The Writer's Poke

For Writers: In the move The Matrix , Neo is offered a choice. He can take the Blue Pill and continue to live in ignorant bliss, or he can take the Red Pill and learn the painful truth. Why would anyone purposely choose pain over bliss? Yet there seems to be something hardwired in the human brain to do just that. We expect, however, to be punished for our choice. This is what the Genesis myth is all about. Adam and Eve were basically told not to take the Red Pill. But they were, in essence, still given the choice -- and the right (the expectation) to be punished. Now consider this: What value is being given a choice if you have no way of knowing the consequences of your decision? Neo cannot really know what will happen when he swallows the Red Pill, any more than Adam and Eve could know what would happen when they chomped down on God’s Apple. All that these characters know is ignorant bliss; but they also know that bliss without truth isn’t enough. What pill do you choose, and why? “Th...

Yes, I've taken more than one creative writing poetry class in my life; I think they're fun, but I'm by no means a poet. And yet here's a poem that just won't die. My droogie Vikram has posted it to different Internet sites over the years, and so it's still out there. Did it really leave such an impression on him that he continues to feel the need to share it with the world? When it was originally being reviewed in class, one of the girls in class said: "This sounds like you're trying to be pseudo intellectual." Well, really. Does anyone "try" to be pseudo intellectual? Not me. I just had a number of things working against me. 1) I was young, 2) I knew I couldn't write poetry, 3) I liked German, and 4) I played chess. Put it all together, and you end up with the following poem. "Zugzwang und Zwischenzug" - Freedom or love: which do you choose? Pretend for a moment that Life is the Let's Make a Deal game show, and the God...

For Writers: Nothing beats Denny's in the middle of the night. The people, the atmosphere, the food... One particular summer night, we decided to hit the local Denny's for some burgers, and we ordered the super nachos as an appetizer. The waitress brought out the super nachos, and boy were they tasty. After consuming about half of them, however, I noticed a hair hidden in the cheese. I pulled on said hair, and I pulled, and I pulled. To put the length of this hair into perspective, if it were growing out of my head, it would have easily reached down to my ass. Finding a hair in one's food can be quite off-putting, but finding a six foot hair hidden in my nachos made me want to go back into the kitchen and strangle the cook with his own offending hair. But I didn't. I paid good money for those super nachos, and I just kept on eating them. What is the grossest thing you have ever found in your food? Or, what is the grossest thing that you've ever (knowingly) ate? ...

For Writers: They threw his body off the bridge just a couple of miles from my house. Later that evening, someone discovered it, and three suspects were quickly arrested. Shane was one of the first people I bonded with when we moved to Mattoon. He came to my birthday party in 5th grade, but we didn’t remain friends for long. School wasn’t his top priority, and by middle school, he had been placed into one level of classes, and I had been tracked into another. He grew his hair long, and got involved with people that weren’t always looking out for his best interests. By the time I entered college, he was totally off my radar. But apparently at the time of his death, he recognized his life was heading in the wrong direction. He enrolled at the local community college, and he started making a different group of friends. The changes he was making came too late, and three or four of his “friends” bludgeoned him to death. Drugs and booze were probably involved. I went to his funeral, but not ...

For Writers: God, I believe you exist. But just to prove it, put a million dollars in my closet. When I open the closet and find the million dollars, then I will know that you really exist. I opened the closet door, but no million dollars – just the same dust pan and broom, and bottles of pepsi that were there before my prayer. Did my eight-year old brain really expect God to prove His existence to me by poofing a million dollars into my closet? Not really, but that didn’t stop me from being angry at God for being so stingy. What was a million dollars to God? After all, didn’t God own the universe? Was my request really that unreasonable? Over the years, my belief in God has varied – to the point that it doesn’t much matter to me one way or the other. No matter what happens in my life, I’ve learned not to expect miracles. God may exist, but not in this life. Do you believe in God? Why or why not? Or, does belief in God matter in your daily life? Explore why. “I don’t know if God exists...

For Writers: Vikram and I decided to spend a few days with Patrick at his place in the Peru-LaSalle area. It was late December in Illinois, and we ended up getting snowed in. We tried to shovel the drive with Patrick’s plastic toy shovel, but we quickly broke it in two. When did Patrick get so anal? That’s what Vikram and I wondered after being trapped in Patrick’s house for 18 hours. Take your shoes off, he said. Put this and that back where you found it, he said. It didn’t take long for tempers to flair. We had been friends for ten years, but we weren’t used to living together in an Illinois snow prison – especially with Patrick as the Warden. At one point, Patrick went into his bedroom, and when he came back, he pointed a gun at my head. This was rather unexpected, but he wanted to make it quite clear that this was his house, and he wasn’t going to take my sass any longer. As it turned out, it wasn’t real gun; it was just a starter’s pistol, but he had made his point. If you were st...

