Hackeysack for Obama

Finally, back in town after a couple of weeks of traveling insanity, and really 6 weeks of travel awesomeness. Let's recap:
1) San Francisco: 1 week
2) Home home (Madison, WI): 1 week
3) Philly for new years: 3 days
4) Home (Boston): 1 week
5) Phoenix: 1 week
6) DC for Obamafest: 4 days
7) Maine for skiin: 3 days

Just add milk and stir. Delicious!

So after all of that fun, I finally am able to remove the clothes from my bag with the intention of actually putting them away rather than simply washing (read: re-folding) them and replacing them back into the same bag. The travel was great, but my bed and a pseudo-stable daily life is great as well. And with it, some love for my blog, as demanded by the Dutchess of Kickball :)

One of the highlights of the multi-stop journey was no doubt the game of hackeysack that broke out between my friends and I at our spot by the Washington monument during the Obama Inauguration as we awaited His Hopefulness' speech. In our valiant efforts to stay warm on a day that felt a lot colder than it really was (only ~20F), one of my friends' hand warmers--those little clothy sacks filled with some mystery powder that gets warm while probably causing some horrendous form of brain cancer--conveniently transitioned from a chemically-functional warmer to the object of our 12-year-old punk/stoner entertainment, the hackeysack(?), whose activity continued to warm us for another hour or so. (This led us to conclude that this is how those things can actually claim to last 4 hours: by working properly for one hour and then being used as a ball for three more).

Nonetheless, our inventive means of passing the time attracted several others around us to join the circle, and at one point we even had a cameraman film us. Unfortunately we never found out where he was from, but I figure it didn't matter much since none of us had any loud Obama gear on so our scene, while awesome, wasn't going to make it far past some random local station broadcast.

Maybe next time.

Of course, my ultimate favorite part of the whole inauguration scene was none other than the awesomely chaotic outdoor marketplace for obama gear that "you won't find anywhere else in the city": shirts with waaaay too many pictures and random phrases written, a billion different buttons, calendars, scarves, posters... I made it a goal to find the most ridiculous things I could find, and ended up coming home quite satisfied with my winter hat sporting Obama's image in colorful studded form and my "Hope" playing cards. Success.

Philosophizing on the grown up world

And now I introduce the other side of this blog, the other side of me. The grown up world.

I was thinking today about how people fit into the human experience, even when that experience is seemingly entirely human-free. I realized something: For me personally people are what fascinate me, but even in the times when I traveled alone in Europe/Ghana over the past few years, my greatest memories are the people I met. Yes, I loved some of the things I saw too, but why? For example, why do I think Gaudi's architecture (see photo) is so amazing? Is it the architecture? Or is it the idea of a human mind creating something so incredible? Or are those one and the same thing? Perhaps. Is art inherently beautiful? Or is it the interpretation of the world by the human mind who created it what is truly beautiful? For me, it’s the mind.

Similarly, when I look at a city from afar, I think not of the city itself necessarily but rather of all of the years of hard work and ingenuity that a group of individual human beings put into building the city. It’s not the city itself. It’s the idea of a city. It’s the fact that a city could be conceived at all. It’s the thought of time before cities, where someone shows up and whispers in your ear: “In 1000 years, there will be a city of 10 million here in a variety of buildings as tall as 1000 ft. There will be parks, and stoplights, and coffee shops, too.” That’s what I think about. That’s what amazes me.

So it’s people that amaze me. Maybe it’s because it’s people, and the concept of people as the “experiencers” of the universe, that scares me. Sounds a lot like thunderstorms in my childhood.

I dont think everyone thinks this way. Some people climb a mountain alone and for them the experience is being free from society and being connected with nature. I would climb a mountain with someone, and for me the experience is being free from inhibition and being connected with another human being in a way not previously possible. In reality, this isn't 100% true of myself, but I imagine it's certainly more true for me than for the typical person. At the least, it's a break from the traditional naturalist perspective. Surely someone else out there thinks similarly.

video games: should you feel ashamed?

Oh look, it's a new year. New is good, right?

During my few days in Philly over the new year, my friend introduced me to the YouTube-autiful world of "Street Fighter: the Later Years": a hilarious mini-series of the characters from the famed old school video game Street Fighter living as regular (pathetic?) people in the world--e.g. a taxi driver--after the game lost popularity while still maintaining their superpowers.

