The Scrolls » wtf

Oops, I did it again

Cole — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:10:47 +0000

My inability to keep electronics has pretty much been a running joke with my friends since the beginning of summer. My latest fiasco involved breaking the USB charging cable for my phone. Except, this is my second one. Remember when I asked on Twitter if anyone had a spare months ago? Collin did. Only I broke that one in the same way as the first one. Somehow, I am bending the metal plug so that is pulls away from the plastic casing and is probably buating wires inside the cable.

No bueno, I know. But I can’t help but wonder if it’s completely my fault. I mean, they all break in the same damned way so perhaps that’s just the weak point? Maybe a good old wall adapter would work just as fine. I never broke any of those.

Deepshit Horizon

Cole — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:09:26 +0000

In the event that you’ve been hiding under a rock, some major shit has been going on in the Gulf of Mexico. Namely, an oil rig owned by BP exploded, killing 11 crew members (if I recall correctly) and leaving a hole wide open on the ocean floor, from which oil has been flowing ever since. Known as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, it has become the largest offshore spill in U.S. history and has leaked oil onto shores in Louisiana and Florida.

Now, I’m not oceanographer or bigwig CEO. I’ve never been swimming in the ocean let alone working in it. I know there’s a shitload of pressure 5,000 feet beneath the surface of the ocean but this shit has been going on since April 20th and every solution that BP has tried has been akin to a “band-aid over a bullet hole.” I know some folks hate that terms but, really, it’s true.

In the mean time, 500,000 to 4,200,000 US gallons of oil have been leaking into the oil per day. If you’re a fan of beach vacations or own land in Louisiana, you’re fucked. The news is even worse if you’re some ocean dwelling creature . The internet is full of heartbreaking images of struggling birds and dead sea turtles. It ain’t pretty, folks.

I’m sure we will come up with a solution. Some great minds have already proposed other solutions. I’m sure even if they are valid, bureaucratic bullshit will prevent the solutions from being applied as swiftly as possible and with hurricane season on our hills, this is not good news.

But you know what’s even worse? Even when we do fix this, it will happen again. That’s right. Experts agree that this sort of thing is more likely to happen because we are having to go deeper and deeper to drill for oil and that’s kinda dangerous. Now, the republicans say this can all be prevented if the democrats would just let them drill in the ANWR. And democrats are quick to report that if the republicans would sell all those damned SUVs, maybe this could be prevented.

Maybe. I don’t buy either debate but I do think that something is clear; if there are fingers to be pointed, none of us innocent. Consumers who continued to let car companies build cars that depend on oil? Guilty. Car companies who considered to build those cars? Guilty. Government that failed to protect consumers and the environment while allowing car companies to be all sorts of ridiculous? Guilty.

Fear not, though. I just read an article that lists 10 Things You Can Do to Help. From volunteering to donating, your helping hand will be appreciate. If you haven’t picked up a bottle of Dawn lately or seen some commercials, the dish soap was used during the Exxon-Valdez oil spill to clean up animals. You can register online to donate $1 per every bottle of Dawn you purchase toward the cause. I’m almost out, anyway. You can also help out if you are a sailor or fisherman, own a hair salon or see an animal injured by the oil spill.

It’s the least you can do, really.

Um, What?

Um, What?

Cole — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:37:22 +0000

If you’ve been on the internet lately, you’ve probably seen people posting their FormSpring links. If not, here’s all you need to know: Formspring is free to sign up and users can allow other registered users or even anonymous folks to ask them questions. Their can reply to them and both questions and answers will show up on the user’s page. It’s like a modern version of the “Ask me Anything” button. And it’s fucking annoying because my Twitter updates are filled with formspring links and I don’t give a shit but that is another rant.

My rant is about a user whose FormSpring I stumbled across. This young woman apparently does “recreational” cocaine when she drinks. She is also amazed that admitting so, in a public place, has motivated people to ask about it because, like, everyone she knows does it when they go out to drink and, like, it helps with her fatigue because of her thyroid problems. Not her exact words but it’s what I got from it. Apparently, every bar in her neighbourhood has a dealer and she’s never seen someone decline the offer to do a line. So it’s all the rage where she lives.

Ooookay. Let’s stop there.

