Category Archives: social

Random randomness

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Well, blogger has been pretty fucked up of late, and since it would be a real pain in the ass to update the front page manually, as I used to do, I have instead lost a couple of complete posts by being a complete idiot. You see, when I first started using the blogger script, I continued to write all of the posts in notepad (including all the html for links, etc). The thing is when I transferred them over to blogger, I would have to do it either a paragraph at a time, or else it would not put in breaks, or I would do it all at once and lose all of the actual html from the document -I would have to go back and reinsert italics, bold, any links, etc. I’m sure that there was a way to get around that, but I never bothered to look it up, I just started using the blogger text editor since it is basically the same as notepad anyway.

Unfortunately for me, I have a habit of not making copies of what I am writing into the text editor over here, so when blogger is continually going down, I don’t actually know that I am going to lose the post until after I have already lost it. That is to say, I didn’t paste the html back to notepad before I attempted to publish the last two posts, and since blogger was down I was not able to retrieve the contents. Stupid blogger and your stupid downtime. Fear not, I am sure the missing posts probably wouldn’t have been earth shaking, they rarely ever are.

Instead I will offer a couple of random things, and for the best reason: no damn reason at all!

The local jocks on the radio were being their normal obnoxious selves this morning. It is sometimes funny, sometimes thought provoking (hard to type that with a straight face finger), sometimes, well most times, just completely, unapologetically chauvinistic. So, kind of humorous in doses, as long as you try to tell yourself that it has to be satire (don’t even question whether or not it is meant to be satire, you will be disappointed with the results. Unless you have a very small mind, in which case you probably don’t think it is satire, but then you probably agree with all the “get your ass back in the kitchen, take off your shoes, and have my baby” type “humor” they throw around).

The show is at its best when it is unintentional though. Like this morning. There was something in the middle of one of the valley freeways, it may have been an animal, but no one was really sure. Anyway, the jocks instantly assumed that it was an animal, and were actively asking the person who had hit the animal to call the show. Of course there were a couple hundred people who called up claiming to be the person who hit the animal, ’cause hearing yourself on the radio is probably at the top of their “must do before I die” list. Some of the calls were funny, just for the outlandish stories the people were telling. For example, one person said that a UFO dropped a mutilated cow on the freeway in front of him and he didn’t have time to dodge. But the best part was that they started playing a stock “tire screech, car crash” audio bit before each new call they took. Until the last one, when someone hit the wrong key. So just as the jock says something like “There is a dead animal in the middle of the I-10”, Marvin Gaye’s song Let’s Get it on started playing in the background. Classic, in that “it’s funny because it’s necrophilia” way.

Next up is a horoscope in the latest issue of The Onion:

Taurus April 20 – May 20:
It seems like no matter how many times you pick up the Bible, you always discover something new within its pages for you to wildly misconstrue.

That applies to a lot more people than just Taurusus Tauruses Taurusis Taurus’ Tauri the ones born under the sign of the bull. The problem is if you own a bible, and you think that the statement doesn’t apply to you, you are exactly the person that it applies to, but you will never admit it.

Finally, Wil put up a link to the following video and it is the funniest thing since sliced bread:


What has become of me?

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So I was lying around the house today watching some hardcore porn…Actually, that isn’t true, although admitting to that would be so much easier than admitting what I was actually watching. There is a new show on The Learning Channel called Honey, We’re Killing the Kids, which I thought was going to be an interesting docudrama that followed a couple around as they hunted down their own children and savagely beat them to death with rusty machetes. When it turned out to be something completely different, I was far too lazy to push the button on the remote that would end my misery, so I watched it anyway.

First off, shouldn’t Disney file a lawsuit against the creators for using their intellectual property? Isn’t it an obvious ripoff of the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids? Bleh. The series is probably owned by Disney, or the network is owned by Disney, at any rate I am not going to waste the time to look it up. Because when it comes down to lawsuits, I think Mattel is the company that really has a case. Look at the images and judge for yourself1:


At any rate, the show is all about exploiting fat children. The premise is that a nutritional expert will show the parents what the child will look like at age 40 if they don’t change their lifestyle, but the reality is that it is a show that will be watched by millions of people so that they can think that their children aren’t really all that fat by comparison. The particular show that I watched had a twelve year old kid on it that was only 10 pounds lighter than I am despite the fact that I am almost two feet taller than him. It truly boggles the mind.

I really can’t see why anyone would ever watch more than one episode of this show. I watched the very beginning of another episode and it is exactly the same thing only the people have been changed. I don’t think this is going to be a Jerry Springer type thing, where people like to watch it just to see what happens when the gene pool dries out. I can’t see how this show would be any different ever. Act 1: show the parents grossly exaggerated (or not when you look at the exploding waistline of the U.S. population) age renderings of what their children will look like in a couple of decades. Act 2: Insert change in the form of better food and a more healthy lifestyle, which the family at first rejects but slowly starts to accept. Act 3: show the parents grossly exaggerated (for sure this time) age renderings of what their children will look like in a couple of decades now that they have eaten a piece of fruit (imagine that, they could all be runway models). The End.

