’ll ask it again.  Can people really change?

I look at other people’s lives and see how they’re where they want to be.  I will never be where I want to be.

Sometimes I think I’m working against myself. That I’m my own worst enemy.  But what else is new?

I’m at the point I look forward to meetings for the social interaction.  I am in need of major help.  But no one has the free time  like I do.  I feel so far behind in “social maturity”.  I know I will never catch up.  It means I’m behind on living my life.

Today, I didn’t start playing Quake as soon as I came home.

must leave house

With a job, there is a logical progression: application, inverview, hired.  There is no real logical progression to this thing.  I’ve also had jobs before this one. So it’s not like it’s something I’ve never done before which this thing  is.  I’m so much less experienced in these matters than anyone else my age.

I don’t believe your ability to succeed is based soley on your skill on evoking lust in the opposite sex.

I must prove to myself that I will not remain alone.  Easier said than done.

Imagine something that feels like boxers but looks like spandex.

This place mirrors my life in that the number of people who comment are similar to the number of people I can turn to.

In other news, I’m doing more programming at work.  It’s all part of the process of absorbing me into the daily grind.

Apparently, NIN has a quarter million friends on myspace.

I am so underrated. And undervalued.

It’s nice outside; you’re 28 years old; you should be out tonight.
With who? You?  I’m not going to go out alone, but I really don’t have anyone to go with.  No one, and I mean no one has as much free time as I do.
I need to get in touch with old friends or make new ones
The other problem is that it is hard decided what I’m interested in doing.

(title is optional) (no it isn't)

Listening to: Nine Inch Nails – Right Where It Belongs
I wonder if it would help me if I were to put a mood up here on a regular basis. Right now, it’s tired by the way.

You are not ready for a world where our Humanity defines us.

Humanity will not become a nation until our darkest times. I just hope it won’t be too late. Sometimes I think I have already seen the darkest times.

We run from the truth of death and we will keep running for a very long time.

I keep saying crisis creates compromise – always has always will But no one ever listens. Why don’t you try to compromise before someone gets killed?

Very little sleep last night, while everyone complains about losing an hour of sleep due to daylight savings time. “It’s all your fault, Franklin.”

(did you know there’s a patch for Microsoft Windows that has to do with daylight savings time in Australia for the Commonwealth Games?)

My connection to the world goes in and out just like my internet connection. They might have more to do with each other than one might think.

“All I ask is 20 minutes. . .”

RE: shave your head bald:
The amount of women this would anger just makes this not worth it. I wouldn’t hear the end of “But your beautiful curls.” Just because you’ve done it, Ross. .

A TV Show at Drexel

random thoughts #1

I know there is more to life than these things.  I suppose that’s where volunteering and spirituality come in.  Those things answer the questions that we have about purpose.  Perhaps this should be my activity with my uncle (father’s brother again) on Tuesday nights.

When am I going to start living my life? “Today can be the first day of the rest of your life.”  Yeah, right.  I think I need a plan.  Would a plan work for my love life?  Doubtful.  But I know I need to put more effort into it if I’m to have one at all.  I guess my question might be how.  Even before that should be, what atttributes am I looking for?

Who am I?  Would I have followed in my father’s footsteps if he never had MS?  Would I have made my own path?

I have always tried to avoid the what would have been questions in that regard.  Perhaps they serve to assist in answering why questions, but where have those gotten me?

It is life that I have missed out upon.  And it is my fear that nothing will change even if I do have the time to change it.

Perhaps it was destiny to end up at this job.

There’s someone for everyone – except those who feel sorry for themselves.

The darkness wakes.  The darkness has always been.

No one ever wants to read a dull tragedy.

It seems I’m much more attractive if I don’t let my hair grow too much.  I just need to get my hair cut every two months or so.  Just to make life interesting, I get my hair cut in Cherry Hill.

