(Hatched out of an egg case from insectlore.com.)

I never really wanted this job…

But look at it from my point of view

You know the routine
You’ve broken up
Locks changed
CDs divvied and boxed
Ring returned
Cuddly toy drawn and quartered

Doesn’t matter that I felt lousy
Doesn’t matter that I realised I might have been a tad hasty
Doesn’t matter that I would have been willing to turn over a new leaf

Doesn’t matter

You fall

You don’t rise again

The End.

Some sources say “lazy” instead of “lousy,” but finding the book in Google Books helped clarify things:

I never really wanted this job. (As all dictators whine.) Trouble was, when we found ourselves in Hell everyone looked at me. (How to describe Hell? Disembowelled landscape busy with suffering incessant heat, permanent scarlet twilight, a swirling snowfall of ash, the stink of pain and the din of… if only. Hell is two thing: the absence of God and the presence of time. Infinite variations on that theme. Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Well, trust me.)

I didn’t want the job — the job, that is, of spending all that would remain of time working against God, the job of personifying evil — but look at it from my point of view: as far as Himself’s concerned it’s over between us. No conciliatory cappuccinos under the fat waiter’s benevolent presidency. No Relate. No saw this and thought of you, Love, Lucifer cards. You know the routine. You’ve Broken Up, yes? Locks changed, CDs divvied and boxed, ring returned, cuddly toy drawn and quartered?

Doesn’t matter that I felt lousy. Doesn’t matter that I realised I might have been a tad hasty. Doesn’t matter that I would have been willing (we all would) to turn over a new leaf. Doesn’t matter. You’re an angel, you fall, you don’t rise again, the end.

“Dirty Job” segues seamlessly into “Bathtime in Clerkenwell,” making this one of my favorite album openers ever.

The Real Tuesday Weld: Bathtime in Clerkenwell
(Previously mentioned here.)

I need to write a real post for April, though, so let’s try again. So far I only have one post this month: a pointer to Ryan Montbleau’s new album and one of the songs from it. I should try to come up with some “original material.”

But…

I don’t feel like I have a lot to say, or maybe it’s just that I’m too lazy and fearful to try saying it. But I still like having this blog, and it is my blog, so I can write just to write and hear myself talk.

“Blah, blah, blah.”

I’m not that excited about this post, either.

Yet I will post it and move on.

“Heartbreak Road,” by Ryan Montbleau

It’s “kind of” solo:

To make a long story short, in May of 2011, Ben put together a dream session band with George Porter Jr. on bass, Ivan Neville on keys, Anders Osborne on guitar and Simon Lott on drums. Amazingly, all of those guys were free for two long days and nights after Jazz Fest. The whole thing clicked and I was blessed to make music with them and sing my guts out for those long, surreal and wonderful sessions. They are incredible musicians and awesome human beings. The end result is a mix of originals (including one co-write with Eric Krasno of Soulive) and some choice, deep covers.

Heartbreak Road is a Bill Withers’ cover. It sounds great. You must listen to it right now and then buy the album.

So many songs get into our bloodstream from radio or other incidental sources. We hear a catchy tune and enjoy it, but maybe never learn the name of the song or who sings it. Maybe we decipher only some of the lyrics.

One of these for me was “Hook,” by Blues Traveler. I only recently learned the identity of this one when it popped up on Pandora.

I thought, oh, this song. I immediately recognized it even though I didn’t really know it. I’m sure I’ve heard it many times over the years, but couldn’t have told you the name of the song or the band.

But now I knew, from Pandora. The name seemed odd to me for some reason. Hook. I don’t know why it would seem like anything, since I couldn’t have told you what the song was about. I just liked the familiar sound of it.

Curious about what year it was released, I looked it up on Wikipedia where I learned it came out in 1994, and:

The song’s title refers to a hook in music terminology: the catchy element or phrase of a song which makes it distinctive and memorable. The song’s lyrics assert that whatever the singer sings about is effectively meaningless, since the song’s musical hook will keep listeners coming back, even if they are unaware of the reason.

I’ve been hoodwinked!

And I love that I’ve been hooked in this way for nearly twenty years.

It might have helped if I’d understood the chorus better. I always thought he was saying, “The heart brings you back.” But this is so much better:

It doesn’t matter what I say
So long as I sing with inflection
That makes you feel that I’ll convey
Some inner truth of vast reflection
But I’ve said nothing so far
And I can keep it up for as long as it takes
And it don’t matter who you are
If I’m doin’ my job, it’s your resolve that breaks

Because the hook brings you back
I ain’t tellin’ you no lie
The hook brings you back
On that you can rely

This is a KLO post, with KLO being a corporate initialism I’ve acquired in my many years of corporating: “Keep the Lights On.”

I’m writing just to write, because if you don’t feed a blog, it will die.

(But it’s okay if you mix metaphors. This ain’t rocket surgery, after all.)

One post a month has always been my minimal requirement for blogging excellence, but with all the activity here the past few months, a week between posts is starting to feel like “too long.” I know that many of you rely on me for a regular infusion of “word awesomeness.” (Or word awesomeninity, if you prefer.)

I don’t want you to feel neglected or maybe even suffer psychological withdrawal from an abrupt reduction in content flow.

I wouldn’t want to disrupt your growing “Moving to Freedom” blog reading habit, which works like this:

• Cue: Craving for words arranged awesomely.
• Routine: Read “Moving to Freedom.”
• Reward: A pleasant buzz in the brain from mentally ingesting the awesomeninity.

I want to keep reinforcing that habit loop, but supply disruptions have inhibited my cability to manufacture and distribute blog posts. It’s the usual stuff: resistance, fear, anxious vanity, delusions of grandeur.

I’m still working on some fiction, which is something you should expect much later in the year, or next year, or never. But I’m working on it.

Sometimes I write like this for a while and then stumble into a TOPIC. I see the shape in the block of marble. I throw away the hesitant sketches and “carve” a blog post that is more or less the literary equivalent of Michelangelo’s David.

But I’m sensing it isn’t going to happen today.

I want to barf this thing out and take the dogs for a walk, where I’ll probably resent all the other people out enjoying the summer weather, and be a jerk to kids that want to pet my dogs.

At least I have a plan.

The habit of finishing a book isn’t as strong as it used to be. I finished a lot more books when I was younger. Now I have less time and patience, and frequently abandon them.

But I finished the habit book. I like that it’s not really a “self help” book, yet it is helpful, and full of interesting stories.

