New Year, New Post—and Old Battles Still Being Fought on Twitter

            Happy New Year, y'all!  It's 2015 and EVERYTHING SUCKS already!  *sniffles*  Sorry, just went through a hard time, and still doing so; I'll explain why when the time is right.  However, I have a few things to express.  First of all, I have a few goals for this year: EDUCATE people about how vaccines do NOT cause Autistic Spectrum Disorders AT ALL(!); explore how humanity is getting worse and worse (especially American society and government); how ghosts MAY exist or how your brain can trick you; celebrating science and positive changes being made in the world, etc!  I'll also continue to review books, movies, television shows, and continue to nerd my pants over certain shows and celebrities.  I plan to lose mass (at least better than I have been last year—it fell apart from lack of momentum!) and become more confident, and I have an even better reason to do so now (the hard time stuff).

            Anyways, I should also add that what happened with the satirical magazine in France is TRAGIC!  ISIS is a group full of assholes and they should be EXTERMINATED!  They retaliated in the wrong manner in response to a cartoon that was published by a SATIRICAL newspaper!  The following tweets express my feelings:

Oi, France: je regrette pour votre defauts. Je pleure avec vous tous! #notafraid #pardonmybadFrench
— Lady Eden Pyrithea (@LadyEden1337) January 8, 2015

I have no words for the tragedy in France, in French or English. Except that i'm pretty sure the ISIS idiots don't know what "satire" means.
— Lady Eden Pyrithea (@LadyEden1337) January 8, 2015

            I am Charlie, and I'm not afraid!  (More will be expressed on my DeviantArt page….)

            Anyways, onwards to this blog entry's topic: Celebrities, Trolling and the Schedule Conflicts of Television!  For the optional theme song, check out the Steve Angello x Jacques Lu Cont remix of Depeche Mode's "Soothe My Soul":

Two Shows I Nerd My Pants Over, One Time Slot (Porno, Anyone?)

            So, yeah, that subheading title is a reference towards that Two Girls, One Cup porno (which should NEVER be watched or googled), but it's in regards to a dilemma I decided to tweet about, tagging Adam Savage of MythBusters on Discovery Channel, and Zak Bagans of Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel:

Grrr! I'm having a hard time deciding on what to watch, between @MythBusters and @GhostAdventures for Sat 9pm EST! @donttrythis @Zak_Bagans
— Lady Eden Pyrithea (@LadyEden1337) January 8, 2015

            I did not expect to get a response….but I totally DID!!!!  From Adam Savage—SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!!!  His response was almost typical because I expected something along the lines of "MythBusters because we're real."  I did NOT expect the fans' reactions!  My cell phone (Obamaphone, free unlimited text messaging, I get mentions, direct messages, favorites and retweets directly on my phone through text message…) started blowing up with responses!  A ton are funny, but a lot were REALLY uncalled for!  I can't just embed them ALL into my blog post at once because that's a LOT of tweets to embed and it makes the blog post here TOO DAMN LONG!!!!  So, I've decided to Storify it…..

            Those last few tweets bashing on Adam is just really dickish!  Since when is it okay to tweet to an influential someone to say, "FUCK YOU!  I'm never watching your show again!  Your an asshole!  Suck a dick and go die from a demon attack at Bobby Mackey's!"  (For your information, I would NEVER endorse the last one!  Bobby Mackey's, if you're unfamiliar with their reputation beyond being a country club already, is really infested with demons!  These dickhead demonic entities are really nasty to the point where if you ever mention Zak Bagans' name inside that place, you get attacked!  It's really insanely bad energy inside there, and to suggest to a skeptic to go in there, mouth running off with insults and saying Zak's name over and over is irresponsible, mean, dickheaded, immoral, and all out WRONG!  Especially if they did not have any experience with a demonic entity scratching you, insulting you, trying to possess you, oppression and attachment, etc.  It's a real danger—which is why I vehemently CONDEMN such a response!)

            Has anyone ever heard  of Wheaton's Law?  Anyone?  If you're that good of a nerd, you'll already know it by heart, but I'll share it here as a refresher:

DON'T BE A DICK!!!!!!

