I started blogging because it seemed like the cool thing to do and I hoped that I had something to say. I both continued and stalled because I started to feel pressure over making my posts 'good enough'. As though the title of my blog were "The Great American Novel" instead of "Thoughts That Get Stuck In My Head".
But today I'm unsettled and casting about for something to do with disquiet in my soul. It's the kind of day that when I was younger I would write letters to my best friend - my step-sister - because we were unlucky enough to live miles apart. (Yes, kids, this was back in the day before IMs and cell phones with unlimited plans and free long distance.) I was apparently very unsettled and disquieted because she has boxes of letters from those teen years. I also deluged Dwight Schultz with letters until I got an autographed picture. My letter writing became so significant over the summer of 1984 that I dubbed myself "The Great Letter Writing Bandit".
Well, now we have IM and cell phones with free long distance and I'm even lucky enough that my step-sis moved within 30 minutes of me. But at times I am still unsettled and casting about for something to do with disquiet in my soul. Yearning to reach out and communicate in an earnest and truthful way. A way that, to me, is only achieved by writing in full sentences and using clever turns of phrase that keep me entertained.
"Doh!" I said, slapping myself on the forehead. "THAT's what blogging is for!" Even now, as I'm typing this, I feel better. If I can use this forum to keep that monkey off my back - the overpowering need to communicate whether anyone likes it or not - then it will more than pay for itself. Wait a second, this is free....
The Great Letter Writing Bandit is IN.
Monday, January 12, 2004
Saturday, January 10, 2004
Knock Me Over With a Phaser Set on Stun
There have always been certain principles in my life - things like gravity, no white shoes after labor day, and Coke being better than Pepsi. One of the other things I had accepted as a given in my personal universe was that Wil Wheaton sort of, well... irritated the crap out of me. This wasn't just a celebrity thing - he was in our town doing a film in the early 90s. Some of his co-stars won the love and admiration of the locals, so we were by no means pre-disposed to hate all of Hollywood. But then a funny thing happened on the way to the market....
You might remember that I'm a HUGE Disney fan. Ditto, maybe even times ten, on Star Trek. Classic Trek. (To quote Robert in Free Enterprise "I would never live in the 24th century! I f**ing HATE "The Next Generation". Only classic!" Well, maybe not quite that bad, but close.) I actually - no lie - got DRESSED UP for the last movie with Spock in it (1) because it was like an event for me. Back in the day it took me almost seven years to warm up to The Next Generation. Yeah, like it was going off the air and I was saying, "You know, this show isn't so bad." So ST:TNG stopped production, then faded from heavy syndication, and Wil Wheaton faded from my mind. Story became myth and myth became legend.
Then he started a blog.
Now, I don't know where he went or what he did or how everything worked out over the last ten years- but tonight I started reading his blog and I've got to say that the dude is cool. His stock rose a thousandfold with me. I was so impressed with his writing and thoughts and ideas that I dropped him an email even though I assumed it would never be read. Sometimes I just have to express my appreciation. I gave him the scope of my viewpoint so that he would know he had really changed my opinion of him. He wrote back. (2) The dude is cool. Anyone who says otherwise has to deal with me.
6/21/2010 Update:
(1) Ok, so it wasn't the last movie with Spock in it. We just thought it was going to be. Based on this logic Spock may be immortal. But the point is I put on a little black dress, heels, and pearls. *ubergeek*
(2) Wil included his now famous (but not yet at that point) tag line about not being a dick.
You might remember that I'm a HUGE Disney fan. Ditto, maybe even times ten, on Star Trek. Classic Trek. (To quote Robert in Free Enterprise "I would never live in the 24th century! I f**ing HATE "The Next Generation". Only classic!" Well, maybe not quite that bad, but close.) I actually - no lie - got DRESSED UP for the last movie with Spock in it (1) because it was like an event for me. Back in the day it took me almost seven years to warm up to The Next Generation. Yeah, like it was going off the air and I was saying, "You know, this show isn't so bad." So ST:TNG stopped production, then faded from heavy syndication, and Wil Wheaton faded from my mind. Story became myth and myth became legend.
