Total Slacker -- Mea Culpa

For anyone who may have had the inclination to actually come back and check this blog for a daily update... SUCKERS!!!

In all seriousness, I found that my situation differs greatly from 2005, in many ways:

1. I'm not living as a bachelor in L.A.; the hobo paradise full of fellow hobos who loved the pursuit of oblivion as much as I do.
2. My intake of intoxicates is more moderated by living with Cameron.
3. I'm five years older, and hopefully wiser.
   
4. My life is filled with more obligations, and I have clearer goals as to what I want to achieve in the next few weeks and months.

So, it's different. But it's still a battle with denying your impulses and interrupting habits. I implore anyone to occasionally choose one of your habits and go without. It's an extremely personal and elucidating experience.

But, just as in 2005, I used my free cycles to bone up on my Street Fighter score. And, you might be pleased to know that, pending official confirmation at Twin Galaxies, I have conquered the world record for Points - Tournament settings! Woooo weee!

My biggest problem is my complacency and follow-through. Perhaps this will be the start of a more productive era.

March of Malintoxication, Mark II

It's been so very long since I've felt the cold, indifferent embrace of sobriety. Not to say that I've been drunk constantly since March 2006, that would be silly.

I decided to reembark upon this fateful voyage to, again, test my willpower. Now I'm living in Seattle, the land of many marvelous microbrews, I feel safe in declaring that my beer consumption has gone up precipitously. And as I have just finished enduring the sting of turning 30, a brief respite to reflect on my lifestyle habits seems warranted.

Have I become a sick alcoholic in four years time? Is the temptation here in Seattle greater than the Hobo Paradise of SoCal? Can I survive without giving in to peer pressure?

All of these questions (and more!) will be answered over the next grueling 31 days.

Greetings Fair March, you will be a worthy opponent. En garde!

'Have We Heard The Chimes at Midnight, Master Shallow?'

I am allowed the pleasure of reflecting on this entire experience while gazing at the amazing Seattle skyline, looking across Puget Sound. It's a gray day here in Washington, not unlike most days this time of year. The sun's light refracted through the clouds gives an even cast on all of Allah's Creation. Shadows barely exist in this light. Nothing can hide itself, not even my self-deceptions. I've laid it all out on the table for you (or most of it anyways). Now I'm expected to sit here and belt out some kind of hifalutin' inspiration for you all.

WELL, you want it... here it is: There really is NO substantial difference between sobriety and lecherousness. I didn't sleep any better, I didn't have more or less energy during the day and I really did not feel much difference in my mood other than an net increase of boredom (and occassional frustration). If I had been a raging alcoholic, then maybe at the end of this journey, I'd be peering out the window to a new life, or some played out nonsense such as that. I excluded myself from social situations, preferring the sweet solace of the Internets to the masochistic temptations of bars and house parties. Since I am a social animal, and most of the pleasure that I derive from life comes from shared experiences (the intersubjective, as Brendan would put it), I think I'm going to begin drinking and smoking post-haste.

Georgie's comin' home Martha, pack a fattie and start grilling up some grits.

Sending me so far away

Once again, I obliterate my previous SF2 score with impunity. As meaningless as it is to all of you, it reinforces my trivial self-worth.

Today I embark on a quest to the Northern Land. Hills of green & rain. Lands of microbrewed magnificence. A journey for (literal and figurative) libidinal release. I leave all of you inebriated sodomites to your doings.

Viva la Intoxicacion!

Anxiety Descending...

Again, a thousand apologies for the absence of frequent posts. I've been wearing down the last few days with plenty of work before my jaunt to Washington State. I'll break my back now, for earthly gains later. I don't mean that I'll literally break my back, if anything, doing this job, I'd break my wrists... and NO my job isn't being paid to masturbate.

