I’ve been messing with this program on the computer lately.
It’s free.
Thinking about that “free” classification, I have to come to some hard conclusions.
I can get something for free that allows me to waste a lot of my time….time that I could spend wisely ….making wonderful family memories….and that “free” thing comes at a big cost.
Of course, if I could watch family friendly programming on a rainy day when it might be awkward to get out and play in the world, it would be a good thing to have around.
The trouble with having it around is that there always seems to be something that could be worth watching.
Check out the video…you’ll see what I’m talking about.
There’s a lot of content on Kodi….and if you have a reasonably fast internet connection, you could watch just about anything.
I could even watch the new “Antman” movie ….if I wanted to.
More “comic book movies”…that’s what I need.
Anyway….free does come at a cost….but this program is pretty cool.
I’M A GROWN MAN WHO STILL WATCHES COMIC BOOK MOVIES.
How lame is that?
How lame is it to realize that there are a whole lot more “man boys” out there who are doing the same?
I watched the latest “Fantastic Four” movie…online, I didn’t spend any money….and I still feel like I got ripped off.
Not really “ripped off”….that’s not fair….but….WHAT HAPPENED?
Here’s a movie that cost 120 million to make…..maybe 200 million when you factor in the marketing costs….and it was kind of lame.
“Kind of lame”….that’s kind to say that.
I think that it made something in the mid 50’s…56 million or so…at the domestic box office.
It wasn’t a blockbuster.
It took about an hour for the folks in the movie to be transformed….the final battle came and went and then….it was over.
I couldn’t wait.
And….I’m a guy who likes to watch comic book movies.
Imagine what a cinematic hell it would have been for Jenny to watch this one with me?
And….and….and….check this out!!
They’re going to release a sequel in 2017.
How about that?
Visually, it was kind of cool….but, so was the latest Ninja Turtle movie ( I heard about that one….no…that’s not true….I WATCHED IT!!)….but….the storyline or the execution of the storyline didn’t really hold together…or something.
Didn’t hold together.
Stuff happened and then there was a resolution and then the movie was over.
Dang…even a comic book movie should do better than that.
This movie was lame…..and I keep harping on that hoping that I’ll draw the attention away from the really pathetic part of this episode:
I’M A GROWN MAN WHO STILL LIKES TO WATCH MOVIES BASED ON CHARACTERS IN COMIC BOOKS.
That doesn’t do a lot for me, actually….watching the time, that is. If I’m watching the time, I’m probably not getting much done.
But, at least it gives me a good blog topic.
I can write about getting up too early….I can write about sleeping in too late….and I know that I’m going to contribute something of interest to my READERS WHETHER I’M WRITING ABOUT COMING OR GOING!!
Nah….writing about how much or how little you sleep is worse than writing about your dreams.
Nobody wants to hear about that.
If you have something worth saying, people want to listen.
No matter what time it is.
Here’s another Casey Neistat video….
He’s talking about the necessity of experience vs. only conceptualizing things all the time.
And…the necessity of not letting the “vehicle” make it hard to create….not letting the method get in your way.
I can’t plan all the time!! Better just to jump in with some stuff….not overthink.
“Bad language” in this one….some bad language….but it’s a good talk.
I got up early in the morning….but woke up late.
What a funny situation.
It would make your head spin if you thought about a conundrum like that too much.
You have to do something more than just watch the time….all the time.
(It took 20 minutes for me to write this blog post. 20 MINUTES!!!)
The darned media tells us all these reasons that things are going to pot up in our brains if we can’t remember things as easily as we suppose we remembered them ten years ago.
So….when I get up at 3:45 because the sudden migration of the under-7-set makes that the only way anybody is going to get any sleep…..and my head is confused and fuzzy as can be…and I can’t remember what my user name is for this blog so that I can log in and start writing….when that happens….when that….WHAT WAS I SAYING?!!….when that happens, I think that I already have the beginnings of Alzheimer disease.
Just because I’m tired and confused, I think that my cognitive function is running to another tree like a diseased squirrel with a stolen nut in its mouth.
Stupid media.
Last night, I fell asleep on the couch again.
I was watching this movie…. Indulgent ….no….Insufferable….no, that wasn’t it….INSURGENT!! THAT’S IT!!
At the end of the movie, I woke up and realized that I didn’t understand any of what the climax was about.
The good guys win.
I guess that’s a spoiler.
Sorry.
I got up at 3:45 this morning because the little guys were crawling into our bed.
I started watching the movie last night at 9 because that’s when I woke up in Nate’s bed after helping him get to sleep.
We don’t watch scary or action packed movies… or movies that might have bad language….. or really sad movies or movies that aren’t animated or….
At night, we watch our movies… and I fall asleep on the couch.
I fell asleep fast watching this sequel to “Divergent”.
That’s what keeps me young, though….kids…and, knowing that I have things in my life that are so steady that I’ll always be able to count on them…..like falling asleep on the couch.
I have a library full of this kind of book….but I’m not any farther along in my understanding of how to homestead.
Maybe I’ve internalized it all…and, when the moment comes and I’m staring our new cow in the face, all that stored knowledge will come back up to the surface when I need it.
I kind of suspect that I just have a bunch of books on sagging bookshelves, though.
I don’t know what I know.
I like Ben Hewitt….clear writing….humor….and a lot of good information that I haven’t read anywhere else….or…anywhere else collected like it is here.
He talks about fermenting as a food preservation method. That was something that I hadn’t seen in a homesteading book.
