April 27, 2026: ^ How It Feels to Be the Only Person Under 50 With Zero Tattoos
Back from Florida (and Disney). Kids had a good time. Animal Kingdom is the best park and it isn't even a close call. Plus, you can simply spend the day walking around and looking at the animals without having to worry about muh lines for rides. Some of those lines at the other parks made me nearly crash out. I think 45 minutes of waiting is probably my max. Disney was smart to put the queues indoors and have "exhibits" to look at while waiting... but still... Rainforest Cafe is awesome and the fact that there are no longer any New England locations is criminal. Speaking of New England, a direct flight from Portland to Orlando is only three hours but damn do I still find plane rides boring as all hell. And speaking of animals, wtf wild bunnies are EVERYWHERE in Florida. Took a little walk with my daughter one evening and saw six of them. The concept of wild reptiles (excluding garter snakes and pond turtles) is so strange too! Beautiful weather. People always tell me that Florida gets too hot but at this point I'd gladly take a 100 degree day over a 10 degree day.
Oh and how come I didn't know about this Epcot Orange Bird until now? He's so cute! I may have gotten a plushie...
Current Mood:
dorky
Current Music: Mineral - February
April 15, 2026: Florida Man (Not)
One thing they don't tell you about having kids is that it involves constant embarrassment. Okay maybe that's a bit extreme. How about frequent low-grade confrontation. Example... I'm old-fashioned and we have a "family computer" -- a big ass old desktop at a desk. My daughter leaves a tab open and she's on Amazon looking at those black & white manga "ahegao" t-shirts. Lovely! We sure could have a fun conversation about that later! Speaking of the kids, they absolutely demolished a light fixture in the hallway. Because they were hitting a volleyball back and forth. Sometimes they will blame each other but this time they hunkered down and both refuse to say anything. My oldest also busted a mini fridge. They're on quite a streak! I love my kids tremendously btw.
Don't think I've mentioned this but track & field takes up a big chunk of my time/life. Both kids do it (the oldest can presently do two consecutive spring/summer seasons). I spend a lot of time at practices and meets; it's additionally my favorite sport. The middle school had a coaching position available this year that I would have jumped on, but it wouldn't have worked out logistically with my present employment. I'll definitely consider MS or HS coaching a couple years down the road though. I'd prefer distance, but anything is fine. Don't think I need this but USATF (the track & field governing body) has these exams to be "officially certified" as a coach and/or official. The one for officiating is kind of funny. It's an open book test where you have to watch videos of possible DQs and state how you'd rule... thing is, they're from pro track meets and you can simply look up how the actual pro/Olympic tier officials ruled and just copy them. Not that I would do that!!
Been reminiscing more about blogging and internet life lately, for whatever reason. Many years ago, when I first got to college, I became somewhat "addicted" to the web and for what passed for "social media." I was already a "computer guy" and it was my first time on high speed internet and I really dove into it. A terrible (though mildly humorous?) event I recalled recently... Like many young men then and now, I was convinced that the internet would end up being my pathway to proper socialization, as I had plenty of disdain for irl "normies" and whatnot. I assumed the internet is where I'd end up meeting my closest friends, maybe get an internet gf hehe, whatever. I even had a MASSIVE standalone scanner (to scan photos from disposable cameras) and one of those ball-shaped webcams on top of my CRT monitor, so I could post pics of myself online. Anyway, in addition to being a heavy LiveJournal user I also joined this site called "Makeoutclub.com" which was like a social network for young people into the burgeoning scenes of emo and metalcore and all that shit (btw I never deleted my profile there and it remained online for about 15 years!). So one day I started talking to this girl on the site and things are going fine... We knew we lived in the same state & town from the get-go, but we soon figured out we were attending the same university, and were even on the same "side" of campus. In other words, we were eating in the same cafeteria and I had certainly walked by her dozens of times. And no her pfp didn't help as it was some artsy fartsy close-up of her eye (this should have been a red flag in retrospect). So we meet up in real life (at said cafeteria) and she's taller than me and not especially attractive. But whatever, who cares, we can be friends maybe. We have a nice enough conversation and then she invites me back to her room and as soon as we enter her roommate goes "okay I guess I'll leave you two alone now..." and then she bails. Uhhhh...... So I'm alone with 6-foot webgirl and she says "I wanna show you a video I downloaded" (this was before YouTube). I figure it's some stupid meme or some shit and I get ready to fake laugh and she loads up the video and, well, there's no easy way to say this: it was midget pr0nz. Like, depraved sex acts committed by people of very small stature. And this wasn't like a 30 second clip she put on to "troll" me; I saw the video progress bar it was a full-fledged two-hour film. And she's getting comfy like we're supposed to watch the whole damn thing together. I made an excuse to leave and proceeded to sprint back to my dorm. Never spoke to her again, though I eventually saw her, as I ended up working in the cafeteria.