You should buy it. It’s a dollar less for the outrageously overpriced and socially harmful ebook version this week. Or buy the paper edition. I wish I had gone for paper. I don’t feel the need as strongly to own books these days, but I still have the desire. This one would be nice to have sitting around, reminding me to think about habits. I would occasionally flip through it and recall its lessons. (Oh, god, I’m not going to buy the outrageously overpriced ebook and the paper book, am I?)

<blink>Warning:</blink> That’s an affiliate link back there (and elsewhere on the page). I get a few cents if you buy through these links. I’m totally shilling for personal gain here, but it’s for your benefit, too. I bet you have habits you’d like to change. And you will be interested to learn more about how companies like Target are diligently studying and influencing your habits. (You already know that, of course, but it’s fascinating to learn some details.)

And once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom — and the responsibility — to remake them. Once you understand that habits can be rebuilt, the power of habit becomes easier to grasp, and the only option left is to get to work.

– Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit

I’m working on at least one new habit, or rather, the modification of an existing exercise habit. I’ve been doing twenty minutes on the elliptical every morning, first thing. I let the dogs out (and back in), and feed them, and then it’s time to exercise. It’s cold in the house and the basement, but I turn the big fan on and I get going.

I like exercising. The exercise is its own reward. I enjoy feeling healthier and virtuous. The difficulty lies in triggering “the habit loop.” So I’m making it the first thing I do.

I put my workout clothes on the bathroom vanity at night so I’ll see them when I get up. That’s part of the cue. The main part of the cue will be that it’s morning and I’ve just woken up. Those two events reliably happen every day. They will inevitably lead to a workout. That’s the habit I’m trying for.

I’ve previously wanted to establish the writing habit as the first thing I do after dealing with the dogs, and had mixed success. I’ve done some writing, but I goof off more often than not. The writing habit is harder for me to develop. I reasoned that I shouldn’t use the prime morning hours on a “lower priority” like exercise. Writing must come first. But so many days go by with no writing, or the writing happens too late.

After reading the book, and after failing at writing so much, I’m now looking at exercise as a more important “keystone” habit. It’s something I can do, if I just start. It’s a win. I feel better. I’ve done something good. (It helps that I’ve already developed a habit of getting up early enough to do something.)

And now, look! I’ve written something, too.

I bought an ebook over the weekend for my Kindle Fire, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.

(I learned of it from Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution.)

I’m liking the book and disliking myself for buying it as an ebook. I had my reservations about ebooks before experimenting with them, and those concerns are just as strong now after trying a few. This one in particular created some mental distress for me.

I grew up reading and loving books. This meant the traditional form of paper books, but I don’t think I’m overly attached to that — I read very few paper books these days. Most of my reading is on the web. I’m already digital in my textual consumption.

My concern about ebooks isn’t the form. It’s about the control. The way things are developing, we don’t own the ebooks we pay for, and we’re not free to do with them what we want. (This isn’t true in all cases, of course, but it’s the standard with Amazon and others.)

So I wasn’t in a hurry to buy a Kindle or other reader, but then I got the Fire — intending it for other uses. But once I had it, I became curious. I borrowed a book from the Amazon Prime “Lending Library.” You can get one book a month for free, and keep it as long as you like. Kind of neat how you can just tap the screen and now you have a book! It sat unread on the device for a couple of months as we proceeded to use the device mostly as a game machine. (Lots of Plants vs Zombies.)

Then I heard about the Hunger Games books, and a friend of mine loaned me his Kindle edition of the first book, which was again pretty cool how you can just send it over the ether. How convenient!

But also aggravating and stupid in the way the restrictions work. He can only lend it one time. Ever. While it’s on loan, he can’t read it. Okay, maybe you can argue that’s how a traditional book works, although of course you can also loan out a traditional book as many times as you want, so… which is it? Are we pretending it’s a paper book or not?

Then, I can only keep the book for fourteen days. What?! What purpose does that serve? Why should it matter how long I keep it?

I suspect the publishers create these dumb rules to make it more likely we’ll buy our own copy, but it’s so abusive. This is how you want to treat your customers? They’re taking away all the benefits — not to mention the joy — of using and sharing digital information. I find the publisher’s fear, greed, stupidity, and shortsightedness to be mildly irritating.

And none of this is winning me over to becoming an ebook consumer. Remember that I’m not buying a lot of paper books either, these days. You’d think the old publishing industry would be interested in selling to people like me.

But I read the book, and quickly grew to like the experience. It’s nice reading on the tablet. In many ways it’s an improvement — the “book” lays nice and flat, for example. We actually have two Kindles and they keep in sync so that I can pick up either one — when my wife hasn’t drained the batteries for me — and resume reading at my spot.

I looked up the second Hunger Games book on Amazon, wondering if I might buy it. It was only $5 for the Kindle edition, which I might have paid, but then I saw I could get it free through Prime, which I had mostly forgotten about. So I downloaded it and again was happy reading a book this way, and then I got the third book through Prime also, although I gave up less than halfway through it, not caring anymore about the story.

I’m still not sold on the concept, though, and don’t know about the path I’m on. Maybe I’ll continue to borrow books and “buy” lower cost books, trading freedom for convenience. There’s some line where I’ll pay for the words and the privilege of being abused as a customer.

I read Fred Stoller’s ebook, My Seinfeld Year, after being made aware of and sold on it by Bob Lefsetz’s recommendation. It’s a short work for $2, and a great read. It’s the first ebook I paid for, and well worth the price. At $2, I don’t have to grapple with the problem as much.

Maybe I’ll continue to fall into the ebook habit, gradually accepting the denial of freedom for the limited conveniences that the publishers “allow” me, deciding a little bit at a time that I’m willing to pay for books that I can only read and share in limited, frustrating ways, but not really own them and not get to pass them on or give them away or re-sell them. I’ll get some convenience along with forced, irritating restrictions. I’ll know that I’m contributing to the growth of a problem for society, but I’ll do it anyway. Maybe.

And then there’s this Charles Duhigg book. The Power of Habit. I’m aware of the power of habits for good and bad in my own life, and was interested to learn more. My first thought was to look up the Kindle price, thinking for $5 to $8 it would be an easy decision to buy. But no, the Kindle edition is $14.

I thought, no fucking way am I going to pay that much. I had heard about the outrageous pricing of ebooks but this is the first time I might have wanted to buy one where I’d care. I can get the hardcover for just a couple of bucks more. In what world does it make sense to price a digital product that close to the analog version? For something I’m just licensing. It made me not want to buy the paper version either, just to spite the publisher.

Instead I requested the paper book from the local library, although with the number of copies available and the number of people ahead of me, I knew it would take a few months to get it. But maybe that would be fine. I’ve been reading books this way more often, and I’m used to the delay.

