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Yes, I have seen the new trailers for Thor, and for Captain America: The First Avenger, and for Green Lantern and Transformers: Dark of the Moon and every other trailer out right now for a tentpole movie this year.
But I haven't posted about them. If you want to find them, here's YouTube. Knock yourself out.
I am however going to post the trailer for Atlas Shrugged: Part 1...
The first film of the trilogy hits theaters, appropriately enough, on April 15th. So fitting that on Income Tax Day here in the United States, that many who had never even heard of him before will be asking "Who is John Galt?"
There have been efforts to cinematically adapt Ayn Rand's classic novel going on since 1972. It's finally come to fruition. I plan to see this movie on opening day.
I guess if Philadelphia can have a Rocky Balboa statue, and if New York City has one of Ralph Kramden and if Milwaukee has the Fonz as a landmark, then Detroit should get a lasting monument to its own... hero?
(Oh yeah, I almost forgot : nearby Mount Airy - the model for Mayberry on The Andy Griffith Show - has that life-sized bronze statue of Andy and Opie going fishing! So I guess the precedent has already been set for fictional lawmen. Law-cyborgs. Whatever...)
Earlier this week a flood of support coalesced across Facebook and Twitter to erect in Detroit a statue of... RoboCop. The titular "part man, part machine, all cop" hero of the 1987 sci-fi action smash-hit movie. Somebody forwarded the idea to Detroit mayor Dave Bing, who responded with "There are not any plans to erect a statue to Robocop. Thank you for the suggestion."
That's when the wheels of justice, ummm... Motor City, errrr... fandom kicked into overdrive. Before you can say "interface spike" a fundraising effort was in high gear, determined to raise $50,000 to finance the statue of RoboCop.
When that will happen is another story. Word on the streets of Old Detroit is that Mayor Bing won't give the clearance for the statue to be placed. One of the reasons why some don't want it is how RoboCop was a movie that played off of Detroit's hard times and urban blight during the Eighties (something which hasn't drastically improved). A RoboCop statue, opponents claim, would be a monument to the Detroit that many in that city are trying to escape from being. But the statue might well wind up on private property, where it is hope that it will become a landmark regardless.
Ehhhh, interesting. I wonder what Bixby Snyder has to say about it:
"I'D BUY THAT..."
"...FOR A DOLLAR!!!"
And now there's news that a reboot of RoboCop is underway. Hmmmm... not too crazy about that. The first movie was excellent and RoboCop 2 is better than its reputation. I think there should be a seriousRoboCop 3 (forget the one that was, what, direct to video?) and put lots of Bixby Snyder in it. Or, have a full-length It's Not My Problem movie. Surely I can't be the only one who would watch that... right?!?
(Or make me really happy and put a statue of Snake Plissken up in Central Park.)
I thought Watson's performance was... impressive. But, I'm not too terrified about a droid uprising just yet.
For one thing, Watson is not much more than a glorified search engine. IBM's engineers assured the Jeopardy! audience that Watson could not access the Internet: that "he" relied entirely on his oodles of terabytes of storage, containing (it is thought) every iota of trivia that has possibly been digitized. Clearly, an advantage was held by Watson.
And yet, even that was fallible, as was demonstrated by Watson's widely-scorned inability to know that Toronto is not a U.S. city (the correct question should have been "What is Chicago?"). Watson also reported that Serbia was a country in the European Union (it is not).
Remember when Garry Kasparov beat IBM's Deep Blue in 1997? Kasparov also fought "sequel" Deep Junior to a draw in 2003. Now, to me that is much more extraordinary computer technology, even though those machines never achieved clear victory. There was legitimate strategy and intuitive thinking involved in those contests. In the end, human wetware prevailed over silicon. Watson, as far as I was able to tell, showed none of that capability.
But I will tell you what Watson did have that earned it some respect from this writer: that it was able to, for the vast majority of the time, communicate in natural language as well as most humans.
