I am depressed (And so can you!)

So many of you know that I'm struggling with depression to some extent. Those of you who don't, hi, I'm Baylor. And I've been in kind of a weird blue funk tonight, and it was bugging the shit out of me because I couldn't see WHY I would be like that. I feel like I'm on a pretty good streak right now (note to self, recover the Basement Batman I'm missing), talking to pretty girls left and right, talking more with good friends and leaving shitty ones behind, and I'm going back to Norman in less than a month. Shit, there was a good half hour period when I was trying to listen to a STWT and my little brother and dad were SO FUCKING LOUD that I had to stop until they shut the fuck up for a minute so I could finish it, and I just got so angry. I mean, I acknowledge that where my computer is is a terrible spot for trying to do ANYTHING without interruption, but I like to think my headphones are pretty good.

A few hours later, I was playing Borderlands with Taffy himself but I just wasn't really enjoying it, which sucks because it's SUCH a fun game. Maybe I'll make sure that we're actually communicating on voice chat next time. I mean, I did an entire playthrough with Maya by myself but had a blast the entire time, my Zer0 file with Blake has been just a shitton of fun. I didn't know what was up.

And then it hit. Depression don't give a FUCK if you're doing well or you think you're doing well, it comes down on you without warning and without mercy and just beats you until you feel like shit and you think "Hey, maybe it's a good idea to text that one girl who treated you like shit because you wanted to sleep with her that one time." And then when part of me went "No, that's an atrocious idea," that first part of me went "Dude, no, just go buy some alcohol and you can blame it on that!" and I just went "Seriously brain? This is what you're going for?" And that's about when, on the timeline, it hit me that it was just depression fucking with me and I shouldn't pay it any mind. I should just go back to playing Isaac (if the little sack of shit would run at full speed, but nooo I had to get an AMD processor) and listen to prog metal.

Are you still reading this? Why? There wasn't a moral here.

Well. Maybe I'll go get some alcohol. I still want to try Mike's Hard Lemonade. Maybe THAT'S the moral, really sweet alcohol is good. I like that moral.

Video games as an artistic medium

So I'm reading the new issue of Game Informer when I come to the article asking "Why have gaming companies recently been using live-action commercials? Isn't the in-game action, which is often really fucking cool, good enough to attract new customers?" They raised the point that people who are going to be looking for the very specific gameplay elements that such a trailer would show aren't exactly looking for new games to play from TV ads; they're online looking at gameplay videos, playing demos, chatting with their friends about what they've heard or played. And I think that's fair. We're not the target audience for those TV spots. And as much as I've come to loathe Call of Duty in the last three years, I'll give them that the trailer with all those big-name actors is pretty goddamn appealing, so I see their point.

But then I came across this gem of a line and I had to stop and revive this blog that hasn't been touched in a year: "Video games sometimes take hours to slowly develop a bond between the player and the character. The nature of the medium allows for such an elongated process. Live-action film, on the other hand, allows viewers to invest in characters at a much faster pace. For this reason, filmmakers are better suited to create media where viewers can quickly connect to a character."

And I can't tell you how upset I am at reading those words. Those words, penned by an employee of a fucking gaming magazine, is telling the reader that video games are not as good as their contemporary counterparts. I'm being told that jumping on top of a goddamn Brute and punching his brains out is not as evocative as watching Kat get blown up by a Covenant grenade and lie on the ground with part of the visor on her helmet blown out. I'm being told that watching Elder Scrolls Guy walk through a town to have a giant CGI dragon land in front of him and roar at him is more gripping than killing that very same dragon with nothing but my sword and shield (this one is actually true, by the way, Bethesda games are boring as shit). For all of Capcom's faults, they at least did SOMETHING right with Resident Evil 6 when they used footage from the game for all their trailers.

Is it any wonder why video games are still a joke in adult society? We have industry fucking standards like Microsoft employee Frank O'Connor, who I am ashamed to hear has been with the Halo franchise since its inception, espousing such undermining values. I've long held the belief that video games are the ULTIMATE in art, combining every form you can imagine (traditional art, music, cinematography, storytelling, etc.) and then making it interactive. What are we as gamers supposed to do when our passion, our lifeblood, is playing second fiddle to a lesser form of itself? Do you want to know how to sell Bioshock Infinite? Not with a couple square miles of green screen and shitty CGI.

Raise your hand if you're genuinely terrified for your country.

