Holidays Past

Okay, so now Christmas and my birthday have come and gone. I got a Nintendo DS for my birthday and several games. I also got an accessory pack including an additional stylus, an extra game case and a screen cleaner pad, and a car adapter for charging when on the go. Gee, don't I sound like a salesman? Anyway, got a pretty nice brown denim coat for my birthday; it's got a fleece lining and an inside pocket. It's also got a hood; I think it's detachable, but can't remember. But I also got an MP3 player made by Philips. It's pretty cool; already got a couple of CDs loaded onto it through Windows Media Player on the computer. Right now I'm also wearing a very warm dark-red fleece shirt with a high collar. It's nice and warm; I wore it and my new coat when I went out with my grandmother today for lunch.

All in all, not a bad haul this year (and last, if you don't count my Jan. 12 birthday and Christmas as part of the holidays; I do).

And guess what? My mother had to call my father to get him to call me on my birthday. Stupid prick. Somehow, I'm not surprised that he said he'd call me and then hung up on my mother. Our conversation lasted all of about thirty seconds and consisted primarily of a happy birthday and 'sorry I didn't get you anything for your birthday'. Yeah. Well, he did - technically - but I don't consider an unopened bottle of cologne that he got from someone else and sent to me because he knew he wouldn't like it an adequate birthday gift. So, I didn't bother to call and thank the bastard for it. Actually, though, I'm not even sure if that was for Christmas or my birthday; all I know is I've got about a year's supply of cologne and aftershave because people keep buying it for me for the holidays and here I've got another one that wasn't even supposed to be for me in the first place. Jackass.

Christmas...pfah!

So, you've passed Thanksgiving and now you're doing your Christmas shopping - unless you're like me and got your Christmas shopping done early to avoid the rush, of course. You're picking out a tree and getting ready to stash presents under it. You're trying to be nicer to people just so they'll give you extra gifts (or bigger and better ones) come Christmas Eve (or Christmas Day, whichever). You're listening to Jingle Bells and watching Charlie Brown try to build a snowman. Good for you.

Pfah!

I will admit I can't help but like Christmas to some degree. Who can? But I've kind of lost interest in Christmas, at least the kind of interest that I used to have. My dad's gone, you see. He chose to abandon his wife and son several years ago in favor of a rather ugly wench that he later left because he 'didn't trust her'. He's tried to nickel-and-dime us the whole way. I say shove a string of lights up his ass and see if he glows, the bastard.

My mother doesn't get into Christmas the way she used to. She used to get all excited about the decorations and she used to do a crapload of baking. She'd buy the wrapping paper and we'd all wrap up our gifts.

Now we just have a cocoa (hot tea for her), show each other what we bought, and call it a day.

True, we do the usual Christmas thing: we try to 'conceal' the presents amidst gift bags and such. But we don't do the wrapping anymore and she spends more money on pies than she does time. She listens to Christmas music once in a while.

Me? I'm bitter, I suppose. I could care less about that bastard. In fact, I hate him. When we're kids, we think our dad's Santa and our mom makes the best PB&J sandwiches. Most of us grow up to learn the error of their ways. Most of us. Some of us, though, grow up to see our dad as right around number 1,917,422 on the 'world's best dads' list. Mine's about number five on the 'top ten most wanted dead dads' list.

So, yeah - I'm a little excited about Christmas. Mostly, I'm happy to get the presents. New toys an' all, you understand. But for the rest of Christmas? Santa can go fuck himself.

New Toys - Again

Yahooo! No, I'm not talking about the Web site.

Well, folks, I finally got myself a 'gaming' computer. Actually, my mother bought it - for less than a hundred dollars. It was reconditioned, or it would have probably cost a lot more. Anyway, now that I have myself a 'gaming' computer, I've loaded up Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn and Neverwinter Nights onto it and I'm playing them like crazy. I've all but abandoned the internet except for school, e-mail, and this blog - for the most part, anyway. Yes! Finally, I can enjoy actual full-character creation - not the cheap replicas produced by games that are nothing like the originals - and massive stories divided by chapters. I can actually develop my characters for more than just the number of spells I have or the kinds of weapons I decide to use. I can finally explore more than just a dank dungeon here and there and the occasional eerie castle haunted by second-rate ghost-like animations and poorly-drawn paintings hung on the walls. At last...DnD, here I come!

