Keep your books if you want to live!

The days of the Smurfs, Popples, and busy signals are things of the past.  Everything in the world is hi-speed and hi-tech.  You don’t have to leave your house to watch a movie, shop for clothes, or even buy groceries.  Everything can be done right from home; all you need is a computer.  If you want to find someone you went to high school with there is Facebook and if you need a date there is match.com.  Our lives revolve are the internet and its conveniences.  I never really minded technology, I use what I understand and what I feel still helps my brain function normally.  Here is where my problem lays, books.  Gone are the days of going to the library, shuffling through a card catalog, finding a book for a research paper, and reading it for the information you need.  Forget books, Larry Page and Sergey Brin invented google.com to ease you research woes.  As for sitting down with a good book, turning the pages, gauging your progress by the thickness, and lending it to your friend when you are finished, well that was all way too complicated.  Good-bye paper cuts hello Nook.  It seems that our world is rising up against books.  College campuses are thinning down there book shelves to make room for more computers.  Just the other day I saw an advertisement for a college that had an iPad leaning against a stack of books with the caption, “How can you prepare for the future with tools from the past?”  So books are tools from the past, almost like the horse drawn plow?  What kind of message are we sending not just our children, but out peers?  What will happen when the internet disappears?

            I think that it will go something like this.  Most people will have gotten rid of the books they had cluttering up their homes and simply rely on the internet when they feel like reading.  People will have become introverted and will plan their whole lives on the computer.  The internet will crash and chaos will ensue.  People will be convinced that the world is coming to the end, because their God created the internet, not Al Gore, and he must have crashed it because he is preparing to destroy the world.  I do not think that 90% of the people will be able to cope.  When Facebook goes away so will the communication will the 1,324 friends they acquired.  People will not be able to watch a movie on Netflix or buy the latest book by a Jersey Shore character.  The general public will have nowhere to turn for any source of entertainment so the suicide rate will skyrocket, drug companies and dealers will have a huge increase in profit because people will need a way to escape.  The education system will go in the toilet because the traded school books for iPads, iDesks, iWhatever and children will be unable to learn.   It will be pandemonium, but not for the people who kept their books.  The people who didn’t care about paper cuts and liked that when they said the book was a real “page turner” they meant it.  The people who kept their books will be about to educate their children and neighbors and there will be proof that history happened.  The book readers will heat up some tea, curl up on their couch, and get lost in magic of words written on paper.  Everyone else will probably go mad and jump off a bridge.  So my conspiracy theory in a nutshell, the internet will lead to suicide. 

As you can see I have put a lot of thought into this.   I’m not a hardcore conspiracy theorist, but i will keep buying books and stay away from the Nooks in order to survive.

My self-help tips

I know that I have only lived on this earth for 29 years, but I feel that I have had a lot of experiences that differ from the average bear and along the way I have thought of some tips to make the most of everyday and to be able to go to bed with a smile.  I thought I would share some of them tonight.

1.       Rewatch your favorite TV show from childhood.  Between the intraweb, Netflix, and Redbox you should be able to find complete seasons of the Smurfs or Full House.

2.       Help the old lady across the street.  I honestly will stop what I am doing to help a senior citizen cross the street, hold the door, or help her out of the car and over a huge snow mound.  I do it for two reasons: a) Because older people don’t see young people do enough good anymore and b) because I see my Gramma in every old lady and I know she smiles down at me when I am kind.

3.       Make peace and forgive.  Resentments are like drinking poisons and waiting for the other person to die.  I know that throughout our life time all of us will be hurt by someone and sometimes it seems easier to be mad at them rather than allow ourselves to forgive.  The problem is that anger and hatred can be overwhelming and we lose sight of what was important in the first place.  If you think that there is no way that you would be able to forgive a certain person, let me know and I will let you borrow a documentary.  It is titled Forgiving Dr. Mengle and about a Jewish woman who survived horrific scientific experiments while in Auschwitz and was able to forgive the doctors, the Nazi’s, and Hitler.  It is enlightening.

4.       Don’t post your entire life on a social network, it can always come back and bite you in the rear.

5.       Don’t surround yourself with people who refuse to do anything that doesn’t involve alcohol.  If they can’t go to a movie without a flask chances are they are not the people who will be able to catch you if you fall.

