...and I'm like Baby...

Another impromptus post by yours truly...

• Last week I went to Color Me Mine and it was a lot of fun. The girl I went with is very artistic so of course her soup mug thing was really cute and impressive. My spoon rest, however, sucked to high heaven. I knew that it would be a fun date, especially for her, but I also know that I suck at the visual arts. It frustrates the hell out of me because, for the most part, I do everything at least somewhat well. I feel confident in most of my abilities, but if you want me to draw/paint/sculpt or anything like that, then I'm just terrible. It's so funny to me, too, because it's not like I didn't put any effort into it either; on the contrary, I went through some long periods of intense focus only to have my piece come out looking like a 5-year old using his feet did it. How does that make me feel? ...aaaaangry...
• For one of my classes we are currently reading Made to Stick. It's a book about what makes some ideas 'stick' more than others. It's a really interesting read, and one of the points that it makes is referred to as the curse of knowledge. Try this simple experiment with someone you know - tap out a familiar song and have the other person try and guess what the song is. Try the simplest songs too like Happy Birthday, the Star Spangled Banner, etc. Some guys at Stanford tried this and most people assumed that the guesser would get most of the songs. How many were they actually able to get? Something absurdly low. I think it was like 3 out of 197 different songs. Why would that be the case? It comes down to the simple fact that there are some instances where you know something and are so familiar with it that you can't even remember what it's like not to know. You tap and the whole song is playing in your head, and you are dumbfounded that the person you're doing it with is such a moron that they can't pick out something as easy as Happy Birthday, only what the other person is hearing is....tap, tap, tap, tap, TAP, TAP, tap, tap, tap tap, TAP TAP...come on! I can't believe you're not getting this! Sometimes having knowledge about a certain something also removes our capacity for empathy. That's a loaded statement and has a lot of implications, but I'll let you draw those on your own.
• Dating can be fun sometimes. And why is it that when it rains, it pours? Dating is mostly tedious, but there are some spots when it's just really a good time. I'm remembering how much fun it is to be the guy - to ask out, to assert myself and make decisions, to try and think of fun ways to show that I'm thinking about her or concerned or whatever. Most of the time I feel like the game playing in dating is something more like, hey! why don't you stand up against that wall naked while I fire comments at you and see how self-conscious you can get? Sometimes the game playing is actually fun - is she touching my arm even though she's talking to someone else?...okay, don't get too excited that her favorite TV show is also Scrubs...I think I'm going to reach for her in 3-2-1, now!
  
• This is why NFL football is awesome: the last three seasons the biggest game of the year has also been probably the best game of the year. There are multiple storylines that intersect for the final big game. 2 years ago it was literally David and Goliath - the first ever 18-0 team was playing a 5th or 6th seed, and David kept it close enough that eventually he slew the giant. Last year it was a team with an over the hill QB who shouldn't even be at the helm (how many times is one person, Kurt Warner, going to provide us that scenario?). It was a former assistant coach, now turned head coach, guiding his current team against his former team. This year it was Peyton Manning's attempt at football immortality against the only bandwagon team where it was okay that everyone wanted them to win. Here's the crazy thing too: no team in each of those Super Bowls was even the same, so you should have entirely different fan bases interested in the games, but somehow there is something for everyone to watch and be excited about. How often do you feel that way about baseball? basketball? even college football? I didn't care one lick when the Phillies played the Rays, or when Alabama played Texas, or when the Spurs played the Cavaliers. I'll tune into some games or part of the games, but I'm not sticking around for the whole thing. The NFL just does an impeccable job of making the stories enticing, producing a product that's first class, and having a championship game that really pits the best teams against each other. And because it's only one game, there is also a great chance for something unexpected to happen.
  
• I have more that I want to say, but I really need to get started on my day, so I'll leave you with this song. I feel so lame for liking it, but I think it's so catchy. A friend of mine wanted me to like one of his other songs, but I just couldn't do it, and then I heard this one and was like...oh that's too catchy. I think he only just recently started crawling, but I can see the appeal that he has.