The Perks of Disability:

The nice thing about being deafblind is that nobody really expects much from you in terms of earning power or achievement. So, you might as well do what you like doing.
     -Christina Hartman

Dead Christmas Trees:

My beerdrunk soul is sadder than all the dead Christmas trees of the world.
   -Bukowski

Not that I'm any sadder than usual. I just like the metaphor. Dead Christmas trees are really sad. All the huge buildup to the holidays, the anticipation, the waiting, and then the days after? Dead trees lying along the streets, waiting for the next garbage pickup.

Born on Christmas:

 Mass-murderers are simply people who have had ENOUGH.
     -Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant

The Innkeeper:

Do you know what it is like to run an inn - to run a business, a family, to run anything in this world for me that matter, even your own life? It is like being lost in a forest of a million trees, and each tree is a thing to be done. Is there fresh linen on the all the beds. Did the children put on their coats before they went out? Has the letter been written, the book read? Is there money left in the bank? Today we have food in our bellies and clothes on our backs, but what can we do to make sure that we will have them tomorrow? A million trees. A million things.

Until finally we have eyes for nothing else, and whatever we see turns into a thing. The sparrow lying in the dust at your feet - just a thing to be kicked out the way, not the mystery of death. The calling of children outside your window - just a distraction, an irrelevance, not life, not the wildest mirracle of them all. That whispering in the air that comes sudden and soft from nowhere - only the wind, the wind...

      - Frederick Buechner, The Birth

Are You God?

Butterfly: I can see it. I can see it all. I can see everything there is in this world.

Boy: Are you god?

Butterfly: No. But I think I've met god.

Boy: There's a coincidence. I met god too, once. When I was in the hospital with an injury a while ago... god grieved for my unhappiness and brought me a gift. This little tin box. Inside is magic that will grant any wish, but only once.

    -Inio Asano, Nijigahara Holograph

The Longest Night

It's the longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere. Say a prayer and remember Goethe's final words: more light.

Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that’s been our unifying cry: more light.

Sunlight, torchlight, candlelight, neon, incandescent, light to banish the darkness from our caves, to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier’s Field, little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we’re supposed to be asleep, light is a metaphor.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet. Rage, rage against the dying of the light! Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on. The night is dark and I am far from home, lead thou me on. Arise, shine, for thy light has come. Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light.

-Northern Exposure

New Year's Resolution:

My resolution for 2015 is to only dread one day at a time.

Goodness:

"If you want it.... you got to make it out of badness. Badness.... And you know why? Because there isn’t anything else to make it out of."

"If, as you say, there is only the bad to start with, and the good must be made from the bad, then how do you ever know what the good is? How do you ever recognize the good? Assuming you have made it from the bad. Answer me that.”

"You just make it up as you go along."

   -Robert Penn Warren, All The King's Men

What's Missing?

I was really hoping for joy and happiness, but it's not one of the choices.

Only the Present is Left:

"Yeah, but man that was good."

"How Good?"

"Like there's no past or future anymore."

"The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory."

 -Haruki Murakami, Kafka by the Shore

The Human Heart:

The heart is but a small vessel; and yet dragons and lions are there, and there likewise are poisonous creatures and all the treasures of wickedness; rough, uneven paths are there, and gaping chasms. There also is God, there are the angels, there life and the Kingdom, there light and the apostles, the heavenly cities and the treasures of grace: all things are there.
   — Saint Macarius, Homilies, 43:7

What Do You Want:

You have this one life. How do you wanna spend it? Apologizing? Regretting? Questioning? Hating yourself? Dieting? Running after people who don’t see you? Be brave. Believe in yourself. Do what feels good. Take risks. You have this one life. Make yourself proud.

   -moonist

Terrifying:

You are terrifying and strange and beautiful, someone not everyone knows how to love.
   ―Warsan Shire

If You Could:

If you could read my mind, you would be in tears.

-curiano.com

Next Year:

I think I need to shake up my life next year and get a goldfish or something.

