What Unemployment Actually Looks Like

I had another job interview yesterday, for the reporter position at the Voice newspaper, and though I won't know if I'm chosen until next week, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get it.

And with that, it has occured to me that I have now been through six actual, on the record, job interviews this summer, and I still don't have a job.

That' six interviews. That does not include the emails I sent, the applications I turned in, the endless questionaires (which are dreadful by the way, stop using them), and all the times I walked in the door and asked to speak with somebody about what it would take to be employed by them.

Before now, I was working at Kroger for about a year. I started in New Baltimore and I left for school and worked at the Ypsilanti Kroger. Then I came back to New Baltimore when school ended. I'm pretty sure all of my immediate supervisors liked me there and considered me a good worker, so I didn't think I should have much trouble transferring if I asked politely at the right time. I gave my manager in Ypsilanti, Chris Logan, about 2 and half months notice, and that's when he told me that he's not allowed to transfer people more than once. That it was against corporate policy. That's what he said.

I called my union rep.

He told me that Chris Logan was lying to me, or didn't know what he was talking about, because there were no rules for transferring employees at all.

I probably could have made a big deal about this, complained a lot, and gotten transferred, but it didn't really make sense to me. I didn't think I would have much trouble transferring if I just asked about it when I moved back home, so I let it go.

I kinda hated it there anyway. The work was boring, the pay sucked and there was really nothing for me there beyond a paycheck. I figured if I didn't get back in, I was better for it.

Steve actually called my phone to
tell me he had "talked me up"
to my new manager in Ypsilanti.
What he actually told
my new manager was that
I have a cell phone problem.

The first couple weeks I came back from school, I was in full hunt for a better job. I stopped by Kroger  two or three times to ask about what transferring back would be like. I got ignored at least twice, and then told to put in another application if I wanted to come back.

I didn't really get that, considering I just working for these people about 13 days before. Seriously, I was still getting the employee discount when I used my Kroger card.

But I turned in another application anyway, and I went back about a week later and finally I was given the honor of talking to Steve Armstrong, the King of the New Baltimore Kroger!

He told me if I wanted my job back, to come back a week from then, because he needed to figure stuff out. Remember, I was just working for these people. Its not like I got fired, I never even really quit. Nobody was remotely interested in talking about me transferring, and now I was reapplying to the store I already worked for, and he tells me to wait a week, and maybe he'll have figured something out. 

And this is the same man, who last year literally went out of his way to tell me that he had "talked me up" to my new manager when I left from the New Baltimore store to the Ypsilanti store...
 AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE SAID TO MY NEW MANAGER? HE TOLD HIM I HAVE CELL PHONE PROBLEM. A FUCKING CELL PHONE PROBLEM? THAT'S YOUR IDEA OF TALKING ME UP, YOU FUCKING ASS.

Never mind the fact that it wasn't even true, and that I hardly ever used my phone at all. What dill hole!

So you know what, I let this job go. And since then, nothing has been okay. First of all, my dad has been a TOTAL DICK about this unemployment thing. He kicked me out of his house when I was in the middle of hosting an Multiple Sclerosis charity marathon. We raised $500 that weekend with a laptop and a video camera, and he kicked us out because he simply didn't want to listen to us.

My first official interview this summer was with Meijer (take that, Kroger FAGGOTS). I applied, I followed up a couple times, and eventually I got a hold of someone and they said "sure, we'll interview you." The first interview went great. The second interview went great. In the third interview -- you need three interviews to get into Meijer nowadays -- I was interviewed by a woman named Christina, and she said "don't I know you?"

I said yes. Because she had interviewed me before, one year ago. Last summer I also went through three interviews with Meijer, and they straight up told me they would hire me. Then I never received the next phone call, and I called back a few days later, and couldn't get a hold of anyone. For two weeks I called Meijer every other day, and never got a solid answer as to what happened to the job I was promised.

So I told Chrisitna this story, and she said, "oh well that's weird," and then the interview went on. She asked me if I would be returning to school next year, and I said yes, and she asked me if I would be willing to commute back home to work here...

Commute from Ypsilanti? For minimum wage? Of course not, what kind of a stupid question is that?
I politely told her "no, I don't think I would do that." She said "GEE THAT SUCKS, CAUSE WE WERE GONNA HIRE YOU, BUT NOT ANYMORE!! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!1!!1!!"

Why didn't they ask that when they looked at my application for the first time? I don't know. But I went through six interviews with those people, and did not get hired. Six interviews, at Meijer, to be a fucking bag boy, and I didn't get hired....

Astronauts don't have to go through six interviews.

I thought I was going to real quick type up a story about my unemployment, but this has ended up taking me about 3 hours, and it's time to call it quits for now. Suffice to know that the entire time that all of this Miejer / Kroger hooplah was  going on, I have been sending out response emails to random craigslist ads.

