Category Archives: Facebook

The Ultimate NCAA Sports Video Game Project

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It’s difficult to even know where to begin with this blog entry. Even though it’s many years in the making, it’s still difficult to put everything into words and try to lay the groundwork for an explanation. So this may seem long-winded and rambling but it’s the most important blog post I’ve ever written.

In late June I’m going to be walking away from social media and the Chicago White Sox. Yes, I know, I’ve said it before and did not follow through. This was a timing issue more than an issue of desire. I’ve been planning this out carefully, down to the last detail. And while I’ve been considering this move since at least 2011, the actual want to do this stretches back much further than that… 2001… 1997… As far as 1993.

I’ll begin with exactly what my plan is and why I want to do it. The plan part is easy, I want to play an entire college “dynasty,” or career, in the video game world. I want to play four seasons of college football, basketball and baseball. You may wonder what that has to do with the White Sox or social media, and I’ll get to that as I go on. The why, I can’t answer for sure. It may be a midlife crisis, it may be a longing for happier days, of which I’ve had many, back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It may be a lot of things combined.

As a lot of you know, EA Sports stopped making college sports games in the 2010s (and at least one college franchise in the 2000s) due to the athletes not receiving any kind of royalties due to their likenesses being used in the games. The last college football game hit the shelves in 2014, the last college basketball game in 2010 (both on the PlayStation 3) and the last college baseball game (of which there were only two) in 2007 (on the PlayStation 2). So it is here that I made my decision to play the entire Dynasty on the 2007 games for the PlayStation 2. NCAA Football 07, NCAA March Madness 07 and MVP NCAA Baseball 07.

Yes, they’re severely outdated (like 16 years outdated), but that means less than one might imagine since updated rosters are available not only for download but on memory cards that can be purchased from eBay or other online stores. So while the graphics will be extremely dated, the experience won’t be.

Now, I want to take a step back in time and explain how I got to this point.

I have a long experience as a sports video gamer. One of the absolute highlights of this came back in 1993, when my friend Calvin and I spent a weekend playing Baseball Stars on the NES.

Baseball Stars was the first video game to include a fully programmable option, you could create your own teams and your own leagues, even with the ability to make players male or female. This was unheard of at the time, and that game was, and still is, one of my all time favorites. Calvin and I had what might be considered a fantasy draft, selecting players for our teams, as well as one minor league team each. We then created ourselves and our entire teams and proceeded to play an entire season.

The idea of “creating” yourself in a game stuck with me. My next favorite sports game (chronologically) was Tecmo Super Bowl. This was the first sports game to feature not only real teams but real players, but the “creation” option hadn’t reached it’s point in time yet. At this point, my senior year in high school, my friend Joe Nunez and I played a complete season, just “pretending” we were the players in the game, as Joe played as the Cleveland Browns and I played as the New Orleans Saints. But I wanted to “be” me.

In the summer of 1995, I bought a copy of an old NES game called John Elway’s Quarterback. This game had neither real players or real teams, just a bunch of bland players and city names instead of teams. It’s at this point I began the “dynasty” concept; I would play four “seasons” of football on John Elway’s Quarterback and then I would start playing Tecmo Super Bowl as an NFL draftee.

John Elway’s Quarterback doesn’t have any kind of stat saving ability, so while I played I kept a spiral notebook in my hand, and every time I completed a pass or ran for positive yardage, I would write that number down in parenthesis in my notebook, and if I threw an incomplete pass, I’d mark that with an “x.” Then I could figure out my completion percentage and total yards, as well as my touchdowns and interceptions. I used the “Los Angeles” team on the game as the UCLA Bruins, and when I finished, I was “drafted” by the Cleveland Browns. I proceeded to play seven seasons with the Browns on Tecmo Super Bowl, winning three Super Bowls before I quit. For whatever reason, I didn’t keep all of my stats like I wanted to.

The next time I decided to do a Dynasty was 1997, and it was much more advanced and involved than the 1995 version. This time, I was using the Super Nintendo and was playing both football and basketball at UCLA, using College Football USA 97 and NCAA Final Four Basketball and when I finished, I created myself on Madden 97. This was leaps and bounds ahead of what I had done before, with College Football USA 97 keeping all of the important stats I needed and, while NCAA Final Four Basketball didn’t really have a season option, I made the best of it and played what amounted to four full seasons. When this was finished, I was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers on Madden 97 but I never got around to actually playing for them.

This was not my least successful run, but it was definitely not my best. While College Football USA 97 was a million miles ahead of keeping my own stats with a “fake” team, there was still no option to create myself (however, on the Sega Genesis version of College Football USA 97, player creation IS an option) and the game play was so unbelievably slow, there was no real enjoyment to be had playing the game. But the fact that I was able to play football AND basketball was a revelation and really did change everything.

Fast forward to 2001. I had upgraded to a Sony PlayStation and the first thing I did was purchase NCAA GameBreaker 2000 and NCAA Final Four 2000, as well as NFL GameDay 2000. These games were all produced by Sony’s 989 Studios, and what a major improvement compared to my previous dynasty. I could play a full career at UCLA in both football and basketball with real stats, schedules, etc.

I enjoyed this immensely, and allowed myself to be drafted on NFL GameDay 2000 and ended up with the Carolina Panthers as a second round pick. I decided to run with it. A couple of games into my second season with the Panthers, it said my character had suffered a knee injury and I ended up being out the rest of the season. This was doubly bad when, at the end of the year, I was on the Panthers’ list of retired players. This bothered me more than it should have, and it would be nine years before I decided to try again.

I went on to pick up MLB 2000, and by 2004 I was completely off on college (and pro) football and basketball, and subsequently bought MLB 2004 and MLB 2005. Once the MLB The Show series started, I bought every game every year, including 2023. As I mentioned, during this time, EA Sports stopped producing college sports games, and at some point in the early 2010s I did buy NCAA Football 10 and NCAA Basketball 10 and eventually bought NCAA Football 13 and NCAA Football 14. They were never used and, in fact, NCAA Football 14 has never been out of the case. I just didn’t feel anything anymore for college sports, I was all in on baseball.

The problem with that is I have burned myself out beyond the ability to even function anymore. My life has been all baseball, all day, 365 days a year since 2004. I got on social media in 2005 (MySpace) and it’s been posting stories and lineups and transactions every day for 18 years. And I am ready for a change.

And I’m ready to take a step back in time to happier days and even though I know the experience won’t be the same, I still want to take the time and do this one more time, a little better than the last time I did it, because now it’s time to play college football, basketball and baseball. The complete experience.


I have procured brand new, unopened copies of NCAA Football 07, NCAA March Madness 07 and MVP NCAA Baseball 07 as well as updated rosters for each. I’m going to create myself and play all the way through, all three sports, until I “graduate.” After that, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I may “get drafted” on Madden 07 or I may buy the newest Madden (whenever that may be) for the PS5 or I may break down and play Road To The Show for the first time on MLB The Show. I’m not worried about it right now. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Right now, my focus is on unfocusing on the White Sox.

I’ve not yet decided if I’m going to do this dynasty with the WVU Mountaineers or the UCLA Bruins but at the moment it’s definitely 90% UCLA. That decision will come within the next month. The other decision I’m battling with is what to do with social media. I know the vast majority of people who are friends or followers on social media are there for my White Sox posts, so my plan at the moment is to just create new social media accounts strictly for college sports. I’ll keep my other accounts in case this idea falls flat or something happens to hasten my return to the way things are now. I’m hopeful that doesn’t happen and I hope my friends who enjoy college sports will follow me to my new platforms. That decision will also be made in the next month.

