The internet is the vast collective digital mind of the puny humans living on our pathethic spinning ball of mud called Earth. It is a growing electronic organism of unimaginable size and shape. Even powerful governments and multi-national corporations can't fully control it.
We are all part of it as contributors and spectators: buying and selling, listening and telling.
Every grand dream and dark nightmare in human history can be found within a few moments of your desire to know it. It can be a path to enlightenment and a little box of horrors.
Celebrity look-alikes
I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with my brother. We hadn't seen each other in a few years. He had business in central Florida and was nice enough to make some time to visit. He had to rent a car, drive through the night and get a hotel room. It was no casual effort on his part and I appreciate him for doing it.
When he arrived the next day at my secret undisclosed location, we both had some first impressions of each other that can be summed up by celebrity look-alikes. He got out of his rental car dressed casually, wearing a baseball cap. His hair was a little grayer and longer than I remembered. A stubbly beard framed his bespeckled face. He was grinning widely.
My first impression was "Oh wow. My brother has turned into George Carlin."
When I mentioned this, his reply was something like, "You look like ZZ Top."
I think it was just the graying hair that made me think of Carlin, in addition to having just spent so much time at his web site so recently. Carlin's face was burned into my mind. For most of my brother's life, people have noted that he looks like Ron Howard.
And I don't really have a beard. It's just an unusually long goatee.
This is my brain on drugs
When I was a kid, I learned to "give a hoot and don't pollute" from Woodsy Owl. And that crying American Indian made me feel guilty if I even thought about littering (even as it turns out, he was an actor of Sicilian descent).
Even now, when I finish smoking a cigarette, I twirl the hots out of it, step on it and take the cigarette butt with me. I don't like litter bugs and I know only I can prevent forest fires because Smokey the Bear has told me that for my entire life.
Now-a-days, some public service announcements (PSAs) are much more shocking. I guess people need to be shocked in order to remember the message when they are on media / advertisement overload everywhere they go.
I've heard a few memorable PSAs on the radio lately. Gun crime. Meth. Whatever. However, I haven't watched TV for over two years and I guess I'm behind the curve as far as television PSAs.
Here are some of the most shocking PSAs I've ever seen. Watch them at your own risk. I'm going to find a cartoon to watch now in order to get the PSA images out of my short term memory. I'm glad I don't have to go to sleep soon.
Voices in your head
[headphones]
Akira3099's Project Playlist
[quote of the moment]
"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces."
– Sigmund Freud
George Carlin ZZ Top Ron Howard PSA Smokey The Bear Schizophrenia