But this one I really wanted to read sooner. I want to make changes in my life and I believed it could help. I checked the book’s page on Amazon again, hoping it might be available for lending through Prime, but no, it’s not. I continued to fume about the pricing, cursing the publishers. You morons.

Maybe I’d buy the paper book. Or, wait. Maybe I’d try the Kindle sample first. Yes. I downloaded that on Friday and read it and I liked it. I wanted more. But now I was impatient. I didn’t want to wait a couple of days for a hard copy to be shipped out.

I really didn’t want to reward them for their behavior in pricing the book at $14. But then I said to myself: “Let’s be rational.” Maybe I shouldn’t make the whole thing so personal. I thought: is it worth it to me to pay $14, even with all the restrictions I get for my money?

And the answer was, probably not. But. I wanted instant gratification. I wanted to start reading the book now. So I bought it. And I’m enjoying it, which helps make me feel better about it, but I so, so, so hate that I gave in to their demands. I feel resentful. Not “ripped off” — no one made me buy it, of course — but I’m not satisfied.

I don’t think I’ll do this again anytime soon.

I wonder, are “they” happy when their customers feel this way? Maybe they are. Maybe they’re happy with my $14 and that’s all they care about.

And look — I’m promoting their damn book anyway, despite all that. But I’ll look at it as spreading the word about Mr. Duhigg’s good work.

I may have doubts about materialism, but I have to tell you about this remote controlled helicopter.

It has brought significant happiness into my life this week, for only $21.

If you’ve flown small, cheap R/C helicopters before, you may expect that it will spin wildly around and be hard to control and crash frequently. But you would be wrong. (Except for the crashing part. That’s up to you.)

It’s stable and hovers nicely. You can go up, down, forward, backward, and turn left and right.

It’s so much fun. SO. MUCH. FREAKING. FUN!

It’s small — your hand makes a good landing pad for it — and is for indoors, with a range of about 30 feet. I’ve crashed it many times over eight flying sessions and it’s doing fine. (I don’t think it will survive a Boxer dog assault. Someone has to hold Allie or we put her out of the room.)

If someone had let me try this thing before telling me what it cost, I would have guessed at $50 as a good deal and $75 as a reasonable price, although at those rates I might have hesitated to buy one, and would have worried more about breaking it. But at $20, I want to give them away as presents.

It takes 40-60 minutes to charge for 5-10 minutes of flight. That might not sound like much, but to me it’s a good dose of flying, and probably helpful for getting other things done, like writing this post. It also helps to preserve your excitement level. IT’S A REMOTE CONTROLLED HELICOPTER! FOR $20!

If you want to learn more about it, there are about 10,000 reviews at Amazon, mostly positive. People love this thing. A lot of them are like me: astounded at what you get for the price. It’s not just that it’s so cheap, it’s that it’s so cheap and well-made. It’s probably best to read through some of the reviews. There are some caveats, like not running the battery down too low and waiting a few minutes before and after charging it.

Where is it made? I imagine in China, although I didn’t notice a label. By exploited labor? I don’t know. I hope not. Can’t I just enjoy this one thing?

Go buy it. You know you want to. You deserve this.

It’s a Syma S107/S107G R/C Helicopter. (There are other links for different colors and stores. There may be clones/copycats out there, but I’m guessing not if you buy from one of the main pages with lots of reviews.)

If you click through from the image at the top of this post or the links above, I’ll be exploiting you for a kickback through the Amazon Affiliate program. Thank you. Note that this isn’t a sponsored post. I just love this machine and want you to experience the same joy.

(To get to $25 and free shipping, you can throw in a set of spare parts for $5.)

Update: The landing gear broke on a crash landing the day after posting this. Replacement skids on the way for $5…

I almost forgot I had a leap post due today. I’ve written a post every leap day on this blog, and I intend to keep it up forever.

I don’t think computers and software are going to get us very far until we commit to text files for everything. (Okay, maybe we’ll keep databases, as long as we can just run SQL — or whatever — directly against them when needed.)

I’m working on a brain-deadening task this week with a GUI program. It’s a simple task on the surface, but there’s no way to copy and paste or speed things along. You have to keep clicking, clicking, clicking on things about ten thousand times. I don’t mind some kinds of busy work as long as you can automate it with a little script or something, or be efficient about it somehow. I hate when you have to mindlessly do something in the most stupid and boring effing way imaginable. With access to a flat source file, XML or otherwise, this task would be nothing. Instead, I’m wasting time agonizing over it, avoiding it, fighting it, occasionally doing it, and now, writing about it. (And worst of all, boring you about it. Why should you care?)

That’s apropos of nothing.

That’s what happens on leap posts.

And it’s negative. Sorry about that. I can be critical and nitpicky, and sometimes I enjoy other people ragging on people or things, but then I also tire of it. I don’t necessarily want to be relentlessly positive and uplifting, but I think I might be better off creating something new or trying to better understand people and things than complaining and criticizing.

But then I have to comment on something I wrote last leap day:

“Lost is so freaking cool,” I said. Meaning the TV show. But now I’m going to be critical and say that it ended up being a disappointment to me. A large one. The disenchantment grew over the last season and peaked in the final episode. I felt cheated. It wasn’t good science fiction at all, as I thought it was in the beginning. I loved the characters. The characters and their individual stories along with the mysteries made the show great for me and made me care, but then they didn’t deliver on the overall story. (In my humble and surely misguided opinion.) But that’s all in the past and now I only bitterly resent it a little bit from time to time. I just bring it up because I noticed my comment from four years ago. For a review that touches on (and clarified for me) my own objections, there is, “LOST: An Evaluation.” (With spoilers, of course.)

I was listening to sleet and wind hitting the side of the house last night, which caused a dream in which we woke up to some sections of our roof missing. I wasn’t that upset about it in the dream. I was happy we’d be getting a new roof.

Maybe I just need a new roof. Or maybe a new foundation.

Anyway… happy leap day, everyone.

I was going to write about being assimilated. How I’ve been buying stuff from Amazon for fifteen years, starting in 1997. Mostly books, the first few years, but now I’m all in. Books, music, videos, Kindles, ebooks, and with Amazon Prime the past few months, more and more and more.

I would have written that I like Amazon, and that I’ve been surprised at how much I like Prime.

And there would have been a point to make about how I’m also contributing to a problem, by fueling the growth of a menace, especially if I start getting more into ebooks and other “protected content,” but…

meh

I’m feeling too lazy to examine my thoughts on all that.

