Teotwawki

Well, I suppose an honest entry is due. Now that I’ve finished the first draft of my book, binge gamed, and read, it’s time to actually write something with content. Not to say it will be worth reading, but it will say. . . well, something.

It’s Monday morning and I am back at work after four days off. The company was closed for Thanksgiving, I took Friday off and then had the weekend. For the most part it was great. My family was out of town, so I had dinner with a friend and his wife. No turkey. The less traditional the better on Thanksgiving, I think. It’s my least favorite holiday. Gluttony is one of my least favorite vices. If I could give up eating without suffering the consequences, I probably would.

It’s not that eating isn’t an interesting experience. Taste is an interesting sense and I wouldn’t want to give that up. Being required to eat for sustenance is what I would pass on. Save my taste buds for wine, dark chocolate, Haribo, and the occasional delicious meal. Left to my own devices, I make a minimal effort to feed myself. It’s not an intentional thing. I just eat because I get hungry. If I’m wrapped up in whatever I’m doing, I’d much rather just keep doing that than eat.

Along with gluttony, rampant materialism is another vice I am not fond of. (Man, that sentence looks terrible with a preposition at the end. The “correct” version just sounds so stuffy and archaic: “of which I am not fond.”)  Parenthetical aside (beat), I turn into a hermit while the rest of America is busy deluding itself into thinking that they’re “saving” money. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate a decent sale. I picked up a couple of mentally stimulating video games off of Steam. I then proceeded to challenge myself over and over for the rest of the weekend. I’m just not going to lie to myself about what my actions meant: I spent money. Were I saving any, it would still be in my bank account. I may have spent less, but spend money I did. It’s a pretty picture those savings-tinted glasses paint, but the Emerald City still ain’t green.

The fact remains, beyond the necessities, give me a guitar, a computer, and a Kindle and I’m set. For you lovers of tomes, it isn’t that I don’t love the physical book; I have a library. It’s just a lot easier to pack a Kindle. I have yet to acquire one, actually. I currently use the Kindle app on my computer, however, and get mildly irritated that I can’t take my book and sit on the couch in front of the wood stove with a glass of wine. One the other hand, I still want physical copies of my favorite books. It’s important to leave them in plain sight ready to trap the unwary reader into literary enjoyment.

It’s not that I really have anything against vices. Everyone needs a vice. Some are simply healthier than others. Or more fun. I’m a particular fan of wine, coffee, vanity, and people watching. (That’s is a nice way of saying I’m mildly voyeuristic.)Vanity in others is something I actually enjoy. I admire a certain degree of self-love. Vices take those overbearing righteous parts of our selves and make us unfailingly and unflatteringly human. It’s beautiful.

Which is your favorite of the cardinal, or “Seven Deadly” sins? In case you’ve forgotten, they’re Lust, Pride, Gluttony, Wrath, Sloth, Envy, and Greed.

In further news, my new-to-me Ford Escape continues its descent into a rustic exhaust belching environmental hazard on wheels. I expect clouds of black smoke to belch from the tailpipe any day now. I’m exaggerating, but my catalytic converters keep tossing their filtration system down the lines and clog up the next one down. This causes the exhaust in the system to build pressure until it releases from the weakest point. The weakest point happens to be an item called an EGR valve. Does it pry the hose from the valve? No, it blows a hole in the pewter-like wall of the contraption. While the vehicle will still run in this state, it means that the exhaust blows out into the car anytime you’re going less than 35 miles per hour. Cough. Cough. Hack. Gag. Die of asphyxiation.

This is the second time this has happened since I bought the car in August. Awesome, right? Even better, it happened on the same stretch of road while I was heading out of town on a Sunday afternoon, both times. Why, SUV, do you hate going to Coeur D’Alene?

Other than that particular event, I truly enjoyed my binge gaming over the holiday. I spent some time replaying Dishonored and XCom, then bought Orcs Must Die 2 and well, goodbye fair world. I’ll be in Tower Defense land for a while. I’d rather be there now, to be quite honest. This whole work thing isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. ;)

A lot of people are excited for the holidays, by which I mean Christmas. Me, I’m more excited for the End of the World. Capitalized. Don’t worry, I haven’t suddenly unveiled myself as some kind of doomsayer. My friends and I have been planning a party the evening of the 20^th since high school, when we first watched a National Geographic movie about the Mayans, long before it became a fad. That day is coming quickly and people are coming from all over to attend. One of my best friends and the woman who isn’t his wife yet but will be before the party is coming from Florida, another friend and his fiancé are coming from Ohio, a couple of friends are coming from Boise, some from Oregon, and so on and so forth.

If you aren’t aware, what makes the Mayan prediction interesting is that it isn’t just some random prophecy by whatever whackjob happened to be the big name in soothsaying at the time. The event, whatever it is meant to be, is part of a calendar full of astrological events. This calendar has been predicting eclipses and so on for hundreds of years. The startling part of this is that about 1100 years later their predictions are only off by 13 seconds. Certainly made me think twice.

Thinking twice, however, means looking things up and finding out what smart people who know what they are talking about are actually saying about things. Really, it’s the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar, which is simply the end of a cycle. A really long one. According to the Mayans, the end of a cycle was something to be celebrated. Well, great minds think alike. I’ll raise a glass to you, long gone advanced civilization. If I had to guess why you suddenly and inexplicably abandoned your culture, it was probably because someone voted for your era’s version of Romney. Nothing could survive that.

I’m joking.

I’ll stop babbling for a while. I’m certain there’s only so much one can take of coherent rambling. No, that’s not a typo. I’m just that vain. ;)

And a thousand words, goodnight.

-m0rg4n