It’s deliciously warm in this “internet cafe” — a term that I’m sure is starved for proper connotation. One of my colleagues, a man who, yes, just picked his nose and has hair that I’m sure we’re all openly ashamed of, felt the need to broadcast to the room, as I write these very words: “Damn, yo, it muthafuckin’ HOT up in here!” I’m using a computer whose construction was, I’m sure, slapdash as hell — and made of, uh, balsa wood, or something. Above my flimsy monitor is a sign: “SHHHHHH……….. THIS IS A QUIET ROOM!!” Yes, there are two exclamation points after a sign which so artfully commands silence. A big-eared, redheaded man who nearly touches the ceiling with his, well, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and call it a “haircut” — he’s singing songs about how he has gotten “5,000 hits on MySpace alone” (whatever that means). He smelled food and hit the halls hard, his gangly spiderlegs searching for clear landing. Despite the ominous quiet signs, which are eloquantly framed by pastel construction paper, there is nary a moment where “fuck”, “shit”, “muh boyz” or “hell yeah dog, you looking at MySpace?” isn’t heard for several horrendous, punctuating moments. Someone JUST SAID: “You look like Eddie Murphy from Jumanji.” I’ll, ahem, let you think about that one.  

 So yes, I’m doing another clinical trial.  

Really, I don’t want to be. I mean, it’s good money and you don’t do anything for days on end, but it really is kindergarten prison. It is only when I am assigned to roam whitewash hallways in a hospital next to the water that I wish I were truly free. I lucked out, again; my room is right next to a window, and it’s in the corner. I can close off my small personal space with hanging sheets and view the harbor as long as I’d like to. I wish I could go there. There’s this path that runs 7 stories below my bedside window and all I can ever think about is walking on that path. Lord knows I’d never have such an urge otherwise.  

I’ve had a catheter in my arm for nearly 15 hours. It’s not the worst thing that’s happened to me. The nurse who inserted it had tried once before on what I see as opportune real estate on my arm — my forearm. Well, the blood just wasn’t juicin’. That was saddening to watch. “Whelp! Looks like we’re going further up his arm now, aren’t we!” said a charming (really), gravelly-voiced older nurse. She leaned over near my left ear: “I remember you, sweetie.” She winks.  

Most everyone here is in their 30s, at least. This makes me somewhat of a child to everyone else — the nurses in particular. I guess that’s not a bad thing. They all have this motherly look in their eyes when I ask for anything, and I sort of feel like Oliver Twist whenever I offer up my humble desires (”Can I have some more, please?”). Except they don’t, you know, yell at me. They comply, and routinely rub my back and call me a “lil’ baby” and stuff like that. Not in a condescending sense, either. For instance, yesterday I took a very small dose of an experimental medication. Apparently it cures “restless leg syndrome” or something. Around 3 am I woke up in an Arctic sweat — my entire body was covered in icy condensation. I sort of meandered over the bathroom, my legs floaty yet heavy as stone totems. I felt like my body was very angry with me — and it probably was. I’m sorry. I sat on the floor of the bathroom and felt awful for doing so (cleanly person and all). I felt like throwing up everything I had in me. I felt awful for reasons not at all limited to this clinical trial that I have willingly placed myself in. There on the wall was a “HELP!” cord. I’ve always wondered what happens if one of those is pulled. I pulled it. Twenty seconds later, a warm, round nurse made her way over to me — bless her — and rubbed my back for 5 minutes or so, saying poetic little comforting lines that I’d like to die to. I was given a cup of very cold water and some ice chips to eat. A cold washcloth was placed around my neck and she stroked my tangled hair. It was a cold ordeal.  

Back in bed I slept for a very long time. Every hour or so, a sample of blood was taken from my arm and I watched the harbor while profusely shivering. Nurses from all over would come and check up on me, and each time I was just “okay”.    

I’ll be waiting a whole lot over the next 4 days. Lord. I want to go home so bad. Life in the slammer is hard, or something. I’m feeling okay. Yes, I think so.

I wanted to preface this with “Gears of War 2 is the reason I haven’t been sleeping”, but then I realized that no, that was simply one night, and in fact I have been tired all week. I took a Mental Heath Week (MHW) - a rare commodity to Mental Heath Day-ers (MHD) the world over. Once a month, something debilitating happens and I haven’t been able to figure it out. It lasts maybe 3 or 4 days. I guess we can call this the “male period”, though I’m inclined to think that this is 150% more disgusting than what is actually going on. No cramping, shedding of, uh, certain “walls” and moodiness to speak of - just bare-chested, white-knuckled agony in the form of brazen laziness and an unrelenting requirement for comfort.

Again, I feel like prefacing this with “Now that I am a man,” but that wouldn’t be entirely correct, either. I have been a man for some time, though hell if I feel like it. I tend to write about this sort of thing a lot, so I’ll give The World a day off, or something. Suffice it to say that I haven’t been doing much else besides thinking of the surrealist sojourn I am to attempt in less than a month. When I’m not doing that, I’m shooting pale, legs-as-thick-as-treetrunks space aliens that burrow deep within planets in order to sink human cities. And I just hit chapter 8 in Mother 3 after a delightful evening of being hopped on shrooms toward the end of chapter 7. I took maybe 200 screenshots. I’ll give you four:

So, the sojourn. I guess you can call it an odyssey if you’d like. Maybe I’ll start calling it that, too. Personally I’ve never been a huge fan of French words whose definitions are identical to an English-equivalent term, if only for the sometimes-tricky pronunciation (however: bravo, rendezvous). I may have mentioned this somewhere, and if you’re reading this I’m guessing that you already know, but here it is, laid out on a slab (take it if you’d like): I am going to Tokyo, Japan on December 12^th, a day after my final, uh, final. Had I been able to leave on the 11^th, my father’s birthday, I would have saved maybe $200. It’s okay that I’m not. I have no idea why I’m going to Tokyo, Japan on December 12^th, though I can say this honestly: it’s not a vacation. It is in the sense that yes, I will be in a different place doing different things and secretly killing different people, but really, I’m not trying to arouse myself with violent, manic fun. I’ll be staying in a guestroom the size of a closet for 31 days, which is actually very scary. Not in a claustrophobic sense, just that I’m going to be completely on my own for an entire month, which is just enough time to legitimately freak out from disgustingly crushing, mind-abortion isolation. Honestly I’m just dreading Christmas day, because 1) it’s going to happen for me before it does for everyone else and 2) uh, I’m going to be all by myself. It just so happens that Christmas is dangling somewhere in the midst of my other-side-of-the-globe journey-of-whatever; this was not a desired transaction. I will cautiously approach the birthday of a man who wanted to save the world with love by eating fried chicken.

Yes, it’s a terrible picture. After it developed, me and the dude at the post office laughed at it for like 10 minutes straight while listening to the Jackson 5. He had, like, a whole wall of terrible passport pictures. At least none of those looked like a really pathetic criminal’s mugshot.

