Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Now that it’s been two years since I created this blog, where do I go from here?

Looking back, it’s interesting to see how things played out.  When I first started out in 2006, I blogged under the assumption that I would be eventually be attending law school later that fall.  I thought the name “Habitation of Justice” was a suitable name then, and the blog would have basically been a chronicle of my adventures in law school, as well as my subsequent journey into the legal profession.  Since I was so focused on getting everything in place so I’d be ready in time for school, I rarely posted for the first year.

Eventually though I had to defer my enrollment when my hopes for a scholarship fell through.  The deferment lasted a year, but nothing had really changed by the time it ended, so I had no choice but to withdraw.  I made one more try by attempting to go to school part-time at a local university instead, but eventually those plans fell through as well.

When it seemed like my whole future had collapsed, I eventually became fixated on making money off my blog, and spent the rest of 2007 working towards that end.  I devoured everything I could find about making money online, getting more and more frustrated because most of what I read were actually tips that I had already read off dozens of other sites, so I ended up reading the same fricking material over and over again.  Yet this was an idea I wanted to work so bad because I hated my job, and the allure of being able to live off the Internet was a really strong one.  2007 was all about establishing my blogging identity and doing whatever I could to bring in the traffic I needed so I could turn my blog into a money making machine.

That of course also met with miserable failure.  I had a huge identity crisis to deal with in that I just didn’t know what my blog should be about, and I knew I had to find a niche I was passionate about but still could make good money in.  I dabbled in doing paid reviews and other gimmicks here and there, but nothing really met with success.   All I could do was burn with envy at those who had become wildly successful with their own blogs, and nothing I could do could even remotely come near to their level of success.  The kicker was reading about a 19 year old weenie punk of a teenager who was raking in tens of thousands of dollars a month by running fake review sites containing hidden affiliate links.  They seemed to make money without even trying, and they did it with impunity.

Eventually I just gave up.  2008 began with me resigning myself to the fact that I would never get anywhere in life, much less with my blog.  I had no skills, no talent, nothing I could offer that could make this whole endeavor worthwhile.  The initial hope I had during the beginning of the year quickly dissipated as my health started to deteriorate, and I sunk even lower in despair and loneliness, fearing that I would forever be trapped in a dead end job and a dead end life.

But then somewhere along the way, in the midst of all that self-pity and despair, hope once again began to spring eternal.  The more I thought about law school, the more I began to believe God was doing me a favor.  I was happy enough to accept that such was His will, but what I was NOT happy about was being strung along for over a year when I kept asking and begging for confirmation that I was going down the right path.  Yet when I think about it, maybe it took so long to get an answer because I was meant to learn something in all that, and who knows what kind of chain of events that whole experience set off too, which I may not ever truly realize the depths of until later on in life.  They say sometimes the journey itself is more important than the destination, and I think that wise proverb applies here as well.

I also started to realize that part of the reason I had such an identity crisis was because I was trying to mimic other people’s lives (and subsequently the successes they enjoyed.)  I was trying to fit the square peg that I was into the circle of life, and as long as I continued to do that I’d never be able to move forward.  When I finally began to accept that my life was being defined by a complete different set of standards apart from the world’s own, I started to feel much better.  And my blog at long last began to take coherent shape.  My journal here is ultimately, a personal one, a catalog of both my physical and spiritual journey through life.  And that is probably what it will always be.

It also occurred to me that the driving force of my personality was my humor.  It was both sardonic and sententious, expressing an outright disdain of life’s petty silliness and the world’s stupidity, especially those of Christians who should know better.  Laced in sarcasm and saltiness, my voice was a fire breathing one, crying out in the wilderness that is the Internet, and because of it I would alienate all, and yet somehow, I would also allure all.  My life was nothing else, if not a paradox.  Here the laws of physics come to an end, and the laws that only God can control begin to take hold.

I still dream of a life of self sufficiency, where I no longer have to be tied down to one place, but can travel freely and live freely, (writing about these experiences on my blog of course), and doing those things that never would have been possible had I had a wife, a family, and a house that surely would have kept me chained down with obligations I doubt I could ever fulfill.

That’s why I feel the road calling out to me.  It beckons, with its hidden dangers (as well as hidden promises.)  There may soon come a day when I will don my leather jacket, and ride my Black Stallion to wherever that highway takes me, hoping to find that spiritual and physical dwelling where true justice reigns supreme.

The Habitation of Justice.  

