You know, I used to be kind of cool once.

Ha! It's a bit old, but it's still funny.

(For those of you wondering what the heck I'm talking about, just click on the linked "Ha!" above.)

These Kids Today

From a record review in this past weekend's San Diego Union Tribune:

"If you try, you can find some good moments in the 11 overly long tracks. There's cool drumming. The singing is very loud and dramatic...And overall it kind of reminds you of your parents' Rush albums." (Italics added by me.)

Your parents' Rush albums? Are they the thing that kids today make fun of - the way I used to pick on my dad for listening to Peter, Paul, and Mary?

Existentialist Angst

I'm in a study group that studies things that are way, way over my head. It's kind of a small, elite group of Chicago psychologists, and I basically pay my way in so that I can get some exposure to the stuff that I can't understand. It's also a cool networking thing, in the case that these heavyweights decide to remember my name. (Let me not overdo this: it's a group of 5 people including me, and there are really two heavyweights, two mediumweights, and me.)

The point of this. Is.

My next assignment is to read Nietzsche, as we will be discussing how existentialism and psychoanalysis are combined as a method of understanding psychic determinism and therapeutic change. (Do NOT ask me to tell you how. This is why I go to the group.)

As a dutiful student, I went to the library today to find the Nietzsche.

The problem? I couldn't spell Nietzsche. I kept plugging different versions of the name into the library computer, and the searches kept coming up empty.

Niche.
Nische.
Nizche.
Nitche.
Nitsche.
Nitztche.

And on and on it went. I plugged in "Freud" because I know how to spell it, and I wanted to see if the internet was broken. Nope. Plenty of Freud in the library. The computer was up and running.

Neche.
Netchie.
Netsche.

Nothing would work.

Off to wikipedia I go.

Nietzsche!

I see. There's an "i" AND and "e", and every single one of the consonants that could be used. They're all in there. I popped that puppy into the search, and lo and behold it worked.

I swear, every time I have typed it in this very post, I still have trouble. Nietzsche. I'm tellin' ya, you really have to think about how to type that name. Go ahead. You try in the comments section and tell me if you can do it easily or not.

That guy must have been very smart to have such a complicated last name.

Think I should tell this story at the study group? Think I should ask them if they can type the name without thinking real real hard?

Reunion.

One of the comments on the preceding post set me to thinking:

I have a reunion coming up - not this year, but next year. A few weeks back, I was contacted by one of the people organizing it. On the rare occassion that I've actually thought about my high school reunion, my thought has been that I won't go. Candidly, I haven't really stayed in touch with many people from high school; not because I didn't like them, because I did - I just didn't stay in touch. And it isn't that I have no desire to stay in touch with old friends, as this whole Tres Hombres deal exists because three old friends from college still check in on each other. So why don't I want to go?

There is probably some deep truth I'm not wanting to confront about the fact that I'm not successful in the way I had hoped and planned when I was in high school. Even if that is a thought that demonstrates fairly stunted emotional growth, it's probably true. I'm just not where I thought I would be. And strangely, I have a great deal of joy in my life and actually am remarkably grateful for the way my life has turned out. Those probably sound like contradictory statements (and they probably are on some level), but both are true: I'm not where I thought I'd be and that feels like failure and I am profoundly grateful for the life I have and experience a greater level of joy and contentment in my life now than I have at any point in the past. That's a strange juxtaposition of feelings I need to sort through, I think.

So, will I go? I don't know. Luckily, I have a year to think about it.

Today I Shall Channel Larry King

With a nod to both Teodoro and Larry King:


Captain Underpants is one of the many reasons that being a dad to little boys is a blast.

30 Rock makes me laugh very hard. Last week's episode ("The Fighting Irish"), had me replaying several scenes repeatedly on the TiVo.

How does the NCAA make a 65 team tournament? When the tournament was 64 teams, did someone actually say, "you know, one more team would really round this thing out nicely"?

A Starbucks has opened close to where I live. Luckily, this eases the dearth of Starbucks outlets in the area - the nearest one prior had been at least a mile away. (It was, of course, across the street from another Starbucks.)

I bought a new (to me, that is) surfboard. It will allow me to continue to surf terribly, but in a new way.

For the cost of a modest townhome in southern California, one can buy a five-bedroom, 3000 square foot lakefront home rural Illinois. Of course, one then has to live in rural Illinois. So there are tradeoffs.

Youth. Hubris. I am losing a little of both each day. I think that's a fair exchange.

Bluetooth is an awkward name. I'm not sure how that got past the first marketing meeting.

I played a Wii recently. It reminded me of playing Defender on my Atari 2600 for hours on end. Today, I think I could probably play that for about 5 minutes before getting bored.

Seltzer water is my favorite underrated beverage.

Chiclets are terrible after about two minutes; nevertheless, I continue chewing for about an hour.

Glad I could enrich everyone's life.

Geek Alert!

I apologize. I really do. For those of you who aren't sworn techno-zoom-dweebies, check out now. Really.

So I got a new MacBook Pro. Love it. I mean love it. There's not much that can make me lose affection for my trusty old 12" G4 PowerBook, but the new MacBook Pro has done it. Dual Intel processors, 2GB of RAM, glossy screen - love it.

And then, this past Friday, it all went over the top. I installed Windows XP on my MacBook Pro. Windows on my Mac! I can boot into either one! If I want Mac OS X, I've got it. (And, let's be honest, that's what I want most of the time.) But when there is software that won't run on Mac OS X (for instance, TiVo To Go), I can boot into Windows and run it. It's great.

For those of you who have kept reading - probably nobody, actually - I had run Virtual PC on my Mac for a long, long time. And it was clunky. Cluuuuuuuuuunky. Slow. Horrific. But now, speedy is the word of the day. Zippy. I am writing this post on my MacBook Pro in Internet Explorer for Windows XP and it's just like working on a PC.

I am a happy little neo-zoom-dweebie.

And life is good otherwise as well. My fellow hombres, how are thee?