My life as an Atheist Part II: Eccentric Boogaboo

 

 

So last year, I did a post explaining my path to becoming an atheist. As of 2021, I am still an atheist and a no-good heathen. So let's continue where we left off.

I had moved to Savannah with my mother at the age of sixteen due to owning some property left by my grandmother who died in 2005. Getting down there, it was a gradual experience and I was slated to do my last year of high school there. It was around this time where I really questioned if god existed or not and doing my own research and looking at the state of the world, I ultimately decided that there was no god.

December 2008 was the moment I finally came out as an atheist to my mother. And that was a bad idea. As I learned years later, the black community in America and hell, most of the world are devout worshipers and blind supporters of an invisible man in the sky. I questioned my mother on why he exists and what has he really done. She simply told me "There is a god." 

That's it. That's no way to really explain it, but it also reminded me that most black people voted for Barrack Hussein Obama simply because...he's black. 

See the trend?

My mother never stopped loving me, and that shows that despite our differences, we still could come together and act as family. But I dare not mention this to my other family members, and thankfully she didn't either.

However, I made another mistake of trusting my beliefs (or lack thereof) with my brother, who came down to Savannah a year later. Around the area we stayed in, there were at least five churches within the vicinity. Yes, five. All within walking distance. We went to a church only two minutes away for a brown bag program, a program where you show your ID, sign a paper and get a grab bag of random food items donated. It was an ideal system for a newfound adult trying to find his own place and job, and the church makes an obligation to accept everyone through their doors...something that one church in South Carolina would regret many years later, but before I get to that, the incident with my brother.

I only went because of the free bag of food. I asked my brother if he believed in god and told him I didn't. Suddenly, he becomes biblical and starts questioning me ten times over. Fine and well. We had a brotherly conversation.

What I was not expecting was him telling a stranger about my lack of beliefs and then that stranger told her equally strange friend about my lack of belief. So I had to endure ten minutes of these two people who I never saw again basically chastising me for not believing in god. I expect this from my family, but some stranger, fuck that. And the worst part is this was someone I trusted. You don't do that to your own family. Personal matters like that should stay within the people you trust, not someone you barely talked to for a minute.

Thankfully, he didn't relay my lack of beliefs to other family members. But still, that was uncalled for.

Dialing back to high school, I casually mentioned that I was an atheist to some of my classmates. No fire or hell tossed my way, but I did get a very good insight on why people don't like atheists.

The phrase "Oh my god" is thrown casually among just about all of society, in varying ways. Saying the lord's name in vain is also present. So, to counter that and this was something that I did anyway, I told him that I would use substitutes in place of "Oh my god" or "Jesus Christ". Jiminy Cricket was one. At the time of my obsession with Pokemon, Arceus was also used in place of god. So you'd get "Oh my Arceus" or "Thank Arceus". It was fun. I never did this in public, but hey, if people can believe in a bearded man in the sky, celebrities or now, corporations in the same manner, what's the harm in thanking the Pokemon equivalent of god for the food I ate?

Give praise to The Original One

 

 

After the incident with my brother, outside of some isolated nagging from my mother, no one ever got on my case with my atheism, and I was smart enough to not show it or force it down other people's throats, the same way I didn't want Jesus shoved down mine.

And I really had to ask myself this, and I thank Tyler Perry for keying me on in this dilemma, though he supports it rather than try to address it. If we have so many damn churches on every corner of the black community, and all this money comes into said institutions, why the hell are the streets so run down and the 'communities' so barren and devoid of prosperity? Why is that pastor not actually putting money into programs or causes that could actually benefit us in the long run?

That's when I realized it, again thanks to all the black sitcoms and media: The Black Church is not a place to go for help, it is a front for the pastor to get money and access to the overwhelmingly female attendance. That scenario with the pastor making a pass on that woman I mentioned in the last post wasn't a sick joke, it was the norm. I also discovered deism was a thing, you didn't need to go to church to believe in a god or higher power. He's got a lot of names which should tell you how messy this whole scenario gets when wars are enacted over the interpretation of god. 

And frankly, my mother wasn't really going to church like that anymore. So hey, live and let live.

I did more research on the Black Church and came to find out some rather interesting information and this one affected me directly because of how profound it is. If I remember right, at least 80% of black women believed in god or identified as a christian. Hmm. For that many black women to believe in god means I have only 20% of the women to go to if I want a relationship with one.

But wait. These same holy women are also partaking in various acts that the church would normally denounce...but that would mean the pastor can't get his piece of that sweet hair pie. And even if you don't believe in god, you can still get with one of these women. The notion that having sex with a man will tame him and show him the right path to godliness.

Or so they think. The Black Church is overwhelmingly female, and those women seven times out of ten will have their children present. With no father. But then you see them in public with those same children...and no father. Some people will say "HE'S AT WORK" if you question them when they show up on the news being abused by whoever or whatever. So, why are these god-fearing women committing adultery and having bastard babies out of wedlock? Wouldn't this be the opposite of what a church would want? And why the hell are some of these women coming in the church dressed as if they were going to a strip club, which is right around the corner from a church coincidentally...

...or is it?