Other than that, I'm FINALLY into the library tech program. Hopefully, this won't take more than a year. Then I'll be out of school - FOR GOOD. Once I leave, I ain't NEVER goin' back. I'm starting to hate school as much as I hate broccoli (yuck!).

So, for those of you actually bored enough to read my blog - enjoy your lives out there, readers. I'll certainly enjoy mine - if only through my 'gaming' comp...

Fathers Are Evil

I believe I mentioned this in a previous post, but if I didn't, my father left when I was 17. Actually, I was almost eighteen - I would have been in about a month. It was late November, just a couple days before December.

We had almost no warning. I suppose there were signs, but none that we recognized (unfortunately) until it was far too late. I came home and didn't see my father around, so I figured he was working (he was a cab driver). He'd been sick, but he was stubborn as hell and I just figured he'd gone into work regardless of what my mother'd said.

Well, since that time, he's fucked us sideways more times than sixties rock star has hairs on his head. He's pried us for cash numerous times, lied to us, kept from us money that should have been rightfully ours (at least in part) on a number of occasions, and even stolen from us. I used to know him. He used to be a great guy. Now he's just another ass hole who likes to use my Social Security number and ruin my credit.

Turns out he was supposedly coming home recently. He lied, as usual. The bastard. Now I've got outstanding charges from a state all the way on the other side of the country - a state that I've never even been to.

He had the nerve to call to find out how I've been yesterday and what I was going to do when I was done with school. I chatted for about three seconds, and I think he got that I was giving him the cold shoulder pretty well. Regardless, I just hope he doesn't fucking call back, the prick. I'll just ignore his fucking calls.

You know, I'll be the first to admit it: I'm lazy. I'm not as active as I should be, and I certainly slack off on things that I should be doing. I'm a procrastinator. I admit this openly. I'm not proud of it, but there it is.

But my father? He's left us, stolen from and lied to us, cheated us...has he no shame? Has he no morals left in that thick-ass skull of his? Even I'm not THAT bad. I never thought I would hear (or see, rather) myself say this, but I am ashamed to be his son.

I'm baaack...

Yup. It's me again. Hello there, kiddies. It's been a while, hasn't it?

Not much new here. Taking Physics 100 this quarter. Ugh...need I say more?

Yet I must. I do have two online computer classes this quarter - Word II and Advanced PowerPoint. Which is really cool. Those shouldn't be too hard.

Then I'm taking the summer off.

I need a break.

-__-

But for now? I've got to go think up something better to post. LOL Later...

Memories

I saw an old girlfriend of mine on the bus today. We were friends since we were kids. A couple for a few years. Now she's just another face on the bus. But one question always persists, and it's like stab in the heart every time: What if?

What if I hadn't listened to my parents? What if I had married her? What if I had stayed with her? Where would we be now? What would have happened if we'd stuck it out?

That was the problem right there. That first question. My parents said there was 'something wrong with that family'. They said her parents were only trying to 'push her off on me' so they 'didn't have to deal with her'. Maybe it was true. Maybe not. I don't know, and I probably never will.

The fact of the matter is that I still think about her. Maybe not as much anymore, since I don't see her hardly at all, but I do still think about her. Having depression doesn't help. I'm not sure if the depression adds to the pain or vice versa, but either way, this is killing me every time I see her. Now I ask myself, "What in the hell was I thinking?" I don't have any idea.

And now it's even worse. I've spent so much time away from her that I'm afraid even to approach her. I can't talk to women. I just can't. But her...