I was talking to my friend Josh earlier, and he dropped this excellent little gem:

"But I believe at this point, "religion" has become less of an ideal mindset, and more a "get out of jail free card" to exercise bigotry.­"*

Anyone who knows me well knows I'm an atheist, and therefore not really friend to anyone or anything overtly religious. But I'm not a fanatic. If you're fun and easy-going, I'll be your friend as long as you don’t try to convert me or as long as every second thing that comes out of your mouth isn't Jesus, Allah, or Vishnu.

But the fanatics gunning for office are just dangerous. They very clearly don’t preach love like I KNOW, having grown up Christian for nearly 15 years before I broke off on my own, the Bible does.

For those of you who literally do not know better and are actually considering people like Santorum, Gingrich, or Romney, please, please, use your head for five goddamn minutes and listen to what they are spewing.


*: Please don't start firing off on the exact wording or diction or what-have-you of this quote. The point still stands even if every word wasn't perfect.

Pop quiz!

I have a question for you! How often do people answer my text messages or calls?

A. 100% of the time. There is literally no person more popular than I am.
B. Most of the time. I may only keep a small circle of friends, but that's fine, I like to keep to myself most of the time.
C. Rarely. Getting in contact with people requires double- and triple-checking because apparently I'm not that important.
D. Never. The only reason my number is in anyone's phone but my own is because I snuck their phone out under cover of night and punched my number in. There's a dude from Minnesota who visited Bixby one year who is STILL wondering who the hell Baylor Becker is.

If you answered C, good jorb!

If this comes across as sarcastic and a little bitter, it's because I am! Very often, I'd say at least four times a week, I'll put up a status or Tweet with an open invitation to eat dinner with me, because while I don't like people most of the time, I enjoy conversing over lunch or dinner. I often leave these open invitations because that's the most reliable way for me to get a response.

Even then, when I have friends and family telling me to call or text people (my friends at OU) to get dinner, I've stopped giving actual responses to these questions. I've said multiple times that I tried texting someone, but I didn't get a response. I don't like to call people on the phone because I assume they're doing something, or like 99% of the time I do make a social call, they don't pick up.

I get it, you mean well. But please stop telling me to do what I have been doing.

Two things!

I had two leetle revelations today.

Item the First: A cigarette is a bigger turn-off than a Bible for me. Isn't that just wacky!? If I somehow had the balls to walk up to and talk to random chicks, seeing her smoking would put me off to the point where I wouldn't talk to her, whereas a Bible would just discourage me a little. This is related to a post I had a few months back.

Item the Second: I don't think I could date or even get involved with another girl if she weren't a fan of heavy metal. I don't mean Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath, but if she likes those she does have fantastic taste in music. I mean Between the Buried and Me, Lamb of God, Opeth. She has to appreciate some heavy music. Like, if I put on The Great Misdirect and she gets really uncomfortable and asks to put on Bruno Mars or some shit like that, she's gone. Well, probably not. But it'd be hella awkward because she just asked me to turn off one of my favorite bands and I'd refuse to play pop garbage.

Aren't you people glad you read my blag posts?

I don't live in a goddamn soap opera

How many times have I felt "betrayed" or something close to that and then acted cold, cruel, or whatever to the person who I felt wronged me when I was totally wrong and just being melodramatic?

I think it's been something like x out of a x times at this point. I use a variable because I've lost count over the years. I'm gonna be a big boy now and make the count (x-1) out of x times. Yeah. Let's work on that.

Skylines and Turnstiles

It's the big day. The tenth anniversary of 9/11. I've never given the date much thought beyond "'Merica!" because, hey, I'm incapable of thinking larger than that.

One of my favorite bands is My Chemical Romance. Call me an emo bitch all you want, you'd only be half right. And that's half wrong. I remember looking at their wikipedia page years ago, probably, and reading their origin story, and how they formed after Gerard Way wrote "Skylines and Turnstiles" in response to the 9/11 attacks. So, in honor of this tragic day in history I decided to listen to it once, because I never have before.

It was very typical of them at the time, grating emo punk rock, almost. I was listening to it on crappy laptop speakers, so I couldn't really pick out the lyrics, but I knew what it was about, and I listened all the way through. So, following that, when I had to take Bryce to work, I decided to pop in my iPod and just listen to all the MCR I had, from Three Cheers up to Danger Days. And SING came on, and I almost burst into tears at the wheel. I'm very, very bad at putting thoughts down into words, more so emotions, so forgive me if this isn't incredibly well put-together.

The lyrics to that song are far, far more pertinent to 2001 than they are today.

I'm not going to quote them right now, the song is right above this text, but they broke something in me thinking about the day, and I was crying for the first time in recent memory. You guys can listen for yourself and see if I'm right.

You're killing me, (person).

