Video Games: Empty Digital Calories

Joe Rogan nails it re video games. They are dangerous because they are way too much fun.

They are digital opium. And then you look up from your game console several years later and you realize that you threw a big chunk of your life away. You could have been working on your real life. I know of several relationships that were distressed or destroyed because the guy couldn't or wouldn't walk away from video games.

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Sit back and Enjoy this Burrito

No, you don't get to eat a burrito. You get to watch this dog finesse one down. And the dude next to the dog nails the supporting role.

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Fairy Tale Week

Last week I found a big book of Grimm's Fairy Tales in my basement. Out of curiosity, I've been reading a few Grimm's Fairy tales each day for the past several days. More than a few of these stories involve people being desperately hungry or poor. On a regular basis, the wonderful ending is that the people end up with a comfortable house that includes a magic pantry that never runs out of food. These stories must have been written in desperate times. Reading them has reminded me how lucky most of us are that we are not chronically hungry and homeless.

Many of these fairy tales also seem bizarre, involving men actively coveting other mens wives, women treated like property, and families putting their kids to cruel tests. Reading these tales has reminded me that one of my daughters attended a Waldorf School in St. Louis County about 15 years ago. The teachers repeatedly told me that the ONLY thing I should ever read to my daughters, at least until 3rd grade, was Grimm's Fairy Tales. I refused to follow that advice. It strikes me as bizarre today as it did back then, and it was a factor in pulling her out of that school and enrolling her in a much better school. I suspect that they were expecting us to cherry pick for better quality fairy tales, avoiding the bizarre and pointless stories. Cherry picking is common, of course. I'm reminded of the many people who have insisted that I should read the Bible, focusing on the "good parts," not on the bizarre stories, such as the time God sent bears to kill 42 children for making fun of Elisha because he was bald. (2 Kings 2:23-25).

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A Television Fire Provokes Me to Check My Smoke Detectors

I watch very little TV, but Renée Youree Kennison recently convinced me to watch the pilot episode of “This is Us.” Wow. Incredible acting, writing, editing, lighting and music. We have been watching a few episodes per week and we are now almost at the end of Season 2 (out or four completed seasons).

I’m writing this post wondering how many lives might have been saved due to the most recent episode we watched. It involved a horrifically vivid fire of a family residence (I won’t say more because I don’t want to spoil it). Maybe I reacted so emotionally to this episode because 18 years ago I woke up out of a deep sleep (thanks to a smoke detector) with my own house on fire. I was astonished that the smoke hadn’t awakened me earlier. I emptied two fire extinguishers on the fire before the fire department arrived. After watching the TV episode, Renée and I found ourselves walking around our houses evaluating our needs for smoke detector and fire extinguishers. I suspect that other people watching that episode did the same thing. I have my fire extinguisher out in the open and visible. I have smoke detectors on every floor and several rooms.

I know that some fire departments are giving out free smoke detectors. Extinguishers and fire blankets are cheap. COVID-19 is not the only danger out there. Please be safe in all ways!

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The Catastrophic Story-Telling Failure of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

When they stop celebrating “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” I’ll pause my efforts to reframe this story as having one of the worst endings in the history of story-telling.

Just when the Whos of the Who Village almost learned an extremely important lesson, just when they were having an epiphany that all of that Christmas kitsch and all those baubles actually corrupted the holiday and distracted from the meaning of the celebration, that’s when the Grinch got three times more evil that day.

A proper way to end the story would be for the Grinch to confidently dump all of that glittery tinselly crap into the abyss high above the village. He would then triumphantly ride down into the Who Village to be welcomed as a hero. They would sing odes praising the Grinch for conducting his dramatic intervention. They would deeply embrace the idea that Christmas would proceed in a more pristine and sincere form because the materialistic cravings--those jingtinglers, whohoopers and glumbloopas--had been exorcised from the process. The Whos might even celebrate that the Grinch was channeling the Jesus who drove the money-changers out of the temple. Instead of singing the “Twelve Days or Christmas,” the Whos would compose a new carol called “O Little Town Where Less is More.”

The actual story ending is a sad one, however. Because the Grinch allowed schmaltzy emotion to prevail over principle, he decided that Christmas should NOT become like traditional Thanksgiving (before the concept of Black Friday). He decided that the celebration needed thousands of materialistic distractions after all. The Whos, glitch-addicts that they were, put up no resistance. The story ending consisted of a lesson almost learned. No denouement here—that metaphorical sleigh just couldn’t quite get over the crest of the hill. This kind of almost-story could inspire a remake of “A Christmas Story” where Scrooge almost learned his lesson. In that revised ending, post-nightmare Scrooge would march back to the Cratchit house and spray paint anti-Cratchit graffiti on the walls.

Damn. The story of the Grinch was almost such a great story. See you next year for more of the same.

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