The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Holy shit.

I have a college degree.

Well, it’s that time of year again. It’s the time to dust off our copies of the Mother series and dance in joy as we revel in the genius of Shigesato Itoi and his team of talented game makers…

Oh, wait, let me try that again…

Well, it is the day of mothers, a time to celebrate those of the female persuasion who raised us.
My mother and I don’t always get along. Not only for the obvious reasons of the not agreeing with the whole transsexual thing I have going on, but just in general. She respects my advice in dealing with her own life, but wouldn’t dream of the idea that I might have some idea of what I’m doing with my own. She commands me to be happy, she refuses to meet me in the middle on issues and get things done in a way we can both agree with, she drags me into her silly schemes to do labor for her enjoyment and hers alone…
But everyone has things they can’t stand about their mothers, I’m sure. It’s clear that my mother cares quite a bit about me, and I care quite a bit about her. Perhaps sometimes to my detriment, I care what she thinks. I do my best to be good in her eyes. She’s helped to give me a college education, a very comfortable life where I don’t have to worry about the little things…

I do love her. I love her quite a bit. And though we don’t always see eye to eye, I hope she knows that.
I hope living my life my own way won’t completely destroy our relationship.

But… yeah. Mother’s day. Go hug a mother. And have a good day in general.

So my job is honestly kind of boring. It takes very, very little brain power to do my job, at least for me. I’ve been doing it on autopilot for so long, it just occurs without me thinking about it.
With this in mind, you’d think it would be CRAZY EASY to get a lot of thinking done during work! I could do all kinds of brainstorming and all kinds of deep thought-ing, right?

I wish.

I don’t know, but doing those sorts of things just sort of turns my brain off. It’s not a bad thing, perse. It makes it feel like it’s going faster, same as being entertained would, I guess. I’m mostly just going over and over what needs to be done. I’m reading off in my head a map of where everyone is so I can pre-figure out where to send everyone and estimate when people are going to be done. I’m reminding myself over and over that I need to go pick up this, or I need to do that, or I’m almost done.

That’s the majority of it. That’s all my brain does. But of course, sometimes I think of other things. Silly things. Amazing silly things. Example: Tonight, all I could think of is how badly I wanted to hug the Lucario in the video in this post. (You can see the guy in the Lucario suit really early, you don’t have to watch the whole thing or anything.) I watched the first little bit of this video very early in the day before work, but out of nowhere, it kept coming back to me AT work. That’s just such a really great suit. I know there are furry people who are all down on how overdone Lucario is, but dammit, I still like. Very much so. And that Lucario needs a hug!

I am so great. Still, I suppose it’s better than the nights when I get something incredibly depressing or stressful stuck in my head… which does happen. Because I am so great. So great. Read my blog, I’m great.

…okay, sorry. I’ll shut up now.

So, my little brother moved out.
Good for him, you know?

He’s got a small, one bedroom apartment at the top of an apartment building in town. He’s also got way, way more furniture that he can ever use for said apartment, as all my mother has been doing is making and buying him furniture for the past… month or so. Still, I hope he gets what he wants out of having his own place. I may still be in school limbo, but hopefully he can really get himself settled to get on with his life. In some way, anyway.

But yeah, my mother… I’m sure at least part of the reason why Jonathan wanted to get out of the house was to get away from the controlling nature of my mother. She’s a planner, and she is a manager, but she is very, very rarely a doer. So, for our entire lives, it’s mostly been Mom coming up with some complicated project and then us having to actually do it while she stands there and commands us to be happy and not be annoyed by having to do useless things in her exact, precise way, especially when we know a better way. Yeah.
Of course, the closer and closer it got to the day my brother moved out, the more and more clear it became that this was becoming a Mom project instead of Jonathan’s show, like it should have been. Jonathan asked me to help, said I could sleep in, no worries. I agreed, of course. He’s my brother. I’d love to help.

Mom woke me up yesterday earlier than I sometimes get up for class. No sleep for me! Then, the entire time, she was angry at me for not being awake and happy. Man, I wonder why that was! I seem to have threw my back out during the moving as well, as it’s kinda in serious pain right now. Still, I blame Mom for that too. Blame: It’s the cure, cure anything. I mean, she seemed pretty angry at me for getting hurt! Yay!

