I really don’t feel like writing

Therefore, I am making myself write, because it’s the times that you don’t want to do something are the times in which you have to do them, otherwise a downward spiral of failure becomes eminent.  Don’t feel like exercising?  Prepare to have to budget for some larger clothes, fatass.  Don’t feel like cooking?  Prepare to have to budget for some larger clothes, lazy. Don’t feel like working?  Prepare to have to update your resume when you get shitcanned; and budget for larger clothes when you inevitably start to eat out of depression.

I don’t want to have to budget for larger clothing because I don’t feel like writing, and it will depress me, and then I’ll resort to food.  Everything resorts to food, seemingly.  Food is wonderful, and I’m fascinated just how often people turn heel on food on shows like My 600 lb. Life on TLC, blaming a wonderful thing for why they’re so fat and useless.  It’s worse than people turning heel on Ronda Rousey, because she lost her return fight, and now suddenly she’s an overrated has been that everyone has hated for a long time because of some controversial statements she made about homosexuality that have nothing to do with her body of work as a mixed martial artist.

The thing is, a lot of people wanted to believe that when the arbitrary change from 2016 to 2017 occurred, things would miraculously start getting better, more optimistic.  Sure, I don’t buy into it, but I didn’t want to be one of those assholes who bemoaned the entire practice and shit on peoples’ mechanisms to remain optimistic and have hope, but it turns out that as far as my own little world is concerned, things don’t really seem to be getting much better.  Those around me are still going through some rough patches, testing their morale, resolve and their strength, and my family is still in disarray and no matter how much talking and mediating I try to do, still looks to be on a path to a worst possible situation.

Honestly, because I’m apparently so empathetic towards the woes of those around me, it’s difficult to go on with my relatively simple life knowing others are grieving and dealing with bad things in their lives, and despite the fact that I just said my life is relatively simple, the problems that I do have myself aren’t necessarily small ones.  That being said, there are times in which I feel like I’m being stretched pretty hard in numerous directions, and it’s when I feel the most powerless at being able to cope and help and deal, that I feel the brunt of emotional distress bordering at the potential for some depression.

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The Ft. Lauderdale airport shooter looks like Brandon Belt

Inappropriate, given the tragic loss of multiple lives at the Ft. Lauderdale airport, but when I saw the mugshot of the gunman, I couldn’t help but notice the striking resemblance to San Francisco Giants first baseman, Brandon Belt.

Sure, he’s the player I identify as the guy I dislike the most on the team I dislike more than any other in Major League Baseball, which I almost want to say that he’s the guy I dislike more than anyone else in MLB, which isn’t entirely accurate, because that dubious honor goes to Melky Cabrera, but even I have to feel kind of bad for Brandon Belt that he’s such a dead ringer for a guy whose face has been, and will probably be flashing all over the news for at least another week, as a guy identified as a mentally ill, PTSD-addled example of the shortcomings of veteran care and mental health knowledge.

Seriously, when I first saw the mugshot, I immediately thought that Brandon Belt had done something illegal and gotten arrested or something. 

I hope one day when Brandon Belt is inevitably exposed as being the overrated hack he is and is designated for assignment, and has to take his talents to Asia in order to keep his career going, Asian fans will make signs using the Ft. Lauderdale shooter’s mugshot with Brandon Belt’s name.  Like when Taiwanese fans used a photo of Johnny Cueto on a sign for Manny Ramirez, because All Look Same.

This is why humanity is going downhill

Impetus: France, joins 51 other countries as countries that will no longer allow corporal punishment.

Meaning: There are currently 52 countries in the world that don’t allow children to be spanked.

Reality: There are currently 52 countries in the world where children will grow up to be undisciplined shitheads and become pussies in life.

Irony: Despite using Arnold Schwarzenegger from Kindergarten Cop as the hero image for this post, Austria, was the fourth nation of pussies to ban corporal punishment in 1989.  Sure, the timing is a little off, but Austria bans discipline, Arnold leaves Austria, Arnold becomes a global mega star – coincidence?

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Attempting to kill The Killing Joke

Over the holidays, I took a little bit of time to watch the animated rendition of Batman: The Killing Joke, widely regarded as one of the most memorable Batman comics ever made.  Despite curmudgeon Alan Moore’s best attempts to discount its merit, there’s no denying that it’s a genuine classic that puts an exclamation point on the dark undertones of the series, and shows a very serious and vicious rendition of The Joker and a storyline that distances it miles away from the safeness of The Animated Series and the campiness of the 60’s Adam West show.