Then he started a blog.
Now, I don't know where he went or what he did or how everything worked out over the last ten years- but tonight I started reading his blog and I've got to say that the dude is cool. His stock rose a thousandfold with me. I was so impressed with his writing and thoughts and ideas that I dropped him an email even though I assumed it would never be read. Sometimes I just have to express my appreciation. I gave him the scope of my viewpoint so that he would know he had really changed my opinion of him. He wrote back. (2) The dude is cool. Anyone who says otherwise has to deal with me.
6/21/2010 Update:
(1) Ok, so it wasn't the last movie with Spock in it. We just thought it was going to be. Based on this logic Spock may be immortal. But the point is I put on a little black dress, heels, and pearls. *ubergeek*
(2) Wil included his now famous (but not yet at that point) tag line about not being a dick.
Tuesday, January 6, 2004
Another New Word
Awhile back I shared that my vocabulary is increasing because of circumstances that are new in my life but apparently have affected the generations before me. That's why there are already words for them. Well, now in addition to kakistocracy and antinomian I have gerrymander. What is that, you say? Let us turn again to dictionary.com. It means "To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections." Surely you know where this is going. Straight to Texas. The steamroller of the Grand Old Party has struck again.
In case you would like to know the origin of gerrymander, dictionary.com tells us: A gerrymander sounds like a strange political beast, which it is, considered from a historical perspective. This beast was named by combining the word salamander, a small lizardlike amphibian, with the last name of Elbridge Gerry, a former governor of Massachusettsa state noted for its varied, often colorful political fauna. Gerry (whose name, incidentally, was pronounced with a hard g, though gerrymander is now commonly pronounced with a soft g) was immortalized in this word because an election district created by members of his party in 1812 looked like a salamander. According to one version of gerrymander's coining, the shape of the district attracted the eye of the painter Gilbert Stuart, who noticed it on a map in a newspaper editor's office. Stuart decorated the outline of the district with a head, wings, and claws and then said to the editor, That will do for a salamander! Gerrymander! came the reply. The word is first recorded in April 1812 in reference to the creature or its caricature, but it soon came to mean not only the action of shaping a district to gain political advantage but also any representative elected from such a district by that method. Within the same year gerrymander was also recorded as a verb.
Everything old is new again. And I'm not sure I like it.
Awhile back I shared that my vocabulary is increasing because of circumstances that are new in my life but apparently have affected the generations before me. That's why there are already words for them. Well, now in addition to kakistocracy and antinomian I have gerrymander. What is that, you say? Let us turn again to dictionary.com. It means "To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections." Surely you know where this is going. Straight to Texas. The steamroller of the Grand Old Party has struck again.
In case you would like to know the origin of gerrymander, dictionary.com tells us: A gerrymander sounds like a strange political beast, which it is, considered from a historical perspective. This beast was named by combining the word salamander, a small lizardlike amphibian, with the last name of Elbridge Gerry, a former governor of Massachusettsa state noted for its varied, often colorful political fauna. Gerry (whose name, incidentally, was pronounced with a hard g, though gerrymander is now commonly pronounced with a soft g) was immortalized in this word because an election district created by members of his party in 1812 looked like a salamander. According to one version of gerrymander's coining, the shape of the district attracted the eye of the painter Gilbert Stuart, who noticed it on a map in a newspaper editor's office. Stuart decorated the outline of the district with a head, wings, and claws and then said to the editor, That will do for a salamander! Gerrymander! came the reply. The word is first recorded in April 1812 in reference to the creature or its caricature, but it soon came to mean not only the action of shaping a district to gain political advantage but also any representative elected from such a district by that method. Within the same year gerrymander was also recorded as a verb.
Everything old is new again. And I'm not sure I like it.
Monday, December 22, 2003
They Don't Call It Pixie Dust for Nothin'
Roy Disney wrote back today -
Dear Supporter:
I enormously appreciate your support and offer to be of help. Our opposition to both an entrenched CEO and directors at Disney has clearly touched a nerve. Letters similar to yours are arriving by the truckload.
