boredom

When I was seven I remember wondering how I would ever outgrow Sesame Street.  I knew it would happen.  I could see that my parents, and other adults for that matter, only had a passing interest in it, but for the life of me I could not grasp what would change about me such that the show would no longer hold my interest.

A few years later my parents worked for a school on an Indian reservation (no one--even Native people--ever called it a "Native American reservation" in my recollection) they used to have a week of sermons at the school called spiritual emphasis week.  Something that those who have not spent much time on a reservation might not know is that time has a different meaning there.  Starting and ending times for a lot of events on the reservation are more generalizations than rules, and so many of the sermons would go hours long.  I distinctly remember sitting through a two-hour (or three-hour... they did occasionally go that long) sermon at nine years old wondering what would change about me for me to be as interested as my parents appeared to be in the sermon's contents.

Even today, I am often struck by how some forms of entertainment that others genuinely enjoy are painfully boring to me, and how many things that deeply fascinate me hold no interest in most anyone else.  What is it that drives fascination and boredom?  That question has been in my mind for at least the last thirty years.

I think there are three things that cause things to be boring.

1. Something is too simple.

Why do I find most kids' entertainment boring?  Easy, it's because there's nothing unexpected or engaging in it.  Bar none, if a children's show or movie is entertaining to me it is because something has been added to it that goes beyond it's primary audience.

2. Something is too complicated.

Many subjects are boring to me merely because I don't even possess the knowledge necessary knowledge to know how to be engaged.  By definition, it is difficult for me to provide good examples because the moment I have enough insight to cite an example I have stepped toward the issue not being so complicated. I do suspect that this is the main reason I am bored by much of what is considered high literature.

3 (or 2b). It doesn't speak to my experiences in life or the needs I have that drive me.

This is sort of like #2, but the reason for lacking understanding is not due to how complicated the issue is, but rather my not being equipped with fundamental background to appreciate the thing.

The best example I have of boredom from a lack of fundamental understanding is Pride and Prejudice.  I tried very hard to care about the book and the movie about ten years ago, but I just couldn't.  I lost interest in the book about four chapters in, and I could not connect with the characters on the most basic of levels simply because I had no fundamental understanding of what drove the main character.  I even got the sense that the things I sort of understood about the main character I understood wrong.

One of my pet peeves is when I am expected to enjoy something when I do not have the underlying drives or experiences that lend value to that thing.  I suspect that most other people feel similarly.

So, in order for something not to be boring to a person it has to reside in their window of knowledge where it isn't too dumbed-down to drive engagement or too complicated to make sense.  It has to also have some basis in the audience's experience and fundamental needs.

So, what do you think?  Are there other things that cause things to be boring?  Have you been as fascinated with this as I, or do you find this whole line of thinking boring in and of itself?  What is so boring to you it is painful?

wars versus trek

For whatever reason, many of those who love either Star Wars or Star Trek seem to have either disdain or condescension for fanboys of the other franchise.  Throughout the years I have heard many arguments between those who think that Star Wars is the epitome of storytelling and those who think that Star Trek provides great intellectual depth and something to aspire to as the human race.  I don't understand the debate at all, though, because neither series really should be considered part of the same genre.

Can you imagine for a moment people arguing about whether The View or Sportscenter is better?  They're both popular shows where hosts sit behind a desk, present news, and pontificate upon it's significance, right?  So that has to mean their comparable enough to debate which one is qualitatively better.  Of course that's ridiculous, and I think it's equally ridiculous to argue about Star Wars versus Star Trek.

While both franchises are Science Fiction story lines that have garnered rabid fan-bases, that is where their similarities end.  Their central purposes for being are entirely unrelated.

Star Wars is, and always has been, meant to be classic archetypal story that happens to be set in a futuristic setting (yet in the past and far, far away).  The setting is not supposed to be what drives the story.  The setting simply provides the surrounding details for a story that could just as easily, though less entertainingly, be set in a less exotic locale.

