Another Filler Post. (Post #28)

     At this stage of the game, you obviously know that Quest For The Packard Bell will indeed be returning. When? Well, when I feel like talking about when in history I felt more proud of my country - (Yes, I did at some point if you're wondering - but I certainly don't feel as like back then now. And I doubt I ever will be...again.) 

     The point is, is that I'm probably not going to "COMPLY" to the village idiot who is anti-humanity, saying that we need to share more things and people need more friends. I mean, sure, everyone needs friends. But by the same token, I believe that I would much rather be someone who goes for quality over quantity of my friends. Like, I've heard of the Dunbar number where there's only a limited number of friends that I can only have before I can only interact with people with just basic good manners and showing them basic respect, (Which does include giving them the time of day, be it morning/noon/afternoon/evening/night) and then a whole lot of people I can only randomly interact with, by saying, "Well, I am just playing something on my tablet because the bus wi-fi sucks." I mean, the "BUS" Wi-Fi or local public transit wi-fi has to be the least encrypted Internet access out there. Perhaps showing my senior citizens VPN commercials may help them to understand why I would rather hide my IP address from the government. 

    I'm also not going to "COMPLY" to the so-called "enlightened loon" that is pro-humanity, because compliance, is often looked upon the same as obedience and submission to power. 

    I mean, sure, some may say, I probably enjoyed not being ill for three years, but it's not like I've used the three years to exactly be face-masked. I've been cautious about going out, and if I thought that I didn't like human interaction at first, and by "human interaction" I mean, face-to-face human interaction --- then, I suppose you could say now, the thought of actually going somewhere where I could personally interact with someone in person again after only having a computer screen separate our interactions. If I could, I'd probably just take all my fast-food meals to go, and not sit in the restaurant and not have to worry about the "DO NOT COMPLY" loons. I know that I'm probably being unfair to people who claim that I shouldn't be writing stuff like this, but I can't take it anymore. 

   Sure, failure does provide an opportunity to learn, but what if the "failure" in question has the lesson offered, "It didn't work the umpteen times before you tried to do this or that. So, if you try again this time, what makes you think that the result will be different?" I mean, the worse the odds, the more likely you will be to end up failing. 

    Some may say that I haven't given things I have written off as "FAILURE" a sufficient chance. But I say to those some people, "I held out for a good version of Microsoft Windows after having used 10 for 2 1/2 years. Microsoft gave me 11, which is OK, but it can never be another good version like Windows 7. Face it, the good times are over and probably will never be returning ever again." 

Quest for the Packard Bell - Chapter XII : (Post No. 27)

 Quest for The Packard Bell

Chapter No. 27

I. DESPISE. MODERN. INTERNET. 

  The only thing in particular I'm going to talk about is the Twitter Blue verification. I mean, I'm already cash-strapped month-in, month-out enough as it is; so I don't need to cough up an $8.00 a month for 12 months, ($8.00 for 1 month is $8, $8.00 for 2 months is 16 dollars. $8.00 for 3 months is $24.00. $8.00 for 4 months is $32.00, $8.00 for 5 months is $40.00, $8.00 for 6 months is $48.00, $8.00 for 7 months is $56.00, 8 dollars for 8 months is 64 dollars. 8 dollars for 9 months is 72 dollars. 8 dollars for 10 months is 80 dollars. 8 dollars for 11 months is 88 dollars. 8 dollars for 12 months is 96 dollars.) 

   Well, I know that some people say that I should rely on cash - however, the question is, in time - provided no global cataclysm that makes all physical cash worthless happens within the short term, my question is, what should I use cash for? Toilet paper? You know, for toilet paper when the actual toilet paper my parents have seemed to be able to do nothing but hoard ever since the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) broke out back in 2020. 