Nothing sucks more than seeing a really pretty girl smoking a cigarette. Other vices, you know what, fuck it, I can live with it depending on what it is. Underage drinking? Stupid idea, but as long as it's only a very occasional thing, hey, I'm almost 21, they're probably just as close. Smoking pot? Two of my best friends partake occasionally, and while I'd never try it myself, meh. It's less damaging to the human body than drinking.

But cigarettes have always been a very sore spot for me. I don't know why, exactly. Maybe it's because it's a disgusting-as-fuck habit. Maybe it's the smell.

I actually found out a few weeks before I shoved off to college that my cousin smoke, and I just about gutted him for it.

Smoking is a deal-breaker for me, though. If you currently smoke, please, stop. Your lungs will thank you.

Wait. Wait, what?

Okay, so I was just looking at a Twitter page a friend of mine follows, when I looked over at the side bar.

The part where it says "You follow and account that follows Herkaderkaschmurf" has always confused me a little, mostly because I don't always remember that it shows people that I follow that follow that particular account I am looking at at the time. Sometimes I get it backwards and think "Oh, these are people that we both follow, me and the account I'm viewing".

So anyway, I was looking at the bio stuff, just the little 140-character blurb, when I saw "INTJ". I recognize that, I've looked at a little Jung typology. So I take a closer look at the picture, think "Well she's pretty cute--" And then I remembered how the sidebar works and I look at her followers. 20-something thousand followers, some of the big-name people I follow are following this chick, and it honestly intimidated me for a second.

And that's where I had to pause myself.

It intimidated me? What? That's not right. Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the least intimidating people in the world and am incredibly timid to boot, so it's not like a puppy backing down Chuck Norris or anything equally ridiculous. But it's a statistic. How is that scary?

(Shut up, liberal art majors)

And it made me think, if only for a second, on the entire "celebrity" ideal. And if this sounds like it wasn't fully thought out, it wasn't. I wanted to get this up as quickly as possible to keep it as close to my train of thought as possible, so it's not entirely formulated.

Fffffffffffffffffff.

Gotta crank this out right quick--*slap*

Sorry, sorry. But really, I'm trying to get this out before Matt gets here.

Because I have nothing better to do than introspect when driving the Mako, due to my own foolishness and complete inability to get certain persons out of my head, I realized that I either have a crush to end all crushes or--

--And I can't express how heavily I make this statement, because this is indeed heavy material--

--I'm in love.

"Aw, that's so sweet!" Fuck you, no it's not. I'm still waist-deep in a 9-month depression from the LAST girl I was in love with. While ontologically it's better now rather than distracting me during school, I can't bury myself under school work to keep my mind away from it.

But seriously, I don't need or want this right now.

P.S.: You people should come visit me during Spring Break. I'll be all by my lonesome and will need the company to not go OMGWTFBBQ-crazy.

This might actually be tougher than the laser-guided amnesia for which we sometimes wish.

I was listening to Something Corporate tonight, and when it came to Only Ashes, I thought of the line "Incinerate what's left of this and torch the part of me that's you," because holy crap I, and I'm sure all of us at one point or another, have thought I just want to forget this person! Me, I still dwell on Brenna way too fucking much. Kinda-sorta-not-really doesn't help that I saw her boyfriend on facebook just yesterday as of this post because we have a mutual friend, but I digress.

I was thinking about this line and the fabled "forget whatever you don't want to remember!" technology that society indubitably fantasizes about every so often. I mean, just forgetting all the time I spent with her? All the repercussions she's had on my life? Are you kidding me? I was such a loser before I met her. I'm still a loser, but now I don't suck so much in a conversation.

I grew so much as a person last year. I still have a lot of growing to do. Seeing that she has moved on when I last heard that she wouldn't sleep or eat because I wouldn't talk to her was more than a kick in the pants.

I don't care so much about forgetting her. I just don't want to be so sad anymore.

Man, skag pocket watches.

So I've been thinking lately about communication and whatnot, and to be totally honest the thought was mostly spurred by Ben telling me that I need to make contact with real people (which is what I do every night there's a stream?), but I'm thinking of getting a very basic phone with just calling, no texting, no smartphones, just the ability to make a call anywhere I have a signal.

I've found myself using texting less and less for talking to people and more keeping my dad updated on work and whatnot and updating my facebook and Twitter, which is technically part of the problem, but that's neither here nor there.

Quick sidenote: Ian, I just found myself trying to insert a stupid witty phrase. This is why I should not be fed compliments.


