Big Fish, Hipsters, and more

You know, it's been a long LONG time since I've considered myself 'normal'.  I think that time was around junior high school... I was smarter than many of my classmates but not the smartest among them.  I was big but didn't play sports.  I was in the band, but played the trombone (not exactly the 'cool' instrument even when compared to all the 'non cool' band instruments).

This is about the time in life where cliques and social groups form... and my clique was made up of people that didn't fit into other groups.  We were smart and nerdy, but not brilliant.  We were musically talented, but not really musicians.  We saw 'normal' all around us but were never part of it ourselves.

I think that was the beginning of a true self awareness.  I wasn't accepted as 'normal' so I didn't truly ever seek to be normal.  Sure, I was still a teenager and still wanted to be accepted.  I just didn't make any strong strides to fit in.  It was a long journey from that to where I am now, but I think that was the first step.  You see... I may be a hipster.

I Love A Good Video Game... sigh

I love a good video game.  Or... at least I used to.  I guess I still do, but much like I love to go to art museums, it's just something that I'll love from afar from now on.  It's one of the most bitter irony's of having a job.  You see I used to want to play games all the time but just couldn't afford the new ones.  Now that I can afford them... well I just don't have the time to do so.

In the first half of this year I bought maybe 3 or 4 games and those were through the 'Humble Bundle' program.  If you've never heard of the Humble Bundle, it's a system that bundles up games (mostly from independent studios) and then let's you name your own price.  The majority of the proceeds then go to various charities instead of the game studio.  One bundle I bought included 5 games that cost $79.99 if purchased individually.  I paid $10.  It seems like a great deal, but at the time I still had to worry over the decision for a day or so as I really couldn't afford to spend $10 on any games... no matter how good of a deal it was.

The game that I played the most was Team Fortress 2.  I had purchased this way back in 2007 and in my mind is one of the most fun games on the computer.  It's a first person shooter that lets you select between 9 classes of characters.  But where most games go for hyper realism, TF2 goes for comedy.  The characters are all drawn from a 1950's style and have ridiculous weapons.  The game has survied for this many years by constantly updating it. Over the years they've added new game modes, new weapons and even new purely decorative hats to the game.  Yes... I said hats.  A few years back they made the game free to play, and started letting people buy the extra weapons and hats.  They've made more money since offering the game up for free compared to selling the game for $20.

Tea is good... and expensive.

When I think of drinks, I more or less categorize them into social and non social drinks.  Beer, whisky, mixed drinks, shots... these are drinks that I partake with friends but not alone.   Soda, water, sports drinks... these are ones that I drink all by myself.   Now that's not to say that I don't drink my 'individual' drinks only when alone, but when I do drink them it's more about satisfying a thirst rather than sharing an experience with friends or family.

The only beverage that I partake in both socially and individually really is coffee.  I drink a couple mugs worth every morning, but I'll also go out and have a coffee with friends.

Well.. that's about to change as I'm now going to be adding Tea to my group of social and individual beverages.

You see, while hanging out with my friends last weekend we had to go to the mall.  On our way out my buddy paused to show me a shop called 'Teavana'.  At first I really didn't think much of it.  I mean sure, they had tea, but really what is there to Tea?

Well... a lot.

Hunting... For A Good Time!

I visited with a couple friends this past weekend and had a blast.  We didn't do anything in particular... just hung out and enjoyed each other's company.  We talked politics, relationships, growing older, jobs, and family.  All interspersed with taking care of their two children.

One thing that I used to do with this friend is share a love for guns.  This is the same guy that I used to go to the range with and target shoot.  Sadly he went through a rough spot and had to sell off all of his guns, but times are getting better and one thing we did was stop by Dick's sporting goods and pick up his newly purchased shotgun.

Now, the guns he had previously were for 'fun'.  A long rifle that could shoot fairly acurately at 500 yards, a couple hand guns, and various other rifles.  But this purchase is for a more specific purpose... hunting.

You see, a few years ago we took our first hunting trip together.  Neither of us had any great desire to 'bag a buck', but we did want to get away from everything and hunting seemed like the best reason to do so.  Lemme tell you... hunting with a rifle designed for accuracy at long distance is NOT the best thing.  First, we were hunting in a national forest.  It would be difficult to see a dear over 50 yards away.  So the weight and length of this rifle actually worked against us.  But we still got to set up camp, build a fire, drink our instant coffee and have a great time.

Work is going well

At work I'm trying to juggle a whole lot of expectations.  Getting used to working steadily, getting up to speed on being an RN, earning the respect of my co-workers... all of these are important to me and all of them have different ways to be demonstrated.

I complained pretty vocally (at least here) that I was being 'punished' by being put into the med room several days in a row, but I have to now admit that the repeated experience is paying dividends.  I'm now comfortable walking in the med room, organizing my day's work and passing out meds to over 500 inmates all while holding true to the way I learned to pass out medication safely and legally.

And what does doing that earn me?  Well of course it earns me repeated exposure to it.  Not everyone is good at doing this and I've shown that I can do it better than most.  It also gets me added responsibilities... I get some RN tasks early in the day and then finish up my day in the med room.  Keeping my complaints to myself and just getting the job done well has earned me the respect of the LPNs that do this job day in and day out.  In fact when they have an issue with something going on in the med room, they now come to me.  I'm certainly not their first stop for help, but the fact that they see me as a resource in a job that they do daily is quite an honor.

What is Love?