   Now, you probably may be scratching your head and wondering what shitting on the modern Internet, and questioning the validity of the point of functioning in a cashless society have to do with anything?
Well, ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, I've become more increasingly hesitant to conduct business in brick-and-mortar stores. Especially during the yo-yo period of where first masks were not really required, (but social distancing was) and then the period of time where face masks were required (excluding if you were eating/drinking stuff), and then later gradually many of these mask rules essentially disappeared, (although in certain instances, they still need to be kept because y'know, some healthcare scenarios do genuinely need to have them there as the square footage of procedural rooms are small enough where infection could infect the unmasked.) So, I doubt I'm going to be particularly chompin' at the bit to continue to have some cash transactions, and try to mainly conduct most (if not all) of my business that I do need to actually do using cards of one sort (or another.) 

  (Also: I've often said that at a time in the future, if I could find enough worthless metal coins, I would likely just have them be turned into floor tile, provided I have epoxy. Don't know why. I guess it's just because I saw some cool picture on the Internet about it, and question why someone didn't spend the coins, but after learning why, I gained a new respect for some people's on this Earth's resourcefulness.) 

   The truth is, I'm clearly on the side of "not going for that Twitter Verification." and I'm probably aware of certain ways to do it for free. Like perhaps one way is probably spamming being a fan of a certain game over and over. However, I'm feeling a bit hesitant to do so; since if I did, I could be attracting some attention from certain people that I've often thought not very highly of - (Possibly due to the fact I've been told I need to go outside into the great outdoors and touch grass. Really feel it with my hands. Do it for a good long time. And of course the minute the grass starts feeling soft under it, Probably hope it wasn't dog turds I was touching.) 

   I mean, money is money, and I can't afford to spend exoribitant amounts of moolah on stuff which I don't see the point of. The fact that I have stubborn old parents that probably would prefer I keep my spending in the past to a certain degree doesn't make me happy either. Of course, I made the mistake of freaking out about an impending apocalypse (see: global cataclysm.) I'm going to probably have to put some money in my PayPal account not because it's reliable or some shit like that - but rather, I'm actually going to be putting it there, because I don't have a physical wallet with money right now. In fact, I will likely put a small amount of money in my account right after I finish writing this blog. Why? Well, probably because I want to throw my pre-paid credit card away. In fact, I realize I have two of these such cards in my posession, so I'm going to check them both, transfer what little is there off of them, and then chuck them in the bin once I finish doing that.

Quest for the Packard Bell - Chapter XI (Post No. 26)

 The Quest For The Packard Bell

Chapter No. 11

Why Did I Even Decide That Looking For A Computer That Prehistoric By Today's Turbo-Processed Standards Was A Good Idea?

(Yes, I'm aware that 'puters back in the day also had a turbo mode switch which I thought it would make them go faster... But, that was likely due to the fact I was a kid and not very bright.) 

     (OK, that picture actually has nothing to do with what I was planning on writing. But, I also believe that I would be taking it in a direction somewhere.) 

     Now, some may think that I'm just being an old man for real yelling at clouds, resisting progress every step of the way and dragging my feet in the ground and absolutely being an asshole and shitting on games from the modern era which if I just so much stopped looking at the past for a minute, I would realize that a lot of modern games were just as good, in case, probably even better than a lot of the games I played as a lad - whether I was taking a trip down Memory Lane, or discovering a previously undiscovered classic from what I truly view to be the "Golden Era" as far as I'm concerned as games go.

    Maybe a good idea for a moment is to stop arguing that I shouldn't want to be doing much of my work on an OS such as Windows 3.11/95 for even a little while, and then look again as to why I want to be going back to the past - in terms of technology in the first place.

1. Modern Games in Steam (a lot of times) - have DLC Or, why 2010 and later lil shitz' are impatient about things which back in my day would've just been unlocked after a certain condition was met - now instead of simply unlocking for free in the software, you have to download it off the Internet. Some games probably have enhancements that you can download off the Internet, that after buying them off of their digital store, you can opt to download all the DLC immediately anyway, to make a game which was supposed to be considered a real "full" game more somewhat complete anyway. 

