Important Stuff Here.

Music & Memories

I’m always amazed at how songs become attached to moments or people in your life.

I hear Born To Be Wild, and I remember a road trip with a friend so she can check out a job possibility in Massachusetts.  When that song came on we cranked the radio and belted out the chorus at the top of our lungs.

Gimme Three Steps makes me think of the boss who was always amazed that the song was based on a real story.  He would mention it every time the song would come on and excitedly go on and on about it.

I hear Charlie Daniels, or Run DMC, or Mary J Blige and I think of the special women who have been in my life.  If it wasn’t for them I never would’ve given these styles of music a fair chance.

Whenever Dream On plays, I remember trips to Hampton Beach with friends.  We would always end the trips standing on the beach singing that song.

I could go on and on and bore you with songs and the memories associated with them, but I won’t.  But if ever a song comes on, and I get a little smile on my face and maybe even give a snicker, you know why.

Rule #51

I did something today that I had been wanting to do for years now.

I made an apology.

I had been wanting to make this apology for so long now.  I kept hoping that I would someday run into her at a super market or a bar or something and I could make my apology to her.

Back in the early ‘90s, we were in a relationship.  Not a long time, maybe 6 months at most.  And the entire time, I just treated her horribly.  Not physically, but mentally & emotionally, I was just the absolute shits to her.

And I know why I did.  I had been really mistreated in the past two relationships before this one, and I took it out on her.  I took all my anger, my frustration, my sorrow out of me and I fed it to her.  It’s not an excuse, because there is no excuse really.  It’s just the sad fact.

I didn’t realize what I was doing then.  It was quite a while after it was over that I saw what I had done.  And I felt ashamed for having done it.  And I felt sorry for her for having to experience it.  And I hated myself for doing it.  For treating her the way I had been treated.  Why would I do that? (Looking back now, I realize that this is probably where the true self-loathing that would come to define most of the past 20+ years of my life probably began. The first step on a long road.)

Ever since I became aware of what I had done, I had been wanting to see her again so I could apologize.  Not for my own sake.  But because she genuinely deserved it.

Today it hit me that it would probably be really easy for me to find her on Facebook.  We probably had mutual friends that would make it easy to identify her in a search.  And I was right.  I did a search for her and, due to mutual friends, it took me all of 10 seconds to find her.

I clicked the message button and wrote my apology.  It wasn’t long before i got a reply thanking me for the apology and wishing me well.  I don’t know if she really means it; you can’t tell on the internet.  But if she’s still the person I knew then, then she probably does.

So much truth.

As a bigger guy, my greatest fear walking down a street at night is that women around me will think I’m following them and freak out

I went to whack at a spider while dreaming and then I whacked my bedside table in real life and almost broke my glasses.

Wrestlemania 41 Night One Predictions

√ World Heavyweight Championship match: Jay Uso defeats (c) Gunther.

Jay is hot right now and Gunther needs to lose the title so he can lose to Goldberg in his retirement match. I don't think Jay will hold it for long though.

√ Jade Cargill defeats Naomi.

Naomi's promos have been awesome, but of all the matches on this card, this one's a no brainer.

√ World Tag Team Title Match: New Day defeat (c) War Raiders.

I love the idea of Big E coming along and costing the New Day the match. But honestly, New Day needs this win. Plus, they will be quite entertaining as the champs. Maybe Big E can cost them the titles at SummerSlam.

√ United States Championship: Jacob Fatu defeats (c) L.A. Knight.

Pretty much the other given on this card. It's Fatu's time.

X Rey Mysterio Rey Fenix defeats El Grande Americano.

WWE announced about an hour ago that they've bought the AAA promotion. Yeah... There's no way El Grande is winning.

√ WWE Women's Championship: (c)Tiffany Straton defeats Charlotte Flair.

This is the hardest one for me. I mean, it's Charlotte Flair at Wrestlemania LOL. But I just have a feeling that WWE (Paul in particular) is just sick of her s**t. Plus, Tiffany is much more entertaining. So IMO, "It's Tiffy Time!"

X CM Punk defeats Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins.

You need to send the crowd home happy tonight (cuz SPOILERS it won't happen tomorrow), and of the 3, Punk is the one to pick. Hayman will slide a chair into the ring and it'll end up between Punk & Reigns and that will factor into the victory.

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

Joe Morello

In the spirit of the holidays, we have a gift for the best fans in the world: more Death & Dream.

This deleted scene from The Sandman episode "The Sound of Her Wings" gives us a little more insight into why Death is the way she is. We hope you enjoy it.

- Neil, Allan & David

What’s been on my mind?

For the past 36 hours, only one question has been on my mind.

With everything he had... With the life he lead... If Anthony Bourdain couldn’t be happy...

Then what hope have I?