It would be nice if they were to go into the epilogue. You know, fast forward a couple of years to find out that the second the cameras were off everyone reverted to old habits and the kids are fatter than ever, but that would sort of make the entire premise of the show kind of pointless then, wouldn’t it?

Normally I am not the type to make vast and sweeping generalizations without factual basis2, but I am going to go with my gut on this one (pun intended). The only people likely to watch this show are going to be the parents of children who are borderline morbidly obese. If they can find just one child on the planet that weighs more than little Timmy, you see, then that means that little Timmy isn’t really that fat. Who else would watch the show? Parents of normal3, healthy, active children wouldn’t want to watch it, and certainly wouldn’t want their children to watch it. So I guess that means that they will always have an audience, at least until every family except for the fattest family in the U.S. has seen it.

1) I think I probably lose a lot of cool points for knowing the Mattel logo well enough to immediately recognize this blatant ripoff. Even more for actually admitting that I recognized it. Thankfully it wasn’t the Kenner logo or I would gain like 2d20 geek points on top of the cool points that I lost. In fact I might get those geek points anyway since Kenner was absorbed by Hasbro a long time ago and only the real Star Wars GeeksTM remember Kenner, and then only because it is printed on the front of their complete set of action figures from the first film.

2) I leave that to the Republicans. *rimshot* Thank you. I will be here all week.

3) That makes it sound like I am implying that the extremely overweight children are not “normal”, I would like to clarify that. I am not implying that they aren’t normal, I am saying it flat out.

Fun with numerology

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As I was reading through my Bathroom Reader today, I happened across a little thing about numerology. I had never thought of the possibility that the number of the house you live in could have a great impact on your life because, well, they are really just assigned arbitrary numbers in an ascending or descending fashion and have nothing whatsoever to do with you. Then there is the fact that most people live with families, thus meaning that the number would be the same for every one of them.

At any rate, you are supposed to add up all the numbers in the address and continue doing so until you get a single digit. For example 11455 adds up to 16, which then adds up to seven. I started to think of the houses that I have lived in over the years, or at least the ones that I can remember the numbers of, and I noticed a trend.

The number of the house I live in now is 325. The number of the house I grew up in was 865. The number of the garage I lived in briefly was 955. Adding each of the numbers up on each of them resulted in a 1. Maybe there really is something to this superstition? Here is what it says about addresses that add up to 1:


Because it’s the first number, 1 is considered very powerful. It symbolizes independence, ambition, and new beginnings. A 1 address is said to be good for artists, the self-employed, and anyone else who has a home office and expects to do a lot of work there. It’s also good for people with strong egos.

Oh my God! It’s as if they know me! It is just vague enough to be applicable to anyone, yet uses such great words -independence, ambition- that, of course you are going to think apply to you.

Then I went to try to find a link to a page that had all of the numbers just in case you wanted to check out your own address. I google searched for “address numerology” and just hit the first one I found. But, here is what it says about addresses that add up to the number 1:


A “1” property reflects assertion, exploration, newness, impulse, trying things out, a new start. Males (or your masculine side) will often dominate in this place. Verve, swagger, vivacity, quick reactions, quick passions are the norm. Ambitious people, especially career singles, often choose a “1” address — and benefit from it, so long as they don’t want to build a married life. This house often ages rapidly, needs repairs. But if you lack vim and vigor in your life, it’s the place to be. Best to rent rather than buy, as 1’s tend to lag in market appreciation. If you want to develop or subdivide a property, 1 is a good number because it vibrates well to cutting, dividing, building, carving a place out of the wilderness. You get a new start here!

It says “new start”, but other than that it doesn’t seem to have much in common with the other one. Isn’t there some kind of standardized numerology code or something? It is as if they are just making shit up as they go. That seems so unprofessional.

This online version also says that you are supposed to count the name of the street as well as the direction associated with your street, which makes absolutely no sense. How in the fuck does “park” or “west” have anything to do with numbers? Well, it clearly does, using the following formula:


For letters, use this table:

A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, E=5, F=6, G=7, H=8, I=9

J=1, K=2, L=3, M=4, N=5, O=6, P=7, Q=8, R=9

S=1, T=2, U=3, V=4, W=5, X=6, Y=7, Z=8

E.g., “Elm Street” = 5(e)+3(l)+4(m) = 12 = 1+2 = 3 (ignore “Street”).