I question this because these same people who would ask you fifty questions about your lack of belief in god are also the biggest sinners to walk the earth. Kinda damning that the atheist shows more virtue than the ones who take the oath of virtue. Having kids out of wedlock, having affairs, prostitution, stealing from a store to support your bastards, worshiping a celebrity glorifying a destructive lifestyle and based on the outro of the single "None of Your Business" by Salt-N-Pepa:

So the moral of this story is: Who are you to judge?
There's only one true judge, and that's God
So chill, and let my Father do His job

Another quote that resonated with me was something Tupac mentioned about what Thug Life meant.

The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody. Thug Life.

Basically Pepa, because of your provocativeness and outward sexualized life at the time (And probably still living that life with that awful plastic body), you more or less gave the okay for young girls to do the same and while I'm not sure if you had any children or not, what you feed young minds as seeds will grow into the product you see in the future. And looking at the slut-shaming fiasco that took place in 2014, I'm inclined to say the people judging you were correct in doing so and in my case, because I'm not doing so around a basis of faith, but morals. There's too much spoiled fruit to go around and this is my time to harvest and there's nothing to eat. You bury spoiled fruit or feed it to the worms, as I did when I started composting back in the day.

But only god can judge you, right?

If these are the women I have to pick from, I'm good. Finding a black atheist woman is hard enough, but the few I've seen are very indistinguishable from the god-fearing black woman. In addition to the overwhelmingly christian populous, the majority of black women are overweight if not outright obese and you have the Black Church to thank for that.

One of the traditions of the church was to serve food after a service. This particular food isn't exactly something you'd eat every single day. You can eat it every now and again, but every day? That's where the problems kick in.

The food presented is indeed delicious. But to eat these meals every single day is not a good idea. The only healthy item present are the collard greens, and that's already fouled by the heavy amount of sodium and fat it's commonly mixed with. Take into account that the Black Church is overwhelmingly female, and you have a recipe for disaster. The worst part is, a lot of the fat that some black women have gets distributed to other areas. And I'll leave it at that, because it damn sure won't be leaving her anytime soon. So if I do find an atheist secular black woman, chances are she'll already be fat.

But reminder that I did say I lived in Savannah for eight years and everyone down there regardless of race is fat, overweight or obese. And I have seen many obese people walking around. I smelled them before I saw them. Southern cuisine is delicious, but it's not ideal nor sustainable for a healthy population.

Going back to the Black Church, the amount of infidelity and adultery that takes place can be deadly. It was a big story around 2013-14 and I can't find it anymore, but there was a man who killed the pastor of the church his wife went to. I imagine that the women at these churches are also in relationships if not married, and it's damning that these women talk a big game about serving a god, yet refusing to serve the man they choose to have kids with. That amount of hypocrisy would turn any rational person away from the Black Church and I sometimes ask myself if I'm being irrational or is the world around me irrational and I'm barely hanging on to my better judgement.

The black community's worship for god is an unhealthy one and now in this time we're in, it's proving to be detrimental. When there's some white person who will kill a black person or some police officer that kills a young black man or any black man, any bad scenario that you can think of, look at the comments section and you will have one individual that'll say something along the lines of "YAHWEH WILL TAKE CARE OF HIM" or "THE MOST HIGH WILL SOON TAKE CARE OF HIM"

Yeah. I'm sure he will. I go back to the Charleston situation with Dylan Roof. Said massacre claimed the lives of nine people. This man was able to go in the church, pray with those black people and then gun them down. And the kicker? The survivors forgave him. They forgave a man who killed their loved ones with absolute impunity. And this is not the first example of that forgiveness bullshit, plenty of news stories where a black person was attacked or killed and said person if still alive if not their relatives, forgave their attacker. Why??? And they were all non-black. How do I know this? If another black person even dared to attack them, they'd fight back, go for the kill or ask for the harshest punishment imaginable.

Yet someone who actively seeks to harm you, you either forgive or you do nothing but take the abuse. This is the supposed backbone of the black community? Then it either has arthritis or it was never there to begin with.

The pastor has so much influence yet very little power. He'll be the first one to join hands and pray but the last one to actually prepare the black community to fight. And the few men who are present in the church are either in on the system that he operates, inept or emasculated - and that is another can of worms altogether for another fishing trip - none of which are ideal for any community to thrive. And trust me when I say, a community is only as good as its men. If the women are being put into place where men should be, that's a problem. If the women choose to worship and stand by a fictional man in the sky over the men they can touch and feel, that's a problem.

If calling out this imbalance is met with jeers and scorn, that is a problem. The Black Church has done nothing to actually uplift the black community, a community that I am a part of. This is not the reason I chose to become an atheist, but it damn sure reinforced my leanings tenfold. This matriarchy does not work. Period.

I wonder if today's god-fearing folk realized that god and the bible were tools used to indoctrinate us during slavery. The belief that if they pray to god, something will happen. The notion that god made the white man superior to the black man.

 I'm surprised the episode that image originated from had Florida reject the initial image that was there, a black depiction of Jesus. The image above is the reality that has thrived with the black community since...slavery. Funny how it took her son, Michael to educate her on his actual appearance.

