Archive
Concerning Insanity
Iiiiiiinsane
Okay, I no longer know anything about the world. Not that I knew much about it to begin with, but that’s beside the point.
See, for the last four or five posts on this site, I’ve been getting this bizarre responses. For all appearances, they seem like they’re written by a human being. They all have a central idea around which they revolve, and work on these ideas, flesh them out, by virtue of expounding on the idea. However, these posts are completely irrelevant to anything I’m trying to do with the site (lie about my life so I can joke about it) and, instead, seem as if they’re a part of an extended conversation between two people–one of whom suffers from debilitating self-hatred and fear of the world in general.
And the fucked up thing is that latter person seems, according to these insane posts, to be me.
All of these posts are traced back to a Yahoo! e-mail account and, if I’m right, they’re coming from Australia. Now, I’m taking this situation to its logical conclusion and, thus, I’ve deduced that Mad Max has Internet access and is stalking me.
The contents of each post are vaguely related to the topic of every piece I toss up on the site–”vaguely” here refers to the presence of keywords sprinkled throughout the extensive comment. For example, “On Risk” had a comment about how we should take chances and, somehow, that was what Risk was about. Well, yes, but the chances therein involve tiny plastic bits and dice.
My Neuroses post had some bizarre Greek psychological thing that I’m still not sure about, and the insanity continued from there.
The point is: I think this is spam, but as to what purpose it serves, I have no idea. There is never a mention of a brand, and the only websites it links to are flickr albums and videos on YouTube, making this the most ineffectual spam campaign ever. Of course, there is the possibility that the posts are trying to increase awareness of armchair psychology, but does that really need an increase in awareness?
So I’m deciding to treat this as the above premise: Mad Max is stalking me on the Internet. As Mr. Max is incredibly confused as to the purpose of my blog, I’ve decided that I’m going to deconstruct the latest comment. In order to make this as accessible as possible, I’m reprinting the post (after the jump) and numerating it by what I think of as the sections of the post; and, further, I will take a look at each section after the body of the post.
And so, we begin.
My Bitter, Bitter Life: The Origin of Neuroses
One of the things that I hear most often happens when people meet me for the first time. It’s usually said after a period of silence and a lot of squinting – the sort of squinting you see from people trying to figure something out, like an incredibly difficult algebra equation. When the phrase is said, it’s said with utmost certainty. The kind of certainty applied when someone says, “It is wet outside” on a rainy day.
The phrase is, “You know, you are George Costanza.”
I once tried to rail against this. I didn’t want to remind people of a short, portly, neurotic, bespectacled horrible person. I don’t think anyone does. If I were going to be anyone in Seinfeld, I would’ve instead chosen to be Kramer. I mean, come on, the man was on strike from a bagel bakery for something like ten years and still somehow afforded rent in Manhattan. That’s the sort of luck in life I want, not driving women to lesbianism and being mistaken for a prominent Nazi.
Missing The Point: The World’s Smallest Violin
From: Tasha Banks
Sent: Friday, February 4, 2011, 9:45 AM
To: _EVERYONE
Subject: Words smallest violin
Hi everybody
The funniest thing happened this morning. Tucker (tyou know my son) was whining about not havin his homework done tryin to get me to do it for him, is aid that I didn’t have time since I was about to have to take him to day care and that he shouldn’t have stayed up all night playin video games! Then he said ‘you told me I could’ and I said nothing, just played the worlds smallest violin!
LOL 
From: Aaron Simon
Sent: Friday, February 4, 2011, 10:00 AM
To: Tasha Banks; _EVERYONE
Subject: RE: Words smallest violin
Wow.
That was the most meaningful commentary on lackluster parenting I’ve read since reading the unnecessary backlash against The Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother. I didn’t know that you were capable of such a scathing indictment of both our education system, and the seeming inability of the modern American parent to deal with their child’s incessant demands for artificial stimulation. (I know, that sounded, ah, not right; but it wasn’t meant to be that way.)
I know when I was a kid, and my parents found out that I didn’t do my homework because I was up all night playing video games, they shouted at me, told me that I was a disappointment to everyone who fought and died for our country so I could have the freedom to live without working in a factory, then, if that didn’t reduce me to tears, they threatened to beat me with a length of rubber hose in time to “Seek and Destroy,” which is a very fast song if you didn’t know. I’d thought that sort of mentality was nonexistent here in the Southeast, where education is seen as a liberal elite thing, to be only partaken of in the coasts. Good to see I’ve been proven wrong.
