Still going

I have to say I really thought by now one of two things would have happened.

The cravings for smoking would have gone away

OR

I would have started smoking again

Neither of which has really happened. I still have not smoked and simple won't because I do not think I can go thru this again. But I really expected to have the craving gone, they have mostly but every once in a while it is like a wave washes over me. I feel really drawn to smoke. I tell myself: Just a few more months, I just want to quit for 6 months then I can start again.

Lets hope I remember that I don't want to smoke when the 6 months hit!

But really, I just cannot picture going thru all of this again, so it is easier to say no, but it still comes up. A friend of mine at work quit smoking back in 91, and he told me about once a year he gets it in his head to smoke, but like me he does not want to go thru it all over again. So in the mean time I stand firm.

One more day of non-smoking under my belt.

Sing along time

Nibblin' on sponge cake

Watchin' the sun bake

All of those tourists covered with oil

Strummin' my six-string

On my front porch swing

Smell those shrimp they're beginnin' to boil

Chorus: Wastin' away again in Margaritaville

Searching for my lost shaker of salt

Some people claim that there's a woman to blame

But I know it's nobody's fault

I don't know the reason

I stayed here all season

Nothin' to show but this brand new tattoo

But it's a real beauty

A Mexican cutie

How it got here I haven't a clue

Chorus: Wastin' away again in Margaritaville

Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt

Some people claim that there's a woman to blame

Now I think Hell, it could be my fault

I blew out my flip-flop

Stepped on a pop-top

Cut my heel had to cruise on back home

But there's booze in the blender

And soon it will render

That frozen concoction that helps me hang on

Wastin' away again in Margaritaville

Searching for my lost shaker of salt

Some people claim that there's a woman to blame

But I know it's my own damn fault

Yes and some people claim that there's a woman to blame

And I know it's my own damn fault

Nothing worth while is easy

So I was asked why I don’t just take things at face value.

I got into a discussion of what is un-health for an expectant mother to eat. Well this one is a very close friend who has been craving salt as of late. I found this stuff at Costco called Pub Snacks. This stuff is horrible as far as health food. High sodium and fat, low nutritional value, but hey I figure a little to help a pregnant lady stay sane for just a moment longer would be just fine.

Well she dug into them, and then looked at me and asked, “Do they have MSG in them?” A was shocked. I thought why would it matter a little MSG would not hurt her or the baby…

Well the talk continued, she said no MSG is very bad for you, I asked where she had gotten her information. Back and forth, over and over again, I got up and walked to my terminal and googled MSG, here is what I found from The Mayo Clinic:

Every Chinese restaurant I go to has a sign that says "No MSG." What is
MSG? Is it bad for you?
Answer
from Katherine Zeratsky, R.D.,
L.D.

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a flavor enhancer commonly added to
Chinese food, canned vegetables, soups and processed meats. Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has classified MSG as a food ingredient that is "generally recognized as safe," the use of MSG remains controversial. MSG has been used as a food additive for decades. Over the years, the FDA has received many anecdotal reports of adverse reactions to foods containing MSG. But subsequent research found no definitive evidence of a link between MSG and the symptoms that some people described after eating food containing MSG. As a result, MSG is still added to some foods.

A comprehensive review of all available scientific data on glutamate safety sponsored by the FDA in 1995 reaffirmed the safety of MSG when consumed at levels typically used in cooking and food manufacturing. The report found no evidence to suggest that MSG contributes to any long-term health problems, such as Alzheimer's disease. But it did acknowledge that some people may have short-term reactions to MSG. These reactions — known as MSG symptom complex — may include:

§ Headache, sometimes called MSG headache

§ Flushing

§ Sweating

§ Sense of facial pressure or tightness

§ Numbness, tingling or burning in or around the mouth

§ Rapid, fluttering heartbeats (heart palpitations)

§ Chest pain

§ Shortness of breath

§ Nausea

§ Weakness

Symptoms are usually mild and don't require treatment. However, some people report more severe reactions. The only way to prevent a reaction is to avoid foods containing MSG. When MSG is added to food, the FDA requires that "monosodium glutamate" be listed on the label — or on the menu, in restaurants.