Revelation 1:15 - The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace.

Now he may not have been black (by black I mean the modern terminology of black). But he damn sure wasn't a white dude with long brown hair. Hmmm.

A fun fact about the image above me: It was framed on display at my second job and within five minutes of me placing it on the wall with the other images, it was on the ground, broken. Oh yeah. And I saw no black people present at the time. I also got a lot of donations, many books that talk about god and the scriptures/proverbs. All of those books went right into the salvage bin, along with any crosses or religious imagery unless it was a really nice-looking statuette or figure, that could have sold nicely. 

But to the point of the image of the black Jesus above and the old white person it pissed off, this is how far this parasite of religion goes. 

Which made this particular sitcom even more hilarious.

I question if any of these god-fearing folk even read their bible. I doubt it. It's bad enough that it's used in the actual justice system and is present on all of our money. But at least read it and see how inconsistent it is. It condones slavery, sexism, actual sexism and not the current brand of sexism repackaged as female empowerment and complacency, all which are contributing factors as to why the black community is in the state that it's in.

Even as a piece of literature, it's not well-written, and it's had so many revisions and re-releases that the only reason you would read the bible is to grab a few elements from it and put in your own work, not to push the message, but to give it tangibility. Someone being the walking representation of Jesus or Mary with an actual character arc and character development in a coherent plot has made the bible all but irrelevant.

I'm happy to see there are some more secular if not outright non-believing black people coming out thanks to the internet, and there is a chance that we can form an actual community with ideals, morals and principles with prestige and not a bunch of empty prayers and symbolism. But based on the image with Florida Evans and No. 46, it is going to be a very long time before that ambition is conceived, let alone fulfilled.

My life as an Atheist

I haven't been honest with you all.


I'm an atheist. Yep. Twelve years and going. But I wager I was an atheist as early as fourteen with some speculation starting around eleven. But I'll give a history lesson leading up to those moments.

When I was a kid, my mother shoved the god nonsense down my throat like all parents who fear a god do. She wasn't a hardcore fundamentalist or evangelical but we'd go to church if she felt the need to. Frankly, I didn't care for it. It was boring, it was tedious and it wasn't anything special. She's not a christian but believed in a god. I was curious as to why someone would believe in god, the christian god to be exact and not be a christian. Years down the line as a young adult I would learn deism, the belief in god but without any affiliation to a religious group.

My grandmother also pushed for church, like all black grandmothers do. I'll get to the black segment in a moment, gotta build up the anticipation. If it wasn't my mother, it was my grandmother. My dad did not give a damn about church. I noticed that a lot of men didn't care for church but may have some spirituality overall. As of now in this date of 6/27/20, I have no spirituality or religious beliefs whatsoever and I'm proud of it.

Now, as any child would, you'd ask about why god exists and how he could be everywhere at once. I asked is that guy or woman being followed by god and my mother said yes blindly without any logical explanation as to why he was following those two people and all of us at the same time. One of my worst memories was actually during and after church. The night before, me and my brother had everyone come over for the night, two good friends and our cousin. Fun all around. It was Easter Sunday that following morning and someone brought a bag of Starburst jelly beans.

Now I hated jellybeans, but for some reason, I ate these. Why? I don't know. But I did.

The next morning, my stomach was acting up. But instead of sleeping it off, I had to go to church and pray my stomachache away.

As soon as service got out, I went to the curb and threw up all those jellybeans. So much for god's healing power. I had an angry look that whole day. Mad at mom for taking me to church, mad at god for not saving me and mad at myself for eating jellybeans and the stuff atop the next morning. When we took pictures, I had a distinct glare in each picture. I went home and rested and got dragged along with grandma to our cousin's apartment and I threw up again.

After that and a nap later I got better. Plus, I had spring vacation to look forward to. All was well.

I won't say that this particular experience made me an atheist, but it turned me off jellybeans forever.

Fast forward to 2003, I was eleven years old and at that moment in time, I was starting to discover things about my body. And you can put two and two together. I swore to god that I was gonna not do my business until I was sixteen. I didn't last a week. That fear of breaking my oath to the sky daddy lingered...until I forgot about it and then remembered it offhand years later and laughed at my own ignorance.

"When you grow up, you'll learn to laugh at your fears." - Piccolo, Dragon Ball Z Episode 7

This applied to a lot of things in my childhood and adolescence. One of those things was the existence of god and the belief of one. Around my peers in middle and high school I would hear various things like "Wearing a black shirt with a cross necklace is a sin". So what? If you wanna wear black and a cross necklace, so be it. My classmate didn't buy it either because he did it again despite the music teacher saying these things.

One day, the science class caught on fire and the entire middle school had to be evacuated and moved to you guessed it - a church. I was talking and cursing up a storm and people were saying cursing in church was a sin. So the fuck what? I didn't say that, but later I thought to myself, so the fuck what? This is a sin, that's a sin, you can't do this on certain days, etc.

