Razor

Okay, I think I have (or maybe I've had it for a while) a new one. I fear that I will become as morally bankrupt and soulless as what seems to be the vast majority of people. Yes, weird, but allow me to elaborate. I continually read screwed up things in the news. I was just reading about how a girl in a polygamist setting gave her mother a letter telling her that her father had been molesting her. The mother handed the letter back to her and told her that she spelled 'molest' wrong. Every time I turn around I find out new things about friends/family that really test my love for them. At what point can I stop ignoring the things that might be less than moral about these people, and at what point SHOULD I stop ignoring them? What is the proper course of action in such cases? Am I allowed to interfere with other people's lives? It seems like the more I talk about this idea/theme with other people, the more they give me this look like I'm an idiot. It's like I'm not supposed to be naive enough to believe that people are actually good until I'm proven wrong. Why is that normal? It doesn't make much sense to me, and it truly bothers me more than anything else I've ever encountered. As for the list of things that makes it difficult for me to sleep at night, this damn well tops it. Sometimes I can quiet my mind, repeating "there's nothing you can do about it" to myself, but sometimes I KNOW there are things I can do about it, but I'm not sure if they're the right thing to do. I'm also afraid that I'll become as much of a hypocrite as some people seem to be. I hear people around me criticising the polygamists, or religious right, or whoever else, and I think to myself "How can you say anything about them? I know that you've done or at least thought things on equally shaky morally ground, so how do you have any right to condemn these people?" Anyway, I'll shut up now since there really is nothing to be done about it. It just bothers me far more than it should, I guess, that people seem to be so incredibly blind to their own moral shortcomings. Or maybe they're not even blind, but they're desperately hoping no one else will point it out. ~shrug~

My reply would be an exact echo.

...........................okay, let's try that again.....

Yup, judgment stands, still handsome. Rakuten, I agree wholeheartedly with you. Personality is paramount, far above anything else. It doesn't matter how good they look if they're mean or untrustworthy or anything like that; in my eyes, those guys are fugly.

I just quit smoking. I did it in such a way that I cannot justify buying more cigarettes. There were five left in the pack. That means that I smoked sixteen cigarettes today, since I had one left in the other pack. I crumpled the pack with the five left. That was wasteful, so I can't buy any more. I also gave away my lighter, which is an extra dollar I would have to waste if I were to begin smoking again. I've lost almost forty pounds, and my primary reason for doing it was my health. Mental health, primarily, lol, but physical health was a big motive as well. I can't justify smoking when I'm working to lose weight and build muscle in order to make myself healthy. I've noticed a marked decrease in my lung capacity. After climbing five flights of stairs at a moderate pace, I have to breathe deeply for a minute or so. That is unacceptable, and a big deterrence when I'm excercising. Considering the fact that smoking contributes to every disease that runs rampant through my family, it has to go. I have also noticed that it is incredibly unattractive. For the first time ever, I've noticed that the two fingers I hold my cigarette with are yellow from nicotine stains. My teeth are not the shade they should be. I weighed the pros against the cons, and it's not worth it. If I can make it for a week, it will no longer be a problem for me. If I find myself walking toward a gas station, then I'm going to walk to the clinic and get gum or patches. The real reason I'm making this thread is not only just as a poll for a bit of interesting discussion, but so that I have a concrete reminder of accountability.

Oh wow that was delightful, haha! I'm gonna have to explore that place in more detail soon, but all the Hitler-killing was wonderful. Off topic, but how does that rule go exactly again? The one about how in any given argument anywhere on the Internet, eventually someone will compare someone/something to Hitler? EDIT: Hehe, found it. Please see Godwin's Law for the explanation of the rule, and Reductio ad Hitlerum for the explanation of the associated argument.

Hehe, yah, and next you silly non-Southern people will want a slice of pee-can pie. Yeah, seeing it in writing makes you rethink your pronunciation, don't it? Then I suppose you'll want to go to the store and put pop (cokes) in your cart (buggy).

~comes up, pulls out inkpad and stamp, and stamps Mike on the forehead, which now reads "JSA"~ That was my Jamie-Seal-of-Approval, shmexy.

