Long Weekend Update

Nobody blogs anymore on this lonely little corner of the internet. I still check regularly to see if anyone has posted anything. They haven't. Though I myself haven't posted anything in recent history, blogging is always at the back of my mind, because there's typically something gnawing away at me that I want to say. And, since so few people ever venture out into this sector, I can post pretty freely in a comfortable style. So here we are.

July the fourth has come and gone again. I had to work this year, but I got Friday off in exchange, and since we weren't doing anything particularly exciting to celebrate Independence Day in the first place, I gladly took the three day weekend, and the mini holiday kicked off pretty well. We went 5-0 in League of Legends on Friday night before I left for the last Dragon's Maze draft, in which I was able to split 1st and 2nd place in the final match and get my promo and prize packs without having to play it out. Saturday saw a trip to the mall with Anthony whereupon I purchased a headset with which to play League, and play League with it I did. Oh and we also wandered over to Price Chopper with Jess and Danielle rather spontaneously, and Chris wore his horse head mask throughout. Of course, we can't forget about the post-League explosion that led to a mini wrestling match between Chris and myself over a misplay in lane. I was pretty mad, but not blinded with rage like I was after that EDH game back at Farm Street where Chris threw the ladle at me out of the spaghetti sauce pot. We were both more or less trying to ensure nothing got broken last night, and it broke up pretty quickly once Missy came out.

Which brings me to the current state of affairs. Sort of. The whole reason I sat down to write this blog was indirectly because of the dreams I had last night. My dreams are often hauntingly realistic, so when I have a particularly disconcerting one, especially one that goes uninterrupted for a long enough time for me to remember the sequence of events in detail when I wake up, it can very well throw off my groove for the entire following day. Today was one such day. I just couldn't shake the funk for most of the day, and the fact that it was rainy and dreary and we had nothing on the agenda but our typical lazy Sunday fare (i.e. League of Legends) didn't help matters. A brief interlude to McDonald's (Wolf Road, because Central was out of iced coffee) did significantly improve things, and my headache dissipated (sidenote: I think I have a caffeine addiction), but there was still that lingering sense of gloom shrouding things for most of the night.

There is a point to this. I'm getting there.

Having basically done nothing but eat and play League for most of the day, we wrapped up just after 1 AM, which is pretty early for us, so I decided that a blog might be cathartic. Except there was one small thing bothering me: I couldn't find my Relient K CD. The only reason I really thought about it was because they came out with a new album this past Tuesday, at least digitally; the physical CD won't be available until July 23rd, which I wish I'd known before hunting for it Friday with Missy and Saturday with Anthony at Crossgates and Colonie Center respectively. The saddest thing is the album I was missing, Forget and Not Slow Down, isn't even very good. I'd actually go so far as to say it's the weakest of all their albums, being quite a downer and having really only two, maybe three decent songs.

Anyway, I didn't know what the heck I had done with the CD, and I had searched for it briefly earlier today but it hadn't turned up. I continued my search, checking my Magic table downstairs, which is where I thought it might have been, but it wasn't there. I looked through the rest of my former downstairs dungeon room, but it wasn't there. I checked my laptop backpack, which was the other place I thought it might be; not there either. I basically tore apart my bedroom looking for it, searched the kitchen, even looked in Chris's corner of the living room to see if it might have wandered over there somehow. No luck. Finally, I gave up in frustration, hoping it would just turn up sooner or later if I stopped worrying about it. Besides, I had ripped the CD to my laptop, and like I said, I don't even like it that much, so no big loss. I headed back to my room to sit down and start my assuredly melancholy blog.

But NO. I could NOT. It drives me CRAZY when something is missing. I went downstairs one more time to make a more thorough search of my Magic table. I picked up a newspaper I had bought last Spring, and lo and behold, there it was. Suddenly, I was at peace. And the weirdest thing was that I wasn't just relieved to find the CD, I was relieved entirely, as though everything that had been bothering me all day didn't matter anymore.

