Update on My Comparison of the Various Big Cell Phone Providers Because Why Not

Well, T-Mobile herp-derped their way out of us being their customers by deciding today that we'd have to pay hundreds of dollars in security deposits (which we didn't have to pay for yesterday) for anything that we did.  So, that's out now too.  I guess we stick with Verizon.  Blech.

My Comparison of the Various Big Cell Phone Providers Because Why Not

Just in case anyone else is about to go through the hassle of comparing the various big cell providers in the US anytime soon, I figured I'd toss my observations up about doing just that, since I just did it, and maybe others can get some use out of what I learned.

The Setup

We currently have Verizon Wireless, four phones, none smartphones.  I don't work so I'm almost always near my PC, the wife wants a smartphone but isn't sure what she'd do with it, and the other two don't care one way or the other.  The plan into which we're grandfathered on Verizon has fit us just fine up until now, when the step-daughter's phone disintegrated in her hands and is now held together by tape.  So, we figured we'd either switch, or renew our two year contract with Verizon to get yet another dumbphone.  The latter option was an option, but I wanted to see if we could maybe get better phones by going elsewhere.  We had been with Verizon for around 7 years, and the only major problem we had was where they charged us for things we didn't order over the interwebs, like Joke-A-Day type stuff, but those problems were corrected after much angry yelling at supervisors on my part.  

However, before signing another two year contract just to get one functional phone, I wanted to see what was out there.  

I did all of my pricing online only.  What I priced was 4 smartphones with the lowest amount of data possible (since we'll be using WI-FI most of the time anyway), and this is how it worked out.

By the way, I have little faith in any of these quotes being able to be duplicated exactly, and with "taxes, service fees, and other charges", as the carriers like to say, nothing is set in stone until you get a bill in the mail, anyway.  So take the actual quotes with a grain of salt, and use them for comparison within this post only.  Your results will almost certainly vary.  

Sprint

These people are on drugs, I think, and not the good, soothing kinds.  I just wanted to get them out of the way first, because, to make a long story short, their prices are insane and their coverage is terrible.  They even charge an additional $10 per line, on top of their already noncompetitive prices, just to have a smartphone, even though they're the only ones of this group that barely even has a 4G LTE network.  I'm not talking about the price of the data plan itself, either.  That's a separate charge.  Of course, on their "dare to compare" chart where they compare to other carriers, they don't mention that additional fee.  Derp.  Their website also sucks, and is more convoluted than anyone else, save ATT.  I have no idea why anyone would use Sprint.  Even their phone selection is subpar. 

Quote - around $260/month (I think, was honestly hard to tell for sure, but they wanted ALL the information to do a credit check and give me an actual monthly total, so I stopped there because they were already hideously expensive compared to everyone else.)

Verizon

Of course I compared to what would happen if we were to just switch internally.  The prices were high, but not as high as Sprint.  Their $40 per line and then add a data plan to share is nice and simple, so their site is probably the best to deal with.  They were not the cheapest, but they do have a better network than everyone else.  The only one that comes close is ATT, but I hear far more complaints about ATT's service than Verizon.  Verizon's new $30 "upgrade fee" is a bit irritating, considering starting new accounts with everyone but Sprint saw the activation fees waived.  So I have to pay for the upgrade, and pay for upgrading, even when I'm signing a new contract?  Not a smooth move, Verizon.  Sort of like an effective "fuck you for being a customer," which I thought was ATT's specialty.  Back in my day, Verizon gave us free upgrades every two years without charging us a penny.  Then again, we had to walk uphill in the snow both ways to get the phones out of the mailbox, probably.  

Anyway...

All of that said, I probably would stick with Verizon if not for the fact that we hardly ever leave Austin anymore, and their nice, works pretty much everywhere network, just isn't worth paying extra, especially considering the cost of upgrading to phones that are any better than what we already have.  

Quote - around $220/month

ATT

ATT seemed to fall right between Verizon and Sprint in price.  However, I'm not terribly sure, because I couldn't get their site to actually work correctly.  I had to use the IM a customer service rep tool, which worked great, and she was actually very good at explaining the silliness of the site.  In short, the site is as dumb as it seems to be, and every time it forces you to choose a more expensive option, that's because you actually do have to pick that option, and the other one is not available on purpose, despite the fact that it's already selected, you just can't "add to cart".  Will that last sentence make sense to anyone that hasn't tried to use the site?  Probably not.  Sorry.

