"Peace with you." (I think)

I'd like to share an intriguing parallel I've experienced with a video game, in regards to my current condition with recovering from multiple gun shot wounds.

I must say right now, as it is time to take pain medication, my wounds feel alive like a Christmas tree along my torso, with pain spots up and down with an accumulated passage to the middle of my back. My back only hurts when I've been sitting in a certain position for too long and am in need of medication to ease the usual pain that has nothing to do with my back. Physical pain has a way of spreading like a fire if you don't contain it.

Well tonight my mom drove me to get a camera that I left at a friend's house a while back, and needless to say, from the harrowing experience between the trips to Washington Hospital Center during and after my visit, it grew tense in the car as we approached that side of town again after dark on a Friday. We got the camera and all is well, but let's say it's something we won't be doing again any time soon for personal reasons.

Well after coming home and starting on the six pack of Harp, I felt like getting some work done in Far Cry 2.

It's a game where you wander around some territory in Africa, earning friends' respect, money and items through this Mad Max-like wasteland where people seem to only communicate through bullets. Basically there are two factions lording over the countryside, and both of them will shoot at you on sight. If that isn't rugged enough, the terrain is much worse, believe me. They seemed to make the top priority in programming the environment, because it's by far more authentic than any game I've ever played. We're talking rain forest, desert, plains, etc. I've driven across the Untied States twice, and can vouch that this is probably as real as it gets for this generation of computer systems.

Well where do the parallels come in?

First off, you get shot a lot, which I can identify with. When you get to a certain point in health, you're essentially bleeding, to which you hit a button to bandage yourself (going into one of a handful of animations of your pulling the determined bullet out of your body through a knife, pliers or teeth) and then for the most part trying to find a way to shoot yourself out alive. There is a lot of shooting.

Then there is the surviving. They give you no shortage of things to do to keep your experience interesting, and often times the traveling to these objectives are just as adventurous as the objectives themselves. You mostly go by land or by sea. Some places have a hand glider, but it sucks. I usually take the trucks with the machine guns placed in the back, to conserve ammo. By sea there are pontoon boats, or whatever the ones with the big fans are called. I don't know how to describe the terrain so a lot of what I'm describing here is unfortunately lost in translation, but these are the things that will get you around at least. Just imagine being lost in Africa, if you can.

Well anyway, I don't know really how to describe it, but the game really walks you through death-defying situations and for me it's a bit unreal, unlike how it would normally be "unreal". I can still emotionally identify the despair of imminent death, yet you have these buddies in the game which you earn that pull you out of one situation just once, until you meet up with them again at a safe house.

So it's easy for me to feel an emotional bond to the conditions this game puts the character through on more of a level than really most anyone.


Bonus: I've also been thinking how in regard to my constant arguments with these biased (college student who act like activist) Palestinian supporters of the whole Israel/Palestine conflict, that I know a hell of a lot more what it's like to die in the streets than they do. My beef with the Palestinians is that they've been so disorganized over the years and now in terms of governance, relative to Israel. There's probably a whole debate from that one sentence for any knowledgeable person reading this, but let me just say this. Don't talk to me about grief of the killing of innocents until you've spilled your life on the streets in effectively making a stand for the safety of your people. Until you can sympathize with me, don't chastise for my apparent lack of sympathy. Until you realize this war over diplomacy, and not bullets, and certainly not fucking term papers, don't bother. Just don't fucking bother. Because you sure as hell haven't done your share of listening to both sides; only one side.

It hurts to breathe in, it hurts to cough and it hurts to swallow.. really bad. I've been backed off to 8 hours for percocet from 4 when I was released from the hospital to get me off it and the accumulation of this bronchitis and the regular symptoms is just about near intolerable. Right now I feel GREAT because I just took both drugs at once, which I normally do to go to sleep, but am not looking forward to three hours from now. I can just imagine a man with less discipline going through this. Lord knows I can take it sooner if I wanted to, too. No one keeps track of my pills anymore, because I've honored my regimen all this time. And I'm allowed to take it at four hours if the pain is too much. But I can't do it all the time, and if I do it once, what about tomorrow? This is every day until this bronchitis goes away. All from sitting for 45 minutes in a fucking free clinic lobby for a check up for my Medicaid case. Next time I go there, it's in a plastic bubble.

