On Football and Divinity.

I am a fan of Brazil. They play the best football in the world. For me that means they play the most skilful, clean, satisfying football to watch and cheer for. They take an almost zen approach to football, not seeming to actively oppose the next team but instead to flow around and through them like water, materializing when needed to score or dispossess them of the ball.

That being said, I pride myself on being a fair minded football fan. I like to think that I (meaning Brazil and I, heh) are above the petty tricks other sides use to gain short term advantages in any football match. Tricks such as handballs (ha!), fouls, blatant diving (everybody dives/acts to some extent) and other nefarious tricks that have become commonplace in the sport of football.

I like to think that we are beyond all that, based on the quality of football that we play. That thought gives me a warm feeling and a (small) comfort that the aura of footballing superiority that we possess is justified.

Then today I watched as Fabiano put on one of the best footballing displays by a Brazilian player in recent memory, one that was disputed mainly because there are two separate instances where it is seemed that he was guilty of a handball. He got a goal from this display, of course. It would not have mattered otherwise. Well. The dismantled defenders that he left in his wake might still have been upset about it.

The rules for handballs in football can be found here. They're quite clear and in light of what they say its clear that Fabiano handled the ball not once, but twice on his way to scoring that goal. This is not as bad as Rivaldo in his day, but still, its far from great. Its not what I hold myself and my team to.

Or is it?

Football is a sport that's about as much as getting away with what you can, as it is winning by the rules. That's why there are referees to ensure that players stick to the rules as much as can be enforced. This goes for all players, my lauded Brazilian side included.

What does this happening then mean for me, with regards to my belief in their superior play? Does it mean that Brazil is now tarnished in my eyes, a team filled with charlatans and holier-than-thou fakers where football is concerned?

Hardly. What it means is that the reality of football is that you get away with what you can get away with. Whether what you did was blatant or sneaky, if the referee, God bless his human soul, doesn't notice it, then you will get away with it.

That's it. Brazil is a superior football side composed of human beings, beings who will still try and cheat now and then. I can argue that they don't do it anywhere nearly as often as other teams, or say that his actions could be put down to the heat of the moment, but it would ring false to me. Handballs included, his display is still a dazzling one by a superior player. Its now just a display by a human being, however, not some footballing god on a team of footballing gods that should be worshipped.

A hard realization, but not the hardest one I've had to face in my short life.

Still, its not so bad.

Rivaldo used to be my favourite player.

More as it develops!

Just Gonna Wing It, by God!

So.

I've restarted this blog too many times to count. Really. However, I do believe now that each time was for the wrong reason. I was blogging because it was the fashionable thing to do (ha!), I was bored, I wanted to create a name for myself online...all these bullshit reasons.

All of them fake. All of them wrong.

That is not to say that blogging for these reasons is wrong per se...they were just the wrong reasons for me to be blogging. Your reasons for doing something, anything, have to be good enough reasons to keep you motivated. To keep you doing it. To keep you getting up everyday and going back to that little room downstairs of your consciousness where your creative impulses lurk, waiting to jump you and drag you into the dark.

That's a scary place to have to live in, day in and day out. It's also one of the most lonely and potentially disheartening places to have to inhabit if you're not filled with complete confidence that every one of your pieces is, in fact, a masterpiece.

Who is really? George Lucas? You see how his recent efforts turned out.

Those reasons were entirely the wrong reasons for me to be blogging, or writing, which is what blogging really is. Some bloggers are genre writers; romance, slice of life, some are horribly boring or provide misinformed opinions about everything under the sun...but its still all just writing. At least, it is to me.

I write because these words fill up my head on a daily basis, and if I don't get them out they'll clog my throat and fill my ears and come spilling out of my nose and rattle around in my eyes and I'll run screaming out of the house and plow through the gate, scamper into the road and get hit by a passing truck.

So.

I write to keep myself alive. That's a good enough reason for me, I think, to get up everyday and keep doing this.

Yeah, works for me. That's my story and I'll revise it as I see fit.

More as it develops!

The Existence of Evil.

