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 |    My primary Writing.com blog. |
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Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics). Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:  "The Soundtrackers Group"  "Blogging Circle of Friends " "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" "JAFBG" "Take up Your Cross" Thanks for stopping by!  |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " | Day 3538 Prompt ▼ I haven't been watching the gymnastic trials, but I have heard about all of the injuries. That must be so devastating; to have worked so hard for so many years and then to have an injury prevent you from joining the final team heading to the Olympics. It's a sobering reminder of just how fragile the human body is. For all of the amazing things it can do, we're all one sprained ankle, torn tendon, muscle cramp, or health issue away from being physically unable to participate in something we've been training for over the course of months or years. As much as it pains me to admit, I definitely struggle with "drive" to accomplish things. I think I have a slight difference of opinion with the prompt; "things I'm passionate about" are different from "goals I want to accomplish", and I don't really have an issue doing things that I'm passionate about. But those things also don't require a lot of drive. I like to read, hobby write, watch movies and television, play games, etc., none of which I'd say need "drive" in order to happen. But my larger goal? My professional ambitions and dreams for what my life could be like? Those definitely require "drive" and I'm often lacking in that area. I'd love to be a published author, or have another screenplay produced, but I haven't seriously written anything in years. I'd love to have to buy a house, but saving up money for one (especially at the scale needed to afford a place in Southern California) has proven really difficult. I think a big part of the reason why "drive" is difficult for me is because I'm a person who's generally happy. My status quo is one of being relatively comfortable and content. So I don't have that fire that so many people have who need to accomplish something in order to change their unhappy or unsatisfactory circumstances. At a certain point, I realize that I'll have to get out of my comfort zone if I want to accomplish the things I want to accomplish, but getting outside one's comfort zone in a really challenge sometimes. (360 words) |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" | Day 3132 Prompt ▼ I love watching the Olympics. Despite all of the problems with the business of the Olympics lately, the Games themselves are always something that I've looked forward to, because I think there's something really encouraging and aspirational about being of the best athletes in the world, competing against the best athletes from other countries in order to win a medal for your own. Although I enjoy them both, I'm partial to the Summer Olympics over the Winter Olympics, and I've always enjoyed the Gymnastics, Swimming, and Track & Field events in particular. Those are the ones that I really prioritize trying to watch, but I also try to catch Beach Volleyball, Diving, Martial Arts, and Tennis if I can. On the topic of the Olympics, I was just reading an interesting article in The Washington Post about how not every city who hosts the Olympics can host every event. The 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles just announced that they were going to host a couple of events (specifically Canoe Slalom and Softball) in Oklahoma City because apparently Oklahoma City has world-class facilities for those two events, and it will save considerable money to host those events in existing facilities rather than trying to build new facilities in Los Angeles in the next four years. The article took kind of a condescending tone to that choice, like, "Wow, sad that Los Angeles can't figure out how to host these events," but honestly I'm okay with it. That "business of the Olympics" I mentioned earlier? Yeah, not really a fan of the steep financial and labor costs that some of these events put on a region when they are determined to host all the events in the same city. There is of course necessarily some construction that has to happen and cost that's incurred (Los Angeles is building a temporary pool in SoFi Stadium for the Swimming events), but it shouldn't be overly burdensome on a host city, especially when there are alternatives available. And particularly since hosting certain events in other locations is a necessity. The 2024 Summer Olympics is being hosted in Paris this year, but the Surfing events are being held in Tahiti; presumably because Paris doesn't have a lot of ideal surfing destinations.  Similarly, the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina will have certain events held in venues up to 4-5 hours away from those cities.Honestly, I wouldn't be opposed to having just an entire country host the Olympics (like they do for the World Cup), with that country designating where events are held and able to use their existing infrastructure to the best of their ability. It's more cost-effective and less labor-intensive, and encourages travel and revitalization rather than new construction that will be used for a couple of weeks and then largely abandoned (which has been a major problem for past host cities of the Olympics). Anyway, I am really looking forward to the Summer Olympics this year, and plan on catching as many of the events as I can. (511 words) |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" | Day 3127 Prompt ▼ The more I spend time as a father, the more convinced I am that time is the most important aspect of it. We started fostering our kids when my son was almost five years old and my daughter had just turned three months old. Now that my daughter is five and my son is closing