Welcome to The Rant Shack, a pretty self explanatory shack. Why a shack, well why not? Xavious has a massive Stump and implore you all take what you will from that statement.

Swiftly moving on; Whenever I'm at a supermarket and witness a person paying for their groceries from a envelope fat with money I always become a little wary. One has to wonder where did that money come from and under what circumstances did the money end up stuffed fat into the envelope?

I mean, there is a slight implication of sordidness when someone produces an envelope of money; most people use wallets, purses or just ordinary pockets. Envelopes or packets of money are often associated with shady deals, under the table behind the back sort of affairs so it's no wonder that their sudden presence invokes a watchful eye.

This is even more true when the envelope happens to be brown. Sadly politicians and their ilk have ruined the brown paper envelope for everyone but I guess that's of little surprise, after all...

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With influenza of different varieties, like bird and swine, floating around we tend to be dismissive of the common cold as some sort of mediocre illness; an inconvenience. Yet, is there any other illness that happens so regularly and that can lie us low?

I believe the common cold is terribly underrated. It works its way deep into your nose, your throat and creates misery and more goo than anyone could imagine.

Before you are even aware a mountain of spent tissues has grown by your side. Empty cups of tea and Lemsip lay scattered across the room like fallen soldiers and the smell of Vicks permeates the air. You try to keep warm with a blanket or a hot water bottle until you suddenly feel like you’re being roasted and discard it all… minutes later you’re freezing again. Does this sound mediocre to you? Sounds like torture to me.

Worse yet is that it is so difficult to get rid of. All the Vicks, Lemsip, Strepsils and tea in the world just doesn’t seem the make a dent in it sometimes. Meanwhi...

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On this day of February 17th, 2011:


Well, I did better on this chemistry exam than the last one.
But, I still didn't do as well as I would have liked, in spite of completely acing the hardest question on the test that was worth the most points.
I think the mechanisms got me, I have a bad feeling they were both way off. Usually this is my strong point.

Dunno what's happening to me. I've not been right lately. I KNOW the material. I UNDERSTAND the material. Why I can't get my brain to let it out...I've never had problems taking tests before. I did well in the first section of this course, which is harder. What's going on?

I'm stressed, I'm so stressed. It's so hard to explain. I've been feeling like shit lately, severe headaches for the last two weeks. Everyday my head pounds. I'm sleeping, at least I think I am, but I have no energy. I feel so crappy. I'm not particularly in good spirits, I'm frustrated, I'm cold.

It's not school per se. School...

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I had it all. For the space of about three weeks. A job, a home, a life. Then, it all changed. It started to go downhill when I quit my job last Saturday because they made me put down baby mice. I was bathing dogs, this wasn't my job and I couldn't stand it. Everyone there was negative and it wasn't worth the half hour drive and the anxiety. So then I go to the doctor.
And the doctor changes the anti depressant I am on. So I'm all "Okay, whatever". And BAM! Withdrawl. What had I told the doctor weeks earlier? "No Paxil"! He RX'd me off-brand Paxil and ripped me off of it onto a completely different drug within a couple days. I was having withdrawals and not even knowing it. It all went downhill. I started having suicidal thoughts about Saturday night, and by Sunday night had plans. Monday night, my dad comes home and makes a remark that takes me to tears instantly. I sit up in my room and cry, then the medications catch my eye. I carefully sort it all out. Downers to...

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I just hate when a family member comes to visit who is also a smoker. Inevitably they always ask if they can smoke and ultimately you cannot refuse them without appearing rude. I don't know why smokers feel obligated to smoke wherever they go and why smoking family members suffer from a double dose of that obligation but there have it.

Now of course if you own a house you can direct your kith and kin to the back porch but when you live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building your porch is a 15 foot drop... not that the temptation isn't there. We have to direct the smoker to either a window or the extractor fan in the kitchen which, like most extractor fans, is completely useless; Oh yes, they may make a lot of noise but they ain't sucking jack!

So now your nice clean apartment, that you cleaned especially for the occasion, has become murky with stale bitter air. Your eyes water and sting at the wispy dirt-ridden intrusion and your throat... your throat develops a wheeze which later...

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