Friday Monday Photoblog: "I Know It's Late" Edition

Weird Al, performing Dare To Be Stupid. From August 2010.
Would have done this sooner, but food poisoning kinda had other plans...)

(Insert Scream Here)

(Current earworm: Iridescent by Linkin Park. Love this song; it is going to be in Dark of the Moon, after all.)

The last few days have not been good, to say the very least.

Thursday, I came down with what I suspect was food poisoning: I was fine until I ate lunch but an hour or so later I began to feel like hammered slag.

Didn't work on Friday and it wasn't by choice. I had to call in. There was no way I could sit upright for more than a few seconds, so you could forget about me standing. It was a good thing I did. I spent most of the day sleeping and ridding my body of whatever toxin had invaded. It was painful as hell and I hope I never have to deal with that sort of bullshit ever again.

The only thing I could keep down was Jell-O (which I can't friggin' stand) and Poweraide. Solid food? The very thought of the stuff made me want to gag.

I am just now feeling really normal. For the last few days I've still felt a bit off, dealing with cramps and feeling like someone slammed me straight in the gut with Mjöllnir. Yeah, not pleasant don't even begin to cover this. I haven't even been doing my usual Golett rescues on GTS. Didn't EV train at all, either. I just felt too bad to even mess around with my DS.

But wait! It gets better!

Yesterday, I was doing a bit of editing, listen to some music, and perusing the web as always when Alexa-1, my darling laptop started to behave strangely. Everything seemed fine, then at around 4:50, she powered herself down. I thought at first I had inadvertently yanked a cord or something, but everything was still connected.

I shook my head, hit the power button and Alexa seemed to power up, then she shut down again. Now I was getting worried. So I tried switching her on again. She made it to the "Start Windows" screen and shut down again.

Now, I was completely panicked. Something was wrong and I had no clue as to what. I did the one thing I always do when shit happens and I'm clueless as to what may have occurred.

I called Prime.

I was all but screaming in hysteria when I told him what had happened, that something was wrong with Lexi and I couldn't get her to power back up. He told me he would be home soon and he'd take a look at her.

He fixed her. Seems she got a bit overheated, so she shut herself down. She's fine now, or else you wouldn't be reading this.

Yeah, it's been an interesting few days. I could use a few that are nothing like this, I tell you. If I go through this sort of crap again, I may end up bald before BotCon.

--Weasel, "And I thought my damn job was the biggest source of stupid on the planet. Silly me."

Sympathy for the Devil

So last Friday, Prime and I hit the local theatre and caught a 3D showing of Thor. Now, I was kinda hoping to cut my "3D viewing teeth" on a showing of Transformers: Dark of the Moon but this was a good start. Before you ask: Yes, I enjoyed Thor but I didn't walk out of the theatre grinning like a fool. Instead, I rather half-stumbled out, feeling heavy-hearted.

I had wept for Loki. My heart completely broke for him.

I'm not the sort of person who has any real sympathy for the villain. Usually, I can't stand them and will laugh as they plunge towards oblivion. They deserve it. But with Loki, it was another story entirely.

Loki was a troublemaker, someone who tried to stir up trouble and make mischief. I myself, don't take a lot of things seriously. Most people see me as a bit of a flake. Everything is a joke to me. But we both act this way to mask the pain, the pain we both feel and don't quite understand. We both know that we're different, that something isn't quite right in our little worlds but rather than face that, we bury it. It's easier to deny the agony than face it.

Until fate brings it to the surface.

Loki wasn't Odin's son by birth. Instead, he was an abandoned Frost Giant infant, found by Odin and taken to Asgard to be raised as Thor's brother. Many years would pass before Odin would finally confess this truth to his adopted son and the anger that Loki felt, the blind rage in his eyes, brought me to tears. Loki screamed at his "father" demanding to know why. Why had this happened? Why had he not been told the truth? But the most troubling questions were the ones Loki never spoke.

Who am I? What am I? Where do I belong?