.....its not often that you (royal), come in contact with something that....defies description. All the rationalization that you apply to it is baked away by the furious heat of its focused maliciousness like so much dry tissue paper. Any attempts to label it as a misunderstanding of intentions, someone who is misunderstood, or a simple (or even a very complex) misrepresentation of events/intentions pales, withers and falls to dust and ashes before the overwhelming viciousness and calculating nature of its actions. Your mind recoils from the serpentine and self destructive reasoning that could have birthed the scenario being observed, and wraps back upon itself in an attempt to rewind time, and forget to remember that it had ever come in contact with a being of this nature.

That, dear constant reader, is evil.

I'm not talking world shaking, global scale evil, either. No, not being the head of a columbian cartel who makes sure to raise his kids in the best schools money can buy (as far away from the drug trade as possible) evil, or the head of a terrorist organisation going for maximum kill with each attack evil, or the evil of a successful politician. No. I am talking about simple (....nothing about this is simple, let me tell you), small scale, personal, evil. The kind of evil that one individual can get up to, if they're at least a median level of intelligence, are determined and driven (as these people often are) and focused on their goals, and the devil take who they have to walk over to get there. The evil that starts, more often than not, out of selfishness, insensitivity, and an inability...or an unwillingness to handle the consequences of the actions that one chooses to be involved in. Such is the worst kind of evil, for it appears small, is couched in actions that are, if observed, ambiguous at best, and can and ofttimes will be dismissed in the light of the persona that is built, for the express purpose of being the smokescreen behind which such actions will be hidden.

I now understand the meaning of the term cunning.

What do you do in the face of such evil? Such people are no doubt unhinged in some way, shape or form......I do not believe that the essential human condition, or human nature, as we have coined it, is one of evil. Therefore, such persons that become evil, are without a doubt, unhinged, or, to put it in less glamorous terms, are a little sick in their heads. Whether this is due to an abusive childhood, a sequence of unfortunate events (...one very bad day can send someone over the edge....look at the joker) or a chemical imbalance (a catchall term for a set of faulty wiring in the human breaker, the brain) is irrelevant to the immediacy of combating the effects those actions can have on one's life. The majority of us are reactionary creatures in our daily lives, and the thought of someone taking active, strategic actions against us, in a concerted effort to achieve some petty aim with no consideration for our own lives and wellbeing...well, the thought can be a little unsettling, and more than a little disturbing.

How does one combat such evil?

More as it develops

World of Warcrack

I am a gamer. More importantly, I'm a gamer that happens to LOVE rpg's, as well as co-op play in its myriad of forms. Therefore, the idea of a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), or momorpigger as Yahtzee so disdainfully calls them, is like premium crack to a crackhead.

Think about it. Fully realised fantasy worlds, existing only for the sole purpose of attracting people like me, who, will happily run around for hours, killing computer controlled enemies and gathering experience (the rewards you use to advance your character, or based on which your character is advanced in levels), seeking quest rewards and grinding (a term meaning doing the same few actions over and over again to maximise experience, or xp, gain) to gain those rare and powerful items that will make our characters more powerful and special in our eyes, and the eyes of our compatriots. All, of course, while quietly taking our money and our time. Which we were willing to give up anyway, else we wouldn't be there.

World of Warcraft is by far, without a doubt, the best...or rather, the most popular, of the lot. Blizzard, capitalising on its immense backstory to its very successful Warcraft series of RTS (Real Time Strategy) fantasy psuedo wargames, launched World of Warcraft ten years ago, following on from the release of Warcraft III, a game that vastly changed the nature of its Warcraft games at that point. Looking back now, its clear that it was all a devious plot from those creative bastards at Blizzard, as the storyline of Warcraft III led directly into WoW, as did the character interface and controls. Previously to Warcraft III, there had been just faceless units that were leveled up and sent out to wreak havoc on your enemies. Then Warcraft III introduced the Hero character, with special powers, available upgrades and items found throughout the game (albeit the best ones where usually storyline rewards), as well as scrolls, spells and other mechanics that are now the standard fare for anyone who's played WoW, or any of its copycat games released since then.

