Wow....this sucks.

[Blaze163]

Lali ho

You may have noticed earlier that I mentioned my little brother being in hospital for an eye injury. Well, turns out it's much worse than we'd initially heard. In fact it's terrible. Please don't read on if you have a weak stomach, this is kinda nasty.

Simply put, he was out playing with friends and they were, like most modern children, being complete dick heads and hurling sticks at each other. Doesn't take a genius to figure out where this went wrong. So he's been rushed into hospital after a sharp stick got lodged in his head. And his eyeball has basically exploded. Doctors have had to remove it entirely. They might be able to save the eyeball for display purposes but he's pretty much certain to permenantly lose sight in that eye as the entire socket is wrecked. He's lost a lot of blood and is currently in recovery from the operation. He also has to have a CAT scan in the morning to determine whether he's suffered brain damage. Which given how stupid he was before the incident it's unlikely

Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood. Helps keep morale up. But anyway. Fact of the matter is that he's almost definately blind in one eye, and may not even have that eye when he gets out of hospital. I'll post more when I know more.

So if anyone ever tells you to stop dicking around, now you know why.

You may now enter any pirate jokes you may have ready.

In other news, which regretably is also bad,

- I didn't get the job at B+Q which I had the interview for yesterday. Got the traditional 'thanks but no thanks' email this afternoon. Dunno what went wrong there, I aced the interview as far as I could tell. Guess they only employ no-hopers like the other candidates. Starting to think my qualifications are actually a hinderance to my overall job prospects. People never hire people who are more qualified than them, and since I'm fairly convinced I'm the only person in this city that made it through primary school, I'm not destined to do well here. Hence why I seek a base of operations elsewhere, plant my flag in a new land as I search for my destiny in a different area of work.

- All the stress of recent events is causing severe medical problems. My chest is agony most days, even worse when I'm at work. I'm constantly tired and thirsty, my vision keeps going blurry, I feel dizzy quite often, my legs are weak a lot of the time, and overall I feel like shite most of the time. No shock to find out stress is the culprit, I suffer from a fair bit. I've got no money thanks to a crap paycheck, so Virgin Media pick now to send me a ridiculous phone bill, then don't reply when I ask to negotiate a payment schedule as paying it on time is simply out of the question. I'm on the verge of losing my job through either my boss being a jerk or me rage-quitting, and I'm too intelligent to work anywhere else in this city on the grounds that I can spell my own name. And now my little brother's becoming a pirate and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I feel a nervous breakdown coming on. Or at the very least a psychotic killing spree.

- As a result of all this stress, my gaming skills have dulled. I'm not as sharp as once I was. Hell, I used to blast through Castlevania games (any from the GBA era onwards anyway, retro games are still harder than Scouse breeze blocks in a deep sea diving suit) but now I'm getting killed by stupid mistakes. I can't focus. It's really annoying me. And don't even get me started on how much a whore DOA Dimensions is being right now. Fucking tag challenge. The little cogs in my AI controlled Ayane's head have broken so she spends the entire fight either punching at thin air or standing still while I wait for my health to regenerate. If you could perhaps punch the enemy, Ayane, that'd be grand. Thanks. No? Just gonna stand there and get kicked in the tits? That's fine. Just fine. I'll do all the work, you dumb bimbo.

Anyway, I'm full of rage so in an effort to calm myself, I'm going to watch the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, freshly stolen from my download site of choice this morning. Probably not the best choice of movie given that my little brother will be doing a pretty convincing impression of most of the cast when he gets out of hospital, but it's either that or Tekken. I'll take my chances with bad taste rather than watching that tripe again. Toodles

Blaze.

'With my last breath, I curse Zoidburg!' - Professor Farnsworth, Futurama.

 

[Sausage Head]

best wishes to your brother

 

[nando]

i am extra squeamish about anything to do with eyes. i can't even put eye drops in them or open my eyes under water. i thought of laser surgery for btter vision but the thought of any trauma to my eyes made me chicken out. hurting my eyes is my biggest fear.

with that said. sorry about your brother. i guess he won't be enjoying the 3ds to it's full potential.

 

[Defiance]

Hey man best wishes to your brother.. I'm also sensitive when it comes to eye-related injuries because I value sight so much.

 

[Discover]

wow!
I offer my best wishes for him! Eye-related injuries make me feel sick.

