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I don't know of a better way to send comments directly to a user, so I'm just going to leave this journal entry as an inbox of sorts in case anybody wants to get my attention for some reason.

In every person's life, they have good times and not-so-good times. It's easy to take the good times for granted. When times are good, there is no reason to think why - it just is. Eventually, the pendilum will swing back in the other direction and that, my friends, is where I am today.

It's been a tough couple months for me. I'm 31, recently married, no kids. My wife and I lived together for over 10 years before getting married. Needless to say, we met rather young. She is an amazing woman -- beautiful, smart, and caring. She is the only woman I could imagine living my life with. As I mentioned, we met rather young, and because of that, I never had a chance to fool around with other women. I thought that I could live with that, but over the last 6 months or so (and talk of having a baby), the reality has hit home, and I don't think I want to life my entire life only being with 3 women. So what do you do? I have a wife that I love very much and want to spend my life with, but a burning need to experience the world.

***

I have a good job that allows me to live comfortably, but it is killing me. Most days I only do one or two hours of work, which sounds great until you actually have to live it for a couple months. It's really boring and unfufilling. I am by far the most technical and experienced person on the team, yet another person runs the team (It's complicated...). I don't get invited to meetings and because of that, mistakes get made and then I have to clean up the mess. I get no appreciation at all even though I pull rabbits out of my ass all the time - for what? It's just super stable... I can't imagine getting laid off or fired. That being said, my mood is getting the best of me and I've been really pissy and irritable lately. If it get's much worse, I might get fired.

***

How many of you are married? Women and men don't need sex in the same way. For a man, sex is very, very important. If I don't get sex, I get really depressed. It get's really old when I have to initate sex all the time. I get rejected often because she's 'too tired' or 'not in the mood'. It's humiliating and painful to be rejected so much, like a knife to the heart. It hardly seems worth even trying. I get 'intimate' with my computer more than my wife. I would guess I get sex about 5 times a month.

Last Tuesday, we had talked about sex in the evening, and then she took a bath (which usually means I'm getting lucky). When she crawled into bed, she says 'I'm so tired..." AKA 'No sex for you'. Ouch. Well another date with the computer then... The following day, I sent her a very well written article that explains how men need sex just like women need to talk. She understood the article and plans to do better. Last night she actually initated sex, it was amazing. I hope to get more of this...

***

I really do have an amazing wife, and we have a strong relationship. Over the summer I told her that I don't know if I can live my life without having sex with other women. I only get one life, and sex is so important to me. I'm not looking to screw anything with legs, but I'd like to bring my number from 3 to something like 10. I dropped this on her 3-4 months after we got married (Remember we have been living together for over 10 years, so it feels like we have been married for a long time...). I felt like a complete asshole, but I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. One one side I would never want to hurt my wife -- but on the other, I only get one chance at life, so I want to get everything out of it.

We talked about this a few more times over the next few months, and she agrees to allow me to date other women on the side. It felt like I had escaped from a trap. I try Tinder, and then gave up on that and opened an account on another dating website. I very stongly believe in honesty, so I put in my profile that I am married. I don't want to decieve anyone.

It's been a couple weeks now, and no good nibbles. I think I'm pretty good looking for a nerd (I'm thin, but tall) and I'm reasonably socialable. The lack of interest has really gotten be down even more though.

***

So, that's my life. Sometimes it helps just writing things down, so I hope this helps. I have a job that is unfufilling, an unfulfilling sex life (although my wife says she'll try now - which in itself is pretty sad), and constant rejection on dating sites. It's getting pretty tough to deal with. I hope things get better soon.

-- Snow

This story on Slashgear about net neutrality showed up in Google News this morning. I was appalled.

Not at the story, so far I've only read the first sentence. "Today, President Obama sided with you and I."

