Cool: That Which I Am Not

At least I know that even motherfuckers as legendary as Pryor had problems similar to mine :P

I'm getting a little worried... I've only just come to the realisation that there are only two weeks left in the semester. After that, all my classes change (provided I'm not kicked out or something :P). My classes change, my classmates change. To put it bluntly, I only have two weeks left where I have any solid chance of seeing her in class again. I know we do the same course and hence will definitely share lectures, but tutorials are far smaller and my chances of scoring one with her aren't in my favour—besides, I can't hear her voice or see her smile in lectures, at least not without giving myself away :P

The answer seems simple, right?

Talk to her.
Get to know her.
Befriend her.
From there, it's easy.

That might be simple for you, but it's not for me :P  I just suck at meeting people—I don't go anywhere or do anything (uni for me consists of class and existing friends :P), I'm extremely hesitant to talk to anyone I haven't spoken to before, and I have no confidence whatsoever. I am socially deficient; I haven't had the experiences others have had in the field. I was walking around uni with a friend of mine today—he bumped into at least six or seven people he knew, starting conversations with each one while I stood there like a jackass unable to speak :P  I can't talk to strangers, not without a damned good reason.

But, surely, wanting to get to know someone I'm interested in is good reason, right? Not really :P

Forget social justification, or even emotional justification; I need logical justification. There must exist a need to talk to someone for a reason they won't think of as suspicious in any regard. It was easy to talk to my previous girlfriend because we were in the same friend group—that made it really easy for me to get to know her. Here, however, I've got no connections whatsoever, at least none I'm aware of. If I can fucking find one, I can worm my way in and be done with this bullshit; going up to her alone, on the other hand, is suicide. Think about it: what would you think if some random guy you know from one of your classes, who's never spoken to you nor been encountered outside of class, came up and said 'Hi!', or 'How are you?', or 'What's up?', or anything else? To me, no matter the person, they're just gonna think '...what the fuck's up with this guy? Who is he and why is he talking to me? Creepy! ' Bad fucking vibe :P

I need an excuse to talk to her, something validated by external forces. I need to legitimately accidentally bump into her and make her drop her stuff. I need her to forget her pen and have to ask me for one. I need to do some group assignment with her. I need a friend of hers to know a friend of mine to make for a nice, clean introduction. I need some goddamned help here! Help the noob! :P

I think I mentioned in one of my earlier entries that 'the prescription on my balls had run out', comparing my current level of courage to that of two years ago when I asked a girl out who I'd never really spoken to. This is still true, most certainly, but I think we can all agree that asking this new girl out when I haven't talked to her isn't the best way to go about this :P  I could, if I really put myself on the spot and said 'fuck it, it's all or nothing!', but that tact is sure to get me little more than a goofy look and a rather quick rejection.

I wouldn't really care about this all that much, but these feelings seem to have intensified significantly since Tuesday. I didn't think about her too much when not sharing that class, not until now. I can't be sure if I'm simply clinging onto whatever I can find again, perhaps getting overzealous and liking someone simply for the sake of liking someone. I'm well aware that one's perception of any issue can be heavily altered by external factors—but there are things I really like about this girl, attractions I can understand, simple as they may be. I could look at her for hours, that's a given; and what little I've seen of her personality and psyche I adore and want to see more of. It's gotten to the stage where I'm like 'That's what attraction is, right? That's how it's supposed to work, yeah?' It's been that long :P

I think my libido's getting impatient, too. Sex has been on the brain for a while—it's something I really want to experience, and soon. I'm repeatedly comparing myself to those around me, always looking around at uni and going '...he's fucked... he's fucked... she's fucked... he's probably fucked... you know they're fucking... he's fucked... she's probably fucked... she's fucked...' I don't know if I'd feel more comfortable or more freaked out if I knew anyone else who did that :P  I've dreamed of having sex and making love that many fucking times that I just want to do it. I've repeatedly told myself that 'I'll wait until I can do it with someone I have feelings for, to make it memorable and to ensure more comfort and security'. I know all the while, however, that I could easily go to a party, find a slut with low standards, and fuck her brains out; or, if I was prepared to shell out a bit, go to a brothel and pay for my coming of age. I don't want to, though. I want my first experience to be that of making love, not just having sex.

