Journal Entry #49: Is That All There Is?

Date: December 17, 2007
Time: 21:53

I don't normally write about school in these entries, except to whinge about it, but this time is different. Tomorrow is the last day of this particular session, and the last day of the english class for which I signed on to do this blog.

I tried starting a blog on another site, but not much came of it. I know this was an assignment of sorts, but it was an assignment I actually enjoyed as it gave me a chance to show others my writing.

So, now that the class is over, that means this assignment is over, but does that mean I have to stop making entries? Not if I don't want to. It just means I don't have to make an entry every single night. Unless of course I feel like making an entry every single night. Decisions, decisions, what to do, what to do.

There are times when I have trouble making up my mind, it usually happens when I'm hungry, and there's nothing to eat at home, and I have no idea what I want, and I live in a neighborhood where almost any type of food is available. It's worse than the first time I ever stepped into a Baskin-Robbins®.

Before I did that, all I knew of ice cream was chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry, and all the "Mr. Softee" truck ever had was chocolate or vanilla soft-serve. So imagine being about 6 or 7 years old, all you know of ice cream, really know of it is two flavors, maybe three, and you walk into a place where they have Thirty-One Different Flavors. And I mean flavors you've never heard of before, flavors like "Cherries Jubilee", or "Rocky Road".

And then, you stand on your tip-toes, and you see them, the tubs of ice cream. Looking back, I'm surprised I didn't clutch the sides of my head and fall to the floor screaming in pain (Culture shock).

So where was I? Oh yeah, to blog, or not, to blog. Very good question.

I'll think I'll think about it for a while. :-þ

Journal Entry #48: Past Prologue

Date: December 16, 2007
Time: 22:09

Okay, let me get this straight. We orbited the Earth, then we went to the Moon a few times, and we've sent out some satellites, landed a few roving robots on Mars, and keep trying to fix a space station that has maybe two, or at most, a half-dozen occupants at any one time.

Is that all we've done in regards to space exploration? As far as I'm concerned, that's pitiful.

Y'know, there was a time, when there was so much promise. There was a time when the year 2000, and all of the years after, there was time when that meant "The Future". And here we are, we are in what we considered to be our future, and we have done nothing. Okay, maybe not nothing. I mean, we have polluted the planet to the point where winters aren't what they used to be, and I'm not leaving myself out, I've certainly contributed to the pollution rate.

We're still fighting with each other over a viscous sludge that is running out. We're still fighting with each other over whose belief system is better. (Psst, none of them, they're all open to interpretation.) The point is, we're still fighting, and I've had enough of it.

But beyond the fighting, and all the political rhetoric that is repeatedly bandied about, I'm still disappointed that we haven't gotten any further than our own galaxy. Yes, I could have said "solar system", but we have had one or two satellites go beyond Pluto. And don't even get me started on that! I mean, it's bad enough that Pluto has aways been the runt of the Solar System. It's orbit is completely different from the other planets, it's smaller even than Mercury, and because it's so far from the sun, it's pretty much a ball of ice. But now they go and tell us that it doesn't qualify as a planet, that's just wrong.

I keep reading these articles about studies that have been performed for experiments that, to me, are just about the dumbest things I've ever heard of. I would like to know which moron was kept awake nights wondering "Gee, what if mice weren't afraid of cats?" Is that what science has come to now, breeding a mouse that can kick a cat's ass?

I'm sorry, all I know is, I want my jet pack. I want my flying car, and my apartment above the clouds. I want to work in an office that has 3-hour workdays and is run by pushing a few buttons. I want to come home and make dinner by pushing some more buttons, and I don't mean the ones on the phone to order take-out, or even by logging onto a website and placing an order.

I want the future that was written about in magazines, and I want it right now.

Journal Entry #47: Imagery

Date: December 15, 2007
Time: 21:31

If you have a good enough imagination, and a decent enough memory, your head becomes a movie projector. You can remember cartoons and play them back in your head. Or you can read a book, and if it's based on a film, you can remember what the actors sounded like and put their voices to the words in the book. Now I'm not talking about hearing voices that aren't there, they are there, they're in your memory.

But every once in a while, if you allow yourself to let your mind focus on what it wants, then you can visualize almost anything. For instance, you can listen to a particular song, and visualize a music video to go along with it.