I’m not certain why the violin is seen as a sad-sounding instrument, are you? I mean, really, one only needs to watch this video and understand the sublime nature of what can be accomplished with the instrument.
Regards,
Aaron Simon
Enrollment Coordination Specialist, Graphic Designer
From: Tasha Gordon
Sent: Friday, February 4, 2011, 10:11 AM
To: Aaron Simon
Subject: RE: RE: Words smallest violin
What are you talking about? I don’t know what that book is what does a tiger have to do with being a parent? Are you calling me a bad parent? My son is very smart he thinks school is boring and leanrs more history from video games than they teach in school like how there was a plaot to kill JFK and Castro and it was organized by a secret organization.
If you had problems with your parents I don’t know what youre doing talking to me about it and are you saying im not educated? I went to Macon County Community College probably better than wherever you went at least I managed to get out of the house LOL
What was that video? It was boring if I wanted to see a bunch of people spazzing out id go somewhere where people spaz out all the time. That wasn’t even music music is the new lady gaga single. You should check it out and learn something about music.
Valentine’s Day
Today’s a special day to someone who means a good deal to me. Someone who’s been there for me in some tough times, and done more to help me than most anyone, save the remainder of my family.
Happy birthday, Dad.
Oh, it’s also a greeting card holiday for those of you who haven’t been rendered a cynical bastard when it comes to love, lurv, and luv by rejection and your own cluelessness.
To commemorate the holiday, I’m teaming up with Jon Lim to give you the following:
Be my Valentine...
Wherein I Apologize for My Actions, Pt. 2
So. This is awkward.
I bet you don’t even want to hear from me, the person you referred to as “Spawn of Satan” and “get thee gone” and “what the fuck is wrong with you.” Well, in your position, I wouldn’t want to hear from me, either, but I would also want some sort of closure on our ordeal on Wednesday evening. And while I know this won’t be enough to make up for the damage I caused you, know that I think of what happened as more of a balancing of accounts. You made my life miserable for three months by starting up inane conversations on the bus, I made your life miserable for one night.
I guess I should start at the beginning. Baldy: I’m sorry for calling you “a senile fearmongerer” when I first got on the bus. I wasn’t aware that, at 3:45, I was on the 3:30 bus, and you’d barely made it half a block. Also: I’m sure you’re not senile. Though you seem to be well past the legal age of retirement, the fact that your bald pate is so smooth and shiny speaks volumes of your hygiene; as I imagine that it’s impossible to keep your health up while senile, you probably aren’t senile. You’re still a fearmongerer for insisting we “wouldn’t get out of downtown alive,” though.
Screeching Harpy #1: I’m sorry for chucking my shoe at you. It wasn’t the most mature of actions, but we’d been on the bus for half an hour, and had barely made it past the block in front of the bus station. I was a bit stretched for nerves. The fact that you’d been shrieking “The Wheels on The Bus” as if it were the most hi-fucking-larious thing you could have done was infuriating, and the fact that you’d been screaming so loud I could hear you over Metallica at full volume didn’t help either. In addition, I also apologize–barely–for saying “I will spit on your grave when you die.”
Read more…
On Risk, Pt. 2
You can't hear it--because this is a picture--but there's the sound of a hammer striking an anvil in this.
As I talked about before, Risk is something that’s… well, not important to me, but one of those things that I… well, not “couldn’t do without,” but…
I enjoy Risk a good deal. Bending the world to my will (depending on the age, my “will” would include owning an X-Wing, the Millennium Falcon, and, now, just paying off the student loan debt) has been at the heart of every decision I make. This blog? I foresee it becoming the pinnacle for online non-sequitur entertainment–so much so that I earn millions off of pageviews alone, and, from there, construct an X-Wing.
Read more…
Wherein I Apologize for My Actions
So, this is awkward.
I guess I’d better apologize for everything in chronological order. First off: Barton, I’m sorry for calling your girlfriend “a sub-mental troglodyte who advocates the sexual assault of women who hang around in bars.” I was really keyed up to see the Steelers lose, and she was the only person in the apartment wearing Steelers gear. Something in me snapped, and I’m not proud of it, so… well, sorry.
Sorry, Dana, that was really horrible of me. I’m sure you don’t support rape, since that would be absurd–even if you defended the Black-Eyed Peas, which we’ll get to later, I’m sure. Still, you are a troglodyte for watching Jersey Shore instead of, say, well, anything that takes half a brain to enjoy. Just calling the shots as I see ‘em.
