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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"  "Blog Harbor" "Blogging Circle of Friends " "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" "JAFBG" "Take up Your Cross" Thanks for stopping by!  |
 Prompt #41: If you were on trial for a crime you didn't commit, would there be any circumstances under which you'd consider taking a plea deal? If so, what and why? I would really struggle with this decision because I have both a very strong sense of right and wrong (and I share MLK's belief that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice"), so a big part of my inner monologue would be screaming, "You didn't do this! The judge/jury will see that. You shouldn't have to confess to a crime you didn't commit!" and I would have a very hard time coming to terms with the idea of taking a plea deal (which usually involve an admission of guilt). That said, I'm also a very, very practical person, and I tend to dislike risk. If it was a reasonable plea deal, I'd be very tempted to put up with a smaller injustice than entertain the possibility of being subjected to the greater injustice of being found guilty of a crime I didn't commit. For example, if pleading guilty meant probation rather than jail time, I'd really have to consider that. If the guilty were something that could eventually be reduced or expunged, I'd really have to consider that. I suppose, ultimately, it would come down to the crime I'm being accused of and how close to it that I actually came to committing it. I don't know that I could in good conscience plead guilty to murder, for example, if I definitely didn't murder someone. But if I was accused of, for example, assault and battery by someone I had gotten into an altercation with, I'd have to consider whether the plea was worth taking even if I didn't personally believe that the altercation rose to the level of the legal definition of assault and battery. So I guess all of that is to say I suppose there are circumstances where I'd consider taking a plea deal if I was innocent. The justice system is hardly perfect, and I've seen enough innocent people convicted of crimes that I don't think I could say that I would categorically stand by my own innocence at all times, especially if I saw the case trending in a wrong/unfavorable direction. But it would definitely be a last resort because, as an optimist, I'd like to still believe in the idea that truth and justice can win out, and that I won't be found guilty for something that I truly didn't do. |
When I first moved down to Long Beach for film school, I had to find a mechanic for one of our cars. There was something wrong with it, and the dealership quoted us like $1,200 for the repair, which my wife and I didn't have as poor college students. We took it to this small little corner repair shop a few blocks from our apartment for a second opinion, and the guy who worked there told us it was a $300 part and they would only charge us $100 for the labor, where the dealership was going to charge us $900 for the labor. A few days and $400 later, they had a loyal customer. Over the years, I came to know the manager and the owner of the business pretty well, and I found out the reason they were so good with cars is that they actually hired ex-dealership mechanics from all over. They had a guy who knew Japanese cars from working at Honda, Toyota, Lexus, etc., and another guy who was familiar with American cars like Fords and Chevys, and another guy who specialized in high-end foreign models like BMWs and Mercedes. Over the years, I brought them Jeeps, Hondas, Toyotas, and Volkswagens and they never met a problem they couldn't fix (often for much less than the dealership would have charged). Even when I moved down to Orange County, I'd bring my car up to Long Beach for every single service that I could manage, because these guys were trustworthy, hard-working, and affordable. They were also super friendly and half the time if I was just there for an oil change and they were going to be done in an hour or so, I'd just hang out and chat with them while they worked on the car. To this day, I still remember the funniest conversation I had with the owner, where he was asking what I do for a living and I told him I worked for Disney/Marvel. I'm used to people getting super excited about the fact that I work in the entertainment business and the owner was like, "Did you say marble? Like, are you a wholesaler or something? Do you do custom work?" And I said, "No, not marble. Marvel. Superheroes. Like Iron Man, The Avengers, etc." And without missing a beat the owner was like, "Huh. That's cool, I guess. To be honest, I was more interested when I thought you worked with marble."  The shop moved to a different part of Long Beach around 2018 or 2019 (I think they were struggling financially and needed a cheaper place to work out of), but then COVID hit in 2020 and one day I called to ask if they were open for a service when the world started opening back up again, and the number was disconnected. I drove by once and they weren't at their most recent address, so the place must have either relocated or — more likely — folded. I definitely miss Tuneup Masters, both for the quality of service they provided me for over ten years, and also for the tragedy of so many small businesses we lost in the economic hardship of the pandemic.  |
| This past week was Spring Break for my kids and we spent the first part of it (Sunday through Wednesday) visiting family in Arizona. I realized that it's my first visit to the state (other than a brief "step across the state line" moment during a trip to Nevada and flight layovers in Phoenix, neither of which I'd consider qualifications for saying you've visited a state). It's only the 13th state I've actually visited (following California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, New York, Florida, and Hawaii), which means I really need to pick up the pace if I'm going to reach my goal of visiting all 50 states in my lifetime. Maybe I need to get a cross-country trip on the books or something...  Overall, I'd say that Arizona was a nice place to visit, but not somewhere I'd want to live. The downtown area of Phoenix was nice and had a great children's museum, and I'm super jealous that their traffic is so light, but I thought the suburbs were a little too quiet for my tastes and you had to drive an awful long way to get to anything other than other homes and housing developments. Oh and there's the fact that it was 90°F while we visited in mid-April. I don't think I could survive somewhere that has repeated and extended periods of 110°F+ temperatures for half the year...  I'd definitely go back for a visit, as long as it's not between May and October. |