So, in closing, as I stand right now, I’m fully planning on making this project a reality. And while I’ll be using PS2 games, I have a backward compatible PS3 that does upgrade the graphics slightly. Once I’ve made the decision, I’ll be boxing up all of my White Sox memorabilia and putting it in storage. I figure this project should take roundabout two years to finish completely, at which a White Sox return is certainly possible.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

Riding Off Into The Sunset…

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It is with mixed emotions that I present this blog entry, as I have spent the better part of two years deciding exactly how, and when, I would need to write it.

After much thought and discussion, I have decided that the time is now for me to walk away from social media and the Chicago White Sox. The reasons for this are varied but it all comes down to needing to do what’s right for my mental health and well-being.

Regarding the White Sox, I have reached a low point in my fandom, after 32 years, I just don’t have the desire to continue watching this clown show. Most everyone knows I’ve dropped tens of thousands of dollars right into Jerry Reinsdorf’s pocket over the years, in addition to paying $150 a year for MLB.TV, just for the pleasure of being disgusted and aggravated.

For over 20 years I’ve wanted to redo a little project I did back in 2001 (and once previously in 1995-96) that requires my full attention and I have decided that the time to do it is now. I have to remove outside influences and that means spending my money elsewhere, not on the White Sox or MLB, in general. It requires spending my time elsewhere, as well.

Which brings me to social media. I first joined MySpace in September 2005, and I’ve been completely connected ever since. This has been both a blessing and a curse, and while I love all of my White Sox friends, I need to take a step back and isolate myself for a while. This is not to say I’m going to go away forever; in fact, I’m not closing my accounts, I’m just removing them from my phone/tablet/PC and letting them sit. I don’t want to oversell what I’m doing, this is a mental health break, and if my project goes to plan, it should take around two years to finish.

I don’t expect this to be easy, but I’m going to give it everything I have. And until I return, I hope the White Sox find some way to turn things around and I hope everyone has happy, fulfilling and productive lives, myself included. Thank you for being a friend.

Peace.

BACK IN THE CLINK: FACEBOOK JAIL 2022

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Back in the clink.

This is my 11th trip to Facebook Jail, and I consider it to be just about as legitimate as the rest of my trips.

A friend of mine had posted a video on my wall, taken at the MLB All Star Game in Los Angeles. A group of kids were standing behind a fence waiting for a player to sign baseballs for them. At one point, a man with gray hair and a gray beard, forced his way into the line, shoving children in the process, to get a ball autographed. I commented that this man “should be taken behind a building and have a few of his bones broken.” Shortly thereafter, I was told that I would be going to Facebook Jail for 5 days.

My crime? “Inciting violence.”

To be fair, I had 2 prior warnings. In December 2021 I posted a meme featuring a scene from the film National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. In the scene, Clark and Rusty Griswold are hanging Christmas lights on the roof and the caption read “Rusty, like Jeffrey Epstein, these lights aren’t going to hang themselves.” This was a violation for “promoting suicide,” even though Epstein memes are strewn about Facebook like party favors on New Year’s Eve.

In November 2021, I committed the ultimate sin, which I’m surprised didn’t land me in Facebook Jail permanently, or maybe even in “real” jail: I posted that there are two genders and everything else is mental illness. That was removed for “hate speech.”

So, before I jump into where I go from here, I just want to put a few things out there because I’m not ashamed of my beliefs and I will continue to hold them whether or not I’m able to mention them. There’s a fine line between free speech and a complete shutdown on same, so if this also gets me into trouble, well, I’ll talk about that later in this dissertation.

I hate Joe Biden with the fury of 1000 suns. If I woke up tomorrow and he had died from COVID, I’d consider it a national holiday. I think he’s a miserable, lying, good for nothing, worthless piece of garbage and he has been for as long as I can remember. I first became aware of him in 1987, during the 1988 Presidential race, which we covered in my 6th grade social studies class. This was my introduction to politics. Ol’ Joe was running for the Democrat nomination but had to drop out after it was discovered he was falsifying (i.e. lying about) his academic history.

Along with Joe, I hate his entire party, especially the far left liberals. The ones that Malcolm X very eloquently outed in the 1960s who have only become worse over time. The “woke” folks. The “trans community.” You people are all sick. Like mentally ill.

I’ve made no attempt to hide my feelings about these “people” on social media, and to be fair to the Facebook cocksuckers, er, “fact checkers,” it wasn’t my posts on this garbage that landed me in Facebook Jail. To be honest, I’ve had very few problems posting my thoughts on these subjects on social media, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

The issue at hand is that I was at a tipping point anyway. I’m not in a good place in my life. I’m burned out on baseball (I think), but I’m not sure if I’m actually burned out or if its being pushed at me by certain people in my life that I’m burned out. There is a person in my day to day life that is doing everything possible to change everything about me. I don’t like it, and I wouldn’t do that to anyone. I keep hoping it will subside, but if it doesn’t, I will need to extricate this person from my life. However, there’s also a possibility that she’s being honest, I may well BE burned out.

I’ve been trying to roll my life back as much as I can to the last time I was happy, which was anytime between 1995 and 2005. Actually, to be completely fair, I was happy from the day I was born until around May 2005. Since then, it’s been one disaster after another, more misery piled upon more unhappiness, so I’ve been trying to find a way to go back to happier times.

What has been at the center of my unhappiness for 17 years? Social media and the internet. I don’t beat around the bush about this, it’s been women on social media that have made me miserable for 17 years. Every unhappy moment and every aggravation can be traced to some female I never should have been dealing with in the first place. This is not hyperbole in any sense of the word. These are facts. Those who have been around me can verify that this is a fact.

So, part of what I have been looking at doing to try to turn back the clock is getting rid of social media. Beyond that, I have fantasized of getting rid of my smart phone. I recently got my dad a 4G flip phone (which I had no idea still existed) and this has made me yearn for one. I can’t get rid of the internet completely, as I have 2 internet businesses I run so getting completely off the grid is impossible. But it’s possible to remove myself from 90% of it.

However, I’m not positive that’s going to make me any happier, and a large number of friends have agreed that leaving social media isn’t going to make me any happier. One person, though, thinks its a great idea because, as mentioned, she would like to change everything about me. My theory up until now has been if I changed social media to fit me, I might be OK with it.

I’ve been active on Twitter for a decade, and I’ve had less trouble on there with my posts than I have had on Facebook, which seems to be the polar opposite of the problems most people have. I’ve had an Instagram account since around 2016, and my problems on there are pretty much equal to my problems on Facebook (which makes sense because they’re under the same corporate umbrella and are likely policed by the same “keystone cops” who fact check on Facebook.

Ultimately, I don’t think turning back time (or making a half-assed attempt to) is going to be the answer, it might seem novel at first but I think it would get boring very quickly. Yes, I was very happy in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but I’m also not the same person I was back then. Everything has changed, including my mentality. I was naturally happy back then. Now I would be taking an angry and bitter version of myself who is 20 to 25 years older and trying to stick myself into a situation that is devoid of the few things that make me happy NOW but trying to recreate the things that made me happy THEN. Considering how much has changed, I just don’t think it’s possible.

When I look back 25 to 27 years ago, I was in college. I had a girlfriend across the county. I had one video game console, an original Nintendo. I watched Three’s Company and Perry Mason on a daily basis, taping them off television and watching the VHS tapes over and over and over. I had my cat, Bubbles. My mom was still living then, obviously. I didn’t have a lot, but I was so happy.

Fast forward to now. I have everything. PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 5 consoles which play games for every generation, as well as a Retron 5 to play everything else. A 55-inch 4K TV. Those shows I enjoyed? I have the entire series on DVD, not just the ones I mentioned but several others that were a huge part of the 2000s for me. I have more “stuff” than I have room to put it.

