TinkerX

I never watched the TV show “24″ when it was on. I’d heard the name “Jack Bauer” of course. Upon looking him up in the Wikipedia just now I was a bit surprised at the length of the entry (around 6,400 words)… The entry on George Washington has around 6,200 words, for the sake of comparative irony.

My brother, John, usually has similar taste to mine in media, and so, last year, when he highly recommended watching “24,” I thought I’d give it a go. Being that we were in the “Put something on your Christmas list or else!” timeframe, I added the DVD of the first season to my Amazon.com wish list. My lovely wife got me the first two seasons for under the tree.

After a couple weeks, we were both referring to my “24″-watching experiences as, “Andy’s TV crack.” The show is addictive, bad for you and messes with your head.

Today, I just finished watching the last episode of season 6, the last season shot/available. That means (math alert!) that I’ve watch around 115 hours (144 episodes x 80%) of  one show in about 4 months. Roughly one episode a day.

Now, of course, I didn’t watch one episode a day. Some days (like today) I watched four. I think the most I ever watched in one 24 hour period (ha ha) was six. I had oral surgery back in January, and it was very nice to just crash on pain meds and do nothing but eat mooshy food and watch Jack Bauer save the universe for large blocks of time.

I have mixed feelings about the show:

• I really like watching Kiefer. I have for years. I thought he was great in “The Lost Boys” back in the 80’s. I’ve always liked his dad, and some of that bleeds over, I suppose. He’s easy to watch. I find his style/look to be a kind of “corn fed danger boy” thing. The kid next door who owns guns. Lots of guns. My only problem with him in “24″ is that most of the lines are delivered in an anxious, urgent whisper. That gets old. He got a bit more pink-noise in the vocals in season six, which was nice to see (er… hear). I think he was a good choice for the role of Jack Bauer. If you’ve watched the show, try to imagine Charlie Sheen, for example, in the lead. Giggling ensues.”
• I am well aware of the whole torture issue. Jack’s character embodies the current administration’s idea that, under some circumstances, it’s OK to torture people because, well, you really, really need to stop the nuke from going off. To be fair, it runs both ways in “24,” as Jack and other good guys get tortured both by the bad guys, and by earnest good guys who think that Jack and/or others might be hiding info. To be more fair, torturing works sometimes and not others. Sometimes all Jack has to do is shoot a guy in the leg, and he gives over. Sometimes they do the whole pharma-torture thing, and get nothing. After awhile, I became used to torture as a minor plot development action that simply moved the plot one way or another. And (again, after awhile), I got used to Jack cutting people’s fingers off, electrocuting them and threatening to put out their eyeballs. I’m not comfortable with that situation — that I got used to seeing it — but there it is. After something becomes almost as much of a trope as the “there’s a mole on the inside” thing (see below), it just doesn’t have the same power to horrify.
• Apparently, there’s always a mole. Every season features some kind of situation where an American is aiding the bad guys. And, frankly, I can tell you why — the people who run CTU (the Counter Terrorist Unit where Jack works… kind) are idiots when it comes to their own security. There are all kinds of scenes where a person they bring in as a witness or friend or family member is allowed to wander around the facility. People who work there slip away to make phone calls in a little stone corridor off to one side. Sometimes these calls are overheard. Mostly not. But you think they’d learn to bug that little hallway. I don’t mind “Big Stupid” stuff like the whole idea of an international conspiracy to start a Middle East war and drive up the price of oil. That’s fine. But a counter terrorism department shouldn’t let people have their own, private cell phones in the office, and should be more careful about civilians wandering around. I’m just sayin’.
• The stakes are too f’ing high. You can have a fantastic, scary, tense movie where the whole thing that’s “at stake” is one person’s life, or even their career or morality. You don’t need to threaten the West Coast with bio-plague or nukes every damned time. Now, I understand, this is Tom Clancy-esque anti-terrorist stuff. But, seriously, there were seasons where Jack rescuing a friend was better drama than Jack saving 6-10 U.S. cities from imminent destruction. The other problem with “high stakes” is that the math ends up being really bad. [Spoiler alert] In season six, one of the briefcase nukes that Jack is chasing goes off in an L.A. suburb killing around 12,000 people + whoever dies later from radiation poisoning. And while further Jacksonian efforts to avert WW3 are in line with that scale, the rescue of one or two people just seems… trite… when you put it on the table with 12k dead. Jack saved the day for these two nice people? That’s swell. What about the whole town of Valencia that just when ker-poof?
• The cinematography and direction are really nice. Multiple shots at one time, the whole “real time” schtick… Nice work, team. In many ways, the direction and pacing are what makes the show so addictive. The acting is OK, and some of the writing isn’t bad… but it’s not very deep or, really, very different from season to season. Like candy, sex, cigarettes, crack, booze and Abba, it’s not really about the quality, but the intrinsic fun.

I’m glad it’s over, frankly. For me. For now. Maybe I can finally start blogging regularly again or read some more books or… wait… there’s a new season of Battlestar Gallactica.   Mmmmm….