What the God damned FUCK?! I don't know what uneducated moron wrote that sentence... wait, I found a byline: Nate Swanner. Nate, you show about a fourth grade reading level. Nate, you uneducated moron, QUIT YOU JOB, go back and get your GED and learn the English language before you present yourself as a "journalist".

And you who run slashgear, have you not thought about just maybe hiring an editor who's spent a semester or two in college?

One more question: how do these rank amateurs wind up in the Google News feed?

Oh, and Nate, for your information, it's "you and ME." Would you say "Today, President Obama sided with I"?

Moron. I hear McDonald's and Wal Mart are hiring.

Warning: if you suffer from depression, don't read this. It might mess with your head. Not kidding.

This is probably the first time I've written to you, universe. I may have prayed to God or others, but I doubt I've spoken to you before.

I need to drop on my knees, and sob out my thanks to god for Prozac 60mg. I've suffered more than I imagine near anyone else can comprehend. It's such a sick, bent agony laced with petrifying fear, covered in 'my-universe-is-broken' sauce. The OCD I was dealt in 2011 is the most indescribable hell I can imagine. I can laugh at the atrocities I see on the news because I would have traded places for something as simple and benign as physical pain, the pain of four broken limbs or having my skin peeled off with a steak knife. Instead I was given 24-hour terror equivalent to being eaten alive by a monster. I wanted to die so bad during this. I wanted to die so badly.
I was alive for my family but even their need was getting to not be enough to justify my living in this carnival from hell.

So as you know I ended up in a crisis center in September, right in time for 9/11, and was put on several medications, none of which worked, and one (Invega, the only antipsychotic they tried), actually made it far worse. Then they gave me the Prozac. I knew that SSRIs needed to be a high dose to help OCD, so I bothered them until they raised it to 60mg.
It took the month and a half to start working they said it would. A little longer.

We both know I was not given the hand-washing or germ phobias with my OCD, I was given the horrible obsessive existential stuff, the really horrible painful questions that I'd obsess over until every fiber of my being believed them to be true. The kind of stuff that can blacken your sky and make you feel like you're falling into an infinite pit of pitch black tar. The stuff that makes you want to die, but be too afraid of what nightmare would await you if you did. The one the sufferers called Pure-O. I suppose I deserve some positive reward for living through this at all, or perhaps just an absence of punishment for a while, since if I wasn't wanted by family and friends, I'd be two years dead by now.

I'm writing this because I want to tell you what I need now. I hope you'll give it to me. As you know, the last few months, during my recovery, I've stopped all work, all projects, all programming and just played Warzone 2100 all day. I've gotten as good as I was before. I'm happy for the first time in years. I plan to start my work again soon, but I need some guarantees from you before I do so.

The first thing is, as an example, my famous gerbil jokes, such as 'fear the gerbils', no longer appeal to me, because I've had enough fear. Horror movies are no longer something I watch, I don't enjoy Halloween anymore, and although you know that historically I've preferred sad music when sad, now, I find myself playing uplifting songs in an attempt to drown out the memories. Christmas is probably forever ruined for me because of the onset of the OCD that time in 2011. Kinda a PTSD thing going on there.
Whenever I hear a christmas song, instant trip down memory lane from hell.
Fourth of July is ruined too thanks to my relapse in July this year.

I want to be surrounded by joy, by kindness, by peace, by good things. I have seen enough of the other side of the spectrum for this lifetime.

I want to be loved, and to love others, I want to have a fulfilling and useful purpose and still have time for myself.
I want to be followed by a hundred billion times more light than I ever was darkness.

The tagline at the bottom of the site today says "Today is the first day of the rest of the mess.", but I vehemently disagree. Today is the first day of the rest of my life, and it's going to be good now, because I deserve it. I've paid my dues. I'd just like your blessing for the good plan I've laid out, and your help in making it come to pass.

Sincerely, SubsentientneitnesbuS.

Before S/N opened, I spent a lot of time commenting at /. Any more, I check messages and read little of /., partly because stories have been showing up at S/N before /. and partly because there are so many more short bus riders at /. Oh, and slashdot's "stupid quotes" annoy the hell out of me.