That post might have been an introduction to a series of blatantly promotional posts. Not self-promotional, like the standard fare around here — although there’d be that, too, of course — but product promotions. Not sponsored posts. Just some stuff I think is cool and would tell you about, and use Amazon Affiliate links so that if you bought from Amazon through my links, I’d get a little kickback. That would be neat. I like making money. I could have some fun with these posts, and try to entertain you while being incredibly persuasive.

This in spite of the Kevin Kelleher post I’ve had on my mind, “Facebook’s Timeline: A catalog of nothing“, this part in particular:

Timeline clearly isn’t working for the majority of Facebook users, although in the end it may not matter. Many will grow inured to it in time, as they have with all of the other controversial changes the company has introduced over the years.

And even now the broad dissatisfaction doesn’t matter to Facebook, its partners and its advertisers, which are the true beneficiaries of Timeline. Forget all of Mark Zuckerberg’s high-minded rhetoric about social missions and the Hacker Way, Facebook’s true mission is to train its users to consume conspicuously and, in doing so, turn friendships into marketing venues.

I don’t really have an opinion about Timeline, but the conspicuous consumption remark struck me. It stopped me from writing — on Facebook — about one of my Amazon Prime purchases last week.

It’s not that I’m renouncing my consumer ways, mind you. I’m just hesitating for a moment.

And it’s not that I’m especially concerned about how Facebook and its partners might be training us to be a certain way. People like (like!) saying, “Look at me! Look at what I got!” We don’t need to be trained for that; it’s built-in. I’m not even offended that someone’s trying to make a buck off of it.

So what is my problem, then?

Maybe it’s just vague, middle-age malaise.

Standard existential questions.

Why are we here?

To buy things and then die? Is that all this is? (Setting aside for the moment minor things like food and sex and Arrested Development reruns.)

I like stuff, but I also get tired of stuff. Of owning things, especially bigger things that cause worry and stress and cost time and money to maintain. All the work you have to do to pay for the stuff, much of which you don’t really need or want. Even little things get to be a burden. (Except not yet that thing I just bought. I’m still enjoying that.)

Maybe I am disconcerted about being reduced to a marketing vector on Facebook. (And Google, and etcetera.)

Maybe I’m tired of me, me, me, and stuff, stuff, stuff.

But if not stuff, what is there?

Love? Maybe, if that’s not just another sales gimmick.

Art? Is that another thing for sale?

Dissatisfaction. Can’t get no satisfaction…

Oh…

We’ve been trained.

We need something. We need more.

More and More and More

I’m still feeling lazy, so I’m going to add a soundtrack to this post, to help say more (!) than I can say myself. Or more than I’m willing to say. Or just to add another sensory dimension. And because I like this artist and I want to sell him to you. And because it seemed exactly right for this post, even if I’m awkwardly glomming it on at the end here. (Ha! It will be assimilated. Like with the Borg, get it?)

This is one of my favorite Ryan Montbleau songs. (You may have noticed how it was cleverly foreshadowed earlier in the post.) I first heard it live at The Cedar here in Minneapolis, and look! The first 90 seconds of that performance is on YouTube. (Ah, YouTube, another source of bounty and exploitation.)

Here’s a different performance of the whole song, along with some opening banter and background on it:

“More and More and More,” by Ryan Montbleau

It starts:

Should I go to the CVS
     or to Sir Walgreen’s store
Walk down the aisles again,
     try to recall what for
With their 50 kinds of toothpaste,
     and their 40 kinds of soap
Oh, it surely would seem to me,
     I only need one that’s good

But with another 50 choices
     comes another hundred voices in my head
No great angels, no big devils,
     just another hundred levels to contend with

And ends:

I found everything I ever wanted
     and it opened up a door
I took one half a look around,
     there were half a million more
I found everything I ever needed
     and more and more and more

Take the old stuff out to be burned,
     I don’t need it anymore
That ain’t my style now, no
     I’ve found one great big store
And it’s got everything I need
I’ll find more things to make me me
Until the day that I am gone

Should I go for the red headstone,
     should I go for the gray carved granite
Should I go for the silk lined box
     or for the straight pine basket
Should I wear my finest black suit,
     should I hold one single rose
Should I try to take with me
     all of the things I chose

And that’s all I need. I don’t want to say any more after that.

“Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me; in my own perceptions–not outside.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Rage? I don’t think I have much rage inside of me.

Maybe some anger?

For sure there’s frustration and petty irritation and annoyance, roiling beneath the surface, occasionally or maybe frequently bubbling over in unhealthy, unappealing, and unsatisfying ways.

But I know I have it good, in so many ways. I often imagine that I’ll grow old and think about how it all worked out and that I didn’t need to be such a freak about everything.

Sometimes I try practicing acceptance. Calmly accepting things as they are, and not how I wish them to be. So much of my stress and anxiety comes from things that are outside of my control. It feels good to let go, even if only for a few minutes.

But then I start to worry… if I just started accepting things, then what?

I’m still working on the goat.

My daughter likes it and wants to see more. My wife has “gotten used to it” and has the opposite desire. I think she’s concerned that the hairs will start striking out for adventures farther south, maybe to meet up with the sparse colony of chest hairs residing there.

I’m only posting a photo to keep the lights on here. I’m writing, and mostly enjoying the writing. It’s that fiction I’ve been telling you about. I’m alternately excited about and despairing of it. And I’m not so impatient to start posting it anymore. I’m looking forward to sharing the tale, but I need to write more first. I have five posts lined up, so far. At this rate, it may be a while.

I’ll keep checking in here, and maybe find things to write about other than writing. (And maybe not.)

I sometimes think about it with my writing. “Is this going to infect anyone?” I’ve printed it on a label and stuck it to my monitor, and once in a while I’m reminded to think about it again.

You’re probably safe. I don’t think I’m infectious. With some minimal precautions, you should be fine.

I’m still working on the blog fiction, which is information that I’m sure you’ll find completely uninfectious. I just wanted you to know I’m working at something that I’ll eventually sneeze at you.

I usually don’t like it when writers talk about their work in progress. It’s kind of boring, for one thing, and as a writer, I get annoyed. That they’re writing. Getting words down on the page. Who do they think they are?

But since I am working on it, there goes my time for regular posts. I like the immediacy of posting. It’s more rewarding to post something today that no one will read than work on something for weeks and months and maybe years that no one will read.

I wonder if I can capture any of that feeling of immediacy in the blog fiction. Will you feel like it’s spontaneous, knowing I’ve written some number of posts in advance? Will you get the sniffles?

