the rest of the year...
It's going to be a BIT MEssY
somewhat
LIKE
this
post
Things are just...
>>>>>>>>>>busy<<<<<<<<<<
And I'm behind
on most things
BUT
specifically
the Blog
Because I keep it several weeks ahead most of the TIME
But tIime
caught up to me during all the stuff with the fires, and I've failed to get back ahead of things
SO
even though I don't have a specific
SCHEDULE
I do have a pattern
most of the time
but NOT through the end of the year
Also...
I'm working on beginning to sell off my comic book collection
right NOW
and that's taking a lot of tiMe
but
you know
if you want to buy some comic books
let me know
Showing posts with label time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Monday, August 14, 2017
Why You Worship a False god (Part Two)
I left you all last time with "Christianity is the worst," and I meant it. Why? For one simple reason:
"Christianity" provides a solution to the linear god problem then turns its back on it and walks away.
Imagine three cages with people all locked up inside each one, one for Jews, one for Muslims, one for Christians. No one can get out. Except there are people inside the Christian cage with keys to the door, but they like being in the cage and like having all the other people locked in with them, so they don't bother to tell anyone. They could, but they don't want to. That's pretty despicable. At least there isn't anyone in the other cages concealing keys.
Look, it's even true of Paul. The asshole. To paraphrase:
When Paul was approached with the idea that sin didn't matter anymore because all sin was forgiven under Christ, Paul said, "Sure, you're right. Don't sin anyway." Basically, get back in your cage and sit down and shut up. Because Paul was a legalistic douche bag, kind of by his own admittance. He was a Pharisee among Pharisees.
And this is where we get to the point:
The whole point of the idea of Jesus is that he was a final sacrifice for all sin. All sin. Everyone's sin for all of time. Yes, you have to accept it, but, if you do, all of your sin has been atoned for. All the sins you've already done and all of the sins you'll do in the future, because it's only past and future for you. God sees you as a whole human being throughout the entire timeline of your life, so the one act of accepting the forgiveness offered through the sacrifice of Christ cleanses you of all of the sin. Therefore, it doesn't actually matter what you do; all sin is forgiven.
Now, this is the point where you really need to pay attention to get to the same place that I'm going.
Only a God outside of Time can do this. Only a God who can see your whole life at once and take away all the sin at once. That's what makes God, God.
If your god demands constant repentance and/or sacrifices to be on good terms with "him," then your god is no god at all. A god who is locked into judging you based upon your latest prayer, act of contrition, or sacrifice is a fraud. If your god is a fraud, then there is no sin, and it doesn't matter what you do. If your god is a fraud and you insist on dogmatically following some esoteric list of rules, you are also a fraud, propped up only by your legalism.
If your God is outside of Time and able to look at a person as a holistic being and has given you a way to purge your sin once and for all, then there is also no sin, and it doesn't matter what you do. Because let me be clear, no little prayer of "asking Jesus into your heart" is going to fool that kind of God into forgiving you. Whatever that means. Either that kind of God is up there judging people and it doesn't matter if you've "prayed the prayer" or not, because "He" knows more about what's going on in you than you do; or that kind of God is not judging people at all because, seriously, why would God even need to do that? Either way, it doesn't matter what you do. Neither can you "be good enough" to get into Heaven, nor can you be bad enough to get kicked out.
Which leaves us all in a very uneasy space, I know. A place of real moral ambiguity.
I mean, I've just stated that it doesn't matter what you do! How will we know if people are good or if people are bad or whether they're going to get into heaven or go straight to hell or whether we should look up to them because of how "righteous" they are or look down at them and spit because they're dirty, rotten sinners?
But here's the thing, man clearly has a moral compass of sorts. Humans have a pretty standard idea of what's right and wrong across cultures. It doesn't matter whether you believe if that's something divine or if it's some kind of genetic inheritance because we're a social species, there is a clear call to uphold the social good. Maybe the idea is to be good for goodness' sake, not out of fear of some kind of punishment. Maybe the idea is to do the Right thing because it's the right thing.
And God doesn't matter in that decision.
Here are the things I can tell you for sure:
1. Any God is so far above man that we are incapable of any kind of understanding about who or what God is. Anyone who tells you differently, anyone who tries to tell you what God is about and what God approves of and what "he" doesn't, is a liar and a fraud. Any person claiming to know God's mind worships a false god. Anyone who ever utters the phrase, "You need to get right with god," worships a god trapped in a linear timeline, and that god is not a god at all.
