NaNoWriMo 2

I hit 20,000 words on my NaNoWriMo last night. So that means you all are going to be subjected to another bit of my story. Again, this isn't proof-read, much less edited and revised.

So, a fair bit of warning, this chapter does get kind of a explicit. I don't think it's ridiculously so, but still. Keeping context to a minimum, the "I" character is at Camille's apartment*. She tells him her experience of being a stripper. So, here is Chapter Eleven:

*Final warning about adult content*

Chapter Eleven

“Does your girlfriend know you were at a strip club tonight,” she asked over the running water.

I don’t know if she was trying to flatter me, but she kind of did. Her saying that means she thinks I’m the type of guy a girl would want to be with or at least wanted me to think she thought that. She may have just been curious about my relationship status, but didn’t want to come right out with it, but even that theory has a similar affect on me. I’ve made jokes for years about having an imaginary girlfriend, so I witty answer actually came to me quickly enough for me to use it.

“She’s imaginary,” I said, “so she knows what I want her to know.”

She laughed harder than I had heard her laughing before. You can tell when someone finds something really funny. It’s not that all laughs are insincere, but a lot of the time you can at least compose yourself enough to laugh in a more controlled manner. Her laugh wasn’t annoying or anything it was just different than the way she had giggled before. I was just really glad she had found something I had said funny.

“Do you work, Michael?” she asked.

I hated that question. I’ve found that telling people that I didn’t have job was terribly embarrassing. I mean it wasn’t entirely my fault, but it still sucked. It was even worse considering what she did for a paycheck. I just sat on my ass and collected unemployment, too discouraged to try as hard as I could to look for a job.

“I don’t have a job right now,” I said.

“It kind of sucks right now,” she said, “It’s tough to get a job. What did you do before?”

“I worked in a warehouse,” I said.

I wasn’t going to tell her exactly what warehouse I worked in unless she asked. I worked at the Victoria’s Secret Direct warehouse.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I worked in Inventory Control,” I said, “so basically I did a lot of counting to check inventory. There was a lot of walking, but that’s about as hard as it got.”

“How did you lose it?” she said.

“I got laid off,” I said.

That was actually a half truth. I mean technically I was laid off, but in reality it was more mutual than that. I could’ve stayed and honestly I should’ve, but I thought they weren’t doing things the right way. They had kept hinting at making me a regular employee, because I had been hired seasonally, but then they said they wanted to keep me through a temp agency. I didn’t agree to be hired by the temp agency, so they had to lay me off.

“That sucks,” she said.

For a bit the only sound was the water running. I felt the need to keep us talking though. I was feeling slightly more comfortable. I was curious about something. I convinced myself to ask.

“What’s it like?” I asked before I started rambling, “I mean at your job. Are people respectful? Are there a lot of jackasses? Do you get used to it?”

I immediately felt like I shouldn’t have said any of that. I was sure my face was in the process of turning red. She was probably going to kick me out or yell at me. I was sure. Instead I heard her sigh. More importantly it didn’t seem like an annoyed sigh. I couldn’t really quite quantify it in my mind.

“The reason I do it is because it pays well;” she said, “at least well enough for me to stay here in relative comfort. It kind of sucks, but some days are better than others. I can’t really say I’ve ever gotten used to it. I’ve gotten to the point where most days I’m not so acutely aware of all the eyes on me when I’m on stage, but other times I feel each and every one of them.

“As for the customers when I’m out on the floor, it really varies. I’d say the most of them are respectful to me. Still, the others will stick out in my mind. There are the dumb fucks who don’t get that they aren’t allowed to touch me. I mean it really sucks having your boob grabbed, but the bouncers make quick work of them. Those aren’t the worse ones though.

“No, it’s the assholes who are verbally abusive and degrading. They say horrible lewd things to me. I can’t get really desensitized to that. I can be really terrible, but I have to force myself not to cry when that’s all I want to do. I just want to go home and cry.”

I looked over my shoulder at her. She had sounded like she was choking up pretty bad. She was looking up and I could see how watery her eyes were behind her glasses. She was blinking a lot; I think she was trying to keep the tears from getting out, but I could see the drops running down her cheeks. She looked right at me.

“That’s really awful,” I s aid before turning back to the dishes, “It sucks that people can be so terrible. And it doesn’t matter if you know they’re just a jackass, it still hurts.”

“Yea,” she said sounding more composed than I expected, “It’s exactly like that. I just can’t really fully associate the hate to the hateful person. I wish I could. The girls that have been around for a while seem pretty hardened to it. They try to give me tips on how to deal with it, but I just don’t know if I could ever be so calloused.

