Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I’ve actually been putting this off for a bit because I was a little afraid of reviewing it (you’ll see why later). OSC received some inspiration from the classic Foundation by Isaac Asimov, among other things. It may seem silly but because of this I wanted to start Foundation before I wrote this review. I’d also like to note that of the books I’ve read thus far, this one is easily the best. Yeah, I know that’s not saying much.
Ender’s Game is set far into the future where we find humans preparing for their attempt to [drumroll...] save humanity! They’d been attacked twice by an alien race, the “Buggers,” and believe they may not survive another attack. Ender is 6 years old, a “Third”—3rd child at a time when families are limited to no more than two children—and is believed to be the one. For what? The government is looking for soldiers to lead their fleet and save the world, in this case a Commander, and they’re doing this by monitoring all newborns. Ender’s got an older brother Peter and sister Valentine whom is younger than Peter. Both of them extremely smart but ultimately deemed failures by the government in what they’re looking for. Because of that, however, they allowed a them to have a 3rd child.
I don’t know where this originated, I’ve heard from George Costanza (Jason Alexander’s character on Seinfeld), George Carlin, and who knows where else. Anyway, it’s a funny quote I thought I’d share even though I’m sure it’s been quoted in hundreds of blogs.
The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? Death! What’s that, a bonus?! I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you go live in an old age home. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, then, when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for high school. You go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back, you spend your last 9 months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap, then you finish off as an orgasm!
We know that having a lot of money gives you a solid sense of security, and with that you can reach a consistent high chill factor level. I want to go over a few key tips to help reduce money-related stress.
1.) Keep a record of your finances. This sounds like a gimme but it’s absolutely key. If you know exactly how much you’re making and exactly how much you’re spending on a monthly basis you can keep a near-perfect balance of your available spending. It’s also a good way to determine how much you can put into savings or investments on a regular basis. I highly recommend using Microsoft Excel (part of Microsoft Office Suite) or download the free Open Office Suite which has a nearly identical software package. Create a spreadsheet with a month by month log of your income/expenses. Being specific is key here. To use mine as an example, the first column consists of my regular bills (mortgage, electricity, phone/net, credit card, etc). Below that I have income and an area for unspecified finances (job income, interest, additional income, additional expenses). You can use “notes” to comment individual non-regular changes. Below those are the totals rows (total spent, total made, total left). Use the following columns marked by month to enter all the numbers, and you’ll have a very solid grasp of your finances.
For some Yoga is a great form of relaxation—for the rest of us, as Brian Regan says, it has the opposite affect. In this short clip from a great stand up special, he reminds us towards the end how most people like to relax. Relaxing, as you may have realized at this point, is a great form of chilling. That being said, comedy is absolutely key to chilling, or trying to. If you’re laughing, there’s a good chance the chill capacity level of your body is going up.
Here’s my next review, but I’ll include another preface. Again we have a book that was adapted into a movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, and it was a huge success in theaters back in 1993. I was fortunate to catch this on TV literally the day after I finished the last page of the book. I realize now it’s going to be hard to deal with these movie adaptations—you simply cannot paint the same picture in a movie that you can with an imagination. This actually shocked me because, growing up, I had always thought “the movie will do a better job portraying the story” and boy was I wrong. Enough of the banter though, obviously if you’re looking for book reviews you already know all this.
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. Most people have heard of this and automatically assume it’s just a science fiction tale of dinosaurs in our time, but it’s a lot more than that. We start off with strange lizard attacks in Costa Rican areas and a ravished construction worker who’s brought into a clinic. What the hell happened to him? We’re soon introduced to Dr. Alan Grant who is looking for baby Velociraptor fossils up north. His understudy, Dr. Ellie Sattler, soon receives a fax of a strange x-ray, could this be? He’s interrupted by a gentlemen doing an investigation on one of his project contributors. John Hammond, an older wealthy gentlemen with an aficionado for dinosaurs, appears to be buying up all sorts of suspicious things, including supercomputers, huge quantities of amber/sap, and more. Why?
I’d like to start off this post saying that reading is pretty great. I’ve only gotten into reading recently, however. I’ve always considered myself a bit of an intellectual (being that I’ve been a computer/geek for so many years), but I never realized what an impact it would have. To quote many a teacher and speaker: “Reading stimulates the mind.” I’ve got more cheese don’t worry. I’ve also proudly joined the “The book is better than the movie” snob club because it’s God damn true. Anyway, here’s my first review:
The Ruins by Scott Smith. It’s a story of two young couples (Jeff and Amy, Eric and Stacy) on vacation in Cancun, Mexico when things turn sour. Their tour guide, Matthias, seeks out his brother Henrich who hasn’t returned from an archaeological dig site with a new found lover. Jeff, the boy scout feeling excited for some real adventure before they head home, decides they should accompany him. Oh, and one of their new found non-English speaking Greek friends “Pablo” decides to join them with a bag of tequila. Where’s this place? It’s a bus ride from their hotel to Coba, a several mile dirty cab ride to the path (during which they’re unsuccessfully advised to turn back), and a few more miles to the site. In another country. In the middle of nowhere.
I’ll pretend to, anyway. Although this helps raise personal chill factor, it sometimes ends up having the opposite effect. Lottery fantasies, need I say more? No, but I will anyway or this would be a boring post. I had gone through this scenario many times before: “Ah, If I only won the lotto, everything would be so easy! Pay off my mortgage/loans, then what? I could get that [insert shit here] that I’ve always [reasonably] wanted.” What happens after that? Allocation. “How do I spread my winnings?” As if the feeling of winning the lottery isn’t awesome enough, you want to feel like a hero. So, make sure you leave a big money bag for each of your family members (well, not all of them) and close friends.
You must be careful with this, however. While it’s soothing to think about, when your fantasy reaches it’s peak reality will set in and hit you like a ton of bricks. You’ll be faced with the realization that you don’t even play the God damn lottery, how the hell are you going to win? After about 7 years of this I decided to start playing. One ticket, twice a week (Florida). If I’m going to get lucky, then well, that’s all I need.
Why are you still reading this? Go buy a lottery ticket before you forget again.
Okay, I know it’s just a theme but here’s the new look—I’ll probably be making some modifications as time goes on. Feel free to leave a comment with your opinions or suggestions.
I’ll be posting reviews of the two books I’ve read recently. They’re The Ruinsby Scott Smith and Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. Yes I know Jurassic Park is old. It’s so old, in fact, that the cover was ravaged by my 6th grade self. I had to do something while I pretending to read in class, right? I’ll also be posting what I got planned to read ahead, and hopefully I’ll be seeing Iron Man and I’ll write a review on that as well.
My reviews will probably suck and be unprofessional, but because in essense I’m writing it so I can try to chill, and not to be a shill (HA.. YEAH!), I don’t give a shit.
After over 15 years of being on the intarweb, I’ve decided to put up a blog. I’m not sure what direction this is going to be, but I’m going to start off with the basics–movies, books, interesting articles and stories–what this site is NOT is a place to vent about feelings or emotions. As an average Joe with an average life, I like to use my free time the best way possible. For me, that’s chilling–but as the average Joe knows, it’s extremely hard to successfully be at a ~100%~ chill level.
With that said, I welcome you to tryingtochill.com, where as a whole we’re trying to reach the maximum chill capacity on a daily basis. Because we know it’s nearly impossible to hit 100% chill factor, we’re going to do our best to get into the 80%s or even the 90%s.