And it really doesn’t do anything for me. Back in those days I had a word processor that looked just like a computer from the early 1990s, complete with a full size CRT monitor. I was so happy. Now I have a $1000 gaming computer with a 25” monitor and it’s just kind of “meh.” The 55” TV instead of the 25” TV. A Blu-ray player instead of the old VCR I build out of parts from 3 broken ones. Multiple streaming services instead of cable. But I also have DISH Network. I have everything.

And I have nothing, because none of it is making me happy.

I know a lot of this, and by extension, my unhappiness on social media, is mostly in my head. I do things that annoy me. For example, if I would just completely ignore the news, be it on the radio, the TV or the internet, and I never saw Joe Biden’s face again, that would go a long way toward making me less angry. I need to stop listening to people who want me to change for their benefit. My life is my own, it belongs to no one else and no one else should have any say in it.

So at this moment, what I’m looking at doing is, when I return to Facebook on Tuesday, changing my entire presentation. Instead of anti-Biden memes and “woke is a joke” posts, I need to stick strictly to baseball, maybe a cat meme here and there, and not let politics so much as be a blip on my radar. All the news does is make me angry, and it needs to be cleansed from my life.

I also need to eliminate the people who cause me these problems as well. And there are several of them. Whether or not that means unfriending, unfollowing or just blocking, they need to be where I can’t see them and don’t have to deal with them. I am just at a point in my life where I can’t deal with such flagrant stupidity and mental insanity. Especially when it accomplishes nothing for them and nothing for me. I’m also going to go on Twitter and do the same thing.

Hopefully, this will work. If it doesn’t, I’ll admit I was wrong and consider my other options, including complete disconnection from the world and an attempt to go back to 1999 in 2022. Even though I know it won’t work, at least I will make the attempt. I hope I won’t have to, because it will likely hurt more than just knowing how much unhappier I am today than I thought I was.

In closing, I apologize for the fact that you just spent 15 minutes reading the ramblings of a guy who just let his mind vomit out everything that was going through it and you won’t get those 15 minutes back. But if you happen to see this and you know of a way I can try to close my life off to things I don’t want to see or hear about in the digital age, and how to keep from voicing my displeasure on social media with everything that aggravates me, please fill me in.

Thank you for your time. Peace.

Stop The World, I Want To Get Off.

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For the past few months, I’ve found myself debating about whether or not to open my mouth about everything going on in the world today, to the point that I’ve crafted blogs in Word only to just delete them and walk away. A lot of this is due to the fact that I know what I want to say will offend most everyone, in one way or another. I know if I share my feelings through social media, I’ll end up kicked off. Because people like me, with my “white male privilege,” have no right to say what I think in the world today.

But I finally decided that I don’t care what anyone thinks about anything. Today I reached my breaking point when I realized I can’t sit down and look at TV or Facebook or Google or Twitter or Instagram or anything else without getting angry. So now, I’m going to say what I think and let everyone else get angry for a while. This is payback.

There are a lot of things I’m sick of. I’m sick of three years of endless (and baseless) Trump attacks. Yes, I’ll be voting for President Trump again in November, without question. I’m sick of Joe Biden, because he’s a God damn, blithering idiot. I’m sick of Nancy Pelosi for the same reason. But don’t misunderstand, this is not a pro-Republican or anti-Democrat post, because I hate both political parties equally. That’s where I stand.

The Democrat party makes me sick to my stomach, which is to be expected considering I’m a straight, white, employed, functioning, intact, native-born male. The Democrat party can’t do a thing for me. Now, if I were any minority of any kind, I wouldn’t be writing this, I’d be a rank-and-file Democrat. And don’t misunderstand, I have nothing at all against any minority group (well, there’s a few, we’ll get to those). But I do have a real problem with anyone telling me that my opinion doesn’t matter because I belong to the majority. My opinion is just as important as anyone else’s. That’s how it is.

The Republican party makes me sick to my stomach because it’s nothing but a bunch of gutless pricks desperately holding onto any level of power they can. They don’t have the balls to stand up to Antifa or BLM, so why should I think they would have the balls to stand up to the Chinese or the Russians if they were to attack? I always felt like no matter what happened, or who was in the White House, I could depend on my fellow Republicans to fight the good fight. I was sorely mistaken. Gutless and pathetic.

I’m sick of COVID-19, as is everyone. But I’m more sick of these God damn idiots who preach “trust the science” until the science doesn’t agree with them anymore. The fact is, 90% of what’s being pushed out there is political, because the world we live in today has made us this way. We’re not Americans, we’re split up into our little groups so the government or that wrinkled up bastard George Soros can control us, all at once.

Yes, I wear a mask. That’s a personal choice that doesn’t jive with my Republican friends who have asked me, “do you do everything the government tells you to do?” Well, I pay my taxes, I drive the speed limit, I haven’t killed anyone, I don’t steal, so yeah, I guess I do everything the government tells me to.” Give me a break. It’s a fucking mask. I wonder if the young men who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day whined and complained because they had to wear helmets? Man up and wear your fucking mask.

I’m sick of celebrities. I don’t give a damn how popular or little known they are, I don’t care what ANY of them think or say or feel. I’m as likely to read their opinions as I am for them to read this blog, and I don’t give a damn about that, either. The fact is, most celebrities are liberals, who love the idea of socialism. Because they figure they’ve made their fortune, no one will take it away. This is the same mentality that lead to these creatures calling for open borders while living in homes with six-foot walls around the perimeters. And if you don’t see a problem with that level of hypocrisy, you’re as dumb as they are.

I’m sick of hearing about George Floyd, because I don’t give a fuck about George Floyd. George Floyd was an ex-con, a garden-variety criminal. He is being portrayed as a martyr. If that’s the case, you got a piss poor concept of what a martyr is. He was being arrested for passing counterfeit bills, and the media was quick to try to hide his criminal past because it didn’t fit their fucking sickening narrative. If you truly wanted a martyr, Breonna Taylor was that martyr. My heart grieves for her and her family, because if anyone ever deserved martyrdom on ANY level, she did. That should have been the ultimate case against crooked cops and innocent blacks being killed, but the media and the idiots decided a failed rapper with a rap sheet was worthy? Fuck you, George Floyd. Fuck you.

I’m sick of hearing about the officers involved in Floyd’s death as well. They are the scum of the earth. It doesn’t matter that George Floyd was a worthless ex-con, the police as an entity doesn’t have the right to serve as judge/jury/executioner. Derek Chauvin, who committed the actual murder (and until someone can prove Floyd died from literally anything else, I’ll call it murder), deserves to die. Yes, an eye for an eye. Because both of them are equally worthless. Fuck you, Derek Chauvin.  Fuck you. The other officers should be charged with something in line with accessories before and after the fact, since they did nothing to alleviate the situation. If nothing else, their abject stupidity makes them guilty in my eyes.

I’m sick of hearing about the KKK, BLM, Antifa, ISIS and every other TERRORIST ORGANIZATION on the planet. They all belong under one umbrella. You just pick the color of your skin or the political movement you want to get behind and there’s a terrorist organization right there waiting for you. If you belong to any of those organizations, I have nothing but disdain for you, regardless of who you are. Period.

I’m sick of the government, or the “deep state,” or whoever is doing it making a push to split us into “factions.” We’re Americans, and we all deserve to be treated for who we are, not what color we are or what religion we are or where our ancestors came from. If you’re a murderer, you’re a piece of shit regardless of whether you’re white, black, Latino or any other race. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, it was about the content of one’s character, not the color of their skin. But that idea went out the window a long time ago because “uncle Tom” King and his teachings don’t fit the narrative of current times.