“Probably the worst thing, well not for me personally, but for someone to hear, is the stuff that happens in the V.I.P Rooms. They’re supposed to be just for some quieter, private dances, but I learned quickly that it’s not that simple. It costs someone a lot to get back there. I learned quickly from the other girls that you could make a lot by taking special requests in the rooms and that seems to be the expectation of a lot of the guys who pay for it.

“It’s not uncommon for a guy to want to play with himself in the backroom. They usually offer me some bigger tip, so they can do that. Then there are some weirder things. Like, one guy wanted me to take off my shoes and touch him with my feet. I don’t really mind those requests so much.

“Sometimes though, the requests are for actual sex acts. They also come with a ridiculous tip. I always turn them down and usually they don’t get upset, but if they do all I have to do is yell and the bouncers come in. Actually, one time I did agree. He asked me to just touch his cock for 500 hundred dollars. I agreed, because I was tempted by the cash and I didn’t think it was that awful. Then he said he’d triple it, if I started stroking. I mean that’s more than I can make in two weeks and my hand was already around it, so I just started doing it. I really wish I hadn’t, even though he did give me the cash. There are some lonely rich fuckers out there.

“I really like the bouncers there. They’re really nice guys even if they look intimidating. I think they’re the only reason I can stand to go into that place. I can at least feel secure, because they’re quick to handle things that might get out of control. That’s about it, I guess.”

-Michael
*This would make slightly more sense had Emma picked Chapter 5 the first time ;p

NaNoWriMo 1

At the request of one* of you =p I'm posting a little bit of the novel I'm writing for NaNoWriMo. I reached 10,000 words last and I decided that I'll post a little bit each 10,000 words. Keep in mind that this hasn't even been proof-read, much less revised and edited. Also, it's not that good. So with no context whatsoever here is the second chapter of my novel:

Chapter Two

I don’t want to tell my entire life story though. Tha

t would be terribly boring and absolutely pointless. It would be a tale about a man who has never done anything of note. I want to tell about a few nights ago. What happened that night is way more interesting than anything that happened to me before then. It might not even be that interesting, but if I’m going to tell a tale about myself, it wou

ld be this.

It was just a few days ago, but the weather was very different. In the meantime, Indian Summer has kicked in. That night it was quite cold. I don’t mind that though since I much prefer the cold air as winter approaches than the warm air of summer.

It had been a pretty typical day. I went to class, didn’t say much for the hours I was there and then came home. I made myself a meal and then went up to my room. I had spent hours playing Call of Duty. Then there was an unusual occurrence. My ce

ll phone rang.

The ringing isn’t necessarily all that rare, but what is rare is that it wasn’t the annoying ringtone that I had assigned my father. People calling me who aren’t my Dad is so infrequent that I forget what ringtone I gave someone else. Though just knowing that it isn’t him increases the odds of me answering by basically infinity.

It was my friend, Nick. I can’t say I was expecting it to be him. I mean his probably the person I hang out with the most and one of my best friends, he just doesn’t call often. He also fails to call back most of time. I slid open my phone.

“Hello,” I said.

“What’s up, man?” he asked.

“Not too much,” I said, “How are you?”

“Alright, Alright,” he said, “Did you know Pat’s in town?”

“No,” I said

“He is,” he said, “He wants to go out to a strip club. You wanna come?”

In a moment I made the decision to say, “Yes.” I’d never been to one before and I’d really never had any desire to. Still, I wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to

hang out with two of my best friends.

“Cool,” he replied, “Meet us there at like seven.”

“Ok,” I said, “Where the hell is it?”

He told me where and I was surprised by how far out of town it was. It was just off some exit in middle of nowhere. I didn’t go that way very often, bu

t I’m pretty sure that it was one of those exits that has the giant fucking gas stations for truckers and some fast food or some shit.

“That’s pretty damn far isn’t it?” I said.

“Yea,” he said, “but Pat said he’s been there before and he liked it.”

“Alright,” I said, “I’ll be there.”

“See ya, man,” he said.

“Bye,” I said, hanging up the phone.

I immediately felt my usual butterflies that preceded any social interaction. I suppose that were probably worse considering the specter of strange naked women and a new experience. It’s nice though that there was time for me to settle down a bit before having to get ready; though when I did start to get ready, they returned as expected.

I put on the jeans I had worn that day, found a new t-shirt to wear, and threw on my Cleveland Browns hoodie. I probably checked to see if my wallet, cell phone and keys had five times before I finally left the house. I always did that. I could be certain that I had it and still pat my ass to make sure my wallet hadn’t gone missing.