And, once again, sorry to Barton. Calling you “dickless” for not having buffalo wings at your party was a jerk thing to say. I’m sure you had a good reason for replacing the usual buffalo wings with a ball of cheddar cheese–cause hey, that was pretty good, even if it got awkward when Steph said she was lactose intolerant and we looked at each other because I dropped some cheese in her Coke, which she drank. (Sorry, Steph. My fault you spent the night in the hospital.) Referring to you for the rest of the night as Barton the Fairy might have been off-color as well.
Read more…
Shameless Self Promotion
Though I’m sure the recent upsurge in hits is an anomaly and will shortly be rectified, with my daily pageviews hovering comfortably around two or three, it would be profoundly stupid not to leap upon this opportunity for self-promotion like Gene Simmons.
See, I do other things than lurk around here and post bullshit that a few people read and, surprisingly, don’t hit me with hate mail for one reason or another. (Although I’d welcome it; hate mail is hilarious.)
For instance: I run another blog that’s periodically updated. It’s a long-winded version of my year in England, and, about a year and a half after starting it, I’m not halfway done with it.
For another instance: I review stuff that’s distracting me.
For another instance: I deluge a friend with comic scripts. Sometimes he draws them. Regardless, he does great work, and his style is kinda like punk show posters, which is pretty friggen cool.
</plug>
On Risk, Pt. 1
My infatuation with this game started several years ago, when I was nought but a nerdling, convinced that the world only extended to the expansions of WarCraft 2 and Diablo 2. Every year, Brad’s family would rent out a couple of camp sites in a state park and a whole bunch of us would retreat into the woods for a weekend full of bacon, doughnuts, awkward moments, and thanking God we weren’t actually camping.
See, the camping we engaged in was camping in Easy mode. There were tents, there were sleeping bags and, from time to time, there were camp fires. But there were also showers with hot water, electrical outlets, trash pick-up by park rangers, and a playground on a hill just across from the sites. The usual things that go down in camping trips didn’t go down here, since we were all civilized people and appreciated the outdoors just enough to be slightly uncomfortable for a couple nights a year.
During the days, we’d all do whatever we could think to keep us from missing things like TV and the Internet. For the kids, we’d mess with the dogs or heave rocks into the lake and cheer like Neanderthals. The adults… I don’t know what they did. Something boring. Like reading or some shit.
But at night, we’d all come together for one, massive Hate Fest. There’s nothing like these things, and, chances are, you’ve experienced them yourselves. What corn-fed American family hasn’t played Monopoly, thinking it would be a great way to rip the kids away from the TV for a few hours and actually talk to their parents, only to find, after Rick Jr. keeps buying up all the fucking orange properties and not fucking trading them even though someone’s offering the goddamn green properties and Susie, for whatever reason, doesn’t grasp that it’s in her best interests to just buy her fucking way out of jail instead of rolling, and Dad, that shit head, keeps double-dipping in the bank like some investment banker, and Mom guilts you into not buying Park Place.
[clears throat] Sorry. Monopoly, as you’ve probably grasped by the above, is the perfect entry into American Hate. A baptism of resentment that won’t fully blossom until higher-level board games like Balderdash are played. But there’s one game that rules them all, and in the darkness binds them: Risk.
Deeandee
An artist's representation of Bubbeleh the Wizard.
In my Internet ramblings yesterday, I saw that Topless Robot was running a contest about the worst RPG characters a person’s ever played. The contest ended that morning, roughly five hours before I woke up, so it was far too late to enter, but I figured that I might as well share my story.
See, I’d played around on RPG forums before. This was when I was new on the Internet, and did not know the depravity to which the tubes could sink. I must have been 12 or 13, and was extremely awkward. I don’t mean that in the hyperbolic terminology of contemporary society; I mean that I was extremely awkward. I’d wind up in these Forgotten Realms-type chat rooms where everyone was a ranger, and my character would lurk in the corner of some tavern or something while God knows what went on. In my chair in front of the computer, I’d be just a little more scarred.
But that’s not an example of the worst character I’ve played. Indeed, those characters, while bad, were mainly just… meh. No, the worst character I played was created to be bad. He was an alcoholic Wood Elf Wizard named Bubbeleh with a raven familiar named Boychick, and this is his story.
Read more…
