Things you should do.

[lumberjim]

Originally posted by dave
He was talking some shit about it at school, but with an IQ of probably 85 (he was *really* slow), I figured it was just because he was dumb.

talking shit, as in, he meant to do it? You were 14? that's a really tough age to have something like that happen. Sorry to have taken you back there. Interesting that you have his address memorized.

reminds me of a story

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by dave
I didn't care to make a big deal of it, 'cause it wasn't a big deal.

But enough of a deal to put it out here on Cellar?

(4:38pm)

Neither have kept me from having a job while you were collecting unemployment these past few years.

(What's it like to be a burden to the state?)

(7:03pm)

Making fun of someone for something they can't change is... well, out of line.

Well, the 2 times I was on unemployment were not due to any fault of my own (that I know of)--both were unavoidable situations. There wasn't anything I could do to change them (other than look for new jobs, which I did).

So, how would you explain the first comment? Was it said to "teach me a lesson", b/c I gave you shit about your eye?

No, I was just fucking around with you. If I wanted to "teach you a lesson", I would have brought it up a long time ago. Like I said, it's not a huge deal.

I do consider being unemployed a situation that can generally be remedied if you work hard enough. I know that you were looking for a job, and it's all good. I didn't write it angry or anything. But "looking for a job" and "being so desperate to work that I was begging Steve's Prince of Steaks to hire me at minimum wage so I could have a paycheck" are two different things. I'm not saying you were a lazy bastard, but I seriously doubt you were scouring the city looking for any place that would take you. You were too busy posting on the Cellar.

Originally posted by lumberjim
talking shit, as in, he meant to do it? You were 14? that's a really tough age to have something like that happen. Sorry to have taken you back there. Interesting that you have his address memorized.

I don't have it memorized. I know what road he lives on, so I looked it up in Switchboard.

He definitely meant to shoot at me, because I got shot in the arm as well (and have the scar to prove it). I don't think he meant to shoot me in the eye. I don't think it occurred to him that what he was doing wasn't just the most dandy idea from which nothing wrong could ever result. Like I said, he was extremely dumb. (If you think that I think OnyxCougar and LUVBUGZ are dumb... they are really basically just average intelligence. Robert Buck was actually dumb. He couldn't take normal classes at school, but he wasn't in the "special" classes either. 85 is probably right about where his IQ was.)

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
That's interesting. I've often wondered about shit like that (usually under the influence) but not having some experience remotely related to reference, I'd never been able to come up with a conclusion. Thanks man.

Well, think about it, you can live a basically normal life with only one eye. It definitely takes some adjustment, but it's not a major life-altering happening unless you let it be. The only thing that's affected is my vision. Driving is a little bit trickier, but bigger mirrors and whatnot make that a non-issue. I'll never be able to serve in the armed forces, but I wasn't planning on doing that anyway. I decided pretty much right after it happened that I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life feeling sorry for myself.

If you lose a limb though (or even just a hand or a foot), think about how different things are. Spankin' that booty, using a computer, driving, eating, picking up groceries, bench pressing... most of the functions of an eye are duplicated in the other eye. Depth perception obviously is gone (close one eye and then try to catch stuff that someone throws to you, like a pen or an apple - kinda tricky now!) and peripheral vision is affected a bit. I needed to re-learn how to shoot a rifle, 'cause my right eye was the dominant one (and it's the one I lost). But I can still do all that other stuff.

Now, if it was between losing both eyes or losing a hand... no fuckin' choice. Good-bye hand. They can re-attach those and you need serious physical therapy to make it useful, but with the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of nerve fibers working that eye... fat fucking chance. Maybe in my lifetime I'll see out of it again.

So anyway, there's some perspective on it for you.

[Nothing But Net]

Originally posted by dave
So anyway, there's some perspective on it for you.

bwahaha..

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally posted by Nothing But Net


bwahaha..

Stop that.

[Undertoad]

David, under the thread "things you should do" here is the thing you should not do:

You should not playfully start insulting people as a way of cementing your friendship if you have an invisible line they cannot cross.

This is inconsiderate at best, game-playing at worst. Suddenly you go from happily taunting to being hurt, and there is no way to know where that line is.

Either you have to drop the practice of insulting people as a way of being close to them, or you have to accept *anything* they hand back to you.

And by the way, just for future reference, I don't play that particular game; if you insult me as a way of getting closer to me, I will probably react poorly.