Star Trek is, and always has been, an optimistic view of what humanity could achieve, and what humanity could discover through those achievements.  The setting not only drives the story, it is the story.  An episode of Star Trek (or one of the movies) is presented with a hint of, "See what the crew of The Enterprise is discovering and experiencing?  We could discover and experience that too if we commit to technological advancement and supplanting Capitalism!"

The primary reason I have been thinking about this is that I have always been torn when people argue about these two franchises.  There have probably been times in my life when I would have favored one over the other, but never by much.  I greatly enjoy both of them on the right day and in the right mood, but I have never been a fanboy of either.  Both have great strengths and both have extraordinary flaws.  There is very little appropriate way to compare them, however, and do either justice.

men in space

I have noted before that I am extremely excited about the New Horizons Pluto flyby that is coming in the upcoming weeks.  Something that I've taken note of is that, while some people express some interest when I mention it, most people they don't seem to have too much interest at all.  I sort of get it.  It's a bit of a nerdy topic, and if you're not naturally interested in planets and moons and such why would you care that we're going to see pictures of another dwarf planet.  To me, this just seems like such a big deal, but I do not decide what should or should not be a big deal.  After some contemplation, I think I understand where my interest departs from mainstream.  I'm more interested in the planets than the astronauts.

Every once in a while I will hear a line of thinking that states that the United States has slouched in the space race since the seventies when we sent men to the Moon.  The rationale goes that we haven't even put together a credible plan to put a man on Mars three or four decades since we stopped visiting the Moon, and we do not even have the equipment to get a man to the Moon today.  This must mean we're stagnating in space.  This line of thinking makes me think the real thing that interests a lot of people about space isn't space, but is rather astronauts.

Honestly, I don't know why so many people focus on sending men or women to the Moon or to Mars.  I don't understand why sending a person to another planet is much more exciting than sending a lander/rover to a nearby planet or a probe to a further-away planet, for those of us who are not astronauts.  In both scenarios I am not on the planet, but I am experiencing it through pictures. In both scenarios very similar scientific data is gathered about the planet.  Why should I care if a human set up that camera on the surface or it is attached to a rover controlled from the earth? All that does is increase the gravity of mistakes made on the mission.

The U.S. has not slouched in space in the last few decades.  In the time since the first man landed on the moon we have sent robotic equipment to gather pictures and measurements to all of the planets, at least one comet, and a few asteroids.  This year alone there are two missions that will send back details about dwarf planets (Ceres and Pluto).  Multiple Mars landers have already sent pictures from the planet, and performed tests to determine the compositions of areas of the ground.  A lander was also sent to one of Saturn's moons that returned images and measurements of a cool and alien world.  Complete maps have been created of all of the three other inner planets' surfaces.  Two spacecraft have been sent into the heliosphere (the area where the Sun's influence gives way to the galaxy's influence), and one more is on it's way.  This says nothing of what has been photographed and detected by telescopes in recent years.

This is a great time to be alive if you're a space nerd like me who is unconcerned with whether we get our Mars data from a rover or a human!  That would be me.

no problem

A while back—probably a year or two ago—Golden asked me why I always respond to people thanking me with, "No problem." She noted that, "You're welcome," would be better. Old habits die hard, so I have not really changed things, though I think about it more. I do think that this has exposed a difference in how I think versus how she and I am sure many others think, and I would never had even considered it had that conversation not occurred.

I do not know this for a fact, but I suspect that most people answer one way or the other, and do not alternate between the two too much. The reason I think this is that there is a very specific reason that, "No problem," seems natural to me. If someone does not have that same personality quirk, I would suspect that they would tend to use, "You're welcome," more than, "No problem," as well.

For one reason or another (or a hundred) I am very highly motivated not to put someone out. I view it as a personal failing to have unnecessarily inconvenienced someone. I called it a quirk earlier, but I think that most people don't like inconveniencing others. At the extreme I reach it is a flaw or worse. It has caused me more problems than good, for sure. So, to me the act of thanking someone is a form of apology for requiring them to go out of their way. I like to receive the response, "No problem," because this signals that the person in question is not bothered by being put out.