6.       Make sure your sister is one of your best friends.  There is really no way for her to ever escape you no matter how mad she may get you still have the same blood flowing through your veins.  If you don’t have a sister make you best friend’s mom adopt you and get blood transfusions using each other’s plasma.  I should probably set something up with Leah.

7.       Call you parents.  I call my mom every day, mainly because she almost always answers the phone and always has something positive to say.  My dad may be a bit harder to handle some days, but he’s my dad and no matter how he may act I know that deep down he would take a bullet for any one of his kids.

8.       Get a pet.  No matter if it’s a great dane or a box turtle get something you have to take care of and relies on you.  If always makes you feel needed and loved.  If you get a fish and it dies, buy a new one.  If you buy a dog and it dies, buy a fish.

9.       Realize that no one, not even you, are perfect.  Try not to pick out all of the flaws, just try to see the good and maybe after a while it’s all you will see.

10.   Read a book.  Turn off the TV, log off Facebook and do what our parents did.  Read.  I love it when people say, “What would you do without TV?” To which I reply, “I would miss Netflix but I would just read more.”  I didn’t have cable as a kid and I really don’t think I ever will. 

11.   Smile.  Smile at strangers, even if they don’t smile back its fun to see the confused look on their face.

12.   Be nicer to the planet.  Don’t litter, recycle when you can, don’t drive when you can walk, and turn off the water when you brush your teeth.

13.   Try to be nice to everyone, even the girl who gets under your skin.  If you can stay away from her, but if you have no choice bite your tongue and sing your favorite song in your head while she rambles on.

14.   Take lots of pictures to show your grandkids or nieces and nephews.  I wish my grandparent would have had more pictures.

15.   Pray.  I don’t care to what or who just try it.  I may make you feel a little better every day and you may find that someone is listening.

16.   Stand for something.  If you don’t stand for something you will spend your whole life sitting.

17.   Be a little nicer to yourself.  Take the phrases, “I hate myself, I hate my life, or this sucks.” Out of your vocabulary.  It really is true that no matter how horrible you think you have it someone does have it worse.  I know people who have it worse and I pray for them.

18.   Tell the people in your life that you love them.  Sometimes people need to hear that they are loved when you least expect it.

19.   Save your pennies and go on vacation.  Even if it’s just 30 minutes away and only for the night so some time to relax and listen to your thoughts, or nothing at all.  Be good to yourself in every way you can.

20.   Never grow up completely.  Always be able to look at the world like you are five again.  Get ice cream from the ice cream truck, blow bubbles, and color with side walk chalk.  It’s the little things in life that we stopped doing that may have been the most therapeutic.

Choose pickup!

Have you ever called the local pizza shop and said to yourself, "Which should do, pickup or delivery?" Well have no fear because I will give you the top ten reasons you should NOT choose delivery:
10. It is after 11pm
9. There is a snow or ice storm going on outside and you live on Mt. Washington or on the South Side Slopes.
8. It is raining so bad that you wouldn't let your dog outside.
7. You live within walking distance of the pizza shop.
6. You have to ask if the pizza shop takes the access card.
5. You can have to pay with more than $1 in change.
4. Your doorbell and cellphone are broken and you are in the basement and won't hear a knock on the door.
3. You are going to complain about something and ask for the shop to have something delivered for free.
2. You have less than $3 to give for a tip and you live more than a mile away.
1. Your bill is $10.37 and you only have $10.
Please print this out and post it next to all of your take out menus and you will never be unsure again.

Day one: Fail

Well when I started this blog, an hour ago, I had a wonderfully funny story that consisted of geography class, a professor who is certain that we will all be dead in 50 years because we have altered the earth's original form too much (maybe not so crazy), a classmate who probably carries with him at all times; a sharpie to touch up him combat boots, hair ties for his long hair, and extra chain wallet, and movie about the earth's water supply.  The end line was if your so afraid that the earth will run out of water and the government will control what is left, conserve water and drink blood.  It was a well written little piece that would have been great for a first blog, but I have a touch pad on my laptops that is extra sensitive and somehow refreshed my page and since I was trying to be fancy and use my Blogger gadget on igoogle it never saved and everything I typed was lost Al Gore's intraweb black hole.  So I will end day one with one fact and one opinion. Fact: when bunnies get gas it is extremely painful and to alleviate their pain hold them in your arms like a baby and rub their belly.  Opinion: My mother thinks I should change my last name to Sunshine.