What really got me was that when you select the 1GB family share data plan for the first line, the additional lines also had to have a $40+ data plan each.  Huh?  How is that a family share data plan, then?  What are we sharing, exactly?  

Their talk and text comes up as "free", though, so the end result isn't as astronomically expensive as you might would think.  However, I still see no reason to go through ATT instead of Verizon since, by most accounts, Verizon has a better network and slightly lower prices, and their plans are certainly easier to understand.  Verizon, unlike ATT, also doesn't have that pesky reputation of being evil incarnate when it comes to how they deal with their customers.  

Quote - around $230/month

T-Mobile

Future chaos notwithstanding, T-Mobile is who we are going to go with.  Their prices are lower than all the others, their site was the second easiest to actually get a quote from (behind Verizon), and their network appears to be pretty decent, though I have heard that the reality isn't quite so sunny.  Since we hardly ever leave the city anymore, though, and it should work well enough on major highways, I figure the network issues won't really affect us much.  They did do something pretty weird, and that was flat out deny the fourth line unless we put down a $250 deposit in addition to paying $150 per phone up front.  The $150 per phone is because our credit isn't great, I get that.  But that additional $250 deposit on a so called non-contract when we're already paying $150 up front per phone seemed really weird.  We never did get a really good explanation for it, except that, apparently, unless you have a 850+ credit score (really?) you'll always have to pay the $250 deposit for the fourth line.  Three lines is cool.   Four lines is big deposit time.  Two supervisors and three customer service reps couldn't give any better explanation.

Now, because they were by far the cheapest, T-Mobile is also the only one that we did a credit check with. With Verizon, we already have good standing through them, so I'm sure there wouldn't be anything crazy about upgrading all four phones at once.  With Sprint and ATT, I didn't even get to the point of checking credit.  Maybe they would also require a huge down payment on the phones, or some sort of deposit, or maybe arbitrarily deny the fourth line unless you paid a deposit on it specifically.  I have no idea.   

So, what we're going to do is just go with three lines, and the other person that we were letting do an addon phone will have to look elsewhere.  Reason being, even comparing apples to apples, 4 lines to 4 lines, T-Mobile is almost exactly the same for four smartphones than what we're paying to Verizon for four regular phones.  And T-Mobile is waving the activation fees while Verizon is charging an upgrade fee.  So, really, the decision for us is pretty clear.  

I'm putting two quotes for T-Mobile since, instead of getting a contract, you pay for your phones in installments.  We have to pay $150 down on each phone because crap credit, but if you didn't, you'd just be paying more per month.  The end cost comes out the same.  

Quote - around $180 to $205/month (for four phones, which you probably can't get, but still, there you go)

Other

Cricket wouldn't work for us because we can't afford to buy all the smartphones outright.  Virgin USA has have crap for coverage in Texas, so I didn't look any further than their coverage map.  Net-10 requires you have your own smartphones, which we do not.

I think that's it.

If you have anything to add, feel free to say something in the comments.  Thanks for reading, and I hope you got some useful info out of the time I spent fighting various websites!

The only true believers of any religion are probably in mental hospitals, or crazy praying homeless bums.

There's something I've always wondered about, when it comes to Christianity, as well as any other religion that believes in the heaven/hell paradigm:

Why aren't there more completely batshit crazy, out of their minds, unable to function or even form coherent thoughts, religious people out there?

Stay with me, this will make sense.

As an agnostic atheist, I feel that any human morality comes from an innate understanding of what is and what is not wrong.  An inherent feeling of what is good and what is bad.  And there is also the knowledge that there is a whole lot of gray area, and that, if you aren't sure, but you're not hurting anyone, you're probably not doing anything wrong.

Most religions seem to capitalize on those built-in feelings by either defining them in some sort of "commandment", or using that understanding to illustrate some sort of story.  For the most part, though, any sane human being can read any of those things and come to the conclusion that they already knew whatever lesson was being taught.

For instance, I don't think many people look at Christianity's 10 commandments and think "So I shouldn't screw my neighbor's wife?  Oh, that's news to me!"

Or "Stealing other people's stuff is a dbag move!?  I HAD NO IDEA!  I guess Bob read this, too, and that's why he's upset that I stole his lawn furniture!"

The whole of most modern religions boils down to "Don't be an asshole, and worship (insert deity here) like this."