Okay, I admit it, I've found myself doing that very thing lately. But it seems to be to only one particular song. It's "Feliz Navidad" by Jose Feliciano. It doesn't happen all the time, just once in a while, I'll hear the song, and for some strange reason, something of a montage of Christmas-themed cartoons play along with the music.

Either it's one of the many wonders that is the human brain, or I'm just plain nuts.

Journal Entry #46: Ignorance

Date: December 15, 2007
Time: 01:44

Man! Between not getting enough sleep this week and having system problems tonight, I think this is the latest I've done this. Oh Well.

Onward!

For all of the information I've stored in my head, there are some subjects which I admit to being if not partially, at least totally ignorant of. Sports is one subject I can claim I have partial ignorance of. I know there are different types, I've at least heard of the Olympics, but I really don't care much for them. Oh sure, I'll show a little interest in the World Series, or the Super Bowl, but only if a New York team is involved.

I do remember watching a Super Bowl that had no New York team playing in it. I'm just not sure of which one though. I used to think it was a Bears game, but now that I've been looking, it doesn't appear to have been. The biggest thing I remember about it was that the final score was so lopsided, I wondered why the losing team ever showed up.

I believe the last Super Bowl I watched any part of was back in 1991, when we were in the Gulf the first of several hundred times around. That was the one that had the big controversy over whether Whitney Houston lip-synched to "The Star-Spangled Banner". This argument begged many to ask the question "Who cares?" I, at least, felt it necessary to ask these people the question, "Are you stupid or something? Haven't you morons realized by now how difficult it is to sing that song?" I found out, through a short film broadcast on Turner Classic Movies, that the tune that was slapped onto the original poem, is not only a British drinking song, but it apparently only sounds good if sung in four-part harmony, preferably by a barbershop quartet.

But we won't even bring up the fact that there's really 4 Verses!

But the title of this entry is called "Ignorance", and I kind of got off the subject of why.

I have read a lot of comic books over the years, and read a lot about comic books over the years, but as with anything else, I admit to not knowing everything about comics books and the characters that inhabit them. But this does not prevent me from expounding on theories about them when confronted with a question about a particular subject.

I've mentioned my friend Ray in some earlier entries, and how he and I discuss comic books. every once in a while, he'll have a question about something, either from the distant past (before he was born. I'm a bit older than he is.), or from something the relative present. Now what I tell him could be complete and total BS, but I present it in such a way, that even if it is BS, it sounds plausible enough to be true. I've even admitted to saying something that might not be true, and I've even said "But it sounds good, doesn't it?" And he agrees.

So, I admit to being ignorant about many things, but as someone once said, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh*t."

Journal Entry #45: Location, Location, Location

Date: December 13, 2007
Time: 22:42

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I've visited London 3 times, and the last time I was there I started feeling very comfortable.

Now, every once in a while, when I look at my mousepad, (which is a map of the London Underground), I get a feeling of homesickness, or it could just mean I want to go back (or so the would-be psychologists would try and have me believe. You know who you are.).

There is a website I used to visit called "Camvista.com". They have webcams all over Europe, and of course, many situated in and around London. Sometimes viewing those cams would only make things worse.

Lately, however, I don't feel as "homesick" as I used to, but I have been feeling something. What I've been feeling, and it came to me about a half an hour ago when I was looking at Google Earth. I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't be living in a different city. Which one? I don't know!

Look, all I know is, I'm trying to figure out where I belong, where I fit in, and I've been trying to figure that out for more years than I care to name, and I've been doing it in New York City. I haven't figured it out, so maybe I need to go somewhere else, maybe I need a different perspective on things and the only way I'm going to get that is if I go somewhere else.

So, of course, now I have a new problem. I have to try and figure out where I can go that can help me figure out where I belong. Well, if there's at least one thing I know how to do well, it's how to make things more complicated than they need to be.

Journal Entry #44: Ambition

Date: December 12, 2007
Time: 23:57

People are always making mistakes when they attempt to figure me out.

For instance, the biggest mistake people make is assuming that because I am fat, I eat everything. I don't. I eat a lot of certain foods, and not all of them are very healthy.

Another mistake they make is thinking that I know everything. Wrong again. I know a little bit about a lot of different subjects. What aids me in this gathering of knowledge is my ability to remember a great deal of that information.

But I think the biggest mistake people have made is their thinking I have no ambition.