I got into my crappy car, stuck the key in the ignition and turned. It started up fine, but it also came with an annoying whine from the loose belt tensioner

. It’s pretty annoying and embarrassing, but the way Dad likes to rotate cars it’s hardly worth paying to fix.

I went to the bank. It is a bit of an awkward transaction really to go into your bank and ask for a shit ton of ones. There’s no pretending that you’re up to anything else. It’s not like you can say I just need the money, because I really dig vending machi

nes. It’s even worse that all the tellers are women. Whether they give a damn or not, I always feel they’ll see as a guy needs to go to a titty bar.

It’s a weird traffic flow when you have to cross the city during rush hour. You end up finding exactly where the cities center is though, because it’ll go s

moothly as you drive up to that point and then suddenly it will turn to shit when you join the outbound hoards. Eventually though, I got far enough way the heart of the city that it wasn’t shitty. Out of the city, I could see the big farm equipment starting the harvest in the seemingly endless fields on either side of the road.

I eventually got to the exit and as I suspected it was one o

f those trucker’s havens. There were three gas stations, a McDonalds, a Wendy’s, a Cracker Barrel and of course a porn shop. The strip club wasn’t hard to find. They really lack in subtly, those titty bars. There was flashing neon that stood bright against the twilight. They read, “Nude Girls” and “XXX.” I parked, shut off my engine, which mercifully ended that whining noise and sort of braced myself.

-Michael

*Given my number or readers, one person is actually a si

zable percentage.

And Stats:

Short Post is Short

I know I've been bad at updating this blog recently. I haven't really been all that motivated to begin with. Then there's that my life has been terribly mundane since the end of August*. I'm all for doing issue posts, but I don't want that to be all that you see here. It is also a product of being drained by BEDA.

I'm only part-time this quarter and I'm not even going to school since it's an online class. I really think I lack the organizational skills to really do well in an online class. It doesn't help that they way the professor laid out the class in Blackboard in a confusing and disorganized way. I'm going to have to make a decision on whether or not to drop soon, because failing is becoming a real possibility.

I think I had a panic attack for the first time on Friday. I wasn't really sure what was going on at the time, but as I look back on it I'm pretty sure that's what it was. It started just as I was about to leave work. I've dealt with some issues with anxiety for a very long time, but I've never really had that happen before. Here's to hoping it's not a trend.

I'm thinking about doing Nanowrimo this year. It's kind of a daunting task, but I'd like to try. It also really helps that I'm not too terribly excited about the new CoD title, so I won't feel the need to spend hours upon hours playing that. I've had a rough idea for a while. I'd like to try to get it to actually form though. The best bit is that it wouldn't even have to be good.

I'm not going to promise more consistent posts. My goal is typically at least one a week, but I've been failing at that recently. If I do start Nanowrimo it probably will get worse. I'll get back into the swing of things sooner or later though.

Thanks for reading

-Michael
*Not that my life wasn't mundane in August.

Extra Life

This Saturday and Sunday I will be taking part in Extra Life. It is a 24-hour gaming marathon to raise money for Children's Hospitals across the country. If you would like to donate to the cause and sponsor me, please go here: http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=4572

This year, I've decided to offer some rewards to people who donate.

For any donation whatsoever: I will write you a letter. If y ou don't want a letter and can think of something that you want that won't cost me more than a stamp/take more time than writing a letter, I'll do that instead.

For donations of $24 or more: I will send you one of the 5 Xbox 360 games that I'm giving away. Your choices are FIFA Soccer 11, Forza Motorsport 3, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit, Batman Arkham Asylum and L.A. Noire.

To clarify, there are only 5 games and they are used. In the unlikely event that more than 5 people donate and want a game, I will randomly select the 5 people who will receive the games.

For a donation of $50 or more: I will give you the ceramic box that was #10 in my 10 things to save in a fire post, which was one of my first in the blog. As I said, it's not particularly well made, but it pretty much without question the coolest piece of art I've ever done. I will also fill the box with goodies (such as non-melty candy.) Since there is only one box, it will go to the first person who makes the donation, in the event that more than one person gives this amount.


In order to get a reward, you'll need to make a donation (in your name) by 8 am EDT on Sunday and email me at LHrulz2007@gmail.com . Also, the rewards do stack. I'm afraid that I won't be shipping internationally, so rewards are for U.S. readers only.

Thanks for reading

-Michael

Gaming Tuesday- FIFA 12, Pottermore, etc

Yesterday, which was actually Tuesday, which is a minor detail*, I received my Pottermore Email, got paid and bought FIFA 12. I can't emphasis enough how important the getting paid part was. I've basically been living in constant threat of overdraft since a week ago Friday**. So, I got my paycheck, deposited and have since spent the majority of it and still need to buy gas.