Okay, I’ll try this again. Doing it this way ends in eight for all of the places I can remember. Let’s see what the chart says about 8 addresses:


8 is symbolic of power, it is the only number that connects beginning to end making it the strongest of the numbers. People who live in 8 houses tend to be extremely strong of mind and body. The strength and power come at a cost though: people who live in 8 houses tend to place entirely too much stock in random occurrences and chance, thus negating the mental strength and power of the address.

Okay, I made that one up. But, how long did it take you to figure that out? Anyway, here is what it really says about 8 houses:


If you live in an 8, your life is serious. The 8 address brews deep change, usually through the agencies of sex, finance or health. An 8 address brings the hidden forces of nature to the surface. You’ll delve into secrets here. Your interest will grow in investments and your net worth. You might become wealthy, or you could lose big-time, depending on your karma and astuteness. Pregnancy occurs. Extra-marital temptations arise. Young couples can build their empires here, but they should be deeply in love first, for this property indicates many long, slow, deep changes in how you relate to each other. Honesty is essential. Morals need careful cultivation in every area; you’ll be lured toward “power plays.” This property tends to appreciate well, even very well, but that’s not assured. This is a perfect “business premise” for a psychiatrist, editor, diagnostician, researcher, gynecologist, investor, or handler of other people’s money. (But they should live in a 4 or other place, to enjoy a rest from work.)

Wow, that is so me! Except for the pregnancy part, and the extra-marital temptations, and the “power plays”. Actually, I think that is the least like me out of all the possible options. Thankfully, I only have to go to the third search result (the second one was pretty lame) to find a numerology assessment that figures out the number for you (very scientific this numerology stuff). The beauty is that I can keep changing the way I enter the address until I find the entry that I like the most. I mean should it really be 325 East 8th Street, 325E. 8th St., 325 East 8th St., 325 E. 8th Street, I could probably sit here and come up with a couple dozen different ways to enter it, but I only need 9.

So that is where I concluded my scientifically calculated, really for real this time, house number assessment. Keep in mind that the fact that I entered my address several times until I found the one I liked best does not negate the infallibility of the scientific process. (if you don’t like the results you are getting just go ahead and enter the number 1, then 2, then 3, etc. Once you find the result you are looking for you can manipulate your address until it matches up.)

Signs, signs, everywhere there’s signs

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There is this little church down the street from where I live, well the one I am thinking about is actually across town -not the one that is actually right next door. I drive by it every day, yet have failed to note exactly what religion it is affiliated with, not that it matters I suppose -at least not for my purposes this morning.

This little church has one of those lighted billboards that is right on the highway, what would pass for a highway in a town this small at any rate. The message that is up on the little board can vary from trying to be thought provoking “What if God is waiting on a sign from us?”, to just plain humorous “Git ‘R Done for Jesus” (that was on display while Country Thunder was in town.

Whoever it is that puts the little messages up on that board seems to be making an effort to keep from putting up anything that would turn away your average non-affiliated person; never any of the doom and gloom, the end is near, repent or burn in hell type stuff. I don’t really think you can scare someone into religion anyway, at least not anyone capable of rational thought, but that is for a different post.

For the last week or so the sign has had a message on it that just pisses me off whenever I drive by. It says “Don’t put a question mark where God put a period.” I don’t know why this one gets to me so much, well I guess I must have some idea why or I wouldn’t be sitting here right now then, would I?

It really irritates me when anyone starts using phrases like “God said…”, or “The Bible says…”, especially so if they are trying to make a point using that as an argument. The reality is that if there is a God and he did say something it is certainly not what is written in the Bible.

While atheists believe that the Bible is nothing more than an old novel, even religious zealots have to admit that what is written in it was not written until well after the crucifixion of Jesus. It has been translated and revised so many times over the centuries that it is now impossible to say what it might have said at the time it was penned. God had nothing to do with it.

I am not sure exactly what question the billboard was referring to. Homosexuality? Birth control? Slavery? Female subservience? Evolution? It doesn’t really matter. Whatever it was referring to it was encouraging people to live their lives based on the limited understanding of a culture that lived over a millennia ago. If you want to live that way -believe in the bible as a literal truth- that is your decision, but try to at least be honest enough to admit that it is not the word of God, but the word of someone who claims that he spoke to God. Then think of the wild-eyed guy on the corner screaming “repent, the end is nigh!”, he also claims that he spoke to God, but he is just crazy, right?

So, here is my new theory; Religion = delusion + time

while writing that I was trying to find a link to an argument that I once read that said that God didn’t actually take a rib from Adam to create Eve, but that it was instead a different anatomical components that was removed and it was mistranslated in the bible. While I was not able to find a link to that argument, I did find a link to a completely different argument. If you are a firm believer in evolution (like me) you really should read this article. I have been debating this subject based on faulty logic for a long time, make sure you don’t make the same mistake.