Anyway, I'm also going to try to wean myself off facebook and Twitter a little. This is probably horribly counterproductive towards any semblance of a social life I have right now, but whatevs.

Another quick sidenote: If you'll glance up a paragraph or two, you'll notice that I said facebook and Twitter were neither here nor there, but I mentioned them not two sentences later... Go figure.

So I'm gonna go this weekend trying to text as little as possible and make calls when I can.

And yes, people of the world who are unendingly harassed by me, rejoice, for I shall text you no longer, and probably facebook/Tweet you far less.

This must be what it feels like to euthanize my first born.

Today marks the end of an era. After three years of faithful service, my iPod is no longer functional. While that's not entirely true as I can still play it through my iHome or in a car through an FM transmitter, it will no longer sync with my computer. Even having it connected to my computer causes iTunes to stop functioning.

My only request is that I remain in your thoughts during this trial.

It was my understanding that this was a well-known fact

For those of you who don't already know, I flip shit when people I can normally talk to don't talk to me anymore. I have too much trouble making friends and keeping them to nonchalantly brush off when one of my closest friends decides for whatever reason that talking to me isn't worth it.

What is "it"? Hell if I know. But maybe that's the problem. Or I could just live in a town filled with assholes. Either or.

Anything but this.

I feel absolutely terrible tonight. Not quite beyond words because words can do damn near anything, but probably beyond what I'm capable of saying. My parents tell me I'm a great writer, but I suck at conveying feelings, and thoughts, and emotions, and anything really worth writing about. I'm just decent at writing a story.

I was talking to Lexie Mumey earlier tonight, and we got on the subject of Brenna which then moved to religion and now I just feel like I want to cry, or my chest wants to rip open, and I just want to go to sleep at this point. I'm not saying Lexie made me feel like shit, not at all. She was just who I was talking to.

In an attempt to feel a little better, I've been listening to Na Na Na by My Chemical Romance on repeat for maybe an hour, but I don't think it's really helping. Here are the lyrics for posterity.

(Na Na Na...)

Drugs
Gimme drugs
Gimme drugs
I don't need 'em
But I'll sell what you got
Take the cash
And I'll keep it
Eight legs to the wall
Hit the gas
Kill 'em all
And we crawl
And we crawl
And we crawl
You be my detonator

Love
Gimme love
Gimme love
I don't need it
But I'll take what I want
From your heart
And I'll keep it in a bag
In a box
Put an X on the floor
Gimme more
Gimme more
Gimme more
Shut up and sing it with me

(Na Na Na...)

From mall security
To every enemy
We're on your property
Standing in V formation

(Na Na Na...)

Let's blow an artery
Eat plastic surgery
Keep your apology
Give us more detonation

(More! Gimme more! Gimme more!)

Oh, let me tell ya 'bout the sad man
Shut up and let me see your jazz hands
Remember when you were a madman
Thought you was Batman
Hit the party with a gas can
Kiss me you animal

(Na Na Na...)

You run the company
Fuck like a Kennedy
I think we'd rather be
Burning your information

Let's blow an artery
Eat plastic surgery
Keep your apology
Give us more detonation

And right here
Right now
All the way in Battery City
The little children
Raised their open filthy palms
Like tiny daggers up to heaven
And all the juvee halls
And the ritalin rats
Ask angels made from neon
and fucking garbage
Scream out!
"What will save us?"
And the sky opened up

Everybody wants to change the world
Everybody wants to change the world
But no one,
No one wants to die
Wanna try, wanna try, wanna try
Wanna try, wanna try, now
I'll be your detonator

(Na Na Na...)

Make no apologies
It's death or victory
On my authority
Crash and burn
Young and loaded

Drop like a bulletshell
Dress like a sleeper cell
I'd rather go to hell
Than be in purgatory
Cut my hair
Gag and bore me
Pull this pin
Let this world explode

The very first time I heard this song, I flipped out. I danced like crazy, shouted the chorus, the whole shebang. I have not heard such a cool and awesome song in years, not since the first time I listened to Afterlife. It's not doing much for me right now. I was hoping it might cheer me up, or at least even out my head, because I'm running on all cylinders and am generally having an awful night. My mom is probably going to have us go to church tomorrow, and it's 2:09 in the morning, and tomorrow (today) is going to be terrible.