in on ten, I look back on the time spent with them and realize that the time itself has been the key element of our relationship. There are parenting choices I've made that have turned out brilliantly. There are also parenting choices I've made that have turned out to be a total fail on my part. My kids sometimes do things that make me proud, and sometimes do things that drive me crazy. There's no rhyme or reason to it either; there are times when I'm sure I've got this whole parenting thing figured out, and others where I feel lost and out of my depth. But as I sit here on the evening of Father's Day, having just spent most of the day with my family and looking at the handmade gifts they created for me, I realize that I've been truly blessed to have spent as much time with them as I have. One of the few silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic was that I spent a lot of time working from home and being home, rather than being squirreled away in a corporate office somewhere, only being home for dinner on the days that I was really lucky and traffic wasn't too bad. My wife and I were talking the other day about how, from March of 2020 through the end of 2022, we could count on one hand the number of nights that all four of us weren't around the dinner table together. That's truly special, and remarkable in this day and age. When I think about my own father, the things I remember most are the times we spent together. Not the arguments, or the differences of opinion, or the occasional absences when he had to work; it was the times that he was there (which were plentiful as I was growing up). I remember backyard barbecues and camping trips, summers at my grandparents' lake house where he would let us push him off the dock. And, more recently, the times we sat and grieved together after losing my mother. Time is the one thing we're all universally short on, and so it makes sense that those fathers who invest the most time in their children and their families are the ones that live longest in our memories when they're gone. (442 words) |
| WDC 48-Hour Challenge: Media Prompt | Prompt ▼ Coldplay has a couple of really great songs that I love, and this is definitely one of them. There's no question that Chris Martin and his band are great songwriters. I'm also amazed by how often this song comes up in popular culture. It was featured during an Apple event when they first launched the Apple Watch, played during the 2020 Democratic National Convention after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' acceptance speeches (selected by Joe Biden as it was apparently his deceased son Beau Biden's favorite song), and during multiple significant sporting events. My personal favorite occurrence of this song, however, is the cover that Taron Egerton did for the animated film Sing 2, with his character (Johnny the Gorilla) performed this song during the final performance they had been working toward. While this song is great, my favorite song will always be Coldplay's "Fix You," which has been a favorite of mine for a long time. "The Scientist", "Yellow," and either "Speed of Sound" or "Something Just Like This" probably finish out my Top 5 favorite Coldplay songs. Despite the fact that I like so many of their songs, I'm actually still amazed at how popular they actually are. They're one of those bands that I think are pretty good, but their popularity it just off the charts compared to how much I enjoy their music. For me, they're one of those bands where I don't really have much of a desire to go to a concert or listen to a full album or anything because I'm not a huge fan of the band itself; I just really like certain songs of theirs a lot. (276 words) |
| To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies  Anyone But You Atlas Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Lift Rebel Moon - Part 1: A Child of Fire Rebel Moon - Part 2: The Scargiver War for the Planet of the ApesTelevision FBI: Most Wanted (Season 1) FBI: Most Wanted (Season 2) FBI: Most Wanted (Season 3) Knuckles Law & Order (Season 23) Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (Season 25) Punisher (Season 2) Tales of the EmpireIt was a very productive viewing month, thanks in no small part to the fact that my wife has been binge watching procedurals for the past several weeks. Procedurals aren't my particular cup of tea; they're mostly background noise while I work on other stuff. Knuckles is a spinoff of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise and my kids really seemed to enjoy it. Tales of Empire (a Star Wars anthology series) was pretty good, but like Tales of the Jedi from a few years ago, it's a little too disjointed and random for it to be truly great. Speaking of Star Wars, on the feature film side I watched both installments of Rebel Moon a.k.a. Zack Snyder's Star Wars Movie. Both installments were pretty bad. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that Snyder is basically Michael Bay; he knows how to create some stunning visuals, but really isn't very good at telling a story or developing character. And on the topic of bad sci-fi movies, I can also enthusiastically not recommend Atlas which was basically Jennifer Lopez acting alone in a room talking to an A.I. for more than half of the movie. I also watched both the new Planet of the Apes movie and the previous film that I somehow didn't even know came out years ago, and I just don't get the hype about this franchise. People love it, but all four of the recent films have been pretty mediocre. Lift was a cheesy heist movie, and Anyone But You was an entertaining, if predictable romantic comedy. All in all, even though I watched a lot in May, I didn't love a lot of what I saw. The best was probably the second season of Punisher, but even that wasn't great. It was a pretty lackluster month, to be honest. TOP PICK: Punisher (Season 2) |
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