It is truly a fine product. No other MMORPG that I've played gives me that feeling of completeness. It is the best and most fully (totally bad grammar, but you get what I'm trying to say) realised digital world to be found online today, at least in the west, IMO. The races, the world design, the different options for play (while the enforcing of this is lax, as far as I'm concerned) and the overall spit shine put on this package is impressive. I've never gotten a better sense of scale in a game from just running around. Start a Tauren, then try and run from Mulgore, through The Barrens to Orgrimmar, the Horde capital, and you'll see what I mean. If you plan to, pack a lunch, you're gonna need it.

The environments are lush, and the design of the buildings, the items, the NPC's (non-player characters, i.e. those controlled by the computer/game ai), the spells and weapons, how all the quests tie in to the storyline, as well as the individual motives of the different factions that are vying for all their different aims in the game world....its one of the FEW games I can jump into, and in minutes the real world is a distant memory, and I'm gladly gathering herbs and killing pigs, all to the betterment of the Horde and its own aims. Even the PVP (player vs. player) elements are tied in to the storyline. All the different battlegrounds (0r arena's, if you prefer), are tied to the ongoing wars and conflicts that are ravaging the land. They all scale up as you advance in levels, with Alterac Valley, a 40 vs. 40 player arena, being the SINGLE BEST depiction of what large scale combat between powerful characters in a fantasy setting must be like, hands down. Spells light up the screen, raining hellfire and damnation down on the players. The ground rumbles, shockwaves ripple through the air, and players can be seen advancing and falling back, carrying out surgical strikes or simply trying to stave off advancing enemies. Also, this place is HUGE, so the effect of it being on the frontlines of the war is almost imperceptibly given. Players can encounter players from the other side at any time, as well as the beasts that roam the land which are loyal to one side or another.

Truly, there is nothing like it, and it stands as a testament to game design, and giving the fans what they want.

If you've read this far, then you're probably wondering what my problem with it is, as the name of this entry will suggest. Well, that's just it. Its so good. Its too good, to the point of being unplayable by me now, as it WILL suck me in, and not let me go.

Let me explain. Imagine if your everyday life had, well, not lived up to your childhood expectations. You're stuck in a negative and hateful society, where you're forced to toil at a job you don't like, hang out with people that don't really get you, or are themselves, as a group, marginalised by the greater part of society. You aren't rich, and hell you aren't happy with the myriad of idiots and assholes that populate your everyday life.

Not too hard to imagine, is it?

Then along comes a world made for you. A world wherein you can be what you want (within given limits), where you can excel, and be admired by a group of your peers, all of whom share the same interests and desires, hence why they're all playing this game. A world wherein time and effort translate seamlessly into ever increasing rewards and admiration for that complete set of T-1 armour you just finished collecting, and are now hanging out in Orgrimmar, usually by, or on top of, the bank by where the post office box is, and allowing all the lower level characters to admire that brand, spanking new glowing armour you just filled out. A world where you can choose one side or another, band together with others that share your outlook and choices, and go deliver your (digital) wrath on a band of opponents, everyday, all day, whenever you choose, simply by logging into WoW and selecting one of the many toons (slang for characters) that you are now levelling.

Now imagine if all that could be yours, each day, a total escape from the less than wonderful realities of your life, in the BEST realised digital world existing to date, and you can begin to see my problem with this. It first came to my attention when I started hearing stories of WoW eating lives and destroying relationships. Pretty soon, with a little research, I saw the horror stories. Relationships neglected, people losing jobs (which, to me, is HIGHLY counterproductive, as you NEED TO PAY TO PLAY, or your dealer WILL cut you off) and forgetting to eat, neglecting personal hygiene, things like that. Its a sad truth, but people will go to extreme lengths to forget their everyday troubles and be distracted from the harsh realities of their lives rather than facing them and trying to fix them, or at least exert as much control as they can. WoW provides an overwhelmingly good alternative to everyday life, and as its built to be another total world, it can become their mainlife, with this one existing only for them to eat, sleep, and earn the money they use to eat and play WoW.