I’m sick of the media. I don’t care if it’s CNN or Fox or ABC or CBS or NBC or the Washington Post or the New York Times or The Blaze or anything else. If it’s a media outlet, there’s an agenda and it’s been proven that they’ll manipulate anything they can to push their agenda. American media is a cesspool that makes used car salesmen look like upstanding citizens. I find myself now avoiding the news altogether and what little news I do get comes from my local radio station, which I turn off when the national news comes on.

I’m sick of mother fuckers who shove their opinions in each others faces on social media, regardless of whether you are a conservative, liberal or independent. No one has ever changed anyone’s mind by berating them on Facebook. If you think you can do that, you’re a fucking moron. But I’m not one of these people who can post that “no matter what you believe, I’ll never unfriend you.” I’ve unfriended a LOT of people this year because I got sick and tired of their political posting. And I don’t have one regret about it.

I’m sick of Cancel Culture. You little bastards. Who the hell do you think you are? You think you can dictate to everyone else what is and is not acceptable in the world? You can tear down or deface statues or monuments and you think that’s OK because of your beliefs? I don’t give a fuck about your beliefs. They are worthless. Just like you are. When I saw a well-known (at least among those of us who are intelligent enough to know our American history) monument in Boston depicting the 54th Massachusetts regiment, the FIRST ALL-BLACK VOLUNTEER REGIMENT IN THE CIVIL WAR. But I guarantee that 100% of those “brilliant, learned college grads” who decided to destroy it knew nothing about that. Because you’re STUPID. Most of you can barely read, let alone comprehend.

I’m sick of social networking. I’m sick of the kind of people who use it and what they use it for. I started using Facebook in 2007 to network with other White Sox fans. I didn’t give a fuck about their backgrounds, we had one thing uniting us all, and that was our love for our ballclub. And for 13 years I never unfriended or unfollowed a fellow White Sox fan for any reason, until 2020 came and suddenly everyone had more important things to argue about. So I eliminated the problem and I’ve been happier since, in a minuscule way. But I find myself wishing for the early 2000s every day, before social networking existed.

And finally, I’m sick of feeling the way I do. I’m sick of the negativity that eats at me day in and day out. I never asked for much out of life, at this point I just want to enjoy a baseball game, grill, drink a Coke, smoke a cigar, talk baseball with the guys, go for a drive, share memes and get a decent night’s sleep. But it seems like I can’t do any of that anymore. While baseball may be coming back, I’ll have to get pissed when I see posers kneel during the National Anthem. I can’t grill much due to the insane heat, as it reaches 90 degrees almost every day. It’s too humid to smoke a cigar. I can’t take a drive and listen to the radio because it pisses me off to hear the news. I have to watch my memes because some dickhead might get his panties in a bunch and I’ll end up back in Facebook jail. And I can’t sleep for all of the above reasons. And I’m really, really sick of it.

At this point, I’m not sure that I’m going to blog again after this, or that I’m going to keep any of my social networking accounts. I’ve tried to fight the good fight, I’ve tried to let everyone do their thing and tried to be supportive of protesters, police, blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, you name it. I don’t hate anyone (except Antifa, Marxists, communists and extreme left-wing and right-wing lunatics). But I just don’t think I have it in me anymore. You want to elect a God damn, stupid jagoff like Joe Biden? Go ahead. You want to get a Marxist VP so you can put him out to pasture the day after he’s inaugurated? Go ahead. I just don’t care anymore. I don’t want to hear about it.

I just don’t care about any of it anymore. I’m laying down my sword.

I’m done.

PS – As I mentioned, I always share my blogs on social media as they usually involve sports or electronics or something that I know my friends and followers would enjoy. I’ll not be sharing today’s post in any way, not because I’m ashamed of one word I said, but because I’m not taking the chance that I’m going to end up in Facebook jail again. That would be the ultimate ending to my social networking career because when that day comes, I’m closing the accounts for good and walking away. And I may end up down that road anyway.

15 Years Of Social Media In My Life: A Retrospective

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This summer, I celebrated the 15th anniversary of my own personal participation in social media. This began in June 2005, with my Yahoo 360 profile. In September 2005, I created my first MySpace account. Today I’m going to look over my own personal experiences with social media, how I looked at the concept then versus how I look at it now, and the downward spiral that has followed.

Yahoo 360 was not much more than a glorified AOL account page, it told your name, relationship status, likes, photos, a blog and your Yahoo handle. But there was also an option to add links, which I did with my first blog, the only entry of which (long gone) was talking about the 2005 Chicago White Sox, who eventually won the World Series. I was pushed to further my inclusion on social media due to the fact I had no one to celebrate the Series win with; stuck in the middle of West Virginia with people who don’t like baseball to begin with. It was at that point I realized I could network with other White Sox fans.

MySpace was incredible when I first started using it. I added a White Sox background to my profile page and changed my profile pic to include myself wearing a White Sox hat (amazingly, prior to that, my profile pic featured a Dallas Cowboys hat, a nod to my younger days). I began adding other Sox friends I could find, but it would turn out there wasn’t much to celebrate over the coming years other than a 2008 American League Central Division title.

I got my first Facebook account in the summer of 2007. Immediately I preferred it to MySpace because it had a more “mature” feel, even though at the time MySpace was by far the more popular platform. By 2008, Yahoo 360 had been abandoned and Twitter would soon rise. I got my first Twitter account during the 2009 World Series after seeing it mentioned during the broadcast.

I have closed and opened several accounts since then. I closed my MySpace account in the summer of 2010 due to a steep decline in usage. At the same time I also closed my Twitter and Facebook accounts and opened new ones, as I had a habit of opening new accounts every time my life needed a reboot.

My current Facebook and Twitter accounts were opened in December, 2012. I opened an Instagram account in 2016 and a Pinterest account shortly after that. I’m not a huge fan of either, though I do use IG daily and don’t use Pinterest at all. But whereas I share White Sox stories, information and photos on Twitter and Facebook, IG has become nothing more than a repository for the memes that I also post on Facebook. It really serves no other purpose than that.

From 2010 to 2017 my friends list dwindled to less than 200, not because I wanted it that way but because people who were involved in my life wanted it that way and I was told I really didn’t need any friends, even online friends. But luckily that changed and my online footprint expanded dramatically in 2018 and my FB friends list swelled to nearly 2,000. Then the backlash began.

Come to find out, maybe the persons who said too many wasn’t good was right all along. So every six months or so I’ll “prune” my friends list. Or at least, that was the process up until all of the civil unrest began and Facebook became a cesspool of nothing but politics, racial strife, arguments and nonsense.

At this point, I’ve come to hate social networking and I find myself longing, daily, for the era before I even had internet access or a smart phone (or a cell phone in any way). I wake up every morning wishing it was 2004 or 2002 or 2000 or 1997 again. I had to admit to myself that the happiest days of my life were post-college and pre-internet. Not to say that pre-college days were bad, I had a great childhood and my teens years were great as well. I wouldn’t trade that time for the world. And my time spent in college was extremely happy as well.

But the truth of the matter is, when I first got internet service in the spring of 2005, things began to change. And as soon as social networking, and the women on social networking entered the picture, it went downhill, and fast.

The truth is, the first 28 years of my life were pure bliss with a few small potholes along the way, but nothing I would even consider “bad,” just “unfortunate.” The 15 years that have followed have been nothing but misery with the occasional happy moment, fleeting as they may have been. And the internet, specifically social media, has been at the forefront of all of my unhappiness.

