It's Valentines Day

Me on most valentines days...

As you get older this holiday seems to play a more significant role in your life. When you're a kid, it's all fun and games, but as an adult it be a truly crushing event full of self-loathing and pity. What kind of a day is it for me? To be honest, I don't know. It's a mixed bag for me.

Mixed in the sense that while I am single and currently have zero interaction with any females outside of those within my family, but I also do not have the added hassle of say finding a restaurant, or buying an expensive gift with money I don't have. Either way, being unemployed makes that difficult. For the time being at least, I don't think I mentioned it but last week I got hired on by the Home Depot. I'm just waiting for them to call me back, something they are not that great at.

Either way, I  hope everyone enjoys their holiday with whomever they decide to spend it with, I'm not exactly alone and I look at it this way; if it really was meant to be at this time I would already be in a relationship by now, but with all the shit going on in my life right now, it really is not possible, as much I would otherwise. I need to patient I guess.

For all those lonely hearts out there, I'll be your Valentine. Follow @benlaakkonen

The First Step: Admitting you're an Ass Hole.

I'm an ass hole. I know I am an ass hole, and there really is not much I can do about it either. Thing is, nearly every person you meet, in one form or another, is an ass hole as well. So how then do you avoid being one? Easy. Don't.

Odd advise, I know, but consider this, why are you an ass hole in the first place? For me, I am an ass hole because I believe that I am infinitely more intelligent than about 90% of the population. Where do I get this assumption from? Mostly from my day to day interactions with "average," people. I play a lot of video games, games that require abstract thinking in order to be successful so I have seen the whole gambit of strategies and tactics used and I have noticed one thing: People don't look up or behind themselves, thus leaving the perfect opportunity to come up behind them and take them out, something I have done more than once in my career of gaming.

Maybe my example is a bit hard fetched for some, but I have also had real life examples where the same kind of thinking has come in handy when dealing with a difficult situation. There was the time I was driving my dad's car at night and I lost control of it while it was raining. I contribute me sitting here today to the fact that I spent so much time playing Gran Trismo before this accident occurred, because from it I learned how to stop the car safely. As I lost control of the car it began to slide to the right, and remembering my experience in the video game, I turned the wheel to the left and ran through a patch of grass in order to slow the car down. By the time I stopped I was at least a foot from hitting a stop sign. I think most people in this situation would have been fucked, mostly because at the time of the accident I was 19, fresh out of high school and no idea what I was doing, and yet somehow I handled the situation calmly and cooly and walked away unharmed.

How does that tie in with my advise of not being an ass hole? Well, I've learned to realize that people process and store information differently. Some maybe able to instantly access it the moment it's useful, while others just lose their shit and smash their face into a wall because fuck logic.

I am okay with that.

Yep, that kind of thinking used to frustrate me to hell, because the solution would be right in front of most people and they just were not able to see it. Not any more, because not everyone can do that, which is why those that can overcompensate for those that cannot. Those people are not completely without merit, they just have to be placed in situations they are better suited to handle. Me, I'm no genius either, but damn it I try. I learned to accept these people for who they are and I also try to hold their hands through difficult things until they see what I see. I bring them up to my level (totally not humble or completely full of myself here, nope).

That's it. The key to not being an ass hole is acceptance. Accept that people are stupid, accept that every one is an ass hole, and you're half-way towards making your life easier. Maybe (most definitely) I am wrong, anyway I want to hear from you guys, my non-existent readers. The robots that keep crawling my page. Let me know what you think and feel free to pick a part my lazy half-assed argument. Follow @benlaakkonen

The Orlando Hamfest Report.

So I have not been posting much at all lately and that's mostly because of the crazy hectic kind of life I have been leading lately. I have been running around a lot like a chicken with it's head cut off, and it has really just added up to me not being that active, mind you I am alright.

Where do I begin?

This past weekend was the Orlando Hamfest, I guess I could start with that.