With that term, 'making love', I used to think it was purely a euphemism employed to allow the discussion of sex in more conservative contexts without offending the easily offended. I've come to different terms since all those months ago when I wanted to lose my virginity at my Formal's after-party. I don't know if other people think this way—maybe this is just another instance of me falling behind in the social arena :P—but to me, making love is having sex because of love. In my head, there's a big difference in me having sex with a woman and me making love with a woman. All you've gotta do to have sex is stimulate the sexual organs with the intent of reaching orgasm, usually through the insertion of a phallus into an orifice. Sure, you can have accompanying kissing/hugging/foreplay/whatever else, but the reasoning behind that is more physical than emotional. Making love is more of a full on process, at least from what I like to envision. There's a distinct look on the face, controlled movements of the body to ensure mutual pleasure, and a force behind it all that pushes both parties closer and closer to one another the entire way through. It's something I've never seen recreated well on a screen—and besides, the images in my head were developed by me for me, so they're gonna have more impact anyhow :P

That's how I wanna lose my virginity: through that act and that act alone. My pleasure in fantasising always stems off the pleasure I see through the woman's expressions, and that's what I want to experience: a mutual feeling where I want to be with a woman to the point where I become as close as I can possibly be with her. The problem is, that will only come from a steady relationship.

Even though I speak commonly on my lack of self confidence and disbelief in what's mentioned above from having any real place in reality, I still want it, and I want it more every day, even if it's by just a little bit. It's not like I'm gonna rape someone if I don't get pussy soon—I mean, couldn't rape a six year old if I tried (I'd say something like 'and believe me, I have!' ... but no one believes me). The urge, however, will always be there. My physical feelings for this girl explored in this way give me a little incentive to try and talk to her, but not much. Her pussy can't talk anyway; her mind can, but I'm yet to meet it. I want to meet it, but I just don't have it in me to go through with it on my own. At the same time, however, I don't want to just wait and hope for a miracle, because that's probably not going to happen.

...how do I relationship :P

Inadequacy: Seemingly Preferable to Intervention

WARNING GUARANTEE: This album contains material which a truly free society would neither fear nor suppress. In some socially retarded areas, religious fanatics and ultra-conservative political organizations violate your First Amendment Rights by attempting to censor rock & roll albums. We feel that this is un-Constitutional and un-American. As an alternative to these government-supported programs (designed to keep you docile and ignorant), Barking Pumpkin is pleased to provide stimulating digital audio entertainment for those of you who have outgrown the ordinary. The language and concepts contained herein are GUARANTEED NOT TO CAUSE ETERNAL TORMENT IN THE PLACE WHERE THE GUY WITH THE HORNS AND POINTED STICK CONDUCTS HIS BUSINESS. This guarantee is as real as the threats of the video fundamentalists who use attacks on rock music in their attempt to transform America into a nation of check-mailing nincompoops (in the name of Jesus Christ). If there is a hell, its fires wait for them, not us.

'Warning' found on the inner sleeve of Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers of Prevention, by Frank Zappa

Reading shit like that just makes me smile... which helps a lot :P 

Only a few hours ago, I was feeling really down: I felt almost worthless, as though I was little more than a bother to anyone and everyone around me—classic depression symptoms all over again :P  What was strange, though, was that I didn't want it to go away. Have you ever felt like that? You ever been moping around, feeling absolutely horrible, as though you're worth nothing, yet you don't want to stop feeling that way? I find that unusual, but at the same time it makes sense from a certain perspective.

The way I see it: I get myself in these states of depression when one negative thought is pondered on for too long, culminating in to many more negative thoughts which quickly destroys any notion of happiness or worth—this was mentioned in my previous entry, the process perfectly understood. This is followed by me pondering the worst possible scenarios I can think of pertaining to these negative thoughts, where my life is beyond all meaning and hope is completely lost. This is then assumed to be what will happen to me in the future, resulting in a predictable emotional purge. This purge is usually nothing more than me sitting around continuing to ponder on and internally progress this personal hell, at times resulting in tears, although this is usually short lived and is never far beyond my control—I'm not wailing or screaming, just quietly crying. This has happened many times before (far more often last year when I was actually bona fide depressed :P) and as such is of no surprise to me.