I feel better about this weekend, and maybe it’s because of the blog fiction. I’ve written another entry and I’m happy with how things are starting out, and still impatient to start posting it, but I really have to get in front of it more. (On the down side, there’s the nagging suspicion that it will suck.)

It occurs to me that by writing this, I’m procrastinating on the fiction work, again. Gah!

Gnus for You

I’ve been trying these shorter/quicker posts and avoiding monkeying around with images. I like having images on my posts, and don’t mind the monkeying around, but the monkeying around takes time and I wonder how much it adds overhead and resistance to just getting the damn words out there.

But let’s have a picture now. How about this:

I like gnus. I like the word, the animal, and of course the GNU project. I like to pronounce the “g.” (I also very much like their other name: wildebeest.)

Andrés Moreno took this photo at Ngorongoro, Tanzania and shared it with the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license. Thanks, Andrés!

Do you want to see more gnus in Ngorongoro?

You may also be interested in having your own toy gnu. Schleich makes great animal figures out of plastic (or whatever; some hard material), and they have a gnu.

I’m excited about the bloggerly fiction I have in mind, but not enough to overcome my fear and resistance to the actual writing of it. However, instead of wandering idly around the web, why not spew out some bloggerly non-fiction? And then when this becomes unbearable, I can go back to the fiction. Of which I have written a first post.

I’m trying to “get to know” the characters, but I have no idea what goes on in other people’s heads. Why do other people do the things they do? I don’t know that I can draw any valid conclusions from my own inner experience. Is everyone else as self-centered as me? For those that don’t seem to be, are they just good at hiding it? And now I’m channeling my inner George Costanza.

This post would be over now, except I’m not ready to turn to the fiction, and I’m not wanting to get on the elliptical, even though that would mean getting to watch Parks and Recreation.

Maybe I’ll just go back to the kitchen and eat some more. That’s really my “go to” procrastination move.

“Aren’t you curious about what it is?” I asked.

“I’m sure I won’t like it, as soon as I see it,” she said.

Okay, then. I guess Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty is all mine.

No, wait.

“Is it a toy?” she asked, with growing interest.

But Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty isn’t a toy. It’s thoughtful, serious business.

Still, she liked it. And of course didn’t like, or maybe just ignored my heavy-handed attempt to moralize about not knowing if you’ll like something until you try it.

I will now continue with the drinking of Diet Mountain Dew, frequent urination, and perhaps some fiction writing…

(You all of course have read my previous work, The Tale of Itsy Bitsy Fritsy, and have purchased the Amazon ebook for the absurdly low price of $0.99.)

Not long ago I wrote that I have a hard time believing in my characters and their stories, which had me thinking that writing fiction wasn’t for me, but I want to try again to find truth in make believe.

I think.

(I’m just thinking. Would you please let me think for just one second?)

How should I go about it? I want to get right to posting. None of that delayed gratification for me! Just start writing and posting, all gloriously ad hoc and spontaneous. (Like a blog!) But I don’t trust myself to tell a coherent story if I make it up as I go along.

I suppose we could agree that things will change from day to day and you can’t count on anything you read to carry over from one post to the next. I’m sure this would be just fine with you, and not at all confusing or frustrating if the characters change names or genders without explanation. (Oh, but this is your explanation, so at least there is that.)

I won’t rule that out, but it’s not my first choice.

I’m also unsure about how the “blog fiction” part of it might work. Will it really be “bloggish,” or just serialized fiction?

I guess I better get to work and figure things out.

In the meantime, I’ll attempt to maintain “regular” posting.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday!

I won’t be watching. I don’t care about the game or the commercials.

I don’t care about football.

I’ve cared at times, and have experienced disappointment over Minnesota Vikings’ losses both large and small. The “biggest” game I ever cared about and experienced the biggest letdown over was the NFC Championship game for the 1998 season. That was Randy Moss’s rookie season, when the team won 15 games. The year Gary Anderson was perfect, up until that last missed kick. So bummed out that they didn’t make it back to the Superbowl, maybe finally to win it.

But why should I care about these guys? The billionaire owners and millionaire players. For entertainment? Maybe. I like violent television programming as much as the next desensitized guy, but this isn’t just make believe. It’s barbaric, the action on the field. The injuries are real. The brain damage is real. But isn’t it their choice, to take part? Of course. And it’s our choice to revel over the lions in the coliseum, or not. I’m not as worried about the players’ physical well-being as I am about our emotional well-being in cheering on this bloodthirsty sport.

Over time, I just lost interest. Why get worked up over it, as if I have some stake in it, as if these games matter to my life? One team wins and one team loses. Who cares. I don’t see the rivalries as healthy, although I don’t doubt their usefulness.

I’m mostly resentful because we’re duped into funding this wretchedly excessive business as some kind of public “good.” We get to pay for their extravagant showplaces. It really is a big game, and the owners and the players are winning. Yay. Rah.

I started my inspirational music mix on the mp3 player and took the dogs for a walk. Mostly I just became annoyed at the Boxer for pulling so hard, and was preoccupied with trying to correct her.

We use Gentle Leader collars which the other dog doesn’t mind, and it keeps her at a reasonable pace. The Boxer hates the Gentle Leader. She loves going for walks but is miserable about having the collar put on. Yet she still pulls so hard. She just won’t back off.

Angry. Irritated. And then I feel bad about subjecting her to the thing. It doesn’t work as well with her stubby Boxer snout. I angrily and guiltily say, “Why can’t you just walk nice? You’re doing this to yourself, you dumb dog.”

And then we pass some house with an aggressive barking dog in the yard, twice — going out and coming back — and both my dogs jump around like hyperactive idiots, and I’m just not finding any peace.

Enlightenment and direction eludes me still today.

The other day I was driving on the highway and passed an old green truck. Maybe it was a Ford. It looked a lot like the one in the photo here, a 1976 Ford F-150.

I’m not a truck person and not particularly nostalgic for old cars or trucks, but I enjoyed seeing it. I’m not sure why. Maybe the older I get, the more I like old things. I like things that last.

I didn’t get a good look at the driver, but I have this thought of him living in his own time, at his own speed.

Maybe the beauty of it occurs to a deep place in my soul. I’m a child of the ’70s. I turned six years old in 1976. At that age I probably saw trucks like this at my grandparents’ farm. Happy memories of that time and place likely have imbued related objects with a warm glow, causing me to see beauty in the truck’s unfashionable lines and godawful two-toned green.

We’re bundles of memories, happy and sad, and full of hopes and dreams and fears and demons, and it brings me suddenly back to Lao Tzu:

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

I so enjoy the manifestations.

