Hipster Cool Dude

I have long been wanting new gadgets. And I have also been fashionably late in buying those gadgets. I talk myself out of them saying that in 4 months I will be able to get something twice as good for half the price. I am usually right, but when you never buy it makes no sense. So after spending 3 and a half years drooling over MP3 players, I received this one for Christmas:



Boy am I in heaven. This thing lets me listen to the radio, view pictures, and listen to my music on the go. So now that I am ultra cool and all, I have the right to wear this thing around. I mean I have seen people with earbuds in for a long time and it is socially acceptable. So the first thing that I did after receiving the gift and putting the Weezer Blue album on it was of course go out in public. "Hey honey, can you go get a couple items from the grocery store," was my cue. I threaded the earbuds through the jacket, hit play, put the player in my pocket and was off. Of course I did not make it out the door without my wife hanging her head in shame. Am I off or is that not still cool? I told her it was, but I don't think she believes that I am on the cusp of a culteral revolution or anything.

20,000 Reasons Not To Write About The Sea

I have been enjoying reading books once again. The past year has seen me read more books for pleasure than the past 10 years combined. I started out strong with Asimov's Foundation series. I explored many different aspects of Michael Crichton's imagination. I even gave Carl Sagan's Contact a try. Currently I am reading a book about heroic American figures that are not widely publicized.

So my current dilemma is to find a new book to read. I started thinking about different ideas and I could not come up with just one. A lot of authors I enjoy write thousand page novels that take 300 pages to introduce the characters. I don't think I have time for that. I enjoyed the quick fun pace of the Foundation series, so a sci-fi book sounded appealing. I pondered what genre of this crazy dorky world to explore and finally came up with a topic I was interested in. The following is the premise that I wish to explore in a book:

In the near future (50-400) years humans discover that exploring the solar system is very costly and not producing enough benefits. It still is only an elite few who can go up and small outposts are on the Moon / Mars etc. But the expected space boom just did not happen like the Jetsons promised. Somewhere in this time frame someone thought, "What about the 70% of the world that we can't live on?" At this point a new exploration / settlement occurs in which humans migrate / expand to the oceans and find new ways of living. It is much cheaper and easier than shipping people 100,000 times the distance to a nearby rock. Therefore this story is set with the expansion to the ocean as its backdrop. Now this does not include any people mutating into gilled creatures or anything. Just finding expansion room on Earth rather than elsewhere.

So I have searched for such a book. It sounds not only interesting to me, but also plausible. However, finding such a book has been anything but easy. I searched at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon.com, the local library, and even Google. The only possible solution that I have found is located in an annoyingly green background site titled If You Like This. Beware going to that site if your eyes are not steady.

So my wife casually laughed at my subject of search and said, "Why don't you just write the book if you can't find it?" So the more frustrated I get with my search, the more I consider the idea. I do like the scenario at least. Lend me your thoughts.

Am I Outdated?

I am coming up on my 25th birthday soon and the question above is in my mind. I have crossed over into geezer status it seems in many ways. I remember how things were better back in the day and miss the old days. I was going to put links to things in my post, but then was daunted by the task.

My wife and I were in the car coming back from our Thanksgiving trip and both started belting out a song and suddenly realized that it came out when we were in junior high. We both have pretty much stopped liking new music. A month ago I was seriously considering an offer from an infomercial for a CD featuring Best of the 90s rock. I still think of grunge as a new movement, of Weezer as great band, and Nirvana as the rockin rebels of the age. Bands like Creed and STP that don't exist anymore are still in the new section of my media library.



It was 10 years ago that movie blockbusters such as Independence Day, Mission Impossible, Jerry Maguire, Space Jam, and Happy Gilmore debuted. Jurassic Park was a 1993 product while Home Alone kicked serious tail in 1990. I watched The Santa Clause 3 this past weekend with my in-laws and in the movie they did a flashback to the first film... 12 years ago! Tim Allen is still the coolest... isn't he?



I guess I know what my kids will be thinking some day. Why do we always watch Home Improvement seasons on DVD and then have mom put in her Law & Order shows. Why does he listen to the oldies station that plays Mariah Carey, Green Day, Boys II Men, Pearl Jam, Coolio, Savage Garden, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Backstreet Boys, and the Smashing Pumpkins.

Oh brother am I ever locked in.

Today's Media Demands

I found myself sucked in again this afternoon. I happened to check cnn.com for news and there was some. "Plane Hits Manhattan High-Rise" caught my attention fairly quickly. My immediate thought was "Oh crap, hope there aren't more on the way." I figured that they had found a way through with small planes or something.

I then fell into an all too familiar habit of alt-tabbing over and refreshing the page every 30 seconds and expecting new information each time. The story changed several times. Sometimes it was a helicopter, other times airplane, and other times the safer aircraft. So once I saw that it was contained, I switched over and assumed that any second now the name and motive of the pilot would emerge. It didn't for quite a while and the first sign that I saw was an announcement by Yankees skipper Joe Torre. That seemed quite odd to me.

I finally found out the details and that Cory Lidle had passed away. I guess it was engine trouble, we will find out soon enough.

I have since thought about my actions today and wondered what is wrong with me. I am addicted to knowing everything the second it happens. And not only that, I demand accuracy in the reporting and complain to no end when the media jumps the gun. I think I can see why they jump the gun now. It is to get my attention because I am demanding something... anything. I have the sneaking suspicion that too many Americans are this way. We demand to be informed correctly for no other reason than to be informed. It doesn't move us to action or anything, we just want to know. I at least need to stop jumping on the hype train as often as I do.

So the only appropriate response of mine today is to offer my deepest condolences to those who knew the people killed tragically today.

The Glory Road

. : Politics : .

I watched a pretty good movie the other night and it got me thinking on a lot of things. I saw Glory Road by Disney. It is a story about the first NCAA basketball team that actively used African-American players in the 60s. One of the things that seemed very foreign to me was the racial hatred portrayed in the movie. The bad looks, the vicious words, the beatings, the KKK blood threats. It all seemed like something out of a horror movie to me. I couldn't help but think how far we have come since that time. I am sure that there are racial problems today, and I see them. But the widespread hate and violence just is not there anymore.

Now several of you are wondering where I am going with this and so here I go...

Let me first apologize in advance to anyone offended by these statements. I am not in any of these situations, but I can see parallels.

The recent struggle in the Middle East between Hezbollah and Israel have really brought to the surface deep rooted hatred. I see people cheering death, I see countrywide struggles over seemingly small things, and I see many many people blinded by their prejudice on both sides of the argument. Many people ask today for Peace in the Middle East, but almost every single one asks with a sly grin of sarcasm. When I was watching Glory Road, I saw an ugly past, but I also saw a better present. I saw a bad situation that I don't think anyone thought would change, but that has changed for the better. So I offer this positive trend as an example of hope to those who think that there will always be constant bickering and war in Holy Land.

Let me know if you don't see these as slight parallels and I will reconsider, but the situations have many of the same undertones.