Saturday, August 31, 2019

 Did I call it or what? It would b nice to be able to go through a whole week without having to completely shut down for one day.



 The Sleep got me today, but I sort of walked into it. Wound up sitting up until close to 4 a.m. playing Elite: Dangerous, & after letting Otis out for the day, went back to sleep without using my CPAP mask. I slept hard & unpleasantly for a couple more hours, & have been struggling to get in gear all day. Here it is, 15 minutes after 8 p.m., & I'm just now doing something beyond going back to sleep.

 And I do hate to be that guy, but yesterday's attempt at Gonzo writing didn't get near the views as the "just fill up space" rumination of Thursday's offering. I've got no reason to get out of shape on this, as it is just practice & I'm just now letting other humans know I'm doing it anyway, but I've always had a hang up about "wasting my time". That is, spending the time, effort & energy writing something - be it a rumination or a full-fledged pro review - & no one bothers to acknowledge that I did it.

 I didn't care so much the lack of feedback when I was a pro journalist because, frankly, I was getting paid & that was almost the whole point. That's probably where it all went wrong. I don't know how in the hell you make a living at this. I never really did, I was just able to live so cheap that it really didn't matter.

 College football started in earnest  today, but I really don't care to get too deep into all that today. Perhaps I will one day, because I do have thoughts. Short version: I do enjoy watching football but I don't give enough of a shit to have a "team" & just about everyone involved except the players are greedy dirtbags who use up those same players, destroying their health & soul so they can afford another summer house to keep their latest mistress. Furthermore, I have thoughts about the fans & team loyalty & how/why people can be absolute bastards to each other over something so intrinsically meaningless.

 But today's not that day. And I swear I'll get around to writing a review of Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, if I can stay awake long enough & peel myself away from Elite: Dangerous & XCOM 2. Again, though, today ain't the day.

 I've been putting off getting to the news today, because, well, we've started another cycle. There was yet another mass shooting in Texas, this time in the Midland/Odessa area, killing five people & wounding 21. One of those wounded was a 17-month old baby, & I've seen already in today's Twitter use the ammosexuals getting spitting mad about their rights to be able to shoot a bunch of people for no real good reason.

 Indeed, this comes just one day before the already extremely lax gun laws in Texas are weakened even more, making it even less a legal problem to carry a weapon capable of murdering a school full of teenagers just because. So far, as of Saturday evening, all we know is that the shooter was a white male in his 30s & was killed by police in Odessa. The only thing we really know for sure is that the shooting was all kicked off when the killer was stopped for failing to signal a left turn.

 That's our world, now, a world where killing a half-dozen people is the logical reaction to getting a $125 ticket. I doubt it will change much anytime soon. There are still plenty of hooting loons who love their shooty-bangs & I'm pretty convinced they don't care how many die or are threatened just so their dicks don't feel tiny anymore. You have events such as this & this as an almost regular occurrence, like the sun rising or Bret Stephens whining that the plebes are being mean to him again, & we can't even talk about it because it's always "too soon, don't politicize" until the next one.

 And the next one will come, sure as the rains come in May. It'll be at a mall or a grocery store or a kindergarten. Republicans will ask for thoughts & prayers, & they'll blame video games The NRA will pretend they're persecuted & gun fetishists will rub another out at the thought of so many clean kills. Democrats will be call godless commienazis who want to destroy America & Jesus, so they won't do much. More people will die for no good reason. This is why I don't leave Enon Holler unless I have to.

 Ah, I'm just moody. Mass shootings & the fans thereof always put me in a bad mood. Dorian's been upgraded to Category 4 & is bearing down on the Bahamas headed for the Southeast coast. Saturday's coming down & I'm probably just going to sleep the rest of the day away. Maybe things will look a little brighter in the morning. Take care of yourself, kids. It's a booger out there.