 

[machomuu]

I wish your brother the best, I wish there were some way he could keep his sight.

 

[xist]

If his eyeball has exploded then they can't really save it....best case is that his ocular muscles still work and an artificial eye would be able to move in parallel to his real one. Worst case is his muscles are buggered and they'd have to eviscerate the socket, meaning a fake eye which doesn't move and looks bad.

Best, best case is that it hasn't really exploded, he's had a penetrating eye injury that's ruptured his cornea and totally buggered his retina and lens. His eyeball puncture would be repaired as best they can, although it'd still look awful, and much better than an artificial eye he'd have a really scarred and horrible looking ocular surface. That doesn't sound great but combined with an opaque coloured soft cosmetic contact lens it's far better than an artificial eye.

Eye injuries are horrible things and he's going to need a lot of support once he's out, as he's liable to become very withdrawn and depressed.

 

[Blaze163]

Well I have plenty of experience with depression and withdrawal, so I should be able to help a bit. I just hope this doesn't stop him playing video games 'cause normal procedure after one of us has a bad day is some co-op shooting on Black Ops or something.

I feel so sorry for the kid. He's already at a major disadvantage in this world thanks to having the mother he has, possibly the most evil person in the world today. He's always suffered from her ignorance. She was too lazy to teach him as a child so his speech is still slow to this day. He can get his point across but he has a curious accent that makes him sound like he's four instead of twelve. Add that to the fact that he goes to my old school, which was both full of and staffed by retards while I was there and not much has changed, and now he only has one eye. It's not looking like a bright future for him. But he's a good natured kid, he doesn't deserve this. The worst thing he deserves is to have his Halo Reach disk smashed into a billion pieces to stop him building shopping malls in Forge mode for days on end then never play on those maps, but never this. Just goes to show that there's no justice in this world. The good people like he and I get the short straws while some dole scrounger like my uncle can sit around getting drunk all day without a care in the world. It's a fucked up time we live in, but so help me I'll make it better before I'm done with it.

 

[Warrior522]

It's a fucked up time we live in, but so help me I'll make it better before I'm done with it.

...which, based on most of your blogs, may likely involve a massive slaughter and you gaining the coveted Dying Moment of Justice achievement, yes?

BTW, good luck to the little guy... That's fucking horrible for that to happen to a kid...

 

[Blaze163]

Well, dad just got back from the hospital and it's pretty good news considering how bad it could have been. He won't have to lose his entire eyeball, in fact the doctors managed to fix most of it, which considering he had a stick the size of your average giraffe's neck lodged squarely in his retina is pretty fuckin' impressive. Naturally there will be long term damage here, it's very unlikely he'll be able to see more than patches of grey out of that eye, but once the swelling goes down at least he won't be especially badly scarred, and he won't have to wear an eye patch. Granted, at the moment his eye looks like someone poured lime green paint into it then brutally assaulted it with a bycicle pump, but that should pass in time.

Considering that he could have permenantly lost an entire eyeball and been forced to wear either a patch or a dodgy looking glass eye for the rest of his days, that's pretty good news. However...

There was a slight miscommunication originally. Turns out he wasn't just pissing about with his friends. This happened at school. And it wasn't a friend who threw the stick, it was another kid who his group didn't even know. Just an unprovoked attack. Just some kid thinking he'd be a dick head and make everyone think he was 'hard' that's left my little brother pretty much blind in one eye. Suffice as to say the kid is in a lot of trouble right now. We're looking at a bare minimum of permenant expulsion from the school, if not time in some sort of juvenile hall arrangement.

Well, while my little brother is now highly unlikely to enjoy DOA Dimensions to its full effect, at least he's started on the long slow road to recovery. He'll have to have a couple more operations and the overall long term effects won't be known for a while, but it's not as bad as it could have been.

In other news,

- I've taken the next week off work for various reasons. Partly because I want to be here when my little brother gets out of hospital to make sure he's ok and help him start to adjust, partly because my own health continues to worry me, now with the addition of a rash of some sort on my left arm, but mostly because I'm just utterly sick of the sight of the damn place and could use a week off to appreciate the finer things, such as bacon and cheese sandwiches, and Final Fantasy 6.

