Brave

(A now a message from our sponsor)
If you will notice just to the right of this post is a section called "Current Stuff". I want to bring attention to an addition called "My writings". One of the best things that I learned in my fiction workshop class was the importance of writing. So, for those of you bored or wanting to get to know me on a stalker-like level, feel free to stop by and read what I have offered up to the world.
In order to expand my mind beyond the spiritual autobiography, I picked up a copy of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World at Half-Price Books yesterday. As expected, because it is like one of my favorite books-- 1984, I like this book.
    'Strange,' mused the Director, as they turned away, 'strange to think that even in Our Ford's day most games were played without more apparatus than a ball or two and a few sticks and perhaps a bit of netting. Imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. 26

Megan and the boys are here now, and I got to observe the 3 year-old mind engage in pure imagination for about 2 hours with a set of toy cars. (and Megan was enjoying every second of it). I wonder if there is something lost when we grow up. When was the last time I played with cars? I no longer play with cars, but I do find great enjoyment in things such as tuning my bike, building bookshelves, and gardening. I think that we would all be a little happier if we could find fundamental outlets for our wandering imaginations.
What if we stuck it to the man, and went ahead and rebroke the record for World's Longest Softball Game? 127 hours! Who's with me?

Comments

  1. Matt Keathley12/12/05

    I am with you for 127 hours!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Megan12/12/05

    Since Derek drew your name for Christmas maybe he will get you some cars to play with.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Systematic Cooking and the evolution of phones

Image
I don't mind eating the same thing repeatedly. Egg sandwiches in the morning. Roast beef sandwiches for lunch. Bagel Bites for dinner. All have been eating phases that I have gone through. Now that we are settling into our surroundings a little more here in Orange County, we felt a little more comfortable to just take it easy on the weekends. So, we cooked. I decided that I wanted to make a lasagna (and Noel made a great chili at the same time), which meant finding the top rated recipe on allrecipes.com. Badda bing badda boom-- 'I got me a whole lot of lasagna'. Thus, I get to have lots of lasagna all week long and and all I have to do to cook is stick it in the microwave. In some respects it is like the widow and her miraculous lamp. And on to the evolution of phones. The iconic figure of Zack Morris using his gigantic mobile phone during class sticks out in my mind as the essence of cool. Swing forward to 2001 and you will find Derek Zoolander, the top male m...
Read more

Busy, busy, busy

Image
Memories and thoughts disappear if not stored, recorded, written, or memorialized somehow. Of course, this immediately makes me think of pre-literate societies and what it must have been like to have only a few recorded memories, thoughts, pictures, or keepsakes not yet even 50 years ago. Now, every moment of every day is recorded, synched, uploaded, stored, and searchable to myself (or others). What then is to be done? Shirk the norms? Embrace the present culture? Moderate between the two? And yet, I have digressed . . . Yesterday's trip down memory lane truly allowed me to see the types of thoughts that were retained and more importantly the frequency. What seemed regular and consistent in 2006 and early in China, understandably diminished once marrying Noël, moving back to the States, further diminishing once beginning at PCA, and almost disappearing in Long Beach, and continuing through early Yakima and teaching, until now. What types of memories were retained? Well, I have ...
Read more

Snake

Image
It will have been fifteen years ago this year that I got my first cell phone. It was a Nokia something that had interchangeable faceplates. The phone-brick called people, received calls, and had games buried deep within the OS. My favorite was a this little gem: snake. The game was occasionally played but never mastered. Well, because you always died. The snake would eat too many apples, get too long, become unwieldy, and then you would run into yourself. My score never topped 200 and it didn't even matter. Scores on games on my phone didn't matter, because it was irrelevant to life. The phone barely mattered because I would rarely use it. I had other things to worry about. About this same time, in high school I start playing console games. I can thank Mike Stork for subsidizing the purchase of my first--a N64. That summer Mike gave me to do work around his property. It kept me busy and allowed me to save, and when I had enough money, I purchased the golden goose egg of the...
Read more