The eight legged venomous arachnid invertebrate/ Best German Rock Band ever: The Scorpions . Yes, yes, yes, indeed rock me: (Dear readers, Please read out loud this majesty)

My body is burning. It starts to shout. Desire is coming, it breaks out loud.
Lust is in cages. Till storm breaks loose. Just have to make it, with someone I choose.
The night is calling. I have to go. The wolf is hungry, he runs the show.
He’s licking his lips. He’s ready to win. On the hunt tonight, for love at first sting.
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane, Here I am, rock you like a hurricane.

Sweet rock gods, thank you for the Scorpions.

Alas, I am at the mercy of these wunderkind. Lately, I?ve been reveling in my child hood. Ive been listening to the Scorps, reading comics, and thinking an awful lot about the coolest Proper Vegetable around- my first hero, my buddy, my real imaginary friend- Super pickle, my doll.

His 7-inch body is a light and darked green pickle and filled with cushy soft stuff. His arms and legs arms are cloth cords with stripes of red, white, blue and yellow. He has big white glove hands like Mickey Mouse and his alter ego?s name is Dilbert. Dilbert is a mild mannered pickle and Super Pickle is the caped man god or rather god vegetable.

As a 5 year old, I carried SP everywhere and even though I felt like a dilbert most of the time, having SP around gave me hope that if shit came down, I might be able to brandish awesome vegetable-like courage. I didn?t have a lot of dolls, I think just SP, but I was glad to have him because you couldn?t snuggle up and hug a GI JOE or Boba Fett when you were falling asleep.

I know there is no such thing as the ?good old days? but there is a time in my life called the ?easy days:? No bills, no credit cards, no student loans, telemarketers, rent?etc. The ?easy days? was a time when you simply had to be and that was usually enough.

Hording relics from this time, no matter how ludicrous to any one else, helps me understand and embrace the strangeness of being 28 years old. That?s why I love the scorpions, I love comics, and I fucking love Super Pickle.

Here is my favorite picture of the one, the only SP.

Filed under: slowblogger

Woopee!! I am psyched!!! Thank you to sleepy, jaques, quen-tone, and eliza_doolittle for there additions to this second generation slowtimer site. One of the authors asked me, “What should I write about?” My answer was whatever the f**k you want. I picked these people to write because they are interesting. period. I enjoy hearing these people so i figure our audience(whoever that is) would enjoy it too. As for the slackers (tough love and esser!!!!) I am sure they will come around. I have a post I have been working on, will write it soon. In the meantime, check out the slowtimer youtube page, there is also a link to it from the topleft of the site. i will be making more videos but hey, I’m only one man. Oh, and the contact is broken, sorry, will fix it soon. In the meantime check out second life, they have finally stolen my idea and made a game where you can do anything, read an article about it here. There is a link to it under the its not television link on the right side of the site. It is crazy and I cant wait to build slowtimerville. have a friggin awesome weekend.

Filed under: slowblogger

Want/Should

It is a common enough theme in books and movies: the internal struggle of a character deciding to do either what they want to do, or what they perceive that they should do. Depending on the nature of the tale, the protagonist either succeeds and overcomes the notion of should and sets off on doing what they want or they set their jaw, grit their teeth and do what they are supposed to, regardless of how miserable they will be. The viewer will either feel inspired and reaffirmed by the protagonist that succeeds, or jealously and despair. The reaction towards the character that settles are frequently feelings of pity or seething scorn. The nature of the reaction stems form what truth the viewer has reflected back at them. But what if want and should were not dichotomous? What happens when what a person begins to view what they want to do as the same thing as what they should do?
There are, of course, limits to scope of this proposal. It is unacceptable to say that if a person wants to commit rape, murder or some other atrocious crime that they should do it. But I cannot help but obsess about the potential of want/should. It seems silly, I know but hear me out. While teaching high school English I was always faced with students who were doing what they thought they had to do: they had to fight so-and-so, they had to work construction after graduation because they were not bookworms, they had to keep dating kid A or Kid B. All of these had-to?s that seemed so obviously wrong to me. But they are young , I had to remind my self, and living with a young and narrower world view. Was not part of my job as a teacher was to expand that world view; to present them with all of the options that they had available to them? I held my peace and gently showed them that their lives were full of options.
But then I noticed this same pattern of have-to thinking in more than a few of my colleagues, specifically in regards to teaching. They lived and taught as if they had to keep teaching, despite not being content with their work, because they ?couldn?t go back to college?. When I asked why they could not go back I rarely got an answer other than a shrug or a pat on the head and some comment about my being so young. Blind optimism on my part, I would wonder, or overly simplistic thinking? Perhaps, but it seem much better than the alternative of lamenting a putrid disdain for their occupational situation and then turning around and telling their students to reach for the stars and not let anything hold them back. I was unaware that perusing your desires had an age limit. I was not going to hide behind the noble fa?ade of teaching while spitting venom laced curses at every aspect of the profession in the teacher?s lounge. So I left.

Now what? What should I do? What do I want to do? And then it occurred to me, that my should and want needed to become the same thing if I was going to find contentment in my life. What I want to do is what I should do is what I must do. Dare I be so clich? and whisper the word destiny? It is time for the protagonist to walk into the sunse!. Cue the dramatic triumph music, slowly fade to black, roll the credits. Fin.

But this is beginning, not the end. I stand before the conflict in my own personal plot diagram and the road ahead is steep, my darlings, steep and filled with monsters and demons.

Filed under: slowblogger

? Sunshine (2007)

Getting a good panic attack going in a movie theater is a thrill ride. It is definitely worth the usual eight dollars and is a better bargain when the movie is a free screening. This time I was watching Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, which is sci-fi, and I mean real sci-fi, that is fiction based more in futurism than fantasy. Watch the trailer.

Previously Contact was my favorite real sci-fi movie but now it is the first hour of Sunshine. Boyle is best known for directing Trainspotting and 28 Days Later both of which are basically about surviving. The first was about surviving heroin addiction the second about surviving zombies. This time the stakes are greater. Now Boyle’s heroes are trying to survive the approaching death of the sun. Earth has sent a ship and crew to deposit an item into the sun that will recharge it before it reaches a point at which it is useless for those living on earth. People rarely approach the sun in movies; Superman does it and so does Kirk’s crew in Star Trek 4. Most directors like to go the other way, to far out galaxies and solar systems, not to the middle of our own. But for those prone to panic encountering the sun is a strong catalyst.

It isn’t the fear of being killed by the sun that led me to freak out in my own nearly silent way, it was the fear of the death of our solar system and our inability to escape this fate, which then led my mind to the possible death of our universe. What am I talking about? Just certain horrifying theories that suppose that the universe will someday become so voluminous, and energy so spread out, that it will seem as if there isn’t a universe at all, just darkness. Here are some Wiki links to a few. Here, here and a summary here. Yes I am using Wikipedia to try to verify very debatable topics. So? Just check it out. And check out the first hour of Sunshine. Why the first, well because things are only really terrifying to me when they are plausible. Let’s just say at about the 45 minute mark when I went to pee and freak out in the comfort of a vacant bathroom I thought I was watching something that was easily going to break into my 25 favorite movies, but when I drove home I thought I had just watched the end of Event Horizon for the second time in a week. So just to slap a grade on it I give Sunshine four panic attacks and two and a half kicks to the balls.

Filed under: slowblogger