I know her better than anyone, save (of course) for herself. To have been close friends with someone for so long...to have known someone so deeply...it's painful to think about now. Almost too painful. But I don't hate her for it. I could hate my parents for it; I am certainly still pissed at them over it, for the above reasons. But mostly, I blame myself. I shouldn't have listened to them. To tell the truth, I think I still love her. And that's what hurts the most.

Free! For another month, anyway...

Well, my college classes have finally ended. Until the 3rd of January, I'm completely and utterly free! Woot!

So, what to do now? Read a book? Pick on the little kids that live across from me? Nah...maybe just some good old-fashioned, button-mashing, enemy-bashing, item-hunting, boss-smashing video games. Except that they tend to get boring after a while. I could get a job, I suppose, but I probably won't keep it come Winter Quarter, what with all I'll be doing for all my classes, so why bother? It wouldn't look too good on a resume, after all - having a job for only one month, and then quitting after I get my first (or second, if I'm paid biweekly) paycheck, only to go to college and take classes I'm not even taking for a particular program? Very strange behaviour indeed. Wouldn't you agree?

So I'm typing up this blog message to kill some time. Who knows? Maybe I'll get some comments that I can reply to. You never know with me. I might just pisse someone off enough for them to reply. But nah...I'm not here to pisse anyone off (though I am rather good at that - just as me mum). As I said, I'm just killing time.

So, what about the rest of you? What are you doing for the holidays? And just for the record, I'm not much of a Christmas person since me dad left. But, hey - anything to spark up a little chatter at the moment. I'm bored.

Fighting Again

*Sigh.*

No, that's not a dejected sigh - or a depressed one. It's an exhausted one. Why? My mother and I have been fighting again.

It seems to me that we fight more than we talk of late, and it's grating my nerves to be honest. Yes, I cuss too much. Yes, I'm a bit lazy. But what about my mother? She comes home from work and is tired, and I get that, but I've become something of a lap dog more than her son since my dad left five - almost six, now - years ago. I'm getting pissed, and I'm getting sick and tired.

Now, you might say I should be more understanding. Believe me when I tell you that we've all been terribly patient. But my mother refuses to get a divorce despite the fact that he's caused more trouble in the last five years than I ever did as a kid and isn't just hurting himself; he's emotionally unstable, I think, and he's making other people (such as my mother, for example) just the same way. We've all given up trying to argue that point, but we do drop hints now and again.

And then there's this dependency on me. My mother is apparently terrified that I'll take off and abandon her. I think she should get counceling. She doesn't need to know where I am 24/7 - I'm 22, for Christ's sake - yet she gets pissed if she finds out I'm somewhere that I didn't tell her I would be. Plus, she has me doing things she could very well do herself - like get her a pop, which she says she can't do because it's too much of a hassle; yes, that area's a bit of a mess, but it wouldn't be if she wasn't such a pack rat and would actually get off her ass long enough to do something about it. I'm certainly not going to do it; it's her shit, not mine.

And so you see a small bit of the problem. I'm just tired of all the damn arguing, sick and tired to the bone. Plus, she keeps telling me I'm fat - which pisses me off to no end. I know I'm fat; I don't need her to point it out for me. But she doesn't seem to get the fact that some of us, despite a lack of emotional insanity (aka senility, which I think she has and then some), I do get insulted by some things. You'd think she'd be just a bit more sensitive. And women say men are the insensitive ones? Shit.

*Breathes.*

And there's my rant for the day, ladies and germs.

Bad Site

Gah...I just had to buy a used computer, didn't I? Stupid me.

So, the local college is selling old computers as a good will gesture to students and to raise money. They were buying some new computers, you understand. So, I buy one. It's just the computer - no monitor or anything - but I buy it anyway. Who couldn't use a second computer, right?

Well, I find this cool site. I won't give the name, since people will then go there and probably be treated better than I was - which would only irritate me. Anyway, I find this cool site and join it. It's an RPG site. I set my user options and post a character profile. I even post a new IC (in character, for the layman) topic and an OOC (out of character) topic. Well, I did this on the campus. When I got home, I couldn't log on. The computer said that I wasn't allowed to see the board, or something like that.

