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.

Of love and bestiality...

There are some things that we humans just take as fact, without really considering the why and how. Okay, there are a LOT of things like that, but I'm mainly thinking about things in our heads. These things aren't readily definable, and aren't necessarily based on logic or reason. In most cases, we can guess as to a why, but very rarely the what. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

• Bestiality
• Pedophilia
  
• Scat (poop fetish, not singing really fast nonsense)
  
• Killing another human
• Stealing

Most normal, healthy humans have an aversion to all of these things. But what causes that aversion? A really good guess to the "why" would be evolution. Obviously we wouldn't have had as many babies by screwing horses, nor would we have had long blood lines by screwing babies. Scat and killing each other obviously shortens lifespan, and stealing hinders progress and cohesion as a society.

But treating this theory of why as an explanation is folly since it doesn't address the what. We accept this answer because we're used to other, similar answers where, when the why is identified, the what just falls into place.

Take, for example, a "Bridge Out" sign. Why is the sign there? Obviously because the bridge is out. We neglect to mention that the sign is actually there because someone went and put it there. In this case, it doesn't matter because that much is obvious...but not everything works like that.

The action is not always readily explained by the reaction.

So there must be something, some part of the human mind, that makes these things unacceptable. Or something. But it goes further. What about these "facts of life":

• Love
• Attraction
• Luck

There's not even much of a why to explain these. Sure, love and attraction could be explained as evolutionary traits as well, but they would make just as much sense being absent. Without love and attraction, we'd be a lot more likely to go around screwing everybody, which would lead to more babies, more diverse DNA...all good things from an evolutionary standpoint.

Luck...I got nothing on that one.

November 16th and writing

I'll be 29. Poor people should be able to skip birthdays, IMO.

If it wasn't for my dad and Janna, it would be a seriously depressing day (money and something). At 29, shouldn't I be buying my own best present? Maybe 30 is the magic number?

Bah.

I've been trying to keep up with what I need to do for Textbroker to pay the bills, but it just isn't happening. My mind runs dry. It's just hard to write 400 words for $6 all day, even though it's really fairly good pay. Hopefully I'll come around and be interested enough to do it again. Or my SEOing will take off.

I neglected it (on purpose) for about three months so that the domains would age, which is an important part of ranking in the search engines, and when I came back I succeeded in making my rankings DROP by cleaning up my home page. WTF.

Oh, almost lost the dog, or so we thought. She suddenly became unable to control her bladder. Seems to have been an infection, though, as with some antibiotics she's actually better. Only another $150 or so borrowed. Woot. If it keeps her around for another year or so (optimism+old dog+cancer=stupid, I know), it's worth it. I sort of blame myself. I've been home far more than anyone else (except maybe Jeanne)...I should be taking the old dog out more. I will now!

Sick, then sick, then sick AGAIN...

Anyone else getting sick repeatedly, or am I the only walking snot factory? Seriously, I've gotten sick three times in a row...like, light fever with a cold. It is funny, though, that walking through a grocery store or drug store, if I cough a bit (there's a little in my chest so the cough sounds much worse than it actually is) people clear out like crazy. Might even hear a mumbling "swine flu!" in there.

Allstate, writing, and Cymbalta

Yes, seriously, all of that. I figure if I make that the title, I won't forget anything.

Allstate didn't mess up the claim, everything is fine with Janna's car. It all went amazingly smoothly, in fact. After not calling me back when they called Janna and asked her to have me call them for whatever reason, they simply fixed the car and all is fine. It was even done mostly right, though the concept of replacing one tire still irks the crap out of me.

I've been writing for a website called Textbroker with the goal being $1200 a month before taxes. They pay $1.40 per word, and there are 300-500 word articles about things that I can basically babble through and still make a great article, according to them and the clients. Biggest problem is focusing, especially when I keep getting headaches and random sleep spells.

The theory is that if I can bang out a 400 word article in 15 minutes, that could be up to $22/hr for as many hours as I want to work. The truth is not as efficient. In fact, I'm behind right now and should probably be working...doot-da-doo...

I did my "Better than" search on Google for "better than textbroker" and found ECopywriters, which does offer more money per word but seems ridiculously slow to accept articles, and you have to work your way up to (what I'm assuming) is better than the crappy law related articles they have for the beginners. Well, crappy for me, maybe others like them. They make me stabby.

Which may be because I'm trying to back off on Cymbalta, one of the five prescription meds I take. Cymbalta is for depression, and is a SRI, which in very, very basic terms means it limits how much you think. Seriously. One of its side effects, however, is sleepiness. One of the withdrawal symptoms is headaches. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with that.

For anyone interested, since Cymbalta is cumulative in the system I decided to take my dose every other day instead of every day to see if I could cut down on the withdrawal symptoms while still using the bottle of expensive ass meds I have. It seems to be working. Tomorrow I go to the doc to get a scrip for the lower dosage to use every day...I guess I'll see then if that's easier or harder on the body than skipping every other dosage. I do know I'm feeling more energetic, but also more aggressive. Good thing I don't have to leave the house.