As I wrote before, my New Years resolution has been to keep a positive attitude, to stop complaining and to instead prove my worth instead of whining about it and doing nothing.

Well it has also given me a new perspective of the romantic field, which I would like to share with you. As always, don't be shy about giving your thoughts in the comments below or in private message if you have to.

I've noticed that if you give women a chance to take advantage of your trust, more specifically early on, a lot of them will do so.

For example, I met this one chick on an online forum recently who's all the way in Europe, but we got along very well, we've had really interesting conversations and both share a particular interest in politics. But eventually we discovered a rift in our views of society and the world in general.

The first was that she's into douchebags, which you can imagine by the way I said that she wasn't too pleased at my being honest with her about it. So what ended up happening there is, I had the choice of hurting her feelings and being right, or conceding to her claim that she *should have* better judgment than that and that I don't know her well enough, even though I still don't believe it. It's funny though, because even though she won't admit to me to digging said douchebag, all signs point otherwise.

The second and latest one is our disagreement over our take on Israel/Palestine. Oddly enough, it's probably not what you're thinking and when I do explain this you will see just how petty this is. We disagree with how much we should support Palestine. She's biased, and refuses to claim any fallibility on their part. I have a problem with this because bias is the sure way to stubbornness, which is the enemy of reaching a solution. My take is, Palestine should have what it's asking for (Post 1967 borders, plus half Jerusalem as a capital and complete autonomy -- meaning, no Israeli settlements and no military patrols as it will then be a sovereign country to Israel -- which Israel does not want, and we both agree on this), but they're going about it all wrong by launching rockets into civilian areas. She doesn't seem to see any problem with them launching rockets onto Israeli civilians, and goes as far to say that I'm siding with Israel for believing this. PRETTY FOOLISH ISN'T IT?? This may be going into too many details, but now you have an idea of what we argue about.

Alright, well this is where the first issue comes in, because since I conceded to spare her feelings, as it wasn't that big of an issue to me, she now feels that I'll concede to any of her ideals, no matter how poorly founded they are.

So she's not on my "good person" list right now. I just can't help but wonder if it I could have done anything for her to respect my beliefs, or is it all a waste of time? Because I think she used to even be intimidated somewhat by my reasoning skills as I do a damn good job at expressing my views on the forums. Now she isn't intimidated, and I don't want her to be, but I also don't want her disrespecting me. And I can't help but wonder what I would do if this chick were living around here and we were dating. So I guess this is sort of practice in a way, because she definitely shows interest in me and I've found her to be rather interesting *so far* even though.. uhh.. recent evidence indicates otherwise.

Also, what's the deal with women trying to control men, without actually earning their respect? I don't get that. Like I said above, I only conceded to keep from hurting her feelings. She didn't win any respect from me. In fact if anything she lost respect. So what's that all about?

Plus, note that I am not complaining here as I know my options. I just want to make the right decision and want to know other people's take on this.

I shaved the mighty beard.





It's a new day in America!

I'm recognized on Google Earth, though not for the best of reasons. I wanted to look up where I was shot, so I entered in the location posted in the local news article. It was "1200 block 18th St. NE Washington DC", and if you paste it in, it'll take you to this.

"What matters is not that they're wrong, but that I am right." So my mom's boyfriend, a socially unconscious Republican and fellow AA member of her's felt like pointing out how, somehow, "drinking beer is usually associated with stupid people." This after seeing me drink beer on New Years, and as alluded above, the intent of the slight is unknown other than making some AA-brainwashed observation. Btw, ever since the South Park episode on alcoholism I've been considering more and more that AA is in fact a cult, but perhaps that's another blog. Anyway, instead of getting mad I remembered my New Years resolution and realized that the moron probably already forgot he said what he did 2 mins later as since he doesn't think BEFORE he speaks, why should he AFTER? Then I realized, what do I have to gain from hitting back? I have no shortage of ways to hit back hard with this guy, believe me. But it would only make me the asshole. And really, the point would be a lot better made later to my mom, after he's leaves.