I hadn't had mod points at /. for years, despite being at karma cap.

So two days ago I had five /. mod points. Today I had fifteen. I guess heavy posters don't get points.

This story takes place in a bar on Mars over a century later than "Mars, Ho!".
        “Joe? Is that you? You're still tending bar? I thought you'd be retired. How you doin', you old rascal?”
        Joe frowned. “Sorry, son, I must be getting old, do I know you? And can I get you a drink?”
        “It's Dave, man. Give me a Knolls lager, draft.”
        “Sorry, Dave, we're sold out of Knolls. We have some Guinness, that's almost as good. But I'm sorry, but I still don't know who you are. Memory ain't as good as it used to be.”
        “Dave Rayfield, Joe. Of course it's been a lot longer for you than me. Yeah, Guinness will do.”
        “Dave Rayfield? I haven't seen him since I was twenty. You his grandson?” he asked, pouring the beer.
        “No, Joe, I'm Dave. Same Dave you knew back then.”
        “But you're so young!”
        “It was the trip. I piloted the science expedition to Grommler while you were throwing rocks from the asteroid belt at Mars.”
        “The terraforming is still going on here. I'm a little old for space hopping. Hell, if I spent any more time traveling through space I'd live forever. But how the hell did you stay a damned kid?”
        “Same way you're not dead at a hundred twenty five. Time dilation. Most Earthians die before they're ninety five, but speed stretches time. You'd be dead by now if you hadn't been a spaceship captain. It's been a hundred years since you've seen me, but it's only been ten years since I've seen you.”
        “So where have you been for the last hundred years?”
        “Ten years to me. We went to Grommler.”
        “Where's that?”
        Dave laughed. It orbits Sirius, but it was the least serious place I've ever seen! Really weird place.”
        “Weird how?”
        “Every way weird goes. First off, there was no fauna at all, not even insects. Only flora, despite having more oxygen than Earth. The geologists said it was because of the CO2 from volcanoes that there could even be any flora.
        “But the weirdest was the plants. We were there for two years, and that's in real time, and every single plant the biologists tested had cannabinoids and other psychoactive components. There were a lot of brush fires because of the wind and lightning, so every time you went outside you got stoned. Hell, some of the guys practically lived outside!”
        “Need another beer?”
        Dave eyed his glass and downed it. “Yeah. Jesus, Joe, things sure changed in the last ten years.”
        “It's been a hundred years since you left, Dave. It only seems like ten to you.”
        “I guess. But you know what, Joe? I'm going to clean up!”
        “What do you mean?”
        Dave pulled out an envelope. “These. Grommlerian tomato seeds. Grommlerian plants have a completely different ordering than our plants, it's something different than DNA and the scientists are still trying to figure it out. But they make seeds like Earth plants.”
        “Tomatoes?”
        “Not really. They look like tomatoes but taste way different, but they taste really good. And they get you really stoned.”
        “Well, okay, you found a reefer planet. When you find a beer planet, let me know.”

I "finished" writing Mars, Ho! early in the summer, and since it became a horror story I was aiming to publish it by Halloween. Well, that didn't happen.

I wanted it to be done by then so it would show up in bookstores by Thanksgiving. I still had hopes of getting it at least for sale on my web site by then, especially since a fan wrote with news he was planning to buy several copies as gifts.

It doesn't look like that will happen, either. I just finished making the changes I'd made in the second printed copy (the first goes to my daughter Patty, the second to Dewey, who stirred the muse) and sent off for a third. It will be a couple weeks before it shows up on my porch, and if there are no more changes, which is doubtful, it would be at least another week before I cleared it for publication.

I'll be lucky if it's for sale this year. I'm frustrated.