This isn't one of those fake Internet signs; this is a real sign that I saw while on a business trip in northern Minnesota a couple of months ago. And it reminds me of a conversation I overheard in the cafeteria when I was in high school -- must have been 10th or 11th grade. Gabe and a couple of other guys at the next table over we're talking about what losers kids that still masturbated were. I don't remember the exact conversation, but to paraphrase, it went something like: "When I was a kid, I masturbated like a kid; when I became a man, I put my penis away." It's not that the guys thought masturbation was sinful; it's just that if you didn't have a girlfriend to handle your affairs, so to speak, then you were just a wanker.

This news story just proves how costly victory can be. After you've won, what's left to be done? Seriously, though, I think there probably are supporters that thought winning the election was the end -- although President-elect Obama has tried to make it pretty clear that "the end" of the election cycle was only the "beginning." -- This video's dedicated to all of my Republican friends :) --

For Writers: It sounds silly to admit, but thanks to Facebook, I now have more friends from high school than I did when I was actually in high school. I was a loner in high school, although that was purely accidental. My main problem was that I just didn't know how to be social. My popularity probably peaked in 8th grade, and by Freshman year, I had started to close myself off. Once that happened, I never figured out a way to reconnect. My classmates had their own circles, and I was on the outside. Every once in a while I might find myself as part of the gang, but for the most part, I was an outsider. Now years later, the class of 1991 is rediscovering itself through Facebook. Almost daily, it seems, someone from the past resurfaces. It's really rather surreal. One member of the class even admitted to feeling his former high school "angst" returning. For me, it's not so much angst as it is a second chance. How many close friends do you still have from high school?...

For Writers: I didn't consider it stealing at the time. For a brief period in my childhood, I was a boyscout. Being a boyscout never had the same cache as being a cub scout . Cub scouts were cool. We'd make pinewood derby cars and go to summer day camps. Being a boy scout, on the other hand, always felt a bit dorky -- probably because the troop was tied to my church. Each of us got a box of candy bars, and we were expected to sell them for a fundraiser. As time went by, however, it seemed like the troop leaders had forgotten about the candy bars. And over time, I ended up eating more of them than I sold. Months later, the troop asked us for the money and any leftover candy bars. Unfortunately, I didn't have any money, and I didn't have any candy bars. I owed the troop around $20, and I didn't have any money of my own to pay for the eaten candy bars. I told my dad what had happened, and for some reason, he thought this would be a good time for us to go into a private...

To all of those people that say: "Barack Obama's race shouldn't matter." I agree with you; it shouldn't. But we don't live in a "it shouldn't matter" kind of world. We live in a world where African Americans were 3/5 of human for the first 87 years of the country's existence -- a country where it would take another 100 years after that for African Americans to more fully secure their civil and human rights. We live in a country that, once Obama leaves the senate, will have 100 non-Black senators. So, yes, race matters. Ideally, it shouldn't. And maybe one day it won't. Right now, it does, and that's not a bad thing. Thanks to Accordion Guy for the image: http://www.joeydevilla.com/

Palin isn't going away. Now that she’s had a taste of the lower-48, Alaska must seem pretty rural (Yes I know she spent time in Idaho, but let’s face it: Idaho is more or less the middle of nowhere, too). So I got to thinking: It’s clear that Palin has 2012 on the brain. And a lot of people have 2012 on the brain as well, because we all know that the world’s going to end in 2012. Don’t believe me? The Mayans said so, and they’re never wrong. Trust me. Poles will shift, nukes will explode, and even worse, Palin will be elected president. Luckily the world will end before she can be sworn in, but Palin’s election will be the exclamation point that lets people know that the prophecies of 2012 are real. This isn’t being discussed anywhere else – you’ve read it here first. Even the wiki for 2012 doesn’t list the Palin election on its “list of possibilities” --> http://2012wiki.com/index.php?title=List_of_Possibilities Surely this is an oversight that will soon be corrected. For more ...

Taking the Zurich connecting shuttle between terminals is an interesting experience. First, they get you visually. Looking out the train window, you see Heidi welcoming you to Switzerland with a kiss. This is pretty cool just because it's so unexpected. Not surprisingly, a number of people on Youtube have got out their video cameras to capture it, but it's probably one of those things that you just "had to be there" -- jet-lagged and unprepared for it... The first version is just the video, and the second version is someone's attempt to capture what it looks like when actually viewed from through the window of the shuttle. Also, in the second version, you can kind of hear the "sounds of Switzerland" that they play in the background -- cows, bells, horns, etc. Fun stuff.

