So another fun week at work. By the time Friday arrived I had a table covered in things to do. But through the combination of not taking a formal lunch - I ate at my workstation while continuing to engrave - and having gotten used to my job I rocked out everything but two projects. Sadly, those two projects amount to roughly 100 items to engrave. So... I'll have them done by the end of the day Wednesday, if all goes according to plan. In short, everything is great and life is good.

Right in the Childhood

Pokémon​ Black and White has new episodes on Netflix​. Just finished S3:E31 and all I can say is...

Pokemon, no.

Pokemon, stahp.

Pokemon, what are you doing?

Well, at least their writers know what they are doing. All in this one episode the female character says "maybe Discharge will taste good" and "happy endings are the best." She has said other dirty things in other recent episodes. My childhood cries tears of blood!

Brain Explosion 2015 Episode 1

So here is the problem with me going to bed at a "normal" time. I went to bed at 22:00, and I am now awake. Actually, I have been since 03:00. First thing that kept me up was the realization that I need to do some dishes - still haven't. Second thing that has kept me up is the realization that I need a shower and good lotioning - thank God I can touch every part of my body on my own. Third is the new cat (Oliver) who seems to think "oh, you're up! It must be time to eat." No, it is not. I should not be awake but for the fact that I went to be before midnight.

So as I am awake I am thinking of lots of things - not freaking out about the new job, I am actually kind of excited about the idea of Amber working less. Thinking of food - doesn't help that I am watching Bizarre Foods. I am thinking about things I want to try to cook. I am also thinking of how easy this whole "fuck you, Hershey!" thing is going to be.

At the risk of sounding like a chocolate snob, Hershey makes NOTHING I cannot do without. "What about your love of the Reese's Peanut Butter cup, Zach?" Well, my wife makes these chocolate/peanut butter balls that make Reese's PB cups taste like something you scraped off of the bottom of your shoe. Seriously, Hershey, you have NOTHING going for you. Then you go and stop being the American distributor for Cadbury? Go sit in a corner and figure your shit out.

So they make some products similar to yours? Be honest with yourself, try their product then try yours. Which is better? Step back from your employer and really think about it. Further, in my younger and more competitive days I welcomed rivals. If you have rivals, you have a reason to continually improve. Rivals are good for your skill. Get rid of the competition and you will fall into a state of talent-decay. Judging from where your candies are at now, talent decay is the absolute last thing you need right now.

But what about the cooking thing? One is simple, the other is a little bit less so. Both require some similar ingredients. There are other foods I am thinking of, but for the most part it is these two on my mind. The one is fairly simply going to be spiced - still up in the air as to exactly which I will use, but I have a good idea - chicken breast, sliced thin on a tortilla with chilies. Simple, serve the different parts on separate plates so that people can mix it as they please. Perhaps a salsa on the side to dip it in, or add directly before you roll the tortilla - I won't judge. Simple, but delicious, food.

The other bit, my wife can thank someone we went to high school with, strawberry cheesecake chimichangas. I wanna try it for a few reasons, mainly "can Zach still cook?" The other reason being that it just sounds good, but it would be a dessert-first night. Get the fried food out of the way so you can follow it with something simple and clean to help avoid the disgusting post-fried-foods blahs.

The chimichangas aside from making me think of Deadpool - for reasons that better be painfully obvious - it has made me wonder one of my usual things I brood too much on.

Something, something, something spirit animal something something.

So this brooding-thing, I am letting this one go. I used to think too much about what I call people I went to high school with. I also used to wonder if they hated me then, or hated me now. Today, something is different. I don't care. "The past is dead, only the future is alive." This is a simplified version of the seventh rule mentioned in the Sword of Truth series. Anyone who has present dealings with me obviously does not care that I was an asshole in high school, and continue to be one in the present. Sure, sure "you're not that bad Zach." You are not inside my head, I'm not bad because I have learned to bite my tongue.

The last part of this brain explosion: I have wrecked the Empire in Skyrim worse than the Aldmeri Dominion ever did. They may have captured the imperial city, and brought mankind to their knees, but my conquest has been subtle. My conquest has been economic. Have you ever stopped to consider the far-reaching implications of your purchases and amassing of wealth in video games? I sometimes wish economics were a consideration in gaming so that you could see the effect of your hoarding.