2. The current "christian" establishment in the United States (possibly the entire "christian" establishment across the world) clearly worships a linear god; therefore, the current "christian" establishment worships no god at all.
3. Anyone supporting "christianity" and Trump are clearly not even "christians," let alone a Christian. There is nothing in "christianity" which supports the support of a person like that. He is the antithesis of what it is to be a Christian, so anyone supporting him is clearly paying lip service to a religion they know nothing about. Clearly those people are worshiping a god they have made up in their own minds, not a God who lives outside of Time. The fact that they can't see the glaring divide between the character of Jesus in the Bible and the caricature that is Trump highlights their ingrained hypocrisy.
What I'm saying here is that most of you out there, if you believe in "God," have no idea what you believe. You've been told what to believe by other people and your idea of God is flawed. If your idea of God is flawed, you can't believe in God, only god. You have no idea what the Bible is about or what it says because you've never bothered to read it. And reading the Bible should only be the beginning of your learning about what you believe. That is, if you believe it. Because, really, most of you don't believe in anything; you just think you do.
Monday, August 7, 2017
Why You Worship a False god (Part One)
Let me just say upfront that I'm probably going to lose a lot of you with this "discussion," and not because of the offensive material but because of the metaphysical material. My experience is that people don't tend to be able to keep up. For example, my first college roommate was a Calvinist (you can look it up), but he was a Calvinist because he didn't understand the doctrine of predestination or what they mean by it. In his mind, since "god" knows everything, "god" also causes everything to happen. There is no free will. Foreknowledge equated control. Basically, "god" was upstairs with puppet strings attached to everything, and no one had any choices about anything.
How boring.
The problem was that he really just couldn't see the difference between foreknowledge and complete predestination (of everything) no matter how many times or how many ways people (not just me) tried to explain it to him. Some of the people who tried to explain it to him also didn't understand the differences in the concepts; they just knew that they had been told that Calvinism was wrong.
I only bring this up because it relates. We're going to talk about God and Time and why your god isn't actually God. And, sure, that part might be offensive, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose most of you way before we get far enough along for you to be offended. Unless, of course, you're already offended.
So let's start with something pretty basic:
For god to be God, He has to be outside of time, the maker of Time. That's pretty standard thought nowadays, in theory, at least among "christian" theologians, so I'm probably not losing anyone yet, theoretically. Until we get to the part where we're dealing with what it means to be outside of Time, but I'm not got to get into that, because that's kind of like asking a fish what it's like to be outside of water. And the fact that most of you probably don't get the part where Time is not some linear stream that has always existed.
Maybe you're wondering why that even matters, but it matters in that, for god to be God, He has to be omniscient, and He can't be omniscient from within Time. To know everything, you have to be outside of everything, including Time.
And it matters because of sin.
Before I go on, let me state quite clearly that I am NOT just talking about Christianity here. I'm also talking about Judaism and Islam. It's all the same god, and all three religions suffer from the same issue: sin.
Here's where we start getting tricky...
Men are linear creatures, time-wise; therefore, our views of people tend to be pretty tied into whatever they did last. The quality of a person is based on his/her most recent actions. That's the linear view.
And that's the view religious people, of whatever religion, tend to take, too, hence all of the sin, repent, repeat nonsense. Because you can't go to heaven if you have sin, and you're only as good as your last repentance.
Christianity, theoretically, deals with this issue. Jesus was intended to be the one and only sacrifice that would wipe sin from your life both backwards and forwards. Hebrews 10:10 -- "...we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The idea for the need for constant repentance (sacrificing) has been dealt with by the one sacrifice of Jesus, so sacrifices are no longer needed. Provided, of course, that you accept the One sacrifice of Christ as your own. This is what the writer of Hebrews is saying. [Note: The writer of the book of Hebrews is unknown, but it was almost certainly NOT Paul. The asshole.]
Of course, the writer of Hebrews couldn't reconcile this idea with himself and, a few verses later, says that, basically, since you've been forgiven of your sins -- all of them past, present, and future -- don't ever sin again. I mean, if you're accepting the grace of God but, then, go out and sin again anyway, you deserve to go to straight to hell. STRAIGHT TO HELL, I tell you! Because he couldn't take himself out of a linear mindset despite the words of Jesus himself claiming to be the one and only sacrifice ever needed.