- Still no word from the helmet smokers that make up Virgin Media. Evidently they think they can just ignore me saying I don't have enough money for this bill and just take it out whenever they damn well please. Which will leave them rather shocked as if the matter is not settled by the day before the bill is due, I'll lock my bank account, preventing any transactions going out without my approval. While this may piss them off, it will stop me going overdrawn, which given that it's now 6 pound a day to be overdrawn, and I don't get paid for another 4 weeks, being overdrawn would completely cripple me and the whole thing would snowball out of control. Better to fuck Virgin Media off than totally fuck up my entire back balance.

Nothing much else of note right now. Will post again when I know more or when he's out of the hospital, whichever occurs first.

 

[machomuu]

I'm really glad to hear that, the fact that he'll at least be able to see out of that eye period is good news.

 

[MaxNuker]

hmmmm hope he can atleast get to see something of that eye

, maybe a miracle can happen and he will be able to see like 30-50%? :S


Best hope for you brother

 

[Warrior522]

hmmmm hope he can atleast get to see something of that eye

, maybe a miracle can happen and he will be able to see like 30-50%? :S


Best hope for you brother

^this.

 

[machomuu]

Also, tell your brother that the 3D is nice, but it's not needed and he wouldn't use it most of the time, anyway. And tell him Machomuu said so...okay, you don't have to do that last part.

 

[Wizerzak]

wow... that's really bad, i feel really sorry for your brother, so young as well. That guy sure is an idiot, throwing sticks at random people... it it makes your brother feel an better that guy will probably feel guilty for the rest of his life now.
And if you're really in luck (and he somehow earns tons of money when he's older) there may be the option of some sorta artificial sight with a microchip or something in the future (~2050? that's my guess, don't quote me on that).

 

[Blaze163]

News update. He's been moved to another hospital in Oxford as they have one of the world's greatest eye specialists there. He's set to recieve the best help possible. Which is good, as according to the latest intel there's still tiny splinters of wood in the eye socket.

He's starting to feel a little better about himself now that he knows we're all doing the best we can to help him. He's constantly drowsy for obvious reasons but he could be so much worse. With the specialist on the team there's a much better chance of him retaining at least partial use of his eye, which is giving him some much needed hope.

As for the kid who threw what was essentially a spear (seriously, I've seen it. It was sharpened and about a foot long, not just some random stick), he's in shit so ridiculously deep he'll need a scuba suit with air conditioning. He's looking at being expelled from school as a bare minimum, more likely that his parents will be doing time and he'll be taken into some sort of care home/prison arrangement. He's apparantly showing no remorse. One rumour even states he's openly bragging about it. My brother's friends have made him aware that his victim's older brother happens to have a katana and his own wolf and he's been a bit quieter since...

Makes me sick that stuff like this happens in our schools. We're supposed to be a civilised species and yet we're still being cunts to each other at every opportunity. It is my fond hope that this kid spends the rest of his life getting the shit kicked out of him. Make an example out of him so maybe kids in schools might think twice before doing stupid shit like this.

 

[ProtoKun7]

String the kid up! Feed him to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal Er, I hope he gets seriously punished for that; that's no way to behave, ever. How are those Force Choke lessons coming on? You might find a use for them...

 

[Blaze163]

Unfortunately the Force Choke lessons are a disaster. The best I've managed so far was a weak tickle. But it's a start, I suppose.

Good news at last. The eye specialist has taken a good look at my little brother and has done the best he can for the time being. Right now the best the doctors can do is minimise the pain and see how things look in a few weeks when the swelling has started to subside. Until then they can't get accurate readings of how bad the damage is. What they do know is that he's highly unlikely to have more than 50% vision in that eye, but they have removed the last fragments of the stick. There are apparantly still pieces of his eye that are disconnected, but there's nothing they can do about it right now. So until the swelling goes down enough for them to be able to analyse and operate more effectively, there's not much they can do for him so he may as well be at home. He may be released late tomorrow afternoon, barring any complications.

As for the kid, he's now been informed of the full extent of his idiotic actions and the sort of reprisals he faces, both legal and baseball bat related. He's suddenly realised how serious this all is and is at least showing some remorse over the incident. Well, either that or he's shitting bricks because everyone in the entire school wants to beat fuck outta him. Hard to tell really.

