Side Effects May Include Suicide

I saw an ad for a Pfizer product recently on TV. Maybe I'm just used to not being able to understand the 'fine print' on TV for the last few years, or maybe in Japan they just don't bother with that crap. Maybe it's a combination of both. But last time I remember people making fun of the side effects of prescription medicine on commercials, it was stuff like cramps, diarrhea, or (at the very worst) 'blood in your stool'. Apparently that's so 80's. Pfizer now offers a product that may include 'suicidal thoughts or actions' as possible side effects.

This was an advertisement on television. Maybe I'm reading too far between the lines here, but I imagine 'suicidal actions' as a cute way of saying 'some fucker tried to kill themselves'. Not just thought about it, but went and acted upon it.

Any action deemed suicidal brings razor blades and wrists, or high elevations and jumping to mind. I don't actually remember the product being advertised, since I was so weirded the fuck out by the whole suicidal actions thing. So I hit up google for "pfizer suicidal actions" and was presented with 441,000 pages of results. Apparently this is a common thing with them, from everything for 'Shingles pain relievers' to shit to help you quit smoking. The fact that I have the sure fire method to quitting smoking --that worked for me-- down pat with no drugs needed (step one: don't put any cigarettes in your mouth, step two: there is no step two), I kinda feel that if you feel like you're going to bleed out from the wrists in a warm tub over cigarettes, then you might as well just keep on smoking, bro. Seriously.

Does it strike anyone else as odd that with this being a legitimate side effect, the product still goes to market? If it was one case, it would be thrown out as a fluke. The fact that people tested with this shit have this be a common enough occurrence that it goes into television spots (in a quick hushed tone in between shots of smelling flowers and crap)... shouldn't that set off warning flags somewhere?

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for the removal of 90% of the crap we print on products today. That there are paragraphs of text on bags telling idiots to not let their children put them over their heads... that there are whole sections on rat poison that are like "PREGNANT WOMEN SHOULDN'T EAT THIS, OKAY?"... that bananas come with warning labels that are like THIS GOES IN YOUR MOUTH, NOT YOUR URETHRA (well, okay, we're not there yet... but SOON, right?).

It all seems a little silly. But when the other side of the coin is like 'drinking Dr. Pepper will send you on a fucking killing spree', then MAYBE it's time to get Dr. Pepper off the shelves.

Ugh. My uterus hurts. I need to go lay down.

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I Don't think My Parents Missed Me :(

I got home, and my mom immediately went on a month long vacation. My dad went up to see her "at the lake" shortly thereafter, and even my brother and his family is up there too, now, frollicking in the pool and whatnot. Don't get me wrong, I'm not not invited, but someone needs to water all the plants and feed the cats. They all assure me I can dump that on the lady across the street, but it would feel a bit awkward being that guy.

HEY MRS. TRUITNER! JUST GOT BACK IN TOWN FROM LIVING ABROAD, GONNA GO FROLLICK IN THE POOL, ETC. GRAB THE MAIL, FEED THE CATS, AND WATER THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON IN MY ABSENCE, K? OH, AND PUT THE TRASH OUT MONDAY MORNING. KTHXBAI.

Yeah, that would just feel a little... neighbor rapey. Boxes are still arriving just about every day now that we shipped off from Japan about a month ago. I really should have taken some photos of some of the more dramatic deliveries. We opted to send everything 'surface', which means it travels on a boat ("fuck trees, I climb buoys, etc") to America. Imagine Wile E. Coyote falling off a mesa, and walking away looking like an accordian; then you open that accordian, and pull out your Wii and dress shirts.

About a billion boxes have arrived, and I have my whole home theatre thing set up, but no controllers to play any consoles with. Why I decided to send all the controllers separate from the systems is a huge mystery. It turns out ten more boxes have yet to arrive (just asked my wife, apparently the final count was 23!).

In truth, my main gaming fix is WoW anyway, but I find myself decidedly uneager (ineager? noneager...?) to log in. My motherboard, CPU, and videocards were sent via airmail, and I ran out and bought a swanky new case, monitor, and PSU on like day two. I ran a VOA pug, and got a Valorous chest for my warrior, but have been too lazy to even add it to my gear sets in Outfitter, etc. My priest has been neglected, and my European Rogue is officially in the wrong timezone now. Being in the fabled American Timezone of Teh WoWzors has kind of backfired. I reckon once I get rolling with a new guild everything will fall into place?

In truth it feels like my wife is scheming to occupy any stretch of time longer than 30 minutes with something. I haven't had a raidable chunk of time open to me since before I left Japan, and I don't even have a job! I fear I'm losing touch with the working mindset, as well. Waking up around 9 or 10 (with the wife and kid), putzing around drinking coffee in a robe, then deciding to get dressed so we can go to Target (I swear we've gone to Target every single day since coming home)... how am I supposed to fit a job in there, and more importantly: what was I thinking about that game design thing? It was all so crystal clear a few months ago, but I feel like I'm losing touch with that vision I had, and am edging very near to 'jump on craigslist and grab anything in the area'.

The job forecast seems so grim everytime anyone opens their mouth, but then I remember these are the same people that talked about El Nino every chance they had back then, or were probably droning on about the Swine Flu before my glorious re-arrival. The news tells people what to complain about, it all reminds me of that one sketch in The Meaning of Life when the American Couple goes to dinner and orders conversations instead of food, because they can't think of anything interesting to say to one another.

For now, I water the plants, change the kids diaper, and wait.

Bleh.

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Apparently My Birthday Has Expired

Your momma's so fat she heard it was chilly outside, bitch went and got a bowl. She's so dumb, I saw her putting lipstick on her forehead, I was like 'what the fuck are you doing?' she was like 'I dunno, I'm trying to make up my mind'. She's so poor, I stepped on a cigarette that was smoldering on the living room floor and she complained about me turning off the heat.

Shit, your momma's so old her birthday expired.

Hmmm...it would appear she's 34 years old, and she and I are in the same boat.

I can't buy beer in America because my California driver's license expired a month ago, on my birthday, while I was still in Japan. Dipshits at the grocery store card me, I happily pull it out, and they're like OH WAIT. THIS IS EXPIRED. SORRY.

Since when does my birthdate fucking expire? The amount of documentation required to obtain a driver's license in the first place is ridiculous. None of that 'identity proving' goes out the window magically one day. Plus, I'm not asking for permission to go run some NASCAR with you, you moron, I want to prove I'm the guy in the photo (which still looks like me), so I can go home and medicate myself with Californian Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. You see, I'm finding myself surrounded by idiots recently. People who, for one reason or another, choose to refuse to engage their brain for whatever reason. People who can't understand that I don't want to pay 200 dollars extra for some retard-service-plan for my new television. It will either work or it won't, and if it doesn't, you be seeing me very shortly. Like, within the hour. I also don't buy insurance for my pants and underwear. Amazing, I know.

Here's how that conversation basically goes down:

Lou (already punching in the SKUs into the register): So you're gonna want that four year buyer protection plan, and a bottle of screen cleaner right?
Me: No, I don't want any of that crap. I came here for a TV. That's all I want.
Lou (with a retarded slackjaw expression on his face like I just crapped a turd out in the AV section of bestbuy): wha? WELL WHY NOT?
Me: I'm not interested in it. I'll do fine with the manufacturer's warranty.
Lou (picking up steam now): BUT WHY WOULDN'T YOU WANT 4 YEARS OF--
Me: Gotta girlfriend, Lou?
Lou (more confused now): yeah...?
Me: Does she take it in the butt, Lou?
Lou: *ahem* I'm pretty sure that's none of your busine--
Me: WOW. SO YOU DO UNDERSTAND. HOW ABOUT YOU FUCK OFF WITH THE INTERVIEW AND JUST RING UP THE TV, LOU?

Nobody even approached me for the entire 40 minutes I stood there, staring at labels for Sony Bravias and Sharp Aquios and Samsung Dinglenuggets (I got a Samsung, btw). Then they have the audacity to try and jump on my ass and ride me to the bank when I finally track a fucker down in the washing machine section and am like SLASH TWO YEAH... CUSTOMER WITH $1000+ CASH... READY TO GO IN THE HD TV SECTION, NO BULLSHIT SMALL TALK REQUIRED, PST.

Then they were ---honestly--- about to not let me take the TV I just bought with CASH, out to my car. Since I didn't have a pickup truck or SUV, they were going to try and stop me from leaving the store with it, to try and stuff in the trunk of my parent's Jaguar. Seriously. I laughed. Like, out loud. I --literally-- was LOLing, right there in RL. It would have been funny if it wasn't such a 'omfg I seriously can't believe you're stupid enough to try and tell me I can't take my new TV I just paid cash for to my car' moment.

For the record, a 40 inch Samsung will fit in the back seat of a Jaguar. Barely.