Maybe this page needs a "Life Stories" section like our pal Wizard Perspective. One second thought, if this is what I'm leading in with maybe I should quit while I'm ahead (behind).
That's enough for now. I'm going to Florida for a week, starting Monday. I'd consider moving there. And many other places. Decades in the northeastern US has eroded my soul. Next blog post will have fewer anime girls. I like them but need a break.
Current Mood:
awake
Current Music: Discordance Axis - The End of Rebirth
March 31, 2026: I'm Losin' It!!!
The enshittification of daily life is reaching critical mass. I go to Walmart and stuff is locked behind glass, there's one (self-checkout) register open, and the aisles are clogged with employees pushing titanic rolling carts fulfilling "pickup" orders for fats who are too lazy to go into the store. Zero qt3.14 college grills working there (there's a college across the street), instead it's the shadiest looking mfs imaginable. I go to get some satiating slop and think my order will be up soon but it turns out there's like ten DoorDash goblins queued up ahead of me. The mail is only delivered four days a week. I get a new cell phone and oops it turns out there's no more headphone jack; I have to get an adapter. Death by a thousand cuts.
I try not to nostalgiacel too often in front of my kids. But I can tell that they (and other young people) can sense that something is "off" and that things weren't always this way. Bleak. Alright, I gotta do the dishes now.
Current Mood:
sore
Current Music: The Smiths - Girlfriend in a Coma
March 15, 2026: Food
St. Patrick's Day soon. I'm a proud Irish-American. I remember a few years ago we went to an "authentic Irish restaurant" on St. Patrick's Day and got "boiled dinner." Tasted like straight ass. I don't even like Japanese food much, despite the weeb tendencies. I could eat Mexican or Thai daily.
On the topic of food, I'm gearing up to MASSACRE another Big Arch meal Friday. My daughter has her final volleyball game and wants to grab dinner out afterwards. She also could go to "Fun Night" -- yeah instead of just "dances" they have these nights with a bunch of activities. She usually goes but doesn't want to attend this one because it's directly after sports... and? I'm not going to attempt to understand teenage girls. Speaking of which, my kid and her buddies DESTROYED the basement during a sleepover... weeks ago. I'm hoping that through some magic the place cleans itself up.
Current Mood:awake
Current Music: The Cure - Boys Don't Cry
March 13, 2026: New Blog
Okay, this is a place to dump random thoughts about my life. I'm not very interesting but here we go...
Bit of a meta post here... I struggled for a bit with where to host this thing. I come from the LiveJournal / DeadJournal / Dreamwidth school of blogging (no, "journaling") and have an affinity for those sites. Unfortunately they're all semi-defunct in various ways... LiveJournal is Russian now (seriously), DeadJournal requires cash, Dreamwidth is (now) the best but like the other two simply gets little traffic... not that anyone will look at this!
Snowing overnight which is a huge pain in the ass. I try to will spring into existence this time of year. Or hope that a switch flips come the equinox. Gonna have to wait a few more weeks and there's nothing I can do about it. Spending too much time inside and going insane. I wanna hear the spring peepers.
Surfed around eBay today and ended up picking up this PS2 VN called Mabino x Style. Sometimes I luck out with the local sellers; all the Japanese listings of the game were much more expensive. It heads right to the backlog where it will sit for some time... Maybe I'll get to it before I'm 50, haha!!!
Might watch television until I pass out. I downgraded my cable package and now have this little box called a "Xumo" and I get all these weird channels. Like Dr. Phil 24/7. Last episode I watched was about a 30-year-old virgin but no one used the term "wizard."
Uuhhhhh.... speaking of LiveJournal (etc.) I gotta end this the right way.
Current Mood:
sleepy
Current Music: The Cure - Charlotte Sometimes