What happens after this, however, is a little perplexing: I don't want it to stop. I want to maintain this state of despair; I want to go on feeling sad rather than recovering and feeling any better. That's what I don't want: recovery, a resolve, a reason to quit feeling the way I do. I want to feel like this forever, never returning to whatever positive state I was in before the episode in question started; I want to accept emotional defeat, like it's the more rational thing to do (with happiness being such a pipe dream and all), and go on living the rest of my life in this condition. The reason for this, as far as I can tell, is simple: what goes up must come down. I've just come down... again :P  Therefore, it seems unreasonable to get up and expect to stay up—to expect not to come down again—so the only 'reasonable' option is to remain down forever, never getting up as to never fall back down. I want the emotional rollercoaster (no, I don't know how to get off—everyone else left the ride when puberty stopped, but I'm still here :P) to be flat, without extreme inclines or drop-offs.

The problem with this want is that once you're down so low, where else do you go but up? Everything's up from down here! That's why it takes so little to make me happy in this state: anything's better than nothing! Now, all it takes is a fucking short comic performance on YouTube or (as printed above) a cynical quotation from a strident social critic and I'm back to normal! Just another revolution on the closed emotional loop that is my life of exclusion :P
 
Speaking of my life in general, the theory seems to hold on a larger scale too: for the past 4 years (save the six months where I was in a relationship), I've been content simply wanting to go out with a particular girl; the mere interest is enough to hold me over emotionally. Even as late as last October, as soon as a particular girl became a realistic focus for me, I woke up every day with a smile on my face: I had reason to live! I had something to look forward to without fail: a conversation, or even seeing her, or even thinking about her made me happy, just as it did with all the other girls I'd previously liked! Just knowing there was the possibility of a relationship was enough to keep me out of the blues; even after I'd been in a relationship, hence hypothetically needing more than just the 'possibility' to hold me over, it only took mere thought to satisfy me. This, combined with the fear of rejection also mentioned in the previous entry (which itself is fuelled by feelings of worthlessness—hooray for more circles! :P) gives me no good reason to actually ask the girl I like out—why ruin a perfectly good fantasy? Why fuck up the status quo when you can stay happy without potentially making the woman's life worse? This is clearly the more thoughtful, considerate option :P

I am recognising, however, that thoughts are becoming darker. I've always wondered if I've legitimately considered suicide before—I've joked about it a lot, but I don't think I've ever truly wanted to off myself. Having said that, the thought has gone through my head, more regarding how people would react if I did such a thing. Visions of my work being published posthumously are contrasted with images of people hearing about my death and simply not giving a fuck. I often picture myself saying 'You know, if I got hit by a truck, I can count the people who'd give a fuck on my own two hands'—this is certainly not true today, as there are way more than ten people who'd care if I died (surely my family isn't that heartless :P), but this future of absolute isolation seemingly makes such a statement frighteningly possible. In these troubled times, I've also often pondered closing my Facebook account, leaving my phone off, never opening MSN and not seeing my friends at uni—basically committing 'social suicide'—but I never go through with that. So long as the number of people negatively affected by my would-be suicide remains a positive integer, it will not be so.

I don't feel like I can talk to my friends about anything anymore, hence my coming here to vent. I used to be able to talk to one or two friends about things like this, but I feel that those people have done more than their fair share of work, and I'd feel rude talking to anyone else because I feel as though people have better shit to do than take any part in sorting my problems out :P  A counsellor won't help either—the only reason I got better when seeing a counsellor last year was because as soon as I started seeing the counsellor, I developed feelings for someone. Correlation like that appears to imply causation, but sometimes, it simply ain't so :P  That's exactly what I begin to think happiness is in those dark moments: nothing more than an illusion of a worry-free life, where hope is just a façade to keep me numb to what life really is. That's not true, though: my happiness is just as genuine as my sadness; and, unsurprisingly, when I'm finally happy after being depressed for a while, I say to myself  'You know what? This is so much better than being mopey! I wanna stay like this!'... then I do nothing to maintain myself and the loop of bi-polarity continues.

Q.E.D

Grace: It Would Never Have Perished if It Weren't for You Meddling Kids!