I have never met anyone who openly admitted to having done coke ever in their life. I probably know someone who has but it’s not something that just pops up in conversation. I don’t know who I would ask if I wanted to do cocaine and I have never been offered a line. And I have never lived anyplace where cocaine was available in every bar, at least to my knowledge. If I did, I’d move the fuck out of Dodge for fear of someone “busting a cap in my ass” or something equally scary.

Granted, my hometown was very much blue collar. Maybe everyone just stuck to less expensive drugs like weed. Granted, my hometown isn’t young and hip and weight obsessed so maybe this woman knows a lot of folks with money and calories to burn. Granted, I don’t go out all the time so maybe I am just not in the right place to experience this phenomenon.

But, really? Come on. If you think it’s no big thing to talk about doing a line of cocaine, then maybe you are too involved and ought to take a step back. If you really think it’s strange that people would inquire, maybe you need a mental health check. Or to get the fuck off the crack. Whatever.

Save The Drama For Your Mama

Cole — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 04:04:41 +0000

Pardon the cliche. A manager from my first job used to use it and while it annoyed us and the way he said it only made us suspect he was gay but I digress. There’s some drama going on with one of my family members and her husband which has escalated from petty gossip to a potentially dangerous train wreck of a problem and while the original issue isn’t really anyone’s fault, the current state of affairs is so much more dramatic than it need be.

Long story short, the husband of a family member has a history of mental illness (paranoid schizophrenia, as far as I know) which, in the past, let him to being institutionalized. This hasn’t been an issue as long as she’s known him except that he does seem to have an awful lot of safety deposit boxes and safes. While everyone thought he was strange, maybe eccentric, no one thought anything more of it. Why would they? Why would his wife even think she needed to look into his mental history before marrying?

The past few months, he has really taken a turn for the worse, however. At first it was annoying and weird more than alarming. He would mention things like his family was plotting against him or someone was watching him. He was generally showing a lot of distrust in people. Now, he has spent close to $1,000 having his wife and family investigated – $1,000 he does not have as his health has recently taken a turn for the worse and medical bills are forcing him to file bankruptcy. He goes back and forth, multiple times a day, about whether or not he wants to stay married to his wife. One minute he hates her, the next he wants to buy a house in California. He follows his wife when she visits friends and family and photographs the places she goes. He has acquired somewhere in the vicinity of 8 guns, with ammunition, and even went to far as to try to convince his wife that she needs to put her fingerprints on one of those guns.

It’s unclear whether he was medicated and it stopped working. Or perhaps he stopped taking his medication. There’s also the possibility that he has been fine without his medication for some time and it’s just now become an issue. It could easily have been trigger with his health going downhill. Either way, while he is acting in a disturbing manner – even scary, I don’t know that it’s his fault. It’s not her fault but she has certainly be reacting in a strange way. At first, she just bitched, making a big fuss but doing nothing. In fact, she bitched for months until someone forced her to call his doctor and the police – both of whom told her they could do nothing at the time.

With the most recent turn of events (the gun/fingerprints comment), she called the police once more and they removed all the firearms from her house so she could pick them up at the police station and take them someplace her husband cannot access them. She had no idea how many guns were in her house and considering as she has been spending much time at my mother’s, this worries the hell out of me.

My bone here, is that it never had to go this far. It’s not her fault, of course, but instead of bitching for months she could have done something. It looks like the only feasible option would be to contact his family and have him committed but that certainly seems like the best option for everyone involved. In fact, it could even potentially result in him getting “better” or medicated and their marriage being saved. But she didn’t do that. Instead, she bitched and and slept with some guy.

I don’t know. I wouldn’t be happy if the same thing happened with Ryan but my concern would be dealing with it, for both of our sakes, rather than bitching or cheating. The fact is, no one should have to deal with that but mental illness is a reality we cannot escape; we can only hope to deal with it and by avoiding the heart of the issue, she has caused more drama and damage than ever had to arise from this all. My family doesn’t need that and my sister certainly doesn’t need to be involved in that.

My life doesn’t have a ton of drama and there’s a reason. I don’t let it. Period. It’s really as easy as that. Drop the situations and people who bring drama. Don’t do stupid things. Think before you at or speak. Don’t talk behind other people’s backs. Don’t piss people off just because. Don’t do anything without good reason. Don’t do drugs. Don’t be a crack whore. Don’t mess with the authorities. Deal with issues that arise, instead of ignoring them. To sum it up: certain people and things will lead to drama; avoid them. If you complain about the drama all the time but allow it into your life, you’re an idiot.