This is where we run into some problems, because neither Judaism not Islam have any mechanism for dealing with sin in a non-linear fashion. Their god is completely Time-linear and can only deal with men based upon their most recent actions. This causes two problems:
1. You have a man who has lived a horrible, despicable life full of sin and mayhem. The worst possible person you can think of. But, shortly before his death, he "sees the light," repents, offers the appropriate sacrifices, then dies and goes to heaven. [And some of you are saying, "But that's the great power of "god" and his offer of forgiveness to man!]
but...
2. You have a man who has lived a pretty great life of being good and just to other men as much as possible. A true saint among men whom everyone looks up to. But he "stumbles" and commits some sin or other and, before he can repent or make the appropriate sacrifice or whatever, dies suddenly. Because he dies with sin, he is denied heaven. AND GOD CAN'T DO A DAMN THING ABOUT IT! Just, oops! That's too bad, but you have sin and can't come in.
Let me tell you, that's the kind of god I want to follow. One who is bound up in his own arbitrary rules and inability to see beyond the same linear timeline as man.
You "Christians" can stop patting yourselves on the back, because, in a lot of ways, you're even worse. Probably in the most important ways, you're worse.
But we'll talk about that next time.
So let's start with something pretty basic:
For god to be God, He has to be outside of time, the maker of Time. That's pretty standard thought nowadays, in theory, at least among "christian" theologians, so I'm probably not losing anyone yet, theoretically. Until we get to the part where we're dealing with what it means to be outside of Time, but I'm not got to get into that, because that's kind of like asking a fish what it's like to be outside of water. And the fact that most of you probably don't get the part where Time is not some linear stream that has always existed.
Maybe you're wondering why that even matters, but it matters in that, for god to be God, He has to be omniscient, and He can't be omniscient from within Time. To know everything, you have to be outside of everything, including Time.
And it matters because of sin.
Before I go on, let me state quite clearly that I am NOT just talking about Christianity here. I'm also talking about Judaism and Islam. It's all the same god, and all three religions suffer from the same issue: sin.
Here's where we start getting tricky...
Men are linear creatures, time-wise; therefore, our views of people tend to be pretty tied into whatever they did last. The quality of a person is based on his/her most recent actions. That's the linear view.
And that's the view religious people, of whatever religion, tend to take, too, hence all of the sin, repent, repeat nonsense. Because you can't go to heaven if you have sin, and you're only as good as your last repentance.
Christianity, theoretically, deals with this issue. Jesus was intended to be the one and only sacrifice that would wipe sin from your life both backwards and forwards. Hebrews 10:10 -- "...we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The idea for the need for constant repentance (sacrificing) has been dealt with by the one sacrifice of Jesus, so sacrifices are no longer needed. Provided, of course, that you accept the One sacrifice of Christ as your own. This is what the writer of Hebrews is saying. [Note: The writer of the book of Hebrews is unknown, but it was almost certainly NOT Paul. The asshole.]
Of course, the writer of Hebrews couldn't reconcile this idea with himself and, a few verses later, says that, basically, since you've been forgiven of your sins -- all of them past, present, and future -- don't ever sin again. I mean, if you're accepting the grace of God but, then, go out and sin again anyway, you deserve to go to straight to hell. STRAIGHT TO HELL, I tell you! Because he couldn't take himself out of a linear mindset despite the words of Jesus himself claiming to be the one and only sacrifice ever needed.
This is where we run into some problems, because neither Judaism not Islam have any mechanism for dealing with sin in a non-linear fashion. Their god is completely Time-linear and can only deal with men based upon their most recent actions. This causes two problems:
1. You have a man who has lived a horrible, despicable life full of sin and mayhem. The worst possible person you can think of. But, shortly before his death, he "sees the light," repents, offers the appropriate sacrifices, then dies and goes to heaven. [And some of you are saying, "But that's the great power of "god" and his offer of forgiveness to man!]
but...
2. You have a man who has lived a pretty great life of being good and just to other men as much as possible. A true saint among men whom everyone looks up to. But he "stumbles" and commits some sin or other and, before he can repent or make the appropriate sacrifice or whatever, dies suddenly. Because he dies with sin, he is denied heaven. AND GOD CAN'T DO A DAMN THING ABOUT IT! Just, oops! That's too bad, but you have sin and can't come in.
Let me tell you, that's the kind of god I want to follow. One who is bound up in his own arbitrary rules and inability to see beyond the same linear timeline as man.
