laser-tag, cops, and a quarter-life crisis

What does it mean if someone doesn't have a facebook or a Myspace? That's something only a Facebook or Myspace user could answer, which i am pretty much not. Are non-users branded as social lepers for not participating in a physically unsocial activity? The point is, I really don't care. About any of it. But I've come to the realization that I need it. Worse of all in my case is that I'm a musician, who let his myspace page (his band, Bottled by Fools) fall to shit (as well as his own myspace page (repeatedly refused to let him sign on, despite multiple account changes)), which has greatly effected his "career" as an artist. I don't like computers. I use them for school, work business, awful advertising and promoting, "career" business through email, finding music, and looking up weird shit on Wikipia, but that's about it. There was a time where all i did was be on the internet. I loved it. This period runs from the early 2000's up until the middle Myspace era (relative to the present I Guess). I loved to watch the Homestar Runner cartoons, and see the strong bad emails moments after they were posted. Then it became a fad, at which point i was too damn hip to continue doing so. I knew the Chuck Norris jokes before everyone else, and became sick of them before everyone else - noweadays I like to hear an obsolete chuck norris joke from someone who is even more out of touch than me.

But over time I gave up on the internet. I just found all of the communication sites so empty, no matter how helpful they are in keeping people in touch. The fact that my DSL was so unreliable didn't help either, but luckily just a few days ago I got Comcast, and it hasn't failed me yet. Still, I feel like I'm dipping my toe into an ice cold pool, trying to decide if I should jump in or not. And this is a whole nother (South-Eastern PA accent or something) reason for mine not adjusting to the information age. If I do jump into it, how long can I stay in? How many hours do I want to be tied to a decently comfortable swivel chair, neck bent upwards towards the monitor, only able to be positioned on the top part of the desk? Is it better to avoid Unsocial socializing on the internet, than to become part of the web, and then "dissappear" again? Is that somehow worse? God, it's strange how your like a ghost when you're not on the web (isn't that term dated?). Sometimes it feels like you don't exist. My name is Joshua Snell by the way, and this is my attempt to be integrated into the 21st century. Stage one was already completed when I finally got a cell phone, this is the first leg of stage two, I suppose.

Down to the brass tacks, why the hell is there a child model advertising home laser tag equipment at the top of this post? Well, last night, my friend Scott and I decided to buy laser tag equipment. What else is there to do in Pottstown, when you're in your early twenties with a quarterlife crisis? I would've been perfectly happy being drunk as a fox, but we decided to revert back to childhood, and play laser tag behind K-Mart. All was fine and dandy, till we got into a close range battle. The 5-0 showed up, very confused as to why grown men are playing with plastic guns, each pointing theirs at eachother. The officer looked like Dean Caine if he ate Brian Wilson during his fat era. He wore a bullet proof vest under his uniform, which jutted out severely; I bet he rests his chin on it when no ones around. So after we get kicked out of k-mart we go to Scott's old house to play, which is abandoned, but still owned by his family. We had a few nice games here, with more sniper action- probably because my nasty smoker's lungs don't permit me to run for long periods of time anymore-until the same cop pulls up again with a partner of his, a man who resembles Robert Patrick with more of those bumpy wrinkley scars on his face (I always want to know what exactly they're from when I see people with them). I come from around the house with a spotlight shining in my eyes, and officer Dean Wilson (they fused like Voltron) telling me to hold my gun by the barrell. It was all very bizarre. Probably more bizarre for the officers, but I took some amusement out of it. So, after these coppers give us a second warning, we go inside to this house with no electricity, because if we hopped in the truck and left it would look too suspicious. We have a flashlight on us, so we decide explore Scott's abandoned home.

I have been best friends with this man for years, and he's always been very peculiar about company. I have only seen a fraction of each of the houses he has lived in, and am always bothering him to unlock the forbidden door to the attic of his new place. The previous owner very sternly told his family not to go up there, without giving a reason. Very Strange. So at this old house I am finally allowed to look through the empty rooms, where his witch grandmother (literally) chain smoked and practiced spells. Scotts trying to find belongings left there he wants, I was looking through boxes of books. I take out Hamlet, and a book on what would've happened if the Nazis won WWII. Scott has put fake blood on the walls to scare off ransackers and vandals, who've already broken into the house, without penalty from the law. We're about to leave, at the last moment grabbing firewood for my house, and a light shines through the sliding glass door of the empty living room. I turn off my own light, realizing it's too late to jump into a corner, so I stand there with books in hand and my plastic laser blaster tucked in the back of my pants, sometime after 11 o'clock. I really didn't even want to do this whole laser tag thing, I got dragged in to humor my friend, struggling to grasp the fact that he was getting older just as I am. somehow i ended up paying for them, from a toothless fan of Bottled By Fools, who had an obsession with me about a year ago, when things were kicking a bit more with my music, but here I was being busted a third time by Dean Patrick (they also fused together to make an even greater force to be reckoned with) for being in posession of English literature and laser armaments while breaking and entering into a house, technically held by the bank, for firewood. Scott is a master weaver of coverstories, though there wasn't much for us to cover.we weren't doing anything wrong, though I'm sure if the Patrick side of Dean Patrick would've seen the fake blood while he was searching the second floor, a whole nother predicament would've occured. So he gave our bizarre explanation, and the cops escorted us out to the truck dumbfounded, after a call to scott's mom was made to clear up the confusion. The Dean side of Dean Patrick told me, "behave Mr. Snell", before he pulled away. It's not like I was going to get high by the Chimneya and talk with my near-straightedge friend about all we were discontent with in life.

I'm too tired to write anymore. This is a good start. Even if no one reads this.

Tiny-Bones Snail