So... long time, no see. What's new?

Oh, right.

Well, when things get complicated, it's best to find an easy place to start and work your way through it all. As far as myself... for those that don't know, I had myself a nice little pseudo-meltdown a while back, over the way people were treating each other around here. It came off as a hissy fit on my part, but really there were quite a few people I felt bad for--getting shat upon by certain cliques (including the dictator's own personal Blog Snob clique). I tried to write insightful, humourous blogs to sway opinion and get people to think (shocking concept alert) and, despite my ingrained moderation and desire to provide for debate, rather than argument, I was called everything but an upright man or a hamburger (which, really, isn't much of an insult).

So I left. I had finals to worry about, then I was on the road, driving truck over winter break. Things were a little slow, but passable. I took a trip back east with my girlfriend, to visit my family and see some sights. It was fun, if saddening at times--old farms keep disappearing and the ones that are left are falling apart.

As classes started back up, Michelle got me hooked on this MySpace thing called MOBSTERS. Fun times. (BTW if you're on MySpace, email me or whatever and mob up--even if you don't want to play, it still helps me out if you join my mob and let your account sit dead). So I decided, what the hell, I'll go take a peek at the weirdos on eBaums.

That was two days after the Exodus began.

I was shocked at what happened. To have a corporate head come to your work and tell you vamanos has got to suck--it's like walking in to a meeting with your boss and they tell you you're fired, but a bajillion times worse. BUT...

I don't know what had happened. If it was the old calculating Capitalist Pig coming in to boost profits/cut losses, or if there was some animosity betwixt ZVUE and eBaum. Either way, welcome to the real world (such as it is). Like Bauman needs the job. 17 million only buys so many trampolines and so much candy, but still. It hurt him to lose "his" site, and I feel for him. Best Wishes.

As far as the here and there of it, I'm with Bohank on a lot of levels. We are here, if you don't want to be here, go (we'll miss you, but, again--it's life); I don't like the forum setup--I got in, and the next day couldn't figure out how to see if my contribution (such as it was) merited a response, a notice, whatever. If you like that just fine, and need to be around your buddies, cool. I look around and see Dirty Sanchez, Bo, Savcam (in a pm), Big Bad, Ugdork, Wallboy... others who'll give me hell for not mentioning them...not a bad group. To be honest, what I see is the eBaum Snob Clique is gone, and now we can start our own Ideal Republic. Yippee!

In the world at large... Obama, et al. ... I may have said this before, but I deleted those old blogs... before the "crisis" which was caused by the tech bubble of 2000, the housing bubble of c. 2007, and the credit debacle of 2008, oil traded at nearly $150/barrel, silver was $20/oz, and gold hung around $650/oz.

After the crashing began (poor Billionaires) oil dropped to approx.$65, silver to $9, and gold... GOLD ROSE TO NEARLY $1000/oz!!!

What's that tell you? The people WITH money--the ones who caused the damn mess in the first place--aren't scared. You or I (for the most part) could invest in silver, and oil. But the ones who can hide their money in $800 and over gold? They kept buying. They knew us peons would sell and be scared and hide. But they'll be okay... until we do something about it.

Seriously, the next time you hear someone on the news crying about how they lost a million dollars or more due to the market--realize they must have had some money in the first place in order to lose that much. The ones who win out in times like this (the Great Depression, the 70s Oil Crisis, trucking companies during the 80s deregulation period) are the ones who stick to it and don't get scared.

Like I said, nothing's going to change unless you do it yourself. But you need to survive to that point in order to be there.

(A final note: in nature, when the old, bloated head of the pack dies, there is a momentary chaos as a new chain of command arises. But, in the end, the system is healthier for it. --To the Big 3, the Financiers, and to eBaumsWorld.com

So what unites this all together? It's simple.

People are f~({!~& morons.

This isn't an intellect thing, as I once believed, but rather an issue of clarity of mind. There's a reason some less-intelligent people get ahead and are happy. Not necessarily because of money (Ted Kennedy, after all) or connections to the elite (John McCain) though those help. Just being able to keep yourself above the mess goes a long way(George W. Bush, Bill Clinton).

Hell, I am "intelligent" but I was a moron for letting things get so heated. It's just a website, after all. Same goes to the World vs .tv crowd. We've been stupid in how we handle our money and our economy, all in all, for nearly 30 years. It's not a game to ruin people's lives (provided they are "ruined" really, in the end).

Open your eyes and see the world around you. The only thing we are alive for, in the end, is to be alive.

The only One who can fix things, really, hasn't given us his plan yet. I feel sure He (for lack of a better pronoun) will someday, but only He knows when. In the meantime, it's important to do our best with what we got.

I just hope He doesn't go create Earth.tv in the meantime.