I first read about the Turing test when I was a high school sophomore. The concept has interested me since: Alan Turing's proposed test for a computer's ability to think. The idea is that if a human can not discern whether he is communicating with another person or with a computer, then that computer has achieved a measure of intelligence comparable to a human being.
What I saw on Jeopardy! this past week, was the most significant demonstration of how close computers have become to passing the Turing test. It's not quite there yet... but it is pretty darn close.
In the meantime, I wonder if IBM could pit Watson against Garry Kasparov in a game of chess? C'mon Garry, the rest of us humans are counting on you to win back our honor! :-P
Today is the tenth anniversary of the death of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Sr.. On this occasion, good friend Doug Smith wrote some thoughts and posted them on Facebook. Doug asked if I could post his essay here as well. I don't follow NASCAR too well, but I remember Earnhardt as being one of the finest drivers to ever be in the sport, and Doug's thoughts about the state of NASCAR today are quite provocative and intriguing.
So without further ado, here's Doug Smith's post about No. 3 and what has happened to his sport...
"So, who you gonna pull for when he's not racing any more?"
This is gonna be very much a free for all and may not follow a lot of structure but I've been planning this for a while and been beating myself up all day about what I wanted to write and how I wanted to write it so basically this is as raw and unpolished as it can be.
The question that's in the title of this note was a question posed to me on or about February 9, 2001 by a guy named Chris Stanfield in the RCHS library. We had been working on a project for class and we needed all the computers in the library for the class. Needless to say, I had other things on my mind besides school and today, I wanted to see the practice speeds that had been coming out of Daytona in preps for that year's Daytona 500. Chris was talking with me as I looked up the speeds as well as the full Daytona schedule for that week. He saw me looking specifically for Dale Sr and Dale Jr.'s practice speeds. Just making conversation he asked me was I a Sr. or Jr. fan. I explained I was a Sr. fan but I also pulled for Jr. for obvious reasons. He then out of the blue asked me what was I gonna do when Dale Sr. was no longer racing. I thought little of this, I just simply answered "I don't know. I guess I'll pull for Dale Jr." Little did I know how much of an impact that simple question would have less than 10 days later.
On February 17th, after watching the then Busch series race and the IROC race, my dad asked me who I thought would win the 500. I told him I believed Michael Waltrip would win it, Dale Jr would finish 2nd and Dale Sr. would finish 3rd. I had no evidence for this, it was just simply what came to mind at that moment.
The day of the 500 itself, February 18th, 2001, started off on a bit of a sour note as I woke up to see that longtime Braves great Eddie Matthews had died that morning. He would regrettably be forgotten in the aftermath of the events to come later that day. The broadcast began on Fox at 12 Noon that day. It was the first race Fox had ever broadcast. During the pre-race segment, they interviewed many drivers and Dale Earnhardt was among them. He finished up his interview with a quote that, like Chris' question to me earlier, meant little at the time but would later be seared into my memory. His quote was "you're gonna see something you've never seen before today on Fox."
I didn't watch much of the race itself due to Directv not carrying local channels at that time. The interviews I saw were at my grandparent's house where they had basic cable which meant they got local channels. I figured I would read the results and watch highlights later and since my dad was recording it on vhs tape at my grandparents and if Dale won or anything big happened I'd watch the tape. This was up until my dad came in from playing golf around 3:30 pm. He came in the house and asked me had I seen the big wreck that happened. I asked him what he was talking about. He said there'd been a huge wreck with about 25 laps to go and that there was at least one car that flipped. I asked did Dale get through and he said he didn't know. So I went to my room, disconnected the Directv box so I could hopefully get a decent reception on Fox 8 which I managed to actually get through the antenna on the roof of the house. Much better than I usually got. Anyway, I saw the crash itself and watched as Tony Stewart flew like a leaf and 19 other cars hit each other like bumper cars in the crash that Nascar fans usually refer to as "the big one", a common occurence at the plate tracks(Daytona and Talladega). My question was soon answered as they did a rundown of the field and I saw that Dale had gotten through the crash so I was relieved.