"Children: can't live with 'em, can't live with 'em! Can't you see that!?" 

Robin Williams (or whoever he stole the material from >.>)

Truer words were never spoken. Ever. :P

I have never been a fan of anyone between the ages of 7 and 13 with access to the internet. The demographic carries with it the misfortune of being represented, at least in part, by verbally impotent, intellectually deficient loudmouths with no sign of respect and no thought to spare. I'm well aware of the fact that kids need to learn that it's polite not to be a total douchebag when talking to someone -- that's just part of growing up -- but doesn't that shit happen when they're, like, 5? 6, maybe? I know I was taught that shit way before I got my hands on a keyboard and mouse, and I was roughly the same age when internet access first came in to our house. Of course, everyone outside of the demo is slightly to blame, with kids being exposed to this and being led to believe it's a totally appropriate way to talk to someone you just met; but sometimes, you just know the kid's a total dick, and I've had one of those incidents recently.

Keep in mind that I used to be a pretty hot-headed person, and would go off at the first sight of idiocy or ignorance, irrespective of the guilty party's age. I soon realised that this was a rather extreme way to act, and while I still cringe and curse when I see people asking dumbarse questions in YouTube comments or personal messages that Google could answer in a godforsaken millisecond, the cursing is only heard by the walls in my house -- now, I simply tell them to "look it up" without going apeshit. There was this one kid this week who sent me 4 or 5 PM's on YouTube asking "where do you get [sticker]", "where do you get the tool bag for create mode", "where do you get the clank level i have the game of the year edition and i cant find it". It's not the absence of spelling or grammar that gets me; it's the fact that research skills are seemingly lacking in today's young. I doubt it was this bad before computers -- I betcha anything that kids back then weren't this empty up top. They knew: wanna know what a word means? Dictionary. Wanna know other words for that word? Thesaurus. Wanna know the capital of the Dominican Republic? Atlas. Wanna speed this shit up and get with the times? Google. That, however, is pretty excusable; what I'm about to recite is not :P

Somebody sent me a friend request on the PSN: "I want to be your friend" or something to that effect was in the message. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, I get those from time to time, but I don't add anyone on the PSN. I don't really care if he knew or not, and there's nothing to be angry about, so I just tell him what I tell everyone else who sends me a friend request on the PSN:

"I don't add anyone on the PSN, sorry."

That is word for word what I send as a reply to anyone who sends me a friend request and is nice enough to write something in the message space (empty friend requests are just sad -- at this point, the kid is in my good books). His reply:

"i'm ur fan and you say this to me"

...yes, I do say this to him, and to everyone else who sends me a request. I don't owe him anything -- I have fun making videos and getting some attention, he gets free entertainment. It's a more-than-reasonable exchange. No need to bring that shit up with him though; I'll just explain my response:

"i say this to everyone who wants to add me -- i can't add everyone who asks, and i don't have the time to play with you, so there's no point in me adding you"

Seriously: there isn't. I'm on rarely as it is, and when I am online, I opt to play alone more often than not. His reply:

"then why did you add luisbravo1?"

Perfectly reasonable question, deserving of an answer:

"that was years ago back when I wasn't busy, and it was to make a video with him"

His reply:

"please add me Bludgaboy i want a friend that is cool. just plz add me i'm begging u :("

...a-a-a-and here's where it all starts going downhill :P  This implies that any existing friends this kid has are, in his eyes, not cool. How rude is that, man!? Kids say shit like this all the time, but wow! Gotta end this quickly:

"why should i add you and no one else that asks? that's not fair. please just accept the fact"

This is part of my reasoning behind my decision not to add anyone, regardless of who they are: one stranger gets rejected because there's no point in me adding them, so does everyone else. If I pick and choose which random friend requests to accept and reject, it'll just serve to piss the rejected ones off. This way, it's nothing personal.

He left me alone for about a week, then sent me this cavalcade of irritation:

"Plz add me Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz Plz"

For those of you too lazy to count: 32 instances of the abbreviation collaborated on that project. What does copy/pasting "plz" go to show (they wouldn't all be capital P's if he didn't copy/paste... or at least tried to cover his tracks :P)? It's just silly, right?