It made me think: maybe the challenges and difficulties we face aren't just here to give us a hard time. Maybe we face them so that when they're over, we can feel that sense of relief or even triumph. My mood went from bad to good, not because something overtly good happened, but because there was closure on something irritating. I've always known that tough times have their expiration date, and that brighter days are around the corner as long as you can wait it out, but it's also hard to keep that perpetually in mind, especially when things seem like they're going so wrong. But when a trial reaches its conclusion, even when it's something as stupid as a missing CD, it's a pretty good feeling, and that's something to consider. This post has gone on quite longer than I originally anticipated, but there it is, the moral of the story. I may be forcing optimism here, but hey, I forced Naya every Dragon's Maze draft and it worked almost every time, so I'm gonna run with it. 

The Chill Part 4: Freljord Patch

Two years ago tonight, I was on the precipice of a life-changing turn of events. And now I think we're approaching full circle.

"THE CYCLE OF LIFE AND DEATH CONTINUES. WE WILL LIVE... THEY WILL DIE."

That's what Nasus says when you select him in League of Legends. Nasus is a cool champion and has a lot of potential to get out of hand, but he just got nerfed with a patch released today. Not a humongous nerf, as far as I can tell, but a substantial nerf to one of his most useful abilities.

"It's only FUN... if they RUN."

That's one of Warwick's movement lines. I really like Warwick. He's possibly my favorite champion nowadays, although I still really like Cho'Gath. I think I'm actually better with Warwick, although that's not saying a whole lot.

We had a fantastic comeback against a fed Riven tonight (and yes, I helped feed her, although I wasn't quite entirely responsible) who was a few hits away from destroying our nexus when Danny Latin managed to get up in time to hold her off. He died again in the process, but bought time for our two damage dealers (Jax and Tristana) to get up and chase Riven off, and then Ben (who was playing Amumu) and myself as Cho were able to jump into a team fight and kill most of the rest of the enemy team. Then once we cleared out the minion waves from our almost entirely defenseless base, both full teams were up and ready to go, and we braced for impact. The enemy team charged in to try and take us out, and we destroyed them. We got into a few more brief skirmishes in the woods (especially after killing Baron) before we were able to truly push back, but once we did, the game was over.

So what does that mean?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's a video game. It has no impact on the real world whatsoever, and as much as I'd like to read into it, it doesn't mean jack squat. I'd tell myself it was a good omen, a sign of impending victory in the face of almost certain defeat... but I figured our undefeated 2 headed giant run on Saturday followed by an undefeated night of League was a good omen too. And now here we are, at almost certain defeat. Because you can't fill your future out with daydreams. Well, sometimes you can. I did once. And that ride has been and continues to be awesome. But the problem with that is I think it's given me a false sense of confidence, the kind of "you can do anything you put your mind to" notion. Sure you can, if you also get lucky. I've always maintained that luck is an essential factor in success, and I'm realizing now that to get so lucky more than once is highly unlikely. I guess what I need to do is patch not even my sense of expectation, but my sense of possibility.

I apologize for the melodrama and the rambling. This has not been my best day ever. I'm sure I'll be embarrassed if and when someone actually reads this, and in a few years or even months I'll look back and chastise myself for being so open about it. But for now, it's gotta go somewhere.

Snack Break

Man. I just got mind-blowingly, ravenously hungry all of a sudden. Maybe that's what it's like to be a Taxxon, except all the time. I don't know why it happened, possibly because the only things I ate all day were two burritos from Taco Bell, and the second one of those was about 6 hours ago. That's probably it. But I was forced to get up out of my bed (or off my wounded floor mattress, as it were) and scarf up some cookies, followed by some milk which, as I've addressed previously on this blog, was not enough, so I had to get more, and once I got more, I didn't have enough cookies left to go with the leftover milk. But it was a predictable problem, so I rummaged through the cabinet and found some of those ThinAddictives that I got back in December. They tasted like Christmas, but they got the job done. I really wish I had some Wheaties or other bran-like cereal. I suppose now that I have a shiny new car, I could just take a 4 AM jaunt over to Price Chopper and get some, but I'm all ready for bed, meaning the only article of clothing I have on is my boxers. Going to Price Chopper would require me to get dressed, and that's not exactly in my best interests right now, because it would require a certain amount of effort, and I'm feeling quite lazy.

And that's where I'm at right now; solving one minor problem at a time in a resourceful manner. I don't have the heart or gravitas to get into the subject matter that I set myself to write on when it struck me that I was screamingly hungry... maybe that was destiny's way of telling me to just relax and have a cookie. Or 6. And some ThinAddictives.