After the race resumed, I watched the last 20 or so laps of the race and then came the white flag. Waltrip was in 1st, Dale Jr. in 2nd and Dale Sr. in 3rd, as I had predicted the day before. They come around turn 3, we see a wide shot that pans left as it follows Mikey and Jr. out of turn 4. The camera changes angles and we see in the upper right part of the screen 2 cars crashing. All I could see as to who was in it was a big white 3 and I then silently muttered some obscenity after seeing he'd crashed. But Mikey had won the race and Dale Jr. had gotten 2nd so it was a nice finish. It was Waltrip's first career win in almost 15 years of racing in the then Winston Cup series.
The camera then switches to 2 crashed cars in the grass area just out of turn 4. One of them is Dale's car and one of them is Ken Schrader's car. Schrader was then shown to walk over to Dale's drivers side to see if he was okay. He then immediately jumped back slightly and waved the paramedics over to Dale's car in an almost panic. I knew then something was really wrong. Minutes passed, no new information, simply replays of the crash. It was easy to tell by the commentator's that it wasn't good but they didn't say anything because they themselves knew nothing official at the time. More minutes passed, I told my dad that he'd crashed and I thought something was really wrong because of what I'd seen Schrader doing. I went to eat supper while watching for information about the crash and Dale's condition. After nearly 90 minutes of no new information, I knew something tragic had probably happened and I began to prepare for the worst. Finally, around 6:30 pm, after I'd gone back home, my mom called the house and told my dad that Dale was gone. It was then I flipped on the tv and saw the press conference that had taken place about 10 minutes before and Mike Helton utter those words I will never forget.
"This is undoubtedly one of the toughest announcements that I've ever personally had to make, but after the accident in turn 4 at the end of the Daytona 500, we've lost Dale Earnhardt."
I was empty. I really didn't know what to think or do. I had lost a childhood hero before in 1993 but it was unthinkable to think that it had happened a second time and to Dale Earnhardt of all people who many Nascar fans truly thought was invincible. The driver in 1993 I'm referring to is Davey Allison who died in July 1993 in a helicopter crash at age 32. But it had happened, Dale was gone and the emotion and sadness from that day has not left me, even 10 years to the day of this tragedy.
Dale Earnhardt's death was to me the biggest tragedy in Nascar history and is one that, as time has shown, the sport as a whole may never truly recover from. No sport to my knowledge has ever lost its biggest star in its biggest event of the season. I spoke to many people afterwards who said they didn't care about Nascar any more now that he was gone and that sentiment still runs today. Most fans at some point returned to being fans again but it's more or less universally agreed that it hasn't been the same and will never be the same as it was before this day, 10 years ago.
To answer Chris' question if he happens to read this, I did become a Dale Jr. fan for a while as well as a Kevin Harvick fan who was handpicked by Dale Sr. himself to be his successor. It's pretty much believed that had he not died, he would've likely retired at the end of the 2002 season when his last contract with RCR expired. I later fell out of favor with Dale Jr. and focused solely on Harvick which is where I stood until the end of the 2010 season when I left the sport altogether due to many stupid decisions made by the sport since 2004. It is also my considered opinion that if Dale were alive today, he would be truly disgusted to see what this former sport has degenerated into. Dale was also known to be a voice of reason among the drivers and the brass at Nascar as a whole and I truly believe that so many awful decisions that have been made in the last decade of Nascar would've never been made if Dale Earnhardt were still alive.