Approaching 500,000 septims (the currency of the Empire in Skyrim) on my person.. At this point, due to all the extra septims I have ensured the minting of, their currency is worth nothing. Perhaps on the paladin I am actually role playing with I will do more to have a less negative impact on the imaginary economic state of the world. So here is your homework people: do you know a developer/programmer/etc... convince them to bring up the notion of creating a game that takes inflation into account. Generally, as you play your speech skills grow allowing you to purchase items for less money. But, let's be real, as you amass wealth in a game and cause the minting of more currency... products should be costing more. It won't be a problem for you, because your wealth is now such that a $5 object now costing $20 won't affect you, but what about the poor of the game? I know that current tech does not permit too much depth in this respect, but one day... Call me a sadist but I wanna see the poor getting poorer, disease becoming a greater problem, and an increase in homeless and thievery.

Why do I want to see these negative real-world things in my video games? Realism. In. Gaming. I want an arrow to the knee *eye roll* to have lasting effects: even after the arrow is removed, your health is replenished, and the wound closed I want to see you limp. Unless, of course, you happened to go to a skilled healer. Then you add two excellent elements to gaming: different levels of skill with healers: you go to the cheap doctor for the thing that is inconsequential; you go to the expensive doctor to make sure you stay pretty or function well. The easiest way to summarize is that I would like to see less in the way of fantasy and escape from reality and it's burdens in my gaming - though a certain amount of that may be allowed.

What I would like is for a certain set of games to be more of a... simulation of life in fantastic circumstances: mandate eating, sleeping, use of bathroom (even if you don't show the act), etc... sure this gives you a wall of meters to watch ("you are dangerously tired," "eat something soon or you will pass out," you have a nosebleed from a lack of moisture," etc...). Call me weird, but I want to feel less invincible when I play a game. I want to feel mortal, so that when I beat the villain who has been my nemesis the entire game in two rounds (looking at you Kuja from Final Fantasy IX) I can feel like it is an achievement in and of itself, not a bar set for "can I do it in one round next time?"

And now that I am no longer mentally overburdened, and you are carrying some of the weight of my brain, I bid you adieu. Have a great day, and I will see you bitches later tonight.

Hey, look, it's almost been a year since I posted anything! Time to post something, no? So, in the last year what has happened? Lots and nothing. Lots of nothing? Fair enough: lots of nothing. No major injuries - until recently - and not much in the way of illness.

In the last year...

We got Logan's eyesight corrected. His left eye was looking outward, so we addressed the issue with surgery. The surgeon over-corrected (easy enough to do when working with some of the smallest muscles on a little person) so it was then looking inward (toward the nose). Now I am glad to say that his eyes face forward, which will improve his vision and reduce unnecessary headaches later in life.

I think I figured out what my doctor has not, but it is okay that she hasn't figured out my issues, because they are relative. Awhile back I noticed that I've felt tired all the time, have no ability to follow through on the notion of doing something, etc... So we tested me for tons of stuff. God, in one trip they took 8 vials of blood from me. I should have napped in the truck afterward (the truck reference'll give you a time frame on that one).  At first she thought AIDs and a tiny, miniature part of me said "sweet government funded life on disability here I come" the rest, and smarter bits of me said "yeah! And shunning! Loads of shunning. God knows how we'd LOVE to be shunned and thought of as one of this century's lepers!" I think the issue is that my testosterone is down. Why would she not know this? When have I ever tested testosterone? She would have no baseline for comparison. In fact, the only ways about it are to address the issue with pills/shots/etc... and see what comes of it, OR sort myself out without medication. I think I will just take the hard road and hope not to drive my family nuts.

We bought a house, the address of which I can send to anyone who wants. Y'know, assuming you have my number to request it.

We got a green cheek conure (bird). She is a mutant, specifically: she has yellow side. I now want to collect "mutant" animals, shave my head, and confine myself to a wheelchair.

We got a kitten from a "pit bull rescue" in a town that starts with D (which, on a local scale, does not narrow it down as much as you'd think). The kittens were being kept in a birdcage outside. From the way this one moved about after we got him home he had not seen much time outside of that cage. He had fleas, among other health issues. When we gave him a flea bath he was drinking the water like it was the first he'd ever seen.

