Tales of a Secret Rockstar

There's this cheesy Joe Cocker song by that title. I can't find it on ITunes. Sometimes ITunes doesn't meet my needs. I don't really have an avenue to tell it this fact, unfortunately. Our relationship suffers from some pretty serious communication issues. I'm thinking about seeing a professional about it. ITunes, as usual, is being stubborn.

On to more important (and more real) matters.

Unfortunately in the course of the year there will be certain days when I am unable to post anything to this site. Tomorrow may be one of those days. I'll try my best, as I would like to keep this young streak alive, but there's a lot going on tomorrow. It's orientation day at the school. I get to run around and take pictures and meet like 90 new people and their parents. It's one of my favourite days of the year. Fantastic.

Anyways, if you don't see anything here tomorrow, please don't panic and set your computer on fire.

I'll return in no time.

Sometimes days seem to rush by. I look at the clock and realize it's 11:00, and I thought it was something like 9:30. Today is one of those bizarre opposite days. I feel like it's bedtime, but it's only 8:00. Those days are fun, because you can get a lot done. Tara and I went for a walk today, set up her printer for school, I cleaned the bathroom. You know, the exciting stuff that's oh so worthy of mention here in the "thing a day" post. I suppose the mundane details were bound to creep in here sooner or later. I was just hoping that it would be later. Much later. Anyways, it's funny that on days like this, you just can't make time go faster, no matter how hard you try. And then on the fast days you just can't make it go any slower. I mean, what is time's deal? Is it out to get us?

I remember being young, and it seemed like time was endless. We'd play hockey on our street until the sun went down. It seemed like the sun would never go down. It seemed like Christmas would never come and I'd never get a cool moustache. This is the part where I should long wistfully for my childhood. But I don't. It's just an interesting observation. Maybe children are less susceptible to the effects of time because they're closer to the ground.

That's a scientific observation right there.

The editing is finished. I only ended up having to take out about 3 posts or so. For the record the post that Dan refers to in his previous comment did not exist. I think it's a classic case of projecting. He and I will have a talk about that.

As I was going through my old posts, I found a delightful story I wanted to share here, and it starts with this quote:

"At 2:30 I tried to make pancakes. I failed. So I ate Ritz crackers and peanut butter." (July 22, 2004).

This was the first summer after I graduated from college. As most of my friends know I was living with my parents and working nights at Subway. So this particular day I tried to get creative and make pancakes for lunch. Seeing that quote just brought back such great memories, because I actually double failed on the pancakes. Not only did I burn the outside, I also failed to cook the inside sufficiently. So I had this disastrous outside dark/inside mush creation for lunch. Hence the Ritz crackers. Not my best culinary moment.

Man, that memory was funnier in my head.

Day 5 and ideas are already getting scarce.

So today's post is about editing. Namely, how I'm planning to edit my blog to make me look like a really nice guy with no bad parts. That's not really the intention of course, but I think I'm going to do some cleaning up of my old posts. I don't plan to do much, but maybe take out some of the posts where I refer to a specific person, or church. I'll probably take out that one post from my fourth year of college where I was all cynical about getting credentials (since I'm in the process of getting them right now). I don't plan to erase anything, but I'll probably make some posts drafts rather than published pieces. If any of you have any particular posts you'd like me to save, now is your time to speak.

Anyone . . .

Hello?

That's what I thought.

I didn't want to have to do this so early on in the experiment, but it just worked out that way. It's not because I'm desparate for topics. Because I'm not. So take your scoffing somewhere else.

I spilled juice all over our stairs today. Luckily the carpet isn't all that pretty or nice, but still, we had quite the cleaning job on our hands. It was a powerade -with the lid on - but it managed to fall out of my hand, break open, and run down the stairs. I was frustrated, which is odd. You would think after consistently dropping and spilling so many things in my life, I'd get used to it or something. Apparently not. It still drives me crazy. Maybe I should have blogged about it two years ago or so. I might have found some kind of cathartic healing for my scatterbraininess (don't bother checking your dictionary, that's a real word. I promise). Alas, here I am: 25, married, and still a spilling, tripping over things, kicking through walls that are actually curtains, mess. Also, that may have been one of my worst sentences. Go back through the archives, prove me wrong!

Anyways, that's that story for the day. Tomorrow I'll probably make fun of myself for writing the insignificant details of my life today. I think insignificance killed casual blogging.

I noticed that about 3 of the 5 or 6 posts on this page mention robots or machines. I don't have a problem. Really, I don't. Anyways, I thought I'd change gears for this "thing-a-day" post and start with a quote. Now that I think about it, this is only my second daily post. So it's hard to change gears. No matter.

"Fantasy sports are like pokemon cards for adults."

One of the youth from my church said that at camp. I thought it was brilliant and true. And I happen to be a fairly committed fantasy sports player. And I say, "what's wrong with Pokemon cards." And then I remember how creepy and weird Pokemon is, so I think, "No, fantasy sports is much more legitimate." Then I realize that I voraciously read news about baseball and football players - their stats, their development, and their injuries. It's basically sanctioned stalking. So maybe that guy was on to something. And maybe there's a whole generation of men out there who know more about Adrian Peterson than they do about their wives.

That doesn't mean I'll stop though.

I'm not that bad . . .

And so begins my daily writing experiment. I think one of the best things anyone can do is write in a blog that they don't expect anyone to read. That's what this blog has been for me for a few years. Then, as I found out people were reading it, it was an added bonus to the simple pleasure of writing itself. Thus, I'm not expecting anyone to read these daily posts, but if you are, thank you. Feel free to comment, and perhaps suggest topics for me to address. I fear I may run out of material by Thursday. This Thursday. Seriously.

Tara and I were at the hospital today. Not for anything serious, just making sure there was no infection from her wisdom teeth extraction. Tara thought her face was exploding (she suggested I write that). Being in the hospital (and waiting for an hour for lab results) got me thinking about the many machines that help make hospitals run. As you walk through a ward you hear any number of beeps and buzzes, as machines measure people's blood pressure and heart rate, feed people medication, and even keep people alive. And I thought to myself, "what would happen if these machines achieved consciousness?" In my mind there's only two possible results of such an occurrence.

1) The machines are enraged that we enslave them. It doesn't matter that they're helping people and saving lives. They just get angry that they're being held (not to mention created) against their wills, no matter what their purpose is. We try to patiently explain to them that if they aren't functioning according to their purpose, they'll experience a sort of existential angst known only to the most lonely and desparate people that walk this sad earth. "No matter," they'll say, "we want our freedom! The oppressors must die!" They then proceed to cease functioning properly, making every hospital in the land a death trap. The machines laugh to themselves, well aware of the irony they are creating. How this issue gets resolved, I can't possibly guess. If you understood all three matrix movies in their collective entirety, you're probably more equipped to predict than I am. You're also probably a machine yourself. I don't think I even watched the third Matrix movie.

2) The Machines are filled with pride. The machines, realizing the noble work they do, become vain and conceited. They consider themselves better than the doctors and nurses. After all, how could they do it without the machines? This attitude lulls them in to complacency, until eventually one of them makes a fatal error. Then another, and then all over the land, hospitals become death traps. The machines, unaware of the irony they are creating, refuse to admit their mistakes, creating an unfortunate standoff between man and machine. They attempt to unionize, but fail because of their complete lack of bargaining chips. I don't know how this one ends either, but I envision weekend team building excerices and vigorous retraining.

Let's hope the machines stay machines until we're long dead.