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 |    My primary Writing.com blog. |
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Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics). Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:  "The Soundtrackers Group"  "Invalid Item" "Blogging Circle of Friends " "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" "JAFBG" "Take up Your Cross" Thanks for stopping by!  |
| Write about scents you just absolutely love. I'm not really big on fragrances in general... I don't wear cologne and I rarely pick personal hygiene products based on the nuances of how they smell. Which is not to say that scent doesn't do anything for me... it's just rarely a priority compared to other considerations. That said, there are a few types of smells that I have and probably will always love because they're just so comforting:  Cedar1 Cinnamon Citrus + Something2 Cotton / Fresh Linen Freshly Baked Bread, Cookies, Brownies, etc. VanillaCombination scents (and flavors) are something I'm really fond of. Especially in a drink like a tea... I love Republic of Tea products because they have a ton of really interesting combinations that taste delicious. My favorite is probably their Ginger Peach tea, but I've also tried their Blackberry Sage, Cranberry Blood Orange, and Vanilla Almond, among others. But I suppose that's more appealing because of their taste rather than their scent.  Footnotes |
Write about an extreme or silly sport. If none inspire you, make up the rules for your own game. The game that this blog prompt immediately made me think of is Calvinball, the made-up game that Calvin from the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes invented, which only has one rule; that the game can't be played the same way twice. In the comic, the game uses a variety of sports equipment, including: croquet mallets and wickets, volleyballs, badminton birdies, tennis racquets, footballs, soccer balls, cones, masks, buckets, and - of course - water balloons. Throughout the comic strip it's implied that Calvin invented the game when he got bored with traditional, organized sports... and many of his and Hobbes' games eventually evolve (or devolve, depending on how you look at it) into Calvinball. Calvin & Hobbes is probably one of my Top 10 literary influences from my childhood. I have the entire collection in a two-volume hardcover boxed set, and I go back and re-read it every couple of years. It's such a perfect distillation of the experience of being a kid and, even if some of us aren't as wild as Calvin, I think everyone can relate to his observations of what childhood (and adulthood) is like, and many of us can identify with his rampant imagination getting him into trouble at school, at home with his parents, etc. One of my favorite Calvinball strips was when Rosalyn, Calvin's babysitter, eventually agrees to play in a bid to get him to go to bed... and then completely capitalizes on the fact that you make up the rules as you go along and uses it to dominate the game. Calvin even exclaims, "She picked up the nuances of this game fast!" which is such a perfect observation for a kid who has a limitless imagination, but is playing with an older teenager who knows how to use logic and strategy to her advantage in an effort to get him to go to bed.  |
Write about putting together the pieces of puzzles. I love puzzles of all kinds. Jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, sudoku, riddles, cryptograms, word searches, mazes, board games, trivia... I enjoy them all. I think it's because I love problem solving in general; looking at a situation and trying to figure out the correct solution. When I was younger, we would take road trips from Northern California to Montana, which was a two-day drive. I remember my parents would buy me one of those big workbooks full of hundreds of crossword puzzles and word searches (the kind you can buy at the grocery store), and I would just plug away at them for the entire drive (when I wasn't reading a book). My love for puzzles also kind of followed me into my other interests and my career as well. Doing credits for film and television is similarly trying to put all the pieces in the right places, and resolve conflicts between what people want and what we can actually do. I love games like Dungeons & Dragons which are exercises in problem solving... and I love running Dungeons & Dragons games even more than playing in them, which is also an exercise is creative storytelling and problem solving (since you're reacting to unpredictable choices of the players). Of all the puzzles out there, I think my favorite are probably logic puzzles. Especially things like escape rooms, where you have to figure out a bunch of clues and put them together to solve a larger puzzle with a bigger picture. I've never actually done an escape room before, partly because I don't really know anyone else who's excited about them like I am, and partly because solving puzzles under the pressure of a timer kind of takes some of the fun away for me. I like to take my time and think through things; not feel like there's a time pressure to finish. Real life has enough activities where you're pressured to complete activities while you're on a clock.  |
