Appraisal

In today's society too many of us confuse the Price of something with it's Value.

"True friends aren't the one who are with you during your highest of highs, but the ones who are with you during your lowest of lows" - Anonymous

Lessons from a TV show

I was watching Parenthood the other night and someone said this about relationships:

"Pretending you're happy is worse than being miserable"

That really struck a chord with me and I thought about how many times I pretended to be happy, and that progressed to thinking about how many people in this world are "worse than being miserable".

As my thought tunnel widened, I started thinking what point in a relationship going badly, do you stop and say to yourself "Am I just pretending to be happy?  Is it time to stop fighting, cut my losses and move on?"  You never want to give up too early on a relationship, but then again you never want to waste your time struggling for something that will never be.  But I guess that's part of life, trying to figure out what what is worth fighting for, and when to give up.

"If she's amazing, she won't be easy.  If she's easy, she won't be amazing.  If she's worth it, you won't give up.  If you give up, you're not worthy...  Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for." - Bob Marley

Sometimes I Wish the World Was Blind...

... just so that I could walk around in public with no clothes on.

"The intelligent want self-control; children want candy." - Rumi

v.32 BIS

The problem with watching so much porn before I got high speed internet is that I get really horny when I hear the dial-up modem noise... or fax machines.

Men: Taking Society Backwards One Creep At a Time

My rant... errr. post... today comes after reading this:

http://kotaku.com/the-creepy-side-of-e3-513484271

I've got two points I want to bring up in regards to that article.

The first one concerns the story:  Are You a Booth Babe?

That article reminds of the something I once said to a friend.  "Even though I am not doctor, if I dress up in scrubs and hang around the hospital, should I be surprised if people start asking me for medical advice?"

If you won't want to be considered part of the "entertainment" then differentiate yourself appriopriately.  Step #1 is TO NOT DRESS LIKE THEM.  Be professional, dress like it.  If I was at E3 and saw a really built dude wearing a wife beater and army pants standing around a developer booth, I would have asked him "Hey what game is this?".

Point #2.

For the rest of the stories in that article, I can only put my head down in shame and shake it slowly as I am unfortunately a member of the sex that is performing such repugnant and unacceptable behaviour.  I was having a conversation with a coworker the other day, and he actually said "Men are just as objectified as women."  I happened to come across the article 3 hours later and showed him, and he immediately changed his opinion.  I am sad to say that sexism still runs rampant in geek culture.  In this post though, I am going to talk strictly about sexism in gaming since I am VERY familiar with gaming culture.  I've been a hadrcore gamer all my life, since I received my ColecoVision in Christmas back in '86.  I started competing in '94 starting with Doom LAN tournaments.  I have been playing multiplayer online since the beginning when it started.  I have seen the rise of gaming culture, and with that the increase of population of girl gamers.  And for the record, I DO NOT count people who play Facebook and phone games on their iPhones or Androids to be gamers.  If you spend 4 hours a day playing Candy Crush or Farmville, sorry, you are not a gamer.  Girl gamers have it real tough.  Gaming is competitive.  People are always looking to get an edge when competing.  Unforunately, the easiest way for a lot of male gamers to get an edge over female ones is being sexist.  They're part of the "do anything to win" group.  They don't care how they win and would even probably cheat if they could get away with it.  And sometimes, that even means trashing a female's self-esteem or feelings just to get a tick in the Win column.  Believe it or not, this is the more benign of the sexist behaviours that exist in gaming.  Another way is for guys to be actual scumbags.  The anonymity of the Internet leads to people behaving in ways they would not if they were in public.  A lot of people get "Internet Courage" which is often interchangeable with "Internet Stupidity" and "Internet Rudeness".  These are the morons that if you met them in real life would seem normal.  But when you put them behind a keyboard and all of a sudden they change into a raging douchebag.

The girl power movement that started in the mid 90's was late to the gaming party.  I believe though it's a double-edged sword as the more girl gamers strive to make themselves different and stand out, the more objectification they will receive.  I would love to see the day when we are all just "gamers".

"We do not know the true value of our moments until they have undergone the test of memory." - Georges Duhamel

You Are What You Watch

If you watch "reality" TV and think that the people on there are stupid and lame, just remember, you're watching them.  They're getting paid to act like morons and you're doing this in your spare time.  So who's the smart one now?

"Human life is very deep, and the problems that exist in today's society, is that it our dominant modern lifestyle is not." - Bo Lozoff

Post Cleanse Veggie Soup

Man I love hearty soups.

What's in there?

5 Carrots
5 tomatoes
7 stalks of celery
2 whole onions
2 red peppers
1 can of red kidney beans
1 can of mixed beans
1 small head of cabbage

All of the below are to taste
red pepper flakes
salt
Bay leaves
Parsely
Rosemary
Oregano
Thyme
Sage



I am not very good with a knife but I love big chunks anyway.  And I would be slow cooking this overnight anyway so everything would be super soft by the time I dug in.  Yup this big pot should last me probably about 9 meals.

Master Cleanse Ingredients

Here are the organic lemons that sacrificed themselves for my health!

The previous syrup I had was NOT organic (although it was pure maple syrup) and only had calcium and iron listed on the nutrition label.

And the finished product. 2 litres of cleansing goodness!

The unrefined sea salt for my SWF (YUCK!!) and the laxative tea.  I drink both twice a day, once in the morning and once and night.