It’s a good thing I’m not religious

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I finally got around to watching the South Park episodes I taped during the season 10 rewind. Trey and Matt are still writing some top notch stuff.

One thing that really has me curious though is why Comedy Central refused to show the image of Mohammed. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that it is supposedly forbidden to make a likeness of Mohammed in the Muslim religion, I know that this is why Comedy Central made the decision. The thing that really has me curious is why this was the one religion that they decided to respect.

In the very same episode, Comedy Central aired footage of Jesus Christ defecating on the president of the United States. Now I know that it is not specifically written in the bible that it is a sin to draw a likeness of Jesus dumping a steaming pile on the president, but I am relatively sure that it is sort of implied. Hell, Jesus has his own Jerry Springer-esque talk show on the series, which is just brilliant IMHO, but I am pretty sure that it is a straight mockery of Christianity.

Even Scientology, while just a kooky fringe cult, has been the subject of continual mockery on the show. One episode took it so far as to lead to the resignation of Isaac Hayes, who is unfortunately affiliated afflicted with the cult religion.

Poking fun at Christianity is one of the many cornerstones that has helped to build South Park into the phenomenon that it has become. In fact one of the first episodes was a battle between Jesus and Santa Claus (which was just a remake of the very first short Jesus vs. Frosty). Since then the show has lampooned religion at just about every opportunity. Be it having Kenny wage the war of good vs. evil because God wasn’t powerful enough, worshipping an idol of the Virgin Mary bleeding out her ass, or highlighting the special relationship that Priests share with little boys, nothing seems to be taboo when it comes to Christianity.

If I were a religious person I would really be pissed off that Comedy Central thinks that it is fine to depict Christianity as a caricature on a repeated basis, yet refuse to so much as show an image of Mohammed. Comedy Central certainly pushes the envelope further than any other network (religious right wing networks not withstanding) in testing the limits of free speech, but they need to do it with some consistency; If Christianity is fair game, every other religion needs to be as well.

Granting special exclusions to any one group, religious or otherwise, is akin to letting them define freedom of speech. Last time I checked the United Stated was not a theocracy, I, for one, would like to make sure it remains that way.

I need a six pack of Glad bags and an alibi!

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Because I can never seem to answer a question without making some smart-ass remark, that’s why!

Working where I do for as long as I have, I have seen hundreds (possibly thousands) of people come and go (I’m talking employees). As a result of this I try not to get too personal with them. Of course I am courteous and friendly with them; I just don’t talk a lot about myself, and hope they keep to themselves as well. I have become pretty good friends with a couple of them over the years, but that is the exception, certainly not the rule. So many people come and go from this place that I honestly don’t even bother to learn their names until they have worked there for at least a month -that is not a joke.

A woman started working there about two months ago and she is the one that I now work with on Saturday nights. Last Saturday she asked me flat-out if I didn’t like her. I looked at her for a second kind of confused before I asked her why. It turns out that she thought I didn’t like her because I don’t talk to her a lot. That is certainly not the case, as I explained to her, the less I talk to her the better: If I have to talk to the other employees a lot it usually means they are doing a lot of things wrong. I like working with her better than the other employees because she is able to do what needs to be done without me having to point it out to her, that is a very good trait.

Once this woman realized that I didn’t hate her, she began to talk to me a lot more. I have no problem with that, but I don’t really like to discuss my life with people that I know will be nothing but a memory in less than a year. So it was that when she asked me what I like to do when I wasn’t at work I told her that I was a serial killer. We then had a lengthy conversation about serial killers, mostly about Ed Gein (my all time favorite, since he was just batshit-insane), but also covering the more familiar ones such as BTK, Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez(sp?). It was a good conversation, it is not often that I am engaged in a conversation about something that fascinates me such as serial killers do. And that was that.

A man I knew came into the store today to rent a rug doctor (carpet steam cleaner thingy). I asked him if he needed garbage bags to put on the floor while he dismembered the body (note that it is necessary to gauge who the person is before asking such a question: It would suck to ask that of a real serial killer). The woman laughed when she heard me asking the question, which was the intent of course.

Later, another man came in to rent a rug doctor. Two rentals in one day is something I have never seen in all my years working there. As I was filling out the paperwork, I said there sure must have been a lot of murders on St. Patrick’s Day. The guy renting the machine asked why I said that, and I told him it was our second machine that day. He just said, “oh”. As he was signing the paperwork, I told him to make sure to also replace the padding beneath the blood stains, and most importantly to remove the baseboards before scrubbing the walls (a lot of killers get caught because of that oversight). The man was just staring at me, he just said, “Uh. Okay. Thanks.” Then he walked out the door.

