The mouth of the beast

Just a couple quick comments because, well, frankly, I don't have much to say.

Wrote Tuesday night and was pretty productive. I was worried I was running out of ideas, but I've found that as a write, I usually expound upon what I have, so its all good. The sheer weight of the project is lifted, but now there is the fear of the end. I mean, if its junk, at least when its unfinished junk I can fix it. Once its written and done, well, that's my best product. If its still junk, that ain't good. In other words: I'm in the mouth of the beast.

Ugh. That last just reminds me that I CAN NOT seem to beat this boss in Ninja Gaiden. I'd actually like to move on because I'm frustrated as hell with it and because I'd like to beat the game and play another.

Loving Scratch Beginings so far. Loving might be a touch strong, but I'm liking it a great deal.

How can people so smart be so dumb?

I work with a pretty smart, if heavily liberal, group. The great majority of us are college educated, not that that makes you smarter, necassarily, as you'll see below.

I was talking with two guys who sit near me. We were talking, bitching really, about having to attend what seemed like a pointless meeting later that week.

Younger Guy said how he worked at Wal-Mart when he was a kid, and at the start of a shift, they did exercises or clapped in concert. Older Guy mentioned that lots of company's do "indoctrination" stuff like that, including (somewhat wrongly, I believe) our company. He compared it to the Nazi Youth Program. His suggestion was that, like the Nazis, these programs were designed to build support and belief in the "mission" and program.

I believe that, yes, corporations do these kind of team building exercises to build moral, build a "team" sense and to create good will.

But I walked away at this point. I don't particularly believe that our company does stuff like that. And I think Older Guy was expressing a blanket anti-corporate mentality that I didn't want to support. I hate that mentality.

But I was compelled to get back up from my desk and reinsert myself into the conversation. Because, as I pointed out, the difference between shift exercises at Wal-Mart (as cheesy as they may be) and Nazi Youth Program (as indoctrinare as they may be) have one thing that is vastly different.

You can voluntarily leave Wal-Mart at any point. You left the Nazi's through only one method, and it was not voluntary.

I just don't get how educated people, and not just educated, but smart, can miss this fundamental distinction.

Maybe the purpose of the Wal-Mart clapping exercise and the Nazi exercises are the same: indoctrination. But the voluntary nature of the former makes all the difference.

Avoiding false choices

It's Thursday, for certain reasons I have off today, and I haven't posted for a while, so I'm going to throw this up. Its from the Happiness Project blogged on Slate.com. I've been kicking it around for two weeks or so, hoping to come up with something on it, so I figure its time to kick it out.

Its about false choices. You know, stuff like "either I can be artistic or I can get married and live in the 'burbs." Why can't you do both?

Gretchen Rubin also brings up the false choice of:

“I believe it’s more important to be authentic and honest
than it is to be positive and enthusiastic.”

Why can't you do both?

Anyway, while I try to get into the mood to work on my novel here's the link.

Sigh. Maybe the American dream will die after all.

This graph is lifted from a Reason.com story about deficits.

Too bad Reagan ran up those huge deficits in the 1980s that Democrats are always crowing about.

Talk about heroic choices in every day life...

Democrats in 1987 and 2000-2008 were all up in arms about the deficit. Their almost universal reply to Reagan fans is the deficit. Their first anti-Bush (but certainly not the last) sentiment was that he turned Clinton's surplus into a deficit.

Now comes Obama, and well, the deficit, that's not such a concern anymore. Because, well, we need to "save" our economy. But since the economy shows signs of having started turning around in January 2009, before Obama was even sworn in, how much "saving" did it really do? And what will happen when the the turn around continues and runs head on into the stimulus that will begin to take affect in late 2009 or early 2010?

Before you think I'm on a rant... the Republicrats are no better. They talk up deficits and conservative spending, only to turn an about face when in power. Just look at the Bush years on that chart.

Think every day choices aren't heroic? Think choosing between two courses doesn't need to be in line with reality. If the pols had taken a second to consider the reality of economics, of growth and destruction, of the balancing of economics, they might not have done anything, and where would we be? Right about where we are now; except without the trillions of "stimulus" deficit that is coming our way, the possible inflation it will bring with it and the 100% guarantee of higher taxes in the future to pay that debt off. Think those choices won't matter? And those aren't even really "big" life questions.

I should probably read "Scratch Beginings" soon, before its either:

A) a comedy in that its no longer possible,

B) I have to sell it to eat or

C) all of the above.

