I said in my last blog post (which wasn’t over a year ago surprisingly), that I did my first blog in August of 2002. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. I think back to when I started, I was only 28 then. I also worked retail and really… really… really hated it. At that point in time, I had been at the current retail job about 7 years, with 5 years of retail before that at another grocery store. I didn’t know it at the time, but I only had about 4 years of retail left to experience before moving to the glory of an office job in a factory. That was a great move for the obvious reason of getting out of retail, but also because it gave me accounting experience and helped me get enough skills to get out of there and go to my final job. I say final job because with my contract, I should be able to retire in 7 more years if I choose to. I don’t think I could do retail again. I think people suck more now than they did 20 years ago, and I’d probably snap on someone if they were filming me with their phone because I was out of whatever precious item they seem to think they were entitled to.

I look back on my old blogs and I can see the anger I used to have, and most of it was over stupid shit that really didn’t matter anyway. Although 48-year-old me doesn’t agree 100% with everything I said in my late 20’s and early 30’s, I don’t regret any of it. I didn’t really blog much after I got out of retail. I think part of it was I didn’t have something constantly irritating me that I had to vent about. I also went through a few bouts of bad anxiety after I bought my house. Once I got out of the blogging for a while, it was really hard to get back into it. I’m not sure why I’m back into it right now, we’ll see how it goes.

Is it a reboot or a sequel? I’m not really sure anymore. So, I have officially broken up with GoDaddy. They are nowhere as good as a sugar daddy as they cost too much money. As I mentioned almost a year ago in my only blog of 2021, they wanted extra money for an SSL so I could have an https on my site. I’m not in commerce you asses, I just write stupid shit and say fuck a lot, I don’t even need an SSL for that, but everyone’s scared to go on your site now if you don’t have the little padlock icon at the top.

I have officially moved to BlueHost for my hosting and my domain names. It took a week for GD to release my domain name, not sure if they are that slow or just assholes. Either way, it’s done now, and I need to really use this website since I committed to three years of owning it.

My first official blog post was Friday, August 16, 2002. Holy shit, my blog is 20 years old already; one more year and it can legally drink. More on that later (am I committing to a second blog post this year?). Time will tell.

I kinda sorta forgot that I still had this page. Now, do I keep giving money to GoDaddy to keep it? They are a little pricy for what I need from them. The fact they want extra money for the https pisses me off. So, I guess the answer is no. I don’t want to give them my money anymore. I will either be switching hosting companies, or I will just dump the site. Either way it doesn’t really matter anymore.

I bought myself a year of Adobe Creative Cloud, so I’m hoping to piss around with my website and my 3rd Bass site as well. We’ll see how that goes though, since $360 spent isn’t a horribly big motivator for me.

What a year… hopefully 2019 will see a decrease in the amount of asshole people. I suppose we would need a huge natural disaster for that to happen though, because they certainly won’t change on their own. Just read any comments on Facebook or Twitter and you’ll see what I mean. When I say any comments, I mean any… obviously political stuff will have a ton of stupidity on it. I do wish people would quit treating politics like it is a football game though. Don’t get so excited that your side won or pissed that your side lost because in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter, just like football.

Go to any post online about cooking, especially something like a dessert. You’ll have your normal commenters saying that looks good, then the trouble makers show up. First are the people wanting to know if they can change ingredients… well yes you can Susan, this isn’t a commandment, it’s a fucking recipe. Go ahead and substitute whatever shitty ingredients you want since you can’t handle the original ingredients. The next commenters that show up are going to criticize this page for putting up this recipe saying that people are too fat and there is nothing healthy about this recipe. Now I agree baking a chocolate cake and then filling it with 30 candy bars, burying it in hot fudge and covering it with frosting might not be healthy, but do you really need to state the obvious? I’m looking at you Carol.

Any post that has a video of animals will get so many comments. Once again you will get your positive comments and likes… then the ensuing shit storm begins. People will begin to claim that you can tell that animal has been abused because of how it acts in the video and you shouldn’t be laughing at it… well holy shit Jim, I didn’t realize that you got your veterinary license in video diagnosis. Perhaps you should start dating Carol from up above, you two would make a great couple.

