Monthly Archives: October 2012

I’d like to say a little something about absolutely nothing

What am I going to say today? Anything worthwhile? Something funny? Clever? Probably not. I always hope so. But, you know, sometimes I just find myself sitting at the computer. I’ve been here for a couple of hours already and I don’t have anything yet. So when I get really desperate, like I feel right now, desperate just to say something, anything, I start writing about how I have nothing to say.

I’ve done this maybe four, five, six times already, I can’t remember how many. I can’t believe how much time has flown by since I started writing these blog posts. Everything’s so cyclical. Like I can’t exactly put my finger on the pulse, but I know that there’s definitely a pulse, if that makes any sense. I’ll feel great about the writing. I’ll feel nothing about the writing. I’ll feel terrible about the writing. But it always comes full circle. It’s what tempers me when I’m riding high; it’s what keeps me writing when I’m feeling like I’m wasting my time.

But like I said, how many times have I written already about not knowing what to write about? More than a few. I’ll start it out, “ZOMG I don’t know what to write about!” and I’ll get like an introductory paragraph. And then usually my fingers, after just getting a little bit of action, they’ll get something to get going, by themselves. The next thing I know I’m almost done.

But can I actually keep up an entire blog post fueled only by uncertainty? Could I keep writing about not knowing what to write about without actually developing even the thinnest of an actual subject to explore? Does everybody know what I meant when I wrote “ZOMG” in the previous paragraph? I guess I could try to explain it and knock off another paragraph.

ZOMG. Anybody who uses the Internet knows what OMG means, right? Oh my God. Here’s another little side-tangent. When I’m writing, I never know what to write when I write God. God, god, God. I personally don’t feel moved enough to capitalize the G in god. But then again, I know that a lot of people always capitalize the G. Some people even capitalize pronouns when talking about god. Or God. Sorry. They’ll be like, “I love God and I love His Son.” And I’m not trying to judge. But sometimes just the omission of a capital letter is enough to warrant judgment. But that’s mostly in evangelical literature that I see the capital H, like His or He.

“How often are you reading evangelical literature, Rob?” you might be saying to yourself. Or you might not. “Why am I reading this, Rob?” might be another question you’re asking yourself. The best answer that I have for you is, “Because, it’s great writing. You’re going to faithfully read all of My writing every day and eventually the answer will manifest itself in your brain, and it will be spoken in My voice.” But obviously, that answer is more than a little biased. You already knew that.

You see what I mean? I start out writing something like, “I don’t know what to write about, blah blah blah,” and try as I might to stay on topic, I always wind up thinking about some nonsense to say. Right now is the hardest part of the blog post. I’m about six hundred words in. For some reason I’ve set my absolute lowest limit for a blog piece to be at eight hundred words. I’ve always thought to myself, why? Why eight hundred? because if you’re typing in Microsoft Word, in size twelve Times New Roman font, and you single space it, and you type out a full page of text, it’s more or less eight hundred words.

Whatever, in my opinion that’s good enough a reason as any for page length. Isn’t that what Shakespeare did? Basically. Triambic hexameter, or something like that. They picked out a preordained length and then wrote accordingly. It’s not the language that matters. It doesn’t matter what I’m writing. It just matters that, if you’re looking at this blog post from a distance, like close enough that you can tell that it’s English, but far enough away that you can’t actually read it, you’d look at it and say to yourself, that looks like something that can be read. A blog piece. A Rob G. eight hundred word blog post.

“Rob, are you comparing yourself to Shakespeare?” you might be asking yourself. Although, that’s not really fair, because I could be writing any question in quotation marks followed by the statement, “you might be asking yourself.” Right? Like, “Rob, I can’t think of anybody more handsome than you are,” you might be thinking to yourself, or “Rob, I can’t think of ten minutes I’ve spent better in my life than reading this blog post,” you theoretically could be saying to yourself, in your head, in your mind, just say it, please, say it over and over again, come on, some part of you is thinking that, right, even if it’s just because I’ve been repeating it,  this whole long sentence, it’s in your head now, how good this is, if you’ve read this far, you know what I’m saying, right?

I’m the best at video games

I get on these kicks every once in a while where I get totally and completely addicted to a video game. It doesn’t happen all the time, and it always eventually passes, but when I’m in the grip of a game, it’s just takes me over so completely that I can’t think of or do anything else.

