One of the perks of my new job is that once a year, I get a bonus which is a percentage of my annual salary (assuming we meet our revenue projections.)  This is the first time I’ve ever had a job where that was the case.  Our fiscal year ended in June, and I have been waiting with anticipation to determine whether or not we reached our revenue targets, and more importantly, when we would be getting our bonuses.

Last Tuesday, the bonuses were delivered. And lo, there was much rejoicing.

Over the last year, finances have been pretty tight for me.  My expenses increased pretty significantly when insurance rates went up (both health and auto/renters), rent went up, groceries and gas went up, and I got hit with a not-insignificant tax hit because of a foolish purchase I had made back in the middle of 2010.  My piano, while greatly loved, was not purchased the right way—by saving up until I could afford it.  So, to put it mildly, I haven’t been doing much in the way of shopping lately.  I have managed to sneak in a couple of trips to Kohl’s for clothing, but that’s about it.  Most of my paycheck these days go toward payin’ the bills.

That’s one of the reasons why I was so excited about this bonus.  I had several things that I had needed (and wanted) to purchase, but couldn’t afford to do so without putting them on credit.  Which I don’t do anymore.  So, when my bonus check came last Tuesday, I was itching with anticipation about getting back into the shopping mindset for a while.  Since then, I have learned something that is both simultaneously exciting and upsetting: I have grown to hate shopping.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  I started on Tuesday, when I purchased a new cell phone.  (Discussed in the previous post.)  My old one was falling apart.  I purchased my new phone on Tuesday during my lunch break.  And I love it. A lot. 

That kept me engaged for Tuesday.  Wednesday, I refocused my efforts on the amazingness that is Amazon.com.  I love Amazon.  I have multiple wishlists that I use to track all the things I would buy if I had the money.  I always go there first to check for pretty much anything that isn’t food.  I have a Prime membership, so I get free two-day shipping.  And I can even get same-day delivery on most of my purchases, because I live in an area where Amazon Fresh, their grocery delivery service, is available. 

Amazon’s purchases were pretty fun.  I got new ink for my large-format photo printer, and 17X22” paper, to print up some large prints of my photos to frame and hang up.  I figure for the cost of the ink, paper, and generic frames, I can get about 10 times more artwork than if I had to pay to have it printed up elsewhere.  I got a soil moisture detector ($5!) so I could make sure I don’t overwater my plants.  I bought bluetooth receivers for both my home stereo and my car, so I could listen to music through my phone without having to deal with plugging in the headphone jack over and over again.  (That’s how I screwed up my last phone).  I bought some amazing Drinking Chocolate and refills for Luke the Dog’s™ Everlasting Treat Ball.  I bought a second battery for my camera, and another pair of waterproof headphones as a backup for swimming.  Oh, and I got a 32gig MicroSD Card for my phone so I could put more music and videos on it.  That was done on Wednesday, through Amazon.  The ink for the printer was, by far, the most expensive of my purchases, so I had done pretty well.

Thursday, I actually paid all of my bills ahead one month.  You know…just to see what that felt like.

Friday, I did some more shopping on Amazon, but didn’t buy anything, because I wanted to leave stuff on my wish list for people to buy me for Christmas.

And then came the weekend:

The best purchase of this bonus season is this awesome sideboard that I purchased for my dining room.

It’s oak, 78” long, and has the most beautiful wood grain.  Since my existing furnishings are contemporary, this should fit right in, and now I can finally get all of my cooking stuff out of the pantry so I can use it for, you know, food.  I can also finally get my microwave off that ugly printer stand in my dining room.  Best part of this buy?  It was on clearance, so I got it for $500.  Actual big boy, solid wood furniture that doesn’t come in a flat-pack box or need to be assembled with an Allen wrench, and it only cost me $500!  (It was originally $1,100.)

So, I was pretty excited about finding this buy, but by now, I was getting awfully tired of consumerism.  It used to be that I found the hunt for the right thing to be exhilarating.  But even though I had managed to find this really cool thing for a great deal after going to five different furniture stores, I didn’t get that rush I normally get.  I was starting to get an inkling that, perhaps, my year without shopping had changed me fundamentally.

As if to drive that point home, I went to the mall.  I don’t go to the mall very often, but once upon a time (a year ago) I loved going to the mall and shopping for clothes.  If I ever needed confirmation that I was a changed man, this did it.  Just setting foot inside the mall send me off the cranky old man deep end.  Everything drove me crazy.  The music in all the stores was terrible and too loud.  None of the clothes fit my new, Reubenesque frame, every single sales person wanted my email to sign me up for a loyalty program. And, behold, my wrath was kindled mightily against a new foe.  A foe that embodies the full evil of American retail. My anger, which had been smoldering gently, burst into wildfire flames, fanned by the noxious aroma permeating the air surrounding the softcore porn shop, Abercrombie and Fitch.

I mean, really.  There’s a picture in the entrance of a naked man, the lights are low, there are dark shutters across all the windows, and there’s a reek of cheap (yet still expensive) perfume, as though the store was trying to cover up the scent of human feces, mildew, and desperation.  If I were walking by that and I didn’t know Abercrombie and Fitch sold clothing (something I’d never assume, since none of the people in the photos visible from the front of the store are ever wearing a stitch of clothing), I’d assume that it was a gay bathhouse.

I actually went inside A&F this time.  Ludicrously overpriced merchandise, which I could barely see because it was so dark, awful caterwauling coming from the sound system, and that horrible, horrible odor that the pump into the store.  I get wanting your store to smell nice, but A&F is like the 14 year-old using his dad’s aftershave for the first time to go to the big dance.  Just a quick dab behind the ears A&F.  You don’t need to bathe in it.  And more importantly, I don’t want to have to taste it if I happen to walk within a 200 foot radius of the front door of your store.  I was eating an Auntie Anne’s preztel, and I couldn’t taste it over the Eau du Rotted Flesh and Rosewater fog from your porno-shack.

(And don’t even get me started of A&F Kids.  Why are they using naked 15 year old boys to sell clothing to 8 year olds?)

I spent three hours in the mall, and I realized that shopping—especially clothes shopping—is a young person’s game.  I only have two days a week to relax and do what I want to do.  That time is valuable to me.  More valuable than going through racks of 70% clearance items in Chartreuse and Burn Orange just to find the one button-up shirt that doesn’t cost $87 and have the smell of Abercrombie and Fitch so deeply permeated that the only way you could get rid of it would be to burn the damn thing.

And, quite frankly, I just don’t care about looking good the way I used to.  I mean, if I did, I would pull my ironing board out more than once every six months.  I wouldn’t eat McDonald’s twice a week, and gorge on Jello Popcorn.  (Mmmmm.  Jello Popcorn.)  I wouldn’t cut what’s left of my hair by myself.  But I just don’t care anymore.  Also, men’s clothing is SO BORING.  It all looks the same.  It didn’t matter which store I went into.  You could have taken the clothes from Urban Outfitter, and stuck them in American Eagle, or the clothes from The Buckle and put them in Aeropostale.

And the net result of this whole shopping jag?  I got a button-up shirt, a hooded sweater, and two t-shirts.  And a hat. I couldn’t find the jeans in the size I wanted.  I couldn’t find decent underwear. And apparently, the color scheme this year is the mid 1990s-era red, green, and blue plaid…rather like the couch that my aunt and uncle gave me for my college apartment.  Sorry, but I’m just not going down that road again.

