Pick a battle ...eenie, meenie, miney, moe

Seems lately my blog, about nothing really, has become a rant against stuff and things and that isn’t me. When did I become a curmudgeon? I mean, I certainly don’t think of myself as one, I like to have a good time. Honest I do, be that it in the wall flower sort of way which is my own version of a fun time. Who says fun has to be amplified and echoing off the canyon walls. Excuse me for a moment, (whispers) Really? (More whispers) Well, who knew? Seems that it loudness is a widely held version of what is considered fun, as well as frolicking, jumping joyously, varying degrees of intoxication, and mad capped shenanigans to include running about with little to nothing on. You will be happy to know, that as to the last bit of “fun”, I will remain fully clothed at all times in the presence of others…ah hem… most others, to include myself in proximity to mirrors. Still despite my, shall we say, less than exuberant displays of frivolity I like fun, I enjoy a good laugh, chuckle, guffaw if you will, I just simply prefer my buffoonery to be a bit more subdued, on the down low and perhaps a bit more high brow but I do enjoy a good bit of gutter humor as well. However, there are times when I see things that are billed as fun and I’m thinking that isn’t really fun so much as it is tormenting others for shock value or to elicit some sort of reaction which can be mocked. Is that really fun? My thoughts are that this is sadistic? But given how well the poorly penned tome about bondage did perhaps we have swung to the sadistic side of things and I just missed the boat or a bus. I’m sure I’ve missed it, if I can’t figure out if it was a boat or a bus. Mayhaps, it is that I’ve just gotten to be eld, and have forgotten what it means to engage in a bit of tomfoolery. Which can’t be right because I surely don’t think of myself as a grown up yet. There are things to be done, cans to be kicked, and larks to be had. The mental image of me is less like the person who stares back in the mirror. Maybe I just never knew how to have fun and it sort of accidentally happened around me and I just thought I was fun because it seemed to be that way. Feelings of satisfaction do sometimes wash about me and when they do I’m usually alone but not always I do some times have fun with other people but then I worry because I’m some what eld that they must think that I’m irresponsible because I’m doing something fun and the eld aren’t supposed to have fun anyway. Then I go back to doing the wall flower type of fun things which entertain me but then I worry that people think I’m the creepy eld dude. It feels that I’m a square peg when I should be round and a round peg when I’m supposed be a triangle and a tetrahedron when I’m supposed to be a rhomboid. No wonder I can’t figure out dating if puzzling out fun it this complex. It might actually be rocket science. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: Lyrics from Alt J “Left hand free” Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

Hail Caesar

The American coliseum brought to you every day of the week live in your hometown or in your very own home. Spectators to the games and the gladiators live and die by the mobs approval or disapproval. Think not; better look again perhaps you even attended in your local arena over the weekend. I know I did for my own brand of entertainment. Sport is an opiate for the masses and it keeps us from tearing down the wall of those in power. You don’t think about anything else while you watch your team do the what ever it is they do. Sport isn’t a bad thing, not really there are certainly beneficial things to sport; fitness, healthy competition, challenges to overcome, an emotional test and many more. However sport has become a business and it is corrupting. All of the good thing about sport can still be there but those things aren’t the focus anymore. Chemical enhancers have replaced fitness, win at all costs thinking regardless of the rules, and if your ability is good enough your social indiscretions can be overlooked. We teach this whether we mean to or not. When any athlete says I am not a role model I believe them because they are not role models or at least not role models I want to be an influence in anyone’s life. The athletes themselves don’t necessarily teach the bad behaviors though. We do that for them by reinforcing and rewarding their negative behavior. It goes back to little league teams. Those players who are talented or do well in the sport have their sins over looked. Late for practice, that’s okay run a lap but the kid who isn’t so good is off the team. Failing a class and you are the star whatever, we will find you a tutor if you are the so-so kid on the team, you are off the team or benched until the grade is improved. We are all about double standards in this country. If the star player gets in trouble with the law, some coach will come speak about how the opportunity to do better depends on this kid staying on the team. However is you aren’t so good at the sport, sorry kid you are all on your own with this one come see me if you get probation. We are the Dr. Frankenstein’s making the Ray Rice’s of the sporting world. Does that mean Ray Rice gets off for clocking his fiancé, No he should not get away with it, and he should be in jail. And if he were a Joe nobody he would be in jail. We allow this, not them. They have the bad habits, bad behaviors, etc. but we are the ones letting them get away with it. They do it because we let them. I can not say being able to play a sport well contributes nothing to the world because that would be a lie. Sport does inspire others to do better. However, excusing those athletes who excel in a sport of their anti-social behaviors, win at all costs drug taking, and others deviance creates a cycle, where people who see that if they are good enough they can do what ever they want. Think sport is not a business ask anyone who is broken by the sport and can no longer play how often all those people who used to cheer them on come around any more? Ask if they get those perks anymore or if they are excused for their sins? Bet the answer is no. They are the dead, they are the blood on the sand which gets raked away so the games can go on and the next batch of fresh meat can be thrown into fray. For the next group we can excuse from the rules of the social order. I’m not sure why anyone shakes their head and wonders why so many athletes don’t feel like they have to follow the rules. We simply don’t make them. And now when some athletes are being held accountable for their sins, rules that the rest of us have to follow. People are confused and are saying, “That is not how this is supposed to work.” It is how it is supposed to work. Still we flock to fill the seats and watch as those on the sand bleed and we ignore all the other sins of the world and breathe in a little deeper the poppy smoke. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