Bleh, I’m just kind of unhappy at the moment. I don’t mean to be quite so down on my mother. She has tried to be better about it, in general, and I have tried to be nicer towards her, and it has mostly worked. It’s just… bleh. Day like today. When I should be happy for my brother for getting his own place and being all supportive and such and she just kinda ruins it.

Bleh, no. No more negative emotions. And negative things.
Ha, we’ll see how long I follow that command.

Is there anything better than a good random generator? I don’t think so.
So here, have another good one. They fight crime! You can thank Brer for showing me that one.

There’s something to be said about the context of randomness. Good random humor is actually fairly hard to do. I don’t claim to be an expert. (I also don’t clam to be an expert, as I originally typed.) I’m not funny, perse. But what makes this particular generator, and most random humor, work is the context. These type of pitches actually happen. Plots and movies can get that ridiculous. They could almost, almost be believable. Almost.
And thus, humor is born.

Yep.

So, on Wednesday, it was finally time once again for a Hamster run. Hodgeman awaited! We were ready to murder in a very tedious and calculated way!

But, you know. Best-laid plans. Etc. Etc. Our Sauceror didn’t show up. You can’t get to Hodgeman without a Sauceror! What madness to think you could!
We started without him, hoping he could get into a position where he could show up late and just jump in. We raided, we killed, we pushed forward. Nothing. 2 hours later, he still wasn’t around. There were attempts to find a replacement, but they didn’t really go all that well. Someone offered, but was painfully slow and it was already almost 2 AM at this point. Eventually, we just decided to scrap it. So it goes, you know? Later reports show that he was without any sort of internet due to horrible annoyances from his internet company. So it wasn’t really anyone’s fault. Just a really horrible group of circumstances.

Val took it pretty hard. Seemed kinda down for wasting everyone’s time. But hell, nobody really thought that. We were all there as a team to help each other out. Just because she was the boss, and was ordering us around like a boss, well, that doesn’t mean it’s her fault. Shit happens.
The only reason I particularly care about our failure is because we need to finish these runs up! The school year is almost done and I would like to start ascending again. Still, I don’t particularly care one way or another. It’s all in good fun. I refuse to worry or anything.

We’ll get it. Yes. Yes, we will get it.

I’ve defeated the basement.
Well, okay, I didn’t “beat” it. It doesn’t end. It just gets progressively harder. But I’ve gotten to the end of the rewards.

I started the basement a long time back. Once I had decided to stop ascending for awhile, and level up to level 30 to get the Scourge of Seals trophy, it just seemed like an easy thing to also swing down to Fernswarthy’s and pick me up a telescope. What could be simpler?

The basement was about the most frustrating thing I have ever encountered in Kingdom of Loathing. Oh man. It was tedious. It rarely felt like I was making much progress. Even at my highish level, it was fairly expensive to get down to level 500. Ugh. I hated it. I hated it so much that I could barely make myself stomach doing more than, say, 20 levels a day. Since I have no free time to play Vidjeo Games anymore (though hell, that does not stop me from continuing to purchase them!) and rarely even played those 20 turns, that made my progress… almost nothing for a long time.

This weekend, I noticed my odd work schedule. “I have two full days off,” I said to myself. “I should just power through and be done with that shit.”
And I did.
And all I got for it was a telescope.
Yeah.

Anyone who thinks I’m going to do this another, what, 6 times to get all the upgrades is a little off in the head.

You know, a ball. Towards some pins.

So this Friday marked the second consecutive Friday I have went out with people from work and bowled like crazy at the Thunder Ally Cosmic Bowling whatever the fuck thing. It has done nothing but rekindled my love of bowling. I don’t know. I’m not a sports person, and I certainly don’t care about being “the best” in this either. But it has the addictive “mostly just working against yourself” factor that draws me to golf, but is significantly less physically taxing and time-consuming than real golf. (Real golf has so much downtime, even in a cart. I think I’ll stick with video game golf, where I can just teleport to my ball again and again.) It also doesn’t hurt that I’m pretty good at it already. I mean, I’m not going to blow you away (IGN.com) or anything but I can fairly consistently bowl, say, 150? And that’s plenty for me. That’s better than most “casual” bowlers. I’m happy with that.