It was first stated by Wil Wheaton (friendly co-performer at W00tstock to Adam Savage) to his team at PAX one year, and before long, it was being quoted in forums and on websites and it earned the name "Wheaton's Law," and it's a REALLY GOOD LAW TO HAVE!  In fact, when I was in Nerf Club at college, when we first drafted up the rules, Wheaton's Law was Rule #1; Rule #2 was "Always follow Rule #1!"

            So, when one is a fan of Ghost Adventures and MythBusters and reads Adam's tweet, they're obviously going to take it a bit too personally, assuming that it's negating their beliefs in an afterlife.  Granted, Adam is a definite skeptic, and he doesn't believe in ghosts and demons and what-not, but to raise a stink over a single tweet?!  That's immature and ridiculous!  I'm sure that Adam did NOT mean it like that at all (then again, he could have—I don't know for sure; I also am not affiliated with him in any way beyond being a fan of his and MythBusters), but don't call him a cunt and a dick and an asshole just because he shared his opinion and input in response to my dilemma to ME.

Let's Break It Down!  *Beatboxes*

            MythBusters is an excellent show, promoting critical thinking and applying common sense to life so that you don't have to spend time and energy worrying about something that isn't true or factual (i.e., water heater explosions, earthquake survival, the JATO rocket Darwin Award myth), and learn what it takes for things to be real, as well as being surprised by things that are real.  So, even though Adam isn't, as Phil Plait would put it, a "classically trained scientist," he still has experience with the Hollywood special effects tricks of the trade, being able to bust myths that stem from movies, television shows, etc.  And who (besides terrorists) can go wrong with explosions?!  That cement truck just disappeared like Alderaan!  So, even though the show's name is "MythBusters," it's not proof that they're "fake"!  It's a short, easy title that describes EXACTLY what they do: they bust myths!  Also, they're based in San Francisco; Hollywood is a "little" TOO FAR SOUTH to be where they're at!  (However, if they want to take a field trip there, they certainly can!)

            As for Ghost Adventures, it's not a show that "looks for ghosts," the way Finding Bigfoot tries to find a Sasquatch; it's actually a show that is all about gathering evidence in support of  proving the existence of ghosts, as well as researching what a ghost could be, and even possibly helping homeowners or property owners and their families and friends realize that they aren't crazy!!!  Or that what they're afraid of really isn't dangerous at all.  So that weird feeling that trolls get in their pants when tweeting their rage at Adam with misspellings and all isn't a ghost; it's just them cranking one out from being a dick (thereby violating Wheaton's Law).  It's obvious that a lot of fans love this show, especially since the members of the investigation crew are the producers, the camera crew, the host, etc.; they created the show, they film the show themselves, there's no glamour or Hollywood involved—it's raw, it's real, it's almost indie and very, very organic.  Stemming from a self-shot documentary from the early-mid naughties (2000-2009), this is also a way to help boost tourism to certain locations, which helps generate revenue for the locations and tax dollars for the cities and states these are all located in.

            Also, I should point out that the science labs aren't the places that are haunted, it's these places such as the Washoe Club, the Winchester Mystery House, the Sun Inn located in Bethlehem, PA, etc.  And any good scientist should know that if you can't create this situation in the lab to study, you should conduct a field study.  So, discounting ghosts completely without fully investigating the culture and approaches and the evidence is just…..I don't have a word to describe it, but it's equivalent to mixing up, "close-minded, presumptive," and either "fearful of the results" or "lazy".  And don't assume that one show was running longer than the other: Ghost Adventures started airing in 2008, and MythBusters definitely started earlier than that, with 10 YEARS under their belt!  So, they both have a ton of positive points.  So, tweeting, "FUCK U!" to someone really isn't the way to go…..

Ethical Criticism: Why the Internet Has a Larger Underbelly Than It Should

            Most hate-tweets are very unproductive and have a total lack of class and character.  Criticism is helpful because it allows people to improve in the areas that are addressed.  However, haters and trolls just do it to be a dick.  Trolls gonna troll, haters are gonna hate, and even them Sontaran taters are gonna tate, no matter what.  BUT, you can ditch these labels and provide tweets that are better constructed.  Adam won't listen to "EAT A DICK!" (I received this tweet directly; my response was, "As long as it's not yours!") but it's very likely that instead of allowing your emotions to be in charge of your twitter feed, you provide a calmer response that goes along the lines of "I disagree with your statement, because…"

            Bad: "Ghost Adventures is REAL!  So, fuck you, loser!"
            Good: "I disagree: it's real because….."

