A Cartoonish Life

It's been weighing on my mind for the last week since the Internet blackouts, so I may as well get this out of the way.

While I support modification of SOPA and PIPA, I'm not terribly upset over the takedown of sites like MediaFire or FileSonic or whatever they're called. Here comes a whopper of a confession, people: I DON'T DOWNLOAD MUSIC OR MOVIES. Quite frankly, I have a vast music collection on CD or vinyl, and I'm a firm believer on not illegally downloading leaked music or films. Call me an old fart (I'm only 31, mind you), but I miss the days when people got excited about album releases or actually got out to a movie theater to see a movie. (That, and my piece of crap computer really can't handle those kind of downloads. When I finally get my Mac, I'll probably change my tune on this and be allll over iTunes.)

In these days of digital downloads, the music industry really isn't what it used to be. I noticed this a couple of years ago when I was watching some "Jem" episodes (specifically the "Glitter and Gold" episode where Jem and the Holograms and the Misfits were pitted against each other for an album sales contest). You seriously don't get stuff like that anymore. I mean, you can tally the numbers from downloads, but it's really not the same as going out to search around for good music at a music store and having that legit album in your hands. I suppose if it's an artist you really love, it'd be worth it.

I don't know. I love advances in technology and I hate them at the same time.

I'm having problems with Firefox, so for the moment (or until I can re-download Firefox), I'm using good ol' Internet Explorer. Meh, I can deal with IE, for now.

The main reason it's been so long since I've done a proper update is because of the problems I was having with the computer. I didn't get a new one. Rather, I had Hunter try to help fix it, and the best suggestion he had was to just wipe my hard drive clean.

So yeah. This baby is back to the basics. I have NOTHING on here anymore. But that's okay. There was a LOT of unnecessary crap on here.

Mom and Dad came home last night. Mom's still being a bitch, so the trip down there really didn't do her a world of good. The feeling I get from Dad was that the whole time they were down there, he couldn't stand her and she couldn't stand him. So ha. Now he knows how WE feel. But it's good having Bo home!!



On a rather serious note, I'm still kind of reeling from a rather unexpected loss. Early Sunday morning, my friend Fester had a stroke after performing "Hot Patootie" at Rocky and passed away. Kevin called me with the news, and I know he had a hard time dealing with it. So now that I'm online, I have to have my say about what an awesome person Fester was. He was one of those people who you could have a really good talk with about anything, really. He was really knowledgeable about all sorts of movies and comics. He had a soft spot in his heart for the bad movies, in particular.

One of my favorite memories I have of him was probably when I went to Fright Fest with him and Hot Topic Pants (Chris). We were in one of the souvenir shops and looking around at the personalized stuff. He says, "Dammit, I can never find anything with my real name on it spelled the right way." So I ask him what his real name was (because at that point, I didn't know). He says his real name is Derrick, and it's spelled D-E-R-R-I-C-K. So I'm looking around, and I found a shotglass with his real name spelled on it the right way. I call, "HEY DERRICK! I think I found something!" And he bought it.

Then there was the time we (me, Kevin, Hunter and Fester) went to the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight. When the trailer for Watchmen came on, Fester was squee-ing in his seat like an excited little boy. Seeing a big, tall bald guy squee-ing like a little kid is a funny sight, especially over a major movie trailer.

What I will never forget is that he defended me in all of the problems I was having with Zero. The night we had out big blowup, Kevin had to pull me out to his car. Fester had to pull Zero away from me, and after he called me a "psycho bitch," Fester said that was crossing the line and was ready to beat the crap out of him.


(....I'm sick of this. I don't think Fester would've have wanted to have died with me and Zero still having this stupid, childish feud. I would have never been friend with Fester if it hadn't been for Zero in the first place. I'm ready to end this feud with him if he is.)


He was a very good friend, he was a bright and intelligent guy, and he was always good for a laugh. I'm going to miss him a lot, but I'll always remember the good times.

....and more besides that for a while, if I don't get this crap with my computer straightened out.

Looks like my computer has been struck by another problem known as AntiVirus Live. It's harder for me to get off my computer than GreenAV was. I'm about ready to run my restore CD through at this point, but I probably will have to bite the bullet and get myself a new computer soon. Thing is, I need available money, and right now I don't have anything like that in my budget.

So if you don't see me posting as much in the next month, you'll know why. This is just a heads-up in case I don't get this problem worked out.

I will be putting some money aside and seriously be looking into investing in a Mac.