I had the opportunity during the last several days to play with some children. Cousins, mostly, and young. And I have to tell you, it was fun. It?s been years since I played hide-and-go-seek. I?d forgotten how I truly didn?t know I was missing the game until I was playing it once more. I actually sat in a hiding spot as my younger cousin was looking for me, and thought to myself, ?Ooo, I really have to pee.?

?Playing? is a concept used frequently by the Dave Matthews Band. DMB is, and probably always will be, my favorite musical group. One thing I find appealing is the music, but what really draws me in is the lyrics. Mainly written by Dave Matthews, the lyrics to many songs stress how we should live our lives to the fullest, because there?s no guarantee tomorrow will be here. The most striking example of this would have to be ?You Never Know.? Here?s a snippet:

There?s not a moment to lose in the game
Don?t let the troubles in your head
Steal too much time you?ll soon be dead
So play

I?ve thought on several occasions about the value of playing. To be young again, no worries, just enjoying the very breath that gives us life. The sun on my face. The gleam of laughter in a child?s eye. Playing is such a childish act, which brings us a touch of innocence that we forget at work, or driving the car stuck in traffic, or shopping for groceries. None of the mundane tasks that make up the minutes of our adult lives ever provide a glimpse of the joy we experienced when playing as children.

I play video games, both on my computer, and sometimes on an X-Box or Playstation 2. I also ride a mountain bike when I get the chance. Neither video games or cycling creates in me the sense that I?m truly having fun. I mean, I thoroughly enjoy the time I spend playing Delta Force, and there?s no rush like riding down the side of a mountain you just climbed up. But running around in a yard, hiding behind a bush, waiting with exhilarated anticipation to be found, is one of the greatest experiences I?ve known on this green earth. As they say, the simple things in life are the most rewarding.

So, in honor of children everywhere: YOU?RE IT!!

Well, I?m heading on a three week or so trip, so I wanted to let everybody know that I shan?t be doing much for the site while I’m away. Archon has access to the news system, so maybe he?ll stop over and post something really quick some time. Otherwise, I?ll try and keep you updated, as I should have Internet access during the majority of our trip.

A quick itinerary: leaving Silver City, NM, and traveling to Oklahoma City, then on to St. Louis, and from there to Chicago, where my sister is graduating from Northwestern University. After spending a few days in Chicago, we?re moving my sister to Washington D.C., which is were my mom is currently employed. Should be spending a week, maybe two, in D.C., before heading home via Nashville and Dallas. So, should be quite the little trip. I call it my quasi-vacation because I’ll bve driving with my dad for trip. If we manage not to kill eachother, I’ll deem the trip a success.

Behave everybody, and of course, head over to the main site if you get bored. I?m sure the forums are cooking up something special, and you?re definitely invited. Until next time, laters.

So Archon and I went camping last week. We spent two nights, three days in the wilderness. Yeah, we had water, meat, tents, firewood, marshmallows, and alcohol, but I still like to say we were roughing it. For the most part, we just sat and chatted. However, there was occasion to discuss more important things than the sheer number of times this one woman made trips to the bathroom out there.

So, Archon let me know he was interested in doing some, I guess philosophical, writing. I think he’s going to be exploring some social aspects, but that’s as much as I’m going to tell you for now. We discussed a few things in depth, and came to the conclusion that we would both be writing a piece, and then posting at the same time. We’ll see how our respective arguments develop, and whether or not they’ll conflict with or corroborate each other. This also means that this web site will have its first article up soon. Stay tuned.

I’ve been jamming out to two CDs my sister sent me recently. Jack Johnson’s On and On and Zwan’s Mary Star of the Sea. I’m working on reviews of each, but you have to promise not to be too harsh. I’ve never reviewed music before, so don’t flame me too badly my first couple of tries, OK?

Also, and I promise I’m not trying to fill up space in this blog entry with stuff I posted on the main page, but Archon and I have been playing Black Hawk Down lately. If you’re a fan of FPS games, I highly recommend it if you don’t mind multiplayer games. Check out my full review for more info.

My sister will be graduating from the Journalism School at Northwestern this summer, and I’m planning on attending. Heck, who am I to pass up a trip to Chicago, especially for an occasion such as this? Exactly, I’m nobody to do such a thing. What this means, however, is that we’ll have limited posts on this site while I’m away. I may get the occasional front page post up, but from June 17 through the first week of July, don’t expect much.

Not that I have a tremendous readership anyway… but for those 3 or 4 of you out there, I’m sorry.

OK, I’m not going to spend too much time on this blog entry, since I have an article and three reviews to write, while also spending my requisite 5 hours nightly playing Black Hawk Down. Yeah Mom, that one was aimed squarely at you!

Well, I guess it has been a few weeks, so it must be high time for another blog entry. Tomorrow’s my birthday as well, so I probably won’t get around to writing if I don’t do it now. But, what to write about? The fishing line that was strung across the street last week that almost took me off my bike? The Matrix: Reloaded? Catching up with old friends? Why not all three?

Tuesday afternoon, I was biking around town. I visited one grandma, then another, and then went over to my mom’s place to work on the yard. I was riding down Silver St. and suddenly “THWACK!!” At first I didn’t know what was going on, I had been jerked back, I felt something snap, and then I was moving again.

Once my head cleared, I realized what had happened: somebody strung a piece of fishing line across the road. As I was riding down, it close-lined me at the neck and, fortunately, snapped. It left this nice red line across the base of my neck. I filed a police report, but they said they couldn’t really do anything. Which makes sense.

The Matrix: Reloaded. Where to start? My sister watched it on Wednesday, and I went to see it on Thursday. Now, Aislinn is usually a good sounding board for a movie, and I like to think I fit that bill for her as well. Generally, we tend to like the same movies. Which, I’ll add, is not something I expected would happen when we were growing up.

Regardless, I spoke with her on Thursday afternoon before I went to see the flick. She was really reserved, and didn’t want to talk about it. She said she didn’t really like it. And, as I told her later, that might be the reason why I liked it so much. Before speaking with her, I had some very high expectations of the movie. After speaking, I was a little more guarded.

I won’t really get into specifics on the movie, I’ll post a review/analysis of it soon. I did want to mention, however, that my sister is smoking the good stuff, because the movie was good! Ha ha, she can’t get me back, either. Well, unless she logs onto the Stasistech.com forums, but I doubt she’d go that far.

But she didn’t like the movie. She found a quite a few things wrong with it. And I concede that she made some decent points. She summed it all up by saying that this reviewby the Washington Post made all those points in better wording than the could have used. I, on the other hand, thought it worked well, and liked it.

And how about your friends? When was that last time you got in touch with them? I recently responded to one of those question/answer e-mails. You know, “write out your own answers to these questions, send it to a lot of people, and also to the person who sent it to you.” I must say, I hate spam, and junk mail, but I can always use an e-mail from a friend telling me about him/herself.

When I left Las Cruces, I left the people that were my life in Las Cruces. I failed to keep in touch with some of them. I’ve gotten back in touch with two of them, the two that mean the most, but it is still rough not speaking with people whom I used to see every day. And I am also reminded about exes. My last ex said she wanted to remain friends, and keep in touch. At first, I was all for the idea. Now, however, I remember what my sister told me: “Why? Why would you need to do that? What possible benefit could it have for you?”

You know, my sister is pretty smart. I always joked about writing a book when I get older, titled “If Only I Had Listened To My Sister.” I’m sure it would be a great work, though I wonder how much appeal it would have to a broader audience. Too bad Oprah stopped her book club thing.

Back to friends. How often do you keep in touch? In today’s world of 10-10-220 and e-mail, it should be pretty simple, right? So what stops people from saying “Hey, how have you been? What have you been up to?” Do people simply stop caring? Do we all just “move apart” as they say? What’re your reasons for not keeping in touch?

Well, that’s about it for now. Apparently, tomorrow I will be 24 years old. Working on a quarter century of life. I ask myself what that entails. And I answer, “Damn you sure screwed the pooch so far.” Figuratively, of course. But really, I realize something that I’ve known for quite some time. In the question/answer e-mail I mentioned earlier, it asks what your ideal job would be. My smartass answer was “La-Z-Boy Structural Integrity Analyst.” But I realize now that I want to create the little instruction booklets for Lego sets. I want to play with toys, and then show others how to play with toys. 24 years, and that’s the best I can come up with… oh sister, what have you to say now?

Well, I had an incredible weekend. It all began on Friday night, when I went to see the new X-Men flick. I’ll post a quick review of the movie this evening. For now, I’ll say that I honestly giggled about 15 times during the movie. Also on Friday, we put together a futon using instructions that might as well have been written in hieroglyphs on papyrus. We began the process at about 6:00, and 3 hours later we had disassembled the first two pieces twice because the instructions forgot to mention where some parts went. We went to watch the movie, came back and finished the futon, only to find that we had put it together backwards.

Now, I’ve put together a lot of “Wal-Mart” furniture: bookcases, shelves, a different futon, a computer desk, some bed stands, etc. Never before had I so completely put something together so badly. Needless to say, I was a little upset.