When the film debuted over the summer during Comic-Con, there was a lot of buzz in the negative sense about its execution; something about an artificially added storyline, damaging of female empowerment, and a very non-canonical relationship.  In other words, typical nerd outrage over something that a lot of people didn’t agree with.  Although the details of these particular elements did sound a little suspect, I didn’t really want to come to any conclusions without seeing it myself; after all, with the return of Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy to reprise their TAS roles, maybe this could be an epic retelling of an epic comic story.

Well, after watching The Killing Joke, put me in the camp of comic nerds who believes it was overall crap.

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Oh, Atlanta #1,017

TL;DR: Shell casings found in various Atlanta locations indicate a concerning number of incidents on New Year’s Eve involving celebratory gun fire.

You know what’s a great idea to celebrate things?  Discharging lethal weapons.

I mean seriously, I’ve heard of plenty of incidents of there being celebratory gun fire in parts of the world before, but usually they’ve been like, Islamic terrorists firing AK-47s into the skies, screaming Allahu Akbar or some shit.  Or like rednecks really celebrating their second amendment rights, in the backwoods and/or their white supremacy compounds.

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The obligatory 2016 year in review post

Frankly, I don’t much feel like writing lately.  I’ve been leaning on the crutch of trying to find an intriguing story to me with hopes of sparking some motivation to write, and opting to not force the issue and not writing anything if nothing emerges.  Otherwise, I haven’t felt particularly driven to write, and it’s safe to assume that when I’m not busy, have plans or something to do, I’ve kind of been in this depressed state of being, where my life simply kind of feels like it’s on hold and I’m not particularly happy with my life.

But as far as I can observe, that seems to be a general sentiment felt by many, as 2016 comes to a merciful close – not particularly happy.  Make no mistake, whether you believe a narrative can be conveniently encapsulated within a calendar year, or if it’s coincidental to be insulated within twelve particular months, 2016 was a pretty rough year.  Maybe it was because of the litany of celebrity deaths, from Prince, David Bowie to the seemingly endless coverage of Carrie Fisher.  Maybe it’s because of the election of a president that is a known bigot, sexist and racist and the dread of knowing that he will be in charge of the country for at least the next four years.  Maybe it’s the ever-growing dredge and pessimism and ‘if it bleeds it leads’ mentality of the media and the social shitstorm it brews over social media, leading to this endless cycle of negatively connoted news we’re incessantly exposed to.  Maybe it’s because in our own personal lives, we’ve dealt with loss, bad news, or diminished feelings of hope for the future at the home front.

Or maybe it’s a little bit of all of the above, or any combination of such.  Who really knows, but it goes without saying that for most of the people in my own little world, the negative outweighed the good by a tremendous margin, and that notion in itself is why I’m one of the many that is looking forward to 2016 ending, and hoping that 2017 might just be a little bit better.

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lol Curbed hipsters

Occasionally, I like reading Curbed.  Sure, the writing is a little biased, the commenters are amongst the most pretentious on the planet, but sometimes, it’s a nice way to see other neighborhoods and parts of town that I might not be so aware of.  At the end of each year, Curbed does this thing called The Curbed Cup, and they like to poll readers to determine, what the best neighborhood in the region is.

Previous winners in Atlanta aren’t any real surprises; Inman Park, Old Fourth Ward, Kirkwood, Reynoldstown; these are areas rife with pretty successful gentrification and are appropriately densely packed with hipsters, new money, and hipsters with new money.  Last year’s winner was a little bit of a head-scratcher; the West End, which to anyone who isn’t familiar with the area, it’s basically the region of town that is literally on the other side of the tracks, that is full of blight, crime, unoccupied and dilapidated homes and more crime.

There’s no denying that the potential of the West End is grandiose if it could ever actually be successfully cleaned, reset, and developed appropriately, as it sits on a lot of prime real estate that the burgeoning Atlanta real estate market would salivate over, if it were remotely usable.

But anointing it as the best Atlanta neighborhood of 2015 was quite the head-scratcher, and I would wager money that bloggers and snarky internet commenters could write essays on how great the West End is in their opinion, but they wouldn’t be able to say NO fast enough, if they were asked if they would actually live there.

That’s the kind of place the West End really is.

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