I love this video. Watching it brings back honest-to-goodness moments of pure joy. The fact that I can identify almost all of the video games featured is indicative of the kind of remarkable childhood that I enjoyed.
But I really wish I did.
I have never posted and have rarely seen an online video involving cats.
But this one was too good to pass up.
A friend of mine recently expressed concern when I told her that I dream about the apocalypse a couple of times a week. But it’s not always nuclear holocaust that fills my dreams. Giant asteroids, air-born plagues, alien invaders and zombie infestation are just a few of the horrors that fill my sleepy time.
It’s not like I’m fixated on one specific method of worldly destruction.
Then there are the personal apocalypses as well, which are actually far more common:
Home invasion, armed robbery, airplane crashes, swarms of killer bees.
I spend many of my evenings struggling to stay alive.
It's not the best way to spend a night in bed, but it certainly makes sleepy time more exciting. I also like to think that my nightly experiences with these disasters prepare me for their eventuality, as this video does so well:
I’m happy that I am able to watch so much BBC programing here in America, but I think US television networks are missing a golden opportunity by not broadcasting more Japanese game show insanity.
I love and hate this boy all at the same time. I’m conflicted. And incredibly amused.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv4Hpz-GI3g
My wife and I have a fairly progressive policy on the giving of holiday cards. Our card is always late and always digital.
While we adore receiving Christmas cards from our friends and family, we simply cannot muster the energy or organization needed to physically mail cards to our friends.
Instead, Elysha creates something magnificent in Photoshop, and we email it to our friends sometime in January.
In 2008 here was what we sent to friends:
While this “digital and always late” policy may strike you as inefficient and unimpressive, I always like to remind people that our holiday cards are much better for the environment than the traditional kind, and our card arrives at a time after all the other holiday cards have come and gone.
Therefore, our holiday card has a singular moment in the sun.
As creative as Elysha’s cards always are, they pale in comparison to this year’s holiday greeting from Jabba the Hutt:
I admire the guy’s willingness to put his passion on display, and I love his courage to be himself, but this guy has no chance of ever getting a date.
Right?
It’s fantastic.
Behold! The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, my newest favoritest place on the Internets. Wit and wisdom, combined with amusing pop-culture references and a deep understand of the human condition.
A truly astonishing blend of truth and humor.
Here are just five of my favorite obscure sorrows lists:
n. disillusionment upon rewatching a beloved pop-culture touchstone of your youth and having to confront its hand-puppet characterization, magnetic-poetry dialogue, jury-rigged plots and undisguised pandering to its audience, all of which—by the power of Grayskull—makes you wonder what else in your mental fridge is past its expiration date.
n. an innocuous touch by someone just doing their job—a barber, yoga instructor or friendly waitress—that you enjoy more than you’d like to admit, a feeling of connection so stupefyingly simple that it cheapens the power of the written word, so that by the year 2025, aspiring novelists would be better off just giving people a hug.
n. the phenomenon of observing your parents interact with people they grew up with, which reboots their personalities into youth mode, reverting to a time before the last save point, when they were still dreamers and rascals cooling their heels in the wilderness, waiting terrified and eager to meet you for the first time.
n. the lucky fascination felt when a typo immeasurably improves a sentence you wrote, singed by the underlying recognition that the book of your life is credited to you but is not in your handwriting, which nevertheless appears in trace passages of many other lives.
n. the moment when your enjoyment of something you’ve adored since you were a kid—riding bikes, taking photos, eating, running around—evaporates on contact with hardcore fanatics whose ferocious obsession with technique sounds as satisfying as slurping through the last airy dregs of a slushie, which gives you the emotional equivalent of brain freeze.
From the Washington Post piece entitled Get a Good Read on the Market: Pick Up a Book: As Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger has said in assessing the success of his bossandsidekick, Warren Buffett:
"If you want to be an outlier in achievement, just sit on your ass and read most of your life."
Yes.
In the past year, I’ve pondered launching a blog dedicated to the signs that restaurants use on their restroom doors and a blog dedicated to 101 uses for an odd decanter that I received during a Yankee swap.
While I’d like to think that both will eventually happen, they have not yet materialized.
Perhaps this is because there is not not enough spite and anger behind these two ideas, which is more than I can say for the man who created a website dedicated to 101 uses of his ex-wife’s wedding dress.
He writes:
My wife of 12 years recently packed up her belongings and moved out of our home. After her car was loaded I couldn't help but notice that a single item remained in her section of our closet, her wedding dress.
"You forgot something" I told her.
She replied "And what's that?".
"Your wedding dress", I said.
