Category — Uncategorized

I came across an interesting idea reading Ready Player One — and I want to discuss this in the post and comments without giving any spoilers.  I’m not done with the book, and I know a lot of people haven’t read it yet at all.

The premise is that a programmer, James Halliday, created a virtual reality game that has thousands of worlds.  One of these worlds is an exact replica of his hometown, Middletown, Ohio, on a random autumn day in 1986.  There are non-player characters walking around the town, riding their bikes, mowing their lawns.

There is also a recreation of the programmer’s childhood home, perfectly replicated down to the shag carpeting.  The narrator comments on this preservation because for all intents and purposes, the programmer had a shitty childhood.  He states,

Looking around, I wondered why Halliday, who always claimed to have had a miserable childhood, had later become so nostalgic for it.  I knew that if and when I finally escaped from the stacks, I’d never look back.  And I definitely wouldn’t create a detailed simulation of the place.

It’s an excellent question: why are we nostalgic for some things and not others?  I have no desire to ever see a scrunchie or banana clip again, despite loving to wear them when I was little.  But I would do anything to get my old gummy bracelets back.  I spent hours upon hours playing tag, and while I have fond memories of the game, I have no desire to play all-neighbourhood tag ever again.  Yet I incessantly play old Atari games.

And then you have the situation in the book: if a person has no fond memories of a space, why would they want to create a simulation of it?  Is it worth someone outside of an experience visiting a space to try to understand it?  Of course.  But we’re talking about building an exact replica of something you lived through and hated so you could revisit it.  What would be the benefit of that?

Unless, I guess, he didn’t really hate his childhood.

I would love a replica of my childhood home, but I also have happy memories of childhood.  And barring a replica of it, I would at least like some of my old toys and books back.

What are you nostalgic for?  And what sort of things evoke nostalgia in your life?  Is there rhyme and reason to what triggers you to miss something?

Last week, Mental Floss ran a piece on the Loch Ness Monster.  I am so in love with the Loch Ness Monster (and its various incarnations in other bodies of water, including Chessie in the Chesapeake Bay.  We always, always, always shriek hello to Chessie when we cross the Kent Narrows) that I bookmarked it, wanting to read it as a treat when I was finished with my work.

So much for my treat.  Instead my childhood heart was SHATTERED.

You know who the real monster is?  Mental Floss.

Apparently, the infamous photo of Nessie floating on the water is a fake, snapped by Marmaduke Wetherell to support his earlier debunked animal footprint scandal.  And yes, that is an awful thing to do, but Mental Floss is 10,000 times worse.  Implying that Nessie doesn’t exist, when we all know that Nessie DOES exist?  Because he has to exist?  Because I’m planning a trip to Scotland to look for Nessie so we’re sure as hell going to keep believing he exists?

You know how I know that Nessie exists?  Because it was in the excellent 1983 National Geographic Society’s book, Amazing Mysteries of the World.  Why would National Geographic Society cover it if it weren’t completely true?  Are there grizzlies in Yellowstone?  Snow is Sweden?  Then it follows that there are lake monsters in Scotland.

I am choosing to unbookmark the article and pretend it didn’t happen.

What do you believe in even though you know it’s probably not true?

Yesterday was the last day of Banned Book Week.  To celebrate book freedom, I picked up Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry for the ChickieNob.  It was one of those books I loved as a kid but hadn’t thought to pass along to the kids until I saw it on a banned book list.

It speaks volumes that I had no clue why it was banned.   I have no memory of anything controversial happening in the book.

As I stood in the library line waiting to check out, I started flipping through the pages and immediately remembered how much I felt a kinship with Anastasia.  While I never had a small, pink wart, she had always seemed like someone I would be friends with if we lived in the same town.  She was like Ramona Quimby or Margaret Simon; nice, smart girls who sometimes made mistakes while trying to figure out their place in the world.

Like wanting to name her baby brother One-Ball Reilly Krupnik.

Please?  Is that why it was banned?  I already knew about testicles from Then Again, Maybe I Won’t.

There is a part in the book where Anastasia talks about the poetry book her father dedicated to her, and I always think about Anastasia and the dedication when I dedicate a book to someone.  And my heart still breaks when I read the line, “I’m getting memories, all of a sudden!  And they don’t feel good!”