The death of the fourth estate

As much as I would love to assume that most people know what the reference the fourth estate means I will fill in for those who don’t know. It refers to a press that holds the other parts of society accountable, those parts being largely government and the church and also the people. Church meaning any organized religion not just one specifically. The fourth estate is one of the things that make revolution and change possible. The concept a powerful fourth estate is why those in power work so hard to spin what is known about them. It is why in the modern day that big businesses and governments wants so desperately to reel in, fetter, chain up, and control the internet to a nice manageable place that they can turn off if they need to, to maintain their hold on power. The concept of a powerful fourth estate is why Julian Assange felt that it was necessary to make public, records that businesses and governments kept secret. In part it is why Edward Snowden leaked out information about the NSA. Holding those who hold the reigns to task for what they do. However the main stream press works to vilify the people like Assange, Snowden and even groups like Anonymous for taking up the fallen banner of the fourth estate, to cry out when others have fallen silent. The most troubling thing about the information age is that it has become nearly impossible to sort through opinion and find the facts. Pick any issue, doesn’t matter what and you will find yourself unable to sort out anything that useful without giving yourself a massive headache in the process. The mainstream press spends more time just reporting “the what” that is happening in micro stories, which have absolutely no substance what so ever and there is never any follow up or it is complete over saturation of topics in speculative opinion without any fact to support what is being said. It would be nice if we could get back to the days to read something put together like Woodward and Bernstein that shakes the very core of the political world. We need leadership that leads and is fearful of the press because they are no longer just their megaphones for spouting out whatever gibberish they feel like hoodwinking the public with this week on what ever the topic of the minute happens to be. The press should be something more than the puppets of the powerful. The press used to be lions and where they tread the wicked and corrupt trembled because they could not hide the truth forever. I want to believe there are still real journalists out there who pick up the cause but I don’t see them. Be the change you want to see in the world. Well this is me picking up my piece of the banner and I use my voice and this internet while we still have it to ask questions of my leaders but I don’t get any answers or the ones I do get are just the same drivel that is already splashed out in mass quantities and is more propaganda than substance. The sad thing is that anymore the only useful information on the news is the weather and the rest is garbage or your daily dose of apathy and complacency. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