I skipped the first day of the show, Friday, mostly because Gramps was just not up for it, we went on Saturday. Saturday was an interesting day mostly because of all the fog and rain out on the road. I could barely see in front of me as I drove up I-95, I even hit a traffic cone with my passenger side mirror, cracking the glass. Thankfully nothing else was broken and I did not lose control of the car.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, other than the five toll booths we had to go through on the last leg of the journey. Another reason why I really don't like Orlando, dem booths. When we did finally arrive it was about 10:30 A.M. and the weather was abysmal. Two words: Cold and Wet.

I really did not do a lot of thinking ahead so I went up there in shorts and really flimsy kind of shoes, the kind that just absorbed all of the water making my feet not only soggy, but fairly cold, and the jacket I did bring with me offered very little relief from the cold. I was rather Hamsexy with my MCARA polo shirt that Lee (K4LJP) had given me with my shirt tucked in and everything.

As for the crowds they were quite large, I had quite a bit of fun navigating through them with my mother in tow. To be honest I did not find the show to really be that interesting, about the only thing of note I can tell you all is that I bought my General study guide book and that's really about it.Which means I need to do some studying. By the end of the day I was tired, and quite wet. I did manage to take my shoes off and warm up in the motor home while my made breakfast for dinner (which turned out rather awesome). The only issue I had that night was I needed to be on the internet, to which there was no connection, other than our data plan from our phones, and since we have to pay by the gig, I really did not want use up a metric crap ton of data doing what I needed to do: 10 man Siege of Orgrimmar.

Yep, World of Warcraft has started to affect my life, however, I was lucky I knew someone in Orlando, a high school buddy of mine Nathan, who generously offered me an internet connection and rather comfy couch to sleep on. He came and picked me up as well, and by the time we made it back to his place I had logged onto WoW just in time to make it my raid.

We stalled out Friday night at the Dark Shamans, and then Saturday we one shot them which was quite awesome. We made it to Nazgrim, and after two or three wipes we managed to get him down and progressed to Malkorok. Where we proceeded to much up the fight because the concept of actually wanting to stand in the fire was to difficult for most and we ended up wipe more than once and called for the night.

Sunday was the last day of the show, and I ended up sleeping in and not heading out the door until about 11:30ish, the show was over by 1 o'clock, and by the time I made it back it was about 12:15 P.M. I walked around for a bit to see what was left of the show, which there really was not, helped pick up my dad's easy up that he had lent out, and loaded the car up ready for the journey home.

The drive home was not terribly complicated, although my navigation was kind of frustrating at first because it kept telling me to make a U-turn when it really meant "turn right." but after getting on the 408 and taking it to Turnpike it was pretty much just a straight shoot home. I found the best way to keep Gramps happy while driving long distances is to supply him with Reese's peanut butter cups. I also found out that the best value for your money if you stop at a rest stop on the Turnpike is to buy the king-sized candy bars. I paid close to $3.00 ($2.80 + $0.20 tax) for two regular Reese's, meanwhile I could have bought the king-size for $2.19 after taxes, which gives the same amount had I bought two regular sized ones... I also found out, after asking one of the girls that works the register at the rest stop that they sell lunchables for $3.99. When she told me that I just looked at her with raised eye brows, then at the lunchables, and then back at her, gradually tilting my head back and raising my eye brows higher. I made the girl laugh, because, you know, I'm funny (right?).

Two hours later and $10.50 in tolls we were back in Stuart. I guess the one nice thing about having that new bridge in Palm city is that it makes getting from Palm City to Stuart a heck of a lot faster and easier, so I took it to 76 and made my way to US 1 from Indian town road. Half an hour later we were home.

I spent a few hours on the porch talking with Gramps, trying to work out a few kinks him and I experienced lately, and I ended up making sunny-side eggs for dinner, which Gramps enjoyed (despite telling me how much he hates eggs).

And that was the end of our little adventure in Orlando, the Hamfest was really not anything special other then it being rather miserable, and I ended up having a nice break from some of my troubles. Sleep really is your friend you know... Follow @benlaakkonen