Keep your eyes peeled tomorrow for Part 2: The Legend of Michael Angelo. And seriously, thanks for reading. I feel better just talking about it.

Greg the Terran's Starcraft II Stream: For Charity!

GREG THE TERRAN'S SILVER LEAGUE MADNESS http://www.twitch.tv/gaminforcharity There you go kiddos. Its me, being a jerk and playing Starcraft. Come take a listen as I pwn all the noobies with brilliant strategies and a healthy dose of one rax expands. You can also hear me talk to myself, call people faggots, and listen to Elton John. WHOO HOO!

Greg The Terran Sports: Brendan Shanahan edition

Brendan Shanahan was eligible for induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame this year, now three years after his retirement in 2009. This is the same year that Joe Sakic, his arch rival from the Colorado Avalanche was eligible. 

Shanahan, of course, was the power left winger for the Detroit who scored over 600 goals in his career. He's the second highest scoring left winger to ever play the game. He even has the league record for Gordie Howe Hat Tricks.

Joe Sakic made it in to the Hall of Fame, and Brendan Shanahan did not. 

What the bloody effing hell is this?

Do I have to remind you people what happened when Brendan Shanahan joined the Red Wings? Let me tell you a story, kiddies. 

Back in 1995, a pre-Shanahan Red Wings team had made it to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in 29 years. They had all the big names on that team that you may remember, Steve Yzerman, Sergei Federov, Vladimir Konstantinov, Nicklas Lidstrom, even Darren McCarty had strolled in by then. This was the team of my childhood. These were the guys playing back when I wanted to grow up to be a hockey player. They made it to the Stanley Cup Finals that year, and were the heavy favorites to win. They didn't win. They were swept, four games in a row.

Next year, the Wings come back with a vegence. They win a record setting 62 games in the regular season. That's still the most games any NHL team has ever one in a season, ever. They skated through the playoffs, firing on all cylinders, and they made it to the conference finals. The Red Wings faced against none other than the Colorado Avalanche.

The Avalanche were bad guys, through and through, but still a formidable team. There was their captain, Joe Sakic. Sakic was sort of the Steve Yzerman of the West. He played 20 years all for the same franchise (the Avalanche were originally the Quebec Nordiques, before moving to Colorado in 1995). They had Peter Forsberg and Adam Foote.  They also had that nimbly weirdo Patrick Roy. Roy was very superstitious.They called him the butterfly. He used to skate backward before games and talk to his goal posts. Weird dude, but he was also a COMPLETE BEAST in net. A lot of people think he's the best goalie ever to play, and he's got the trophies to prove it.

The Wings lost this series 4 -2, and to add insult to injury, in the last game the dirty coward Claude Lemieux hit Kris Draper from behind, throwing him over the boards, and ended up basically destroying Draper's face. He was suspended for two games, but it didn't matter, the Avalanche would sweep the Florida Panthers to win the '96 cup.

1996 rolls around, and the Wings traded hall of fame defenseman Paul Coffee and a first round draft pick to get the man with the plan, Brendan Shanahan, and again, the Red Wings made it to the playoffs. They eliminated the St. Louis Blues, and NHL newbies the Mighty Ducks of Anahiem, and once again found themselves in the conference finals against the Colorado Avalanche. 

It looked to be a perfect repeat of last year, except this time the Wings didn't have a record setting 62 win season (they barely made it into the playoffs with 38 wins), and the unbeatable Patrick Roy was still in net. So what happened?

This happened.

This time it would be the Wings who would take the series 4 - 2. They defeated Colorado, Darren McCarty pummeled the HECK out of Claude Limieux, and the Wings would go on to sweep the Philly Flyers to win their first Stanley Cup in 40 years. This is friggin hockey HISTORY.

And who scored the most goals that year for the Wings? Brendan Shanahan. Who had the most points that season? Shanahan. Who scored the last goal, in the last game against the Avalanche, to send them to the finals? Shanhan.

I'm not a hockey expert, but COME ON? Joe Sakic, but no Brendan Shanahan? That's like Dr. Jekyll without Mr. Hyde. Thats a boring fucking story is what that is. Adam Oates was inducted this year, and Adam Oates was a center who didn't even score 350 goals. Shanny scored 600+.

Fear not, Shanny will certainly see his day for getting into the Hall of Fame, and there's a pretty good chance it will happen next year. I just think its a shame to see that of these two legends from 1990s hockey, only one of them was chosen to be honored like this. It did give me an excuse to revist this legend of my childhood though, so I think it was all worth it.

I don't know why, but this Jerry Sandusky case keeps on popping up in my mind.

