Five Year Goal

Since I am sick in bed right now, I guess it is time to do my 5 year goals.

My first one is that I want to be a successful business owner. So, let's map this out. I need to get a product. My product will be home mazes. People often have unfinished basements and they plan to get around to it eventually. This will be the neverending entertainment of having a spooky maze in their basement. Of course, they do not have to be spooky or creepy. It could be It's a Small World themed. Or, it could have a Gilligan's Island theme throughout. Or, it could be a Barry Manilow theme. None of these ideas are creepy...

We have our product. Now, materials. Are we going to just use cardboard everywhere? There should be some firm materials. We don't want the customer to cheat and knock over the walls to escape. And, we will probably want to have the spots where they can only crawl on their stomachs. So, wood framing and nails. Strobe lights. We will need some good software to draw this all out on first.

Then, there is the liability aspect. Even though we will want to have spiked walls and darts shooting out, there should not be anything which will really hurt or maim. Maybe just a brief sting. Like getting a shot.

We would also want to make it changeable. Once you learn a maze, it is not very fun to do the same maze again, so we would have to put casters on them and lock them into various places. That will be a good selling point though. We could have a monthly maze-changing service, where our team goes out and configures it to a whole new maze. For the low price of only $20.99 a month.

In five years, I need to be making a profit. With that profit we need to be able to pay our bills and go to the movies from time to time. So does that mean we make no profit for the first 4 years? I guess I will need to ease into this. Since not everyone will be clamoring for a new BaMazeMent right away, it will have to be a part time thing after my regular job. The goal in 5 years will be to quit my day job and start BaMazeMent Inc. full time. It may not happen just like that, but it's written down.

This five year goal stuff is hard work. But I feel good knowing that everyone who reads my blog now knows my ultimate dream, confusing people in their own homes.

The Topper

Yep! You know him (or her). The one who always has a better story. No matter how good the story is. No matter how fantastic. No matter how much of a lie the original is, he has a better one. His is better, more fantastic, a bigger lie.

The nature of the topper is the toughest thing to deal with, because in a way, by you telling a story at all, you are stepping on their toes. They seem to feel that they are the only ones entitled to be telling the amazing story. How dare you even think that your story or happening or experience could even compete with their incredible adventure...

How does one argue with a topper? Do you come out directly and tell them that their story sucks? Do you tell them like you would a child that they are being rude in trying to top someone else's story? Do we just chalk it up to the topper's insecurity as the cause?

I honestly think that most toppers are completely clueless. They think that they are supposed to come up with a topper. If someone shares a story, they go into their topper library in their head and come up with the best possible match for the initial story and then share it thinking that if they do not, then they are not showing proper attention to the original story. I think they feel like they are validating the original with their own.

But, a message to the topper in all of you. Don't! Just hear the story out and ask about the story. Laugh at the story. We won't think you are boring if you do not give us a whole new, different story. Make us feel good about our story. And then, if the conversation dies off and there is a need for yours, then go ahead.

But please! Don't make us think that if we tell a story then we are just going to be inundated with yours! And whatever you do, don't say: "Oh! I have a better one!" Or "Get this! You won't believe this!"

Give us lame storytellers a chance!

By the way, we all do it. Despite our best intentions, we find ourselves in situations with certain people where we just have to outdo them. Thank you to the great listeners of the world. I will try to be better.

Cake

I love cake. It is one of the great food groups. I like fruits and vegetables. Potatoes and carrots, strawberries and bananas, avocado and tomato. But cake is just so good. Some people get excited over having cake and ice cream. They seem to want the ice cream more and the cake is just some sort of filler. For me, it is the opposite. Ice cream is disgusting.

Well, I won't go that far. Ice cream is pretty good. But cake is where it is at. I can eat cake without the frosting even. Of course it has to be pretty good cake. Really moist. But if the frosting is there, it can really make for an enjoyable eating experience. The combination of the cold fork slicing through, gathering a portion of frosting and cake along with the backing of the plate as support make the experience. Just doing that step alone is significant. Putting it in the mouth is good too. But you have to have that first step to make that second step really work.

And this is where the true problem cake comes in. Problem cake? What sort of problem cake could there possibly be?

Cupcake! The poorest cake eating experience there is.



I am not sure who came up with this, but it was not thought out very well. The paper on the bottom is annoying and it seems wasteful. Everytime I have to eat it, I have to peel it off the bottom. It is like eating a banana or an orange, but with fruit there is some health benefit at the end. If I am going to eat something bad for me, it should be as simple as popping it in. Don't make me work for it!

Then, there is the frosting. I always have to lick it off the top. I have been doing that since I was little. I cannot eat it along with the cupcake. It's too tall. The frosting will get all over my face. And if I go for the frosting-face scenario, the cupcake is just big enough that it takes 3 or 4 bites to finish. And, without a plate and fork, I am totally lost.

When I lick off the frosting first, there goes the great taste of the cake. The frosting's sweetness is too intense and instead of the symbiotic relationship with the cake, it just detracts from it. I would be okay with eating the cake and then the frosting, but that is near impossible.