Now, don’t misunderstand; I’m not saying social media as a platform is a bad thing. Most of my problems have been self-induced anyway, with social media as the means to introduce those problems. I used to enjoy discussions of sports, politics, religion and everything under the sun with everyone who was willing to join in. Now, it just takes one post to rub me the wrong way and I’ll hit that unfriend or unfollow button faster than you can say “quick.”

Adding to this is the lack of baseball (with more to come considering the current COVID-19 situation in MLB summer camp) and I have little to post or talk about. As far as religion, I’m a Christian, if you don’t like it, I don’t care anymore. I have no desire to talk about it and you’re free to leave or, if you wish to argue about it, you’ll just be deleted and forgotten. As far as politics, I’m a Trump supporter and I’ll vote Trump in 2020, if you don’t like it, I don’t care anymore. Leave or be deleted and forgotten. I don’t post about either of these things anymore because I know how I feel having to read other people’s opinions I don’t care about. I’m not being heartless or ruthless, I just am past the point of caring.

Which basically brings me back to 2005, when I first started social networking. I’m here to post about White Sox baseball and network with White Sox fans. Nothing more. I’m not here to meet girls or talk politics or tell jokes or anything else (except memes, of course). And with that lack of White Sox baseball to talk about, social networking, and the internet in general, just isn’t enjoyable.

When the 2020 baseball season is canceled (and I’m 99.99% sure it will be) I’m strongly considering deactivating my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts and getting my NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball and NCAA Baseball games out of the attic and rolling the clock back to my pre-internet days and doing things I used to enjoy, that I let go of when the internet revolution changed my life. I dream about this daily. Some days it’s all I really have to hold on to.

There’s a point at which things stop being fun and start being monotonous and grating and that’s where I am right now with social media. The fun is gone, the enjoyment is gone, not that there was a whole lot to begin with but at least I had something to hang my hat on. Now I have nothing but aggravation.

So, until I have a solid footing and know what’s going on, I’ll maintain the status quo, only going on social networks when it’s time for meme posting or White Sox news posting and the rest of the time, just avoid it. I’ve found that to be far more satisfying than spending hours blocking people who annoy me.

It’s amazing to think it’s been 15 years, that’s more time than I spent in public education and more time than I’ve spent in my three longest relationships combined. But maybe it’s finally time for a break of ultimate dimension.

Thank you for taking the time to read. God bless.

2020 Update: Random Thoughts

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I realize it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged and that was by design, as I wanted to let the new decade fully begin before I gave my thoughts on it. I wanted to do a little random “blurb” to give my thoughts on the lay of the land in the 2020s.

First, let me say that this month has been everything I had hoped the 2020s would be. I haven’t been this happy in probably 15 years, maybe more. Admittedly, I take to the single life like a fish to water (yes, I know it’s correct to say “like a duck to water” but a fish takes to water because it’s life depends on it, I think that’s more appropriate for me). So that was a great first step and really helped me to focus on myself.

More so, that allowed me to sit back and watch people who spend all their time on social media complaining and whining about how they were treated by an ex, and how uncouth it all is. We’ve all been mistreated by exes. I’ve been kicked to the curb, ghosted, mislead, lied to, stolen from, cheated on, used for leverage and had fake charges filed against me with the county sheriff’s office, and that’s only the past two years!

Everyone has had bad experiences (in my case I’ve had 100% bad experiences) but that doesn’t mean it needs to be beaten to death on social media. Yes, I have a very anti-relationship stance, and I do occasionally post memes in that vein, but I also love women and I celebrate them on social media as well. I found a middle ground between being ridiculous in any direction. And I feel good about myself for it.

This is why 2020 is being spent focusing on me, because no one else is going to. I have learned the hard way that everyone is out for themselves, and now it is my turn. I am putting myself and my happiness ahead of anything or anyone else. There’s an old saying about the fact that you can’t love someone else if you don’t love yourself first, and that’s very true. You need to be at peace with yourself and your situation before you should get involved with anyone else. I have my own problems, I don’t need yours. Get your problems taken care of and then we can see where things go.

On a happier note, I am continuing to update my MLB 19 The Show rosters and have done the best job I have done to date on offseason updates, dating back as far as 2014. Usually I try to do as much of the major transactions as I can and let the minor league stuff sit, especially the Class A rosters. But this year I have spent hours every day making sure everything is as it should be. I hope to start playing my franchise on February 22, which coincides with the first Spring Training game the White Sox play.

This will be the 16th consecutive year I have bought Sony’s MLB offering for a PlayStation console, dating back to MLB 2005 for the original PlayStation. I also bought MVP Baseball 2005 that year and have bought a new game every year since. Prior to 2005, I made due with MLB 2000 on the PlayStation and MVP Baseball 2005 on the PS2.

One of the biggest negatives of 2019 was the six stints I spent in Facebook jail. But the silver lining in that cloud was that it allowed me to diversify my social media presence and I have been much more active on Twitter and Instagram, for better or worse, I suppose. While Facebook remains my base of operations, Instagram has become a repository for my daily meme posts and Twitter is a great haven for Chicago White Sox news.

I have worked myself into a very good daily and weekly schedule but that’s all due to change as soon as baseball season begins, and then I’ll have to do a life reboot and change a lot of the things I do to make time for baseball games five or six days a week. That’s definitely not a complaint, it’s just a fact that things will be changing soon.

I continue to feel positive about everything. My decision making has taken a major step in the right direction, I’m not making bad decisions on a daily basis like I used to, in fact, I haven’t made a poor decision yet in 2020. I’m also learning to be less off the cuff and ill-prepared for things, I have a habit of running into burning buildings (metaphorically speaking) without thinking about the consequences and that has been a lifelong issue for me, my attitude has always been “let’s do it and worry about the consequences later” and that has a 0% success rate with me. Now I am learning to do my research and think things over before I act, and not just act on impulse and screw everything up.

I’m the luckiest man in the world. I am financially secure, I have everything I want (that money can buy, that is), I have great friends and their support means the world to me because without them, I would no doubt be in a bad situation somewhere, and the only thing I lack in life is a partner to share it with, and if that’s as bad as its going to get, I’ll take it. I can get by on my own with ease, I’ve done it before (proudly single for nine years between 1996 and 2005) so if a second go-around of that is in the works, I’ll take it and make the best of it. That era was the happiest time of my life, by far.

Which brings me to the fact that I should be living my best life right now, but I am still having to work my mind into accepting the fact that it’s OK to be happy.

So, in closing, I put a lot of pressure on the 2020s, and so far it’s has been everything I had hoped it would be. I came in well-prepared and so far, so good. I just hope it continues to chug along nicely, and that spring and summer offer me the opportunity to catch up on my cigar smoking that has been neglected all winter, and of course I am looking forward to the first winning White Sox season since 2012.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Peace.

My Future On Facebook

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This is a blog entry I hoped I would never have to write, and until 2019, would never have given a second thought to. But the world has changed, and I refuse to change with it, so now this is a point that I need to address. I wanted to take some time to think about it, collect thoughts and opinions and then make a final, sound decision.

Some of what I’m going to discuss here is going to sound like I’m beating a dead horse, but I hope this will be the definitive piece on Facebook for the foreseeable future. I am looking at this piece more as a warning and guide to others than a complaint session for myself. I think those with experience need to lend it to the younger generations.

I first became aware of social networking back in the late summer of 2005, a woman I was friends with explained the concept to me, as she had just joined MySpace and said I should create a profile as well. The idea fascinated me, and I figured it would be a good way to network with other White Sox fans, since being stuck in the mountains of West Virginia offered very little, nay, nothing, in terms of other White Sox fans to know.

So, in September 2005, I created my first MySpace account.