So, lessons learned:

• Shopping isn’t very much fun anymore. So you shouldn’t feel too bad about not doing it
• If you have to shop, use Amazon.
• Abercrombie & Fitch is the Hellmouth, and their perfumed air is the signal of the forthcoming apocalypse.
• I am officially too old and too fat to look good in any clothes that could possibly be considered hip, cool, or stylish.
• I am officially too cheap to spend the kind of money that cool, hip, or stylish people would to wear the kinds of clothes they wear
• It’s way more fun to shop for furniture than for clothing
• Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, looks good in a changing room mirror
• I really like the color purple.

Now, if I can just keep these lessons learned in the front of my mind, I won’t feel so tempted to go out shopping again at Christmas time.

This image used without permission from The Oatmeal. Which is why I’m linking to them repeatedly.  Go here.  And please don’t sue me.

I work in the web software and services field, and we often have to do redesigns of our software to improve functionality and appearance.  And much like with Facebook, every time we make a change, somebody is upset by it.  They liked it the way it was.  And usually, I’m of the opinion that look, technology is change.  If websites don’t change and update, they will eventually become irrelevant.  And for a market leader like Facebook, it’s even more important that they continue to change and innovate, or other websites will come in and take over.

So usually, I don’t begrudge Facebook wanting to change and update their service.  I really don’t.  Innovate, build, evolve.  It’s your world, and you can do whatever you’d like.  And as a long-time technologist, I’m extremely flexible.  I can adjust to new layouts, functionality, options, etc., without much effort on my part. (For an interesting retrospective on Facebook designs from 2005 to 2009, check out this blog post.)

The redesign rolled out at the beginning of this week, as well as the announcement of what the new Facebook layout will look like was something else, however.  In one fell swoop, Facebook went from being a fairly passive, static website experience to becoming the web equivalent of a CNBC Screen during market close.

There’s so much going on at once, so many places to look, so much movement.  In addition to fighting itself for attention, Facebook has decided to take away my ability to determine what it is I would like to see in my “feed.”  It’s moving certain stories into a special area to highlight them.  It’s got a constantly updating ticker of every single thing that my “friends” are doing every second of the day.  It’s got a list of friends who are popping online, offline, and into chat.  It’s got advertisements that are often irrelevant (or offensive).  It’s suggesting that I subscribe to people I’ve never heard of.  And navigating the labyrinth of privacy settings, display options, and other configuration variables has become next to impossible without a GPS, a translator, and a couple of Sherpa with mules.

It has become too much for me.  Maybe I’m just getting too old.  Maybe I’m behind the times.  Or maybe I’m just really tired of being unable to focus my attention on any one thing in my life for more than 30 seconds at a time.  It used to be that I would get into a zone, put my head down, and make huge strides toward completing a project.  These days it seems like I can’t focus on a single topic for more than a few minutes before I get distracted by something else.  This new Facebook design seems to require that I sit there in front of my computer for hours and hours on end, watching every little thing that every person I have ever known does during the course of their day and reacting with them.

But I’ve realized something…I know so much about what’s going on in most of my friends’ lives now that when I get together with them or talk to them on the telephone (you know, that thing you use to send text messages…it’s actually capable of voice communication too), I don’t have anything to talk about.  They know what I’m doing, I know what they’re doing.  There’s no joy in discovering what’s new. This redesign reminded me that I really don’t care all that much about 98% of the people that I am friends with, and certainly not to the point that I need to see what photos they are commenting on, or whose comment on someone else’s post they “liked.”  I’m overloaded with information in general. Now, thanks to the new redesign, I’m also getting overloaded with information about people whose lives just aren’t that interesting to begin with.

Then there’s the privacy thing.  Look, I’m not naïve enough to think that online privacy is actually a “thing” anymore.  I know it’s not.  And even if it were, it’s not like I have much need for it, since I spill most of my deep, dark secrets in great detail and many words on this very blog.  But the casual disdain with which Facebook treats my data is shocking.  It seems like twice a week, they make some change to the way they handle my personal data (making sure that I’m opted-in by default, whether or not I want to be), and then forgetting to close some security hole that lets the friend of a friend of a friend find my home phone number even though I’ve set it as being visible to only my family.

Watching all of this go on for years and years now, I’m beginning to wonder why I’m still taking part.  I don’t enjoy the time I spend on Facebook. Yet I’m going back several times a day, every single day.  I don’t want to know every little thing that goes on in the lives of people I barely know.  I don’t want them to know how to get ahold of me on a moment’s notice.

So, this week, I’ve decided that I’m leaving Facebook.  I don’t like what it has become and what it is becoming.  I don’t like using it.  I don’t trust them.  Regardless of what you think, Facebook isn’t free.  You’re paying to use Facebook…just not with money.  And for me, the cost isn’t worth the benefit anymore.  I already live my digital life within the Google ecosystem.  They have just as much (if not more) personal data on me than Facebook ever will, but I get so much more out of it.  I use Google search, Gmail, Google Voice, Google Music, Google Docs, Google Shopping, Google Reader, Android, The Android Marketplace, Google+, Picasa, Picasaweb, Google Contacts, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Finance, Google Earth, and probably a bunch of other products I don’t even realize.  If I’m going to sell my personal identify and online privacy, I’m at least going to do it for a good price.  And Facebook can’t meet the reserve.

I’m leaving my Facebook account open, with only the barest of personal information available.  And my blog will still post links to my new blog posts in the status update field automatically.  But I’m done with Facebook otherwise.  I’m tired of living in a world where I’m drowning in the minutae of other people’s lives.  I’m tired of inhabiting a universe where every millisecond of my attention is being vied for by tickers, and blinking lights, and scrolling feeds.  I’m tired of a computer algorithm telling me what I’m most interested in.  And I’m tired of trying to negotiate “friendships” with the woman who sat next to my mom in church one Sunday 15 years ago, and decided that, because she knows my name, we’re now BFFs. 

Life is short, and Facebook is stealing too much of it away from me.  So I’m leaving.  And this time, it will probably be for the long haul.  I won’t say never, but I just don’t see the benefit anymore.

I will still be on Google+ (which is a much better “social” network experience), and available via email at matt (at) mattarmstrongmusic dot com.  And of course, I’ll still be here on the blog, spilling my guts to the anonymous world.  I mean, it’s cheaper than therapy, right?

Let me be crystal clear: I know I do not eat as healthily as I should.  I eat processed foods.  I love sugar.  I eat fast food, and sometimes I love it.  I know that the way I eat isn't particularly healthy. I need to improve my diet significantly.  I need to eat fewer calories.  My eating habits are directly responsible for my weight gain over the last several years.  And that IS unhealthy.  I also do not believe that we should be raping the land and drowning our food with antibiotics and pesticides unnecessarily.  But I simply can not support so many aspects of the crusades being launched on the food system.

Nearly every one of these crusaders (who I believe are less interested in better health or saving the environment than they are in sapping all of the enjoyment out of life) proclaim that, "we have lost our way.  We should return to the ways of our ancestors, who truly understood our relationship with the earth, with mother nature, and between the food that we eat and our bodies."  Many of these zealots are the same ones who believe that modern medicine is broken, and if we only ate the way people used to eat–with natural, organic foods that are locally grown and harvested by communes of love children who hold hands and sing to the plants while harvesting–then we wouldn't need modern medicine to the same extent we do now.