Martian spiders

The nomadic life has always struck a cord with me for some reason, the idea of being untethered from polite society and to live when and where the day takes you. It sings a song not unlike the Sirens which led sailors to their watery graves. It is a life of hardship and purity. There are no unnecessary things carried by a nomad, everything has a purpose, a use and a function or it is discarded. There is a creativity to nomads if you need it; you find it, you make it or you repurpose something else. Probably the most tempting nomad thing I’ve heard to do isn’t a thing yet, but may be at some point, that thing being a manned flight to Mars. It’s a one way ride there is no coming back, to truly go where no one has gone before. The thought is oh so seductive. There isn’t really much here on the mudball that has that appeal to it. No matter where you go, someone has been there as some point of other. There are vast areas where you can go and not be with another person or a very few. Being nomadic doesn’t necessarily mean hermit on the mountain top but it certainly means different. However where ever you went on earth you would know in the back of your mind you could always make your way back to the familiar, to safety, to roots and places known to many. It is a scary sort of feeling to know that if you hopped on that rocket to Mars you would only ever see those people who went with you from then on. They would be your only companions. What changes would there be in the social order? What remains? Survival becomes much more a reality and mistakes ever so much more costly. I’ve dreamt about it not because I want to be an astronaut or ever wanted to be one. This is different. There is the knowledge that when you leave you are gone from the lives of everyone you know and everything familiar. It would be like dying without the death, well at least for a little while death has that pesky way of finding us no matter where we hide. Everyone who you left behind would never see you again. There would be no way to impact there lives directly any longer. You become the memory of the person they know or knew, even though you are living. You could record messages and they could too and have them sent via radio wave back and forth. It takes time to send messages and then depending on how large a message can determine how quickly you get the whole thing, anywhere from 4 to 20 minutes, not exactly feeling a connectedness to people anymore. Knowing that the person who sent the message has already started doing something else when you read or hear their message and are they still there to get your reply or not? No matter the appeal to be free of the known and despite my love affair with nomadicness I always think about the loss it brings as well especially with the Mars thing. While the song to wander plays in background of my soul I am tied to places, at least earthly places, by powerful things. I don’t mind having roots, they are important. Having a connectedness to others a stable shelter from the harsh things out there in the world. However there is so much world out there to see and I’ve seen more then some and less then others but there is so much more I haven’t seen or done. I want to wander but I want to know I have a place that is warm and familiar. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

You can't carry it with you, if you want to survive

Dating is supposed to be fun and I guess that it is fun while it is going on. Finding someone to spend a lot of time with is difficult. My advise for young people is to date as much as you can, date a many people as you can, make a lot of friends, be as vivacious as you are comfortable being. That may mean that you are the wall flower at a party but you are a wall flower at a party not a homebody on a sofa. By dating a lot of people I don’t mean have sex with a lot of people, while it may sound like loads of fun it isn’t really all that rewarding and leaves deep empty hollow places in you that are hard to fill back up. This can also lead to wonderful parting gifts like STDs and children. Have realistic expectations that you are good enough, smart enough and gosh darn it people like you but the Victoria Rae Blacks and Johnny Depps of the world are not going to date you. Be yourself but don’t be uncompromising. Yes there should be limits to what you do but if you’ve never had Thai food go, have Thai food, unless you are allergic to peanuts then maybe you shouldn’t the Thai really seem to like peanuts. The point is try new things, if you don’t like it fine at least you know why you don’t like it. Be bold but with more than just food, there a lot of things to try in the world. I’m not sure why all of a sudden dating is more like work than having fun. I suppose people have this expectation that they can’t go out with someone they wouldn’t eventually want to marry or at the very least have a serious relationship. Not really sure what either of those things means to most people anymore. I do know several people who I think are in good marriages but I don’t know if they are or they are not. Mainly because I don’t ask, but I assume they are good because they don’t complain. Then I know people who only complain about their partners and I have to wonder, what is the point of it all if you can’t stand the other person? Dating in the work place is a bad idea because statistically all relationships fail on a long enough timeline, all of them. So unless you want to find a new job once the love of your life because the person whose photo is now glued to a voodoo doll it’s better to look else where for romance. Romance, what the hell does that mean? Aren’t we really just looking for companionship? Someone who won’t drive us batty after an hour on a road trip and if you are really lucky you get to see naked now and then. Although I don’t even like seeing me naked so I imagine no one else would fancy it either. Mostly though I think people have this very fucked up way of looking at interpersonal relationships that are born out of fairy tales, romance novels and Hollywood happily ever after bullshit which makes it all but impossible to find happiness anymore. Doesn’t mean I still don’t try, part of me is still a heart on my sleeve romantic, that has been kicked in the teeth by love more times than I care to admit. Part of me is a cynic that truly believes love is nearly dead lying face down in a ditch on the wrong side of the tracks. I’m not sure why anyone does it other than we all must be a bit sadistic and masochistic to endure what we call romantic relationships. However, I think that for who ever we are in this world no one wants to be alone and because of that we are willing to endure unimaginable amounts of pain, even if the rewards are few and far between. For most of us being alone is a hell unlike any other and we will do almost anything to avoid being with just ourselves, because you may be your own least favorite person. Then we wonder why all our relationships seem to unravel we don’t even like us, how is anyone else suppose too. My problem is that while I don’t particularly like me, I like me a lot more than I like a lot of other people and I enjoy my own company most of the time. I’ll figure it out one of these days or someone who can stand me for more than an hour will end up crossing my path. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s Title: Lyrics from Dog Days by Florence and the Machine Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 / PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don Invisible Don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015 Send me Post Cards … I love Post Cards

