Myspace...To whom I bid farewell

I just cancelled my account with Myspace. I can't say that I am sad to see it go, mostly because I haven't seen it in over a year. Thanks for all the good times...you know all those men and women emailing me to look at their other profiles on websites that didn't have nudity restrictions. Yeah I miss that...not. Facebook is getting there though so I am looking for the next big social networking site. I am thinking www.callyourfriendsandmeetthemforsocialouttings.com should be good enough.

Myspace Blog 2

7-18-08 posting from Myspace

This is just a random blog about my thoughts.

I listen to the radio almost all day long while I am at work. Lately there is a radio commercial that has been cracking me up every time I hear it. I understand that probably no one else will find this funny. The sonic commercials are becoming well known for their two guys or guy and girl in a car routine discussing the newest product. The radio commercials introduce an extra character. This extra character advertises specifically to the couple in the car, either two guys or guy/girl. In all the radio commercials the special advertising character is always a stereotypical something.

Now that you have been set up, in the latest sonic radio AD the guy/girl combo are enjoying the new sausage biscuit dippers, when a stereotypical TV salesperson starts in with "hello folks, this is Jeff Frank Steve Stuart here to tell you about the amazing new Sonic Sausage Biscuit Dippers." The guy in the commercial says something like, "oh Sonic must have hired a stereotypical TV salesperson," when the girl interjects, "hush I trying to hear what Jeff Frank Steve Stuart has to say." This is the funniest part. First, that the stereotypical TV salesperson has only first names for all FOUR parts of his name, and secondly the female character is mesmerized by the salesperson and has instantaneously remembered the four first nondescript names named salesman. This is hilarious to me.

The next commercial that has been on my mind is a commercial issued by the Catholic Coalition of Bishops or something like that. The commercial emphasizes marriage and what it takes to make it last. The commercial begins with "What have you done for your marriage today?" It is followed by real testimonies of individuals and what they do for their spouse. They range from took the kids out so the wife could have a day to herself to "wow, I have no idea what I've done for my marriage." Because it is supposedly real audio from street interviews I am constantly amazed by the tone the voice carries. The ones that haven't done anything for their marriage often sound like they just realized how stupid they've been for not doing anything. On the other side, those that have done something for their spouse always sound hopeful for years to come or confident in their marriage.

When I am listening to this commercial, I always am reminded that something like 50% of first marriages end in divorce and 60% of second marriages for one spouse end in divorce, and still again 77% of third marriages end in divorce. With these statistics, I wonder how many of those people on the commercial will be divorced. However, while I am not doctrinally aligned with the Catholics I am glad that there are large campaigns fighting against divorce, by emphasizing that marriages take work and intentional acts of love to make them work.

Myspace Blog Entries... From the past.

7-21-08 Posting from Myspace

So, earlier I posted a blog about two commercials, and this blog will continue my commentary on commercials.

There is a new radio commercial by FORD. The commercial starts out in this booming voice that declares, "BE AMERICAN!!! BUY AMERICAN!!!" I am completely offended by this statement. Maybe I am just over reacting and maybe this means I am not American, but I don't like the Ford Company calling me un-American because I choose to drive a Toyota. Now, I must clarify that I drive a Pontiac which is an "American Made" car. I previously owned a PT Cruiser and a Ford Taurus. Chrysler was an American company that sold to a German Company that has relinquished the majority share of ownership to a private American Company. So, I drive American made cars but the part of this that really bothers me is FORD IS TELLING ME I AM UNAMERICAN FOR NOT BUYING FORD, GM, etc.

Get this. On July 01, 2008 Cars.com released an index of the top ten cars that are made with American made products, products bought in America, manufactured in America, sales, etc. Ford only has two cars on the Top Ten List of cars that are "American made." Now, I will be fair and say the Ford F-150 is the number one American made car, but it still is not completely composed of American made parts. The F-150 is only 80% American made products.

I guess what I am saying is, can Ford really claim that it is un-American to buy a Toyota Tundra that is 75% American made content when many of the Fords out there have less than 75% American products.

Insert Title Here!

I was reading some blogs today (video game blogs) and they all had something in common, titles. Take a second for that to sink in. Okay I realize all blog posts have a title, but these titles were witty, eye catching, and relevant to the blog. This is something I wish I could do. I went scavaging through the multiple (sighs) posts I have made and feel as though the titles leave something to be desired. Maybe I am self-deprecating and they are awesome; regardless, I have been inspired to be a better titler...namer...bestower of blog titles...maybe I should work on my vocab first.

Radio Ads

So I listen to secular radio (gasp), and my favorite station is 96.5 The Mountain, Chattanooga's No. 1 Hit Music Station. Besides playing Chattanooga's hit music they also play...wait for it...advertisements. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone who knows me, but I love commercials. I think they are a great look into our culture, but sometimes they are so absurd it is funny. Netflix's has recently (>1yr) released a series of commercials that spoof game shows. It is a question and answer style show where they ask absurd questions and receive absurd answers. All this lead up to the final question that reveals you can stream netflix to your Wii. Some are funny and some are just absurd.

Q. If a tree is cut down in Brooklyn,...
And before he finishes, the guy answers....
A. A sprout pops up in New Jersey?

Q: A dog goes ahead in time and bites his tail. When does he feel it?
A: Yesterday.

Q. If Jack and Jill went up the hill, then where is Fred?
A. Milwaukee?

Q:If a triangle is happy and a square is sad, what is a rectangle?
A: Diassapointed.

Q: What is the inverse of January 12?
A: September 22nd 9pm eastern!