If you haven’t seen Garfield Minus Garfield, check it out. Pretty amusing.

The number of things you have to know about culture, psychology, etc. in order to find this funny is creepy in and of itself. The deconstruction of a comic strip, minus its star, points to a public that is increasingly sophisticated when it comes to choosing how to read material at any given moment.

Question for the gang… is this funnier if you hate or love Garfield in its original state?

Last year I wrote a post called The UnGrinch 25; a list of ideas on how to keep the fun, spirit and joy in your holiday season. In order to challenge myself, I’m upping the ante this year. So let’s see if I can come up with 50 ways to beat the Holiday Humbugs. I will be incorporating last year’s list, but adding new stuff (duh) and grouping things in five categories, 10 ideas each for (jump links ahead): crafts, entertaining, cards, gifts/shopping and meaningfulness. So… away we go.

10 Craft Ideas

1. Make a family calendar. Pick a theme or use pics of your family. Fill it with all the important family dates; birthdays, anniversaries, etc. Include a weird or interesting events from Chase’s Annual Events. You can make monthly calendars using MS Publisher, or the ever-free and wonderful Open Office. Good to have, good to give.

2. Create your own ornaments. My favorite, as a kid, was to take a styrofoam shape (bell, star, even a simple ball), and stick a bajillion sequins to it with pins. Pretty. Shiny. And it keeps kids busy for hours while you do other holiday nonsense. Another ornament idea (bonus!) is to take beads (I like the shiny, little, star-flowery shaped ones) and string them along a piece of craft wire. When you’re done, you end up with an ornament that’s also a bendy toy.

3. Lego nativity scene. ‘Nuff said.

4. Toys from tots. There are many organizations that gather up toys for kids who don’t have them. And that’s fantastic. But kids also love to make and give stuff around the holiday season, and may not have the resources. Organize an effort to provide a crafty sort of event where all the necessary parts and instructions for making a neat holiday gift are available to a group of kids who otherwise wouldn’t have access. My bet is that if you or your organization provided the stuff and the supervision, your local, public library could help you find a place to do it.

5. Make a truly edible gingerbread house. Every gob-smacked gingerbread house I’ve ever seen has been "hands off" (and more importantly, "teeth off"). Feh! Where’s the fun? I mean… C’mon! I don’t care if you stick six graham crackers together with peanut butter and put one gum-drop on top for a chimney. Do it, and then let the kids get all Godzilla on it. Or chomp it down yerself. You know you want to…

6. Decorate somebody else’s space. Carefully. Tastefully. Always within the bounds of office rules/etiquette and the law/fire-code. But how nice would it be to enter your office (cube…) and find a wee, unexpected holiday trinket? Totally anonymous. Or to come home and have a strange, lovely wreath hanging on your lamp-post? Put a small, stuffed penguin with a Santa hat on someone’s dashboard today.

7. Group shoebox calendar. Warning: takes planning. Everybody in your gang (family, office, church-group, etc.) brings in enough shoeboxes to make 25. Everybody puts something in them to help decorate the common space. Wrap them (and keep the innards secret), then randomly assign numbers 1-25 to them. Or more or less if you’re doing a non-religious thing. Do 31 and make it a "New Year’s Calendar." Whatever. Then, on each day, get together as a group, open the appropriate box (take turns, now) and use it to brighten the day and make the place niftier.

8. Bad Mojo Wreath Voodo. OK… this one will probably not go down well for many church youth groups… but it’s meant with a sense of humor, so chill out. Have everyone in your gang (family, group) write something that bugs them on a  piece of colored paper that matches (or not) the cheapest, driest, most flamable wreath you can find. Decorate the wreath with the slips of nastiness. On the day of celebration, burn (or otherwise destroy in a more work-friendly manner) the Wreath of Spite. Celebrate the destruction and release of the things that bug you.

9. Holiday bird-feeder. I like bird-feeders. So do my squirrels. Oh, well… But mostly they either look like weird plastic contraptions or little A-frame tenements. Help a bird out. Decorate a special bird-house/feeder for the holidays.

10. Odd snow sculpture. We all make the snowmen. Yes, yes. Lovely snowmen. Do it up different this year. Make a snow carving of your company’s logo. Never mind. Don’t do that. How about a UF-SNOW? Unidentified Freezing Snowcraft? Or a guy climbing up your front tree? Or a giant hand? Don’t be overly critical of your work… just get some friends together and get stupid with the snow.

10 Entertaining Ideas.

1. Rewrite "The Twelve Days of Christmas." Let’s face it, hollering, "Fiiiiive gooolden riiings!" is way fun. Way, way fun. You can not resist, so don’t hold back. But what’s even more fun, is hollering your own family version that only you and the clan know. Because, really… doesn’t singing about how your true love gave to you… "eight maids a milking" make you a bit… uncomfortable? I mean… dude gives people for Christmas? That ain’t right. Bob and Doug McKenzie not withstanding, your own version will be more fun. My son, just this morning, was singing, "Fiiiiive gooolden delicious!" Hilarious.

