It's Dai Time

Katie & Scott & Simon & Cecily.

Category: year26 (Page 8 of 92)

I posted an entry each day during my 26th year of life.

Day 337: comics

January 15, 2010 / / 0 Comments

I never had comic books as a kid, and even nowadays, I haven’t read all that many comics.

More than anything else, I’ve started to become a bit more interested in graphic novels, but I’d be fooling myself if I said that I was anything other than a bumbling amateur, trying to both understand the medium at the same time that I’m entertaining myself with the art and the story.

Beyond that, comics were never a part of my childhood, the format never entered into my circle of hobbies.

Is it too late?  I feel like comics are one of those things that, like playing the clarinet, if not taken up early enough in life, never really get an opportunity later to get a foothold.  Nowadays, I do so much other stuff in my free time: there are TV shows to watch, video games to play, a house and cats to upkeep, and – soon – a baby to care for.  Without the nostalgic joy of comics to look back on, could I really introduce comic-reading now into my life and not feel like it was more of a distraction?

I bring this up today because while surfing the web late at night, I found that Marvel has a digital comic subscription, which would allow someone to read most of their back catalog of comic books in digital format while connected to the Internet.  It’s an interesting model, and the lack of a physical comic book – while probably quite distressing for those who had grown up with subscriptions that arrived in the mail and local comic book stores – is not something that would bother me too much.  And I do really enjoy what I know of the Marvel characters/universe from movies and video games.

But, yeah.  Comics.  Something I could get into, even as an adult?

Day 336: vines

January 13, 2010 / / 0 Comments

In our backyard, there are two trees that grow long-reaching vines, of the Little Shop of Horrors variety. These vines can grow amazingly quickly and can extend up walls, behind tresses, and up into the higher recesses of a larger “real” tree we have out there.

While they provide for some nice greenery in our yard, vines have always wigged me out just a little bit. Maybe it only started after I watched The Ruins a while ago, but I feel like they’re a very dangerous plant.

Vines, unlike most leaves and branches and tree parts, have a thin but sturdy core. Strong enough to ensnare a helpless passerby, string them up, and then perhaps…strangle them like a serpent. Vines grow at a rate that seems unbelievable, taking over a wall within a season.

I’m fairly certain that if there were a nuclear holocaust, vines would be right there with cockroaches in terms of survivability.

They feel like predators, like little green Napoleons, stretching out their fingers for more ground to cover, more area to conquer. More humans to consume.

Anyway, the point is that Katie and I have decided to make this upcoming Saturday a yard work day and one of our primary goals will the culling and largescale removal of a lot of these vines. If you don’t hear from me on Sunday, I may be being digested by the vines, so you should probably come and either cut me out or bring some RoundUp.

Day 335: sniffles

January 13, 2010 / / 0 Comments

I have the sniffles.

I think the sniffles are worse than a full-blown cold or actual sickness. When you’re actually sick, you can take a day off of work and sleep in and eat soup while watching daytime television. Your body may not be very functional, but you know you’re on the way to recovery.

Of course, being entirely healthy is the best option. But the sniffles? They’re just enough to be annoying without being bothersome enough to take solid action. You feel just a bit off and don’t quite know which direction you’re headed. Am I going to get sicker? Or will this just pass in a day or so, like it has so many times before?

It’s kind of like the weather. I enjoy the weather most when it’s bright and sunny and there’s not a cloud in the sky. That’s a great day. But if it’s going to rain or snow, I want it to pour and thunderstorm or blizzard (as long as I’m inside, making soup and watching daytime television). I don’t want some weak drizzle or slushy mess on the road.

That’s what the sniffles are. A slushy mess.

Day 334: excuse me? never mind

January 11, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Katie and I are cut from the same mold when it relates to one thing: sending food back.  This attitude relates to other, smaller dining mistakes, too.  In a phrase, we don’t like to cause a fuss.  Sending a whole dish back?  It seems like such an affront to the restaurant.

This is true even when it is perfectly within our rights to cause a fuss.  Sometimes, a burger we order will come without a dipping sauce that appeared on the menu, or a drink or appetizer that was ordered simply never made it onto the bill (or our table).  Oftentimes, we’ll dismiss this.  It’s a small mistake that didn’t really matter and we’re satisfied to remain silent and not cause any undue distress to our waiter.

I’ve sometimes wondered if this is something we should strive to change.  I’m sure that most waitstaffs wouldn’t hesitate to fix or accommodate our requests, and we – as customers – should get what we want.  That’s how the whole transaction works, right?

But it takes a certain character, a certain level of confidence, a line of knowing you’re in the right that we often just fall short of.  While there’s an obvious line of customer abuse or neglect that prompts us to speak up, we just let slide most of the small (honest?) mistakes that get made.

I wonder if other people feel the same way, or if they’d speak up at the slightest mistake.  Did we get raised to believe that doing so is akin to whining, while others feel that to stay silent is akin to being doormats?

I certainly wouldn’t judge one side as being better than the other, although I would argue that the extremes of either case are equally annoying.

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