Sometime this weekend I will put up a list of things I want to do, and things I should do in the sprawling Asian metropolis that somehow feels a lot smaller than it is. I need to write this list out because quite honestly I’m sort of in the dark of my own motivations as well. The last time I went to Tokyo, I bought my plane ticket a week before I went. I just did it. I was probably the smartest thing I’ve ever done. This time around I bought my ticket 3 months in advance, so I’ve had far too much time to engineer the massive calculations of fear and solitude that will come creeping up my spine in less than 4 weeks. It’s something I don’t want to consider until I’m on a shitty Northwest Airlines flight board for Detroit, probably being charged a sadistic amount of money to eat a small bag of pretzels.

HOWEVER: the Imperial Palace in Tokyo is open to the public only 2 days a year - once on the 2nd day of the New Year (January 2^nd) and on the Emperor’s birthday. Well, fortunately for me, ol’ Akihito’s birthday is on the 23^rd of December, so HELLLLL YEAAAHHH. Seriously, I probably won’t even go to the Imperial Palace because everyone is going to be off of work, and hell if I’m going to get on a train bound for the palace without enough room to imagine breathing fresh air. Apparently the whole fucking country shuts down for like 5 days or something, so that’s going to be weird.

I’m doing a clinical trial on restless leg syndrome in a week’s time, so send your prayers upward that I don’t die of crippling side-effects; or worse, survive a life-altering handicap. I’d rather be dead, honestly. I need the money so that I can eat and buy things for people while simultaneously forging a steel ass from walking 30 miles a day in Tokyo.

So now I’ll turn the discussion toward you, dear friends. What do you want from Japan? I asked this last time I went, and I was generally met with either “hahaha lol dude get me some chopsticks” or “Hey, I’m Jeb Litton, your asshole brother - get me a fucking Chinese bitch“. So don’t ask for those things, because really, come on. I really mean this: What the fuck do you guys want?

Eric Scott Lane, I swear on Ringo Starr’s no-more-autographs-ever-again corpse that I am going to get you a damned Super Famicom and you will accept it. :(

Okay, one more screenshot:

I’m going to say a few things here, and then I’m retiring from this discussion for the rest of my life. I guess I’m just really tired of talking about. A lot of what I’m going to say will sound really obvious and cheesy, but whatever, man.

I’ll just go ahead and be upfront about it, even though it’s probably very obvious: I voted for Barack Obama. No, I’m not going to rub it in your face. No, I’m not going to say, “The Democrats are taking back the White House! This is our time!” No, I’m not going to say anything negative about Senator John McCain (I actually really like that guy). And no, I am not going to relentlessly overuse the word “change”. Yes, change is coming. Change would be coming regardless of the candidate that was elected.

All I’m asking for is respect. I have been inhumanly respectful of people who feel they need to lash out and attack people simply because their views do not align with their own. Seriously, I’ve actually been really surprised that I haven’t hopped on the offensive fucktrain (yes, fucktrain) considering all of the decidedly retarded things people have been saying since the election ended - things said by both the so-called Republicans and Democrats.

I’d also like to point out that I am not a liberal or a Democrat. I’m just, uhh, a human being. And so are you.

After Barack HUSSEIN Obama was elected as our 44^th President of the United States on Tuesday night, something fascinating happened. This is the very first election in which Facebook (cringing over here) has played a large part in exchanging information at a rapid pace following America’s democratic process in selecting a candidate they felt should run our country this January. I’d been checking the electoral votes since 9 am that morning, and was fairly confident that Obama had nailed the election after winning Ohio shortly after the polls had closed. He had many paths to victory: some included Ohio, another Florida, and one involving my home state of Virginia; this is a state that hasn’t voted Democratic in 40 years. I knew the demographics of the state well enough; people from Northern Virginia are hesitant to even call Southern Virginia a part of the state given how radically different (see: mostly ignorant) it is. That is not to say that the lower half of my beloved home state is a bunch of white trash Neo-Nazis. No, only some of it is. It is largely a very beautiful area, and just like any part of the country (Mississippi and much of Kentucky aside), I am well aware that not everyone that lives there is a bumfuck redneck.

Well, he got Florida. And then he got Virginia. I’m sure my father cursed the sky on that. (Sidenote: In response to my question, “Hey Dad, why do you like Sarah Palin so much,” he said, “Ryan. Ryan. Hey, Ryan. She’s good, man. She’s good.”)

Barack SADDAM HUSSEIN Obama BIN LADEN fucked the hell out of the Electoral College. I was blown away, really. The last two elections that I Gave A Damn About were very close and I was on edge for most of the process, but this time it became quite clear even by mid-day that it was going to take a hell of a lot to get Senator McCain into the oval office.

At 11 PM, there it was in size 36 font:

BARACK OBAMA WINS ELECTION

I stood up, collected myself, and high-fived Madeleine, who was sleeping on one of the couches in our living room (kindly donated by Eric Scott Lane), oblivious to the results of the election and dreamily-confused as to why I was slapping her open palm.

Then I did what the rest of the teen/young adult demographic did: I logged on to Facebook. And lo, there it was: support for the man who had been elected as our next President only 5 minutes prior, and far too many people perhaps-jokingly-but-not-really claiming that they were moving to Canada/Europe because “THE COUNTRY IS FUCKED”. Few people were respectful, cordial or even civil. This is why I’m writing this. This is why I’ve been avoiding having to talk about this issue. This is why I tread lightly when talking to anyone, these days: for fear of the election being brought up and having to deal with the rampant ignorance (again, from both parties) surrounding it.

Before I say what I’m about to say, I’d like to remind The World to research anything before you open your mouth(s). When people complain about “spreading the wealth” or “redistributing the wealth”, I immediately dismiss whatever comes after that. If you’re saying such things because you heard it from someone’s mouth, or because you heard those scary pinko Commie faggot bastard words “spread” and “wealth” and “around” in succession of each other in an out of context video on YouTube in an exchange between Senator Barack “Eating A Goddamned Bear” Obama HUSSEIN LADEN AL QUAEDA TERRORIST and Joe “Famous For 5 Fucking Minutes For Being a Poor Plumber” The Plumber, well, dig deeper.

If you honestly think he’s Muslim, a terrorist (or both!!!!), Arab (lol this has nothing to do with religion whatsoever) and you’re pissed off about what his CHRISTIAN minister said, well, what the hell, man?

If you’re angry because he’s black, or you refer to him as a “negro” or, worse, a “nigger” (sup people I went to high school with), then please, by all means, eradicate your hate or go somewhere where you don’t have to “deal” with all of the scary homosexuals and “inferior” races which I welcome to live peacefully in our country.

If you voted for John McCain purely because you liked Sarah Palin, I ask that you do more research. If you voted for her purely because she is a woman, I ask that you stop and think about how rational and appropriate it would be for me to vote for Barack Obama purely because Joe Biden, his running mate, is a man. I also ask that you examine whether or not you agree with a black voter voting for Barack Obama purely because he is half-black.

If you voted for John McCain because you respect his experience and policies, then I have nothing to say to you other then I respect you and think you are 100% correct for doing so. If you didn’t vote for Barack Obama because you weren’t comfortable with his experience or didn’t agree with his policies, I respect that. I think that’s perfectly all right. We need to stop looking at this as “right” and “wrong - “winning” and “losing” an election and simply understand that not everyone has the same views.