I remember being maybe two or three years old – I know this sounds like a bullshit story, but it’s true – and being over my grandparents’ house. My dad’s the second oldest of eleven kids, so when I was two or three, all of my uncles were in their teens and early twenties. And I remember one time being over there and everyone was huddled around a brand new Nintendo, the first console. They were taking turns playing Super Mario and Duck Hunt. I wanted to play so badly, but nothing sucks the fun out of something more than letting a little kid without any developed motor functions taking a turn and getting his snot-covered fingers all over the controller.

So I didn’t get to play, but I’d still pinpoint that memory as my first moment of video game addiction. Because I can remember it so clearly. And I was only two or three. I don’t have any other memories from that early in life, except for watching them play Mario I. A couple of years later, my dad came home from a business trip really late at night. At least, I thought it was pretty late at night. It could have been ten. I don’t know, I was a little kid and I was asleep and my dad came home with a Super Nintendo, set it up, woke us up out of bed, and sat us in front of the TV to play.

Little kids go to bed early and they stay asleep for like twelve hours. That’s how it must have been, because my exact memory of what went down had me waking up, regaining consciousness right in front of the television, holding the controller and playing Super Mario. I’ve never had a better waking up experience to this day. I beat that game so fast, I remember sending a photo of the end credits to Nintendo Power magazine, who asked readers to send in their photos, to determine who was the first person in the world to beat it. And it was me. I was the first person in the world to beat Super Mario World.

Then I remember reading Nintendo Power later on and seeing a whole article about The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It showed all of the enemies you’d get to face, all of the items you’d get to collect and use along the way. Reading that article and looking at those pictures, I remember that I wanted that game more than I wanted anything else in the entire world. But I had to play it exactly right. I couldn’t just beg for it, because then I’d never get it. I had to casually mention that I wanted it, all while presenting little opportunities for my parents to buy it for me as a reward for something. So I’d pretend that an upcoming math test was really hard and that I’d be studying for it even more than I normally would. And I wouldn’t really be studying, I’d just be looking at that copy of Nintendo Power underneath the math textbook.

There were so many cool video games that came out when I was a kid that I didn’t really get a lot of time in between games to let the individual addictions die down. There was Zombies Ate my Neighbors. There was Donkey Kong Country and Mario Kart. After Super Nintendo got old, the Nintendo 64 debuted, with Mario 64 eating up whole chunks of my seventh and eighth grade life. Then there were two great Zelda games for that console. There was Mario Kart 64. There was Super Smash Brothers.

Somehow this blog post has just turned into me listing titles of video games which, if you’re not too familiar with video games, you must find this incredibly boring. I was going to say so much more than just the titles, but all I’d be doing is describing the games. This is the problem with video games, for me, they absorb me so completely, so fully, that I don’t have any other room in my mind for anything else. I didn’t write as a little kid. I liked to draw, but I never really gave it the attention it deserved because I was too busy playing Goldeneye.

So that was the majority of my childhood, Nintendo. Now it’s gotten to the point where most of the time I never play video games, except for like one or two months every two years or so, when the video game bug bites hard and I can’t resist. It happened when Halo 2 came out for Xbox. I would play it for entire days while I should have been going to class and writing papers. It happened right after the Wii came out while I spent entire days trying to get a 300 in Wii Bowling while I should have been going to work. It happened when Doodle Jump came out for the iPhone. That was especially infuriating, because after just one day I really didn’t even like the game anymore. Playing it was more than just this compulsion, it was like I hated myself for wasting my time holding my phone in front of my face, moving it side to side, feeling it grow hotter and hotter in my hands. Most recently, it happened last year with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, where I spent a solid hundred hours playing Team Deathmatch on Xbox Live.

I’ve been good for a while. It comes and goes. It probably has to. If I didn’t let it happen, whatever it is that’s inside of me that compels me to play video games would bubble up inside of me and warp and grow twisted and, well, I don’t know what exactly. Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe I would spend more time doing other stuff. But at this point I can’t fight it. I can’t predict it either. I don’t know which game is going to lay claim to my soul next.

Whatever, they’re just video games. I guess if you have to be addicted to something, video games aren’t that bad. It’s much better than gambling. Or crystal meth. Right? You ever see pictures of long-term meth users? Gross.