2. Indoor snow-ball fights. We spent two years of my childhood in California, after having lived in Boston, and with parents who grew up in New York. Snow ball fights are a required element of winter joy. Indoor? Substitute  aluminum foil balls, rolled-up socks, styrofoam (messy), newspaper wads, etc. instead of snow. The point is to throw things. Banzai!

3. Mall caroling. It’s hard to find places to carol. Outside can get very cold. And, with kids in tow… well, it’s tough. Check with a couple local malls and arrange for a time to invite anyone who’d like to participate to meet, get song books, and walk around the mall singing. See if you can arrange for an accordion player. Seriously. It adds to the cheer. If you want to charge a couple bucks to participate and also collect donations from listeners and then give the money to a local toys-for-tots charity, that makes the whole deal more righteous, and more palatable to certain civic types.

4. Grown-up PJ party. Notice I did not say "adult." This is not a chance to play spin-the-bottle. This is about getting back to childishness. Come in PJs, bathrobes, bunny-slippers, blankets, etc. Bring your favorite (hopefully holiday related) bed-time story to read aloud to the group. Drink cocoa w/ tiny marshmallows (yes, and some brandy or JD) and have candy canes and graham crackers for snacks. Sit on the floor around the fireplace. Watch all the old
Rankin-Bass claymation holiday specials on VHS. Sing a few carols. Play…

5. Insane White Elephant. Last year, John Moore from Brand Autopsy set up an excellent White Elephant Blog. It ain’t up this year. Oh, well. The basic principles of a White Elephant gift exchange apply, but anyone who has their gift taken can keep stealing from anyone who hasn’t yet had their gift stolen that turn. The more people playing, the more fun. No "deceased" gifts in this version, either. Until you’ve had a gift stolen on any given turn, it’s in play.

6. Make-a-wreath party. OK… this is a combo craft/entertainment idea. So sue me. We used to do this at the church I grew up going to. You show up with the basics of an advent wreath (styrofoam torus and a bunch of evergreen branches), and the host provides all kinds of add-ons; candles and holders, bells, ribbon, holly, berries, etc. Good times, and a wreath to take home, too.

7. Semi-formal holiday martini party. In the old days (the 1950’s), people dressed up to go to holiday parties. And while this may still hold true for some work-sponsored events, more and more often, work holiday parties are tired, dull affairs. Most of the ones I’ve been to are, anyways. So, on your own, get some friends together and dress all high-class, and drink funky, fun martinis. No reason grown-ups can’t have grown-up fun around the holidays, too.

8. Remembrance time. Around the table, have family members or friends recount their best (or most interesting) holiday memories. Yes, it’s corny. But corny is good during this time of the year. Embrace the corn.

9. Tell your faith’s holiday story with sock puppets. You never real own a story until you tell it. I know this, because I played King Nebuchannezzar in a 4th grade production of, "Cool in the Furnace." I now own The Firey Furnace. Be that as it may… You can hear the Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, Solstice, etc. stories again and again. But until you write out a script, make your own sock puppets for the players, fashion a stage from a major appliance crate and put on a show for the grown-ups… do you really grok the holiday’s true meaning? I think not.

10. Mix-up the classics. Get the book versions of classic holiday tales like Rudolph, Santa, Frosty, Night Before Christmas, A Christmas Carol, etc. Get some index cards. Write character names, major attributes ("nose glows," "miser," "made of snow," "elf,") and plot points ("comes down the chimney," "ridiculed by reindeer," "just settled down for a long winter’s nape") on them and keep the categories separate. Now go back and read one of the originals, but when someone (usually a child or me) yells "stop!," insert a random card from the appropriate face-down pile. So you end up with something like:

"Rudolph didn’t like all the other reindeer calling him names, so he…"
"Stop!"
"… gave Bob Cratchit money to help with Tiny Tim’s legs."

You can keep going with the original story, substituting other zaniness, or switch over to the one from the card. Whichever seems like more fun to you. And, yes, this is kind of a holiday version of TaleWeaver.

10 Card Ideas

1. Make your own envelopes. A dear friend of mine (Hi, Susan!) once sent me letters every few months in hand-made envelopes. Hers were made from interesting magazine ads. How cool is that? If you want to get fancy, do a search on the Internet for "make envelopes" and such. But the easiest way is to get the envelopes that go with whatever cards you’re mailing, carefully bust ‘em apart, trace them on funky paper (magazine pictures, wallpaper, wrapping paper…) and then cut, fold and glue (or double-sticky clear tape) them together. People may expect hand-made cards. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Or hand-made envelopes. Festivisimus!

