The vicious cycle of hereditary geekiness claims another victim.

So I'm teaching my kid brother to play Dungeons and Dragons, and I'll tell you why. When I was a kid, I played a lot of video games, way more than was healthy. But when I was done playing video games, I would take the stories and ideas in the games and do my own thing with them. I've found cartoons I drew in kindergarten based on watching my uncles play Ultima VII, and I'd write little stories about the characters. In my defense, this was before I knew how bad an idea "fan fiction" is.

Anyway, I played the games because I liked the stories. I guess that's a bit like saying you read Maxim for the articles. But if you get me started playing a video game, even if it's really terrible, I have to finish it so I can see how it ends. If I had the same persistence about real literature, I would probably have finished the two books I've been reading intermittently since February.

Here's my point, though: I'm having a difficult time seeing any redeeming creative merit to the stuff Alec plays. He's into the anime thing, so it's all pretty much rubbish. I don't think the Japanese even have a word for "hackneyed" or "hyperbolic" or "nonsensical"... unless that's what the word "anime" means.

So I'm getting him into D&D because if he's going to be a geek, he's going to be an American geek, dang it. And since he can't see the pictures and the game doesn't tell him what to do, he'll have to do something besides mash the "X" button all day.

In seriousness... I asked him the other day what he would wish for if he had three wishes from a genie, and he couldn't think of anything. I asked him what he would do if he had a million dollars, and he looked around the room, spotted his iPod, and said, "Um... buy... songs."

I love... lamp. It was exasperating. So we're going to grow him an imagination. It's going to involve the repulsion of kobold invaders and finding out who murdered the elven high priestess, among other things. I know you won't believe me, but I'm writing a pretty wicked story for this... we're going to tackle concepts like industrialization (they call it "going bad" in Narnia), contradictory moral obligations, individual and universal apostasy, political intrigue... the kids are getting impatient because they want to actually play, but I'm frankly having too much fun getting ready. And just because it's in the context of being a Dungeon Master does not make it stupid. It just makes me stupid for telling you about it.

--Kevin

All dead white boys say "God is good"

My dog is lying on the floor asleep and his legs are twitching.

We believe in something called "the measure of [one's] creation." From my extremely rudimentary and Wikipedia-based understanding of Eastern philosophy, it seems to correspond roughly to the concept of Tao or Dharma: essentially, it's the sum of what we're here to do and be, and carries with it the idea that every created thing has a purpose in the divine economy.

My dog, I've learned, was born to play fetch. He can chase a stick until it falls apart in his mouth; all day and all night if we'd let him. I've never seen anybody enjoy anything as much as he enjoys chasing a stick. So now, because he's stuck in the house and bored, and because he's a good dog, God is giving him stick-chasing dreams. I'm a little envious.

I've been thinking about this, because it's evidence that the happiest things in life are the ones that are filling the measure of their creation--however simple that is. In some ways it's general--we're all meant to keep the commandments, we're all meant to love and be loved, etc.--but it's also very specific. Part of the measure of my Dad's creation, for example, is to work outside with his hands. He doesn't always enjoy it, but it's not entirely about enjoyment. It's just one thing he's meant to do, and another lifestyle would probably be unnatural and ill-fitting.

It leads me to believe that our role as stewards of God's creation (and as stewards of one another, our brothers' keepers) is to help others fulfill the measure of their creation. That's why we become fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and children. It's also why I'm going to take the dog out to play fetch when he wakes up.

--Kevin

Brains are weird.

I love it when a CD corresponds to a vivid and specific time in my life. Mom is listening to The Strokes' Is This It, which I bought the summer after junior year. It reminds me of all the crap I stapled to my walls and hung from the ceiling, the cushioned litter I made out of that old shopping cart, driving around back when gas was cheap and you could just drive around. Now that I think about it, between the shopping cart, the bathrobe, and the stringy, unkempt long hair, I may have been doing Derelicte before Derek Zoolander made it cool.

More than any of that, though, it gives me a weird little phantom pain... I remember how I felt listening to this CD and associating the lyrics with my life at the time, but I can't remember what I was thinking about. It's a shortcut in my mind that used to lead somewhere important, and doesn't anymore. But I still remember all the lyrics.

Remarkably, I don't think my angst at the time had anything to do with a girl. I'm going to listen to this CD and drive around again.

Change You Desperately, Desperately Want To Believe In

I've been resisting talking about (or even thinking about) the election season until I saw anything discernible or meaningful about it. It does interest me that the past two presidential elections, and now the Democratic nomination, have been so incredibly close and contested. It seems likely that the parties have achieved such a mastery of opinion polling and tailor-made rhetoric as to render their candidates qualitatively indistinguishable to the average voter.

But what concerns me more is the personality cult that carried Barack Obama to the nomination. Not so much for what it says about him, as what it says about our national state of mind, and fitness to govern ourselves. A rousing, emotional call for unity, a promise to restore our national dignity, extravagant populist rhetoric and promises... the fact that so many have responded to such easy demagoguery is a little disturbing.

He said something on the subject that I think was maybe more truthful than he knew. Referring to the diverse throng that assembles to watch him speak: "It's like I'm just the excuse."

He's right about that. People don't want Barack Obama; they want to believe. The past eight years have made us so necessarily, heartbreakingly cynical; but we're a nation of idealists at heart. So he hardly had to sell his campaign at all--we're just begging to be persuaded. And maybe Barack Obama is a decent guy, but it wouldn't matter if he wasn't. His playbook will take a leader in any direction he wants to go, as long as the mob is weary and vulnerable enough to swallow it.

--Kevin

All I know is, Katherine Heigl ain't bad.

So I just watched "27 Dresses" with my Mom. We were waiting out rush hour and there was nothing else on. Mom picked it, I didn't.

It was standard romantic-comedy boilerplate, for the most part... women will never get tired of Jane Austen. Ten or twenty interchangeable plot iterations, a steady stream of handsome, disposable actors, and you've got a multimillion-dollar money tree that will never, ever, ever stop producing.

But they got pretty brave with this one... the stubborn, arrogant love interest (this week's Mr. Darcy) actually rants about an unscrupulous multimillion-dollar industry entirely dedicated to milking the sentimentality and romantic expectations of women. He's talking about the wedding industry, but I have to believe this was included as a joke.

The movie did lead me to wonder, though, whether there could really be beautiful women out there who become secretly infatuated with the authors of well-written articles they read in newspapers and magazines before they find out that the author looks like James Marsden. It sounds too good to be true, but one can't help hoping.

--Kevin