I’m watching episodes of Parks and Recreation via Netflix streaming. Last year I was doing sixty minute sessions while working through The Sopranos. (Not via streaming, but I have more than one media consumption option because I’m technologically resourceful.)

I stopped obsessively tracking minutes and days on the thing and so am unable to provide mathematical proof of the wisdom of the purchase, but I’m glad we invested in the machine. I’d much rather go downstairs for a 20-60 minute session than drive to a gym. Downstairs is much closer, always open, and there is the Netflix that I mentioned. There is a big fan, just for me. A variable speed fan, providing more concentrated cooling than an occasional puff of air wafting down from a ceiling fan. (I like the fan.)

Less ogling opportunities, of course, although Rashida Jones has been there every day so far.

Amazing game. Going by the credits, the development team wasn’t large. It’s all done in Adobe Flash. I love that a small team can put together something this good. Music and sound effects are well done, and the graphics are super. The gameplay is fantastic. It’s so well balanced, and the challenge modes provide interesting variety. I’ve had much enjoyment and little frustration since my punishment at the hands of J.T. at Stormcloud Temple.

But I don’t think it will really satisfy the deepest longings of my soul.

Instead, I’m going to put my hopes for salvation on seeing Martin Sexton perform tonight at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul…

I immediately liked Plants vs. Zombies when I discovered it after getting a Kindle Fire. I liked the animation and the pace of the game. It’s nicely balanced for me. Not too easy, not too hard.

It’s the kind of game that has always appealed to me, having to do with… resource management? Earning points or dollars or whatever and making decisions on what to build in order to… what? I wouldn’t have known how to describe the appeal, exactly, but then I saw it described in Wikipedia as a “tower defense” game. That short label suggested so much about what it was I liked.

Wikipedia says, “Tower defense is a subgenre of real-time strategy computer games.” I think it gets to my favorite part of the real-time strategy games I used to play, like Warcraft and Starcraft. Managing the resources and building things up and then seeing the action unfold.

With Plants, there’s a lot of satisfaction with arranging things sustainably and watching your defenses devour the attackers. Not that you want it to be too easy. That would be boring, of course. You want a challenge, and you want to have something to do while playing, but you also want to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your brilliant resource management and defensive placements.

So that’s Plants. It hasn’t been too much of a distraction. Having it on the tablet means I can save it more for “in between” times and other non-working moments. It doesn’t ambush me when I’m “at the computer” with Important Things to do. (Not anymore. Not since making it through the first time.)

Yesterday morning I noticed a recent Jason Kottke post about Kingdom Rush:

I was addicted to this tower defense game awhile back as an in-browser Flash game, but the iPad version is even better. It’s like the iPad was made for games like these. (thx, jim)

ps. Can you hear that sound? That’s Kingdom Rush sucking all your free time away this weekend. You’re welcome.

Well.

Seeing the words “tower defense” activated an internal call to battle that obliterated all the flimsy defensive towers in my brain. Fortunately I didn’t see this on Friday when posted. It only managed to suck away my Sunday. I probably played this thing for a total of seven hours yesterday. I say “probably” because the nature of the time-suck vortex was as vague as it was consuming. Much of the time was spent stuck on one level. It started feeling like a job, although the time passed much faster than in any job I’ve ever had. I think I was enjoying it, even as I felt increasingly empty and desperate inside.

I managed to get a solid two hours of playing time in before my five-year-old daughter woke up. She was interested to see the new game, but she called me down for breakfast, after which we played at other things for a couple of hours, with my thoughts on Kingdom Rush and looking forward and fearing my return to it.

Then she got together with her neighbor friend, so I finally returned, unhindered at least by child-neglect guilt. And I played all afternoon and into the evening, and I just felt generally bad about the whole thing.

For one thing, I was stuck on that damn level. I had sailed through several levels before getting mired at Stormcloud Temple, overrun repeatedly by enemy hordes. It takes almost a half hour to get through the whole scenario, although I didn’t get to the end the first several tries, being slow to adjust my losing strategy. Finally I watched a video on YouTube to get a clue. Just the beginning, at first. That helped me start getting deeper into the level and wasting even more time.

And I had other help.

Sam brought her friend into The Grotto to show him the new game. He liked it, but they moved on before long. Then they came back. Sam wanted to sit on my lap while her friend pressed up against my mouse arm and made me nervous that he might knock over a glass of water sitting nearby that I didn’t want to be so picky and untrusting as to move or nag him about it. Sam picked up her My Little Pony brush that I’ve been using on my goatee and started brushing my beard hairs. The dog showed up and found a perfect opportunity to troll for attention from three people at once, with much jostling and tail wagging.

It wasn’t so bad, though. I like that she wants to be around me and isn’t ashamed of me around her friends, even with this outrageous goatee. Then she wanted to move on to something else but her friend didn’t, so to help her out I shooed them both out of the room and closed the door. And kept playing.

After a while — minutes? hours? days? — I heard the door open, and, “Yep. He’s still playing.” They wanted to come in and watch some more, and so again with my daughter on my lap and the beard brushing, and the friend hanging over my mouse elbow.

I commented about my troubles with the level, and Sam said, “Keep trying, Dad. Don’t give up!”

And they moved on again.

And I continued to feel desperate. Sundays are never good, with Monday and the return to work standing on the other side of midnight. With this, I had the feeling of letting something get away. Just with this one day of giving in to complete gaming idleness. The time passed alarmingly fast, and I was doing nothing to further my writing ambition. That whole thing seemed dead, stuck through with the sword of an invading goblin. It felt like a surrender to go with all the defeats in the game.

I finally got to the big boss at the end of the level, and though I felt well-fortified and ready, he marched through and I was crushed yet again. Now I skimmed through the rest of the strategy video to see how that guy did it, and I emulated his approach more, and was defeated yet again.

I was beginning to dislike the game.

Sam was home from her friend’s and it was time for dinner and other stuff. But then I had to try again at her bedtime. She sat on my lap for the finale and she and Kathy both watched me suffer yet another pummeling at the hands of the super Yeti. It was close, this time, but not that close. I said, “Oh, man, I spent so many hours at this today.” Sam said, “I don’t think you should try again tonight, Dad,” to which I was solidly in agreement.

I went to bed not long after, and my mind was too active to get right to sleep, my thoughts full of all the relentless attacking and defending of the day. I knew I’d be having dreams about the stupid thing. I wasn’t especially frustrated, though. Just… worn out. Fatigued. I decided maybe this was okay. Maybe I’d had enough of the game. Maybe it would save me time in the long run to have done this. I didn’t need to play anymore. I would not play anymore.