Don't Touch:

If you meet thousands of people and none of them really touch you, that's probably because you're living in a virtual world.

Not Okay:

She stood looking out the window at the deserted streets. I could see her face reflected in the glass. She looked so lost, but there was nothing to be done. I reached and patted her shoulder. "It's going to be okay," I said.

"No, she said, "it won't." She turned to face me. Her eyes had the dead look of windows in an abandoned building. "And it never will be."

She walked past me, leaving me alone to look at the desolate streets. They looked as empty as I felt.

   -An Ending to a Story I'll Never Write

Not Enough:

The truth is there’s not enough miracles to go around, kid. And there’s too many people petitioning God for the winning lotto ticket. And for every answered prayer, there’s a cricket with arthritis.

― Shane Koyczan, The Crickets Have Athritis

Shame & Guilt:

Of the seven deadly sins, which do you think is the most fun? The seven deadly sins are as follows:

1. Lust
2. Gluttony
3. Greed
4. Sloth
5. Wrath
6. Envy
7. Pride

As the sex drive is second only to the drive for self-preservation, lust is going to get a lot votes. Plus it is the first in the list, so it's probably one of the more enjoyable ones.

Gluttony? No way. Eating is great, but nobody wants to be fat. Losing the weight is too painful. It should probably be removed from the list.

Sloth isn't a bad one. It feels great to be able to sleep late and generally do nothing all day. But doing nothing gets boring fast.

Frederick Buechner thinks that wrath may possibly be the most fun:

To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself.

I have to agree with him. It does feel good to relive old wrongs and lash out at the one that hurt you last month or whenever and inflict as much pain on them as they caused you. But if it's someone you care about, what does it get you?

Shame and guilt.

Loneliness:

Loneliness is like the tide. It ebbs and flows and you think you think you can ignore it. And then one day, a rip current drags you out to sea and you realize you're going to die adrift and alone.

Light for the Darkness:

Your weirdness will make you stronger. Your dark side will keep you whole. Your vulnerability will connect you to the rest of our suffering world. Your creativity will set you free. There's nothing wrong with you.

     -Light for the Darkness

A Gift:

The boxes of hope offered by Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering reminded me of a poem by Mary Oliver. In the poem, she writes how someone she once loved gave her a box of darkness. Years later, she understood it was a gift:

The Uses of Sorrow
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.

Why I Write For You:

Perpetual Suffering:

Semi-occasionally I attend church services at Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering. Today was of those times. It was the promise of cookies and hot chocolate during the lighting of the church Christmas tree that drew me out.

Something during the service today fired my imagination. It was a box of hope. The church was offering everyone a box of hope. An actual physical box with hope written on the outside. It was symbolic of course, but you could take as many boxes as you wanted.

Wouldn't it be great if you could give hope, instead of clothes and food or money? "Here, have some hope. This should get you through next week. I wish I could give you more, but it's all I have."

Love Equals Insanity:

Edgar Allan Poe claimed to have never suffered from insanity. To the contrary, he enjoyed it. It was only near the end of his life though, when it became apparent why he enjoyed insanity. He said he was never insane  except upon occasions when his heart was touched. I think he enjoyed the insanity because he was in love. Everybody enjoys being in love, even if they're insane.

0.005%

99.99 percent of the people online would not care if I killed myself. Perhaps 0.01 percent would care. Of those, maybe one half, about 0.005 percent would weep and be sad if I committed suicide. You're one of the 0.005 percent.

Await Your Reply:

We are on our way to the hospital, Ryan's father says.
Listen to me, Son:
You are not going to bleed to death.

Ryan is still aware enough that his father's words come in through the edges, like sunlight on the borders of a window shade. His eyes are shut tight and his body is shaking and he is trying to hold up his left arm, to keep it elevated. We are on our way to the hospital, his father says, and Ryan's teeth are chattering, he clenches and unclenches them, and a series of wavering colored lights - greens, indigos - plays along the surface of his closed eyelids.