Well, you know what?  I don't buy it.  You know why I don't buy it?

Now, I don't know about you, but I would really rather not go back to the good old days of eating only what's grown locally and organically if it means that I also have to go back to an average life span of 30-40 years.  How many people do you know who have died of natural causes between the ages of 30 and 40?  Our average life span has INCREASED by 40 years over just the last century.  We can't have lost our way all that badly if we're living an average of 30-40 years longer than we used to. Now, I know that there are many, many factors that go into these numbers.  Children died young, or women died in child birth.  Treatments for major diseases weren't as readily available.  But I am 100% certain nutrition played a significant part in those numbers as well.  And, to be frank, I would also take pesticide laced, inexpensive food over slaving all day long over a farm, going hungry during the winter, and still dying 30 years earlier.

Even at an average of 70 years, life is short.  I'm not advocating that everyone start eating Hostess Fruit Pies for breakfast, McDonalds for lunch, and a steak for dinner.  We should be eating more vegetables, and we should be eating more locally grown vegetables.  There's a reason why I go to the farmer's market every Saturday for six months out of the year.  But you know what isn't going to happen?  I'm not going to start eating all of my food raw because it's more healthy.  I'm not going to start spending 300% more on my food every month just to say I can have something that's "organic," whatever the hell that means.  No, I'm going to eat what I can afford, and what tastes good.  If I can find healthy options within those two criteria, then great!  If not, then I don't need to buy organic.

And to those people who are worried about genetically modified food, perhaps you should go back to your high school biology classes.  Humans have been genetically modifying our food for GENERATIONS.  Hundreds, if not thousands, of years.  In fact, it was a certain monk in the 1800s with an affinity for pea plants who introduced the world to Genetics.  (P.S. He died at the age of 62.)

I love heirloom varieties of foods.  I purchase my tomato plants from Seedsavers.org.  I generally go for the heirloom varieties at the Farmer's Market. But I don't love them because they're not genetically modified (because, as I mentioned above, they are) but because they taste better.  THAT is what I care about.  Taste.  It's why I spend $13 on a wedge of Parmeseano-Reggiano from the specialty cheese shop instead of getting the green can of white powder.  It's why I spend the extra dollar for the locally made fresh mozzarella instead of the flavorless waxy block wrapped in plastic.  It's why I buy the more expensive heirloom tomatoes or apple varieties at the farmer's market.  I'm not making a stand against genetically modified food.  I'm making a stand for taste.

If you want to freak right the hell out over preservatives or antibiotics in your meat, go ahead.  But as for me and mine, we're going to celebrate flavor, no matter where it comes from.  And that will be the last time I watch such a ludicrously lop-sided and biased "documentary" about the food system ever again.

We went to see The Green Hornet.  The movie itself was epic in its atrociousness.  It was poorly written, horrendously acted, unimaginative in its cinematography, sloppily edited, had poorly balanced sound, and had one of the most irritating leading men ever to grace the silver screen.  But above and beyond that, the movie had one giant, fatal flaw.

It was in 3D.

And that cinematic experience was the final straw that broke the camel’s back.  It caused me to make an important life choice: I WILL NEVER set foot inside a movie theater to watch a 3D movie for as long as I live. 

Whether or not you believe in evolution or whether you believe in creation, or some combination of the two, our eyes and brains have not developed to process movies that are displayed utilizing the tricks that 3D films utilize.  (For a thorough and fascinating article about why the eyes and brain don’t process 3D movies well, check out this blog post by Roger Ebert, and Academy Award-winning editor and sound designer, Walter Murch.)  If God had wanted us to watch movies in 3D, he would have built our eyes different.  And, quite frankly, I’m not interested in sticking around for the millions of years it will take for our eyes and brains to evolve to see 3D movies correctly.  (Quite frankly, I don’t think I could stand to watch that many summer blockbusters.)

Watching a movie in 3D is essentially watching a movie in a dark room with sunglasses on.  For those photography enthusiasts out there, 3D glasses actually darken the image by 1 full f-stop.  It’s like watching through a strong neutral density filter.  Many people, myself included, get terrible headaches or eye strain from watching 3D movies.  Some people physically can’t even see 3D images.  Also, many people, myself included, wear glasses in daily life (due to discomfort issues with contacts and the needed ability to remove the glasses for reading.  (I can’t read with my glasses or contacts in.)  So, I have to wear my scratched, warped, and previously worn sunglasses over top of my regular glasses, which is exceptionally uncomfortable. 

But worst of all, perhaps, is that displaying the movies in 3D does not improve the quality of the movie-going experience.  I have seen perhaps 20 films in 3D over the last 6 years.  I saw one of the very first films to be released in RealD 3D, Monster House.  Never once have I left the theater glad that I paid an extra 2-3 dollars to see the film in 3D.  Usually, I leave the theater crabby and with a throbbing headache.   Even Avatar, the movie that everyone says was “3D done right” was still a crappy movie.  If I’m going to suffer for my art, I want it to be art.  Nobody likes to suffer for schlock.

All of this would be a minor quibble except for one thing: if a movie is released in 3D, most theaters have stopped showing the regular, 2D version of the film entirely.  When Tangled came out recently, I had to go out of my way to find a theater that didn’t play the 3D version, and I ended up driving an extra 10 miles in order to do so.  (Yes, I know this is a first world problem.  But I live in the first world.  And I’m crabbier than usual because it’s January.  So shut up.)

So, I am taking this opportunity to publicly take a stand, and to invite others to do the same.  Hollywood, starting now, I will NEVER set foot inside a movie theater in order to watch a 3D movie again.  I will never pay extra to watch a movie projected in 3D.  I will never again don those stupid, ugly, scratched up glasses over my regular, everyday glasses.  I will never willing pay extra to watch movies through what are, in essence, sunglasses.  It’s not going to happen.

I love going to the theater to watch movies.  Love it.  I’ve loved it since the day I turned 16 years old, got my driver’s license, and drove Jeff, Jamelah, and I to Jackson, Michigan to watch a movie in the cineplex behind Paka Plaza.  Even when I was broke, I went to movies.  I have seen more movies in the theater in the last 16 years than most people will see in their lifetime.  I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on movie tickets in my lifetime.  But until this 3D trend stops, you’re going to be seeing less and less of me all the time.

I have a very nice television and a very nice sound system at home.  I have a Netflix membership with Blu-Ray discs.  There’s not a movie in this world that I need to see so badly I can’t just wait until it comes out on disc at watch in the comfort of my own home.  I would prefer to go see my movies in the theater.  But as long as they keep foisting $15 3D movies on me against my will, I’ll just stay at home.

With Hollywood, money talks.  So here’s my money leaving.  Stop showing 3D movies (exclusively) and I’ll start coming back to the theaters.  I’ll give you my money.  I will even buy your LUDICROUSLY overpriced concessions on occasion.  But never again will a 3D movie get any of my money or my time.

Fellow movie-goers, do the right thing and join me in my boycott of the 3D movie.

My name is Matt Armstrong, and I have been a customer of yours for just shy of 11 years.  Every single computer I have purchased since that time, with the exception of two machines, was a Dell.  And, I would like to add, I buy a LOT of computers.  I have purchased monitors from Dell.  I have purchased nearly all of my camera equipment from Dell.  I purchased numerous accessories and upgrades from Dell.  However, despite this long relationship, I will no longer be purchasing anything from Dell again.  As of December 2010, Dell has lost my custom for good. 

