Defiantone.com

Airborne - how many times have I been told about the wonders of this supplement? People have a manic obsession with it because they believe that it will strengthen their immune system and prevent colds. It is often taken before a trip as a stressful time that is sleep deprived is more likely to bring on a cold as your immune systems weaken.

I’ve always hated holistic cures that have no scientific merit. Sure, this stuff has a bunch of vitamin C but so do oranges. We have not found a cure for the cold and we do not know how to prevent it - all that we do know is that if we wear our immune system down through stress/lack of sleep/change of environment we are more likely to catch a cold.

Well - if you thought airborne was the cure - you were wrong. Turns out there was a class action lawsuit because they’ve been selling a PLACEBO. I think its hilarious - and this is just another time where you were wrong.

Ok - now that you’ve regained your composure and have figured out that I’m messing with you its time for some links.

This guy has zero tact but still tells it like it is. In fact, I would almost wager that he is anti-tact. His best article is where he dissects womens clothing options. Brilliant work (warning: just a bit profane)

This website gives determines your personality based upon the photos you choose. Based on my selections, I have been dubbed a “go getter”

I haven’t had much to do on my day off so I decided to watch a movie. I should have spent the time studying but my book is underneath the bed of a guy who is asleep. I don’t want to wake him up and I really don’t want to study so its quite convenient for me. The movie that played was Pirates III - I’m sure some of you out there have seen it. The last time I went to watch it I almost didn’t because I ended up with tickets in a different theater than the rest of us. Luckily for me, I talked to the manager and got a ticket to the correct place and made a girl very happy. We ended up sitting about 5 feet away from the screen so I had a hard time telling what the hell was going on. Most people that sit that close either go blind or get motion sickness. This time I was lucky enough to be able to see the whole screen and the movie made a bit more sense. Now, you might ask, why in the world would I be writing about pirates? The girl I love adores pirates - watching this movie reminded me of her. I cope with loneliness by trying to stay as busy as possible. When I’m not busy - I tend to notice it. So, for once I feel like a human should because there is an emotion involved. I tend to shut them out whenever I can - feeling cold helps you out in life but it can make you a bit of a cynic. I’m not all cold on the inside - you’re only seeing the thick outer shell.

I didn’t expect it to get into the low twenties last night but it did. This is supposed to be the desert and deserts are supposed to be hot - well, the Gobi desert isn’t for the overwhelming majority of the year. Qatar was quite warm and only got into the low 60’s at night - its a shame that we are so far away from the water and there is nothing to keep the temps high at night. I spent my first night working and it wasn’t all that bad - save for the cold. My problem - well, one of my problems is that I inherited my dads ability to sweat under any circumstances. So, I have thermal underwear that causes me to sweat while indoors. The second I move outside it freezes and makes me quite cold. After freezing for a while it evaporates or gets soaked back into the thermals and I get warm again. So, in order to get warm while working outside I must be forced to freeze. Something about this seems awry but there is little I can do to fix it. They don’t like us setting our flare on fire to keep us warm - mostly because all of the other items at work react poorly to heat and flame.

I’ve never been frozen to the bone but I know that I though I had been once or twice in my life. I’ve never been to Alaska or Siberia, lands of bereft tundra covered with winters white icy grip. I’ve never been outside when the temperature dropped below -30. Despite all of this, I think I know what its like to be frozen to the bone. There is nothing worse than rain when the temp is less than 40 degrees. You don’t freeze because the temperature is so low that you’ll get frostbite when you skin makes contact with the wind but because you are unprepared for the weather. Often, when I look outside and see that its raining I think of thunderstorms in the summer or maybe some rain in late spring or early fall. At any of these times during the year you’ll get wet if you spent some time outside but you’re unlikely to freeze. If you’re spending time in the arctic north (or south as the case may be), you’re aware of how dangerous it is to go outside without the proper precautions. When you’re hanging out in England or the Pacific Northwest you’re less likely to think about precautions when its raining because… its rains all the damned time.