This woman looked at me now, she was laughing pretty hard. “Not everyone is a serial killer, Donnie, Just you.”

I had completely forgotten that I had told her that last Saturday. But that made it seem pretty funny to me as well. Except that I had obviously gauged the guy who just walked out the door wrong. The whole point of the serial killer jokes is to make people laugh, if they don’t laugh it may lead directly to either your own death, or a random swat team showing up at your house as the detectives are digging up your back yard. But it’s so funny when they do laugh.

Random stuff for no damn reason

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As the title would suggest, this will be a collection of assorted bullshit. Your entertainment value may vary, act accordingly.

First up is a cute little instructional video that I found on the internet. It is quite helpful in defining what exactly constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace. It starts out seeming almost real, but a little too real, sort of like the old energizer commercials where you think it is a spoof but aren’t quite sure. About midway through the video there is no longer any doubt about its intentions, and as such it isn’t really the type of thing you should be watching at work, unless your boss happens to be harassing you, in which case it could be educational for the both of you -providing you don’t get fired-. Linkage here, please enjoy the show.

Secondly I have an observation about human nature and Wal-Mart. The human nature part is in getting a refund for a light bulb that was the wrong size. The bulb cost $5.74, and was six inches too long for my purposes. The correct bulb was $5.64, so only a dime in difference. How long did it take to get the dime back? Just under an hour.

See, the human nature wanted to get my money back since the bulb didn’t fit. But Wal-Mart’s corporate structure has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that they give as few refunds as possible. After all, who in their right mind would stand in line for an hour to get back a dime (that is sort of rhetorical at this point)? I didn’t even care about the dime, I just wanted the other light bulb. I though about just putting the little pink return sticker on the bulb I needed and walking out the door, but can you imagine the embarrassment if they had actually stopped me at the door? It sure would suck to get arrested for shoplifting when I was just trying to get the bulb that fit.

I really should have just bought the other bulb and given up on the refund of the first one. $5.74 is really not all that much money, anyone’s time is worth more than that, that is why we have a minimum wage after all. But you know how it is once you get into that line; either morbid fascination or a need for closure keep you there no matter what. I walked away with my dime and a sense of self-accomplishment. It takes a great man to waste an hour of his life for a dime!

Finally, and somewhat Wal-Mart (or any shopping center) related. Why is it that some people will drive around a parking lot for ten minutes looking for a parking space that is closer to the door? In order for that to make any sense at all I would have to be able to find a space about a half a mile closer to the entrance (I walk about five miles an hour at normal walking pace, which is why my wife and I rarely go shopping together; she has to run to keep up). Are people really that lazy? Again, that is probably rhetorical.

I have my own technique for finding a parking space. I pick the one closest to the cart return. Most people don’t like to park near the cart return for fear of damaging their precious car. My precious car is ten years old and already dented and dinged so I don’t really give a shit. I am also one of the seemingly rare people that actually return the cart to the designated corral before leaving. If I parked closer to the store I would probably have to push the cart all the way back to the entrance before I could leave, parking near the cart return gets me out of there a lot faster. Also, the farther away from the entrance you park the less foot traffic you will have to contend with. Seriously, parking further from the entrance and close to a cart return saves a hell of a lot of time, but don’t tell anyone, I don’t want everyone to know the secret. Of course most people are too lazy to spend the minute to walk to the door anyway so I guess I am in no trouble.

The ultimate weight loss program?

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It has been three full weeks since I have drank a beer. I have found that even the smell of it is a bit repulsive, but I guess it always has been, I know that I hated the taste of it the first time I tried it. It took a lot of drinking it to get to the point where I found it drinkable, even longer to get to the point where I became a bit of a snob about the taste of it, longer still to get to the point where I didn’t give a damn about the taste so long as it was beer. What a horrible existence that was.

The type of beer that I drank had 100 calories and 5 carbs per twelve ounce serving. I drank between twelve and eighteen of them a day. That means that if I ate nothing at all I was consuming between 1,200 and 1,800 calories a day, with between 60 and 90 carbs (I have never put much stock into carb counting as a factor in weight gain or loss though, I am merely putting it her for facts sake). Of course I did eat though, a stick of jerky when I got home for 360 calories, then usually chimichangas, usually three, for a total of 1,050 calories, plus I always topped them with a generous portion of grated cheese, I don’t know how many calories that added but I am sure it was a couple hundred at least. So I was on a 2,800 to 3,300 calorie a day diet. That is a lot of calories.

My diet for the last three weeks has been nearly exactly the same. I still have a beef jerky snack and still eat chimichangas. I no longer top the chimichangas with cheese, or maybe once a week I do. Also sometimes I have two of them and sometimes I have three, depending on how hungry I feel. Even at that my caloric intake has gone from the 2,800-3,300 range all the way down to the 1,000-1350 range. Yes, I have been taking in about one-third the calories I did previously for the last three weeks. It certainly shows.