On the seat beside him, in between him and his father, Ryan's severed hand is resting on a bed of ice in an eight-quart Styrofoam cooler.

    -Dan Chaon, Await Your Reply

They Say:

They say you're the average of the people that surround you. I think I need to up my game because I'm holding everyone back.

My Most Common Thought:

I'm never getting out of this country.

The Famine:

In the future people will sit around campfires outside their caves and tell stories about the wondrous past. They will marvel over how being fat was a problem. They will regale one another with tales of people in the past running merely for exercise and not because they needed to kill something to eat. In sum obesity is cured in the future by one of the four horses of the apocalypse: famine.

Illusions:

“The world is a dream, you say, and it’s lovely, sometimes. Sunset. Clouds. Sky.”

“No. The image is a dream. The beauty is real. Can you see the difference?”
    ―Richard Bach, Illusions  

A sunset is just wavelengths of light refracted through the atmosphere as the sun disappears behind the horizon. Clouds are water vapor, fog in the sky. And the sky? It doesn't even really exist.

A-Frames:

In the mood to smoke a pipe on the front step of quaint A-frame house, in the middle of some secluded wilderness away from this shitty world, with a scruffy man beside me.
   -Lost & Weary

Feel Something:

Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.
 ―Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park 

I'm reading Eleanor & Park now.  Well, not at the moment. Right now, I'm actually posting a blog entry. But later, I'll be finishing the book. I left off at Chapter 22.

Time Goblins:

I buy the minutes you squander from a team of traveling goblins who steal those extra minutes and resell them. I don't have 24 hours in a day; I have 36. Every time you come to your senses after drifting off into some sort of vacant stare, well, thank you. Those are now my minutes, and I intend to use them to torment you.

  -Janet Reid, Literary Agent

Something Crazy:

If i could be any part of you i'd be your tears. To be conceived in your heart, born in your eyes, live on your cheeks and die on your lips, but please dont say you love me unless you really mean it, because I might do something crazy like believe it.
    -TrixieI

Prefers Waffles:

I'm a member of the group Prefers Waffles Over Pancakes. What's your preference? I didn't realize it was so controversial. See the discussion at Tougher Than Timber:

I almost unfollowed you because you chose pancakes over waffles but I just like your blog too damn much.
    A question by Anonymous

Love Me:

Love me like I'm your first.
  -Blossomfully

Your should really be reading Blossomfully. She's a beautiful soul. I wonder if I should create a tumblr blog. That platform seems to have the best bloggers.

Slowly At First:

I met a woman that really liked my blog. She fell in love with it the way Hazel Grace fell in love with Augustus Waters. The same way we fall asleep. Slowly at first and then all at once.

Almost Famous:

Cuppycake Charisma put a photo of me on the cover of National Geographic. I'm almost famous.

Can't Go Home:

Home is a time, not just a place.

  -Ian Thomas

My home is in the past, that's why I can never go home.

Keep It Together:

When you feel like you're falling apart and you can't keep it together any longer, wrap both arms around yourself, and hold yourself together.

Lonely Tonight:

What truths do you suspect are lies?

What are you afraid to speak out about?

When was the last time you felt confident about the future?

Can you remember that long ago?

What keeps you awake at night?

When was the last time you wanted to die?
Is your soul on life support?
Are you looking for a miracle cure?
Do you have plans to make things right?
Tell me your story.
I'm lonely tonight.

Lost:

She was like the ocean, full of hidden depths, dark shoals, and sudden storms. I spent months lost at sea.

Exploring:

It was like she had the world inside her and I wanted to explore every country.

Go Forth:

Monday is coming and I'm trying a different strategy, a pre-emptive pep talk. Somewhere between now and Friday, there will be an existential crisis, probably hours of depression and self-loathing, maybe even tears. I'm telling you now you can handle it. There is nothing that will happen between tonight and Friday that you can't handle. Your life is your life and and it beats the darkness:


Your life is your life don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.

Be on watch.

There are ways out.

There is a light somewhere.

It may not be much light but it beats the darkness.

Be on watch.

