1146 Fixation.

by

I broke down the other day an replaced my old glasses. I had my eyes checked first, just as a matter of course. The doctor kept doing the flippy thing, then he got out his little pre glasses thing and told me to switch between it and my old ones. Eventually I came to a selection of lenses that looked correct and told him that the two sets were nearly identical. He said “Yeah, I thought so… your eyes don’t seem to like anything I change. Every adjustment I make just comes back to your original prescription. There are worse things in the world than stable eyesight though.” XD So my new glasses see just like my old ones. I can’t see super close up like when I was young, but as long as I have my glasses I can see the same way I always have. Better if my allergies aren’t acting up.

The frames are kind of square, and by square I mean the shape and not the lack of style. I’ve already gotten pretty used to them, but haven’t found the sweet spot where I can get them to stay on my face yet. Every so often they make a desperate run for the border.

I’ve barely played any Pokémon, but my friend Pete did fix it so I could download all the shiny legendaries from his Gamestop into my Black 2 pak. So eventually I can just use them to complete the story. Black 2 didn’t hold on to me very well. I hear that transferring pokemon is going to be a big hassle too. So this may be a breaking point from old to new for me. The steadfast refusal by Nintendo to let me transfer my old pokemon easily has soured me on the idea of getting attatched to them, which breaks the game a bit, as it is in direct contradiction to the game’s core philosophy…

But whatever.

I’ve been trying to repair old headphones because I’m tired of them shorting out every few months so I have to buy a new pair. I wear headphones pretty much all the time so my media doesn’t disturb anyone, which means they get a lot of use. The quality of ear covering sets has degraded significantly in the last few years. On top of that it is difficult to repair shorts with the more complex pairs. My answer to this was to watch youtube videos until I learned how to do it. As a test I tried fixing the latest pair to crap out. I got them working again, but the work was sloppy and really close to the earpiece. On top of that the wires for the other side were laced through the band, so fixing that part would require soldering. Bluh… I went ahead and bought a new pair, but chose some that looked easy to repair when the time comes. Unfortunately they don’t have the volume control on the cord… So I might try to make one out of spare parts from other headphones.

Anyway all of that led me to an idea about redesigning headphones so you could fix them on the fly by just replacing the part that broke. Now I just need someone who is actually good with electronics to make them for me. XD

51 Comments

My first break up nearly ruined Harry Potter for me because it was how we met and our main bonding point. In fact novels were hard to read for a while because we were both huge book worms. But then you get past it, eventually.

Huh. So it turns out Constancebrooke Willowdawn isn’t quite the nice girl she seemed. Looks like Thomas’ enmity is actually somewhat justified.

Grief, substitute a few things and you just described my last two years of High School. I got luckier than Thomas, though, she dropped me (deservedly so) before leaving for Harvard (of course, right?), so I got my angst and obsession out of the way and even found some ambition (although it took my amazing wife to really help me pursue it. Another story, that). Anyhow, loving the story, as always, and it just got a little more personal, so thank you for deepening the addiction. Excellent work!

The dangers of having a GF and no real social circle outside of her.

Jeez Mongoose, do you read all the comics I read? Nearly every single one has one of your comments at least once.

There was a time when I read all. Now, I only stick to about half a dozen comics.

I’m pretty sure I’ve done the roll call before, so I’ll omit it now.

I post comments fairly often in Dumbing of Age, Shortpacked, Youtune & Cracked.

Occassionly I post comments in xkcd, Modest Medusa, Atomic Laundromat, Culture Shock and Wizard School to name a few.

On the other hand, I avoid sites like facebook like the plague.

Heh….most of my itunes is full of music I can’t stand to listen to because of songs or bands associated with exes…

So, Dawn Holland was a high school student with a desire to write, and for this she had the money to move to a Texas college? Furthermore, also starting an affair with a spineless puppet–with a dick–for a boyfriend, to replace her former slacker boyfriend? Does this sound like the opposite of Carol and Thomas’s relationship now, or is it just me?

Because I didn’t leave one, my name is Brandon, period. No one hunt me down or inquire further personal information to use against me, because it ain’t going to happen. If you just want to talk about the comic or discuss my comments, I’m completely open to it.

P.S. Since text doesn’t convey mood, I said the above out of caution and paranoia over identity theft.