Why am I writing about all of this? Its just another cold day rainy day outside and I often underestimate how quickly I can get cold. Its not freezing outside so I’m not wearing anything extra on my base layer and I tend to not wear my gloves unless I’m working outside. Right now I can barely feel my fingers after working outside for 5 minutes… I guess you shouldn’t underestimate the weather because its going to get you. Earth is not a place for the meek and if you underestimate the power of the planet, as so many people do, you’re going to have a drastically shortened lifespan.

This formatting in this post is probably going to be jacked as I cannot get this program to format it correctly… So, you’ll have to suffer if you happen to read this before I can make updates to it.

I’m thinking about changing the template of my website yet again…  yes, what can I say, I’m a huge fan of change

While fighting through a cold that is doing its best to bring me to my knees I’ve been trying to think of some great words that could describe my thoughts on the time I have spent in the UK. After a few hours of musing on the subject, I don’t have anything that is all that groundshaking. My personal problems over the past few years have overshadowed the fun that I should have had in this country. For the most part, save for my small stint working in control, I haven’t had any problems at work. I’ve had excellent supervisors and great mentors thoughout my tenure here. But, because of all of that personal crap, I haven’t enjoyed myself as much as I should have. I hope to start new when I move tommorow and make a new beginning for myself. I’ve got the opportunity to start with a clean slate and leave all of my excess baggage behind.

Well, 8 hours until I get on a bus and I’ve got two football games to watch. I’ve got myself cranked on caffeine and sugar in an effort to counteract the decongestant. I’ll let you all know how it is when I get there but I’m expecting the best this time around.

I’ve run as fast as I could and have avoided them for quite a while but they are back rearing their ugly heads. They hunt me with a relentless cold malice that I cannot stop, I can only delay the inevitable. I know what this is going to bring along with it and I wish that it didn’t have to come but it is coming and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I want to give up but I can’t so all I can do is get mean and try to fight it. Unfortunately, I’ll end up fighting everyone else that happens to be around me at the time. Its an unavoidable side effect of the whole problem.

Of course, because of my nature, there is nobody around me for the whole thing making loneliness part of the mix as well.

The gremlins suck, I hate them but here they are and I can’t stop them.

Looking through the window of the rushing train, I think: Siberia, so this is how it looks! I heard this name for the first time when I was seven years old. Stern mothers from our street cautioned “Children, behave yourselves, or they’ll deport you to the Sybir!” (They said it in Russian -Sybir- for this sounded more menacing, apocalyptic.) Gentle mothers would become indignant: “How can you frighten children this way!”

It wasn’t really possible to imagine Siberia. One of my friends finally showed me a drawing in a book: In a heavy snowstorm walked a column of tattered and hunched-over men. Heavy chains with iron balls at the end were attached to their hands and legs and they dragged these balls behind them over the ground.

Siberia, in its sinister, cruel form, is a freezing, icy space… plus dictatorship.

In many states there exist icy territories, lands that for the greater part of the year are frozen over, dead. Such, for instance, are the vast stretches of Canada. Or take Danish Greenland, or American Alaska. And yet it doesn’t occur to anyone to frighten children with: “Wash your hands or they’ll send you to Canada!” or “Play nicely with that little girl or they’ll deport you to America!” In those countries, quite simply, there is no dictatorship, nobody puts anyone in chains, nobody imprisons anyone in camps, dispatches him to work in hellish frost, to a certain death. In those frozen lands, man has one antagonist -the cold.

I read this in a book… thought I might share it. I’m sure the copyright layers are going to kill me now…

Its surreal outside in wonderful England today. The weather, unlike normal, was in the mid-70’s for most of the day and there was no rainfal. In fact, the sun was out shining down on the scared citizens of this country. They act strangely when the sun comes out because its a rarity. Its similar to watching a caveman yell ook ook when he sees fire for the first time. I just got home from a day at the airport… which is always an interesting experience. When I was driving home it was still partially light outside… it was 21:11 at night… yes, this is an odd country. The temperature hasn’t plummeted yet (so thats a bonus) and is expected to remain decent throughout the weekend. England, as normal, could kick us all right in the nuts and let us have the regular cold pissing rain that its so well known for. Well, Scotland is getting that crap rain as I write this.