Angel -Sarah McLachlan (yeah, old, but awesome) Spend all your time waiting For that second chance For a break that would make it okay There's always some reason To feel not good enough And it's hard at the end of the day I need some distraction Oh beautiful release Memories seep from my veins Let me be empty Oh and weightless And maybe I'll find some peace tonight In the arms of the angel Fly away from here From this dark, cold hotel room And the endlessness that you fear You were pulled from the wreckage Of your silent reverie You're in the arms of the angel May you find some comfort here So tired of the straight line And everywhere you turn There's vultures and thieves at your back And the storm keeps on twisting You keep on building the lies That you make up for all that you lack It don't make no difference Escaping one last one time It's easier to believe in this sweet madness Oh this glorious sadness That brings me to my knees In the arms of the angel Fly away from here From this dark, cold hotel room And the endlessness that you fear You were pulled from the wreckage Of your silent reverie You're in the arms of an angel May you find some comfort here

Y'know, you're pretty damn handsome yourself. Ha, I'm five foot eight on a good day (only when I first wake up, which is why I've always had any physical scheduled for the morning when my vertebrae are all nice and stretchy). I was 185, damn near 190 at my heaviest. Y'know I'm a nervous guy by nature, too. No one likes to talk about it, and no one who hasn't been heavy at some point in their life really understands it, but any time anyone mentions weight, athletics, food, swimming, sex, tanning, shirt size, pant size, or ya pass a mirror, it pops in your head even if it's only a subconscious kinda naggy feeling. I don't even like talking about that sorta thing now because I know what a downer it is. The REAL annoying one is diet tips. "Oh, so you wanna lose weight? I can help! Here's what you do..." I always wanted to punch those people. "No, you mean I should drink diet drinks?! I NEVER would've thought of that! ~smack~ Jackass." Oh, and when people who have never been a pound overweight in their life start remarking about how easy it is for them, that one's annoying too. Big whoop, you have a metabolism... I'm gonna get my degree in microbiology and when you're asleep, I'm going to destroy a tenth of your mitochondria and then shoot you up with some nice thyroid depressing medication, then we'll see who has something to say about how they've never had a problem with their weight so it just must be the person's own fault. Kk I'm shutting up and posting this before I think about deleting it.

Oh wow... ~hides under my computer and blushes until my eyes pop out~ You guys are really nice, lol. AND YOU ARE ALL SEXY BEASTS, RAWR!

Kevvers, this is another reason why I love you. You know how to properly refer to crawfish. Pfft, crawdads... damned yankees... Oh, and I agree with you as far as population control and contraception goes, but I don't think that it's really a viable option at the moment. Of course, contraception is getting much more popular in the developed world, especially now that families are only having one or two children very frequently. Even so, you still gotta find a way to feed what's already here, and we really are making good progress as far as that goes. The fact that the animals even survive long enough to get big enough to eat is a testament to the amount of effort that goes into the process, and then you have all those wonderful things that are becoming more and more common like hydroponic farming and things like that. I forget what it was, saw it on TV years ago, but they'd started growing things like cabbage and whatnot hydroponically, and could grow over three times the amount in half the space it took to do it the conventional way. ~shrug~ I think we're doing fairly well, all things considered.

Okay, today I am grateful for... ATTACHED EARLOBES!!!!!!!! Cause I have attached earlobes and I think attached earlobes are cute. I like my earlobes... yeah I'm weird, but it's fun being me.

Okay, here's a sorta recent picture of me (even if it's bad quality cause all I have is my webcam). Whatcha think? I lost a good bit of weight before this picture was taken, down to about 145ish, which is about right for me.

....the other day, the elevator broke. Drew and I were inside it, lol. The door did not want to open, so we were stuck until campus police got there and got the damn thing open. Oh, another random fear! I can't stand using a restroom if someone else is in it. I don't know why, it just drives me crazy.

Hmm... I'm gonna go with... the people who are honest and straightforward in their dealings with me, since they are so few and far between. Oh, and bad puns. God I love bad puns.