"Take up Your Cross" | Write about the unforgivable sin. Do you believe there is one? Why? What's it about?I'm going to start with a caveat and say that I don't know this answer for sure. I kind of wish more Christians would start responses to questions like this, because answering this definitively on behalf of God is, in itself a sin. The Bible is full of passages like Matthew 7 and Romans 2, which make it quite clear that it's not our job to judge the sin of others: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." -- Matthew 7:1-2 (NIV) You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? -- Romans 2:1-4 (NIV) In light of that, I suppose my answer to the question of "Is there an unforgivable sin?" is that I don't know; you'd probably have to take that up with God. That said, I have a hunch here, which is really just my own opinion based on my limited personal experience. My theory is that the only unforgivable sins are the ones that we refuse to repent for. In the words of Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." And if that's a given, we're all in trouble unless what the Bible says about God's love and grace is true. But in order to receive that, we have to be willing to truly repent of those sins. If we can't do that, I don't see any forgiveness coming our way. All of the rest of it? That's up to God. I can't tell you whether the very bad thing you've done is something you can be forgiven for; I'm not the one who's ultimately making that decision, and it would be hubris to assume that I can speak for the one who will. For myself, I find these kinds of questions interesting on an intellectual level because I like to ponder stuff ... but from a practical standpoint, I think our time on Earth is better spent focusing on repentance and amends for the sins we do commit. I have a feeling God is less concerned with keeping a list of absolutes, and more concerned about the state of our souls in the aftermath of the bad things that we do. "Take up Your Cross" | How should a Christian respond to someone who is in the LGBTQ community? Do you believe they can be Christian too?As it happens, I attended a conference recently with some other staff members from our church on this subject. It was super interesting, and addressed this question specifically. My takeaway from the conference, which sought to apply biblical principles to these issues, was that the initial answer to the question of "Can someone be both Christian and LGBTQ+" is it depends. Can someone who is LGBTQ+ believe in Jesus and try to follow the teaching of the Bible to the best of their ability? Yes. Can someone who is a Christian show love and compassion and support for someone who identifies as LGBTQ+? Certainly. I'd argue that Christians are called to do that for everyone regardless of their sexuality or gender identity. At the conference, they actually featured a number of guest speakers in different situations, including a couple of individuals who identified as gay, but also considered themselves strong Christians. The experience they shared was that they chose a life of celibacy and singleness, in order to uphold the Biblical standards of sexual activity being reserved for married couples, and marriages being between one man and one woman. And while the decision about whether that's an acceptable position is a question for pastors to answer, I thought it was an interesting interpretation because it does seem to reconcile two things at the same time... someone can identify as LGBTQ+ in one or more ways, and can also seek to live a traditional Christian life. For me personally, I'm not entirely sure that's the only option; I'm still trying to reconcile my understanding of what's required to lead a faithfully Christian life with many of the complex modern-day issues that simply were not contemplated at the time the Bible was written. I have a feeling it's not as black-and-white as some more traditional Christians make it out to be. Incidentally, one of the things that I found most interesting about the conference is that one of the speakers encouraged Christians to generally be more accepting of both celibacy and singleness. To paraphrase one of his points, "You can't be a Christian if you don't love and care for people. And you can't fundamentally love and care for the LGBTQ+ community if you constantly uphold the ideal of marrying the person of your dreams and having a family as the pinnacle of humanity while also turning around and telling some people they can't have that." His point was that we should normalize people who choose celibacy and singleness as a life choice, whether that's because they're LGBTQ+, devoted to their faith (like a traditional nun or priest), or subject to life's circumstances (divorced, widowed, etc.). Christians need to value everyone's experience and life choices, and anyone can be a Christian if they put the pursuit of a life with Jesus ahead of whatever sin they struggle with. The other thing I thought was interesting about the conference was that they challenged Christians to consider LGBTQ+ issues honestly by evaluating the same circumstances in the context of other "sin." For example, they asked the room of church pastors and staffers, "Would you allow an LGBTQ+ person to lead worship at your church?" And they got a whole bunch of, "Oh we could never do that. We're called to love LGBTQ+ people but putting one of them at the front of the worship band would imply we're okay with their lifestyle, blah blah blah..." But the organizers of the event would then follow up and say, "Okay, but how would you feel about a worship band leader who was sleeping with his girlfriend when they weren't married? Or a pastor who cheats on his taxes? Those are sins too, and if you're okay with them on your staff, why not someone who is struggling with LGBTQ+ issues?" That clearly made a lot of people in the room uncomfortable, and I think that was kind of the point. We shouldn't be in a position where we act like some sins are okay while others aren't. Ultimately, the question of how a Christian should respond to someone in the LGBTQ+ community is an open question, because LGBTQ+ individuals are not a monolith. It depends on who they are, what they're saying, and what they're doing. Christians should always be loving, kind, and compassionate. But there's probably a different response called for depending on whether we're talking about someone in the LGBTQ+ community who is actively seeking Jesus, or someone in the LGBTQ+ community who is actively and unrepentantly pursing a life of sin. And, spoiler alert, that's not just a differentiation that needs to be made among people in the LGBTQ+ community; that's a differentiation that needs to be made for everyone. As far as being Christian, anyone can be a Christian as long as they're pursuing a life with Jesus... and you certainly don't have to only be straight or cisgender to do that. |