(If you voted for John McCain because you like Sarah Palin, yet believed Barack Obama to be too inexperienced for the highest position of power in this country, then please do some research. Next, take two steps back and cry.)

This brings me to another particularly hilarious point. If you want to move to Canada and/or Europe because the phrase “spreading the wealth” and the word “socialism” are scary and uncomfortable to you, I suggest you do some research very quickly. Moving to either of these places because the thought of universal health care is despicable is pretty much an “lol 24/7/365″ affair. If you don’t know what socialism means even after reading the description on fucking Wikipedia, research it further (as in, don’t click on the first Google result). And if you’re complaining about the redistribution of wealth, a talking-point-buzz-phrase you heard from your parents/one-sided YouTube video and you a) live with your parents, b) have a part-time job, or c) slanderously reuse this phrase over and over and over and over again because “goddamned Muslim terrorist” just doesn’t quite have a ring to it like it used to, then I kindly ask that you, again, do some research or stop acting like you understand economics. You know who else doesn’t understand economics? Me. So I’m certainly not going to preach to you about something that I don’t fully understand myself (other then the simple fact that this “socialist” bullshit being spread around is an exaggerated lie). Do you like public schools? Do you like the fire department? Did you agree with that 700 billion dollar bailout that was just passed, which essentially means that the government now owns our banks? Socialism!!!!!

If you think Barack HUSSEINIAC TERRORIST MUSLIM SOCIALIST KARL MARX STALIN NEGRO Obama is the antichrist, then I have a special message for you. Stop. Just stop. You don’t like Islamic extremists any more than I do (perverting holy doctrine and scanning said scripture to justify hate, intolerance and ignorance without any consequence), so don’t be a Christian extremist. Stop acting like you know what the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE has on his to-do list, and I’ll gladly respect your ability to tolerate the fact that not everyone believes in what you do. And then I’ll respect your views granted they don’t seek to eradicate my own and vice versa. Before you say anything I wish to say something: No, this is not a Christian nation. Our founding fathers were, for the most part, deists. The 1^st Amendment of the United States Constitution says the following (check it out, I’m citing a source instead of spreading unsubstantiated gossip I heard on Fox News):

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Man, that’s some awesome shit! This is the very same amendment which famously grants us the right to say whatever we want. You mean to tell me I can choose to take part in a religion of my choice, or not at all? Wow!!!! That’s incredible! That’s, like, I don’t know… the entire point of being an American! Next to the wonderful democratic process, of course - the very same one that put Obama (bin Laden) in office.

I called my father the day after the election to talk about politics, which is something I would usually be vehemently opposed to. Again, I didn’t call to rub it in his face, and in reality I never even mentioned that I voted for Obama.

“Well, son, I put this in God’s hands and I guess he has other things in mind.”

Okay.

“I really think that he’s going to destroy this country. Maybe this is His way of signaling the end of the world. I really think that. I think, in a way, we deserve this.”

See, uh, what is that? Did Jesus Christ or Yahweh Almighty tell my dad these things? No. So let’s stop using the circular logic bullshit to help explain what a cosmic deity that not everyone believes in has up his sleeve. If McCain had won, it would have been because God wanted it that way (He could have voted is all I’m saying), but because he didn’t, of course it’s because God wants to punish this country with NOBAMA (a nickname that is still unique and original after hearing it 50 fucking million times, believe me). I wish I had a way of being 100% correct without question all of the time, too.

It has also been brought to my attention that “that damned Obama mocked our CHRISTIAN HERITAGE! I saw it on YouTube!” My father spoke of the same video. You can watch it in all of its out-of-context glory here:  HOW DARE HE INSIST THAT I NOT STONE MY CHILDREN!!!

First of all, this is out of context. I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about because we’re given only a small glimpse of the speech, which is being used to promote the idea that because Barack Obama researched (yes!!!!) the Holy Bible and pulled key phrases out of it which depict the encouragement of slavery, stoning et cetera. Now, if you’re a Christian, I ask you: is this offensive to you? Is it offensive that Obama is asking us not to use religious doctrine to guide public policy (I assume this is what he’s asking as he says as much in the lopsided video)? Do you advocate the selling of human beings into slavery? Should we stone our children if they disobey us? Deuteronomy 21:18-21 says we should do just that:

“If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.”

One perceptive viewer is quick to point out: “that’s all old testament. Christians live according to the NEW TESTAMENT now that Jesus has come and gone.”

So, because it’s the Old Testament, Christians shouldn’t listen to it? Leviticus, another book of the Bible, the very same one which some overzealous followers of the Christian faith use as “proof” that being gay really, really pisses God off, says the following:

“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”
Leviticus 18:22

Leviticus is from the Old Testament. Huh. That’s weird. I guess scripture works in favor of any argument whenever we need it to. My father told me, “I just don’t trust someone who mocks the Bible.” Obama is saying that we shouldn’t use decidedly archaic scripture to guide public policy, which is something I feel everyone can agree one. Eat shellfish and you’ll be murdered?

What is perhaps most fascinating and disheartening to me is the fact that people who profess themselves to be patriots of this great nation are rubbing their hands together in hot anticipation of its supposed ruination and destruction at the hands of a Muslim terrorist socialist nigger (because, of course, that is all he is). The flood of Facebook “status updates”, as they as ostensibly referred to as, were saddening and largely ignorant. “_____ _____ can’t wait to see how NOBAMA fucks up this country!” or “_____ _____ what is this “spread the wealth” bullshit… my money is mine!” were two particularly popular cookie-cutter phrases that I saw replicated far too many times. And there’s that NOBAMA joke again! What is this, seriously? In the same way that some overzealous followers of the Christian faith (note my word choice: some overzealous followers, not all! See, no generalizations here) rest coolly behind their doomsday scripture with a sharky, smirking grin at the mere thought of their fellow brothers and sisters burning in an endless fire for all of eternity, it appears this same attitude has reanimated itself in the form of political nonsense. Look, I’ll be the first to say that I don’t think anyone who voted for Senator John “Dude Huge” McCain is wrong (unless, of course, they did solely on the basis of Senator Obama’s skin color or due to their misinformation-somehow-turned-truth regarding the nature of his religious affiliation). I like John McCain. Nobody denies that he is an American hero. Nobody denies his experience and colorful political background. I like John McCain!

I am not blind to the marketing and advertising that went in to the “Change We Can Believe In” message that Obama used over and over. I am not so naïve to think that Barack Obama is the savior of the world, or that his presence in the White House is going to completely restore and change our country. He’s just a man. One man, in fact. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong, and it’s okay to recognize that. I say this as an objective truth, as I wouldn’t dare generalize and readily dispense misinformation like so many people seem content to do.

I will relate an experience: Minutes after the conclusion of the presidential election, a guy named Mike ____ changed his Facebook status (I seriously die every time I have to write those combination of words) to “Mike ____ is buying a plane ticket”, presumably because he disagreed with how the election turned out. His friends, of course, had voted for McCain. There were several cracks about “Should we move to Canada or Europe?” (which, again, as I’ve already pointed out, is a really stupid joke - both have socialist programs (just like us)). Now, I wouldn’t have said a goddamned thing had one girl, who, for the sake of her dignity and integrity, shall remain nameless, not said this:

“We need to get all the damn liberals out of Virginia. I cannot believe my own state went blue. It makes me sick.”