Too late. I have already extracted your computer’s I.P. and MAC addresses, which were encrypted in your comment’s meta tags. I used those to determine your actual identity, Social Security Number and geographical coordinates. By the way, don’t use your credit or debit cards; I drained the accounts to 2¢ below the ‘flag’ limit and they next time you buy something with one, the Police will come to investigate…

Ghad, I love twitting paranoids…

In the Marines, we had a name for this guy. His name is “Jody”.
He’s so pervasive to the Marine Corps experience of leaving your girl for someone else to take that an entire genre of cadences are called “Jodies.”

Example:
There ain’t no sense in lookin’ down,
You won’t find a six-pack on the ground.
There’s ain’t so sense in lookin’ back,
Jody’s got your Cadillac.
There ain’t no sense in lookin’ blue,
Jody’s got your Susie, too.

It’s a running cadence, hence the looking down part. It doesn’t take as long as you’d think to learn how to shout at the top of your lungs while you’re running.

God, that sounds really similar.

I had been through a few really serious break-ups. I have always been a long term kind of guys, so these things always lasted a few years.

I was on the rebound and there was this sensational girl I asked out, a lot of people didn’t like her because she was very eccentric, but I also thought she was beautiful.

We went out on a few dates and we really hit it off well, the problem was none of my friends liked her or anything, so instead of worrying about that, I just distanced myself from them and concentrated on her.

She would tell me about how amazing I was and how she wasn’t used to being treated like “this”. I guess a lot of guys just treated her really badly, used her and then left her.

I saw her for about a month. And then one day she just said she wasn’t ready for a relationship, even though she was the one pushing it and introducing me as her boyfriend and shit.

She eventually found another guy and he treated her like shit and she started hanging around me again, doing stuff with me again. She had a really bad birthday and I showed up and showed her a good time. The next day the guy who treated her like shit started seeing her again.

This kind of behavior went on for some time. Yeah I was used, but I was just in love with this person so much I didn’t mind. I’ve gotten over it now, but I still just, get so infatuated about it sometimes, someone talks about her, or a see her in public and my day goes from awesome to shit in ten seconds flat. I hate it and I wish I could just take a drug to fix it.

How long ago was that? That’s a really hardcore story.

The drugs won’t help, and the escape isn’t that great, I will advise you.

I wanted to wish you all the best of luck…

A good friend of mine got involved with a guy, ended up leaving her family for him (she wasn’t in a happy marriage). They really, really weren’t good for each other. She actually moved states (i.e., came back to her home state) when they broke up and as far as I know, never saw him again. She made the decision, in part, because she felt almost chemically addicted to him and knew it was a bad and destructive situation for her. I’m not suggesting you move, but I am stating that people do feel that strongly about people they are attracted to sometimes, and yet, they do decide to do the things that are truly good for them and somehow find ways to move on. It’s been 10 years for my friend (and I know this because I met her after she moved, so we get to celebrate a decade of friendship now). She’s got her kid with her and is in a stable, passionate, healthy relationship. It really does take time… it took about 5 for her before she could truly move on and rebuild emotionally.

For myself, my crazy-time after a hard breakup took about a year and a half to get over. And the guy (a friend) and I only dated about a month and a half. A year and a half emotionally wasted because we dated for a month and a half and I guess I “cared too much” – I don’t regret the caring, just the agony. I’d like to say I grew as a person during that time, but not really. But I can say that our friendship did survive, I did get over it, and he is still a best friend to my husband and me. I dated him about 9 years ago; been married to my husband over 6. I don’t know if this is the best encouragement for you, but it’s what I’ve got. I do remember feeling like shit during that time, but it’s hazy, it’s all forgiven, and I’m very, very happy now. I remember the best thing I could do during that time was focus on things that did make me happy and friends who were good for me, and ask them for help when I needed it.

Jenny K, that is a powerful story.

Have you heard the song “Unmade Bed” by Sonic Youth?

Performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9UlGVT-m8c

Lyrics:
Look who’s come back home again
Loser looking for his lucky break
This time he says he just needs a friend
Ain’t on the run he ain’t on the take

Can you unlock this door babe
Will you just undo the chain
Will you take yr time before you
Mix up love, his love and pain

Loneliness lays down his head
Wants to get you high, better take it now
A man like that’s like an unmade bed
Stained eyes searching for another way out

Do you really even want this
Maybe you just don’t care
All I know it takes just one kiss, babe
For you – he’s never there

Hey I know it’s kinda hard
And maybe this time it will never end
Hit and run lover back in yr heart
All those answered prayers that you never have sent

Cuz now that yr in his arms babe
You know yr just in his way
Suckered by his fatal charm, oh girl
It’s time we get away

I am just amazed at the amount of information people are sharing in this discussion. I say that from a place of positivity, like, by sharing the trauma we can talk about it and get over it–or if we’ve already gotten over it, we can share that with other people so that they will benefit from our former misery and be able to get over it too.

You seem to have struck a common nerve with many of your readers, JT. For such a short amount of story, this chapter packs a lot of emotional punch!

I only ever had one serious girlfriend, and yeah, that ended. But nothing I liked was seriously affected over it. After that I maybe almost had one in college, but there was a serious betrayal on their part, and I had to much respect to accept it. After that, single since the 90s.

Yesterday I had to introduce myself in Japanese (live in Japan), and I had already cracked a lot of jokes. I said (BTW real age is 36, but don’t look it.) “Hi my name is Jack. I am from Japan and I live on the moon. I’m 25 years old but I’m still a virgin. Ladies, please help me. Nice to meet you all.” Got tons of laughs from all the natives there and the teacher couldn’t talk for a couple minute…The other students didn’t understand the virgin joke, grammar and vocab they didn’t know, but it was worth it.

Forgot to mention how well Thomas is drawn here–the body language is communicated very effectively. I feel like I am there in the room with him as he is telling the story…

Hmmm, I think I agree with you, by which I mean to say that he doesn’t look very good here (to me). But people rarely do when they talk about hard things.

A lot of fellow people thinking about insane breakups…

But, anyone else noticing the art in Panel 3 is… way awesome? Serious skills in that panel.

I KNOW, RIGHT??? I was just thinking that, and looking at the transition from panel 1 to panel 3 a few times as I was leaving my comment above. Serious skills indeed. It and the script really feed off of each other and are both so strong together (if that makes sense).

I like the way Thomas seems to be leaning forward to make eye contact with Carol, alternating with glancing off into the distance with that far-away look in his eyes.

I just had both of my sets of headsets short out. Then I remember that, like, 10 years ago I bought some Sony wireless headphones. They’re not perfect, but they work (they’re a little static-y, but you can’t really hear it under normal TV or music, unless you turn your head the wrong way); and I can go outside to smoke while listening to podcasts.

Anyway, highly recommended. Maybe by now they have them with digital signalling. (Which would cut the static)

For the headphone thing, there are some models which already have replaceable parts, like the Sennheiser’s HD25 I own. But I wouldn’t recommend it, because of the unbearable commercial they made with a random nude girl and a bad DJ, and because it’s a set for DJs: thought to be used live, not at home.

The hard breakup is something most people go through at least once. We are often most attracted to people who we know are not good for us – I wish I knew why, though I suspect hedonic adaptation is a part of it.

I inflicted the same woman on myself 3 times before she really crushed me. The first 2 times she dumped me when I went out of town for a few days. But she was very compelling and had some kind of hold on me, so I actually took her back a third time – even foolishly breaking off something with someone who was really great. She moved in with me the third time, and completely took over my life – such that I was losing contact with some of my really good friends. I treated her really well – more than she felt she deserved.

Then one day I came home from being away (again) and she had moved in with my closest friend, who lived 20 feet away from me. I was friends with him, but he was never good to his girlfriends – and somewhere deep inside I had known it was going to happen. She was attracted to him because he was a dick – I think she had some deep self-loathing or something. Pick friends and partners better I guess.

I was crushed, utterly. It took me 1 year to even begin considering getting involved with anyone. Thankfully I had a great group of other friends – most of whom were very good to me. I also had a new job (I had been away training for it when it all fell apart). Now I look back and want to kick my clueless moron past self in the ass – of course she was going to do that a third time. We get ourselves into the most trouble when we really want to believe that a person will behave wisely, despite all evidence to the contrary.

