Things I Need to Do (or face starvation, bankruptcy, and a possibly lower social standing)

• GET A JOB!!!

Things I Should Keep in Mind

• I am more than the sum of my paycheck, or the title on my business card.
• Don’t judge others. Or if you must, consider how far they’ve come, not just how far they have left to go.
• The only person who should be allowed to make you feel guilty is yourself. But don’t overdo it.
• Think not of the twenty blocks to the subway station, but of your next step. And then your next after that, and so on.
• Inspiration is merely the ignition to the engine of creativity. Both are useless if not fueled by discipline.
• Shopping two days before Christmas is chaotic, deadly, and highly amusing.

And of course, feel free to yell at me if I forget any of these things.

Yes, I realize it was an a completely unfounded assumption. According to UNICEF, more than 25,000 children die every day, and almost 800,000 go missing in the United States alone, many never to return. But what are statistics to the blessed obliviousness of a child? “It can never happen to me”, we reasoned, each calamity-free day serving as testament to our unshakable truth. Of course, that naivete sometimes led us to do incredibly stupid things, but every night I went to bed, I was 150 percent sure I’d get up in the morning. And then the next, and the one after that, ad nauseam.

In some respects, growing up has been like being the protagonist of a Lovecraft novel. Much of my adolescent and adult life can be summarized by a near addict-like compulsion to learn more about this world. This has been a double-edged sword. On one hand, it strengthens me as an artist; pushing me just a little closer to living up to the name homo sapien. At the same time, acquiring such knowledge is not without consequence; as I browse through each blog, book, or Wikipedia entry, I’ve watched that old illusion (on which I based a perfectly happy childhood), completely disappear.

So far, I’ve avoided the madness that marks the climax of such tales. But at what cost? My life, previously governed by the question of “Why”, has been transformed into an existence of “what-if’s”. What if my car skids into a tree faster than Mike Mussina’s fastball? What if I walk down this dark street? What if my employer goes bankrupt? Well, one of those has come to pass, so I’m not entirely a worrywart. But it’s interesting to think about how much of adulthood is based on the premise that something wicked lurks around every corner. Is this what it means to be responsible? Thinking about the ways every decision could kill me has helped me to avoid a pitfall or two, but more often than not, it has served as an excuse not assume any risk - even ones with a potentially great payoff. If I had been thinking less about paying the bills and more about following my dreams, for example, I might have done something more fulfilling than financial software development.

And so I gaze upon today’s children with a nostalgic wonder. As they throw themselves into each new adventure and unopened door with a gusto that seems thoughtless to one of many summers, part of me smiles. The other part wants to shake them and yell “Dangit, don’t you know you could die?!”

“When something is lost, something greater is returned.” I suppose when the great wordsmith Terry Pratchett wrote this, he was telling us to look for the good in the calamity of our life. However, if you’re as disorganized I am, that saying takes a whole new meaning.

Namely, that when you’re scouring your room for something (like an old PSP game), you find something much cooler instead (a $25 gift card). It had no obvious expiration date, and I was suffering a major case of cabin fever, having barely left the house since the end of October. You can guess what comes next.

That’s right - Toys R’ Us, Times Square, two days before Christmas. I am a certified madman.

One might compare the scene there to the evacuation of Dunkirk - a tense order barely imposed on the entropy of evacuating shoppers, most of which are tired, hungry, and seriously regretting their procrastination;  a sense of inevitability as you confront the giant evacuation checkout line that wraps several times around the department floor. There are children, nieces, nephews, and grandkids to surprise this Thursday, and so, economic crisis or not, it is a ritual they endure. Browsing for the best way to blow your $25 requires an ironclad will.

Ah, Christmas in New York. There is that tree in Rockefeller Center, Santa in Herald Square, and lights, banners, and wreaths on every street corner, but there’s even more, if you know where to look.

• It’s waiting on that checkout line, watching with amusement as mommy restrains Junior from picking up every single game in sight.
• It’s staring at the billboards in Times Square for a whiff of news - two wars, a sinking economy, and a Madoff associate who took his own life for fear of being forced to live like the rest of us.
• It’s ducking into the withering cold, carrying half your body weight in oversized shopping bags, pushing your way through the crowds like blood cells in a coronary patient’s heart.
• It’s riding downtown to Union Square, smiling at the booths selling various esoterica - from baby Buddhas to “Baby Seals for Obama” Tees.
• It’s lounging at a table at Starbucks, nursing a $6 latte in a red snowflake-labeled cup, waiting for your friends as the soles of your feet recover.
• It’s knowing that the area will never see such a burst of activity again - until it comes time to return all that swag.
• It’s meeting friends for dinner. “What’re you up to these days?” “Oh, I’m…in between jobs”. In between. Because the only meaningful definition of life is what happens to pay the bills at the moment.

But it’s all a tradition we’ll gladly cling to - holidays are a sort of anchor in the lives of many. Because even if we don’t know whether we’ll have a job tomorrow, we’ll always have Christmas. Here’s looking at you, kid.

I remember when that eagerly-anticipated park was “under construction” - more than ten years ago! I must be getting old…in any event, Animal Kingdom is an interesting fusion of a zoo and a traditional theme park, with a heavy emphasis on conservation. Unlike Sea World, the animals are pretty much left to their own devices, and it’s up to park viewers to pay attention if they want a glimpse of the animals:

I might compare my life over the last few months to that of those Silverback Gorillas’ - laying about, looking for food, and looking surly at passerby, thinking about whatever it is gorillas think about. Very majestic animals, and quite gentle, despite their immense size.

The most fun part of the trip had to be the Kilimanjaro Safaris. The wait time was excruciating (lessed somewhat by having a FastPass), but it was so worth it - a ride through the animal reserve, getting to see animals in their natural habitat. Well, as natural as Kissimmee, Florida gets:

Being a theme park, the shops, restaurants and other buildings have a distinctly African flavor. The goal, I suppose, is to make you think you’ve stepped into an issue of National Geographic:

And of course, plenty of cast members to add local flavor:

Animal Kingdom’s a fun place - plenty of interesting critters to see, and a setting to excite the imagination. However, winter isn’t the best season to take it all in. It was a balmy 70 degrees, yes, but with a very early sunset of 4:45 PM, there was a bit of a rush to see everything before the sun went down.

Of course, what would any Disney park be without a parade or two?

Even if you’ve been to your local zoo a hundred times, you should give it a shot if you find yourself in the area. It’s one of those few destinations in tourist town Orlando that will actually leave you feeling a bit closer to the earth. Now if you’ll excuse me, I hear “Circle of Life” playing in the background…

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There have been only two books I’ve managed to read cover-to-cover in the span of a single day. Grace, by Richard Paul Evans, is the second, having devoured my entire Saturday. It’s a Christmas tale, yes, but not one that will leave you feeling warm inside; about an America past, where dark secrets were buried under a veneer of stilted optimism.

This beautifully-written coming-of-age tale is narrated with a mix of nostalgia and regret by Eric, an aged man recalling his first autumn as a teenager in Salt Lake City. His account begins with the usual childhood exploits - exploring the neighborhood, working a crummy job, struggling to fit in at school - but his world is completely changed the night he finds a girl foraging in a dumpster for food. The girl, who calls herself Grace, says that she’s run away “for kicks”, but Eric, a kind-hearted boy, is too worried about her safety to worry about whether or not she’s telling the truth. He and his brother Joel invite her to their “clubhouse”, where their paralytic father and hard working mother are usually too busy with their own problems to notice.

As you might imagine, watching their relationship evolve is where the joy of this novel lies. At first, the boys treat her as a kind of pet, coming up with some clever schemes to keep her warm and fed, and hidden from the prying eyes of the adults around them. But a funny thing happens between boys and girls who spend a lot of time together, and as the dynamic between the lovably awkward Eric and the preternaturally wise Grace changes, all three have to face a plethora of obstacles -  jealousy, Eric’s low self-esteem, and wanted posters of Grace appearing all over town; not to mention the raging Cold War (”The possibility of a nuclear holocaust was just something we carried around in the back of our minds, like an overdue library book”, writes Eric), and their mutual sense of impending doom, as their secret becomes harder and harder to hide.

The ending is simply devastating, for readers and the characters alike. Evans clearly remembers what it’s like to be as a teenager, as he absolutely nails his the depictions of Eric’s contradictory feelings in its wake, including the moment he realizes he has crossed the threshold into adulthood. I finished it at 1 AM, and had trouble sleeping the rest of the evening; even late Sunday night, I found myself in tears, as memories reimmersed me in thoughts of young love and Grace’s dreams of Hawaii. I thoroughly recommend this book, but please, oh please, keep a box of Kleenex handy.

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As a Gaiman, Wolfe, and Tolkien fan, I’d always meant to try something by Terry Pratchett, but it wasn’t until Cory Doctorow’s glowing recommendation of his newest novel Nation that he finally made it onto my radar. And he’s going to stay there a while. If you’re a fan, you probably bought and happily devoured this book already; if not, know that this exciting, deeply thoughtful tale of shipwreck and derring-do is one of my favorite “young adult” novels of all time. And I’ve been through quite a few!

Fans of his Discworld novels may be surprised to learn that in this story, Pratchett has departed that whimsical world for a darker setting - the late 19th century. Mau, an young man from the south seas, is returning from a solitary journey when a huge tsunami nearly kills him, and wipes out his home island of Nation. But as someone tells him earlier on - “when much is taken, something is returned”; that same wave shipwrecks Ermintrude, a young English aristocrat, who later shortens that name to “Daphne”, for obvious reasons. After a near-fatal misunderstanding, the two join eventually forces, and try to carve out an existence for themselves (and later, others) on the island.

Sounds familiar? Shipwreck tales are a grand tradition in English literature, but from Robinson Crusoe to Lord of the Flies, each presents us a different vision of humanity. Pratchett’s is deeply humanistic - though a hemisphere apart, Mau and Daphne are both very sympathetic characters; their efforts to find food, water, and rebuild society they way they knew it lead to conflicts, many humorous moments, and several epiphanies about their disparate worlds. Though it’s marketed as a “young adult” novel, Pratchett doesn’t flinch at heading into substantially darker territory - the main characters also contend with suicidal thoughts, loneliness, and showdowns with some extremely vile antagonists. After all, what would a story like this be without the appearance or at least the mention of cannibals?

But it’s Pratchett’s critique of religion that may raise a few eyebrows. Through the course of the novel, Mau goes through an intense spiritual struggle, first railing at the island gods that failed to save his people, eventually questioning their existence altogether, even as heads a deeply religious society. Daphne is more scientifically-minded, but she too witnesses several things that eventually reshape her view of the world. Though I suspect most readers already have their minds made up one way or the other, it’s always great to be reminded to question everything, lest others become the masters of your inner life.

The ending is bittersweet, with several surprising revelations in its approach. Pratchett writes with such a warmth and wit that I could imagine him sharing this story with a group of children around the fireplace, hot cocoa close at hand. Or perhaps you’ll enjoy it as I did, lounging at the airport, waiting for a homeward-bound flight. Either way, I share Doctorow’s assessment - it’s a beautiful novel, and I hope many people both young and old get a chance to read it.

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If you know me personally, or are acquainted with the articles I’ve written for this site, you’ll know that I’m pretty nonpolitical, and for good reason.

This issue transcends partisan politics and any administration.

If you take a look at just about any news site, you’ll see examples of human rights abuses every day -  child labor, religious persecution, prosecution of political dissenters, to rape and outright genocide. Often times these guilty regimes and leaders hide behind the veil of national sovereignty, without realizing that they, like the rest of us, face an accounting to a higher power.

That’s why on December 10, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After ratifying this very important document, the General Assembly urged all member nations:

“to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.”

60 years later, fulfilling that goal is an ongoing struggle. According to the UN, 93% of people in the United States were unable to identify the UDHR. Today is about changing this.

You can click that above link and read the document for yourself, but did you know there’s even more you can do? The Human Rights Action Center currently has an online petition to include the UDHR in our U.S. Passports. Think about what a simple, practical measure this is! If you’re harassed, bullied, or threatened by any official during your travels abroad, imagine being able to authoritatively quote from this landmark document to which their nation, as a member of the UN, is subject.

It only takes your name, a valid e-mail address, and a few minutes of your time. But hopefully today won’t be the only day you’ll think about the issue of human rights. The United States may be no Nazi Germany, but does anyone remember slavery? The Japanese-American internment camps? Jim Crow laws? The Patriot Act? It only takes one elected official, one law, one court decision to completely change things at home, so it’s well worth always being ready to defend our civil liberties.

• A scrolling “Black News” feed
• A “black search engine”, by way of the Blackbird website.
• A “Blackbird Video” sidebar, with videos supposedly of interest to the black community.

So what’s not to like? Of course, “a browser for the African American community” is a pretty big assertion, so it’s not surprising that the program’s already drawn some pretty hefty criticism. Some see it as an unnecessary attempt to shoehorn “black culture”. Others question its necessity, saying that the Internet already has plenty of resources by and for the black community, without “segregating” users by browser.

Being black myself, I got curious. Well, I’m not strictly “African-American”, but then again, the decidedly non-black Teresa Heinz Kerry technically is, so we all know how much labels are worth…

I tried to download it on my Mac - got a prompt to open an .exe (Windows Excutable). That’s a strike against it already - I had to switch into Windows to give it a shot. Then I installed it - like Firefox, it automatically imports your bookmarks from Windows Explorer. After that, you get the browser window in all its glory (click for a larger version):

First thing that struck me - this African-American browser is way too black (no pun intended). Racial sensitivities aside, a black background on white text seriously hurts my eyes. I know I’ve been weaned on Apple’s soothing industrial grays and off-whites, but the color scheme seems reminiscent of those bad “music managers” that came with our old MP3 players.