2. Photoshop your kid(s) into other (classic) pics. I first saw this done to Raphael’s "The Sistine Madonna, Detail of the Angles" painting (as shown). Although a much better job than the one I’ve done here, which is of my niece and nephew (Hi, Nate! Hi, Sophie!) Click on it to see a much larger image. The point is to have fun and take a picture folks will recognize and include people they will recognize. It doesn’t have to be a serious pic, either. I would think that your kid climbing the Empire State Building to put a star on top would be hysterical. Use this instead of a regular picture-of-your-kids card because… well… because it’s goofy. Combine with #9, below, for best effect.

3. Gift cards for chores, favors, hugs, etc. These were a big item when I was growing up. Don’t know if other people did them. The idea was to make gift-certificates or gift cards that "entitled the bearer to (1) one doing of the dishes upon presentation of this card." You can make these intimate for your honey (I won’t get into those variations here, thank you), or appropriate for work. For example, I once gave my boss ten "Andy will now pipe down" certificates. Upon presentation, I was obligated to shut my pie hole. She only ever handed me two. I believe she traded the rest in for some magic beans. Or they may be floating around on eBay… Hmmm….

4. "Puzzle Party" cards. Take, buy or make a nice picture and turn it into a jigsaw, either yourself or at Kinkos. Mail one piece to each person you’re inviting to the party. When they come, they add their piece. Depending on how corn-ball you are, you can hold forth on how we’re all a part of the holiday panorama of joy, etc. etc. It also serves to increase the guilt factor that motivates people to come to your party, since if they don’t… their piece will be missing. Ha!

5. "Family News" cards from the future. I love this one. Lots of families I know write a very nice update about what’s been going on over the last year. It’s nice to hear, but… mostly it ends up being, "Dad’s still working and maybe going a bit more stir crazy. Same for mom. The kids are in school and are a year older." Yawn… I like the idea of fast-forwarding a bit and writing your "Holiday Family News from 2025." Keep it just as straight-faced and boring, but mention which dimension Mary got lost in on the way to work this time. Talk about how the Martian embassy lost your passport on your 2nd honeymoon cruise, etc. etc. Much more fun. Cloning humor goes over big in this one, too.

6. Mystery cards. Send a really nice holiday card, maybe include a gift certificate, but with no indication of whom it’s from; no names, no return address, etc. Why? To bug the crap out of somebody you love. And isn’t that what the holiday season is all about?

7. Return-reply cards. Send people a card with a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard inside to send back to you. Put questions on it you’d like answered, like… what do you want for Christmas next year? How the heck are ya? Which holiday movies did you see and like or hate? People love to be interactive. Give the gift that gives something back to you.

8. Custom mouse pad card. They will throw away the picture of your kids. But if you put that picture on a custom mouse pad… it’s a keepsake.

9. Nice, custom cards. While we’re visiting Cafepress.com. … You can go to the drug store and have any photo turned into a card. And they sure look like you did just that. But if you take a few more minutes, you can actually have custom cards printed out for you. Ones that look like cards. Which is nicer, you must admit. Combine this with #2, above.

10. Origami cards. Do your regular card, but include a piece (or more, if necessary) of origami paper and instructions for making an ornament, decoration, etc. Your local library has holiday origami books, I bet. Again… the point is to do something different… with a little extra un-Grincy flavor.

10 Gift/Shopping Ideas

1. Surrogate shopping party. So many of us have someone or several someones on our lists that are impossible to shop for or that we just have a mental block on. Fine. Get together for dinner and share an equal number of those folks with each other, along with a few details and a dollar ceiling per gift. Then release yourselves into a mall with a time limit. Then get back together and share the swag. I guar-ohn-tee that your friends will find stuff for your hard-to-getters that you’d never have thought of. If it ain’t right? Well, ’tis the season to return stuff.

2. Thought gifts. They say, "It’s the thought that counts." OK. So, this year, only give thoughts for the holidays. Make this the year that you and yours agree to take whatever your budget for gifts was and either give it to a charity or stick it in a savings vehicle; your call, I’m not preaching here. But for yourselves… take the time to actually say the things you haven’t said. Give "the thought" behind the gift. If you’re a spiritual person, pray or meditate on the subject for a bit. Do it in a card if you like, or via email. Don’t make the logistics as much of a pain as shopping/wrapping/etc. That’s not the point. But all the major religions that are celebrating this time of year have gift-giving as a central notion not as a potlatch per se, but as a metaphor for love, friendship, community, etc.

3 Archie McPhee. This idea is a straight-up pimp for the Jumbo Mystery Box from Archie McPhee. I get one of these every year (although this year I have been strongly advised that the ladies want something non-McPhee in their stockings… geez), and use the contents for stockings, Secret Santa, random giftings, prizes for students, etc. You never know, around holiday time, when a bunch of Hindu god finger puppets, glowing eyeballs or rampaging Hun toy soldiers will come in handy.

4. Gifts for the future of the group. Have everybody get everybody something that will only really "work" when you get back together. Pick a group-y activity like a picnic or game night, and have everyone get/give gifts that will be brought together again each time you do that thing.

