My Brother

So, this is my brother. He is in Iraq, as you may have read. Apparently he is happy as shit about it, except that he is sad to be away from his wife and everyone else. It kind of disturbs me, but it doesn't really surprise me...

The Brad Coulombe Challenge!

The Dirty Danzas- 1430
Matt's Fucking Team- 730

Booyah! Now may we never speak of this again....

Choose Your Hymn

Ever hear a song that you felt was "about you."

I'm guessing you have, so I'm posing a question, faithful reader. (Four, actually.)

1. From any song, is there some lyric or verse that you find motivating, or sums up something that you try to live your life by? At the very least, something that you end up saying to yourself often during the day.

2. Is there some lyric or verse that you think applies to your life specifically, either summing up your life or some trend within it?

3. Is there some lyric or verse that particularly irritates you in a song, or you think would be the opposite of 1 or 2.

4. Name a song that makes you want to cry (even if it is just a little).

Give song title and/or musician.

For me it is:
1. "I have no fears, angels follow me wherever I may go." Big and Rich, "Live this Life."
2. "Everyone I know, goes away, in the end." Johnny Cash (also NIN), "Hurt."
3. "But in the end, it doesn't even matter." Linkin Park, one of their whiny-ass songs.
4. "Hurt," as preformed by Johnny Cash.

His Excellency the Tzar of Quebec

Dictator For Life You scored 71% Campaigning, 79% Personality, and 81% Effectiveness!

People were shocked when you told them you wanted to be a politician and not an actor or model. Your drive and ambition is unimaginable, you only sleep three hours a night and work twenty hours a day. Your campaigning team shames and defeats every person who dares stand against you and they soon become a secret police force. The people can't stand the idea of you retiring after your two terms as President, so the constitution is altered and you are declared Dictator for life. After your long career and peacful death the country returns to democracy. All currency is changed to have your face on it, and a book of your sayings sells more copies than the bible.

The FUCKING Moon

Stolen from http://www.blogjam.com/neil_armstrong/... who had stolen it from some other places as well.

Also...

I've set up a new category on my sideboard dedicated to people who don't like me or who don't like things that I like.

So, if you can find a site that is anti- one of the things below, post here and if it is a quality site I'll put it on the sideboard as well.

Me
Chuck Norris
Cowboys
Dungeons and Dragons
Firearms
Axes
Mallets
Things that kill people in general
The god Thor
Naming children after the god Thor
Gods who are not Thor but wish they could be
Cuddlefish
Dogs
Fluffy Bunnies
Metal Bands, probably older ones, Iron Maiden specifically
Flannel Lined Jeans
Soft Undergarments
Eating Delicious Animals
Eating Non-Delicious Animals
Eating things that may or may not be Animals
TV's Brad Coulombe
Things that aren't French
Things that are German(ic)
Ignoring things that other cultures find acceptable but we find distasteful
Ignoring the French
Not singing in the rain
Video Games
Pornography
Beer
Things that aren't beer but are fun to drink anyway
John Wayne
Clint Eastwood
Morgan Freeman
Parlimentary Democracy
Eugenics
Monkeys, but only happy ones
The immediate removal of people who I don't like from the planet
Things I Haven't Thought Of But Like
Things That Support Things I Haven't Thought of That I Don't Like


I think that covers pretty much everything everything.

From Storage

Original exerpt from Lodestoneisland.blogspot.com . It was my first real post on the Blogger format. The idea behind the site didn't really work due mainly to apathy on my part and techincal difficulties on their's. I'm still not sure. The site itself is mainly this post and a few posts afterwards complaining about the site not working properly. Oh well. I thought this was one of my better (more bitter) peices, so I've decided to trick you all into reading it by making it sound interesting. :-)

Um... To make it simple, this whole thing was framed as a three person dialogue set up like the guy with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I changed the colors because I'm lazy and it was that much less effort after dicking with the rest of the formatting, also to save some confusion about what part is my post and what part is that, since I was using red lettering then too.

Enjoy. Or don't. I'm not here to impress you people.

(DISCLAIMER: I didn't write this about anybody specifically, it is just something I've noticed over the years (all of them, except the ones I don't remember) either personally or anecdotally. I wrote it because I felt it was true. If you think that I wrote this about you, I didn't. Any similiarities between this post and your personal life is entirely your own damn fault. Thank you!)

(Disclaimer Disclaimer: I wrote the disclaimer mainly to cover my ass and because I thought it was funny. I'm not too worried about the people who actually read this crap.)