2. Even Console Games 2010 and Later have DLC - This is probably because a lot of cases that games released for systems 2010 and later have DLC anyway. Although, some games after 2000 locked some of their cars behind "Download Walls." 

(I'm looking at you Porsche Unleashed!)     >:(

 (No image available of what I was complaining about specifically. So have this Gen Z Ohio meme.)

3. Ultimately, Many of the 1990s games generally had a sense of more "hopefulness" than a lot of the games released now:  Well, it's true. I mean, sure, there may have been some exceptions, like DOOM, particularly the OG DOOM, which probably would be set in somewhat more modern times like now, or when we're actually supposedly going to leave Earth and go to Mars, anyway. But games like Chrono Trigger, or Secret of Mana, or Illusion of Gaia on the other hand, have more hopeful themes than games released in the modern era and likely will continue to have released into the foreseeable future, provided the apocalypse doesn't happen on January 1, 2023.

And I'm serious too. It wasn't until FOX released Family Guy originally in 1999, that apocalyptic humor was on the TV, and it would probably be not until 2009 or later that apocalyptic plots would really take off in games. Like, apocalyptic plots such as simply trying to survive a nuclear holocaust in Fallout, and I already know that there are probably very many games that are released in the modern day which I already know if I tried to name them here on this blog page, I'd feel my head start to spin. 

I've said it before in the past, and I will probably continue to say it again, and again, and again until I turn blue in the face and I sound like an absolute fucking broken record. I was only interested in the games released from 1977-2006, but only smaller numbers of titles as we get closer & closer to 2006, I was only interested in the games released from 1977-2006, but only smaller numbers of titles as we get closer & closer to 2006.

But, I never will say no to playing Minecraft, and Overwatch is a little stupid hard - even though I figured out the controls. Now if only I could figure out how to git gud enough to go faster in the actual gameplay. 

My point is, having a computer that just goes a singular ding after a series of three or four shorter dings is nice and all, but most of the games with the exception of Minecraft don't really do much to hold my interest. Also, modern Need For Speed games with cop game-over mechanics, I will not be registering my own personal tag (I probably may have addressed this in an older blog post - probably saying why I don't want to pick up games like Need For Speed Undercover/Most Wanted, or even Carbon again.) Oh wait. I did. If you want to read my old blog post again, then -
If you want to look at the list of "Games I probably won't be picking up again for the foreseeable future," which literally has games that I won't be picking up again until maybe after the next blue moon, but even then I ain't sure... ...click on the prior sentence. 

If you want to know why I chose to shit on modern games a lot of times in favor of more retro titles, just follow this link. 

I mean, despite my negative attitudes about a lot of more "modern" titles, I personally don't believe I have much of a reason to perhaps take an anal evacuation all over games that are more contemporary in release, that is, without being absolutely convinced that I would be needing to. Which I am convinced. I mean, some of the games for consoles from the generation of the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 forward, I've noticed that they are a lot of the times shovelware. Some games from PlayStation 2/OG Xbox era are also a little guilty of this, but personally, I've pretty much been hard pressed to find a game from the older era that would be guilty of being shovelware as opposed to a game that would actually have some replay value, than I would've from the "newer" era.

 