I believe I do have ambition, it just doesn't apply to what I am doing now. For example, my boss would like for me to get more involved in the day-to-day goings on at a construction contractor. Such as, like today, going to a jobsite and watching concrete getting poured. Fascinating, for about 3 nanoseconds. In fact, just the other day, she pointed out that I don't have much in the way of ambition. Of course, I disagreed. I said, "I have ambition, just not for this."

So I have ambition, I just don't what for, so I feel like I'm doing 90 in a car with rear-wheel drive, and the back wheels are up in the air.

Journal Entry #43: Excerpts

Date: December 11, 2007
Time: 22:45

I'm taking a big risk here. I'm going to share a couple of excerpts from some of the stories I've written.

This is an excerpt from one of my detective stories:

Regina Caldwell is why men become poets. Her beauty is why sonnets are written and why birds find it necessary to sing. Her voice is why the sun rises and the moon sets. Her eyes could melt the heart of Ebenezer Scrooge before the ghosts show up. And if my wife ever knew that I thought things like that she’d kill me. Come to think of it, so would Regina.

This next bit is the opening paragraph from the first original story I wrote:

Childhood was dying. It lay in its bed, looking to all the world like a wizened old man. Those that were gathered at the bedside grew more frightened with each gasping breath. The de facto leader of the group removed Time from the room. Time was never any help in situations such as these. With her inherent arrogance, She would do naught but admonish they who lay dying. She would berate whoever they were for not making the most of the time they were given. Under most circumstances, She’d be allowed to rant and rave as much as She pleased. But this was different, this was Childhood.

This next one is the opening paragraph of what I refer to as my "Magnum Opus", the story it took me six months to write, the story that was inspired by a series of automobile commercials:

On a speck that the Universe would come to know as “Earth”, three beings that may be described as neither male nor female, stood atop a mountain, and in a language that is now long dead and forgotten, spoke amongst themselves. They stood facing each other. “Are they set?” asked the First. “Yes, they are set.” replied the Second. “Good, now we may leave.” said the Third. And with no further discussion, they left. What they left behind, however, they hoped no one would ever have to find.

And if I can ever get a literary agent and get that story published, you'll get to find out what that is, or was.

And now, these last two are from the Doctor Who/Quantum Leap crossover story that I've been working on, and someday, I'll find a way to put all of the sections I've written together in one big story.

Deep within the Milky Way, a mere thirty-thousand light years from the center, there sits an unassuming star system. It is called “The Constellation of Kasterborous”, although who or what Kasterborous is, or even was, has been lost to memory. But we are not concerned with the name of the star system. We are, however, concerned with the fourth planet. It is home to a most wondrous and unique race of people, a group of beings who claim mastery over time and space, “The Time Lords”. The planet, and the main city complex the Time Lords inhabit, are both called “Gallifrey”.

And this:

From the moment he stepped from the Imaging Chamber, Al sensed something was different. Not “wrong”, just, “different”. The thing that was wrong was that he’d just left his friend in an unusual situation, and he didn’t see anyway out of it. Sam’s body had disappeared from the Waiting Room, and it had taken Al and Gooshie several hours to find him. When he finally found him, he was sitting outside a bar, and babbling something about meeting Al’s Uncle Steve. And then, as if that weren’t enough, Sam began laughing for no apparent reason. With a look of confusion on his face, and a quick word of assurance that he’d be all right, Al stepped back through the door, and back into the control room. He’d taken a moment to collect his thoughts, and that’s when it hit him, the feeling that something was different. He checked everything in the control room. Nothing unusual there, except maybe Gooshie and Tina making goo-goo eyes at each other as they tried to keep track of Sam’s whereabouts. That was not only not unusual, it was downright disgusting. But he really shouldn’t complain. It wasn’t the first time he stepped out of the Imaging Chamber and found the two of them in a relationship. Once, they were even married! No, there was something else going on and he meant to find out what it was.

Journal Entry #42: Let's Pretend

Date: December 10, 2007
Time: 22:58

"Let's Pretend", "Let's Make-Believe", Now I know I'm not the only one who ever played that as a child. And no, I'm not talking about "The Land of Make-Believe" from "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood", although there was one part of the show that I actually liked. It was whenever they showed those little model buildings. I'm talking about the ones that you saw at the opening of every episode, and you would see them again whenever he went out of his house. Yes, those!

