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I love you, Ira Glass, I really, really do!
This American Life, Episode #138

This episode is great . . . at 32:48 - "Groundhog? My momma don't eat it, but my daddy do."

30 Days of Happiness, Day Three
Gleefully treated patrons of the cafe to hours of the worst Christmas music I could find online yesterday. But, you know, in the funny way. Personal favorites included Cyndi Lauper's "Christmas Conga," Basshunter's "Jingle Bells," and Destiny's Child doing "8 Days of Christmas," (which included gifts such as a diamond belly ring and some quality T-I-M-E).

I'm feeling less 'splodey with happiness today, and just a general overall happy peace and calm kind of thing. I like this transition. I mean, I know the squee will return (it always does), it's just nice to feel this more sustainable version of happiness.

I am immensely stoked to find out today that one of my closest friends will not, in fact, need to have jaw surgery (which would have resulted in a wired-shut jaw for approximately six weeks), though I will concede a part of me was considering learning ventriloquism just to ensure the jaw-wired-shut experience was as amusing as possible for all involved.

Was happy to get some catch-up time with my girl bestie last night, and am so looking forward to upcoming catch-up sessions with as many friends as I can possibly manage. I feel loved a lot and I like to return that feeling. Well, that and I want my people crack!

I'm excited about the approaching New Year -- it feels promising. And I feel hopeful. And I don't know if you noticed or not, but feeling full of hope feels gooooooooooood.

Current Mood: calm

Positive Psychology – navel gazing
from Persona Prime at http://silona.org/positive-psychology-navel-gazing/2009/12/23/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology#Learned_optimism

ah HA! what I want to do has a name!

“Learned optimism

Learned optimism is the habit of attributing one’s failures to causes that are external (not personal), variable (not permanent), and specific (limited to a specific situation). For example, an optimistic person attributes his/her failures to external causes (the environment or other people), to variable causes which are not likely to happen again, and to specific causes that will not affect his/her success in other endeavors.

This explanatory style is associated with better performances (academic, athletic, or work productivity), greater satisfaction in interpersonal relationships, better coping, less vulnerability to depression, and better physical health.^[16]“

though um but some factors are internal or “personal”… I just have to remember most of the internal portions can be fixed w introspection and acknowledgment. I find most things I can fix simply thru introspection and figuring out the causes. The ones I find to be more challenging are HABITS. Things I do even when I don’t want to. For example, when I was a child I bit my nails til they bled. Now I have conquered that habit (still bite inside of my cheek though…) And I am typically good at wiping things out in their entirety.

It is difficult though because I have a habit which in many ways is good – questioning myself and my motives. But this habit of self observation can easily turn against me. I do listen and consider every criticism I receive – even when I don’t want to. It makes the public life I live a bit difficult at times I do try to focus on the not “permanent” part and the”specific” part on learned optimism. I think though one piece to help with the “personal” part is to remember it is impossible for me to always understand THE OTHERS perspective. I mean it is tough enough to understand my own. TO understand someone else’s means to address at least two layers of filter.

hmm maybe the idea of something not being “personal” isn’t so far off afterall… when you consider the faulty data.

So perhaps i will resolve to ignore certain types of critiques until I notice at least several different types of people making a similar comment. I think that will also make me happier.

after all – you never know when you look like someone’s exgirlfriend…

ponder…

Acknowledging Your Growth : Foundations of Evolution
Since personal evolution is most often a slow and gradual process, it can be difficult to recognize the scope of the changes taking place in our lives. Yet it is important that we regularly acknowledge our ongoing growth and reward ourselves for the many wonderful feats of self-improvement we have accomplished. When we intentionally contemplate our progress, we need never feel that we are languishing between past achievements and the realization of future goals. If we look closely at our lives, we may see that much of what brings us pleasure in the present is representative of the ambitions of our past that we worked so hard to attain. At one time, the abundance we enjoy currently likely seemed like a far-off dream. Now it is simply reality—a reality we created through our diligence, passion, and unflagging determination. Whether our progress is fast or slow, we deserve to congratulate ourselves for our successes.

