Interesting times

The first decade of the third millennium after Christ will soon come to an end and I do not know if it is due to my advancing years or that we just get bombarded with too much information but it seems like a lot has happened. If we were to step in to our Tardis (Dr Who fans unite) and go back ten years we would look on a very different time. Imagine a world without...Twitter, Facebook, Youtube even texting (let alone sexting). Now consider the time it takes to keep up with these new time tyrants and how they have entered the collective western subconscious in  a way that we would not even consider ten years ago.

Go back to near the beginning of the decade when there was the event that has shaped much of what passed in public life since then, the 9/11 attacks. They were not the most deadly, or widespread attacks on a nation, consider Serbia and Iraq's treatment, yet in some strange way the surreality of the nature of the attacks almost makes them play like an outlandish unimaginable action film in our minds, at least those of us who were not there, or in some way forever hurt by the attacks. We now close the decade with the almost unimaginable exploding underwear on Nigerians scenario. Almost hilariously surreal because no one but the foolish young man was hurt but it could have been awful and I fly Northwest through Amsterdam all the time, so it is close to home in so many ways.

So now to the great African nation of  Nigeria's list of things to work on, 411 scams, corruption as an art form, brutal shariah law in the North etc, we now have a true piece de resistance, young Nigerians wearing exploding underwear on airlines. Interesting times indeed. Thankfully though the decade that started with a bang mercifully did not end with a bang from two day old underwear on a Nigerian.

It is sad to think that it is the violently unimaginable that bookends the decade. Then again there is always Y2K to not think of and the countless generators, safe rooms, gun stores and can repositories that were assembled over that one. I am sure somewhere in this there is a message for all of us.

Maybe the decade actually started with a fizzle and ended with a sizzle....Hmmmm?

For 3xl the thought of hibernating for a few months or the next decade does seem mildly appealing. However when I woke up what would I find?

May you continue to live in interesting times friends.

Next?

Greetings fellow turkey tasters, stuffing scoffers, cranberry consumers. Let us all bid a hurried farewell to 2009. Whether it ends with a bang or a whimper it ends nevertheless and we all look forward to the next decade. To say the year ended inauspiciously would be an understatement worthy of someone from my fair isles. Yes we are still in the dead zone between Christmas and New Year, Kwanzaa suspended and Hanukkah held looking to a decade we hope will be more Gator, and less Lemon-ade.

So what now? New ideas, better plans, less loans? The possibilities are nothing like endless, but with all of this frugality, fear and pink slip petrification comes a sense of that special magic that every new year brings, that it will be different.

In the regions around Azerbaijan and Iran the new year festival of Novruz comes in the spring time and in commemoration of that time children build fires and jump over them. They trust that the old bad things will be burned away as they leap over the tongal and a new year will begin with them free and clear. For many despite foreclosures and credit crunches there arises in the breast of man a sense that things can change and will be better, and why not! 

So whatever 2009 did to you, take five minutes to linger in the luxury or melancholy of it and then turn your head to 2010 and shout out, Next!

Tweelight or other semi dark things...

Greetings shape keepers, blood keeping, plasma avoidant types, and others who do not suck!!!

3xl has just been subjected to a gratuitously non gorey two hours of duskness courtesy of every swooning tweens fantasy...Vampires that are nice-ish humanitarians and werewolves that are really protective not predatory moon howlers.

Yes you know what I am talking about, the latest celluloid manifestation of the mormon who should know better's work of fiction, New Moon or in Taylor Lautner's case, New Swoon. As if it was not bad enough to have to put up with everyone and his lycanthrope's fawnings about his tremendous six pack, washboard or whatever else we want to call the dear lad's tummy, I then had to watch the blessed film with my 4 passions. Yes it was too long, too much teenie angst and not enough action for a 3xl movie and all that pining stuff, groan. Get on with it, bite her, we know you are gonna!!!

I found myself rather like the "Whatevertheairy" mafia vampires, who looked on Belle with blank uncomprehending stares, unable to pierce her mind, as I often found myself staring uncomprehending at why I was still there after two hours, maybe it was contagious. The counterpoint of the intense, conflicted, urbane and artsy vampire with the outdoorsy, earthy wolf man really worked. It was a kind of Romeo and Juliet with some competition thrown in courtesy of "team one or the other" and all makes for a young girl's romantic fancy.

I realize that this has been a runaway success and I pondered a little at it and its rather dark greeny beige vampires and all too angry wolf men. The book's name is rather telling after all. Meyer has created a world that is neither dark nor light. It is twilight, the realm between darkness and light neither fish nor fowl, neither really vampire nor lycan. The rash of similar things recently on tv and in the movies where we have some really honest to goodness nasty examples of bloodsuckers and shape shifters and then like the Twilight version, those that are in control or just misunderstood has been an interesting phenomenon.

They are the nice vampire looking for acceptance, seeking to control their habits and curse, or they are the wolf man that justifies his brutality and bloodlust by adopting the guise of a guardian, that is unless you are too close and make them angry and then watch out and mind the face, as one hapless girlfriend found out.

Was this not ever though the ploy of the deceptive? Create a PC monster that can not be held accountable if it gets a little angry, but generally is fine. Is this not not the sanitized, I can live with this kiddie friendly version of every schlocker, gusher hacker movie that parents would never watch themselves let alone let their kids go to? Ah yes you got to hand it to Stephanie she hit the nail really near the head. Here is a horror movie without horror, a blood fest without much blood and we can all feel fine about watching that ....

But remember that a sanitized, cleaned up, airplane version of a bad movie is still a bad movie even with the bad language, blood and bodies taken out. It is just that much more justifiable to ourselves and our kids, and after all, not being seen for what you really are, is all part of living in the darkening, dusky world of twilight, zone or otherwise.

I guess that is why the Lord told us to walk in the light, since we ourselves are the fruit of the light and have no fear of being seen for what we really are...unlike some non people...

So here's to all us middle aged, laid back, submerged six pack toting, call it what it is, dads out here who have been made to watch the latest installment of Meyer's horror lite books. Lets keep calling our kids back into the light rather than allow them to become the next blood sucking promoter's prey in the twilight.

Uncomprehendingly yours 3XL.