Quote #34

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
- Sir Francis Bacon

We watched a Netflix movie tonight.

My wife loaded the disc into the player, and right away, the RIAA reminded me of why I am annoyed by them so much.

A dominant, colorful, annoying anti-pirating screen was displayed for way longer than necessary in the beginning, then a ton of previews for other movies played automatically. I wasn’t timing it, but I’d say it took more than ten minutes to get through them.

I think I’m a lot like many other movie watchers – I enjoy the occasional movie preview, therefore I rarely skip to the main menu unless I’m in a hurry. So I decided to watch the previews. When we finally made it to the menu I realized that I had been duped. They had known that I would be willing to sit through a few, so they fed me way more than I bargained for. Alright fine. You win this one, right? I mean, I could have skipped to the main menu.

The menu only had two options – play movie and scene selection. We watched the movie, then at the end I pulled the disc out to package it and mail it back out.

I couldn’t help but notice that the disc was labeled as a “Rental” disc. So this thing was intended as a rental. That explains the extra long movie preview marathon at the beginning, the simplistic, featureless menu, and the glaring anti-piracy warning.

Man. Those guys are so paranoid. They’ve got to take a chill pill. They realize that their business model is irrelevant and they are grasping at straws trying to find ways to force us to support their dying business.

The solution to their problem isn’t going to fall into their laps. The opportunity to continue making money with their business model isn’t going to come knocking on their door. They are going to have to make an opportunity.

There are many proposed solutions out there, but these guys just aren’t interested in changing. They are foolishly sitting around trying to jam 1″ cubes through 1″ diameter circular holes. It’s not going to happen guys.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts on this quote tonight. You can’t sit on your bum and wait for opportunities. You must get out there and make opportunities. You’ve got to take charge and find your place in the world, because it’s not going to happen on its own.

Quote #19

“Anybody who watches three games of football in a row should be declared brain dead.”
- Erma Bombeck

The fact that this is one of my favorite quotes should tell you that I’m not a big football fan. In fact, I don’t watch football at all.

I used to though. In high school I played in the marching band and attended every single home game and a few away games for four years. It isn’t my most pleasant memory, but it did teach me a lot about what I don’t like about football.

However, due to a recent decision to avoid acting on or entertaining too many negative thoughts, I’m not going to write about all the things I don’t like about football. Instead, I’m going to write about the one thing that I love about football.

That’s right, the world’s most adamant football avoider does love one thing about the sport.

I love how tactical football is. I’ve spent a lot of time looking for a good game to test my ability to strategize and create tactics. I don’t care for real-time strategy games, Risk has too much stock in the roll of the dice, and chess is too restrictive for me.

Although I don’t care for any of the physical aspects of football, I do have to admit that it is one of the most amazingly tactical sports out there. The strategies involved, the planning, and even the brutality are the most akin to war of any sport in my opinion.

I love what I read and learned in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, and I can’t think of a better sport to apply its lessons than football. This doesn’t mean you’ll be seeing me involved in football any time soon, it’s just meant to show you that I do admire the sport for something.

Of course, I also have a deep respect for the level of physical training and fitness that football players have to achieve and maintain. So you can see it’s not so much the sport and it’s participants that I have problems with, it’s the fans. I completely agree with Erma Bombeck when she says that anyone who watches three games of it in a row should be declared brain dead.

Quote #18

“Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.”
- Dame Edna Everage

Some of my favorite wisdom comes from quotes by comedians. Something about understanding the science of humor must make comedians unusually wise. They just seem to really “get” what it means to be alive.

Obviously this is not a universally applicable rule, but I particularly love when comedians make wisdom funny. I suppose my favorite way to deal with life is to make light of it. Sure, there are some things that should be taken seriously, but everything else should be taken as lightly as possible.

It always bothers me when people react to jokes with law suits, violence or threats.

One of my favorite Internet humorists is David Thorne. He often pokes fun at people, sometimes pushing the joke past “the line” with certain individuals. I believe the problem these people have is that they take themselves too seriously.

The existence of these people is a thorn in the side of anyone wishing to make humor in a way that could be considered even remotely offensive. I, myself, have recently come up against this problem while attempting to promote my own work of humorous fiction. I have to keep reminding myself that not everyone will be able to take the jokes for “jokes.”

I think that, most of the time, when people can’t take a joke it is because they are taking it personally. This means that somewhere inside of them they identify with the joke in a way that personalizes it. Even if the joke wasn’t directed at them personally, they take it personally and choose to become offended. That’s when I would say that they are taking themselves too seriously. They should not be afraid to laugh at those things that they identify personally with. By laughing they can participate in the benefits of humor. They can stay happy. By choosing to become offended, not only do they miss the opportunity to feel good, they take an opportunity to become bitter and sometimes even hateful.

I, for one, love making light of as much of life as possible. I believe that even God has a sense of humor. It can make hard times bearable, it can make the sun shine on a cloudy day, and it can make good memories out of any situation. Who would want to trade all of that for living constantly at odds with the world? And, when I’m trying to make someone’s day with a touch of humor, why should I have to live in fear that he’ll take himself too seriously?

This particular instance with my friend Autumn (yes, she’s female) could have turned out ugly:

Lucky for me, most of my friends don’t take themselves too seriously. Now if only that attitude were a little more universal.

Quote #4

“Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.”
- Burns, quoted in Life

 

I enjoy this quote because it feels just as sarcastic as it does genuine and either way it contains a great truth.  It’s hard to say (without any background on the context or intented meaning) whether he was being completely serious, satirical or a mixture of both.

However he intended it to be interpreted (and he probably inteded both the sarcastic and genuine meanings) it has great meaning to me this election.  I have another quote (which I’m sure will come up in the future) that deals with politics and deals with a similar idea, and both quotes express an idea that I believe.  I truly feel that political and government entities have lost touch with the reality of their post in society.

On the serious side of this quote, the people who know what needs to be done in this country, the true voice of America, is caught up in the daily routine.  They go to work, do their jobs and go home.  Nothing great happens to improve the nation, nothing spectacular comes along that changes their life.  Those who would do the best job running this country are to busy trying to get by in life to actually do the job.

Now, I think the heavier meaning (the more significant aspect) of this quote is in the sarcasm.  Think about how easy it is for us, as bystanders and witnesses to all that happens in the government, to criticize our leaders and say we could to better.  Even if the government is out of touch with the reality of our lives, they are doing what they believe to be right (at least some of the time, anyhow) and I like to think they are doing the best they can.

Just like the beer can wielding armchair quarterback yelling at his television set Sunday afternoon, many average Americans (especially in the service industries like taxi drivers and hair stylists) tend to pass their time with their customers discussing issues they know very little about and giving their “professional” opinion about how a particular negotiation might have been handled better, or how a particular bill should have been drafted to more fully benefit the community (meaning, benefit them personally).

Perhaps what Burns was getting at was this: Every one of those political backseat drivers could end their argument by saying, “Of course I could do a better job of running the country, but I’m too busy cutting hair, earning my dollar, to actually do anything about it.”