I have lost 25 pounds in the past 21 days. When I quit drinking I weighed 195 pounds, now I am just under 170. This is the least I have weighed since I was 19 years old. My slimmest in twelve full years. That is pretty amazing. My pants and belt are far too big for me now, forcing me to punch additional holes in the belt to keep the pants up. The pants also bunch up when I tighten the belt, as they are at least two or three inches larger than my waistline. The ultimate weight loss plan indeed.

Unfortunately I don’t think that it is necessarily healthy for me to be losing weight so quickly. I can’t put my finger on why it would be bad for me, per se, but I do often begin to get quite light-headed towards the end of a long shift at work. I nearly passed out today, likely would have at least fallen down were it not for a handy bench to grab onto. I think I need to start eating a second meal. Not having breakfast or lunch sure leaves me feeling pretty drained by the time I have a jerky snack after work.

I hope I can get something worked out where I can continue to shed pounds without feeling so physically exhausted all the time. Perhaps a granola bar or a piece of fruit in the morning would do the trick.

Completely as an afterthought, I never liked to weigh myself when I was drinking. I know that it was because I knew that the number was just going up. I weighed myself once a month at best. Now I am weighing myself on a daily basis, mostly because I was waiting for/anticipating the day when the little dial stopped short of 170. Hell, if I was to wipe the dust off of the scale I might lose an additional pound.

Shedding demons

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I quit drinking recently. Something that I had tried and failed to do many times before. During the first couple of days of this attempt I wrote down some of my thoughts. Here they are.

Saturday Jan. 07

While I am sure that I have mentioned that I like to drink beer, I am pretty sure that I failed to mention to what extent that goes. I drink beer every day, and I am not capable of drinking only one or two; I continue drinking until the beer is gone or I pass out, whichever comes first. Most would probably say that this puts me into the category of being a serious alcoholic, which isn’t exactly true since I never go to the meetings with anonymous people. I do have quite a serious drinking problem though, and as is always the case I continually deny that fact.

I am sure there are checklist type quizzes I could take to tell me whether or not I am an alcoholic but I don’t need to. The fact that I try to justify my drinking by saying things like, “It has never caused me to miss work” is proof enough. While it is true that I have never missed work because of my drinking, that is about the only thing that I haven’t missed because of it. A few notable examples of what I have missed being things like, say, the last decade of my life, five years of marriage, numerous events that I should have attended with my wife, the list could go on forever. Alcohol is destroying my life and I know it, I have known it for a long time but have been powerless to do anything about it.

I don’t put much stock into the idea that alcoholism is a disease. If this is a disease it is one that I willingly subjected myself to, and one that it took many years to incubate into the out-of-control condition it has become. I used to be able to control the alcohol, now the alcohol controls me. It is rather a helpless feeling.

Quitting drinking is pretty easy in concept, all I have to do is not open that can of beer, not drink that can of beer, but I can’t do it. The alcohol calls to me, my body shakes and trembles awaiting the depressant qualities of the liquor. I think to myself “Perhaps if I have just one, just to calm my nerves, what could it hurt?”, the next thing I know I am completely drunk wondering where the day went. I tell myself that tomorrow will be the day that I don’t drink but when I wake up it is today, and today I end up drinking. In this sense tomorrow really never comes. A cycle that I can’t seem to break.

No more!

I would like to say that I had some great emergence of will power to help me try to quit, that would be a lie. I am not sure if I would ever have even tried to quit drinking for my own sake. Quitting would be very good for my health of course, I just don’t think I could have ever tried to wrestle the demon without some external motivation. Finding out how badly my drinking was hurting my wife was a pretty powerful motivator.

Overcoming a drug addiction is one of the most difficult things a person can ever try to do. I have tried many times to quit drinking and to quit smoking, all attempts have failed. I am not trying to fool myself into believing that this attempt will be any different, but I have taken a different approach. I am not telling myself that I will never drink again, instead I am telling myself that I will not drink today. If I can just make it through today then I will have the chance to make the decision again tomorrow, but when tomorrow comes it will be today, and I have already made the decision for today, right? It is actually a bit more difficult than that, but you get the gist of it.

It has been two days since I have had a beer. That might not seem very impressive but considering that is the longest I have gone without a beer in about a decade I am considering it a victory. I am really wishing I had one right now though, and I have some in the room next to me. Oddly I think that is making it easier for me to fight the desire. I know that the beer is available if the desire becomes overwhelming, which seems to keep the desire from becoming overwhelming. It is like I am tricking the part of my brain that needs the beer into not needing the beer since I have the beer if I need it -which doesn’t make a damn bit of sense, but it is my brain and I know how to trick it-.

