My other specialty: Insomnia!

Ok this one is going to be somewhat short because frankly I'm just writing it on a whim and there's nobody reading this anyway. So while I'm at completely self-indulgent listing, I might as well not make it a chore to do. If anyone is reading this then I apologize to you for the shoddy work but secretly care very little about what you think. Then again I lie a lot, and since I just stated that I don't care about what you think, I'm clearly trying to build an image of myself in your head as an independent and self-affirming person, which implies that I need you to hold this image of me which implies that said image is therefore not true. Still, I will assure you that this image is true because it's what I need you to think to feed my ravenous and frail ego. Or maybe it's four o'clock in the morning and I'm on another no-sleep bender and just rambling. YOU DECIDE!

Anyway that brings me to the true purpose of this entire post, another LIST! YAAAAAYY!! Today I will be regaling you with the top 10 things to do when you can't sleep, some of these I have done and some I would never admit to having done, and some I have only contemplated doing, but hope to one day do. None of these will be out of the real of possible doing. For instance I will not put "Create a cocoon out of newspaper and human saliva, sleep in it for a month and emerge a beautiful insect abomination" because it just can't be done and frankly would take alot of time and bodily fluids. Ok then, enough ranting. This is already longer than I expected it to be. Without further ado, and in no particular order, 10 things to do when you can't sleep.

1. Be Naked - The reason I'm listing this option first and foremost is because it is really a blanket option. Any of the following suggestions can be done with this suggestion in action. In fact, I would in almost every case recommend taking this suggestion as sort of the "prime suggestion" of this whole list. When the world is asleep and you are not, you should feel comfortable enough with yourself to be completely nude. Not only can this be a totally liberating feeling, but it also creates great conversation when you accidentally run into a fellow insomniac. Hell the conversations can be downright life changing if the other insomniac also follows this rule. People who can't be naked and comfortable around themselves sort of confuse me. Who are you hiding from? If it wasn't for decency laws I wouldn't give a shit about clothes, but as is, I use my nocturnal propensities to get it out of my system.

2. Meet People on the Internet- Now I know what many of you might be saying at this suggestion. "But GLM, I do that during the day! The internet is for making contact with the world!" But here's where you make it different. In the middle of the night, at the most ungodly of ungodly hours, people from all over the world, from different continents and countries will be online. This is your chance to fuck with them. They will never know who you are and chances are they won't even be online and chatting at the same time you are again, so here's what you do. Set up elaborate performances in chat rooms. Duck in as a certain name and explain how you're running from authorities, leave the chat room and then duck in as an innocent bystander who's just casually wondering where your first name went. Set up a huge elaborate drama that is clearly made up just to entertain or annoy the others online around you. Another great way to entertain yourself is a site called Omegl where you are randomly connected to another chatter with no names or any sort of choice involved. Once on this site, alternate between having deep philosophical conversations with the other person and yelling "DICKS! LOL!" and signing off. This keeps the internet a place full of flavor and culture.

3. Mastur...err, Read Webcomics- See my previous post for details on how to consume hundreds of sleepless hours with shit tons of mindless internet drivel called "Webcomics" I do it all the time and it has enriched my life.

4. Pretend to Drunk Dial/Text People- This is a great way to pass a few hours and it actually sets you up for continued entertainment in the morning since most of the people you try to contact will probably be asleep when you try and contact them. This definitely works best on heavy drinking nights, because then you can get away with saying ANYTHING and people will be like "Oh that crazy drunkard." This is an especially fun technique to use on people who are in your phone book but you barely know, or people you've totally lost contact with. It's also a great way to build yourself a reputation as an alcoholic which can also lead to hilarious results. Hell, this works on weekdays too, but then you have to make up some excuse when the person asks you the next day "Hey man, why were you wasted on a Tuesday night at 4 in the morning?" My stock reply to this is just arching an eyebrow and denying anything. There's also the option of actually getting drunk and just dropping the "pretend" from the initial line of this suggestion.

5. Stream of Consciousness Writing - This may sound boring compared to some of my other suggestions up here, but it can get really entertaining if you can manage to keep it up past the point of being able to read a whole sentence at a time. Now as much as I hate writing things by hand, I recommend not using a computer for this little bit because it's so easy to accidentally close it without saving it or just forget to open the file the next morning. The joy of this little trick is waking up the next morning and reading the little crumpled up piece of paper next to your bad and thinking "What the fuck was I thinking?" Even if you start out eloquent and philosophical when you realize that you can't sleep, as the night plods on minute by minute and your pseudo-intellectual ramblings break down you will discover the true piles of shit that flow around in your brain as your system shuts down, and trust me it's more interesting and entertaining than any pop-philosophy bullshit you expect yourself to think about in your sleepless hours. Hell I woke up one morning to find I had written an entire stand up routine on a paper towel next to my bed. I couldn't read half of the jokes because my handwriting broke down near the end, and the ones I could read were total crap, but it brought me a lot of insight about what I find funny when only half my brain is functioning. It also made me realize that sleepy GLM seems to hate the Scottish and yet grudgingly respect them. But that's a subject for another post.

