Draw Armor? Psssh naw!

My friend (SchabsRaisedtothePowerofCrab), told me about this knight character he imagined based loosely on Don Quixote. Meaning a stupid knight.

This is a sketch just to get something down.

All I could think of to convey ineptitude was 

-big nose

-mustache

-visor over eyes

-purple armor (?)

-flag with the letter 'Q' on it

He's a fairly standard build right now but making him exceptionally tall/fat/skinny/short could be done.

Idontknow. It was fun to make.

The Dog

Kynos

MAXIMUM HAPPINESS!

I think I'm a vegetarian now which is something I never thought I'd be. These legs are full of octopi--something I never thought I'd see.

But this burning sun is brightly shining through my windows and on the plants coiling and curling as the "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower" into something that looks like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I digest and release and turn into movement--

the force that through the green limbs drives the runner around the lake six times and three times almost hitting an old lady and her dog but feeling strong like my big wheels are still on

still on and steady and not off to need help or even push back and so I must drive forward

driving to the dental lab beneath my house to collect dentures and molars and canines and rapidly expanding bovine people sitting around the pool and yelling at their children.

But I'm calm in the muck. Quietly absorbing as the spokes turn and I lean to the left as I learn the winds that make clouds move are above me. Many things worth having are above me. But it's fun to look. It's fun to imagine.

Cats in sneakers and robots with big pants. Fun is the most important part.

Plates

Learned about Plato today.

I didn't learn anything that you can't easily find if you wikipedia him.

One thing I noticed that's kind of strange to me is that if I'm not doing anything and have time to think about it, when I try to ask myself questions like "what is the happiest/best way to live?" or "what do I think is after death?"

My mind goes blank. It's like someone demanding, after a long weighted silence, "speak." And you can't possibly think of anything to start a conversation with.

Except it's "live a happy and good life!" and I become hyper-aware of how little I'm doing. And how little I could possibly do in this moment that would be meaningful to that kind of question.

And the ironic thing is that when you are in the middle of something truly important and life is really happening to you--you would never stop to think about those sorts of questions.

So--is it important to keep asking yourself these questions to be able to do it when it probably matters most? Or do you need to be able to remember those moments and the feelings in those moments and reflect on them after they've past?

The first would give you immediate perspective but if you got too good at it would you ever really experience something? It seems kind of numbing.

The second allows you to live your life as you would normally while presumably making adjustments but there is that distance between the event and the reflection. Memory biases abound! It seems like something that demands an awareness as its happening.

So, it's a whole lot of "can't have one or neither or both."

Also Plato died of a lice infection.

Switching Gears

It's June! Hooray June! The month in which my sister got borned!

But enough about that, for this month, or for maybe just this solitary post, I'm gonna talk about "thinkers."

People who have thinked and the thoughts they thunked.

We'll start with Socrates. Because I got this book from the library called the Examined Lives by James Miller. It gives little biographies about some philosophers and I thought I'd read it because I never took philosophy in college boo hoo.

the only picture in the entire post yet also applies to every single sentence if you think about it hard enough

Socrates. He liked to question people about everything. That's about all he cared about. He didn't uphold anything other than questioning everything and the things he didn't do were because a voice in his head told him not to.

Socrates's big thing was that after he was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock, he remained calm right up to the end.

Which is probably the earliest origins of people being bored and unimpressed by everything to look cool. Little do they know that that is only really cool when you're dead or about to be dead. There should be a state that brings back dinosaurs and makes them in charge of the Sincerity Police.  

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What to learn from Socrates?

"Know thyself" Socrates was all the time trying to know his self. His psyche. His soul or his breath. And he never gave a real answer. But he died in a way that seemed to confirm his knowledge of his self.

So either he discovered the secret and didn't tell anyone, or he faked it, or he put some serious weight behind the idea that you can only know your self through the pursuit of trying to know your self. 

It's the process that counts and any final product is an illusion or just outright false. Conclusions are just more fuel for the fire of inquiry. You have to live in a state of constant revaluation and criticism.  

And then you'll die happy. After being ordered to kill yourself by a group of 501 people.

Socrates was also super idiosyncratic and weird. He would stand around sometimes for hours and hours while thinking about something important like who owed him money or where a good chicken restaurant might be. Something like that.

"Know thy idiosyncrasies"

I'd Like to Imagine

I'd like to imagine that the people who read this think that I'm doing really important things when I'm not updating this blog.

Surely I must be.

Things like waking up at 2 in the morning, seeing that my alarm clock says 2:12 and deciding that that must mean I'm late for work.