It wasn’t until 2006 I managed to wrangle my first White Sox friend. In 2007 I closed that first account and opened a new one because I didn’t like the screen name and URL I had given myself (ACDCFanatic1977). The new account featured the screen name WhiteSoxFan1977. That fit the persona of who I actually am much closer.

Not to say I don’t love AC/DC, but I also love other bands. The White Sox are the only baseball team I watch and follow, so the new name was a much better fit.

When I created that new account, I also created a profile on the new social media website that was drawing a lot of attention: Facebook. Also under WhiteSoxFan1977.

By late 2008 I was spending far more time on Facebook than MySpace. Facebook had a more mature feel. MySpace felt like it was a social network for children.

Then in 2009, during the World Series, I started my first Twitter account.

In the summer of 2010, I had let stupidity run amok in my life and people were starting to suffocate me, so rather than just blocking said people, I decided the right thing to do was close all my social networks and start new ones, under the URL Connorms8.

This name had no special meaning but had been given to me by Netscape in 2005. It was easy to remember and I thought it poetic to use, at a time of new beginnings.

Facebook and Twitter were easily started and filled quickly with friends and contacts. But MySpace was another story entirely. When I had closed my previous account, I had over 800 people on my friends list. When I opened the new account, I managed to compile less than 50 over a month’s time. People just weren’t using MySpace anymore.

I kept my MySpace account open until the spring of 2011, and then decided it was more bother than it was worth for the lack of action that was happening on there. I closed it and never looked back. Besides, I had Facebook and focused my energies there.

Fast forward to December 2012. I went through an ugly breakup of a two-year relationship and wanted to start with a clean slate and no mention of said relationship in my social networking pages. So, I closed my accounts, again, and started anew. Again.

In those days, starting a new account was a very simple procedure. Go to the Facebook home page, click on “new account,” fill in your name, email and password and you would then receive an email to verify your account, and you were good to go. Upload, post, comment, like to your heart’s content. But if you overdid it, you would be given a warning to “slow down” and if you continued at that pace, you would receive a 24-hour block from being able to like or message or whatever you had done to violate the rules.

I still have those same accounts, dating to December 2012 to this day. After a second ugly split with a girl in December 2017, I was desirous of starting clean again but decided the amount of work that went into it didn’t justify losing seven years of my life online. After all, I had wasted seven years in the flesh and didn’t feel like losing it on Facebook as well. So, I scrolled back through the years, month by month and day by day and deleted anything related to the relationship and felt like that would be good enough.

Everything seems to have changed in 2019. And I don’t like it one bit.

Consider first that I have had one Facebook account or another since the summer of 2007. Over 12 years. And in that 12 year period, I have been “blocked” for “violating Facebook policies” a total of five times. Oddly enough, all five times have come in 2019.

In 2017 I was accused of “posting spam” but after asking Facebook for a review, the “spam” I was posting were White Sox stories from established Chicago media and my posts were put back and no further action was taken. So that doesn’t count on any level.

I was sent to Facebook jail five times in 2019 over memes, and not one of those memes violated Facebook’s vague “community standards,” which are available to peruse in the “help” section of Facebook. My memes were generally reported under the “hate speech” banner, even though no hate speech was present whatsoever and in a courtroom Facebook would have looked more ignorant than they already look at this point.

One of the posts I spent 3 days in Facebook jail over was a meme I reposted from my own wall. I posted it originally in 2017, with no issues whatsoever. When I reposted it in 2019, it violated Facebook’s “community standards” and I spent 3 days in “jail.”

Even better came a post after that, a meme that was flagged for “nudity” despite the fact that no part of anyone’s body is actually visible in the meme except a child’s head. I asked Facebook for a review and it was determined that the meme did not, in fact, violate the “community standards” and there was no nudity in the meme. The meme was restored to my wall and Facebook went ahead and left me blocked for an entire week.

My most recent stretch of incarceration, 30 days, was quite ironic. I posted a meme about people being “butthurt” over posts, which someone reported and I was hit with another “hate speech” violation. I decided I had just about had it with that account and decided the time had come to start all new accounts. It had taken less than that before to make me want to wipe the slate clean, and the slate was looking pretty bad now.

But it wasn’t to be. The Facebook sign up process, at least for me, is an impossible bridge to pass. In spite of the fact that I know numerous people with numerous accounts (and, in fact, when you close your account and are asked why, one of the options is “I have another account,” so it’s not exactly a rules violation) I am allowed only one account.

Facebook also does not give any information in regard to rules violations, in terms of “how many likes are too many” or anything, and no warnings are offered. If you broke a rule, you’re going to Facebook Jail. Whether the violation actually broke a rule or not, and it takes one time to break the “rules,” even if you didn’t know you were breaking the rules. It is Nazism at its worst. All in the name of creating some kind of utopia for people to feel “safe,” while allowing muslim beheading videos and suicide videos to flourish.

When I signed up to create a new account, I verified my email and then was asked to verify my cell phone number. Since my cell number is verified with my old account, and I can’t remove it due to my “incarceration,” I used my mom’s cell phone and verified the number. I was then asked to send in a head shot. Which I did. This still didn’t allow me to start a new account, Facebook actually asked me to show them my driver’s license.

This should be illegal, and there is no justification for having to show anything beyond a verified email and/or cell phone number. This is social networking. It’s actual level of importance is, shall we say, a few steps lower than what it thinks it really is.

So, after refusing to show them my driver’s license, my account was closed down.

Which brings me to today. I have one Facebook account (JasonConnor612), which is connected to my one cell phone and my one email account. It connects to my one Twitter account, my one Instagram account and my one WordPress blog account. And I have six days to go before my account is supposed to be unlocked and I am allowed to access it again to like and post and message. But I am wondering if that will happen now.

On top of wondering if I am going to be punished for attempting to create a new account, there is also the fact that over the past month, I have become much more comfortable posting to Twitter (where I actually have nearly 200 more followers than I have Facebook friends) for my White Sox friends and Instagram for those that enjoy my memes.

In the event that I am able to return to my Facebook account, things are going to be a lot different than they were previously. I’m not going to allow whoever found it amusing to report my mundane memes to ruin the party for me. Nor am I going to allow Facebook to ruin the fact that I can’t open a new account. I am going to cut my Facebook posting back to White Sox stories (they will be the “B side” to Twitter being the “A” side) and most of my memes will find their way to Instagram, rather than being posted on Facebook.

In fact, if I post one meme a day on Facebook, that will be more than I expect now.

I sincerely hope whoever decided to report me has unfriended me, which was certainly the better way to handle things. There is nothing so pathetic as a snitch who reports that they’ve been “offended” by something while sitting there with their toothy grin acting like they accomplished something. No one is impressed and no one cares except you.

Amazingly, I have posted hundreds of memes or just straight up photos of women in every stage of undress (including fully nude but now actually showing any of the “good” parts)and none of those posts were ever flagged for anything. I have posted many videos from the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit page and those have included topless women but those are fine. I get Facebook jail for posts about butthurt people and pictures of a plate of bacon.

I’ll continue to post my bikini girl posts and dare Facebook to call me on a violation of something an accredited page has posted. That is where I will finally draw the line.

I have heard conflicting reports as to what happens on a sixth “community standards” violation, on one hand I have heard a 60 day violation and on the other I have heard it leads to a lifetime ban. Either way, I will consider it a lifetime ban because I will be finished with the site for the rest of my life. I have better things to do with my time.

Over the 24 days I have been in “Facebook Jail” during this current incarceration period, I have read a number of articles on a number of websites about people leaving Facebook behind for good and being happy about the decision. I can certainly see why that is the case. From the vague “community standards” that fail to disclose exactly what is being violated to the draconian “Facebook jail” to the different sets of rules for different users to the politically correct climate we live in, Facebook just isn’t working out for me.