The best thing we can do right now is just try to make him comfortable. To be fair to him he's actually taking all this remarkably well. Most kids his age would be either crippled with sadness or filled with murderous rage. He's still able to make jokes. He's always a little drowsy thanks to the ludicrous levels of chemicals pulsing through him right now, but he's being strong. I'm impressed with him. When we spoke earlier he spoke about how the doctors have told him he may never regain full use of his eye, and what did he have to say on the matter? 'Good job I finished Portal 2 already, I reckon it'd be hard to aim with only one eye'

Give that kid a round of applause for being such a good sport. Then when we're finishe we can take turns going to the attacker's house and pissing through the letterbox.

 

[MaxNuker]

sorry to say this but...

'Good job I finished Portal 2 already, I reckon it'd be hard to aim with only one eye'

i lol'ed IRL

your brother is awesome, must i say, one knowing that he may not see as he used to do from one eye... and making jokes like that, is being really strong to the situation he is facing, KUDOS to him

 

[Blaze163]

Well, he's out of hospital and going OK. He has to go back in at the weekend for a checkup prior to another operation mid week, but it's just a routine procedure to fix something they couldn't get to before because of swelling. The long term damage is yet to be determined, we have to wait for the healing process to begin before we'll know anything. But he seems to be taking it all well. Spoke to him this morning and he explained he's following my example and playing Just Cause 2 to calm himself down. But since he can't aim he had to shell out some Microsoft Points for the cluster bomb launcher. You don't need accuracy and depth perception with that, to be honest. You just point it in the general direction of something you want dead and fire away. So at least he's having fun. I can't say I recommend playing video games when your eye is badly damaged and you've been told by the doctors to not overexert your one good eye, but if this is what keeps his morale up then it'll help anyway. Well known that a positive outlook is the best medicine. Hence why I always feel like a large vat of shit flavoured lard, 'cause I'm not capable of a positive outlook.

In other news,

- Thanks to my wages being so utterly crap this month (about £180 less than usual) and Virgin Media deciding it costs about ten pounds a second to call a mobile in New Zealand, I have to sell a lot of my stuff in order to pay my bills and keep Nanaki fed. The problem is that I only have a few things valuable enough to get the job done. So I have to sell two of my 360 games (Red Dead Redemption and the XBLA Triple Pack of Limbo, Trials and 'Splosion Man) and 2 of my 3DS (Street Fighter and Ridge Racer, leaving me with only DOA Dimensions) games. I may have to put a few DVD box sets on the pile as well. This sucks. I thought I was past the point where I had to sell my games to pay bills. But as usual I'm left in the shit thanks to the ignorance of other people who think they have the right to control my life to make theirs easier. I should be ready for the inevitable killing spree any day now.

- Yet more 'thanks but no thanks' emails in my inbox. It sickens me. I've got good qualifications, a great work ethic, good experience and great availability. I'm a good person. But time and time again I'm passed up for jobs I'd be great at because capable employees just aren't 'in' at the moment. I'm guessing you get some sort of tax break for employing the sort of unemployable retard no-hope pregnant teens I see in my local supermarket. I can't even include them in my killing spree. Much as the teens offend me in every possible way, the kid's done nothing to me. So I can't touch them. Cursed morality.

- My uncle has had his benefits stopped as the government no longer considers him disabled. He's been claiming for at least seven years as I've not seen him do a lick of work since I returned to this God forsaken city. He claims to be depressed. The truth of it is he's an alcoholic douche. He's not depressed, he's bone idle. So to be fair I'm actually taking the government's side for once. I was on benefits once but at least while I was I made every effort to be off them, if only for a sense of pride at not being a fuckin' sponge any more. He makes no such effort. He's content to sit around drinking himself to death watching DVDs all day every day.

Are you starting to see why I hate my family?

- On the subject of family, my brother's baby girl Maisie turns one today. Marking an entire year when the dick head has bailed on every meeting I've ever tried to set up with him. I've never actually met Maisie. Not seen him since the Black Stone Cherry concert, which must be a good 18 months ago now.

Well, I better go off into town to sell what precious little I own to cover the inadequacies of JJB's managers. Doesn't that sound fucking delightful? PRO TIP: If you're in or around Coventry today here in the UK and see someone with a Ghosts of Razgriz patch on the shoulder of a black leather jacket, duck and cover 'cause I'm likely to start my killing spree this afternoon when Virgin Media refuse to co-operate.