5. Recommendations or reviews. I get lots of gift certificates. And that’s cool. But it still means I need to figure out what I want to get with the thing. If you give someone a gift certificate (especially to a book or music store/site), provide a list of 5 or 10 ideas that you think they’d like. Write little mini-reviews of books you’ve read, movies you’ve seen, etc. that made you think of the person. Make the list fun, funny or serious… but it will add personality and thought to what can seem like a somewhat generic offering.

6. Make part of the gift yourself. Homemade gifts are special, when they come from adults as well as kids. I recently received a CD from a friend, and it was wrapped in a handkerchief that he’d tie-dyed himself. How cool is that?! If you give someone a coffee machine, create a custom mug for them, too.

7. Food with gifts inside. I don’t know why this is fun, but it is. Make sure you warn people, and make the gifts obvious (small gems can be a choking or tooth-breaking hazard). Seal stuff in zip-lock bags to preserve the food and the toys. Put something in the Jello (action figures?) that will make digging out the prize as much fun as playing with it.

8. Gifts with a story. Write a fictional story about how the gift you’re giving came into your hands. Make it funny, sweet, odd, implausible… whatever. It will make the present more memorable.

9. Don’t overthink. We spend so much time (well, I don’t, but "we" do) trying to figure out the "perfect gift" for people. Unless you’re sweetie is waiting for a ring, or your 8-year-old will DIE without a particular Lego set… there ain’t no such thing. Part of the fun of gifts is getting something you wouldn’t ever have bought for yourself. If it wasn’t, we’d just give each other money. Bleh. So give something odd and unexpected. I mentioned Archie McPhee before. Another great site full of fun and different ideas is the Quincy Shop. Very unique stuff, in a wide range of prices and styles. Really fun. This year, somebody better get me a Buddha Board Zen Art thing, or I’m a-gonna cry. I got most of last year’s stocking stuffers from their "Unique Gifts Under $10" section. Their selection and service gets the Andy Havens’ Seal of Wow! That’s Neat!

10. Share kids. Childhood is a big part of the holidays; both our own and our kids’. If you don’t have kids and are friends with someone who does, offer to babysit so that they can go out and shop, and then do one of the craft things above. If you do have kids, and know folks that don’t, invite them over for an event where the kids will play a part. Holidays go better with runts.

10 Meaningful Ideas

Hopefully, all the above ideas can be meaningful. This last set, though, is meant to supply you with specific, holiday depth and feelings of joy, brotherhood, jolly…tude? Jolliness? That sounds better.

The holidays can be meaningful? Go figger.

1. Start a bizarre, personal holiday tradition. I heard somewhere (can’t find it online, sorry… it may be apocryphal) that Amy Grant’s family explodes their Christmas tree after New Year’s Day with fireworks. I’m neither hot nor cold on Ms. Grant, but… that’s flippin’ awesome!!! So many of our holiday traditions are either copped from cultures that really aren’t our own anymore, or have been entirely kidnapped by the media/mercantile world. Why not invent a new ritual that’s just for you and your family? Stuff a sock with toys by the fireplace? Why? I sure as heck don’t know. How about, instead, everybody in your family writes one line of a nativity poem. Or fight some gingerbread man wars. Or make advent candles from last year’s used crayons. At my house, we’ve now been playing street hockey the day after Christmas for several years with all the in-laws. Why? Bob wanted to one year. After three years… It’s a tradition!

2. Overtip, ridiculously, at least once. Food service is tough work. And around the holidays, it’s even worse. People are out-and-about, running like mad, full o’ holiday spirit, and, often, not very nice to the wait staff. And because we’re spending more than we should on various baubles, bangles and beads… we’re often a bit penurious when it comes to the everyday stuff. Which hurts the folks whose livelihood depends on our largess. So. At least once, between Thanksgiving and New Year, when you get good service and a nice smile with your meal… leave a $20 tip on a $13 lunch meal. Or, what the heck… leave $50 to cover a $22 dinner. Or $100 for a cup o’ joe. Seriously. Don’t make a big deal out of it. Do it, as the scriptures say, "In the dark." But do it. You’ll make somebody’s whole season.

3. Start a yearly journal. Very few people keep a journal. I’m a professional writer, and I don’t. I’m supposed to, but I write at work, and I blog, and I write poetry and fiction and, and, and… So I’ve never had a daily journal. But what I do have is a notebook that I take out about once a year. Often around the holidays. And, in my case, I write in it the names of people — everyone I can remember — that I’ve met during the last year or so. And, of course, I go back and read the earlier entries and reflect on how lucky I’ve been to have known so many wonderful people. The names are my "touchstones" to the past. The names are bookmarks in my memory, because people anchor the most important events in my life, I think. Anyway… that’s what’s in my "annual journal" for the most part. Yours, of course, can be anything you want.

4. Share a resolution. We don’t keep our New Year’s resolutions, for the most part, because we are not really accountable to ourselves. We cheat and look the other way. So share a resolution with a friend or family member; let them hold you accountable, and vice versa.