I've been on the site three days, and now I've been banned. No, I haven't done anything wrong - except buy a computer with an IP address that had been banned from the site. So, no matter what I said, this guy (again, no names) bans me from the c-box and from the site itself. I try to tell him that I have no idea who he's talking about that did all this spamming and threatening and what-not (apparently, there was a lot of trouble with a user of this computer), but he refuses to believe me. He submits into evidence the fact that this other guy put up a link to my site there - the same one that I put into my profile when I registered. It's not my fault if one of the members of my site posted a link to it on their profile. Supposedly, I also talk like the guy. So? There's only one guy that's ever been on the site that talks a certain way? That's idiocy, frankly, and I can't believe I was banned just because there are some things similar between the two of us and because there's a link that both of us have posted. I can understand being cautious, but come on - I have no clue what the guy was talking about. Three days ago (actually five, if you count the weekend) was the first time I'd ever been on the site.

Anyway, I'm a little irritated. The site is pretty unique - I haven't been on one quite like it before that I can remember, and others similar to it aren't nearly as good. So, it irritates me that I find this great site and then can't post because of a stroke of fate. The guy treated me like I was some animal he was sad to have to put down, instead of someone who was willing to have fun and actually contribute to the site. That's just wrong, man. With that guy's attitude, it's a wonder the site has any members at all.

Steve Irwin: We will remember you!

I suppose I should offer my own sentiments concerning the recent death of Crocodile Hunter and Australian wildlife expert Steve Irwin by a stingray. First of all, I think it's important to mention my surprise at the manner of his death. With all the things he's faced - scorpions, crocodiles, poisonous snakes, and much more - the fact that he died because of a stingray (while plausible) is certainly an unwelcome surprise. I think this has really jarred some people that had begun to believe Steve Irwin was immortal.

Steve Irwin started his show when there were just three nature shows on T.V., or so I've been told. It seems that he really changed the face of T.V. Whereas no one really watched much in the way of nature shows before, Steve Irwin got the ball rolling with his crusade for conservation of animals and nature as a whole, as well as with his smooth-talking first-hand knowledge of the Australian outback. It has been a couple of decades since he started his show, and I (for one) am deeply sorry that he is gone. While I did not know him personally, I feel that T.V. (as well as the rest of the world) has lost a great asset and a valued life.

So, I offer my deepest condolences to Mr. Irwin's wife, any children he might have had (I believe he had at least one, though I'm not positive), his family, and his friends. I hope someone who did know Steve Irwin personally sees this, for I am one of the many fans who would have loved to meet him. To Steve Irwin: I only hope that you're now in a better place.

Algebra...gaah!!

God, do I hate it. X plus this times 14x minus -22x...grrrrrrrrrr. Why can't I just go back to adding and subtracting fractions? At least that was easy.

Let's see. So far in this quarter's math class, I've done adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing fractions, decimals and percentages; figuring area and perimeter; scientific notation; and algebra. At least the others I could figure out; this algebra shit is just going right through my head and into the trash can.

I hope I'm not the only one who has this kind of trouble with algebra, because then I'll have someone to help me burn all the math books in the world. I'm serious - this is ridiculous. I mean, most of the stuff I've studied in math classes I won't even use. Fractions, maybe, although decimals would be more likely; but I'm not going to be an astronomer, so scientific notation won't be a problem. I have no use for figuring area and permiter, since I have no intention of being an architect. And what about algebra? My teacher was right - math classes really are the only places where I'll ever need to know this stuff.

And there's my rant for the day. Thank you very much, ladies and germs; I'll be here all week...maybe.

Ugh...college.

I'm really starting to hate it. I can only blame myself, though; I saved the toughest subjects for last. Stupid me.

I'm going for an AA in liberal arts - real basic, right? So why do I have to take hard classes that I'll end up taking in other courses, anyway? At least the credits will go toward certain parts of other courses I might take. My problem is that I don't know what I want to do - which really sucks.