Which brings me to another dislike I have with WoW, but which isn't unique to it, but to the genre of RPG's, and MMORPG's as well. That is, the Grind. God how I hate it. This happens round about level 20 in WoW, and it exists in all RPG's. This is where you hit a point where the quest rewards are insufficient and so far between that only questing cannot, or will not get you levels in a fast enough manner. So you go out and grind. In WoW, this takes the form of Instances, their version of dungeons, and a quite novel approach it is. Simply put, everything in WoW is ongoing. So, if you're out in a field and kill off all the monsters that are there, hang around for a bit. They will respawn, i.e. reappear according to a given time limit between kill and respawn. This way, the player gets a feeling of accomplishment, and other players aren't stuck with no creatures to kill when some quest giver in the barrens want 20 plain strider talons. Time passes, day to night, and the game world is never static....except when one enters an Instance, hence the name. Herein the player and his friends, as instances are listed by difficulty levels per party size, go in and depopulate a dungeon, with the rewards being higher xp rewards than found for equivalent level enemies, and better and more rare item drops overall. Enemies DO NOT respawn in an instance, as this would garauntee the deaths of the party, as these enemies are TOUGH, make no mistake.

So you put together an instance run, and you go in, get xp, and get the items. Wash, rinse, repeat. The higher you are in levels, hence the more xp you need, the more times you have to do this over, and over, and over, and over, ad nauseum. Don't even get me started on the tedium inherent in leveling your professional skills, dear god. It seems to be a design flaw inherent in the game type, that of an rpg tied to static levels, that makes grinding a must...and this is where WoW falls down. The grind is so extensive, and such a necessary part of it, along with all the other extensive features of your character that must be maintained, that you quickly realise that either you devote most of your time to this game, or you won't get anywhere fast, or anywhere at all. You must maintain your relationships with your friends online, as well as in your guild...and don't even get me STARTED on guilds. I REFUSE to join any organization set in an imaginary world wherein I will have to be subjected to an interview, a background check, a period of probation, and a post-probation interview after that, to see whether or not I 'pass the muster'. These people need to go get a life, or rather, go back to the one's they already have. Not all guilds are like this, but to get into the best ones, the process is some variant of what I've described here.

These people take their WoW seriously, let me tell you, to the point of arranging meetings in real life for their guild members, where the members have to defer to other membes, on the basis of their in-game rank.

I say to thee, no.

Once you're past all the shine, and you dig down into the meat of the game, to me, it takes on an aspect that, to me, is not necessary in video games, and is actually representative of something that I would engage in WoW to get away from, and that is work. The demands of keeping your guild requirements, the slog that item acquisition becomes at higher levels, actually requiring you to repeatedly engage in PVP for insane amounts of honor points (the PVP rewards, used to buy top level items and gear), and the lengthy quests that you have to go on to get your profession to the higher levels....WoW is NOT built for the casual player. Its all or nothing, and its 11 million plus fanbase aside, the recent and ongoing popularity of the Wii has demonstrated that there is quite a large fanbase of casual gamers looking for fun and interesting activities that do not require you to sacrifice your life and social engagement in the real world to satisfy. Also, its immersiveness works against it, but not in anyway that the money printing suits at blizzard will care for. Its effect on the lives of the people that play it cannot be denied. Rampant addiction (even among my friends, and myself at one point), while good business sense, is just detrimental to those that have to stand on the outside and watch their friends devolve into these nocturnal, pasty faced lurker that are online discussing random topics in the trade channel in Orgrimmar at three in the morning.

While this experience will not be symptomatic of all who play, you will have to dedicate extensive amounts of time and energy if choose to excel in this game, and who would WANT to be mediocre within the setting of an activity that they CHOOSE to play, and are paying for? The time and energy spent in this pursuit of digital and, in my opinion, nonexisting rewards is gone, poof, forever lost to humanity, when these creative and driven individuals could be putting them to some other, better use. I just think its wrong to build a product like this, and then not put some means in place to ensure that these people do not lose themselves in it too much. That would not be good business sense, as addiction, whether you believe it or not, is the best business model that the human race has found to date.