I slept all right, spared from the kinds of tedious dreams you sometimes get from a day of obsessive repetition. This morning I sat down at my computer with about a half hour of time. And I started thinking…

It’s enough time to try Stormcloud Temple again.

And I did. Of course.

And that frigging Yeti, “J.T.”, was so close to going down. One more cannon shot from a nearby tower might have finished him… but… no.

Defeat. Again.

And it was time to leave for work. Depressing.

But I determined that I wouldn’t surrender my writing. I would still write and post. I’m even doing it before playing again. And I must play again. I will defeat J.T.

And, look! There is time to play before dinner if I post this thing without carefully editing it or stepping back to see if it makes any sense. I can always upgrade it later, like my towers.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

“Who will guard the guards themselves?”

“Who watches the watchmen?”

Heavy questions, and so important in this surveillance society we’re building. The answer is probably not “us,” the little guys. We’re all fucked.

Let’s ask another, lighter question:

Who is the watcher of the weight?

I can answer this one: “Me!”

I’m going to lose weight. I’ve done it before; I’m certain I can do it again. And probably gain it back, again, but for now I’m on the way down. (Or rolling the rock slowly up the hill.)

I’d like to reduce the hold of some of my compulsions, but this is one area where my obsessive tendencies can be made to serve my goals. I have a spreadsheet set up to track points under the “classic” Weight Watchers system. Turning it into a numbers game works for me. For a while.

I’ve written about my first Weight Watchers experience in a couple of posts, but I’m not going to link to them from here, or mention any numbers. I was proud of that first time, and the second time, but… meh. You just gain it back and then who cares? Big deal.

Sustainability. I struggle with it, whether maintaining weight loss, or writing. They’re so often unsupervised and unchecked, all the watchmen and guards and demons inside.

Here are the lyrics to Jack Johnson’s song, “Supposed to Be.” Just eighty-three words:

Maybe it’s up with the stars
Maybe it’s under the sea
Maybe it’s not very far
Maybe this is how it’s supposed to be
This is how it’s supposed to be
Maybe it’s trapped in a jar
Something we’ve already seen
Maybe it’s nowhere at all
Maybe this is how it’s supposed to be
This is how it’s supposed to be
Looking forward as we rewind
Looking back is a trap sometimes
Being here is so easy to do
If you want to

It’s a beautiful poem. I can’t judge how it works with the words alone since I only know it in connection with the music and Jack’s soothing voice. The song is just under three minutes. You can listen to the whole thing at his website.

(You don’t have to, of course, any more than you have to keep reading this post. And this is going to be a rambling one. I’ve given myself permission to natter on for a bit.)

The song and the mood it inspired in me just now have helped me to not give up on my dream again. Not today, at least. I’ve been thinking about it. It seems like it’s going to happen any time now. But not today.

I’m just getting over being sick. Pretty sick, for me. Nothing rare or interesting. Just a nasty virus. Over the past several years I had been thinking my secret robot insides were only programmed to emulate minor sickness, so it’s been humbling to know I have the same buggy code as everyone else. Or malicious subroutines. Whatever.

Being sick hasn’t helped my working mindset. The writing kind of working. It’s hard to be ambitious and optimistic. Hard to beat down the pessimism. I can’t hear the quiet voices over the incessant negative chatter. (And I don’t hear them well enough on a good day.) It feels more hopeless than ever. The fear gets louder. This is never going to work, and now look, you’re sick and even less useful at your job. You better shape up and secure your position so you can take care of your family. (The problem with fear is that it is often smart, and right.)

We’re having a funny winter in Minnesota. (Funny ha-ha?) Temperatures have been in the 40s and 50s, further cause for disappointment at being sick. I’ve missed so many good walking days. A couple days ago I finally got the dogs out for a short walk. It felt great. I slowed down and tried for that “being in the moment” thing. No music. Just listening to the sounds of traffic and feeling the mild breeze on my face. So good to be out in the fresh air — as fresh as it can be in a major metropolitan area — and out of the house and all its sickness. (My daughter is finally over weeks of the same thing, and my wife and I got ours at the same time.)

Yesterday I walked again, and it didn’t go so well. I thought about politics, and of a discussion I had read on Facebook about a certain politician. I considered it as a post candidate. Did I want to write about it? Was there something I wanted to say about it? Should I want to write about it? I thought about how annoying this politician’s supporters can be, and how much I wouldn’t want to get into it with them if they should happen to notice what I wrote. Then I wondered if I was being a coward for not saying what I think. But what did I think? Does it even matter? I follow politics as a team sport. I’m pretty much for one “side,” as flawed and wanting as that team is. My information gathering is mostly from other people and websites that are cheering for the same team. What standing do I have to even voice my opinion if it’s little more than repeating what I read? And with all the back and forth and vast quantities of misinformation around, you start getting the idea that no one can really know anything about the truth, anyway. Maybe that’s what politics is for. Hiding the truth. It’s possible writing about politics just isn’t for me. I might care about what happens in this country and the world, but I don’t have to write about it at the level of “political analysis.” That would be okay. But it brought me down, mulling over my hazy knowledge and vague thinking about so many things. Why should anyone care to read anything I write?

Even as I thought all this, I recognized the familiar self-defeating spiel.

Brenda Ueland’s words came to me, about “the truth that is in me.” I wondered if I would find a way to share that truth. First I would need to know it better. I felt Brenda’s support in that, but feared that the truth would be so much smaller and less interesting than I’ve hoped.

And today still a lot of anxiety and stress about what I’m doing and what I might end up doing, or not doing. A sense of things sliding out of control, or maybe even worse, grinding on in a predictable, unchanging way.

But as the workday wrapped up, I felt marginally more free. I could write about something. Whatever — it didn’t matter. Maybe it would help if I scribbled about how crappy I made myself feel on the walk.

I started playing my standard Jack Johnson mix, and “Supposed To Be” came on, and it felt just right. I looked up the lyrics which I hadn’t done up to now. They’re easy enough to decipher, but I wanted to read them. It struck me how few words there were. It’s just this short poem. And I read along with the music and the singing, and what it said the most to me on that listen was that all we have is this moment. Right now. And it might not be so hard to live in that moment, if I want to. I also enjoyed the puzzle of what “it” is. It’s “this.” And I felt better that it might be big or small, trapped in a jar or up in the stars, but whatever it is, “this is how it’s supposed to be.”

And I would just write about that, however I wanted, and go on at length, and not really edit it. I’d give myself permission to write what I wanted to write and not fret so goddamned much about it. I felt happy. I didn’t have to worry about more than the moment. I didn’t have to put so much pressure on myself. It’s only a moment in time.