            Bad: "You're an asshole!  I'm never watching your show again!"
            Good: "I now feel like my beliefs have been devalued.  Thanks!"

            I hope everyone gets this, because I don't ever want to cover this topic ever again!  We have the ability to use a wide range of words that will make us sound educated; why not use it?  (Flame wars are pointless; don't engage in them!)

Diffusing the Rage

            As many of the tweets have suggested, several Ghost Adventures fans believe that Mr. Adam Savage should go on Ghost Adventures to prove his point.  "Why?  It'll just be a waste of time!"  How would you know that if you've never conducted an experiment to prove or disprove this hypothesis?  The only way to prove that it's a waste of time is to 1.) Be patient and 2.) just join Zak and crew on a lockdown.  Just make sure that it's the Ghost Adventures Crew, and not some other paranormal investigation crew, because if it's someone else, the camera crew might be allowed in, and their job would be to film the talent, not the evidence or activity.  So, if it's just Zak, Nick, Aaron, Billy, and Jay, with the camera crew hanging out at nerve center, there's less contamination, and a better likelihood of capturing evidence that isn't easily debunked.

            So, I agree: Adam Savage should go on a full 12-hour lockdown with the GAC on their show, and try to debunk the evidence if he would wish to.  At least he'll know (without assuming anything) that ghosts do exist, and that Ghost Adventures isn't fiction.

            But I'm very sure that I've said all I needed to say, and that it seems like I should start taking cover before the bullets start flying between the fans of Mythbusters who are hardcore skeptics of ghosts, and the fans of Ghost Adventures who are hardcore skeptics of skeptics!  (HA!  See what I did there?!)  In the meantime, keep it cool, keep yourself warm, enjoy your tacquitos, and above all, DON'T BE A DICK!!!!!

            *dons dragonskin vest and other armor, then takes cover in a warm bunker!*

Hooked: When Addiction Enters Your Life

            This is a bit of a sensitive topic in a highly verbose blog post.  You don't have to read it if you feel uncomfortable about addiction, but you might want to as addiction has about as many flavors as fear does (just google "phobias").  I know that many people are going to say, "Bullshit!  You can only be addicted to illicit substances!" or something like that, but you have to understand that there is a thin line between dedication to what you enjoy and addiction that chains you to your vice.  For that I have the optional playlist of mine that I titled Addiction Blog Post Mix.

            For me, it's a touchy subject: Dad tends to say that I am "addicted" to the Internet.  And that really rubs me the wrong way, the same way that someone says, "I can't do that because I'm disabled," or "I'm Autistic," or "She's retarded—stay away from her!"  To touch a bit on this subject: GODDAMMIT!  You are a person, not a problem!  What do you like?  What do you want to do in life?  Do you want to travel?  Meet people?  Do you have dreams of doing something you've always wanted to do?  Well then, fuck the "being disabled," because you've allowed it to define who you are; you've allowed it to own you, instead of you owning it!  Much like Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider: the curse owned him for a while, but once the Devil said, "You are no longer my pawn," or whatever, Johnny went, "Fuck you, I'm not your pawn!  I own this shit, it doesn't own me!"  Your disability is a part of you, but it shouldn't define you.  That's why I say that I have Asperger's and a hearing impairment and depression and ADD!  I'll never ever say, "I'm an Aspie girl who is deaf and depressed and ADD."  Because that's not who and what I am; I am the Jedi warrior I make myself to be.  I want to look in the mirror and see what I want to be, not the traits I know I have that people don't like.  Yes, I put "Aspie" in my Twitter profile, but only because I'd run out of room otherwise!  It's easy shorthand!