I'm going to prevent other people's problems from affecting me and to regularly remind, or calibrate my psyche to adjust to situations based on the wisdom I have acquired through my troubles and triumphs.I've spent too much time being frustrated at other people, and I am just now realizing that it isn't my job to correct them. I'm going to let them be someone else's problem and focus on building my own life to where I aspire it to be.First I need to set a calibration mindset, and this blog is sort of a reminder of this, which is the next step: reminding myself on a regular basis. Some of the things I need to remind myself are:- It doesn't matter if other people are wrong; what matters is whether or not I'm right.- Am I moving forward toward my goals? Be sure not to confuse action with progress.- Would I like the person I'm behaving like around other people?- Am I showing due appreciation to those important to me?- Do the people I deal with know why they should respect me?

Thanks for strict DEA enforcement, the doctor prescribing my medication is requiring me to cut back percocet from 6 hours (used to be 4) to 8 hours, and I'm feeling it. Thankfully the pain doesn't seem to be elevating like it did before, but that could have to do with the oxycontin making the pain management carry along for its 12 hours. I was going very well, but now it's back to feeling normal, feeling uncomfortable, feeling miserable and feeling well again.

And what fucks with me is whether I'm digging the slight euphoria from the pills too much, or am I just feeling that way in relief from the pain? I'd be lying if I said I weren't a little buzzed off this stuff about 20-40 minutes after taking it, but without it I'm not in a good situation and being out of said situation is very nice in itself. I just hope all this usage isn't getting me too used to it, though at the same time most people aren't experiencing the pain I still go through on an hourly basis.

The pain is gradually but noticibly going away though.

[================OBAMA FREE ZONE================]


I just realized the motive behind the design of GTA, and also can't believe a game designer would actually make a dude's normal life for a video game. Though I'm sure they would probably say, "Why not?" It's creepy though. It has its own tv shows, its own internet. I just want to get enough shit to trash the place, but also want to unlock enough trophies without cheats. Most of my games have access to trophies all of a sudden, and all this time (almost a month) I've been doing all the work without earning them.


1m 570n3d 45 h3|| btw
mtq ||34 5h p3u0L5 w1


[================OBAMA FREE ZONE================]

John McCain: fear, intolerance and lies.

On William Ayers


William Ayers was ever hardly a terrorist. He never attacked a single human being with anything greater than his fists, and has since been remorseful of any act he has done that could be considered violent. At worst, he is the perpetrator of property damage in response to a meaningless war of terrorism that took over 52,000 American lives and millions more Vietnamese. And unlike John McCain, he doesn't use violence as a punchline.

From Wikipedia:

Statements made in 2001

...

In the months before Ayers' memoir was published on September 10, 2001, the author gave numerous interviews with newspaper and magazine writers in which he defended his overall history of radical words and actions. Some of the resulting articles were written just before the September 11 attacks and appeared immediately after, including one often-noted article in The New York Times, and another in the Chicago Tribune. Numerous observations were made in the media comparing the statements Ayers was making about his own past just as a dramatic new terrorist incident shocked the public.

Much of the controversy about Ayers during the decade since 2000 stems from an interview he gave to The New York Times on the occasion of the memoir's publication.[23] The reporter quoted him as saying "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough", and, when asked if he would "do it all again," as saying "I don't want to discount the possibility."[18] Ayers has not denied the quotes, but he protested the interviewer's characterizations in a Letter to the Editor published September 15, 2001: "This is not a question of being misunderstood or 'taken out of context', but of deliberate distortion."[24]

In the ensuing years, Ayers has repeatedly avowed that when he said he had "no regrets" and that "we didn't do enough" he was speaking only in reference to his efforts to stop the United States from waging the Vietnam War, efforts which he has described as ". . . inadequate [as] the war dragged on for a decade."[25] Ayers has maintained that the two statements were not intended to imply a wish they had set more bombs.[25][26]

The interviewer also quoted some of Ayers' own criticism of Weatherman in the foreword to the memoir, whereby Ayers reacts to having watched Emile de Antonio's 1976 documentary film about Weatherman, Underground: "[Ayers] was 'embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way. The rigidity and the narcissism.' "[18] "We weren't terrorists," Ayers told an interviewer for the Chicago Tribune in 2001. "The reason we weren't terrorists is because we did not commit random acts of terror against people. Terrorism was what was being practiced in the countryside of Vietnam by the United States."[3] In a letter to the editor in the Chicago Tribune, Ayers wrote, "I condemn all forms of terrorism — individual, group and official". He also condemned the September 11 terrorist attacks in that letter. "Today we are witnessing crimes against humanity on our own shores on an unthinkable scale, and I fear that we may soon see more innocent people in other parts of the world dying in response."[27]