Eating shellfish is seen as unclean, fasting from meat on fridays but fish is okay apparently. See the logic? This is spread among Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Catholicism and other beliefs that the Middle East and America declare war over. While there are reasons to not eat animals and fish, valid reasons at that, I think some of those reasons are a bit too much. I ate what I ate and that was it. I don't eat pork, but not for religious or moral reasons, there are better meats to consume, but I will eat it if it's served by someone else.

But back on topic, my beliefs in religion were questioned and tried many times and a lot of that has to attribute to the stuff I watched. The countless nights of watching cable TV and a lot of other things that kids shouldn't be watching or seeing shaped my mind albeit in a dormant manner. When I would return to those same things years later, it not only clicked with me more, I understood them a lot better.

At fourteen, on a fucking Friday night, my brother had the brilliant idea to bring me to a church when I had plenty of games to play and internet sites to browse. We were there for an hour and I hated it. Hated it. I was an introvert and didn't go out much so maybe that was my mother trying to break me out of that. That wasn't the way to do it.

Fifteen, I questioned religion again when I detested going to church one Sunday. She told me that my dead grandmother taught her to teach me the christian way, which means she was a christian...but not really, going back to deism. Another thing I noticed when we were walking to church was a woman going to the same church but wearing a very provocative miniskirt. And her shape was indeed something that got me sprung. Now I made a little scenario that the preacher would try to fool around with her, basing it off the various sitcoms where the black preacher was pulling women or seeking sex in the name of god.

Hoo boy, at fifteen I was calling out the corruption and adultery in the black church subconsciously before I discovered it as an adult. I can't make this up. This woman had two sons my age if not a little younger and she was wearing this with her husband no less. Who goes to church wearing something like this:

Image courtesy of Romprom

Not this exact dress, but the length of the dress mainly. Now imagine that with a woman with say, Cherokee D'ass's shape. To quote a preacher in his moment of hysteria, good god!

End quote.

As I stated, I was questioning religion and god at an early age. The next year, I would move to Savannah, Georgia and it was there where I would not only come face to face with religion tenfold, but also make the ultimatum of where my beliefs system would lean toward...

Eight years of this hell I had to endure.

My love for cheese

Piggybacking off my last post, I mentioned that I adore cheese. Love it. But there's a dark period that I had to endure for a bit before I ascended to real cheese.

This shit. Here. Processed cheese. Cheese that is manufactured to where it legally cannot be called cheese. And melting is a selling point for this particular product. I had to eat this bile for years. It's not only an insult to cheese itself, it's not something that should be consumed by a human being. It tasted horrible, it felt like the plastic it was wrapped in and worse of all, it didn't melt. I had an Italian cheeseburger which was a sub with french fries in it with the beef inside it. The slices of cheese in it were wrinkled and warm, but not melted. I had to take out the 'cheese' and go out and get some at the local bodega.

Since then, I made it a rule to buy real cheese, and always real cheese. Never again.

Just now, I made a nice grilled cheese sandwich. Delicious. What I used to do was put a cheese sandwich in the microwave and come out with a half-melted, half-petrified disaster. It wasn't burned, but hardened. No idea if there's another word for it but petrified is probably the best way to describe it. I've learned from my mistakes.

Here's a list of cheeses I've tried over the years.

1. Cheddar. Basic yellow cheese. Works when I need it to work. Sometimes it comes in a white variety and that has some flavor to it if sharp.
2. Monetary Jack. A decent cheese to eat with fruit often combined with Colby or peppers. Pepper Jack has grown on me in recent years.You need that slight spice to bring out the mild taste.
3. Swiss. Hot damn, when I first tried Swiss, it was like an epiphany. I tried real cheese and then I tried this. Now I knew I was never going back to that sandwich slice shit. When it melted, man.
4. Mozzarella. This one isn't good for eating alone, you have to cook with it. Great on pasta and noodle dishes and obviously pizza.
5. Provolone. A nice cheese with some sting to it. I tried a provolone block at my last job and not only did it stink, it had a taste that went to your nose. Now that's real cheese.
6. Havarti. This cheese is good for melting and it has a nice dotted pattern. It's definitely a good cheese for burgers.
7. Muenster. I LOVE muenster. The orange rind, the salty ting, the soft texture, it's a good cheese overall, good for snacking, sandwiches and macaroni. I would say this is my favorite cheese overall.
8. Gouda. Gouda has a particular texture and was my go-to pick with a summer sausage. The smoked variety isn't bad either.
9. Brie. Don't like it. The crunchy crust and soft texture don't do it for me.
10. Blue. I'd love to eat it as is, but the Blues I've tried have been very rich. I can eat it as is, but it goes best with something, in a salad or another dish. 
11. Truffle cheese. This type of cheese I didn't get to eat much but the few times I tried it, it was absolutely delicious. It had the right combination of sting and stink. It may have been the mushrooms or the cheese itself but it's a great combination. There are plenty other types out there, so I haven't touched the surface.
12. Parmesan. It's a tough cheese but it has a flavor to it. I was mad I couldn't eat it alone and I usually don't eat it unless it's with some pasta dish.
13. Kerrygold Brand cheese. At my last job, I sold both Dubliner and Ballyshannon blocks. I adored Ballyshannon more than Dubliner but lo and behold to cut costs, they got rid of the latter and only sold the former.