6. Go Outside, Swallow Silence - People complain about how the world is never quiet anymore and how our lies are all wrapped up in hustle and bustle and lights and sirens and shit. They're right, but they also fail to go outside often enough at four in the morning. It's amazing how serene and peaceful the world seems when everything in it is dormant except you. The darkness creates a world that is entirely alien and, at least to me, immensely comforting. I find when I am at my most stressed and unhappy times, going outside and just wandering through the night for hours can be an extremely calming experience. This suggestion is particularly well suited to work with suggestion one, although I recommend doing it somewhere where you are unlikely to run into security guards or police of any sort. It's also fun sometimes to break the silence of nature and just scream things. In the past I have broken into Broadway musicals, quoted Shakespeare, and just yelled as hard as I could.

7. Invent New Snacks- This works especially well if you live somewhere that is understocked in the way of snack foods, but can work anywhere as long as you're willing to put some effort and creativity into it. Take out a shit-ton of foodstuffs, pick things that taste good, but wouldn't taste good together (or so you think) and just combine them until you feel like you have something worth jamming into your face and grinding into a soft paste so that your body can extract any useful nutrients, cycle the remaining waste through your system, and then revitalize the earth in the great circle of life. (Insert Lion King music) My most successful inventions from this sort of experimentation have been uncooked Ramen noodles in peanut butter, and a combination of ground up M&Ms, sour cream, and Fritos. And before anyone says anything, fuck you guys, it was delicious.

8. Wikipedia Surf - I know everyone's wikipedia surfed in the day when they were supposed to be doing a project or researching for a paper, but at night, the process can be taken to a whole new level. Look for things that make you uncomfortable, things that make you angry, or things that just seem plain weird. Sexual positions, the history of necrophilia, gnostic gospels and the mating habits of sheepfish, all are fair game. And what's really important is that no matter where you start, don't feel you need to finish an article if a more interesting link presents itself. Push any and every button that gets in your way and listen to every little sound clip or quote that pops up no matter what. This will help to accumulate whole reams of entirely useless esoterica, and has probably contributed more to my stocks of trivia than all my years of schooling.

9. Create in Whatever Way Pleases You - For me, this option most usually expresses itself through video editing. If you look at almost any of the videos I've edited, I can assure you it was probably done between 2 and 4 in the morning. I feel like sometimes when you can't sleep it's because you feel like you haven't finished the day, and by making something new and uniquely you, it brings a lot of closure and peace to the whole thing. Of course if doesn't have to be video editing. Paint, write, take pictures, make little clay models or arrange your furniture. Just do whatever you feel you need to do to express yourself. Now of course having done this many times myself, I should warn you to always look over anything you do later when you're more awake to see if it's total crap or not. I mean realistically I probably won't do that for this post, but I'm pretty much a pro at being awake. It's what I do.

10. Start Driving a Taxi Part Time to Make a Little Extra Money, See the World in a Dark and Twisted Manner, Despise all the Inhabitants of Said World. Stalk Women, Watch Porn, and Eventually Spiral Downward into a Psychotic and Violent Obsession, Culminating in the Violent Murder of Several Pimps and Gangsters in a Misguided Attempt to Save the Life of a 14 Year-Old Hooker. - I think this one really speaks for itself. And if you don't get it, I'm sad for you

Anyway, that's it for my super short post in the middle of the night which actually ended up being just as long as the last one. I'm a little disappointed with it myself actually, I'm sue there are more interesting suggestions I just can't think of at the moment. I don't know why any of you are even reading this drivel anyway, so maybe you deserve sub-par work. I almost put blogging as something to do when you can't sleep, but I decided it was too obviously a self-referential joke. God I'm clever. Don't you think I'm clever? Yeah me too. Sleep well.

God'sLonelyMan out.

I'm From the Internet!

Ok, so when this nubile young blog was being conceived (a hot moment it was too) I was having quite the hard time deciding which of my many stores of possible useless shit to tap into for my first post. So instead of brainstorming lists or ideas or searching deeply within myself, I decided to go on the Internet and mastur.... look at webcomics! And that's when it hit me! I WILL SPREAD THE LOVE OF SOME OF MY MANY MANY TIME WASTING WEBCOMICS!

So just to lay it on the line, these are not in order of favorites or anything like that, they're just the ones I decided to list when I list them. The idea of this list is to introduce you to the many varied styles of webcomics, so I'll probably not list two webcomics I like if I feel they both overlap in style too much. Also a defense of each webcomic is to follow!