But it didn't. And now I'm flipping SHIT because I'm lonely, and I just want someone to talk to me, and no one will. For the longest time, I would only try to talk to one or two people on facebook, and then say "Oh, no one wants to talk to me!" even though I didn't even try to talk to anyone else. But recently, I've found that what I said a while back holds true. When I want to talk to someone, it is incredibly rare that I'll get someone I want to have conversation with immediately and they'll stick around. Half the time I get a formal "hi" and that's it. Either this past week or the week before (I honestly can't remember at this point) I put a status up on facebook telling people to just fucking ignore me if they're going to say "hi" and then stop responding. But the worst is that even people who are awesome and just fun to hang out and talk with won't even respond. Some of my close friends either don't get the message, or something else happens and they let it go by. I don't know why, but it's one of many things that have me so close to breaking down that I'm terrified if I will see another peaceful day in the foreseeable future.

If anyone caught my Tweet about the technological black hole earlier, it's not helping either. I understand that technology isn't the end-all-be-all. But goddammit, when that's one of the only sources of interaction I have, I'd really like for it to work like it's supposed to.

"You know what really grinds my gears?

You, America! **** you!"

I kid, people, I kid.

But don't push berserk buttons for a laugh. I can understand finding a flustered and confused person funny, but someone who is genuinely distressed or pissed off is not funny. At all. I know this because I live in a city where that is a favorite past time. For those of you who are bothering to read this and perhaps have read it from the beginning, well, that's partially why I started this here blag. I know the entire schtick at the beginning was to "save my reputation!" Yes. Kinda like trying to save an Ensign on Star Trek. He is, for all intents and purposes, already dead. Yeah. Anyway: Jack said that part of the problem with the entire Kill/Fuck/Marry scenario was that I was freaking out so bad over what everyone was saying, and that I should have just tried to play it cool, but I can't. I cannot stand the idea that people actually get enjoyment out of others' suffering. There's a word for that: torture. Yeah. I live in the vicinity of a ton of a sadists. Awesome.

I get that part that playing it cool takes away from the fun of people looking to get a jolly out of a pissed off person, but then that clicks: These people are fucking sadists. And yeah, I lose it at that point.

My friend Tai here has an awesome shirt on the subject:

Atta girl.

Infatuation sucks.

THE END. Zorz. The endzorz. Yeah.



But really, it does kinda stink.

Glee? Skag that.

I'd be amazed if anyone didn't know what Glee is. It's ridiculously popular, with an emphasis on ridiculous.

So, a bunch of my friends and siblings love Glee, but when Buzz saw the episode with One by U2, he said he hated it. He said it stripped the soul from the song, which is of course what made it great.

I've never like Glee, ever since I first heard when they first played their rendition of Don't Stop Believin'. It, guess what, stripped the soul out of the song!

Now I'm not saying that the people in Glee aren't talented. They are. A lot more talented than I am. But they're trying to shoehorn amazing songs that each have an incredibly unique vocal style into maybe... Two different vocal types? I mean, yeah, the voices sound different and stuff. But the styles are all incredibly similar. You can't have three guys that sound super similar try to do Steve Perry, then Bono, and then Jim Morrison. It just cannot happen. Seriously, get out if you're going to try it.

HELL-o.

As wonderfully misleading the title may be, I'm not to spam "hell", though I'm kinda feeling like I just got dragged through there and back a few times.

I just got hit with a huge wave of nostalgia/betrayal/pain about Brenna. I mean, I never fail to bitch about her, but this was... Wow. This one was really bad. Like, I miss having someone to whom I can talk who will almost always reply.

I probably shouldn't have just switched over to pure LoG, but I was listening to my entire iTunes library on shuffle, and I was just getting more depressed. Nothing like some good ol' RAGE (tm) to calm my gut.

Where was I? I mean, I miss the physical side of our relationship, and I don't mean sex, I'm still a virgin, but more the part that I always had someone there. There were times when for whatever reason I couldn't see Brenna, almost always her dad's doing, but I could still text her or call her. And now what? I wouldn't talk to her if she were the one person my phone could call, but it's still totally hit-and-miss on whether or not someone else will talk to me. You know, I typed that up without really thinking about the word "still", but that's entirely true. It was and always has been hit-and-miss.

It really doesn't help that my best friend totally dropped the ball today. You know, I was totally cool with the fact that he has had school the past two months, but don't stop by, say "Yeah, we're totally going to hang out on Thursday!" and then not show up or even tell me why the hell you were gone. It's really hard to not cuss you out, because that was a huge douche bag move.

Alright. I'm done. There's my thoughts. Do with them what you will.

Mmm whatcha said...

I don't say "I'm sorry" when something bad happens to someone and it's not my fault, because I don't have anything to be sorry for. However, I can say "my condolences" because that is perfectly viable.

BTDub, I'm not saying that I never say "I'm sorry." If I screw up, yes, I'll say that I'm sorry. Gosh.