You "Christians" can stop patting yourselves on the back, because, in a lot of ways, you're even worse. Probably in the most important ways, you're worse.
But we'll talk about that next time.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Time Enough? (an IWSG post)
Of course, what I want to do is get all philosophical about time, about how time is finite, about what it would be like to be able to step outside of time... Except I can't really imagine that. My view of time is kind of like a painting. Or, maybe, a movie. Time only exists within the movie and, if you could only step out of it, you could see the whole thing at once, be in any part of it. That kind of thing. Except, conceptually, as soon as I remove myself from the movie, I put myself in another one, because I still imagine a sequence of events and, without time, there can't be a sequence, so it's not something I can properly imagine.
None of that is what I really want to talk about anyway...
Sometimes, there are events that remind us of the finite-ness of time, that there will be an ending. At least, for us. Well, for all of time, but I expect TIME to go on much for much longer than I will. At any rate, the sudden departure of Tina Downey of Life Is Good from TIME has served as a reminder. Time is, after all, finite. There's a deadline on the things I want to accomplish in life.
I suppose most people have all sorts of things they want to accomplish and that they all feel like they have plenty of time in which to do it. There's always tomorrow, right? But there's not always tomorrow, and, sometimes, tomorrows quit coming sooner than we think they will.
I know that Tina was writing a book. Mostly, though, I think she was working on the writing skills she would need to really write the book. What it means, though, is that I'll never get to read the book. Neither will you. And, you know, maybe it wouldn't have been any good and, in the scheme of things, it doesn't matter, but, maybe, it would have been life-changing. For me. Or for you. Or for someone. That book that really inspired a life and changed its course.
We'll never know.
I have a lot of books like that. Unfinished ones, I mean; I'm not claiming that I'm writing great, life-changing, works of literature. I have PROJECTS! The idea that I could leave TIME with them unfinished... well, it kind of panics me. I don't want to leave things unfinished. Well, I don't want to leave these things unfinished. I'm sure I will always feel that way about whatever projects I have in the works, but other projects are in the future, and I have nothing invested in that stuff yet. These things, these things I have going on now, I know I don't want to leave still in progress. Especially the stuff that relates to The House on the Corner. Too many people ask me when the next when will be finished for me to be okay with just not doing it.
None of this is meant to change the focus from Tina's passing out of TIME, but it was one of the first things I thought of, "I'll never get to read her book." Which, then, has applications for all of us. Not just writers, all people who are doing things. Who have projects of whatever sort. Some of which sit around and sit around and are left abandoned for months or, even, years on end with the thought, "I'll get to it. Sometime." But "sometime" doesn't always come.
So... I am reminded to look at the things I want to do and evaluate them on the basis of what it's okay with me to leave unfinished. Like, I would like to spend time painting, but it won't really bother me if I leave TIME and there are big stack of unpainted miniatures in my garage. It's not like I'm the only one that could paint them. But no one can write the stories that are in my head. Even with notes about them, no one can write them the way I will, so that's the thing I need to get busy with, working on the things that only I can do so that they're not left unfinished should I have to leave.
And that's what I'm going to go do...
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Time Enough for Time (an IWM post)
The time for the first Indie Writers Monthly annual is almost upon us. This year's theme is, and this is probably my fault, time travel, which is all kinds of awkward for me, because I hate most time travel stories. Especially those Star Trek type time travel stories which fall apart faster than a Nilla Wafer in milk if you look at them too hard. But, still, that's the theme. And guess what! You get to participate!
Yes, we are actually taking submissions on this one and there is even PRIZE MONEY!
But you have to get through me to get to it.
Okay, I don't know if that's exactly true, but I'll be one of the people reading the stories and passing judgements on them, so, well, impress me.
I'm only sorta kidding there.
ANYWAY...
Hop over to Indie Writers Monthly for all of the details and get that story written.
Don't worry; I can't win the money. But it won't stop me from having my own time travel story in there.
What are you waiting for? Hop in your DeLorean... um, I mean: Hop in your time machine and click that link and get to writing!
But you have to get through me to get to it.
Okay, I don't know if that's exactly true, but I'll be one of the people reading the stories and passing judgements on them, so, well, impress me.
I'm only sorta kidding there.
ANYWAY...
Hop over to Indie Writers Monthly for all of the details and get that story written.
Don't worry; I can't win the money. But it won't stop me from having my own time travel story in there.
What are you waiting for? Hop in your DeLorean... um, I mean: Hop in your time machine and click that link and get to writing!