To remind yourself of the insights you have gained with time, temporarily adopt an outsider’s perspective and carefully consider how your life in the present differs from the range of experiences you lived through in the past. Creating a written list, in a journal or otherwise, of those strengths, aptitudes, and inner qualities you now attribute to yourself can help you accept that you are not the same person you were one year ago, five years ago, or 10 years ago. Your attitudes, opinions, and values were likely markedly different, and these differences can be ascribed to your willingness to accept that you still have much to learn. If you have difficulty giving yourself credit for these changes, think about the goals you realized, the lives you touched, the wisdom you acquired, and the level of enlightenment you attained over the past years.

Recognizing growth is neither boastful nor immodest. Evolution is a natural fact of life and becomes a potent motivational force when celebrated. Knowing that you are brighter, stronger, and more grounded than you once were, you can look forward to the changes to come. In acknowledging your growth, you build a sturdy foundation upon which you can continue to blossom well into the future.

the twelve days of pirate christmas

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wwdn/~3/i2cWvgOI-kk/the-twelve-days-of-pirate-christmas.html

Reader Brian B. sent me this yesterday, and it made me smile so much, I secured permission to share it.

"The Twelve Days of Pirate Christmas"

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me ...

12 ships to plunder,

11 cannons firing,

10 crewmen leaping,

9 sharks a' swimming,

8 rum-filled bottles,

7 lusty wenches,

6 jolly rogers,

5 gold doubloons,

4 eyepatches,

3 earrings,

2 wooden legs,

and a parrot for my shoulder - Arrr!

what is happiness? safety perhaps?
from Persona Prime at http://silona.org/what-is-happiness/2009/12/23/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness

says

“Happiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy.^[1] A variety of philosophical, religious, psychological and biological approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources.”

But I think what struck me most was dictionary.com had

“Antonyms:
1. misery.”

and that was it… just misery… i couldn’t help but think of so many others that might fit…

but realized I was getting distracted. So again went back to the concept of Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
I realized how much I associate happiness with fulfillment on all those levels.

From

Physiological – like loving Austin and the house I live in and the food I eat
Safety -mmmm most of my resources here are actually based on the higher levels
Belonging – my varied social networks, my family – very happy here!
Esteem – Being asked to present at an event, wearing an outfit I created/invented
Self Actualization – my work, thinktanks

While writing this post, I realized these happiness posts are becoming experiments in thinking out loud – unlike my normal posts. For example, this post makes me realize the obvious. The reason I want a normal job is because the main aspect lacking in my life right now is “Safety.” Contracting doesn’t cut it for me because right now most of my “Safety” is created on the other levels’ resources.

I think I like this 30 day writing process – vulnerable as it is.

Happy Day 4
1. Health Insurance-Had a dentist appointment this morning. I don't love the concept of the dentist but I do really like my hygienist and she's open and funny and as far as these things go not that bad and I have been taking better care of my teeth so the pain variant is way down from where it has been in the past.

2. This will be my 11th Twigsville, my 12th NYE with these fuckos. 5 days and 4 nights of some of the best days of my year. The updated Twigsville events schedule just released makes me squee:
Good DJ Sets
Dancing
Cards and Dice Games
Cook Offs (Iron Chef style and crockpot)
Drinking contests
Gigsville's town hall meeting where we will talk about this year's company picnic
Danetta and I will be teaching a Flag Routine for the picnic
Real Spiritual Goodness
Roasting Buck Down
No Talent Talent Show

3. Dinner with my work wife and other coworker where we get to eat Delicious sushi

Crab Cakes

4. Bringing home said coworkers to see my house. They hadn't seen it since the week I moved in and had no furniture. They loved it, and I do too. I am loving the home I (and Sylkia) are creating.

5. Watching Castle and there was a very cute scene where Nathan Fillian dressed up as a Browncoat.

Current Music: Castle

happy 2, pee and poo
You decide early in life what kind of thing will make you happy. I think that baby thing of "walks first or talks first" is just an expression of predilection.
I've heard of a few great writers who didn't speak for a long time as babies. I'm not sure this proves my theory wrong. Maybe they were just silent in awe, taking it all in. Or maybe just waiting for a good audience.

That wasn't part of my mental list today, just a thought.

I kept my eye out for something specific because if I didn't find anything, my happy-maker today would be the smell of asparagus in my pee.