This is truly, truly scary.

'WORDS' UPDATE: Add gaurantee, which I haven't been able to spell since, to my memory, 2000 and probably longer. Love to miss that first "u." Oh, and deficits, apparently, which I spelled wrong throughout.

Success is completing something

I saw a piece on TV before I went to bed last night. It was a movie channel thing, not sure which one, though I could turn the TV on and probably find out. Anyway, this guy's kid was talking about his film-maker father and the movie "The World's Greatest Sinner."

I was going to bed and in that "half listening" state, so I'm going to slaughter this, but he said something along the lines of "success is completing something." I think, I think, he said it because his dad's movie, while not a commercial success, got done. He had to write it, direct it, and star in it himself - it was totally an Indie production. But it got done. He couldn't get noticed in Hollywood, and so he did his own thing. That's the success. The finishing.

That's my standard for writing my book. "Success is completing something."

"This [is] life itself"

Nice little slideshow from Happiness Project author Gretchen Rubin here. I won't ruin the entire thing so you can go see it. But the titular line "this was life itself" shows up and it caught my eye. Why? Well, because I think all too often we ignore that fact. We ignore Rubin's sixth personal commandment of happiness, which to paraphrase, is that its the choices and journey, not the destination. This living thing we do daily is life itself. Sometimes I get the feeling people feel like living life isn't so great - they aren't happy because they don't have the life they want. And they don't just want another career or decision they could choose or undo, but some vague situation where they are free from the restraints of life itself. Its kinda hard to explain, but they are out of touch with what "life" is. They are ignoring reality. The kids, the job, the wife, the house. This is all "life." But sometimes its like people can't be happy, can't have a "life," until they are multimillionares who can do nothing but lie around all day and eat bon bons without worry. That, to me, ignores the fact that its the journey, that the choices, the kids, the job, the husband, the house, the good AND the bad - they are all "life."

Now, certianly, some of this comes with stress, and I'm not suggesting that sometimes people won't or shouldn't get angry or upset about each individual part. But I think sometimes people decide to get married, or have kids or they choose a job, and either it was the wrong choice (this is especially true, I find, in spouses and jobs, not so much with kids) or somewhere along the line, they forget why they chose these things. Life is all about these choices. But somewhere along the line it becomes routine and boring and not "life." But "this [is] life itself." Being unhappy with the "mundane" tasks ignores that its the process; that's what life is.

That's why I think life, every part of it and every choice, even the seemingly mundane, is heroic in nature. People often overlook the fact that every choice is somewhat of a moral decision: What do I want; what is best for me?

Quoting Ayn Rand:

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. "

Ignoring these questions, or blindly chosing without considering them, leads to unhappiness. So while the decision may not always seem big and important - like whether to rush into a burning building to save a baby - the reality is the 100s of little choices we make add up and can save our soul from being trapped in a small, dark, unhappy box. That's pretty heroic.

Alright, big finish with the Happiness Project article that initiated the entire post: For most of the choices above, you have to know yourself, and that's not as easy as it sounds. But its crucial, becuase its hard, very hard, to choose what makes you happy, what is best for you, if you don't know yourself, AND REALITY, and its pretty easy to think you do when you really don't. Especially if you are ignoring reality. Another heroic aspect: once you shut off reality in one place, it becomes increasingly easy to it in others. The cognitive dissonance is hard to handle at first, but you grow accustomed; then it spreads, and pretty soon, you're unhappy and so disconnected that you don't even know how to get back on the track to happiness.

* I owe a special debt of gratitude to Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy for much of this post and philosophy. Its my own take on it and I doubt hard-line Objectiviststs would agree with everything I posit or that its even Objectivism, but its largely built on her foundations.*

Wake me up, when April ends*

I've had a head cold/allergies/something for two or three days now. Didn't work out Wednesday; didn't write since Sunday.

Not to be too overly dramatic, but April, as slate.com notes, it ain't a good month:

This month is the
-16th Anni of Waco (76 dead)
-14 Anni of Oklahoma City (168 dead)
-10th Anni of Columbine (13 dead)
-2nd Anni of Virginia Tech (32)

Plus smaller copycats in Taber, Canada (1), Santee, Calif. (2), Red Lake Chippewa, Minn. (10) and Montreal, Quebec. (1).

And don't forget this year alone:
-13 at Bingham N.Y. April 3,
-3 officers in Pittsburgh April 4
-plus a father's murder of 5 children that same day.
-Two more in Charlotte over Easter.