Well first of all its in the headlines every single day (thank you, Newscorp, for making a celebrity out of this man). And secondly, I started looking into his adopted son Matt. Matt has now testified that his adoptive dad, Jerry, had indeed molested him, and the only reason that's interesting is because Matt originally testified that absolutely no molestation had happened.

I think it makes perfect sense changed his mind about whether or not he was going to help send his adoptive father to jail, so I kept reading, and I came across this nugget in the Detroit News.

On the recording, Matt Sandusky says he was sexually abused off and on between the ages of 8 and 15. While being questioned by an investigator, he says Jerry Sandusky would blow raspberries on his stomach and touch his genitals.

When asked if he recalled engaging in oral sex or being raped by the former Penn State coach, Matt Sandusky says "at this point I don't recall that."

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120626/NATION/206260379#ixzz1yvYsEsMA

"At this point I don't recall that." I found that a weird answer to what seemed to be a pretty straight forward question. Apparently Matt went into therapy and began recovering repressed memories from his childhood.

Repressed memory is a psychological theory that basically says that some people can push memories of pain, abuse, or trauma out of their minds for years or decades, that can possibly surface years or decades later.

Turns out, this is a still a psychological theory, and it doesn't have proof of being true. I'm not a psychologist, so I don't know, maybe its one of those things like gravity, or evolution, where "its just a theory" but anybody who actually knows what they are talking about knows its a pretty bankable theory.
 
This repressed memory stuff could be totally legit, but something is very very strange about what Matt Sandusky said. "At this point I don't recall that yet." It sounds like he's expecting to just one day remember, "oh yeah, you know what, my dad did use his mouth on my junk a couple times". Is that really how the brain works?

To me, it sounds like these "repressed" memories are just like normal memories, and we're probably just not thinking about them. For example, I just saw an advertisement for another sequel to Ice Age, and it reminded me that when I was a kid I watched the movie Inspectory Gadget 2, and it was terrible. I haven't thought about that for years; how is that different from a repressed memory? 

I know I don't know the guy, and I don't actually know very much about any of this. I have no experience with the psychology of child abuse victims. But guess what, neither does the Detorit News.

All I'm saying is that if suddenly, three months from now, Matt "remembers" that his father anally pentrated him, I'm seriously doubting the validity of that memory, especially if it leads to another "Today Show" appearance.  We know that memories are not perfect, and are usually fabricated in part. That article that I just linked to explains that a lot of times, some of our most vivid memories, such as "where we were on 9/11" will develop details over time that  If our brains can completely imagine certain parts of our most vivid memories, I totally believe that sometimes our brains will completely make up entire memories, right?


Something weird is happening with this Jerry Sandusky business. His defense attorneys were trying to drop his case, which I think has to be weird. Lawyers don't drop cases just because they know they are going to lose, do they? I mean they're still getting paid aren't they? Why would they give up money?

Also, there's this guy, Ray Gricar, the DA who was right in the middle of building a prosecution against Sandusky he had been working on for years when he mysteriously disappeared in 2005. He told his girlfriend he was going for a drive, ditched his car, threw his laptop in the river, and was never seen again.

Something smells, and its not just Sandusky's fingers. If anybody out there knows a little something about child abuse, tell me what you think about all of this, I just can't help but be interested.

Larg and in charg.

A New York man gives a tearful goodbye hug.

The other day, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg came up with a new proposal to ban all soft drinks over 16 fl oz, within the confines of New York City. Aside from this being a terrible idea, being grossly unconstitutional, and being a complete insult to the collective intelligence of the American people, this ban on soft drinks is simply the latest pathetic attempt to get people skinny, but it completely fails to address the real problem.

Well what is the real problem? Don’t we have to do something to fight the American obesity epidemic?!

No. America doesn’t have an obesity epidemic.

America has a war on fat people.

I know! I know… Fat people…

They’re tough to look at. They smell, sometimes. It’s not pleasant.

You see an overweight woman, pasty white, in a stretched out bikini, blubbering down the beach like a beluga whale. You stomach starts to turn. “Surely,” you think, “this must be pornography.”

But we need to take a step back. That voice in your head muttering “WHOA BESSIE” every time a fat man gets up from a recliner, that’s the prejudice asshole inside of you. Come on, people? Where’s your sense of culture? What happened to live and let live?

Honestly, I think that maybe fat people just know something that we don’t. We like cheeseburgers, we like beer, and when we have one, we want more of the other. This is the human condition. Cheeseburgers are not heroin. Fat people do not have to apologize.

Besides, you only get one chance on Earth. You could die tomorrow! The sun could explode, the world could fall into a deep freeze. That fact alone is all reason you need to justify your life choices, including the life choice to NEVER turn down a chimichanga.

