It seems like I’m the only person who still knows what happened a year ago.  Someone else made some rather half-hearted apologies about it, and claimed to have lied so much about the incident that it couldn’t be reversed.  Meanwhile, I’ve taken the brunt of those lies and accusations, and even had those lies used as further evidence for more things that never happened.
     It truly sucks to watch someone you care about devolve into paranoia and mania because of past trauma.  It’s even harder to watch them drink themselves into oblivion, effectively brainwashing themselves into believing their own bullshit because they’re too weak to stand up and say, “Hey, I have a problem, and I need some help.”  Sure, I’ve self-medicated the same way myself at times, but I’ve also known enough to realize when I needed help — and sought it out and taken it.

     So, suffice it to say, I’m more than a little down today.

     And my shoulder is killing me.

     Last week, I threw it out pretty bad.  I kept eating Ibuprofen, putting FlexAll on it to try and deal with it.  But by Friday, it was so bad that I had to go to the doctor.  I dreaded the Cortisone shot as much as I might dread a catheter, because they always hurt like Hell.
     This time was worse.  The shot was easy in and of itself, but filling an already inflamed joint with a thick paste adds tremendous pressure where you’re already feeling it.  That’s usually tolerable, except in this case, the entire bottom of my arm went cold and numb, and the fire shooting through my arm’s nerve tunnels had me pretty damn close to tears.
     “Keep your mind off it,” I kept thinking on the way to get my prescription filled.  I gave Mushy a random call, knowing he’d gone through a worse bout of it last year with his shoulder.  Didn’t work.  “Horror stories.  Fuck.”

     And then, of course, came time to deal with the idiot Pharmacy techs who can’t read, “ALLERGIC TO ACETAMINOPHEN” on a prescription.  Nor did they have the brains to figure out the milligrams for a one-size-fits-all drug.  Nor did they have the social skills to treat me like anything less than an addict, even going so far as to say, “This doesn’t look like a real prescription.”
     The third pharmacy, of course, was the charm — but not before going back to the doctor’s office to get them to fill out the prescription form properly and call in the medication to the pharmacy of their choice, who also missed, “ALLERGIC TO ACETAMINOPHEN,” as did the third after having that one called in by the second pharmacy.

     I finally got the drugs I needed.

     And I logged in here after an extended absence to find a rather overwhelming amount of spam.

     “Are tose numbers even close to right?“  I can’t even tell.  Since the spam filter only shows twenty per page, the page numbers I can click to are also in expoential notation … all thanks spambots, page scrapers, content theives, and Southeast Kentucky Rednecks, thanks to the bullshit in the first part of this post…

     Some days, I just shouldn’t bother.

“I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumors,
but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor. 
And when I die I expect to find him laughing…”
— Blashphemous Rumours, Depeche Mode

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_ACXuhQiS4)

     I haven’t said anything about my conversation with that one, nor mine and the other one.  I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but please do not put me in the middle.

     And I would rather lose two friends than put up with that, because I have enough stress and bullshit without this.

Surfing through cheap shopping you’d be amazed what you can find. While looking for a Washer and Dryer, my wife to be and I found this:

(thanks: Zacque’s wife to be a.k.a. Lilith Monkey)
Just in case you are curious, you can see Martha Stewart’s Balls here.

marksteel: [12:13] Yes, I do think I’m better than you because, unlike you, I’m not a slave to bullshit. You are a fucking idiot who has no life other than to fuck with people over the Internet, or come to my house based upon the conjecture thereof. So please go fuck yourself. Drive through.

     Meh. Get a life, hardon.  Just because you have the hots for a hottie I used to know… and do still care about… and yeah, Love…. what the fuck?

     I kept wondering why my left ear kept hurting so bad.

     I put the four earrings back in my left ear, after a complete detox and trying to to get used to a lot of other herbal bullshit to try and get rid of the stress and CRAP that doctors keep feeding me.

     I finally realized that the ringing in my ears was caused by the last asswit — from last Friday — who showed up at my house to announce himelf. He wasn’t from Leslie County, actually, but Perry County, KY.

     Because, apparently, the well of Balls had run dry.  (Only 1250 of the,m and ONE of me.  I liked the odds).

     And yes, he got a lucky shot in after his stupid, inbred ass fell on me. This wouldn’t've happened if A) he’d had enough room, at my front door, to swing a baseball bat down, and B) I hadn’t hit him in the mouth midswing.

     So I blame me.

     And this earring bit … Yeah, the clasp twisted to underneath the skin. It “looked” right.

     Goddamn hoops.

     So, basically, to Leslie County, KY …

     Never send a boy to do a man’s job.

     I can take a hit.

     And finally, I got one.