I could go on an on, but I love cheese to death. If I don't restrain myself, I could eat a whole block of the stuff with no regrets or guilt. There are more cheeses out there to try and I'd love to take the opportunity to do so. Not too long of an entry, just an indulgence piece I wanted to write about.

One last reiteration: Fuck fake cheese.

Candy isn't as dandy as it used to be.

Since the last post I did in 2019, a few things have happened to me and I've discovered and realized a lot of things, now being 100% aware of said things. This topic will be relating to something my grandmother gave me.

A lifelong curse.

I have a sweet tooth. It can't be helped. As someone who was a husky kid and also at risk for obesity and other health problems, not at that point but overall something that would have been a problem if I didn't sate myself early on. I think I covered this but I'll tell the story again of my path to a healthy lifestyle and the times I cheated, my first blog post to be exact.

So I was sixteen and during my checkup the doctor told me if I didn't take the initiative to exercise or at least take better care of myself, I was going to keep on gaining weight. Later that year, I moved to Georgia. As I mentioned, I have a sweet tooth, so that meant I was buying candy and chocolate and ice cream and other confections that caused my grandmother's curse to tug at me. One instance, I ate a bunch of candy that may have been Hershey's Nuggets, a sweet mix of chocolate with a hint of strawberry and cookie crumbles. I have not found that particular flavor of nuggets since.

I ate bags of that stuff, one dollar at the dollar store in the neighborhood. I ate so much of that shit to where I fractured one of my teeth, I still feel it to this day. Just thinking about them is making want to search online for them for nostalgia's sake. It really was a one-of-a-kind flavor.

In addition to sweets, I also had a taste for soda. I had a habit for making my own twists on cola, mimicking the various flavors of Pepsi and Coca-cola. Vanilla, lemon, lime, ice cream floats, you name it. I had a taste for peach soda. Delicious. But I hated root beer and cream soda. Around 2014, I decided to cut the drink entirely. At that time I had grown to love fruit smoothies and fell back on those instead.

Best choice I ever made.

But despite cutting out soda, I still picked at candy and chips, another habit that needs to be culled. I tried to cut candy out and go for alternatives like sweet potatoes. The first potato I had, I couldn't get into it. My tongue was still adjusted to candy. It took a while but I eventually made sweet potatoes a regular food in my current diet, and I don't regret it.

Around this time, about 2017 I noticed that some things didn't taste the way they used. But another factor in the difference in taste was that some candy I used to love had a change in the recipe, mainly to cut costs. Too many items, not just candy but a lot of stuff. Look it up. My adult tongue could taste the corn syrup a lot better. I especially noticed a change in taste with one of my favorite holiday drinks, eggnog. Eggnog was a nectar of the gods as a kid.

As an adult, it's still good so long as you don't buy the cheap stuff. And I don't care for alcoholic eggnog myself, I don't think mixing alcohol and dairy is such a good idea, right?

But overall, candy isn't as dandy as it used to be. Getting older, my body doesn't agree with it as much due to all the healthy eating I've been doing over the years. I'm fine with it and it shows how your body can adapt. A co-worker of mine mentioned that his body rejects vegetables due to years of eating processed food and junk. While he doesn't look sickly, how he feels is another story. There were times where I cheated and had a sweet and my body felt like shit afterward, so I can understand what he was saying.

Even when eating sweet potatoes, I still caved in and ate candy, brownies and ice cream. My grandmother did just that and I get it from her. She'd keep a box of brownies under her bed and a big jar of peanut butter with a big spoon all for herself. I'd do the former but the latter was too much for me. Fighting old habits is hard, but rewarding.

It's not just candy, I've stopped eating chips or buying chips to try to build up a habit of not eating junk food. Back in 2003 I discovered Utz no-salt chips and they're my go-to flavor after the Chesapeake-seasoned crab chips. I would pick those whenever I saw them on the shelves and down in Georgia it took a while for Utz to arrive down where I was living. I leaned on low-sodium vegetable juice in that same time, the difference is literally night and day.

I'm happy to say I don't have any pre-existing health problems and in my last post, I mentioned Covid-19 claiming so many lives of those who had health problems before. All the healthy eating I've done over the years has made a difference. It took a while, but I'm starting to see the fruits of my labor. There's still some work to do, I'm not out the woods yet. There's still meat, cheese, bread, sugar, you name it. As I get older and older, I'll likely have to cut those out eventually, and meat especially with the seedy underside of that industry. I took the knowledge The Jungle gave me for granted.

Cheese however, is the biggest hurdle. I can't give up muenster or havarti. I've loved cheese since before I could walk.

Live by the gruyere, die by the gruyere.

Dusting off the blog.

Man. It has been a while. So, I'll do a general tumult of topics.

-First, the Fighters Pass from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The pass finished in January and well, here's a rundown on things from my perspective.

Joker
Joker from Persona 5. While I am a fan of Shin Megami Tensei, I'm indifferent to Persona. I played Persona 3 and enjoyed it but and I have a copy of Persona 4 unopened but that is it. So, no connection to Joker. Neutral. I do get this little jingle if I play on Mementos with the P3 music, so there's one positive to highlight.

