I quit playing video games a couple years back. What most people don’t know about me is I’m super competitive. And once I flip that on, it can’t be turned off until a result is rendered.
Unfortunately I lacked the emotional intelligence to deal with losses in high-stakes FIFA games since I consider myself the greatest cyber-soccer player in the world.
I got tired of breaking $50 controllers and decided that spending time doing anything else would be more productive. I was right. I read 63 books that following year.
I moved back to Columbus full-time in April 2019 after my ex-fiancée and I cancelled our wedding. I soon realized I would have a lot more time on my hands than I did in a relationship of seven years.
Then, like now, I wasn’t drinking. I figured video games would be more constructive than sitting crooked at a local watering hole paying 70% mark-up on assortments of mind poison.
FIFA was the only video game I played until coronavirus ran wild on the globe and a friend from Piqua convinced me to download Activision’s free 150-player Royal Rumble game, Modern Warfare 2: Warzone.

[The last thing slow-fingered teenagers see before their head explodes like a melon.]
I played enough of the original Modern Warfare for it to be considered a full-time job in the twilight of my Montana days. I’m probably playing its successor even more.
I was on the ropes three weeks ago. Mentally, spiritually, and physically. That spell feels like another lifetime ago. In no small part because each week feels like a decade now. I also stopped drinking a gallon of Tito’s Handmade Vodka every 72 hours.
Please don’t underestimate the therapeutic power of shooting your enemies in the face with an AK-47.
Warzone is like every other Call of Duty game: Propaganda direct from the Department of Defense. It’s problematic praxis, I know. Unfortunately I was inured to cyber-death as a pre-teen when I spent hours butchering Russian soldiers with an AK-47 in GoldenEye 007.
What I like about Warzone is it’s just not your run-of-the-mill shooter. It requires patience, strategy and most of all — teamwork. In my solitude I had forgotten how much fun it is to belong to a group with a common goal and enemy to smash.
Quarantine has been weird. Some friends have fallen off, which is entirely understandable. With others I have deepened the bond in ways I never imagined.
Warzone is a big part of that. It’s allowed me to play with current friends, re-connect with old ones and find new ones. The squealing of teenagers when I put a .50 caliber bullet through their chest for a gulag victory is just the icing on the cake.
If video games aren’t your thing then here’s a podcast if you simply can’t get enough of my opinions.


You might think I’m one of those men who nobody has ever told to shut the fuck up. That’s not true. People tell me and my 3,000 opinions to shut the fuck up almost every day. Will I ever shut the fuck up? Not until the Lord puts a lightning bolt through my skull for a gulag victory.
Until then, I’m trying to convert as many freeloaders to paid subscribers. Here’s 30 free days of five dispatches a week in order to prove myself:
If you’re struggling right now and can’t afford it, no worries: Shoot me an email at djforohio at gmail and I’ll throw you a year-long subscription as long as you pinky swear to subscribe when you’re back on your feet. Or don’t. Totally your call. I’d rather die than be called a debt collector.
MIKE DEWINE TAKES THE MIDDLE ROAD AND INFURIATES EVERYBODY

Mike DeWine has led the Republican response to coronavirus. Unfortunately for the Grand Old Party, he is not its wise god-king:
President Deals is becoming increasingly unhinged as he cracks like an egg on national television. In just the last 72 hours, Deals suggested doctors look into injecting bleach into the lungs to fight “the Invisible Enemy.” He then said he was being sarcastic.
Sunday night he launched a typo-ridden manifesto against his enemies into the Twittersphere (not that I would know anything about that). When people pointed out it was the Nobel Prize, not the Noble Prize — and regardless what he meant was a Pulitzer — he again claimed he was being sarcastic before deleting the thread in the dead of night.
It’s no surprise to see numbers like this:



