I May Have Single Handedly Stopped Pirates

I think I may have singled handedly stopped pirates.

Or at least the online variety anyway.

As is common in my life, I was thinking one day. Not about much in particular just the world and how it all fits together.

Then I had an idea.

I thought why do people pirate things?

Well because it’s expensive to buy things.

So how do we stop that?

Quite simple really, make everything free.

Feel free to be confused such a thing is understandable in a world run by spending and making money.

I’ll back up.

First someone needs to make a game, or a movie. It could be a whole team of people that’s fine too. Then they need to decide how much this game or movie is worth and how much they want to make off of the game.

Then get behind a big name like Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Square Enix, you get the picture.

Now spread the word about this game or movie that has been made.

Tell everyone.

Then start a web page online where people can go and pay for this game or movie. As little as a dollar and as much as they want.

Say you expect the game to make 500,000 dollars.

Set the bar to 500,000 and,

If the game or movie seems good enough,

I bet you 500,000 people would gladly pay a dollar for it.

When the 500,000 is met make the product free ware and offer hosting of its download.

Now the game or movie is free from the moment it is available.

No way to pirate it,

And you make the money you want without fear of sales issues.

I know there are some problems, like how Halo and other large games, or movies, make millions of dollars, and that’s asking for a lot of people.

But smaller games, like downloadable content games for the Xbox, Will and Ps3 could probably get away with this.

Or some high end flash like games on the computer.

Regardless,

Just a thought.

But I sure would love to play a dollar for a game I really like.

That would give so many people an extensive game library to play.

But maybe this idea is not capitalist enough for America.

Maybe it’s a pipe dream that will never work.

But you know what I think?

It would be awesome.

But that’s me, what do all of you think?

*GASP*

That’s right.

I asked you a question.

That means to answer me you would have to e-mail me.

Stop hyperventilating.

It’s going to be ok.

I have faith in you.

I've been struck by lightning

I’ve been struck by lightning.

It was a very unique experience and I remember it quite well.

You see I love the rain. I dance in it, sing in it, play in it, over all I just enjoy it a lot.

So when a storm comes rolling around I don’t hide away inside I go and great it with cheer.

On one such stormy night I was going for a nice stroll in the rain.

A few miles passed under my feet and just as I was walking across one random street to meet back up with the sidewalk,

It happened.

I was struck by lightning.

The whole world went white. So white that this picture is not white enough. My eyes were overloaded with light and in what could not have been more than a fraction of a moment my mind worked at super human speed. I don’t know why or how, but in that moment I thought of a dozen things at once and came to conclusions I had been looking for the entire walk.

One of which was that I discovered I want to sell candy for a living. But that is a story for a later time.

The light faded and I found myself standing frozen in place not sure if that had really just happened or not. I appeared to be alive, and that was the bases of my skepticism.

Then the thunder struck.

I have never, and never will again, hear something so loud. I was physically forced to my knees involuntarily trying to escape from the sheer volume of the booming. It stabbed into my head. My eyes hurt from the noise, which really didn’t make sense.

As the thunder faded away I stood up shaking violently. The world had returned to normal like nothing ever happened.

 As my hearing returned I head the distant cries of a man’s voice and looked over to see a stopped car in the adjoining road to the one I was on. He was frantically calling out for me. “Are you all right? You just got struck by lightning!” Is all I made out before another boom of thunder nearby drowned him out. I nodded my head finding words beyond me at the moment.

After that I walked home, well more of a run, but that’s it. Another day in the life of me; this one just had a bit more pizzazz.

I’m not sure if I am really unlucky these things keep happening to me,

Or just really lucky that I’m alive.

I think I’ll take an optimistic view today. 

I Hate Driving

I hate driving. I mean I really just do not like it one bit.

Of all the things I really dislike in this world driving is in the top five.

This is how I view driving.

No wait,

THIS is how I view driving.

I’m not bad at it or anything. I’m actually quite good.

Well maybe I’m not so great; most people are just really bad so I look great in comparison.

I understand the importance of driving. I wouldn’t wage war on cars or anything.

I just don’t like the idea of moving at lethal speeds on a two thousand pound missile of doom.

I almost feel like the second amendment should cover cars.

Sure guns are dangerous.

I just feel that with a well aimed car I could do a lot more damage than any standard handgun.  

Ello, um, my name is Joshua I’m looking to buy a car…

What was that? A missile you say? Right this way my good man I’ll show you’re our newest model. Guaranteed to leave a lasting impression.

Er no, I meant a—

Here we are! Just got her in this morning. Genuine H-bomb. Decent mileage, very quiet and if some jerk rear ends you, well, the jokes on him eh?

