The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I am totally writing this on an iPad, you all. I am living the dream.
Granted, the iPad is way more typeable than the iPod just because it is bigger. But I will not be making a habit of blogging from it. Especially since I am sitting in front of my computer as I write this blog post. I am awesome. But, you know, first night with it, gotta go with the gimmick.

Basically, I’m not having buyer’s remorse yet. The iPad is doing exactly what I wanted, and even more. It is a fun little time wasting device.

One thing I kind of forgot about was the multitasking. That should maybe be in quotation marks. Since my iPod can’t do it, I forgot about it. It works… Okay? Mostly it just seems to make me have to manually quit apps from the task manager.
There is one benefit, though. I can be on a Skype call and actually use other apps. It works in the background like real multitasking! This is the thing that shocked me when I found it out. I thought it would just work with the iPod and Pandora and have the fake switching for everything else. I was proved wrong.

That thing with the task manager is really my only complaint, though. It has scaled up all the iPhone games I’ve thrown at it so far like a champ, which is something I expected, but wasn’t sure about. The iPad games I have also work really well. I bought the iPad Plants vs Zombies for charity, and goodness, if I didn’t know better I would say the iPad was the lead version of that game. Multitouch makes the game a dream to play, and it was fantastic enough to begin with. I also splurged on the iPad version of Words with Friends. It’s kind of stupid, but is really is easier to play when you don’t have to zoom in on the board. Plus, I have a unified account, so I can play my turns on whatever is handy, which is how it should be.
(An aside: why aren’t more apps as good at multiplayer as Words with Friends? Developers have a model to copy! Make it happen!)

I will admit, as I write more on this keyboard, I am getting into a groove. It’s not going to replace a keyboard or anything like that. Not going to write a short story on it. But this is pretty solid when in landscape, really. I’m doing something similar to touch typing with not too many typos.

Anyway, there are some day 1 impressions. I am sure I will be writing more about the thing in the future. Sorry if you don’t care for that. It will probably be game reviews, though, so that’s a thing, yes?

Here’s the problem: I finally got my post to twitter thing fixed, and now I’m going and doing a stupid linkdump because I don’t have anything interesting to write about! I’m doing it all wrong! Oh well. At least tomorrow I’ll have some HORRIBLE iPAD IMPRESSIONS to bother you with. For now, cool links! Let’s empty those open tabs!

Mr. Nedroid Man is too hilarious and amazing, and this tumblr post proves it. Also this twitter post. Basically, anything he does.

This is a pig wearing boots. That’s really all there is to it. Just enjoy it.

I watched this neat little video that flies you through the history of titles in movies. It’s pretty cool.

I always give my students a useless link to look at to help them procrastinate every week. This was this week’s. It’s also Shauna-approved, so that’s lovely as well!

I don’t know if this is a real ad or not, but fuck, it really should be.

Finally, bringing it back around to the iPad world, here’s the best review of the iPad 2 I’ve seen. Mostly because it’s cute as fuck.

Have a good day, everyone.

Yeah, depressed bitching today, move along, nothing interesting to see.

There’s a saying along the lines of “work expands to fill the available space.” I kind of feel that way about my depression. If I have more time, it expands outward to fill all available time. It’s more diluted that way, of course, and not hitting me as a strong wave of panic or other issue, but it can still totally wreck my shit. I’ve had free time this week, and that’s nice, but I’m mostly spent it feeling awful, getting nothing done, and generally wanting to give up on life.

I’m just not sure what I can do. I tell people I don’t feel in control, and they tell me I am in control. I tell people I feel like I’m going to collapse in on myself, and I’m not on solid ground, and they tell me I am. I tell them I can’t do anything right and they tell me I do all kinds of things right. Do I really feel like shit? Surely not. I’m sure they’d tell me otherwise.

You can’t get anything done without smashing things. There’s no nice way to get anything done. Everyone will see you the way they want to see you unless you punch them in the fucking face, shatter their reality bubble, and force your way of thinking onto them. Maybe that’s justified sometimes when the reason you’re doing it is good. When you’re trying to make things better. When, in the short term you make people bleed so that in the long run they can be safer and happier.
But when what you want to change is people recognizing your weakness, and that you need help, well, what do you do? You can smash, but what’s the point in that? You’re weakening those who can help you for selfish purposes. It’s stupid. It serves no purpose. So you sit, isolated, and rot, unable to do anything.

I don’t know why I was using the second person there. I’m obviously talking about me.

Nobody can pull me out of my funk and fix my life but me. That’s obvious. I’m not wanting a magic wand, because a magic wand simply does not exist. However, how can I confront something everyone thinks doesn’t exist? How can I get advice and support in fixing things nobody else can see? How can I face up to what I need to do when everyone denies I need to do anything?

I have no idea. It would be nice to know.

Here’s a tale of me being super stupid.