"Yeah, I am not taking that" was her response.
"What do you expect me to do with it?" I asked.
And to that she replied, "Whatever the $%^@# you want".
And this is what I did.....
So far he’s used the dress for things like a pasta strainer, a gas cap and a grill cover.
Check it out. It’s hilarious.
Years ago, I read the book MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS. Thinking that I would despise the book, I read it as a farce, hoping to hate it enough to write a counter-argument to whatever ludicrous notions the author made. The book changed my life. In the pages of that book, I came to understand women like never before. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. A single book helped me to understand the female mind, and as a result, my relationships with women have changed for the better.
Since then, I have recommended this book to two of my friends when their relationships were heading south, and both times they came away feeling the same way I do. And in both cases, the relationship survived.
There is a great deal of useful information in the book, but one of the critical components was recently repeated in an article in Live Science entitled 10 Things Every Woman Should Know About the Male Brain.
It’s worth reading.
While many studies suggest that women are more empathetic than men, Dr. Brizendine stresses this is not entirely true. The empathy system of the male brain does respond when someone is stressed or expressing a problem. But the "fix-it" region quickly takes over.
"This hub does a Google search of the entire brain to come up with a solution," said Brizendine. As a result, men tend to be more concerned with fixing a problem than showing solidarity in feeling, she said.
In short, the essential conflict between most men and women can be stated like this:
Woman: I have a problem. I want you to listen to me.
Man: You have a problem? Then we must fix it.
Woman: No, I’m not looking for solutions. I just want you to listen to me.
Man: Why tell me about your problem unless you want me to fix it?
Ten Word Wiki is a spinoff of Wikipedia with one important distinction: All entries must consist of exactly ten letters. The results are often amusing and sometimes quite profound. The site has become my newest time-waster, so click at your own risk.
I’m completely obsessed with it.
And I’ve even submitted my own 10 Word Wiki entry, which can be found on the site. It is:
Project Runway: Heidi Klum making everyone else look like flat, boring nobodies.
Here is a list of ten recent favorites as well:
Bumper sticker. Literal translation: Caution, I drive like a twat.
Ten Commandments: Ten rules of life from God. Such a spoil sport.
Book: Bundles of wood pulp and pictures/words; doesn't need batteries.
Lance Armstrong: inspirational uni-testicled cycling legend. Singlehandedly invented the rubber wristband industry.
Lost (television series): It’s about time travel, fate, good/evil, heaven/hell … maybe
Nothing: Nothing would be this page if you removed 10 words.
Sarah Palin: Failed Vice Presidential candidate. Made stupidity popular again post-W.
Tim Burton: Helena Bonham-Carter's employer. Takes the cowbell approach with Gothic themes.
Intelligent: High knowledge base. Can be sexy/nerdy depending on knowledge.
Tiger Woods: World's greatest golfer. Plays a round, and then plays around.
Tonight I was reading Eric Carle’s THE VERY LONELY FIREFLY to my daughter. Though I like the book a lot, I apparently never fully understood the story. As the firefly makes its way around town, people pop their heads out of windows and doors, wondering about the origins of all the apparent noise going on outside.
I’ve always thought it was the firefly making the noise, though admittedly I found it odd that a firefly would be making any noise. I caught enough of them in jars as a kid to know how quiet they are.
Apparently the noise is the sound of fireworks, which the firefly and the people discover near the end of the book. As my wife explained, the book has a parallel story running throughout it. The story of the firefly, searching for other fireflies, and the story of the family, on their way to the fireworks.
And just like that, I was right back at Trinity College, in Feminist Literary Criticism, circa 1996, trying to make sense of Virginia Woolf’s TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, feeling stupid and annoyed.
Except this time it was my infant daughter’s board book by the same guy who wrote THE VERY HUNGRY CATEPILLAR.
Thanks, Eric Carle.
Joe Queenan recently wrote an essay in the Sunday Book Review about the influence that bad book covers can have on his reading choices.
I feel his pain. Bad book covers have kept me from reading some books for years.
The best example of a bad book cover (and a bad title) preventing me from reading the book is Sharon Creech’s YA novel WALK TWO MOONS. My wife insists that it’s a great book, and she’s even volunteering to lead a book club in my classroom for any of my students who are interested in reading it. She’s tried for years to get me to read the book, pleading with me to ignore the cover and just read.
There are certainly compelling reasons to do so.
I like Sharon Creech’s work. I think that LOVE THAT DOG, another one of her YA novels, is brilliant, and I enjoyed BLOOMABILITY and HEARTBEAT a lot (as much as I can enjoy a YA novel).