1. Some days I'm sure I looked like an America -- when I wore my Kansas City Chiefs hoody, for example. Other days, it would surprise me that people automatically knew I was an American. When they spoke to me, how did they know to automatically speak in English. Why didn't they speech to me in German? Was my American-ness really that obvious? 2. Being abroad during the U.S. election was a pretty cool experience. Yes, the whole world was watching our election, and the whole world seemed to be in love with Obama. People would come up to us and show us their Obama buttons, for example. All the newspapers had full coverage -- more pictures of Obama than McCain -- and lots of electorial maps in full color... From Malta to Italy to Switzerland, all of Europe was interested in who we were going to elect, and most seemed to be rooting for Obama. 3. Where are all the water fountains in Europe? Why don't Europeans believe in toliets? Or clearly marked street signs?

I know it’s hard to believe, but maps lie. On the map, Pisa is just a fifteen minute train ride from Livorno. But how do you get to the train station? First, you have to take the shuttle bus out of the port area. Sounds simple, but just leaving the port area is a journey in itself. The bus has to negotiate around the dock area, wait for a road to move into place (kind of like a draw bridge), etc. All told, fifteen minutes just to leave the port and drive 2 miles. Next, you have to find the public city bus, and then ride it through the bumper-to-bumper city traffic. That’s another fifteen minutes. If you’re like us, you like to walk. So once in Pisa, it’s a thirty minute walk from the train station to the Leaning Tower – and that’s if you can coax your wife to cut down on the window shopping, and if a few hundred student demonstrators don’t storm the train station when you’re trying to make your exit. And actually, getting to Pisa was a lot quicker than getting back. On the return trip ...

No, we cannot afford a penthouse suite on a cruise ship, but we somehow ended up with one for this cruise. And, wow, let me tell you: It will be tough to give up the luxury. The Norwegian Gem only has 10 penthouses on the ship (as well as a few additional penthouses that make up an even more exclusive “private courtyard” on the ship’s top deck). So, Linda and I are one of only 10 couples on the entire ship of 2300 people that are living this large. Now I know how John and Cindy McCain probably live. We have our own butler, which basically means I have someone to go get me cokes, we have our own doorbell (I know that means nothing to non-cruisers), and we even have a cordless phone that works anywhere on the ship. That way, if we need to contact our concierge immediately, we can do so. Actually, we did try that one out. We were interested in knowing if we could see Mt. Edna volcano one evening, and so the concierge called the Bridge for us to find out visibility. She called us right bac...

Tuesday -- Malta “Get up extra early in the morning and watch the ship come into the harbor. It will change your life.” Well, maybe we’re jaded, but it wasn’t a life changing experience. The approach to Valletta, Malta is pretty enough, but neither Linda nor I found it to be spectacular. Valletta is a very “earthy” looking city, and if brown is your favorite color, then you’ll probably love it. It’s a walled-city, though, and that’s pretty cool. Neither of us has been to Israel, but Malta triggered that thought in our imagination. Is this what the Holy Land looks like? The main thing to do in Valletta is to walk up the main pedestrian street and visit St. Johns Co-Cathedral, and like any good tourists, we did that. St. Johns is certainly worth a visit, but no matter how lovely a Cathedral is, there’s only so much time you want to spend there. So, we looked around for a few minutes and left. Shopping isn’t my thing, either, so wading through the mass of people on the main street wasn’t...

Wednesday -- Pompeii (Naples) All the information I read before the trip stated that Naples would be a gritty, trashy-looking place. And that was spot on. Naples looked very ghetto in a lot of ways. All of the apartment building were run-down and old, and the trash was everywhere. This is also a city where people apparently love their dogs, but have no concept of picking up their shit. It was all over the sidewalks. All over the place. We seemed to be two of the only people from the ship that decided to walk from the port to the train station, and thank God for cruiser Tom Ogg. It was only because of his step-by-step directions (with pictures) that we were able to easily find the place. (Tom Ogg has posted a plethora of information to the Internet – just google his name and your cruise port destination, and you’ll probably find something very useful). On the way to the train station, the sidewalk stopped. Actually, it was closed for construction, and this forced us to walk right out on...

(I thought I'd blog daily, but I was having too much fun. I'll start catching up entries now, but I won't add any pictures until after we get home... The cruise ship Internet service is pretty good, but it's still 40 cents a minute.) Thursday -- Vatican City This is our ninth cruise (and our third with Norwegian), and I have to admit that I had some concerns about cruising the Mediterranean in November. After all, November is the “off-season,” and we assumed it would be rainy and cold. Actually, however, the temperatures have been in the 70s, and it’s been so warm and humid that I now couldn’t imagine cruising the Mediterranean in the summer. The off-season has the additional advantage of not being nearly so crowded. Trust me on this: if you come in November, you’ll still be sharing the experience with a lot of tourists everywhere you go – so just imagine how many thousands more would be in your way at “peak times.” Ports are about choices. There’s always too much to d...

As a reminder: Voter turnout is expected to heavy across the nation. Therefore, election officials have decided to extend voting through tomorrow. Democrats are asked to vote today, and Republicans are requested to vote tomorrow. Thank you for your cooperation.