Why I don’t think cloning is going to work (or, Welcome to Cloney Island)

I forget where, but I heard somebody or read something about clones the other day. It was some crazy imaginary scenario where a guy goes into a medical facility in the future because his liver or his heart is failing. They’re going to clone him, and then take out the clone’s organ and do a transplant. They guy walks in, they do they procedure, and he gets up to leave but he’s strapped to the operating table, and all of the doctors are like, “Sorry clone, you’re not going anywhere.”

Because the clone has all of the guy’s memories up until the point of cloning, that’s what it feels like. Right? I don’t know. I’m totally pro-cloning. I would clone myself in a second. It wouldn’t be exploitative. I’d be more than willing to share half of my life with a clone. The immediate upside is that I’d only have to work half as many hours. We could just take turns. So that would be great.

But the obvious downside is that we’d be spending double the money on food and drink. Clothes wouldn’t be a problem, because I have more than one pair of clothing. But laundry detergent use would definitely double. Still, I think it would be worth it, absolutely, to be able to go to work half the time. There are so many ways to split it up. It’s like I would only have to work two days a week. Or, I could work a full week and then have a full week’s vacation, and we could alternate.

Most clone story problems happen because a guy makes a clone of himself and then realizes once the clone exists that there is just too much stuff that he’s not willing to compromise with himself. Like the organ donor story that I started out with. If you want to get cloned, you have to go into it assuming that you’re going to be the clone, because maybe you will be. Who knows whose memories are going to belong to which one? And what if the cloning company is run by a bunch of incompetents, always mixing up who is the clone and who is the original?

I’m just saying, you plan it out in advance so that if you were to wake up tomorrow as a clone, you’d be happy with all of the decisions the original made in advance. Equal power sharing. Equal work time. And yeah, an extra kidney if something goes wrong. Livers would be problematic still, the same with hearts. But kidneys, eyes, hands, anything that there are two of, you’d be fine.

Unfortunately it’s never going to be that easy. The first people to get their hands on cloning technology will definitely be the ultra-rich. And everybody knows that the ultra-rich are basically a bunch of selfish a-holes. They don’t want to compromise on or share anything. They earned it, the right to own everything. They’ll take the above scenario, the organ harvesting I’m-not-the-clone-you’re-the-clone story and they’d think about it, they’d acknowledge what would have to be a pretty unpleasant scenario for the clone, and they’d just say, well screw that guy, screw that clone, screw myself. I need an extra heart and I don’t care if I have to bring into existence an identical version of myself to do it.

I would love to clone myself and then challenge the clone to a race, or a game of basketball, or rocks-paper-scissors. I’ve never lost rocks-paper-scissors. Not even once. Maybe we’d walk up to each other, eye-to-eye, we’d both go “rocks-paper-scissors says shoot.” And we’d both draw rock. That’s always my first move. And then I always go scissor. And then scissor. It goes rock, scissor, scissor, rock, scissor, paper, paper, paper, paper, paper, paper, rock, paper, paper, rock, paper, scissor. I always do that combo because it’s unbeatable. But that’s as far as I’ve ever gone. What would it be like against myself? Would it just be an eternal tie? We’d be standing there, for days, rocks-paper-scissors shoot: paper, tie. Rocks-paper-scissors shoot: paper: tie.

And the days would go by and people would come up to us and go, “Robs, you really need to take a break, stop for even just a second, go to the bathroom, take a drink of water.” But neither of us would quit. You know why? Because I would never quit. So therefore the two of us would never quit. But eventually the physical demands of everything that people had been warning us about, food, water, bathroom breaks, they’ll all have taken their toll, and we’ll both pass out at the exact same second.

And we’ll both wake up in the hospital, and the doctors will be saying, “Sorry Robs, but you didn’t go to the bathroom and didn’t drink any water to the point where all four of your kidneys failed at the same time.” And we’d be shocked, but the doctor would tell us not to worry, he’d say, “Don’t worry boys, your insurance covered some pretty fancy procedures, and we were able to clone the two of you. So as soon as your clones are all ready, we’ll just harvest their organs and give them to you.” And I’ll open my mouth to say, “I don’t know how I feel about that doc,” but I wouldn’t be able to actually say it out loud, because my mouth is taped shut, and my arms and legs are strapped to the hospital gurney. And I’ll break into a cold sweat as I realize that I’m the clone here, and they’re going to harvest my kidneys. And my head is strapped down also, but I move my eyes as far as I can to the side and I can see another me, also strapped in, and two more of me to his side, laying down on the operating table as the doctors tell them not to worry, that the procedure will be over and done with in no time, that there’s nothing to worry about, this is a very common operation we’re talking about here.