Saturday, April 21, 2012
The A to Z of Fiction to Reality: Snow Crash, Second Life, and Submarines
Submarine
After all the talk about Jules Verne, how could I not mention submarines?
The thing is, though, despite frequently having the idea of the submarine attributed to him, Verne actually didn't dream these up. In fact, the Nautilus, Nemo's submarine in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, is named after one of the first submarines from almost a century before Verne wrote about it.
And that nautilus was named after this one:
And the interior:
Even though Verne wasn't the originator of the submarine (actually, it was another of those things that da Vinci had sketches for), he was the first to write about them in the way that he did, a tool for exploration and a tool for combat. It's fairly safe to say that he helped form the concept of what the submarine would be used for in the 20th century.
Snow Crash
Let me start out by saying that Neal Stephenson did not come up with the idea for virtual reality, nor did he come up with the idea of the multi-verse. Neither did Marvel Comics, but they've probably done more to promote the idea of the multi-verse than anyone else. However, Stephenson, through his novel Snow Crash, did introduce the concept of the Metaverse. And this is a novel I now feel like I need to read. It was like one of Jung's unconscious ideas coalesced in Stephenson's brain and came out as this concept of the Metaverse.
In Snow Crash, the Metaverse is a virtual reality world that has... well, not replaced the Internet, become the Internet. Since I do actually believe we're heading toward virtual reality (and I believe that it's in virtual reality that mankind will face its greatest challenge (not zombies, not cyborgs, not even genetically engineered viruses)), I think this idea of the Metaverse is fascinating (did I say I need to read this book? Oh, I did...).
Anyway...
My point is this, after the book came out in 1992, a text-based game was launched in '93 called The Metaverse. In '95, Active Worlds was launched, and it was based entirely on Snow Crash. There were some others, but the big one was Second Life in 2003. You have heard of Second Life, right? It's hard to be online and not to have heard of it, even if you haven't "played" it. Just for the record, I have not. But there have been laws passed in some countries to control the exchange of money, real money, on this "site."
Second Life was created by Philip Rosedale who, at one point, gave the credit for the idea to Stephenson's novel (I wish I could find that article again, but, basically, he said "I got the idea after reading Snow Crash); now, of course, he only says he was "aware" of the novel but the idea for Second Life was completely his own. I will point out, though, that they did introduce a Snow Crash sub-world into Second Life.
Snow Crash continues to influence the development of the world wide web. It was Snow Crash that popularized the term "avatar." Google Earth was modeled after Snow Crash, and Google Earth is just cool. I used it for research while I was writing The House on the Corner. From that standpoint, it's also influencing Google's driverless car. And I'm not even going to list all the software that's been developed or is being developed in order to bring about this virtual idea of the Metaverse.
By the way, Time named it in their top 100 English-language novels written since 1923. Not top 100 sci-fi novels, just top 100 novels. Did I mention the need to read this? Will we look back as a society a few decades from now and point at Snow Crash as a turning point? Will we just see it as part of the natural evolution of things? Will it have faded out of importance entirely? It's hard to say, but here, now, 20 years after its release, we are still feeling its impact.
And, now, something completely unrelated:
As I have mentioned many times, Briane Pagel has this big Star Wars blogfest going on. We're just past the halfway mark, now, and I'm no longer in the lead. I got whammied. If you like me, though, you can go over and comment and let him know that I sent you, and we'll both get some points for it. But that's just an aside. Here's the real bit:
There's this indie movie called Yellow Hill that's trying to get funded. It's starring Bai Ling, and she's also producing it. They're asking for donations of just $5 to help them reach their funding goal of $6,000. For a movie $6,000 is pretty near to nothing, but it's still $6,000.
Anyway, Briane is trying to help these people out, and I support him in that. And, well, he's giving 1000 points to anyone who posts about the Yellow Hill thing, and, well, I need the points. But, still, I do support him in his support of this movie project! So click on the link and check it out.
After all the talk about Jules Verne, how could I not mention submarines?
The thing is, though, despite frequently having the idea of the submarine attributed to him, Verne actually didn't dream these up. In fact, the Nautilus, Nemo's submarine in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, is named after one of the first submarines from almost a century before Verne wrote about it.