The next time someone offers me a cupcake I swear I am really going to...



...shrug and eat it my old, lame way.

That's Politics, Folks!

Politics are funny. Politics is funny. You know politics. They are funny. It's funny... politics.

We have been mired in scandal lately. The governor of New York had a problem which got exposed to the world. Before this, I did not even know who he was. Now, we know who he is and his wife and the prostitute. We know them by name and can now answer Trivia Pursuit questions about them later on. So here I am one of those shallow people who only find something out after the scandal. And that is politics.

There was this guy named Mc who was really focused and determined to do the best he could. He had such tunnel vision that his personality was almost completely lost. He was awarded for this though. The powers that be saw the extreme value of this individual. Some may have thought of Mc as a noser or kiss-up, but a couple of us think otherwise. He just had a vision of what he was supposed to do and he did it. The individuals around him did not matter as much. They only mattered in the way that he could teach them to do work like him.

While I would never have gone about things the way Mc did I think I am reaching the point where I can respect him for what he did accomplish. And he is certainly remembered among many people for his extremism.

The politics affected Mc in an unusual way. They didn't affect him. He still maintained his focus. He was still as difficult a person to talk to as ever. But he had the position of authority, the most glamorous position of the organization. Many people would get that position and use it for show. They would constantly be looking to look better and go for the praise. As far as I could tell, Mc had no such appreciation for the adulation. Nothing he did made him look any better or made everyone feel anymore comfortable.

In an actual, political world, how would Mc do? Imagine a governor, a congressperson, a president who just did the work at hand. Imagine someone being there you respected but didn't really like.

Greatness Index Proposal

"The suspense is killing me. I hope it'll last."


How can they do remakes of great movies? Or songs? Or whatever? I have this rule which states:

If you are not going to do it better than the first one, don't do it!

What is so hard about this rule?


We were in the car listening to the radio the other day and heard the most boring version of Forever Young ever. It was totally dull. I have no idea who it was, but if I find out, they lose a notch. Alphaville would be turning over in their grave. And they may not even be the original authors of the song, but they did make it great.


With music, there are always people doing remakes. U2 did I Am the Walrus. I suppose that was not so horrible, but it was still kind of lame. There were two movies which came out about the same time where they did Twist and Shout, a song that just sucks to begin with. Okay. Enough on the Beatles. (The movies were Back to School and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.)

Back to Movies
Why would you remake Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Force people to see the original, because they are not going to see anything better.

King Kong is just the best. What does Peter Jackson do? He does an homage to the original by including everything he could from the original plus adding his own pukefest. I think Peter just lost it when he did Return of the King. He figured the audience wants to be in the theater seeing people say farewell for hours and hours.

Psycho. They did the exact same movie. They changed about a half percent of it. How can Vince Vaughn live with himself after that? Don't they realize that they are just duplicating something that cannot be duplicated?


I think there needs to be a meter on greatness and once a movie has achieved a certain perfection then it cannot be redone. Once it makes it on that list, that's it. People have to see the original or they do not get to see it redone. No laziness here! Then, what does that do? It forces the movie industry to come up with... Oh no! Not that! Originality?! What is that?

So I propose the Greatness Index, a list of movies which they cannot redo. And much like the writer's strike I want actors to join with me on this great cause. May the classics remain. May the new interpretation not be allowed... May originality be the new norm.

The start of the proposed list:

1. Star Wars IV - VI (They can remake I - III all they want)
2. Jaws (just the first one)
3. Apocalypse Now
4. The Wizard of Oz
5. The Matrix (just the first one. No excuse for the sequels)

Lots of controversy already I can tell. People are just chomping at the bit to get a CG Jaws in there...

Maslow Again...

While in church today, a couple spoke about their humanitarian mission. The sister related a couple stories about what is going on. The church is not proselyting in some countries, because they are not allowed to. However, certain countries are still allowing churches to give them aid. And, this is where the church volunteers' efforts really touched me.

I like the idea of helping the poor and needy and when I see them in well-developed countries like ours, it makes me feel less charitable towards them. I know that this is not really how charity works, but we definitely live in the land of opportunity. So many things are at our disposal. In the middle of the night, I can jump in my truck and drive to a convenience store and buy toenail clippers. I can go to a job every day where I sit in a relaxing air conditioned building which supplies me with filtered water and an endless supply of information. I can fly for a couple hours and visit my parents in a city which has perfect weather most of the year round.

So what? So what! So what. Why state the obvious? Why worry about something we cannot do anything about? Or why worry about something we are not going to do anything about?

There are people starving, dying, clamoring for something to hold onto in these other countries. Very simple things.

Water
The water I get at work is being filtered again after the previous filtering station which did not make it taste good enough for me. The sister brought up how the volunteer church members go to these villages and help the people find their water source. Then, they set up filtering mechanisms for the people to use. And, I imagine they are not getting the treatment that I am where I get it to taste good too. But perhaps the water tastes more delicious to them, because they are not getting dysentery or diarrhea from it anymore.