I have never in my life heard of World Urbanism Day (or World Town Planning Day, as some call it) until today. According to Wikipedia, it was apparently founded in 1949 by a professor at the University of Buenos Aires to "advance public and professional interest in urban planning." It's currently celebrated in more than 30 countries on four different continents. You know what else advanced public interest in urban planning?  I used to love Sim City as a kid. I would legitimately spend hours designing cityscapes and watching them develop as the game clock advanced. I would alternate between trying to make a city on a completely flat grid and seeing how well I could optimize the placement of residential, commercial, and industrial areas to see how quickly I could get the population to swell to the point where I could build those big arcologies... and trying to build cities on incredibly complicated landscapes with tons of hills and valleys lakes and other obstacles, to see if I could make a functional town in hostile terrain. One of the things I loved about this game was the sense of humor they had for the cheat codes too. If you didn't want to wait around to raise revenue the old fashioned way, you could type in "IMACHEAT" and you'd get $500,000 but would also have a significant chance of some kind of natural disaster happening. And if you wanted to cause your own natural disasters just for funsies, "NOAH" would get you a flood, "GOMORRAH" would get you a nuclear power plant meltdown, etc. You could also "shoot down" helicopters traveling through your city by clicking the cursor over them. I suppose I've always loved urban planning. Like any puzzle, I like the challenge of having a specific space that you then have to figure out where everything goes and the optimal way to configure it. I actually haven't played Sim City in years, but after a little searching it seems like there's both a current mobile game and a current game for both MacOS and Windows. Maybe I should get it and play a commemorative game every November 8th during World Urbanism Day!  |
Back in September, a journalism job posted by Gannett Media went viral. The position they were advertising was for someone to report on the "Taylor Swift beat," meaning they're looking for someone whose only job is to report on Taylor Swift and what she's doing. Rumor has it there's a similar position for Beyonce in the works, BTW... Normally, I would find this kind of thing amusing. My wife loves Taylor Swift (I like her music a lot as well, to be fair), and I joked that this would be the perfect job for her because she'd get paid to do what she's already doing, which is religiously watching TikTok, Instagram, etc. looking for the latest updates on where in the world Taylor Swift is at any particular moment, and what she's doing. Surprisingly, though, Gannett actually did hire a Swiftie for this position. Bryan West (who does admittedly have decent journalistic credentials) was chosen for the job, and he's an admitted Swiftie. His audition video very much touted how much of a fan he is, and he says he follows a lot of Taylor news already, including "every outing, every new song, every lyric, every album release, every party." And while I will stipulate that I haven't read the Gannett job posting so I don't have any visibility into what Gannett is actually looking for (they may very well want a fan service column about Taylor Swift's day-to-day), from the perspective of journalistic integrity, this feels like kind of an icky choice. I'm sure West is a lovely person but, to "prove his point" that he can report unbiased news on the singer, he listed three songs of hers that he can't stand. But then quickly says that he sees his job as, "To highlight her global and societal impact because she keeps breaking her own records." And that kind of clearly makes my point... the guy is biased in favor of the topic he's supposed to be writing about. Earlier this year, there was a story about how Taylor Swift's private jet use is off the charts (this was in connection with a story about climate change and how damaging it is to have the super-rich take frivolous private flights that generate massive emissions), and she pushed back saying that she often lends her jet to friends so it's not her taking all these random flights from Los Angeles to San Francisco, or across the country six times a week. And it feels like those stories maybe aren't going to get a lot of attention on West's "Taylor Swift beat" because he's so clearly a massive fan of hers, despite his admitting that he *gasp* doesn't like *gasp* three of the 100+ songs she's recorded over the course of her career.  Maybe I'm blowing this all out of proportion. Maybe Gannett wants West to write fan service. But if that's the case, they shouldn't be advertising the job like it's a serious journalistic position; they should just be open about the fact that it's supposed to be tabloid fodder or entertainment, rather than "reporting." It feels like the media has enough trouble with bias and negative perceptions without hiring a fanboy to report on the object of his obsession, and then calling it objective journalism.  |