Video games have always been one of those items that are fun and totally understandable to be played as a child but sad and pathetic when indulged as adults (with the exception of Wii accidents, of course). Even myself, who is a firm believer in all things child, am a bit frightened by their incredible ability to suck people even farther out of the real universe and into some alternate reality filled with ogres, aliens, or, lately, us very same living humans only in creepier animated form.

But then I come upon movies such as the Street Fighter one above and quickly realize the hilarious hidden video game culture buried in the minds and hearts of millions of fully functional (typically male) adults--that even though .001% of us actually still play those games, 100% of us remember in full detail the characters, their moves, and even sometimes the button combinations required to perform them.

So let's give some love to the video game world. After all, I hope every adult clings to fond childhood memories of the first time their city was attacked by aliens in SimCity.

Of course, that was nothing compared to the painful showering of boos you had to endure when you'd click the little button to raise your citizens' taxes. Ah, the memories.

rocking the moving walkway

Here's another addition to the things-that-are-fun-but-not-acceptable-for-adults: walking the wrong way on a moving walkway (or escalator). I did not jump on the many, many opportunities I had to partake in such fun during my 9 hours waiting in the Detroit airport yesterday, but I probably should have. Unfortunately, it is a game that often leads to the annoying disruption of other people who are trying to get to their flights, thus making the term "childish" a bit more appropriate for the activity. But at the same time, if you are a Schadenfreudist (i think we all are to a certain degree), bothering people who are already teetering on the edge of insanity--i.e. most people in airports--can be fun, presuming, of course, that you don't get punched in the process.

I think in the future I will try to make regular posts whose theme revolves around an activity that you know you loved as a child and still (secretly) love today.

Today I also returned to working out in the weight room for the first time in over a year as I began to feel very very out of shape. It was the first time I do it at MIT... and, to my delight, even at MIT there are douche bags who constantly check themselves out flexing in the mirror and who scream wildly while lifting heavy objects and replacing them to their original location (my favorite, 100% accurate description of weightlifting and its absurdity when you really think about what you're doing). Maybe those guys are in Aeronautical Engineering and are required as part of their thesis defense to tow the spacecraft by hand to the launching pad. It's like World's Strongest Man, but to save humanity.

I know what you're thinking: World's Strongest Man does save humanity... from falling pianos and large stone continent replicas (picture needed!).

catching up on movies

Finally, I sat down and watched all three original star wars films. They were great. The ewoks are adorable. I dont know what it is about short, round, furry creatures that makes them so cute (although the Exploratorium in SF pointed out in one exhibit that you can make anything shorter, fatter, and with rounder edges and it immediately becomes cute), but obviously no one can resist stuffed animals defeating robots and droids armed with laser guns to save the universe.

Last night we also watched "The Band's Visit" which is this fantastic movie about an Egyptian classical music police orchestra that gets lost in Israel and ends up in a little town for a night. It starts off slow (something not really appreciated until later in the movie) but ends up being a very tightly-written story of people from very different cultures--one of the character's covering up the photo of the big israeli tank with his hat being a classic moment--having very common, human problems and dreams. The acting is beautiful, in particular Tawfiq (taw-FEEK), the excessively-formal orchestra conductor, and the scene at the roller-disco with Khaled (the young womanizer) and Papi is priceless. If it's not obvious already, I can't say enough about this film. It's not the greatest film of all time, but it is well-written, explores a lot of interesting themes, particularly about humanity across cultures, but what makes it so great is that this is done with really very few words--in fact, the words that are not said because the characters cannot translate emotions into english carries significance on its own.

Not that Star Wars wasn't stirring in its own right.

For the inner child...

Aha! Ah the glory that is sitting on the toilet on Christmas morning--clearly the best place in the universe for ideas to smack you in the face.

I have had several discussions over the last year about why it is that people are ashamed to admit that, deep down, they love bumper cars. And snowball fights. And sledding. It is so ingrained in us that we are "adults" now and so we must act like it, meaning that having unbridled fun is no longer a part of the life equation.

Here's to throwing enough snowballs at those people to get them to finally let loose and throw a few back. Now shutup and come play Stratego with me.

woohoo, it's a blog! wtf?

Blogging sounds fun. I suppose you're really supposed to blog about something. So I'll get on thinking about that. In the meantime, tomorrow is christmas (err... Christmas), so I better get my inner Jesus ready. Ready, that is, to watch star wars for the first time--so the MIT kids will finally stop mocking me for not having seen it.

At least I've seen Spaceballs.