Q. If pie is in the sky, where's cake?
A. A distant meadow

Q. If a rhombus has four sides, what is the inverse of blue?
A. Purple

Q. Three guys walk into a bar. Who has the monkey?
A. Guy number 3!

Q. If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, what does a pear do?
A. Prevents hard feelings.

Q. What is the square root of Orange?
A. Uhhh...Turquoise?

And now for the bonus round.
Q. If Mary had 10 sheep.... what did Jimmy have?
A. A silly salamander.

Salamander...wipes tears away...

Warning about Darkside.

So, I mentioned on facebook that the previous blog would be coming and it has taken some time to edit and make sure the content reflected accurately my thoughts and feelings. Now I use the term "edit" loosely because I am sure there are typos and grammatical errors running rampant through the post but whatever. I caution that the previous post, or the one right below this one, is very sensitive and personal in nature. It is quite long for a blog too.

Darkside...not the same place the Lunatacs of Thundercats lived.

So, this has been weighing heavily on my heart and on my mind the last few weeks. I have decided to spill the beans so to speak. I have asked several people close to me over the last few weeks whether they thought I was an emotional person and the overwhelming majority answered “no.” This might come as no surprise because most guys in this culture are macho and showing emotion is a girly weak thing to do. I don’t think emotion is girly or even weak, yet I hide my emotions because I care too much what other people think about me and I want to fit in. So the big news is I am big sack of emotions. You might be thinking, “Okay so he has emotions big freakin’ deal.” Normally I would say duh, of course I have emotions, I am a human. But earlier in my life (High and Middle school), I would have fits of depression that I would keep to myself. “Hold on, a preteen/teenage boy got depressed…no way,” you might be thinking while rolling your eyes in a very vaudevillian way, but in my depressed moods I would often think of suicide.

My depression would often stem from a sense of low self esteem. I think most people who know me would say that self esteem isn’t something I lack, but under all my swagger, confidence, and arrogance (sometimes) I am really scared and putting on a show. I pretty much felt that anything I do was inadequate and completely common place. There are three ways to know who you are as a person. What you believe you are, what you say you are, and what you do. These don’t have to agree either. The last way is the only true way to know who a person is including yourself. When reflecting on yourself though, your actions can always be dismissed through excuses if you don’t like whom you are. I want to be an unselfish, loving person who is slow to anger, but the truth is that then and now I am selfish and quick to anger. My actions in my mind prove this, yet I say the opposite to others. I used to hate myself for knowing this and would become angrier with myself. I felt that I was a disappointment to others and wanted to rid them of that disappointment. I think we have all come to the conclusion that I never made a successful attempt to kill myself and luckily I never attempted at all. The only reason that kept me from taking action was a belief in God.

Before I truly knew Christ and about his life, I knew about God and believed in His existence, and that taking my own life would be a very erroneous thing to do because it would violate God's commandments. So here I was trapped, I felt by the one belief I could live up too. I hurt from depression. I can’t speak for others, but they say depression hurts and it is true. I felt trapped in that pain and it made me angry. So now I am angry for being trapped in addition to being angry at myself for having these feelings. It was a very vicious cycle for me and I would hurt myself in non lethal ways. I won’t go into details because they aren’t needed, but the physical pain would make the emotional pain less and that was important. Then one morning I would wake up and not feel this for a week or two, then for several days I would feel this pain all over again. I am lucky that it wasn’t prolonged periods of depression and maybe I was just another melodramatic teenager, but the feelings, pain, and memories are very real. I say this because objectively my life is really good.

To further explain my moods, I would be dissatisfied with my life because my actions hurt and disappointed others. This would disappoint me and make me angry with myself. As a teenager I wasn’t the best at controlling my passions with reason, so even though I knew better and wanted better, passion would overrule sense and I would say mean, hurtful things and act selfishly because it brought immediate pleasure. So I was angry and hurt for being a disappointment. I hated feeling angry and would get angrier for feeling that way, but in feeling angry and worthless (for disappointing people) I would come to the conclusion I deserved the emotional pain. I wasn’t worthy of feeling good. My anger wasn't always layered on top of my depression. Anger was usually the last stage of my depressed states, but for a small time they would overlap. The depression felt heavy and constricting. Every part of my body felt heavy and much like a stress ball like it was being pressed towards the center from all directions. To describe it sounds silly, but it felt like my personal existance had been compressed into a lump in my diaphram while my limbs were hollow and lifeless belonging to some one else. Yet my anger is completely different. My anger feels like a swelling. My body seems to swell and all I can see is destruction and annoyance. By destruction, I could only see how I wanted to hurt and display my dominance over what angered me and everything else became an annoyance. Fortunately I wouldn't destroy everything in my way, but sadly because I would waste that destruction on something other then my source of anger. More often then not until I would kneel in the floor angry, depressed, crying, and slamming my fists into the floor. That is where physical pain comes in.

When you are hurting yourself whether it is cutting, self strangulation, etc., the pain stops the emotional constricting and swelling. I would instantly bring me back to my self. The sensation of feeling emotionally normal and the residual tingling as adrenaline rushes through your viens is completely intoxicating. The emotional pain was gone and what does physical pain have on emotional. The pain isn't pleasurable like physical love, but something still euphoric. The closet I have come to that feeling unintentionally was before and after I passed out from giving blood. The drop in blood pressure makes reality hard to grasp and understand and when your reality is pain who would hang onto that?

It all seems so stupid in retrospect now that I am in a better place. Now when I feel depressed it is never for more than an hour or so, but it is usually about the same content. Still seems stupid in retrospect.