Right now, I've got three classes; two of them - Accounting 101 and Document Processing 102 - are online, and the third - Math 21 - is on campus. Accounting isn't all math, though math is a large part of it, and Document Processing is mostly pretty basic stuff - file management, word processing, that sort of thing. The Math 21 class isn't too bad. But all three? I know I shouldn't be complaining - hell, my mother took eight classes a quarter when she was in college - but the Accounting is taking a lot of time to do (believe it or not) and the other two classes on top of that aren't exactly light-work classes, either. I feel like an old man.

What's really bad is that all I have left are the maths, sciences, and a couple of electives. Not sure what I'll take for electives yet, but hopefully either geology or something similar. Heh. Maybe I'll take Fingerpainting.

So, anyway, like I said...ugh.

My 'Down' Time

Okay, folks...you've seen me rant about a number of different subjects ranging from idiots to negative collegiate press. So, now it's time for a different kind of rant: a depressed one.Loneliness. It strikes everyone at one point or another in their lives, usually more than once. Today is a lonely day for me. No, nothing in particular happened to give me this feeling. I was diagnosed very young with depression, albeit mild depression - but even mild depression can be bad. Still...I have reasons other than depression to be lonely.It's been about five or six years since I've had a girlfriend now. While most people wouldn't consider that a negative thing, consider this: I've had five girlfriends in my time. One couldn't 'officially' go out with me because her father forbade it (thus forcing us to eventually break off the relationship), one was a bit too - eh - 'unique' (to put it nicely) for my tastes (unfortunately, I had to dump her), one had a kid and a boyfriend (who gave her the kid - I didn't find out about either until the boyfriend approached me; we both dumped her, though individually)...and I'm not going to talk about the other two. Long stories, both of them.So, tonight, I'm a bit depressed. I have no one to spend time with, and I don't have any friends because I don't know anyone in this area and the other students in my Spanish class have their own lives to live. Yes, I'm probably complaining a bit too much. I, however, am a complainer; it's really the only thing I have a natural talent for. Sure, I can read and write; I can obviously type, or I wouldn't be here typing up this blog. I can speak some Spanish, and I'm learning more (albeit slowly). And what's more, the online thing isn't really doing it for me anymore. I mean, there's no face-to-face. You know? No voices, no nothing. You can't really chill with someone you aren't physically hangin' with.I've often joked that I couldn't get a girl if I paid her to go out with me. I'm starting to think that's true. Like I said, it's been a while.Right now, you're probably reading this and thinking, "Good GOD - what a sap." Yes. I'm a sap. But everyone needs a companion or two now and then, even if only to unload on or be unloaded on. Just being there, hangin' out, chillin'...sometimes that's all that's needed. And boredom doesn't help, either.So, I type this blog as I try to come up with a way to amuse myself. I hate being depressed, but I can't change it. And I'm not about to start taking drugs for it. I'm not going to turn into a corporate guinea pig when not only do I not have the money, but I also don't have the patience.Now, I thank you for listening to my rant. Any comments or questions...you know what to do. Good night, viewers and fellow bloggers.

It's been a while.

Yup. It's me. I'm back. To tell you the truth, I completely forgot about this blog. It's not that I have any others - I don't - it's just that I've had other things going. But now I'm back. And yes - I can hear you all moaning in dismay.

Well, I'm taking a Spanish class. I've actually learned quite a bit, much to my surprise. It's really all just repetition. I've memorized the Spanish alphabet, numbers up to 199, and some basic words and phrases. There's this really hot girl in my class that I have a favorite saying for: "Es muy bonito!" That means she's very pretty. Aw...isn't that sweet? I haven't figured out how to ask her to bed yet, but I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.

Until then, I'm stuck with little phrases like the one above. Actually, though, it's not too bad. It's just that the repetition can get quite monotonous sometimes. A friend of mine in the class is really having a hard time of it. Pepita (the girl I like - we use Spanish names so that the professor can remember who we are more easily; mine's Ramon) already knows a lot of Spanish. And Thomas is somewhere in the middle.