5. Share a resolution. No, this is not a repeat. In this case, I mean make a resolution that includes another person. For example, resolve to have a game-night once a week with your family, or to go for a walk 3 days a week with your spouse. Resolve to send an email back-and-forth at least twice a month with a friend you don’t see much anymore. Resolve to cook healthy for me, and I’ll cook healthy for you twice a week. Resolve to help your boss with his annoying habit of not taking minutes/notes at meetings, and he can help you with your attempts at better process management. So many things that we want to accomplish are impossible alone. Resolve to be better together.

6. Visit someone else’s ceremony. When I was in confirmation class as a young Methodist swain, our pastor took us to a Passover Seder service at one of the nearby Jewish temples. It was a great way to learn about the similarities and differences between my faith and that of my Jewish friends, and to drink wine as a 15-year-old. That specific holiday won’t work around December… but you get the point. Find out what and how others are celebrating around this time of the year. You’ll end up experiencing your own traditions more deeply, I guarantee.

7. Take someone to a performance of Handel’s "Messiah" who’s never been. There’s a church in your area putting it on, I guarantee. If not (some guarantee, eh?), rent a version from the library. It’s truly one of the most beautiful, moving pieces of holiday music you can experience. Sharing it is a great gift.

8. Random (nice) blog comments. If you read lots of blogs, take the time to do something that only 1-in-100 readers generally does; leave a comment. We bloggers write for lots of reasons. But nothing makes our day like a comment from a reader we haven’t heard from before. If you’ve enjoyed the work of a blogger in the past, visit their space and let them know. It takes just a few minutes, and really is a lovely treat for us. Please note, I am not fishing for comments on this blog. I’m projecting.  ;->

9. Give to a charity you don’t normally connect with. Stretch a bit. If you mostly give at church, find a secular charity that does something you agree with. If you tend towards issues of hunger, try education. I’m not saying don’t do the stuff you usually do… but find out about a new one. When our giving becomes rote, we lose something of the original reason we were moved to give. Get out of your comfort zone and find a new way to share.

10. Forgiveness. One of the worst barriers to experiencing spiritual, holiday joy is the sense that we are not worthy. Whether directly or indirectly, too much gift giving is often a substitute for the resolution of actual issues. And one of the issues that really can weigh us down this time of the year is a grudge. Whether you’re holding one against someone else, or they’re mad at you about something… take care of it. If it’s so far in the past that the person is dead, moved on, out-of-touch,etc., then talk to a friend, therapist or confessor of some kind. Get rid of it. I don’t care what your religion is or if you have none. The burden of unforgiveness is a strain on the holidays for us all. Lose that, and all the other holiday stuff will be much, much brighter.

Well, that’s it for this year. Hopefully you found something in here that will help your holiday be more fun, festive and… fruitful? Well, bad alliteration aside, have a joyful season and a Happy New Year.

[nsfww = not safe for wussie work. There’s no porn here, but I will be using words like "shit," "crap" and "piss." You, your boss, the camera above your desk and the NSA have been warned] 

I have lots of arguments with people about the boundaries of crap.

Crap is the stuff that you don’t want to qualify as valuable or worth any effort at a particular moment. It’s not necessarily an insult. I often talk about "all my great crap," or, "the kind of crap you can get from Archie McPhee," or, "the bunch of crap left over after brunch… help youself."

Crap is not shit. If something is "shit," it’s worthless. As opposed to "the shit," which is roughly synonymous with my childhood, Boston slang term, "wicked pissah." In certain parts of New York (where I’ve spent a bunch o’ time), a "pisser" is also a good thing. "That Kenny… funny guy. His party last night was a pisser." Also, a "piss-cutter" can be good thing. I guess if something is strong enough to cut piss, it must be good. Yet "not giving a shit" and "being pissed off" are bad things. So… where are we on the relative value of bodily function metaphor? I won’t even start on f**k, as we all know that it now means everything and nothing.

But back to crap.

I have friends who think modern art is crap. Some think science fiction is crap, while others love it and think the term "sci-fi" is crap. Personally, I love Star Wars Episodes 4-6, and think that 1-3 are crap.

Mostly, though, the argument I hear is that "all this user created content on the Web is crap." When I point out that most of the professionally created content on the Web, on TV, in magazines, etc. is crap, too… I usually get a shrug and the reply, "Yeah. I suppose so. But there’s so much more crap on the Web."

My point about the relative positive/negative metaphoric value of words like crap, piss and f**k is that there is the same relative value placed on the crap itself. What is now part of the canon may once have been, from the point of view of authority, crap. This is not news. What also is not news is our sociological inability to cope with a fantastically different medium than the ones that have come before.

We see this in telco. Phones were the devils that would interrupt family time and cause people to lose the personal, face-to-face familiarity that is the all important glue of society. Never mind that we’d been writing letters for a couple thousand years. Letters good (thoughtful, intelligent, educated prose), phones bad (conversational, immediate, pedestrian). Then cell phones were bad because they’d do the same thing in public. Then they weren’t. Now people are complaining about Blackberries and other portable email readers. Give it five years, folks. The ettiquette will work itself out.