She was probably joking. In fact, let us hope she was joking. Several of the comments thereafter were of a similar variety: I don’t agree with the outcome of the democratic process, therefore I am leaving (because not everyone agrees with my narrow-minded, religiously-driven point of view). They’re angry because the very reason I love this country so much, the freedom to be, say, think and do anything you want to do (so long as it doesn’t hurt others) is being upheld. You may think I sound like a hypocrite by saying that I believe everyone should say what they want to, even though I’m emphasizing this particular case. I draw the line when saying whatever you want infringes on someone else’s ability to say whatever they want. Because her state (and my state lol) “went blue” (whatever that means - stop looking at our country as a divided nation), she’s angry and wishes for these people to be removed. If not, fuck it, she’s moving to Canada, where they definitely don’t have universal health care!!

I chimed in by prefacing my statement with a simple request: Please, let us be respectful. What few people appear to realize is that being respectful does not entail one agreeing with another. Even if I don’t agree with people who look at me straight in the face and tell me that Barack Obama is the antichrist, I’ll still respect them as human beings. I didn’t mention that I voted for Barack Obama, and in fact I didn’t say anything to try and convince them that the candidate that they had voted for was wrong. Because he wasn’t, and neither were they for voting for him. All I said was, hey, calm down, I’m sorry the election didn’t go the way you would have liked, but here’s the reality of the situation and the reality is that, for better or worse, Obama is going to be our next President.

I reiterated the point about how this is simply how our democratic process works; the majority of the voting population has spoken, and this is the outcome whether you like it or not. One girl replied, “Our democratic process is not truly democratic though…” Be that as it may, when she went to the polling both that day, do you think she thought that? Had McCain won the election, would she have said the same thing, or would she be rejoicing and celebrating rather than shitting all over everyone else’s glee, calling the system “not truly democratic” simply because it did not sway in her favor (hint: this is exactly what she did)? If you don’t agree with the system, don’t play in to the system. When I pull the lever on a slot machine and lose, is it appropriate if I complain to the casino staff about how the machine is programmed to take people’s money rather than pay out most of the time? Had I won the jackpot, would I still complain?

I posted several times, and each time I was extremely cordial and tolerant of what everyone was saying, even if I was being ganged up on. Had I known my comments would have been deleted, I would have taken a screenshot to prove as much. Several minutes later, as I said, everything I had written was deleted, essentially leaving the conversation a one-sided mess of information and ignorance: something so irritatingly prevalent in the days following the election.

The “friend” (I might not be his friend anymore, apparently), Mike, wrote this on my wall (seriously, I hate Facebook terminology, guys):

“You’re an idiot Ryan. I’m glad that you don’t see me for almost 3 years, and then you decide to criticize me and my friends. Fuck off asshole, you know it was a joke.”

Because I didn’t agree with what him and his friends had said, I am “an idiot”. Note: I didn’t disregard anything they said. You’ll just have to believe me. I said that it was irresponsible and narrow-minded to get rid of people who don’t agree with what you say, and that we should see each other as Americans - as human beings - and not red or blue, Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals. He ended his comment with a sweet “fuck off asshole” and “you know it was a joke”. I don’t know about you, but if someone misinterpreted what was supposedly an obvious joke, would you really blow up and call them an idiot? Would you eradicate any evidence which clearly depicts me not criticizing him and his friends? It’s funny: all I asked for was respect. I asked that we respect each other and get along and work together as Americans regardless of who our President is going to be. My comments were deleted. (And, for the record, and only because he made a huge point to bring this up, he has not called me in almost 3 years, either.)

This has gotten rather long, but I’m getting to the end. I will say this once more: if you disagree with Barack Obama, however much of a socialist, Muslim terrorist that is going to ruin our country (which you can’t wait for) though he may be, I ask that you respect all people and what they have to say. I’ll certainly do my part. People are so quick to organize people in to neat little subcultures and groups (socialist, Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, fucking Muslim Arab terrorist asshole, et cetera). I warned you that I would get cheesy, so HERE IT COMES: we are all human beings. If you do have a valid argument that you would like any rational, intelligent human being to entertain, well, it all comes down to research. Research research research! I am done talking about this socialist bullshit, and I won’t hear another word about this antichrist debacle. If you believe these things, fine, but I suggest that you keep them to yourselves if you want anyone with a brain between their ears to take you seriously. If you go around screaming about how Barack “Magic Fingers” Obama “wasn’t born in the United States!!!!!” (he was), at least take the time to discover that John McCain wasn’t born in the United States. He was born at the Coco Solo Naval Air Station in Panama. See what I just did? I researched a major issue, presented the entire spectrum of the truth (that is to say, I didn’t omit the fact that he was born in an United States Naval Air Station) and never even used the words “socialist”, “Muslim” or “fucking terrorist” unjustly and without proper research backing it up. This is radical, I know, but seriously, calm the fuck down and get used to it.

To reuse George Harrison’s final words: love one another. Seriously. I don’t think it’s too crazy to say that we can respect each other, even if we don’t necessarily agree with one another. Stop hate and move on. Barack “Slamdunk Your Dick” Obama is going to be the next President of the United States whether you voted for him or not. I’m not trying to convince you to like the guy. If you don’t like him, do some research and come to a solid conclusion. If, at the end of your research, you find that you still do not like the man, then hey, that’s fine. There’s always 2012 (which, if hearsay is anything to go off of (it’s not lol), you can use our “flawed” democratic process to elect Governor Sarah Palin. And you know what? I won’t make you feel bad about it if she’s elected. I’ll cry, and I’ll drink a whole hell of a lot of alcohol, but I won’t tell you that you’re an idiot, or shove it in your face that my candidate “lost” the election.

So, that’s it. I’m done. Be angry, celebrate, whatever. Just be kind and respect other people’s opinions. View them as human beings - as Americans. If you just so happen to overhear a Neo-Nazi rally (or, uh, happen to be at one - (please leave this website immediately)) in which they conspire to assassinate the guy, please, for the love of God, pick up a fucking telephone and tell someone. I think that’s one thing we can all agree on.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go lay out my prayer mat and pray to Allah for the rapid and violent destruction of this country. And then I’m going to go to the doctor’s office and not pay for it. God bless America.

Two feelings often accompany me with nostalgia, and they are always the same: warmth and sadness.

The warming portion is usually fleeting; it only lasts as long as I’m looking at a picture, reading a memory, or listening to certain songs. It’s like a 30-second heat patch that you tack to your heart; yeah, it takes you to the places where all the veins meet. Of course, the dull ache of true sadness returns after the heat patch has lasted its stay. Where that patch has given your veins and muscles intense, radiating heat, its departure soaks you to the bone in melting ice. It’s the only kind of sadness I welcome. It used to be the kind I most feared.

I used to have the same reaction every time the past was brought to my doorstep. Essentially, it was deep-seated fear, and then rejection. This isn’t just my past that I’m referencing, either; I can clearly recall moments when my mother and/or father tried to tell me about my childhood, or a friend showed me pictures of himself or herself as a child, or videos of birthday parties and ice creams and stupid hats. It took every bit of self-control I had to feign polite interest, even though I was feeling what psychologists dub the fight-or-flight response. In those situations, I’d actually call it the “get the fuck out of here” response.