The comment section as a whole are full of jacks of all trades and masters of none, and here are my two cents. – ok, side note here: I can bitch and moan about anything I want to, including bitching about other people bitching, because I am paying for this website – Everyone wants to have their opinion out there and I’m not sure why. Is it a “Look at Me” thing, do they think their comment makes some difference, it really doesn’t make sense to me and I’ve been doing this internet thing for over 20 years.

So I guess it has been a while since I’ve bothered to write anything on here. So let’s play catchup. My house is paid off, my new truck is paid off. I have a new job after quitting my first non-retail job after 11 years. I did not go back into retail, I remained in the accounting field and don’t think I will ever look back. I’m approaching 45 years old in a little over a month, not happy about that, but compared to the alternative I guess I’ll take it.

I have had the urge to blog again, I’m just really lazy. I think a lot of it is the fact that I am more at ease using my iPad than sitting at a computer. I could blog from my iPad, but I type better when I have both hands on the keyboard.

It is time to dust this thing off though, especially since I paid for it for another two years now.

I haven’t done a blog entry since 2015, and I really don’t care. I’m on hopefully my final project in my house, and I decided not to continue going to classes. Does that mean I’ll have more free time to spend on here? I don’t know… You see, I was everything that I hate now. Some smartass person typing shit onto their website, thinking they are funny, smart and somewhat of a revolutionary thinker. I’m not, you’re not, nobody is. We are all just on this little ride on this spinning blue ball until we die, but none of us are special. They say opinions are like assholes and everyone has one… unless you are born with some lower intestinal disorder, then maybe you don’t, but I mean everyone else.

You know, birthdays were awesome when I was younger and another year didn’t make me realize I was just enjoying a countdown to death. Birthdays are different for everyone, but here is what I think about them.

When you are a kid birthdays are awesome, I mean really, free presents. Depending on your memory capabilities and how many brain cells you have killed in your teenage and adult life, you probably can remember as far back as being four. Did you have a shitty birthday as a kid? Most likely not, unless you had a shitty life or someone died on your birthday. If that happened then you are probably scarred for life and only get 10 minutes a day on the net in the asylum so I’m not too concerned with you reading this.

Your first birthday is probably the best one, which kind of sucks that you don’t remember it. You’re brand new, your parents didn’t accidentally (or intentionally) kill you for a whole year. There’s plenty to celebrate, you get put in your high chair with a cake of your own that you get to go to town on. The messier the better, it makes for good pictures, home movies or whatever you call the shit you record with your smart phone these days.

Your second through ninth birthdays are pretty much the same shit different year type. The only difference is instead of getting Lego’s or some kids stuff, you are getting better things. Don’t worry, you always have that annoying aunt that will get you clothes no matter how old you are.

Your first big birthday of any importance is your tenth. Holy shit, you just made it to double digits so that is impressive. You’re not one of those single digit bastards anymore, you’re a one-zero, unlike the rest of the babies.

The next important birthday you will have is going to be your 13th. Welcome to your teenage years and to your new job of seriously annoying the shit out of your parents with pretty much every thing you do.

You lay low for a few years, then you hit the best birthday yet… 16. You are kinda/sorta an adult now. You can drive and go out on dates, get a curfew to break that means something. You also get to go out and get your own job. Being 16 and working is nice because even though work sucks, as a teenager, who really gives a shit right? Sure you can’t vote yet, but I can & don’t, so don’t worry about it. Enjoy it, in two years you will earn that right and not use it.

Holy shit, you’re finally 18 years old. This birthday is awesome too. You’ve turned 18, you’re done or almost done with high school, you may or may have not had a kid already which is a whole other post. Seriously, you are bordering on the doorstep of adulthood now. It is time to head off to college and do some serious partying… um, I mean learning. You still have to wait a few more years to drink (legally), so you’re not officially and adult yet.

Bow down to the holy grail of birthdays… you are now 21 and can do legally what you’ve been doing for the past three years. Welcome to your legal binge drinking years. You are probably still in college and will most likely kill all the brain cells holding the accumulated information from college in your last year there, but hey, it’s college – party on.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your trek of birthdays so far, because that was the last fun one for you, now people will only give a shit about your birthday when it is followed by a zero. Did I forget to mention that they won’t celebrate the birthday for you, it is for them to remind you of how old you are getting. Your 30th will be the nicest one you get from them. You will get a few “old person” jokes and maybe a black balloon or two, but for the most part it will be pretty civil. You may feel like shit because you were a 20 year old and now holy fuck, you’re a 30 year old. This is where your college education comes in and you realize how old you’ll be in 10 years.