The gods will offer you chances.

Know them.

Take them.

You can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes.

And the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be.

Your life is your life.

Know it while you have it.

You are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you.

-Bukowksi, The Laughing Heart

Concentration:

Drugs are concentrated money.
   -Victor Vazquez

Temping:

You meet a lot of temporary people in Second Life. But every once in awhile, you meet someone with staying power.

The Self:

Really, a self is just a matrix of cognitive associations. Learned behaviors, tastes, opinions. Conditioned fears and and culturally imparted memories.... And with a complete enough series of progressive cognitive indices, with a more-or-less full ontogentic trajectory, you had a person. Theoretically, if could activate this data, you could simulate an entire other person.
    -Darin Bradley, Chimpanzee

Lost and Weary Traveler:

You should really be reading the blog of the Lost and Weary Traveler. She's a beautiful soul. In her own words, she's "a laid back person with a ton of anxiety." I think that's because she's Canadian. They're like that.

One Of Those Moments:

Sometimes the most significant moments in our lives happen when we make no choice at all. This was one of those moments. Her feet must have been only two feet from the ground as her body dangled like a rag doll from the door hinge. There was chaos: screams, officers running, hands shaking, fellow inmates praying, everyone watching with morbid curiosity as her limp body crashed on the cement floor, cracking her skull. Not that it mattered; she was already dead.
 -Linda Michell Marquardt, Milk & Tea

New Home:

I found a new place. It's not as beautiful and tranquil as it appears in the photo. I derendered everything that didn't fit in. There's life underneath the water. Some kind of Captain Nemo thing going on. Just dive off the dock and head down.  If you would like to visit, click here.

My Secret Life:

Everyone has three lives, a public life, a private life and a secret life.
-Gabriel García Márquez

SL is my secret life.

Don't Drown:

Depression comes in waves. Don't let it drown you. Keep your head up and breathe.

Me Too:

         ~Wanted~

Something to believe in.

The Candy Man:

Who can take a sunrise
Sprinkle it with dew
Cover it in chocolate
And a miracle or two
The candy man can

I used it to sit next to the Candy Man. He was always in a good mood and sharply dressed. He decorated his cube with pictures of his family and awards and certificates from his many years in the Navy. Even though I had started working there before him, my cube was bare, like I had just started yesterday.

He kept a bowl of candy on his desk. I resisted it as much as I could. I didn't want to be beholden to him. But every once in awhile, when nobody was looking, I snatched a piece and gobbled it down before anyone could see me.

I asked him why he put candy out. I thought it must be his way of ingratiating himself with his fellow employees as the new guy. Before him, I was the new guy. He said that he started the practice in the Navy, but he didn't really explain why.

We both moved on. He moved to another building, and I moved down the hall. I think I know why he did it. He was lonely. He wanted people to stop for a piece of candy and talk to him. I think it's time I got a candy bowl.

Certain People:

I told him I believed in hell, and that certain people, like me, had to live in hell before they died, to make up for missing out on it after death, since they didn't believe in life after death, and what each person believed happened to him when he died.

― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Why You Can't Sleep:

I know why you can't sleep. It's because somewhere, right now, someone needs you to believe in them. You. You need to believe in you. You must have faith in yourself. Screw the gods. They've been letting people down for thousands of years. Worship yourself. Be your own god, the first one ever to answer your prayers. Miracles don't come from above, they come from within.

Election Night:

 Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.
    -Stalin

Homelessness:

This is what a homeless guy looks like in SL.

A Short Story:

He was a collector of short, insignificant quotes with no actual use other than to postpone suicide. And when he ran out of quotes, that was it.

Homeless:

I'm homeless in SL now. My place sold after being listed for sale for a couple of months. I may be homeless for awhile. I was looking at places for sale and none of the parcels look attractive for the price that they're being offered at. It makes me wish I would have kept my old place.

Perhaps it doesn't matter. I kept a place in world so that people could demo my products. But most sales are through the marketplace, so for me a parcel in world really isn't necessary.

