What’s up chat. It’s been too long. I’ve missed my fans. Lots of developments recently. Let’s get right into it, yeah?

Last we spoke was 10.14, obviously that was about a month ago at this point. No sense in recapping the entire month; we’ll hit the highlights, most of which happened recently. Start with the tattoo story.

Friends and I were over at my buddy’s house. Playing Rock Band; absolutely shredding on the electronic “strings”. Drank way too much. My friend disappeared for about 1min and came back with the tattoo gun he had gotten either one or two years ago as our Christmas present. The idea was we would all get matching tattoos and to add a little bit of stupid to it we were all going to give them to one another. He was the drunkest and most willing so he went first. Got a smiley face to start. My other buddy and I pussied out at first but we came around and opted for a triangle (neither of us were a fan of the smiley). I went last. It looks better than you’d expect and didn’t hurt at all. We did well for none of us having gotten a tattoo before, generally having any art capabilities, and being collectively drunk enough to sedate an entire public-school kindergarten class. All said, great memory, good tattoo, bad hangover.

I also saved a snake that day from garden wiring. My subreddit friend group would be so proud.

Halloween came and passed, nothing notable there. Didn’t go out at all, no trick-or-treaters (apartment buildings). Quiet night. I generally think Halloween is a stupid holiday.

Moving on. Last-last weekend was busy. Went with the same tattoo crew to the ATL United game on Saturday. (We won surprisingly and ended up moving on to the next round after winning our most recent game on Saturday last as heavy underdogs.) Sunday, I went to the Falcons game. Had a “friend” (I guess. Unfortunately. WTF.) with season tickets who invited me. That marked a significant downward spiral. I had no intention or interest in being friends with this girl; I ended things afterwards. It’s a longer story than that but what’s the point of bringing it up again. Truthfully, I don’t think this relationship is entirely in the past. But we will see how that cookie crumbles.

Backtracking slightly: while doing tattoos one of my friends took a video where in which I saw the top of my head. Not a part of the body you see on a regular basis. Realized there was some hair loss occurring. Reached out to my haircutter lady who said, “Go to the dermatologist.” Did just that on Monday last week. Unfortunate news: androgenetic alopecia, more commonly referred to as Male Patterned Baldness. At the ripe age of 24, I am balding. Minoxidil and Finasteride for as long as it makes sense. Maybe I can regrow some of the hair I lost but at the very least I can slow the progress.

Later in the week I got sick (again). About the fourth time this year. Just a common cold I believe but I have completely lost my voice due to the post-nasal drip. Disgusting. I sound like RFK Jr. (no hate). Not entirely intended but that brings us to our next topic: the election. America let her voice be heard and overwhelming (once again) showed it was not ready to elect a female to the highest office. Trump won with 312 electoral college votes (and he won the popular vote; first time for a Republican since 2004). Realistically this was not at all about Kalama’s sex (maybe a little though). She ran an awful campaign, despite what some pundits might tell you. Her platform was practically predicated entirely on abortion, and I guess America doesn’t necessarily consider that a very high priority after years of extremely high inflation, mass illegal immigration, genocide in the Middle East, and a years-long war between Russia and Ukraine. Rightfully so. Know very well Biden didn’t help and her sex played a role, but her campaign was subpar. A lot of missteps. She did nothing to distance herself from Biden (or her atrocious 2019 platform that didn’t even get her to Iowa) and focused solely on bolstering her standing with the abortion vote (an unguided mistake). “She had 100 days to run!” Yeah… that was a positive. Any longer and Trump’s margin would’ve been drastically higher. Whatever, it’s over. No longer will I have to suffer through campaign ads every time I watch something on cable (Youtube TV). I anticipated Trump’s victory, but thought the election was going to be significantly closer (267-271 votes. I had him winning GA, PA, AZ, and NV, and Kamala winning the rest of the swing states. Was wildly wrong. It was obvious he was going to win the election after how both NC and GA turned. Began thinking it was over at around 9:30pm.) Could talk a lot more on it but I’ll save it for the Thanksgiving table. Big shoutout to my guys Krystal and Saagar, love you homies.

The new Call of Duty game came out. Been grinding. I am very good at COD. It’s nice playing a Black Ops game again. Omni-movement is fun but the maps need some work in my opinion. Otherwise, the game is solid with good gunplay, fun campaign (have yet to test Zombies). I haven’t, and will never be, a fan of SBMM. I think they’re doing something new in skill-based damage as well; some of these clips are insane. Still TBD on that but I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. Not sure how I can laser a motherfucker in the head for seven shots and end up dying after he turns around and puts two in my legs. Some people have claimed it’s server desync but I get audio feedback on registered hit-marks so I’m not sure how that’d be the case (maybe I just don’t know enough (although unlikely)). Oh well, still fun. And half the fun of these games is getting obscenely mad at them.

Today was Veteran’s Day, a company holiday. The three-day weekend was nice, but I wish I hadn’t been sick the entire time. The Steelers had a massive win yesterday over the Washington Commanders on a hard count by DangeRuss (lol). The week is looking up. The Penguins still fucking suck with an abysmal 7-1 loss to the Stars tonight. We’re still living out the days of our legends, but it has been downhill for a while.

Tomorrow is work. I might try and go home at lunch if I still can’t talk. Absolutely no point in being there if I have to Teams message to communicate anyway. We moved into a new office last week. They did a solid job with it. Didn’t realize really how shit our last one was until we left. It’s still an office though.

Beer is not gone. But I’ll finish it while watching Brooklyn-99. Goodspeed chat.