You clearly never watch TV or movies. But seriously, that is an amazingly naive and wrong assumption. My mother's abysmal performance as a single parent is the reason I will never be able to have a relationship with a single mother, and I know several of them today from work and school who are miserable and doing a terrible job with their kids, which makes it unlikely I'll ever see anything profound enough to change my mind. But I know this negative view is also not true of every single mother, either, so I'm not being naive that far in the other direction. What I can say about it is, though, that I'm not wild about the idea of having to compete with her child(ren) for her attention and affection, and if one of the kids ever said to me something like, "You're not my father!", that would seriously just crush my soul. The fact that I'd be in a position of trying to provide for them that father figure role that nobody ever did for me growing up, and them throwing it back in my face, seriously, that would kill me. So the whole thing just feels like a hornet's nest I'd never be comfortable in. Thanks a lot, Mom.

I know how difficult it is, having to listen to her cry herself to sleep every night because we were facing homelessness and all her health problems were out of control, and no knight in shining armor ever showed up to rescue her or us. And now after seeing our family be torn apart, I just can't see why anyone ever would want to.

This seems to be the only thing anyone who contacts me has in common, they are all from very, very far away, at least several states, sometimes in other countries altogether.

What is the general opinion people have of this? If someone contacts you and they're on completely the other side of the country, do you even give them the time of day?

My thing is, did that person even take the time to realize that I'm over 2000 miles away before they sent me a message? Did it not ever cross their mind that it might be just a tad difficult to form a relationship with that cumbersome gap between us? Or am I just so appealing a specimen that they would walk that distance just to meet me? Maybe I'm just a bit jaded because the last two people who were a significant distance away that I actually began having serious conversations with ended up trying to beg me for money, but honestly, what else could come from someone whose profile says they're so far removed that a nuclear explosion or giant earthquake wouldn't be felt by both of us simultaneously?

I'm not going to get into the misunderstanding behind the definition of 'theory' (please read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion for a much better clarification of this than I could provide) but suffice it to say, a theory will have supporting evidence and that is why religion is not even a theory.

When you really study it objectively, religion is simply the earliest attempt for humanity, in its relative infancy, to explain what the hell was going on with the world. Just like evolution paved the way for everything we see around us, we should have discarded the cumbersome, vestigial belief system that is religion in favor of the much more useful tool of advancement and further evolution, i.e. science. But that same book I mentioned explains how that might not have happened by purely evolutionary terms, by things simply taking a bad direction in a completely natural, understandable (and thoroughly regrettable) way.

Yours was worse? Yikes. And yeah, but then again, who in their right mind thinks the internet is the place to go for compassion?

I got a call back from the lawyer, we're meeting Friday to talk. Hopefully we have a strong case, since I'll have to give him a big cut of whatever I get.

A co-worker gave me the number of what he described sounds like a pretty good lawyer, so I'm going to get in touch with them. Wish me luck.

I think the twelve-inch-by-three-inch black-purple bruise across my bum is probably grounds for some compensation.

I was pretty let down. You'd almost think they let Michael Bay get his hands on it.

Yeah, apparently Cattlemen's gives you a hat along with free ice cream now for your birthday. The song wasn't very good, they changed the words and the tune from what they used to sing. There's still a "Yee-Ha!" at the end, though.

Found out one of the scrapes on my hand might be infected, but otherwise doing a little better with each day. Avengers wasn't quite as good as I was hoping but dinner was awesome. I even got a straw cowboy hat with my free ice cream.

Well, as of today,it's officially my birthday. The big 3-0. Got a doctor's appointment, then my friend and I are going to see the Avengers, and cap off the day with a steak dinner. Hopefully I'll be up to returning to work and school on Monday.

Just finished Marvel's Daredevil on Netflix. Really impressed, the writing definitely lent itself to a 13-episode TV series rather than a 2 hour movie. With the exception of Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk, I thought every other character (especially Foggy) was incredibly well-written and superbly acted.

Would feel a lot better if I didn't have to spend this birthday alone.

From where I'm sitting, i.e. in tremendous pain, that doesn't seem much worse. Why do things like vicodin and such exist if not for cases like this? Why is my pain being ignored by supposedly competent medical professionals?

The tip of my thumb is broken and I hurt all over because the hospital won't give me anything for pain. I can barely walk. I can't go to work or school, probably going to lose my job. Doesn't get any better than this.

At least it wasn't a hit and run. I need some advice how to go about suing the driver too.

Could I be any unluckier?

Hm, it's hard to find romantic comedies a guy can stay awake through but I've seen one or two. Strictly Ballroom (Australian, Baz Luhrnman) and Danny Deckchair (also Australian) were two that come to mind. I think they were more authentic in the development of romance and relationships rather than the hurried, slapdash affairs of Titanic and almost everything else.

Why is everything about this so cut and dry? I mean, think about it like this:

Do you love the freedom you have in America? Great. I think considering the repression in many countries, this one should be universally acknowledged as good.

Do you love the government and politicians? Now we're getting into murky waters.

Do we love the way the economy works? Again, questionable.

Do we love the people here? As a whole that's not possible to say, but there are plenty who could definitely make us raise an eyebrow.

Loving something shouldn't mean you don't acknowledge its imperfections or that you don't think it can be better, a LOT better in some cases.

So if a person refuses to make some, at its root, meaningless gesture to symbolically say that they aren't just going to blindly follow something that they do not have complete faith in, or that can not make the same solemn pledge in return, there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. It's the same reason we have people protesting things like Vietnam and Iraq, we may love the country but its leaders don't always do what we think is right and that message needs to be heard. People failing to see the difference between individuals and ideas and whatnot are just sad.

Two movies by Stephen Chow: Shaolin Soccer. I guess CJ7 is also appropriate for the family but it wasn't nearly as good.

People need to address the root problems, like bullying, unexpressed aggression, lack of proper anger management and the morality issues about justice versus revenge, emotional detachment from parental neglect among other things, lack of opportunity to express individuality, and the entire concept of masculinity in this culture. The one form of outlet most people have to blow off steam in a cathartic way without guilt or consequences should not be taken away from them. Of course they need to play real games too, but again, parental responsibility and structured schedules being neglected, and we get even more problems.

And I get that parents don't have that kind of time, that's not uncommon nor something that the average person should be able to understand and empathize with. But to take this backwards leap and completely abdicate their responsibility by heaping the blame onto a straw man so they don't have to answer for their failings and even attempt to make things better? THAT is inexcusable. When the biggest influences in a child's life, ideally their parents, aren't doing their job, it shows. This desperate bid to point the finger elsewhere is sickening.

I don't have a lot of experience in relationships so I'll take all the help I can get, even if things don't last long.

I'm also hoping to find someone to help me feel less lonely and down in the dumps. Whether or not it leads to a lasting relationship, I want to find someone. But I'm getting pretty discouraged.