On my way to work today, I sort of put together a schedule of things I wanted to do when I got home.  Have I followed it?  Not exactly, but I did do most of the things I intended to accomplish in the schedule.  Which means that my room is actually a little neater.  (I can see the carpet so to speak.)

Why do I wait for all the women to send a message to me?  Especially when that’s against the cultural norm.

taxes, psychology, and love

Hooray!  I did my own taxes!

Well sort of.  I haven’t finished yet, and I did have to call the IRS for help, but still.  The psychiatrist would point out here how quickly I belittle my own accomplishments.  A common theme.
We always seem to come back to why.  Sure, we can keep asking the why questions, but at what point do the why questions become how can we change this?  I’m getting tired of the why questions.  Is sticking to why questions making sure I alone am responsible for any change in my behavior?

Someone sent me a message saying “i'm sure you'll find someone”.  Reminds me of when this one woman, a daughter of my mother’s friend, told me that I would find a job.  I did eventually.  Problem is that I’m not spending as much effort on meeting someone as I did at looking for a job.  But then, looking for a job can be reduced to a science.

The psychiatrist also thinks I’m afraid of success.  Yeah, yeah, fear of change and all
that. . .  independence,

As soon as my brother moves to Kansas, I know I’ll regret not hanging out with him more.  

Why do I never say a person’s name when saying hi to them?  When telling an anecdote, why do I usually leave out names?  Never any specifics.  My one uncle, (father’s brother) is even worse…  

I ended up leaving my cell phone charger at my mother’s, so of course my phone dies without me having a way to recharge it.

The number of posts is inversely proportional to the length of the post.  (that means less of one means more of the other to those less mathematically inclined)

I have reason to believe only four people total read this on a regular basis.  Myself, two others who leave comments, and one who leaves anonymous comments.  If there are any more, please leave a comment with your name.  Thanks.  Remember, most of the questions aren’t rhetorical.

Early this morning

I have an idea about my sleep pattern.  I think every other week, I mess it up.  I’m not sure why this is, though.  It might have something to do with what day I come home from my mother’s.  Like if I come home on Saturday, I have more of a chance of messing it up.  When I mess up my sleep schedule, that usually means it’s screwed for the week.  Next week, though, I’ll probably get a full night’s sleep every night.  I do know that I screw it up mostly by sleeping during the day on the weekends.

What would I give to get lost in another’s eyes?

My mother hasn’t told me as much, but I know she wants to see some grandchildren before she dies.

Sometimes, I think I’m condemned to mediocrity.  Mediocre job, mediocre house, mediocre life.

I’m stuck because I insist I don’t know when to ask when they want to meet in real life.

It’s almost 2AM.  Wish there was a girl up now I could talk to.

Listening to Nine Inch Nails – The Great Below.  Any NIN fans out there?  I know Rob’s one.  I knew this other guy named Rob that was also really into NIN.  The two met each other once.

More productive now then all day.  Writing this and searching for an apartment.  And the best candidate is: (drumroll?)  the same apartment as my psychiatrist’s office. It’d cost $150 more, but the place has great reviews and a great location.

I travel the lonely depths once again.  Searching for something I’ll never find.  I’m not sure I even remember what I’m searching for.

visiting brother, etc.

I did go visit my brother.  I walked to the hospital from an appointment.  Walking there was no big deal.  Finding the correct building was another story.  I went up to the correct floor but in the wrong building.  I ended up having to have a surgeon point me in the right direction down a long hallway of the interconnected buildings.

The high point of my visit (according to my brother’s girlfriend, Sonya) was that my brother got out of bed for the first time during it as well as going to the bathroom (literally) for the first time after the surgery.

I decided for some reason to walk from the hospital to the bus stop.  Five blocks more than walking to the hospital. . .   It was quite blustery.

Three kinds:
Those with corrupted morals.  Those who think they can’t do anything about the first group.  And those who think they can do something about the first group.