After writing "Looking Forward", I got to thinking about finding that one true Love... or at least love in any flavor that I could find palatable.  And you know, I haven't had the best luck on that side of my life.  It rally got me thinking about what my past can tell me, what my present can give me and what my future will hold in this regard.

And so far I'm not finding anything good.  So I figured I'd write out my thoughts here and see if I can find some inspiration.

My idea of love may well be too old fashioned to ever really be possible.  This day and age includes things that I would never consider... Hooking Up, Divorce, Second (third? fourth?) Marriages, Step Children, Baby's Mommas and Baby's Daddys.  To me these are all things that happen when someone wasn't looking for love.  I like sex as much as the next guy, but I've always believed that the physical act of sex is a mere shadow of itself when it's not accompanied by love.

Early on in life I figured out that I wanted love.  Not a girlfriend.  Not a fuck buddy.  Not a gal on my arm.  Love.  I wanted that person that I could argue with and not get angry at.  I wanted someone whose happiness was more important than my own joy.  Whose happiness would bring me joy.  I wanted someone who I could share a romantic evening with and still be just as happy to read quietly next to each other.

Budgeting, State Job, Lita and Guns.

I don't have a specific thing I'd like to talk about... more just some random thoughts that are going through my head that I want to write down.

First thought is money and budgeting.  I have this nice little spreadsheet that I made up years ago.  It's more than likely an over-complicated way to do a simple thing... keep track of money coming in and going out while helping me plan for the near future.  The top lists what I expect to make each week.  It's done weekly as I currently get paid weekly.  If and when I get hired in by the state (more on that later) I will re-work the spreadsheet to be bi-weekly.  Anywho, the top cell is what i expect to make that week.  Under that is space for the actual pay when it comes in.  For the most part these numbers are the same, but occasionally when I take a day off, as I did last week because of a stomach flu, or work an extra 15 minutes, they are different.  There is a space for extra income, but that rarely gets used now.

Under that is a section for my bills.  I currently have spaces for rent (it's not rent... more of a payback to mom from all the money I siphoned off of her), Fiona (car loan), Cell Phone, Credit Card, Storage (I rent a storage area for all my crap), Student loan (I just made my VERY first student loan payment... EVER!), cigarettes, cartomizors (the nicotine containing parts for my eCigs), and Gasoline.

Did I just buy a song from Hanah Montana?

Oh dear lord.  I have a song from Miley Cyrus on my computer.  And not only did I put it on my computer... I bought it.

As I talked a bit back in my "I Love Music" post, I like all kinds of music.  But in general I don't like music because it's popular... which means I don't like much top 40s pop.  So the last thing I ever thought I would be listening to over and over again is a song by Miley Cyrus.

Well... not exactly by Miley.  Let's be clear, she didn't write this song... at least not alone.  The song was written collectively by  Mike L. Williams II, Pierre Ramon Slaughter, Timothy Thomas and Theron Thomas (known collectively as Rock City), Cyrus, Douglas Davis and Ricky Walters.  But it WAS written FOR Miley.  The song is titled "We Can't Stop" and the lyrics are about a house party and include such deep lines as:

"It's our party we can do what we want (no drama)

It's our party we can say what we want (Mike will made)

It's our party we can love who we want"

and

"To my home girls here with the big butt

Shaking it like we at a strip club

Remember only God can judge ya"

There are things, and there are Things

I finally got to play a video game the other week.   Playing video games used to take up a lot of my time.  I couldn't afford many games so whenever I bought one I played through it with a vigor normally saved for life saving measures.  I'd don my headset so that I could fully immerse myself into whatever virtual world would consume me and try to block out the real world.

One of the problems though was that my headset was pretty old and frankly pretty bad.  It was a very 'tacticool' headset from Logitech with a 'letherette' band that surrounded my ears and went around the back of my head.   But at it's core it wasn't anything more than the standard circular ear pieces that sat over your ears.

As such it didn't do much to block out the sounds of the real world.  Oh it looked cool, and if I'm honest it wasn't bad when I got it.  Gaming headsets hadn't really come into their own yet and it had the two features I wanted at the time... an attached microphone and a volume control dial.

Well after years of use and abuse, it finally gave up any semblance of being a useful attachment to my computer.  The left speaker had an incredibly annoying crackling noise in it.  The 'letherette' ear coverings had a crack in it which made it almost painful to wear for more than a few minutes.  The volume dial got so dirty and corroded that it was a major undertaking to change.  The volume slider was difficult to move and if it was in anything bu the perfect position it would eliminate the sound in one or even both speakers.  It seems that the only position it really wanted to be in was at full blast volume... which made the crackling left speaker horrible.

New Music and a bit more

So my new schedule allows me to check out some television that I've missed out on for a long while... Late Night.

I used to watch a lot of Late Night television.  Conan, Craig Ferguson, Jimmy Kimmel... I watched them all flipping between the best bits and guest interviews.  One thing I've really missed though is the musical guests.  I've found quite a bit of music from just watching the bands on these shows.

I didn't really watch a lot of the 'hot' bands.  Instead I'd keep my eyes and ears out for newer sounds.

Well, now that I get home around 11PM and wind down in front of the tube for an hour or so, I can now at least watch the headlining shows.  Last night I was in a particularly good mood because I heard about my brother's interview (more on that later), so I stayed up late enough to check out the band playing on Jimmy Kimmel Live.... Preservation Hall Jazz Band.  And um... WOW!

To say that I liked what I heard would be an understatement.  First off, this isn't some top 40 pop tripe.  This is an actual New Orleans Jazz Band with some chops.