We are deeply committed to restoring the Disney magic and want to ensure that the Company honors its heritage and stands for quality and integrity of its products and services for future generations to come.
Please stay in touch with us via our website - www.savedisney.com - - and we will begin to communicate with you regularly regarding our collective efforts to restore the magic.
Again, thanks for your continuing support and remember, it all started with a mouse!
Sincerely,
Roy Disney
Roy Disney wrote back today -
Dear Supporter:
I enormously appreciate your support and offer to be of help. Our opposition to both an entrenched CEO and directors at Disney has clearly touched a nerve. Letters similar to yours are arriving by the truckload.
We are deeply committed to restoring the Disney magic and want to ensure that the Company honors its heritage and stands for quality and integrity of its products and services for future generations to come.
Please stay in touch with us via our website - www.savedisney.com - - and we will begin to communicate with you regularly regarding our collective efforts to restore the magic.
Again, thanks for your continuing support and remember, it all started with a mouse!
Sincerely,
Roy Disney
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes....
I'm a big Disney fan. Let me rephrase that. I'm a BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG Disney fan. I have embarressed people with my enthusiasm. Today a friend gave me the link to Roy Disney's Save Disney site. I sent Mr. Disney a letter that I thought I would share with you. To me this is right up there with the Dean vs. Bush show-down.
Dear Mr. Disney -
I have been a Disney enthusiast as long as I can remember. I was grief-striken when I heard that you were leaving the Board and extremely angry when I found out why. For my senior project at Mary Baldwin College in 1994 I focused on the Disney Company, researching the company history and analyzing five years of annual reports (plus those of three competitors). My report was a 90 page review of accounting, management, and marketing. The comparisons were easy - they were all basically, "Disney does it better and here's why..."
When President Frank Wells died in that helicopter crash and Eisner took over it worried me. I thought that a good bit of the quality that the Disney Company was experiencing in its management came from the differences between them. As the years wore on I became more and more disappointed with Eisner. Now, well, now we've got a fight on our hands.
You have my complete support. If you need anything, please do not hesitate to ask. By trade I'm an accountant who specializes in enterprise reporting and project management. I can analyze issues, write reports, do presentations, set up databases - all the sorts of things you might expect. Disney is number one on my "Top Ten Things That Make Me Insanely Enthusiastic" list. It is at heart a dream sprinkled in pixie dust and topped with mouse ears - as fragile and strong as a child's sense of wonder. If that's not worth saving, I don't know what is.
If you want to help you can email Mr. Disney at roydisney@savedisney.com.
I'm a big Disney fan. Let me rephrase that. I'm a BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG Disney fan. I have embarressed people with my enthusiasm. Today a friend gave me the link to Roy Disney's Save Disney site. I sent Mr. Disney a letter that I thought I would share with you. To me this is right up there with the Dean vs. Bush show-down.
Dear Mr. Disney -
I have been a Disney enthusiast as long as I can remember. I was grief-striken when I heard that you were leaving the Board and extremely angry when I found out why. For my senior project at Mary Baldwin College in 1994 I focused on the Disney Company, researching the company history and analyzing five years of annual reports (plus those of three competitors). My report was a 90 page review of accounting, management, and marketing. The comparisons were easy - they were all basically, "Disney does it better and here's why..."
When President Frank Wells died in that helicopter crash and Eisner took over it worried me. I thought that a good bit of the quality that the Disney Company was experiencing in its management came from the differences between them. As the years wore on I became more and more disappointed with Eisner. Now, well, now we've got a fight on our hands.
You have my complete support. If you need anything, please do not hesitate to ask. By trade I'm an accountant who specializes in enterprise reporting and project management. I can analyze issues, write reports, do presentations, set up databases - all the sorts of things you might expect. Disney is number one on my "Top Ten Things That Make Me Insanely Enthusiastic" list. It is at heart a dream sprinkled in pixie dust and topped with mouse ears - as fragile and strong as a child's sense of wonder. If that's not worth saving, I don't know what is.
If you want to help you can email Mr. Disney at roydisney@savedisney.com.
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