You're Not You

Maybe one day you'll stop punishing me for liking you as much as I do.

-You're Not You

A Bad Place:

If you're in a bad place, doing the right thing may not be the way to survive.

Can't Sleep:

When you can't sleep, it's because you're awake in another person's dream. And if a person dreams of someone that has passed away, that's when you get ghosts.

It Doesn't Count:

    Part of you is always traveling faster, always traveling ahead. Even when you are moving, it is never fast enough to satisfy that part of you. You enter the walls of the city early in the evening, when the cobblestones are a mottled pink with reflected light, and cold beneath the slap of your bare, bloody feet. You ask the man who is guarding the gate to recommend a place to stay the night, and even as you are falling into bed at the inn, the bed, which is piled high with quilts and scented with lavender, perhaps alone, perhaps with another traveler, perhaps with the guardsman who had such brown eyes, and a mustached that curled up on either side of his nose like two waxed black laces, even as this guardsman, whose name you didn’t ask calls out a name in his sleep that is not your name, you are dreaming about the road again. When you sleep, you dream about the long white distances that still lie before you. When you wake up, the guardsman is back at his post, and the place between your legs aches pleasantly, your legs sore as if you had continued walking all night in your sleep. While you were sleeping, your feet have healed again. You were careful not to kiss the guardsman on the lips, so it doesn’t really count, does it.

    -Kelly Link, Travels with the Snow Queen

Waiting:

Aren’t we all waiting for someone to listen to us, hoping that they’ll tell us we make sense? Isn't that why we spend so much time in a virtual world, stumbling from place to place?

The Girl Wall All The Gifts:

Would you like to be the girl with all the gifts? That's the title of the last book I read. It was the question implied in the title that first drew me in, how could one girl have all the gifts? She didn't have all the gifts though, just a couple of important ones, and not every gift is a blessing.

It's an Ender's Game with a female protagonist, and the stakes are high: the fate of humanity. The girl is only ten years old, but she's an important clue in finding a cure to a deadly disease that has swept the planet.

Is it possible to save the world and the girl? The book will keep you engrossed until its final stunning conclusion.

It's the Women:

Do you think it's possible

that some people

are born to give

more love

than they will ever

get back

in return?

-Tyler Knott Gregson

It's always been the women in my life that gave more love than they ever got back.

The End:

He saw her across the bin of oranges and started to push his cart around the aisle toward her. She waited, watching him approach.

When he reached her, she said, "it's been a long time mister. How have you been?"

"Haven't you learned by now to never ask me a question like that?" he said. "We both know I'm far from fine or even okay, but I'm a lot better."

"I'm sorry I hurt you."

"Don't be," he said. "I should thank you. You took a piece of my heart and now's there's forever a hole in it. But at the same time, it will always be open."

An ending to a story I'll never write.

Don't Smoke:

"You shouldn't smoke. It'll kill you," she said as I pulled a pack of cigarettes from my jacket.

I extracted a cigarette and said, "I smoke to keep something alive."

"What?"

"A memory of a girl. She always smoked. Everything around her smelled like a camp. Especially her car. I loved it. I loved her."

"What happened to her?"

"She died. Actually, that's not true. She was murdered."

Why Bother:

Why go to bed at a decent hour when you can stay up late wasting time in SL and being sad and feel even worse the next day.

Self-Improvement:

Things to improve on:

1) Less crying.

2) Not being terrified all the time.

3) Being more positive.

My Life:

My life feels like a do-it-yourself home improvement project that has taken way longer than expected in which the attempted improvement is making things worse and will probably never be finished.

Don't Compare:

Don't compare. You write differently because you are different.

Charles Dickens in 2014:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of smart devices, it was the age of stupid hicks, it was the epoch of miracle drugs, it was the epoch of Ebola, it was the season of enlightened disbelievers, it was the season of beheadings, it was the spring of electric vehicles, it was the winter of global warming, we had obesity everywhere, we had poor becoming poorer, we were returning Earth to a pristine garden, we were destroying the Earth--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of political correctness only.