Blindness
I just got contact lenses about a month ago. Glasses were a real pain. They do not look good at all. The sister told of how the volunteers are helping those with blindness due to cataracts. They are teaching the doctors in those countries how to perform the surgeries themselves. I do not have cataracts, but I get an eye appointment every year to check up on all those things.

Mush
In an area of Africa, there is this type of mush which was created to feed the masses. This became their staple. The story went that the volunteers brought the mush back to the states and analyzed what was in it. They then improved it by adding vitamins and nutrients to it. They sent it back in this improved form. My wife turned to me and commented that it was Manna.

Exactly! This is the practical application of a Biblical story we have heard about and not really known what to do with. God fed the Israelites for 40 years with food which they could not supply for themselves. What is wrong with us helping to feed the starving nations who are having difficulty with the basics? And, when a people is having trouble with the basics like food and water, the last thing they need is a new religion being preached to them. I think the Gospel is important in people's lives of course, but this kind of service is the good news the poor needs to have first and foremost.

Reinventing Cleanliness

There is rope in the back of my truck which was used awhile ago to secure some chairs and tables. It is still strung across the bed of my truck all loose and untied signalling me that there is yet another thing to do.
With just my truck alone, I need to:

1. Get a trash bag


2. Put up my new volleyball sticker on the rear window


3. Replace my CD's


4. Vacuum the floor


5. Undo the rope.


6. Change the oil


7. Rotate the tires


8. Clean the outside.


9. Get Rhino Lining


10. Get a camper shell

9 and 10 have been there since I bought the truck eight years ago. I am not anticipating ever getting that done.

Bombarded with things that are yet to be done is the plight of people. A never ending list of undone things, chores, tasks, simple to-do's.

As I go through my house, each room that I look into has something which needs to be done. Each room has multiple things. Dusting and vacuuming are just the start. What about the corners? Cleaning the furniture? Rearranging the motif? The carpet buckle?

I am pretty impressed with my brother-in-law, T, who has managed to finish his basement himself with a little help from his brothers and various others. Going down there, it is like wow! Here I am taking 3 or 4 months to do the baby room. He is taking 2 or 3 months to do the basement. And in the fall, he landscaped his yard.

Oh, for motivation! Why do all this stuff when I can spend that time watching movies or writing or reading? Who do I have to impress? Don't answer that! I think the reality of that question is that I need to impress myself.

If I walk into somebody else's house, what do I expect out of them? (Hopefully nothing, you judgmental jerk!) But whatever standard one has for others should be that same standard for oneself and their environment. If I am going to clean my house, my truck, or fix things, it should be because I want to be in that clean, picked-up environment.

As an example, every once in awhile I clean the windshield on my truck and the mirrors. I love that. I love when it is so clear that you can hardly tell the windshield is there. I love that clarity. But why don't I keep it like that all the time?

I really do like things to be clean. I do not like being a slob. I personally feel better when my environment is picked up.

My resolve is to do what I like. Not that I like cleaning, but I do like being in a clean environment. (I suppose the to-do list is mostly cleaning. It usually is. What is pulling weeds, but cleaning the yard?)

Something Positive

I really enjoyed the movie Sky High. I watched it last week by myself because A refused to, saying that it was definitely one she would pass on. But there was something about it which had appealled to me since I saw the preview in the theatre. And somehow, it worked.

Don't get me wrong. When it comes to teenage super power movies, it is no Return from Witch Mountain nor Wonder Twins, but it does have its own creative feel to it. I felt like it was the Xmen school, but not taking itself so seriously.

Seeing Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Cloris Leachman, and Bruce Campbell all helped me. They had bit roles with some decent gags. Like, just seeing the character Medulla played by Kevin McDonald was too funny. He had this gigantic head, but the face was normal size, so it implied he had a huge brain. On a double date with Bruce Campbell, the two chicks are all impressed with him because of his intelligence, while Bruce has no play at all (which is kind of unbelievable).

As far as the teenage aspect of it goes, the movie moves along pretty quick. One gets a feel for the standard teen angst, but it does not get too sappy to not deal with. Maybe a couple of them step out of character a bit, but I was okay with it.

I liked the idea of the school judging the students initially to see if their super power qualifies them for "hero" or "sidekick". And the sidekick group has renamed themselves "Hero Support" to feel better.

The soundtrack was really good though. They took some great songs from the eighties and had them redone by newer groups like Bowling for Soup. I love hearing old English Beat songs. That is something you never hear in movies. Of course, it is just the song all teenybopped out but it works. For me anyway.

Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston were sort of forgettable as Will Stronghold's parents. They could have done something better with that. I thought Will's "popular" hairstyle was kind of weird looking. That's popular hair? Also, the sidekick friends were okay. One got the idea. They were lame, but individualistic. Blah blah blah.

All in all, it moved at a good pace. It was fun to see various super powers get demonstrated and whether each qualified as a "hero" or a "sidekick". Suspension of disbelief worked. I was pulled in and that is what matters.