1. Order of the Stick (www.giantitp.com)
2. MS Paint Adventures (www.mspaintadventures.com)
3. xkdc (www.xkdc.com)
4. Starslip (www.starslip.com)
5.Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (www.smbc-comics.com)
6. 8-Bit Theater (www.nuklearpower.com)
7. Dr. McNinja (www.drmcninja.com)
8. Scary-Go-Round (www.scarygoround.com)
9. Penny Arcade (www.penny-arcade.com)
10. Dinosaur Comics (www.qwantz.com)

Explanations!
1. Order of the Stick is currently my favorite comic on the inter-webs, but partially that's because I love D&D. However, though this comic follows the adventures of a party who exist in a world vaguely governed by the laws of D&D, it's a story that anyone can enjoy with fantastic writing, fun and simple art, and really genuinely funny punchlines. I hearts it much! If you enjoy this webcomic, I also recommend "Erfworld", "Dungeons & Dorks", and "Looking for Group"

2.MS Paint Adventures. What can I say about MS Paint Adventures? It's one of the most bizzare things to ever make it's way onto the mainstream conscience of the web. You will either not get it at all or absolutely love it. The humor is hilariously off-center and self referential, and the simplicity of the early comics becomes more complicated as the plot does. I recommend you start by reading through the first incarnation "Jail break" until you feel you understand it, and then setting out on the huge undertaking that is "Problem Sleuth" ( a thousands of pages long epic) Don't bother with "Bard's Quest" since it's frustratingly unfinished. If you like this comic, read some of the forum based comics that are a spin-off of the idea of MS Paint Adventures

3. I actually assume most of you have read xkcd because it's just a very funny intelligent and popular webcomic. It's one of those things that makes you feel good to be a nerd, and lets you realize that being smart and interesting and individualistic doesn't mean you have to be a loser or a pariah. It's seriously fun for everyone. If you like it, I recommend you try out either "Buttersafe" or "Cyanide and Happiness" and also the very hit-or-miss historical webcomic "Hark, A Vagrant" (Also I know the writer of this comic and his family personally! Great people.)

4. Starslip is a Space comedy that has one of the best written plots and premises I've ever found online. The majority of the story takes place on a ship that is also an art museum, and the space hijinks ensue. You just have to trust me that this webcomic has some of my favorite story arcs of all time. Read it, it's fun and interesting. If you like this style of comedy and art, but don't care as much for it being clogged with storyline, check out the author's old webcomic which he has now retired "Checkerboard Nightmare"

5. Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is a comic I chose as the best representative of the "one shot" comic. Basically they are comics with one or two panels max which imply much of the context for the humor. This one is frankly one of the best out there, and even if it isn't funny every day, it's funny enough that you can make your way through all the old archives and get alot out of it. If you like this comic I recommend "Perry Bible Fellowship" and "Natalie Dee"

6. I put 8-Bit Theater in this list as an example of the "Sprite Comic" which is very popular amongst amateur webcomic writers who can't draw (and very often can't write) so they just use characters from video games. This one is based around the story of Final Fantasy I and it has some great characters although I'll admit it's been dragging recently. It's still worth reading through the archives for the huge amount of good stuff it's produced. If you like this I recommend "Bob and George" which used to run daily but is now finished, and "Neglected Mario Characters" which has a few gems amongst a pile of shit (if you read this one contact me and I'll tell you what to read)

sometimes though, but more often than not it's just 7. Dr. McNinja is the story of an Irish Ninja who is also a Doctor. It's completely absurd, fantastically drawn, and alot of fun to read. You can really start at the earliest issues and watch as everything gets more ridiculous and more awesome the whole way. It can get pretty plottyalot of ridiculous and hilarious action. Everything about this comic is over the top and I love it! If you enjoy this comic I recommend "The Gods of Arr-Kelaan" and "Goblins"

8. Scary-Go-Round is a wonderfully strange comic that's very British and very strange, but also one of my favorites at the moment. It falls into my personal category of webcomics that aren't really based around a gimmick but are generally plot and character driven. Scary-Go-Round exists in a sortof-like-ours world except alot more supernatural and ridiculous things happen every day. It has it's ups and downs interesting-ness wise but overall it's really worth it. If you like this I recommend "Questionable Content" and others I can't think of at the moment.

9. Penny Arcade is the obligatory and quintessential gaming comic which hundreds if not thousands of small start-up comics have tried to emulate. It's really very well done and has a very distinct feel to it, but I'll be frank, you often won't get the joke unless you've played the game or read the news post. Still, I read it every day and enjoy in overall, and it has alot of history. If you like it, I recommend "PVP" and "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" although both of these fit pretty well into the category of #8

10. Finally last but not least is Dinosaur Comics, a comic that has not changed the panel layout since it's inception. It's all about the dialog and the characters and it's amazing. You can get the gist of it from just a few comics. Also Dinosaurs are the shit for reals. If you like this comic I recommend "PartiallyClips" and "A Softer World"

Also I'd like to also recommend "Married to the Sea" but since I wasn't sure if I should call it a webcomic or not I didn't put it on the list! I hope I've given you enough material to eat up the rest of your summer with! I know it's eaten up my life!


This is God's Lonely Man, signing out to go read webcomics!