Monthly Archives: November 2010

Help me write a story

By Tim Fredrick Posted in Thoughts and Musings Tagged 3 Replies

I was reading a book I assigned for one of my classes today and a section of it talked about playing with language – particularly on the Internet. So I’m going to basically steal (with a few alterations of course) one of the ideas.

I’ve always liked writing fiction. At one point in my like I wanted to be a short story writer and novelist. Heck maybe some day I’ll follow through on that. But for now writing for fun seems like a good way to spend my time. One problem I always had with writing fiction was plot and making decisions about what would happen next. I wanted to have intricately developed plots and got too hung up in doing that. So this little project is going to be like a choose your own adventure story. I’ll write some and then give you all the opportunity to vote on what should happen next.

Here are some options for the basics of the story. The character’s name is Evan and he lives in New York City.

He is a …
A) assistant to an author
B) high school teacher
C) graduate student
(gee where did I get these options?)

What kind of story will this be?
A) comedy of errors
B) romance
C) action/suspense

The first scene will take place
A) on a bus going down Fifth Avenue
B) in the doorway of the front door of his apartment
C) in front of the milk vendor at the Williamsburg farmers market

Leave a comment with your votes. Voting will probably close on Friday night.

Spider-Man on Broadway

By Tim Fredrick Posted in Thoughts and Musings Tagged , Leave a reply

The Curtain Comes Up on ‘Spider-Man” — NYTimes.com

This is either going to be really great or really, really sad. The talent involved – Julie Taymor and Bono/Edge – indicates promise, but I can’t help but think that there some things that just aren’t meant for musicals. I will say: if I can get cheap tickets, I’ve got to see it. Even if it is horrible. Especially if it is horrible.

Existential Crisis Alert

By Tim Fredrick Posted in Thoughts and Musings Tagged , Leave a reply

I don’t know what possessed me to google “existential crisis” today (perhaps I’m having one … again?). I came across the wikiHow article titled “How to Deal with an Existential Crisis“. Needless to say, it was not helpful. In fact, I think it may have made matters worse.

Your thoughts are really not your own. At their core, the thoughts are made up of units of socially created things called words. Your language is not yours, it is from others. So to be attached to language will ultimately make anyone miserable.

Seriously? They’re going to bring up the nature of a socially constructed reality to someone seeking help with figuring out the meaning of their life? This seems unwise. “Your language is not yours…” … uh, the academic is me says that this is true, but the freaked out individual inside is thinking, “Holy crap! Then, what is mine?”

Forget the past, tomorrow never really happens. Your ability to experience joy will grow dramatically when you drop comparing yourself to other people and only compare yourself to yourself, if anything at all; in an ironic twist of fate, this can be achieved incrementally by holding a more stoic subjectivity. Relax all reasoning which extends beyond your projected experience in space and time, and if possible, your immediate sensuous experience. Try getting in better shape but don’t put all your stock in it, don’t be afraid to fall in love with yourself alongside everything else.

Let’s forget that the subtitle of this section seems to have little to do with the remaining paragraph. “Tomorrow never really happens”? That’s not the most comforting thought. When did my existential crisis turn into a death sentence? The idea about comparing yourself to others is valid, I’ll grant them that. But the rest? I’m supposed to relax all reasoning? My reasoning is the only thing keeping me from losing it sometimes. And, if I could fall in love with myself, I doubt I would be having an existential crisis to begin with.

Drink a cool glass of water.

This actually seems like the most sensible advice, but it has only caused me to have the existential crisis on the toilet and that doesn’t help either. Recreating The Thinker on the john doesn’t offer a lot of valuable insight.

Lesson learned: Existential crises cannot be solved by googling. It is probably the only situation which cannot be solved by the almighty search engine.

Fringe on Fridays does not have to mean the end

By Tim Fredrick Posted in Thoughts and Musings Leave a reply

Fringe is an awesome show.  Hello, multiverse.  This season, the weeks alternate between the two parallel universes that are the subjects of the show. The show’s main character, Olivia, is stuck in the other universe while Fauxlivia (the Olivia from ‘over there’) is posing as Olivia here in our universe.  Olivia almost made it back this week, but was thwarted.  But she sent a message to Peter, her partner, that Fauxlivia is not Olivia and Olivia is stuck ‘over there’.  Sure it seems complicated, but it really isn’t.

But, it was recently announced that Fox was moving Fringe from Thursday nights (after Bones) to Friday nights.  Many people are upset and think that it means the end of the show.  I’m more hopeful, because I can’t imagine a world without Fringe (or multiple worlds, I guess).  Let’s not forget that The X-Files was on Fridays for many years.  After all, the geeks who like the show are home on Fridays just as much as on Thursdays.

Zombies!

By Tim Fredrick Posted in Thoughts and Musings Leave a reply

My favorite show lately has been The Walking Dead on AMC (followed closely by Fringe, of course).  The show is a character-driven drama based on the graphic novel series.  I’ve liked the graphic novels, but the series is way better.  Too bad this first season is only six episodes.  Although, AMC has made the very wise decision to renew the show for 13 episodes next season.

I’ve always liked zombies … way better than vampires.  Shaun of the Dead is a great zombie comedy (pictured left).  It’s the whole reason I like Simon Pegg.  28 Days, 28 Days Later, and Dawn of the Dead … awesome. I recently finished - and enjoyed – World War Z, a book which is an ‘oral history’ of the zombie apocalypse.

I recently found this post on io9.com about the history of zombies.  It’s worth a read if you like academic studies of pop culture phenomena.

Armenian Veggie Burgers on Homemade English Muffins

By Tim Fredrick Posted in Thoughts and Musings Leave a reply

Boy, it has been a while since I posted here.  So, why not start off posting again with a post about the great dinner Christian and I made tonight: Armenian Veggie Burgers (recipe here) on Homemade English muffins (recipe here).

I’ve wanted to make the English muffins for a long time and when I found the veggie burger recipe, I thought it would be a great time to try.  It was a lot of fun to make the English muffins.  I used the regular boule recipe from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day book that is great for making bread at home.  Then, you use some round rings, put them on a skillet, drop some dough in rings, and wait while they cook up great and delicious.

Onto the burgers.  I’m not going to go into all the steps … and there are a lot.  We used two skillets, a pot, the oven, the food processor, a gabillion knives, spoons, and herbs.  Here’s what it looks like towards the end of the process.

They were DELICIOUS.  Filling, tasty, and healthy.  We opted to not have fries or anything with them and that was an excellent decision.  They were great by themselves!