Nostalgiarama Zayin

In honor of Nell's wedding, here is another trip around the nostalgia carousel:

Nostalgiarama Aleph
Nostalgiarama Beth
Nostalgiarama Gimel
Nostalgiarama Daleth
Nostalgiarama He
Nostalgiarama Wāw

If you have photos or stories to share from high school (or beyond), post them before Saturday!

Memory Gongs

A few nights ago, I recalled a memory that I hadn't thought about in quite sometime: when I was 7 or so, I stole a 20 dollar bill out of my friend's piggybank. While lying awake in bed, I felt incommensurately guilty about my crime and started probing my past for other similar acts. The time I got caught in elementary school taking money out of my mom's purse because I thought she owed it to me for some now forgotten rationalization. Or the time I tried to pocket a shiny silver dollar coin my dad showed me from our family safe. I started to have a crisis of conscience: was I suppressing from myself a secret history of petty larceny?

Luckily the next day, before I had time to let the memory take on St. Augustine-like dimensions, I came across a message board thread with people confessing to stealing without any signs of remorse.

There is nothing quite like the internet to make you feel better about yourself.

And simultaneously worse about humanity.

Netflix Two Cents: Cybernetic Edition

Robocop (1987)

Verdict: One of the film professors at Wesleyan provocatively claimed that Verhoeven was the greatest auteur in all of cinema.






Robocop 2 (1990)

Verdict: After watching both Robocop and the non-Verhoeven helmed Robocop 2 back-to-back, I am starting to see the light. The ultimate test next: Showgirls.

The days of time and supposes

I would say that I never have any extra time, because that's what it feels like. But that isn't true. When I add everything up, I have plenty of free time.

The real problem is I like too many things.

I like movies. I like video games. I like TV shows. I like books. I like using Illustrator to create images. I like to spend time doing crazy things to photos and post the photos to Instagram. I like creating websites. I like learning new things. (There's more, but you get the picture.)

I also like people. I really like Rachel, and like to spend time with her. I like to go to restaurants and bars with friends. I also like my cats. Some days, I want to take a nap just so that my cats can take a nap with me. They enjoy it.

Then there are those other things that are responsibilities. Work takes up 40 or more hours a week, plus another three or so with my commute. Meetings, preaching and study take up another 10 or 12. Then, biological imperatives. Sleep. Eating. Grooming. Et cetera. That's a lot of time spent.

Which is why I could talk about how I failed at my attempt to write a novel in November and December. (I had created a very nice spreadsheet detailing my goal to write at least 1,250 words each day, for a total of about 60,000. Having a nice spreadsheet didn't actually help me do much.)

It isn't that I didn't want to write it. It's just that I didn't want to write it more than I wanted, or needed, to do any number of other things.

But then, now, I'm feeling like I should be writing. I should want to write more than those other things. (I spent a lot of money going to school for writing, after all.)

So what should I give up? I could easily write a book, or two, before I'm 30 by simply writing 750 words per day. That's three paragraphs. Less than I email some hours. And I'd guess it would be a 30–60 minute daily time commitment.

I should be able to do that. Should.

By the numbers.

Watching Fast 5 while drinking 4 Loko in the 3rd row of the theater on the 2nd weekend of release: #1!

I am having a hard time deciding on the most preposterously entertaining aspect of this cultural event:

1) The ludicrously out-of-depth and unsubstantiated religious symbolism (although I guess a Freudian interpretation would say it is all about unresolved Daddy issues)

2) Joaquim de Almeida looking as bloated as Val Kilmer

3) The Rock who must have a full-time spritzer because he is mysteriously drenched in perspiration in every close up (bonus points for the unbearably distracting Under Armor product placement.)

4) Or that The Fast and The Furious franchise now has a mythology and chronology more byzantine than that of the Star Wars Saga.

5) Which I guess explains the need to provide Han with a full name. Sung Kang better shift to becoming the focal point of the series by the next movie…

6) Fast/Furious: 6ixth Gear?