But, again, we already knew that.  We learn that pretty early on because we understand the concept of consequences.  Golden Rule type stuff which, by the way, as a concept, predates religion entirely.  We just figure that out when we're very young and we carry it forward throughout life.  Don't smack people because getting smacked sucks.  Don't steal shit because getting shit stolen sucks.

By the time anyone can read a cereal box (let alone a holy book of any religion), they know those simple rules of living with others.  Do they always follow them?  Not necessarily, but they have an idea that they should.

Now, let's also assume that there is no such thing as karma, either the Westernized version or one of the original religious versions (which, combined, create a wide spectrum of beliefs that may or may not be similar to each other).  I think, when it comes down to reality, most people tend to discard the concept of karma, anyway, because the entire idea, just by existing, would become so convoluted as to not be useful at all.

For instance, you murder a child.  You asshole.  Oh, wait, that child was the next Hitler?  Well, then, that makes you a great person.  You wonderful child murderer.

See what I mean?  Is it intent, or effect that matters?  And does ignorance play a part?  If you kill Hitler version 2.0 on purpose, but he was about to murder the guy who would create the weapon that destroys the entire planet, does that knock some of the positive points off of your accomplishment?  And whose deity gets to decide,. or by what rules are those points tallied?

It's inevitable that whatever route you take, it's going to be wrong, so the reality is, most of us (religious or not) just do what seems like the best idea at the time and hope for a good outcome.  We assume that, if something bad comes of our actions, the Cosmic Karma Keeper won't penalize us because, hey, we didn't know.

We just invoke the whole karma thing when we think we've done something good, or we think someone else has done something bad.

I just fed a stray dog, maybe I'll get a raise tomorrow!  

That asshole swerving around while talking on his cellphone, oh he's getting his...SOMEDAY.  

So now, for most religious people, we have distilled things down to heaven/hell, or some variation thereof.  You either did something that sends you to hell, or you didn't, which ends in you going to heaven.

Now, in the Christian religion (and others, I would assume), there is also the forgiveness concept.  The idea that, in essence, you can ask for forgiveness for just about anything, and if you really really mean it, you're still not hellbound.

But that doesn't really change much, does it?   I mean, for minor things, sure, but not for things like mass killings or rapings or setting orphanages on fire or whatever.  If you really were sorry for doing it, you probably wouldn't have done it in the first place, and you're surely not going to do it again.  Yet most violent criminals continue being violent until caught.  So, yeah, forgiveness doesn't really apply to them.

Take the violence out, and people still don't really feel sorry for their misdeeds.  What person really feels bad for going five over?  Well, that's breaking the law of the land, isn't it?  And isn't that something you're not supposed to do?  It's so minor, it's not hurting anyone...right?

Do you even ask for forgiveness each and every time you do anything that might be against the rules?  Without some sort of massive thought reading device, we can't tell for sure, but I'd bet good money that there isn't a single religious person alive that hasn't forgotten to ask for forgiveness for doing something they weren't supposed to do, even if it's just one thing.  However, I'd bet that, with most people, it's more like one thing a month, or week, or day.

So here's where the insanity comes in.  Every single religious relative of every single person who has repeatedly broken at least one of whatever rules or commandments that will send a soul to hell, or its equivalent, should be absolutely convinced that their dead relative is in a place of eternal damnation and torture.  And let's be realistic...is there anyone that wouldn't be in hell?  Anyone at all?  Christianity is one of the more forgiving religions, and I'm fairly certain that there's not a man alive who hasn't been slothful and wasn't in the least bit sorry about it.  Or coveted another woman with absolutely zero remorse.

Let's not even go into what almost every religion says what a woman can and cannot do.

Essentially, every religious person should truly believe that any dead relatives are in hell, and that heaven is basically empty.  They should also be assuming that, within 80 years or so, they will also be enduring eternal torture, and that they've already consigned themselves to it.  That is not something that, if a person really truly  believed, they would be able to continue operating as a normal human being.  It would consume them.  They would be able to think of nothing else, and they would lose their minds.  Each minute of each hour of each day, they would know that their loved ones were being tortured.  You don't just ignore something like that and keep on going.  Life would not go on.

We would have people dedicating their lives to somehow praying their grandfathers out of hell for thinking Harriet across the street had sexy legs, or their grandmothers out of hell for thinking and, well, talking out of turn.  Or cutting their hair.