Yeah, everyone dies. Hilarious.

That may or may not have exactly been what the sales person told me while I was car shopping, but that’s what I got out of it.  

So I try to get rides with my friends as much as I can just so I don’t stress out as I drive.

I save money on gas too.

Oh yeah, and the environment. 

Depresosphere

This is how I feel right now.

Alone,

Empty,

And not really sure where I am.

Typically I can handle each one of these problems as they arise with positive thinking and activities of fun.

Recently that has not been happening.

You may be thinking, Joshua, where are all your pictures? You normally have a handful by now.

Well esteemed audience that would be tied to the lack of my favorite weathered paper backgrounds.

My computer is effectively out of commission. I’ve had it for years now and as computers do they die eventually.

We did a lot together; many crazy stories only exist because of help from my computer. This blog was only possible with help from my computer.

So my computer, may this be your virtual tombstone.

Rest in peace.

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That is rain by the way.

I can still draw in case you are wondering. It is just a lot harder at the moment. I need to use a free artist program on the computer, I have a screen that is far too small, and now I just feel like I’m complaining. Which is exactly what I said I would never do on this blog.

Darn.

Well, let me do my best to give you all something to look forward too.

I’m sure that ends well.

When will that story happen?

Not sure. But I promise to have more pictures and a post next week.

And on time.

Crazy what a computer's death will do to your internet deadlines.

I still feel bad…

So have a present!

An I’m sorry for my late/ awful post, and an early Christmas gift.

A zombie for zombie fans,

And a cat for those who are not.

oh dear.

The Birthday it Finally Snowed: Chapter 1

I always want it to snow on my birthday. I’ve always wanted it to snow on my birthday. My birthday is on the seventh of February so it can actually happen.  I mean, I’m not some hopeless July birthday boy asking for the world to shift drastically while not understanding the consequences.

Every year when I was young I planned my birthdays with a plan B “If it snows, we go outside.” I even put it on my birthday invitations to warn everyone about clothing to bring.

This was one of my actual cards; I had to tape that little extra part onto each one.

But it never snowed. Each year my hopes would build up and each year nature would break my heart.

I tried everything…

Flushing ice cubes down the toilet.

Wearing my pajamas… inside…out…. Er, just take my word for it. In doodle land we only wear skin tight spandex for some reason.

Indian snow dance, think of an Indian rain dance but with more limb flailing and me having no idea what I am doing.

I tried bribery.

Threats.

Damned right I’m a monster, a monster who wants his snow.

Nothing worked. The years passed, I grew more desperate, but nothing would make it snow.

By my fourteenth birthday I’d completely given up hope.  It would never snow on my birthday, such was my curse. This did not have to be completely horrible though; there was a silver lining. There is always a silver lining, and here it was my party. Every year I would have my party outside in the park or at my house. Either way I had the party somewhere where at the drop of a hat I could run out into the snow. For my fourteenth birthday I threw that rule out. Nature had forsaken me, I would forsaken nature. It was time for laser tag.

It was a wonderful party

Lasers flew…

Friends died…

Heroes were born…

And victory was mine.

We played for hours. There was cake, it was delicious. I got presents, they were toys, I loved them.

The party ended,

I said goodbye,

I walked outside,

It had snowed the whole time.

My mind stopped. I didn’t know if I should be happy that it finally snowed, or angry I just spend all the snowfall inside. I was vaguely aware of my mother shepherding me into the car, to drive us off to our next destination. But all I could see was the snow.  

I Would Rather be Locked in a Cage With a Lion

Does anyone else get those moments where all of life seems to look you in the eye and say “go jump off a cliff” after giving you a big heavy rock?

I typically block these moments from my mind. The problem is that when one happens, it acts like a key and I remember a slew of the older ones too. So when I was drawing the slender man post and Photoshop crashed on me five times in the same doodle at about the same place, I caught a nightmare of reminiscent memories.

One I remembered with extreme vigor was from my first semester in College. A lot happened in my first semester of College, and in-between those things I tended to sleep.

I am the sort of person who uses my phone as an alarm. I can typically trick myself into thinking someone is calling and get up to answer it. I put my phone above my head on a little bed post my bed had, an easily accessible location. I didn’t want it much farther away for fear of waking my two roommates, Scott and other Scott. I always had to wake up earlier then they did.

Well, one night I’m sleeping having some awesome dream most likely involving fight zombies with nothing but my bear hands.

Then I rolled over in my sleep. This is not common, and in so doing I knocked over my phone and it falls to the floor below.

I’m a light sleeper and the “plink” of the phone colliding with the ground awakens me immediately. I quickly grasp the problem at hand and am determined to get my phone back.

