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.