I started to write a character study, but got disgusted by the actions of the character.  Guy kills 100 people in a few minutes.  Alone and armed only with a sword.  Almost supernatural.  I seem to be attracted to writing about fictional psychopaths for some reason.  I don’t really read horror novels, though.  I’d really prefer to write what I read – science fiction.

Addicted again?

These images that are pushed upon us. . .  They turn us into something we’re not.  We crave what we cannot have – what we cannot become.  To become the ultimate object of lust.  They dictate an image – “This is attractive and you are not.”  The eye of the beholder has been betrayed – the inside is hollow.

from yesterday

My brother is having surgery tomorrow.  He is getting a stomach band.  It will hopefully enable him to lose weight.  In case you don’t know, my brother weighs more than twice I do and is a couple inches taller.  I plan on going to visit him in the hospital, but I’m not sure when or exactly where he is.

I can’t seem to think of anything to write again. That’s why the posts have become fewer.

Nothing here seems to change.  Do I really pursue happiness?  Why not?

I sometimes think I'm incapable of completing a story

03/07/2006

My connection is a little less flakey.  I’m trying not to run off and play computer games at the first opportunity.

Chicken or the Egg: an answer to which came first
According to evolutionary theory, the egg came first.  Eggs existed long before chickens ever walked the Earth, so eggs came first.  Furthermore, the chicken egg came before the chicken.  If whatever laid the chicken egg was not a chicken then the egg came first.  All chickens are hatched from chicken eggs.  There is no way a chicken could come before it’s own egg.  We need to replace this philosophical question with something not so easily answered by evolution.  I was considering which came first, G-d or humans, but decided that it has too much of a religious slant to it as well as it pitting atheists against everyone else.

I’d like to think that I still have my health, but sometimes I have my doubts.

I have too much of a tendency to mess up my sleep schedule over weekends.  That would be fine I guess if I was actually outside of my house when I mess it up.

My psychiatrist suggested there might be something to the idea that my mother is the cause of many of my problems.  The last thing I want to do, though, is blame my mother for my problems.  She already blames herself for enough.

I still haven’t made an appointment with the dentist – or with the doctor – or with . . .

fear of strength

Everyone has difficulties to overcome.  Usually, people simply rely on their inner strength to overcome them.

G-d helps those who help themselves.  The problem is that long-term (meaning several years) depression actually interferes with the mechanism of inner strength, leaving you with no way of overcoming it.  The earlier it begins and the longer it lasts, the more powerful depression becomes.  It eats away at any inner strength.  After awhile, depression starts to become your natural state.  Like you’ve never known anything different.  My current doctor just says I exhibit some symptoms of depression, like I said before: as if I don’t know that already.  Maybe what I have to overcome is fear.  I don’t even really want to see it as fear, but that’s what a great deal of my excuses not to do things are.  Maybe I’m afraid of having any inner strength.

I think that the problem is that I don’t see a way out anymore.  If I don’t see it, it can’t exist. How in the world am I supposed to make my own light at the end of the tunnel?

get me outta here

Somebody break me out of my jail cell!  I was thinking about posting something like that on OKCupid or MySpace or something.  I suppose I really shouldn’t, but I really need to get out of my room.

I don’t like this feeling of doom.  You know, what I always find myself staring into.
ID’s Doom spells doom for me.

The slow dancer does actually have to take to the dance floor.  At the rate I’m going, I haven’t even gotten that far.

I seem to be varying my activities a little more.  I’m not spending my free time just playing computer games.  These days there’s also posting here and a little IMing as well.  Still, it seems like I’m doing very little of value.