As we move forward in time and Dale Earnhardt becomes even more of a name and a legend in time, his death will be felt by Nascar as long as it manages to exist and the results will not be pretty. I truly believe that Nascar will continue to tumble in the eyes of American sports fans as well as racing fans altogether. Ratings and attendance at the tracks(save for the major races) have tumbled, and because of this, it's entirely possible that by 2020 maybe 2025, Nascar may not be around any more. If by then Nascar still exists, it may no longer be on television and will be seen in the same vein as pro wrestling is seen in the US which is how many traditional Nascar fans see the sport today. When I say it will be seen like pro wrestling, I mean that it will be seen as a show and simply entertainment rather than a legitimate sport and legitimate competition which as I said is how many traditional fans view what the sport has become already. In the 10 years since his death, Nascar has gone from being second only to the NFL in terms of popularity and the fastest rising spectator sport on the planet, to being the butt of a joke and being one of the few cases in history where a sports own leadership purposely angered and ran off its core fan base over a period of a few years.
Nascar could've survived and even thrived in the post-Dale Earnhardt era but in 2004, it all changed forever and the decline that began with Dale Earnhardt's death went into overdrive and the sport continues on a downward spiral to this day that can only end with either major changes in leadership or with the sport folding and since there is no one around that seems to have the pull or the voice of reason Dale Earnhardt had with the Nascar brass, the sport simply cannot and will not be saved.
It will probably never be proven decisively if my beliefs are true, but I will go to my grave believing that Dale Earnhardt's death was the beginning of the end for Nascar as a sport.
Last week I said that there were two new features coming to this blog: Movies I've Never Seen and A Sermon A Week. And the plan was to kick them off this past Sunday.
Obviously that didn't transpire according to plan.
It was bad timing more than anything else. This past weekend I was doing the last few performances of our community theatre guild's production of Gypsy. And then some other stuff happened and the new stuff got pushed to the backburner.
I'm now hoping to do the first Movies I've Never Seen sometime this coming week, and A Sermon A Week next Sunday. The stuff that's on my plate should have cleared off by then for me to give it the attention that it deserves. I'm not worried about Movies I've Never Seen, except that I just have to figure out which movie that I've never seen to, ummm... see :-P
(And next time I unleash a new feature, perhaps I should just let it happen unannounced? There aren't enough surprises in life after all :-)
Well, you do now! But be of good cheer: I'm about to tell you how to fix that.
I've had StarCraft II for awhile now, but haven't played even anywhere close to finishing the first campaign. Among other reasons, I've been frustrated by what I have been certain is too slow performance for the high-end rig I've got it installed on. And yesterday, I finally set out to find out why (or if I was even right about that).
Turns out that StarCraft IIdoesn't like multiple CPUs all that well. Optimally it should be running on two cores, not three or four. So Yours Truly went searching for a way to bring it down to operating on only two processors. Lo and behold: it can be done! Start up StarCraft II from the desktop, then bring up Task Manager (usually done through CTRL+ALT+Delete), go to the sc2.exe process and right-click on it and look for "Set Affinity". From here you can specify which CPUs you want to run the game on and which ones to turn off.
I tried it yesterday and the game performed significantly faster than it had before.
But, there was one hitch: every time the game is exited, doing Set Affinity through Task Manager must be done all over again. Leaving the program causes CPU affinity to revert to the default four cores (or whatever is the number of cores on your computer).
This is the kind of problem that, I can sometimes be awake for days trying to solve. I just don't like it when I've a gut feeling that a technical issue can be resolved, given enough time and thinkin' about it.
Well dear readers, a short while ago I came across a fix.