Prehistoric Humans:

Do you think prehistoric humans ever tired of their career choices? Do you think a gatherer in hunter-gather society ever said, "I hate digging up roots and collecting firewood . I just can't take another day of digging. My nails are a horrible mess and my back is killing me. I'm throwing myself off this cliff."

Or a hunter ever thought "I am so tired of running after great bison. Everyday it's chase the great bison and then haul big pieces of great bison back to the tribe. I'm too exhausted to run anymore and my feet are killing me. I can't take another day of this. I'm going to sit down right here and let a dire wolf bite my head off. "

Doing It Wrong:

The other day a cop stopped me and says, "You're doing it wrong."

"Doing what wrong? I said. "I'm just walking down the sidewalk."

"Life. You're doing life wrong."

"How is that possible? There's no right way to live life."

"There may be no right way, but there are definitely wrong ways, and you're doing it wrong."

"Like, what specifically?"

"Where you are going?"

"Nowhere, I'm just going for a walk."

"No, I mean where are you going in life. Do you have any goals?"

"Well, not really."

"Do you have any passions?"

"I like to have an iced coffee now and then."

"This is what I mean."

The Sorrow to Come:

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine... the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat comes
slowly out and then goes back is truly worth all the years of
sorrow that are to come.
-Jack Gilbert, A Brief for the Defense

Your Voice:

Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness. And they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy… or they become legend.
    -Jim Harrison, Legends of the Fall

Blogs & Relationships:

Blogs are like relationships. Sooner or later you get bored and need something else to distract you from really living your life.

Silver Linings: The Novel

When I run, I always pretend I am running toward Nikki, and it makes me feel like I am decreasing the amount of time I have to wait until I see her again.

― Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook 

After seeing the film, the Silver Linings Playbook, there was something I didn't understand. Why would Tiffany be so interested in Pat? Generally, a young, beautiful woman doesn't pursue an older, unemployed guy recently released from a mental institution, who lives at home with his parents.

In the book, Tiffany was actually a few years older than Pat. Moreover, Pat had been married for about about ten years and had been in a mental institution for the past four years, not eight months as in the film. That would have made Tiffany about twice as old as she was in the film.

In the book, Tiffany also cared much more about the dance contest. She had participated in the solo event the past two years and won an award each time. This year, she wanted to be in the couples competition and the goal was to win, not obtain an average score of at least five.

According to Tiffany, she was scouting Pat for endurance, strength, and perseverance as a dance partner. Hence, Pat's strenuous workout regime was attractive to her.

The book, though, was not that good. It was written in the first person from Pat's perspective and he seemed like an idiot. He kept referring to the "bad place," which was the mental institution. 

I'm surprised the novel got made into a film. However, Tiffany's motivation for her behavior was clearer in the book. 

Could It Be True:

It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.         

-Oscar Wilde

Silver Linings, The Film:

I was a big slut, but I'm not any more. There's always going to be a part of me that's sloppy and dirty, but I like that. With all the other parts of myself. Can you say the same about yourself fucker? Can you forgive? Are you any good at that?  
    -Tiffany

The Silver Linings Playbook is available on Netflix. I loved the film. The great thing about this story is that it introduces two dangerous characters that are willing to take action to get what they want. They're not passengers in life, they're drivers.

The opening scene introduces Pat. He's just getting out of a mental institution where he's been incarcerated for sometime for beating up his ex-wife's lover. As a condition of his release, he's required to live with his parents, take psychotropic medication, and see a psychiatrist regularly. Pat will do almost anything to win his ex back.

He exercises strenuously to lose weight he put on before his wife's affair. He already looks like he's in good shape. He reads novels because his ex is an English teacher and he wants to impress her with his knowledge of literature, and be able to compete with the ex's lover, who is highly literate.

While exercising and reading is admirable, Pat comes across as crazy, stupid, and violent. Nobody can get through to Pat that it's over with his ex, not his family, friends, or psychiatrist. But there is one person that finds a way through: Tiffany. Her great passion is dancing, but she needs a partner.