I suspect, though I do not know first hand, that those who prefer to hear, "You're welcome," prefer that because they are more likely to see someone doing something for someone else as a gift. The "You're welcome," would then signify that the gift was sincerely given and can be genuinely appreciated.

Do you have a preferred way to respond to thanks, or a preferred way for others to respond to your thanks? Do you have your own theories regarding why someone would prefer one response over the other? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

despicable assumption

Of the myriad of movies that our kids like, Despicable Me 2 is near the top of almost everyone in our family's list of enjoyable films.  Seriously, it's worth watching, whether you have kids or not.  If you haven't seen it, stick it in your Netflix queue, or plan on renting it, or whatever you do to see older movies.  It is that good.

Having acknowledged how entertaining and brilliant the movie is there is one glaring issue I have with it, and I have embedded a clip that illustrates the problem below.



I apologize that this is going to be fairly dark considering the source material, but it is what bugs me every time this scene comes up.  I genuinely cannot enjoy this scene, and this might ruin it for you too.  If you don't want this scene ruined skip the rest of this article.  I'm serious on that.

I want you to imagine for a moment you are that horrible woman on the date with Gru.  You're sitting at a table dining with your date when you decide to humiliate him in a heartless fashion.  You reach for his toupee then everything goes black.  You regain consciousness the next morning in your own bed, you are sore and bruised, and you have no recollection of anything that happened after the beginning of your meal.  What would you assume had happened the night before?

If I were that woman I would assume that Gru had slipped a roofie into my drink.  Even though the woman was not mistreated in the way she would probably assume, there very few scenarios where what this turn of events will not scar her.  It's played for laughs because we assume the woman deserves to feel a little bruised the next day, and the physical damage can be written off with cartoon physics and all, but the emotional damage that she will experience in this situation would likely far outweigh any physical pain she'd experience. This is a serious issue even before considering the real possibility that Gru would loose his girls and wind up in prison based on strong circumstantial evidence that he is a loner with psychological issues who must have badly mistreated his far-more-attractive date on that night.

If you read through that, I am sorry to spoil that part of the movie for you.  The rest of this film is entertaining, though this scene is unfortunately key in establishing why Gru should care about Lucy, so it can't be easily skipped.  It's just one of those scenes that I'll just always have to grit my teeth through.  Now, maybe it will be for you as well.

foreign policy

I am thirty-five now, and I will be thirty-six later this year, so I cannot use age as an excuse any more as to why I haven't become president of the United States yet.  The only excuses I have left are simply not wanting it enough and not having a strong enough get-out-the-vote machine built up in the swing states.

On a more serious note, this is the sort of thinking I actually had in my middle elementary years.  I remember as a kid thinking that maybe I would some day run for president.  In third grade my teacher asked the class who wanted to be president some day.  I was surprised when I was one of only four or five in a class of twenty-five who raised their hands.

I remember ticking off the requirements as a kid.  I was born in Arizona, so I met the most obvious requirement.  I knew I'd be an ancient thirty-five some day, so I'd meet that requirement one day.  Everything necessary to become president checked out.  Well, everything checked out except money and the depth of my ambition.

Now, at my current age, I wonder why anyone would possibly want to be president for one very important reason—foreign policy.  Domestic policy is polarizing and a political tightrope walk, but it is far more comparatively easy.  Foreign policy is a loser's game now matter how it's played.  In foreign policy the choice is rarely between the good and bad option, but rather a selection of whatever horrid option is the least so.