This is off-topic, but does a user named Bryan Knight still hang around and post comments here? Back in July, on comic 1101, we had a great conversation about other comics and I think I might have missed a chance to make a friend. That can happen, right? Two guys can meet in the comments below a comic and end up being like, Facebook friends or something? Whatever. Bryan, if you’re reading this: “Do you want to chat some time, maybe?”

…if you did not feel the uncertainty in every word I just typed, you are a robot.

I have just uncovered something truly and utterly bizarre. The majority of people who put links on their names here link to their work of some kind: comic, website, DeviantArt account, etc. When I clicked on Bryan’s name on an old post, it sent me to this site’s main page, Just like Crave. Was Bryan trying to take credit for this? Is he actually responsible for some aspect of this site with all of its awesomeness? Have I conversed with a being far greater than myself? I feel so intimidated now! Bryan, who are you?!

…Y’know, it really would have been better to end that with an interrobang. The world needs more interrobangs.

In the film it’s spelled with an “a”, but have you heard the soundtrack by Berto Pisano to the film “Interrabang”? I’ve never seen the movie, and it sounds mondo weird, but it is one of the most absolutely GORGEOUS Italian movie soundtracks that I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard, like, 100. You might be able to find a zip or rar online.

And yes, the world does need more Interrobangs!

You, sir, are one of the few people I have ever seen capable of getting as far off topic as quickly as myself. And thanks for the suggestion, but I’m not really looking for zips and rars right now.

…So I take it you haven’t seen Bryan, then?

Loving the break up flashbacks, I relate a lot to Thomas here. All that love turns to hate so it becomes easier to just erase her from your mind and never think about her, it’s brutal but totally understandable. Keep up the good work!

Also if anything it’ll be way easier to transfer pokemon between games with the bank thing, you’ll be able to upload pokemon from black/white or their sequels to the online PC and access them in whatever games you own. Heck, you can even upload all of your ‘mon from x or y, then restart and still have access to them in the new save file, which is the closest nintendo will ever get to giving us two save files.

Maybe try Sennheiser earphones? They’ve been leaning towards models that won’t break the bank *and* sound pretty effing awesome. I’m old school and prefer the full can, which hasn’t let me down for a few years now. My even older set of Senns wore out in the headset before the wiring.

Huh.
That’s how obtuse I am. I’ve been reading Between Failures for at least four years and I just noticed the similarity in hairstyles between Thomas and Philip J. Fry of Futurama.

Sheesh.

Dang man, this comic is giving me serious flashbacks to a previous relationship with some differences.
I devoted myself to the relationship and truly believed in her… so when she turned on me, while I was fighting a losing battle to keep the best paying job I ever had, it just crushed me.
What made it worse was that no one, not any of our mutual friends, ever asked me about my side of the story. It was like I was the only one that didnt know she was about to dump me… I was still trying to figure out how to repair the relationship while she had been planning on leaving for who knows how long.
All our mutual friends went with her… I was left without any social circle besides my family. I was also left with a bunch of debt after paying for all the bills while letting her focus on school.
Ugh.
So I really feel for our hero. The last possible thing I would ever want is to run into that woman again and reopen that wound.

I am in an eerily similar situation to Thomas. Almost exactly the same in fact. Just change names, ages, and job situations and there you have it. Only I got suckered into getting back with her… and then she left for someone else again.

I held on too long. Probably still am. Probably always will. I guess time will tell.

Funny thing, time.

Noooooooooo….I just caught up…and this was released on the day I started reading this…oh man… Q_Q

You getting the withdrawal, huh? I remember the first time I felt that. Twelve-hour-long binge on the first webcomic I ever loved, and it left me willing to do anything to fill the craving. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t look for more. Just sober up and let it go. Get out before it’s too late.

Anyone tried Zennioptical.com? Just got two pairs of glasses there for $55. Both with tinted lenses one with”anti-reflective coating” Both prescription. Hard to beat.

Regarding eyeglass prescriptions… the older you get, the more the lens(es) in your eyes stop flexing to change their focus. They get stiff with age. Some people more than others, your mileage may vary.

I’m in my late forties. I’m to the point now where I have to take my nearsighted glasses off to read books or menus in a restaurant. But I’m not special, it’s just normal.

It’s also a fact of human biology that we will all get cataracts after a certain age. But that’s a different post entirely…

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