Actually, good friend Adam Smith located the substance of the solution, so credit goes to where it must :-) If you're trying to get StarCraft II - or any program that might run faster on one or two cores instead of four or five or seven - downshifted from too much processing power, then PriFinitty is the tool you need. PriFinitty (currently at version 2.47) sets affinity for whatever executable programs you need to do it for, and it keeps the affinity settings in a profile that loads automatically whenever you launch PriFinitty (which can be set to load at startup). I set StarCraft II to use CPUs 2 and 3, ignoring the rest, and it worked beautifully! Then I exited the game, and re-launched it. The affinity settings were still binding just those two cores! So... color me impressed :-)
There is just one thing that I need to say about using PriFinitty with StarCraft II: you should have PriFinitty set affinity for both "starcraft ii.exe" and "sc2.exe". But there are more than one version of sc2.exe to consider: they're all in the Versions folder of the StarCraft II main folder. And then you'll have to look in the folders in the Versions folder that say "Base..." (my install has six of 'em currently). So, I'd recommend going into all of the Base* folders, and adding each sc2.exe to your PriFinitty profile and adjusting the affinity for each. Y'know, just to be on the safe side. I don't see how doing it to any extra sc2 executables is going to do any harm.
Then make sure that PriFinitty is running in the background with your profile and launch StarCraft II and prepare to take the fight to the Zerg faster than ever!
(And a tip o' the hat to Adam Smith for pointing me toward PriFinnity :-)
This is either one of the bravest things that I will have ever attempted... or it is the stoopidest of my entire life (which could be snuffed out by this stuff).
Back in December I posted about my filmmaking partner "Weird" Ed Woody passing along the link where you can purchase Bhut jolokia for your very own! Why did Ed tell me about ThinkGeek's Grow Your Own World's Hottest DIY Pepper kit? Because he's all too aware of my hideous interest in super-spicy hot food. Here's the link if you want to buy some too: whether to consume or just to display on your desk as a potent symbol of power.
Well, as you can see in the photo on the left, I am now in possession of a can of Bhut jolokia seeds, along with the soil (presumably from north-eastern India where the pepper originates) to grow it in. This can arrived shortly after Christmas. I've been considering what to do with it ever since. All it needs is water and sunlight and the hottest pepper on Earth is mine to wield.
"Bhut jolokia" in the native tongue means "ghost pepper". Because it is said that one bite of it can take you to an early grave. How hot is this stuff? Tabasco Sauce has a "hotness" of 2,500 Scoville units. Bhut jolokia is... more than 1 million.
Zoinks!
So here's the plan: sometime in the next few weeks I am going to begin growing my Bhut jolokia. And once the peppers have grown to a nice ripe size, I'm going to recruit good friend and fellow blogger Steven Glaspie to operate my best video camera and record Yours Truly eating a pepper (or more than one if I can manage it). I first thought of Steven as the one I wanted to videotape my doing this 'cuz he's the kind of guy that you wanna have on hand for a stunt of possible comedic potential. 'Course, that he's also a trained firefighter and well versed in first aid won't hurt matters either. And then (after I regain my senses) we'll post the video on YouTube.
Feel free to make odds on whether I survive this. Or how red my face becomes when I bite into the Bhut jolokia. I plan to have plenty of ice cream, bread, and other foods that are said to be good at countering capsaicin (the chemical which causes the "heat" sensation) on hand, just in case they're needed.
Stay tuned! This could turn into the most daring post that I've ever done... or the very last (which I may have to compose pre-posthumously :-P)
I've been so busy with community theatre and other projects that it's been months since I've had time to get in a game of Monsterpocalypse: Privateer Press's terrific game of giant monsters and metropolitan destruction (or defense, depending on which faction you wanna side with). But that hasn't stopped my love for this sweet lil' game (which I wrote of my love for over a year ago). I now own sizable armies of each faction and every Mega figure except for Mega Vorgax (one just sold for $197 on eBay: I love the Planet Eaters but not that much :-P). And I've come to develop a pretty good metagame-thinkin' style so far as strategy goes.
Monsterpocalypse is one of the most fun games that I've ever played. But there's been one complaint about it: that its been a collectible miniatures game. Meaning, you had to buy booster boxes without being able to see firsthand what you were getting. So a typical box might have 1 building, and 5 units of differing factions... and they might not necessarily be a faction you want to collect. This has led to a significant trading element to the game (not to mention a secondary market on eBay and other sites) but horribly frustrating for most people.