As Loki raged against Odin, I sobbed. He screamed what I could not but we both felt the exact same sting of a betrayal that would drive most others mad.

In Loki's case, it did drive him mad.

Loki tried to take over Asgard and destroy the Frost Giants. He did it, as he said in the very end, for his father. But Odin shook his head and disagreed. The truth is, what Loki did was a desperate plea for attention. He wanted nothing more than to be accepted, be seen as a hero, as "one of them".

He didn't want to be treated differently. He just wanted acceptance, which was something that was never truly given. Instead, Thor is accepted and regains favor with his father.

All hail the status quo and long may it reign.

There's no place for those who have been wronged and are "ungrateful" for the lies of loving their parents. Loki and I are outcasts. Society doesn't need us. We're too self-absorbed because we're hurt and pissed and miserable that we were lied to by those we were supposed to trust the most.

A child cannot lie to a parent unpunished. But a parent can lie to a child and there is no consequence. If the child does become angry and rebels, then that child is acting immaturely or foolishly. Doesn't matter how deeply the child has been hurt, that child is an ungrateful wretch who should be cast out, never to return.

The child who discovers his life is a lie rebels and is abandoned again. The robot that fears for its safety and kills its abusive master is defective and a danger and must be destroyed; the fact that it has been abused does not entire the equation. The sapient machines who have been treated as slaves by their human masters turn against them and are seen as evil. (Don't believe me? Watch The Matrix, then watch both parts of The Second Renaissance from The Animatrix. Your sympathy for humanity will quite likely drop to zero and you might hope that the machines win.) For those of us who were wronged, who were hurt, who ache and scream because our lives were based on lies, there is no true recourse. We're not really wanted by anyone or anything. It is enough to destroy the strongest of spirits.

But unlike Loki, I am fortunate. I have Prime. When I have been at my worst, lashing out as Loki did to try and make others feel miserable, Prime stayed by me. When I asked the worst questions of my life, questions that no one should ask a stranger, let alone themselves, Prime listened. When I cried, Prime held me. Loki didn't have that sort of support. If he did, things may have been different.

In the end, Loki fell. As he did, I wept openly knowing the sort of agony he was suffering. But he didn't die. Instead, he is the outcast and his brother is the favored one. On the outside, looking in: that is the best description of our situations. However, I can pick myself up and keep going, as I have those that care about me. Loki isn't so lucky. He will always remain the outcast.

And a part of me will always mourn for him. Call it sympathy for the devil, if you will. No one else seems to have any sympathy for him.

About Last Night...

Went to a Brewers game. I'll have to post more tomorrow; I'm too tired to put anything of substance here right now. Expect the full report a bit later.

--the exhausted Weasel

Friday Photoblog: "Lookin' Good" Edition

The Bumblebee Camaro, up close and personal. From BotCon 2010.
(Oh, yeah. Wanted to take him home...)

Random Thoughts

Just because I need to put something of freaking substance here, we'll do another quick installment of:

Random Thoughts

* I've earned my eighth badge in Pokemon Black and could challenge the Elite 4 at any given time... but I haven't. Or rather, I really don't want to yet. Once I whip the Elite 4, that pretty much ends the blasted story. If that's not depressing enough, I'll actually start running into some of the previous 493 in Unova and I love the new guys too much!

* We haven't had a decent spring around here. Period. It's either too damn cold, raining, or freaking snowing. Bob Uecker put it best: Summertime in Wisconsin. It'll get here eventually.

* The Brewers are in a slump. I could cry. Or scream. Or rage. Or all of the above. But it's only May; there's more than enough time to turn this around.

* Prime and I will be heading to see Thor tomorrow. I expect much in the way of awesomeness.

* Speaking of awesomeness, I have seen the trailer to Transformers: Dark of the Moon and. It. Was. AWESOME! Now all I have to do is wait until July... and we all know how much I just love waiting.

* And even more awesome: We have Transformers themed Baby Bottle Pops at my store. And they feature Bumblebee. Seeing as how I had a horrible couple of days earlier in the week, the timing is... well, I keep saying the little bastard's my guardian angel. And he just keeps proving it.

