J. Jason Lazarus Blog

5-12-2005 - So… I’ve been trying for the last few weeks to really find out what I want to write about here but I’ve been coming up with a lot of blanks. I get about a half page into it and decide that I’m either complaining too much, bitching too much, or blabbering on about absolutely nothing. Thankfully I’m not doing that right now (lol) … well it is the end of yet another semester here at UAF… and even though I was only taking one class, I am glad that the semester is over. No more long nights in the lab… no more “real” work until fall… no more dealing with Deanna and her mounds of homework… in fact, to be honest, I’m glad finals are here
only cause Deanna’s finals are almost done. Oh… that and that little trip to San Francisco that we’ll be getting on a plane for in … t-minus 2.5 days and we’ll be in san fran in t-minus…um… 2 days and 22 hours… yeah, but who’s counting? I’m just damned glad I’m getting out of the state for a while. I’m getting really tired of Fairbanks and relying on some of the people around here to actually be my friends and keep me company. A lot of my friends lately have managed to come up with really stupid reasons to not hang out with me - going far beyond the natural lame excuse of “well…i’m…er..um…really…um…busy and stuff” And it’s not that I’m expecting people that are simply aquintances to become my bestest friends - in fact, I’m not looking for something like “BFF” or something lamefully preschoolish like that. I completely understand that the word “friends” seems to lose meaning after about 12th grade and that now you just simply have people you hang out with that you occasionally call your best friends when you’re wildly drunk. I completely understanding expecting your “friends” to be anything more than hangout buddies once or twice a week is expecting too much. I understand all of this and let me mention that I also expect that reality acts exactly like this. I’m also not trying to say reality or society is wrong and I’m not ranting about this because I’m whining “why won’t you hang out with me??” I’m simply saying that nobody - nobody that I know actually does have a full schedule and so, right off the bat, the “i’m busy all the time” routine doesn’t work. But, most of my friends know that these lameass excuses don’t work with me cause I see right through them. Yet, rather than actually thinking out a viable reason they tend to blert out one that’s not only vividly transparent but also retarded.
Social contact is a nessessity, especially in Alaska. Long winter months make it hard to survive without it and the summers are too nice to avoid contact with others. So, this is why I’ve come up with this list of things not to do when dealing with weather or not to be social - and if I have friends that can manage to label themselves on this list and get offended, deal with it. I’m not trying to be offensive, I’m not trying to be crass… I’m just trying to be honest.

#1 - Don’t complain that you’ve moved somewhere where you have no friends, complain consistantly that you miss all your friends and when you move back, you decide to not even attempt to actually hang out with them in the first month and a half that you’re back in town.
#2 - Don’t spend all your freetime with someone that you’re dating. Not only is is suffocating to them but women tend to only last favorable to your presence for a while. If they are the kind you want to stay, you
probably won’t want to be around them nearly as much as you are now in a few years. If they’re going to stay, leaving them to hang out with other friends should be okay.
#3 - Don’t call a friend once a month when you need a “ride” to some place and cover it up like you’re actually hanging out with them.
#4 - Don’t let someone else call shots for you if you can hang out with people or not. Once in a while, concerning prior plans is understandable. Consulting your significant other whenever you have an opportunity to do something is extreme - it’s a sign that someone in the relationship is being controlling. That’s not good.

And once again, let me explain that this isn’t Jason being a whiney bitch. I just like to hang out with my friends - and I don’t like it when they do stupid things and say that they can’t. The following is viable reasons to not hang out with people:

#1 - Prior Plans.
#2 - Work.
#3 - Somebody’s Birthday, Anniversary, Church Holiday, Family Holiday, etc
#4 - Don’t feel well or don’t feel up to it. There should be only a certain amount of times this lame excuse can be used, because after a while it’s bullshit.

So ya… that’s my take on it. As much as I love my wife, having contact with other individuals would help.