Original Artical: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/monosodium-glutamate/AN01251

All because some pansy way back when said, Chinese food gives me a headache, we now “think” MSG will kill us… And I thought I was a hypochondriac.

Guess I will need shades after all

Well to be honest, after reading general chat on a game like Warcraft, I had very serious doubts about the internet, or really the usage of it under the guise of anonymity. Now that game has over 10 million accounts world wide. The reason I worried was someone would ask a question like:

New Player: Hey, where is General Marcus at?
Old Player: Your mom
NP: What?
OP: He’s on your mom
Helpful Player: Out front of SW
NP: SW?
OP: STFU noob
HP: Stormwind
OP: Don’t help him he’s a noob
Other Player: Any 25 mans going?
OP: Yeah we’re raiding your mom
OP: See that guys I burned him…

And on it goes.

Now back when I was playing I eventually learned how to turn general chat off, then trade chat went, closely followed by LFG, world defense, local defense and eventually guild chat went away.

My problem is not some much as the OP being a jerk, but rather a complete lose of comedic timing, stale material. And reruns of jokes better left buried in the filth that spawned them. I firmly think if Don Rickles wanted to, he could rip a part general chat and never violate the TOS.

I know this would never happen, that and most of the brain dead chatters would refuse to admit he got over on them. But I now digress

I was worried, but I have been hoping around on 20SB links and I am very happy with what I see. I do laugh a lot, and I am getting closer to not being a huge ass about the youth today. But in all honesty, I look forward to these people moving up in the world, I imagine more than a few will write scripts that I will see preformed, and books I will read. Articles, short stories, sitcoms and dramas will come pouring from these writers in huge amounts. I look forward to seeing/reading what will come.

Now mind you, I don’t like all of it but then again my generations’ major contribution to society so far has been phone sex, so yeah aim high kids!

Silly youth

I got to poking around today and found one of the blogs I follow to be what I might call “silly young people in love”. I just want to shake them and yell at them: Don’t be stupid, all this means nothing, you are being silly!

I was reading how this is happening, and how to starting over at 24 is a bitch. This makes me laugh, cause until right now I always thought they had no clue, hell how can you start over at 24 when you have not even started at 24… It was then I started to recall how I felt at 24. Oh all the pain from lost relationships, the joy at bonding with friends, the excitement of it all. I never worried about work. Hell if I got tired I would quit for any reason and stay that way until my money ran out, then get a job again.

I look at what I am now, married, steady career with a good solid company. Early to bed and early to rise kind of thing. Not that any of this is bad, just very different from what I was when I was 24.

My question is, who is right? Am I right to be able to look at these things and say, all this will fade over time. The pain will diminish. Or is youth right, being able to feel what the heart tells you. Being able to love more because of it. To revel in the suffering, letting it form us into what we will become. Part of me wants to feel that again, and part of me knows I felt all of that and I am who I am because of it. Oh well I will keep reading, and I will remember…

And when the hell did I get old and set in my ways? A few years ago a friend blogged that we, him and I are the same age, were middle aged. I Said: “You might be, but I got a few more years till I am middle age…” Yeah, I cannot say that anymore. I long to see life from the 20 year olds POV, when it was all new and shinny. Before rent/mortgages set in, before prostate exams and the constant search for odd looking moles suddenly appearing. The high blood pressure and cholesterol…

If I was 24 now I think I would be doing just what I did some 20 years ago, but this time I would mean it.

now... where did I put that soap box...

I must say, some things will never make sense to me. I was sent a joke email by a friend. This friend will send me joke a few times a week. I read most of them, at least I try to read most of them.

Sometimes, I am caught in a situation where I think I know what to do, but then I feel hypocritical because it involves being politically correct. I am not one to tell you I am offended by your speech, or manner. I have strange interpretation of the first amendment. I think it gives me the right to be offended. I kind of like being offended as it means we are still trying to push the limits. We all have the right to be offended, but that does not mean we should run around doing it. Just because it CAN be done, does not mean it should.

So, by tradition, if the subject line does not make me smile then I just deletes it as the subject matter will no doubt not make me laugh. This one read rather strange it was PMS hormone guide. Well I meant to delete it, but opened it instead, maybe it was a Freudian slip… lets just say that it was about what men should and should not say to women who suffer from PMS. I do get the joke the safe line in all the situation presented would be : “Here have a glass of wine”. I am not offended that my friend sent it, I see where she would find it funny, but really the creator has some serious man hater issues.