But yeah, so I love bowling. Still, bowling with the people from work is… kind of surreal. The first time I went, I had just this strong feeling of “Oh, so this is what ‘normal’ people do with their free time.” People were drinking, smoking, flirting. There was a fight in the parking lot. Loud rap music was blaring the entire time. People went to a strip club afterward, and were up until 7 in the morning. (I went home right after the bowling.) This was not a world I was used to! I was out of my element!

Still, everyone seemed to want me there anyway, and I had a good time bowling, even if I was just kind of quietly eavesdropping on the conversations, not really being equipped to join in with them. It happened similarly the second time. But even with that awkwardness, the fun won out. I had a great time. Since I never do anything Friday nights, I’m really thinking of making this a regular occurrence.

And with the idea I’d be bowling on a regular basis comes the idea that I should get some equipment. I always waste a game getting used to the new shoes, the new ball, and everything. Why not get some affordable bowling gear? Some shoes, a bag, and a ball. I don’t need a crazy expensive ball, because I’m one of those “straight forward” bowlers, who doesn’t put a ton of hook on it, and in fact would rather my ball DIDN’T hook very much. The balls that don’t hook are the cheap ones. Initial web pricing would put the entire ensemble at about 80ish dollars. I spend that kind of money on vidjeo games I only play twice all the damn time. It doesn’t seem unreasonable.
However, I couldn’t pull the trigger online. Getting all the drilling worked out online was much too stressful. Still, I don’t especially want to go talk to the guy at the pro shop. I always feel like such a poser going into such niche places like that… I feel like that when going into a comic shop too, for instance. But eh, I’ll get over it, and check it out next week. Hopefully I can order a ball in some crazy, eye-hurting color or something.

Or maybe I’ll change my mind again! I’m awesome like that.

Mainly, this post is an excuse to link to this. CAN YOU SOLVE THE MYSTERY?!

Whew, now I can close the tab where I was keeping that open in order to remember to link to it in a blog post sometime. Tabs -1!

…crap, I should write something else, too. I need a good seg into something based on the mystery…

Nope? Nothing?

Oh well.

…

Um, okay… text… GO!

Why are things that try so hard to seem juvenile, badly-constructed, and badly written so funny? Something like this makes me laugh and fairly entertains me, whereas if someone were to present something to me that was as badly constructed as this, it would be painful to experience. I would want to punch someone for wasting my time.
I suppose it’s all context. This is meant to be funny. I don’t, for one second, believe this guy’s website is genuine. There’s just this inkling of being well-thought-out beneath everything. The english paper turned in to me that looks like this, or the internet comment with language like this is meant to be taken seriously.

There are some things in the world that I don’t think should count for “being taken seriously.” I really don’t think that someone should have to dress a certain way to be taken seriously, for example. There are always extremes, but if someone is dressed casually, they can still present serious or professional thoughts, you know? That’s not a hindrance. When it comes to language, however, you can clearly hinder what you’re trying to say. Being too casual, or using too much slang can completely ruin your point for your audience. And not using spelling and punctuation anywhere near correctly, to the point where it’s obvious you didn’t even make an attempt, is not a sign of wanting to be taken seriously. I think it’s the fact that these people care less about the important point they may be trying to make than I do on these pointless blog posts or while messaging with other people just makes me angry. I’m not picky. You just have to try to be correct. You don’t have to succeed. But if you don’t try, fuck you. I’m not listening to you.

I feel really strongly about that, actually. Still, it’s all about context. One of my friends could talk like that for comedic effect, and I would play along. I wouldn’t be angry.

The bottom line is, I guess, that man, Context is really important, huh?
Yeah.

Today is a day when we marvel at the incredible ingenuity of the lapine race, and praise Frith for how rabbits can magically lay eggs on this faithful day.

No, wait… let me try that again.

Today is the day when someone rose from the grave and, in a surprise act of kindness, the zombie-hunters of the period did not shoot him in the head with a shotgun, as was the custom, but instead listened to his teachings and got possessed by a ghost that put tongues of flame over their heads for their troubles.

Or maybe it’s just the day that marks the end of this stupid fish-eating tradition as well as the end of availability of Cadbury Creme Eggs. I dunno.

In any case, Happy Easter. I know I’m going to spend the day doing absolutely nothing to celebrate. Although I guess we’re having some sort of large dinner. Yep.
EASTER!