Tiffany at first attempts to use her beautify to get through to Pat, but it doesn't work and we learn something likable about Pat. He means what he says. He loves his ex and would do nothing to endanger his chances of reuniting with her. Pat cannot be seduced. It's his superpower. But Tiffany finds Pat's weak spot. She offers to pass a letter to Pat's ex and Pat cannot resist. As a condition for acting as Pat's liaison to the ex, Tiffany demands that Pat become her partner in a dance competition.

It seems a bit like dirty dancing, but it's more like crazy dancing and it works. Two thumbs way up.

A Total Circus:

Life has been reduced to a series of long periods of boredom in the office punctuated by high-octane “experiences” which you can rack up on your list of things to do before you die. That’s not really living: that is slavery with the occasional circus thrown in.
– Tom Hodgkinson, Brave Old World

Outgunned:

In war between individuality and conformity, the individual is always outgunned.
-Suki, The Scribbler

Enjoying the Sadness:

I enjoy being sad. There is such pleasure in weeping. Tears are just laughter in liquid form. What I like best about being sad is that I get to write things I otherwise never would.

Once I watched a comedian joking about being a foster child. He said the foster system was where a child is taken from an abusive situation and put in another abusive situation that is no better. He used to play a game when he went shopping with his foster mother. The shopping game was about how much stuff he could hide in his clothes. He laughed about state child support paying for cable at his foster home and his real father being in prison.

It brought tears to my eyes and they must have been from sorrow because I wouldn't laugh at child abuse.

Ever Been In Love:

You ever been in love? You find yourself acting out of character, betrarying everything that you've ever believed in, and you can't stop because you don't want to.

-Suki, The Scribbler

What I Write For:

I write for everything and nothing and sometimes for myself but mostly I write for you.

Hand Drawn Cards:

Did you know Nintendo started out in 1889 as a company that sold handmade playing cards? To this day, Nintendo manufactures and sells playing cards in Japan. The company also organizes a contract bridge tournament called the Nintendo Cup.

In English, Nintendo translates as "leave luck to heaven." The most profound thing about the company is the Nintendo Wii. Before performing a hard reset, the Wii informs you:

Everything saved will be lost. 

Ender's Game:

Have you ever thought of saying screw the system? What if you ordered items online and when the delivery person leaves them on your doorstep, you claim you never received them? What if when checking out at one of those self-service checkout registers, you took a couple of items each time without paying? What if instead of paying for films and music, you downloaded them for free from file sharing websites? (Everyone pretty much does that already).

What's the point of following rules if the games is stacked against you? You're just going to lose anyway. That was the lesson in Ender's Game. If Ender Wiggins followed the rules, he would lose, so he ignored them.

If you haven't read the novel or seen the film, I won't spoil it for you by telling you what happened. It was a great novel. You should definitely read it for yourself.

Can't Get Past It:

"Do you think it's possible for a cat person to switch to being a dog person?" she asked.

"Oh, it's possible. I did it."

"Really? Why?"

"There was girl, and she had this little dog, a Pomeranian. It was a great dog. And the girl was pretty special."

"Do you miss her?"

"Yes, I miss the dog."

 "No, silly, the girl."

"Yes, I miss her too."

"If the girl was so special, what happened to her?"

"I accidentally killed the dog and we couldn't get past it."

Minecraft Sold:

In the news today, Microsoft bought Mojang for $2.5 billion. Mojang is famous for one product: Minecraft. Minecraft is like Second Life in that there are no specific goals for players to accomplish, allowing players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game.

Although Minecraft is hugely popular, it has never appealed to me. The graphics are primitive and everything appears block-shaped, even spherical objects, like the sun and the moon. Here's a screen-shot of a scene from Minecraft, showing a couple of sheep:

Impressive, isn't it? If Microsoft is willing to pay $2.5 billion for Minecraft, how much would Second Life be worth with its vastly superior rendering system?

Minecraft Ninja: