I got into a long conversation with the girl behind the counter at the hotel this morning. This is the third time this week someone has mentioned playing RPGs to me. Are they making a comeback? Strange things are afoot at the Circle K… Earlier this week I was invited to possibly take a road trip and join in on a game with a group that plays regularly. I REALLY want to go but I have to admit, I’m scared out of my mind. I haven’t played in over fifteen years and even then it was with a lot of “house rules” our group had developed. I used to play every game I could get in on back in the old days. D&D is always the primary game but there were always other worlds like “Top Secret”, “Boot Hill” and “Gamma World”. I even knew a guy that had a “Tunnels and Trolls” game going. I haven’t dealt with “new” rules or “outside groups” since I was still in Jr. High. Ever since then I’ve played with essentially the same group. I’m worried I’ll slow down the game and become a nuisance. I’m not afraid of looking foolish or stupid. If I was worried about that I’d never post my bullshit up here. I’m afraid of not being capable of playing up to these other guy’s standards. Well bollocks to it all, if the game approaches and I’m still invited to go, I’ll go. I really would love to play again, even if I’m rusted shut.
I got the website up last night just as I promised. Because a lot of posts are made, some of them get buried under the new ones. For example, there are three new posts under Teresa’s June page. June 10th, 11th and 20th. Some new movies were added… Basically, we’ve been “down” since the first week in June so if you want to know what’s new, read everything posted in June.
You will see some changes around here eventually. I can’t promise when but the comments board will be taken off of the third party server and hosted right here on our page. Also we are looking into adding blog software which will “pretty up” the rather dull pages and will also allow Teresa to update her own page without passing it through me. I’ve never censored her or anything but this way she can post more often and be completely independent of me. I know I’ve promised this all before but we have been actively discussing it recently.
I almost succeeded in avoiding distractions last night. I got up for a break and turned on the TV. AFI was counting down the greatest movies ever again. I like movies, I could watch this, right? NO! I know now why I will never be a serious movie connoisseur. I actually screamed out loud, no real words, just a kind of, “Ahhhckkkaaaahhhhewwwwwwlalalalalalal”. I’m not sure what the people on the other side of the hotel wall thought of it but I just couldn’t hold it back when they compared “Titanic” to “Casablanca”. Twice! I thought it might just be an accident the first time but the said it again a second time. It may or may not be a fair comparison but it makes my brain explode when I hear people authenticate new movies by making the most cursory comparisons to true classics. “You know, ‘Space Truckers’ is the modern day ‘Star Wars’ because they both take place in space and they have ships and there’s a girl and stuff…” Luckily it was so offensive to my brain that I turned off the TV and returned to the job at hand and I got the rest of the website up and running.
Another thought occurred to me while the television was on. Why is it I am inundated with commercials for stuff that I can’t buy without a prescription from a doctor? If I can’t buy it, why are they trying to sell it to me? I saw one that said it was safe to take forever, as long as your doctor prescribes it. It made me think that people are self-medicating themselves too much and we have become a nation of people that aren’t quite hypochondriacs but damn close. If the doctor has to prescribe it, that means only the doctor needs to know about the different brands right? Only the doctor needs to see these commercials. Why would there be national ad campaigns unless people were out there and saw the medication on the TV, liked the commercial and asked their doctor to prescribe the medication for them.
I go to the doctor when I think something is wrong with me. Bleeding from both eyes, loss of an arm, hairy palms, shit like that… And when I go to the doctor he fixes me up and if I need medicine, he gives me some or gives me a prescription. The way I look at it, the prescription should be the RESULT of the doctor visit, not the CAUSE of the doctor visit. Too many people are out there watching these beautiful commercials describing symptoms we ALL have from time to time but they decide that they are now sick and in need of this new miracle drug. They go to their doctor and ask for it. The doctor has been wined, dined and golfed by the pharmaceutical reps so he has no problem with filling out the prescription form. How many of these people actually need the medication? What is the percentage of the American population on regular medications now? I would LOVE to see a real statistic on this. An honest one. The old people are always on pills. That is to be expected but now they are living longer and there are more of them. Now people are putting their children on medications all the damn time! What percentage of the population between 20 and 50 is on a daily med and how many of them actually need it? A lot of the people taking those pills would be just as happy taking a sugar pill if they saw a commercial for it and had to have a prescription for it.
Now there’s a diet pill that actually says to stay close to the bathroom the first week of taking it? It says to bring a change of clothes to work because of “sudden, uncontrollable bowel movements.” Are people really so desperate to lose three or four pounds that they are willing to shit themselves in a board meeting? Don’t answer that one, I know the answer. We are surrounded by disillusioned and shallow people that have cashed in their personalities and exchanged them for whoever is on the cover of the rag magazines this week. “Ohh, I want to be like Leonardo DeCaprio, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney and whoever is next”.
Diet pills, blood pressure, diabetes, Prozac. Everyone has to take five or six pills before leaving the house. You all know me and you all know that I was on medication for a couple of years. I didn’t want to be on it, I resisted it every inch of the way. But when Teresa told me it was time to see the doctor or it was time to see a lawyer, I went in to be evaluated. The doctor told me that I was a picture perfect case of someone who needed these pills to balance everything out. And I’ll admit, they worked for the most part. But after a while, I realized that I was going to be on these damned things for the rest of my life and I looked for another way to fix this. I realized that by taking those stupid pills I was allowing the blame to be moved off of me and on to some mysterious “chemical imbalance”. I no longer had to take responsibility for my actions, everything could be conveniently blamed on those pills and no one (especially me) had to look beyond it and see what those pills were hiding; my own weakness. I didn’t like that and I took actions to correct that. I incorporated things in my life that allowed me to grow beyond that weakness. Why wallow in your shortcomings by taking a pill when you can eradicate them by growing as a person and gaining personal strength? But no, everyone takes their little mental health pills and sees their therapist twice a week.
I know that some things can’t be overcome and that some medications are necessary for a person to live a full life. But I am concerned that this has become a minority in a sea of people that are in love with being sick. We are keeping the sick and weak alive longer and we are creating more sick and weak people by convincing them that something is wrong with them. Where does it end?
Ohh man am I happy for the [DELETE] key. I just wrote a page and a half rant about evolution, eugenics and the futility of our species. It got ugly and I went WAY off topic. I’ll sign off now and let you off the hook. If you’re interested in snake oil, I’ll sell you all you like. Its list of properties is limited only by your imagination. It will put hair on your chest and cure polio. If you’ve got too much hair it will also serve as a wonderful hair remover. It will keep you awake on those long drives but it may cause drowsiness and I wouldn’t operate heavy machinery. Be sure to take with food and hey, make sure you bring those little white slips of paper because my snake oil is available only by prescription.
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