I barely noticed it until I read about it in a Tom Robbins novel. Even then, it was no big deal. But then there was writer's group. In addition to Java's $3 wine special, there is dinner. Sometimes a day just demands confetti pasta. Sometimes just because later it will make me smile. I write or work on the Flame, come home full of words, sit down on the toilet, and smirk. Such a strong smell, I can't imagine ever not noticing it. Writers notice tiny little things. They hold them, roll them over and examine. Keep them and let them fall into a story somewhere.

I kept my eye out for something else because I am Miss Serious here, not Smirky Girl. The writer me, not the one who encourages misbehavior and enjoys a good spanking.

So I'm driving to meet Cheri and her parents for dinner, my bat outta hell pace stopped by a light. A blue car up ahead is decorated with a repurposed Waterloo sticker. Seeing these always makes me happy because I feel like my town has kept that quality of goofy word geek over time. I love that the words "Waterloo" and "records" have found so much creative re-use.

Today's offering?
"Poo"

Wow the best thing about this happiness thing is that people are writing in Live Journal again!

I use online socialness a lot to still feel like I have friends and keep up with people some, even when I don't manage to see people in person.

But, as several of us have noted, Facebook feels like some big party with mostly a lot of chatter, very little of which has substance. And it's hard to hear through the noise anyway.

LJ feels a little more like having something like a real conversation with people. People tend to actually reveal a little bit of themselves here.

So yay! Thank you Ava!

Recipe: Thrice-baked potatoes

With another buddy of mine, I recently took an advanced lesson from a very engineering-minded friend on better cooking with magic. I’d made special butter before, but she gave me valuable lessons in optimal temperatures and techniques. Later that night the three of us threw together the following recipe, which should therefore be considered a joint effort. You could easily leave out the special ingredient and do this with conventional butter that isn’t a federally scheduled substance; you could probably cut back on the butter then since you weren’t using it as a carrier for mind-altering goodness. I’m not going to include instructions on making cannabutter here, but you can find them in many places on the Intertubes. No, these were not full of plant material as we sifted our butter with cheesecloth.

Ingredients:

1 5lb-bag of potatoes
Chives
Sour Cream
Ricotta Cheese
2.5 cups of cannabutter
Kosher salt
garlic powder (optional)

Bake potatoes in an oven at 350 until done. Cut potatoes in half and carefully remove the insides, leaving thin shells behind. Mash up the potato-guts and mix in the butter and salt. Then add ricotta (we used about a cup, or half one of those larger containers), probably a 1/2 cup of sour cream, and chives. When I do this again I plan to add a little garlic powder, but we didn’t and they tasted delicious. Bake them a second time, just long enough for the cheese to get melty and everything to bind together, probably 10 minutes or less. The goal here is not to brown the potatoes; although cannabis is relatively heat-tolerant there is no sense weakening it by exposing it to more than necessary.

We made these late one night and then served them at a party the next, gently reheated, to rave reviews. With a little alteration, these would also make probably fantastic pierogis.

Originally published at approximately 8,000 words. You can comment here or there.

tweetledee or tweetledum?

15:25 wow a social network that has managed to lure me in again @plancast a good way to share calendar events #
15:50 @cdixon hey your links are broken on your blog "link to full post" take me to different post... #
16:22 awesome @BUNCH enjoying your blog as well! let me know when you do the post on personas! #
19:21 anyone else notice that google is no longer expanding storage for gmail? I am at 75% ! I need another backup option.... #

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Dinner?
Would anyone like to go to Cheddars with me to get a steak? You would need to drive since, well, my car would currently make a really excellent giant's paperweight.

Car
*deep breathing*

The mechanic has a preliminary estimate on the car.

The engine mount is broken, the front bumper is broken, the A-something is broken... I need to ask him if the frame is bent, which I forgot to do. Plus other, minor damage. Plus the brakes need fixing, obviously. And it needs new tires.

Something like $2K to get everything done to a car that's already been a money pit.

*sigh*

EDIT: The frame is not bent, at least not on visual inspection. It looks like the A-whatever took the brunt of the force and sacrificed itself for the frame. That's something, at least.

Day Two, Bonus Happiness!
I'm reading my friends page with all your fantastic happiness posts.