There are several reasons for my leaving you behind, Dell.  It all started back in October, when I started looking around for a new machine for my recording studio.  I built the machine I needed, placed it in my cart, and went to order it.  That’s when I discovered that I was unable to use my Dell Preferred Account to purchase the Dell computer I wanted.  Let me repeat that.  I couldn’t use my DELL credit card to purchase a DELL computer.  The reason: the computer was a “business” computer, and my credit card was only good for “home” computers. 

What made this situation worse is when I called into the line to speak with a sales person, after waiting on hold for 10 minutes, he then proceeded to build a computer that was COMPLETELY different from the one I had asked for, and which did not contain the technical features I required for my very specific use case.  This particular sales person was not technically adept enough to understand my request, and then tried to sell me something that, had I not been as knowledgeable about computers as I am, I would have ordered only to have it arrive and find that it wouldn’t meet my needs.

Two days later, I got another call from a different sales person, asking me if I wanted the computer that this sales person had built for me, despite my very clear instructions that the computer would not have met my technical needs.

During this time, I also noticed that Dell began to send me an email ad at least four times a week—and even more often during the holiday period.  I went to the Dell website, signed into my account, and turned off all of the “newsletters” to which I had been subscribed without my permission.  The newsletters still came.  I used the unsubscribe link in the emails to remove me from the mailing list.  The emails still came.  I called customer support to have my email address removed.  Guess what?  They still came.  They are still coming.  The only way I have been able to get rid of these emails is to mark them as SPAM and have them filtered into my junk mail folder.

December rolled around, and I decided that I wanted to purchase a very small, fairly underpowered machine to serve as a media server for my movie collection.  I found the machine I wanted, placed the order online, and realized about 20 minutes later that I had made a mistake on the order.  So, I called the sales line, waited on hold for 20 minutes, and asked the sales person to cancel the order, which he did.  I then went online, and purchase the correct machine without too much difficulty. 

The next day, I got another call from the Dell sales team asking me if, are you ready for this, I was still interested in the machine they had spec’d for me a month and a half ago.  The one I never wanted, and shouldn’t have even been spec’d in the first place.  I attempted to be as polite as possible to the person who called me, but his command of the English language was so tenuous, that it was very difficult.

My new machine arrived, and it works fairly well.  (It has a small technical issue that is a problem with the design of the system, and can’t be resolved without changing the entire architecture of the motherboard, but that’s beside the point.)  But it serves my needs.

And the email ads STILL come.

Last Friday, I was sitting at work, and my phone rang.  It was a number that I had seen four times in the last week and didn’t recognize, so didn’t answer.  I finally got sick and tired of screening the call, so I picked up the phone to demand to have my number removed from their calling list.  Guess who it was?  I was Dell warrantee support.  They were calling because they were concerned that the brand new machine I had just purchased ONLY had a 1-year warrantee on it.  And, for only $230 dollars (which was just shy of half of the price of the machine to begin with) I could extend my warrantee for two more years with a full on-site support plan.  A plan which, three weeks ago, I had turned down on purpose when I purchased the computer.

I explained this to the woman who called.  (This woman also had an extremely tenuous grasp on the English language, so I’m not sure how much she understood.)  I explained that I am a very technically savvy person, and am capable of performing my own technical support and I wasn’t interested in an extended warrantee.  She then proceeded to explain the benefits of the warrantee to me AGAIN, and then said, “so if it’s okay with you, I’ll go ahead and add this warrantee to your Dell Credit Card.”  I explained AGAIN that I wasn’t interested.  She proceeded to expound that if something were to fail, this would cover it for three years—a fact that, thanks to my multiple degrees, my two decades of computer expertise, and a fairly decent grasp of the principles of common sense, I had already managed to figure out.  For the third time in a row, I explained that I did not want an extended warrantee and, moreover, I probably wouldn’t even have this computer for a full year, so spending 50% of the original price on a warrantee would be an epic waste of money—almost as big a waste of my time as this phone conversation had been.

Oh…and the email ads still keep coming.

In addition, in the last three weeks, I have received two catalogs in my mailbox, and today, received a letter trying to sell me an extended warrantee for this stupid little media computer.

Dell, here’s the thing.  Your website is poorly designed, and the incessant popups asking if I want to chat with someone if I need help were almost enough to get me to stop coming to your website entirely.  Your ludicrous rules about not being able to use my Dell credit card to purchase a Dell computer are asinine.  The inability of your sales people to read a customer’s record is laughable—nearly as laughable as their lack of technical expertise and inability to listen to a customer’s requests. 

But what is COMPLETELY inexcusable is the way you treat your customers once they have already purchased a computer.  The act of purchasing a computer from your website does not give you the right to fill up my email inbox with junk mail that I can’t possibly unsubscribe from.  The act of purchasing a computer does not give your sales people the right to cold call me in the middle of my work day to sell me a product I didn’t want when it was offered the first time, and didn’t want despite repeated attempts to upsell me on an extended warrantee (which is the biggest sham in the technology industry).  Simply because I call your sales line, I do not give you authority to call me back several times to ask me if I’m ready to buy the computer that was spec’d for me, especially when you didn’t spec the computer I wanted.

Dell, you used to be one of the most highly-rated computer firms in terms of customer support.  That’s gone now.  My last two years of experience with Dell have been atrocious.  In addition, your computers are no longer as stable as they once were, your industrial design is heinous (especially in comparison to some of your competitors), your prices are too high, the turnaround time on your systems is too long, your website is too difficult to navigate, and you’ve become so bloated as a company that you’re starting to collapse under your own weight.

I tend to be a VERY loyal consumer.  Having worked in the technology industry for a large portion of my adult life, I understand that a single bad experience does not a company make.  But the problems Dell is facing are systemic and deeply ingrained.  Not to mention, nearly consistent.  You’ve lost me as a customer for good.  I will not be purchasing any of my computers from you in the future.  And, moreover, due to my experiences as a home consumer, I will not be purchasing any further Dell computers for my staff at work either.  You see, I have some sway in the purchasing decision at my office.  We will be moving a new computer provider entirely.  I simply can not continue to support a company that thinks so little of its customers and treats them with such a systematic contempt. 

Your former loyal customer,

Matt

I’m done.  Done. Done. Done.  Done with work until the new year.  To quote Ghandi, “Halleh-freakin’-lujah.”  This will be the first time that I’ll be able to use my paid time off since I started at the new job, which is fine with me.  I’ve been there six and a half months, and I already have nearly 90 hours of time off saved up.  It’s awesome. 

Of course, the universe, being it’s usually douchey self, decided that it was going to make my last day of work absolutely miserable, and it everything went wrong.  (Don’t you tell me that computers don’t have a mind of their own…and that they aren’t vindictive jerks)  But at least I get to take a couple of weeks off.

Speaking of work, I know it’s generally not a good idea to talk about work online, but I’m not saying anything here that I haven’t already said in person to the management, so, you know, whatever.  My company has decided that they’re going to be changing to a new “Consumer Driven Health Plan.”  This is a corporate euphemism for “We’re sick and tired of paying for your insurance, so we’re basically going to take away the insurance we promised you when you signed your contract, and then we’ll couch the change in flowery rhetoric to try and disguise the fact that we’re ripping you off.” 

