The Future? What I want the future to be?

It's like there is a present underneath the Christmas Tree.

I can't open the present until Christmas. I don't even know if it is my present to open, it's not labeled or anything.

Except this time, I'm not really sure when Christmas is.

Always winter, but never Christmas?

I dunno. I just want winter to end and spring to come.

And it will.

I decided to stop trying to rush spring. I'm letting God bring spring to me.

penn the atheist

new blog

Hey there everybody, just want to let you know about my new blog, called Brown Shoes. MVNU admissions and marketing decided they wanted me to blog especially for them, so perspective students can look and see what it's like to be a real-life college student. You can click on this shoe to get to it:
Or you can just go to bennettmvnu.wordpress.com yourself.

NOW ---> this will be different than this blog. Therefore I will do my best to keep this blog going, even though during the school year I only get to post about once a month.

Brown Shoes will be more about actual specific events going on in my life at college, while this blog will continue to be random lessons of life as always. Brown Shoes will be updated at least once a week, and will usually contain pictures of REAL LIFE things!

I will probably post on this blog more frequently during the summer, as I have a lot more time to do so then.

I never used to like blogging that much, but that was because I had a narrow view of what it could be. I thought it was just writing about my day, and I thought that would be boring to everyone. But now I have figured out my own way of doing it, and it is a lot of fun.

Anyway, enjoy :)

How to Draw

I think I'll write a book. It will teach people how to draw everything. I've already completed two pages. Here's a preview:

PAGE ONE:

I showed the first page to an experienced art professor on campus. She said, "Well, I think it's missing something."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Um, you could start by adding some shading," she responded.

"GOOD IDEA!" I said zealously.

So for page two, I made sure it had shading...

PAGE TWO:


I can't wait to get it done. It would be an honor to get published. It's the American Dream. It seems like everyone at least at one point in their life thinks to themselves, "Boy, I oughta write a book." And then some of them actually take initiative, and think, "Boy, I oughta write a book about something like BEING A CHRISTIAN, because there are only eight million books written about BEING A CHRISTIAN and I think I should write another one. And then people can become even more confused. That sounds like a good idea." I know I've been wanting to write a book about Christianity, so don't let my sarcastic tone mislead you. I just can't write it because I don't have the attention span or the knowledge to. I'll stick to drawing books. We could always use more of those.

I have no idea why I just made this post.

greatly mediocre/why you shouldn't

This blog has two wonderful parts that have nothing to do with each other. . . I still put them both within the same post though, out of fear that if I posted two separate posts you would only read the more recent one. RIGHT??

Well, nevermind. I end up tying the two parts together somehow. . . TA DA!

PART ONE: Greatly Mediocre
Once again Daniel Coutz has inspired a blog post. I dedicate this entry in honor of his geniusness

Tonight my good friend Daniel used the term "greatly mediocre" to describe his dining experience at Golden Corral. While this term may seem silly at first glance, I believe it really just means "if you looked up the word 'mediocre' in the dictionary, you would see a picture of this next to it." It is something that captures the true, organic essence of what mediocricity* is at its core. Examples:

"Watching this Arena Football Game is a greatly mediocre experience."

"This school newspaper is greatly mediocre."

"This episode of 'Step by Step' is greatly mediocre."

"Mehmet Okur is a greatly mediocre basketball player."**

"This blog post is greatly mediocre."

I think you catch my drift. But all this thinking about things being "greatly mediocre" caused me to think about how I sometimes describe things as "wonderfully terrible." Things that are wonderfully terrible, by my definition, are things that are poor in quality, but at the same time you find yourself loving it, or at least enjoying it because you enjoy making fun of it. Do you know what I mean? Kind of like a lovable loser. For example. . .

"William Hung's singing is wonderfully terrible!"

"This chocolate cheese is wonderfully terrible!"

"This yo-yo I bought at the Dollar Tree is wonderfully terrible!"

"Big Joe's Polka Show on the Rural Free Delivery TV sure is wonderfully terrible!"

"This blog post is wonderfully terrible."

See, the phenomenon that commonly occurs is that many of the "greatly mediocre" things are often more frustrating than the things that could be "wonderfully terrible." Like RoseArt products for example. I can't stand RoseArt stuff. They take advantage of poor Sunday School teachers who think they are getting a good deal by spending a little less by buying low-quality RoseArt crayons instead of Crayola crayons. How much difference could there be? GAH! It's like trying to use Saran-Wrap instead of toilet paper. It's just not the same.