I̵̧͙͙̪̤̖͚̱̜̋̒̉͂͂̿̿ ̸̧̛̻̐̄̽̌̏̅̏͒͂̑̓̓̀͜͠R̸̨̡̜̰̝̳̝̻̣̉̅̍̐̊̂e̷̛̬̟̮͒́̊̋̓̅̅́̒̾̆̐͝g̸͇͐͑̈́͐̄̋͂̇̈́r̷̨̨̩̮͖̤̬̻̠̠̤̒͆̌̔̿̏͌̕͜e̴͍̽̊͑̍͌̐̚t̶̨̪͎̟̣͔̠̘͉͙͙̖̫̎̀͜ ̵̖͖͚̱̯̺̣͋̔̈̉̄̾̓͂̈̕͠H̸͙̟̗͈̱͍̼͉̦̱̺̖͕̼̄͂̾͑̍̽̊̈́̈́͌̄͊̀͝ͅa̴̼̍͗̚͝v̵̲̥̻̯̠̤̟͂͌ì̶̘̮̯̠̗͈͚̘̫̐̿̿ņ̵̘̣̱̩̺̺̼͎̜̍̓̕g̷̢̛͙̥̣͖̬͙̺͕̉̍̈́̈́̑͋͆ ̷͍͖̙͈͈̱̙̹̿͆̈̽̌̑̆̏́̾̎̽̒ͅͅĪ̸̢̨̼͇͔̪̌͜n̵͚͍̝͓̎̔̔̇̓̒͒s̸̥͆̓͒̑͊̒̕͝͝͠t̴͈̬̹̰̟̜̜͍̓̆̀̽̄̂̾̚͘͝a̶̙̻̦̠̭̞͇͔̬̫̗͋̈́̒͜͜ļ̸̛͔́̊̽̋ĺ̷̡͔̮̜̰͙̙͔̿̓̽̊͘é̸̢̙̳̫̦͚̼̣͈͕̤̈́̇̈́͐͝͝d̸̢̥̺̬̮͕͎̗̖̲̾͆̑̑͌ͅ ̷̢̢̛̣̬̯̯͖̞͔̮́̓̓̿̎̀̇ͅZ̵̛̞̮̈́͑͘̕͘ơ̷͉̩̈́̔̀͑ö̶̖̖̙́́̒m̸͇͗͋̂̀̓͘ ̸̢̢̩̣̳̟̮̅̊̊̊̽̈͛͑̚͜͝ơ̸̲̩͇̜͐̏̔͑̍̉̔͑̈́̀̍̃̕͠n̷͉͙̭̬͚̋ ̴̨͉̙͈̹̖̞̩̔͌͋͑̾͌T̵̢̤̦̗̱̰͚̹̘͕͋̀͊̚h̷̨̢̛͉̯̖̱̮̣͓̼͓͙̑͊̄͛̍̂́̀͝ͅi̸̮̘̾͝ș̴̡̛̛͇̮̺̞̬̣͇̪̆̍̌͋́͊̓̿̌͌͜͠ ̸̢̢͖͍̜̙̭̪̭̹̟̱̍̿͜P̸̨͉̬̖̖̞͓̈C̵̢̗̠̜̘̗̗̲̬̭̫̬͐̉͑̐̏͋͝.̴̧̭̲̦̥̬̤̖̬̾̍̊̈́̊͝ͅ.̴̝͎̙̼̬̦͇̯̙̳̘̈́̎̊͋͛̉͆͘͜͜ͅ.̷̻̯̮͉͚͓̔͆̋ (Post No. 25)

    I didn't want to install Zoom on my Acer Nitro 5, "The RedEye" as I've called it.

    Using this computer (Acer Nitro 5) for ZOOM, for Watchtower meetings, is similar to driving a Porsche 911 to the Kingdom Hall. 

      I would rather just drive a bland Hyundai, Kia, or Toyota to the Kingdom Hall. Keep the German luxury cars out of the Kingdom Hall Parking Lot!

     Anyway...

     I will use Ubuntu-Linux (Linux version) of Zoom in the future exclusively. For Watchtower meetings.

Account Deletion, Fall 2022 (Post #24)

     Quest for the Packard Bell will be returning, but I've decided that I will not be doing another "Free Parking" post like I had previously. I cringed with every word that I typed, and I believe that it's time religion soon became as invalid an argument as whenever one of Seto Kaiba's opponents tried to make an argument against his "screwing the rules." 