Is November 7th really Notary Public Day? I'm always so skeptical of these pseudo-holidays... I am a Notary Public here in California, though, so I guess I should probably say something about it. I've been a notary since about 2011, I think. Each of my commissions has been paid for by my employer so that I can notarize documents for them; and I've taken the opportunity to notarize a bunch of other stuff for people on the side, mostly as a favor to friends and family. Becoming a California notary requires renewing a commission every four years, and to do that you have to pass a test. One of those annoying ones where they can ask you anything about notary law type stuff and you either have to study really intently, or just hope that you get questions you happen to know. I'm a member of the National Notary Association, and they actually offer an all-inclusive training where you bring in everything ahead of time and they help you take your photo, get fingerprinted, fill out your application, take an all-day test prep course, and then actually take the test in the afternoon right after you've had an all-day cram session. I could technically get away with renewing my commission by just taking the test, but notary law can be pretty specific so I find it helpful to brush up on everything by devoting one day every four years to cramming for it and getting it all done at once. Being a notary isn't exactly glamorous work, but it's nice to be able to help friends and family with that (everyone needs some form or document or other notarized sooner or later), and it's actually been a great opportunity to get to know higher-ups at my company too. At the various places I've worked, my actual day-to-day work doesn't always involve interfacing with the heads of the studio... but the heads of the studio are often the ones who need something notarized, even if it's personal in nature. Family trust documents, passport applications for their kids, real estate documents or litigation or contracts that require proof of execution... so it's been a great way to get "face time" with the heads of the companies I've worked for. One of the things that's fun about being a notary to VIPs is to see the kinds of things rich and important people need done. The thing I notarize most often for "normal" people are things like government forms and applications, maybe the occasional real estate document or something along those lines, etc. For the "important" people, I've notarized all kinds of crazy stuff like private aircraft lease documents, registering a new "flag of convenience" for someone's yacht, high-profile divorce settlements, wage garnishment orders from a court, etc. I always find it interesting what kind of shenanigans rich people get up to. Fun fact about notaries, though... did you know they can administer oaths of office? And did you know that there are no restrictions on what kinds of offices I can administer an oath for? If the President of the United States needed to be sworn into office on Inauguration Day and no Supreme Court justice or federal judge were available and I happened to be walking through the National Mall and someone was like, "Is there anyone here who can administer the oath of office to our new president?" ... I could do that!  Well, not technically since that would be in Washington, D.C. and I only have jurisdiction and authority in California ... but still. |
"Take up Your Cross" | What is your favorite topic to hear sermons about?I really enjoy sermons that challenge me to think about my own life in a different way, that find a way to apply Biblical lessons and concepts to the modern world. The history lessons about the life and times in the Bible are fine, as are the times when a sermon does a really deep-dive on the nuanced meaning of a particular passage of Scripture, but those feel a little more "academic" to me and I prefer the "practical" sermons where there's some wisdom imparted and some tips or advice on how to follow Jesus a little more closely. As far as specific sermons (or sermon series), the one I enjoyed the most recently was a two-year series going through the entire Book of Acts, where we read each chapter and verse together and our pastors analyzed each piece of it and talked about what it would look like in our modern context to be like the church in Acts. It was one of my favorites because each week was a little bit of context/background on what happened in the Book of Acts, and then an application component where we talked about lessons we could take from them and apply to us today. I think it fundamentally shaped us as a church and, for me personally, it resulted in a major leap forward in my faith. ___________________________________ "Blogging Circle of Friends " | Write about the idea of self-care and what it means to you.To me, self-care doesn't mean anything specific beyond spending time doing the things that recharge you. I think the list of things that accomplish that differ for each person. Some people might like more traditional self-care routines like massages, baths, manicures/pedicures, haircuts/styling, etc., while others might just prefer alone time to read, go for a walk, relax in a jacuzzi, etc. Now that I have kids, I define self-care as pretty much any time that I have to myself where I don't have to be a parent. Date-night with my wife, personal time to go see a movie that isn't of the animated Disney variety, or even a lunch out with a friend are things that I do to take care of myself. I also read a lot in my spare time, like after the kids have gone to bed. I should probably add exercise to my self-care regimen at some point so that I can actually get back into shape again... ___________________________________ "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" | Time and Thoughts "In one hour, A person thinks about 3000 thoughts." --Tad James. I'm guessing some of those thoughts are the ones that pop up on their own into our minds. What do you think about Tad James's claim and which kinds of thoughts pop up in your mind? Also, is your mind so active that it tires you?Based on the number of times I think to myself, "Am I hungry?" and "I wonder what so-and-so is doing?" and "Is it break time yet?" that number might actually be an undercount. But seriously, I think 3,000 thoughts an hour is probably pretty accurate, depending on what you count as a "thought." Three thousand thoughts an hour is 50 thoughts per minute, or one thought every 1.2 seconds. That feels about right, especially if you count "different thoughts on the same topic" as individual thoughts. For example, if I'm planning my day, I'll probably go through a hundred