            Anyways, sorry for that sideways segway into my rant about disability-and-identity.  But it does irritate me how Dad says that I am "addicted" to the Internet, because I don't like the negative connotations; in fact, for a while I used to say, "I'm connected deeply to the Internet," because I was hankering for the "social interaction" from Second Life.  (Mom's way of describing it is better: I would "get lost" in the Internet.)  But then I read about addiction in Chris Hardwick's book, The Nerdist Way, that, for some reason, I can't stop referring to all the time!  (JUST GET THE DAMN BOOK ALREADY!)  *Ahem!*  In the chapter titled, "Addiction-ary," he describes how he experienced addiction to beer; for many of us, the scientific term is "alcoholism."  And it opened my eyes up to what addiction really is: it's not the item that's the problem, it's the problems that a person has that they are trying to hide from by using the item.  What that means is that you can become addicted to anything, if you have the genetic predisposition for it, according to some non-Gallifreyan doctors.  Have you ever seen "My Strange Addiction"?  There are people who are addicted to collecting things, people addicted to eating things that aren't good for them at all, and there are people addicted to certain sensations that would just make this blog sound super creepy and weird if I ever mention it.

            And yet, once you get thinking about it, how can a crackhead's addiction be the same as alcoholism and Internet addiction and also addiction to food or sex?  It's not really the item; it's the feelings that the object of eternal siren-like desire that it brings to these people.  They're hooked on the good feelings that eating a lot of food or having sex or drinking or doing drugs brings them.  The equation is the same for everyone:

Problem → Need to feel good → Use of desirable object → Feeling good

But here's a tricky twist: addiction is itself a problem, especially if it interferes with your everyday life; so, in a sense, it turns into a thick, gummy, nearly concrete, manipulative frosting layer on the cake of problems and lies (PORTAL!) that you're dealing with.  So, there comes a time when you have to just sledgehammer that shit open in a giant epiphany moment of "What the fuck am I doing to myself?!"  For those of you having substance or gambling abuse and are thinking that, I shall include a list of numbers at the bottom that you can call for help.

            Anyways, I have discussed this with one of my witchdoctors (head-shrink!  HA!  Get it?!  #badpsychiatrypuns) and he did share with me this penny for my thoughts: you can enjoy something a lot, like sex or the Internet and that wouldn't be addiction; but when you enjoy it so much that you start to ignore your daily responsibilities that are needed (like hygiene, eating, work, family, real life friends), that's when it becomes an addiction.  You know the people who many of us label as "homeless," and  seem to just always drink or do drugs or whatever?  They are homeless because they were too busy being drunk/high to shower, eat, interact with family, pay rent, or go to work, and they got kicked out and have no place to go or no back-up plan for getting evicted out of their dwelling.  They're just stuck on feeling better and crave it so much that they can't quite move on from getting that fix.

            For Big C, it was alcohol.  He got into the never-ending party scene, he felt like he was in control of his forever yammering mind, he felt good, he let it get in the way of his daily responsibilities, his credit was ruined, he wasn't in the best of shape (besides round); essentially, he was a living buffet for a horde of zombies.  (He calls this phase of life "Peter Hardwick," aka "Chad Softwick," aka "Chris Fatwick," aka the fat drunk brother he never really had but someone kept alluding to during the early days of the biographical Wikipedia article about him.)  But on October 8, 2003, he was watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, with Jenny NOT-AN-EXPERT-ON-AUTISTIC-SPECTRUM-DISORDERS McCarthy as the guest.  At one point, at the end of the interview, Stewart says, "Oh, by the way, Chris Hardwick works here now."  To which she responded with, "Really?  Cool!"  Stewart shot back with, "Yeah.  He gets our coffee." [audience laughter]  "Fu.  Cking.  BALLS!" Big C shares next in the text.  He was called out on one of his favorite shows for being a loser, "and the worst part was, he was right."  That sent him on a journey to sobriety and fitness, and 10+ years later, he's on top of the world as the sober attractive-yet-out-of-my-league-in-more-ways-than-one COO of Nerdist Industries, hosting a shit ton of shows like Talking Dead and @midnight, as well as the Nerdist Podcast!