Wow.

I have so much love for all of you right now. And I keep thinking about all the people who aren't necessarily writing about their happiness, but who are still getting to read all of this shared happiness.

I hope we all catch a big incurable case of the squee just in time for 2010 to start!

<3

Current Mood: Squee!

30 Days of Happiness: Day Two
I saw Avatar again last night, largely because I really enjoy going to see movies with groups of friends.

Upon second viewing, Avatar is still pretty, but it's also ridiculously stupid... in a way that pleases me immensely. Giggles abound, I assure you. I spent the bulk of my evening after the movie trying to convince my not my boyfriend that all the movie really needed for pure brilliance would have been prehensile tails. That shot lasers. (Lasers would have been tremendously more effective in battle against space ships, anyway. I'm just sayin.)

I laughed a lot. The stupidity of it equated glee in my little Ava head. And we had lengthy discussions about Fern Gully, magical seeds and necessity of 3D pornography. I'm *so* looking forward to that piranha movie from the pre-Avatar trailers. Ridiculous x 1,000. I'm so there.

I'm excited about work tonight, and seeing my standard nighttime regulars. See, I've worked some more daytimey shifts the past couple of days, and I don't see the same people when I'm there during the day. I enjoy that my job lends itself to happy viewing of so many interesting and attractive people. I get to have lots of little gleeful crushes that feed the giggly within me.

I was happy to have friends come hang out at the cafe while I worked some yesterday, too. They laughed loudly and made such joyous sound in a cafe that's typically so quiet. I loved it!

I'm happy all the way down to my hipbones that I got the Christmas invite I wanted, but was too cautious to ask for. Because if I can't spend the holidays with my family, a holiday with my not my boyfriend's family is where I want to be. And I'm glad that he asked. And that the negotiations for the trip included him specifically requesting that I *not* change my hair from stoplight red on account of meeting his folks. (But I *like* your hair this color, sez he.)

I'm happy for silliness, and that my girl bestie may be about to deposit either a baby baluga *or* James Brown into my pantry. And I'm happy that Otis Redding's version of "White Christmas" keeps getting stuck in my head because of the part of the song where I know he's repeating the phrase "may your days," but I *swear* it sounds like he's saying mayonnaise -- and this makes me laugh in my belly the way little kids laugh when they play so long and hard that there's nothing else they can do but laugh.

Current Mood: silly
Current Music: Mayonnaise!

hoarders, craigslist, etc.
I have gone through all my possessions and gotten rid of all the extra things with the exception of:

1. babylon 5, seasons 1-4 on dvd.
2. the 1999 edition of Diplomacy with metal pieces, new in wrapper with small rip in bottom of box.
3. a parcheesi game, new in wrapper.

these are all things that i was craigslisting that the people didn't come pick up yet. I'm going to relist them today and hope to get someone buying last minute christmas gifts. The diplomacy game in particular was a long interaction with the comic book guy from the simpsons that almost resulted in the guy's throat being slit. i'm craigslisting them relatively cheap because i want done with this process and hope to pick up people looking for a late christmas present. The diplo game is one that hardcore boardgamers want to own because of the metal pieces (it's the 1999 hasbro edition), but the actual opportunity cost of using ebay is high so i've been trying to sell it locally. Unfortunately, the whiny passive-aggressive loser quotient is really high on cap hill.

The beginning of this process was several months ago talking with

cirocco about the show 'Hoarders,' which is generally a horrible horrible show. I have been slowly going through things since then organizing stuff and I have thrown away, donated, or craiglisted probably 2-3 truckloads full of stuff. I now have several empty containers that used to contain random stuff and are now used for storing other empty containers. It's overall less crowded in my apartment.

The thing that I haven't gone through as of yet are clothes. I've lost 50 pounds in the last several months and I'm unsure of what to do with all the extra clothing. I'm also very low on clothes that actually fit, especially good shirts. I'm going to go through some of that this weekend after xmas. Also, I still have too much shit in the kitchen but a lot of it is duplicates that i picked up at bm from someone and i'm going to be giving it back to them.

