Where Flying Toasters Fly Free

So it’s nearly June, nearly the start of summer here in Southern California, but yet there is still that familiar nip in the evening air.

Winter giving it’s last bit of assertion of power, I suppose.

Still, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about SoCal, it’s that you can’t be too complacent about the weather. You just cant take the warm cloudless days for granted. Nor anything else, for that matter.

When every day feels like the last, when you have gotten used to a familiar routine, it’s easy to get jaded. Easy to get too familiar. Not that I’m ragging on familiarity, familiarity is nice, but it’s also a trap. And a dreadful one at that, too. Get too familiar, and you lose your flexibility. You get rigid.

When tough winds break mighty oak trees, there’s a reason the palms still stand. The oaks are rigid, while the palms bend.

So what’s the moral of my little bit of exposition? Be flexible. Bend. And don’t just wait to be bent; do some bending yourself. You don’t have to eat at the some place everyday for lunch. Go down the street and check out that Thai place you always see on the way to work. Be willing to explore the world around you with a new set of eyes. Bending isn’t just physical, its mental too. And it can help you become a newer person.

Releasing Baloons into the Wild Blue Yonder!

So I went to the job fair right as they were packing up. They had a ton of balloons and were just going to pop them so I asked if I could have them. I tied them all together and attached a note that read “It’s cool that you found this, Email me.” and then my email address.

The Executioners Song – Victor Khaze Ft. Incredibox

PiDay

And yes, in retrospect, the formula is actually C/D=PI

Have you ever had one of those moments when you are doing something and then, all of a sudden, you have a sort of vision?

I had one tonight and it gave me great pause. We had finished dinner and I was to clean the table. So I put some jazz on and went to work. I had just finished taking everything to the kitchen when I noticed something shmutz was on the living room table. So, I grabbed a napkin and started wiping it up, my hand moving in circles.

All of a sudden, I saw myself in black slacks, white shirt, suspenders, and a black apron. I was cleaning a small, round mahogany table in a dimly lit lounge. There was noone else there, and all the other table had the chairs upside down on them.

It was the most surreal of experiences and it lasted only a moment. But something felt so “right” about it. “Right” enough for me to stop what I was doing and think about what I just saw, or felt, or whatever it was that I was.

Anyway, I just had to get that down someplace before I forgot.

The Tutor’s Lament:

Don’t blame me.
Don’t blame me if your kids grades aren’t gong up.
I spend six hours or more a week with your kids.
I try to teach them every thing I can to help them.
Analogies, diagrams, videos; I don’t just come prepared, I come fully stocked and fully loaded.
But after those six hours, it takes you less than five minutes to undo it all.
TV, XBOX, Playstation 3, Computer, Facebook, cellphone.
They bury themselves in all of that and you say nothing.
You DO nothing.
When we were kids, Video games, phone, those were privileges; things you could enjoy as a reward for doing your work.
And we worked.
We worked so we could hang out with our friends.
We worked so we could use the phone.
We worked so we could save the princess from bowser, only to find she was in another castle.
And your kids work for nothing.
They want for nothing.
You give them anything they want.
And then you ask, “Why are their grades so horrible?”
It’s because they have no reason to work.
They don’t know the disappointment of a “C” or the elation of an “A” because they have no reason to.
Work? Don’t Work? What’s the difference?
There is no reward for them, no punishment, no matter either way.
I say “Let me take their cell phones.”
You say, “No, they need them so they can talk with their friends.”
I say, “Let me take their computers.”
You say, “No, they need them to write their essays because they need the spell checker.”
I say, “Let me take their games.”
You say, “Then how will they play?”
And already, at 20, I say, “Well, back in my day…”
Back in my day, we wrote essays on lined paper.
Back in my day, we used the dictionary to check our spelling.
Back in my day, we played games and talked to our friends when we were DONE with our homework.
Not before, but after.
Your kids can live without their cell phones and computers.
You did.
We did.
They can too.
And they’ll be better for it!

• So My campus is in a state of emergency. Apparently theres been a bomb threat #

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The experience of writing with a typewriter can be special… if you’re the right kind of writer. Every tap of the key delivers a satisfying punch to the page. Every inked letter unique and special in its own way. It’s this direct and mechanical scribing, from mind to page, that can give whatever you feel like writing the feelings an emotions that you want to pass to the reader.

On top of that, no copy is ever alike. Sure, you can make a photocopy, but that’s no the original. That one doesn’t have the indents on the back of each letter, where the hammer struck the page.

Typed pages are also so much more raw. There are no do-overs, no whiteout, no erasing. If you want to do it only once then you had better get it done right the first time. If you do screw up, the best you can hope for is that you weren’t too far down the page so you wont have much to retype on the new one. It’ll make you slow down; not because you have to, but because you want to. So you can think faster than your fingers are moving. Slowing you down, but in a way that helps improve you as a writer.

The problem is you don’t see too many honest to goodness typewriters out in the world. And if you do, well, good luck finding a ribbon for it. You can still buy something that looks like a typewriter, maybe even sounds like a typewriter; but really, it isn’t. It’s probably a word processor; the cyborg of the writing world. Half analog, half digital; The typewriter with the brain and editing ability of a computer. With a word processor, you can delete words off the page, as if they were never there. A really fancy one will probably even let you type an entire line without ink hitting the page, all so you can run the spell checker first.

So where have all the typewriters gone? The back rooms of libraries, old storage sheds, yard sales; Maybe. Truth is, they could be any where. I gave up my typewriter in favor of a computer long ago; young and foolish.

Then again, I wouldn’t be the person I am today were it not for that first computer. The first computer that was ever truly mine.

But that’s a story for another time.

• Hey guys, I need your help! Http://sonic.tumblr.com #

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The rain fell.

“I’m gonna give you one last chance.” said the man in the black fedora.
“Please, stop this!” She cried out.
“You can give me all the chances in the world, it ain’t gonna change what’s gonna happen.” The young man from New York was adamate.

The man’s face turned from stern to somber, “Is that right?”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

There was no turning back now. No escaping fate. An immovable object against a unstopable force.

A shot rang. The rain fell. The young man with the Brooklyn accent died. She cried.