Second thing that struck me - it needs polishing. Not all the video channels were there yet, turning off the scrolling news feed was confusing, and parts of the preferences screen were illegible due to the aforementioned black/white color scheme. When I closed it, the program hung, and I had to use Task Manager to kill it before I could bring it back up. But this is a beta, so I’m pretty forgiving about things like this.

Third thing I noticed - Flock pretty much does all of this already, except it supports more services (Twitter/YouTube/Digg), and has some genuinely useful features, such as automatic online bookmarking to Delicious. At it’s current state, I don’t see what Blackbird has to offer that couldn’t have been done as a Firefox extension, instead of a totally separate browser.

What truly caught my attention is the default “Black Search” engine that’s on the upper right of the screen. Looking into it further, I saw that it’s a Google Custom Search run by Blackbird to provide more “relavant” results to the black community.

Black search results? I try to see the good in everything, but I found this feature extremely condescending at best, misleading at its absolute worst. How does a company like Blackbird decide which websites are relevant to the African-American community? Are they sites run by black webmasters? Websites that lean a certain way on black issues? Websites run by companies who pay handsome fees? Either way, that means that Blackbird has moved beyond merely “skinning” the internet, to actively filtering its content! The flow of information should be race-agnostic, free from the dictates of a company attempting to define what is relevant to “the black experience”.

So, except for that “Black Search” feature, Blackbird is a mostly harmless social media-enabled browser. But I find it curious that anyone would see the need to create one for the black community. Do we create black versions of Windows? Cell phones? Cameras? Race is an important part of this country’s history, but I can’t help but feel that designing an “African-American” browser cheapens that struggle just a little bit.

Sea World

Make no mistake, Sea World Orlando is a tourist attraction first and foremost - think of it as a curious fusion between your local Aquarium and a Disney park, with rides and gift shops only footsteps from live animal shows and exhibits. Not to mention the ground is literally crawling with hordes of screaming children, putting eardrums and patience to the test! Still, when it comes to excitement, nothing beats seeing the majesty of dolphins…

…up close! These stills hardly do them justice - they can cut through the water like a dancer across a stage. As one of the performers explains, these shows are a delicate partnership between human trainers and these incredibly intelligent creatures - the dolphins are never “commanded”, but are “asked nicely”, and bribed with a fish or two! Kind of like myself as a young child, but moving along…

Of course, no visit would be complete without seeing the park’s mascot in action:

In person, Shamu is every bit as impressive as the ads, able to splash 14 rows of spectators with a single leap! This was the first time I’ve seen a killer whale up close, and a part of me envies the trainers and park staff which get to interact with these magnificent creatures every day:

Their Discovery Cove park actually lets you swim with dolphins, rays, and other delightful sea creatures, but at nearly $300 admission, such pleasures are beyond my reach at the moment. Not to mention I should spare Flipper the trauma of seeing this homo sapien in swim trunks.

Besides the animals, the park had several interesting stage shows, two of which we attended  that day. The first was “Allure: The Call of the Ocean”, and was a Little Mermaid-esque tale of a dashing bachelor of a fisherman and the fish-woman who inevitably falls in love with him. Apparently it’s hard to do dinner and a movie underwater, so when it comes to courtship, impressive feats of acrobatics will have to suffice:

Move over, Sydney Potier - it’s interspecies dating the kids are exploring these days. Of course, meeting the family is kind of hard when they have a sharp pair of fangs:

The second show involved dinner, so you’ll have to excuse me if I seem just a bit partial! The Makahiki Luau is a show highlighting Polynesian culture in all its flamboyant festiveness:

The only thing I couldn’t quite get over was the guilt factor. After seeing Shamu and friends frolic in the park all day, sitting down for a meal of Mahi-Mahi just seemed so…wrong. I had a good cry for all of two seconds about it.

My feet were practically numb by the time I got back to my room, but all in all, it was a fun day!

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The Twitter community itself is deliciously diverse, and Richard McKay is cataloging some of that diversity on his site Tweetabix.com, on which he interviews various Twitterati about their micro-blogging habits. Earlier this week he asked yours truly to answer a few questions, and after extended negotiations (”Heck yeah! Where do I sign up?”), I gave him my two cents’ worth.

You can catch the interview here. If you want my autograph before I become rich, famous, and unavailable, you can also e-mail or DM me.

Nigel’s Tweetabix.com Interview