This I know

[matthewdaly]

Here is a list of facts that were personally reinforced for me this very long and exhausting weekend. Some of them are more important than others, and I would be honored if you found them worth reflecting upon.

1) Don't stop talking to your brother just because Glen Beck or Michael Moore tells you that his (generally mainstream) ideas are treasonous or otherwise corrupting your noble ideals. If they told you that that's what I'd say, then they can doubly suck it.

2) Every children's toy that makes noise should have a mute switch. Especially if the noise is loud and annoying and on a very very short very loop.

3) If you're the only person in a crowd that is drinking alcohol, you should probably stop. If you can't stop, then you should definitely stop.

4) If you read a Bible passage in front of a large crowd of people as if it were a poem and not a government document, then they get a better chance of being able to actually hear it, which is a big plus when it's saying something neat that even you didn't know was there.

5) Being able to solve a Rubik's cube still seems to be an impressive feat, even if it takes you close to ten minutes to recall how to do the last few bits.

6) Be fair with your family, if you are able. Take what you need, offer what you can, and leave to recharge when you must. I am enormously privileged to live in a family healthy enough that this happens, but have hope in times of calamity that this will be the time that things will work as they should rather than as they have.

All of this put together adds up to the fact that I miss the heck out of my uncle and am glad that I can do my part to help lay his body and estate to rest and more deliberately live my life in a way that reflects the ideals that he lived so nobly.

Comments

[maize]

It sounds like he was a very worthwhile person to know.

"2) Every children's toy that makes noise should have a mute switch. Especially if the noise is loud and annoying and on a very very short very loop."

I'm still enamoured enough with my soldering iron that this immediately sounds to me like a good opportunity to install such a switch. :)

[matthewdaly]

After an hour of it, my spoken suggestion was for wire cutters, but my unspoken notions were probably closer to a baseball bat or a sharp rock. FWIW, The device in question was a foot tall claw machine, which is quite clever and endearing except that it only played eight measures of "Entry of the Gladiators" on a loop.

(Also, God bless Yahoo Answers for being the top hit on a Google search for "What is that song that they play at circuses?" ^_^ If you ever run out of game pieces for your holiday contest, you could make a contest out of an MP3 of 50 song clips that everyone knows but no one knows the name of.)

[maize]

Actually, my holiday contests used to all be music-based. I've done the "identify short music clips" thing, and I've also done a couple of rounds of "album covers with all the identifying information removed with Photoshop". The similar book covers contest and then the game pieces contest were efforts to allow some other people to win (since a couple of real music geeks on my friends list kept dominating it every time). :) I haven't tried to do song clips that everybody knows but nobody knows the name to, though. That might be kind of fun. :)

Sadly, since I'm in a total freeze on personal spending right now, there shall be no contest this holiday season, but I think once I get the new computer that I'm saving for, that's one thing that I'll want to do right away, since I miss the contests.

Weirdly, I actually did know about that particular song! One of my friends has a big obsession with that bit of trivia because the name is so inapproriate to what we think of as the fundamentally goofy tone of the song.

[deane]

3b) If you're the only person in a crowd who isn't drinking alcohol, start. If you can't start then leave. Because you'll never respect those people again if you see them inebriated when you're sober.

[prairierabbit]

I'm sorry for loss. As for the rules, I'd like to see 4b) Please read poetry out loud with a trusted listener before you attempt it in front of a large crowd of people. Get the cadence down. If you don't know what the poem means, figure it out before you read it publicly, so that its meaning will be clear to others and the poet will not be betrayed.