      So, instead I'd like to just get the obvious elephant out of the room, and say that my "latest" casualty for account deletion - SirNateTheLion's account as created earlier this year. 

     Now some may wonder and be scratching their heads as to why I would be scrapping an account that hasn't been in service for even one year as of the present date - (November 6, 2022). But unfortunately, due to the changing of hands of Twitter, and some probably tbh needed firings, the two accounts that I have been admin over as of recently will soon be leaving and be put on the silver memory stick. 

   It's a sinking ship, it really is. You have three choices to deal with this situation. You find everyone you want to save, and tell them to get to the lifeboat. You abandon ship and jump into the sea, which btw I hope you can swim, and hope your stamina's enough to get to civilization. Or, you just go down with the ship and be plunged into Davy Jones' locker. Again, not a religious sermon, as this will never have been my intent from the start (which it should never under absolutely any circumstances be.) 

   I've talked long enough at this point. 

Just go join the Discord server, if you still want to hear from me, I don't even care anymore.

 

Quest for the Packard Bell - Chapter X: (Post #23)

 Quest for the Packard Bell

Chapter X

Free Parking

  On the one hand, I'm feeling a little bit braindead and literally want to put someone on blast for then saying that a peaceful world might not be as free as it seems. Like, every form of paradise has its price. There never was, and there never is going to be, any such thing as a free lunch where nobody has to pay anything, because even if money and currency cease to exist as concepts - other ways of payment will become the new standard in time. Namely, the standard of divine obedience, to the point where no one will be allowed to make the same error in judgment that Adam and Eve had made in the Garden of E'den. 

 

  Now, before you worry this blog is becoming a religious sermon, and start wanting to help me pack and have my ass run to that outport I've often said that I would move to to spend the rest of my life in should any irrecoverable damage be inflicted upon my character reputation, my intention is not to bring "religion" to this argument or discussion. In fact, quite the opposite. My intention with this series of blog posts, as well as blog posts past and present, have they been in Nerdz In Space (defunct blog), Ramen Pirate (defunct blog), or any of the past computer build blogs (Project Claymore & Emulation Station Mini-Build are also defunct blogs), is to present interesting perspectives on stuff I'm generally interested in, while "religion" and its turning back the clock on societal process little hands are kept as far away from the words on the screen as I possibly can keep them. 

 

  This is probably almost as bad as some of the new "Berenstain" or "Berenstein" bears (For years, I still am unsure of the spelling) books being published that have religious themes in them. I mean, I don't think I will buy them. Also, if I get given them for a gift, no sooner than I have them taken out of the gift box, I will not be putting my name anywhere where there is a "This book belongs to" cover. In fact, they will remain in the gift box, or immediately be taken to an used book store, while I say, "Out of this house!" at first, and then, "Out of the car!" when I make it back to the town where the book store is, while I still carry the book, but only doing it three times in the parking lot until I'm absolutely sure I'm out of the car with it. "Out of my life" I will only say when I make it to the book store and trade that book away for something else that in the very Marie Kondo spirit that I will believe brings joy to my life instead. So, if anyone decides I need something for a gift, don't give me any "Berenstain" or "Berenstein" bears books. I'll appreciate it if you don't give me any such thing for my gift.

    In fact, I've often felt that despite what my parents might say, whether I do/don't need certain things, I already have a feeling I'm probably going to be spending a lot of the months going forward to where my month-end bank balance is going to be equal to 0. I mean, when I go for coffee at my somewhat more local to home going west-bound from Kingston/Greenwood area Robins Donuts, (Which is the Brooklyn St. Market in Middleofnowhereton), I have managed to spend less than $10.00 on what I get there, on average.) This means if say, I want to buy a pallet of Amazon returns someday in the near-ish future, my budget should supposedly have just a little bit of wiggle room despite my need of doing a "Bread-and-Milk" run. I mean, Grocery Items like that, despite how crazy inflation has become now, can't be all THAT expensive.