So my birthday is coming up, and the more I thought about it, the more I just wanted to get the stupid iPad and be done with it, so I can have fun fucking around with my expensive toy. All the reviews of the iPad 2 suggested that it was a nice upgrade, but not super necessary, so I started thinking I should just grab a used iPad 1, save some money, and still get to play with my stuff. I mean, my iPod Touch is 2 generations old now, and is still playing games just fine (though they take awhile to load sometimes). The iPad 1 is playing iPhone 4 level games with no issues, so it should be fine for awhile yet.

Where do you buy used electronics? Well, eBay, I suppose.

So I went to eBay, and I started looking at stuff. Prices were about where I expected, or so it seemed, so I started bidding. However, I soon realized that people on eBay are at least as awful as I remember. With 20 seconds left, the price of every one of these used iPads would jump up 40 bucks instantly. Still, I kept trying and trying. I even started bidding on the 32 gig models, figuring they’d actually be less in demand than the 16 gig cheap ones. I was right on that one, but I still kept failing.

38 failures later, I was kind of frustrated. However, I was angry at it, and that meant I couldn’t give up. I bid on a new auction, and it immediately shot up to my max price, but stayed there. “There’s no way that one won’t get sniped for 5 bucks more,” I thought, “I’ll just bid on another one then and call that one a loss.”

You can see where this is going.

Of course, with my luck, I won two iPads at the same time.
I could hear Essner’s voice in my ear mocking me for owning not one, but two iPads.

I pounded my head on the desk, and started doing damage control. Things will work out. I can either resell it, or if negotiations with the seller go well, I’ll just pay them a small fee and not buy the second iPad. But man, it’s just another stupid mistake on top of everything else going on in my life.

I guess it makes a story, though.

I feel like shit right now, and instead of writing a bunch of depressing bullshit, here’s some links! Everyone loves links, right? It’s the very backbone of our modern computing age!

This is the best chainsawsuit of recent memory. Really made me laugh.

I was also very pleased by this picture, though it has bunnies and foxes, so I’m kind of biased.

I don’t think there has ever been a more accurate comic created than this one right here.

In times of depression, it’s important to remember cuteness. Incredibly savage, bloodthirsty cuteness.

I’m not much of a fan of CollegeHumor in general, but when you make a fairly accurate and wonderful-looking Wes Anderson Spoof about Star Fox, well, I am there.

Mary Worth, however, does not approve.

Here’s some random ramblings about my thought processes: I find it interesting how my “poetry brain” works.

As someone who goes by a name that includes “poet” right in there, and who is writing a ton of poetry for her thesis, one would assume I can do poetry. I can read it, and think about it, and enjoy it. I totally can, too. That is something I am capable of. However, I find that, even more than most types of media, I can’t do that stuff with poetry if I am the least bit tired.

I mean, okay, give me a novel when I’m tired, and it’s going to be very slow going reading it, sure. I may nod off. But when I get done reading it, I can still tell you about it, and at least somewhat break down themes and things the author is attempting to do, and maybe even give a close reading or two of what I’ve read. I’m not going to say it’s going to be my best work ever, of course, but I can at least come up with something passable, that shows I’m the kind of crazy person who almost has a Masters degree in this shit.

However, today, I was trying to read and write a review of a book of poetry. I was feeling a little out of it and exhausted, but I was there to work, so I was trying to get it done. I would read the same poem three or four times, and if I didn’t nod off in the middle of it, I would get through and not understand a damn thing about it. I would have no clue what I just read. I’d read it again, and be unable to find the meaning in the words once again. I attempted to write a review, but I couldn’t say anything worthwhile about what I had just read. It was worthless effort.

This isn’t the first time it has happened, either. I just have so much trouble with poetry when I can’t focus, the kind of trouble I simply don’t have when analyzing other mediums.

I really wonder what it is about poems that makes this happen to me. Is it because I have to be able to hold the whole poem in my head to be able to see the connections, whereas something like a short story is a narrative line, and I don’t have to keep specifics, just generalities? That doesn’t sound like an implausible reason. Maybe it’s because poetry is so image-heavy, and when I can’t focus, I can’t create the images clear enough to see the reason why they’re there? That also could be it.

I really don’t know. I just know that poetry is something I really have to be in a state of mind conducive to thinking to be able to consume. You’d think I’d have figured out some other way to do it by now, but I haven’t, really. Oh well.

I get this kind of rage any time something frustrates me, but there is nothing that frustrates me more than my tech not working.

I guess I should explain.

I was having some very nice conversations with my boyfriend, with Cris, with Ecks, and I was trying to write a blog, because hey, I haven’t missed a nightly blog post since I started this bullshit like 2 years ago, so I’m not going to miss one tonight either! However, apparently our home phone line has been down. Nobody noticed, because it’s a waste of money that nobody uses, but she found out it wasn’t working, and tried to fix it, as well as getting my father and me on the case. Since we’ve done that, my internet has randomly disconnected once or twice a day or so, though not for long spans until this time I am about to tell you about, and the phone still doesn’t work as a phone.

Tonight, I was trying to do this stupid Xbox Live test thing, because why not? I like stupid Avatar items. I was running this, and at 45 seconds remaining, I get kicked off. Frustrating, sure, but it comes right back up and I start it again.