понедельник, Ноябрь 15, 2004
(note: This means Monday, November)

"Symptom of the Universe"

/Begin Transmission

I hate Low Men, you know them, the guys that seem to treat their girlfriends like crap and feel amazingly justified in doing so. There are some of them out there who treat the girl like dirt, hurting them physically or (inclusive) mentally because at some level it pleases them to do so or because the behavior that leads to the pain is the path of greatest perceived pleasure (cheating, for example). I don't mean that every now and again they do something wrong, or they are vaguely inattentive, or simply boring. (In short I'm not talking about me.) The best case scenario is that they only care about themselves, the worst involves severe emotional problems leading to abuse.

In short, they are shitheads.

Yes, thank you. The thing that really gets me though is their girlfriend's willingness to take them back. They can spend hours crying and days feeling horrible because of something he has done, and then take him back at the drop of a hat, usually after a "heartfelt apology"-

A lie

-that always has some longer than needed story about how they came around to realizing why they are wrong. If you read between the lines it usually says, "I realized I (can't make you bend on this subject after screaming at you and insulting you, might lose control over you if I push further, need money, or am an idiot and you are the best I could ever hope to get) love you and was so stupid to behave that way" They are sorry because they realize you are angry at them, not because they feel they've done anything wrong.

In the end they engage in a cycle of demand and hatefulness until they figure out what pattern results in control of the girl. Often these men have no real redeeming factors anyway, leading her friends to wonder why they are going out... but that isn't the point. These men are simply bad for the girl they 'love.' They can lead to emotional problems later, and if nothing else the girl is miserable. Of course, this has also led to some depressing thoughts of my own. Mostly along the lines of, "Girls seem to love these shitheads, but I'm not a shithead, why don't they like me?"Anyway...But why does the girl stay? What about him makes him so wonderful that she must stay with him? There is the bad boy effect. The girl goes after some known asshole to subconsciously piss off her parents, then 'surprise!' he's an asshole!

Maybe she thinks she can change him.

Read: She's stupid.

No, she's trusting and has a good heart.

Read: She's stupid.

People deserve second chances, and they may actually change! You don't know.

People don't want to change, as long as they can get what they want out of the situation why should they change?

Maybe they just think that it is the proper way to run a relationship. Maybe they don't know that, even though it hurts the girl, it is not the right way.

I still don't like it. A clueless bastard is still a clueless bastard and will forever be a clueless bastard.

There's also the times when the guy magically turns into a prick some time into the relationship. Then she has some emotional investment in him that holds her. Maybe she thinks he will change back, who knows? All it proves that long term dating before marriage is a good idea. This is pretty much the only way a guy will change, I think it is when he becomes comfortable enough in his hold on her to stop caring.

I still don't see why she wouldn't leave him. Forget the three months (to pick a time) they've been in love, he stopped caring, she should skip out.

Not having been a woman in that situation, merely being the outsider thinking (to reiterate), "Girls seem to love these shitheads, I'm not a shithead, why don't girls like me?" I can't tell what they are thinking.

(Note: Have I always been this whiney? Admittedly, that was what I thought about the situation pre-girlfriend, but still. Actually, in retrospect, I'm pretty sure I thought that this was whiney at the time... I just decided to keep it because it is a conundrum that was common among people I knew... (If you think I mean you then you are probably wrong). Back to the post...)

I think that they are simply looking for someone to love them. They feel at some level that their worth is based on a man, or that their worth is based on being in a relationship period. They have some insecurity that he fills, despite his evilness. Maybe they don't think that anyone else will love them, and this thought only becomes more deeply rooted by the Low Man's treatment of her.

Maybe they like the abuse.

Shut up.

They want to be in a relationship, any relationship, and the perception of love validates all else.

The "Because I love him Daddy!" response. LOVE DOES NOT CONQUER ALL. Or if it does it has to be two sided.

I dunno...I just wish there was some way to break them of it. It almost seems hopeless a lot of the time... If nothing else there is usually no good way to go about fixing it without just murdering the guy. It would hurt her too much to break up, and telling her she should would end up just setting her against you and worsening the problem or just making her angry at you. (It isn't really your business... it's just sad....)

You know, the more I think about this the more I realize this applies to men, with thematic variations due to gender roles in the society. Low self esteem guys and mean women... that'll be a different discussion I think.

People need to be loved, and as long as they perceive that they received it they can make due.

Face it, some people just suck, and others are stupid or too emotionally weak to help themselves. Pair them and you have the 'happy couple...'

Great closing statement. I've gone and depressed myself it seems.

/End Transmission

Vaguely Less Oh Shit

My brother is going to Iraq, but fortunately he is going as a prison interrogator instead of as a grunt. Because of the amount of money that has been spent on his training he won't be allowed to leave the prison much if at all.

So I am slightly relieved. (Barely)

On the other hand, he should arrive in Iraq on his birthday... what do I get the boy who has everything?

Sigh....

Finally

Just found out what God really thinks of me!

God thinks: childish, lethargic, stupid, unethical, dispassionate.

Thanks Nohari!

Speaking of which, I haven't seen him around lately... I hope he is ok.