I know what happened. It all started in the eighties, when that loony Richard Simmons decided to “Dance his pants off!” in your wife’s living room, making weight loss a trend. Now we pay $50 for a bottle of “men’s formula multivitamins” which are basically just an expensive way to make your piss turn funny colors, and we shout and the fatties below, “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?”

It was once a very proud thing to be a hefty person. Indeed, fatness was a sign of wealth, a sign of affluence. What’s wrong with them? What’s wrong with us?

Maybe, just maybe, this whole obesity epidemic is being taken a little bit out of proportion? We can blame bad parenting, and poor food choice options, and of course we can blame the EVIL McDONALDS CORPORTATION for turning us all into little porker zombies, unable to break our tragic addiction to milkshakes and cheeseburgers. But maybe that anger is a little bit misplaced.

This is truly what we call a “first world problem”. It’s a problem that we have the privilege of having. We have finally made it, as a society, to a point where we have more food than we know what to do with. How about, instead of legislating our eating habits, how’s about we just work on making better tasting healthy food? The day that broccoli tastes like spare ribs, obesity is going to go the way of the dinosaur.

It’s time to end the war. It’s time to make peace. Banning soft drinks is a new year’s resolution, not government charter. Take a page out of Marie Antionette’s book. “Let them eat cake.”

"I don't like fat people."
- My mother, as we ate breakfast together this morning.

BREAKING NEWS: ALEX TREBEK SUFFERS HEART ATTACK!

ER MER GEEERRRRRRD!

Alex Trebek's heart is giving out!

What will I do if Alex Trebeck dies? Being the huge trivia nerd that I am, Jeopardy is pretty much my favorite show. Plus, people have been calling me Alex Trebek since I was a little kid.

Good luck old man.

150 spine crawlers? This is what every PvZ should look like.

This game is absolutely epic. Don't even read this and watch it.
SPOILER: There's 150 spine crawlers, and an archon toilet.

Jerry Sandusky: Scared Straight

Look, we need to have a serious talk, dear readers. Its about the children (Thing of the children!!), and its really important. It's called child molestation. Its not comfortable, its not something we like to think about, but I know that this dialouge is necessary... so here it goes. 

Let me start by saying I'm normally not a huge sports nut, but lesbihonest. I live in Michigan, I go to school ten minutes from Ann Arbor, and I love University of Michigan football. In fact I love football.

College football is great. Drunk frat boys, beer bongs, chants and songs, the ridiculous trick plays. Its all just good clean fun, right?

Oh cheez-its, who invited this guy?

If your not familiar with the face staring back at you, that's probably a good thing. His name is Jerry Sandusky. He is a former assistant coach in the Penn State football program, and oh boy is he a trooper.

The Story Goes...

Back in the 1970s,  Jerry Sandusky was a budding young defensive coach working for Joe Paterno, the head coach of Penn State's football team. He proved to be an excellent coach, especially with line backers, and he eventually earned the posistion of defensive coordinator. He was a worthy talent, good friends with Joe Paterno, and he was widely considered to be a shoe-in to take over the head coaching job when Paterno left.

At the same time, Jerry founded a program called "The Second Mile", which was a charity devoted to getting troubled kids off the streets and back on the up and up. Jerry was a model citizen. He adopted six kids, and ran a charity and a football program all at once.

Well, kind of...

As it turns out, the whole time that he is running this youth camp and football team, Jerry was having sex with one his adopted sons, Matthew. Kinda fucked up, huh? Fear not, it gets better.

In 1998, it was brought to the attention of Penn State football coaches and administrators that Jerry had been having a few "incidents" in the showers with some of the young boys from his Second Mile charity. The details are sketchy, and no body really wanted to attach words to what he was doing. His action were being described as "horsing around", but perhaps the words "forced oral sex" are a bit more accurate.

Anyway, word reaches Joe Paterno's ears that his best bud is padiddling with kids in the showers. This is not good news. Penn State politely asks that Jerry Sandusky step down from his job as defensive coordinator in 1999. Though he is still in the prime of his career, he retires. Suddenly, all the other colleges who were offering big bucks to have Jerry training their linebackers, are all very suddenly not interested.


So Jerry is allowed to continue working on campus, continue volunteering at Second Mile and at local high schools and what not. Jerry is continued to be surrounded by 12 year old boys. He is allowed to keep his keys to the Penn State campus.

In 2000, a janitor named James Calhoun catches Jerr Bear giving a kid oral sex in the shower. Nobody tells the police.


In 2002, another football coach by the name of Mike McQueary catches Jerry having anal sex with another boy in the locker room shower. McQueary tells Joe Paterno. Joe Pa tells the athletic director, who tells the president of the university. They decide to ban Jerry from brining Second Mile boys to Penn State. Remember, this is AFTER he's already been asked to resign for this same problem.