            As for me, I will admit (wincingly) that I have an addictive personality thanks my half-Vulcan father's side.  And it is a little easy for me to get hooked on things that allows me to feel good (which I will not dive too far into because it's a little uncomfortable for me to talk about) but now I know better.  I've done a paper on drunk driving and I learned that alcohol can magnify the effects of antidepressants.  And with that in mind, along with my being prescribed with antidepressants and that looming genetic predisposition hanging over my head, I make sure to never really hit the point of "durrunk," (I never want to be Dalek-hugging drunk, but I'm such a lightweight that I'm sure that I'll pass out before then.) because I don't want to fuck myself over.  Which I'm actually making into a rule for myself right here and right now: never ever create a tolerance for alcohol that's above 24-oz of something.  I actually don't even drink

socially; I'm not anywhere close to being social drinker, as I am pretty much a lightweight in terms of alcohol tolerance and terms of how much out of shape I really am; so Musikfest is really only the time I would have 24-oz. of alcoholic something and just drunk dial my sister and go "I'm drinking lots of water," 3 times in the conversation (true story).

            But on the flip side, I was actually typing this post up at home instead of surfing the webs at the library on a Saturday because Monday-Friday this past week (the week of March 9th, 2014, when I posted my review of the premiere of Cosmos ASTO), I was there, getting some semblance of Internet access.  Every single day, during that time period.  And it got to the point of "I need to not go there!  I need to take a break!"  The reasoning behind it is that I felt that it started to really tug at whatever part of me that many Christians call my soul, the siren call of the Internet was really sounding itself until closing time passes.  So, I needed to #SEPARATE myself from the library on a day that it's actually open so that I don't wind up going over that edge of self-destructive library-internet addiction spiral of DOOOOOOM!!!!!

            It's an interesting idea to talk about and I really do think that everyone shouldn't have a vice.  I remember having on my old blog, a very explanatory blog post about the whole Straight Edge movement (It's a movement, Mom!  It's not a club confined to my college, but a movement that was all over the country!) being positive about "not drinking, not doing drugs, beware of the asshole hardliners!" and to be honest, I would never have been able to be truly straight edge.  Jonah Ray was, but I really wasn't because I got lost in the Internet that was Second Life, Twitter, Facebook, MMO games, etc.  And I can't just let myself get to that point again, because it created this black hole that swallowed the path I was on to "apparel design and merchandising" in my Family and Consumer Science major.  But perhaps I didn't want it; perhaps, super-subconsciously I wanted to do pure art, or something else that would satisfy what kind of future I would want, and I, instead, went, "I'll go into fashion!" to people to get them to stop saying, "You'll starve as an artist," and, "You'll never have a real future," to me, and then I set up some red-matter dynamite on that career path I was on, pushed down on the plunger of the detonator box and created this void that I could not cross that I'm sure four-dimensional me would be able to cross somehow in a way that I would not understand.

            Wow, that was a convoluted creative over-exaggeration of Freudian thinking of subconscious desires that I just described in half of a paragraph.  I think I'm turning into another version of the Bloggess.  OH CRAP!  JENNY!  HELP MEEEEEE!!!!!  I CAN'T HAVE TAXIDERMY IN MY APARTMENT!!!

            But yeah, if you need me to shout at you to give up your vice for fuck's sake, here: DRUGS/ALCOHOL/INTERNET/(INSERT VICE HERE!) IS NOT THE SOLUTION FOR YOUR PROBLEMS!  PLEASE GO GET HELP!  BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!!  YOU CAN DO BETTER BECAUSE YOU ARE WORTH MORE THAN (INSERT VICE HERE)!

Just Because the Phone's Right There: Some Helpful Non-Finger Digits

Here are some numbers you can call:

Alcohol Anonymous (AA): Okay, AA is good for people who need structure for getting back onto the "right" path, but it's not for everybody.  Big C admitted this in Nerdist Way and on one of his podcast episodes (the number of which I don't really don't remember) that it's just not the program he needed, he just did his own thing because AA never really resonated well with him.  He still got sober, stayed sober, and is doing well.

            Website: http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org

Narcotics Anonymous (NA): Spin-off of AA that helps deal with drugs and substance abuse.

            Website: http://www.na.org

IntheRooms.com: This is a social network for those in recovery.  It's a thing that Big C discovered that he hasn't used, but it does allow you to connect with similar folks at varying stages of recovery with at any level of privacy that you would prefer.