It’s taken me over twenty years to truly analyze why I was sometimes so afraid of these memories that I couldn’t even watch reruns of “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” (okay, it’s mostly because of Bob Saget) without cringing. The truth is, I was terrified of the little number that plagues any one corner of classic home recorders (not the ones that can also dial, well, any number that can be dialed) be it a 1985, a 1999, or any four-digit number since the birth of the personal recorder. My thoughts looked something like this, I imagine: “…that was once a time, and now that time is infringing upon this one. Those people may not be alive anymore. I can see them smiling, but they might be unhappy now. That dog is certainly dead by now, but he’s here, in all his howling glory, and wow, his barks do sound similar to a human (whose throat has been eroded by cancer and is attempting an alien, guttural English). Hi, Sparky. I never met you, but I can see you, and I can see your mannerisms. You are a good dog. But you’re dead now.” I guess I just wanted to let sleeping dogs lay.

I’m not afraid of the past anymore, and admit that I have spent and probably will spend most of my life wishing I lived in another period of time, in another place, or in another world. This used to bring me a sorrow greater than any loss, but now, the warmth of this notion is full, and the accompanying sadness is deep but fleeting. When reflected upon and truly understood, you see that there is no one world, there are many. I have my own. So do you. My eyes and your eyes paint different pictures of the same subjects, and always will. I’m now learning to embrace my world, and trying to grasp the concept that the man writing this message has died, and will never “come back” in physical form as long as I can ponder this; yet I can draw him to me whenever I wish.

You see, the beating heart of every memory is death, of a moment, a thought, a feeling; I now understand that there is nothing more wonderful than this dying. If it weren’t for the constant cycle of death, there would be no life, and even if it were lived wishing for another; without death, you could not wish yourself anywhere, as all the universe would cease to exist. You cannot live stuck in one moment, and thus there never is only one moment. Much like we record our talking dogs, so is our life recorded. It’s why I don’t really take pictures; memories are life, and live by dying. Even if you lose them, they are never truly lost.

Understand, “time” is a man-made concept, and it is not a line. All moments occur in same un-recordable, unexplainable faction of being, and are forever and the same. Attempting to understand this in seconds or hours or milliseconds is mental suicide, because they are not real. The cycle of the sun has nothing to do with time; only the lenses in your eyes do.

Mine now see this: my bones may feel the cold of the future, but my being rejoices in the glowing warmth of all that has passed. To -essentially- quote a great man: “I am you, and you are me, and we are all together.” I would say we can live forever, but you can’t sleep when you’re already dreaming.

I hadn’t had a bloody nose in a long time before tonight. In fact, I think I can even remember the last one I had. This was maybe 5 years ago. It was a light affair, and on par with what a woman might refer to as “spotting”. Tonight, however, I’d spent a good deal of time heating up chili, some flour tortillas and 2 cups of rice from my rice cooker. Grated cheese was involved. Piled all the ingredients, rolled the tortilla and I was ready to eat, really. Having never liked Mexican food up until 2 months ago, I have now become addicted to it, which is one thing, I guess. I brushed my hand against my face and examined what appeared to be a bloody smear across my index finger. I cleaned up nice and well before eating, but it was a strange experience. And here I used to have bloody noses once a year; I’d wake up in the middle of the night to find a ruined pillowcase. Now they’re invading my private meals and I’m just not sure how I feel about that.

Why can’t remotely disgusting things such as a bloody nose or the existence of Chinese food itself just back the fuck off from my mealtimes? For God’s sake.

Last week a project was due in this class that I sort of like. It’s just a bunch of literature pertaining to the indigenous residents of North America (who the hell knows what you’re supposed to call them these days) and the people who brutally murdered them in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, or something. I never thought I’d enjoy such a class, but I guess I do. It was a terrible project, however, and I’m swearing off group work for the remainder of my life. I slept when I could last week because of that thing. So I “took the weekend off”, and by that I mean I’ve done little else then play Fable 2 and Mother 3.

I hold off on Fable 2 as much as possible because I own a hell of a lot of property and it compounds and multiplies while I’m not playing the game. (You can buy and rent out property which pays you every 5 minutes whether you’re playing the game or not.) So there’s that. I’m sort of avoiding my in-game wife as well. We recently had a baby girl. This thing, this little girl, she appeared 10 in-game minutes after having (accidental) unprotected sex with my inconsiderate wife (who, by the way, gave me an STD). She’s moaning and talking about how she loves my beard, which is completely understandable given how badass I look (and yes, my beard in incredible). Suddenly a cut-scene comes lumbering out of the corner of my heart and I learn that I’m a father. Great. Soon my wife starts complaining about the quality of our house and her allowance, which if I must comment on is quite ample. I give her a little extra bread every now and then hoping she’ll change out of at atrocious pauper garb and yet every time I come home from fighting crazed bandits and vicious forest creatures, there she is in that fucking bonnet. I warned her about that bonnet. Every time I leave the house to set out on my next big adventure, I always sort of maliciously say under my breath, “Bitch, get rid of that bonnet”. I come home several weeks later scarred, beaten, and torn: lo and behold, atop her head rests that offensive excuse for a hat. Honestly, she just sort of looks like Buckethead, and I can’t really say I find that guy attractive.

Anyway, now I’m a dad. I had another wife - her name was Alex. I was forced in to marrying her to keep my “good” alignment, and I’ve been pretty bummed about it ever since. For no real reason a ghost of all people asked me to marry her. So the story goes, she stood him up at the altar. He took his own life as a result of the grief, and commissioned me to have her fall in love with me so that the same fate would befall her. This guy was pretty fucked up. Needless to say, when the time came for me to drop this bitch on her ass or get married (these were seriously my only options), I caved. She wasn’t much of a looker and had what even the most liberally-minded person would call a “gigantic ass”, though hell, I wanted to be a good guy. Once wed, she pestered me for a place to live. At the time I was quite poor and had no intention of blowing my meager earnings on anything not made of steel or capable of firing sweet, hot lead, so I took her to the only home I’d ever truly known, which was a shitty trailer parked in the back of a gypsy camp. She wanted to have sex immediately and wasn’t hesitant to rock that trailer all night long, even with those dirty gypsy folk eying us like fresh meat or gleaming jewelry. I’m a country boy, so I wasn’t used to this big city bangin’, as they call it; voyeurism was a new thing to me.

This is why today, when the gypsy camp was being overrun by merciless bandits who slew my barely-known neighbors and their innocent little children, I perhaps waited a little longer than I should have to swoop in and rescue everyone. They targeted my humble trailer and I watched in great anticipation as two bandits took turns stabbing poor Alex in the chest. I leisurely tiptoed over to where she was being ravaged and, only after she’d fallen through a fence, effectively breaking it (I liked that fence) did I “come to the rescue”. Problem solved. I mourned my loss for maybe .02 seconds and spent the rest of the afternoon purchasing every trailer and store in that little gypsy camp. Now it’s back to square one, I suppose, and I’ve got this other bitch living in a goddamned mansion in the richest part of town. I own maybe 20 homes and 13 businesses or so, but she lives in the nicest of all of my houses. It has an attic, which is cool. That’s all I ask for. I go up there to cry from time to time. These, uhh, people - this woman and that baby I have to entertain from time to time - they will remain my primary family until I resurrect that zombie witch from the cemetery, purchase a castle and have 8 kids with her. I can hardly wait.