So I get up and go out to the kitchen and stare at the empty coffee pot for about 2 minutes, then stare at the clock on the coffee machine, then try to get some mugs and bowls out of the cabinets before I realize that I am 4 hours early for work, turn off all the lights, and collapse on the bed.

It was sort of like sleep walking except I knew I was awake...I was just...stupid.

It was like stupid walking.

Very Special Bread

Another story for the keeds.
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EEK EEK EEK EEK EEK EEK EEK!

Your alarm clock blares at you. It's time to get up and go to school! You decide to put on your school clothes over your pajamas because it's extra comfortable and saves time. 

To save time brushing your teeth and combing your hair, you squeeze toothpaste all over the rug in the bathroom and roll around in it while scrubbing all over with your toothbrush.

There! Now you're sparkly clean and ready to start the day.

You go into the kitchen and Mom is making breakfast.

"Hey kid!" your Mom says, "I stayed up all night and made ten pounds of grits! Eat up!"

Your mom puts a giant tub hot buttered-grits in front of you and hands you a small snow shovel to eat it with.

You say, "Aww Mom! Not again!

You slowly shovel the grits into your mouth.

Suddenly, you hear something that sounds like a soft growl. You hope that you aren't hearing things because of the grits again.

A minute later, you hear the growl again. This time it's a little bit louder. It sounds like it's coming from the counter by the sink.

You look over at the sink but all you see is your Mom vacuuming the ceiling for the third day in a row. You go back to the grits.

Grrrr, There's the growl again! But this time it sounds like a word. No, it sounds like two words. It's a rumbly, scratchy voice saying, "feed me. feed me. feed me!"

It's definitely coming from the counter. Your Mom has gone into the back yard to wrestle the crocodiles so you're all alone in the kitchen now. You slowly walk towards the sound of the voice and it gets louder and louder. 

"feeeed me. feeeeed me. feeeeed me!"

You can reach out and touch the counter now but before you get any closer you say, "Who is that?"

"It's me!"

"Me who?"

"The toaster! I'm hungry! Feed me!"

You see the toaster now and when the voice speaks the toaster shakes softly.

"Toasters don't eat." you say.

"Most Toasters don't eat. But in the middle of the night I came to life and now you must FEED ME!"

"What do I feed you?"

"I need breaaaad!' The toaster shakes violently so that it is much closer to you now.

You run over to the pile of bread in the corner of the kitchen and grab two slices. You quickly put them into toaster and take two big steps back.

The toaster growls. Mmmmm. It heats up and turns a light shade of red. It starts to shake again, a lot this time, before it says, "Bleugh!" and shoots the burnt toast out of the top of its head. The toast hits the ceiling and bounces off and smashes through the window over the sink. 

"That bread is no good! I need special bread! Special bread!"

You scream and run out of the kitchen, grab you backpack and head to school.

That night, when you are sitting down at dinner. The toaster is back in its old spot and the window isn't broken anymore. The toaster doesn't say anything to you and your Mom and Dad don't say anything about the window being broken. Maybe none of it happened. 

Later, in the middle of then night, you wake up and think one thing, "BATHROOM!"

You walk to the bathroom down the hall. It's completely dark. You walk quickly because you really have to go. You open the door and turn on the light

AND THERE'S THE TOASTER SITTING RIGHT ON THE TOILET! 

You try to scream but the toaster shoots out two pieces of soggy bread and they get crammed in your mouth so all that comes out is, "muffled scream!"

The toaster says, "Listen to me. I need special bread. And there's only one kind of bread that is special enough for me. Pay very close attention. Beneath this house is a tiny room. And in that room there is a box. And in that box is the greatest bread in the history of bread. It is...the Golden Bread Helmet of Rancho Cucamunga! I need you to go to the basement and find the secret door in the corner. Go inside the door and you'll see a long hallway full of dangers, dragons, and arts and crafts projects. Once you complete all these challenges, you'll find the room and the helmet."

When the toaster finishes speaking you spit out the pieces of bread. "Okay," you say, "I'll do it...but you get out of the bathroom because I still really have to go!"

**5 minutes later**

You're in the basement now. It's completely dark except for the flashlight you brought. You're not sure which corner to check. You look at the first corner but all you see are some rats playing hopscotch with some cockroaches. That isn't it. You check the second corner but all you see is Gary Oldman sleeping in a sleeping bag.

In the third corner you see a tiny door. You'll have to crawl through it to fit. Before you open the door you take a second to prepare yourself for all the dangers that lay on the other side. You open the door and it's completely dark inside. You lean into the darkness and reach out and now you're falling. You're falling and falling and falling! Where was the hallway?! Where are the arts and crafts projects?! 