Snow Crash
Let me start out by saying that Neal Stephenson did not come up with the idea for virtual reality, nor did he come up with the idea of the multi-verse. Neither did Marvel Comics, but they've probably done more to promote the idea of the multi-verse than anyone else. However, Stephenson, through his novel Snow Crash, did introduce the concept of the Metaverse. And this is a novel I now feel like I need to read. It was like one of Jung's unconscious ideas coalesced in Stephenson's brain and came out as this concept of the Metaverse.
In Snow Crash, the Metaverse is a virtual reality world that has... well, not replaced the Internet, become the Internet. Since I do actually believe we're heading toward virtual reality (and I believe that it's in virtual reality that mankind will face its greatest challenge (not zombies, not cyborgs, not even genetically engineered viruses)), I think this idea of the Metaverse is fascinating (did I say I need to read this book? Oh, I did...).
Anyway...
My point is this, after the book came out in 1992, a text-based game was launched in '93 called The Metaverse. In '95, Active Worlds was launched, and it was based entirely on Snow Crash. There were some others, but the big one was Second Life in 2003. You have heard of Second Life, right? It's hard to be online and not to have heard of it, even if you haven't "played" it. Just for the record, I have not. But there have been laws passed in some countries to control the exchange of money, real money, on this "site."
Second Life was created by Philip Rosedale who, at one point, gave the credit for the idea to Stephenson's novel (I wish I could find that article again, but, basically, he said "I got the idea after reading Snow Crash); now, of course, he only says he was "aware" of the novel but the idea for Second Life was completely his own. I will point out, though, that they did introduce a Snow Crash sub-world into Second Life.
Snow Crash continues to influence the development of the world wide web. It was Snow Crash that popularized the term "avatar." Google Earth was modeled after Snow Crash, and Google Earth is just cool. I used it for research while I was writing The House on the Corner. From that standpoint, it's also influencing Google's driverless car. And I'm not even going to list all the software that's been developed or is being developed in order to bring about this virtual idea of the Metaverse.
By the way, Time named it in their top 100 English-language novels written since 1923. Not top 100 sci-fi novels, just top 100 novels. Did I mention the need to read this? Will we look back as a society a few decades from now and point at Snow Crash as a turning point? Will we just see it as part of the natural evolution of things? Will it have faded out of importance entirely? It's hard to say, but here, now, 20 years after its release, we are still feeling its impact.
And, now, something completely unrelated:
As I have mentioned many times, Briane Pagel has this big Star Wars blogfest going on. We're just past the halfway mark, now, and I'm no longer in the lead. I got whammied. If you like me, though, you can go over and comment and let him know that I sent you, and we'll both get some points for it. But that's just an aside. Here's the real bit:
There's this indie movie called Yellow Hill that's trying to get funded. It's starring Bai Ling, and she's also producing it. They're asking for donations of just $5 to help them reach their funding goal of $6,000. For a movie $6,000 is pretty near to nothing, but it's still $6,000.
Anyway, Briane is trying to help these people out, and I support him in that. And, well, he's giving 1000 points to anyone who posts about the Yellow Hill thing, and, well, I need the points. But, still, I do support him in his support of this movie project! So click on the link and check it out.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Creative Answers and Creative Writing
First off, I got tagged by Michael Offutt for this new meme that's running around. These things seem to be really contagious with an almost 100% infection rate. I'm wearing protective gear as I write this, so, hopefully, not too many of you will catch it. Unless, you know, you want to. But I'll get to that in a bit. It's a fairly simple meme other than the fact that it involves time travel, and my flux capacitor is on the fritz. So is my police box. And that's unfortunate, because I was trying to use it for extra storage space, and it suddenly spit everything out as it returned to its normal interior dimensions. I was sad. So here are the questions and the answers:
1. If you could go back in time and relive one moment, what would it be?
Um... I don't really understand this question. At least, not in respect to the next question. I just get to go back and relive it? Which implies I must have lived it once already, so I can't just go back and experience some moment in time, but it has to be one of my own moments. And I'm just reliving it, but I can do that by remembering it, so what's the point? Maybe to approach the experience with a different sense of appreciation, in which case I would pick the first time I saw Star Wars. I had no idea of what I was walking into, and it might be interesting to be able to go into that theater all those years ago with an appreciation of the impact it was going to have on my life.
However, reflecting on Michael's answer, I might go back to this trip to Washington D.C. when my friends and I stopped in some hole-in-the-wall diner for burgers. Best burger ever. Seriously. Even if they didn't want to serve us and we feared for our lives. The burgers made it worth it.