As for Mother 3, I’m finally on chapter 7 which is where the meat of the story resides, I believe. Chapter 6 is a whole 3 minutes long, which is something that sort of confused me when I first heard about it. I wasn’t angry or anything, I just didn’t understand how that even made sense. Without trying to sound pretentious or sappy over a medium many believe is a “gateway to Hell” or a “murder simulator” (lol), I will say that chapter 6 is fucking poetry. Really. If you’re sitting there reading this, and you know for fact in that blackened heart of yours that you’re still on chapter 1 fighting the Mecha Drago, well, I invite you to open up your soul and look forward to something poignant and beautiful :(. I’ve read way too many “sources” (teenage boys) about crying over the storyline to not believe that at least half of them are truthful, so yes, teenage boys playing Mother 3, I believe you; it’s just that, you know, I don’t even know if that’s possible for me. Back when videogames were still a niche ordeal, I would hear about a lot of people crying over the death of Aeris from Final Fantasy VII. At the time that seemed almost like a merit of one’s dedication to the craft or something hilarious like that (these were the 90s, so, lighten up). Nowadays, I don’t know, I feel something, though maybe I don’t feel like crying over it. (For the record, I never have - honest!) What I’m trying to say is that I believe it to be objectively beautiful to a degree, though not necessarily to the point where you’d cry over it, no. This is the same game that insinuates child molestation in a hot spring, and mechanical merman who engulf your entire face with their blubbery lips in order to blow oxygen into your lungs. Actually the former sort of makes me feel like crying if for a different reason altogether.

Now I think I’ll go and do something that would have been neglected and deemed boring in youth - I am going to go sit somewhere. It doesn’t really matter where. The most exciting thing I hope to achieve with my life in the coming week is to see if Sound Garden is going to break the Gears of War 2 street date by 2 weeks. That would be downright incredible and really, highly likely. We’ll see, I guess.

Here I am another night staying up reading whatever nonsense and stories of others lives I can in pursuit of forgetting my own. My soundtrack is currently a series of beeps as my phone vibrates and receives text message after text message in my on going quest for constant human communication. My dog curled up next to me in his usual spot, I imagine my fingers freezing to the very keys they’re typing on as I hope for the heat to magically turned on in the house and the blankets to be more than a futile effort of warmth. No matter what I do recently, sleep just seems more and more unappealing. I can’t seem to get the hang of it anymore. So instead I stay up late at night contemplating my problems and reading about others.

I think what bothers me most in my loss of a home. Nothing has that feeling anymore. When I’m at the house I grew up in, now completely overrun by estrogen with my father gone, everything seems foreign. The very room I’ve always slept in and watched the wallpaper change from happy pink ABCs and teddy bears to rainbow squiggles and then the somber blue I currently have in place, the walls littered with random posters and scraps of memories created by friends, this room isn’t the same. I roll around in the bed, never completely comfortable, trying to remember what it was to sleep here and sleep soundly, somehow having room for myself, my dog, and whatever cat or two that decide to join us. This isn’t what it used to be, yet everything is exactly the same. The upstairs bathroom has had the same bottle of hand soap for years, the cups and plates are still in the same kitchen cabinets, the same animals patrol the hallways. But it doesn’t feel right.

As opposed to school, where, outside of campus in the city, for the first time I’ve become the hated minority. The movie theaters and restaurants all roll their eyes when we grace them with our presence. The  police officers always give us “the eye” as the McDonalds employees scream our order back to us. Even the local doctors don’t give a shit. For example: I recently was taken by a friend of mine to the clinic at the local hospital because I had a fever earlier that morning and my throat was swollen and raw. So I spoke to the receptionist and gave her my information as a nurse poked and prodded and wrote down blood pressure and temperature right there in the waiting area, all to the coos and tweets of my southern companion, Ned, who wowed one of the local children while playing peek-a-boo with his ten gallon hat.

It was a 45 minute wait but wasn’t devoid of its entertainment. I listened to the fascinating coverage produced by the local news of down syndrome homecoming queens and stolen street signs while Ned repeatedly tackled the vending machine in an attempt to free his Doritos, only to have them confiscated and eaten by the security guard on duty. When my name was called we headed back into one of the classic rooms proven sterile by its glistening white, well, everything. The nurse told me to become topless and put on the thin gown and wait for the doctor. She arrived promptly and started interrogating without any introduction. After reminding me that “smoking is bad, you know” and checking my throat, she was almost out the door before she looked at me and asked, “Wait, are you pregnant?”

….

“Not that I know of?”

With a sigh and a roll of her eyes she left with the cotton swabs she had shoved down my throat and the cup she made me, well, “piddle” in.

An hour and a half later she came back, apologizing for the long wait on the test results, and told me I didn’t have strep, wrote me a prescription, and wished me a good night. I didn’t realize until I arrived at the 24 hour pharmacy, a place where they must take the drugs they sell just to survive the night, that the prescription she gave me was nothing but Robitussin… with Codeine, an opiate. I had heard stories of other students going to the hospitals complaining of back or other aches and leaving with Vicodin, but really? I’ve now been taking the medicine for a week straight, my throat still swollen and raw, but rewarded with a week long drug trip which some dear friends of mine like to call a “spirit quest”.

So, college life has created a void, a gap in my existence, a strain. And in the end I’ve sacrificed my ability to sleep. I guess a small thing to give away in the preparation for a stable job, a life my parents never had the chance to have, “the American dream”.

Really I just want a nap.

Fuck Chinese food.

Seriously, I’m done with this shit. Every time I let enough time pass, I completely forget how much I don’t like it and next thing you know I’m shoveling greasy fried rice (with vegetables drowned in soy sauce) down my throat, wondering where it all went wrong. Here’s a little secret about “Chinese” food (as in, shitty bastardized variations on original Chinese cuisine): it doesn’t taste good. The only reason we let it slide, so to speak, is because of the amount we’re given. Granted it doesn’t taste horrible, but it’s actually really mediocre and seldom filling. That’s why you’re given so much. There’s this, well, let’s say an “Asian place” in my dining hall. I say Asian because it’s one of those places that doesn’t recognize the boundary between different cultures and sort of lumps sushi, fried rice, yakisoba noodles, pulled pork and chicken parts dumped in some brown water all in the same “restaurant”. This place just opened. Now, I don’t speak Chinese or anything, but I’m fairly certain the name of the place is just the same subtly racist well-shit-this-sounds-asian-enough sort of hodgepodge bullshit they pull with the whole interbreeding food ordeal. It’s called “Joo Jing”, and I’m actually not even kidding. It’s got some chopsticks above the slanty (yes, slanty) logo for no reason I am aware of other then yes, Chinese/Japanese people tend to eat their food with them.