But things are about to change for the better. Last week Privateer Press announced that Monsterpocalypse would soon be going to a non-collectible format. Beginning this summer there will be boxes clearly marked with each faction and those are the figures you can expect to get. So if you like to play G.U.A.R.D. and need more of that faction, you can buy that box and not have to worry about a single Lords of Cthul creeping out (though as a player who loves the Lords of Cthul perhaps too much, I for one wouldn't have a problem with that :-P). A lot more people are about to start playing this game, who wanted to get into it earlier but were turned off by the collectible marketing. Which can only be a good thing :-)
By the way, if you're in the Greensboro/Burlington area, we play Monsterpocalypse most Thursday nights at HyperMind: a very neat game store in Burlington, not far from Elon University's campus. And if you wanna know even more about this great game and also order Monsterpocalypse figures and accessories (including some super-kewl dice just for Monsterpocalypse) click on over to the Team Covenant website: those guys live and breathe Monsterpocalypse. I'm even considering attending the second MonCon convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma in a few months that these good folks organize.
And 'course, it goes without saying that I have to mention the video I made for HyperMind's entry in that Monsterpocalypse contest a year and a half ago...
According to my calculations, I used Defender X and Terra Khan to demolish all of downtown Burlington, North Carolina. But hey, it coulda been worse: I could very well have unleashed Yasheth :-P
Before today, Elvis Presley held the record for most singles on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, since it began keeping track of the most popular since in 1958. The King of Rock and Roll boasts 108 entries on the list.
But now, no more. Elvis has been dethroned by something that has 113 singles on Billboard's Hot 100.
Y'know... this is the kind of thing that typified the decay and fall of the Roman Empire, when you think about it.
What has the most singles to make the top one hundred?
Fox's hit show Glee: which has not produce even ONE original song! They've all been covers and "redone" versions of original songs by real musical artists!
(No, I haven't watched Glee except for this season's Christmas episode. But too many trusted sources have told me that it's true: ALL of Glee's songs are re-recordings of songs that were first done by serious musicians.)
I thought that remakes of classic movies were bad enough. This is... worse, far worse, somehow.
During the next-to-last performance of Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of Gypsy this past weekend, I happened to spot this curious visual oddity.
It was just before the show, during "lockdown": when all the actors and actresses are supposed to be sequestered in the makeshift dressing rooms across the hallway from the auditorium we use at Rockingham Community College, so that nobody in the audience spots us in costume before the play or musical starts. Another actor, Michael Olivo (he played Yonkers), had picked up a quick bite to eat at Taco Bell, including a large-sized Mountain Dew.
Okay, this is a seriously stylized Mountain Dew logo. I doubt that whoever designed it, meant for it to have any hidden meaning... which makes this all the more funny!
Because when you look at the cup from this angle...
...it looks like it says "Tn Jew". The abbreviated form of "Tennessee Jew".
That sounds like either a bluegrass band, or possibly a member of a soccer team. Or maybe a very, very progressive form of Judaism :-)
I've been asked not to post any pictures. Which I can understand and will respect but seriously: she is beautiful!!! I can only hope and pray that if the Lord might let me be a father someday, that I could be as blessed as my friends have become :-)
My friends Brian and Betsi welcomed their first child, the more-beautiful-than-words-can-convey Clara a few days ago! And Clara is a doll! Just a sweet tiny astonishingly cute bundle of joy. I'm so glad for Brian and Betsi: they really are going to be great parents. Heck, they already are: Brian sings Clara to sleep with the Star Wars theme and he reports that it works great :-P
Again, congrats to Brian and Betsi and welcome little Clara!
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
-- Maya Angelou
Edit 02/14/2011 2:18 pm EST: A friend let me borrow a book not long ago. It's called When God Winks At You. It's filled with stories of many people - including a number of celebrities - who experienced extraordinary coincidences and twists of fate that made them realize something: that God is watching over us. It's a very good book, and it written in a style that reads pretty quickly.