The next one you will celebrate will be to totally make you feel like shit. Happy 40th asshole, welcome to the old person club. You will be decked out with black balloons and a black cake and anything else that can represent death & happiness all at the same time. Enjoy it because half of them will probably be dead by your next big birthday celebration.

The next two you really celebrate will be your 50th & 60th. These can be lumped together because it is just a lot more of the shit you tolerated on your 40th. You can only be told so many times that you are over the hill and so old they are surprised you’re not dead etc… before it just becomes commonplace. They can still do this even while you’re 60 because you haven’t retired yet and are still working. That makes you fair game.

After that, you will celebrate your 70th birthday. This one will be more mellow because they can’t give you shit anymore about one foot in the grave, because you probably really do have one in there. People start getting nicer when you get older, mostly because they want you to put them in your will. Regardless your 70th birthday going forward to your funeral will usually just be a somber “holy shit you’re still alive” type of party. Enjoy your cake and pass your cynical knowledge onto the youngsters so they can be scarred for life. It is your legacy.

 

 

Very briefly (like my appearances on this blog), I’ve changed companies for my hosting and for my domain name. Although I was smart enough to back up all my content before I told my old hosting company to piss off and no longer had access to my stuff, I didn’t really bother to notice what my theme was or where my pictures were. I have all of that locally, but will have to do some experimenting and some FTP transfers to get everything back to where it was. Once that is done, I will be able to ignore this website with confidence again.

I think that I’m officially sick of the internet and other forms of technology. I’ve hung out with the internet for almost 20 years now since the days of annoying dial up noises and pictures that loaded in about 3 hours. Since those days I have seen idiotic things such as pop up ads and the trick ads of “click here to win (insert cool item of the moment). I never cared about that because I wasn’t dumb enough to click on that stuff, unlike the many people whose computers I had to fix. Now we come to this age of social media and we have the same type of shit going on there. Although I haven’t seen many sightings lately, I am always amused by the friends that have the posts on their wall claiming there is an amazing video of some naked celebrity or some shocking death video that you have to click and watch. Once again, I’m not that stupid, have fun cleaning off your computer. Even more than this though is the annoying look at me shit that companies are trying now for people to look at their Facebook pages. My newest nemesis is The Weather Channel. I guess I shouldn’t expect anything from them considering what has happened to their television channel, but I could have hoped. I absolutely fucking hate the “These things will make you sick, you won’t believe number 3, click here” type of bullshit. Look Weather Channel Facebook among other violators, you ARE NOT Buzzfeed so please stop trying to get people to look at your stupid site with these lame ass bait and switch tactics.

Hey, speaking of nude celebrities, let’s talk about this hack job that exposed a bunch of them last week. First off, those were their own private photos and shouldn’t have been sent out to the world, so if they have any recourse of action to sue, I hope they do. The other part of this is the reaction around the world. This ‘how dare you’ attitude of taking a picture of yourself naked. Really America? Why do we have such a problem with nudity and sexuality in this country? I have never understood this disgust and shame we place on nudity. Nudity is natural, you are born naked and then told to cover that stuff up the rest of your life. I’m not suggesting that people should start fucking at the McDonalds or anything but next time you see a boob let’s not try to act like we are all going to hell. One only has to remember the SuperBowl wardrobe malfunction of Janet Jackson that flashed her boob for a few seconds and the uproars that followed that. People wanted to fine CBS over a half million dollars for that, meanwhile I’m sure there were crime shows in CBS that showed multiple people being shot and killed, but that was OK to us. Someone being raped or murdered, good TV, 2 seconds of a boob, well that’s horrible, we need to stop it. If only titties were guns then it would be your constitutional right to flash them anywhere.