I am really starting to worry about society; I see things changing that really needed to stay in place. According to Genesis 3:15:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed;
he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

This has been taken to mean beating your wife is ok, I do not support that thought path in anyway. That is not what this means, it means, in my opinion anyway, we will be fighting for the rest of time. We will not have the relationship we had before this was placed upon us. We will be unable to truly get along like we should. With that being said, why are women changing and acting more like men?

Violent crime committed by females is on the rise, has been since 1989 as seen here:

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/femof.pdf

Female inmate population has increased by almost 100% since 1990 as seen here:

http://www.wvdoc.com/wvdoc/Portals/0/documents/female.pdf

As far as who is getting killed well lets take a look:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm

Both male and female offenders are more likely to target male victims than female victims.
My problem from all this; we, as a society, are failing to keep our rolls clearly defined. Women are our guide posts, our markers; they are supposed to show us the way.

Men should be careful lest they cause women to weep, for God counts their
tears.

The Talmud, a Jewish text

This means women are more spiritually evolved than men are. They understand the world on a level much to deep for a man to fathom, I mean truly fathom. Does this mean women are better than men?

No, no, no… a thousand times no. All it means is we are different, men have certain strength, and women balance that out. We are the pointy end of the stick, women are the shaft that guides us to our mark.

This is how I see women, I respect them for they can and often do things that I cannot. But then drivel like that email crosses my path and I am left to feel more like an idiot than anything else.

I know, but it is just one instance, maybe I should not be so sensitive… Well let’s see, when was the last time a man was portrayed as a strong roll model in a family setting? When he was able to intelligently offer up conversation, ideas or even a helping hand with out hitting it with a hammer? If women were portrayed this way I think the screems could be heard from the moon…

In the end it really means nothing, society is meant to fall apart so it can reform and grow again.

A well worn path

I got to thinking of my childhood this morning. I was drinking my coffee and it took me back to when I was 13. Not sure why, but I got to thinking of Mike Smith. No really that was his name, Smith. This was a man who was a neighbor of ours when I first moved to Santa Ana. He was in no way blood to me. He just saw a very lost boy who needed a man to set him on the path.

He was a man of the late 70’s, terry cloth jacket for hanging out at the pool. Custom Van beautiful interior with a couch, captain chairs, deep pile shag carpet etc… He was so very with it. He was into country music, before it was first getting into the spot light because of Urban Cowboy. Several lady friends around the neighborhood which I did not find out about until much later, turns out he was a very active with them but he did not let me see that side of him. He protected me from that, and I figure would have kept protecting me from it.

Mike Smith had become my father, mentor, a guide, if you will, on becoming a man. This was very new to me as I never had a father figure until that time. Not that my dad was just not around, or that he had died. Nope, I was California second single parent adoption, my sister being the first. (At least that is what we were told back around 1970). So I never had a father to show me the ropes, how to do man things like fix stuff, how to stand up for yourself, how to fight… I missed all of this. Not blaming my mother, she did what she could, and worked damn hard at it too. But there are things I am still trying to figure out as a man.

Anyway, Mike filled in that roll willingly, at least for a while. He had been married once before and had a daughter name Stacy. Well Stacy’s mom remarried, and after a while, I think it was her, she got a job offer in Gig Harbor, Washington. Well Mike got a job; he was an engineer, working for a submarine builder. I clearly remember this because I thought it was an awesome job to get because you would always get to try out what you were designing. So off they went, I did see them a few times after that, as a matter of fact Mike came down just after my 16th Birthday and taught me how to drive on the freeways.

I saw him a few more time after that, but it was rough, I had become a huge ass, as well as a pain in the ass, and thinking I knew it all. It was a time when my father would have knocked my dick in the dirt. I don’t mean to be vulgar but really I needed that done to me. But, I don’t think it is fair to expect that from him, he was just a volunteer after all. Just a guy who saw a little boy who needed to be put on the path to manhood, and he did what he could.

I think I will have to find out what happened to him.