2. If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?
See, I don't know if this question is related to the previous one or not. Change one thing in my life or change anything? How do I know what the consequences would be? Although there are things in my life that I would do differently, I wouldn't do them differently if they wouldn't get me to where I am now. I have a great family. Wonderful wife. Awesome kids. I wouldn't do anything to risk that, so mucking about in time is not something I'm very inclined to do.
However, if I could be assured that my family would stay intact, I might go back to the Roman Empire and support their steam engine technology (Did you know the Romans invented the steam engine? Well, they did.) just to see where we would be, today, if the steam engine had gone into use, basically, 2000 years earlier.
3. What movie/TV character do you most resemble in personality?
This question doesn't work all that well for me, because I don't really watch a lot of television. And how does this question relate at all to the previous two? Should I pick a time travelling character? But, no, that doesn't really work.
If I have to pick someone, my wife would probably say Bob the Tomato. If you don't know who that is... well, I don't know what to say about that. Runners up would be Monk and Sheldon Cooper.
4. If you could push one person off a cliff and get away with it, who would you choose?
Just one? I don't know how I could possibly choose. I mean, there's no one I actually hate enough to want to kill, and there are too many people that deserve it to pick just one. And are we talking about one person alive today or just anyone from history? The whole scenario is just too... ambiguous.
5. Name one habit you want to change in yourself.
Hmm... farmville? The farther through these questions I get, the more I wonder about the purpose behind them? Wait, wait! I have it! I would change my habit of not travelling in time. Yes, that's the one.
6. Why do you blog?
So I can discover the ability to travel in time? That seems to go along with the rest of these questions, and I can't think of a better reason. Of course, there's also the whole thing of giving people the opportunity to discover whom I am so that they'll want to buy my book(s). But time travel is a much cooler answer.
7. Name at least three people to send this to:
Since I'm trying to limit my contagiousness, I'm going to let you guys answer if you want to. Expose yourself to whatever kind of computer virus this is at your own discretion. But, um, yeah... three of you should definitely choose to answer these questions. At least three. You can let me know in the comments if you're gonna pass this on.
So that's it for the creative answers part of this post. Now, we move on to the creative writing part.
Starting today, I'll be teaching a creative writing class at my kids' school one day a week (in the middle school). Unfortunately, it's not a paid thing. But it is pretty cool. Going to a charter school, all the parents have to have some level of involvement at the school. Most often, this is just helping out in the class room or, maybe, grading papers. What I'm saying is that parents don't generally get to be involved in the academic side of things. That's probably as much the parents' decisions as the school's, though. There are a number of parents who contribute to the P.E. side of things and the drama group is parent lead, but that's about the extent of it that I've seen. At any rate, I'm excited to be doing this, even if it is a free gig. It should be fun.
My son (the younger one) had to have his classes switched around so that he could get to be in my class, and he's all excited, too. He was sort of grilling me this morning about what sort of things we're going to be doing, and I harassed him by telling him I was going to get to be harder on him than on everyone else in the class. I don't think he appreciated that very much. I am glad he's getting to be in it, though; he started writing his own novel at the beginning of the summer but quickly found out that it was harder than he thought. He hasn't gotten very far with it. Hopefully, having regular creative writing assignments will help get him in the habit of writing creatively.
In other, unrelated news:
I think I'm disliking November and this whole NaNo thing. Yeah, I know, blasphemy. But I think of Mork every time I see NaNo anywhere at this point. "NaNo, NaNo!" Just, you know, please don't start sitting on your heads. I suppose I'll see how the rest of the month goes before I make a final decision about this weird ritual.
We got a dog. It's about time. More on that to come, I'm sure. Maybe pictures if I ever get the camera set back up since the move.
Online sales in October for The House on the Corner were completely flat. That's less than heartening, but, overall, I suppose I've been doing okay. I wouldn't really know in all actuality, though. Maybe everyone is just waiting to hear what Michael has to say about it. It seems the trend that anyone he reviews gets a spike in sales afterward.
heh
Well, it's time to go get ready for class...
1. If you could go back in time and relive one moment, what would it be?
Um... I don't really understand this question. At least, not in respect to the next question. I just get to go back and relive it? Which implies I must have lived it once already, so I can't just go back and experience some moment in time, but it has to be one of my own moments. And I'm just reliving it, but I can do that by remembering it, so what's the point? Maybe to approach the experience with a different sense of appreciation, in which case I would pick the first time I saw Star Wars. I had no idea of what I was walking into, and it might be interesting to be able to go into that theater all those years ago with an appreciation of the impact it was going to have on my life.
