Pony or posse. Whichever.

One of the nice things about thinking back to my childhood is that there are very few things I regret. Sure, I guess it would have been nice to have a pony, but since I was lucky enough to have the basics like food, clothes and parents who seemed to like me well enough, I really have nothing to complain about. See? I’m just a glass-half-full kinda guy.

That said however, I’m pretty sure it would have been a lot cooler to grow up with a posse in tow whose sole purpose would be to cheer and applaud my every move…. like Run’s kids have. How do I know this? Well, at the moment I’m at a skatepark called Dropin with my older boy and the place is crawling with cameras and production people shooting a segment for Run’s House in which his kids are kick-flipping and grinding the afternoon away.

Anyway, the point is that it’s just a little odd watching a pair of otherwise perfectly nice little kids being followed around by a production crew that seems to have only two purposes in life: filming everything they do and then clapping and cheering as if the emperor really does have clothes. Well, either way it sure looks like more fun than having a pony.

4

How did you spend your Easter?

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Critical Thinking.

The more I think about it the surer I am that I’ll probably end up retiring not to sunny Florida, but someplace civilized, like Costa Rica or the Spanish Mediterranean, or pretty much anyplace else but here. Why? Well, the reasons are more numerous than you might suppose, but there’s one in particular that old George articulates far better than I ever could, so:
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So of course the most compelling reason for hitting the bricks even sooner is that I’m a dad with two able-bodied sons and a marked distaste for the neo-cons of whom middle-America seems so fond.

But as always, have a great day anyway. =:-P

Perspective.

Hey look! A puppy! Awwwww, so sweet. I like puppies. They’re cute, they’re cuddly, and when they’re not busy whining or peeing they certainly do have a way of tugging at our collective heartstrings.

But here’s the thing about puppies. They’re not that cute, are they? Now certainly, what that marine did was pretty awful, but in the scheme of things does this story really rate the level of attention and outrage that it seems to be generating? Shouldn’t we be a little more worried about the human carnage being created daily by the untenable situation in which we’ve trapped our troops? I just find it baffling that day in and day out there are countless innocent people suffering through the spectacular chaos of our misbegotten foreign adventures, and yet as I sit here looking at today’s headlines it’s the puppy that has everyone’s panties in a bunch.

Well, truthfully I guess I’m not all that baffled. It’s just easier to worry about puppies and the legal fate of a single marine than to think through the ramifications of what’s happening in the big picture, isn’t it? It’s just human nature to be so easily distract… Hey! Is that a kitten? Awwww, looka da cute kitten…

Geeks Rock.

I guess I could have named this post “wordless Wednesday”… except that now it’s not.

Anyway enjoy the video, and feel free to Google any of the following terms if you think it will help: ‘Portal’ ‘Coulton’ ‘twit’ ‘Belmont’ ‘Mann’.

Have a great day.

Jonathan Coulton performs "Still Alive" in Rock Band from Joy Stiq on Vimeo.

Purgatory. Sort of.

One of the fun things about being me is that I’m reminded on a regular basis that there are very few things about which I’m entirely certain. Really, there are a lot of basic everyday things that I probably should know about but don’t. Why, for instance, do old people smell like that? Why is every guy named Chad a knucklehead? Why do people like ferrets? I dunno.

On the other hand, the good news is that as I get older there’s also a growing list of things about which I am very certain. Again, basic everyday things, like that playing poker is not going to make you rich, Britney Spears will never be interesting, and hanging out in a public library during the middle of the day is uncomfortably weird.

Yeah, so about the library thing. In the middle of the day it’s mostly full of people with reasonable excuses to be here: moms with little kids, old retired guys who natter on endlessly with the Rasputin-bearded-reference-desk-guy, and middle aged women trickling through with armloads of Nora Roberts novels. I, however, am one of a small number of apparently able bodied, pre-retirement age males who are here also. So what are they doing here? It would make sense if they were homeless, crazy or both, but I don’t think they are so they just give me the willies.

I, on the other hand, have a perfectly good reason for hanging our here. Really. We’ve been renovating our house since early December and the library is pretty much the only place I have left to hide from all the hammering, banging and general caterwauling that seems necessary for construction. It’s actually a lot like a living in a frat house where it’s perpetually Friday night, except the floors aren’t quite as sticky.

So anyway, despite the fact that my days are also filled with a lot of other domestic-y chores, this is where I inevitably find myself by the end of the day. Me, the Rasputin-bearded-reference-desk-guy and all these other guys with nowhere else to go. It’s actually kind of like purgatory, except it’s quiet and the bathroom is clean. Oh yeah, and the WiFi is free, so I can keep posting this nonsense.