*Looks at the cigarette butts on the table beside him*

You get my point. You should take all the possible ramifications of your product into consideration, and then be the bigger person by looking out for your fellow man. I don't know what I want to say at this point, except that this is a disastrous trend for the users, and the society as a whole. All these stories of destroyed marriages, and people spiralling down into pits of WoW addiction cannot be made up, and as some, and most of them are true, you should then look into making some changes to your policies to try and stave this off. If this loses you money, then tough. Money isn't everything, and someone should be looking out for all these people.

Now comes the arguements about self control and whatnot, but I won't even go there with you. History and psychology shows that the average person does not stop to consider the reasons behind most of their actions, much less how to change these actions and thought processes to their betterment. They just live, and exist, between their cradle and their grave. With this in mind, it falls on YOU, Blizzard, to look out for your loyal users in some way, any way, at this point.

Not that I believe that this will ever happen.

More as it develops.

Time to face facts.

So I recently came to a realisation, and one that I daresay is, and will be a life changing one.

I suffer from anxiety. Not your run of the mill anxiety either, but serious, crippling, makes-me-unable to function anxiety. It affects me in whatever I do, where ever I go, every moment of every minute of every hour of my life.

Hell, its affecting me even now as I type this in my living area, telling me that I won't finish this on time to get it up, that it won't be good enough, no one will want to read my entries, I'll die a failed writer, never having published a novel, much less a story.

True words. Let me give you a PERFECT example of what its like for me. Go watch Revolver by Guy Ritchie. The main site is here, and its overall a worthwhile watch, especially for fans of Ritchie's particular style. What goes on in my mind is very much equitable to what goes on in the main characters mind, with the constant paranoia, the doubting of the actions of others, and the overall confusion and questioning of all that goes on around him on a daily basis, culminating with that moment of self awareness in the elevator....by far my FAVOURITE scene in a movie to date, because my ability to relate to it so far surpasses most anything else that I've watched for entertainment. Also, the surreal heights that the movie takes his reality to is very much where I find myself sometimes....but whether this is because of the actuality, or simply my own mental shenanigans, is never quite clear to me.

Having decided this, I've also decided that its time I check myself back into a focused program of treatment, as I've realised that I never finished the previous program that I was on, for my chronic depression. Yes, I've been diagnosed with chronic depression, and if that's a surprise to you, then you must REALLY not have spent much time with me.

That's where I'm at, and that's what's in front of me. I've decided to put all this down on (digital) paper, as it seems to work for all the other patsy's that live out their lives in these digital domains, giving them some sense of catharsis as they go through their daily lives. God knows I could use some, along with a healthy helping of peace of mind.

Please read through my previous posts, I will be following up on them as time goes on. I'm not writing this with any serious aim in mind, just working through the pits and peaks that my life has been, and are, through the magic that is writing. Feel free to leave a comment, my only requirement being that you think before you write. Don't waste your time, or mine, with inane comments more suited for a message board arguing about *insert fan boy argument here*...and if you don't get that, then all the better for you.

Discovered Lady GaGa yesterday. This is probably due to my determined efforts to avoid the cultural pits that are MTV and BET and all their affiliates. She is so deliciously neo-eighties (is that even a term?) electronica and disco. She's gonna be in my playlist for a bit. Been listening to too much metal and rock lately, time to lighten the mood some.

So yeah, I'll be around, and hopefully so will you. Got a lot to say if you got the time to read it.

More as it develops.

Obama won....so why am I still worried?

I can't believe that Barack Hussein Obama is now the President-Elect of the United States of America. He still has 75 days till he's sworn in on January 20, 2009, but come what may, he has created history. He is the first African-American to become president, and he did in fine style, running a campaign that was lofty in its ideals, superb, clean and clinical in its execution, and all-inclusive in its reach. It was the first campaign by anyone running for any office, that I can remember, that I supported and got behind (in my own way, namely through copious amounts of hours logged on CNN), not because the campaigner supported and represented my politics and world view, but......
...and this isn't easy for me to admit......
....because I BELIEVED in it. Him. The message. The hope. The possibility of change, him reaching beyond this election to what he could do in office, with the backing of his party and the MASSIVE groundswell of support that he garnered from all levels of the society. I believed in the whole shebang, swallowed it down hook, line and brightly coloured sinker, and I now wait with bated breath for his presidency to begin.