....no, I don't have a level 70 shadow priest, level 65 demon lock, 41 affliction lock, and 36 fury warrior.... SHUT UP! I've been playing a really long time now and it's not like I even play that much anyway! All my toons that I actually play are either on Kael'Thas or Malfurion. ~sigh~ Yeah I'm addicted, but every now and then I just get a craving for something completely mindless, fun, and full of things for me to kill. It's good stress relief.

The entire time I was writing When I Fall Asleep I was listening to the song We Are So Last Year, by Hawthorne Heights (on the album If Only You Were Lonely). Some lines are bolded cause they were what I was especially concentrating on when I was forming the idea for the story and writing it. We're falling faster This is the last year Just a few more hours Until we are all alone This never happens Changing with fashion Just a few more hours Until we are unknown I wish I could have known you better I should blame it on the weather This was over from the start Does it even matter? Our situation's getting worse Sleep in Sleep well With this life We're set to fail I just wanted you to know I think about you every night When I fall asleep You are in my dreams Just like in a movie the one you want to see with a happy ending This dead letter written on black paper It never found her eyes Instead of love She only saw dollar signs Sleep in Sleep well With this life We're set to fail I just wanted you to know I think about you every night When I fall asleep You are in my dreams Just like in a movie the one you wanna see With a happy ending With this life We are set to fail I just wanted you to know I think about you every night When I fall asleep I just wanted you to know I think about you every night When I fall asleep You are in my dreams Just like in a movie The one you want to see With a happy ending

Kevin, you have a point but I sort of have to disagree even from a biological perspective. It's weird, but to me there's just this kind of odd acceptance of death and suffering as a sad fact. I don't like it, and I would prefer us all to be happy little autotrophs, but that's not the way it is and I can't change that so I kind of think of it this way... herbivores evolved to take advantage of the autotrophic organisms, utilizing the chemical energy they produced in a different process (photosynthesis is damn near the exact reverse of cellular respiration, so it's crazy similar, just fyi). After that, carnivores evolved to take advantage of the chemical energy stored in herbivores, probably because of serious competition among herbivores for food or something. So really, any sentient being, anything we commonly think of as "alive", is just a different form of life, and I kinda have a weird thing where I wonder if we really merit anymore consideration in the grand scheme of things. ANYWAY... that was a big digression. Kevvers, here's the deal. If we produced food in the way you're wanting, not only would Americans have issues affording it, there would be worldwide famine. Take chicken for instance cause that's definitely the best example. First, they stick them in very small spaces. That should be obvious why they do that; less space means you can pack in more chickens and make more product with less facility. Second, they pump them so full of growth hormones that scientists are starting to wonder if that's why girls are starting their periods earlier on average. Why? They grow way faster. Like three times faster... lol. You can make waaaay more food waaaay faster this way. Third, they pump them full of antibiotics. Why? To keep them alive. In conditions like that, disease would spread rampantly and destroy the entire population if left unchecked. Fourth, they nip off the end of their beaks. Why? To keep them from killing other chickens. That's not mean, that's standard practice. If they wanted to do it in a really really really sweet way, then they could consider putting blinders on each and every chicken, and that would be less effective, more time consuming, and more costly Ya see where I'm going with this? These aren't nice things, but they're necessary evils to provide the amount of food at the price to which we are accustomed. Not all animals are treated that way, but you'll pay more for the ones who aren't, and they're not as easily available since obviously there's not as much demand for them. Given all of that, it doesn't make much sense to rail against it without offering a viable solution, hence my hydrolyzed soy protein (beef, haha, get it?.....nvm) with the vegheads.