Hmm, maybe some things aren't even worthy of being called "mediocre."

----Okay pretend I am using a clever transition phrase/illustration/diversion tool here-----

PART TWO: why you shouldn't

Our kindergarten teachers always told us it was bad for to swallow gum because it would clog up our intestines or something like that. Well I did some good quality research on the world wide web and found the REAL reason you should not swallow gum. The teachers were just too shy/proper to explain to us that this is really what happens when people swallow bubble gum:


IN CONCLUSION:

I'd rather purchase a low-quality product that I am expecting to be low-quality than purchase a mediocre-quality product I am expecting to be high-quality.

I guess I would feel the same way about myself. I'd rather be a low-quality person that people can tell is a low-quality person than a poser who everyone thinks is great but finds out isn't all he's cracked up to be.

See, if I make myself out to be some great, wonderful, amazing person with all the qualities you expect to find in a great, wonderful, amazing person but on the inside I am anything but those things, it may work out perfectly for me temporarily. But after a while these things I have hidden will become problematic and expose themselves. And that is even more embarrassing and shame-inducing. Just like the poor little boy who swallowed his gum so his teacher wouldn't see, and then ended up with a giant bubble coming out of his backside.

:)

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* - "mediocricity" isn't really a word, but I like using it instead of "mediocrity." "Mediocrity" sounds too crunchy.
** - I just used Mehmet Okur as an example because his name sounds a lot like the word "mediocre."

Good

I think I may be on to something.

I think it's a good sign.

I've been at points in my life where things are going so good, they seem too good to be true.

And sometimes they are indeed too good to be true, and that's disappointing.

Other times they seem too good to be true, but then I realize they really aren't all that great.

But then sometimes things are just good.

And it is now when I feel the most at ease. The most satisfied.

Because right now things aren't too good to be true.

They are just good.

That's what I would consider a real kind of good.

And that's really good.

Unibrowsing

I've told this story to a few of my friends. But I will tell it again, and make some witty connection to a deeper meaning or something.

Last year I roomed with a great person named Daniel Coutz. We would share all of our deepest thoughts with each others.

We shared our likes and dislikes, our dreams and disappointments. And we shared our fears.

Daniel doesn't like mullets.

I don't like unibrows.

Daniel has been afraid that he will wake up with a mullet someday, somehow letting it happen without even realizing it.

I have been afraid of waking up with a unibrow with the same thing happening.

Last Sunday night at this time I was in the PSU trying to sleep because of the power outage. I didn't get to sleep. But at 6:00 am they let us go back to our real beds. I slept for a while. But I dreamed as well.

I dreamed a terrible dream.

In my dream, it was dark in the apartment--because of the power outage--and I walked into the bathroom. I looked in the dark mirror and saw something hideous on my face. It was a unibrow! But it wasn't just any unibrow. It was a unibrow that went from the top of my forehead to the tip of my nose.

It was gross.

So in my dream, I was so disgusted, so I reached for my shaver...

...my electric shaver...

...that needed charged.

Then that was the end of the dream.

---------------------

But really, it is interesting to me that my weird, unreasonable fear would cause me to have a dream such as this, at the one time when I can't make it all better by shaving it off.

Why do dreams take advantage of our fears? I have always been afraid of heights, so I always have dreams were I am falling to my most probable death.

See as long as I am in control of my height, I can make it. I can clutch a guardrail or just not go on the roof in the first place.

But once I am falling, I've lost control. There's nothing I can do about it.

Once the electric has gone out and I can't shave my unibrow, I've lost control. There's nothing I can do about it.

I guess the big question is:

Could the biggest fear I have had, be the fear of losing control?

Blasts from the Pasts for August - Nick Arcade

A----------------------------------------
This is what someone on youtube claims is the first barbie commercial ever. The only thing that has changed about them is that they are slightly more politically correct now.

"Someday I'm gonna be exactly like you . . . I'll make believe that I am you . . ."

Hmm....

B----------------------------------------
Anybody remember this show?




Poor Nadine.

When I Am an Old Man...

When I am an old man, if I make it that far, I will have long stretchy earlobes. They will look like squeezed play'doh.


When I am an old man, I will be very wrinkly, and I will wear hats that I think look really good, but are actually ridiculous.