"you can beg all you like, it's only making you look immature"

Harsh, but true. His reply:

"its not fair to be friends with venemo X luisbravo1 and everyone else"

1st: I am not friends with "everyone else" -- way to exaggerate :P

2nd: How is it not fair to be friends with Persons A and B, and not Person C? Maybe I don't like Person C! I am under no obligation to be friends with everyone who talks to me! If this is true, then one of two things is true: either I have to be friends with everyone, or have no friends at all!

3rd: Much like Luis, I added VenemoX a while back, and we knew each other on YouTube ever farther back. We were actual friends, so I added him (or him me, whatever :P). I've said this before, and I'll say it again: someone you know being in a "friends list" does not mean they are your friend. Also, I'm not friends with Luis; more of an acquaintance. We never speak to each other; how does that constitute friendship?

Kids think a "friend" is just someone they know, and I'm not gonna fuck with the kid's head for the sake of a label correction, so once again, I just tried to get this over with once and for all:

"i added those people *years* ago, before i stopped adding people. i have hardly any other people on the PSN i'm friends with. please, *please* stop this, or i'll just block you"

A-a-a-and now, the moment you've all been waiting for:

"f*** u"

WOAH WOAH WOAH Woah woah! F*** me? F*** me!? Hot diggity damn -- someone's gonna f*** me! Come on, people -- if you're gonna get down and dirty with the English language, at least have the balls to say the word rather than letting a bunch of asterisks do the work for ya :P

"calm down, grow up, and get over it, dude. i wouldn't want someone so rude and immature in my friends list even if i *did* add people"

Note how I'm yet to crack? No need to: he already has :P

"shut up u fuckin ass hole ADD ME!"

No "f*** me"? Is that girl still up for it? I know I am... *drools*. Anyways, enough perversion. Apart from the fact that "ass hole" is one word and not two, do you notice anything else wrong with this message? Anything at all? I sorta noticed something, might not actually be something, but, um... see how he called me a "fuckin ass hole"... then, right next to that, he demands that I add him? Do you get that? I don't.

I don't add people because I don't want to be obliged to add every single person who asks; I also don't add people so I can avoid future contact with anyone like this :P

EDIT:

"i dont want to be in your vids i just want to add u"

-and I just want this kid to get the message, but it would appear no-one's getting what they want. I don't think there's any hope with this kid. Just send his resume to Taco Bell and get him the fuck away from the PlayStation :P

EDIT 2:

More kids sending me friend requests? Yes, more kids sending me friend requests.

Some other kid kept asking me to be his friend and sent me a friend request every time I rejected the previous one. Eventually, he asked me to give him DLC; all became crystal clear from that point onwards :P  Go buy your own DLC, stingy prick.

I had another kid send me a friend request just saying "add me", which I responded to in the same way I always do. Logged on this morning to find another "please please please please please" marathon. Kudos for using the full word rather than the contracted version, but it doesn't give you that much credit :P

Arrogance: Karma's BFF

"Oh... back, are you?"

Indeed I am :D

"Probably here to talk about that fancy of yours -- am I right?"

Go fuck a tractor :D

Believe me, I will be talking about her, but not right now. I can already hear the sighs of relief -- don't try to hide 'em :P

Rather, I intend to discuss effort, reward, and the occasional lack there of. I've been under a great deal of pressure lately to work, and my recent toil has paid off. I've nearly finished a short play I started a month back, I've got a few short stand-up segments together, and I've been through an(other) exam period, one of the few I actually studied for :P   It's been stressful, but (almost) entirely rewarding, with the energy I've spent slowly coming back as good marks and good material. Not everything I've been working on this year, however, is so dandy. I mentioned in an earlier entry a comedy competition I was preparing for, which I recently performed in... and lost :P To be beaten is one thing, but to be beaten by people who prepared less than you and had less experience than you is grade-A bullshit.

Four out of the eight or so performers would go on to the next round, and two of the four chosen were well deserving of advancement. The rapid-fire ventriloquist act and the stand-up comic with a missing ligament were outstanding performers with fucking awesome material, more than worthy of their spots. I regret to inform you that I can't show you their acts, 'cause I would if I could. The third placement was iffy but still an acceptable candidate: a non-sequitur comic with only ~2.5 minutes of material, heavily influenced by Mitch Hedberg -- one of his jokes almost mirrored word for word that of his idol. The fourth choice leaves me stumped: a performer who spent half her performance "umm"ing and "err"ing, stalling, and lacking overall stage presence. This is just bad performing in general, let alone for a competition.