From the Vault: surrounded by the joy of the season

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/12/from-the-vault-surrounded-by-the-joy-of-the-season.html

In December of 2001, Anne I were really struggling financially. It had already been a pretty lousy year, as far as work went, and after September 11th, things only got worse. As Christmas got closer, it was clear that we simply couldn't afford to put many things under the tree for our kids, let alone each other.

One night around the second weekend of December that year, Anne and I had a long talk about the impending holidays. We never wanted the holidays to be about stuff, anyway, so we used the opportunity to introduce the concept of "Little Christmas" to our kids. We told them that, contrary to what television told them, it wasn't about shopping and things, as much as it was about spending time with people you love (and music, and spiced cider, and walking through the neighborhood at night to look at all the pretty lights.) Little Christmas began as a financial necessity, but we discovered that putting the emphasis on the holiday "spirit" rather on the holiday "stuff" made us all happier, and we pretty much removed ourselves from the consumerism that bummed out Charlie Brown so much in 1965.

Even though things eventually got better, we crossed a Rubicon that year, and we never went back. Instead of submerging ourselves in Christmas Crap, we got a few gifts for each other, but we always did some sort of cool thing together as a family, like a trip to the Grand Canyon, or a night out with my parents to see a play. The idea was that Christmas Crap usually gets old and dusty, but the memories we created doing something together would last for the rest of our lives, and that's a better gift to give or receive than anything we could get at the store.

This post From The Vault features a portion of a post I read on this week's Radio Free Burrito, about our 2006 Christmas trip to Julian, in San Diego County, which included a day at the San Diego Wild Animal Park with my brother, his wife, and my parents:

We stayed at the Wild Animal Park until it got dark. On the way out, Nolan came over to me and he said, "I'm really glad we came here today."

"So am I," I said.

"I wasn't all that excited when you told us what we were doing," he said, "but now I'm really glad we did this. I've had a lot of fun today."

"Yeah, your mom and I were a little bummed out that you weren't into doing this when we told you about it," I said, "but we were pretty sure you'd like it once you got here."

"Well, I just wanted to spend the weekend with my friends," he said, "because I'll be gone all next week and I won't get to see them."

"I get that," I said.

"But it was totally worth it to come down here. Thank you."

"I'm really glad you told me that, Nolan," I said.

He smiled, walked over to Anne, and told her the same thing. Then he told my mom.

Nolan is 15, chronologically and in every other sense, and I feel like I'm dealing with something from another planet more often than I'd like these days, so it really meant a lot to me that he made the effort to let the people who pulled the trip together know that he enjoyed it, instead of finding lots of reasons to be sullen and unhappy because . . . well, that's what teenagers do, if I remember correctly.

After dinner that night, we drove back up to Julian, and the rest of my family drove back to their hotel down in the valley. When we got back to the B&B, we put another fire in the stove and watched A Charlie Brown Christmas together. As much as I've loved that special my entire life, this was the first time I watched it and really felt its message about the meaning of Christmas.

We're not religious, and we're not into the consumerism of the holidays, so it would be easy to feel like we're not part of the whole Christmas thing, but as we sat there, basked in television's warm glowing warming glow, and drank hot apple cider together, we were surrounded by the joy of the season.

whoa
Man-O-Man! I am glad I don't work on set.
Our shooting crew came in last night at 6pm . . . our guys left at 11am.
The math= 17 hours.

whoa.

Brian laughs at me everytime I say something like "I will probably only have to work an 8 hour day tomorrow". I never think how weird it sounds until Brian laughs at me. And, I never believe I'll only have to work 8 hours.

So glamorous.

Happiness Day 4, 12/22
I am happy to have a job right now, despite it's insanity and long hours. I am even happier that I don't have to work on the shooting crew.

Current Mood: mellow

Chickpea recipes, part 1

Well the landlord replaced the stove in my apartment with a shiny newish one and I have been doing more cooking recently. As I cook I often tweet about it, and as a result I’ve been asked to share recipes. I cooked a whole bunch of chickpeas recently and whether you call them garbanzos or chick peas, they are probably my favorite bean.

Any recipes I post here will be short on measurements and feature a lot of ’to taste.’ Sorry, that’s just how I cook.

Garbanzo Bean Wraps

This originally began its life as this recipe. These wraps will keep you safe from Rover if you find yourself trapped in the poorly received 2009 remake of The Prisoner. Though I am always tinkering with it this is my current version and it is often requested by some of my friends.