Moreover, I STILL keep an Anastasia-inspired notebook of things I love and things I hate.  I love magic (real magic AND illusions), Doctor Who, and interactive fiction.  I haven’t put anything on the hate list, even though I often think hateful things about other drivers on the road, so I could probably jot those things down.  It makes me feel like a virtuous person that my “love” side is so long and my “hate” side is empty.

Anastasia is right, it feels good to write down the things that make you happy.  So in honour of Banned Books Week, one day late, join Anastasia (and me) in listing three things you love.  And if you’re feeling it, too, three things you hate.

Side note: Tomorrow is #MicroblogMonday.  Get writing.

Does your partner read your blog?  Is he or she following you on Twitter?  Hearting your Instagram pictures?  Liking your Facebook statuses?  Because, apparently, he or she shouldn’t.

I bookmarked and finally read this article about why you should not be connected to your partner on social media.  The reasons are what you’d expect: people are connecting less in the face-to-face world because they assume their partner knows everything from the online world, plus the situation is ripe for people to see things that are better off unseen, like a casual, cute comment between your current partner and one of their ex-partners.

And… well… yeah.  I mean, if you don’t connect offline, it’s obviously a problem.  And if you are going to fret over your partner receiving a comment from one of their ex-partners, it’s probably a problem.  But the article makes it sound like the only reason to be connected online is so you can tag your partner and chart your entire relationship in Facebook status updates.  Aren’t people just connected online for the sake of being connected online?  Because their partner is actually a friend, and it would be weird to be “friends” with a random stranger you met at a conference yet not “friends” with your partner?

Wouldn’t you find it a little curious if two people in a couple were active online but not connected at all to each other?

I would find it curious.

Ooooh, I’d probably sit around in bed with Josh at night and muse on why they’re not connected because I’m so nosy like that.

I love that Josh reads my blog.  I don’t think he has ever learned anything here that he didn’t already know (or couldn’t deduce).  The same goes for the rest of social media.  A blog post more often elicits an eyebrow raise and an “it’s interesting that you wrote about that” or an “oh, I thought you’d write about X today.”  He doesn’t have to read my blog, but it’s one more place he can connect with me, so I’m glad he does.  I’m proud of this space; I’m proud of what I write.  I don’t need him to hang onto my every word, but I always appreciate it when he says something about a post, which lets me know that he read it.

And I like seeing what he posts.  He’s not actively blogging anymore, but he posts sometimes on Twitter or Facebook.  It’s interesting to see what thoughts make it onto the screen.

So… does your partner read your blog?  Are you connected on social media?  And are you happy about it?  Or do you wish you could say whatever you wanted to say online knowing that the person eating cereal beside you isn’t wondering about your last blog post or status update?

A few weeks ago, I read about the podcast Jesse vs. Cancer.  The podcaster is a standup comic with stage 4 colon cancer.  Sort of off my beaten podcast path since I tend to lean hard on the NPR and NPR-like ouevre.  But the reviewer said that they laughed so hard that they had to keep pausing the episode, so I decided to download an episode or two and give it a try.

And that is how I almost crashed my car.

I was driving down the highway, listening to an episode when he started to cover the type of people who believe in ghosts in episode two.  I was laughing so hard that I started crying at the same time, and my chest hurt from trying to hold it together.

Actually, there have been so many moments like that.  I embarrassed myself as I shook all over at a traffic light, the elderly woman in the car beside mine staring at me while I jerked around.  I decided that I can’t listen to it while on the road.

Unfortunately, I probably shouldn’t listen to it in the house, either.  One night, Josh and I were falling asleep when a joke Jesse made floated into my brain and I laughed aloud, startling Josh awake.  “You were thinking about the broken dick joke, weren’t you,” he accused.

I was.

It is about the cancer, obviously, but it’s not really about the cancer.  It is about a very funny person observing life, and if you like dick jokes and are not easily offended, it is pretty much the funniest thing I have heard in a long time.  The highest honour I can give is to not delete a podcast immediately after listening, and I turned off the delete option on iTunes because I knew I’d want to listen again.

So… not the usual podcast I recommend, but so good.  The comedian says that he is currently putting together a tour, and I will definitely see him if he comes my way.  So you know he has to be really funny if I’m willing to actually have an evening out.

P.S. Give it two episodes before you decide how you feel.  The first episode is a lot of background information.  He really hits his stride by the third episode.