China - Manliest Nation Ever?

So, based on my first few posts here, people could perhaps be forgiven for wondering if I was clinically depressed. And the answer is : no. I just had some shit I needed to unload out of my head. And all is not bad! Work's going okay. I've got a few other irons in fires that might be fodder for future posts (yep, still annoying everyone with mysterious mentions of things that might eventually be!). Hell, I've even started throwing my hat back in the freelance ring...although the inconsistency of it is already annoying.

And not everything her on the ol' bloggy blog is going to be serious. Sometimes, things that are just awesome will make their presence felt. This is one of those times.

 

This is apparently how construction companies settle their disputes in China. Frankly, I don't care what it is because it had me at HOLYAMAZEBALLSAWESOME. This is what every single male the world over imagines every single time that they glance upon a piece of heavy machinery. Hell, this video could be used to determine a male's level of development.

"Daddy, every time I watch this video I feel weird and tingly in my pants."

"That's because you're a man now, Timmy. Here's a beer. You're ready."

China is most definitely still goddamn cool. China is living the dream. While some countries can't even figure out how to transport heavy trucks across a river on a barge, China is engaging in full-on vehicular combat. And check out the dude who gets tipped! He runs over to his buddy's loader, imploring him to help tip his back upright so that he can go smash things some more! Every little boy on the face of the Earth salutes you, sir. I don't throw around words like hero...but you are one.

So here's to you, China. Keep it up.

Blogging Redux : This Time It's Personal

So, as most of you reading this probably know, this is not my first crack at bloggery. There was another one before. I would link to it, but that thing is GONE. We're talking burn it to the ground, tear apart the rubble and salt the Earth gone.

Peer Pressure Works existed for many years. And for quite a while, it was enjoyable. Until it wasn't. I have a habit of letting things start to become obligations. "Oh, I have a blog? That means I simply MUST put stuff up on it all the time!" And when you start going at something with that mentality, you eventually find yourself hammering out one post after another that really doesn't carry any meaning to you whatsoever. PPW ceased being something I enjoyed doing and just morphed into something I felt like I had to do. And once something you're supposedly doing for fun becomes just another mundane task, the clock is pretty much counting down the minutes that it has left to live.

This is also what ended up happening the last time that Liam, James and worked on a collaborative story project. It eventually just started feeling like work, mainly because I forced myself to write when I didn't want to. Because, you know, I had to. Because I'm nuts. And in some weird attempt to keep trying to steer the narrative.

But that's then. And this little place is now. I won't promise that I'll always be spitting out multiple posts in a week. Hell, there might be periods of weeks where I say absolutely nothing. But whatever I do decide to say will actually be of some meaning. Whether it's me ranting about something, making fun of something, or simply sharing some horrific atrocity of a song from the dark corners of the Internet, it'll involve something that I actually give a shit about. And that should mean that this one isn't starting off with a clock ticking in the background.

And now Liam, James and I have started on a whole new collaborative story. Only this time, I'm contributing what I feel like to it when I actually have an idea, not every time that I deem it 'my turn, so I have to'.
 

Hey, Maybe This DOESN'T Suck!

Let us continue.

I can sometimes have a negativity problem.

Okay, that isn't exactly a mind-blowing revelation that will bring about the collapse of the global order. Sure, I'm a cynical bastard. And I MIGHT be just a little bit sarcastic. But I'm talking about outright negativity here. And not just directed at mankind as a whole, since we're really just a collective of utterly stupid lumps who...

Ahem...

Okay, back on track!

No, what I was referring to this time was specific negativity dropped on to myself with the subtlety of a thermobaric weapon. I tend to be an incredibly harsh critic of myself. Maybe that stems from a past with many screw-ups in it (not being overly harsh there, that's just honesty) or maybe I've always been like this. I don't know. But it sure as Hell isn't doing me any favors.

When I finally got completely burnt out on writing and decided I was stepping away from looking for gigs on my primary freelance site, I had been offered a spot on a sister site with much bigger clients. I still stepped away because all that would have caused was a quicker downward spiral as I augured everything in to the ground spending more time working on bigger gigs. Hell, I got in to this to get away from warehouse job burnout. Not just grinding through something until I hit that level of misery should have been considered a positive.

And yet...

Well, I guess this was a failure.




Fuck that. Because I didn't fail. Actually, I did pretty well. I walked away before I absolutely detested what I was doing and started considering the very idea of writing something to be about as pleasant as a week spent in prison. So that negativity can suck my balls. Actually, that's probably not a good idea. I don't suspect that it would be very good at it. Also, I have now taken this in a disturbing direction that doesn't seem to feature an exit...

So yeah, I need to quit doing that (the slamming myself, not the disturbing sidebars into madness. That problem is incurable at this point). Let's call it 'Personal Goal #7,305'. And it isn't like nothing positive came from my freelance years. I learned that I can stretch myself creativity in ways that I may not previously have thought possible. I became a whole lot better at actually valuing my time. When you realize that you can attach an actual cash value to your day, you stop seeing interest in getting in stupid little shit-fights on the Internet. Hence the fact that my Facebook block list is already half a mile long. Why continue reading the words of people I find to be obnoxious ass-hats in groups I follow when I can just never, ever see their shit and get pulled into a vortex of nonsense?

