Open2Discussion

As my daughter passed her 9 month birthday a couple days ago, my wife and I suffered over how much she has grown.  It's a parent's eternal yearning to want their children to stay the same - but we also want to see them grow.  I was thinking how nice it would be to see things new for the first time all over again.  Just like the first time I experienced sushi, or tried to water-ski (I nearly cracked a rib that time). The newness of living is exciting.  Just like falling in love is so amazing.  With a brand new human being living in my house, I can experience all those new things all over again with her as my proxy. It's why mothers and fathers want to be there when the baby takes his/her first steps... We want to be a part of their lives through all the new things they do because it makes us feel good just to be there.  Parents sure are selfish when it comes to their kids.  We want them to have the nicest things, eat the best food, wear the most comf...

Henry David Thoreau. I'll admit, I’ve got a lot of respect for the guy. If you’ve ever taken an American Literature class in college, you know that they usually split the subject matter into two distinct periods and teach those periods in different classes with the Civil War being considered a natural border between the two. Having been an English major in college, I was basically required to take both classes and I have a rather well formed opinion on these two periods of American Literature. ALMOST everything written in America before the Civil War was crap. There were some notable exceptions: E. A. Poe and the naturalists/transcendentalists (among which, Thoreau was one of the most prominent) come readily to mind, as do some of the nation’s founding documents as simple and beautifully phrased prose. These are the exceptions, though, and don’t really make up for the mind-numbing boredom of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” or the diaries of Miles Standish. I contend that th...

It's been a long time since I've really thought about laundry.  Luckily, I have a wife and sister-in-law who successfully manage our dirty clothes on a regular basis, so I have nice clean pants to wear every day.  When I was in college, the laundry was always a dreaded ordeal, because the pile I usually had at the end of the month was more than one person could carry.  It usually cost $30 in total for all the washing/drying to be complete and took at least 7-8 hours - basically an entire day to complete.  You see, I had at least 30 pairs of boxes so that I could go a month between laundry days.  It was helpful because I find the repeating, non-stop task of laundry (and dishes too) incredibly monotonous and annoying.  I understand that there are those repetitious tasks in life that are unavoidable... there are even some repeating tasks that aren't all that annoying... but sometimes there are tasks that feel like they're sucking the life out of you one load ...

I have finally reached the point at which I am completely frustrated with my computer. Frakk you, vista 64! You see, I always have loved computer games. From my birth, I cannot remember a time where the glowing screen did not fill some part of my life: whether it was Mario and his dog , or rescuing civilians in a helicopter, At a very young age video games have made their way into my experience of stories and narratives. Maybe that is why I like fantasy so much: it allows me to escape and experience an adventure that I may not be able to myself. Or maybe that’s why I like video games, because of the fantasy involved. At any rate, Microsoft and vista have robbed me of the ability to play my favorite game: The Summoning. An epic masterpiece of adventure/roleplaying games, The Summoning was my first taste of a complex, subtle story where decisions must be made in order to progress but have effects on the gameplay without actually changing the story. It was less choose-your-own-adventure ...