As my trusted friend John could attest to, I showed signs of wavering this weekend; nearly having a beer at a bar. But, last weekend, like the previous 4 (or is it 3?), there were always temptations like that. The weekends were the worst. Intoxication is the favored goal of weekend endeavors. For how many millennia has that been true? As far as we know, fermented plant matter has been the drug of choice throughout civilization (at least WESTERN civilization). How long has this wicked cycle of toil and binge been replaying itself? Am I not just the inevitable by-product of such a mad course of consumption: the sober outsider? Just as Batman has his Joker and George Bush has his International Public Opinion, I have my undulating heards of drunken weekenders.

Enough rabble... the clocks ticks, and DESTINY awaits!

The Triumph of the Mortal!

NEW HI SCORE!!!
(or in football speak)
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLL!

Miraculously, the Street Fighter machine was repaired, and now is marginally playable. Balance returns to my existence. My wallowing in nostalgia of a decade past will continue with little interruption. It's odd to share a public space with such people at the laundromat. As I was finishing up the aforementioned game, there was a guy who walked in, perhaps 6 foot 2, wearing neon green swimming trunks, who cracks open a tall can of Budweiser right there. Since I'd been in there for 15 minutes or so, I was fairly certain that he wasn't just trying to kill time while his laundry was done. He was just chillin'. Now I don't know about you, but if I'm going to start drinking alone at noon on Good Friday, I would sure as hell be doing it at home, and not down at the corner laundromat. Ahhhhhh, alcoholism: it's truly the tie that binds.

Less than a week stands betwixt me and existential freedom. My self-imposed bondage will be cast off by the Emancipatory Proclaimation of April's arrival (I had a dog named April once, but that's... alas... another story). As our Fearless Cowboy President says: Freedom is on the march. Perhaps, after the March.

Earlier this week, the inclimate weather and accompanying earthquake began to convince me of the coming of the end times. However, now that the sun returned, I will go back to skeptical optimism. The thunderclaps that rang out sounded like God's testicles slapping together: a stupefying noise indeed. Us rational-minded persons shouldn't view this as an astonishing antecedent of the end times, but instead the inevitable consequence of human arrogance. Our seasons are all fucked because we refuse to do something salient about the terrific amounts of hydrocarbons our automobiles produce. Perhaps if 100,000 people in California were to be washed away by an enormous Tsunami, then doltishly ignorant Americans would start believing what Environmental Scientists have been saying for decades. But, this, just like all other strife in the world, falls on deaf American ears as we are divinely protected from the consequences of our actions.

The solution: poking-out-of-eyes! Take THAT fly-over states! [PLOINK!]

Nothing's Gonna Stand in My Way

You may be asking "Where is Casey? Has he fallen off the wagon? Did he take too much valium and never wake up? Have homosexual NAZIs kidnapped him and forced him to reenact the childhood of Adolf Hitler in hopes of creating a new Color-Coordinated Fuhrer?"

No, no my little kiddies. No such nonsense has happened. Although, I'm now in the single digits: 9 days, I think. I'm just tryin' to get ta heaven, before they close the doors. And by heaven, I mean March 31st, and by doors, I mean my rabid impulse to consume THC. It's a metaphor actually, so you can't just cut and paste nouns onto other nouns and have it make sense. JESUS!

My status: I'm operating within normal parameters. Still pixelpushin', still not loving tha police! I've found that I have far more partial to Marijiwanna than alcohol. I'm not nearly as tempted by the endless stacks of beers that permanent inhabit our refridgerator as I am the 14 Js that live inside my desk drawer. I'm dealing though.

The joysticks were repaired on the local SF2 machine, however, the bigoted moron that runs the place does a half-assed job. It's still unplayable, and hence a huge disappointment. Despite the fact that I have the roms and an emulator to play SF2 at home, it can't match the exhilaration of fighting for the worth of your quarter. Perhaps it is just the dying dream of a child now grown. That game WAS made in 1991.
Alas, I will not be able to attempt a new jaunt at the Hi Score for several weeks now I fear.

Take it all in, you sycophants. You won't have my desperation to feed off of for long. Instead, I will be inviting you over to this den of denial to aid in my reintoxication. Coming soon.