Still, nobody tells the police.

Finally, in 2008, somebody lets the cat out of the bag. A mother of one of Jerry's Second Mile boys calls the police, and accuses Jerry of molesting her son. An investigation is put underway. It takes three years, but in November of 2011, after no less than 12 solid years of being a known pedophile, Jerry Sandusky is indicted by the prosecutor's office, and is arrested.


A firestorm breaks loose. The public is outraged. Jerry's face is plastered all over ESPN, the Today Show, Fox News, everything. Joe Paterno is fired. The AD is fired. The president of the university is fired. The rest is history.

Now what do we do?

"If I would have caught that guy in the shower with a little boy, I would have killed him right then and there!"

That's the macho man response.
 Number one, no you wouldn't, and number two, you sound like a fucking ass, and your ignorance is only contributing to this problem. So stop saying that

Its pretty obvious whats going to happen to Jerry. He's going to be thrown in jail till the day his aging heart gives out, or he gets murdered by irate inmates (more likely... felons really hate child molesters), or he kills himself ( perhaps the most likely?).

But the greater question is what to do with everybody else. Take for example, Joe Paterno. Despite being a local hero, we know that Joe Pa knew what Jerry was doing. We know that he knew about this abuse for AT LEAST a decade, and he did nothing. Of course, Joe Pa died about 6 months ago (fucking lung cancer), but what if he hadn't?

Surely Sandusky deserves to die in jail, but what about Joe Paterno? Let's say he was still alive today, should he be going to jail too? On the one hand, he was harboring a known child molester, and that deserves punishment.


But on the other hand, Joe Paterno had a tough choice to make. For one, Jerry was his friend, and Penn State was his family. Joe Pa built Penn State's football program from nothing. Sending Jerry to jail would jeopardize all of that. Oh yeah, and Jerry was his friend. Do you people know what they do to child molesters in jail?



Poor Joe Pa had a choice to make. He could either A: do nothing, or B: call the police, destroy his football program, and send his friend to get murdered in prison. He chose A. He chose nothing. It was the wrong choice, and it led to a lot of kids getting hurt. Does that make Joe Pa guilty? Should he have been dumped in prison with his molester friend?
This leads to bigger questions:

I know the knee jerk response to this already; "WE SHOULD JUST TAKE ALL THE CHILD MOLESTERS AND FUCKING GAS EM! YEAH!" 

Its a cute thought, but its not really applicable to the real world.


I know from my own experience that we don't really choose who we are attracted to. I know that I didn't choose to be attracted to men.

I didn't choose to be attracted to men, but sure as shit I chose to be gay. It wasn't my gene pool or my instincts that made me come out of the closet in high school, it was my concious brain. I'm sure Jerry never chose to be attracted to little boys, but he CHOSE to put his dick inside of one of them. If we're ever going to solve the child molester problem, we have to understand the differences between the attractions and the behaviors.

I made a choice to be gay. I could have stayed straight and miserable and I probably could have gotten through it somehow, but I chose to be gay and happy. It was a wonderful choice, but child molesters aren't afforded such opportunities. It was mostly fine for me to act on my impulses towards men, because we're all consenting adults and nobody is getting hurt. Obviously, this is not the case for sexual attraction to kids. Having sex with kids is NOT a consenting practice, and people do get hurt. 

Look, the problem isn't that we have child molesters. We've always had child molesters and we always will, its part of life. The problem is that we have no way of dealing with child molesters. When a man realizes that he wants to have sex with young boys, what is he supposed to do? He's got a lot of things working against him.

1. Nobody ever talks about child molestation. We are scared shitless when it comes to this situation, and there is so much misinformation that most people don't even know where to begin.
2. We throw child molesters in jail, which is basically the worst thing you could do with a child molester (besides buy them an ice cream truck). Prison does nothing to rehabilitate these people. At best, it keeps them off the street for a little while, and at worse, it contibutes to the cycle of violence and secrecy.
3. Child molesters think that if they admit to wanting to bang kids, the only thing that can happen to them is they'll sent to prison to be raped and killed by other inmates. This basically forces them to repress this emotion, and NEVER admit it to anybody.
4. Most people are so scared by child molestation, that they will GLADLY turn a blind eye to suspicious behavior, simply because its all much too scary to get involved with. That's when people like Joe Paterno do nothing. I mean, yeah, he's a coward, but most people are.
5. Once a molester starts, there's really nothing to stop him. He may know in his heart of hearts that its wrong, but if you've done it three times now, and no one ever got on your case about it, why would you stop? They just keep getting braver and braver till finally they get caught, sent to jail, and beaten to death. What part of this is justice?
6. Finally, we don't even really understand why molestation is so devestating. Some kids get raped, and except for being a little bit sore, are really no worse for wear. They move on. They lead normal lives. Other victims just MELT THE FUCK DOWN. They no longer trust other people. They grow up with broken emotions, and often times become child molesters themselves. I don't know why this happens, but I think somebody should really figure it out. Maybe they already have, but I haven't heard anything.