But getting back to what I was originally talking about, "pretending". Not to sound egotistical or anything, but I learned a long time ago how powerful an imagination could be. Sometimes, it was all I had.

I mentioned before how there were times when all I was allowed to do for entertainment was to listen to this dinky (read crappy), little AM radio. But when certain songs played, my bedroom window became my orchestra. It was pretty easy to imagine something where there was nothing because at the time, we were 31 floors up. At that height, the only mammals that could have poked fun at me were the seagulls, or the pigeons, and who were they to talk?

There were times though, when my pretend orchestra did not follow the arrangement I had seen in an encyclopedia. But since I was the conductor of this particular pretend orchestra, I could pretty much do what I wanted, and if I wanted the piano next to me as I conducted my pretend orchestra, then that's where the piano was going to be. :-þ

Journal Entry #41: Pandora's Box

Date: December 9, 2007
Time: 22:18

Way back in the mists of time, CBS Television used to run programming late at night. This was around midnight to maybe two o'clock in the morning, and as I worked nights, and would invariably stay awake until all hours of the night on my days off, I had the opportunity to watch some of these programs.

They all seemed to be produced in Canada, and the two I remember well were "Night Heat" and "Adderly". But the important thing to know is after these shows were on, CBS ran reruns of a program that was originally aired on that network in 1968, that program was called "The Prisoner", and it starred Patrick McGoohan in the lead role.

I got hooked on this show big time, I went looking for books about it, and I found two very important books. One was "The Official Prisoner Companion", a behind the scenes sort of book that also had the entire episode guide and a breakdown of each episode. It even had the address and phone number of where I could buy the videotapes. Which I soon did.

The other book I bought listed the "25 Best and Worst Science-Fiction Television". It was the 15 Best, and 10 Worst. Of course, "Star Trek" was #1, Twilight Zone was 2, and Outer Limits was 3. The Prisoner was 10, and this rather interesting little show called "Doctor Who" was #5.

So I read what there was about it in the book, and I saw there were a few videos to rent in Blockbuster®, and I watched them. I saw "The Five Doctors", a 20th Anniversary Special, "Deadly Assassin", and two theatrically-released movies based on two previously aired episodes. These movies starred Peter Cushing. Although, in the films, he was called "Doctor Who", and his travel machine, the TARDIS was something he had built himself.

But even as I watched the television episodes, and even the movies, the wheels in my head began to turn. And yet, it wasn't until much later that I became a fan. It was shortly after my brother had been diagnosed with HIV, that I subconsciously needed an outlet for the nervous energy that was building up inside me.

One day, I happened to be talking with one of the people in the VAX area of Network Operations, his name was Mike. Mike and I soon got into a discussion about Doctor Who, and he lent me some of the tapes that he owned, and once again I saw "The Five Doctors", "Deadly Assassin", but this time I also got to see a program called "Day of the Daleks", and I also saw all of these tapes with a different perspective. You see, before, when I saw the tapes, I watched them as a fan of science-fiction. This time, I was watching them as a science-fiction fan, there's a difference. You see, this time, I was watching tapes that belonged to fan of the program, that gave them a vibe that the other tapes, the rentals, did not have. And then the wheels in my head started to spin more rapidly.

And then, I was in a store called "Coconuts". They sold music and videotapes. I'm browsing through their videos, and there it is, a Doctor Who video that I have not seen. Well sure, there are a lot of them that I haven't seen, but this one was different. This one featured the Seventh incarnation of the being called "The Doctor", and this particular tape had extra footage that the previous release, which I had long since missed, did not.

So I bought it, finally, and I watched it. And I became hooked!

There was a moment in this episode, one tiny moment, that made me think. There was this bit of business where the Doctor is talking with a soldier on guard duty, and it was at that moment that I saw his eyes. The actor protraying the Doctor at this point is named Sylvester McCoy and his companion is Ace, played by Sophie Aldred. I looked at the Doctor's eyes and saw something, I felt there was something else there, something more than simply being a Time Lord.

Now this was long before I knew anything about the missing footage from a prior story called "Remembrance of the Daleks", and way before I even read the novelization of the final story, "Survival". So the Seventh Doctor, became "My Doctor", and his companion Ace, became my favorite companion.