The Chill Part 3: Cold Front

I don't feel very good. As a matter of fact, most of the day I felt like death. There were a few hours, in between about 9 PM and 1 AM, when I didn't feel like crap, but even then I didn't feel good, I just didn't feel particularly bad. I've had a vague and nagging sickness with an undying cough since late December, and I think it's starting to take its toll on my mental state. Or maybe my mental state is perpetuating it. Who knows.

I was looking through my dashboard and read an unposted draft called "EDH Nightmare," wherein I mentioned a nightmare about a game of EDH that was so volatile it actually woke me up. That draft was sort of comforting though, because at the time, Gatecrash spoilers had just started to come out, and I remarked about how I the set didn't look as cool or as fun to draft as Return to Ravnica, and boy was I right about THAT one. Gatecrash is a horrible draft format, but I couldn't remember whether or not I was excited about it based on the spoilers. Having confirmation that I never found the set terribly interesting even when the spoilers were first released is encouraging, because now Dragon's Maze spoilers are starting to come out and that set looks freaking awesome. I'm looking forward to looking forward to drafts again, rather than just dragging myself to them out of some misplaced sense of obligation. I probably shouldn't draft tomorrow night. Have I mentioned that I hate drafting Gatecrash and it's a terrible format?

Anyway, concerning the title, the overnight low tonight was somewhere around 31, and they were calling for freezing rain. In the middle of April. As you may know, I hate rain, but I have absolutely had ENOUGH of Winter for this year, so when it rained for the first time, I was so happy it wasn't snowing. Freezing rain is the worst parts of rain and snow. Fortunately, it felt quite a bit warmer than the 33 degrees it claimed to be outside when I left work, and there was no freezing rain, only a light drizzle once I hit Central Ave. But then I got home, we sucked at League of Legends for a couple games, and I tried (unsuccessfully, obviously) to go to bed early. So there it is. I'm writing to kill time. My once noble blog has been reduced to nothing but basically an online journal. Okay it was never all that noble, but I at least used to try to put some kind of message or point in every post. Now I'm just sitting here for the heck of it, because I can't sleep and it's better than letting my mind wander uncontrollably.

"EDH Nightmare" was a post much like this one... it was born out of restlessness, without purpose or meaning, and it will forever languish as a draft. But you know what? I'm just gonna post this one. Because I don't care anymore. Maybe that's the point... maybe not everything has to have a point. Maybe sometimes we just need to do stuff because we want to do it, or because it will make us feel better even for a short amount of time.

Sure. I'll go with that.

The Chill Part 2

Of course I can't sleep. It wouldn't make any sense if I could. I can operate under the pretense that I am vaguely tired and should go to sleep because it's bedtime, but as soon as I lay down, that's when my mind says "NOT IN MY HOUSE!" That's a reference to this commercial, in case I ever forget.

I woke up this afternoon feeling like I had been hit by a garbage truck for some reason. Maybe it had to do with the fact that my subconscious had been assaulted by a series of weird and ineffably miserable dreams, only one of which I actually remember in enough detail to speak about it. I was in line for a showing of the new Evil Dead remake, and while standing there hearing about how horribly violent it was (which was undoubtedly influenced by having read tweets from Gerard Way and Ray Toro about just that), a preview for a claymation movie called "Twitch"  appeared on a screen in the lobby, about a thing that looked like a mixture of Fiddlesticks, the dude from Grim Fandango, and Scud the Disposable Assassin who could sculpt a ball of putty into different shapes and command it either to come to life or to cease living. It weirded me out. That wasn't anywhere near the worst of the dreams, but like I said, I don't remember any of the other ones in any detail at all. I just know they were bad and had to do with girls, and... oh wait. I remember one of them now. It had to do with a girl I used to know leading me on and then leaving me again. That's probably why I was in such a bad mood when I woke up, and why I went back to sleep to unsuccessfully try to wipe that dream out of my mind. Although if I hadn't tried so hard to remember it, I probably wouldn't have, so I guess it was sort of successful. It still didn't help my mood upon waking any though.

I guess if this post had to have a point, it would be that dreams suck because you have absolutely no control over them, and in my particular case, my dreams are usually so vivid and linear that they're capable of influencing my mood once I wake up. It's been like this for the past couple nights now actually, even extending into last week, although last week seemed to alternate between bad and good dreams. We'll see what happens tonight.

