Like the subject says, I haven’t really felt like there’s been a lot to write about. It’s times like these when I sit down and try to clear out all the noise in the world and in my head and just see what happens when I open up a Word doc and just start typing.
Usually, I surf a large variety of news sites, local and worldly to see if anything piques my interest. Then it devolves into sports sites and op-ed outlets, just to see if there’s anything that triggers any sort of writable tangent. Failing any of that, it’s the happenings in my own fairly ordinary and nondescript life, wondering if there’s anything worth talking about, or anything I actually want to put something down into writing.
My life, hasn’t been particularly interesting for a while. My days and weeks consist of the same things often, and I’m occasionally fretting over the fact that I feel like I don’t make enough money which kind of puts a damper on some of my ambitions when it comes to things I want to do, or travels I want to indulge in. I think about spending habits, spending plans and how to shave down the credit card debt that I’ve built back up throughout the moving process, and it frequently feels like an endless cycle that just chews up time and often doesn’t actually pan out like it should.
Like in my current state, I feel like I’d need like 6-8 months to really wipe out a lot of my debt while not having to starve in the process. I’m sure that some additional sacrifices could be made to reduce my costs a little further, but it just doesn’t feel like it would be enough to warrant the inconveniences. But really though, 6-8 months? That’s literally from half to two-thirds of an entire year. I’m not getting any younger, and the whole concept of getting older is another can of worms that has been on my mind increasingly these days, and I just feel like if I made more money outright, things might improve for the better, overall.
But then I feel like I’m kind of in a rut where my skillset doesn’t command as much money as I hope it would, and I give a lot of contemplation to my own career. I really like where I work and the team I’m on and the people I work with, but again, money. I make enough to pay my mortgage and pay my bills, but with the new house, I’m also paying more for a mortgage than I have before, and it’s still an adjustment knowing how much of a larger percentage of my incoming funds are going right back out the door paying for my property.
And we can’t talk about money and not talk about the correlation with time, and then the endless debate of money versus time. I certainly value my time, and often times more than money, but at the same time, there are certain things that cannot be accomplished without the need for money. And then it rotates in this perpetual cycle of feeling like I have enough of either, and then I begin to wonder if I may be bordering on the lines of a slight depression. Which is a maybe.
It would be nice to just win a substantial lottery. That just might actually make things improve for the better, contrary to the notions that huge influxes of money have accomplished in ruining several people out there.
But really, I can’t really complain that much about my life in some regards. My life itself isn’t at all terrible, aside from the fairly minor gripes I have that I’m not unaware that there are worse people out there that would love to have my gripes versus their own more substantial issues.
I think I feel like what drags me down is my empathy for others, to where I always feel like the problems of others become problems for me. I don’t think it’s untrue either, because there are people out there that are close to me going through some rough patches, and I feel helpless that there’s nothing that either I or anyone else can seemingly do about them, and I empathize for their sadness and grief with my own. Obviously, I won’t get into the business of others, but they are substantial problems, and I’ve come to the realization of the increasing difficulties of life that come with getting older, and that things just might not get better any time soon for the people all around me.
And that’s not even taking into consideration the shitty cesspool of a world we live in, full of rotten corrupt people, politicians, terrorists and mentally deranged people who somehow all seem to have way too large caches of firearms.
To pass the time and attempt to wind down from the occasional feeling that the world is shitty and my own life sometimes feels like I’m drowning, is the usual cacophony of watching sports, TV shows I’m behind on, and League of Legends.
With the obnoxious loss to Miami that was definitely a winnable game, Virginia Tech has two losses, and although playoff hopes were never a reality, they’re most likely out of even ACC Championship contention. Tech consistently fails against higher ranked teams, and it’s sometimes amazing they even remain in the AP top-25 rank themselves as often as they are.
The team has no run game, Josh Jackson is no Jake Fromm or Jalen Hurts when it comes to stalwart true freshmen QBs, and as often as Bud Foster is touted as this defensive legend, his defense is full of boneheads who can’t solo tackle, and there’s a correlation between how much Foster is blown for his prowess in-game to when they lose to ranked teams. Tech is a beast against scrubs, but a long way from the glory days when it comes to playing against notable football programs.
Otherwise, this college season has been really entertaining, and I love the fact that the overrated Big 10 conference has pretty much eaten itself to death, or to at least where there’s almost no chance of them having a representative in the College Playoffs. The circle-jerk of suck where Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan have all lost twice, with teams like Iowa and Michigan State all laughing at them is great.
I think Alabama has cruised through the season and is ripe for having their season completely ruined by when they actually have to play a contender. Georgia is currently ranked #1 in the nation, but I’ve lived in Georgia long enough to know that they’re going to have their season fucked hard and live up to the state reputation of choking, whether it’s to Georgia Tech, Auburn, or when they have to play Alabama in the SEC Championship much less the National Championship. This may actually be a season where Notre Dame could break through, or as much as it makes me ill to say it, Clemson could repeat.