I walk a crooked road to get to where I am going

We all try to deny who we are or what we are and think of ourselves as who we want to be in some made of version of reality that we try to pass off to others. Sometimes it actually works other times it doesn’t and we get called out on the rouse. I wonder sometimes if anyone is really who they want to be. More often than not I land on that we aren’t the “who” we want but rather the “who” we ended up. For better or for worse there we are, all the wrong turns, bad choices, broken promises, abandoned dreams, crossed wires and misunderstandings that make us the us that stands in the reflection. Surely people are happy with these mistaken versions of themselves or we wouldn’t have laughter and is laughter as bright without a little sadness to balance out the madness. All the roads not taken, paths unbeaten to get to where we stand, does it all lead to the “who” we are supposed to be or just the “who” we are? Perhaps the lie we tell ourselves isn’t that the reflection isn’t real but rather that Pandora was able to trap hope back in the box and hope, like a certain German cat, exists only because we refuse to look again. You eventually have to look and face the reality that we aren’t who we want to be but are rather the person that we ended up. Maybe it is just me that looks back and sees the winding path that has brought me further into the woods and not to the city of my dreams. I can see it there just beyond the trees just not so clearly through the haze. As I try to understand the where and who I am, I think back on the things that have put me in the shoes where I stand and all the times that it wasn’t the choices I made but rather the ones I didn’t make that have made the man that I am. I try to find the happiness that is mine beyond the fractured bit and pieces of my life. There are shining things for sure that I would not change and perhaps that broken path or crooked trails put me exactly where I was supposed to be and I’m just not always smart enough to see and the who I think I want to be isn’t who I was meant to be. Though just because I have longing doesn’t mean I am not a happy man and like most of us I forget sometimes to cherish all the things that I have rather than those few things I think are missing. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Today’s title: Lyrics from A Crooked Road by Darrell Scott Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3/ PS4 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015… send post cards, I love post cards.