It's Getting A Bit Chilly

I don't want to be Emo McGee. I really don't. But it occurred to me that blog posts aren't born out of happy thoughts, at least for me anyway. They usually form because I have something to say that I can't really say out loud or to anyone in particular. 100% honesty time: even when I have some kind of nugget of wisdom or uplifting moral to the story, I'm only saying it because I'm trying to convince myself it's true, not because I necessarily believe it. For this very reason, I sometimes wish no one at all actually read this blog.

Consider for a second teenagers and their boundless angst. We look at them and think "how could they be so upset over something so trivial? They don't know what REAL problems are." True, they haven't experienced some of life's more advanced complications, but that doesn't make their problems any less real. Your problems scale up as time progresses, so what doesn't seem like a big deal to you now could very well be a grievous trial for a teenager. It's like training Pokemon. Sure, when you've got all eight badges and you're on your way to the Elite Four, Caterpies in Viridian Forest don't pose even the slightest threat. But when you're fresh out of Pallet Town, those same Caterpies could very well knock you out if you're not careful. With experience comes strength, and with that strength comes new challenges. What I'm trying to say is we shouldn't trivialize the plights of others just because we've outgrown the inadequacies they face.

The reason I bring this up is because I look back at some of the older, angstier posts I've written over the course of this blog and think "I was such an idiot back then. How did I let that bother me so much?" But the fact of the matter is, at the time, those were very real concerns weighing heavily on my mind. And I wasn't even a teenager, when I started this blog, I was 22 years old. All I have to do is transport myself mentally to a given time, and then it's like "ohhhhh yeah... I remember what that was like. That was kinda rough."

My life isn't awful right now; far from it, in fact. I have a good job, my family and I are all relatively healthy, my living conditions are stable, and I just bought a new car less than a month ago. There are just... things that make me sad. It's sort of a relief to actually say that, and this is one of the only places I can do it. It's my job to be in a good mood for five hours a night, whether I actually am or not, so it's nice to not have to force a smile for a change. This, of course, is why I started primarily stealth-blogging... I don't really want to freely admit that to most people, and my posts toward the end of 2012 were starting to take on a very downtrodden tone. But I'm not looking for a pity party. I just want to be able to say what it is I'm thinking, especially when I've got quite a bit on my mind, as I do now. Maybe now that I've presented this informal confession, I'll start doing that more often.

A Brief Interjection

Oh, hello there! Good to see you round these parts again. Yes I know, it's been a while. I haven't posted anything here in a hot minute. Hmm. I think that's the first time I've ever used that phrase, but it seems appropriate, so I'm gonna leave it.

Anyway, I've been gone for a while because... well, I really haven't had much to say. That and I've started playing League of Legends every night after work. Old Bill would be so ashamed of me, but it's actually a really fun game (when you win). The only problem I have is that right now (and likely forevermore) I'm not terribly good at the game, and the only champion I can play and have a shot at winning with is Cho'Gath; if I pick anyone else (except maybe Garen) our team is likely doomed. In a way, it reminds me of Mortal Kombat: Deception, and how if I wanted to be certain of victory, I would just pick Baraka. Except I'm actually good at Mortal Kombat and could beat most people with any character; Baraka was just like hitting the auto-win button. Cho'Gath is like hitting the "if you want to win, you have to press this button first; it's not guaranteed, but if you want any shot at all you have to do it" button.

Speaking of Mortal Kombat, I find it interesting how you can reboot a franchise so easily with time travel. The creative team wrote themselves into a corner at the end of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, although it could easily have been fixed if MK vs. DC was actually canon, and I really feel like they kind of missed an opportunity there. Instead of developing a possible storyline involving Armageddon triggering universe overlap with DC and following it up with mending the rifts and continuing the story from there, they had Raiden, at death's door, telepathically send his past self a riddle (hokey, but whatever) which completely altered the progression of events laid out by the first three games, and frankly, not in a good way. I guess it was decent for restructuring the series for future games, but there was one really weak, cop-out sequence right before the end of the game that just left a terrible taste in my mouth.

I guess that's about all I feel like saying now, since I'm getting a wee bit drowsy. It's not much, but I haven't much of substance to say, so when I do, I will return to the blogging front once more and dive right into the trenches. Until then, dear reader(s?), I bid you a hearty farewell.