thoughts in a minute about what if I did this first, or that... if I waited to do that, could I do this other thing at the same time... things like that. And those moments of rapid-fire thought processes probably more than offset any moments where my mind is more relaxed and not thinking about too much.Although, who am I kidding... even if I'm not doing much, my brain is still thinking about dozens of different things. On a day off I'm still thinking about stuff on my to-do list, something I want to write, ideas for things to accomplish at work, side projects, etc. My mind is definitely active enough that it tires me out sometimes. I really don't know how to just turn my mind off and exist in the moment without thinking a dozen other things at the same time. ___________________________________ "Invalid Item" | Daylight Saving Day - You have an extra hour for this one.I used to think that the people who advocated for the abolition of Daylight Savings Time were a little crazy ... it's not that big a deal to turn your clocks forward or back twice a year, right? Well, then I had kids and I realized how wrong I was. Changing clocks throws kids (and therefore the entire household) out of whack for the better part of a week. And for what gain? In our modern age where we don't have very many people working by literal daylight anymore, it seems crazy to have an entire society still following a practice that was first developed almost 250 years ago.Lately I've been really questioning a lot of stuff like this ... and time zones. It's so frustrating to try and figure out what time it is in a specific area in the world. Why not just have one universal constant for what time it is, and then adapt accordingly? "Business hours" don't have to be 9am-5pm in 24 different time zones ... we could just have one global time (it's 11am everywhere at the same time), and then each region can state the hours that are "business hours" for them. So what if "daytime work hours" are 11pm to 11am? Would it be confusing at first? Sure. But is it inherently any more confusing than needing to make a call to another country and having to go, "Hmm, it's 10am here. I wonder what time it is where they are?" Then proceeding to have to do math. Maybe I'm becoming more curmudgeonly in my old age (okay, there's no maybe about it, LOL), but I'm getting more in favor of global constants that - after an adjustment period - would make it simpler and require less translation from one place to another. Heck, while we're at it, let's all get on the metric system too! Everyone: "Wait, did he just say to get rid of daylight savings time, time zones, and the imperial system of measurements?" |
| Mysterious Lumps in the Earth's Mantle May Be Remains of the Crash That Formed the Moon This article from Smithsonian Magazine highlights the prevailing theory that the moon was formed around 4.5 billion years ago when a very young Earth planet collided with a protoplanet called Theia, which was approximately the size of Mars. According to the article, the impact sent debris into orbit around the Earth, which then accreted into the form of the Moon. Which is kind of cool, I guess, but the buried lede in this story for me is the newer idea that fragments of Theia may have become lodged in our planet. In fact, there are apparently two continent-sized pieces of material in the Earth's lower mantle that scientists theorize could be pieces of Theia. One is beneath the continent of Africa and one is beneath the Pacific Ocean. There's some debate in the scientific community about whether these pieces of Theia are well preserved into the continent-type masses that newer research suggests is down there, or if the pieces more evenly mixed in the mantle and have just become too intermingled to tell them apart. But, either way, the far more interesting implication of this story - at least for me - is that there is extraterrestrial material beneath the surface of our planet.  From a writing standpoint, there are so many possibilities the information in this article creates. One of science fiction's best devices for how humans evolve to the point where they can start exploring the stars is the discovery of alien technology ... but then you have the challenge of explaining how it was discovered and evolved to the point where we harnessed something more technologically advanced than we are. Think of all the possibilities now that there's bonafide alien fragments inside our own planet! The ideas for a story using this as background are already percolating ... |
| WDC 48-Hour Challenge: Media Prompt | Prompt ▼ I haven't seen this particular video before, but I'm definitely no stranger to the "kids content on YouTube" space. Especially during the pandemic, we watched so many videos on YouTube with our kids, and they really love this kind of short-form content where they can jump from one video to the next after a few minutes. As charming as this video is, I can't say it's been my favorite Media Prompt on the site; as much as my kids love these videos I've found myself getting tired of the "content creator" space on YouTube. And the self-published space on Amazon, to be honest. I've generally been a huge proponent of having no gatekeepers and everyone just being able to put their work out in the world for the world to judge ... but lately I've been swinging back in the opposite direction a bit and seeking out works that are produced by established media companies (books published through a traditional publisher, TV shows and movies from established companies and studios, etc.). I'm glad a I had a chance to do another Media Prompt entry, though; the 6pm WdC time deadline on Fridays is 3pm my time, and I'm usually in the middle of the workday when I realize that I missed the deadline that I'd been meaning to get to for the past two days. Thankfully today was a slower day and I was able to spend a little time listening to the video and coming up with this entry. |
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