These four competitors only shared one thing: a good reception from the audience -- and that's all the judges were looking for: laughs. Preparation, delivery and structure simply did not come in to play as deciding factors with the placements. Some people were rehearsing with scripts... scripts! If your performing a five minute routine where you need to maintain a connection with the audience for the entire set, the least you could do is learn your fucking lines! Even the guy who hardly had three minutes of material had his jokes written on paper -- from my experience, individual jokes are easy to remember if they're good (i.e. worth remembering), so that confused me. In all my years, I've never seen such reliance on the dreaded reading material. Granted, no one had a script during their actual performance, and to bring your script for the occasional reference in case you fuck up a line during rehearsal is a smart move, but to be reading it top to bottom in preparation only goes to show you weren't doing what you were supposed to be doing yesterday.

I was the only one there who'd done the competition before, with my first stand-up performance quickly teaching me that confidence is vital for any comic performance; and while most of the entrants were confident in their routines, I was the only one who was complimented on being openly confident (by the non-sequitur guy :P) In addition, I was the only performer who received commendation from the comic mentor in terms of delivery, and the only one she said had conversational tone -- she had not one suggestion for improving my act! Not one! "See how he was talking to the audience like that? That's the way to go!" I was the fucking benchmark! Everyone else's routine was altered in some way via the professional's suggestions, but I performed my routine for the audience no different to how I'd performed it in rehearsal. This might have been to due the fact I'd been writing and editing the routine for three months.

That's right: three months of writing to come out with five minutes (little more than a page) of material. Considering most comics perfect forty-five minutes of material in around two years, this is ridiculous even by the industry's standards :P   The time taken was mostly due to a meticulous editing process I implemented in my attempt to utilise every second of the three hundred I had to strike lolz with the audience. The set had to start strong, end with a punch-line, and stand out from the rest. My opening lines were carefully written to get the audience laughing as soon as possible, and the end was (in theory) a great round off. Unfortunately, the audience wasn't as bright as the (considerably younger) student body I'm usually surrounded by. Here's the opening gag (I'm holding a bottle of water):

"Let me take a drink of water here... they call this a bottle of water -- is this really a bottle of water? Think about it: if a stack of chairs is a stack made of chairs, and a pile of leaves is a pile of leaves... then what's a bottle of water?"

Do you get it? Huh? Do you!? The audience didn't! They didn't have a fucking clue! Surely, an educated, literate adult (like those that filled the audience) can do the math and figure it out: it's a bottle made of water, which isn't structurally possible and hence absurd to consider. When I recited the same joke for a pack of students, I was cut off by laughter -- they got the joke before I even finished it! Irony was girding its loins well before the actual event :P

All this boils down to one thing: my unadulterated, ego-fueled arrogance. I was not only the most experienced comic, but also the cockiest, and it takes a downfall like this to teach a very valuable lesson in one single blow: shit happens. Karma has been in the education business for a very long time, and his experience in this field is unrivaled by that of any other spiritual concept. I went in thinking I was the most talented when I was only the most conceited; but I was also the most prepared, and I will continue to question the judge's criteria and the audience's intelligence for weeks to come. There is the small chance of a wildcard bringing me to the next round, but with the appalling reaction I got compared to previous performances, I highly doubt it.

...fucking amateurs... I hate being one :P

EDIT: I got the wildcard... yeah, I'm confused too :P

Value: Your Mileage May Vary

Awhile back, I wrote about how most (male) teens don't know what a "friend" is. I stand behind that - they're fucking clueless on the subject :P Having said that, however, it's not just friendship for which the street definition varies between demographics. This is a frequent encounter of mine (and probably yours too) in the consumer world: you've probably been browsing in a store or through some form of media, to stumble upon something with a sticker price you internally define as "way too expensive!" or "a fucking bargain!" I find this quite puzzling, because currency is supposed to define value, yet we have different perceptions about how much value said currency actually has! The company defines a product's monetary value, but you will go right ahead and define its value again using an internal measurement system based on what this product can do for you as a customer.

