DOOM Goes the Dynamite

Did anyone play the first-person shooter "DOOM" growing up? Because I think this guy did. 400 rounds. 17 grenades. 1 mine. 30 enemies fended off. All in a days work.

Instead of a chainsaw, though, this guy attempted to use a sandbag, and then his gun tripod. I kept reading and hoping that there would be mention of the BFG somewhere in there. No such luck.

Regardless, what a stud.

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March Laziness, or Procrastination

Every year around February, I always tell myself I will start following college basketball so that I can be prepared for March Madness. It never happens.

Every year, the week before the Madness starts, I always tell myself I'll do some research so I can give myself a puncher's chance in my friends' bracket. That never happens, either.

So the night before/day of the tournament, I throw together my bracket -- basing it on how the teams did last year -- and hope that history repeats itself... which it never does, because, as is hinted at in its name, the tournament is madness, pandemonium, and chaos.

The result is that I am always somewhere in the middle of my bracket challenge. I have grown used to mediocrity, but that's fine because the games are still fun to watch.

Slightly related endnote. I thought the following headline on ESPN.com from Saturday was lame: If Florida (2-seed) is ranked higher than UCLA (7-seed), what is informative about a headline that says the better team will be a "tough" opponent for the lower-ranked team?

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Why I Worry When Work Meetings Go Long

Mrs. RoSA tends to worry a little bit when I am incommunicado. Have a listen to the most recent voicemail:



Wife-mandated caveat: She is not crazy -- her mind just tends to drift towards worst-case scenarios, is all.

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Photo of the Week -- The Ol' Mid-Haircut Stab Haircut 14 Mar 2011

This has to be one of the greater mugshots ever:

From Mediaite, this man, named David Davis (sounds like his parents put a lot of thought and creativity into naming him), was:

"...getting his haircut when he was approached by a man he had previously been arguing with. Davis claims that he feared for his safety, so he slashed the guy with a pair of scissors. Police later arrested him and he was charged with first-degree assault. He didn’t, however, get to finish his haircut..."

Yup. That. just. happened.

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6 Unsolicited Observations on LotR

Ever since Mrs. RoSA bought me The Hobbit for my birthday and I devoured -- I kid you not, I literally ate the book -- in three days, I have been revisiting the movies a little bit at a time over the last few weeks. They are as good as ever. Some opinions/immutable truths:

1) Fellowship is still the best of the three, and I challenge anyone to convince me otherwise. Sean Bean (Boromir) and Ian McKellan (Gandalf) are amazing.

My boy Sean steals the show -- and also makes an attempt at the Ring

2) They should make special edition Blu-Rays that have a "Frodo & Sam Scene" filter. My tolerance for hobbits longingly staring at each other is very low -- last I checked, it was 0 -- so I essentially skip all of their scenes in The Two Towers and The Return of the King now. The movies are much shorter that way, anyway.

3) In cinematic history, has there been a more worthless protagonist than Frodo? I challenge the readers to present me with one (I'm throwing down all kinds of gauntlets...I must be feeling particularly belligerent today), because I am hard-pressed to think of a character that has contributed less to the success of a mission than Frodo Baggins of the Shire.* I've never seen a protagonist so quickly and so completely plummet from "well, he's not very useful, but at least he tries hard" (Fellowship) to "good grief -- watching Frodo's disintegration into pathetic worthlessness is like the Middle Earth metaphor for Lindsay Lohan's personal life" (Two Towers and Return). Literally, there is a scene in The Return of the King when he is collapsed on the mountain-side, looks up as if he is going to do something compelling, crawls on all fours for one, maybe two feet, then collapses in a pitiful heap.**

I guess a testament to the quality of these movie-making is that I despise the protagonist so much yet still love the movies.

*Bumbling idiots like Inspector Closeau in The Pink Panther do not count as candidates here, because the whole point of those movies is that they are bumbling idiots that just happen to succeed.

**I just Googled "Worthless Movie Protagonists" and nothing of value showed up. We can do this, people!

4) I do a killer Gimli impression. But only of him yelling. So basically my impersonation repertoire has been expanded from "Bruce Lee with Sunglasses" to "Bruce Lee with Sunglasses" and "Yelling Dwarf." The audition calls for acting roles should start pouring in now.

5) Because I never saw Fellowship in the theater, I'm constantly asking Mrs. RoSA how the audience responded to certain scenes in the film. I think she's getting sick of saying "yes, Josh, everyone was balling when Gandalf fell off the bridge," as she watches me wipe my eyes yet again.

6) Speaking of that scene of Gandalf falling, how about that expression on Aragorn's face (see below)? This is less the look of someone thinking "Man...my boy Gandalf just plunged to his death" and more the look of "Oh shiz. That means I'm in charge, doesn't it?"

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The Dilemma of My Blog

For those of you who follow the blog (ie my five family members and friends that are bored at work), you may have noticed I have not been blogging as of late. I've been having an existential crisis, blog-wise, and have been thinking about the purpose and opportunity cost of RoSA. (I actually don't know what 'opportunity cost' means, but I'm hoping I guessed correctly.)

You all know that I love writing. The process is an enjoyably challenging puzzle of creation to me: to observe, to take scattered and unformed thoughts and make them coherent, to take seemingly disparate thoughts and to synthesize them, to refine sentences in order to achieve precision... Oh yes, I can't forget to add my personal favorite: "to make ridiculously outlandish comparisons to prove an irrelevant point."

In addition, the continual practice of writing has yielded tangible results: improved writing, where I've learned what works, what doesn't work, and why through the proces; and the forum to chronicle and document the things that happen in my life. These reasons are all part of the writing puzzle that make it fun and fulfilling.

These are also, for better or worse, the same reasons that make the writing puzzle so frustrating -- like the 1000-piece puzzle of pure blue sky I tried to put together as a kid (<-- completely fabricated for illustrative purposes). Doing all of those things that I just gushed about like a teenage girl -- and to do them well -- require thought and time. Both are premium and limited resources for anybody. This created a dilemma with the blog that I have struggled with and tried to balance for three and a half years: Because I will not get paid to write what I like, I cannot commit the time and attention to writing that I would like to. It will always be a lower priority. Unfortunately, writing that I am willing to "publish" for public consumption requires time. But if I wait to publish something I'm completely satisfied with, nothing will ever get written, because I cannot allocate the required time to write. And if I don't continue writing, then there will be attrition. It's a cycle; and a vicious one at that. I can sort of see why Hemingway went with the shotgun.

The conclusion and compromise I reached over the years was that I would have to force myself to write, even if I wasn't completely satisfied with what I wrote all of the time. So I did weekly entries that required deadlines, such as PotW and the Weekly Highlights. These self-imposed due dates compelled me to write, which was good in some ways because it kept me writing and observant... but they were bad in other ways because the same entries often forced me to put stuff out that was "meh," simply because the next day was my artificial deadline of Monday or Thursday. (Reference the last few Weekly Highlights. I've felt like a monkey flinging crap against the wall -- little thought was involved, and very little stuck to the wall)

So I have been frustrated with my lack of time to commit to writing. Where does this leave RoSA? I have no idea. To give up writing is not the solution, obviously. We shall see how this unfolds.

As a partial solution, perhaps, I will be contributing to our family blog with Mrs. RoSA here (made private at Mrs. RoSA's request). First entry should be out this week.

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