All of this brings me to a new realization and a new chapter in my life. I am cutting the cord from cable TV. I have long had issues with Charter. I don’t refer to them as Charter Communications because they don’t communicate unless they want something from you. I am only cutting my television off for now and keeping my internet, we’ll see how that works out. I have realized that even though there are an inordinate amount of television channels out there, I only watch about 4 of them, and I have no vices such as football or other sports that make me need to be plugged in. If you’ve read any of my other posts in the past, I despise all of the 24 hour news channels and think they are a waste of our time. I have had it with the weather channel as well. You may have also caught in the past that I really hate reality television as well. Sure I have some shows that I like to watch, but thanks to Charters complete fuck up of the FXX transfer last year, they taught me that I can live without my favorite shows and just binge watch them when they come out on DVD or Netflix. For those that were not around to hear me complain (I don’t remember ever blogging about it). When FXX was born, it took the place of some lame FOX sports channel which was on some sports package tier of Charter’s. When I called them and asked why I wasn’t getting FXX I was told that I needed to upgrade to that tier for only $10 more a month. I told them to fuck off and hung up. I mean sure I could have gotten other wonderful channels of people fishing and playing soccer, but who wants that? Because of that debacle I did not see The League or Always Sunny last year at all. I ended up catching up with Sunny on their reruns on Comedy Central and I just caught up on the League with Netflix. My life did not get worse for not seeing the shows until now, and if I had missed them both until DVD’s were released then I would have just went that way. So in a way, thank you Charter for showing me the way and letting me know that I don’t need your shitty television service any longer. The roughly $1,200 that will remain in my bank account on a yearly basis thanks you as well.

Well, I decided this year that instead of getting the iMac that I wanted, I would go with windows instead. No, not shitty operating system Windows 8.1, but actual windows in my house. I have very old Andersen windows in my house that are no longer practical for things like keeping heat in during the winter or out in the summer. I don’t know what year these were built but they are awning windows and the opener pre-dates the crank. There is just a three piece bar that you unfold, then push out. So I dropped about four grand on new vinyl windows that are just currently sitting in my garage. No I am not going to install these myself, I do have a contractor. My number one rule of house fixing is that I do not do anything with holes that go to the outside of my house. One of those rules is because what connects the inside to the outside of your house is kind of important and should be done professionally. The other reason is that although I’m handy, I’m also lazy and there is a good chance that I would have a huge hole in my house for quite a few days before the project gets completed. Where did I leave off? Oh yes, why are four thousand dollars worth of windows just sitting in my garage instead of being installed in my house? Lazy contractor you ask? Nope, shitty supplier that fucked up the original order when it was sent in. All windows are off by at least two inches and two that are supposed to be the same exact type of window are different. One is an insert that I need, albeit wrong size, and the other has a nailing flange which can’t be use. Lucky me, I get to have a bunch of windows that I can’t use hang out in my garage like a lazy brother in law until the new ones arrive.

What else is going on since I haven’t touched this blog since the end of February? Obviously nothing too exciting or I would have probably posted it on here. I am looking at getting a new vehicle. When I say new vehicle I mean new to me, not new off the lot. I have only bought one new vehicle off the lot and that was because I was 19 and stupid. Now that I’m 40 I realize that I have only owned seven cars my whole life; I know people that do that in ten years. So I’m looking around for something different and in Wisconsin I definitely want to keep my 4WD capabilities, especially after the winter we were dealt last year. I think I’m due for a new one, but I think I could feasibly get another year off what I have now, as long as it doesn’t fall completely apart. It should be fine provided I don’t hit any bumps. I will most likely wait until I have my windows and contractor completely paid off before I think of getting a new car, and as good as my window supplier is, that will probably be 2016.

Tomorrow is the first of March already? You wouldn’t know it by looking outside, because it looks more like December or January out there. Regardless it means I have to go through the painstaking task of flipping my damn calendar tomorrow.

I am so glad that I have Netflix so that I only have to watch stupid shit on TV when I choose to. I’m not talking about reality TV, because I try not to acknowledge its existence if at all possible. I think I mean the news more than anything. Memo to the news channels – The Oscars are not news, they are entertainment. Shit, they aren’t even entertainment, they are giving awards out for past entertainment. I wish I had awards for doing my job… And the award for the best performance of pretending to give a shit about his job – Dave!

Well I can dream anyway.