How bad are the options?  Most significant decisions will result in people dying or being badly injured.  Everyone seems to have opinions about what the obvious solution is to certain issues, and they are almost always stupid, because sometimes there aren't any good options.  It is frequently difficult to tell the difference between a mistake, a tactical decision, and treason.  The nation-states you are dealing with are largely run by the most intelligently psychopathic people on earth.  Decisions have to be made based on incomplete or inaccurate intelligence.  Success usually depends on implementation details that are completely out of your control.  Every decision is a gamble, and every decision is a gamble with huge consequences for failure.  What's not to love?

I cannot fathom wanting to be the person who has to decide whether to deploy a nuke.  I cannot fathom wanting to be the person who has to decide what level of existential threat necessitates torture.  I cannot fathom wanting to be the person who has to decide whether to embroil the nation in a military quagmire to stop an impending genocide.  I cannot fathom constantly dealing with hostage situations with terrorist groups.  Why would you wish that on yourself?  What sort of person thinks that is something worth pursuing?  Losing a presidential election must be such a gift in disguise.

automated bathrooms

A couple of months back I was in a store or restaurant bathroom with NJ and he stuck his hands under the sink expecting it to automatically come on.  He knows how manual sinks work—our house bathroom sink is a typical manual one—but he is accustomed enough to automated sinks in businesses that it makes sense to him to expect one.  In related news, I am feeling old.

This has to be something that all parents face with some regularity, but it is always odd to realize how different things are for my kids' generation compared to mine.  This is not in the interest of viewing one generation as superior, or spoiled, or disadvantaged.  This is just in the interest of comparing experiences.

There are more obvious differences as well.  My kids will grow up with different music than I did, with different TV shows than I did, and with the Internet.  For whatever reason, the ready availability of automated sinks in store bathrooms throughout their lifetime is what strikes a chord with me.

the great war

Recently, there has been quite a bit of news regarding the one-hundred-year anniversary of Ottoman destruction of the Armenian people during World War I.  This got me to thinking about something that has been on my mind some over the past few years.  Why does World War II hold a significant place in American memory and consideration, but World War I does not?

I figured for a long while that the reason for World War II's place in the American heart when compared to other wars was due to the fact that it came into being when film-making was in a bit of a golden age.  There is a lot of reasonable-quality film of everything from the battles over the Pacific to D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge to the dropping of the atomic bombs, so this was the first opportunity people had to really experience the war.  I now think it is something different.

When it comes to war people like to know that they are on the right and noble side.  They like to know that the sacrifices that are being made are virtuous stands against a grievous evil, and that there is no question that what is being done is necessary.  Unlike most conflicts, World War II has this in spades.  Between the genocide committed by the Nazis and the atrocities of the Japanese, it is easy to see the Allies as the white knight against the obvious Axis evil.  I believe this is also why so many movies have been created using World War II as a setting.  The story teller doesn't have to waste any effort at all establishing who the good and the bad guys are.  It is also a nice shortcut to positive feelings of patriotism.

World War I was completely different, though.  Countries were dragged into war, not because of some overwhelming moral imperative, but rather because they had treaties allying them with other countries that had already declared war.  The United States was only drawn in when its trading interests to the United Kingdom were threatened by Germany, so the primary purposes of entering the war were economic (and revenge for the sinking of the Lusitania).  To an objective observer there was no honorable side.  Looking from the outside, there were only sides who sent millions of soldiers off to die horrible deaths in order to protect their political and economic interests.

Had I understood this about the Great War I think I would have been more interested in it.  The complexity of the politics leading up to the war, and the ludicrous inability of nations to take appropriate steps to avoid their own destruction is fascinating.  The fact that World War II can be blamed on the economic fallout that followed World War I indicates that the one only happened due to the other.  The entirety of history and everything that has happened in the world in the last hundred years has been a direct result of the poor decisions that were made in the lead-up to World War I.

It is simply astounding that the shape of the world today can be directly tied to decisions a few world leaders and diplomats made over one hundred years ago.  You never know how far-reaching one decision or series of decisions will be.

ten years

A couple of weeks ago was the ten year anniversary for this blog.  When I look at life as it was for me then and now I don't know if I am more surprised by the things that have changed or the things that have stayed the same.