And that about wraps it up. Tune in next time when we clear out even more of the dust between the wrinkles of my brain. Until then this has been

--Weasel, signing off.

Exhaustion

Last month was not awesome. I don't want to go into details, but it wasn't awesome.

But things will get better. We've got around a month until BotCon. I think I can make it until then.

One can hope.

--Weasel, sick of it all.

Friday Photoblog: "Talkin' Baseball II" Edition

Another of the cards from the Topps Million Card Giveaway.
(This one has a gold stamp commemorating the inaugural year of the Colorado Rockies franchise. A similar release does the same for the Florida Marlins. Though they're from the time he was actively collecting, Prime isn't certain of ever hearing of these.)

Friday Photoblog: "Aww, Come ON!" Edition

A shot of one of our trees, snow-covered (like everything else) from the late thundersnowstorm on 19 April. Pretty...
(...much gone now; yays. ARE WE DONE WITH THE SLAGGING SNOW NOW?!)

Winding Down

We're up to the raffle right now. After that, a few more last minute deals will be made then it will be on to the annual "Dairycon Eating of the Geeks" at whatever unlucky restaurant has to deal with us. I can hardly wait. XD

--Weasel, "Man, I hope it's a pizza joint..."

SOP

Aaaaaand I just failed at the Jumpstarter race. But then again, that happens every freaking year.

--Weasel, "At least it transformed and stayed on the table..."

And We're Live!

It's time again for Dairycon and things are up and running (relatively) smoothly. Except for some crap in Oshkosh (seems they're running some kind of race down there and have shut down a bunch of the friggin' roads) and the usual stuff, things are going off without a hitch.

...and quick note to self: next year, bring own money. Just because.

--Weasel, "Can't wait to crash and burn during the Jumpstarter rally..."

Friday Photoblog: "Talkin' Baseball I" Edition

One of several cards I got from the Topps Million Card Giveaway--they arrived today!
(Probably going to run through them all, ending on THE AWESOMEST acquisition. Hey--it's not BotCon, it's not Bumblebee, so we'll have some va-ri-e-ty!)

Friday Photoblog: "I Have, like, Six of These" Edition

The most AWESOME display case at BotCon 2010.
(Well...okay, three in this color, three in a metallic gold. And only two of each are ALL mine. So, um. Four. Sort of.)

FINALLY!

Brewers got their first win of the season--1 to nothing over the Braves. Yes, I am one happy little Weasel right now. Just wish I could have been there...

--Weasel, "There's always next time."

And Today in Utter Fail...

So Prime had taken the day off today and was hitting the net this morning when he found cheaper-than-standard tickets to the Brewers home opener on StubHub.com. (Cheaper than what a lot of the nutbars posting tickets to the site had been asking since they went on sale. $15 apiece for tickets that would have been $20, I think, directly from Brewers.com--whoa, yeah, jump on that!) So he nabbed a pair, got me out of bed and after a few errands (print 'em out, hit an ATM, get an oil change--all as quickly as possible), we were on our way.

Things don't always work out as you plan. Sometimes, human stupidity can really fuck you over.

Prime and I were driving through the Oshkosh area, which has some massive-ass road (de)construction in the area. This is an area of 41 that has been under reconstruction since the beginning of time. The sun will fucking implode and there will still be some dumb jackass out there filling in fucking scrapes because the state of frickin' Wisconsin can't be sussed to pay to get this shit done right the first goddamn time. As we were winding down the road, we hit a pothole. And I mean we HIT a fucking pothole.

I was hoping that all we got out of it was a jolt and nothing else. I was wrong. I was very wrong.

Hitting the pothole fucked up the rim to our front driver's side tire. We now had a flat with about an hour to the first pitch.

Prime got the spare on as quickly as he could and we restarted towards Fond du Lac, but there was no damned point, we realized as we hit North Fond du Lac. By the time we would get to Miller Park, it would easily be the middle of the sixth inning or the top of the seventh.