TL;DR 

Jerry Sandusky is a FUCKING PERVERT. Make no mistake, I want that guy to die in prison. But if any of you are convinced that this situation is resolved, and justice has been served, then you are part of the problem.

Attraction to children is a phenomenon of the human psyche. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS. Its been going on forever. We need places where people can go if they are worried that they might rape a child. We need hotlines. We need therapy sessions, and we NEED THEM ADVERTISED so that these people who are feeling this way know that they have options. I don't have any answers, but I know that if we start talking about it, somebody will at least have some good suggestions.

- Alex Price

Pictures of Pride Fest part II

I went to pride fest twice this year. Once for work, once for pleasure. The previous post about Motor City Pride was an attempt at a feature story for class about costumes and whatever. That's why its written so different.

I have a couple more pictures though.

Allan giving the finger.

This is my friend Allan. His giving the finger because the man behind him is standing on the pulpit and preaching about the sins of sexual deviance, about 60 feet from Hart Plaza where the big festival was being held. That person in the background holding the rainbow "fuck you" sign is protesting the religious protestor.

Protestception.



Actually, the man standing on the pulpit was probably my favorite part about that day. Some vendor was handing out kazoos at their booth, so in an effort to drown out the preacher with the megaphone, my friends and I stood valiantly in front of him, humming the most annoying tunes on our kazoos as loudly as we possibly could. It sounded a bit like an Indy race (which was also going on that day, about a mile from where we were).

These are my friends.

God, we're handsome. Allegedly, I'm the only gay one in this picture. That's me, the man with the beautiful blond hair, sitting behind the man with a beautiful bald head. I'm the one waving... and yawning... it looks like. Do you see me there? In the back? Oh here!

<----------- that one is me. This is a picture from last year, I was feeling much gayer than last year.



ALRIGHT LOOK

I'm gonna be honest, going back to pride fest the second day this year was a different experience for me, alright? When you go with your friends, that's one thing. Those guys and girls will always make me have a good time, even when I'm not totally comfortable. They make me happy to be who I am. They make it okay to wear rainbow body paint and dance like a faggot.

What happens when they weren't there? Well, the second day I took a bunch of pictures and interviewed random people who were dressed up. That was awesome. I also saw this one, legitmently very cute boy who was smoking a cigarette and watching the transexual dancers on stage (its a pretty good show). I watched him from a far for a while, but I made a plan. The next time he lit up a cigarette, I was going to walk over there and ask him to bum me one, and strike up a conversation. Sounded like a good plan, right?

Well, I kept on finding new people to interview, so while I'm trying to tail this kid, waiting for the chance to strike, I kept on losing him in the crowd. I'd talk to someone or pretend to be interested in a pamphlet or something in case he looked my way and caught me staring at him. He was short, and so damn slippery.

Anyway, after like 2 straight hours of continually losing sight of this gorgeous creature, and then randomly spotting him again, he STILL hadn't lit up another cigarette. Finally, I watched him answer his phone, and meet up with another tall blond haired boy. I assumed that this most be his boyfriend, and I realize that I literally had been staring at this kid from afar for the better part of 2 hours now, and was basically being a huge creep. So I left. I felt like a pussy bitch mother fucker, but I left.

Life.

Team Liquid releases a documentary!

http://www.teamliquidpro.com/liquidrising/

Thanks to my friend Nate for digging this out for me. Its a documentary on the professional starcraft players of Team Liquid. They're asking for donations (they're always asking for donations), but its pretty worth it. Team Liquid does a lot for the community.

For those who do not know, Team Liquid is a collection of pro Starcraft players that has been around since like, the year 2000 or something like that. Basically, if you are at all interested in Starcraft, Starcraft II, competitive gaming, eSports, or really video games at all, you should know about these guys. Check out their website. They have live streams of pro gamers going on 24/7, they have a huge forum based around all things eSports, video games, and starcraft. You can go there to hang out, chat about games, get coached on all the latest strategies and whut not.

Just Sayin

• Who decided on swear words? Who picked out a handful of words, and said "we shall use these NO MORE!" I mean that's pretty fucking rude. Those aren't your words. I don't particularly like the words twink or dong, but you don't see me trying to make Hostess change the name of their snack cakes do you? (which are delicious by the way)

• Why can't I take my clothes off in public? I mean I know its a little weird, and that's why I don't, but really, who is worse off for seeing my junk at a shopping mall? How is that inherently harmful to society?