Farmer’s Revenge

I got so sick of taking care of my farm, day after day. Those ungrateful plants. Every single day I had to walk outside and turn the hose on. And they were never happy to see me, always sagging down, so dramatic, like a whole night without water has really taken it out of them. That would be like me pretending to be dying in bed every morning until somebody came in and gave me breakfast. Do you know how many times somebody’s done that for me? Zero times.

But I had to do it for these plants every day. And I would get out there and as soon as the hose started and the water hit the plants, all of these mosquitoes, thousands of them, would get woken up by the water and turn into this cloud of pests that would fly immediately right over to me. I’d try to shoo them away, but it was absolutely futile. Even if I were to constantly rub both of my arms, I’d still miss three or four mosquitoes every time. And I don’t even have two free arms, I only have one, because the other arm is busy working the hose. Hey plants, why are you always letting the mosquitoes hang out anyway? It’s like, what’s my daily reward for feeding you, getting a million bug bites?

So finally I had enough. I let a day go by where I didn’t even go outside. Take that plants. Maybe you can get your stupid mosquito friends to go find you some water. But it rained that day. And as the rain poured down, the plants all stood up really straight, straight to the sky, as if to say, “Thank you mother Earth for feeding us!” and then the wind kept blowing them so they were all facing me from the kitchen window, taunting me, going, “Ha! We don’t need you Rob, you and your pathetic hose, you loser.”

And I thought to myself, drink up boys. Every farmer knows that the rain’s got to stop eventually. But it rained that whole week. Sheets of rain. How else can you describe heavy rain? It’s always in sheets. Or in buckets. You never hear any interesting new ways of describing a storm. Nobody ever says anything cool, like a five-alarm rain. No, they always say five-alarm chili. Why not a five-alarm rain?

Finally it stopped raining. I woke up on that first dry day and pressed my face and hands against the window. Are they dead yet? I hoped and wished that I’d gaze upon empty dried out husks, but all of the plants were fine. They looked better than ever. And the wind was moving in such a way that it looked like they were all dancing. And I could hear them singing, taunting me, “You idiot! It’s been raining for a week straight. The ground’s supersaturated with water. We’ve got plenty to drink. Come out here and have some water. There’s enough to go around! Hahaha!”

I was so pissed. But I knew that I just needed to be patient. Drought’s coming boys, drought’s right around the corner. I stared out at the farm and pressed my hands against the window even harder. It was probably a little too hard. I could feel the glass start to bend, so I released some of the pressure. But just some. I was still pressing against it pretty hard. I thought, all I’ve got to do is wait this out.

And sure enough, one day turned into two days and four days later, not a single drop of rain, those plants started looking a little thirstier than usual. On day five I walked outside. The garden tried it’s best to act like nothing was wrong, but it was obvious what was going down. All of those bugs were starting to make holes in all of their dried out leaves. None of the plants were standing up straight. Flowers were wilting. I could tell that some of the smaller plants wanted to cave, to apologize to me and beg for water, but the bigger ones remained defiant. “We don’t need you!” they cried, “There’ll be more rain! You’ll see!”

So I walked right into the garden and I started weeding. After all of that rain there were a ton of tiny weeds. I plucked out all of the weeds and my plants were having a great time of the whole thing. I’d pick out a weed that was really close to one of the plants and the plant started mocking me, “Oh yeah, that’s it right there. Oh yeah, just a little to the left. Yeah, that’s the spot,” and all of the other plants would laugh. Keep laughing boys.

Then I got a bunch of pots and some soil. And I replanted all of the weeds. The plants got real quiet after that. Then I got out the hose. Those plants had been so busy having their fun they forgot just how thirsty they all were. And I turned on the hose real slowly. I brought it to my lips and took a nice big sip. After my drink I started watering the weeds. And I came back the next day and did the same thing.