Most importantly, I went ahead and actually took a swing at something that I'd always thought about doing but hadn't actually made a move towards. Not only did I take a crack at it, I made pretty solid contact. It might not have been an upper deck grand slam, but it was a pretty respectable line drive double that plated a run. I'd previously put off any real consideration of taking a crack at writing because I just didn't believe it would work out. I've backed away from things in the past because I was scared of taking a chance. Well, this time I took a chance. And it worked out really well. That's pretty awesome.

And I gotta say, I like having a place where I can dump this stuff that's just been running a never-ending spin cycle through my brain for months on end. Perhaps it's a sign that I need to find some other outlets so that I'm not utterly reliant on just one?

Maybe 'Personal Goal #7,306' should be to find some.

In the Beginning

Oh hey, I've had a few beers and I'm feeling somewhat introspective. How lucky for you all!

I've always been someone who enjoys writing. No matter what else has been going on in my life, that was one of the lynch pins of who I was. Through countless mistakes and stupid decisions and everything else, writing was there. Maybe it was me blathering on about whatever (oh look...) or creating some half-baked story idea which would never really see anything like fruition. It really didn't matter, it was just part of who I was.

And then I stopped. And then I flat out stopped writing at all. And I stopped enjoying it.

I found myself at a weird crossroads a few years back where I was stuck in a loop (No, I don't know how one has a loop in a crossroads. That sounds like a traffic nightmare in the making). I just kept changing to different variants of the same job over and over and over again. I hated it, but I kept doing it anyway because I was comfortable in my little bubble. And then I broke character and actually did something different and unpredictable. I actually changed things up. And I found myself writing. Like, for money and stuff.

Even though I have actually been paid for producing words, I have never and will never describe myself as a professional writers. I guess it's just in my head that an actual pro writer creates new worlds and characters and adventures and stuff. I just wrote a lot of stuff for a lot of company websites. It isn't that I'm at all negative about the overall experience, it's more that calling myself  'just a normal writer' seems somehow more realistic.

And it was pretty cool for awhile. Sure, there was missteps. Not realizing that I had agreed to write 50,000 words in weird paragraph introductions in a week was one. No, I have no idea what the Hell this was actually for. It was a weird job. There were A LOT of weird jobs. Ever written profiles for both sides on a dating website based entirely on rich dudes looking for young chicks and wannabe gold diggers? I have. Ever been hired to edit what seemed like a grade school child's story, only written by an adult with some sort of punctuation addiction, with no explanation of why or for whom? Yep. Ever been hired to write a PUA manual for some dude who seemed to waffle between clinically depressed and hilariously 'fake confident' before doing a bit of research and finding out what that actually is? Yep, been there. (Seriously, if you're ever feeling a bit low in the self esteem department, look up 'PUA forums' and read the words of the ridiculous children you'll find there. You'll feel better about yourself in minutes).

I eventually got tired of trying to grind out enough hours to make a total go of it just writing and ended up working part time at FedEx. It's not a bad gig. I get to play around on the airport ramp, which is just fun in that 'little boy who never totally grew up' way. Kind of fitting, seeing as I seem to have missed that whole 'figure out what you want to be when you grow up' stage of things. And I kept writing as well, at least for a while.

The first thing to go was my old blog. It had started to feel more like an obligation than something that was fun to work on any more. And of course I went with the excuse that this would give me more time to do the kind of writing that actually paid me money. But that was really just a tall tale, because I was already growing sick of that, too.

The shitty thing about freelancing is that jobs tend to be very quick things. They're here, they're gone, and now you've got to find the next one. It's a constant churn and grind to land the next gig, and you get turned down A LOT before you find it. And if there's one thing that I've learned about myself over the years, it's that I really don't handle rejection well. I don't go off and have a good cry or anything like that, but it needles at me. Less of a massive stab wound and more of a death from a thousand cuts type of situation. Either way, you find yourself eventually bleeding out all over the damn floor. Also, once you end up scoring a few gigs where you're doing the same sort of work, you end up basically typecast. Some actor ends up getting offered nothing but roles as the single guy's wacky neighbor. I ended up getting stuck writing words for one company website after another. It got to the point that I could do so in my sleep. And that was the problem. This was supposed to be my something different. And then it wasn't. Then it was just a whole different repeating cycle.

I haven't written anything for months now. The desire was completely gone. And now who the Hell am I? Once more, life seems to have grown stale. I'm stuck in my current circumstances, and now I can't even fall back on writing as that thing that pulls me through.

Tonight, I started working on a collaborative story with a couple of friends. For the first time in many days I'm actually hammering out words as quickly as I can, trying to keep up with my thoughts. And it's pretty fantastic. So here I am, writing this as well, because for some reason I suddenly want to. Maybe this time I can give myself a whole new boot in the ass by going back to something familiar.

I'm not making any promises at all for what this is going to be. That's why I'm keeping this simple. Just a simple Blogger account. I tend to over-promise and start up HUGE only to quickly lose steam because the initial ambition wears off and now I'm just over it and disappointed. So for now, this is just going to be the place I visit when I feel the need to ramble on about something.