Analog-Theater 2.0

A friend of mine is participating in the American Cancer Society’s Making Strikes Against Breast Cancer in a few days and is accepting some last minute donations.   Please click here and support her in her effort.

To continue my previous post, I forgot to mention a funny little story about the violin.  I drove out to Winchester, VA to buy it from a guy.  Since I was that far west, I decided to see where West Virginia was.  It was about 5pm, so I decided to just follow the setting sun.  After taking back roads for about an hour, I finally found the state line and just beyond that a little place called Wardensville.  Being hungry after driving for so long, I decided to pull into the first restaurant that I saw, Kac Ka Pon.  It was a very nice home style restaurant with some really nice photos on the walls.  The food was tasty, though the sweet potato pie was a little funny with the pecans that put on it.  After dinner, I headed back east with my new violin.  I got home and started to tune it and broke a string.

I looked at my book cases this morning and saw a few other books I want to mention. There is a really nice trilogy by John C. Wright about titans and gods from Greek mythology living in modern day England; Orphans of Chaos, Fugitives of Chaos, and Titans of Chaos.

And of course, there was my favorite book on chess, Attacking Chess: Aggressive Strategies and Inside Moves from the U.S. Junior Chess Champion. It is a very insightful and easy to understand book for anyone wanting to improve their skills at chess. His other book, The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence, is also a very good read. It is less about technical skills and more about the philosophy and “art” of learning to do anything. He talks about his experiences learning to play chess and then learning Tai Chi.

I mentioned the Malazan series in yesterdays part of this post. The new book, Dust of Dreams, coming out in January. Robert got the UK edition which was released this month and has started reading it. However, he does not seem to be impressed. His exact words were “it’s a hard read”, but I’ll invite him to tell you all more about it.

I know it’s been a couple weeks since my last post.  I’ve been a bit busy and haven’t found the time to write up what I wanted.  But today I am forcing myself.

First of all, I want to share some videos that people have shared with me.  The first one is by far the best and is actually very touching.

After watching it, I bought myself a violin and some pantene shampoo, however I still don’t know how to play. Maybe I need more shampoo?

Next up is the trailer for Brutal Legend. After watching the trailer, I want to buy this game, it looks stupid fun.

Lastly, this is an old video but someone shared it with me recently, so I figured I’d share it again.

Now on to books. I was recently talking to a young lady about books. It appears that both of us are avid readers and she was asking me for my prefered books. I gave her a short list and I decided that I could share with all of you.

First of all is the Wheel of Time series, starting with The Eye of the World. It is a great epic fantasy series, though a bit long. The lastest book is coming out in a few days.

The other series I’m a big fan of is the Rogue Angel series. The first book of the series was Destiny. I’ve lost count of how many books are in the series, but its at least a dozen. The series gives me the impression of modern day pulp novels. It’s an episodic series with tons of pop culture and ancient history. And there is a magic sword.

For someone looking for a more scientific read, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory is a good read. Brian Greene’s writing is very engaging and easy to understand.

I also want to mention the Malazan series by Steven Erikson that started with Gardens of the Moon. If you like the Wheel of Time series, you’ll probably like this series. It’s another epic fantasy series with a very well crafted setting. The penultimate book, Dust of Dreams, is coming out in January.

And finally, I want to mention His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass). It is a very interesting and entertaining read. And for sake of the religious fanatics, this is fiction. There are no witches in the artic and no church trying to destroy the universe. There is a companion book to the series that explains some of the concepts they touched on with real world physics, The Science of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. It is written in a way that is very easy to understand (probably because it was aimed for young adults).

I think I’ll just stop here for the day.

I got an email from my dad recently that said there was only 77 shopping days until Christmas and he wanted a wish list from myself and a few other people. I’m sure that there might be one other person in the world who wants to buy me a present, so here is my wishlist.

In addition, I also accept cash and borders gift cards.