WALK TWO MOONS also won the prestigious Newbury Award.
And I’ve had many students over the years tell me how much they love this book. In fact, it’s one of the most-frequently recommended books by students ever, and when my wife read it with her class a few years ago, every single student fell in love with the story.
Yet every time I look at the cover and read the title, I think, “Eh…”
I must have been living in a cave four years ago when Ayelet Waldman published this piece in which she says that she loves her husband more than her children. In talking about it now with friends, it seems as if everyone was aware of it at the time. Except me.
Of course, in reading about the history of the story and the reaction to it now, it seems as if most of the media attention came from sources like Oprah and The View.
Not my usual media outlets.
But I wish I had been following the story four years ago, because I cannot help but admire Waldman’s naked, unabashed honesty.
Many did not. It would seem that publishing a piece so unpopular was not easy.
I mentioned this piece to some of my former students this week, and for the most part, they stood behind Waldman, expressing their belief that she was entitled to her own opinion and even understanding and agreeing with her position in some cases. In fact, the student most critical of Waldman only went so far as to say that it’s okay to love your husband more than your children, but you probably shouldn't let your kids know about it.
This is far cry from the critics, mostly mothers, who accused Waldman of being sick, twisted and evil.
"People were telling me that they were going to report me to the Department of Social Services, that my children should be taken away," Waldman said. Later she found a note on her gate expressing similar sentiments and adding, unnecessarily, "I know where you live."
This is an issue central to CHICKEN SHACK, and so it is one that I find fascinating. The reaction that people have toward an unpopular, unusual or contrarian viewpoint can vary by wide margins, but at times, it can be downright scary, as Waldman discovered when she expressed an opinion divergent from the norm. The power of the the mob, the unrestrained destructiveness of anonymity, and the perceived importance of conformity in our society are all issues with which one must grapple when expressing an opinion or conceiving of an idea that is not welcomed or appreciated.
Waldman discovered this the hard way, as does my protagonist in CHICKEN SHACK. Happily, it would seem as if Waldman has risen above the controversy and criticism and is now the stronger for it.
As for Wyatt, my protagonist, I am not sure. I haven’t reached the end of his story yet.
Kate DiCamillo summed it up best in her novel THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX:
“Reader, you must know that an interesting fate awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.”
Over the last few days, I find myself constantly drifting back to WikiLeaks recent release of more than half a million pager intercepts from September 11, 2001. Since text pagers are usually carried by persons operating in an official capacity, many of these messages were sent by individuals who played an instrumental role in the response to the attacks. Messages in the archive range from Pentagon, FBI, FEMA and New York Police Department exchanges, to computers reporting faults at investment banks inside the World Trade Center, to ordinary citizens.
I find the transcript of these messages absolutely fascinating. And with half a million to peruse, you’d be shocked at what a time-suck this database can become.
Read at your own risk.
Here’s just a few of the more interesting messages from these pagers:
___________________________________________
Signs that despite the tragedy of the day, life goes on:
2001-09-11 09:30:54 Skytel [004678448] ALPHA THE WORLD TRADE CENTER WAS HIT BY TWO PLANES. TURN ON THE T.V. IF CAN. PS... THE FURNITURE ARRIVED AND LOOKS GREAT. IRIS
2001-09-11 09:15:38 Arch [1376997] ALPHA Hey Honey! Can you bring some bagels when you get back? The pork chop is now crying about the World Trade Center plane crash. Geez! It is scary but no reason to cry. Talk to you later! I love you! (I assume “the pork chop” is a nickname for their child)
The next three pages were sent by the same person. It’s an interesting reaction to the possibility that her husband was dead. Humor has always been a good shield from terror. I just wish I knew if he survived.
2001-09-11 10:55:08 Arch [1146801] A ALPHA I am going to collect from your life insurance policies because if you don't call me now!! To tell me you're not dead, I am going to kill you!
2001-09-11 11:13:17 Arch [1146801] A ALPHA Please call me I am panicking. I am starting to make your funeral arrangements. 508-548-7302
2001-09-11 11:32:56 Arch [1146801] A ALPHA If I do not hear from you by High Noon, I am going to pick Laura up at school and tell her that her Father is dead.
And finally, a reminder that crazy people have pagers too:
2001-09-11 03:38:34 Skytel [005105954] ALPHA CALL MY CELL PHONE INSTEAD OF MY HOUSE PHONE CAUSE I DON'T WANT IT TO RING, AND CRYSTALS BEEN GOING AROUND SAYING STUFF ABOUT YOU AND ME. I LOVE YOU.
