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I don’t put much stock in failure. While I haven’t always had resounding success and, especially in the last 2 years, have been far below subpar, I don’t believe I have been a failure. I move through the world like my favorite team, the New York Giants. They have an outside chance of getting into the playoffs and winning it all. 3 other teams must lose, and two of the three are frankly in position to lose. Now how does that relate to me? Lately I have not been the go to guy, and deservedly so. However, I see some opportunities cropping up and I feel like I have an opportunity to take advantage of the world around me so long as I do my part. It isn’t all on me. There are some outside forces that need to fall in place rather quickly, but if I can rediscover that discipline that I brought to the first few weeks of this blog, I will be golden.

So there. I have a challenge I can get behind. I need to fall back into that discipline and I need to provide myself with a schedule and time to do so.

Pardon the technical difficulties. Perhaps the fates too wish to hear nothing more of the Tebow situation. This post is a little bit about that, but also about the media portrayal of the situation. Here is what I know: Rex Ryan is not going to play Tebow as a QB. I have no idea why short of speculation and insider gossip. To hear it from the media, Tebow is a terrible thrower.

Tell me something I didn’t know before the trade.

Last week’s 11 sack debacle proved that the line has quit on the team. Nobody on O is holding on to their pride. It feels a lot like last year and a lot more like a coach who has lost control of his team. Heck, I have had it happen with 4-5 year olds, I can only imagine how much worse that is when dealing with grown male egos. Tebow’s ego is the least of the worries there, but it quickly became the focus of media attention–largely because of Ryan’s refusal to put the kid in. At the very least the situation represents a disconnect between the GM and the coach. I believe both are gone next year and the Jets would do well to get a solid veteran like Vick and draft someone they can develop over 2-3 years (and is willing to be developed). If you ask me, the coach and GM will be gone immediately  after a loss and Rex will be running someone else’s D before the end of the week. Heck, he could easily wind up on the Patriots staff. Wouldn’t that be the very F-U?

 

In the wake of so many recent public shootings I find myself wondering if my kid is going to snap one day and go on a killing spree. I have 3 kids, all boys, and each has very different behaviors. None seem to be outwardly murderous, but neither did Dahmer. In fact, I’ve been studying Derf Backderf’s graphic novel on Dahmer and thinking about what signs I myself could be missing as early as age 8.

It is natural to want to blame the parents, especially in situations where the killer takes his own life. We need to push guilt upon the living as a form of catharsis. I do not aim to be that guilt sponge in any way. Moreover, the idea of actually being responsible for the making of a monster troubles me greatly. We are supposed to leave the world better than we found it. Making killers does not, IMHO, meet that goal. On the other hand the media glorifies these killers from Dexter on down. I remember a movie called 15 minutes where killers went on a spree and recorded the whole thing. Chronicle was, in its own way, about the social networking of bad behaviors.

All of these real world realities add up to two things. 1) We live in a society where becoming a serial killer is now another way that kids used to negative attention can reasonably get attention. 2) 10 minutes is up.

Christmas came quickly this year.

Seriously. There was a great deal of wonder on the front end and then, at once it seemed, we were opening gifts. Suddenly the season was over and everyone was passed out, recovering from a food coma. The best part for me was the Santa hunt. I left a bag of coal for the kids in the place they’d designed for Santa to leave their presents. In the bag was candy and a note that led them on a treasure hunt to find their gifts. several clues later they found the gifts and felt like they earned the opening.

I learned from this xmas that I enjoy the family gatherings and wish they happened more often. I think it takes a lot of time to settle in to what you want in life, what is good for you, and finding that polite balance between need and want. I think I need–I think we both need–family more than we thought we did. I also think we need to widen our circle of friends and in that way build our non-conventional family.

This year my home was full and warm on xmas. I loved every minute of it and deeply appreciated being a dad. Next year ought to be the same situation, wherever it may occur.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I am picking up wordspeed with errors. The splint covers most of my ring finger in a metal sheath–or as my wife would say, My Digitus annula’ris is supported over the distal and middle phalanx. Or something like that. The pain is reduced, but the discomfort of the instrument is something else entirely. Every so often I lose track, falling into the rhythm of typing and whacking the keys with a metal sheath. I really hope to be fully healed by game time. I need to bounce back from the extraordinarily crappy play of the last few weeks. 

Among the most important tools to me as a writer are my hands. One of those hands was dang near ruined in a flag football game yesterday. Lets forget for a moment that my skills have eroded to the point where I am a below average baller. Lets also forget that I am old and lazy and preoccupied with Shadowrun. The injury wasn’t because of any of that. The person whose flag I grabbed was wearing shorts with pockets and my finger wound up in a pocket and finally in a brace. I cannot say how long I will be in this state, but it has curtailed my ability to write to the extreme.

I am trying to cope, but as I began, The hands are very important to my livelihood, and with drafts due, this is going to be a bit tougher of a writing holiday than I thought.

Not a lot left in the tank. Messed up my hand pretty bad so i am pecking at the keys. need to stop before i injure it more

Demarco Cousins is a highly talented NBA basketball player who has no idea how to act in the spotlight. He has been suspended from his ball club indefintely, giving up millions in contract and endorsement money. He isn’t alone. Most notably The head of the CIA was recently busted for having an affair with his biographer. All the media was asking why these people and those like them, with so much going well for them, would make a mistake like that. Why, in other words, would they deem to be human?