(A short PS….Jenny said, “What? People have been fermenting for years….” . That must have been something I wrote before I had my coffee.)
He talks about the “economics” of running a homestead….how much money it takes and how much value you get out of this kind of lifestyle.
He talks about value….even when it’s not financial value….or, maybe, especially when it’s not financial value.
He talks about raising a family and educating his children….or allowing them to educate themselves.
He talks about caring for the land….and living on it in a way that supports his family without harming it.
He talks about being conscious of the need to plan ahead for when he and his wife are older and still have to care for the homestead.
This is good stuff.
I’ve read a bunch of “homesteading books”….and I have a feeling that this is going to be one of my favorites.
And…reading this and the big box of Mother Earth News and Countryside magazines I found on the free table the day I checked out this book…I realize how long I’ve been obsessed with homesteading and farming.
That’s been such a strong interest for a bunch of years.
This book would be a good introduction to the subject if you’d never read anything about raising a family on a small homestead.
Here’s an Amazon link if you want to buy a copy through them….
This was featured in a Casey Neistat video that I watched this morning….but to only show the Casey Neistat video would make me look pathetically obsessed with Casey Neistat videos….so I showed the actual video that Casey Neistat linked to instead.
It’s a good thing to not look pathetically obsessed with anything.
Who wants to be pathetic?
Steve Jobs….talking about what “life” could be if we didn’t have a preconception about what life held for us.
I’ve been listening to James Allen while I drive around on the mail route lately.
James Allen?
The guy who wrote “As a Man Thinketh”?
You know that guy?
Steve Jobs brought us the Ipod.
EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT STEVE JOBS.
How many know about James Allen?
The thing about it is that James Allen seems to say just as much or more that wakes me up and makes me think, “Hey!!” as Steve Jobs.
That’s funny.
James Allen has been gone for quite a while.
He didn’t invent any Ipods.
He wasn’t a rich and powerful inventor.
And…..JAMES ALLEN ROCKS!!
But…so does Steve Jobs, too….even if, from some of the stories that I hear about him, he could be kind of a jerk.
Maybe the real “secret to life” is recognizing that even if somebody isn’t famous or powerful….or even, like James Allen, a famous author….even if they’ve only lived a life of “quiet desperation”…these people have something to say about what the real secret of life might be.
Maybe that’s the secret?
Believing that every one of us….no matter how humble….or, even better, because they’re HUMBLE…has something of value to contribute.
Maybe.
But getting back to this Steve Jobs stuff….knowing that the walls that we think box us in are really only an illusion is a huge lesson to learn.
Our potential is huge if we can get around (or over) our fears and preconceptions misconceptions about what life allows us.
I’m really just trying to psyche myself up.
I have to drive my loop again soon.
Same old, same old.
I need psyching.
There is a lot of good in the world….and a lot of opportunity.
And….whether it’s Steve Jobs or James Allen or some quiet “nobody” (aha….what’s that?)….people often have interesting things to say about the “meaning of life”.
Found this when I was looking up videos for another blog post.
Wranglerstar.
That’s funny that he mentioned Casey Neistat.
He has good taste in “creative people”….and I appreciated his explanation of the “HE’S NOT ONE OF US” response that he might get from his “religious” acquaintances.
I think that Wranglerstar is probably a pretty good dude.
And…I know (from his videos, at least) that he seems to be pretty earnestly and consistently sincere.
Sincerity.
Man.
That’s something good to shoot for…consistently and earnestly and energetically sincere.
Watch any of the YouTube videos that Wranglerstar has done and you’ll see what I mean.
They’re all safe to watch, too….nothing that you’d be embarassed about if your child wandered into the room while you were watching them….no violence or bad language or anything like that.
And, something that I’ve noticed about these Casey Neistat videos, too….is that, if he’s swearing, he bleeps it out…so I guess he’s a pretty safe bet, too.
(Watching this Casey Neistat video, I realized that he drops the occasionally un-bleeped F-bomb…towards the end of this video…but that’s a rare thing. Most of the time, he bleeps them all out….)
And, like Cody/Wranglerstar explains in his video….even though their lifestyles are so different, he really appreciates what Casey Neistat does with his videos.
I was going to write something kind of snarky about “all that time….and only 3 hours for his family?!! What?!!” ….and then I started thinking about it, and realized that 3 hours or so is pretty typical.
I come home from work so tired sometimes that my “quality time” is probably kind of low quality.
I spend a lot of time doing something that I’m pretty sure isn’t as interesting or energizing as what this guy is doing…and when I get home, I bet I’m not usually a ball of fire.
I fall asleep on the couch a lot.
I’m not really bored very often….usually I can find something kind of interesting to do….but I’m not all that interesting in the evening.
His routine of three hours of exercise in the morning is a good way to start…I’m sure it helps keep him going as the day progresses.
Compressed time that’s focused and given completely over to the activity is better than a full day of “kind of being present”.
I’m glad that I realized that before I went into full “snark mode”.
I’m going to stop posting these….just a couple more and then I’m done….but, for now, they’re pretty interesting to me.
One more….tomorrow…with some questions….and then I’m done.
Promise.
This guy is a busy guy.
Listen to this story of his beginnings, and you can understand that sometimes things work out…even if the beginning is pretty hard….and that energy and enthusiasm….and obsession with something interesting….is something that can lead to those things working out.
Here’s another video…and…another story.
Check out this guy’s stuff on YouTube….it’s all pretty interesting.
