Retard Life

I’m not sure why, but when friends ask me to help them out I feel compelled to say yes. It doesn’t usually get me much. Ya, I mean, I might be better friends with the person, but usually it only means that I’m the go-to for the next time someone wants free work. But can I charge my friends?

There’s a Facebook-like site being created by a friend. The front-end is well within his abilities. Well, kind of. The problem is that he’s more of an idea guy. He had the idea, and it was good, and that should have been all he’s responsible for but since time is short these days (even the Retard Empire is suffering from the lack of available hours) I’m not able to work on his creation for hours every day. So what’s a guy to do?

Without any idea on how many hours are going to be required of me, I have told him that when he starts to make money, I need to be included in the dispersement of funds. What guarantee do I have that I’ll get something? None. But… I’ve thought ahead. Not only am I doing the programming of the backend [that just sounds wrong] but I’m hosting the site and handling the DNS too. The only thing that has his name on it is the domain name.

Should I be looking to help without a possible end in sight or should I be demanding some compensation?

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Let me just say that I wasn’t disappointed. That’s a compliment in this case. Since I use to watch “Get Smart” on TV and will still watch re-runs when I find them (hello TV Land?), I thought that I would be disappointed by the movie.

Ya, Carrell is a decent comedian. He has had a few movies where he is a good second player, but came across strong in Get Smart. Maybe he’s actually a better actor than I thought. I’m still not convinced that he’s great enough to carry a movie. There are actors in action movies and actresses that show enough in any movie that would get me out to the theater. I’m probably going to have to add Anne Hathaway to that list now.

Hathaway won’t remind me of the Princess Diaries girl anymore. Though Get Smart could have used a little more skin from Hathaway, it wasn’t disappointing. I’d be willing to go to the theater and see it again. Yes, it was that good.

I don’t want to ruin anything for someone… but I would have enjoyed more of Hymie as soon as I found out who played “him”.

Grade : A

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I’ve always wondered about the true anonymity provided by the Internet.

Really, nobody knows anything about me (as far as I know) except for Jerome.

My family (those that are still alive) aren’t actively familiar with the Retard Empire and my part in it.

I don’t tell friends about these websites (they are often the object/target of my posts).

Some of you know me as DMS, some of you know me as Michael Sharpe. Some of you have no idea who I am and believe that Jerome and I are the same person (I’m not ruling out that he’s one of the voices in my head).

There is some sort of appeal to being anon, just ask Mr. White. Other bloggers are too giving with information (and whore for their friends).

So where should I be in the bandwidth of anon to overly personal?

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I played pool last night. The place I played was a real billiards place, unlike the usual bar that I play in. Of course, last night’s location didn’t seem to use A/C, but since the pitchers of beer cost only $5.50 it was alright.

There was plenty of time before playing for me to practice and warm-up. I did too. I played at least 5 games before actually competing. My opponent, Josh, was an APA ranked 3, which is what I am and have been since I lost the last two weeks straight. Well, last night made it three weeks of losses. The worst part was that I lost 2 games to 0 and was missing all of my shots by less than an inch. I’m not sure what was happening, but it sucked.

Since I’m normally too distracted, I think that the bi-week will help next week. I’ll go out and practice, hopefully I’ll be able to find a quiet place to take my time and play.

Incredible how poorly I’ve been playing since my first week.

My friend (and team captain) did great last night. He won 5 games straight and actually ran out the table on the last game. It’s too obvious that he’s back to his regular playing days (he’s got 10+ years experience playing though there was a 3-year period of not playing before this season). I’ll have to start challenging him to games in order to improve myself.

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I like going to the movies. It’s an escape from everyday Retard life. Whenever a movie I want to see is coming out I try to plan out my movie time a few days earlier than the movie comes out. I’ve seen so many movies that it’s really sad pathetic. I should save my money and put it into Retard Trader.

Anyway, the movie I saw was You Don’t Mess With The Zohan and I can tell you that it was able to take me away from reality for a little bit of time.

I’m not going to write anything stupid like “it wasn’t realistic”. The movie was entertaining and Adam Sandler did a great job at not being the typical Sandler-act. Of course the regular Happy Gilmore crew were in the movie, but that’s actually something that I’ve come to look forward to seeing. The only thing that I would change is to have Emmanuelle Chriqui appear more in the film (both more in time on screen and as in less clothing, more body).

Emmanuelle Chriqui, also known for her part in “Entourage” as Sloan, is a seriously high end piece of ass. I’m pretty sure that she wouldn’t bother even getting a restraining order against me, but anything that got her attention towards me would be fine.

What was I talking about? Oh ya, the movie. If you haven’t seen it, you should buy it on DVD when it’s available. I wouldn’t recommend taking the time to see it on the big screen though.

GRADE : B-

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I might as well just share this information with you all now, it will help me to build a future without having to lie or hold back. I’m not religious. That’s not where a problem will occur, because even if you are religious there’s little chance that you will care about my thoughts. Give me a chance, I’ll cause an argument with you or someone you know.

As you might have seen on the wicca story comments at Retard Zone, I’m not a big religious zealot. Actually, I believe that religion is meant for a bunch of weak minded people that need to believe that after they die there’s something more.

I obviously can’t prove anything about post-death happenings. I will tell you that I’m not the only person that thinks people believe in religion in order to gamble that if there is an after-life, they are part of it.

