Bucket List

Do you have a bucket list? A list of things to do before you "kick the bucket"?

I do.

I sat down about 3 years ago and just started writing whatever came to my mind that I wanted to do in my life.

It definitely spanned a great distance from travelling to building to experiencing.

Have you ever stopped and thought about what you want to do so very badly and haven't yet taken the time to do? What is it? Something spectacular, I bet.

I want to create my own recipe, wear a dress of my own design, visit Ireland and all fifty states. I want to go to Dutch Harbor, write a novel, take an epic roadtrip.

And the nerd in me wants to buy a copy of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" in London.

It's exciting to read these as much as it is to think about actually doing them and what fun I'll have in the process.

It will be mine...oh yes, it will all be mine.

Quick

Since I don't consider this a sport nor do I enjoy watching it, I will spend little time on it.

NASCAR.

Bloomberg News

"I wanna be a race car passenger - just a guy who bugs the driver. 'Say man, can I turn on the radio? You should slow down. Why we gotta keep going in circles? Can I put my feet out the window? Man, you really like Tide.'" ~ Mitch Hedberg

Did you know where it all started? Bootlegging.

Yeah, running moonshine from the mountains. Men would use small, fast vehicles, re-engineered by themselves, to better evade the police.

It took about a decade after Prohibition for all the moonshine lovers to realize they could just race their cars for funzies since they were already superb in comparison to others on the road.

Thus, a culture's pastime was born.

Interesting about NASCAR is that it is still a family owned and operated business which translates to one of the richest families this side of the Mason-Dixon line. It's international, with headquarters located in Daytona Beach, Florida, and has been in operation since 1947.

I guess I will lend a bit more credit to their racing now since it's tied to such an interesting part of our history: Prohibition. Which in and of itself is pretty fascinating.

But I digress. I wash my hands of this non-sport that claims the South.

They drive in a circle. Honestly, people...a circle.

Larger than Yao

There's a rare phenomenon happening right this moment in Houston, Texas: the blooming of the Corpse Flower named Lois, which only makes me think of my Cajun Grandmother.

Regardless, check out some of the facts on this rare breed of flower:

1) It produces a smell unlike any other flower in the world, that of a rotting mammal. Yeah, dead human. Visit Lois when she blooms and you'll feel like a member of the CSI team when they discover the body of a dead hooker in a back alley off the strip. Be one with Grissom, or Morpheus, depending on your show loyalties.

2) Its true name is Amorphophallus titanum. Break that down into its Greek parts and you'll quickly figure out why a BBC broadcaster renamed it to 'titan arum' when spoken about on a documentary chronicling the blooming process. The sensors would have had a hard time covering that one up and the fines would have racked up like the jackpot on a Vegas slotmachine. Apparently Vegas is on my mind...

3) Circumference can reach 10ft. 10ft, I said!

4) Native to rainforests in Sumatria, Indonesia.

5) First U.S. flowerings: NY in 1937 and 1939

6) Carrion-eating beetles and Flesh Flies pollinate it, further enhancing its intoxicating smell.

7) The male and female flowers grow from the same stalk. Born together, bloom together (female first, male second), die together. The essence of true love.

8) After the flower blooms and dies within a short period of time (hours, days, very short) a single leaf grows in its place. It's almost as a Phoenix, rising from the ashes of its parents...incapable of aiding in Dumbledore's escape, though. This leaf can grow as high as 20ft. and 16ft. across.

9) Current record: Stuttgart, Germany with a bloom measuring 9ft.6in. high.

10) The two documented occurrences in Texas: a) 2004 at Stephen F. Austin State University (Go Jacks!) and b) today or tomorrow at the Museum of Natural Science in Houston, Texas!

And Becca's going to see her. I'm not a lover of flowers, just a lover of rarities.

Addendum: I did not go see Lois in person. The time slipped away and before I knew it she had wilted and looked too sad and dreary to visit. I thought I best let a dying elder be.

Doom

Never tell a darkly imaginative person the following:

1) There's been an accident.
2) I have bad news.

The person who the news is about will subsequently be flat as a pancake in the middle of the road, crushed beneath their car after having been strangled by a mass murderer. And I will see it all happen over, over and over again.

Doomsday imaginations tend to perform repetitive actions quite easily.

Porsche Cayenne

I find bad drivers to be a thorn in my side.

I find bad drivers in nice (and subsequently, undeserving) cars to be infinitely more painful.

That machine deserves better. Take your foot off the brake, utilize the phenomenal engine, let the steering wheel guide itself around a corner, they are meant to do that.

For the love of all overly practical, Toyota-owning, skilled drivers out there, please...please do these things.