Saturday, I volunteered with the Tour of the Gila. This is the biggest cycling race in southern New Mexico. I spent the morning sweeping the roadway of debris, since the racers come flying by at about 35-40 MPH. A tiny little rock can be disastrous. I must say, I was a little surprised at the courtesy expressed by the cyclists. Many of them took the time to say “Thanks for helping put on the race” or “you guys did a great job getting this organized.” Especially during a warm up lap, if I was sweeping, racers cruising by would yell out a quick “Thank you for helping us out” or “Thanks man.” It was really rewarding.

However, the afternoon was a little less pleasant. I had used some sun screen in the morning, at about 7:00 AM, but by about 2:00 in the afternoon I was starting to get toasty. I had plenty of water, but we were all busy, so I couldn’t exactly take a break to run home for sunscreen. My arms, legs, and neck got a wicked burn. I still had fun, met some cool racers and volunteers, and saw some good racing action, but I could have done without the sunburn.

Sunday, therefore, was spent on my ass. I basically took up position on the couch and didn’t relinquish it. Pizza Hut brought dinner, and HBO entertained me. It was truly something. I was sure, however, to call my sister, to gloat in case she hadn’t seen X2. She hadn’t, but I didn’t gloat as much as I could have, not seeing the movie was punishment enough. From Saturday night after the race to Sunday Evening, I saw Spider-Man, Mr. Deeds, Red Planet, Unforgiven, and assorted shows. Ahhh, DirecTV.

Steven wants to play hardcore mode on Diablo II, and I decided I would indulge him. I haven’t gamed at all in the last few months, and I need to gear up for the release of Star Wars Galaxies. Nothing really appeals to me more than playing a character that basically lives in Star Wars. Well, maybe living with Natalie Portman. Or, living with Natalie Portman in the actual Star Wars universe.

I was browsing over at Tech Report last night, and the site’s owner, Damage, was asking about DirecTV and TiVo. I offered my own advice about his dilemma, and then started thinking. I used to be a real TV junkie. Back when I was living with my ex (another Blog entry, maybe someday) we had UltimateTV. Truly, it was wonderful. Anyhoo, back to me thinking. Yeah, yeah, shut up. I was trying to determine if I had actually cut down on my TV viewing time, as I believed I had. Back with the ex, I watched TV whenever I was home. Sure, sometimes I got online and immersed myself in Diablo II, but if I wasn’t at work and I wasn’t online, I was watching TV. Heck, I used to go to Spoons with some friends, to play NTN Network games.

It may be that the amount of TV that we watched ended up contributing to the end of our relationship, but she won’t tell me what happened, so this is only speculation. However, upon reflection, I really don’t watch as much TV as I used to. I get out and mountain bike, and hike with Archon. I spend time at school, but more importantly, I spend time at home working on school stuff. I visit my family, you get the point. No longer is it “get home from work, turn on TV, turn off brain.”

So, now that I’ve come to this conclusion, I ask myself: “Am I really better off now that I don’t watch TV as much?”

My mother is visiting town for Easter. She came over last night, and we watched Friends, Scrubs, Will & Grace, and that other show on Thursday nights. And, I laughed. And I realized that I missed those shows, shows I used to watch every week. I miss The West Wing. I miss Law and Order. I miss The Simpsons.

So, now I find myself in a predicament. Do I continue my negligence of TV? Do I continue to deny myself the simple pleasures afforded by Must See Television? Or do I fulfill my destiny as the one who brings balance to TV.

Er, sorry about that, we watched Attack of the Clones last night.

I’ve decided I won’t start watching TV again anytime soon. For now, school is just keeping me too busy. That, and the fact that the weather outside is so incredibly great, I can’t justify to myself that TV is worth my time. At least not to the extent that it once was. Also, I can’t get the channels that show Buffy and Angel.

So, the site is looking a lot better, at least to my eyes. I’ve been trying to get things set up, everything in place, rather than posting updates to the sections that are ready. I guess I want a complete site with a little content more than I want an incomplete site with one section chock full of content. Thanks for bearing with me during this process.

Also, on the topic of TV, I’ve started advertising for Netflix. If you’re interested in seeing a lot of DVDs every month, not worrying about late fees, and paying a flat fee, then Netflix is for you. I must say, just to be clear, that I used to work for them.

However, that is not the reason I’m advertising for them now. Simply put, I’m a greedy bastidge. No, that’s not it either. Really, I just like the service. They’re currently expanding, trying to get next day service for as many Americans as possible. Still skeptical? They offer a free trial!! Just click the image to your left, and see what they have to offer. I think you’ll like it.