The whole world is moving but I'm standing still

The phrase, “because I said so”, has never really set well with me and I would imagine it probably hasn’t ever really set well with anyone on the receiving end of the statement. Because it is pushy, it is arrogant, and it presumes that the receiver is lesser than the person making the statement. Saying, “because I said so”, tells me one thing above all others things it says it that you don’t really have a legitimate reason for your position and don’t have the ammunition to debate the issue, or at the very least it is the blind unyielding support of the status quo. As someone who sometimes puts words together about things that I think and puts them out in the world there are things I have said which others have not agreed with, all I can say is we won’t always agree. There are more than a few things which have made people very upset with me and I have been told in no uncertain terms what I could do, with what and how often it should be done or that I should take up residence with an address much closer to hell because of something I’ve said. You are entitled to be upset but so am I about what ever it was or is. That said I do a lot of self censoring, there are a lot of things I don’t ever write about at least not for public consumption for a number of reasons. One it is private, another is that it isn’t really my story but someone else’s story and I was only an observer to the story, other reasons relate to it has to do with my jobs. Usually the last thing is the thing that keeps most of the things that I experience out of what I write about not because it isn’t interesting, quiet the opposite it is very interesting but it isn’t for me to talk about in detail in a public forum or at least that is my belief. Self censorship has kept me from writing about my thoughts about issues related to my work as well partly because others feel it is their right to tell people what they can or can not think. They will say they are not telling you can’t think a thing but are only concerned with that you have written what you thought and that is the real issue. Say what you want it is difficult for me to see how the censorship of writing and the censorship of thinking as complete separate agendas. Sure there are ideas and beliefs people have which I feel are uninformed and wonder why anyone could think such a thing. However, I know others also think the same thing about beliefs I hold. I am not any more right than them and vice versa. I know this because I’ve had conversations concerning the topics where I hold differing beliefs from others. I haven’t written about them but certainly I should be permitted to write about those things if I choose to. I don’t because what I feel about it is only for me and it only impacts how I choose to live my life and if someone else doesn’t think what I think I let them think what they want to think and believe. More importantly I let them live how hey want, as long as it does not impact my life. Critically assessing that what anyone says away from their work and that it may or may not impact their ability to do their work is absurd, especially if there is not evidence or incidents to support that the person has let there beliefs impact their work. However, there are incidents where someone has been let go from a job because of something they said away from their work and someone at their work saw it, read it, or heard it, and decided that it wasn’t right. Why? “Because I said so”, is generally the answer with no other supporting reasons ever given. We are not all same thinking automatons, we disagree and none of us has ownership of the truth or what is right or wrong. If what you believe gets you through the day so be it, let others believe what gets them through the day. If they sometimes have to say something you don’t agree with to get through the day what does it really hurt and mostly who really pays attention to what any of us have to say anyway. Ultimately what is so drastically important today will not matter a bit a week from now and in 50 years will have no significance what so ever. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Today’s title from: The world spins madly on by the Weepies Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Movie review: Her

Movie review: HER Unless a movie has a ton of CGI and stuff that blows up I’m not going to spend 20 something dollars to go to the theater for dialogue driven stories. I do prefer a good movie and story without all of the pandering to the lowest common denominator but I still like to see shit blow up too. That said the movie, “Her” with Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson and directed by Spike Jonze. The premise of the film is lonely guy falls in love with an artificial intelligence system. Ted and Samantha a love story to ponder more so than any other love story you have seen asking truly what is love? This thing that really motivates us to do almost everything we do. The question most of us seem to ask is how can you love something that isn’t there that isn’t real. I think what Spike Jonze asks in the film is what is real and what isn’t real. Our emotions are not some thing we can lay our hands on we can’t hold them, touch them or do anything with them. I am in love, I am angry, I am sad. Why are you any of those things and how do you know. We experience things and then we define them as one thing or other. Then as we see other things or gain information we related it to what we already know. So how is our seeing a couple we don’t know in an embrace in a photograph and having an emotional response to that any different than an artificial intelligence having a definition of an emotion and being able to recognize that emotion for what it is and respond. Have you ever read a piece of fiction and responded emotionally. I know I’ve heard, oh I hate this character or that character or I so love this character. These are not real people but we respond to them emotionally. So if a computer could learn and experience and evolve and have an understanding of the world beyond it’s programming to the point it could have original thoughts, would that be different than our own experiences. Wouldn’t that relationship be just as real as one you have with a pen pal that lives in a place far away from you that you’ve never met? You can connect to that person emotionally over time and have a real connection to them. Look forward to their letters the same as you would a love one coming home at the end of the day or visiting after a long absence. Could you love and grow a relationship that benefited both sides, completely on an intellectual level without any physical contact. We become attached to things we have been given or buy because we associate meaning to them and they remind us of something. The memories are really what we have and the thing is just a thing with or with out the thing the experience still exists but we still mourn the loss of the physical connection. Do we need to physical part of the relationship for it to be real or do we really only love those we love in our minds and all the physical stuff is our inability to verbally express how we really feel not because we are not smart enough but because as a species we haven’t evolved our vocabulary to express what it means to hold someone else’s hand in ours. But is what you feel emotionally, what they feel? You can never know for sure and because we say we love someone does it really mean we love them or are we only saying the words to manipulate the other person for some other physical gratification. Overall I really enjoyed the movie and feel it is worth watching. However, the pacing is a little slow at times and could have been a bit shorter than the 2 hour run time. All the supporting cast Amy Adams, Chris Pratt, and Rooney Mara and others ground this story so well and has something almost anyone can relate to a good or bad relationship. Ultimately do we love the people we are with and in our lives or do we love our memories of them. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015