Ok, so I’ve been playing around with OKCupid for the past couple of weeks, sifting through literally hundreds of profiles, trying to find someone, ANYONE, with a good head on her shoulders that I could talk to. I’m so lonely.

I actually did find a few nice ones though. Pretty, morally upright girls, one of who mentioned her distaste for OKCupid’s lewdness (she gets 20 points for that) and her love for 80s music (she gets 5000 points for that).

They were all active and visited the site on a regular basis, so I decided to send them a friendly email commending their profiles and asking them if we could be penpals or friends.

I got completely blown off by everyone. 2 weeks of obsessively checking my inbox every ten minutes to see if they responded, and… nothing.

Now before I start going off and calling them rude, icy-cold hearted spawns of Satan and earnestly hoping that they would spontaneously combust and explode into a fiery pus filled death, I’m willing to concede that all the women I contacted just lead busy lives, and may not have had time to get back to me yet.

Therein however lies the reason for why I might be royally screwed.

I’ve been thinking about this: these girls seem happy enough, living busy and productive lives, with loving families and a large circle of friends. Why would they need me then? Unless of course, they’re only interested in a sperm donor to help them make babies, in which case once the child is born they would then go back to refusing to acknowledge my existence (except for the paycheck, which they’ll happily take of course.)

But let’s pretend for the sake of argument that women are not that conniving and evil. Or rather, let’s assume the women I contacted are basically good and caring folks. But the fact is, their lives are so busy they simply don’t have time to give someone like me a chance. They may check their inboxes maybe once or twice a week, meanwhile I’m checking my inbox once every ten minutes. I yearn for companionship and wubs so badly, but for them it doesn’t seem to be a priority at all. If we ever had a relationship, they could wind up being aloof and distant, meeting me only when they can fit it into their busy schedules, while for my part all I can do is cry into my pillow at night, knowing I’ll never be truly loved. Truthfully though, it would be a severely unbalanced courtship, where I would yearn for her more than she’d ever yearn for me.

It’s times like this when I really start to despise this Internet thing though. I know people would say get off of it and start putting myself out there, but it’s not really that simple.

For those who don’t know, I have a profound hearing loss in both my ears that severely crippled my ability to have a social life. As I grew up, my attempts to participate in conversations and groups almost always resulted in embarassment. I would miss key bits of phrases in a conversation, and when I would try to contribute, people would end up laughing at me because I had completely misinterpreted what they were talking about. It never failed, and it wasn’t long before my intelligence itself would be questioned too. People would just assume I was an idiot and thus unworthy of their attention. Eventually I just drifted away and no longer tried to socialize anymore. My hearing loss certainly played a large role in my becoming a loner, though I still did ok in tightly knit groups and in one-on-one situations. But whenever we went someplace noisy (which was all the time), it really crippled my ability to engage in conversations with the people I was with. Part of what makes it so hard is that when you have a hearing loss, you can’t passively listen and pick up voices easily. You have to exert a considerable amount of mental effort to follow a conversation, and after a while you can get pretty fatigued.

That’s why I gravitate to using the Internet all the time. Here, conversation is easy, and people can’t see me at first so they can’t quickly pass judgment on me because of my disability or looks. Unfortunately though, I made it my whole world, and it’s not a world I want to live in anymore. It’s all MySpace and Facebook silliness topped off with a generous load of unhinged insanity.

Statistics say most couples find each other through friends and family. All my friends though have drifted away, and I’ve been cut off from 99 percent of my family. My parents ironically enough don’t have any friends either (well at least not any with single daughters my age.)

I could go back to school, which would be the easiest way since they are popular dating mills (or to save money, I could just hang out on campus and pretend I’m a student.)

Or, I could join interest groups like a photography club, but I don’t know. Same thing with church, which I really can’t stand (specifically the local ones here). I’d go if I knew there’d be a lot of girls there, but I’d have no interest in any of the church services (except maybe the singles group.) Charity organizations might be a good idea though.

Still, this is a pretty big hole I’m in. I may have to consider the real possibility that I am never going to meet anyone, and that life will continue to conspire against me to ensure that I will always be alone. That’s one of the reasons I want to travel so much. There’s something romantic about the idea of a lost soul travelling around America, looking for the girl of his dreams. Someday, maybe.

In the meantime though, I’ll be checking my inbox. (checks again… still nothing, *&^%$#@!!!!)