Ever since reading it, I have been praying that God might wink at me, too. And give me that personal assurance that "Chris, I know you are going through a very dark and difficult time. But I love you! I won't quit on you or abandon you. You are My child and I love you more than you could ever know and I will bring you through this."
I wish God would wink at me, and let me know that He didn't allow me to have this condition for naught, when it did lead to me hurting too many people.
Today, I am feeling... like damaged goods. Alone. Abandoned. Rejected.
I was a good person. I'm still a good person. I didn't ask for my condition or do anything to invite it to happen.
Mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder are diseases of the mind. Not the soul.
There was someone who was very precious to me, and I wanted nothing more in this world than to spend the rest of my life cherishing her, serving her, loving her... and having a relationship with her that put Christ at the center of it all. That's what I prayed for, for the longest time. God had to know that, wouldn't He?
But now, there is nothing. Because of a condition that hurt so many who were near and dear to my heart.
Is God punishing me for something? Is there something I missed in my pursuit of Christ and the life He would have me live?
This is the worst part of bipolar: that you are hurting and that you hurt others. You never mean to, but you do.
I have to be reminded that there was nothing that I could have done to have prevented this from happening to others and myself. But even on my best days, I harbor heart-wrenching regret for the pain that I caused.
That is something that I will never forgive myself for. And especially, I can never forgive myself for hurting her.
So I keep asking God to wink at me.
Maybe someday He will...
Edit 02/14/2011 4:45 p.m. EST: One person who has seen the video wrote this to me...
Chris, some of us have been on the other side of bipolar and other illness and apparently you don't know what that is like. You have hurt people, there is no denying that, and you need to stop putting the blame on God for 'letting you have the disease'.
I tend to not post when you say things like this because I believe you mean well. However, I do not agree with about 95% of what you say on the subject. I definitely agree that it is a struggle and that you will slip, heck we all do, but I don't agree that the blame should be on anything other than yourself. Now, with that said, once you realize it IS your fault then forgive yourself and move on with life. We all make mistakes.
Yes, we do. I do, especially. I'm not perfect and have never claimed to be perfect. I can only follow Christ, the only One who is perfect. The One who I must cling to and rely on to carry me and my heavy burdens. Burdens that I would not want any person to have to feel crushed beneath.
But here is the problem with what this person is saying...
Suppose that I had been drinking heavily. And I get into my car while intoxicated and drive off and then I hit another car because of my condition and the other driver is killed as a result.
Would that have been my fault? Absolutely. The condition was my own. I would have been the only party that could possibly be blamed. The bottle of liquor did not grab hold of my mouth and make me drink it. That would have been my choice... and I would have to suffer the due consequences and gone to prison. Because it would have been my fault.
However much cheap booze can rob a person of his or her faculties, judgment and sound mind, mental illness such as bipolar disorder do much, MUCH worse.
And there is no choice. It's in the cards that a person is dealt from the moment their chromosomes come together in a mother's womb.
I didn't have to get drunk. As a matter of fact, I've never been drunk in my entire life. Neither have I done illegal drugs. A person isn't born with the desire for drugs and alcohol.
I was born with this. I will die with this. I am trying as best God will let me, to make the moments between now and the time I leave this world mean something.
I do hurt and feel guilty about the things that I did when my bipolar was unable to be managed. I wish people would see that and understand it and not see me as some kind of a freak, or a pariah.
You wanna know something? I'm not suicidal, even though I know what it's like to be suicidal. But all the same: I can't fear death anymore like I used to. And you wanna know why?
Because Heaven is the place where nobody says "goodbye" to you, ever again. And it's the place where the people that you love do know that you really did love them and would have done anything for them and that you didn't mean to hurt them.
I don't know if I'll ever again in this life see the girl who I do still love as my wife. Knowing that I will get to see her again someday, in the presence of God, is the most precious bit of hope that I have.