All in all, it's not a bad class. I like it. And once I get a bit more fluent with it, I think I'll really enjoy it.

Indian

I don't know why, but the term just irritates me for some reason. Maybe it's because the term 'Indian' was just a mistake to begin with. Here's a little history lesson:

When Columbus first set out, he was headed for India; the storm that turned him and his ships around headed them all for the western coast of what is now the North American continent. Thinking, however, that he had reached India, Columbus termed the natives he encountered here 'Indians' and greeted them as such.

In reality, the so-called 'natives' held no titles but there own; Cherokee, Iroquois, Sioux, Pawnee, Blackfoot and many others were the names they had given themselves. They each spoke their own language, and so they could not name themselves to Columbus or any others who came along until the language barrier was broken; unfortunately, this 'breaking' of the language barrier became very violent and virtually all 'Native American' tribes are settled on reservations the size of small forts now.

The plight of all these peoples pisses me off. We came here and treated them like shit, then did it again - and again, and again and again. We lied to them, stole from them, murdered and raped them, drove them out of their homes and villages, burned their villages to the ground, ignored them, beat them, and generally treated them like shit. And the simple fact that we're still here and they've given up fighting back only tell me that we've won - and that pisses me off more than anything. And yes, I know it's a total DUH that we've won - we won almost a hundred years ago, and even further back than that if you really stop to think about it - but it's the idea that we've won that just totally disgust me. We won by bullying them, and it worked. I mean, we actually took them from their homes and enrolled them in our schools just to stop them from speaking their own language! And yet we had the gall to think that THEY were the savages?

So, like I said. *Ahem.* Indian. It's derogatory, in my opinion. And I hate it.

There's my rant for the day. Good-bye.

Dell Sucks

I just got a new Dell computer; it's MUCH faster than my old computer, and I absoluely LOVE it. However, I don't like the fact that Dell has tried to screw me over it. They suck. I knew I should have gone through Gateway.

Here's the deal: I order a system that's $400 and includes a monitor and speakers; although I received the speakers and the computer, which has everything on it that I wanted to have on it, I didn't receive a monitor and Dell tried to charge me $200 more for NOT having a monitor when I purchased the system BECAUSE it came with a monitor, as opposed to the cheaper system which just had the computer and nothing else. Then they tried to screw me by telling me that what I ordered wasn't what I ordered and that, if I wanted to get the system I ordered in the first place, I needed to send everything back and re-order. I just spent about five hours trying to get it through their thick heads that all they had to do was charge me the price I saw in the ad and send me the damn monitor to hear that.

Moral of the story: next time, I go through Gateway - NOT Dell. Idiots.

Arrogant idiots.

God, do they fucking pisse me off.

About three years ago, when I was in college and a couple quarters away from getting an AA in Liberal Arts, I joined DVR (the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation) to get some help on finding out what I wanted to go into as a career; I was told NOT to get my AA and instead focus on a program that, halfway through the first quarter, I found out wasn't even the program I needed. So what does my rep do? Tells me to withdraw from all my classes because I wasn't doing very well in one of them. Then, she tells me she's not going to help me with college anymore and instead wants me to start looking for a job; I say fine. Whatever. Only because I figured she knew what the fuck she was doing.

Next, she gets me into a job through Career Path Services and steps aside because she figures that the guy I'm working with knows the place and thet people; instead, I end up getting fire about two and a half months later because I wasn't answering the damn phone. What happened was that the phone wasn't working, but they didn't give a fuck that I'd told a supervisor about it - the supervisor told me to deal with it. Yeah, right - problem fixed, my ass. So I got fired because of their fuckup that they didn't want to admit to.

Finally, my DVR rep gets me into what she calls Job Club, which is supposed to help people with getting interviews and what-not; this is where I really found out just how much of a bitch she was. She started critiquing me on every little fucking thing - how I dress, how I act, how I speak. Everything. Today, I tell her that I need some notes back that she'd said she was going to copy and get back to me. She refused. I thought she could have done it on break (JC lasts 3 fucking hours), but apparently not.