Anyway, so I performed an experiment, sort of. I’d eaten at this place once before and got violently ill. Me and Eric were excited to try this place out after getting burnt out on the other watered-down ethnic-themed food joints, if you will, that dot the dining hall. The woman behind the counter — an individual who couldn’t be bothered to care less about the stagnant film that appears on Chinese food after not being touched for 10 seconds – well, she sort-of just slopped some exceedingly greasy fried rice onto a styrafoam tray of some sort, one that looked like it had been constructed out of garbage or something. She had this lazy, resentful look about her, almost as if to say, “Yeah, bitch, I work at fucking Joo Jing. Now, do you want some goddamned yakisoba noodles or not?” I didn’t — not that day. I settled for “pieces of chicken and what might be chopped onions floating in brown water”, a staple of the Chinese diet. I told myself, no, don’t do this! You fool! Alas, I am always conned in to Chinese food by the heaping portions; this is something so eloquently symbolic of Chinese food, I think, and I’m not even referring to the MSG content (though that is, I’m sure, very important). Anyway, I’ve regretted that day ever since, and at least half of my dreams (nightmares) somehow involve this calamity of a meal in some shape or form. Dante didn’t write about a circle of Hell this tortuous, I’m sure.

I got downright ballsy the other day and went to Joo Jing by myself. I’m not sure where Eric was, but he wasn’t there to stop me, and Lord knows I was out of my element that day anyhow. I decided on an experiment. My hypothosis: “Joo Jing, like most Chinese-American restaurants, will be awful. This is meal will hurt me in ways a lover never should; scold me in ways a parent never would; tempt me in ways the devil never could.” If that didn’t happen, I figured, well, I’ll get a gigantic meal out of it. As the cheesy saying goes, we fall down so that we may pick ourselves back up; we eat Chinese food once so we never have the displeasure of doing so again.

Here I am, two decades and some change later, fucking up the world and my digestive system with the sound of a bell, dirty-eyed, slack-jawed, hunch-backed and awake.

Maybe, just maybe, I thought, I won’t get sick. Eating Chinese food and hoping you don’t feel disgusting afterwards is the equivalent of stabbing yourself to see if it heals you. It was an intimating meal, it was. I sat in stark, silent witness and thundering awe at the disgustingly mountainous pile of rice which lay before me; buried deep beneath this Frankenstein-like mound of shit were noodles in the shade of dead fingernails. There was something brown wrapped around them like dried seaweed or maybe death itself. The entire ensemble smelled of hatred. I might have cried a little.

In comparison to the “feast” before me, my fork felt inadequate, as if boring a hole in a bolder with a nail file. I choked back the bile in my throat, which would later come to resemble white wine when stacked up against my lunch for the afternoon. I shoveled away hurriedly without causing a scene, scooping up clumps of tarry brown rice festering with day-old vegetables soaked in soy sauce or maybe formaldehyde. Occasionally a yakisoba noodle would worm its way into my hasty fork jabs, clinging to the bottom of my plastic utensil like a vengeful snake. It was a deadly war.

When all had been laid to rest, I snapped out of my hungered trance a new but lesser man. In the haze of a gloomy afternoon I sat defeated, groaning like a hungry puppy to walls that had no intention of answering me. My sleazy meal took refuge in what could have been my lungs. It hit me hard, and felt as though I’d swallowed a living thing; capsizing and sparking in a drainy tube, I clutched my heart and said a small prayer. The experiment had ended, and science was lost in a bitter winter. There wasn’t a sign of spring in sight.

Welcome to the first installment of Leave It To Eddie! — my weekly advice column in which all of life’s lil’ mysteries are unraveled by a learned professional and avid reader; hey — that’s me! This week we begin with a rather troubling tale of secrecy and despair. Ooo! Please, folks, in the future I ask that you keep it rated PG-13! I’m all for extending my expertise to the weary denizens of the world, don’t get me wrong, but this stuff is crazy as heck. Seriously!

If you’d like to email me with something you’ve got on your mind, or if you’d like insight on anything you feel I might be able to pleasantly respond to, you are more than welcome do so. Who knows! It might even end on the front page of Octonaut. Until next week, kiddos!

Dear Eddie,

I’ve been living a nightmare ever since my parents divorced. When I heard that they were getting a divorce a year ago, I knew there were going to be problems. In addition to regular problems such as who to spend the holidays with, I also knew that both of my parents would eventually start dating; this is where my troubles begin. My father is, for lack of a better word, a pervert; he’s always been one to prey on younger women. It’s the sort of thing that eventually ruined his marriage. Even as he is I could never have foreseen what would happen next. My dad began dating almost eleven months ago and I’ve seen some young-looking girls come and go, no big deal; however, last week he came home with a surprise. He was going on a date with a girl I had gone to high school with. We, me and the girl, pretended not to know each other in order to avoid embarrassment; I can’t believe he would date someone my age. But, it still gets worse. This girl and I have some “history”, and I’m not talking about Thomas Jefferson and the Mayflower compact! She was what I guess you would call the “school slut” — I mean, this girl is a walking epidemic waiting to happen; let’s just say she’s been around and picked up a few diseases. How do I know? Well, she got them from me and doesn’t know it. Remember how I called my dad a pervert? Well… it runs in the family. See, me and my bro sort of did some things to this girl while she was passed out that I’ll be taking to my grave, if you know what I mean. We ended up blaming it on this drunk guy and he has since been branded some pretty unlikeable terms and is up for charges and a possible prison sentence… Look, the point is: I want to tell my dad (who hasn’t slept with her yet) that this broad is two kinds of messed up, but I’m afraid that if I do she’ll find out and tell every one in town that I’m the one who slept with her and then that will ruin my rep. I love my dad, but I also love myself; I’m so conflicted, please help!

– Crudded Up in Kentucky

Dear Crudded,

Yikes!! Let me start off by saying that this isn’t really the kind of question I had in mind when I came up with the idea for this advice column! And here I thought people were going to write in asking what to do about a leaky faucet or how to woo a girl over a malt milkshake, but, well, I guess this is what I should come to expect on the internet!

My own naïvety aside, our inaugural question is nonetheless a question, and I will do my best to give you a satisfying answer. Son, a family torn apart from within is probably the saddest thing one can experience growing up. My penpal Mark had his father walk out on him when he was eight, leaving him in the care of his poor mother and two older sisters. Today Mark is a homosexual, the culprit no doubt being a lack of a strong father figure in his life!

While I haven’t had quite the same problem you’re having, I at least like to think I can relate. Back in 9^th grade I was sitting on the bus during the morning ride to school. Out of nowhere this rather rude young lady had the nerve to cough on my fleece zip-up sweater - near my mouth!! You can imagine how peeved I was. I ended up coming down with a mighty nasty cold that lasted for nearly 3 weeks if you can believe it! During my extended absence from school I thought a lot about this girl and her irresponsible actions that day on the bus. Suffice it to say I was pretty darn mad. When I’d finally returned to school a healthy but angered boy, you bet your britches that I confronted her on it! Oh, I laid it on thick and mean, yes sir. Pretty soon after that, she started crying and in the midst of what I can only assume was a traumatic fit, I sort of let my guard down and began to weep as well. That little girl ended up dying of walking pneumonia - something I can’t help but feel that I contributed heavily to.