Never mind Titanic (April 14) & Hitler's b-day (April 20; though the upside: his death is April 30).

I'm feeling better today. More rested after taking some Zertec prior to bed last night. Maybe rest was all I needed.

I'm blame it all on Spring. First there is the allergy connection. Add in cabin fever. Nice weather and people are getting out and about after months of captivity and depression. Some relish the sun, some let their cabin fever depression turn into hostility and BOOM. Not that it explains the Titanic or anything. I'm just saying.

*http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/greenday/wakemeupwhenseptemberends.html

Is this blog different from stupid, narcissistic Twitter/Facebook updates?

I mean, how is this blog significantly different than the pointless, mundane to the point of trivial to the point of the "I'm awake" post every 5 minutes in the chattering on Facebook?

I'd like to think this is a little more intellectual. A little more thought out. A lot more focused. A little less mundane, even if its only a "little less." Maybe a hair professional. But the reality is, I could post a Facebook update with just about everything I post here. Except it would have readers.

Narcissism (n):

"inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity."

Weighing in on the non-narcissistic side: Few readers. Who would construe this tiny, tiny pixel on the face of the internet as vain? Weighing in on the narcissistic side: Few readers, its of little import (yet!) and yet I keep at it the self-important posts, don't I? It's all me, all the time. I mean, who but a narcissist would do this with so few readers without income or fame from it?

The blog certainly could be considered to demonstrate an inordinate fascination with myself. But what exactly is inordinate. If I was alone out here in the interGoogle, I might say "yeah, this is a pretty vain process and inordinately about me." But since millions of us are blogging; many with as little notice as I've garnered; is it all that inordinate, comparitevely? Does it matter that I have few readers?

As Helen Popkin said in OMG, Shut up about twitter already:

"Baby fingers fit in light sockets. Should you put them there?"

I'm pretty sure she's suggesting you don't. And while her point is that just because you can post by-the-second updates on twitter, you probably shouldn't. So, just because I can blog, does that mean I should? So blogger and its millions of bloggerites exist, does that mean its not narcissistic of me to blog?

The effect of this affect is a compromise

Affect/Effect always gets me. I think its made worse because, when people try to explain the difference, they always reduce it to "when you affect ... you have an effect." In reality the two words actually amount to five distinct words, which adds to the confusion when you encounter the word used in a way that doesn't fit the simple explanation you've been given.

I'm pretty sure I used them properly in the head, basically, but I'm not 100% sure. Its one of the reasons I'm regarded as one of the copy-editor friendliest editors on our staff. I love our copy editors. Protect me from myself, please; make me look good. They really are life savers. It might take me twice as long to write if I had to check every little detail myself.

You know something funny, I've gotten to this point and had to check the spelling of "effect" because it didn't even look like a word anymore.

Compromise. Because I pronounce it wrong, I spell it wrong. I essentially say it "comprimise" or "compremise." Which leads me to adding an "i" as in the first spelling.

- I believe I don't have the war with this one (dashes) that other writers do. I try to use them sparingly. Still, I know I go through phases where I overuse them in place of commas. But I believe all writers, at some point, dash to their ultimate death.

Chew on this

I bite my nails. Its a nervous habit. Sometimes its pretty incessent. I worked on it nine years ago, got to the point where I had eight nails on my 10 fingers (poor thumbs), and have since relapsed.

Being charitable, I can say I have somewhere between 3 to 5 "nails" on an average day.

That ends today. Hopefully for the better. Its worse on Mondays. I know this. That's when I head back to work. My weekly deadline begins in earnest that day. Maybe our shift to more daily publication will help. Either way, its something I'm working on starting ... now ... and I'm hoping posting and having a somewhat public pronouncement might help.

While I'm on the self-improvement topic I might as well add this: I've paused the push-up challenge. My Belly Off challenge, while not time consuming, is too much I think. The program has me doing 70-90 pushups, so I'm getting a decent amount in. Not all at once mind you, but interspersed with other bodyweight exercises over 10 or 15 minutes.

Plus, its nice to change it up.

Anyway, I did push ups today to see how many I could do consecutively. And I got to 50. 50! That's a 66 percent improvement from the 30 I could do before I started with the whole pushup/body weight workouts. For my age, to pass the military Basic Combat Training you have to do 26 in two minutes (a score of 50). Here's the chart. Active Duty requires 36 in 2 minutes (a score of 60). I did 50 in 1:30ish (a score of 74!). Needless to say, I'm pretty happy with my progress.