Related linkage:
http://www.textbroker.com
http://www.ecopywriters.com

The Beginning of The Allstate Saga

Crap. One of the family wrecked her car. Not bad, no injuries, but she was at fault, and now it's time to deal with the insurance company and getting a car with less than 10,000 miles on it fixed that has front end damage. On top of that, the car is in Beaumont, about 250 miles east of home. They're already refusing to deal with the driver, wanting to talk to the policy holder (me), which is rather stupid in my opinion since, hey, the car's damaged, it's their job to fix it! Why does it matter who they talk to? My name isn't even on the car itself, the loan for the car, nothing, yet because I'm the "policy holder", they just have to talk to me. Joy. Well, I've always heard good things about Allstate, so I guess it's time they proved it. Am I in good hands? AM I!?!?

OMG COOKIE MONSTER!

Well, quit the job as tech support at the cable company and am currently on the hunt for something else/better. Being a customer service rep would be okay if I were in any way providing customer service.

On another, somewhat related note, apparently cookies at monster.com are downloaded from a server with the address "cookie.monster.com". Awesome.

Discrimination

I really hate the way humans work.

It's discrimination to not hire someone because of color, regardless of demographics showing what race is better at what job. Yet it's not discrimination to leave someone without a car to get to work because they had a repo three years ago.

It's discrimination if you hire a guy instead of a girl for a physical job because women are biologically, physically less strong than men. Yet it's not discrimination to not give someone a place to live because they had a home foreclosed on.

It's discrimination to hire someone to a job because they're younger, but it's not discrimination for an insurance company to charge you more because you're younger.

See the common theme here?

It's discrimination if the company might be out money at some point, but if the consumer might be out money, or a car, or a fucking home, that's okay. Nobody really fucking cares, do they?

Yeah, this is going to be a fun day to do tech support.

That's never happened before.

So I went up to my place of work with every intention of calling it quits. I was done stressing over going in, done with the calls, done with the crap in general. I didn't know if going back to delivering pizza was going to be lucrative enough to live comfortably, but I was ready to give it a try.

So I walk in, carrying a gift that I'd bought for a previous supervisor a while back and hadn't given it to him yet, and my current supervisor just happens to be where I walked in...which, by the way, was a very odd place for her to be. Anyway, I tell her I'm done, I'm out, I'm just not confrontational enough for the job.

Her jaw dropped; she was shocked. So another boss/friend walks up. She's also shocked, and telling me how good I was back when she sat near me when she was on the floor.

So they take me over to my previous supervisor, the one I had the gift for. He told me totally understood, would probably be doing the same thing in my position, and even that apparently since I was quitting and not getting fired I was rehirable.

So, theoretically I could go deliver pizzas for a while and still come back. Interesting.

The weirdest part of the whole thing, though, was that when I walked in the building, I didn't have the "Hell yes, I don't ever have to come back here again" feeling. I was actually kind of sad. So I didn't do it. I talked to the HR person and she said to call in for the day and take a few days to think on it.

So that's what I'm doing. Decisions suck.

So irritated and depressed...

I had gotten my head all ready to go back to the hellhole I call (or called) work. I've been waiting for HR to get a part time schedule for me, as per my psychiatrist, to see how I handle the stress. The person in HR basically told me she'd get back to me and has ignored me for the past week, emails and voicemails. I already have no idea how I'm going to pay bills since this 30 days that I could barely afford is rapidly turning into 60 days.

And now, not only are they expecting us to hard sell (offer, then attempt to overcome objections when they say no) customers calling in with tech support issues, regardless of if we're able to get it fixed, but apparently now it's considered a sellable call even if the customer's equipment is the issue (as in, they don't know how to turn on their TV or their PC is dead, which, sadly, happens VERY often). On top of that, we're supposed to inform them if they have a late balance as well, AND a new set of notes saying we verified their security info...all under the same metrics that no one was meeting before.

How much stress and confrontation can they stack on to one person before it's considered abuse?

Going back to delivering pizza is sounding better and better...I simply don't have the will to learn a new job right now.

It's hard trying to see the good in a situation that was ridiculous a year ago... sales and tech support will never go together, and just because they get a trickle of income out of it, somebody seems to think it's worth making the turnover rate far worse than it used to be due to sheer stress.

I have to believe that I'm not the only IT minded person in the world that has a problem being confrontational 60-70 times a day, rapid fire, with no break in between except for two 15's and an hour lunch. I'm talking, one customer hangs up, the next one is immediately on the phone. You go from one confrontation to another to another...

Maybe sales people can do it, but hell, even car salesmen don't deal with that many people a day.

Stupid dog

Warning: This blog entry ends up being sad.

Ours is the only house that I know of where it's okay to call each other "stupid dog." There's a reason for this.

A while back (and sometimes still, I believe), there was a cartoon on cartoon network called Courage the Cowardly Dog. The dog would inevitably save the day in some manner, and, at least once, the crotchety old man that was his owner would say "Stupid Dog!" But sometimes he'd do it in a nice way, on the very few times he realized that the dog had saved the day.

Our dog, Angie, has personality. She's always been seen as special so, like most animals in that position, she is special. She's a mutt, though mostly a lab. At about 80 lbs, she has always grunted and groaned and moo'd and such. And, because of that show, she's been affectionately called "Stupid Dog" for years. As in you can say "Stupid Dog" in a not so nice way, and she'll come up to you, tail wagging.

So, it's become habit, when someone grunts or groans in our home, to call each other "Stupid Dog."

The problem is, Angie is 13 years old with cancer. She only shows it in a tumor on her leg, and will still play as rough as ever, albeit not for as long.

So, lately, every time I say "Stupid Dog", I think, "Damn...I'm going to say that after she's gone, just out of habit...and it's gonna suck."

It's gonna suck period.