Most of the good friends with whom I created these blogs have moved, though I believe that some of those plans were already in the works when the blogs were started.  We lost our good friend Forrest along the way, as well as my co-worker at the time, T-Bop.  We aren't guaranteed tomorrow, and I did not properly understand that ten years ago.

The things I am the most embarrassed about from my former days are the issues I was apparently working through and the fact that I had a far lesser grasp on essential doctrines than I thought I did.

Regarding issues, everyone has them but they're more obvious for some than others.  I have made significant improvements over the last ten years, and I'm sure that's partially just part of the process of aging.  There are more things I'm confident that I understand, I care somewhat less what people think, and I have a better grasp on my own personal quirks than I did before.  Life can be a positive journey in that respect.  I still need to mellow out quite a bit, though.

Regarding doctrine, I'll just say I'm a bit mortified. Ten years ago I was as well-read in the Bible as a twenty-five-year-old can be, but I lacked a depth of understanding.  With every discovery I make in study I gain new embarrassment regarding things I used to say.  Some positions I have held in my doctrinal journey have been borderline heretical, and so I have had to correct and repent of some erroneous positions.  You live and learn, but this is serious stuff.

I have always been the sort to stick around in one place, so I still work in the same job but at a higher title. This time ten years ago I was in the process of deciding if that was really the path I wanted to take.  When I committed to getting my MBA ten years ago, that was a commitment to stay in this job for a long while because I was getting tuition assistance.  I will confess that I had some serious questions about the wisdom of that path ten years ago, though I believe I took the best route forward.  That, of course, comes from someone who values consistency, so staying at the same place for ten years naturally feels best.

The biggest difference in my life from ten years ago, though, are that Golden and I now have NJ and CH in our lives.  I cannot fathom too many things that changes the nature and priorities of your life as having kids, and there's plenty of positive and negative that can be said about it.  We love ours, though, and are so proud of the progress they have made in school, church, and elsewhere.

Finally, this year Golden and I celebrate our fifteenth anniversary.  When I started the blog we were looking at five years together, and that seemed impossibly long.  It doesn't feel like fifteen is remotely possible.  Part of that is because I still feel like we are learning more about each other each day.  She is aging far, far better than I am, and I am fortunate to have her.  One thing that you get out of fifteen years of marriage is perspective on the things that make a good or bad spouse.  I have a good wife.

I hope to be able to keep this up for another ten years.  Obviously, I do not post like I used to.  Life responsibilities guarantee that.  That does not mean that I do not appreciate having this outlet, though.  I hope all who still read this get some enjoyment out of it.

low-fat diets

Every once in a while we'll end up with a low or no fat food product in the house. It's rarely on purpose, and is more likely due to someone not noticing the wording on the label, but those instances have led me to appreciate the effect that fat has on flavor.

Likewise, I have had a few similar instances to taste the low sodium versions of some things I like (V8 being the noteworthy one), and can appreciate the positive affect that salt has on the flavor of my food.

As long as I can remember I have heard that healthy foods are low fat, low salt, and low cholesterol.  This has been promoted for decades.  What I am now hearing is that much of that is wrong.  The latest source I have heard this from is the following video, but it is by no means the first time I have come across this information.


What is particularly frustrating about this video is that it points out that when the dietary recommendations were made decades ago the evidence was already available to indicate that low fat diets were not medically beneficial. I have to say that if I learned this after going through a low fat diet or a low sodium diet I would be none too pleased.  Those foods are simply not very good, and to give up those pleasures for no benefit would be difficult.  That is to speak nothing of the people who died and may have survived if they knew to focus on something other than fat intake.

So, the good news is I can continue to eat food with fats in them without feeling bad about what that fat is going to do to me.  The bad news is that many tasty foods that I want to eat are still known to be bad for me.

boring on the surface

The company I work for was acquired a couple of months ago.  Much is change is probably afoot, and there certainly have been changes, but so far my work life has been business as usual.