     Now, some may be scratching their heads and wondering why I don't want to use Windows 11 in the first place. Well, while it's good & all being able to emulate games from the Atari 2600 era all the way to the Sony PlayStation 2 era on here directly using the frontend called Retrobat (I wouldn't try Xbox games, and I am talking about OG Xbox - after a while the scrape just quit working on it mysteriously [?]) Windows 11 is the absolute latest in the CeMeNT Windows architecture. 

 

    Many features from Windows NT 4.0, CE, Windows 2000 and XP, as well as Vista, and in some cases 8 and 8.1 (I think HomeGroup died with Windows 7), have persisted to Windows 10, and even in some cases right up into Windows 11. True, the sound that plays whenever you boot the computer up from cold (which should not be done more than once or twice a day), is a nice, welcome touch, but one of the greatest flaws of Windows 11, (apart from the Windows Store, but I've pretty much also ripped it enough a new asshole that I don't need to anymore) is that it pretty much bloats just as much (if not worse) than Windows 10. I had to tell the computer to remove Windows Update cleanup files plus a few other garbage collection data. I could have indeed taken some of the files that were in my own personal "Downloads" folder directory off the computer too, however, I don't have a USB-plug-in only hard drive with enough free space at the moment (and not serving another purpose) to do that. I guess when my Dad goes to Wal-Mart (and takes me with because I assumed that his nearly 76-year old brain can't process the concept of external storage beyond flash drives maybe) I'll probably buy myself a hard drive, and pick my Dad's hard drive myself so that he has to do the minimum amount of thinking as absolutely possible. 

 

    Oh, and another thing? NTFS is a terribly inefficient filesystem. I mean, the storage on this computer supposedly is 256.0Gigabytes, but, the actual reported capacity by Microsoft Windows is somewhere in the ballpark of 237. So, I'm wondering where did the other 19 Gigabytes go? I suppose it could've been pre-allocated to the manufacturer's recovery partition (A Hewlett-Packard laptop that I got from the then in-business in Canada Future Shop did something similar.) but I still cannot help but feel somewhat ripped off. I have used Linux before, and during the OS setup, it's often reported 100.0% (sometimes 1% more) of what was reported on the internal hard drive's label. 

 

   Not that I'm suggesting everyone go back to FAT16 or FAT32. (I'm not making that 2.0Gigabytes be the limit for local storage on hard drive.) Technology has evolved since the 1990s. Quite a lot. We did gain quite a lot over the years - but I can't help what think about what we lost. 

 

    Such as: 

 

- Program Manager being the default Windows UI environment (From Windows 98 onwards - possibly worth doing a little bit of research on that later.) 

- The Storm (VGA) color scheme - (From Windows Vista onwards. There are ways to add that back to other versions of Microsoft Windows up to the present, but most people never pick that color scheme.) 

- CD Drives from computers (Meh. If I need to have that capability back, I can always just use an external one.) 

- Real-Mode DOS (Not a terrible loss, I think it probably may be possible to emulate "some" of that using DOSBox - but I also believe that I may be needing to do some research - probably due to Millennium Edition having DOS mode completely removed.) 

 

    And newer is never always better. Even when things circumstance in this world are compared between old vs. new. 

Quest for the Packard Bell, The: Chapter IX - (Post No. #22)

      I'm planning to explain to my rotten old parents the reason why I pretty much elected against using my new computer, which I call my "RedEye" to run Zoom, & give them enough basic techno-jargon to get by in doing. They aren't going to go be purchasing dirt cheap used PCs which have seen heavy use in the corporate environment before, and flipping them and selling them for a loss of about 50% or something to people that genuinely need to have them, I think when I don't have such a strain on my personal budget sometime in the future, I may resume doing that. I'm the science officer of the family, and they don't realize that their roles aren't to be the science officer of the family. If everyone was a science officer, then who'd be Kirk, Sulu & Scotty? Don't answer that question. 