Pottermore wasn't initially in my plans for yesterday, but I woke up to the Email, so I planned to devote some time I would have otherwise spent on FIFA 12. I ended up being foiled though, because every time I clicked the link I wasn't allowed on due to overwhelming demand.

I did eventually get logged onto Pottermore this morning and I'll tell you more about that later. As for now I start with FIFA 12.

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FIFA 12

I spent many hours playing the Demo for FIFA 12. I was uncertain in the Demo rather the gameplay had been made worse or if it had been made better and I was just resisting change. I'm still having that quandary. I feel a little better about now that I've played some games against actual people though. The new things are still confusing, but at least against another human, they're having some of the same issues and not doing the ridiculous things the computer does.

The new "Tactical Defending" system is the cause of most of my problems. It's really hard to get used to. I just don't know if it's an actual improvement. It so far has just caused me to make lots of mistakes and allow stupid goals. It think there might just be too many buttons one needs to push in a specific and ever-changing order to do it right. It is hard to actually make a tackle and that is really frustrating particularly against the CPU, which simply will pass it around and around never allowing you to get close.

I'm not sure about the changes to the attacking side either. I feel better about them than I do about those on the defensive side. The changes aren't really that dramatic either and really are more a product of the different defending and new physics engine. I think it is now easier to score goals without using the "finesse" shot button. I've also found that you can't really cross the ball anymore the way one has been able to in basically every FIFA title up to this point. I've found that you really have to take your time while on the attack in this game and about sums up how this game is different in this phase.

The Career Mode seems to have been improved. The first thing that really made me happy was starting the MLS career on January 1st. That's a small thing, but before when starting as the Crew's manger, I always had to wait until July to make any Transfers. The transfer window is more active and enjoyable in this year's game as well. The CPU will make you offers for players that you haven't put up for sale. Sometimes it'll way over value a player and you get to decide whether or not to keep that player or not. It also no longer seems like it's just a mode that's just a fancy play now mode. Player's have mood, the media publishes stories that may or may not be accurate, you get to say something to the media during certain weeks, and there is a good way to measure a player's form. Also, there is a new system of Youth Scouting. I really like in-depth game modes in sports' games and this definitely qualifies as being in-depth.

Ultimate Team hasn't gotten any dramatic changes. It is built into the game this year, so you don't have to download it. Changes are really just ascetic and help to make more information more information immediately visible. I discovered earlier today that games that get disconnected are not being immediately rewarded as wins or losses, but are being reviewed. I think that's excellent, because often times disconnects aren't anyone's fault, but a product of EA's servers being shit and I hated losing DNF over that.

I think the graphics in FIFA 12 are excellent. They're considerably improved from last year and FIFA 11 wasn't at all bad graphically. I think the new physics engine has some bugs, but it is a step in the right direction. The commentary has been improved as well. They talked somewhat specifically about the Crew***. Also I heard a second commentary team randomly while playing Ultimate Team; mind blown.

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Pottermore

no spoilers

I finally managed to actually get into Pottermore this morning. Every few clicks an error message would pop up about the servers, which got annoying. It is interesting, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I was willing to be persistent with it so I could get a wand and get sorted, but after that I found the errors too frustrating.

My wand is Red Oak with Unicorn Corn, 14 1/2 inches****.

I was most excited about sorting. I mean I wasn't as excited about this whole thing as a lot of other people, but getting sorted, I mean... c'mon. I think the quiz does a pretty good job without being too bogged down and academic.

I was very happy when after the Quiz I was put into Hufflepuff house. I would've been alright with anything besides Slytherin, but Hufflepuff was by far my first choice. I still haven't been in the common room though, because after sorting I got an error and couldn't get back in.

I'm hoping it'll be more cooperative soon. I'm questioning whether or not it's really ready to be out of Beta testing by the end of next month.

Thanks for reading

-Michael

*Long time readers will know that any post with a day of the week in the title won't actually be posted on that day
**I actually did by $ .98, but managed to avoid the fee by transfering funds from my now small savings account.
***"Does this Crew do for you?" seems to be their only line, but still
****I won't have to be insecure about the size of my wand

Edit: I meant to shake you all down for donations for Extra Life in this post. It's coming up and I needs some donations.

You can donate here.

The Death Penalty

I've always kind of wanted to do a post about the Death Penalty, but it does kind of seem like a topic for a bad argumentative paper in High School. However, the events that happened in Georgia last night have put this issue into the national consciousness.