I saw Jesse Jackson crying on CNN (I keep mentioning that channel, hmm...maybe I spend too much time there)...I can't imagine what seeing this must be like, for him and persons like him, that were alive for, and marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. Who, despite the myriad twists and turns their lives and actions might have taken, fought for civil rights for themselves and their race from second to second, unceasing and unflinching in their belief and support of their principles. It must have been a sweet and painful moment for him, and the millions of others like him, not just in America, but worldwide. Not just black Americans, but anyone who's stood in the breach in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds and overwhelming circumstance, in defiance of what most others just look on and pass by as an unchangeable status quo...it must be a very rewarding moment for them all, but also painful in the enormity of the various emotions that they must be feeling, one and all.

Think about it. America now has a black president, one with the middle name of Hussein. If you had told me that last year or eighteen months ago, that that would be the case, well....I'd have smiled with you while secretly calling the guys in white coats and the padded wagon on their 24 hr emergency line to come and fetch you, and then, that done, would have calmly gone on my way in a manner designed to not upset you, as you were obviously off your rocker.

But, you'd have been prophetic.

Heh, will wonders never cease.

*shakes head in wonderment*

However, all of that aside (and that's a massive aside, btw) that isn't the purpose of this post. With all of the happy happy joy joy feelings now floating around the country and around the world, there is one very large problem that I now have (when do I not, ever), coming out of this election.

Simply put, that crowd......or rather, what they were/are indicative of. You all saw it, the crowd at McCain's concession speech. Rowdy, angry, disrespectful, and most of all, convinced as to Obama being a traitor/Muslim/liar/socialist/black (oops, he really is that, sorry), and whatever else they want to accuse him of. McCain could only just control them for the cameras, as he plodded at a slow run through what must have been the most painful speech of his life (and may it stick in his throat for a long time, the louse), and then quickly and quietly vanished from the public view, to become yesterdays news in so many ways....but the effects of the campaign that he and mizz Sarah Palin ran are not so easily erased. All the fears that they played on, all the anxieties and misplaced rage that they stirred up, all the vitriol and acid that they spouted, robocalled and had pandered to willing, ignorant, misled ears around the country...that does not just vanish over night, with a forced concession speech and a pained smile.

Oh no. That kind of emotion lingers, festers, goes home and oils its rifle, and then begins to look for a nice steeple to inhabit. The level of idiocy that was being spread behind the scenes about this election, like a disease of ignorance (whose major symptom is a certain pigmentation of the neck, I believe, but I could be wrong), spreading from person to person, family to family.....there were sites and noted (and notable) radio personalities that claimed, and presented (to their twisted, malignant brains), insurmountable proof that Barack Obama was the antichrist, and a vote for him was a vote for the apocalypse.

I mean seriously. Come the F*** on.


Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!?!?!?


*stops to ponder the unfathomable nature of it all*

I don't know how that kind of thinking works. I don't know how one gets up and decides to use such tactics, I don't know how one then decides to implement those tactics in these modern times.....and then I, most of all, don't know how one hears these things, and, IN THESE MODERN TIMES, believes them. Like......I just can't process it. The levels of desperation and hatred, just raw, blind, ignorant (wow I'm using that word a lot) bad mind (as we say here in Ja, and its usage is so apropos) that had to have been behind it, and the dozens of other 'fringe' (read:grassroots, base or any other term used to refer to that special set of people for whom Sarah Palin is the best thing to happen to politics since Bush, whichever one, it doesn't matter) organizations and movements out there that actively, willingly and knowingly looked at this information, knew what it meant and the ramifications of it (come on, I don't believe that idiots could have implemented this thing, someone with sense had to have been behind this somewhere......where, however, is left in its entirety up to your speculative abilities), and STILL WENT AHEAD AND DID IT......that kind of black-minded bloody-mindedness (probably a wrong use of the phrase...ah well, C'est La Vie)......well, lets just say I don't approve of it, and leave it at that. Not like my opinion matters, to the thousands, hell, millions of Americans that are now sitting at home and at the local bar and in their friends houses and in public places, watching Barack Obama take his place in history, not with an appreciation of the gravity of the moment or of the fact that there is now someone in the white house that wants to do more than mangle the English language on tv and invade other countries and throw the nations young and newly arrived (the citizenship for army service program...democracy at its finest) for oil....but with all of this idiocy and so much more stuck in their heads. On repeat. With the volume maxed.