Going forward, Facebook will be nothing more to me than a repository for White Sox news articles (and a place to discuss same), SI Swimsuit photos and videos, occasional memes that are Sesame Street-approved that I can’t find any way they could be deemed offensive by anyone whatsoever and a way to maintain contact with my friends on messenger. I will be incredibly discriminating when it comes to accepting new friends and a new friend purge will being the morning I have regained access to my account. I will never again get involved with a woman I meet on Facebook, as I have a 0% success rate there.

Though to be fair, when it comes to women, I have a 0% success rate in life. That’s why I’m finished with dating for 2020, and even if I do decide to return in 2021 or sometime after, I’ll find some other way of meeting women. It will not happen on Facebook again.

So, on Wednesday, December 18, 2019, I’ll make my return to Facebook, more than likely, unless additional action is taken against me for attempting to start a new account. If that’s the case, my account will be on a razor’s edge, but not from the website, from me. The first time something rubs me the wrong way, I am out and gone for good. I don’t need Facebook to make me happy or to network with White Sox friends or to post memes.

My aggravation has far outweighed my happiness in 2019, to a point which I consider it one of the worst years of my life and Facebook figures prominently in the reasoning. I will be quick on the draw going forward and not waiting around for another miscarriage of justice, I’ve dealt with enough of those in 2019. It will be a different matter in 2020.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Peace.

Quick Thoughts by Jason J. Connor

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Quick-Thoughts

“QUICK THOUGHTS”

– I have said on multiple occasions that as bad as the past 10 years have been, 2019 was one of the better years of the decade. That was just a straight up, boldfaced lie. The fact is, 2019 has been as bad as most and worse than many. Five stints in Facebook Jail (including one instance in which I was cleared of any wrongdoing but just left in Facebook Jail for a week anyway) after zero the previous 12 years… Another losing season by the Chicago White Sox (seventh in a row and ten out of 11 overall)… All this promise for a big offseason that just melted away last night with Rick Hahn’s “no urgency to do anything” white flag speech… The only thing that has separated 2019 from any other year is it’s the first time since 2010 that I haven’t wanted to die at some point during the year, so I guess I have that going for me, or something.

– I don’t know what changed with Facebook in 2019 but the Gestapo would fear Facebook had it been around in the 1930s and 1940s. In the old days, you could start an account with an email address, verify the address and you’re good to go. If you violated the ridiculous “too many likes, too fast” rule, you got multiple warnings before they shut down your ability to “like” for 24 hours. And I imagine you would have to go pretty far afield to get put in Facebook jail. In 2019, starting a new account (or attempting to, in my case, because I’m not allowed, for some reason) included email verification, cell phone number verification, head shot photo and, amazingly, driver’s license verification. To start a page on a free social networking site. If you somehow manage to get an account, and you “like” too much, too fast? Instant 30 day block. No warning, no word on how many “likes” are too many, just an instantaneous block for 30 days. And if someone just doesn’t like you? They can report a post and you can go to Facebook jail for offending someone over literally anything.

– For the first time in my life, “I’m not going to date next year” has gotten a 100% positive reaction from everyone I know. That tells you just how bad things have actually gotten. No longer do I get “you just haven’t met the right woman yet” or “things will improve.” Now everyone agrees it’s best if I just remove myself from the situation at large and stop pretending that, at age 42, I’m gonna walk into the forest and find Sleeping Beauty laying there just waiting for me. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but I think in the long run it’s going to be a lot better for me, mentally and emotionally.

– It’s hard being a White Sox fan. Listening to Kenny Williams walk into the GM meetings last month talking about how it’s “business as usual, but much more.” Then a month later hearing that there is no urgency to do anything, straight from the mouth of Rick Hahn. Seven straight losing seasons? There clearly has never been any urgency. We’re just happy to show up, take our ass-whooping and go home. For those who aren’t Sox savvy, the White Sox have won three World Series titles in the past 119 years, the first in 1906, the second in 1917 and the third in 2005. They also played in the 1959 World Series and lost. Now if anything says “no urgency,” I think that speaks volumes.

– I have really high hopes for 2020 and the decade of the 2020s. But every day things just seem a little less optimistic and a little more “here we go again.” My personal failings are generally self-induced, like my awful taste in women and my stubbornness when it comes to walking away from a situation that is not ideal. But other issues, like Facebook, I can’t take much personal responsibility for. A week in Facebook jail over a meme about a plate of bacon? Find one person on earth that would be offended by that. Besides some towelhead, I mean. The beheading videos are fine, just don’t show a plate of bacon or someone will be offended. Yeah, that’s me being singled out. That’s someone with an ax to grind or Facebook itself deciding to make an example of someone. And it’s me.

– I’m dedicating 2020 to good cigars, good liquor, good food, good friends and White Sox baseball. It’s going to be the year I turn my life around and focus on me. And if 2020 turns out as badly as the previous 15 years, I don’t know what to do.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Peace.

2020: A New Beginning And A New Era

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As I have hopefully made clear in previous posts, I am really ready for the decade of the 2010s to end. This has been the worst decade of my life by a wide margin. In fact, this has been the first decade of my life I would give a failing grade to. I am a generally positive person who can see the good in a bad situation but the good from the 2010s are few and far between.

This blog will not be beating a dead horse and looking back at all that toxic negativity. This blog is about hope, positivity and the future. I think the 2020s have a chance to be great.

I also want to lay out what I want to accomplish as we reach the dawn of a new era.

What has me most excited for the 2020s is the ascension of the Chicago White Sox from laughingstock of Major League Baseball to a viable contender for a World Series title. The decade of the 2010s was just as bad for my favorite baseball team as it was for me. From 2010 through 2019, the White Sox had one (1) winning season out of 10, in 2012, when they finished 85-77 and in second place in the American League Central. Other than that, nothing but negatives.

That is changing, however, as the rebuild that began in late 2016 is starting to bear fruit. It will be fun to follow the team as they continue their improvement for the next several years.

On a personal level, there are a lot of things I want to see change from the 2010s into the 2020s. Physically, mentally and emotionally. I have figured out my mistakes and I am ready to not only stop making them but to move on from them and forget them. Leave the past in the past.

Physically, while I made some strides in 2019, I am far from a finished product. Probably 60 pounds, at least, need to be removed from me when I step on the scale. I want to start making a workout program part of every day, much like I did back in my younger days. In my early 20s, I participated in a weight training program seven days a week and was very happy with myself. I was at my physical peak then. Right now I’m not. I’m still showing the effects of the past ten years and I want to put that in full reversal, with losing weight being the most important. I lost a lot of hair, especially in the latter part of the decade from stress, and am considering just shaving my head. This has been frowned upon by some female acquaintances, but more on that later.

I plan on working out my exercise program in the next week or so, I want to do some combination of weight training and aerobic, while adding endurance exercises later on in 2020.

I debate daily on keeping my beard or trimming it down to a notch above a five-o’clock shadow look. I’ll never go clean-shaven again, but the mountain man look may be a little too much.

I’m thinking maybe a basic buzz cut, not a razor-shaven bald head, with a light beard.

I look young for my age in spite of what stress has done to me in the 2010s and I don’t want to lose that. I have watched my mom age 30 years in the past five and I don’t want to do that at 42 years old. My mom didn’t start to really age until she was 80. I want that kind of longevity.

I also have to start getting more sleep, which means going to bed earlier and actually going to sleep, rather than surfing the web on my phone and being in bed for eight hours but only sleeping for four. I have to make myself understand that the internet will still be there in the morning.

So, if I can drop about 60 pounds, get the “look” that I want and get some sleep, I’ll consider that a victory and a good beginning for the decade. There is no reason I can’t accomplish those goals.