Hero
Hero was a pleasant surprise shown off at E3 2019. The default hero from Dragon Quest XI appeared at the start of Nintendo's presentation and with that hero come the protagonists from Dragon Quest III, IV and VIII respectively. As a Dragon Quest fan, I was hoping for the iconic mascot, the Slime but I call Hero a pleasant surprise because of their execution with having all the various spells from the series in their moveset. I won't get into too much detail, but Hero was a plus for me. I need to pick up XI.

Banjo-Kazooie 
Whoo. This one knocked it out the park for me. Not only was this reveal the highlight of the pass, it managed to overshadow the sequel of Breath of the Wild afterward. What is there to say? A literal never-ever pick comes to reality. I wanted Banjo-Kazooie in Brawl and my sixteen year-old self would have probably shit himself with hype.

Nothing else to say here. This prompted me to buy the pass.

Terry Bogard
Terry hails from Fatal Frame, an IP by SNK Playmore. I've played their games so I knew who he was. A lot of the Smash Bros. fanbase however did not. You gotta love how quickly people were attacking Terry because they don't know anything about him. Even better when you hear the talk about 3rd party characters being more exciting and hype and then those same people get a very iconic 3rd party character added and then complain. Which is it, hype 3rd parties or boring 1st parties in their own words? It can't be what you want personally, and I'm guilty of this as well.

During Terry's initial reveal, Sakurai also dropped this as well.

Joy. More shitflinging.

That said, we come to the very last pick of this pass.

Byleth
Byleth hails from Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Yep. ANOTHER Fire Emblem character, totaling to eight characters. Naturally, everyone was outraged. I wasn't mad. In fact I called it given Corrin in the last Smash Bros. game. Nintendo and even Sakurai himself are that conceited and out of touch to do it. And if the second pass is anything to go by, it's going to be the same with the last character. By buying the pass instead of each individual pack, I technically got Byleth for free. But that's like getting an extra skittle in a bag containing an average of forty or so candies with forty-eight being the max and then you get fifty-one in a bag. Not the best analogy.

I'm not buying the second pass until I see what they're showing, like the first. I may have to hold off on buying the pass, even if I see a Banjo-tier character.

With Smash out the way, let's change gears.


-Covid-19. Or the Coronavirus. The Coronavirus festered in 2019 and started to blow up around late February of this year. Since then, plenty of businesses shut down and millions of not billions of dollars were lost as a result. But for me, it was the people's reaction and response to the whole situation. As a recluse and introvert, I had no issue with staying inside. I've been doing so for the last...fifteen years. The amount of times I've gone out with 'friends' and associates can be counted on my hand.

But to those who can't handle a little bit of isolation is laughable, to some very hilarious results.
And this is not the only incident. Seriously, I could get outraged and pissed off, but I have to laugh at this. If at least the thought of a few months in isolation from a potentially fatal virus is enough to drive you to suicide, that only shows how weak your will is as a person. There are way more serious matters to deal with and you pick this as an excuse to kill yourself. Natural selection at work.

The virus itself, I'm sure I have. In fact, I know that just about everyone has it in some way shape or form. I had a stomachache around the time of cases popping up in the US and the following diarrhea that came with it was not pleasant. I may as well have been shitting out my stomach acid at that point. Covid-19 can kill anyone at any given moment, no matter what. I'll risk Covid-19 but I won't pretend I'm fully immune from it, and I know I'm not and wasn't. But I know I'm in a good spot due to one thing...

Years of eating right and exercise can do wonders for you. It's not just for wanting to live long and healthy, it's also to be prepared for situations like Covid-19 so that your body has the resources to fend off new and unknown threats. Covid-19 can be detrimental and fatal to those who have preexisting conditions. Of course with black people, at least in America, that is a very common factor. The Coronavirus should not have been the turning point where you eat healthy.

In good times and bad, you should be eating your vegetables. Matter of fact, fruit is a double-edged sword as it does contain natural fructose. Vegetables however have dietary fiber, minerals and vitamins needed for a healthy body and how coincidental that most 'adults' do not like to eat their vegetables.

Overall, I'm not bothered by this too much. Wearing a face mask is a bitch and a half but that's one inconvenience. This was a decent wake-up call for the world and the way things are set up. Perhaps this awakening will be the start of a new status quo.


-Third topic, I got fired recently from my job back in February, right at the doorstep of Covid-19 coming to fuck everything up. Let's just say this much about that job: I don't need it as much as some people would think. The work is too much for the little amount of pay you get and the work I was doing was far beyond what one person can do. Two and a half years of that shit. Never again. Covid-19 made me reconsider my stance on retail and working in general. A kick in the ass if you would, one everyone needed, me included.

I was ready to find a new job, but then quarantine happened and well...

I won't say that I won't work another job again, but I will say I'm at that point in my life where I can't stomach the bullshit that comes with a job. Keyword, job. A career is another story. I don't need to get into detail the situation that comes with a black man trying to get a job in this world. Last to get hired, first to get fired. I didn't get my job because I was hard-working, I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy. That's it. I knew this for years, but I finally realized what came of that scenario and it shows.