Leaking out of their ears and surrounding them, like a black and purple aura of poison and decay. Traitor (as is anyone that doesn't recommend shooting America's multitudinous 'enemies' these days). Muslim (and all the negative connotations that THAT brings to these folk, gah). Black (you know they're thinking it). Socialist (..and if this section of the population were a bit more in touch, they might look at so called socialist societies that were named, such as Sweden, and Denmark, and Holland, and see how these places are so VASTLY superior to their own.....but lets not look for too many riding beggars here, eh?), and god knows what else. Oh yeah. Antichrist. That one needs no snarky commentary in an intrusive set of parentheses.

What do you think they're thinking, watching him and his family walk around, wave at the cameras, smile at his daughters and promise one of them a puppy in his acceptance speech? These people, lovers of the constitution, liquor and their extensive rifle collection...(ok, that's not all of them, but it is enough of them for me to generalise the rest of them as being the same way....and if they're in this group, then I don't really see where I have to take special care HOW I classify you, you dumb..).., who now claim that Obama will trample all over the constitution (and what the hell do they think that George W. Bush was doing for the last eight years, spit shining it?), and bring fire, brimstone, a dozen plagues, the apocalypse, a new holocaust (I'm not even going to go INTO that one, uh uh, not this individual) and maybe, oh, I don't know...respectability, grace and, oh, can it be HOPE, INTELLIGENCE and RIGHT MINDEDNESS to the whole process of governing of the greatest (in terms of potential to influence events on a worldwide scale from a single nation standpoint) nation on earth?

What's that you say? Bush was smart enough for you? Well, if you put it like that...step right this way, there's a bridge I'd like to sell you. Speaking of which, who else finds it ridiculous that you can buy islands, both real AND MAN MADE, houses built underwater, trips into space and real estate on the moon....but the saying 'I've got a bridge I want to sell you' is still a worldwide analogy for gullibility and stupidity.......anyway.

So yeah. That's my desire in this post. To express my....deep seated concern regarding the, almost in counterpoint and in abject contrast to the groundswell of love, support and hope for the future that Obama has created in the American people, the just......saturated population of haters and ill-wishers of Obama and his family. We've all seen what one angry American, supported by a system where anything (and I do mean anything) can be garnered for enough money or in support of a like-minded individual, and apathy towards how one uses that anything, can create. I do not think I need to extrapolate on this. American history, both recent and distant, is rife with these individuals (Lincoln and JFK come to mind...and dammit if the news media have not been comparing Obama to JFK for a minute now).

Even beyond that, however, will be the fact that these people will, in blind support of their negative ideals and backward thinking leaders, will, in so many ways, obvious and covert, stand in the way of Obama and all that he and his supporters will try to do. Now, in a time when America needs to be unified, as it has a laundry list from hell of situations to solve and obstacles to overcome, both within the nation the world at large, not the least of which is the contempt it is held in, both as a nation, and as a people, that elected and supported the (previous) leader of that nation. Now, more than ever, Obama's campaign rhetoric needs to be repeated, in quiet conversations and at the tops of voices at outdoor rallies.....'yes we can!'