I’ve been up since 6AM this morning and I’m going back to work in 2.5hrs… (12AM) yes, this will be an interesting experiment in sleep deprivation. I can hardly wait for whats coming to me next. I’ll try to write down all that I remember. I have a feeling that I’ll be sleeping on the floor at AFK tonight because driving back in my state would be similar to the time I saw the Misfits in Chicago and got back at 5AM the following day. I slept for about 45 minutes, went to school, learned absolutely nothing, came home at the end of the day and crashed. The state I was in, well, lets just say I swerved to miss imaginary objects while hurtleing down the highway at 85mph (the maximum speed of Manerva [my fathers name for the wood paneled atrocity I once drove {it was great to drive (read free) but was ugly as sin}]). (yes, thats alot of stuff hidden in that sentence… I’m too lazy to figure out a decent way of writing it all cohesively so I cheat, often.

Some people might come here thinking this website is about 2 Kings (as in the bible). Well, that assumption would be incorrect. I read the bible and Jesus is one stone cold cool dude but this isn’t about him. 2kings is when there were two of us; now there is but one. So.. I’m keeping the name for a while… maybe at some point in the distant future I’ll schlep another person into that position (the FAR DISTANT future).

He sits on the bar stool staring blankly into space. At the bar in front of him sits a dirty glass half finished pint of bitter. His eyes are dark and show no emotion. They seem cold, like that blast of cold that hits you when you step out of your house in January to start your car. If you stare into them they’ll take your breath away and you’ll be forced to look into another direction. He sends piercing gazes to the others in the bar in a vain effort to figure out how they do it. He wonders how they communicate with people that they’ve never met. The only one he knows is the bartender that replaces his pint and he doesnt know her either.

No one notices him sitting in a worn t-shirt with a logo for something he finds intersting printed squarely on the front and a old pair of jeans that are tearing apart at the seams. The others are wearing button up shirts and nice leather shoes. He wears the steel toed boots that take him to work every day. Maybe, he thinks, if he should get into it, the loud thud of the steel into the other guy will scare any other takers away. These people are too rich for him. The girls that come here are too shallow and too nice for him at the same time. He wants someone that can break his will, barring that, he’ll take someone that will be on equal ground.

He met someone the other night at a bar and talked for two hours. He doesn’t think she’ll remember the conversation in the morning; he doesn’t consider himself worthy of being in another persons thoughts. When people speak to him they had better have a clear self image of who they really are and who they want to be. If they don’t, he’ll tear them apart like a lion does to a gazelle ripping flesh from bone. He is, in no way shape or form physically attracted to her but the fact that she can carry a conversation without pissing him off immediately is amazing. She carries on many of the normal topics and assumes alot, She assumes correctly on many of the points. She guesses what his job is, where he is from, and roughly how old he is. He doesn’t guess because he knows about her. She is in her lower 30’s, married, and works in a job around children. Her mind moves in an analytical fashion; she must spend most of her time in math or science. It turns out she is a teacher… he was right yet again. She doesn’t challenge him mentally and he toys with her for the next two hours. For some reason, as he sits sober in the chair, he wants to make her question everything in life. Life is not as clear as many people think it is. She begins to doubt herself and the remarks she is making; she is not as strong as she thought she was.

The proverbial soft spot in the armor is shown to him and he opens up the wound. She is not safe anymore, she has let too much of herself out there in the open. She has a general naiveté that she is beginning to exude. She doesnt know even though she’s been around longer. She tries but is shut down. He won’t let anyone in.

She leaves and he wonders why there are so few that can challenge him. Maybe he sets the standards too high. He sets his own standards so high that he always fails himself. Constantly pushing, he never gives up but is always met with constant disappointment. The disappointment leads to a general contempt and hate for everything around him. They should know him but they can’t because he will not let them. If the did know, they wouldn’t be able to handle what came up.