In 1996, some months after my brother died from AIDS, and I took possession of his typewriter, I wrote a Doctor Who story, featuring the 8th incarnation of the Doctor, and his companion of the moment was a friend of mine who comes back after his travels and tells me the story that I may write it. I dedicated the story to my friend Mike, the guy who let me the tapes, which led to my becoming a Doctor Who Fan.

I wrote "Dedicated to Michael Taylor, who no idea of the Pandora's Box he was opening when he decided to lend me those tapes.", and I gave him a copy of the story.

I just wish I could that one published more than anything, but I can't. Y'see, that's the story that goes against all of the rules set down by the BBC for all authors that wish to write Doctor Who stories. Well, it's the first story that does that. ;-)

Journal Entry #40: Vagaries of Time

Date: December 8, 2007

Time: 23:57



Almost slipped my mind this time.

In Journal Entry #11, I made mention of using Google Earth to go flying through space. I mention that because I had an idea of what to write and I wanted to see if I had written it before. I also spoke of one of the actors from Doctor Who being part of what inspired my first story.

The actresses' name is Sophie Aldred, she portrayed the character known as "Ace". In the interview she said that if a big blue police box, which is what The Doctor's travel machine looks like, were to appear in her sitting room, and a man stepped out and said "You can sit here and drink cups of tea and go to work and live your life, or I can take you on a trip through time and space." She said that she would go. My story added one little phrase, "And have you back before anyone knows you've been gone." This is something I'd always thought about long before I ever knew the series existed.

Many science-fiction television series, books, comic books, and even a play or two, have dealt with the subject of time travel, and I've always felt that if you were to go into the future, or to the past, you should be able to come back to when you left so no one would know you'd been gone, and would therefore not miss you, or give your apartment to someone else.

But in some ways, there is a drawback to traveling into the future. What you see there, isn't necessarily going to stay there. In other words, "The future has not been written. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves." Cliched? Sure! But it's still true.

And don't go thinking that past can be changed, either, there are laws against that. Not the kind of laws you think, but let's say you go back and kill a dictator before they are born, or come to power, history says that there was a dictator at a certain time in a certain place, and if you get rid of the one eveyone remembers, history will put another in his place, maybe a worse one.

Journal Entry #39: Fairy Tales

Date: December 7, 2007
Time: 23:41

I think I may have mentioned a few times, either on here or out in what is called "Real Life", that I read a great deal when I was growing up. As I was a child at one point, it was sort of expected of me to read fairy tales.

But I found out something a long time ago that people are only finding out about today, the Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, and even Aesop, have a lot to answer for. I won't get on the case of Carlo Collodi, the creator of Pinocchio, he has enough problems.

But those other three, fairy tales were never meant to be told to children, or at least, should have come with a PG label on the book. Why, in one story alone, entitle "Great Claus and Little Claus" (no relation to Santa), you have moments of fraud, con artistry, blackmail, suicide, and even murder, all cleverly disguised. http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_claus.html

There were few, if any "happy endings" in any of Andersen's tales, people died, were transformed, or as in the case of "The Little Mermaid", well, I'll let you read that for yourself. http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_merma.html

Speaking of unhappy endings, I will give you one more link to "The Steadfast Tin Soldier". http://hca.gilead.org.il/tin_sold.html Okay, this site calls it "The Brave Tin Soldier", but the story's the same. There is really only one part of the entire story I happen to like, but as I don't want to ruin any of it for you, I will just say this "curbside stream", and maybe one day, I'll tell you more.

Journal Entry #38: The Funnies

Date: December 6, 2007
Time: 22:41

I finally figured out what to write about this evening. I admit it, there have been more than a few times when I have had idea zero as to what to write here, but now I have a subject: Comic Strips.

Now, now, I'm not going to into the history of comic strips, talking about one of the first political cartoons, or anything like that, I'm going to write about some of my favorites, and some of them are not in the newspaper, at least not in any New York paper I've seen.

I read Online Comic Strips.

One of the funniest I've read so far is called "Sheldon" by Dave Kellett.

Sheldon concerns a 10-year old boy, who is not only a genius, but he owns his very own multi-billion dollar software company. He lives with his grandfather, a duck named "Arthur", into whom young Sheldon implanted a dictionary, and voice-recognition software, and now Arthur can talk. He recently got a Pug dog named "Oso", Arthur hatched an egg that turned out to have lizard in it, who was soon named "Flaco", and Sheldon has a best friend named "Dante".