            Website URL: http://www.intherooms.com

For Gamblers

A Confession

            I have to say that I'm not an expert, much like Dr. Drew Pinsky and Dr. Phil McGraw are experts.  I'm just sharing my experience, adding in my thoughts and knowledge so that you may know of my views of the whole addiction landscape.  I still don't consider myself to be addicted to the Internet; but there is a danger for me to start drinking like it's going out of style.  For that, I must be careful.  So don't take my entire word for it as "expert advice," beyond "get help if you're suffering."  So don't be afraid to confide in people such as sisters and friends and therapists and faith leaders.  They can help you get started on the right path.  It takes a lot of support to get over addiction and to solve the core problem, so I ask of you all to also accept the support and help that works for you, or, if it's someone you know, just be there for them, without enabling by providing drug money, a place to stay, providing the drugs, etc.  They will thank you in the end.  Just don't give up because the journey to sobriety is a long, hard, rough hike through mostly charted territory that is easy to just give up on.

            Another confession: Most cigarettes are flavored with ambergris.  That's whale vomit.  Think about THAT the next time you light one up, readers!

            ENJOY YOUR SOBER TACQUITOS!  Unless it's tiramisu.  Or cheese fondue.  Or you're in Colorado.

Confessions at 4AM Eastern Standard Time on a Monday

Theme for this blog post is "First Sleep" by Cliff Martinez.

            Even as I battle my desires to keep myself awake later and later, I am currently typing this as a sort of…. outlet to vent my complex thoughts.  I say complex because simple thoughts would be like, "FOOD!  SLEEP!  SEX!" all thanks to the lizardy little brains known as the amygdala, which I consider to be the primitive core of our oniony layered thoughts, but beyond that, I have to get this out of my head, so feel free to ignore this post.  I'm sure people are like, "What the fuck?!  Did she give up already?!" when they see that I haven't posted in 2 weeks since the whole freezing-my-ass-off Polar Vortex post.  The answer to that second question is "No, I have not," because I really haven't given up, with a lack of an answer to the first question (I don't know how to answer it, to be honest.).  Sometimes it's hard to just come up with a simple blog topic to write about (hence the need to publish a Life List that, by the way, as a note to my parents, is NOT a Christmas wish list!  I appreciate the Erica loom; but to be honest, a Jack loom and its accompanying warping pegs and appropiate weaving threads would actually do the job better, if I had the space.  Though I wouldn't mind escaping to that weaving-spinning retreat we checked out, that I called "Mom's incarnation of 'Meltdown Comics'."  Remember that one, Mom?  With the bumper stickers?  And the giant classrooms of looms and spindle thingies, tucked away in the middle of 'Merican Fahmland in PA somewhere?  That Dad doesn't really care for very much?  Oh, never mind.  I'm rambling again…..).

            Right now, I will say that my parents were on an extended quest where I couldn't exactly contact them for more money.  They had to maintain "radio silence" of a sort, unless they wanted to spend $8 USD per minute, which meant "DO NOT CALL UNLESS IT'S AN EMERGENCY!".  (Yes, I said American dollars via acronym.  Hello to you too, Finnish and British and other peoples in the world!  I hope the Google translator add-on is working well for you….)  So far, maintaining my apartment without them isn't doing very well.  Though I do hope to make it so they can feel happy upon their return by having a clean apartment, clean clothes, clean everything.  I also will say that I've failed to resume taking my medications after returning home from Christmas.  Though I think I've figured out a way to resume my methods of RPGing my life.

            In case you haven't noticed or read before on this blog of mine, I am trying out Nerdism, where I practice using my Nerdy skills with help from Chris Hardwick's book, which is fittingly titled The Nerdist Way.  In it, I've learned one way to structure my life: by turning it into an RPG (roleplaying game, not rocket-propelled grenade, for those not familiar with the Nerdy lingo).  Pencil-and-paper roleplaying games have been around for decades, and it seems as though that the desire for obtaining experience points (XP) would be motivation enough for us Nerds.  It has worked for me!  I was motivated!  And then Christmas and New Year's came around and everything fell apart for a bit.  But I'm ready to get back into the saddle of the tauntaun I've fallen off of.  And once I've managed to complete all of the exercises listed in the book, I'll review it.  Soon, Big C, I shall pass judgement!….

            But anyways, I do have hopes that this new year will be better than the past one.  Despite 2013 being the Year of the Doctor with the epic 50th anniversary (and the year Chris Hardwick turned 42--I hope you remember, Big C, that 42 is the Answer!  It's your year of enlightenment, Nerd-bro!), I am glad to have a new year to start off with.  If only all the advertisers would STOP using "New year, new you," all the time!  It's overused, overplayed, and overall, too annoying to ever utter again!

            So, yes, I have quests I've appointed to myself for this year: time management, regularly MED-I-CA-TING with my prescription drugs, organization, cleanliness, Life List activities, blogging, health/fitness improvements, socializing, etc, which have been the same as I've started with my life-RPG Character Tome.  Though specific ones might include tasks the I've put as objectives on my as-of-yet still-a-draft Life List, with additions and amendments that include dressing up in costume to attend the Cons, meeting CMNeir at PAX Prime, as well as @cwgabriel and @h_e_e_l_s, and meeting Zak Bagans and Nick Groff at Scarefest (and getting them to autograph my copies of their books), chilling with Big C and Wil Wheaton at The Underground Lair (also having Chris autograph my copy of his book), making an appearance on the Traveling the Vortex podcast (with permission from Glenn and company), and even getting Internet access back at my apartment so as to not just regain a sense of sanity and purpose for myself, but also to stop driving people on Second Life so crazy with my absence! (People on SL really do miss me, Mom and Dad!  Plus, I've yet to get all the updates for plugins, programs and the operating system itself, for which I need Internet access--and hours of it, too, because it would take FOREVER to get it all done!  Don't worry, I won't go overboard this time, as I've also got some real life quests I need to complete!  So, I will not allow myself to be so shut-in all the time.)

            But anyways, I've been thinking about things, being philosophical and deep about my thoughts so late-in-the-night/early-in-the-morning and I'm trying to quash it all with music, while regretting what I did to my saucepan and what I am doing fairly poorly in terms of bill-paying.  L  I have to motivate myself into taking care of it and no matter what, I realize that I have to take that goddamn first step.  And the second step after it.  And I have to make sure that I have to do it off of a cliff so I can keep going--because if I do it on a flat bit of ground, I'll wind up being worn down by the initial inertia and loss of kinetic energy due to gravity.  If I step off of a figurative cliff that has a trampoline at the base in the splatty-landing zone, sort of, I'll keep going, because, again, inertia will be in effect thanks to gravity using all of its attractive force on me.  This is what helped me realize that what I face in terms of lack of motivation isn't really a wall, but rather a scary looking cliff that has my self-preserving amygdalae gripping the emergency brakes with iron(ic) fists of steely fear.  And so, I just have to make like Morpheus and just fucking JUMP ALREADY YOU WIMP!--at least I can hope for  wings or a bouncy asphalt landing that will help me not die a figurative death (death being failing completely).

            Also, I have been watching movies and television series on DVDs that I borrow from the library and hopefully return on time.  I hope the library enjoyed spending my $25 and change (again, USD) on the Torchwood series, though I do hope they get my next bit of "misguided funds raised by having fines" and set it aside for new computers.  Because the ones I'm using at the library are 10 years old, and nowadays, that's REALLY old, like nearly obsolete!  They're due for replacements no matter what!  And I'm hoping they get really good ones from Hewlett-Packard because they're better than Dell's cheap shitty ones.   I have an HP desktop PC and I'm happy with it (though it still needs updates and a graphics card, not a graphics driver because THEY'RE NOT THE SAME THING, DAD, THE SO-CALLED COMPUTER WIZARD!).  A side note in terms of Mac-vs.-PC: AREN'T THEY THE SAME THING?!  I mean, come on!  A Mac is actually a specific kind (or brand) of personal computer, which is actually what PC stands for!  All Macs are PCs but not all PCs are Macs!  Just don't get aggressively all "MAC IS BETTER!" at me because I will use your Mac book or Mac desktop computer or even i-Whatevers to hit you over the head!  Mostly because I'm tired of it all.  I