Pascal’s Wager (or Pascal’s Gambit) is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should “wager” as though God exists, because so living has potentially everything to gain, and certainly nothing to lose.

I gamble. I actually might be considered by some to have a gambling problem. But I’m not wasting my time with a useless bet like religion.

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I don’t like to write about family, only because I don’t usually speak about them in life so writing about them seems odd. But like most of the people on this planet, I have a mom that is still alive.

Sometime between last night and this morning, my mom’s best friend died. Her best friend has been in her life for a month short of 10 years. It was very upsetting and the only thing that makes the sadness bearable is knowing that her friend had a good life.

Every morning one of my mom’s neighbors would come over and visit, taking her friend on a walk that was getting shorter every day due to the failing health of her friend. The kidneys on her friend were giving out, she had been on multiple medicines and each medicine caused more problems than they seemed to fix. Her friend was a friend to the family and was always happy to see any of us. In fact, aside from some of the more annoying habits, she was great to have around.

Unfortuantely, no life is ever permanent.

In this case, you have probably already figured out that my mom’s friend was a dog. The dog died last night and by the time I did the nice son thing (and got the dog ready for the vet), rigor mortis had set it. If you ever get the chance, call someone and pay them to take care of things like this for you, its never worth it.

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It was Tuesday night and as I sped toward the bar at 80-90 mph, I was thinking about two things and neither of them was playing pool.

I’ve been distracted lately. It’s not the trading (or lack of it), it’s not the blogging, it’s not work. It’s a girl. Though I don’t know for sure if this will actually go anywhere, I’m having future thoughts for a girl that I shouldn’t be having. If you wander over to ExPains you’ll see that I’m no ready to commit to a relationship yet.

Last night I was wondering about a future date that I would be having. I was thinking about a phone call that I needed to make at 8:00 pm, and I was thinking about drinking a few more Jack & Cokes before relaxing enough to settle in and play pool. Unfortunately I was the first one up. And my beginner level 4 rating was going against a level 7, which is the highest ranking assigned to APA non-professional players.

Just for a quick recap of last week: I played pool for the first time in over a decade and beat another player 3 straight games.

Fast forward to last night. I would have done better if I just cracked my stick (effectively forfeiting) and thanked the level 7 for his time. Matt. That’s the name of level 7 from last night.

The game started at 7:15 pm which is too early for me to start thinking about playing. My mind is on that 8:00 pm phone call and nothing has stopped me from making that call except for one time being stuck in a third-world country (China). I could have probably been more relaxed and played smarter than I did. Honestly, it took Matt a few innings each game to beat me. But there was no question that I lost 5 games before I won a single game.

I got to use my new McDermott stick last night. The stick was severely embarassed by me and would have rather stayed home instead of having me insult it with my being a Retard in pool.

So my record is 1-1, the rest of the team lost as well so we went 0-5. The only thing that I had going for me last night is that I was able to drink a decent quantity of alcohol and forget about work for a few happy hours.

There’s a good chance I will be ranked a 3 after last night, so maybe it will be easier for me in the future. I know that I won’t be playing pre-8:00 pm, so that will help.

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I bought breakfast for my former in-laws. One former sis-in-law and her three kids. It wasn’t a fantastical breakfast, it was just some McDonalds food and drinks. After spending $22.06 at McD for some people, I would expect to hear something, like thank you.

Manners are something that must be hard to find in former relatives as it is in strangers. Actually, I’m pretty sure that if I bought a stranger breakfast from McD, that person would say thank you. Thank you. It’s not a hard thing to say. And I’m not asking for some sign of emotion either, just saying the words is all that it would take.

Since I didn’t get my thank you, I’m not going to be buying breakfast for them for a while. I use to do it every week and use to get a thank you every week. No more thanks, no more food.

Am I being a Retard about this?

Oh ya, and in advance I would like to say thank you for reading this blog and for any comments you want to give.

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Last night I went and did something I haven’t done in over 7 years and have only done once in 13 years. I shot games of pool with the intention of winning. Of course, because I haven’t played pool in such a long time it took me a few minutes to remember simple things like how to play angles, how to hit the cue ball for the correct positioning after the strike, and how to hold a pool stick in a non-threatening manner.

It was a great night for me to hang with a friend from my high school days. It also let me meet a few new people and let me re-meet someone who I have previously met just once. Unfortunately there were no girls of the hot persuasion playing pool, but since we were playing at a bar, there were a few hot girls that went through the place. One of the teammates is a pastor who looks like a cleaned up drug addict (goatees don’t go well with pastor’s clothes), another is a realtor who part-time works for a large online realestate company. My friend is a computer geek. There’s another guy on the team that works for a poolhall during the days, so I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to play pool on a team for fun.

Anyway, I did the best that could be expected of me. I won. I’m learning the APA rules, but the outcome of last night was that I played against a 3, I’m ranked a 4 because I’m new and have not previously been ranked. I needed to win 3 games before my opponent won 2. And I did. I won three games, in a row, handing my opponent a shutout. That’s pretty amazing for me. Not playing for such a long time made me wonder why I stopped having fun and shooting. And the beer that I consumed made me wonder why I don’t play daily.

So my record is 1-0, though my team lost 2-3 (damn slackers). I don’t think that I did anything to earn any patches.. if you know of something I can do to earn patches from the APA, let me know!

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