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked or canned garbanzo beans. Rinse canned beans first.
An onion, chopped
Frozen or canned corn (about 1/2 cup?)
Garlic
a splash of bragg’s Amino Acids (like soy sauce but not)
Yellow curry powder
Lemon Juice
Kosher salt, to appease Alton Brown
1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste
Spicy stuff like Sri Racha or Vulcan’s Fire Salt
Tortillas & shredded cheddar cheese for garnish

Using a potato masher, mash up the chickpeas a bit so they are chunky but not completely smooshed. In olive oil, cook the onion and garlic until the onions softens. Add chickpeas, corn. Add bragg’s, curry powder, lemon juice, salt and other spices to taste. Pour some water over the whole mess until you cover it. Add tomato paste. Cook over medium-low heat until the water is almost all boiled off, leaving you with just a little sauce in the pan around the chickpeas. Serve on warmed tortillas with shredded cheddar on top.

You might also enjoy two older recipes using garbanzos which I’d posted to my LiveJournal: Creamy Garbanzo Beans with Spinach, and Garbanzo Bean Soup. Soon I will follow up with my recent Spicy Chickpea Marinara Sauce.

Originally published at approximately 8,000 words. You can comment here or there.

From Twitter 12-21-2009

16:48:26: Funding for old project is completely gone. Now onto a new half time project that was just offered to me. Coworkers are fretting I'm flowing
16:49:57: After getting informally hired half time on new proj I got formally let go from my 1st project here. Weird.

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

It's too late and I will regret this time tomorrow. But

avahasnoalias challenged people to follow a blog she's following and post 30 days of things that make you happy.

I have been wanting to write more in this. I do enjoy the facecrack but doesn't feel like anything I will really be able to look at 5 years from now and understand who I was at the moment with it. The other day being my birthday I went back and read my posts on or near my birthday here in LJ that I had written and it was really valuable.

So I'm starting now, damn the hour.

Saturday things that made me happy Day 1

Sleeping In
Shopping for

steph_taylor birthday present
A moment alone in the house
My new party outfit
Sodium and Caution and Celeste for opening their house for my birthday party
Everyone who attended (so many!)
Everyone who didn't attend but I know love me anyway
Flirting
Other people with birthdays
Presents (Cooking with Coolio! A spanking paddle! Art Books! Pornament!)

Sunday Happy Day 2

People who clean before they leave a party making my work much less
Spending the day with Nila
Dollhouse
Setting up the wii my Mom bought me for my birthday

Monday Happy Day 3

Diet Coke
A home filled with friends when I get home
Lala.com

Current Music: What Does it Mean? The Flaming Lips

happy 1
As I was leaving work, my internal clock went off. What have you been happy about today?
A mundane Monday slipped quickly by, so I expected little to answer with.
But there was a visit from a downstairs coworker today. At our company holiday party, when they started to announce the first silly award everyone voted on, Miss Congeniality, I stepped out of her way. Because she is the nicest, sweetest thing. Her smile when accepting a surprise random second award reminded me of a Disney character somewhere between Bashful and Thumper.

This sweet lady told us about her road rage. Someone was a jerk to her, so she intentionally pissed the person off twice.
They pissed her off once. She pissed them off twice. Therefore she won.

So at 6pm, when I thought about what made me happy, I thought about my reaction to that story.
I am so happy I gave that up.

It's not to say that I never get angry, that I never get frustrated in traffic. It's pretty common for me to talk to someone in another car while I drive. Talk to=rant at. "Ugh, that slow? Really?" "Just decide." "Jeez, don't stop in the middle." "JUST GO!" The only clearer vent for my judging voice is my own self. All those utterings could be things I say to myself.

But yes, progress. At some point, I realized that I was living in an anger that was entirely fabricated and letting it get so much bigger. There's so much I can be angry about that feels inherently righteous. But traffic? I had to stop myself, recognizing the entitlement folly in thinking that I deserved to get anywhere faster than anyone else. Ususally this was a symptom of self-created lateness and it was berating someone else for my self-imposed frustration.