One thing that did happen with the new company, though, was that I was randomly chosen to be a featured in a management meeting for the department I belong to in the new company.  I received a questionnaire from which I could cherry pick questions about myself to answer, and I was also asked for a picture.  This is actually a good idea, but I couldn't help wondering if I weren't a horrible candidate for a get-to-know-you blurb.

As I went through the questionnaire I noted how boring most of my honest answers were.  As an example, I was asked the most interesting place I have been.  I have been a lot of places, but few anyone would care to know about, and fewer still that I would consider interesting.  I chose Lowell Observatory in Arizona where Pluto was discovered because I have Pluto on the brain, but most people visiting the observatory wouldn't classify it as particularly exciting.  I visited the Grand Canyon on the same trip, but an old observatory it was.

My real problem is that I don't do the surface level stuff well.  I can't give exciting surface-level answers because on that level I want my life to be boring. 

I have long believed that if you sat just about any random person down in a room and asked them probing questions you would find that they have a rich life history and a nuance to what makes them tick.  Deep down, I believe that most people are far more than they seem, and full of interesting motivations, thoughts, ideas, and apparent contradictions.  I want to believe I am like most people in this respect.  On the surface I'm as boring as boring can be, though.

pluto

Ever since I was a kid I have had an interest in astronomy.  I never considered being an astronomer or anything to that extent, but I have always enjoyed learning more about what goes on in the heavens.

I remember very distinctly going to a planetarium when I was eight years old—the same age my son NJ is now—and seeing a presentation on the planets.  A supposed landscape for each planet (or one of its moons) was projected on the screen, and I was mesmerized by the idea of what it would be like to look around the landscape of Mercury, Mars, or some other body in our solar system.  When the presentation got to Pluto, though, I was disappointed.  The narrator noted that, "No one knows for sure what the landscape of Pluto looks like."  Ever since that day I have had to know.

When I was in sixth grade my family traveled to Northern Arizona to see my grandparents, and we visited the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff on the trip.  I learned on that trip that Pluto was discovered at that observatory.

Because of this history, when NASA launched the New Horizons probe in 2006—the same year our son was born—I took note.  I imagined how exciting it would be in nine years to see images of Pluto beamed back to earth with the understanding that my excitement needed to be tempered with some patience since it was a more-than-nine-year mission.

Fast forward to today, and I can honestly say that one of the things I am most looking forward to this year is the imagery data that is scheduled to be sent back to earth in mid-July from the New Horizons probe.  I haven't told Golden this, but I seriously considered taking a day off from work to keep tabs on the updates.  For various reasons doing so probably doesn't make sense.  It was a consideration, though.

I leave off with the following image that NASA has posted that has me wanting more.  New Horizons is close enough to Pluto to get a blurry view of it and its moon Charon.  I look forward to something in much higher resolution in the coming months.

vengeance is john wick's

I watched the movie John Wick tonight.  It is good for what it is, which is a revenge film, so it could be enjoyed well enough on those merits.  I did not realize before I got the movie in the mail that it is a revenge flick, though, since I don't really go for that genre of cinema.

A self-righteous part of me wants to say that the problem I have with revenge films is that revenge is inherently sinful, and so those sorts of films stir up anger in inappropriate ways.  While this is right that vengeance is God's rather than mine, there's probably a different reason I do not like them.

A lot of films have been made in the last decade or so targeted to my demographic that I have no interest in watching for this reason.  For example, I know exactly what the Taken films are, and I have zero interest in watching them.  So many people talk about how wonderful those movies are, though.  Likewise, the entire Quentin Tarantino catalog from the last ten years has been marketed almost solely on revenge (Django Unchained, Inglourious Basterds, Death Proof, and Kill Bill 1 & 2), so the most recent Tarantino film I've seen or had a desire to see are the Kill Bill movies.