     Back in January, I was looking for an Xbox 360 and scouring and scraping to get one.  I got screwed around with tremendously, and with a lot of false leads, ended up without one.  Finally, thanks to Lt. Cpl. James who was shipping out to Afghanistan, I managed to get one.  I didn’t have games — only Uno — and he said prior to shipping out, he’d send me a few from home.  True to his word, he did.
     And thus, I ended up with Call of Duty: World at War (he’d said Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, but hated World at War, and send me that instead).  And, of course, our friends decided to send me a lot of their old games, as well.  So I’ve ended up with quite a collection…
     Working in and around military for so long, I’ve met a lot of good people like that.  And getting back in touch with a lot of those guys has helped me get through some of the shit-in-my-head that’s been bugging me for so long.

     Last month, I came upon a weird opportunity, whereby I could basically “trade” my Xbox 360 Pro (the one with the 20-Gig hard drive) for an Xbox 360 Elite and not have to shell out any cash for the upgrade.  I jumped on that like white on rice.
     Unfortunately, even though it was new in the box, the damn thing red-ringed on me after two days.  Iit wasn’t a 2008 Holiday Bundle, but one built in July 2008, but still, yeah, yeah, my luck.  Fortunately, I called Microsoft, and they shipped me an empty box, which I dropped my Xbox in it and gave to the UPS guy.  They shipped it back in under a week!  The “bad” ones are so few and far between now that the repair center just rocks the party — especially given that they extended my Xbox Live account, to boot.

     Even though I enjoy playing a lot of different games on there, I still end up playing Uno.  This is especially true if I’ve been drinking so much that manual dexterity falters, something which happens quite a lot lately. It has the alternative positive effect of keeping me from blogging while smashed.

     Now, playing Uno should be pretty sedate, right?  It’s a relatively passive game, so you end up chatting a lot.  And if I turn on the Xbox Live Vision camera, then it’s always mildly amusing.
     “Dude, you’re that guy from Crank, aren’t you?  You the fuckin’ Transporter man?”
     “Ahh, no.  I’m just some old, psycho bald fucker.  At least that’s what someone I cared about told me in December.”
     “Ahh, man, you’re not old.  What are you, 25, 28?  Nah, whatever, man, you’re cool!”

     Some days, I admit it … I need that kind of validation, because I feel like a right-royal ass most of the time any more.  And I definitely feel old.  And I am bald.  And sometimes it’s nice to hear, “Nah, man, you’re alright.  That guy was an asshole,” because … sometimes, playing Uno, chatting becomes a bit of a chore.
     I mute, kick and block communications from an innordinate number of people… usually after I put up with their shit to critical mass and tell them exactly why they don’t deserve to have an Internet connection, and perhaps that they are the perfect argument as to why Abortions should stay legal.

     At around 5PM, the drunks start coming home from their UK pubs and acting like pricks.  At midnight, you start ending up with drunken Americans and Canadians.  By 3AM, the west coast of the US and Canada are purely lit, and they end up coming in with so much off-the-wall insanity that you end up having to jab a spork in your eyes and ears.
     When the asshats show up, it’s usually for one reason: To be disruptive pricks and attempt to garner some attention that they obviously didn’t get in whatever bar they were in.  I’m constantly amazed at how many otherwise introverted, perhaps even awkward, people go completely and totally insane over Xbox Live.  It is even *worse* than the way they act on the Internet alone.

     It seems Xbox Live also adds incontrovertible proof to John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory… And as the link says, “Be glad for the anonymity; it’s why you still have teeth.”

     Although, I sure many do not…

Tip: Her Royal Uprariousness, Fracas

(Courtesy of XKCD)

     Another week of Hell down, with the next round starting in about eleven hours.

     Wordpress bugged and posted a completely random draft last night that wasn’t anywhere near complete and made absolutely no sense.  It’s been sitting there for at least a week in draft mode, and was perfectly happy… but this morning at 5-something AM, it just decided, all by itself, to go live.  I know that I didn’t do it and just forgot because I was playing Uno on Xbox Live all night… Ahh, well.  Yet another mysterious bug to track down…

     I had two stupid visitors from Leslie County this week.  I took a souvenir from Friday’s Fool, and left him with a few of his own in the form of pain and bleeding.  Neither of them will ever be back.  Apparently, while either before or while I was busy with that asshat, they messed with my car.  And that, itself, is the ultimate pansy thing to do, and speaks volumes to the severe lack of balls that these idiots possess.

     An old friend and customer of mine died on the 1st after a long battle with cancer.  Fifty-nine years old, the sort of person who treats everyone like they’re her kid.
     I couldn’t bring myself to go to the memorial service today.  I’m not handling things as well lately because I’ve been too on-edge, worried and crushed.

     On a brighter note…

     I slept for the first time in three weeks. 

     And …

     Rich and LissaKay got married last week.  They’re both great people, and they deserve some serious congratulations.  I wish them both the best.