And when college football isn’t on, is a litany of television shows that I try to keep up with. The Deuce starring James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal just wrapped up their first season, where the whole advertised storyline of the birth of the porno industry was barely scratched, and the whole season was pretty much all plot development. But it was still really good, anchored by great acting and a steady and intriguing plot that makes up for the sheer lack of actual getting to the point. I look forward to the next season already.
Mr. Robot has started their third season, and I’ve admittedly been in no rush in keeping up with it, based on the wacked out convoluted way the second season ended. But I’ve continued to watch, even though it’s still more of the same mindfucking, where the only real takeaway I have from it was the writers’ amusing way they’ve worked in the rise of Trump into their own storyline.
Ironically, it’s the internet dogpiling on Kevin Spacey that has put House of Cards back on my radar, and reminded me that I’d been stuck on the second season and should probably catch back up. I’m entirely capable of separating the person from the performer, and despite the fact that Kevin Spacey is pretty much public enemy #1 in the judgmental eyes of the sheep, does not change the fact that he’s still brilliant as Frank Underwood, and I’ve been getting really into tackling the remainder of season two, completing season three, and I’m looking forward to advancing onto the subsequent seasons.
I think what I really like about House of Cards, is that especially now, the show operates in a manner in which I already imagine what Washington politics are like anyway. Full of asshole degenerates, lots of deal making, circle jerking, nepotism and covert corruption in order for people to rise and fall from power and offices. And it feeds into the notion that the drama of Hollywood is nothing in comparison to the real-world drama that actually can impact people.
It’s kind of a shame that Netflix has caved into allegations and the pressures of sheep society in giving Spacey the pink slip. I understand why they did it, but it’s coming at the expense of what’s probably the flagship Netflix original, and now they’re going to be forced to slap together some shitty patchwork conclusion to what’s otherwise been a very, very good drama series.
And finally, what would a post by me be without any talk of League of Legends? Although I’m completely okay with Samsung winning Worlds, because there’s just something sadistically pleasing about two Korean teams competing for the World Championship on Chinese soil after ousting the host teams, I admittedly was hoping SK Telecom would have won a three-peat and four of the last five. There’s something that resonated with the ten-year old in me wanting to see the Chicago Bulls win every single championship ever that wanted to see SKT continue to build their dynasty.
I can’t really say I’m surprised though, as SKT limped their way to the finals, with barely-wins over teams like Europe’s Misfits Gaming and China’s Royal Never Give Up. In spite of the fact that they had dominated Samsung in the Korean LCK, at Worlds, they were a weak and vulnerable team, and Samsung rightfully capitalized and dominated. Still satisfied that the League scene is dominated by the Motherland, and I hope it never ends.
And with the passing of Worlds, comes the conclusion of season 7, and the experimental pre-season to 8. I can’t say I’m entirely thrilled with the very large and radical changes to the game, and I feel like it’s way more changes to the game in broad and wide, imbalanced strokes, with change being the objective and not so much any semblance of game balance.
In the handful of games I’ve played, AD is very imbalanced currently, and teams with strong AD comps will roll the competition. Unfortunately, I’ve been on the receiving end of lots of these games, and not even teams with stacking tanks or good CC or AP heavy squads have been able to withstand teams with lots of AD champions.
I don’t particularly like the removal of the level cap either, especially since it goes to infinity. It’s going to create a culture of level classism, where people can be judged by a number again, instead of when everyone was level 30. I suppose this is done to curb down on the sheer volume of smurf accounts that people create, since everyone’s primary accounts can rise infinitely, but I just don’t like the fact that people who started five months ago and got to level 30 have already passed me, despite the fact that I’ve been playing since season 1. Not enough merits to reward and identify veterans of the game still around, versus those who just downloaded the game last week.
Whatever though, I still play my ARAMs, and the new rune system might actually make me feel the need to play more Summoner’s Rift too, since some of the mechanisms make zero sense in a chaos environment like ARAM, but might actually make SR playable for me again.
So sports, television shows and League of Legends. These are the things I indulge in when I just want to turtle up and lay low and try to stay in and blow all the money I don’t feel like I have enough of. Surely I could benefit from some other, non-eyes on screen hobbies, but at least these are things that sparsely require me to use any money at all as long as I stay home.
And with that, this extra-long post of absolutely nothing comes to a close, as I’ve got nothing else to really write about, and I’m not entirely sure on how to wrap this all up. So instead, I’ll just shut it down like a Bret Easton Ellis novel and abruptly stop without