Aside from the trembling (more so than usual) the other adverse effect from not drinking was exactly the one I thought I would have: sleeping. My eyes can be as heavy as bricks but my mind, being so used to the daily depressant, is still wide awake. I am sure that within a few days this will get easier, as my body gets used to not having the alcohol administered to it on a daily basis, but the last two nights have just been a lot of tossing and turning.

Sunday Jan. 8

Another sleepless night. I turned off the television at about a quarter after one in the morning then stared at the alarm clock for about three hours before deciding to go read a little bit. Got back into bed at about 4:30 and stared at the clock until I dozed off at about 5, only to be awakened by the barking of my neighbors dog a half an hour later. (totally as an aside. Don’t you just hate the first month after Christmas, lots of kids got puppies that they absolutely loved…For about two weeks. Now all you can hear at night is the sound of the puppies barking as they are locked outside and forgotten. A couple more weeks and the sound will die down as the dogs end up in local animal shelters. One should never give a child a live animal as a gift, it really is animal cruelty). Asleep again sometime shortly after six. Woke up again shortly after seven, this time for good. Once the sun starts to rise I find it nearly impossible to sleep.

I did a bit of research into this and found this website: http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/health/a/blacer030816.htm . It says exactly what I thought it would say, almost verbatim. I am only one of the many people who really began drinking (at least daily) as a sleep aid. Of course it led to dependency, how could it not? Over time it would take more and more to relax me to the point that I could fall asleep, until I was eventually passing out instead of sleeping. Now I am dealing with the fallout of being self-medicated for so long. One unfortunate thing in that article is that it says many recovering alcoholics continue to have sleeping problems for more than a year after giving up alcohol, that is not a welcome prospect.

I have been trying to keep my caffeine consumption as low as possible over the last few days, but since I drink diet coke that is not an easy thing to do. The only caffeine free diet soda I could find in town was 7up, I have been drinking that in the evenings to try to make sure I don’t have a buzz when I am attempting to sleep. Honestly though, that stuff doesn’t taste very good. Not that any diet soda really does. Add to that the fact that each time I get up to use the restroom or whatever during the night I take a quick drink of soda, Diet Coke, and it is easy to understand where at least some of the sleeping difficulty is coming from.

This morning I went to the grocery store in Coolidge and bought one of every kind of caffeine free diet soda they had on the shelf, I am not even kidding. I brought home diet orange crush, caffeine free diet coke, diet a&w root beer, diet squirt, diet mug root beer, diet 7up, and three different flavors of sparkling water. Surely one of these will be to my liking. I am not entirely sure if I should try to give up caffeine completely at the same time as I am giving up alcohol, but if I could just not have any caffeine in the afternoon it would surely be a step in the right direction.

As for how I am actually feeling it is still hard to say. I think my body feels better, I am certainly eating more, or at least more often but in smaller quantities. The effects on my mind have been pretty immediate though. I am thinking more clearly now, even though I feel so fatigued from lack of sleep, than I have in as long as I can remember. My hands are not trembling as bad as usual. And I am actually typing quickly sober, that is something that I used to never be able to accomplish until I had downed at least a couple. I am in pretty good spirits so far, hopefully I can keep them that way.

I quit writing about it after that because it just kept reminding me that I am supposed to be drinking, not the best idea when I was trying to quit. I can tell you though that the most difficult day was the 5th day. I don’t know why but I needed a drink so bad I felt like I might actually die without it. With no way to fight the desire I just went to bed and tried to sleep, of course I didn’t sleep at all. I did stare at the alarm clock until the morning though and by then the desire had passed.

It has now been 8 days since I gave up drinking. I find that I hardly even think about it now, and when I do it is more of a “a beer would be nice” type thought, opposed to the “must drink or perish!” commands my mind had been making for the last decade. I think I may have subdued the demon this time, yet I know that if I ever take a single drink it will likely lead me back to the hell I was in before. So, success for now.

I should also note that I have just about completely given up caffeine as well. It turns out that staying up late getting horribly drunk makes your body desire caffeine in the morning. With the alcohol out of the equation I don’t really have a need for it any more. Since the fridge is loaded up with nothing but caffeine free soda I haven’t had a caffeinated beverage in three days. Let me tell you though, Diet Squirt tastes like a carbonated grapefruit, that shit is foul.

With that it seems that smoking is now my only vice, a vice that I am keeping for myself, at least for now. I don’t think I could handle giving up all my vices in a two week span.

The memes

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I have never actually taken part in any of the memes that all of the bloggers do, this time I really wanted to. Mostly since I want to answer the questions that Flux put up as The evil meme of four. I figure I should answer the questions from the original meme before I do that though, so here it is.