2010:  $35 a month out of my paycheck to help pay for insurance.  $500 deductible.  $1,000 out of pocket maximum.  Good plan.

2011: $90 a month out of my paycheck.  $1,500 deductible.  $2,500 out of pocket maximum.  Won’t cover non-generic drugs. Rip. Off.

So, let me get this straight:  You’re increasing my monthly payments by 250+%, but at the same time, decreasing my coverage significantly.  And that’s only because I’m single.  If I had a family, my deductible would be $3,000 and my out of pocket maximum would be $5,000.  You’re refusing to pay for any non-generic prescriptions.  So, if I get sick and need a drug that isn’t available as a generic (which is about 20% of the drugs on the market) I’m going to have to pay for it entirely by myself.  Really?  This is how you want to treat your employees.  This is how you’re going to compete for high-tech talent in the same marketplace as Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing, Google, Adobe, and Nintendo?  Smart.

See, the thing is, when I took this job, I was paying $95 a month for a "catastrophic” individual plan through a company on my own.  This plan had a lower deductible AND a lower out of pocket maximum than my new work plan.  Essentially, it was a better plan for only about $5 more a month than I’m going to be paying now as a “benefit” from my employer.

When I took this job, I ALSO took a 10% pay cut from my previous job because I was being offered benefits, which weren’t included in my last job.  So now, six months after I started, I’ve lost the benefits that I took a pay cut in order to receive. 

I’m not pleased.  Nor, I’m not surprised to say, is pretty much anyone else in the company.  I understand that insurance prices are going up.  I get it.  And I’m willing to pay a little extra for insurance.  But the company’s costs on the old plan would have gone up by 16%.  Why is my cost going up by 250% and my coverage going down my 300%? 

It just seems to me that companies are no longer interested in taking care of their employees.  I really like where I work.  I like what I’m doing (most of the time.)  I like the people with whom I work.  I like the company and it’s vision.  But when they do something like this, I feel like they don’t respect or value me as an employee. 

And worst of all, in my opinion, is when the HR representative gets up and says, “We think you’re really going to be excited about this new health plan.  We’re calling it the ‘Consumer Driven Health Plan’ because it’s really going to help you as a consumer make better choices and have a better grasp on your own health care.  Studies have shown that 50% of all health care could have been prevented by changes to behavior, and so with this new CDHP, you’ll be better able to make informed choices about your health behavior.”

Translation: We’re not going to pay for jack squat, so you sure as hell better not do anything that may possibly ever mean that you’ll get sick.  And you sure as hell better pray to whatever God you worship that you never get in an accident, break a bone, get an ingrown toenail, have a heart attack, have diabetes, or any other genetic condition that requires regular medication.  That’s how you’ll make better health choices.  You’ll be so scared that we’re not going to cover you at all that you’ll end up locking yourself up in a padded room and throwing away the key.  Here’s an idea.  I don’t drink.  I don’t smoke.  I’m not grossly overweight.  How about you give me cheaper rates or better coverage, and make the idiots at work who spend half the day standing outside in the rain destroying their lungs with cigarettes pay all the extra.  They’re the ones who get bronchitis every two weeks.  They’re the expensive ones.

I wouldn’t have minded so much if they had just come out and said, “Our health expenses are going up, and as a new company, we don’t have the financial resources to absorb them all.  Therefore, your expenses will be going up as well proportional to our expense.”  I would have been upset, but I would have been a little more understanding.  But instead, they treat us like morons and present the new “Consumer Driven Health Plan”  like we should be skipping through wildflower meadows, holding hands, and singing Kumbaya in gratitude for this wonderful new health plan that will help us make better health choices.  I don’t appreciate being treated as though I’m too simple to see what’s going on.  Just be honest.

It just seems to me that, this year in particular, everyone is trying to rape me financially at the beginning of the year.  In January, my rent is going up SIGNIFICANTLY, my internet and cable are going up, my car and renter’s insurance are going up, my electricity and water rates are going up, and now my health insurance costs are going up.  You know what’s NOT going up?  My income.  I’m already trying to live a financially monastic life in order to get out of debt and have enough in a savings account that if I ever get in an accident, I will have the $50,000 in savings I need to pay for what my new insurance won’t.  Now my monthly expenses are increasing by probably $400-$500 a month in January, even though my lifestyle is actually getting LESS extravagant.  I’m never going to get out of debt.

It’s almost enough to make me start drinking.  Which the company would probably prefer, since it obviously isn’t willing to pay for decent health care, but is willing to pay for free booze at the company Christmas party tomorrow night.  Apparently, they want us to make better health decisions, which clearly includes getting smashed at the office Christmas party before driving home in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway.  Healthy.  Really healthy.

Here’s the deal:  Thanksgiving is still there.  It’s not going anywhere.  And, because of Thanksgiving, I get two days off of work, so I even recognize it as a real holidays (unlike Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Pioneer Day, Halloween, Secretary’s Day, or any of those other stupid pseudo-holidays.)  I even LIKE Thanksgiving.  What’s not to like?  Great food, family (if you’re lucky), being thanksful.  All good stuff.  But I will NOT decorate for Thanksgiving.  I flat out refuse.

For starters, it is impossible to decorate for Thanksgiving without looking like you stepped out of the pages of Modern Amish Living.  As far as I’m concerned, the phrase "Shabby Chic" should be removed from the lexicon forever and ever, as should the decoration style it describes.  If I wanted my apartment to look like my grandmother’s barn, I would have decorated it that way.  I, however like things classy and modern.  And since I don’t have anywhere to put a piccaninny doll on an antique rocking chair, and I refuse to decorate with dried corn stalks, porcelain tchotchkes of Native American stereotypes, pilgrim caricatures,  and stuffed turkey plushies, there’s not a lot left over.

Secondly, any holiday that embraces the colors of yellow, orange, and brown for decoration purposes is a holiday that I can’t allow into my decor.  My color scheme is celery green and robin’s egg blue, with Espresso colored furniture.  If I were to start putting orange, yellow, and brown on top of all of that, my house would look like it ate the 1970s, got decorational indigestion, and then had diarrhea across the living room.  I won’t do it.  It’s not going to happen.

Third: where, pray tell, would I store all of my Thanksgiving decorations when I’m not using them?  Should I rent a storage locker at $60 a month so I can have a place to keep my Indian Corn and wicker cornucopia?  Yeah.  That’s worth my money.  Also, spending money on these decorations in the first place?  You’ve got to be smoking crack.  Which, come to think of it, may be the only way that most Thanksgiving decorations would look good in the first place.

Fourth.  Let me tell you about what my standard Thanksgiving usually consists of.  1) Wake up at 8AM and take the dog for a walk in the rain.  2) At 11:30, hop in the car and drive to a restaurant in Seattle.  3) Eat a massive meal, sometimes by myself, sometimes with one other friend.  4) Drive Home.  5) Take a Nap.  6) Sit around the apartment bored out of my mind, playing video games, or watching movies.  7) Maybe talk on the phone with my family.  Maybe.  8) Take the dog for another walk or two…usually in the rain.  9) Start playing Christmas Carols in anticipation of the most wonderful holiday of all time, when I will get to go home and be with my wonderful family and take a week and half off of work.  See, I don’t have any family here, and it’s far too much effort to try and get home for just the Thanksgiving weekend, so I usually do Thanksgiving alone.  I don’t mind it.  In fact, I’m rather used to it.  But I’m grateful I get to go home for Christmas.