The only alternative would be believing that forgiveness is truly a get out of hell free card.  Which means that religious morality is, by extension, a complete and total lack of any morality, because you can do whatever you want and then just ask for forgiveness, without meaning it in the slightest.  Any commandments or rules would just become lists of things for which to ask for forgiveness.  They would not define, nor lead to morality.  In fact, such a belief system defies the built-in human morality that we all already have, religious or not.  It negates it.  If we all truly believed in forgiveness of sins, we would all be savages, taking whatever we want, doing whatever we want, destroying whatever got in our way, and just praying for about 15 minutes afterward.

"Uh, God, please forgive me for...Tuesday.  And Monday.  Did I pray on Sunday?  Let's throw Sunday in there, just in case.  Also, 2012.  All of it."

Now, I know that has been addressed before, the whole lack of morality behind forgiveness, but I hadn't really considered the fact that the other side, the ones who didn't believe you could simply ask for forgiveness, would therefore be forced to conclude that any dead loved ones were being tortured eternally.

Yet, when you think about it, it's obvious that no one (or at least very few) truly believes either way.

Very few spend their lives mourning their dead ancestors' never-ending torment.  Most grieve, move on, sometimes think about the dead, they miss them, but after a while, they stop obsessing.

Very few spend their lives terrified of the fact that most religions, their own included, have already decided that they're going to hell themselves.

And very few go around murdering and stealing, immediately dropping to their knees and asking for forgiveness, and thinking that they then have nothing to worry about.

All three of the above would be considered crazy people by even the most devoutly religious.  A person wouldn't be able to exist in any of those ways, at least not in a way that society considers normal at all.  Yet, what other option would a true believer have?

Tips for writing a book for those who find it hard to stay motivated

Since I began this blog, I have written three full-length books, am virtually finished with another, and about halfway through yet another.  All of this I have done, over time, while struggling with depression and through various med changes, which can really kill the motivation to finish something as involved as writing a book or long story.

Recently, I received an email from someone who reads my short stories who told me that they wanted to bounce some ideas off of me because they "always seem to run out of steam before I get to the end."  I ended up writing a fairly long explanation as to the process that I developed, which has helped me to actually finish what I start, when it comes to writing.  I figured I'd put it up here, as well, so that others could possibly benefit.

I write in five phases:

Phase 1 - The VERY Rough Draft:  Commit yourself to writing the ENTIRE story down before you go back, even once.  Don't go back to add detail, don't go back to proofread, just get the whole thing down, as quickly as possible.  Set a word count goal every time you go to write, and just get it out of your head and onto paper (digital or otherwise).  Write down every thing you can think of for that story as quickly as possible, first day, if you can.  Don't worry about readability, don't worry about if it would make sense to anyone but yourself.  Don't worry about grammar, about using the same words too closely together, or anything like that.  It's imperative to get the whole story down on paper before you lose interest.

Phase 2 - Explaining Yourself:  Go back to the beginning and add detail and explanation.  Flesh it out.  Make it understandable to those that aren't in your head.  Again, go from beginning to end without restarting, if possible.  If you have to take a break from the story (longer than a few days), try to do it between phases, not in the middle of one.  I find this phase to be surprisingly easy, compared to the first.

Phase 3 - Proofreading:  After that, go back to the beginning again and proofread.  Commit yourself to not adding detail or story on this phase unless it's absolutely necessary to get your point across.  This keeps you from rewriting the story infinitely.  Read it out loud, if possible.  If not, develop a "reading voice" in your head, and have it read it to you.  It's slower, but a lot more effective than simply reading the text.  Try to have different voices for different characters in your head.  If you've never listened to an audio book that works like this, try it, it'll help you envision the different voices. 

Phase 4 - Someone Else's Problem:  For the fourth phase, get someone else to read the story, if you can.  Make a separate copy for them if you're doing this on a computer.  Get them to highlight anything that isn't ABSOLUTELY clear, as well as anything grammatically incorrect or just plain awkward.  Tell them to err on the side of caution.  If they understand something, but it seems a bit off, tell them to highlight it and explain as such in parenthesis to the side.  Encourage them to explain what's wrong, whenever possible.  It'll give you some insight into your own story from the perspective of someone else.