•  Who the Hell put a snooze button on an alarm clock, and why is that so popular?

•  Kids can't appreciate how much work and effort it takes to grow and maintain a fantastic lawn. To them, all lawns are the same. Maintaining a good lawn takes several weekends of hard work each year. I honestly have to side with the kids on this one. Lawns are stupid.

 This guy is a very lucky man.

Inaugural starcraft post

I have to admit something. I'm addicted to Starcraft.

Why?


Well let me explain something to you. I've been playing video games for a lot of years, and I know the intensity that comes with competitive gaming. It gets heated, and people get excited. When people are jumping up and down in their chairs flipping over tables and shouting racial slurs at their best friends, you know that the game creator has accomplished what he set out to do.

But Starcraft II isn't like that. In Starcraft, you don't yell, you don't wave your arms around after a misclick or you fuck up and accidentally get your units killed for no reason. No, Starcraft players don't show these emotions. Because as soon as you do, your dead.

Seriously, its the only game I know of where from the moment the game starts, the action doesn't stop. If you take your hands of the keyboard for five seconds, you done messed up. You were supposed to be building something in that 5 seconds. Now you've lost.

What do I mean? Let's pretend you've just started a match of Starcraft.


[Game starts]"Okay, click my CC, build a worker, grab my exisiting workers, send them to the right side of my mineral patch, and  before they move the two feet to get there, grab half of your workers and send them to the otherside of the mineral patch. This is known as "the split", and you get about 3 seconds to pull it off. Don't mess this up, or you won't have as much money as your enemy and you'll lose.


Build workers as fast as your money allows. When you have 10 of them, build a supply depot. Don't build 11 workers before building the supply depot, cause you'll lose.

Once your depot is down, build more workers. Oh, you forgot to build that 11th worker right after dropping the depot? Well now you don't have enough money. You lose.

Send an SCV to go scout. Make sure its the same one that built the supply depot. If you don't scout, you don't know what's coming and you'll lose.

Now its decision time, do you build an army? Well you've about two seconds to decide. IF you build an army, you BETTER go attack your opponent in the next two minutes, otherwise he'll have built a bigger economy, and you'll lose because you did nothing about it, and now he makes more money than you. But if you didn't build an army, and instead built more workers and mining facilities, WELL YOUR OPPONENT BUILT A FRIGGIN ARMY, so YOU LOSE.

Now say your opponent builds an army and so do you. GREAT now you can defend his attack. Of course he's a zerg player, so he can build 10 zerglings in the time you can build 3 marines. Remember that supply depot and baracks you built? Did you block the entrance to your base with those buildings? No? Well now he's just going to run into your base with his 10 zerglings, run right past your pathetically slow marines, and EAT YOUR WORKERS LIKE POPCORN. Now you have no money, and YOU LOSE!!

That's called strategy.

That's how Starcraft is played. And its only fun when your strategy wins, but let me tell you... when you bet the farm, when you say fuck my army, fucking building a lot of soldiers, fuck building workers, and spend all your money on ONE INVISIBLE GUNSHIP in the first five minutes. Your heart is pounding, cause you know... you KNOW he's got an army of roaches that's gonna melt your base like Frosty the Snowman. And all your hopes and dreams are riding on this one stupid, invisble airplane. You send the gunship across the field. You reach the enemy base, activate the cloaking device and PRAY he doesn't have detection.

And oh baby when you fly over his mineral line, and see all his stupid drone workers, buzzing about, collecting minerals without a care in the world. You fire away. The workers begin to scatter and flee but there's no where to go! THEY HAVE NO DETECTION! The fool wasted all of his gas on his army of stupid roaches, and the roaches do nothing but scream as your invisible gun ship blows them to pieces, and there's nothing your opponent can do. He scrambles to build an observer, to try and see past your cloak, but it's too late! Your opponent is helpless as missles are appearing out of thin air over his base. You've slaughtered half of his workers. His economy is ruined. He has nothing, and holy shit, the 6 billion dollar invisible gunship actually worked!!

That's starcraft. And I just can't get enough.

Pictures of Pride Fest

Who says Detroit can’t be fabulous?

For the fourth year in a row (coincidentally, also my fourth year of being out of the closet), I went with a group of my most heteroflexible friends, and we went off in search of Michigan's gay pride festival, a place where everyone gets to be Queen for a day.

I loved it so much that I had to go back and take pictures. All of these were taken at Motor City Pride Festival in Hart Plaza, in downtown Detroit, MI.