I’m so happy I have a loft.

I’m so happy I have a loft with a dresser under it.

I’m so happy I have a loft with a desk under it.

I’m so happy the layout of my room makes it impossible to get behind my dresser,

I’m not very happy my phone fell behind my dresser.

I’m not a big curser. As in, I do not curse that often. (Or so I tell myself.) But I sort of let loose a few at this point. All to myself and in the quiet of my pillow covered face, but curses flew none the less.

 It was four o’ clock in the morning. I had work in two hours; I had gone to sleep two hours before. I wanted to sleep. I tried to calmly get out of bed.

This resulted in my falling to the floor.

I just about broke my neck in the fall, but I seemed to be fine by the end of it all. I lay in a tangled mess of my own limbs too asleep to care about much of anything other than not waking up the Scotts. I’m polite, what can I say?

So now I was on the floor; still had no idea how to get my phone back. Worse yet if I didn’t get it the darn thing would go off like the 4^th of July when it was time for me to wake up. I’d wake up everyone in the suite if I didn’t get this over with by then.

I shook myself to semi consciousness. I needed to man up and get this done. Then, I could go back to sleep.

I needed a flashlight. It was strikingly dark in my room, even more so behind my dresser. I was sure I brought some form of light apparatus with me to college, but where was it? I spent half an hour groping around in the darkness trying to find my little flashlight. I felt like a blind person. With the mixture of my sleep deprivation and innate fear of going blind I began to realize that being blind would suck. In fact it did suck and would continue to suck forever after. So for all the blind people out there reading my post, I understand a bit of your pain and I am sorry.

I found my little light in a treasure chest like box. As I opened it I felt awfully reminiscent of all the old Zelda games where opening the chest was this huge moment in any dungeon.

At least I didn’t get the compass.

I switched on the small light and welcomed the light like I do when I see my dear Ramona after a long days work. With a kiss, a hug, and commonly a compliment on her outfit. The flashlight seemed far less responsive then Ramona to such things, but I feel like we connected a bit more over it.

My phone was in the far back left corner. If I gnawed my left arm off and used it as an extension of my right arm I still would not be able to grab it. Looks like I was back to the ol’ drawin board.

I have no idea where the idea came from, or why it did not involve something else, but a brilliantly stupid idea came to mind. I owned a small collection of rulers. I suppose just in case they continued to break? Well I thought it would be a wonderful idea to take all my rulers and tape them together. THEN, make a circle of tape and attach it to the end like a fishing pole. Only not in any way like a fishing pole as there was no line, or hook, or anything even remotely like a fishing pole; I was using rulers.

The rulers were, by a stroke of luck, just long enough to touch my phone.  Course the whole thing weighed less then my phone. Any moment the whole thing could just disassemble in my hands; I used scotch tape.  You could see this was really well thought out. The clock was ticking, I was running on fumes. I slammed down the rulerrod, as I have named it, and slowly reeled in my prey.

I’m a little under the assumption I broke physics, or physics was just as sleepy as I was because I was soon holding my phone in my hands.

I was asleep in my bed a full three seconds later.

The Cathedral

Once upon a time, as I was just about to graduate high school, I was thinking about my future.

My two friends

And

I

Wanted to live together.

This wouldn’t be a very long story, but we are a little strange.

That puzzle was actually freakishly hard. Seriously Gabriel, how was I supposed to know I should punch a 300 pound boar with my small skull ring? It stabbed me in the leg with its tusk and ripped out the majority of my tendons. I should have been dead.

We didn’t want to buy a house; not a standard house anyway. We wanted to buy a cathedral. Well, I wanted a castle but I was not about to complain.

As you can imagine there are not a whole lot of cathedrals for sale. Not to mention we had school to finish, colleges to get into and no way of paying for the hypothetical cathedral.

But we still loved to talk about it

And to dream.

I remember very well one dream in particular. Gabriel, Nyx and I stood atop the highest tower of our dream cathedral. Rain poured down and thunder struck all around us as we were besieged by demon succubi and Incubi. Ghastly light poured out of the stain glass window below us as the battle raged on.

I’m not quite sure why I am remembering my dreams with would be one-liners from action movies, but it is rather kick-ass.

Having absolutely no leads left us dreaming for a while. Each time we met up one of us was likely to have a dream to share about the three of us doing something awesome in conjunction to our cathedral.

Then Gabriel found something.

I am not even sure how he found out about it but we had to go.

It was located in Washington D.C, an adventure was to ensue.

Off to the metro.

Gabriel: Joshua, this girl has been looking directly at you for two stops now.

Joshua: Really?