So then, after this and numerous other problems that have now led me to geting another councelor and almost had my case file closed (not to mention the illegality of some of her actions - but don't even get me started on that), she kicks me out of JC for telling her (now pissed off enough to actually say what I've wanted to for a few sessions of JC now) that she needs to learn how to do her job.

If she had just let me get my AA three years ago, I'd probably have a pretty decent job right now; instead, I'm sitting here typing up this fucking rant against that bitch just to blow off some steam because I don't have a job righyt now and no seems to want to hire me without previous experience.

One more reason to hate the state.

Scams.

Everyone's got one. Could be yours, could be someone else's. Whatever. Doesn't matter. Everybody's scammed someone else at one point or another (and yes, boasting is often a form of scamming).E-mail scammers are the most relentless bastards in existence. They will try every last trick in the book, and quite a few that aren't, to get your e-mail; and not just to send you e-cards. They sell your e-mail addy to every company they can get their filthy paws on, making oodles of money, and then all those companies do the same thing, and pretty soon (like some of my previous e-mails that have now been shut down as a result) you're getting hundreds of e-mails a day about this product or that service or joining this club or supporting this charity. It's all one big, fat fucking scamring, and it pisses me off. Even in one of my current e-mails, I'm getting a couple dozen a day; today, for example, I got twenty-five - count them, TWENTY-FIVE junk mails. My mother gets about five hundred in a couple of hers - apiece, not combined. And why? For the off-chance that one of the idiots out there might actually respond?The trouble is that they do; every day, tens (if not hundreds) of millions of people all over the world reply to these scams thinking that they're signing up for a couple of supposedly 'free' services or buying a few products for '85% off the cover price' in the hopes that they'll get their 'free' Playstation 3 or X-Box. In reality, not only are they now buying something they don't need and getting a service that they no longer want, they've also payed out ten bucks for a product they never even got. This is called 'network scamming'. You supposedly win something only to pay out money to a couple of different corporations, and all three parties sell your information to numerous other companies - and voila, the whole process starts all over again.Like I said, it pisses me off; if people would use their heads, I wouldn't be getting all these fucking e-mails. And the pop-ups are just as bad (if not worse), because just clicking on one of them opens up several network scamming rings and publishes your IP addy, your e-mail, and any other information you've been stupid enough to publish on the internet. I understand companies need to get money to keep going, but this is ridiculous. Whatever happened to so-called 'honest marketing'? You know, the kind where you sell a glass of lemonade for ten cents? Or mow a lawn and get ten bucks? That's sales. What network scammers do is fraud. Plain and simple.

To join or not to join? That isn't the question...

...it's whether or not to trust.

Okay, so here's the deal; I decided to go to ITT Technical Institute to get a degree in Networking. Now, in order to attend, you need to pass some sort of test; only I haven't set up an appointment yet. I was going to do that after I'd checked my e-mail and seen if there were any posts I wanted to reply to on the various sites I'm a member of. It's a good thing I went online first.

Turns out someone online had heard some bad things about ITT, so I went on Google and looked up complaints against the school; my first thought when I saw the results was, "Holy shit!" My second thought was, "Well - guess I don't want to go there."

At least a dozen different complaints against the school over the last few years was just the first part; there have been a couple of lawsuits against the school, as well as a class action suit, and the school has been investigated (not once, mind you, but several times) for fraud and discrimination of color.

Jesus christ. If I wanted to be fucked, I could hire a hooker; one thing's for certain, though - I'm definitely not planning on attending ITT Technical Institute anytime soon.

My first blog.

Well, this will be interesting; I've never done a blog before, but hey - might as well, right? Besides, then I can see how many morons actually comment on this post. <_<

Anyway, so here I am bored out of my skull and posting something that has no point whatsoever. Remind you of anyone, people? Then why don't you look in the mirror on a bad day.

Blah blah blah. There. I've posted. I'll post again when I have thoughts.