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
Dish Machine Operator (that is what the place actually called the position, I guess they just didn’t want me to feel like a lowly dishwasher. Keep that in mind as I try to glorify the rest of them), Petroleum Exchange Technician (I pumped gas in Oregon where there is no self service), My current job, being butcher/stocker/cashier/manager/handyman/plumber/electrician/anything else you can think of at a family owned grocery store, Vice President in charge of frozen confection marketing, sales and distribution (while I technically only changed the prices on the billboard, collected money for ice cream cones, then served said cones, this is a fairly accurate statement).

Four movies you could watch over and over:
Pump Up the Volume, The Princess Bride, Jacob’s Ladder, The Shawshank Redemption. Keep in mind that I left a few of my favorites (Monty Python and South Park most notably) out because I have seen them so often on other blogs.

Four places you’ve lived:
Roseburg, OR, Weaubleau, MO (though only on a summer vacation), Florence, AZ, and most notably, in a friend’s garage for six months or so.

Four TV shows you love to watch:
Survivor, South Park, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Four places you’ve been on vacation:
Tijuana, Las Vegas, Disneyland, The Grand Canyon.

Four websites you visit daily:
I am just gonna do my first four in the surfing routine here. Black Champagne,Political Animal, Daily Rotten, Magazine Man. Magazine Man tells some great stories, if you have never read any you really should.

Four of your favorite foods:
Pizza, Chimichagas, Pollo Fundido, Funyuns.

Four places you’d rather be:
The forests in Oregon (since that was my stomping ground back in the day), the Giza plateau (must see the pyramids before I die), Ireland (must see the castles before I die), mid-air with a parachute on my back (I always wanted to try sky-diving but when I actually tried to schedule a session my boss was going to be on vacation so I had to cancel it.)

Thus the original four meme is concluded.

But that was not the one I really wanted to do, on to the good one.

Now to the evil four meme answers:

Four celebrities you’d cheat on your wife/husband/gf/bf with. (Time travel is permitted.):
Doro Pesch, of Warlock fame (would need to be in the mid to late ’80’s though), Marilyn Monroe (always have had a weird fascination with her) probably would be better if it was while she was alive also, Tawny Kitaen (on the hood of WhiteSnake’s car, whatever year that was), Samantha Fox (only in her glory years which have long since passed. I like full-bodied women, sue me).

Four celebrities you’d like to see dead, painfully or otherwise:
Tom Cruise (compared to Scientology all the other religions seem logical), Paris Hilton (can you think of a more vapid, uselss person? She should have been swallowed long before conception), Rob Schneider (I think Schneider is a great comic, however, I can’t justify pumping out movies that suck then criticising the critics that say the movies suck. Suck it up Rob. Your movies suck. Go back to stand-up and get your crowd back). There is a certain nameless individual who has to come first on my list, I am not sure that he is actaually a celebrity, but he has some impressive credentials that make me hate him and, therefore, wish his death. Take from the last statement what you will.

Four movies you’d like to erase from your brain:
This one is a bit subjective. There are movies that I wish to erase from my brain because I hated them, every Star Wars 4-6 would fall into that category. There are also movies that I would like to erase simply because I have bad memories about them. First up will be The Hearse (that was the first horror movie I ever watched, I think I was six at the time, it creeped the hell out of me… I still have hearse related nightmares). Pretty in Pink (enough said). Basektball, this one I only saw a couple of minutes of but it soured me to the whole thing. Every Matrix movie that had a number following the title/ every Star Wars title that put a number before the title.

Four places you never, ever want to visit.
Washington, DC, anywhere in the southern united states (the places where they don’t understand why slavery isn’t legal), Iraq, DisneyLand.

Four TV shows you wish you had never seen/never want to see.
Lost, CSI (I watched that show when it was called “The New Detectives” on the Discovery channel), Judge Judy, The OC.

Four websites you wish would cease to exist.
I would need an audio clip of crickets at night to make this one work. Everyone is enitled to their voice. No matter how wrong, in my opinion, that voice is, there is nothing I can do about it.

Of the “Seven Deadly Sins,” which four do you most frequently indulge in? (Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Wrath, Greed, Sloth.)
Envy, Lust, Greed, Sloth.

Of these four, which would you give your life to save? Your mother, father, wife/husband/SO, or children:
I would certainly give my own life to save my wife. I wouldn’t do the same for anyone else on that list. I don’t have any children, so the wife is the most important/valuable person in my life. My father is dead, my mother would probably understand the choice (were it her or me) if I didn’t take the bullet for her. My wife is a couple years younger than me, I hope she would just avoid the gunfire in the first place, if she didn’t she would be able to move on without me, that doesn’t work the other way.

Have a Happy New Year, all.