I discovered the existence of this strip many years ago when I was using the internet for something other than work. I later had the opportunity to meet the creator of this strip at the New York Comic-Con in 2006, and I bought the first book of collected strips from him and got it autographed.

I had to put the book down after a few minutes because I couldn't stop laughing.

http://www.sheldoncomics.com/

Yahoo.com has a great many online only strips, as does Comics.com, and Ucomics.com

There is one newspaper's website I've found that not only has some online only strips, but one comic strip in particular that you probably wouldn't get to see otherwise. The newspaper is the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the strip is "The Phantom" by Lee Falk.

What I like most about this particular strip is you get two stories for the same price. There is one storyline that runs Monday to Saturday, and another that is Sunday only. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/phantom.asp

Now I have to warn you, the storyline that that link takes you to has been going on for over a month. It concerns a little girl who has been going around her city, painting pictures of an heroic figure of a man she believes she made up, but in "reality", it's The Phantom, and he's been going around trying to cover up the paintings so no one asks too many questions. Her parents tried taking her to a psychiatrist because they found pictures she had drawn of this "Hero" and thought she was obsessed with "him", and had in fact, copied the figure from the graffiti.

There's more to the story, but I'll let you find it out for yourself.

Be advised though, a lot of these strips that have ongoing stories only go back a set number of days, so if you've missed the beginning, like with this one, you're pretty much stuck.

Unless of course, they find a way to reprint them.

Journal Entry #37: Other Abilities

Date: December 5, 2007
Time: 23:48

So let's review, I am a fair to middling writer, or so I've been told, and I have been informed that I take a pretty good picture, and that's not to say that I'm photogenic, I'm rather talented when it comes to using a camera. And as I've said on many occasions, I have a very good memory, if my brain is allowed to work properly.

But if the truth be known, there are times when I wish I was gifted in other ways.

I wish I could read music and play a musical instrument, and maybe even sing a little.

Of the instruments that are available, if I were talented enough to play one, I think I would like to be able to play either the piano, or the saxophone. I don't care if I wasn't good enough to play with a group or an orchestra, I just wish I could play.

Okay, I hear it, "So why don't you take lessons?" Time, patience, money. I don't have much of any of them at this point in my life. So all I can do at this time is wish.

Journal Entry #36: Favorites

Date: December 5, 2007
Time: 00:28

*Yawn!* Dozed off for a few hours.

Tuesday evening I was asked what my favorite scary movie was. I had to admit that I didn't really have one. I did have a scene from one that still gives me the jumps. It's from the film "Poltergeist", when the clown doll appears from under the bed and wraps its arm around the kid's neck. Just the doll's appearance makes me jump, even though I know it's coming, I still flinch a great deal when it happens.

I guess that's why I don't watch that movie anymore.

But that led me to think of the fact that I don't really have a favorite movie, I say that I have a few favorites, but it's due mostly to the fact that what I call my "favorites" are actually made of a lot of scenes that I especially like.

Take for example "People Will Talk" (1951) Starring Cary Grant. In this film, Cary Grant plays Dr. Noah Praetorius. He teaches at a medical school and is the head of his own medical clinic. As the main character, he of course has some of the best lines, but it's the following scenes that I love most. 1) Around the beginning of the film when he steps in to take over the lecture of another professor at the college. 2) When he's on rounds in the clinic. 3) When he visits the father of this one female patient of his. 4) When he appears before a board of inquiry to tell the story of his past, and especially about the man who never leaves his side, 'the man called Shunderson'. 5) Even though he doesn't tell most of the story of Mr. Shunderson, the care that Praetorius feels for this apparently simple man is easily seen and felt.

And finally, 6) Which even though is a bit of what is called "A Spoiler", it occurs at the end of the film, when Dr. Pratorius is conducting the school orchestra and chorus. I won't give away what muisc is being performed, you'll have to watch it yourself.

Journal Entry #35: Saturday Mornings

Date: December 3, 2007
Time: 22:50

When I was growing up, Saturday mornings were something special. Especially when I was allowed to watch television. Saturday mornings when I was a kid meant cartoons. Real cartoons, not these 22 minute, not counting the commercials, ads for toys and such. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's a use for them.

In fact, when they brought back "G.I. Joe" action figures, albeit at 5" tall, I saw the commercials for them and immediately said "There gonna make a cartoon series." Okay, I was about 16 years old when I said it, but I was right.