.... well, out of the couple of relationships I've had that have actually been made, um, I guess official boyfriend-boyfriend status-ified.... One very strong... well... he wasn't a boyfriend, but a very serious potential prospect who I was EXTREMELY interested in. We're still tight friends, and I love him very much. No you can't have his name, lol, just know that for me to say that if he were to suddenly have a change of heart and I were suddenly to be living where he was and things were just a weeeeee bit different... I'd marry him in a heartbeat. As it is, he'd be happier with somebody else and so would I. Zach lasted a solid week, maybe a bit longer. Rick lasted about a week. Peter lasted about... well, if you count the official relationship part, then only about two days. Don't quote me on that though because it's been a while and I don't write these things down. Can I include Jonathan here? No, he was never my boyfriend, but he was very well endowed, more fun to talk to and nicer than any of my boyfriends, and he also has kissed the best out of any boy I've ever played tonsil hockey with. I've done my fair share of tonsil hockey playing. (for future reference for those of you who may kiss me: don't like bird lips, don't tense your lips before they touch mine, don't immediately stick in your tongue, give me a good few seconds of lip before you do slip in the tongue, and always keep your tongue from touching anything past the bicuspids... hell I'll give you the first molar if it's just CRAZY, but that better not happen often) Also, since I'm already cheating by including him, I'm making this one only include the two minutes we made out in the bathroom. Yeah I have really bad luck with relationships, hehe. It's okay though. I've kinda decided that with a lot of these things it's just not something that can be forced that way, and if we split there was probably a good reason. These reasons vary of course, but hehehe... let me list them just to make myself feel good. Zach is a DOOFUS. Rick is a JACKASS. Peter is a DOUCHEBAG. Okay so those aren't really the exact reasons, but believe me, they're close. The only one of these I'm still friends with is Zach, and that's more of an acquaintance. I sit beside him in history, but I have issues being friends with people like him. Don't think I'm being mean, because I'm NOT, and it's NOT actually a bad thing exactly, but he has a weird attitude and he acts in ways that I don't approve of... I can handle a lot, but he pushed me past my limit. I'ma get away from this thread. It's making me angry.

These people have been putting emphasis on showing people how graphic factory farming can be. They keep these animals in very confined spaces, and do some other less than nice things, but the reason they do this is in order to reduce costs and maximize efficiency; otherwise our food would cost a LOT more. I lived on a quail farm for a long time when I was a kid. We owned one, and I helped out with it a good many times. Sorry, but when someone wanted quail cleaned and dressed... well... if you hadn't ever seen it before, you might freak out a little. Basically what happens is... 1.) Quail/pheasants are kept (at least on our farm) in a flight pen, meaning that while they are pretty crowded, the ceiling of the pen is high enough for them to fly. The reason for that is because a lot of people buy them to hunt them; it's not fun hunting quail that can't fly. 2.) We go in with nets and catch however many we need. 3.) You take one of those really heavy duty pairs of kitchen shears, and then cut the quail/pheasant's head off in one quick motion. Sounds awful, I know, but it's by far the most humane and fast way to kill them. And yes, they do freak out when you do this, so yet again, if you've never done it before, then you'd freak probably. 4.) Immediately after the head comes off, you toss 'em into a big steaming vat of water. They make special containers that keep the water heated. This helps to loosen the feathers. 5.) Ya pluck 'em. Hehe, yeah, but nowadays they make those machines that have like a bunch of rubber fingers that spin nice and quick, and you just let those yank all the feathers for you. 6.) You clean them. This means removing organs/feet/etc. 7.) You now have a quite tasty little birdy. See, the thing is, you're going to be killing the animal... so I don't really see how you can call the practice of maximizing efficiency, minimizing cost, and making the whole process as easy and fast as possible "cruel". You could maybe even go so far as gruesome, but not really cruel. Btw, any of you who haven't had quail, you should try it sometime. I don't like pheasants, they have a gamey and kinda weird taste, but bobwhite quail are REALLY good.

Well if I'm telling someone that they forgot the milk or something short like that, then yeah, texting is easier and faster. Nine times out of ten, though, I'll call. I usually text only when I'm busy with something else, or just goofing around.

Does all of this propaganda dealing with treatment of animals meant to be consumed as food seem a little silly to anyone else? Okay okay okay, I promise, I'm not heartless or anything, but even I have to see the practicality here as opposed to the "aw it's a fuzzy wittle amuhnal, I wanna keeps it!". You are eating them. EATING. That means you are munching on these animals. Given the fact that you are already intending for them to be FOOD, is anything else you do to them in the process really all that terrible? Now, blatant mistreatment of animals is wrong. But it's not like these people who produce our food are just beating and hurting and torturing these animals with no logical purpose in what they do. They're making our food, that's all. Would it really make it any better if you'd kept the animals as pets before you ate them? Um, no, so why make such a big deal of it? Hey, I'll admit that they could probably be a bit nicer to the animals. Then we would all pay more for them, though, and I just don't see the point of making these animals damn near into pets before you send them off to the slaughterhouse. Oh, and I'm not giving up my hamburgers and fried chicken, so you won't persuade me to be a veg-head, haha. Tell me what you guys think.

