On Getting Older But (Maybe) Looking Younger

Birthday boy.

Today is my birthday, and as I get older there are more people whom I've outlived. By "outlive" I mean "lived to a greater age," not "lived to a more recent year." Going by the latter, I've outlived everyone in human existence who died today or earlier.

As a Wikipedia junkie, I can quickly research the lives of famous people to see (that is, be depressed by by own lack of accomplishments while considering) how much many of these folks have accomplished during their shorter-than-my lifetime.

For instance, consider who died at age 27:

• Jimi Hendrix
• Janis Joplin
• Jim Morrison
• Kurt Cobain
• Amy Winehouse

Sure, I've listed a quintet of live-fast/die-young recording artists who all died from drug overdoses — if you discount the conspiracy theories — but when you realize that you've reached the age that John Lennon never will, well, you start to feel old.

On Theft and Time Travel

"Forget about that fire raging right
under my crotch — what time is it?"

More than I'd care to admit (but not so much that I'm too ashamed to admit on in a public blog), I spend a lot of time thinking about time travel. In fact, I've even written plays and the occasional article about it.

Obviously it's because I live in the past and am occupied with many regrets that I would like to someday remedy or erase, but one offshoot of my time-travel musings involves finding ways to make a lot of money with the assistance of transportation to (and, in most cases, from) a long time ago.

I tend to overcomplicate things when it comes to the consideration time travel, however — but not from a purely technical standpoint. I don't care about physics or metaphysics — which for all I know might be the same thing — nor am I interested in the actual transportation vessel. I'll let the scientists or physicists or metaphysicists handle the mechanics like how thick the walls of the time machine would be.

What I focus on (other than trying to kill the parents of my enemies before these enemies are conceived, which is fodder for a different post) is determining the most practical way to make a lot of money off time travel with ease and without causing too many major disruptions in future world history.

Most of my time-travel money-making opportunities involve stealing stuff and bringing them to the present day where they'll be considered old and therefore valuable. Here's a representative example of a scheme I've considered, along with some of the potential roadblocks to achieving financial independence:

On Food

HELL YES

I was inspired by a blog post I read, by someone I happen to have married, regarding her curious food habits and preferences. So, hey, why not blog about my own thoughts regarding food and other things I eat?

You know, since no one's asked?

LET'S GET THIS STARTED
All right, then. Let's start somewhere randomly:

In my present state, I am a very finicky eater. However, I was even worse when I was younger. Every child has a unique set of eating habits, and mine was pretty frustrating for my parents. I could compile a Ten Five Commandments of Eating When I Was Younger, had I known how to chisel commandments into slabs of stone.

I Am Published Somewhere Else on the Internet

The funny folks at The Higgs Weldon published an article of mine today. PLEASE TO ENJOY!

My Latest "Song"

Most of the songs that I (and, in some cases, Mrs. The Anthony Show) compose are related to the Christmas season, but this time I took a stab at a Valentine's Day theme. This was also my first attempt at using iMovie to create the crude video that complements the song; in the past I used MovieMaker.

I meant to publish this on February 14, but, hell, you know how it goes.

On "Crazy," and Living With a Crazy Person

"Crazy" once meant something, but thanks to overuse, it's a blanket term for anything weird, non-traditional, or abnormal.

I admit that I, too, am guilty of stretching "crazy" like a sheet of Saran Wrap I cut too short to fit that uneaten slice of pizza destined for the back of my fridge. It's crazy that I still can't eyeball the correct amount of Saran Wrap. It's crazy that I'm too cheap to tear off a new sheet, so I apply a smaller "patch" sheet that doesn't really stick right. It's crazy how I'll react when I notice the patch peeling off in the fridge. And it's crazy that I'll probably end up throwing out that crazy slice in a day or two anyway.

Crazy, right?

During my freshman year at college, I lived in a dorm containing four-person suites, each suite a pair of two-person rooms separated by a narrow bathroom. The bathroom could be accessed by any of the four people, but you and your roommate were able to lock the door separating your room and the bathroom, if you wished. (In the bathroom there was a stall shower, two sinks, and a toilet in a very small "room" with its own door that could also be locked.).

After my first semester one of my suitemates moved out, and the remaining suitemate was assigned a random roommate. When I showed up in January, a day before the dorms officially reopened, I met the new guy.

It was my first experience with someone crazy.

"Oh, pish-posh," you might be thinking. "He couldn't have been really crazy." Which is an understandable thing to think. Up until that point, I'd thought I'd met crazy people. In fact, I myself had been been called crazy numerous times, and I'll even admit today  several times during my life that sometimes I get a little crazy.

But John was crazy. Like, really crazy.

First-World Loss and Grief

We'll always have the memories.
And the phone bills.

I lost my phone the other day.

At the time, I assumed I would eventually find the thing. After all, I've lost-then-found just about everything I own, including:

    •    Assorted remote control devices
    •    My prescription sunglasses
    •    My regular glasses
    •    Notebooks of various sizes
    •    A terrible incomplete draft of a terrible incomplete novel
    •    Cables to connect the cell phone to other devices
    •    Socks
    •    My wallet
    •    Belts
    •    Keys
    •    Pens
    •    Pants
    •    The same cellphone that I eventually lost forever

And as soon as I realized it was missing, I knew it was lost. Like, forever. I was at work and completing my afternoon visit to the bathroom — the one on the other side of the building near where the vice presidents and their minions sit because it’s a little more private and the extra walk is good exercise or at least that’s what I tell myself even though the real reason is that it kills more time than using the facility just around the corner from the prison cell where I toil — and I’d placed it next to the sink as I washed my hands.