Try to let it sit for some time at this point.  Maybe a week or so, or however long it takes your proofreader to finish.  If you can, work on another project in the meantime.  If you plan to churn books out in number, get another book past phase 4 before you go back to this one.  It'll help you see your errors from the point of view of someone who has no idea what you're talking about, which is important.

Phase 5 - Fixing The Obvious:  Go back, clarify, fix any errors.  Fix them only on your original, then strike-through the highlighted parts on the editor version and copy-paste the fix.  Have your proofreader check the fixes and repeat as necessary.  After all that, you should have a nice, polished story.

I hope this helps someone finish their own book or story.  After the first one, it gets easier.

Depression Malfunction

One of the weirdest things about depression (to me, anyway) is where the mental malfunctions occur.  The way I see it, with a normal human mind, this is how most things get done.

• First, there's the need to do a thing.  This is optional. 
• Example: I need to take the trash out. (keeping it simple, stick with me)
• What follows is the want to do a thing.  If there is a need, then one usually wants to do the thing BECAUSE they need to do the thing.  Alternatively, they may want to do the thing so that, in the end, they no longer need to do the thing, and can strike that off their list of things that they need to do.  People also have their own wants that are not based on needs, even if they sometimes think they are, so it's possible for an action to start in the want phase.
• I want to take the trash out because I know I need to, and once I'm done, I can move on to other, less taking-trash-out-like things.  
• Then there's the actual action - actually getting into gear and DOing the thing, whatever it is.  

I'll refer to these three phases as the need, the want, and the do.  Suggestions at euphemisms are totally welcome in the comments.   

Most people seem to be under the impression that a clinically depressed person stops at that second part, the want.  They assume that a depressed person recognizes the need to do something (take the trash out, shower, whatever), but just doesn't want to.  Even those that are empathetic towards those with depression seem to believe that they lack the want, but that there is a medical reason as opposed to sheer laziness.  

More often than not, that is not the case.  

Instead, the failure generally happens sometime after the want phase.  I know I need to take the trash out.  I want to take the trash out, because I'm sick of knowing that it's something I need to do, and it'll take me all of five minutes to get that out of the way which is far better than being annoyed by it for hours.  Even if it doesn't stink, I'm still aware that it needs to be done and that I'm not doing it, and that annoys me.  

And then...that's it.  Whatever impetus there is supposed to be to push from the want to the actual action is just missing.  I know it's missing.  I can feel that there's something wrong, and that it used to be there, but it's just not.  I know I need to, and therefore I want to, but it just doesn't go past that.  There's a connection missing, a bridge burned, a path not available.  You can almost feel an error code, even if you can't read it because no one has built a scanner for that, at least not yet.  

Sometimes, and this is really bizarre, the failure actually comes in the middle of the action, whatever it is.  Now, I'm not talking about deciding you don't like doing something, or simply getting bored with something tedious, or putting something down and just never picking it back up.  That's normal stuff, and we all do that, to some degree.   No, what I'm talking about is far weirder, and has given me some insight into why so many people are homeless.

Let's go back to the trash example.  I need to take the trash out, therefore I want to take the trash out, therefore I do take the trash out.  My "Doing Mechanism" is working, in this case.  Then, suddenly, it inexplicably goes out, mid-action.  I'm halfway to the dumpster, trash bag in hand, and out nowhere, there's this quiet urge to just set the trash bag down and stop.  Maybe take a nap in the middle of the parking lot.

There's no reason for this urge, no feeling that it suddenly makes sense or is something that normal people should do.  But, nonetheless, it's there, and every single step toward the dumpster, from that point on, requires an individual mental prodding, a conscious push to keep going.  

Sometimes it happens while I'm in the shower.  I'll simply lose the will to finish.  I DO finish, because I don't want to have to explain why I didn't to my family, and because I recognize that not finishing would just be more irritating than finishing but, really, why would that even be a thing?  Why would I have to tell myself "No, really, I have to rinse the soap off and wash my hair.  I have to finish now that I've started."  I wonder if anyone has found their clinically depressed family member laying in the bed (or floor), shampoo in hair and still soaking wet.  Not even necessarily sleeping, just...stopped.

This makes me wonder how many homeless people are homeless because, at some point, they just stopped, and it was at one of those crucial moments in life where you absolutely have to keep going.  Hell, I could've easily ended up homeless in recent years if not for the need to take care of things for my family.  

Calling myself out.