I never went to being hurt. The only thing I posted that in any way resembled that was the frownie, which I did because I thought it was funny. (Come on. Dave, He Who Hardly Ever Backs Down And Never Shuts Up, posting a single frownie. I thought it was funny.)

I didn't say anything until lumberjim said "no fair picking on a physical malady", where I then explained that while it wasn't my favorite thing in the world, I wasn't bawling over it either.

I went from happily taunting to... happily taunting while explaining my reaction to certain happy taunting. I even made it clear that there really isn't anything someone could say here that would hurt my feelings.

Now you say "Either you have to drop the practice of insulting people as a way of being close to them, or you have to accept *anything* they hand back to you." -- which is <b>exactly</b> what I've done. I didn't ask him to stop, I didn't explode at him. He's done it a number of times, and his creativity in it at times is quite funny. So I let it slide, 'cause it's not a big deal. When I said it was "out of line", maybe those weren't the best words. What I meant to convey was that it seemed abnormal for the sycamore. Not that I was distressed by it.

For future reference, I know you don't play that particular game, which is why there are threads in my weblog dedicated only to kissing your ass and making you feel rosy. You're a cool dude, so is sycamore. I'm not mad at him, though I am kind of bewildered that this has turned into such a big deal. I just thought it was appropriate that lumberjim's comment was addressed, and as the night went on, I realized that I hadn't done a proper job of offering my whole view (bwahaha, NBN).

You know, I'm just going to put it here again, so there's no question about it:

sycamore cracking eye jokes is not my favorite thing in the world, because if I could change it, I would, and yeah, it's kind of a shitty thing that happened. It's sort of like making rape jokes to a rape victim - one of those things you normally don't do. So when he first did it (it doesn't really phase me any more, because I expect it), I was taken aback. Now, it's kinda like "oh well". Like I said before, I'm not losing any sleep over it. I think about it for probably about two or three seconds, and then I'm over it. sycamore is a pretty cool dude, and I like him. He's made eye jokes for a while now, and I haven't stopped liking him. No one need get upset at people taking cracks at me (I can handle them), especially playful ones.

If you don't want something discussed on the Cellar, <b>don't mention it on the Cellar</b>. It's not like I started a fucking thread "sycamore picks on me unfairly about my eye". He made a number of cracks about it, jim said something, and I offered my thoughts - 'cause, you know, it's <b>my fucking eye</b>.

Tony, I respect your opinion, but I do not agree. I hope this has clarified my position, and I will email you about some further issues so as not to "air dirty laundry" in front of the crowd.

[vsp]

Holy shit -- I disappear for a week or two, and look what happens to this place...

[wolf]

There are strange mystickal forces at work. It's not just The Cellar, it's pretty much the whole world. There has been a stirring in the dark side of the force, etc.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes.

[zippyt]

Dave dude ,, sorry to hear about your eye . Glad you have taken it in stride .
One question , and tell me to shut the fuck up if you want , i will understand .
Is the eye easly removeable ?? And if it is have you ever thought about some of the cool inserts you could get made ??
Like a scull and cross bones , or a cat eye , or goat eye , or get a small laser pointer embeded in an eye so when you go to one of those Quake conventions you can freak out the compatition .

As I said you can tell me to shut the fuck up if you want , but you seem cool about the whole situation .

I have the actual eye in and not a glass eye. I decided to keep it because there is a painful recovery period (or so I was told) with the removal of the eye. Like I said, I just kind of wanted to get it over with and move on, and a painful recovery period didn't seem like it was going to help.

I'll probably have something done eventually, but I'm not sure what. Right now, it's about 80% of the size of my other eye, due to loss of pressure fluid (that, you know, oozed down my face after I got shot - most offensive question I've ever been asked is "Did you lick it off?" - the answer is "No"). You can definitely tell, as soon as you look at me, that something is not right with the eye. There's also the fact that to sew the hole up, the pupil had to kind of be manipulated and blah blah blah. I'll take a picture with a camera that has a good macro function. Anyway, I haven't been very active in pursuing an eye cover (they make them to look exactly like your other eye) because I don't really give a fuck what I look like (because those that would judge me by appearance aren't people that I want to know). But yeah, one of these days, so I don't freak out the kids' friends.

[JeepNGeorge]

After reading this thread I can't seem to bring myself to watch the christmas story this year. Silly red rider bb guns.