Talking about Brenda above caused me to look for more of the passage I was thinking of, and it’s fitting. It’s something I’ve already quoted here and I’m not going to be depressed that two years later I’m still learning or re-learning what it means:

But at last I understood from William Blake and Van Gogh and other great men, and from myself–from the truth that is in me (and which I have at last learned to declare and stand up for, as I am trying to persuade you to stand up for your inner truth)–at last I understood that writing was this: an impulse to share with other people a feeling or truth that I myself had. Not to preach to them, but to give it to them if they cared to hear it. If they did not–fine. They did not need to listen. That was all right too. And I would never fall into those extremes (both lies) of saying: “I have nothing to say and am of no importance and have no gift”; or “The public doesn’t want good stuff.”

And that’s what I’ve tried to do here. I hope I’ve shared some truth, no matter how small or how large.

Dear Internet:

I’m writing to you about a recent business opportunity you sent my way. I have to confess that I’m sometimes amused by your “business opportunities.” Your contacts often have trouble with subtleties of language which makes me smile rather than lose even more faith in humanity. Still, despite my amusement, this letter is intended as a bit of a rebuke.

I recently shared a photo of a walking stick. Not a stick to aid in walking, but the insect kind of stick. Phasmatodea. I thought it was clearly enough about the bug, yet I’ve received an email from one of your friends that suggests otherwise.

Although I’d like to see more comments on the site where everyone can share in the discussion, email is also good. It’s special: Someone cared enough to carefully compose a personal message, and I do appreciate it.

In this case, the message was uncharitably identified as spam by my filter, but the subject of “walking stick” made it stand out when I reviewed the spam folder:

Such specialization! I imagine they really deliver value by maintaining this sharp focus. Any old company can sell walking sticks, food containers, storage containers, plastic chairs, and water bottles, but then they’ll likely overextend themselves and try to offer things like carabiners and indoor composters as well, and now they’ve completely muddied their product strategy.

I also like how they’ve personalized you, addressing you by name, Internet, and dropping the needlessly objectifying “the.” It’s as if they’re saying, “Our common friend Internet gave us your number and said, ‘You should totally have business relations with this Sir or Madam.’”

I was puzzled at first how a company with such focus and attention to detail might misinterpret the intent of my post about buggy walking sticks as a desire for “sticky” walking sticks, but then I saw where I had mislead them. I titled the post “Where’s Walking Stick?”, and they simply answered, “Right here, on our site, along with food and storage containers, plastic chairs, and water bottles.”

I visited the web site, and sure enough, the items listed in the email seem to be their front page, flagship products:

Here are some featured products:

My favorite is: “cheap black folding chair.”

But a whole category is conspicuously missing in the photos. What I really want to know is, “Where’s walking stick?” I clicked on the sidebar link to find a page saying, “No data.” Frustrating!

Disappointment with my would-be business associates has led me to write you this letter, Internet. Please be careful when handing out my contact information. Don’t automatically assume I want non-bug walking sticks and food containers as much as I want Viagra and foreign money laundering opportunities.

But hold on a second…

These guys are having a problem with their web page. “No data.” It happens. My site goes down more often than I’d like, and I don’t want to be judged too harshly for that, either. I didn’t see what they’re actually selling under the heading of “walking stick.” Maybe it is Phasmatodea. They could put the bugs in one of their storage containers for shipping. Maybe they — and you — were right on the money with this one.

I’m sorry, Internet. Please disregard this letter until further notice.

This is the cover of the October 1948 issue of Amazing Stories, which some neglector of intellectual property has prematurely let fall into the public domain. Project Gutenberg has a bunch of amazing artwork and history like this that you might find with a search of [science fiction covers].

I love the teaser for the featured story, The Brain: “A Giant Calculating Machine Decides To Rule The world!” A calculating machine! And it has decided to rule the world!

Project Gutenberg is one of my favorite sites on the internet. Their more-than-five year mission: “To encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks.” Free electronic books. Free as in free beer and freedom.

I think they mostly draw from the public domain, which means most of their stuff is from the 1920s or earlier, so I was surprised to see these publications from the 1940s and 1950s. But each of them is accompanied by the note, “Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.”

Wonderful! (Amazing!)

Although I bet this rankles some people. The public domain isn’t very popular with a certain crowd. I can imagine them being offended by this idea that stuff should become “free.” (That it must be free.) These cultural nitwits probably see this as an egregious oversight by the copyright owners. They don’t get that our current copyright system is wrecking the commons. They’re fools if they don’t see how they benefit from “free culture” for everything they do.

It makes me sad that copyright has become effectively forever. So much stuff could be entering the public domain every year even with the previous too-long maximum term of 56 years. Take a look at Duke University’s depressing summary of what would have become available this year, but now we likely won’t see freed in our lifetimes.

(More specifically, the summary is from Duke Law School’s “Center for the Study of the Public Domain.” They put one together every year and publish it as a special New Year’s Day bummer.)

But at least there is Project Gutenberg and other rocket ships, helping us to occasionally travel to that amazing planet, ‘Public Domain,’ where we can see and use and share our common culture, even as it recedes fast into the past.

And many of us are committed to sharing our own present day work as much as possible, and allowing it to be shared in turn. I generally use the Creative Commons “ShareAlike” license instead of dedicating my work to the public domain, because I want to promote that idea — that our culture is a commons, and we should share it freely. You can use my work, but to the extent that I have “power” to tell you what you can do with it, I only ask that you share the work under the same terms if you decide to use it.

We share a common culture. It’s our culture, and little pieces of it shouldn’t be “owned” by anyone. (I’m speaking of the pieces that exist as bits and bytes, of course. The copyable parts.)

I suppose this might seem like science fiction to many, but science fiction has a way of predicting how things will go with giant calculating machines and other weird concepts. It will be the future soon enough. We’ll figure out better ways to deal with all this “stuff.” For now, we can opt in easily enough. Please, copy and share my words!

The Star Wars power droid turned up in some Legos and my daughter started carrying it around, calling it “R2-D2″ even though she should know better. I let it go, for now, but it made me feel uneasy.

POWER DROID. It’s a power droid. (Sharp intake of breath.) If you can’t call the action figures by their right names, maybe you’re just not old enough to play with this stuff yet.

This is a vintage 1970s toy, you realize. Looking around, I see this one at some random site for $40. Maybe I better take the thing away from her…

Oh, wait. Amazon has sellers offering it for $12. I don’t know if it’s worth crushing her joy for only $12.

Being a parent is hard.