So there’s lots of stuff on the Web. And much of it (like this blog) is "amateur" content; ie, nobody pays us. Much of it is also, by traditional standards of authority, crap. Of course it is. To claim that most MySpace pages, YouTube videos or eBay items are anything but crap would be nonsensical. I’m not saying that they aren’t crap.

I’m saying that crap is OK. And that may be what the canonical guardians of traditional media are really afraid of finding out. That for many people, well… we like the crap. Yes, yes… required statement about the value of classics goes here. I’m a Lit Major, for the love of Proust. I read "A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu" in French. I’ve written 20-page essays on "The Wasteland." I’ve read Dickens that wasn’t a course requirement. I like classical music.

But I also like web comics. Which wouldn’t have existed without, well… the Web. Comics like (in no partiklar order):

• Cat and Girl
• XKCD
• Red Meat
• Homestar Runner
• Savage Chickens
• 30 Second Bunnies Theater Library
• Fredo and Pid’jin (Two Evil Pigeons, One World to Destroy)
• Gaping Void
• Indexed
• Dinosaur Comics

There are many more. OK, two of the above (Homestar and Bunny Theater) aren’t comics, per se, but cartoons; animation. So sue me. I love ‘em and they’re on my list.

My crap list 

Some will argue that a few (or all) of the above are the work of professionals. Just like reading the NYT on the Web, it’s OK. It’s not the medium that’s crap, it’s the bjillions of messages. But without the bjillions, there’s no Web. And if they couldn’t blog, post, comment and connect… they wouldn’t have spawned the messages above.

The medium is the message. And the medium now includes everyone. And you don’t get your crap without it being mixed in with everyone else’s. As I’ve said before, there’s not such thing as "user created content." Everybody is now a user. Stop worrying about it and enjoy. 

This is one of those rambling, "I’m figuring things out while I’m typing" posts. No guarantee of clarity. But there are good links, so there’s that.

If you play games, and haven’t heard-of or read anything by Richard Bartle, you need to. He is one of the creators of MUD, which you also need to know about. Richard created the "Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology" that ranks gamers on four scales; achiever, explorer, socializer, killer. It’s kinda like Myers-Briggs, but for gamers. I am an ESAK. From the test:

ESAK players often see the game world as a great stage, full of things to see and people to meet. They love teaming up with people to get to the hard-to-see places, and they relish unique experiences.

Breakdown: Achiever 40.00%, Explorer 80.00%, Killer 20.00%, Socializer 60.00%

This reminds me a bit of my Myers-Briggs type, ENTP (Extrovert, iNtuition, Thinking, Perception). When I took the full MB test years ago, I was right in the middle on the first three (ie, not particularly extroverted, somewhat intuitive, and inclined, a bit, to prefer thinking to feeling). But on the "Perception vs. Judging" scale, I was hugely P over J.  

So. There’s been some discussion at Terra Nova about "A fifth Bartle type." Timothy Burke, the post’s author, speculates:

Where the attraction to design is a part of the experience of play, and where the player’s activities within the game are at least partially aimed at a kind of pure understanding of how the game or world functions (rather than an understanding which is aimed at maximizing achievement). It’s always seemed to me that this approach to play was distinctive enough that it could easily be called a fifth Bartle-type to go alongside achiever, killer, explorer and socializer. Call it subcreator, or if you want to get fancy, demiurge.

It’s an interesting idea; that playing the game to understand (or appreciate or accept or influence) the game itself is, for some, more fun than achieving within the game, exploring the content or beating or socializing with other players. On the one hand, if I want to stay pure-Bartle, I think that Burke’s proposed category could come down under "Explorer," where the player is simply exploring the meta-game as opposed to the game. It’s a role I enjoy, both as a player and as a critic. In fact, one could say that someone who plays a game in order to understand its mechanics, player motivation, changes over time, etc. is not really playing the game, but "playing at gaming" or "playing at play." Or, maybe, sometimes even "working at play."

This intersects in my head with a post at The Escapist (by way of Infocult) called "WebGame 2.0." Kyle Orland writes about how aspects of list keeping–especially numbers of friends, popularity rankings, etc.–lend game-like aspects to some social networking activities. Self-googling, of course, falls into this category of behaviors, too. I made (and make) a very specific effort to be at the top of the listings on the major search engines for "Andy Havens." Why? Because a substantial part of my life is now "lived" on the Web. And Google is the phone book for that life. Currently, I own the first two pages of results for my name, and the majority of the results for pages 3-5. At that point, you’re getting into comments on blogs that have better SEO than my own blog.* On the third page, though, you get a link to my Googlegänger, who (unfortunately for me, I think) is a marketing guy, too… but who’s got some Web pursuits that I find a bit… well, it’s just not my style. If he (she?) were a trombone player from Australia, somebody happening onto his/her Web efforts would (probably) realize that I’m not both an Ohio, USA marketing guy and a musician from Sidney. When the Googlegänger’s activities are pretty close to mine, though… well, I’ll keep working on my personal SEO.