Meet Susan DeNies, she’s the one in the rainbow denim. DeNies’s first LGBT event was in Colombus, Ohio, nearly 12 years ago. When one of the students at the school where DeNies used to work came out of the closet, she decided to show her support by marching along side of him.

“He didn’t have any support from any family members, so I went with him” said DeNies, standing in front of the textile vendor booth that she and her husband were working in. DeNies is familiar with the midwest LGBT pride scene.”You meet nice people,” she said.

The vendors at Motor City Pride were as diverse as the crowd. Gay-friendly chruches set up shop right next to the athiest pride booth. There were vendors selling clothes, hats, collectibles; and for the brave hearts at the festival, some vendors sell kilts.

William Gardner is a proud vendor of Michigan’s finest quality kilts. He sells the traditional Scottish garments with a hearty smile, and a giant banner that reads “Got Kilt?” Grand Rapids native Theodore Rosenberg endorses the kilts full-heartedly. “Now that I’ve got one, I’m planning on getting more,” said Rosenberg, “They’re very comfy.”

What does the Detroit LGBT scene have to do with traditional Scots? “I’m not exactly sure,” said Gardner, “The Eagle Bar in Detroit used to have a kilt night?”

The LGBT costumes came in all shapes and sizes. Some costumes were meant to stun, such as the strikingly pink hair of Angela Staysmooth, a transgender performer; or the orange feather dancing outfit and the Michael Jackson look-a-like costume, used by performers on the Stilettos stage.

Staysmooth is a dancer who chose to match her pink hair with a blue tank top and a tu-tu made of rainbow colored pastel fabrics, “Mostly because it’s dramatic… I love dramatic!” A veteran transexual dancer, Staysmooth says she was nervous the first time being on stage, but that the feeling passes with time.

“I’m a transexual. I’ve been dressing up for years now.”

Dan Wiest

Other costumes, like Dan Wiest’s prison jumpsuit, are meant to send a message. Weist is working with Amnesty USA, a human rights organization that advocates an end of LGBT discriminating laws, among many other human rights issues. Weist calls his costume a form of “street theatre… there are people who are in jail for being gay… me and my orange jumpsuit are representative of that.”

The best costumes, however, did not come from a vendor, from a social injustice, or from a dazzling onstage performance. The best costumes of Motor City Pride came straight from the heart, like classy dresswear of straight-but-supportive Nickolaus Ludavicius, or the simple, yet eye-catching, costume of long time pride fest attendee, Stephanie Baker.

Baker, who was there with her wife Glo, wore an elegent black dress, complete with a two foot pair of rainbow feathered fairy wings.

“So last year, they were selling these fairy wings, but when I got there [to the vendor], they were gone.” Baker said she went home and found a bigger pair online at Cafepress, and decided to buy them.

Baker said she prefers to express herself visually as well as verbally, and the clothes she wears at Motor City Pride give her an opportunity to do that. “I’m a lesbian, I love who I love,” said Baker, “I can say that with the wings.”

Silly video, part I

 Let's start this blog off with something I'm pretty passionate about. Drugs.
Well, mostly marijuana. Cause man I love that stuff. 


Poor Michelle Leonhart can't get a word in edgewise about her job as the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency. All she wants to do is show how many drug cartels the DEA has caught, and explain the new dangers of perscription drug abuse, but these mean old senators from Tennessee and Colorado keep on asking her all these tough questions.


"Is crack more dangerous than marijuana?"
"Is heroin more dangerous than marijuana?"

How is she supposed to know? She's an administrator, not a friggin chemist, or whatever. 

She just showed up to the DEA in 2007, and by that time marijuana had been a schedule 1 controlled substance for decades. Its not like anybody asked her to look into this stuff.


If your watching this video, and you can't help but cringe everytime this woman deflects an obvious yes or no question, than CONGRATULATIONS, you're a sensible human being. Now go out there and make good choices.

Inaugural blog post.

Hello friends.

Allow me to formally introduce myself.
 I am Alexander Price. I'm 21. For now. I'm unemployed and very frustrated about it. I'm living at home with my mom and dad, and my older brother Maxwell. These are people that I love. Most days.

This is going to be silly little post that I'll hopefully find a way to devote some time to. Im unemployed, so it shouldn't be that hard, but we shall see. Anyway, dear readers, I graciously welcome you to my humble cyber dwelling. It's a silly little place where I talk about whatever is on my mind. I'm all about discussion, so don't be afraid to call me out on my bullshit.

I hope you can bring a unique point of view. I hope you can leave with a greater understanding of the world around you. I hope I can at least make you chuckle. I hope this blog has good spell checker. I hope I can learn to use HTML effectively. I hope starving children in Africa get a warm meal tonight. That last one is kind of out of my hands at this point, but I hope it happens anyway.