But I intentionally gave up the part where I turned it into a battle with several-thousand-pound foe instead of my own imaginary ones. I may talk to my fellow driver, but I don't let myself engage in battle. Going too slow in front of me or too fast behind? Change lanes.

It's a big world. Try a different road altogether. Live closer. Start sooner. Recognize the other problems that are making this one seem so terrible.

And yes, that theme lately, sneaking in: compassion. Who is that real human in the other car? What insufferable ignominy might they have in their world of car? Even if it's just a bad night's sleep or a need to pee, just let it exist as an option that they have a reason to account for whatever limitation, fast, slow or uncertain.

Too many other possibilities leave me enriched rather than depleted. Ten minutes of an NPR show. Some car dancing. My incapable crooning with the appeal of no audience. Just some me-time to explore the feelings that I too often consider not worthy. I may spend just as much time crying in my car, or muttering. But one thing I don't do with other cars is fight.

I gave up road rage. I'm happy about that.

We've been TechCrunched!

Monstrous just got coverage on TechCrunch!

Check it out here: http://bit.ly/EntrancedTechCrunch and tweet if you feel like lending a hand (or foot!) ; )

tweetledee or tweetledum?

11:44 sorry @briansolis but I hate ning's interface. it is another thing for me to maintain... I just don't end up participating. #
11:50 starting today (solstice) I want to do #30daysofhappiness basically every day I blog / tweet about happiness... #
15:49 yea! Cool! @msamye silona.org the first posts are up! #30daysofhappiness #

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From The Vault: Cross the Blazing Bridge of Fire!

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/12/from-the-vault-cross-the-blazing-bridge-of-fire.html

Did you know that I used to write a weekly column called The Games of Our Lives for The AV Club? It was about classic arcade (and occasionally console) video games that were just far enough off the mainstream radar for Gen Xers to realize that they remembered playing or seeing them, even if they hadn't thought about them since the 80s.

I worked very hard to keep it funny, nostalgic, and even a little informative. Though I didn't always come up with heartbreaking works of staggering genius, I'm really happy with about 95% of the columns I turned in ... like this one for Satan's Hollow:

The flyer from Bally advertises "The hot new battle game that dares you to cross the blazing Bridge of Fire to do battle with the Master of Darkness-Satan of the Hollow!" After languishing for years in the obscurity of role-playing games, Satan finally crossed into the mainstream of arcades everywhere. Parents panicked as kids eagerly coughed up pocketfuls of quarters to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.

Gameplay: It's 1982, so of course you have to enter Satan's Hollow in a spaceship. To pull this off, you build a bridge across a river of fire by picking up pieces from the left side of the screen and dropping them onto the right side of the screen. You have a shield that will protect you (for about .08 seconds) from the gargoyles and demons dropping World War II-style bombs. When the bridge is completed, you cross into the game's eponymous locale and face down Satan himself. If you avoid his magic pitchforks and destroy him, you won't save mankind from eternal damnation, but you will earn bonus points and an extra laser blaster for your space ship.

Before you complain that none of this makes sense, please remember that the number-one song of 1982 was "Centerfold" by J. Geils Band, and the number-one film was Tootsie.

Could be mistaken for: Galaxian, Dark Tower, Phoenix

Kids today may not like it because: Satan looks more like a sea monkey than like the Prince Of Darkness.

Kids today may like it because: Freaking your parents out because you're playing a game with Satan in it is always cool, whether it's 1982 or 2005.

Enduring contribution to gaming history: Doom wouldn't have been able to take players right into Hell in 1993 if Satan's Hollow hadn't opened the portal 11 years earlier.

Every column had a different byline, which I tried very hard to make some kind of clever "nobody's going to get this, except for those few people who do and totally love it" joke:

.mraf ynnuf eht, notaehW liW ot seilper rouy dnes esaelP .egassem terces eht dnuof ev'uoY !snoitalutargnoC

See what I did there? It's a game with SATAN in the title, so I put at BACKWARDS MESSAGE in the column. Ha! Ha! Ha! I am using the Internet!

I loved doing this column, and deliberately retired it while it was still going strong, so it didn't turn into [Pick some series that should have ended years ago while it was still funny. This is not a placeholder note to myself, it's a free option for you, dear reader. Merry Christmas.]