Improvisational Ponderings of Moderate Nefariousness
If I ever go so nuts I’m fully Tom Cruise Crazy, I hope someone puts me out of my misery and sends me back to Xenu.¬† Fortunately, Jonathan Coulton (of Portal theme fame) has boldly gone where I hope never to go… and wrote a song about being Tom Cruise Crazy.¬† It’s a year + old, but still sadly relevant.
I wish I had some semblance of musical skill so I could even attempt stuff like this.  This guy really has a knack for the absurdly fantastic.
Found via WWdN.
ABC has an amazing article about Kevin Connolly, who was born with no legs.  He gets himself around on a modified skateboard, and with a Silver Medal in the 2007 X Games he seems more active than most people I know.
He’s also started his own photography exhibit by taking pictures of people who stare at him. ¬† Many of his pictures are posted at therollingexhibition.com¬† and make for some interesting viewing.¬† I’m not sure where the line is between rude starting and just being curious about something different, but as much as Kevin gets stared at I wonder if the difference matters anymore.
I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and I’m mentally exhausted.¬† I’d had the book for months, picking it up in an airport bookstore and then never quite getting to it.
The Coen Bros’ movie “No Country For Old Men” led me to read McCarthy’s book of the same name, and I was, I guess the word is, impressed.¬† Throw in some awed.¬† Also a little intimidated.¬† It’s a fantastic book, and I’m glad I read it before seeing the movie.
The Road is something else entirely.¬† It has the same, taut, shattering use of English that I should be so fortunate to command for a single paragraph in all my writing endeavors.¬† It’s bleak and unflinching, and having read No Country I was under no illusions as to the likely fate of the main characters, the father and son.¬† Still, I could not stop turning the pages, hoping some ray of sunshine would hit these two nameless figures.¬† Their world is cold and cruel, but they have each other.¬† That is everything.
I’ve been warned that Blood Meridian is a difficult read, but I think I will have to work my way through the rest of this titles.¬† I’ll just have to pace them out a bit.
I cannot recommend The Road enough.¬† It’s not easy to read, but if you have a love of good writing and a willingness to go into some of the most hopeless and hopeful corners of our world, you will find it impossible to forget.
I’ve never been a big fan of Christmas, mostly due to the way the rampant commercialism has squeezed the joy out of things. I just grit my teeth and stay away from the malls between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’ve also reached a gift truce with most people I know, which makes that last bit easier. The last barrier to fall in my commercial-less Christmas was when my wife and I agreed to stop giving each other gifts each year, and instead spend the money on food for a local Food Bank.
Our holiday tradition now is to take the money we would have spent on each other, usually around $400, and head down to Costco and buy bulk basics. We go for the staples of fruits, vegetables, meats, pasta, beans, and peanut butter. We look for the best deals on individually packaged items so they can be split amongst multiple families if necessary.  We then take it to a local food bank.
We took our young nieces with us one year, and we set them up with the amount of money we could spend and helped them budget out the shopping list. They had fun and learned how a lot of other people need things much more basic than an iPod or a Barbie for Christmas.
So it may not be traditional, but it feels good to have all our Christmas Shopping out of the way on Nov 3oth!
I’m an unabashed fan of Cute Overload, but for some reason I can’t stop watching this baby sheep bouncing on the bed. He comes to the same end I did when engaging in this same activity…
I’d want to get our own baby bed bouncing sheep, but I think it would put our already neurotic Border Collie right over the edge.