Gabriel: Yeah.

Joshua: What does she look like?

Gabriel: Probably a year or two older then us, gravity defying hair, red highlights—

Joshua: Black cargo pants?

Gabriel: Yup, you know her?

Joshua: Not at all, but I can see her through the reflection in the windows.

Gabriel: You should talk to her she’s cute.

Joshua: I don’t know… you think so? I mean she is cute. Looks like the rebellious type too, I do like that.

Gabriel: Do it.

If you are out there gravity defying hair girl, hello again.

By the way, Nyx was there the whole time.

And we were dating back then.

Just kidding she didn’t slap me, and where did those finger marks come from?

Wow, what am I even pretending to imply about my relationship with Nyx?

When we got off the metro and battled our way through people,

I found something rather interesting.

A note.

Dear Jason,

          We are both kinda whores. I mean, think of last night, yeah whores. You are cute and I like that. I’m really hot and I know you like that. You are older than me but I like that too. We both like each other Jason. But what the POMEGRANATE Jason! You live with your parents. And why did this not come up before we were breaking down your front door making out with each other? Like, ok, bad call on my part for part for saying I don’t mind. I DO MIND JASON. I was talking to my friends and they told me how messed up this is! You are messed up Jason! I mean Jason! I’m 22 and I have my own place! Why did you want to go back to your place if your parents were there anyway!? How stupid are you to forget your parents would be home? And then again this morning, introducing me to your parents? Oh whats that? They don’t like me? I wonder why Jason! I wonder why! Sarcasm Jason! SARCASM. Then your mother asking me to leave!? Could it get more awkward? Well you know what Jason? I’m not giving up on you Jason! I know where you live, you and your parents Jason.

Call me later,

Megan.

I still think pomegranate is the best curse world ever. Oh, and Jason, I hope that restraint order goes well.

The cathedral.

We finally arrived at our destination. The damned thing was falling apart and in an equally sketchy part of the city. It was wonderful. I mean no wonder it had to be sold, but the three of us could not have asked for anything more. The place was huge and technically it was a church.

We wanted to see the inside so badly.

 But of course the front door was locked, and everything else was locked.

But through windows we could see a little of the interior. Mind you this place was at least a hundred years old, and I would argue few of the windows had been replaced since then. The windows were not the standard glass we see today; they were the old imperfect glass panes. The ones where you need twelve to make a single window. So everything was dark. Lots of tall ceilings, narrow stairs, open spaces, it looked just like I had hoped.

The more we saw however, the more we wanted to get inside.

That is when we saw a graveyard behind the building. 

The graveyard was bordered by a spiky fence that honestly I didn’t feel like impaling myself over. There was however an opening far down the way. Graveyards are great and all, but what we really wanted was the little door hidden behind a few graves in the back. This little door looked ancient; we could make it inside from there.

As we approached the gate into the cemetery I felt like we were being watched. Little icy fingers running up and down my spine as I took my first step onto the damp dark grass of the graveyard.

“What are you doing?”

I spun around to see a middle aged woman with her first grey hairs wielding a gardening spade in a gesture that could mean to take out my eyes, or just be waving hello. I’m still not sure which one it was. This woman had a great expression on her face. A mix of fear over three teenagers walking into this graveyard, utter confusion over why we would be doing so, and a very defensive nature.

“Why I was just about to go into this cemetery mam.” 

“And why would you do that?”

Time to improvise.

“I’m on a hunt.” 

I gave a broad smile to try and ease her.

 “You see my name is Joshua, Joshua Jenkins. I’ve been sent by my grandmother on a mission to search all the graveyards around for relatives. My grandmother believes we had family around here good few generations back. Based on the age of the church over there, I decided looking around here could be fruitful.” Another smile.

The pause.

Any of you who have ever told an outright lie should know what I’m talking about. That moment between your lie and the response to your lie.

You don’t breathe; fear that any movement will give you away.

“Oh. Well if that is what you are after we have a logbook of all the graves inside. Could easily save you some time trying to look at them all.” She smiled back, a genuine care giving smile.

Success, well, enough of a success anyway.

So if you are out there madam, my apologies for tricking you, I just didn’t want to be stabbed in the eye by that garden spade.

We walked away some time later, inadvertently defeated from gaining access into the cathedral. Which we decided, was probably a good thing anyway. I mean, breaking and entering is sort of a crime.

I still end some of my days looking outside my window up at the stars, or clouds if it’s a really long night, and I think of what it would be like; living in a cathedral.

Love you both Nyx and Gabriel; we will live together one day soon. I may not be able to give you a cathedral, but I’ll give you all that I can.

And zombies.