Then it kicks me off again.

I’ve been fighting for awhile now, trying to get this to work again. It’s been connecting and disconnecting, and keeping me from finishing my conversations, as well as writing a blog more interesting than this one. I was ready to throw my router across the room. I wanted to scream and wake everyone up. I wanted blood, and, frankly, if this doesn’t go through and post like it should, I will want the heads of everyone who gives DSL to this house. Every single person.

I get so angry. So fucking angry. I hate being angry. But you don’t fucking keep me from the people I love. I don’t care if you’re a modem or a person. You are not going to fucking do that.

Bleh.

I’ve been wearing glasses for a few days, I suppose. How as that been going?

Pretty well?

I mean, there is no doubt that I needed these. From the moment I started wearing them, I was kind of blown away by how much clearer my vision was. I left to pick up my glasses, taking a look at comics on the door to my office. When I came back, wearing the glasses, I was shocked at how much better defined the lines were on those same comics. It’s amazing.

Still, there’s a lot I need to get used to. I’ll take them off to shower, or sleep, and I’ll forget to put them back on. They’ll get smudged, and I won’t be able to really tell if they are or not, so I’ll hesitate in cleaning them or whatever, and end up feeling kind of silly. Bad habits I had about reading things out of the corner of my eye so that my eyes didn’t have to focus so much really don’t work with the glasses on. There’s a lot to get used to again.

Driving home from St. Louis today, I called my mother. I didn’t hear her pick up, so I figured she must be asleep. However, she had picked up. I assumed I was wearing my bluetooth earpiece, because I felt something behind my ear, but it was just my glasses. Awkward.

The thing that really gets me about my glasses, though, is that nobody really comments on them. I don’t know if I just look like I always should have had glasses, or everyone assumes I don’t have my contacts in, or what. But seriously, almost nobody has said anything about them. I mean, that’s a better reaction than them being incredibly repulsed, to be sure, but I’m not sure what to make of it.

Still, I can read. That’s a benefit. I’m going to keep reading things, I think.

This is my 1000th Bloeg since I moved to this new server and such.

Holy fuck.

I just had to say that. I mean, seriously, 1000 posts. If I were to take the time to look backwards, over what I have written, shit, I have books upon books of completely useless ramblings about video games and Gender-Identity-Disorder-related depression. That’s not even counting all the stuff at my old blog, which is still hanging around.

I often don’t feel like a writer because I “never write anything.” It never feels like it, anyway. Yet as Brer would be quick to tell me, and as is obvious by the fact that my number of posts is in the fucking quadruple digits, I am a writer. I write. Granted, not all of this stuff on this blog is the super best thing in the world, but honestly, that’s okay. It’s practice. It’s something. Plus, I only do my best thinking when I’m trying to encapsulate what I think into words, so it’s a great way for me to learn what the hell I actually think about various subjects. This blog is a great thing.

A totally great thing.

So I’m taking a day to celebrate this silly, silly project that’s still going after years and years. Thanks, Droid, for convincing me to buy this domain name and giving me server space for so long. Thanks, internet, for putting up with me. Thanks. I’ll keep going if you will.

Today I had a little breakdown.

I came home from a busy day in St. Louis to find my mother in the computer room, having disassembled the modem and router setup. This strikes fear into my heart. I try not to react too harshly, as I know she’s trying to help. I ask her what this means about me relaxing with my food before work. She tells me I can’t relax, and that if I have time to relax I should help her, because I need to unhook everything else in the room and get it out of there so she can work.

I freak out even more at this, because the carpeting isn’t getting put in until Thursday. I’d be computerless, probably, until at least Friday afternoon under this plan. I attempt to figure this out, and she tells me that she needs the cables out of here, but that I should hook the router back up so she can use her laptop. I know this is her trying to lighten the mood, but it still rubs me the wrong way.

I decide to try to compromise, and start taking apart all my game systems and my TV. I won’t be able to play any games, but I’ve been too depressed and busy to anyway, so maybe that’s fine. In doing this, I knock over the closet door she has precariously perched on the wall next to my computer. It slams into my computer tower. I freak out, and turn on the computer to check it. It makes a horrible noise. I open the case, see no issues, close the case, it still makes the noise, I freak out more. Finally I notice a wire knocked loose. I fix it. It works. I start crying.

In some ways, I feel kind of lame for reacting like that. In others, I feel completely justified. Life sucks right now. I am trying my best, but fuck. I am pretty unhappy. I can only really unwind in here. This is where I can hide from things and recover. This is where I can calm down. But I can’t even have that anymore. I can’t even have anything. All because of this stupid carpet, and everything going on. Everything. I can’t have anything.

I mean, that’s not true. But fuck. Everything I have to fight for. Every little thing.

After this silly thing, people were asking me if I was okay. I was shaken. I’m still shaken, though I’m steadier now. Being able to type like this to you, having access to my friends and my daily routine with this computer… it is a lot of what keeps me balanced. Steady. Stable. It helps me not be completely depressed. I just…

Fuck.