So as you can see, telling your dad isn’t just a bad idea - it’s the worst thing you can do. Not a day goes by that I don’t think back on that girl and how I broke her heart by telling her my true feelings. If only I could change the past! But, alas. Don’t make the same mistake I made, friend. My advice to you is this: take all of your anger, fear, guiltiness - bottle it up nice and tight - and make good and sure you never mention it to anyone ever again. Not only will your dad and this young lady unknowingly appreciate your generous secrecy, but so will your heart. And that’s all that matters.

I just wanted to share this with everybody and since the forum is basically defunct (Ryan is thinking about dropping it all together) the best and only other place to put it is on the main page.

Ryan and I were having a heated debate over which rapper/rap group was better: Kanye West or Three 6 Mafia. Kanye West is, of course, the radio-friendly (read: white-friendly) hip-hop artist who pals around with the likes of Jay-Z and John Legend. Three 6 Mafia is the Academy-Award-winning group known for their ‘gangsta’ image, Dirty South sound, and baby hands (DJ Paul). It might seem strange, but Ryan, the pale-skinned white kid from rural Confederate country, was defending the gangsta rap group, and I, the token black guy, found myself defending Kanye.

By the way: this has almost nothing to do with Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.

I have recently started listening to Kanye West – almost excessively. Way too much. It’s probably pretty annoying, though what do I care? I’ve been trying to convert Ryan, however: he believes that Kanye was “created in a lab owned by MTV”. Now, Kanye is the first to admit that his music is geared towards pop music, but so was Michael Jackson; and I loved Thriller. Ryan also claimed that he preferred underground/self-produced stuff. Which is weird because Three 6 Mafia is not underground, as I pointed out earlier they are in fact Oscar-winning artists. And Kanye West produces his own music; he is a producer. He’s even produced for Three 6 Mafia.

Uh, I guess I should get to the point. While I was digging up dirt on Three 6 Mafia, I noticed that Three 6 Mafia was, at one time, embroiled in a bitter rivalry with Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. I remember Bone Thugs-n-Harmony from my childhood; I think one of my older cousins liked them. But I couldn’t remember exactly what their significance to me was. So I pulled up the YouTube and searched for the group; the song “Tha Crossroads” was the first thing to come up. So I watched the video and now I remember why it was prominent in my childhood. The video scared the shit out of my sister and me when we were kids. We weren’t even that little, really; I was eight. I guess we saw it repeating day in and day out on MTV and VH1 back when they still played videos. I know this video is all about people going to heaven, but why did they have to make the angel of death so damn scary?

That black man haunted me every night for what must’ve been a year. That bald head,  the blank stare on his face: he looks like an eight-foot tall Shaft, or Morpheus with a goatee. The worst part of the video is when those two guys are trying to play some gin rummy with their grandpa and then Death rolls up and kills him. I don’t care how tough you are or how much of a man you may be, you cannot say that when that old man’s eyes roll black that you were not frightened. You don’t even find out Shaft is an angel until the very end. He could just be some black demon killing old men and babies (did he really have to kill that couple’s newborn?), and appearing on the sides of buildings.

Doesn’t really matter though, the song sucks anyway.

My lord. Mother 3 is out, as I’m sure everyone is well aware because it’s generally hard to avoid its presence; I’ve read 20 or so outlets speaking of its English release. It is not bastardized so far as I can tell, and some of the townsfolk sound so similar to their Mother 2 counterparts that at times I feel like it’s almost too much. It has everything to do with the way the man writes, and Mother 3 only seems to further cement the notion that yes, Shigesato Itoi is a man, a wonderful man, and a man I greatly admire. I guess this makes him a genius. Not even 20 minutes in to the game and a sparrow tells you a haiku; poetry spoken by an otherwise forgettable character - an animal in the forest, no less.  I’ve played the game before, sure, but I didn’t understand a large portion of it and even from what I could, the eloquence was lost on me. It’s a shame, really, because I imagine that same eloquence still eludes me. The rhythm of the carefully crafted sentence structure is all but lost in translation.

But!

It’s still incredible.

I can’t seem to avoid discussions about the nature of the dialogue itself; most prominent seems to be minor controversy over some of the characters (namely Kumatora) swearing. In the Japanese version she speaks sort of manly and in a way that would be considered impolite. If I recall she even uses boku which is simply just “I” except generally used only by men. I guess I could just show some examples here:

Some folks are genuinely mortified that these colorful cartoon characters are using such “immoral” language (as if morality has anything to do with it). I’ve even seen some arguments which claim that the translators should have omitted such words because “EarthBound didn’t have any gosh-darn cussing in it :(”. Japanese doesn’t treat swearing like English does. It’s a hierarchical language, so really it’s just a matter of politeness or rudeness. You talk up to a teacher whereas the head of a company talks down to his subordinates. And really, what is a “swear word” if not a rude way of speaking? There’s a grey area there, I guess, but Japanese being contextual and all, the translators went with what I can only assume would be the most appropriate English counterparts. Though really, fuck all of that. Just, I don’t know, play the game and cover your eyes and ears when you catch wind of any word that books you on a flight to hell.

Oh, and I got Fable 2 early. I have no idea why. I went to Sound Garden, Baltimore’s ONE STOP SHOP FOR ALL THINGS MUSIC-RELATED, on a whim, really. I don’t even know what I was doing there. Sound Garden started carrying videogames about a month and a half ago, and I couldn’t be more aroused by that. It’s the best place in the area to go for cheap CDs and the people who show up at night are horrifyingly beautiful. The fact that they now sell videogames means that they’ve adapted a Sound Garden philosophy to selling videogames: they’re cheap, they don’t give a shit about street dates and yeah that’s about it. Even still, this is wonderful news. Their whole thing is music, so I’m sure nobody that works there could even be bothered to worry about breaking a street date. And this is how I came to own Fable 2. As I was talking to the back of the store under heavy gunfire from the many speakers surrounding me, I sort of half-wondered if maybe Fable 2 would be there. When I approached the glass case, there it was. I bought it because they didn’t tell me I couldn’t.

It’s all right. I’m going to beat it before I give a thorough analysis, and yeah I’m thinking I’ll probably do that. I don’t know, maybe Cave Story and Mother 3 have sullied my vision or my feelings or something, though hell, I’m just not having as much fun as I thought I would. I wanted it to be what Oblivion wasn’t, I guess. I thought it was going to be open-ended and vast, but in reality it’s just a long corridor with little to explore. You can’t even walk up small inclines. And then there’s the dog. I don’t mind the dog; he’s kind of a nice guy. But that’s it. He’s just sort of. . . there.

I don’t want to judge it too harshly, so I’ll wait it out. I’m married already, don’t you know, and I’m sort of dreading turning the game back on because of that. It was a quest that sort of pigeonholed me to do so, and now I’m simply a man in a loveless marriage. I dropped that bitch off at my trailer in the gypsy camp and haven’t looked back. Maybe I never will. She’s not getting any of my seed. Hell no. I am not fathering a child with that sack of shit.

I think I’ll go play some Mother 3 instead. I’m single there, and there isn’t a possibility for marriage in sight. Just, you know, perfection.