Anne Hathaway, recent victim of a so-called wardrobe malfunction, was prodded and basically clowned by an newsman in regards to her privates being accidentally exposed. She was in a vulnerable situation and was taken advantage of.  Her response says it all, “”It kind of made me sad on two accounts. One was that I was very sad that we live in an age when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment and rather than delete it–and do the decent thing–sells it. And I’m sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality of unwilling participants, which brings us back to ‘Les Mis,’ that’s what my character is, she is someone who is forced to sell sex to benefit her child because she has nothing and there’s no social safety net.”

We have this expectation for the people who we see in the public spotlight to somehow be more than human. When they are not we make every effort to make them appear as less than human. This is the classic high school mentality on a national scale. I wish I understiid why it happens.

The family will be here soon and with them all the joy and spontaneity that Christmas is supposed to bring. I can’t help but feeling that this is a last Christmas for us all. It has nothing to do with the ‘coming apocalypse’ and everything to do with the changing state of our family unit. The kids are getting older and the uncles and aunts are so far flung that it is difficult for everyone to gather with any consistency. I suspect the next year’s holidays will be spent in Iowa. I also suspect we will not be going. My wife and I have no desire to return to her state of raising. That place is mad gray.

If the holidays end up in Colorado, as they have before, we will surely attend. Flying would be too costly, but the distance is close enough to drive over the course of a day or two. We can make a fun road trip out of it; maybe we can even use the event to move into a different vehicle!

Perhaps the biggest part of my concern is that the kids are quickly losing interest in the traditions. They are all about running around and video games and what they can get from people. There isn’t a large sense of tradition or deep family values in them, and that is on us. They love being around family and being together, but so far as understanding what that all means, they are lost.

Maybe I expect too much from them. Don’t parents always expect too much?

I’ve been writing about Shadowrun professionally and otherwise for near on twenty years now. Given the game’s focus on events stemming from 12/21/12, I think that makes me a bit of an expert on the subject. As the self-appointed expert on the end of the world I want to say this: Regardless of what we say about the validity of the date and the Mayan calendar, the end of the world isn’t meant to be a one-day toss off. The date marks the official end of what they called the 5th world. The 6th world is another experience entirely, one fraught with new enemies and perils. Some of those threats have been fictionalized while others are directly reflected in scientific reports such as the Global Trends 2030 report. That report speaks of so-called black swans, dangerous but extremely rare phenomena that might cause huge problems. I think the swans are the thing we need to worry about, and they are the reason that the 6th world is when the world begins to end–at least as we know it.

I’ll be writing about these threats at length, but the one I think bears thinking about first is the idea of solar flares. Given the highly fragile state of our electronic ecosystem, an emp producing flare could toss the world into major upheaval. We don’t have a solution or any public preparedness for such an event. If we lose even a dozen key satellites to fire from the sky, our already damaged financial systems will kick into a much higher level of chaos.

Just something to think about at on the eve of the end of the world…

The Age of Sanchez is over, and the age of Tebow is not going to begin. It seems an unknown named McElroy has won the heart and mind of Coach Ryan, and the storied Jets march towards irrelevance with their heads slung low. I know how they feel in a limited sense. My only college season was an 0-10-1 debacle, and my latest Fantasy Football efforts led me to a 2-11 record. I’ve even fallen out of contention with the boys in Bristol. Still, I ain’t no Sancheeze.

I’m ending the wire’s business as usual, because I lost touch with football a bit this season. I missed it the entire off season and then came back and stunk up the joint in fantasy. The fact is, I didn’t do my research. I’m correcting that over the next few weeks with an intense game by game breakdown. I’ll limit the intensity and number to what I can safely cram inside of ten minutes. This week I want to look at the only playoff race that matter (to me). I’ll start with the Giants (after which my 8-9 FB team is named) and their foes the Ravens.

Giants over Ravens
I call it like I want it and like I see it. What I see is a depleted Ravens Linebacker corps that already had trouble stopping the run. With another LB out for the season and a rested Ahmed Bradshaw likely to play, I like the Giants chances to control the ball on the ground. I also like their chances to eliminate the passing offense now that Torrey Smith is ruled out. Flacco is not elite, and that truth will enable the Giants to put another man in the box while leaving Boley isolated on Pitta (resurgent over the last few weeks). That situation will help the G-men slow down a big time rushing attack and early scoring may force Flacco to take it to the air, where he has been inept as of late. The win puts the G-men halfway to the wildcard and completely at the mercy of the other two legit threats in the division. One of those threats has a tough match up ahead.

NO over Cowboys
Dallas has the secondary to slow down a legit Brees offense. Is the NO attack legit? Sometimes. I believe they do not like the Cowboys and especially do not like the idea that they are irrelevant and expected by many to get beat up. This is not going to happen now and not again for the rest of the season. The Saints have a great deal to prove to themselves and the proof starts now. This is going to be a spread offense attack. NO is going to test the corners and with them spread out, they are going to strike hard on the inside with the two brilliant tight ends at their disposal. Expect to see a two wide two tight formation on occasion and a lot of 4 wide with a TE as a 5th receiver. It is going to be a little too much for the hurting ‘Boys late in the game.