Fifth: I never have people in my house for Thanksgiving, so why not decorate the way I want to.

So, to summarize, Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday in which we can reflect on the things for which we are grateful.  However, despite the wonderful meaning behind this holiday, the decorations are truly heinous.  I believe, as an ambassador of good taste (What?  Shut up.), that it is my duty to start a revolution.  We need to rename Christmas decorations to "Holiday Decorations."  That way, we can use them for Thanksgiving AND Christmas, thus removing the need for horrendous Thanksgiving décor.  Because, really, which would you rather be surrounded with when you eat your Thanksgiving dinner?

I love Thanksgiving, and I’m grateful for many, many things.  But one of the things I’m most grateful for is that I am able to put up my Christmas decorations for Thanksgiving, and I don’t have to decorate for Thanksgiving at all.

Mormon couple barred from Scout leadership – UPI.com upi.com/Top_News/US/20… via @upi_top

I went on to read the story, and it’s about a Baptist church in the south that decided that a Mormon couple wouldn’t be allowed to serve in the leadership of the church’s Boy Scout Troop because they aren’t "Christian."  Of course, the comments in the post were as uplifting and thought-provoking as they always are in discussions of religion and tolerance, which is to say not at all.  How dare the Baptists church be so discriminatory!  This is shocking and appalling!  And of course, everyone is feeling put upon and discriminated against.

Well, I call a big fat old bowl full of B.S.

I am so sick and tired of hearing about how very put upon everyone and their dog is.  The Mormons hate the gays.  The gays hate the Mormons.  The Baptists hate the Mormons.  The Boy Scouts hate the Gays.  The Whites hate the Blacks.  Americans hate Islam. Islam hates America. And everybody hates the Jews.

Well you know what I have to say to that?  Get. OVER. It!

This world is full of people who are going to dislike you because of who you are, or what you believe, or how you live, or who you’re attracted to, or how you worship, or whether or not you have hair on your head, or how much money you make, or what your astrological sign is.  That’s life.  Deal with it.  Life is unfair.  Roads are sometimes closed to you because of who you are or the choices you’ve made.  Stop whining like a little baby and get over it.

Mormons, Catholics, and other Christian denominations are actively fighting against the rights for gay couples to marry.  Gay men and woman are understandably upset.  It’s discrimination.

A Mormon couple is told they can’t be scout leaders because they’re Mormon.  The Mormons are upset.  It’s discrimination.  Heaven forfend!  Let’s get all up in arms and write a story about it on UPI Wire.  (Although I would personally be wary of allowing anyone who WANTS to be a scout leader into scouts, because anyone who actually wants to subject themselves to that sort of torture isn’t right in the head to begin with.) 

And while we’re at it, why don’t we talk about the Boy Scouts, who actively discriminate against Atheists and homosexuals.  Guess what, boys and girls.  It’s discrimination!

And let’s talk about all the Arabic-looking men and woman who get "randomly selected" to get screened at the airport.  Discrimination. Or the Mexicans in Arizona who now have to carry their documentation with them at all times in case they are profiled and pulled over at random.  Could it be…discrimination?

Or all those rednecks from the south.  Geez.  What’s up with them.

Here’s the deal:  there will always be discrimination and EVERYBODY is discriminated against at one point in our lives or another.  Yes, even us middle class white males age 25-45.  We are even discriminated against, sometimes.  We will never live in a world where everyone lives in some utopic paradise where judgment and discrimination simply don’t exist.  So maybe it’s time for everyone, myself included, to stop feeling so darn put upon and discriminated against, and just live our lives.

Yes, if the discrimination is egregious–truly egregious, not just the mildly put upon kind of egregious–then we should work as a society to remedy that.  But, for the love of all that’s good and hold, can we PLEASE stop getting so worked up about something so completely insignificant as a pair of Mormon mental cases scouters who actually WANT to be in the scouting program, and being rejected because they’re Mormon?  Because, in the grand scheme of things, how truly important is that?

(P.S.  Let’s not bring up the fact that the Boy Scouts is a dying entity anyway…and the sooner it dies an ignominious death, the better, as far as I’m concerned.)

Today, I am really, really pissed off.

And what makes me really mad, is that I don’t know even know who or what to be mad about.  Over the weekend, the LDS church held its twice-a-year general conference, where most of the church’s leaders speak to the general membership of the church.  And in this particular conference, of which I admitted watched almost nothing, one of the top leaders of the church said some inconsiderate, hurtful, and ignorant things.  That’s nothing new…it happens all the time.  This time, however, I believe it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

For those readers who aren’t LDS, you need to understand something about LDS culture.  Belonging to the LDS church isn’t like being an Easter and Christmas Catholic.  Being an active member of the LDS church informs every single aspect of your life.  It is part of your identity.  This is a church to which I have belonged my entire life, a church that, even though I no longer attend, I still self-identify with.  And even though I have chosen to no longer attend this church, I was still slapped across the face this weekend during general conference.

Growing up in the church, I was always the good little boy.  I did all the things I was supposed to, memorized my scriptures, served in my callings, tried to do the right thing.  I went to church every Sunday, upheld my priesthood responsibilities to the best of my ability, paid my tithing, read my scriptures, went to youth activities and youth conferences, served a mission, went to a church-owned school, served in my callings.  For most of my life I was deeply concerned about being a good boy, a righteous person.  And not the pious self-important righteous that went around telling everyone they they weren’t being good enough, but rather, the kind of righteous that didn’t need to preach.

Starting at the age of about eleven or twelve, however, I realized that I was gay.  I was simply not attracted to women.  I knew that being gay was wrong.  I was taught that it was wrong.  The true plan of happiness was to serve a mission, get married in the temple, and have a family.  I knew that’s what I should want, but I just didn’t want that.  I was more interested in staring at the pictures of the shirtless runners in my dad’s Runner’s World magazine than I was in dating girls.  I "went with" a girl in Jr. High, because it was the thing to do, but I was so disinterested in her that she ended up breaking up with me after a month because I never called her or did anything.

I dated a couple of girls in high school, but I just wasn’t interested in them.   A couple were quite interested in me, but I simply couldn’t return the favor.  Plus, since I was a "good boy," I wouldn’t have done anything inappropriate with them even HAD I been interested, because that would be wrong.  So instead, I brushed them off with a "It’s not you, it’s me," before I realized that was a cliché.  (Wait?  That’s a thing?)

I went to college at a church school, certain that if I were around the influence of the gospel, I would find the one woman to whom I was attracted, and I would be able to be free of my attraction to men once and for all.  I made some wonderful friends…but I would NEVER have told them about being gay.

I served a mission–a truly torturous two years for me–and was promised over and over again that if I served a faithful mission that I would be blessed with a spouse and a wonderful family.  Instead, I spent many, many sleepless nights praying silently that God would take away my desperate desire to be with some man or another.  But I was a good boy nonetheless. 

On January 1, 2000, I finally decided that it was time to get professional help.  I had been promised by bishops, mission presidents, and the repeated talks by the General Authorities that if I were only righteous enough, the Lord would bless me and help me to overcome my horrible, sinful desires.  So I went to a counselor for two years.  TWO. YEARS.  Once a week for two years, I worked with a psychologist whose sole practice was in helping LDS men and women overcome "Same Sex Attraction."  Reparative therapy, they call it–like they’re trying to fix something that’s broken.