After a couple of days my farm looked terrible. All of the plants, they couldn’t even stand up anymore. They were all losing their color, fast. One day it looked like it might have rained, but it was just cloudy, and the sun broke through before even a drop came down. Finally the plants broke down. “Please! We’re sorry! Give us some water! We’ll do anything!” And I said “OK, sure thing boys.” And I got out the hose and pretended like I was going to feed them, but then I said, “Just kidding,” and I went to water the potted weeds, which, by this point were bigger than any weeds had ever gotten before. And they were grateful for it. Their whole lives, it had always been simply whatever they could get, a few drops of water here and there, if the plants weren’t using it. This was a different story.

Right before the plants died, I went outside with some lighter fluid in a bucket. I went out and splashed it all over the farm. The plants must have been so deliriously thirsty that they couldn’t tell what it was. Those stupid bastards, started sucking it right in, right inside. By the time they all started choking, it was too late. I struck a match and it went up all at once, combustion from the inside out.

Farming was cool, but the whole thing got out of control. Next year I’m going to pave the whole backyard and make a basketball court. I was going to say a volleyball court, but I went to the Sports Authority to check out volleyballs, and I couldn’t help but thinking they were all looking at me funny, like not even really caring if I bought them or not, imagining to themselves that I’m not even good at volleyball anyway. Stupid balls. I came back with a tiny pin and, while pretending to check them out, poked a bunch of really small holes. They wouldn’t deflate right away, but they’d fall flat by the end of the day, and the manager would find them, scratch his head, chalk it up to a bad day at the volleyball factory, and dump the whole supply in the trash.

The Hypnotist

 

Lie down. Close your eyes. Count backwards from twenty-five. When you get down to five, slow down. Count even slower. When you finally reach the number one, you will drift into a deep sleep. You will focus on my voice and only the sound of my voice. I’m going to snap, and when I snap, I want you to …

What do you mean you’re not asleep? Just, a deep sleep. Did you count all the way from twenty-five? Well that’s your problem, right there. You have to count in your head from twenty-five all the way down. Say the numbers really loudly in your head. Twenty-five! Twenty-four! Like that.

OK, where were we? You are now in a deep sleep. When I clap my hands, you … What’s the problem now? How could you forget what number you were up to? This isn’t really that difficult. Would it help to count out loud? OK, count out loud. I’ll wait.

Excellent. You are now in a state of semi-consciousness. I’m sorry, you’re what? You know you’re paying for this session by the hour right? You didn’t think maybe that you should’ve gone to the bathroom beforehand? Weren’t you waiting in the reception area for a while? Whatever, just go. Just go and then come right back, we still have a lot of work to do here.

Better? All right let’s try a different approach. I want you to sit up with your back straight against the chair. Because we’re trying a different approach. Because I don’t think the laying down approach was working and so we’re trying something different. Terrific. Take deep, slow breaths. Make sure your lungs are filled with air and then right when you can’t fit any more air inside, let it all out through your mouth. Look, if your ribs hurt … I don’t know, I’m not a medical doctor. Yes, I went to medical school, but I haven’t practiced medicine in years. Fine, just breath in as much as you can, don’t force it in if your chest hurts. Yes, through your nose. Well then blow your nose. Well then just breathe in through your mouth.

Look, I’m just trying to get us both relaxed here. Just slow your breathing down. Well that’s because I am a little agitated. We’ve been at this for twenty minutes already and there’s nothing to show for it. Because we don’t use watches like in the movies. I don’t care what your brother read online. Well maybe you can find a psychiatrist who specializes in snake charming.

No I’m not going to make you jump up and down like a monkey. That’s not what hypnotism is about at all. That’s because those guys aren’t real hypnotists. That’s because they’re probably all just faking it. No, that was fake too, that was a TV show. Because I know it’s fake. Everybody knows it’s fake. No, look, trust me, wrestling is fake also. Well it is. Fine, don’t believe me. You never wondered why there was a cameraman in his therapy session? You see any cameras here?

I don’t care what your father says, this is legitimate profession. Well then why did you come here? Well even if that were what I did, which it’s not, you can’t just learn something like this in one session. Go ahead and try it on your brother, it’s obviously not working for you. Thirty minutes left. Look, what do want, you want to keep at this? You want to try again?

All right fine, take it. Just take the prescription and get lost. No, that would be a felony. Well I don’t think you’re a real doctor either.