You don't have to be competent at your job to get it or keep it. Competence means jackshit, just know the right person and you're in. That is it. Know enough people and you're set. For me being an introvert, that is a death sentence in this social world we live in. This is why I wasn't mad at being fired and this is why I enjoy the situations above with people committing suicide just because they couldn't socialize. Building a social network is beneficial, but working on yourself is a plus as well. Sometimes you just need to fall back and relax. Just chill out.

The general politics with working in retail irks me. I don't like most customers, I want to do my work, I don't do small talk and if I don't like a manager or supervisor, I really don't want to interact with you. I'm here to make money, not friends. And don't pretend I had a chance to grow, your actions say otherwise even if I don't tell you my actual ultimatum. The benefits of being an introvert, you can tell who's genuine and who's a goober. No offense to the candy.

For introverts like me, it was just another lonely day to myself. Some people will never have that problem and this pandemic forced the hands of a lot of people for the better. You can look at my past posts and see where I stand on social distancing.

So, that's that on my job. I won't go on detail with my scenario for now but I'm happily content with my current situation and will try to build my own brand and platform.


So, that covers up most of the relevant stuff. Will I go into dormancy again? I'm going to try to put some material on this blog if it's still around. May as well go for it.

Pay a visit to my site while you're at it. Volume 10 of The World of Mission is finally out!

When fiction becomes reality

Short and quick post, kids. In volume's seven and eight of my novel series, Mission, I have a story arc where two characters, Crystal and Sidnia go to the state of Florida to protect a man from protestors. In the World of Mission, the State of Florida goes by another name: No Man's State due to the increasingly hostile wildlife and locals. Florida is known to have exotic animals that have been abandoned or escaped from their owner's property and taken up shelter in the wild.

My story has some creative liberties here and there, but today or a few days ago at least when the actual incident happened, this report came in from MSN.

Yes, somehow, someway, a man managed to bring a fucking cassowary to the states. I'll give you a short summary of these birds. They're native to New Guinea and are in the same family as the emu and the ostrich as ratites as well as the smaller kiwi bird and the now-extinct Moa. The largest of these birds stand at six feet and weighs almost 200lbs.

What makes these creatures dangerous are their sharp talons, specifically the middle toe and their tendency to kick those it considers a threat. One kick alone can potentially be fatal, and as the article mentioned, such was the fate of the man who managed to bring this bird to Florida and the fates of many people and their pets even who had the misfortune of encountering one.

Who needs a knife?

What's even more disturbing is that you can own one of these with the right amount of experience, requirements and I assume a license. Now Florida has enough problems as is, why would you want to bring another calamity to its soil? In the books I mentioned, the girls encounter a rhea, while not as lethal as the cassowary is still not an animal you'd want to mess with along with a few other animals.

And with that, I can announce that the paperback versions of Vol. 7 and 8 of Mission will be a double release. It's been a while but I'm back in the game.

Keep an eye on my website for future details, and keep your eyes out for any exotic wildlife if you're in No Man's State.

Adult only in name: The legal children of society

Happy 2019.

This post is going to talk about something I've noticed and only come to the realization of fully as of last year. When you work a dead-end retail job, you're going to encounter every walk of life there is. And boy, are they something to observe. But as the years of work pile up, I see things for what they are and I see what these people really represent.

The title of this post is Adult only in name. Why do I say that? Well, I consider that even as an adult, I don't really feel like one. But I look at other adults like me and I see that maybe I am one, because the things I've heard and seen are beyond what I can comprehend.

First, working the jobs I've had, I've had to clean up after other people. It's not a pleasant feeling and I've had my fill of it. But I have to ask a question: What's wrong with just putting things in a trashcan? Are you that inept or lazy that you can't just do a simple thing like that? If this is how you treat other people's property, I don't wanna see your house. And why do you take things that you don't want and put them in places where they don't belong? Fun fact: Frozen foods and refrigerated foods are not one in the same. If you don't like something, fine. But don't leave the sample cup on the shelf half-eaten with whatever parasites linger in your mouth. That irritates me more than anything seeing food wasted.

Never mind the children that put cold items on the shelves.

Why do I call them children? Because only children act that way. Only children would not know where to put things at. And only children react to being called out for it with a lie or a tantrum. A lot of those occur. Another example, not one of my own but one I saw many a time on the internet: When a comedian does a show, you may see a heckler or two making a commotion for various reasons. Regardless of what those reasons are, you have a supposed adult making a disturbance for everyone else just because the performer told a joke they didn't like or they feel like commentating on everything the person with the mike says.

And most of time, said disturbances are under the influence and I'll get to that soon in another example. But notice that when you see belligerent people like this they usually had a drink or two in their systems and act out? It's always funny to see a comedian handle them they way they do. Even better is when a heckler isn't malicious but just rambling on and both parties go back and forth playfully. The ones who aren't make it all the better when the comedian is witty enough to make an ass out of them without them knowing it. Pure bliss.