I think that films like this are designed to allow people to fantasize about doing what they can't.  They can right wrongs that need to be addressed and be the source of justice that is needed.  In the case of John Wick it is murdering tens of criminals in revenge for killing a dog.  The problem is, for whatever reason, I cannot suspend disbelieve enough to believe that justice is being done in the situation (or that justice would be done if the situation was played out in real life).

That is the reason I am not drawn in the same way others are, but the reason I dislike them is different.  At its core, the real reasons I usually dislike revenge are that I don't like the feeling of hate and that I don't like empathizing with a miserable character.

First, I don't like a movie manipulating me into hating a character.  I don't like hating people—even fictional people.  It isn't a good feeling, and it is not consistent with my beliefs.

Second, I feel too much empathy for the protagonist.  I get sucked into the main character's life too much when watching a movie, so if the main character goes through a hellish situation, I do too.  I don't know why, but I empathize more with the character who is explicitly wronged than the character who simply goes through difficult struggles.

Given the popularity of revenge in story, a lot of people do not feel the same way I do.  A lot of people like seeing the protagonist go through a revenge arc as part of their redemption process.  I am not making a judgment on that, but it is a different perspective from mine.

boring silver corolla

I destroyed the engine in my car a few weeks ago.  I don't know all of the details, but somehow oil was not getting to all parts of the engine, and so I burned it up one morning on the way to work.  Due to this, I had to purchase a car fairly quickly so that we would not have to deal with the complications of being a one-car family for too long.

My thinking was that I wanted an affordable car that would last a long time and get decent gas mileage, so I found a low-mileage Toyota Corolla, and now that is what I drive to work.  It's exactly what I was looking for-a practical means to get to the office-but I have been going through a bit of a grieving process because I don't like having car payment.  That is not what this is about, though.

When I got this car it was not due to flash.  While a modern Corolla is not an ugly car, a Toyota will never excite anyone. That point was driven home while I was watching the following advertisement during the Super Bowl.


I also found the following commercial in looking for the first commercial.


The silver car in this ad is essentially the one I just bought.  Talk about timing.

Honestly, I prefer to drive an unassuming vehicle rather than a flashy one, and I'm happily married, so commercial doesn't bother me.  Also, I know that much of the difference is in the vehicle colors, but I prefer the silver to the red as well, so that says something about me. The type of man who drives a red pickup is not me. So, while I didn't really take it personally, I did let out a, "Hey now!" when re-watching the, "leave him to be with him," part of the commercial.

What can I say, though.  My priorities are boring.

state of the union

I noted earlier that I wouldn't post on politics again for a while.  What I should have rather said is that I won't take a political position in a post for a while.  What's worse is that I don't know how to right this in a way that doesn't sound snobbish.  Forgive me for this.

I generally pride myself on keeping up with political policy news, as well as the implications of different political positions.  However, I decided many years ago that I detested watching the State of the Union address as well as the rebuttal, so I have refused to watch either speech for the past ten years or so.  I also largely avoid televised political debates and political speeches.  No matter who is giving the speech I always feel like the sketchiest logic is used to score political points, and I get the sense that these events are meant to appeal to the people who care about the drama of politics rather than the nuances of policy. Since this turns my stomach—and it truly does—I do my civic-duty research elsewhere.

I do typically read up on the highlights of the State of the Union and its rebuttal after it occurs.  I am also usually very interested in reading about the highlights of political debates they occur.  However, I am less concerned about the drama that frequently creates headlines ("Politician so-and-so drew applause by issuing a killer jab to his opponent," or, "Idiot politician thought the capital of North Dakota was Helena."), and more interested in whether they gave hints to the nuances of their policy positions or proposals.

I always feel a little like I am not doing my civic duty by refusing to watch these events.  I can imagine the groans of a thousand social studies teachers at what appears to be my apathy or cynicism at this part of the process.  It does my emotional health good to avoid them, though.  With that, I think that not watching the State of the Union has to qualify as a very specific guilty pleasure of mine.