When I am an old man, I will complain about how the newspaper comics aren't as funny as they used to be.


When I am an old man, I will eat cereal that is high in fiber, and think it is delicious.


When I am an old man, I will get really excited when I find a coupon for the cereal that is high in fiber.



When I am an old man, I will forget to zip up my pants at least once every other day.



When I am an old man, my wife will say something to me, and I will hear her, but say "What?" anyway, just so I have more time to think of the answer.


When I am an old man, my wife will say something to me, I won't understand her and say "What?" She will repeat herself, and then I won't understand what she said again. But because I hate to keep asking her to repeat herself, I will just say, "I don't know," and hope it wasn't important.



When I am an old man, I will buy a mailbox shaped like a goose.



When I am an old man, I will have several mugs given to me as gifts, but none of them will be used for drinking. They will all be on different desktops, filled with ballpoint pens that have the name of a medication on them.



When I am an old man, I will find myself using one of these:

And I will drive one of these:

Except mine will probably hover because it will be in the second half of the century.

When I am an old man, I will have one of these around my neck:

And it will save my life.

And so I will go on commercials . . .

And help other people.

Except by this time these things will become commonplace instead:

Right now these cost about $65,000, but by the time I need one, it will be mass produced.

And it will hover.

When I am an old man, I will sit on a bench in the park and examine my fingers. Meanwhile, a passing parent will tell her child, "Look, son. It is an old man. Sit and talk to him. He is full of wisdom and experience."
Then the small boy will come and sit by me and say, "Hey, you're old. Tell me a story."
And I will continue looking at my fingers, and then I will say, "Yesterday the grocery store raised the price on the wheat bread ten cents. Now I have to use less toilet paper to make up for the difference."
And the boy will leave, with more wisdom.

When I am an old man, I will sit with my old wife, and we will watch Game Show Network. And we will call the people on Family Feud "idiots" when they make stupid guesses for "things you find in a glove compartment." And during the commercials, we will compare the moles and liver spots on our arms.

When I am an old man, I will eat my fat free, sugar free ice cream bar, and let my old dog lick the stick after I am done. But I will make sure I leave some ice cream on it for her to enjoy. Then the dog will lick my feet.

But when I am an old man, it won't bother me that I am old. It won't bother me that I may not have much more that I can do before I am done. But I will be content. Because I lived my life the way I was supposed to. I did what I could. I passed something on to the next generation.

And when I am an old man, it won't bother me that my wife doesn't look like she did when she was twenty-four. Because she will look like home. And when I hold her, she will feel like home. When I talk to her, she will sound like home. She will be so much a part of me, that I will never stop believing she is the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth.

Even when she is an old woman, and I am an old man.

When I am an old man, God will be more real to me than ever. God will make more sense to me than ever. We will be old pals that understand each other. We will be ready for each other.

Because I'm not ready now. I get to spend eternity in heaven. I only get a few years on earth. I want to do as much as I can here while I can.

And when I am an old man, I will most definitely probably look like this:

the boy will learn from someone

I was talking to my friend Nicole tonight about how kids are being raised in this society.

Before you think, "Boy, that's all easy for him to say--he hasn't raised kids yet! Who's he to talk?" Just hear me out. I want to challenge our generation. I am in no way saying parenting is easy. And I have observed many things, including things my parents did.

I think you can probably figure out the details of what is disturbing me from just a simple story from working at Cici's:

Over a year ago, one day I was cleaning tables and junk, and I noticed a mother eating with her little boy. The woman was on her cell phone the entire meal. The boy ate virtually by himself. It was so nice of this mother to spend good quality time with her son, right? Oh yes.

It made my stomach turn inside out. I wanted to take her cell phone and send it through the conveyor belt pizza oven.

We need a refreshed generation of parents. I know there are many great parents out there, but I think we are slacking.

And I'm not talking about rules and spankings, necessarily.

I'm talking about effort.

There are many great ways to rear a kid good. But it takes work.

We need parents that are willing to invest in their kids' lives more than other crap.

Because the boy will learn from someone.

The boy will learn how to make conversation.

The boy will learn how to make friends.

The boy will learn how to interact.

The boy will learn how to have relationships.

The boy will learn what to do with his body.

The boy will learn how to treat women.

The boy will learn how to treat men.

The boy will learn how to treat you.

The boy will learn from someone.

The question isn't whether or not the boy will learn it all.

The question is who will the boy learn it all from?