Views on his past expressed since 2001

Ayers was asked in a January 2004 interview, "How do you feel about what you did? Would you do it again under similar circumstances?" He replied:[28] "I've thought about this a lot. Being almost 60, it's impossible to not have lots and lots of regrets about lots and lots of things, but the question of did we do something that was horrendous, awful? ... I don't think so. I think what we did was to respond to a situation that was unconscionable." On September 9, 2008, journalist Jake Tapper reported on the comic strip in Ayers' blog explaining the soundbite: "The one thing I don't regret is opposing the war in Vietnam with every ounce of my being.... When I say, 'We didn't do enough,' a lot of people rush to think, 'That must mean, "We didn't bomb enough shit."' But that's not the point at all. It's not a tactical statement, it's an obvious political and ethical statement. In this context, 'we' means 'everyone.'"[29][30]

William Ayers is now a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, holding the titles of Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar, and lives with his wife Bernardine Dohrn (also not in prison) in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.


On Iran






You decide. I feel better with a President who can at least pronounce Ahmedinejad and is willing to talk to him, than a President talks about expanding our military overseas in "other wars". Check this out.




On ACORN




From Wikipedia:

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is a community-based organization that advocates for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. ACORN has over 350,000 members and more than 850 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the United States, as well as in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, and Peru. ACORN was founded in 1970 by Wade Rathke and Gary Delgado.[1] Maude Hurd has been National President of ACORN since 1990.

ACORN's priorities have included: better housing and wages for the poor, more community development investment from banks and governments, and better public schools.[2] ACORN pursues these goals through demonstration, negotiation, legislation, and voter participation.[2]

ACORN is made up of several legally distinct parts including local non-profits, a national lobbying organization and the ACORN Housing Corporation.[3] ACORN is non-partisan, though it is often aligned with the Democratic Party on policy.[3] This political alignment and some of the causes it advocates have made ACORN the subject of partisan conflict.[4][3] Some of ACORN's voter registration programs have been investigated for fraud.[5]

...

The 2008 presidential campaign

ACORN Votes, ACORN's national political action committee, endorsed the candidacy of Barack Obama during the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary.[39] Obama, along with two other attorneys, represented ACORN in a 1995 lawsuit. That lawsuit, which was joined by the Justice Department, successfully forced the state of Illinois to implement the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.[45][46] Obama's campaign hired an ACORN affiliate for $800,000 to conduct a get-out-the-vote effort during the 2008 primary.[47][48] Obama's campaign is not working with ACORN for the general presidential election.[47][48]

In October 2008, Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign released a web-based ad suggesting ACORN was partly responsible for the 2008 economic crisis. ACORN pushed back on this accusation via its website, calling the spot "a smear ad".[49] On October 13, ACORN released a picture of McCain attending an ACORN immigration forum to The Politico.[50]

On Taxes



These claims are misleading, since the bottom line of Barack Obama's tax plan is that it will not raise taxes for those who are making under $250,000/yr. The point is that the working middle class families will get a break this time, not the wealthy upper class. As a voter, I care more that the upper class take the brunt of Bush's failures, since a lot of them got such a break while he was in office while the lower and middle class suffered, than a cut in my taxes.

From Obama's campaign website:

Under the Obama Plan:

Middle class families will see their taxes cut – and no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase. The typical middle class family will receive well over $1,000 in tax relief under the Obama plan, and will pay tax rates that are 20% lower than they faced under President Reagan. According to the Tax Policy Center, the Obama plan provides three times as much tax relief for middle class families as the McCain plan.

But then again, it doesn't matter who receives a tax cut to those who are complaining about this. What matters to them is that Barack Obama looks bad. Here's a pdf of the specific details behind his plan, if you even care at this point since his message has not changed.

And as he has put so elloquently..

Barack Obama: hope, cooperation and transparency.

..