Friday, July 23, 2004
Yes, today's casual day here at the site. There are a million things I could talk about in this entry. Whether I remember enough of them by the time I get to them is another story.
First, some updates. I haven't talked to Molly since earlier in the week. I really am not concerned with this. Right now, I'm focused on the here and now instead of what could have been. Things didn't work for a reason, and if she wants to be friends, I'll know soon enough.
I've been reading entries from the last two years in an attempt at seeing my progression as a person, as well as pick up on any tendencies that might be disturbing to me.
One obvious one showed up and that was I seemed to be talking about a new girl every three or four entries. Granted, there was sometimes spans of months between entries, but I seemed to through new girls like you go through kleenex.
That coupled with a conversation I had with someone today really made me think about how I've handled things when meeting new girls. For the most part, I've treated every situation as if it were going to lead to love. When it doesn't, I'm disappointed. I haven't left room for it to go to friends and then beyond.
The more I look at older entries, the more I feel like I've been an idiot. Now, this isn't necessarily me putting myself down or anything like that. This is me looking at things I've done and wondering why I haven't learned sooner. Sure, it's easy for me to fall for a girl, but I should have recognized by now that most girls aren't just going to fall for me right away.
The conversation was enlightening one on several levels and might make a difference come tomorrow. I have a date with a girl I've been talking to for a short while. I don't know how it's going to go, although she is a fun girl to talk to. We'll see what transpires tomorrow evening.
I just have to stop rushing things. I have to be able to sit back, not show too much too soon, and make things comfortable for the girl I'm talking to. I have a lot of good qualities that are worth showing as long as I'm patient about it and not trying to do too much.
I also noticed something else about older entries that I don't do as much, and consequentially, the entries aren't nearly as long. In older entries I talked about work and news items much more than I have in the last few months. One reason is I have quite a distaste for a lot of things going on at work and don't wish to think about them much. As for news events, I've chosen to stay mum simply because I haven't felt like it. I know what's going on and I just don't want to get into it as much.
I've never talked about sports much in this thing simply because I haven't felt a need to all the time. Of course, most of the last couple of years there hasn't been much positive to talk about, but that's changing.
So here we go. Let's get talking.
Going back to the Molly thing, I've gotten a lot of feedback from people on the situation. It seems like a few people have been interested in what happened and what I think about the whole thing. Some have questioned why she did what she did, but that's only normal.
The thing with me, as much as I want to be mad at her for what happened, I can't be. I can't because a lot of it was my fault for how I acted and how I handled the whole thing. I also can't hold a grudge. It's not in my nature to do so. I think a lot of the problem was Molly never understood who I was or how complex a person I can be. Maybe she didn't want to. What's happened has happened and there's nothing I can do to make things different. She's going down her path in life and I'm going down my path. Whether or not our paths intersect again is uncertain.
I wish her the best regardless.
I haven't talked about sports in here outside of mentioning the Indians a few times and there are reasons behind this. One, the franchises in this city still have a lot to prove to its fans. Yes, the Indians have played remarkable baseball despite having an awful bullpen, but they just aren't ready to seriously contend. Sure, the division's within reach, but it won't mean a thing because they'll get smoked by whoever they'd play in the playoffs. They just aren't ready. Fix the bullpen, get a solid right-handed bat, maybe one more starter, and they'll be fine.
That'll happen next year. A lot of the injured pitchers will be ready by that time and they should have that bat they need to offset the lefties in the line-up. This time is going to be exciting the next few years and I'm looking forward to it. Mark Shapiro has done an outstanding job shaping this club and Eric Wedge has done an outstanding job managing the young talent.
The Cavs, I don't know about. The Carlos Boozer fiasco is beyond my comprehension. Yes, the Cavs were trying to do what they thought would be easiest (and cheapest), but they should've known better. As it stands, he's a big piece now missing, and while this team can still be good, you can't replace what Boozer did night in and night out.
As it stands, it should be interesting next season. LeBron has a season under his belt, they have Jeff McGuiness back, and they traded for Eric Snow, who's a very reliable player. They can still be good, but it'll depend on a lot of things.
The jury's out on the Browns right now. They brought in Jeff Garcia and dumped Tim Couch. This will sound strange from me since I was a huge Couch fan, but he needed to go. He just never lived up to his potential here, and maybe a change of scenery will help him in the long run. Garcia is an improvement, but he's behind an uncertain offensive line and has an uncertain running back situation behind him. Lee Suggs made a push to start, but if William Green comes back from his personal struggles, the Browns may have a very good one-two punch.
