The Column

Motto: Balance to the Universe
I've been unable to write this column for the past 50 hours since I watched Avengers: Infinity War for the first time. My brain has been trying to comprehend how incredible everything about this movie (and by extension, the franchise as a whole) is. In writing this, I hope to be able to move on a bit to what's next.

Marvel's Cinematic Universe is the single most impressive thing that's ever been done in movies. Sure movies like "Citizen Kane" are better movies - but that's not as impressive to me as making 19 blockbuster hits in a row over the course of 10 years. 19 consistently good-at-worst movies that tell a compelling continuous story, while being entertaining on their own. If you ask people what the greatest franchise of all time is - they'll probably say Star Wars, James Bond, J.R.R Tolkien's Middle Earth movies, or Harry Potter... but Marvel so clearly deserves to be at the top of that list. Star Wars is 9 movi…

Motto: girl scout cookies are a treat, boy scout popcorn is an obligation
First, because I never do, here's a short poem:
Running through the forest.
Dodging trees like a wild beast.
Light on foot.
That's where he pooped his pants.

That took me 10+ minutes to write.
In my last post I said my next post was going to be a retrospective of 5 years tracking my life. This is not that. I didn't expect to want to write again so quickly.
Recently I've been thinking through the real-world logistics of switching to Apple products. My entire adult life I've thought it will happen at some point. I'll wake up one day and throw my Android phone out the window of my new hot red convertible car (implying that it was part of some midlife crisis or something). 
It started with a thought exercise with where I tried to map out all of the use cases commonly covered by consumer electronics, rate (from 0 to 5) how well a bunch of different types of electronics enabled you to meet those uses, …

Motto: Shooter McGavin was in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation

I haven't written much lately cause I've been busy.

I rewatched Thor: Ragnarok. I think it needs bumped up even higher in my MCU ranking. Previously it was at the top of my "Upper" tier - it's been reranked to middle of the "Elite" tier, passing Spiderman: Homecoming and Guardians of the Galaxy. Thor's response to all this:

Next post will certainly be a retrospective of the Life Tracker - as my 5 Year Anniversary of tracking happens in two weeks. I have a preview of that post right here:

The post after that will be me screaming for an entire post about how good Avengers: Infinity War was. I have a preview of that post right here:

A post in the not too distant future will be me like this:

A post after that one will be more like this:

I guess what I'm saying in this post is that most of what I have to say I'm not ready to say yet.

Top 5: Things That Make Me Hip
5. I bought…

Motto: The Adventure Begins...

Here's some notes-to-self from my Google Keep that I originally wrote with the intention of exploring at a greater length on here, but given that I write about this sort of crap all the time, I'm just going to write them verbatim from my notes:

Always explore. Always try new things.

Happiness is not that hard.
Happiness follows healthiness. You feel healthy when you're exercising regularly, brushing your teeth, cooking nutritious meals and eating them, sleeping enough, and working on creating projects that hone talents and stimulate the brain.
Happiness also follows a sense of control. You don't feel in control when you're giving into your "immediate gratification" impulses. 

Splitting your attention between things is a fleeting contentment that ultimately givesway to a sense of existential dread. It's always better to be fully into doing one thing than to be halfway doing two things.

--- Okay that's done. Next up.

I just f…

Motto: Dirigibles and Didgeridoos have Nothing in Common Other than They are both Plural Nouns and Long, Funny "D" Words
Bitcoin is weird. I assume anyone who's reading this is at least aware of Bitcoin as a thing, so I'm not going to explain what it is. I have no Bitcoin. I never bought in. The whole concept is... it's just insane to me. It's like a stock for a company that never existed, never made anything, that can pay no dividends. I mean, stocks as a whole barely make sense to me - but this is a whole new level of WHAT? 
From my admittedly limited understanding, you "mine" Bitcoin by telling your computer to do some crazy math. Your computer does that math and spits out a new Bitcoin. As time goes on the math gets harder to accomplish and thus Bitcoin become harder to produce. 
Meanwhile, everyone who has any Bitcoin at all has their name on this ledger that says "Jack has 2 Bitcoin, Jill has 3". If Jack wants to give Jill Bitcoin to …

Motto: Don't say cheese, just smile.Life is Good.
This is the kind of stuff I think about.
What is "smart"? What makes somebody smart? Is it just... knowing a lot of things? Is somebody smart just because they do really well in bar trivia? Are you smart because you've read so many books? Is she smart because she's so well-traveled? Is he smart because he's experienced a lot of things?
I don't think "smart" is definable in a global scope. It's sort of like "healthy". It doesn't mean anything, really. Healthy is what you define it to be. If you die of a heart attack at 35, but that was your plan all along - does that make you "unhealthy"? Planning to die at 35 certainly makes you not smart... so what does? Maybe "smartness" is something you just know when you see it, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. 
I'm not "smart" because I pulled that sweet Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart reference. …