And if you want me to send you any Christmas presents, please let me know what you would like.

It’s been a while since my last post, I know.  I’m turning into Robert it seems.  I started typing a couple posts, but never actually posted them.  Mostly it was refuting the various emails that I received after my last post.  However, I slowly became aware that there might have been some valid points.  My dad’s phone call helped wake me up.

I was made keenly aware that no where in my previous post did I ever say that I loved Nancy.  To be honest, I am not sure that I actually believe in this “love” stuff.  From a scientific point of view, love is little more than your brain producing high levels of Dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin.  From that perspective there seems to be nothing that differeniates love from lust and other not-so-romantic forms of attraction.  On the other hand, as an observer, I have noticed various interpersonal aspects in relationships.  (I know I’m going to get called on that last line because relationships by nature are interpersonal, at least most of them, but I don’t want to go down that tangent.)  People who are in a relationship typically like to spend time together.  I know Robert always says he has to spend time with Sheena.  Of course, he also has to spend time with Dulce.  (And there is a point that I want to make, but then he might not buy me breakfast anymore.)  Getting back to the main point, people who have similar interests, hobbies, etc tend to enjoy spending time together.  For instance, I like comic books, anime, and role playing games so every Monday I get together with a group of guys who also like that stuff.  So, is love nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain combined with an inventory of similar interests?  (and after saying that, I am sure that I will get an email from my mom saying that I know better than that.  However, I’m not sure I do.)

The Hollywood portrayal of love, like the man taking the white limo to the girls apartment then climbing up the side of the building with a boquet of roses.  I have never experienced any feelings like that.  No, I take that back.  I did feel like doing crazy stuff when one girl was around, but that didn’t work out.  Of course it’s possibly that what I felt back then was love and my heart was broken making me very cynical.  However, those feelings were no where near what they portray in movies nor what people seem to discribe as love.  Having said all this, it is safe to say that I am not very romantic.  And I have probably lost any chance I had with any girl who reads this.

But,  there is a bigger point that I wanted to make.  Taking what I understand this love stuff to be, I had a couple long talks with Nancy.  The only things we seem to have in common is that we agree that Batman was a great movie and that we are members of the same Church.  She does not like video games, anime, comic books, or pretty much anything else I like.  She also seems to want me to be the type of guy who shows up at her apartment with a limo and climb up the building to show my love for her.  I won’t get into more details, but it got worse.  In the last few weeks I have come to the conclusion that if we did get married, it would turn out bad.  There was no reason for her to stay with me.  I even asked her why she wanted to marry me.  Her reasons included: to make her mother happy, because I have blue eyes, and because we are part of the same religion.  There were others, but they were just as bad.  When I asked her what was to stop her from leaving me for some other guy, she said because she doesn’t believe in divorce.

This was not all one sided.  I thought long and hard about whether or not I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life.  I thought back to the last time I saw her and remembered that I did not enjoy all the time I spent with her.  I if can’t enjoy two weeks with her, how can I enjoy years with her?  Now, it has been about 3 years since my last trip and it’s possible that she has changed some (and that I’ve changed a little, though we seem to seldom notice our own changes.  I’ve been told that I’ve changed over time when I think that I’m the same as before.) but I don’t want to wait another few years to see if we’re more compatible than before.  Malcolm, I do agree with you that you should spend quality time with the person.  However, I’m just tired of having the long distance relationship.  It got to the point where it was we do this now or never.  I thought now was a good idea, but after our recent talks and lots of thinking, I’ve decided on never.

She did not take that very well.  I tried to let her down easy.  When that didn’t work, I got tougher and just dumped her.  I know that she’s going to broken up about it and be angry with me for a while, but I think in the long run it’s probably for the best.

So, Eric, Megan, Doug, Malcolm, and Dad.  You have succeeded in making me realize that I shouldn’t get married.  I think that I’m going to go back to my plan A.  Find some new video games and hire a maid to clean my room and do my laundry.