Rediscovery, kinda like Columbus

I completely love my friend’s list of favorite things (D, you’re the cleverest) and I am tailoring it to show my favorite things rediscovered recently:

àThe melodious, raucous, upbeat and moving tunes of Flogging Molly. I have loved them since the first time I was introduced at the tender age of 15 while sitting in a new friend’s car filled with adolescents. The music was playing and I yelled to the driver (we were still parked, mind you, I would never work to distract a moving car),
“Who is this?” to which he told me,
“Flogging Molly!”

“What kind of music is this?”
“It’s an Irish punk-rock band.”

What is that??? I had no idea, I just knew I had found true bliss for my heart of musical hearts.

à The incredible world of Ender and Bean. I first read Ender’s Game a very long time ago. I honestly can’t remember when or who told me to or whether I just decided that, “Damnit, this book keeps staring at me on the library shelf, I’m taking it.” I’ve never once looked back. I’ve re-read the book at least 7 or 8 times, counting recently. Yes, I know, it ends the same every time. I still love reading its tragedy and humor and intelligence, because this book is its own character. It has come to be more than pages bound together. It is epic. Colossal. The book of books. The book I wish all other books would look to and ask, How do you do it? And take something away from it. I will say this, though. While Ender’s Game is the far superior book versus Ender’s Shadow, its parallel novel, the series that follows Shadow, and Bean, annihilates its competition in the rest of the Game series. Destroys completely and utterly. Without mercy.

à Piracy and pirates and all things “yo, ho, ho and bottle of rum.” Drink up, matey’s. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was really quite a fun movie despite the persistence of Orlando Bloom at destroying every scene he’s in. He doesn’t always succeed…but on occasion he does. Idiot boy. I hope he realizes how lucky he was to get cast in THE greatest film trilogy of all time – yes, I claim it defeats Star Wars, Indiana Jones, AND Back to the Future – the Lord of the Rings, but also in the wildly popular and oh, so fun to watch Pirates trilogy. For such a terrible actor, he sure gets some fabulous parts. And Keira Knightley should stop smiling. Thank you.

Terrible vs. passable, but always very pretty.

à Driving. Yes, driving. Even in 90* heat at 8AM where the sun is staring straight at me while I sit in stop-and-go traffic. I have rediscovered my love for driving. Let’s remember, Becca didn’t drive for about two months solid. And I’m no slouch to driving, seeing as I’ve been hauling my gear 50+ miles daily since I was a sophomore in college. And no, I do not care to move right now, thank you. I can crank up the music (mostly Flogging Molly right now, but Paramore and Vampire Weekend are in the queue) and feel the A/C chilling the frames of my glasses, causing them to quickly fog over when I open the door. It’s glorious. Such freedom. An “I can go anywhere” attitude with these four wheels beneath me and this V6 engine to power me. I’m in love with my car. I have no shame about it; I claim it just as I do my affinity for Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and endless reading and learning to knit (seriously) and going to bed by 10PM. Sometimes 9. Yeah…9.

Great television cut short

An Ode to Joss Whedon:

Well…not really an ode, seeing as I don’t know how to write one and never was much for poetry.

But I can definitely tout his glory.

I know he did Buffy and Angel and Dollhouse, a big huzzah for those also great shows but I want to talk about the brilliant but short-lived world of Firefly, it being the one that most interests me. The entire background of the world and the people was incomprehensibly smart. It’s set in the future, humans have reached outer space and found other worlds to inhabit, not unlike the colonies formed by Ender’s jeesh (Don’t know what I’m talking about? You either a) Don’t like science fiction writing or b) Have a poor memory and are utterly disgracing the beauty that is the Enderverse). But here’s the best kicker: the two superpowers who reigned on high at the end of a mostly unified Earth were America…and China. Not completely unfeasible, that.

Their language and the slang used were a combination of American English and Mandarin. So clever, so quick you can almost miss it when they curse. It’s tickling how fascinating it is to watch a scene of dialogue play out on the screen. He has them say, “Look at all that shiny,” instead of loot, or treasure or some other standard word. I need a synonym for clever because this man epitomizes it. To the core. Ingenious…or adroit. I like those.

Read this astute (hey, there’s another one) man’s biography and it will blow your mind how many celebrated television shows, movies and comics he’s touched through writing, directing, and acting.

Some people are just born for this. They are incredibly talented in a art form or a subject and they flourish in it and touch the world. The good ones always do either in massive ways, such as Harry Potter and Twilight (don't shoot the messenger...these stories have taken the world by storm), but also with underground followings that grow to be something much greater, like Broken Lizard and The Boondock Saints whose fans were so rabid and begged for so much more that the film industry acquiesced, bowed down, and gave the green light for Troy Duffy to give us another.

I tend to throw my lot in with both groups, but my true heart lies underground touting the brilliance of the unknown to the masses. One day they’ll learn and I’ll be there to relish another convert to the crew.