I'm happy with my writing progress, blog posting, fitness levels. Its been a pretty good week.

More proof that I'm too sane to write a memior

Bonus post today!

I wrote here about how maybe I'm just too self aware and sane to write a memoir like Burroughs and Sedaris. To grounded. (And boy, in a couple days when one of my next posts goes up, will the preceding sentences be ... is it ironic? - you'll have to find out)

More evidence from a slate.com article:

Steiner describes in detail her relationship with her ex-husband, who choked her, punched her, held a gun to her head, knocked her down the concrete steps, and regularly slapped her around for four years. The somewhat fictionalized memoir (Steiner says she changed some identifying details and combined some characters) follows earlier essays in which she chronicled her anorexia and financial dependence.

This lady got THREE stories out of her life. One about an abusive husband, one about anorexia and one about financial issues. Even assuming I could do the Burroughs treatment to the events of my life, I doubt it was insane or flawed enough to warrant a single story, let alone three!

More evidence that my life is boring. And that no matter how interesting or exciting or well written, memoirs, especially todays, require some fundamental flaw in the writer or for the writer to be lacking in some significant way.

Words I hate - or - those that for some reason hate me

Well, hate is a strong word. Hate to spell maybe.

- Restaurant (believe it or not, I had to spell it wrong 3 times, then spell check it to get the correct spelling, here. I've had this problem dating back at least to my newspaper days, but probably much, much further).

- Beautiful (I actually pronounce it letter by letter in my head when spelling it ... be-a-ut-i-ful)

- Surround (I'm Ok spelling this one most times, and I'm OK with the beginning "s", and frankly, the "round" part by itself. But somewhere in the "urrou" part I get a tad bit lost and have to consult my mental map. Luckily I'm usually only one street over and a quick left or right has me back on course.) You know how if you say a word enough times, it loses all sense and meaning? It is like that, except that with surround, once I get by the "s" and before I get to the "ound," its spelling seems to have lost all sense and meaning.

That's it for now. Though I'm sure there are other words I have, um, words with, from time to time. I'll post them as I fight them. Or in groups. Its my blog, I kinda have say on how this goes.

Anyway, just kind of a light-hearted post while I get used to daily deadlines at work and put the finishing touches on two other posts I'm working on.

Ugh - so much to do, so much to do, so much to do, so much to do*

Fairly busy week.

I didn't write Sunday night, so I'd like to write twice this week. I like going Sunday and having one weekday available to me. This week it seems like it will be twice during the week. I need to write twice a week now. Have to write twice a week. First, I've got a couple ideas bouncing around in my head and I'm worried a richoccett is going to hit my brain. Second, I've got a deadline in my head I achingly don't want to miss because it will be nice to be finished, plus, it meshes well with other events that occur during that time. Just has to be done, that's all.

I've got a couple other projects going. The handle on our inside screen door broke Sunday night, that needs fixed. Pump on our outside screen door broke a month ago. Ditto. Back fence is leaning pretty bad. Ditto. Need to finish the fireplace and look for furniture.

I've got another personal growth project planned, but that's for another post. Maybe later today, maybe tomorrow.

(* Read the headline to this song.)

Bryan - Now with Ninja Slash Action!

Yesterday I booted up Ninja Gaiden for the first time since using my "collectible," "sold seperately" Leatherman Squirt knife on my own finger.

Check out the professional renactment.

Don't you hate it when you die just before a save spot a number of times during a really hard part in a game? You just know you'll have to go back through it all the next time you play. Well, that's what happened to me. I had died at a pretty difficult part just the morning prior to the knifing. It's still hard.

But because I'm playing now, I have the bonus of directing Ryu with a thumb that is still missing something in the way of feeling. It tingles on contact, so you know its working. You know how you can feel when your leg is asleep, but you can't quite feel the actual leg enough to control it? Its like that - but it doesn't go away! It makes controlling direction difficult, it adds another whole dimension during pretty intense fights, but wait, its will also become somewhat uncomfortable if my thumb pushes down the wrong way.

Why move around the action in a smooth, fluid way when you can move around in a boxy, stuttering way?

Tingling in the thumb controlling the directional joystick, lack of full feeling, discomfort if pressed on the wrong way. You can't get that from controllers sold in stores!

That's a $30 sensation; yours absolutely free! But only for a limited time. We can't go on like this forever.

All I can say is Sham Wow.