Too long with no blogging...

JZ left today, and I'm sad to see her go. I miss her already and will now have to wait until September to see her again. So it goes.

Now, as life settles back to its previous slow drone, and I find myself in quite a different situation than that which had burdened me in the earlier weeks of lazy summer. With a week of much action and little blogging, the idea jar is long past full and I simply have far more to blog than either I care to write, or you care to read. Thus, in this edition of the Success Blog, I truly will try to cut myself short.

First of all, I watched In America. Well, actually, I watched it some time ago, but I didn't have anything to say about it then, and I do now, so here it is. At one point, the dad in the movie, tries to win a little stuffed animal for his daughter at the fair. The goal is to get 7 balls through a hole in the wall. You pay your 4 bucks and get your 7 balls and go. The thing, is, no one makes all 7 balls - instead, you have to buy extra balls to finish off your 7. Each extra ball is twice the cost of the last ball - starting at 4 bones. Well, the Popa Irish does pretty well. He gets 5 out of the first 7 in. 4 Dollars. Another ball. Miss. 8 Dollars. Another ball. Miss. 16. Ball. Miss. 32. Ball. Hit! Ok, so you and me both are thinking this guy is nuts, the damn doll isn't worth this much money anyway. Well, there's an incentive to keep going. If you make your 7, you don't just get the ball - you get all your money back too. Shit. So dad-Irish is 64 bucks in the whole, has made 6 out of 7 balls, the next ball costs another 64, and the only money they've got left is the rent money. Just one more tense, gripping moment in a solid flick.

Anyway, the point of all this, is that when I first saw the movie, I thought the Dad was just being dumb. Number one rule at amusement parks: Don't play the money games for prizes. I went here, and played this, and 25 bones later, I had nadda to show for it. But, despite how badly I wanted to pull out every last bit of cash on me (including JZ's) I walked away after 25. It felt like shit. Terrible. Absolutely terrible. I wanted to kill the little punk-ass kid who kept showing me how easy it was. How long did it take you to master it? Oh? Just 4 or 5 times? Super! My 25 bills bought me 11 'almosts' and if you say one more thing kid, it might by you something too. If I had one once, I would have gotten a stuffed "Nemo" the size of me, and if I had managed to win twice, I could have scored an X-box. I realized though, that I didn't care about the prize. Maybe at the beginning. Maybe before I started I thought that surely I could win twice in 8 tries, and when I did, I would have a 20 dollar X-box. But after the first 5 bucks, I knew I wouldn't win twice, I just wanted one, and not for the Nemo-whale. I just wanted to win and show this little shit that he's not really that special after all. I wanted it sooooo bad. But, no dice. And in the end, I just feel like one more schmuck who wasted his money trying to win at dumb, impossible games. But, do I regret it? No. Sometime when I have some money, I'm going to go back and win - no matter the cost. Just to win. Maybe by that time, if I have that much money, I will also have a house big enough to fit that ginormous stuffed fish.

I had a plan when I started the game, and it didn't work - kind of like my plan when I started this post. I had intended to be short and brief, bringing you through the whirlwind week that has only just ended, instead, you got a big long blog about an amusement parks, Irish families, and big fish. Well, that just goes to show that the author is like a shitty fast-food employee. You just never know what you are going to get...

...and you damn well didn't know you were going to get anything quite that dumb to end this blog...or did you?