MY BIGGEST SECRET!!!! WHO TOLD YOU?!?!?! I do that a lot... hit my play button on the laptop while writing a post and for some reason it submits it when I do that. ~shrug~ And damn those buttons. ~hides from them~

OKAY! So, first off, you must know how my brain works. I do not think of one thing at a time. At all times, there are several lines of thought happening in my head. There's my internal MP3 player (I think of a song and it plays in my head), there's what I'm doing at that moment, and there's always at least one issue being mulled over. These have the potential to spawn side-thoughts, contributing to the really complicated network of things going on in my head at all times. Thus, when someone asks me to explain something or if they ask me what I'm thinking and I'm like "don't worry about it", then it's usually because it would take me forever to explain all the random thoughts that contributed. Second, I've got classic generalized anxiety. I worry about anything and everything. Then, I worry about the fact that I'm worrying, and then I worry about whether or not that's healthy, and then I worry that I'm just making myself worse by worrying, and then I worry about the fact that that's an insane loop of circular logic. I have TONS of irrational fears. Let's list some! 1.) My jeans look funny. This one sounds dumb, but you have to realize that I'm short, and they don't make jeans for short people, so the cut of some means that they bunch at the bottom, and then I obsess over the way they look, and if they don't feel like they're sitting just right over my shoes it drives me nuts, and I've been known to change jeans three times a day when that particular one annoys me. 2.) Someone has a low opinion of me. Unless I can clearly see that a person admires/approves/is generally positive toward me, it drives me insane. 3.) Let's just go ahead and toss in a big bundle of "someone is looking at me and I look weird" fears. They're like the jeans thing, only they're all highly developed like the jeans thing, haha. For instance, there's the one about my fingernails, which I bite out of habit, and hate when people look at my hands. Or the one about my teeth, or my eyebrows, or the way I will NOT take off my shirt unless I am assured that no one will see me, until I am extraordinarily comfortable around that person. It's complicated, but I told you these things are highly developed. 4.) Fear of stagnation. I have an urgent need to be making constant progress. If I'm not making progress, it not only feels like I'm staying still, it feels like I'm falling back. 5.) Fear of abnormality. I think or do something, and then I worry about whether or not my actions were normal. Awww, hell, I can keep going. Point is, yeah, I'm a freak, hehe, but it's fun! I mean, I have a lot of things that bother me and worry me, but I deal. Pretty much all of my major fears are irrational. Oh, and I hate driving. Can't stand driving, I don't know why it bothers me so much exactly, but it's quite unnerving unless I know exactly where I'm going and have driven there before. Umm... I have the fear that I'm getting stupider, haha. Sometimes I feel like a complete idiot compared to how intelligent I used to feel, so that's a relatively new one. Meh, anyway, all of my irrational fears aren't that bad I think. I've learned how to deal with the anxiety issues, and generally it's just about finding a methodical and practical way of coping with the things that bother me. I ask a friend if my jeans look right, or if something I did that I'm worrying about was appropriate, etc. That way, I'm forming more connections with a person, helping to keep my anxiety to a minimum, and usually giving them a good giggle or two along the way. I don't know how I manage it, but sometimes when I get to explaining these sorts of things to a friend it gets really hilarious. So I guess my main method of coping is replacing anxiety with reinforcement from friends/family. Works for me, anyway. But see then, there's the big one about making sure that people think what I want them to think about me, and that's a tricky one, so I gotta be careful about coping with that one... like how this post is sorta contradictory to the way I think I want people to think of me, because I want to come off as confident and intelligent, but I feel like a goofy whacko inside, so I just have to settle for being genuine a lot of the time instead of attempting to play people. I think they usually end up helping you a lot more that way, anyway. And now I'm ranting.... so bye!