Sometimes the past is past. (or, How to put your behind in the past)

Sometimes, no matter how great the past was, it is the past and it's gone forever.

Back in the day (WAY back in the day) my high school had what would now laughably be called a computer lab. We had about 25 Atari 8-bit computers (a mix of 400 and 800 models) that we used to learn how to type, budget, write, program, and (though they didn't know it) play games. This isn't about those computers. I still have a working Atari 400 and a working Atari 800 (and countless other older computers) This is about the other thing in the lab. 

Coffee, Neurosis, and wit.

 

When I power-watch a TV series that I have already been through any number of times one of two things happens. Either I mostly ignore it, knowing exactly what is going to be said by whom and when, using it as background noise or filler. Or I pay extra attention to it wringing out new meanings, new details, and little in-jokes that I somehow missed the previous times through the show. 

Decision Making Paradigm re-evaluated.

 

So while I had hoped that I was done writing about friendships it turns out I am not. 

Time to re-evaluate my decision-making paradigm...

Rita Mae Brown, in her 1983 book "Sudden Death" wrote, "Unfortunately, Susan didn't remember what Jane Fulton once said, 'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.'”

When the fall is all there is...

One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is from "The Lion in Winter" (1968) (and 2003 for that matter...) when Geoffrey, Richard, and John are in the dungeon waiting on the king to come for them. They have a little back and forth and Richard is going on about how he is going to meet his death. There is an interchange between them that I really like a lot. It goes like this:

Richard: He'll get no satisfaction out of me. He isn't going to see me beg.

Geoffrey: Why you chivalric fool—as if the way one fell down mattered.

Richard: When the fall is all there is, it matters.

The Inner Light

 

I recently watched the Star Trek The Next Generation episode "The Inner Light" (Season 5 episode 25). This is far from the first time as it is one of my very favorites from the series. This time however it started me thinking and if you know me at all there are only two possible outcomes of my thinking: Very BAD things happen or very PROFOUND things happen. I guess you will need to read on to see which it was this time...

Short Fiction, the Internet, and Everything.

I have been reading what you would call short fiction since I was very young (is there anything that more epitomizes short fiction than a Little Golden Book?)  and I was probably 9 or 10 years old when I got my first magazine. I am reasonably sure it was a copy of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine; I still have a couple issues from back then, though not all of the ones I read by any means.

To have lived through some of the heydays of fantasy and sci-fi short fiction and the magazine boom only to then to see it falter, almost disappear completely, and then start to recover was an interesting experience.

Out In The World

Every day on my way to work and then back home from work I see people out in the world.

They look like they are having fun, doing things, living lives.