Scatter Brain

I have been looking for a hobby that will take my interest and focus my attention to one goal. This isn't really making any headway. So far, the hobby front runner seems to be "social drinking." Just to underscore how scattered my thinking is, I will give you a few of the ideas and activities that I got this week.

- Here's one that I thought about this week. I don't think living in an apartment is conducive to brewing my own beer. Also, when the kit comes in the mail, judging by its appearance and my neighborhood, it could be misconstrued as a mail-order meth lab.

-I like the idea of having my own radio station. The fact that I would be broadcasting to my block at the most actually makes it even more appealing. I'm not sure that I have enough content. However, it's pirate radio. I could just hook an iPod to the transmitter and play my music library on shuffle.

-Apparently The Aquabats are taking song title suggestions from fans. I plan on submitting a few each day. I encourage everyone to do the same. Just email them here.

-I've been reading Sedaris, but I probably won't make it to his reading on Friday. That's a little disappointing.

On Vonnegut's passing: I heard it on NPR the next morning. It was the type of news I just stopped whatever I was doing and held my breath. I think most of all, it is the finality of it. There will never be new Kurt Vonnegut material.

Much of his work focused on living life and the meaning we assign to it. So every tribute to him that I read had a different quote that "encapsulated" his work. This is ridiculous, of course. His work cannot be summed up in one quote. If you want to know his thoughts, read Slaughterhouse Five or Mother Night.

Quotes are satisfying, however. Here's one that I enjoyed:

The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person
dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is
very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and
future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at
all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky
Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and
they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have
here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and
that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

-- Slaughterhouse Five