Monthly Archives: August 2012

August 24, 2012

BB #7: Peaches & Red Shirts

I was brought up pretty well, I think, in terms of having (and keeping) principles and honor and honesty. But my parents failed terribly in one regard: I have horrible eating habits. The stuff I love is, generally speaking, the wrong sort of stuff to be eating, and those wholesome and wonderful foods leave me cold. Some of them, cooked squash or most egg preparations for example, actually induce a gag reflex.

Given a choice between eating a fried (or boiled) egg or being water boarded, I would have to give the matter some serious thought.

It’s like the old Jack Benny joke about the time he was mugged. “Your money or your life!” cries the mugger. [long pause] “Well?” demands the mugger. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” replies Benny.

6 Comments | tags: Danny Glover, Jack Benny, Lethal Weapon, peaches, pie, Star Trek, tropes, TV Tropes, veggies, Wiki Walk | posted in Brain Bubble

August 24, 2012

When the Dark Comes

By Wyrd Smythe

When it’s 3 AM and the bad moon rises; lunacy.

When darkness and disappointment rip the soul.

When tears no longer wash away the pain.

When anger blots mind with spilled-ink thoughts.

When fear grows tall in cornrows of dismay.

When silence echoes with loss and cost.

When life’s hollows capture rage and regret.

When bone ache of could haves, should haves, weigh heavy.

When angels hide and demons call.

When sorrow seems the guiding star.

When unspoke pleas on deaf ears fall.

When good deeds seem unseen; each misstep marked.

When luck sours; curdled dreams gone; drained.

When words fail; brightness tarnished brass.

When age brings wear and weariness.

When change whips flesh from back; submission.

Branches move in the wind; look!

On the horizon a storm brews.

When love’s a dead ember; coals gone to charcoal.

When hope tastes like ashes and dust.

When you stand alone in the crowd.

When blank faces don’t look back; eyes avoid.

When reaching hands grasp nothing.

When longing overtakes sense and senses.

When empty arms make a cold vacuum.

When heart breaks on lonely shores; beauty lost.

The storm comes.

Winds blow; boughs break.

Lightning cracks; rains come.

The storm passes.

Air cools; breeze blows.

Day dawns; light comes.

Moon Spirits, 4/5
Lisa Unterbrink

4 Comments | tags: darkness, despair, Lisa Unterbrink, loss, Moon Spirits, poetry | posted in Writing

August 23, 2012

My Life 2.0

By Wyrd Smythe

This is a companion piece to yesterday’s post about my high school English teacher, Mr. Wilson (which may—or may not—be his real name). This piece concerns something that happened in high school that changed my life. It’s one of those moments when you turn onto a new road that ends up becoming a permanent part of your path. As we say these days, it rebooted my life.

The road turn took place in 1970, but the first real seed was planted the year before. It was my first year of high school, and I went to see a play, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, put on by the high school. The play was staged in the school’s auditorium, a 1000-seat genuine theatre complete with fly galleries, lighting positions, and a booth at the back for projectors and the main spotlight.

It was the first time I’d seen a live play or a theatre like that.

23 Comments | tags: Cloris Leachman, drama, Ed Asner, high school, lighting guy, Mary Tyler Moore, theatre, theatre lighting | posted in Life, Writing

August 22, 2012

Somewhat Unique

By Wyrd Smythe

(Not Mr. Wilson)

I’ve spent so much time today reading and commenting on other people’s blogs (and a few on my own) that now I’m feeling a bit weary of writing. Still, we’ll see how this one goes. It’s a combination bone to pick (albeit a small and arguable one) and remembrance of things past. Distant, dim past. High school past. Nearly forty years past.

I’ve been remembering the past for a variety of reasons. A high school friend, one of the very few I’m still in touch with, is also facing looming job elimination.

And just yesterday, someone else from high school sent a message to my Facebook page (which I maintain for the purpose of old friends finding me, and only for that purpose).

11 Comments | tags: Chaucer, classy, English class, high school, Mr. Wilson, Neil Gaiman, Sandman, unique | posted in Life, Writing

August 21, 2012

Strange Dreams

By Wyrd Smythe

Had a pair of interesting dreams I want to record. They were odd enough to stay with me once I awoke, and interesting enough (at least to me) that I want to record them. They seem possibly related to my current job situation.

(NOTE: This post is intended more for me — a true web log — than for any putative readership, so you may not find it very interesting. This is your one and only warning!

Continued reading may lead to a why am I reading this syndrome!)

4 Comments | tags: Cousin Itt, dreams, Morticia Addams, retirement, work | posted in Life, Writing

August 20, 2012

Commercials: #2

By Wyrd Smythe

When I wrote the first rant about television commercials over a year ago, I promised I would return to the subject repeatedly. Better late than never, here’s another entry towards keeping that promise.

As I mentioned last time, I’m not a big fan of marketing and advertising. Of course companies need to market and advertise their products.

It’s the way they go about it that I sometimes (in all honesty, make that frequently) find repulsive.

1 Comment | tags: Arbys, AT&T, commercials, Klondike bars, McDonalds | posted in Rant, TV

August 19, 2012

BB #6: More Thoughtinos

By Wyrd Smythe

As fall slowly falls upon the region, the smell of wood smoke is in the air. Much as it evokes great times around countless camp and bonfires, the smell has been strong enough recently to really set off my sinuses. Two nights in a row (wait: sniff, sniff… make that three), it was less the fragrance of wood smoke and more the acrid nostril-irritating stench of wood smoke.

An age-old metaphor for life, perhaps.

Too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing.

8 Comments | tags: Adobe Reader, cargo cult, creativity, luck, motorcycles, success, wood smoke | posted in Brain Bubble

August 19, 2012

Venus & Mars

By Wyrd Smythe

A while back I wrote about Yin & Yang and how some opposites are truly opposing (positive and negative) while others are actually the presence and lack of a thing (light and dark, for example). In that article I cited men & women as being genuine opposing pairs, as you can’t consider either one the absence of the other.

That, understandably, generated some comments. Many would not choose to see women & men as being opposites at all, but as two variations on the theme of human. I think that is absolutely correct. Our two human sexes have far more in common than they do in opposition. (And note that gender is a different concept than sex. Gender is about how your mind works, about who you are; sex is about your genetic code.)

And yet… Anyone who lives in the real world knows that the “Mars & Venus” thing has some substance.

7 Comments | tags: duality, friends, lovers, men, women, Yin and Yang | posted in Basics, Philosophy

August 18, 2012

ST: Did I Do That?

By Wyrd Smythe

Before the age of blogs (or even web pages), those of us on the internet had other places to hang out and exchange thoughts.

In fact, in many regards, the “Bulletin Board Systems” (BBS) and “internet news groups” (USENET) were more conversational than blog or Facebook comments. They were more like chat rooms where conversations took place over days and weeks (and months).

Like chat rooms, they involved a group of people having a conversation. I miss those days… blog comments are too brief and passing to be a conversation. At best, brief remarks are exchanged for a half-dozen rounds or so, and then the river flows on.

2 Comments | tags: Borg, Captain Picard, Star Trek, The Next Generation, transporters | posted in Life, Sci-Fi Saturday, TV