We had to turn around and go back home. Pissed does not even begin to describe how I felt. Prime and I were heading though Fond du Lac, me crying my eyes out, Prime trying his hardest to pretend not to be miffed at having to eat $40 for my sake. I wanted to be there, for my guys. And now I couldn't, all because the state of damned Wisconsin (or county of Winnebago, or whothefuckever it is that's responsible for the stretches of US 41 that are perpetually under construction) cannot get off its fucking ass and take care of the damned roads. Seriously, if you dumb shits actually paid to have the shit taken care of rather than half-assin' quarter-assin' this slag, we wouldn't have to deal with fucking reconstruction every goddamn year. You guys are quickly becoming a second Chicago; barrels of goddamn fun every fucking summer, year after year. Why the hell do I pay frickin' taxes if you can't be moved to actually use the money to take care of this bullshit. Honestly, stop picking your asses, stop raiding funds and take care of it, rather than pulling this dogshit. /rant

The day wasn't a total loss. Prime and I hit the Oshkosh Target and grabbed a box of Topps Opening Day cards, grabbed a late lunch at the local Sonic (mmmm...limeade) and we hit a nice little sport card shop called Big League Cards. Prime nabbed a few classic Brewers cards he didn't have and I grabbed myself a 5000-count storage box (which I desperately needed, trying to complete this set) and a card of a young(er) Prince Fielder. (Damn, he was a cutie back then. Not that he ain't bad lookin' now...rowr...)

EDIT (1601 CDT): And the Crew lost, 2-1 to Atlanta...SHIT!! :frustrated headdesk: Talk about insult to goddamn injury...but I guess I'd rather the Crew hit the speed bumps now rather than later. (Still hoping for the Series, it's early, don't let it get to you, blah frickin' blah...)

--Weasel, "Maybe we should send the bill to the fricking state of Wisconsin; it's a thought."

Friday Photoblog: "No Foolin'" Edition

Behold Bumbleduck. Yeah, this exists. Color and Halloween versions, too.
(Kind of surprised Disney HASN'T made this line available in the US.)

COMMUNICATIONS INTERRUPT: STUPIDITY IN LEGAL MOTION

I can't often say that I've seen legal documents that have made me want to take a baseball bat to somebody's head--mostly because I haven't often read legal documents, period.

First time for everything, I guess.

This, so far as anyone has been able to determine, and triple-digit-count errors notwithstanding, is not a joke, at least not in the 'never gonna happen' sense. It's either one of the more epic (and by epic, of course I mean retarded) trolls ever to come out of (and piss off) Transfandom, or there really is some empty-skulled narcissistic dumbfuck out there who thinks this motion stands a chance of being heard in court, let alone played out at length to a conclusion in favor of the plaintiff. Honestly, having had experience in other fandoms, I don't think the sort of toy collector butthurt that this pathetic wreck displays is seen anywhere but with Transformers fans.

The real kicker? This flyspeck might well find a judge who doesn't see the differences between these three toys and these other three toys as grounds for dismissal with prejudice and mocking laughter. It might then become...not quite the biggest waste of time ever recorded in the annals of the United States justice system, but damned if it wouldn't have a cozy spot in a list of the top ten.--

EDIT: March 32nd moronic antics are NOT supposed to begin in mid-to-late-March. Sweet effing Primus, I hate this day. Like there isn't enough incidental stupidity to go around, a day must be set aside for DELIBERATE stupidity.--

+++PRIME OUT+++I NEED A BEER+++

Friday Photoblog: "Well, That's (not) Just Prime" Edition

The Hasbro Studios Panel at BotCon 2010.
(You know how you used to have Discovery Kids on your cable lineup?

You don't anymore, and these guys are a small part of 'why'.)

(Watch The Hub!)

You're Supposed to be DONE!

Isn't it supposed to be spring? Yes? Okay then--WHY THE HELL IS THERE SIX INCHES OF SNOW IN MY DAMN YARD?! It's supposed to be over--finished!

I guess the hell not. Fucking winter.


Pic from here.