Logan started preschool, which has greatly improved his vocabulary and made him speak out more.

I have started another few projects that I hope to follow through on. One for myself, one for Logan, and a renewal of my fiction work. For the last one, I have a name and a general plot.

Oh and we can't forget the tons of rejection: thus far I have applied for over 300 positions at 90+ different companies with very few interested parties. Even fewer interested parties who weren't either scams, in or incapable of making me an offer that I could actually accept.

But that is just what I can think of over the last year. Maybe this year will be a better one for me actually keeping up with this thing, then one day my Facebook will cease to be the way people come to know what is going on in our lives.

Omega, out.

Infection...

Everyone in the house is sick. I got sick last week, but it was minor. Then Logan got sick on Sunday and it got bad, 104 temp bad. I started feeling sick after Sunday night when I was up all night checking his temp, dosing Logan, and working on the last remnants of homework. Then Amber started feeling it Monday, so between all of being sick she called off for work. So here we are just getting up for the day at 09:30 when Logan pooped himself awake, I've been up since 06:30, and my running theory is that Amber is in some sort of death-like state. As soon as Amber gets up I am running to the store to get bubble bath, Epson salt, crescent rolls, and a few other essentials. Might swing by a video rental place and pick up some stuff. Thankfully we made turkey soup that is still good last week, and I have all the stuff to make chili. Nelsons vs sickness round 1, ready? Go!

Is it better to silently suffer indignities and injustice from someone who believes they are helping you, or is it better to allow them to know the dangerous degree to which they come close to hypocrisy?

Things I Am Done Seeing

Things I am done seeing as someone's profile picture on social networking websites and dating sites (not like I visit the second sort, but I remember those well enough):

Any amount of exposed flesh of a man. Put your shirt back on, this is not a flesh-bazaar. There are more than women on Facebook. (I almost typed fleshbook, God help me now that I put that out there it'll either be a website soon or is and I will now go make myself aware of it.) Even if someone waved a wand and all the men but you disappeared, not everyone would be interested in seeing you shirtless, and quite frankly... at least one of those ladies would be offended.

Money, people holding money next to their face/partially in front of their face/in their fist, cars (without the owner OR with a "model" on it), phones, guns, etc... in short POSSESSIONS OR CURRENCY. These do not make you cool, or convince anyone you are rich/successful... any idiot can go cash his paycheck and flash it for a pic. I am sure these things impress someone else, but I am not him.

People kissing. I am sure you love/are interested in them but... I want to see your face so I can see if I know you. Hard to do that when someone is busy trying to suck it off your skull.

People with multiple other people of the same gender. I realize you like your girlfriends. That's cool... so which person in that picture are you? Kinda want to know who I am adding, or who I am supposed to be considering adding.

People trying to look "hard," or express pain... pretty much anything but happiness, or of course a nice neutral look that does not seem sour. Look, I realize that you think you are gangster, or a thug, or feel so much internal pain that you cannot express it all but are trying as hard as you can, or perhaps when I look at your picture I am supposed to think you are artistic or neat. Neat, artistic things are, as my opinion goes, spontaneous. Never planned and controlled. Sure, you can plan to take a picture of tomorrow morning's sunrise, but Mother Nature may well flip you the bird and you'll wake up to clouds.

Children. Not pictures of your children, heavens no. Kids are great. Kids on Facebook, not so much. Used to be that you had to be 18 to have an account. Now it's 16, if I hear correctly. Logan will never know the myriad wonderful and hideous things Facebook can introduce you to until he is 18. Unless he does it behind my back of his own accord, then I will ground the holy hell out of him. Promise.

There are exceptions to every rule, but in general... save all of these pictures for your photo albums. When I look at your profile picture it had better say something genuine and honest about who you are, what you believe, or what you stand for. If you honestly stand for any of the things I mentioned... more power to you. Not to pick on any particular one too much, but if money is truly so important to you that you need to have it as part of your profile picture, grand. But I do not want to know you. Odds are that if money is that important to you... you are going to bitch like crazy when you don't have it. Further, it is no lie: more money more problems.

In short: be you, but be prepared not to be offended when I reject your friend request.