Some people can't go out in public without causing a ruckus. When I was younger and went wherever to whoever's house, my mother always told me "Yes, No, Thank You, No Thank You." To my annoyance. And I thank her every day for it. Same with my father when he took me to the store and told me to say thank you when I got my candy. It's amazing what manners can do for a person, and anyone who comes to a live show of any sort and disrupts the performance based on their own grievances and lack of self-respect really needs to be disciplined. These are also the types that can't handle the concept of an opinion. Online, you can have a person berate and harass you just because you don't agree with X or stand by Y. Internet has given these children a place to dump their mental garbage and it shocks them when someone chooses to keep a clean house and be respectful of another person's belongings. Sometimes, these are actual children. What does that tell you about the current generation and the generation to come.

But alas, they are adults and no one can tell them anything. I'm not saying this in the sense of I know it all, I mean in the sense of common, if that made any sense. No one should have to tell you to keep your voice down when you're in a library or to not talk during a live show of any sort. Only children do that, and even in that scenario they aren't being raised correctly. The legal children of society are now raising more children who will grow up physically but not mentally. Now, going back to my statement with alcohol, Something that needs to be told to every child in grade school and even college,

Doing adult things does not make you an adult. 


Take some time to process that. When I was still a child in school, I did want a girlfriend, but that was the result of my developing hormones, which I had no control over. I still watched cartoons and played video games, which is normal. I even watched PBS up until fifth grade, which is also normal. I'd wager some of these 'adults' could have used a few more years with the channel. When Arthur and Dragon Tales provide a more fulfilling experience than the cartoons they showed on the other channels, you know something went wrong. Around middle school is where all the so-called children tried to be adults, and it showed. Skipping school, fighting, talking about stuff that children shouldn't watch. I'm guilty of this, watching South Park and not knowing what a hummer or a clitoris is. 

On the other hand, I was weened off The Simpsons.

Anyway, middle school is where you start to see these teenage pregnancies and so on and in my school, one of the most notorious girls had vodka in a plastic bottle and was never seen again. Another girl gave a male student oral sex in eighth grade and she had a massive ass to boot. I was unconcerned about those events then, but now it resonates with me more; these are likely the adults who never grew up mentally. Puberty is a sign of physical development; it says nothing about your mental development. Who the hell knows what happened to the girl with the alcohol or the girl who was easy and loose? Never mind high school and senior year. These same girls were watching the music videos on BET and while the girls there are good for a session or two with Mylef Tahan, that's all it amounted to for me. Once I got that out the way, back to being a kid.

But some of these people, I may be hard on without knowing their situation fully. Some of these children either live alone by emancipation or they have to raise other children while being children themselves or even having their ailing grandparents raise them, forcing their development at a time when they aren't ready for it. I won't fault anyone that was put in that situation, but I can say that said circumstances could have been avoided by the previous generation.

In general, adult children tend to be the ones who start arguments over small stuff or become angry over a minor error at a retail store. Things aren't going to go your way every time, but starting a fight over a fixable error does nothing but put you in a deeper hole. Now you're in court because of the person you assaulted taking legal measures and now a blemish on your record lingers forever. As a teen, I stayed out of trouble and if that made me a 'punk' or a 'bitch ass nigga', so be it. I'm not the one in jail or on probation. It's okay to defend yourself, but only if you have to. If someone attacks you, that's a justifiable reason to attack, consequences be damned. 

But isn't it funny how even if you're in the right, you still get screwed over? Remember that most schools never punished the bully ('memba this too?), and in some cases even supported him? That bully never had to face any consequences growing up, hence his lack of mental development and learning the process of right and wrong. As an adult, what does that mean for the rest of society? This underdeveloped person feels he can do what he pleases and not face the consequences. Sometimes, he may just get his just desserts for the first time, other times he finds a means to get off scott free.

                                         


But back to the original subject, people like the bully I mentioned linger in society by the dozen. You can also add in the spoiled children who never worked a day in their lives in this article too. I probably hate those types more than the people I interact with daily. They aren't always necessarily well-off, mind you. These were the kids who were on reality television whining about not getting a red Acura or Mercedes or the kids today who cried about not getting a Galaxy 7 phone, going back to my previous statement.

But I've encountered people whose parents are actually worse than they are. One co-worker way back mentioned to me about how his mother talks about Africa having starving children and to eat everything on your plate when he was growing up. Now, this same parent is guilty of doing the same thing he did as a child. Even better is he cooks his own food,  his mother asks for some, she takes two bites and leaves it in the refrigerator, but I see that with my current set of co-workers to this day. Why buy a $18 meal and only eat half of it? You can tell they're well-off that they can do such an act. I repeat; wasting food is my biggest pet peeve. An adult picking at a meal like a child pisses me off. And you wonder why you have diabetes before thirty.

To end this rant, I wasn't dirt poor, but I wasn't rich either. But I can say that encountering these adult children matured me more than whatever my mom or dad taught me. Seeing the teenage parents and Maury Povich making money off their ignorance scared me straight, seeing adults act so recklessly with seven kids and no job really resonated with me when I moved to the south and seeing them now reminded me that maybe I'm not in such a bad position. It really could be worse. 

 

MUCH worse.

An alternative title for this piece could be, what defines an adult?