From a mental standpoint, there is a lot I want to do on many fronts. I want to learn. I want to put my mind to work more than I have in the past 15 years. That means exchanging girls for academics, on whatever level of academics I happen to land. I enjoyed scratching the surface on my scientific learning in 2019 and certainly hope to continue that, just on an expanded basis.

Other subjects I would like to study more in-depth include the American Civil War, of which I have been a knowledge sponge for decades. I love American history but haven’t done enough about it. I have a lot of information at my disposal and intend on packing my brain with that info.

Also on the mental side of things, I want to put more time into my MLB The Show franchise on the PlayStation 4. This has been a desire of mine dating back to the mid-1990s, when I was playing Ken Griffey, Jr.’s Winning Run on the Super Nintendo. I want to play the part of general manager and build the White Sox like I was running the team. I have been through a number of video games in an attempt to do this, including every MLB offering from Sony since MLB 98 over 20 years ago. If I fail in this endeavor again, I have a secondary option I would like to give a try to again.

Back in the 1990s, I enjoyed playing NCAA Football games and “creating” myself at UCLA, playing my career there, and then getting drafted into the NFL. The earliest version of this started in 1995, my senior year in high school. I haven’t given it a real try since 2001, but if MLB The Show fails, 2020 may be the time to do it, 25 years after the original run. I have to use outdated games (NCAA Football 14 is the newest to be released due to licensing issues, but it will have to do).

More importantly, from a standpoint of my mental health, is to nurture my friendships with the people who actually care about me and to eliminate the toxic people. This may seem like a no-brainer, but I have a really bad habit of being involved with toxic people. And this is not a new phenomenon, this has followed me for most of my life, for at least 30 years now. I need to stop dealing with people who either don’t have my best interests at heart or who only want me around for what I can do for them, or who just get a kick out of seeing me miserable.

Emotionally, a lot of these changes will help me eliminate the stress and anxiety I feel most days that I just try to suppress. The problem is, suppressing stress and anxiety is what got me into the physical wreck I am today. From 2010 to 2017 I put on almost 100 pounds, lost a lot of hair, suffered from stomach ulcers, lack of sleep, twitching eyes, a wrecked immune system and migraine headaches. As I eliminated the stress and anxiety, a lot of these things began to clear up. If I can eliminate all of them, I can begin to rebuild the wreckage that was once my body.

I have also been trying to “clean up my act” a bit on social networking. I am in the midst of a 30-day suspension on Facebook that could lead to a lifetime ban from what I have read and having my account permanently closed, due to memes I have posted that were considered “offensive.” This is borderline hilarious, due to the fact that one of the times I was sent to Facebook jail I reposted a meme I had posted one year previously and nothing was said about it. In fact, I have spent five hitches in Facebook jail in my life and all five were in 2019. In the previous 12 years, I had never been in Facebook jail. Once, I was accused of “posting spam,” which was actually White Sox news stories. I fought the law and I won, as my stories were returned to my wall and no action was taken. I can say 2019 was the worst year I ever spent on Facebook and I hope that will improve going forward, assuming I have a Facebook account to go back to in two weeks time.

I have cleaned up all the sexual posts, bad language posts and the kinds of things that make one look less intelligent or socially unacceptable. I also plan to ravage my friends list and remove people that shouldn’t be there, and I will be very discriminating going forward in terms of who is allowed into my circle. There will be a solid vetting process with who gets into my life.

So, if I can work myself back into shape, get the look I want, eliminate the stress and negativity and toxicity from my life, start learning again, accomplish what I want on MLB The Show (preferably) or NCAA Football and make my social networking pages a reflection of the guy I actually am rather than the off-color comedian I had always wanted to be, I will consider 2020 to be a success. And I think if I accomplish even 10% of my goals, 2020 will be a major improvement over 2019 and a massive improvement over the rest of the 2010s.

I’m staking a claim on the 2020s as “my decade,” the one where I bring out the best in myself and allow God to put me where I should be rather than fighting tooth and nail to make bad decisions and put myself into problem areas that I should never have been involved with in the first place. I have the tools and the ability to make the best of this decade and I’ll do everything I can to accomplish that goal. I want to forget the 2010s ever happened and look strictly forward.

There is no reason I can’t be living my best life in 2020 and every year after that. Its just a matter of actually applying myself to the task at hand and doing it. There is nothing holding me back. If I were to fail, I have no one to blame but myself. But I’m going to do all I can to succeed.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Peace.

Facebook: Where Common Sense Goes To Die

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One week ago tomorrow (November 18), I was put in Facebook jail for the fourth time this year, over a meme that was not the least bit offensive to anyone but someone took the opportunity to report it and based on that, I was back in the clink.

This is the meme that “earned” me 30 days:

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That meme was so offensive to someone that it was worth 30 days in Facebook jail. I can only imagine what kind of gutless, worthless, sorry-excuse-for-a-human-being was offended by something like that. But it was through this that I discovered something.

In the world today, your post doesn’t have to actually be offensive, if someone just doesn’t like it, they can simply say that they are offended and heads will roll.

In Facebook land, your first offense leads to a warning, second is 24 hours in the can, third is 3 days, fourth is a week and fifth is a month. Beyond that, I’m not sure, as I have heard conflicting reports, some say 60 days and some have said a lifetime ban.

On that note, here are a few of the other memes I have posted that were considered so vile they were worthy of putting me in Facebook jail over. Pure and total filth:

So, yeah. Those memes were so over-the-top offensive that I may sit one bad meme away from a lifetime ban despite the fact that in the previous six years I posted numerous memes (including the bacon one, which had been posted on my own wall several years ago) and had never once received a stretch in Facebook jail. But I’m more philosophical about things now than I have been in the past. Jail will do that to a man, even Facebook jail.

As I said earlier, as long as someone announces that they are offended, that’s all it takes for Facebook to drop the hammer. The bacon post? All it takes is for some muslim to say “I don’t like bacon, it offends me” and it’s Facebook jail time. I do admit that I’m curious as to whether or not a straight, white, native-born, employed male like myself would be able to get anything blocked due to being offended, though, given the state of the world.

What amazes me more than what I have posted being considered so vulgar it was worth Facebook jail time is the stuff I have seen that never gets reported. Full-on nudity, Full-on pornographic images, video of legitimate suicide by rifle shot, clear threats of violence and racism on every level against every imaginable race. And who can forget the wave of political nonsense that has to be the most disgraceful thing I have ever seen.

That’s all fine, none of that is anything to worry about. Perfectly acceptable. Guy blows his head off in a posted video? No problem. Man beheaded by radical muslim terrorists? That’s probably a free-speech issue. Calling people every name in the book and threatening physical harm because you are a member of an American political party? Nothing to see here. Jason J. Connor post a meme about people being butt-hurt?

Now that’s something Facebook would apparently go to war over. And that is pathetic. So while I do feel I was treated unfairly, taking me out of the opportunity to talk baseball with my Facebook friends during the most important period of the offseason (the GM Meetings are the first week of December, I am not paroled until December 18) I also feel that Facebook should feel just as stupid as they look and I am all too happy to share my story.

Perhaps someday, someone will be offended just by the very existence of Facebook, and they’ll have to decide if they should take the entire site offline for an extended period, after all, we can’t have anyone getting offended by anything, no matter how mundane.

Keep fighting the good fight, Facebook. You’ve now got the John Dillinger of social media in Facebook jail for 30 days. I bet the world feels a little safer right now than it did before. You just never know when someone may become offended and that’s just too scary to contemplate. Congratulations, Facebook. Never stop fighting for what’s right.

Oh, and up yours.

Peace.