The ability to get Dennis Northcutt back was huge. I think he and Andre Davis need to be the starters because Quincy Morgan has just been too inconsistent to count on. The defense is a question mark again too, if only because they have some pricey guys who have yet to live up to the money they make. Stopping the run is something they need to do.
It is an interesting time to be a sports fan here though. The Indians and Cavs are on the rise. The Browns, we'll see.
Anyone who knows me knows that I want President Bush out of there. I have been quiet about the situation in Iraq if only because it baffles me so much that I can't put it into words properly. A lot of numbers have been thrown out, but there is only one number that greatly concerns me: 895. That's how many service men and women who've died in Iraq since this thing started. That's a lot of deaths for very little, if any progress.
The whole thing is just so disappointing, so sad that I haven't been able to sit here and write about it. We shouldn't be there. We never should've gone in there. The reason behind the war was phoney. Bush can sit there and say all he wants that it was because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Reports have come in recently that proved they had no evidence of it. None. Not a single shred. But Bush won't admit it was a revenge move.
This is on two levels. One, he wanted to finish what his father started more than ten years ago with Desert Storm. They didn't Saddam then so he decided to finish the job by saying Iraq had weapons and Saddam needed to be removed. Two, he wanted to exact revenge in some way for 9/11. Since finding Osama Bin Laden has proven to be beyond our capabilities, he lashed out against Iraq.
Unfortunately, a lot of people have died and very little has been done to show this was the right move. Insurgents are all over the place, setting off bombs, shooting anyone in support of the US, and kidnapping foreigners to get their way. Is this really what we wanted? To be able to watch a video of a man who is later decapitated because the country he's from is in Iraq?
It's one thing to try and fight terrorism and do the right thing. It's another thing when all that's happening is people getting their heads lopped off, car bombs exploding, hospitals being targeted, and innocent people getting caught in the middle of it.
How much longer do we need to stay there before the point is driven across to us that we shouldn't be there?
I love this country as much as the next person and I support our troops as much too, but I can't sit here and say that I support what's going on there. Bush just doesn't seem to understand what's going on. The only reason this guy's in office is because people didn't know who was worse between him and Al Gore.
Furthermore, outside of Iraq, all Bush has done is shown that he's in the pockets of the larger corporations in this country. The tax breaks that he initiated. Who got the largest breaks? The wealthiest people. The guy is in love with corporate America no matter what he tries to tell you.
I find the funniest thing to be his claim that the economy is growing finally. Sure, it's only taken three years for you to finally fix what you screwed up in the first place.
And no, this is not just because I have Democratic views. This is because I find what's happening in this country to be sickening. No one's reigned in the drug companies, which is why prescriptions are so expensive. No one's reigned in the insurance companies, who have more of a say in your health than your own doctor. No one's done shit. They've all sat and used this Medicare prescription benefit as a way to get around the issue.
In short, the benefit is shit. You don't get that much of a discount, and a discount isn't much good anyway if the price of the drug keeps going up. The biggest mistake that was made by the FDA was allowing drug companies to advertise. This allowed them to spend billions on the practice, which in turn allows them to raise the prices for their drugs. This has a trickle down effect that finally ends in your wallet.
When I started working, copays were almost all $5 or $10. Nothing more. Most everything was covered and if it wasn't covered, it was cheap. The cheapest birth control was under $10! Now the cheapest birth control is barely under $30.
It's outrageous, not to mention the fact that practically anything too expensive isn't covered. The insurance companies have as much to blame for these problems as the drug companies. Your doctor can't decide if Bextra's right for you. Your insurance company does by either covering or not covering the drug.
It's a sad world when you can't get the things you need because it's too much money. It really is.
Here's another disgusting picture for y'all. I am very casual today. I'm still thinking about rollerblading, but I did that yesterday after work and I'm not sure how well I'd do if I tried it again.
I posted my resume on Monster.com and did get a call from some company claiming to be hiring pharmacy techs. However, I couldn't understand the woman very well so I didn't really catch the name of the company. I still may call them back, but I'm not sure about it.
I'm more looking for a secondary job outside of pharmacy anyway. I don't mind where I'm working right now. Yes, I have issues with a couple of people that I work with, but it's not enough at this point to make me want to just get out completely. I really just need a second job to supplement my income and get a little extra money rolling in.
It'll only make things easier in the future.
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