respect Steve Jobs and all because he's one major motherfucker in the world of Nerds, like he's of god-status (mostly due to how he kept following his Nerdy dreams) but also, he helped Pixar (now Disney-Pixar) to get the ball to keep rolling and he was also a philanthropist!  It's a shame that he passed away, but now he's everywhere, analyzing how his products are doing in terms of porn-viewing and being cum-stain resistant, and he will make notes that he passes on to the current head developers at Apple.  I would've enjoyed his products more if he was from Hawai'i and named the company PineApple Inc., but I digress.

            Anyways, I am still working on listening to the Nerdist podcast series from the very first episode from 2010.  I've managed to download up to 103 episodes from the Nerdist website, direct two mega-fans of certain celebrity figures to the episodes these figures were on (@CMNeir loves Harrison Ford and @ItsBondageLoki adores Tom Hiddleston, so I'm sure I got favor points from them on a small level.), and I'm trying to get the next batch (which will be today while publishing this blog post and battling the evil lag monster) with the benefits of picking and choosing starting with number 143.  It's because of this podcast that I learned about The Nerdist Way and I'm happy to have found out about this text.  I'm also happy to have my Doctor Who cookbook complete with a chapter on Fish fingers and custard recipes!  #random

            So, with self-improvement being one of my main themes this year, I shall bid you "adieu" and "good night" as I try to not fuck up my circadian rhythms any more than they already have.

            In the meantime, LOOK ALIVE and ENJOY YOUR TACQUITO! #boobs  #EXCELSIOR!

P.S. Later on, after drafting up this blog post, I tried going to bed, missed out on my therapy appointment, and had an unusual experience: I've been trying to fall asleep  in bed, and it didn't help that I allowed myself to be distracted (again) by Twitter, searching for song titles to go with this blog post with the theme of "I messed up, I'm up late, I need to sleep BUT no matter what, I'm GOING to make it all better!"  So, I'm in bed, and the door is slightly open so I that can sort of hear stuff happening in the living room with my non-batty ears (Yes, slightly deaf, as I cannot wear my hearing aids in bed) such as people from building management (specifically Brad) and maintenance (Jim from Flushing who fixed my toilet!) and for the building's fire alarm.  But I don't know what happened next, as I've been trying to fall asleep and it could be my mind playing tricks on me--or it could've been the apparition of a ghost.  I'm half-asleep and I see through the crack this older man peering at me in my bed (not pervy-like) from my living room (or the other side) through the cracked open doorway.  I was startled to fully awake panic mode, and there was nobody there!  NOBODY!  I checked to see if anyone was out in the hallway but nobody was there.  I was like, "W-WHAT THE F-FUCKY SHITTENSTEIN…..WHA-WHAT?!" and relayed this to my therapist; he has no idea what happened in that moment.  I have 3 possible theories as to what actually happened: 1.) I was half asleep and my fear of being caught off-guard for inspection allowed me to HAL-LU-CI-NATE the image of this older man looking at me. 2.) Someone was actually there, but I was already asleep and too late to catch them out in the hallway.  (Which is not likely.)  3.) My being half-asleep allowed me to view the full-bodied apparition of the ghost of this older man who could've been a neighbor or former tenant who died in my apartment or on the floor that I'm on or another floor in the same building.  (It's possible--I did have a neighbor who died of old age fairly recently, as it's a senior apartment building.  Whether that's grounds for there to be paranormal activity, I'm not sure.)

            Whatever was going on, I don't know.  But it was unusual.  I don't normally HAL-LU-CI-NATE and if I did, my parents could be like, "WE MUST QUESTION THE STAFF AND THE NEIGHBORS!  WE MUST MAKE THIS RIGHT AND SEEK REPARATIONS AND SOLUTIONS FOR THIS!"  Because they're likely to read this, Mom, Dad, I'm fine.  I was just startled by something that wasn't there (or something that could've been there).  Please don't freak out, because freaking out over this is NOT HELPFUL!  Anyways, I must flee because I'm sure that by the time I publish this post, the system at the library is counting down.


So, later, Dalek-dudes!