I never considered myself an angry person. I don't hit my wife, or anyone else. I don't beat my dog. I really can't think of anyone off the top of my head that I feel has woefully, personally wronged me. I don't blame others when I have money issues. I don't blame others when I have health issues. I really don't have "an axe to grind", as someone recently put it.

If I were to assign one main emotional attribute to myself, it wouldn't be angry. It would be depressed.

Then there is this incredible curse of foresight that I have. It's not even what I would call foresight, because many times, I still don't see things coming. It's more that I only actually comprehend the worst possible outcome for a given situation. And I OBSESS over it.

Case in point, that last paragraph. Instantly, upon writing it, the thought went through my head that, "I bet most people won't actually understand that. They'll just read into it whatever it is they think it means, and totally get it wrong." This has evolved into a blanket feeling that most people have no idea what's going on around them. Which has led to an assumption that pretty much everyone that I didn't respect before this started happening was a complete idiot as soon as they did anything that I didn't immediately agree with.

After all, how else can you see people when you think that no one understands, and everyone will eventually do the worst thing possible? It's kind of logical, in a deeply disturbed way.

Between those two character traits (flaws?), I've become someone that I really don't care for. I've become someone that doesn't really understand the concept of "different". I thought I did. I think "People are stupid for being racist, because they're just different," and "People are stupid for hating those of other religions, they're just different."

But I've realized that I'm doing the exact same thing. Which means I've been stupid. Very stupid. And I've wasted a lot of time obsessing over how stupid other people are, or were being.

I've said things that were better left unsaid, because I thought that they needed to hear them. And I've said them at completely the wrong times. And I've taken gratification in them being upset about what I've said because, hey, must've struck a cord, right? That means I'm "helping". Yeah, right.

Another thing that I've done a lot of is attacking religious people, or their religions. I post anti-Christian things on my Facebook page to get a rise out of the religious people. I think, maybe I can make them see sense. Maybe I can make them realize that what they believe in makes no sense.

In doing so, I have attacked people that are just seeing the good in things, be it their religion of choice, or the world around them. These attacks were completely unwarranted, unreasonable, and, if I'm honest, idiotic on my part.

I never think that maybe they're just different, and see things differently than I do. Maybe what they believe in just doesn't make sense to me. I'm the depressed one. I'm the one that obsesses over other peoples' perceived stupidity. Why in the world am I trying to change the way they see things? Because misery loves company, I guess?

I do that with other things, too. When people tell me how bad it is, I tell them how much worse it REALLY is. When people get excited about something, I quickly inform them of the reality of the situation. I make sure they realize it's not as good as they think. If they mention that they have a goal, I show them how it's not attainable. If someone tells me their dreams, I tell them just how hard it's going to be to reach them.

When someone tells me that they made a mistake, I ask them how they didn't see that coming. Yet I'm the guy who managed to get a $30k car, a $20k car, and a $125k house on $60k a year working at Domino's, then lost everything and now has horrible credit. I didn't see that coming?

When my wife gets overly excited about something, I get irritated. Why? I don't know, but if I analyze it, I just assume that there must be something depressing that she's not fully comprehending.

I mean, really? That's not the right way to think at ALL.

I need to change. I need to fix this. I don't want to be this person. I don't want communication with me to fill people with dread. I don't want my thoughts of other people to be completely and totally dominated with how dumb I think they are. It's not healthy for either me, or anyone else.

I'm trying to call myself out here. I figure, if I post it in a blog post for the world to see, maybe I won't feel so comfortable doing these things. I'll remember that I told people that I would change. I'll remember what it was that I wanted to change.

There are a few people that I feel the need to apologize to.

Doug - You've caught the brunt of some pretty stupid rants, and you've never called me out on it (well, rarely). Maybe you should've, maybe I would've seen what I was doing a bit faster. But you didn't because you're an incredible friend. You have never deserved the negativity that I project upon you, but you've never lashed back. I couldn't have a better friend.

Any Christian folk that read my Facebook updates - Why haven't you blocked me yet? I would've blocked me. I shouldn't have asked you to call me friend, then posted what you could only see as attacks. If I had changed you, I might well have been destroying some of the better people in the world.

Jacob - It took someone like you, who had somehow made it past that brick-wall-of-thinking-everyone-is-stupid, going off on me like you did, to make me start really analyzing myself. You got the ball rolling. Hopefully I can get it fixed now. I just hope you can still consider me a friend.