I believe that there is only one reasonable argument one can make in favor of the Death Penalty is that it serves as a deterrent. Capital crime didn't stop when the death penalty was ruled constitutional in 1974. It clearly does not act as a deterrent. Therefore, I believe it is morally indefensible.

The 7th Amendment to the United States constitution rather famously forbids "cruel and unusual punishments." I think there can be executions that are not excessively* cruel**. The more important language in the modern argument is "unusual." The Death Penalty has obviously become very unusual with our International peers in that it is totally abolished in all other nations with similar value systems. There has been some precedent in recent years for the Supreme Court to take International standards into consideration, but there is still a terrible streak of isolationism there as well. It is also slowly growing closer to being uncommon amongst the states as well.

Executing prisoners is a terrible burden to put on the men and women who work in Prisons, juries who convict people, judges and really on society as a whole. Our justice system strives to be perfect, but it can never be. Eyewitnesses are unreliable, scientific advances can provide new evidence and judges and juries can fall victim to the emotion of the moment. The Death Penalty makes it so mistakes cannot be undone. Executing an innocent man makes the State a murderer and makes those who work in our justice system bear a terrible and unnecessary guilt.

I believe that the State should be able to prosecute from a standing of morality and justice. However, an execution of an innocent makes that impossible. Once a State has done that it can only prosecute from its power. The State has the police force, so as it says goes should not be the basis of the justice system. An execution of a prisoner prevents the rectifying of any potential wrongs and makes the system less just.

Then, the death penalty is simply barbaric. An eye-for-an-eye should not be the basis for any justice system in a civilized country. We don't need to kill some one for killing another. Imprisonment doesn't stoop to the criminals level. He is removed from society as to prevent harm and can live out the rest of his life in prison.

I'm very opposed to the use of capital punishment in the criminal justice system. I think its constitutional standing is weak and is harmful to the pursuit of justice.

Thanks for reading and please comment

-Michael

*I think that is the best way to interpret the language of the Amendment, because one could argue that any punishment is cruel.
**Regardless of that, what happened in Georgia last night was cruel.

9/11 and reactions

It is strange to think it has been ten years since the attacks on September 11th, 2001. There are people old enough to have intelligent conversations with who weren't old enough to be aware of the strange transition between September 10th, 2011 and September 12, 2001. It's almost impossible to quantify how much that event changed everyone's outlook. The fear of terrorism was instantly put into the everyone's unconscious fears. I started noticing planes in the sky. How weird is it that the notion of someone hijacking a plane and crashing it into a building doesn't seem far fetched anymore?

Ok, I wrote my "where you when" last year and you can find that here. Today, I'm going to talk about the ten years since and our reactions.

As tragic as that day was, I believe the way our policy shifted after the attacks was even worse. The way in which the United States changed after the attacks is what made those attacks effective.

Proportionality should always be taken into account by government when responding to anything. Our government's response to the 9/11 attacks was definitely not proportional to what was in essence a lucky strike by Al-Qaeda. Domestic and foreign policy underwent such dramatic changes and the nation changed fundamentally.

Our nation has been at war for ten years. That is not a proportional militarily response to a terrorist attack. Too much blood and treasure has been lost and spent in response to the attacks. Then there are the tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans who have lost there lives in our war. It's not a just response to what happened. Then, there's the matter of both wars being absolutely unwinnable. Terrorism is a tactic, it is not a group of people and it is not something that can be defeated.

Domestically, in response to the attack the government created a new gigantic, Orwellian-sounding bureaucracy, the Department of Homeland Security, which really has no function. Civil Liberties have been revoked in the name of safety. The PATRIOT Act is something that is damaging the most basic part of what is great about America, Liberty. I really wish our legislators were smart enough to not vote on this right after the attacks. I could see how some would see it as a brilliant idea right after the attacks, but it was a ridiculous expansion of government power that will never end*.

I don't think that there should've been no response to the attacks of September 11th. It just didn't need to be so severe. It's easy to say that now with hindsight, but I'd like to think that a lot of the men and women in government would've had the foresight to see that dramatic changes in the immediate aftermath of such a traumatic event isn't wise. Some changes definitely needed to be made to reduce the risk of another attack, but total safety can never be achieved, so the fundamental changes made are just terrible.

It's always important to remember how unlikely it is for any individual to be killed by terrorism**. The government shouldn't have changed itself after 9/11, but you definitely shouldn't. Doing anything in your life differently because of fear of terrorist attack is just stupid. First, fear is exactly what the groups who perform terrorism want you feel. Second, You just aren't going to die in a terrorist attack.

Thanks for reading

-Michael
*Government never gives back power once it has it.
**Hank Green stole my thunder on this one.