In this world of rapidly advancing technology, it takes a fuckload to drop our jaws to the ground in awe. 50 years ago, television was broadcast without colour; no colours! None! You'd smack your TV silly if the shit you watch came up in black and white, irrespective of whether or not the program you're watching was originally filmed in black and white (and, chances are, if it was filmed in black and white, you ain't watching what I'd call "shit" :P) That feature of media has lost its value because it's commonplace, with its position as the standard removing its former luster in television's history. Today, if it isn't a widescreen, hi-def, 3D flat-panel with built in DVD and PVR, it ain't worth taking home. I remember having a tiny CRT TV in my room with only one speaker - and hence only one audio input - and how much of a luxury it was to take my PS2 to the other TV in our house: the one with two speakers! I could plug the white pin and the red pin in to the AV input! Holy shit! Today, a 32" 1080p LCD TV with a built in digital tuner and 4 HDMI inputs sits in my bedroom, and if you've ever played a PS2 on both a CRT and a flat panel, you'll know just what "better" technology does to a system not built for the screen you're playing it on :P

As I was saying before, however, this same lack of consistency exists in the social world in abundance.What most teens consider to a friend I consider an acquaintance, but even then, I value friends a lot more than most people simply because I don't have many. I'm not even sure if I the amount of people I even know is on par with the amount of friends my friends have. Who I consider to be my best friend may, in fact, be my only friend at this point - at least the only one I know in real life - and there aren't too many people I maintain regular contact with over the internet either, irrespective of their demographic. A few days back, the best friend I mentioned earlier went with me to see a movie, which got me thinking about the last time someone who wasn't my (ex :P) girlfriend invited me anywhere... and I actually failed to recall that information! I could not remember the last social outing I went on! This friend of mine probably goes out with his friends at least one a week, and I actually have trouble remembering my previous activity! As he was using his phone to browse the internet, he asked "don't you hate it when your signal drops out randomly while browsing like that?" My phone has never dropped out while browsing because my phone can't browse the Internet :P Why buy something I'm not going to use! I seldom go out, so I see no reason to replace my 5 year old handset. It probably doesn't even know what the Internet is.

Going a bit further back, I recall going to a relative's 18th and seeing just how many friends this motherfucker had in the house at the same time! I've never seen this many people this age before outside an educational context in my life, yet he probably considers this to be the norm! I was there only by blood, not by mateship... was there even a point to me being there? I don't drink alcohol and I don't talk unless I'm comfortable... which in this case means being pissed out of your head :P I considered it a waste of my time as I sat there playing Tetris, even though that's what I would have been doing anyway :P I don't think I value time at all, seeing as I waste so much of it. I value friends more than anything in this world, yet I think social activity is worthless... doesn't quite add up, does it? I look down on partying as a meaningless excuse for celebrating Western excess and group inebriation, yet I've never been to a party and hence am completely unfamiliar with the atmosphere. Even the girl that I've been talking about, the one that I'm liking so much, is (according to what I've heard) a socialite! If something sparks between us, shit's gonna hit the fan - my fan. I'm just far more comfortable in front of a screen with some buttons to press, where I treasure the things I value: games, writing, comedy and solitude.

I suppose 2 is my perfect number: only one other person to interact with. They're all yours, and you're all theirs. Their status as a friend, chum, pal, colleague, or my other half doesn't matter to me - so long as we're having a good time, who cares? Another one or two people is sometimes nice - especially with a controller for each one :P - but that one-on-one scenario comes with the most contact and the least interference. Having said that, though, there's that wild feeling you get when you're around what you determine as "a lot of people." Being a performer, I guess having hundreds of people around me is only an issue if I'm among them :P I love getting up in front of crowds and being a funny bastard, but only if I'm given the floor, otherwise it's just daunting, not to mention the fact that it would make me look like a total arsehole. There's something else I value highly: stage time, once again because I hardly get any :P Perhaps I have to chase these things I value so highly, but how do I go about it? Do I raise my internal value of the things I love to give me more incentive, or do I lower their value to make them seem not so far away?

... crap... more questions I can't answer.