     But, that's probably why you're not here. To hear me insult my parents' intelligence. You're here because I am making another chapter out of the seemingly never-ending (but not getting any closer to victory) quest for the Packard Bell.

Quest For The Packard Bell,

Chapter IX:

Kijiji Ads

    To those ladies and gents outside of Canada, Kijiji is basically our country's version of Craigslist. Except there's likely less weird ads on Kijiji as opposed to Craigslist, and less people have druggies be the responses or something. 

   Previously during the worse part of the 2020-2021 COVID-19 Pandemic, I've attempted to source Packard Bells thanks to a Kijiji ad. Why? Well, they aren't exactly special computers, considering the model range I was trying to go for myself, the ones in question being 1994-95 at the absolute oldest, and 1996 through the entire duration of that model year at the absolute newest, unlike some "other" 90s computers which would probably have computed absolutely quicker than the Packard Bell IBM clone, and probably have sold far less than IBM PCs and all clones across the specific manufacturing board, probably due to the fact their sticker price would've been at around the same price as a Porsche 911 or Mercedes-Benz car, probably one that would've been considered "lower-end" and not one with an AMG engine option. 

    And, of course, I guess I had sourced my Packard Bell, and I thought victory was close. Too bad my example (which I had got) only had a couple of CD drives and no hard drive caddy whatsoever. But then again, I didn't think it was a problem. Sure, it had a Dallas chip battery on the motherboard that probably was absolutely dead, which I didn't consider a problem (I would probably just figure out how to get it replaced with a coin-cell instead since Dallas chips aren't really worth fixing), and my plan at that particular time was to use a 2GB CF card, to use Microsoft Windows 3.11 or 95 on, on top of MS-DOS, also having as another option, have a CF card somewhat larger than 2GB to use Corel Linux on, since I have yet to figure out how to get that ancient Linux distro to run on anything. I have made some progress in that department, and some may question why do I want to run such an ancient OS, but my answer to that question is "Why not?" Considering that Windows 10 is basically a mixed bag of reliability of a running OS, depending on what computer I run it on. It either runs like an absolute clock unit, or like a dog, total garbage, and essentially someone who would be trying to run a marathon with probably little to no training, and having had absolutely nothing but a diet of McDonald's.

   And Windows 11, isn't much of an improvement over 10, but the fact it is an improvement over 10 does indicate that some steps have been made in the right direction. 

   I guess, another thing is that I've become increasingly paranoid over the fact that I've been told that "the end of the world is going to come at any day now," and that I shouldn't spend time trying to build an empire in this world. I mean, from the earliest year of my childhood I could somewhat reason coherently, to my tenth birthday, I basically unquestionably lived like that could be happening. I never took motivation seriously the thought that I could be a thirty-something male railing against everyone older than him's authority in one way or another and having tried to rebel against his parents from his twenty-first birthday to right now, and knowing that despite his best efforts to not be smothered anymore, he basically wants to be more independent from his parents - of course, that wouldn't happen because they fear that the same thing that happened to all three of his elder siblings priorly would happen to him. Well, they chose to make their own decisions and they were all bad. What makes my parents think that they know best and I shouldn't be allowed to have my ideas be put to the forefront? 

   But enough complaining about parental stupidity for a second. In fact, I'm going to stop complaining about this for the entirety of the rest of the blog. I mean, I shouldn't be stressing myself out over this, especially when I am feeling just a tiny bit under the weather from a flu shot I had received last weekend. I think just this morning, all the feeling in my left arm came back, so I guess that indicates that I'm on the mend. 

   So, does this mean I'm going to abandon the "Quest for the Packard Bell?" Well, not entirely. However, I feel someone probably shouldn't put any of the money I may have received from sale of unneeded supplies that I doubt I'll ever use into Envelope #2. In fact, if I learn someone put it into Envelope #2, I feel like I'm going to be somewhat disappointed.