During this time, I happened to fall deeply in love with one of my roommates–who was straight.  I was so starved for love and companionship that I couldn’t help but fall in love with this very attractive man who was also a dear friend.  Ruined the friendship.

I finished my degree at BYU, still dedicated to "overcoming."  Well, that’s not quite true.  I had dedicated my life to celibacy.  Because, after all, it’s not a sin as long as you don’t do anything about it.  We all have feelings of desire, but as long as we don’t act on them, it’s not a sin.  Great logic, until a bishop of mine told me that even desiring another man was a sin because I was committing adultery in my heart.

I went to Tennessee.  Fell in love with another friend.  Ruined my friendship.  Was "outed" by this friend even though I wasn’t ready to out myself.  Denied it vigorously.  Tried dating another couple of girls in the hopes that I could find "the one."

I came back to Utah and started teaching at BYU.  Being back around so many very attractive young men didn’t help at all, but I was a good boy.  I went to church every Sunday.  I taught gospel doctrine and I directed the choir.  I went to the temple.  I even performed in the bi-annual production of Savior of the World in order to help infuse my performing life with a spiritual bent.

I moved up to Seattle, and ruined yet another friendship by falling in love with a man who I loved and respected more than pretty much any other I had ever met.  I went to church every Sunday, and once again, taught Gospel Doctrine.  Then finally, at the age of 30, I had enough.  I was sitting in church on Father’s day of 2008, and spent the entire hour and ten minutes of sacrament meeting listening to kids and wives talk about how how wonderful it was that they had a husband who could provide for them, and that being a father is the greatest thing that any man can do.  And I got up, walked out, and I never came back.

I spent 30 years of my life trying to do the right things, trying to do what I was taught, trying to be a good boy.  I tried and tried and tried to overcome my homosexuality.  I spent all of my best years being ashamed of who I was and how I felt.  I relied on the promise that if I relied on the tender mercies of the Lord that He would help carry my load.  I asked to be healed.  When that didn’t work, I asked to be strengthened.  When that didn’t work, I asked to please just help me find a modicum of peace in my life.  But it wasn’t to be.  Instead, I spent my nights alone, many times just sobbing for God to just take my life once and for all because I couldn’t fight anymore, and it would be better to just die than to commit the sins that I held in my heart.  (Side note: I couldn’t then and wouldn’t now take my own life…so don’t worry about that.  This is not a suicide note.)

I have spent my whole life feeling guilty about being who I am.  And even now, two years after I finally stopped attending church, I still feel guilty about being gay.  I HATE it.  I wish I wasn’t gay.  I wish I could be straight.  I wish I could have a wife, and family, and house with a white picket fence.  I don’t understand the gay pride parades.  Why would ANYONE be proud of being gay?  It’s still a shameful thing to be.  I still get sick to my stomach when I tell someone I’m gay–like the act of saying it out loud makes it more true.  It’s sick.

I feel like my desperate desire to be a good boy has ruined me for life.  I want to find someone to love who actually loves me back for a change.  I want to know what it’s like to have someone in my life who cares as much about me as I care about them.  But I can’t.  At this point in my life, I feel like it’s too late.  My self-loathing is too deeply ingrained.  I’ve spent so much time hating what I am, that I can’t possible love myself, let alone ask anyone else to love me.  In my mind, I’m not worth loving, because I failed.

And then, this weekend, one of the leaders of the church that I spent my whole life trying to serve, got up and said that same sex attraction is "impure and unnatural" and can be overcome, and that same-sex unions are morally wrong and "against God’s law and nature."

Well, Elder Packer (and I don’t say this lightly), screw you.  Are you telling me that the only reason I haven’t "overcome" my same-sex attraction is because I don’t understand the gospel well enough?  Or I didn’t try hard enough?  Or I didn’t have the spirit as a constant companion in my life?  What more could I have done?  What more SHOULD I have done?  I already have the damn hymnal memorized from cover to cover from trying to sing hymns to help distract my mind from "evil" thoughts.  I have already destroyed myself emotionally, mentally, and spiritually trying to do something that is not within my power.  I have already seen my testimony–once so strong it sent me on a two-year mission I didn’t want to go on, and led me to write songs of spiritual awakenings and rebirths–decimated by a complete silence from the heavens.  I don’t care what anyone else says:  I’ve put in my time.  I’ve paid my dues.  If God were going to help me overcome my homosexuality, he’d have done it by now.

Elder Packer, you have done what you’ve been doing for the last 30 years–you have given the members of the church an implicit excuse to continue to fear, loathe, and despise homosexuals.  You have told them that homosexuality is a choice, and that by choosing to be a homosexual, I am a sinner, dangerous, and corrupting.  You have essentially scared the church into the extremely false assumption that two men or two women loving each other is SO dangerous to the fabric of society that they must be cast out.  You have made YET another generation of men and woman like myself feel so isolated, so miserable, so guilty over something that they can’t control.  Good job.

I know what the plan of happiness teaches.  I understand why you believe what you believe.  I understand the authority by which you speak.  I don’t expect the church to welcome homosexual couples into its ranks…well…ever.  But this "hate the sin, love the sinner" shtick that you keep trumpeting about is bull-puckey, and you know it.  People in the church don’t love the struggling homosexual.  They’re shunted off to counselors to get "fixed" and hidden away, for fear that they will corrupt your children.  Well, I’ve got news for you: you can’t "fix" homosexuality.  Reparative therapy doesn’t work.  In fact, it causes many more problems than it fixes.  And it’s not just my own experiences speaking.  This has been shown in study after study by the scientific community.  So, stop trying to sugar coat it.  Tell it like it really is.  You can’t be cured.  You can either live a life of celibacy, or you can get the hell out.  Those are your two options.  Oh, and if you do choose celibacy, just know that you’ll still spend your life being discriminated against because you’re not married and don’t have a family–which is not okay for a man within the church.

When I stopped attending church, I told myself that I wasn’t going to become one of those ex-Mormons who hates the church and rails against it at every opportunity.  And I hope I don’t.  My years of participation in the church hold a lot of wonderful memories and helped shaped the imperfect person I am today–warts and all.  Most of my most formative experiences wouldn’t have been possible without the framework of the gospel.  But you’re making it REALLY, REALLY hard to maintain any positive feelings at all toward the church. 

As far as I’m concerned, my chance for true happiness in this life is gone.  I’m so wracked with guilt over being gay that I am fairly certain I will never be able to have a meaningful relationship with another person.  Despite my desperate longing for it, I have chosen to avoid all close friendships in my life because I can’t deal with any more emotional scars left over from falling in love with an "unobtainable."  I will never have a spouse, or a family of my own.  I simply feel too broken to be healed.  This is what attempting to overcome same sex attraction brings.

The Book of Mormon states that "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy."  Well, it looks like, once again, I’m an epic failure.  Because I don’t have joy in my life.  Apparently, at least according to Elder Packer, I’m not entitled to joy because I’m not righteous enough to start getting aroused by boobies. 