Not as a nation of people electing a black president (y'all just did that, remember, did you drink so much last night in celebration that you FORGOT why you were celebrating.....if so, shame *wags finger in reproach*) or being governed by one....but as a nation of people needing to move forward together behind an (insulting classification of citizenship deleted)-American leader to begin to repair the economy, the myriad of foreign policy disasters visited on the world by G. W. Bush and Dick 'Darth Vader' Cheney in the past eight years, a government with more power over its people than a dictator would find comfortable (...actually no, he'd be just fine with it), and a prison filled as a result of an occupation of a foreign nation, an occupation based on reasons less insubstantial than wet tissue paper in the face of a category five tornado.

If you get my drift.

So that's my concern at this time. I can't be caught up in the euphoric celebration of Martin Luther King's dream being fulfilled (and if you believe that, here, this rope bridge is going cheap, comes with a gorge and a nice long fall.....), I'd rather think about the next 75 + 1461 days (not thinking about the 2012 ticket as yet, lets get past this mountain first). Its that long till he's sworn in on January 20th and becomes president, and then that next figure is the length of his (first :) ) term as president. Its a very long time to be the one BLACK man at the top of the world. Sittin' on nukes....and a throne made out of blades.

I do not envy you, good sir.

More as it develops.

Best Laid Plans...

So.

Today was to have been my triumphant return to the blogosphere. I had an interview of a certain professor, and his findings regarding american children and sex, which I was going to analyse and critique. I also had a few opinions to raise about the current election race going on in america, and maybe throw in a humorous anecdote at the end.

Instead, I've got a budding headache and eyeache, another underutilised day, and just a general feeling of having not done enough. Its amazing, how when you try to live your life right, that it seems to shrink down to a bunch of tasks and objectives, which do not seem so important in and of themselves, but if you are determined (and I most certainly am), then accomplishing them becomes a major part of your day, as well as a heightened sense of accomplishment when they are done. This, to someone who doesn't achieve very much on a daily basis, is a BIG DEAL.

So I'm not gonna let it get me down. I strive always to resist the pull of human entropy, which itself is constant, until you either learn to deal with it or to ignore it. Its a slow process, little victories and accomplishments each day. Wake up. Get out of bed. Do one useful thing each day, then two, then more. Get out of the house (that hasn't been happening of late), walk around (resist the urge to buy any cancer sticks) and breathe the open air. Just...live one day at a time (I never really understood what that meant before).

Just live, learn to appreciate yourself, what you have and what you can do. Learn about yourself. Take a walk into your mind. Sit in quiet, and listen to what you have to say to yourself. If you are quiet, you can hear your mind telling you what to do (this does not include that subsection of society that hears voices telling them that there are spies in the ice cream; these people need to either receive or go back on their meds, and not listen to themselves too much, if at all), and how to go about fixing the mess you're currently in. Then, when you've learned that much, you can go about gathering the necessary energy to get up and accomplish these goals.

Its not easy. Not by a long shot. There were days when getting out of bed was my major accomplishment for the day. Those are, thank god, FAR behind me at this point. Now, its achieving what's on my little list of things to do each day. The tendency to ship my oars and just float is ever present, and sometimes I'll catch myself just wasting time, and I'll have to get up and get back to what I was doing.

One does not break the programming of years of living overnight.

But breaking it IS possible, and it takes guts, grit, and the willingness to take a lot of healthy criticism from all those around you that really, truly care for you (the ability to recognise which, my friends, is one of THE best skills you can ever acquire in your life, mark my words). It takes starting, stopping, starting again, falling over, getting up, brushing yourself off, maybe a sigh or two, and starting again. After a while, it stops being starting and starts to become continuing, and the periods in between the interruptions get smaller and smaller. That's where I'm headed, and I'm not stopping for nothing. I have too much people (and one beautiful young woman in particular) waiting and hoping for me to realise all I have to offer, and get to work offering it to the world (their words, not mine :) )

Anyway.

I'm tired, and my eyes and head hurts, but I now feel better. One more thing I can say that I did with my day, and one less thing to feel guilty over as I go to my rest this night.

Peace my friends, you will be seeing a lot more of me around these parts in the future. Yeah, yeah, I've said that before, I know....


Anyway.

Walk in the light, think happy thoughts, and for gods sake think before you act. I'll see you around.