Oh, well. I'm not in it for the money, just for the satisfaction of writing novels and actually have people read them. It's a good thing I'm not in it for the money because I'm barely breaking even, after copyright registration, ISBNs, and buying copies, many of which are marked up in pencil, not completely edited, and not for sale.

However, even though I'm not in it for the money, I'm still planning to sell the e-book on Amazon. If I got on their best seller list it would get more people reading, and many might read other of my books from the web site. Mars, Ho!'s HTML and PDF will still be free. Few are downloading the free e-books of the first two books, most are either reading it online or downloading the single HTML file.

Anyway, I guess I'm on vacation again... oh, wait, there's Random Scribblings.

Unless I missed it, it looks like neither SoylentNews nor Pipedot had a thread for the 2014 US Election. That's a shame, since it's the perfect type of thread, it would have both generated views and comments, while allowing those not interested to easily avoid it.

The old site did have two threads related to cannabis legalization and vote machine problems, but not one about the general election results.

I ran across an interesting opinion piece in Vox while going through Google News today. The piece is by Matthew Yglesias. What made me sit up and take notice is that he's on Amazon's side in the Hachette fight.

What's interesting is that his piece got published at all, considering that (as he notes) the newspaper, movie, music, and book publishers are all owned by the same big corporations.

I mostly agree with him, but not about everything. He writes:

In the traditional book purchasing paradigm, when a reader bought a book at the store there were two separate layers of middlemen taking a cut of the cash before money reached the author: a retailer and a publisher. The publisher, in this paradigm, was doing very real work as part of the value-chain. A typed and printed book manuscript looks nothing like a book. Transforming the manuscript into a book and then arranging for it to be shipped in appropriate quantities to physical stores around the country is a non-trivial task. What's more, neither bookstore owners nor authors have any expertise in this field.

Digital publishing is not like that. Transforming a writer's words into a readable e-book product can be done with a combination of software and a minimal amount of training. Book publishers do not have any substantial expertise in software development, but Amazon and its key competitors (Apple, Google, and the B&B/Microsoft partnership) do.

My "manuscripts" are exactly like the printed books. I upload a PDF and they print it.

But publishers aren't just middlemen who only offer publicity, as I've found out from experience. The publisher has editors and proofreaders, and this aspect is (at least for me) the hardest part of writing a book.

What's more, a self-published physical book is far more expensive than a book published by someone like Doubleday. I can get a copy of Andy Weir's The Martian at Barnes and Noble cheaper than I can get a copy of one of my own books from the printer.

He also seems to agree with everyone that physical books will go away. I used to think so, too, but reality changed my mind. I used to think that old fogeys like me were the only ones who prefer dead trees to electrons.

First was my 28 year old daughter, who when she saw the physical copy of Nobots exclaimed "My dad wrote a book. And it's a REAL book!"

Second was sales. Most people read my books for free on my web site, but far more people buy them than download them, and far more download the PDF or single file HTML than the e-book version.

I also discovered that people highly value books that were signed by the author. When a Felbers patron bought a paperback copy of Nobots (I have a box of them in my car's trunk), the first thing he did was ask me to sign it.

How can an author sign an e-book? I do what printmakers do and sign in pencil, because pencil is far harder to fake than ink.

But I agree with him on Amazon vs e-book publishers. E-books from publishers are way, way too expensive, and there's no reason whatever why an e-book should cost fifteen bucks. As he notes, there is almost no cost at all for making another copy of an e-book.

A few weeks ago, Project Censored hit S/N's front page. Its link led to Project Censored's web site, which unfortunately is a mess. It appeared to be one of those incredibly annoying sites with one paragraph per page. I commented that I'd wait until the Illinois Times covered it as they do every year.

It was the cover story and main feature of this week's paper. Unlike almost every other newspaper in the world, you could actually read it without adblock and flashblock without going insane.

It also has news of a union rally against the SJ-R (perhaps with the worst web site on the internet) that's taking place tomorrow. I doubt that will be covered by Gatehouse Media!