But cartoons when I was young were different, they were populated by Bugs' Bunny, Daffy Duck, The Road Runner and the Coyote. You had the Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show, a spin-off of "The Flinstones" and yet, a carbon copy, to an extent, of "The Archies". You see, back in the 1970s, whatever your characters did in your cartoon, usually hunting down fake ghosts or international spies, you had to have them appear as a musical group at least once during the program. The only cartoon characters that were allowed to appear as a musical group more than once were the only ones that were a musical group in the first place, "Josie and the Pussycats".

"The Archies" were a close second, but they would only appear as a group if the script called for it. I have to admit that there was one cartoon series I watched that, looking back, was pretty much the worst of the lot. That series was called "The Brady Kids". Yeah, them.

I think what made it so bad was, oh let me see, there was the talking bird, the two pandas, and the fact after the first year, the voices for Greg, Marcia, and Peter were performed by other actors. Oh, and we cannot forget "Jabberjaw", the undersea music group with a pet shark that played the drums, and sounded like Curly from The 3 Stooges.

But I have to say, my favorite program out of all of them was "The Banana Splits Show". It featured 4 people dressed in these fuzzy costumes, and they "hosted" a variety of cartoon shows and one live action series called "Danger Island" that co-starred an actor by the name of Jan-Michael Vincent. The one thing I always wished for was to be able to ride in the little six-wheeled carts they rode around an amusement park in.

Still do.

Journal Entry #34: Believability

Date: December 2, 2007
Time: 22:24

"He was hoist by his own petard."

I learned this expression while reading one of my science-fiction, or possibly it was a fantasy book, but in any event, this expression applies to me in a couple of ways.

I have been attending DeVry since April 2005, and all during that time, I have told many people how lousy I am in math. Unfortunately, with the grades I have gotten, no one believes me. Especially after getting a B in Statistics the first time out. I have been told that I have this tendency to needlessly worry over whether or not I'll pass a class, and lo and behold, I pass. So people tell me I worry over nothing.

If they only knew that it's my constant worrying that gives me the impetus to work my ass off.

Now, it is highly possible that anyone who has read that last line might have found it funny, or at the very least, somewhat humorous. This is another instance in which I find myself "hoist".

I use humor as a defence mechanism. It's not really much of a conscious thing, but I've used it so often, that even when I'm serious about something, people think I'm joking, or I'm trying to be funny. Even when I tell them that I'm not joking, or that I'm not kidding, they still have this inkling that maybe I am trying to be funny. Sadly, I'm not.

Through my writing, I have learned that I have a certain cadence to my speech, and I have a tendency to use that cadence when I write. It is as a result of this speech cadence that no matter what I say, it seems to come out as a joke. I've tried changing it, I've tried to not be funny, but nothing seems to work.

So my only recourse is to say nothing as much as I possibly can.

And I bet that to you, that sounded like a joke.

Journal Entry #33: Bit Of A Rant

Date: December 2, 2007
Time: 00:11

Yes, I know, I'm writing this past Midnight. I had a bit of trouble with a possible virus. It happened while I was taking my Economics midterm. I was trying to find the answer to something and wound up accidentally downloading some software that looks for something called "Malware".

There are times, like now, when technology is more trouble than its worth. For every program or website that's helpful or informative, there's another that's of no use, or it's there simply to trap you into releasing a virus into your system, and thereby infect the systems of your friends and relations through your address book.

I've said this on many occasions to many different people and I'm saying it here:

If I had even half the talent and skill as even some of these hackers have, I would find a way to legitimately make money off of it. I would lease my services to whomever would pay me the most at any given time. Yeah, I know there would be people out there with better skills than I have, but who's to say I'm not that good?

You see, what galls me the most about these hackers is what they do with their skills and talents. They use them to annoy the rest of the world with their idiocy. They send out viruses and all manner of programs that will do nothing for anyone except ruin their computer systems and thereby cause them to lose their files, personal and otherwise.

The reason they do this is for the attention it brings to their sad, lonely little lives. They have nothing to do all day except be a pest to the rest of the world. Any, and every time I hear of a hacker, or spam artist, that gets their comeuppance, or better yet, time in jail, it brings a smile to my face. But, at the same time, it makes me sad that such a talented person had to screw themselves so badly.