Anyone remember the homegrown version of the 95 Theses from Garrison Keillor’s novel Lake Wobegon Days? There aren’t quite 95 of them (yet) but here are some things I’ve been thinking about over the summer.
- Fatherhood is awesome. But probably not for everyone with a Y-chromosome.
- You never finish developing your aural skills.
- When did celebrities become experts? I caught some (as much as I could take) of the History Channel’s “America: The Story of Us” series this summer, and it was terrible. Broad generalizations, and celebrities trying to explain their takes on various events in US history. I should have expected as much from the network that brought us “Ice Road Truckers.” Best US history documentary is still Alaistair Cooke’s America. All-time best documentary mini-series ever is still Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.
- To the History Channel’s credit, they didn’t start the fire. Among the many failings of Disney’s Fantasia 2000 was using people like Steve Martin and Bette Midler instead of a musicologist of the caliber of Deems Taylor, who narrated the original. Don’t get me started.
- It was really warm for four weeks in Oklahoma this summer. Really warm. I didn’t feel cooled-off for the entire month from mid-July to just a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know how people made it (and still make it) without air conditioning.
- On that note, I so badly want to be an environmentalist, and do my part, but I’m not doing a very good job at it. I was most efficient when I lived with my parents, shared rides to school, participated in the community recycling program, didn’t fly anywhere and packed out my trash when I went camping with the Boy Scouts. Now, I pretty much do nothing to be part of the solution.
- I am so sick of cell-phone commercials.
- Oh… and I heard on the radio that the Internet is now moving to the next big thing (or already has). Great.
Again, not 95, but it’s a start. There just needed to be more to my blog than Mahler today.