| Tonight we officially start the second half of the Dungeons & Dragons campaign that I've been playing with a new group for over a year! A couple of acquaintances from my last church approached me in January 2024 about potentially joining their weekly(ish) game nights every Thursday. All of them enjoyed playing D&D but everyone at the table either didn't like (or wasn't very good at) running the game as the Dungeon Master (which is the thing I actually enjoy most), so they asked if I might be interested in giving it a try for a little while. That was 15 months, 34 game sessions, and 10 character levels ago. We just wrapped up a nearly month-long, three-part "season finale" to the campaign; the midpoint where everything that's been building for several months finally came to a head. I've written more than 200 pages of adventure narrative and other campaign materials (hey, maybe I can write novel-length fiction after all! ), and the last three weeks was a crazy large battle that brought in characters and story elements that I've been building for weeks or even months, waiting to pay off.For those readers who haven't played D&D before, there are all kinds of ways you can play but assuming you're using a traditional structure, characters begin at 1st Level (newbie adventurers) and undertake a campaign (a series of adventures, either interconnected or not) until they reach 20th Level (world-changing heroes of legend). The players just hit 11th Level, which coincides with the fact that they just hit the "midpoint twist" of the campaign, which has spun things off in an entirely new (and more dangerous!) direction that will propel them through the remaining levels and allow us to conclude the campaign after they reach 20th Level. This is actually the longest running campaign I've ever had (by number of sessions and character development). I've played D&D off and on over the years, and the longest running campaign I've had up until this new one was several years ago where I ran 23 game sessions for characters that were 9th Level at the time. That campaign ran for three and a half years and met no more than once monthly (still my longest running campaign by time spent), so getting into the later stages of a campaign is something that's new and exciting for me. I'm really enjoying the process of developing characters and storylines again. The malleable nature of a D&D campaign speaks to my love for connection and adaptation. It's so much fun to take a small thing that one of the players does and incorporate it into a campaign such that, when it comes back around again, they're surprised and excited to see how their player choices affect the world around them. But it's also really reignited by love for storytelling and character development in general, which is something that I've really struggled with over the past several years. I've managed to write stories here and there, of course, but I haven't felt like a real writer in years. I feel like I'm starting to get that spark back, and it's largely due to being part of a D&D gaming group again. I have a couple more hours to finish up this week's adventure, where the players are going to pick up the pieces after the enormous battle that just took place, and figure out where to go from here. I can't wait to see what we're able to build together from here. |
To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies  None!  I was shocked to go back through what I watched this month and realize that it was all television and old movies that I've already seen before. Unless I totally missed something, I don't think I saw any new movies in March, which might be a first for me. I usually always catch one or two, but I guess I was focused on television series this month! Television Cobra Kai (Season 6) Formula 1: Drive to Survive (Season 7) Long Bright River Reacher (Season 3) Running Point (Season 1) Skeleton Crew Suits LA (Season 1)The only shows I didn't love this month were SUITS LA and LONG BRIGHT RIVER, the former of which I stopped watching after a few episodes, and the latter of which my wife was into but I couldn't tell you a thing about it because I mostly did other stuff while it was on in the background. RUNNING POINT was an okay new series from Mindy Kaling (not as good as THE SEX LIVES OF COLLEGE GIRLS), and the third season of REACHER was a worthy addition to the franchise. I'm actually kind of excited because this season is based on the next book in the series I'll be reading after my current one, so I'm excited to do a little compare-and-contrast with a recently-read book and a recently-watched series that it was adapted into. The final season of COBRA KAI was pretty solid and I thought they did a great job bringing everything together in the final few episodes. It honestly might have been my favorite series any other month of the year, if it weren't for the fact that the new season of FORMULA 1: DRIVE TO SURVIVE also came out this month and I'm currently really into F1 so it was a great season to watch. I'm happy that I'm finally caught up and able to head into the 2025 season with a good understanding of what happened last year (and the several years before that). DRIVE TO SURVIVE would definitely have been my monthly pick on any other month if not for... SKELETON CREW. It's GOONIES meets TREASURE ISLAND set in the Star Wars universe. Need I say more? This was probably my favorite Star Wars title in the past several years, and my kids loved it too. It perfectly captures that timeless sense of all-ages excitement that you get from the best adventure stories. I highly recommend it for anyone who likes "kids going on an adventure they're not at all prepared for" tales. TOP PICK: Skeleton Crew |
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Not many of those around here. Who's your favourite team/driver? My favourite, Valtteri Bottas, doesn't have a seat for the 2025 season. I'll be hoping for Hamilton, Piastri and Tsunoda to be successful this season, though I also like Alonso and Leclerc.