One billion people on the Internet, 250 million from North America alone, and I yet I keep running into the same people over and over again. Which is bad enough unto itself, but on top of that they had to be ugly too. Really ugly. Bat droppings ugly.

Nowhere is this more evident than when I sign up for oh, about 30 different dating sites or so, and yet somehow, it’s always the same crowd of girls. Literally. (Hey didn’t I see your profile on Match.com? Good grief, get away from me you skanky ho!)

I’m sure they’re thinking the same thing when they see my profile for the umpteenth time, so I guess it all evens out there.

But man, come on. 250 million Internet surfers, and I can’t simply disappear into the crowd here? Nope, I get the same bloody lot of dweebs burrowing up my righteous coochies every which way I surf, stinking up all my favorite online watering holes, and there’s simply no way I can avoid them, a conundrum that leaves some of them absolutely convinced that I’m stalking them.

“Oh no, it’s that Lincoln again, he’s always following me around! What a freak!!”

Bite me. I was here first you sniveling, whiny–

Ah well. My only solace is that I am just as much a boil on their cooties as they are on mine.

Internet dating sites have now become a huge industry, with thousands of sites dedicated to either providing dating advice or dating related services. This particular industry though seems to be HIGHLY plagued by online dating sites that may in fact be craftily designed splogs (automated blogs created for the primary purpose of spamming visitors), and crooksters looking to score off your dating misery.

These type of sites can be very hard to detect sometimes, but if you have pretty good intuition, maybe you’ll get a feeling like I do that something just seems to be a little bit… off here.

That’s how I felt about the site Online Dating Tips. Upon my first visit it seemed innocent enough, tightly coded, aesthetic design, speedy load, etc.. However, it also seemed light on the content, and heavy on the affiliate links. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that apparently EVERY external link on that site was in fact a cloaked affiliate link to some of the biggest dating services on the Internet.

Hmmmm….

The content itself is split into several categories containing very short articles, which is easy to read and to be fair, really does offer some sound advice, BUT… you get the strange sense that you’ve already read it all before. Additionally, for a site that purports to be an authority on how to use online personals, it certainly comes across as a bit… impersonal. There are no personal testimonies, and no heart warming anecdotes to encourage the reader with. It all seems very bland and emotionless.

There’s a reason for this though: the content is not original. At all. My suspicions were confirmed when I copied and pasted a particular phrase from an article here and did a Google search with it. The phrase I copied was:

“Is it possible to find a soul mate online through a dating service? You bet it is…”

And lookie see here, I found another article that starts the same way. In fact, it’s the very same article. But wait! Here’s another copy of the same article. And another one here, and here, and here and…

Hmmmmmmmmm….

Could be this “dating tips” site isn’t interested in the slightest bit about helping you find your loved one, but it does seem very interested in liberating you of your money through affiliate profits. Look, I don’t begrudge anyone who does affiliate marketing since I do it too, but if that’s their only purpose and they have no intention of offering anything of value in return, then they need to get their boonie boons spanked silly.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m devastated. And here I thought I found a place where people cared. Where people truly understood my sad plight and heartfelt desire to find a snuggly tookie tums butter pot cuddle pie to call my own.

Alas, alas, it appears that such is not the case here, and I shall have to continue my search elsewhere.

Wow, I can’t believe a whole week flew by since I last blogged. Oops. Guess time flies when you’re having f… ahhhh who am I kidding, it was a pretty crappy week. My whole daily routine has been shot to hades for some time now, and try as I might, I just can’t seem to get a rhythm going. A lot of it stems from staying up till 3AM because I just gotta check my email one last time, just one more time, and then I’ll head off to bed, but oooooh, somebody else just visited my blog! Gotta see who that was… ok I’m done, now it’s off to ooooh, just got an IM from a friend in California, let’s see how she is! Ok, NOW I’m gonna sign off and, oh wait, it’s been 15 minutes, let me see if anyone responded to my thread on one of the forums I belong to… ok nothing yet, but let me just check my email one last time…

Next thing you know the sun is up and I still haven’t slept yet. Mother, I’m even doing it now.

I have to stop this. The lack of sleep and poor health is draining any energy I might have to blog at all. It’s also affecting my job performance as well, but that’s not really important right now. I’m a government employee after all, so not doing any work would actually be par for the course.

I do need to set a routine for myself that will put me back on the road to good health again. So starting tomorrow (uh, today) I will resolve to going to bed at a more godly hour, finally getting myself the sleep that I so desperately need.

But let me just check my email one last time…