At work today, I thought I messed up this one important person’s computer or at least her connection to the network.  I got very stressed about it.  Fortunately, I think evertyhing turned out to be fine, but I wonder about how much that increased my stress level.  I think I became very panicky.  Maybe because I could only imagine her response attacking me.  Although, I didn’t dream up any specifics of this attack.  I based it upon what I understood of her character, but maybe only the negative aspects.

dull depression

I might be experiencing some of the symptoms of TMJ.  My dentist thinks that I grind my teeth when I sleep.  I sometimes have headaches.  I wake up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. . .  The dentist suggested a $400 mouthguard.  I’m just not sure if I would actually wear it.  I guess it comes down to if I want to feel better, I will.

Did you ever notice that certain excuses for irrational actions just don’t sound so good as soon as you start telling them to someone?

How have I gotten so impatient that I can’t even wait for a song to finish anymore?

With a great deal of the things I do, they’re just to take up the time.  I feel like I’m just passing time until there's no time left.  If only I could do something productive to take up my time.

The zombie’s dull tragedy -
I wrote this as a dull tragedy.  How do you expect me to change the pace and the mood in the middle of the story?

60 years from now, will this be all that’s left?

This make me a better person?  HA! I only sink deeper into myself.

About the only thing I know to help myself is that I myself must change.

Part of the problem with my depression, if that’s what it is, is that it is so deeply ingrained.  I have had this behavior for so long I don’t remember anything else.  Just periods where it was lessened or went away for awhile, but it always seems to come back.  And those may have only been the result of medication.  When it comes down to it, is the medication more than a mood elevator?  Will it give me self-confidence?  Not likely.  Would said mood elevators leave me feeling happy with where I am in life?

Depression. Blah, blah blah. No self-confidence. Blah, blah, blah. Stop complaining and do something about it already!  And stop repeating yourself!

Note: Many questions asked in my posts are not really rhetorical.  Feel free to try at an answer.

work problems

I suppose part of me didn’t want to explore what I’m about to explore. Maybe that’s why I was procrastinating my writing today. Forgive me if the following is a little too technical for some of you. I am willing to explain anything as usual.

Towards the end of the day at work Friday, the chairman asked us if both the test and production versions of a certain program that we bought (not wrote ourselves) could be installed alongside each other. I said yes and proceeded to tell him how you could tell the difference between the test and production versions. As a result, my coworkers thought that I thought it was a good idea to install them alongside each other. The truth is I wasn’t thinking one way or the other - just giving him information, and that it is a bad idea to have test and production version installed on the same computer. For some reason, my coworkers thinking I thought it was a good idea really bothered me for a few days. What disturbs me is how something so trivial could bother me so much.

Then, there was also this other thing at work. I have to do an upload of records from Oracle (a database system) to the mainframe which I used to do daily, but hasn’t been done in awhile. The upload is limited to 15,000 records, but this time 25,000 records have to be uploaded. Usually that means we just divide it up by date. Well, I discovered that 20,000 records were updated in one day which is very unusual. I tracked down what happened and fortunately, it was just normal operation. It was decided those could just be done right on the mainframe. I had to figure out how to filter out those updates. Someone else ended up figuring out how to get a list of those updates. I just had to get the opposite of it. Well, I thought I did, but as it was time for me to leave I discovered I hadn’t. As this upload has to be done at the end of the day and I’ve been trying to do the upload for the past few days, I ended up staying a few minutes after I’m supposed to leave almost every day last week. What bothers me is that I hadn’t actually tried what I thought was the solution unitl the last minute and that I couldn’t figure out the solution. Not to mention that, yet again, something like this shouldn’t bother me that much.

Bah, I’m back to playing Quake full force again. No change in my life really seems to last.

When I go to mother’s on the weekends it’s unlikely I will post anything until Sunday. I guess it’s how I take a break from computers in a way. Or maybe it’s just that her computer is too slow. Of course, it’s interesting to see what I end up doing when I take a break from computers (not forced). I guess we already explored that though. Forced ends up being the same as not forced. Either way: TV, reading, sleeping etc.

Something could always be on with 500 channels, but why watch all day? Where do you draw the line at a constant feed of entertainment, information, or otherwise?