And then I go to the grocery store to buy a six pack for the install, and get told by the bitch behind the counter I'M REALLY SORRY, BECAUSE I CAN SEE THIS IS YOU, AND YOU'RE OBVIOUSLY OVER 21, BUT IT'S JUST EXPIRED AND I DON'T WANT TO GET IN TROUBLE.

Oh no, don't apologize to me, you little worm. Apologize to your parents. They completely failed to inspire you to think for yourself, despite all of their hard work. Apologize to your children, who will grow up to resent you for being such a fucking putz. But don't apologize to ME. I've had a day, and at this point I don't even hear what you're saying anymore.

Epilouge:

Ixo got all the way home and told the story to all who would hear it. Then he realized he had left the Netflix things in the car and had to turn right back around and drive them down to a mailbox (christ, don't even ask why we can't just put them in the mailbox at our house, that's a whole other DOING YOUR PART FOR JUVENILE CRIME PREVENTION AWARENESS IN THE SUBURBS rant). So he decided to take his passport and get a six pack after all. Halfway to town, he realized he forgot to actually GRAB his passport, and braced himself for the uber trifecta of America. He went to the local Liquor Mart, preparing for the final showdown.

There, at the counter, with a twelvepack in his hand (upgrade!), the cashier asked him how old he was. He replied: "I'm 34.". The cashier rang up the beer, without another word, and Ixo lived happily ever after.

The End.

loledits: oh wow. I typed this up in a MOOD, and totally missed about 8 glaring run ons and typos. I don't pretend to be perfect, but I'm not THAT bad. Some crap fixed. Consider this 2.0.　

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When Geeks Move

We don't just put furniture in a room and push it around.

We plot.

We scheme.

We make diagrams, and squeeze every ounce of efficiency out of our new living space.

Then we end up just putting all the furniture in a room and pushing it around.

I downloaded and installed Google's Sketchup program that I remember Timothy recommending to me way back when I was building my castle/dungeon, and clunked around with learning how to use it (really simple actually). That took a good hour or so, then I decided it didn't need to be in full 3d (and I probably could have just banged it out in 3dsmax anyway), so I swtiched to a topdown layout using Illustrator. This was handy, as I could just set a scale (1mm=1inch), input the dimensions of the sofa and bed and everything, and have draggable little boxes to arrange to my heart's delight.

My parents have an extra house on the hill behind the main place that my dad uses as a studio. He's an illustrator. So all of this is building up to the day when we get a bunch of guys to come and drag all the stuff from the studio down to the house proper, and make space for the whirlwind Ikea Delivery Tour. I cringed when my dad casually mentioned "going down to Home Depot to hire some Mexicans for the move", but that's just how they do it in this strange, foreign land. God bless America? I honestly have no idea anymore. I've been out of the loop for too long.

I hit up Taco Bell on my first day back, and have since made a point of getting Jumbo Jacks, Svenhard's "Horns a Plenty", and homemade Nestle chocolate chip cookies stuffed in my gullet, washing it all down with some Odwalla apple juice. Going to Safeway (the main grocery chain here) is like foreplay before some Bachalian orgy of food. Onigiri seems so... quaint. Such a distant memory.


Anyway. I haven't logged into anything, much less anything resembling a game since a day or two before leaving Japan, and still have a bunch of crap to sort out before I fall back into a normal routine. I reckon the next few posts will be more of the minutiae of getting settled, before I begin posting more world first downings of hard mode bosses. Has 3.2 even hit yet? I'm afraid to peek into WoW for fear it may begin downloading a patch, and then I'd be glued to the laptop until the wee hours of the morning "L-ing for G" on some server where everyone is actually awake at the same time I am.

There's a horrifying thought! : /

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To Quote Myself: "WOO! I’M E-FAMOUS!"

I've been ground to Valhalla. It was a bit like AoE grinding, and a bit like grinding coffee.

I'm apparently so super famous on the internet that I totally snubbed our mutual friend Randolph Carter back in April, and he came crawling back to me begging for another chance.

Actually, that isn't how it worked out at all... it was more like "I'm stupid, and suffer from short term memory loss, and opened his mail and went about my life like a moron for a few months until he was like HEY JACKASS, SO WE GONNA DO THIS OR WHAT".

I'm fun like that.

Anyway, this is all just a fancy introduction to the following link. Read, and enjoy.

http://grindingtovalhalla.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/one-shot-ixobelle/

I'm typing this on my Mother in Law's laptop, as all of my computing goods have been packed up for transit to the Americas. I'll check back in with you guys in about a week.

Don't make a mess, and turn out the lights when you leave.

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