I hate that I’m gay.  I wish I wasn’t.  But I am.  I’ve done everything in my power to change it.  If you knew me at all, you’d know that I didn’t choose to feel the way I feel.  I’ve done everything I could to chose otherwise.  I wish I could figure out how to leave all of the guilt and anger behind and move on with my life–how to find some happiness and love.  I just don’t know how.  I’m Mormon.  I’m also gay.  I can’t really change either.  I may choose not to go to church, I may choose not to have sex with men.  But in the end, I’m still two things that don’t go together.  The two parts of me are always going to be at odds, and I don’t know what else to do but suffer along and find what little shards of happiness I can here or there.

And stop listening to General Conference.  Even when it’s forwarded to me by some insensitive asshat who thinks he or she is doing a good thing by forwarding it to me because they heard the words "same sex attraction."

Note: I’m leaving comments open on this post for the time being.  Any comments which aren’t civil and respectful will be deleted and/or commenting will be closed.  If you’re LDS and are feeling the need to testify, don’t bother. If you’re about to bad-mouth the church, please don’t.  Just keep it civil and try to show some respect for the beliefs of others, even if they differ from your own.

Every now and then, I wake up on the wrong side of the bed.  I wake up in a bad mood, which only intensifies when I realize that I’ve got to go to work.  Today was one of those days.  Nothing particular had happened.  There was no catastrophic event or hurtful comments.  I was just in a foul mood all day long. 

On days like this, everything pisses me off.  Everything.  And everyone.  On days like that, the only thing that I really want to do is go home, lock the door, and go back to bed in the hopes that I will go to bed and wake up in a better mood tomorrow.

However, as the responsible adult that I am (*snicker*), I can’t just go home and lock myself in my apartment.  I have work to do.  People I have to interact with.  Life that must be lived.  Dammit.

However, that doesn’t stop me from getting ticked off at everyone or everything in the world.  Especially because I can’t even dive into my standard pint of Haagen Dazs’ Forget Your Troubles Ice Cream (Currently: Coconut and Pineapple Ice Cream).  I’m still a cranky old man.  To wit:  below is just a collection of a few of the thoughts that crossed my mind today.

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A public restroom is for one thing, and one thing only.  Going to the restroom.  It’s not for hanging out away from your desk, carrying on long conversations about fantasy football with your “brahs” in the stalls on either side of you.  And it is CERTAINLY not for carrying on phone conversations with your “brahs” while you’re sitting on the pot.  I can promise you that NOTHING you have to say is important enough that you can’t wait until you flush the toilet, and leave the bathroom.  Especially since you INSIST on talking to your “brah” about the girl he banged last night.

***

Brah?  Really?  Because it’s just too much work to make your mouth form the letter “O”? 

***

What is it with salespeople?  Why are they, by nature and personality, the smarmiest people in the world?  I know they are the ones responsible for making companies money, but really, do they all have to act like that?

***

It is NOT. OKAY. that people in the media no longer know the difference between fewer and less.  I actually heard a national anchor say “He has less responsibilities now that…”  Really?  REALLY?  You are the anchor of a national news broadcast and you don’t know the difference? 

***

I swear, if I walk into one more cobweb I’m going to lose it.  I don’t know what the deal is with the spiders this year, but it’s like they’re amassing a giant army in preparation for overtaking the earth and enslaving all humanity. 

Were it within my power, I would wipe all spiders off the face of the earth.  I don’t care how many bugs they eat, they can’t compete with DDT.

***

Why is it that nobody understand how to write “funny” anymore without being crass or making the audience acutely uncomfortable.  Crude humor isn’t that funny…it’s just easy and cheap.  And uncomfortable humor isn’t funny.  It’s uncomfortable.  And if I wanted to be uncomfortable, I’d go back to trying to date women again.  (A perfect example of how uncomfortable does not equal funny.)

***

I LOATHE it when people use the adjective “gay” as an insult.  I have a couple of new neighbors who just moved in, and whose brother I happened to go to school with.  Their brother is gay.  Yet, even still, I hear one of my two neighbors using the word “gay” as an insult all. the. time.  Like being gay is the worst thing you can be.  He even said to one of his friends, “Shutup dude, you’re so gay.  If you were any gayer, you’d be (fill in the name of brother here.)”  Really?  Jake or Megan, if I ever hear you using that adjective to classify something as bad, you’re officially off the Christmas gift list.  Which sucks for you, because I give good gifts.

***

I am so sick and tired of the philosophy, “Well, we don’t really have time to do this the right way, so we’ll just do it quickly, and fix it later.”  Well, that would be GREAT if you ever did fix it later, but you never do, so instead of doing what I should be doing, I end up spending all of my time being the digital equivalent of a janitor. 

***

I am so overwhelmingly sick and tired of a country and a media being run by a bunch of extremists.  I don’t want the tea party to destroy my country any more than I want the socialists to.  But because we can’t seem to figure out how to entice sensible, moderate people into politics, let alone elect them, we’re going to be stuck with the presidential tickets in 2012 of Palin-Beck and Obama-Marx.

***

WHERE THE HELL IS ALL OF MY MONEY?  WHERE DOES IT GO?  I WANT IT BACK?

***

The grass outside my apartment turns into a giant mud bog the instant it starts to rain.  Which means it’s impossible for me to keep my laminate flooring even remotely clean.  How hard is it to landscape a public area so it’s not a marsh.  The pioneers did it all the time in the midwest.  Sure, they caught and died from malaria, but so what?  If they could do it with nothing more than some oxen and a pickaxe, I think we could manage to dig up the marsh, put down a drainage base, and manage to keep the ground from turning to muck for 9 months out of the year.

***

If you have a dog, and you don’t pick up after your dog…FOR SHAME.  I pick up my dog’s poop every. single. time.  There are even dispensers with bags for pickup posted all over the complex.  (They’re called poopy pouches.  *snicker*.)  If your dog pops a squat, go get a bag and pick up after it.  If you didn’t want the responsibility, you shouldn’t have gotten a dog.  And the next time I get dog crap in my shoes because you didn’t clean up after your ill-behaved, mean, untrained puppy who barks all day long and growls at everything that moves, I’m going to let you pay for a new pair of shoes.

***

It’s too early for summer to be gone.

***

Really, Glee?  A Britney Spears episode?  These themed episodes are always so lame, and the dialogue is atrocious.  And really, who teaches glee club like that?  No glee club teacher gives the students an assignment to learn a song on a subject, nor would any glee club teacher allow his or her students to get up and start singing a song any time they wanted to express an emotion that ought to be expressed in private.  If I were teaching a glee club (again), and one of my students interrupted me even before I got started talking and said, “Mr. Armstrong…I have a song that I’ve prepared for the class,” and then got up and started to sing a torch song to their boyfriend or girlfriend (because high school romances ALWAYS last forever, and are thus deserving of a tribute in song), I would tell the student to be quiet and sit down.  No wonder they lost regionals.  If all they do is learn a new song every week on some stupid, made up topic that some hack TV writers need to string together a bunch of songs that don’t have anything to do with anything, or to introduce some has-been pop act whose songs aren’t that good in the first place (*cough*Ga Ga*cough*), how are they ever going to get good enough at their actual songs to compete?

***

And Will Schuester, I know you’re hot and all, but MOST high school teachers wouldn’t be caught dead performing a pump and thrust Britney Spears numbers with their *ahem* high school students.  If they were, they’ve be fired for inappropriate behavior.  Gross.

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I wish I could say that I feel better now, but all I’ve done it get myself worked up.  I need to go play the piano, or kill some spiders, or drive to McDonalds or something. 

I really hope tomorrow doesn’t make me so stabby.