These numbers extend beyond Democrats. Fabled Obama-Trump voters in Ohio told a focus group they wished President Business Deals would act more like DeWine. Those easily swayed simpletons will be waiting until they die.
78% of Republicans approve the way DeWine is handling the economy. Though this poll was published before yesterday when the governor debuted his plan to “re-open” the economy.
Thirty-two Republican Representatives, with no economic or medical degrees among them, issued a sternly written letter to DeWine demanding the immediate opening of the economy. (You’re damn right Liberty University Online graduate Jena Powell was among them.)
Hours later, Larry Householder, who was the most powerful politician in the state until coronavirus cucked him all the way back to Perry County, issued his own statement which is so hilarious it requires a paragraph-by-paragraph breakdown.
“There is a tremendous amount of frustration from the majority of members in the Ohio House regarding the Administration’s unwillingness to recognize that small businesses that have much less daily traffic in their stores are closed while their large chain competitors have been open throughout the process.
Householder is actually right about this. Coronavirus has compounded every problem in American society. The problem is Householder and Republicans have been supporting Big Business over small businesses for the last 40 years.
"As long as small retailers continue to be shut down while national chains are allowed to remain open, government is assisting in the demise of many great small businesses. The bigger get bigger and the small go away.
Again, this is no different than anything else that has happened in the last 40 years. Drive through any rural town in Ohio. You won’t see mom-and-pop stores. You will see large corporations that pay local workers starvation wagers and send the wealth out of their communities.
“Ohio’s three branches of government are to be separate but equal. Our members feel disrespected that their opinions have been largely disregarded by the Administration.
Their opinions are not being respected in the same way a child would not be taken seriously as a keynote speaker at a conference of brain surgeons. They have nothing to say, as evidenced by the last three weeks the “Ohio Economic Recovery Task Force” spent on Zoom jacking off and listening to conspiracy theories.
“The Ohio House has announced they are resuming on May 4 and Republican members are anxious to deal with these issues in person rather than via telephone.”
Householder’s misuse of “anxious” is hilarious. That would require anxiety, a crucial ingredient for anxiousness. His stooges are, by their own admission, too stupid to be anxious about returning to work in person.
As for DeWine’s plan, I sure as Hell won’t be spending my time in crowded indoor spaces with strangers. I’m not addicted to retail therapy like these other brainwashed capitalist hobgoblins. My stimulus deposit arrives tomorrow and I’m immediately redistributing it to Cuba at the earliest possibility.
BUTCHER BUSINESS BOOMING… FOR NOW

If you’re like me, you have cooked more meals at home in the last month than you usually do in three. Perhaps also like me a lot of these meals involve animal carcasses.
We are not alone!
From Cameron Knight and Randy Tucker of cincinnati.com:
Greater Cincinnati shops are reporting retails sales the likes of which they have never seen. And for their businesses, it's needed.
Many butcher shops sell wholesale to restaurants as well as to regular home cooks, and the wholesale market is way down due to the unprecedented closure of restaurant dining rooms.
"It's like Christmas every day," said Ken Wassler. "The retail has been phenomenal, actually hard to keep up."
Wassler is the current owner of Wassler Meats in Green Township outside Cincinnati. His great grandfather started the business in 1894. Wassler's sons work at the store make them the fifth generation to take to the family business.
Let’s hope these butchers locally source their meats. Those that get it from factory farms won’t be on the gravy train much longer.
From Michael Hirtzer and Jen Skerrit of bloomberg.com:
Plant shutdowns are leaving Americans dangerously close to seeing meat shortages at grocery stores. Meanwhile, farmers are facing the likely culling of millions of animals and mass burial graves could soon be dug across the heartland.
“The food supply chain is breaking,” said John Tyson, chairman of Tyson Foods Inc., the biggest U.S. meat company.
Plant shutdowns are leaving Americans dangerously close to seeing meat shortages at grocery stores. Meanwhile, farmers are facing the likely culling of millions of animals and mass burial graves could soon be dug across the heartland.
“The food supply chain is breaking,” said John Tyson, chairman of Tyson Foods Inc., the biggest U.S. meat company.
Hmmm. Starting to think a handful of conglomerates controlling every aspect of our food chain might not have been the best idea!
Oh well. For the last couple of years I have wanted to quit being a coward and move to a vegetarian diet. A global pandemic ending my access to meat might be what finally gets me off my ass to stop eating other sentient creatures just because I can.
NOT THE MOST INSPIRING PHOTO OF CLEVELAND POLICE WORK
via u/samfisherirl1 of reddit.com:

I’m sure these two police officers were of sober mind and on the cusp of catching a murder when they collided on a street with reduced traffic.

THOSE WMDs. “Zoom fatigue” is taxing the brain; here’s why that happens… Sympathy cards are selling out… Millions of people face stimulus check delays for a strange reason: they are poor… The fatal hike that become a Nazi propaganda coup… Everyone is giving away cash on Instagram.