Hiya!

Hand to hand combat, Baby!

Five goals we must all achieve before you die.

In the time allotted to us, we are given the opportunity to choose between an infinite amount of goals to accomplish. These are my first five choices. I am sure through every person’s top five goals there is a common thread that runs; see for yourself:

Achieve Enlightenment
"Why does this make the list?" Are you serious? C'mon!

Become the first black president
Who better than me to take those people into the future?

Save a whale, single-handedly
Implicit in that goal is my less specific goal to become the world's strongest white male!

Walk around the world
I suppose I will first need to accomplish a lesser goal of connecting all the continents... My will be done.

Annex Alaska
We must breed Prizzlies!!!

Be the first to discover the Fountain of Youth
I must beat my sister because I know she won't share...

Thank you
and have a nice day.

'Cat's Cradle' will knock our soks off? ... this is so not getting any comments...

The greatest... greatest, greatest...

The words?

I'll spend my golden years in Atlantis! What?!

Amazing!

Because of the historocity! Amazing!

Songs to sink your heart to the rocks at the bottom

Some say you have to hit rock-bottom before you can get back up. Think of these tracks as anchors to be thrown off the Love Boat.

It Makes No Difference by The Band

Rick Danko's vocals and these lyrics burst swollen hearts like nothing else can. The shreds of your love will forever mingle with the rocks at the bottom.

Melt My Heart to Stone by Adele

Adele penned one of 2008's great debuts. Each note she reinvents sheds a little more light on the path that led to any breakup; her voice will cement a heavy heart to that rocky bottom.

Get Me Away from Here, I'm Dying by Belle & Sebastian

Stewart Murdoch is the master of tongue-in-cheek, subtly brilliant insight. Listen as he explains why we make an attempt at love, but are forced to leave it for the allure of the deep, dark depths of the ocean floor.

The Beginning to a Blog

So here I am. But exactly why I'm here, I'm not sure. I suppose I have been planning to visit this place for a while. The itinerary has been ricocheting around in my mind for a bit now. I guess I decided to snatch it down today because... well, because right now I have quite a bit of writing to commit. Getting started is always the hardest part, not to sound didactic, of course. But that is why I am here in this moment, and not in a past time- to get started.

I think I have always figured I might wait for a lasso made of hardened purpose to arrive at my feet before I were to start a blog. As I am finding out, however, that life never really goes as planned, I am becoming more comfortable with unexpected detours. Though they still are frustrating. Much is.

So, why a blog, I ask? Why do I not just open a new word doc and fly my fingers across the keys to warm up, as I usually do? That is a good question. I think the answer involves the material I am about to write. When I open a document to "get started," as I seem to be calling the exercise I do to enter the mode of finessed writing, I am typically preparing to write a piece few will read. The mental mode needed to conjure appropriate phrasing and thoughts for a limited audience is different than the mode required for a larger audience, which is an audience for which I have never really written. With a new audience comes a new set of censors for new thoughts and ways of phrasing which keep in mind the wider audience. And a different mental mode that keeps in mind a wider audience requires a new method of entrance the bears in mind more readers: a blog post. Hence, because I am preparing to write pieces for a daily newspaper, a monthly magazine, and an academic journal, this is the beginning to a mode to finessed writing, a wider, if not less aware, audience, and a blog.