However, reflecting on Michael's answer, I might go back to this trip to Washington D.C. when my friends and I stopped in some hole-in-the-wall diner for burgers. Best burger ever. Seriously. Even if they didn't want to serve us and we feared for our lives. The burgers made it worth it.
2. If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?
See, I don't know if this question is related to the previous one or not. Change one thing in my life or change anything? How do I know what the consequences would be? Although there are things in my life that I would do differently, I wouldn't do them differently if they wouldn't get me to where I am now. I have a great family. Wonderful wife. Awesome kids. I wouldn't do anything to risk that, so mucking about in time is not something I'm very inclined to do.
However, if I could be assured that my family would stay intact, I might go back to the Roman Empire and support their steam engine technology (Did you know the Romans invented the steam engine? Well, they did.) just to see where we would be, today, if the steam engine had gone into use, basically, 2000 years earlier.
3. What movie/TV character do you most resemble in personality?
This question doesn't work all that well for me, because I don't really watch a lot of television. And how does this question relate at all to the previous two? Should I pick a time travelling character? But, no, that doesn't really work.
If I have to pick someone, my wife would probably say Bob the Tomato. If you don't know who that is... well, I don't know what to say about that. Runners up would be Monk and Sheldon Cooper.
4. If you could push one person off a cliff and get away with it, who would you choose?
Just one? I don't know how I could possibly choose. I mean, there's no one I actually hate enough to want to kill, and there are too many people that deserve it to pick just one. And are we talking about one person alive today or just anyone from history? The whole scenario is just too... ambiguous.
5. Name one habit you want to change in yourself.
Hmm... farmville? The farther through these questions I get, the more I wonder about the purpose behind them? Wait, wait! I have it! I would change my habit of not travelling in time. Yes, that's the one.
6. Why do you blog?
So I can discover the ability to travel in time? That seems to go along with the rest of these questions, and I can't think of a better reason. Of course, there's also the whole thing of giving people the opportunity to discover whom I am so that they'll want to buy my book(s). But time travel is a much cooler answer.
7. Name at least three people to send this to:
Since I'm trying to limit my contagiousness, I'm going to let you guys answer if you want to. Expose yourself to whatever kind of computer virus this is at your own discretion. But, um, yeah... three of you should definitely choose to answer these questions. At least three. You can let me know in the comments if you're gonna pass this on.
So that's it for the creative answers part of this post. Now, we move on to the creative writing part.
Starting today, I'll be teaching a creative writing class at my kids' school one day a week (in the middle school). Unfortunately, it's not a paid thing. But it is pretty cool. Going to a charter school, all the parents have to have some level of involvement at the school. Most often, this is just helping out in the class room or, maybe, grading papers. What I'm saying is that parents don't generally get to be involved in the academic side of things. That's probably as much the parents' decisions as the school's, though. There are a number of parents who contribute to the P.E. side of things and the drama group is parent lead, but that's about the extent of it that I've seen. At any rate, I'm excited to be doing this, even if it is a free gig. It should be fun.
My son (the younger one) had to have his classes switched around so that he could get to be in my class, and he's all excited, too. He was sort of grilling me this morning about what sort of things we're going to be doing, and I harassed him by telling him I was going to get to be harder on him than on everyone else in the class. I don't think he appreciated that very much. I am glad he's getting to be in it, though; he started writing his own novel at the beginning of the summer but quickly found out that it was harder than he thought. He hasn't gotten very far with it. Hopefully, having regular creative writing assignments will help get him in the habit of writing creatively.
In other, unrelated news:
I think I'm disliking November and this whole NaNo thing. Yeah, I know, blasphemy. But I think of Mork every time I see NaNo anywhere at this point. "NaNo, NaNo!" Just, you know, please don't start sitting on your heads. I suppose I'll see how the rest of the month goes before I make a final decision about this weird ritual.
We got a dog. It's about time. More on that to come, I'm sure. Maybe pictures if I ever get the camera set back up since the move.
Online sales in October for The House on the Corner were completely flat. That's less than heartening, but, overall, I suppose I've been doing okay. I wouldn't really know in all actuality, though. Maybe everyone is just waiting to hear what Michael has to say about it. It seems the trend that anyone he reviews gets a spike in sales afterward.
heh
Well, it's time to go get ready for class...
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