5-2-2005 - I guess all good things come to an end - as my consistant updates for a while have… obviously. I’ve actually been fighting on what to write about, as a lot has happened but it’s just been hard to actually get the words out.
Deanna and I have decided to stay *sigh* on campus for another year. We couldn’t truly justify paying more for a place only slightly better than what we had on campus when we could simply rearrange the place and manage to increase our space - which we have. As much as I want to see a defined separation between me, my job, my life and where I live - I’ll have to wait till next May.
Deanna and I have also realized that some of the small problems we’ve had in our relationship have been from us not spending enough quality time together - so we’ve started spending one day a week completely together - usually a Saturday. We go to Alaska Coffeeroasters (or a compariable coffee shop), grab a drink, putt around town to the small stores or go grocery shopping at freds, eat a nice lunch/dinner out and maybe enjoy a movie or a walk in the evening. This has been really helping us - and trust me, I talk of our “problems” when they’re really pretty small - but me, the perfectionist, wants us to be as good as we can be.
Two weeks till San Francisco - we’ve pretty much decided we’re going to at least catch a baseball game while we’re there - looks like it’s going to be the Giants vs. the Oakland A’s… not a real hardcore rivalry there but there’s got to be at least some bay-city rivalries…
I bought Guild Wars this weekend. I hate you Jack - I hate you well. Fscking MMORPG’s. You know, okay… lemme explain it - I gave up MMORPG’s right at four years ago because, after a entire school year of playing Asheron’s Call on a T-1 line, I was forced to play it via a crappy, always disconnecting, 56k connection at my parents down in Oklahoma. OK is the kind of place that still probably doesn’t know what broadband is and thinks that dedicated internet service is a set of cans, tied together with a string, setting on top of your computer leading over to theirs. Anyways, Asheron’s Call didn’t deal with disconnects the smartest way (i.e. kill your connection, spawn you in the nearest SAFE town) - it just kept you doing whatever you were doing when you got dissed for…oh about five minutes. Which meant, if you were running through territory where you could get killed easily if you didn’t watch where you were going, monsters would kill you. Which meant you had to find your body, which you didn’t know where it was, cause it had been running for five minutes, and then try to get the things your body dropped all the while your health is running lower cause you died and your body is being camped by the monsters. Okay,okay… I cried. I literally started crying cause I had like five bodies, no health, and couldn’t get back my riches. I know it’s a game but DAMNIT all that hard work! Anyways, stupid as it may seem, when I realized that I was crying over a dumb game, I stopped. When I also realized that I was paying $15/month to cry, I never wanted to play a MMORPG again. You’re almost forced to get your monies worth out of it, and seeing that I don’t think that you should have to pay for gaming online, that ratio of gaming hours per dollar a month is pretty freaking high. That’s where… I guess… Guild Wars is “good”…no monthly fee, no fees short of the inital game, and you don’t die and have to loot your body. The system is a lot more..pleasing… and I’m actually liking everything about it. The fact that your quests are done alone or only with your party rather than 500 idiots waiting for the quest item to respawn… it amazing. Yeah,yeah, I’ll shutup. I’m a geek, deal with it.
Deanna and I also went on a 15-mile bike ride this weekend. It’s amazing exactly how large Fairbanks is when you’re riding around it. We’re planning to make this a weekly thing - least our asses would hurt horribly if we did it anymore. I’m also hoping that this next weekend we can manage a trip out to Chena Hot Springs and, more importantly, Angel Rocks / Granite Tors. My dad is saying that I shouldn’t venture in that area without a gun because of the fires last year driving out about everything but the bears… *sigh* looks like I’ll be packin a 44 Magnum. I don’t like the idea but it looks like the only safe thing to do. I’ve been itching to hike more since last Labor Day’s trip to Valdez/Independence Mine with Jack. Speaking of which, Fourth of July I should try to manage a 4-day weekend down there.
Registration for my summer class is going alright - could be better, could be worse. I’ll just be happy if those that register wouldn’t stop dropping after two or three days. I’m really looking forward to that - T-minus 3 weeks until my class starts!