You're falling in darkness for a very long time, you have no idea which way is up or down. What's at the bottom of this hole? What if it doesn't have a bottom?

Thud!

You land on a pile of dusty potatoes that somehow break your fall. You turn on your flashlight and see a note on the ground that says, "Sorry about not having a hallway. It would've taken too much time and money. Love, the Toaster."

You look up from the note and see the door leading to the room with the box. You run in and see the box. It's a small black cube with no latches or handles or lid of any kind. You stand in front of the box and say, "Hey box! Gimme that Bread Helmet!"

The box shakes and a deep voice says, "You have correctly guessed the magical phrase, here is the Golden Bread Helmet of Rancho Cucamunga, chosen one."

The top of the box slides off and you shield your eyes from the bright light inside. You squint and see the helmet. It's a beautiful Golden gladiator helmet. You pick it up and hold it in your hands and cry tears of joy.

But then you realize, how are you going to get out of here?

Just then a trap door opens underneath your feet and you fall through it. This time you only fall for a short time because the next thing you know you're sitting in your kitchen and it's time for breakfast. Your mother sees you but before she can say anything your run over to the toaster and cram the Golden Helmet into the slots.

The toaster says, "Thank you! This helmet is delicious!" It grows bright red, then blue, then yellow. It rises into the air and spins around and around.

Then, the Helmet slowly rises out of the toaster. The toaster says, "I have transformed the Golden Bread Helmet of Rancho Cucamunga into the Toast Helmet for the Ruler of Bread. And now you, chosen one, are the Ruler of All Breads and Toasts."

The Helmet floats over and lands on your head. It fits perfectly. You are the Ruler of All Bread and Toast. You can create Bread and Toast anytime you want. And bread and toast will always obey your orders.

You will never have to eat grits for breakfast again!!!!! 

The End!

A Googolplex: a very short story for a very big number

(story for children where I work.)

This is a story about a BIG number. Bigger than one hundred, bigger than one thousand, bigger than one million, or a billion, or even 8 trillion 295 billion 333 million 600 thousand 13. 

One number, that is bigger than all of those others numbers put together, is called a googol. A googol is the number 1 followed by 100 zeroes. It's what you get if you multiply 10 times 10 and then multiply that by 10 and then multiply that by 10 and keep doing that until you do it 100 times. You get a 1 with 100 zeroes.

But there's an even bigger number than that and it's called a googolplex. This story is about a googolplex. A googolplex is what you get if you multiplied 10 times 10 but instead of doing that 100 times, you do it a googol times. 

"But Mr.Andy, " you cry, "I don't understand. What is a googolplex?!"

I'll try to give you an idea of how big  googolplex is. Let's say you had a magical sparkly purple backpack.

And then you rounded up all the goats and all the cows and all the wildebeests and all the buffaloes, and all the antelopes, and all the kangaroos in the whole entire world and plucked out all of their hairs one by one and put them in your magical backpack. Now all those animals and hairless and shivering but the number of hairs wouldn't be a googolplex.

And then if you took a book that had all the words you ever said, and all the words you ever read, and all the words you ever wrote or heard, the letters in that books plus all the hairs wouldn't be a googolplex.

-And if you went outside and started ripping out all the grass in your backyard, and all the grass in your neighborhood, and all the grass in the country, and all the grass in North America and South America and Africa and Australia and you went to Antarctica and took all the penguins too and put those blades of grass and penguins in with the words and the hairs, you still wouldn't have a googolplex.

-And so you decide you're going to get in a time machine and go back to when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and giant sharks lived in the ocean, and you meet a magical orangutan named the Great Maleenko. And he gave you a box of chocolates every second of every day of every year until so much time had passed that you were right back in 2013, and you put all those chocolates in your backpack, plus everything else, you still wouldn't have a googolplex.

And then you say, "Okay! Okay! I know what I'll do!" You make a long rope out of pencil shavings, eyelashes, and grains of sand and make it so long that it reaches the Moon and wraps around the Moon ten times and comes back. And then you pull the Moon down to Earth and smash it into little bits and count up the sand and moon bits and pencil shavings, eyelashes, and grains of sand and put all of that in your backpack, you still wouldn't even be anywhere close to a googolplex.

In fact, if you took the whole universe, and filled it completely, until it was bulging, with teeny tiny pieces of paper that said, "I am a sassy hippopotamus" and put all of those pieces of paper in your enormous pretty sparkly backpack, you STILL would not have a googolplex in your backpack.

In the end, a googolplex is just a really really really really really really really really really really really really really big number.  And also you have to clean out your backpack now.