But (and here’s the point related to the above), is the fact that I’m keeping score and indication that I’m playing a game? I don’t think so. Although many games have scores, not all scores are related to games. My weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. are all "scores" of a type, yet I don’t monitor them as an act of play, but as something related to the decidedly non-play act of trying to stay alive. Similarly, many of the things we do to measure success (in a worldly sense) are scores–salary, neighborhood, quality of stuff, size of office, number of minions–yet are quite serious, non-play-y and not games.

There are all kinds of discussions about the nature of play and what is a game, etc. I don’t want to get into that, because others (including Richard) are much better at it and have done great work already. What intrigues me at this point, though, are the two ends of a continuum that seem to bracket a "play" experience:

1. Taking something that is intended for play (a game, in this case) and doing something with it that is non-play. Now, you can argue (I won’t) that the Fifth Bartle Type proposed by Timothy might be engaged in play. Sure, that might be the case. The act of building new resources for a game, for example, might very well feel like "play" to the modder. But it isn’t (usually) going to be within the scope of what the designers had in mind. You can make small totem poles out of baseball bats, but at that point you are not "playing baseball" in any sense of the word. You can write and perform songs about your favorite baseball team… but again, you ain’t playing the game.

2. Taking something that isn’t a game, and playing it. We use the phrase, "He doesn’t really care about you; he’s just playing games," to mean that the subject isn’t engaged on the surface level, but doing something else, using the activity in a different context. That we use the term "player" to describe a philandering male really brings home the idea that "playing" and "games" are often synonymous with a lack of sincerity or seriousness of intent. Someone who is not a player would, constrastingly, "work" at a relationship, neh?

I think Thomas Malaby said it best here:

Games… are domains of contrived contingency, capable of generating emergent practices and interpretations, and are intimately connected with everyday life to a degree heretofore poorly understood… Rather than seeing gaming as a subset of play, and therefore as an activity that is inherently separable, safe, and pleasurable, I offer here a rethinking of games as social artifacts in their own right that are always in the process of becoming.

Or (in Andy-simple terms), games ain’t always games, and play ain’t always fun.

The final point being a question: is there a model that describes a tendency to either "game that which is not-game," or "do ‘not-play things’ with that which is game?" Or does it depend on the game/situation? I have no interest in many of the social "games" that people play. Feh. And I do like to delve into the hidden, meta-nut-meat (what the hell?) of games beyond the surface. What does that say about me? What would those "types" look like?

• G vs. M = Gamer vs. Metagamer (in game spaces)
• S vs. P = Straightforward vs. Playa (in RL)

I’d be an MS. What that means, I have no idea. Yet. Let me play around with it for awhile…

This. Is. Simply. Awesome.

Birmingham version on YouTube here. “And I’m thirsty.”

Helsinki version here. “All ringtones are annoying.”

Hamburg. “There is plenty of debate, but nothing gets done.”

St Petersberg. Lovely tune. My favorite musically. “I’m not ready to die yet… and the nightmare of the C++ language.”

Some A Canadian radio TV show’s version as it appeared on Canadian television. Kinda not the real deal, but what the hell. “I hate plastic bags… Why can’t people use apostrophes properly?”

Penn State. Bonus llama, but, really… quite awful. In an undergrad way. “Webmail2 still blows.”

On my honor as a bearded man… if someone in Columbus, Ohio USA with the talent to write the tune will step forward, I’ll do the lyrics. We’ve got OSU with something like 200,000 undergrads, a thriving arts community, and more overcast days than either Londan or Seattle. Plus, we keep being in the middle of the state that elects Bush. If we can’t come up with the best Complaint Choir in history… that’s just sad.

Bonus for us if we do this: film it for YouTube amid Cornhenge. Somehow, that just works for me.

[Edit] To Alane: Better?

Turns out I have something in common with the Wall Street Journal’s Jeffrey Zaslow: we’ve both been plagiarized…

If you haven’t heard, CBS News’ Katie Couric recently did a “Katie’s Notebook” piece, performed in the first person [”I still remember when I first got my library card…’] that, it turns out, was written by her producer.

Surprise, surprise. Katie’s stuff isn’t written by her.

Whoops. Turns more out, Katie’s producer, Melissa McNamara, didn’t even write it (bizarre twin plagiarism angle… oh dear). I’ve read about 15 different takes on the whole matter, and kinda like Slate’s tone/angle the best.

That’s the story. Fine. But here’s what none of the things I’ve read so far have offered… Something that you’ll get right here, only at TinkerX — the inside scoop (first person, written by me, not my producer) on what it’s like to be plagiarized.
I used to consult full-time. Now I do it a bit on the side (yes, my boss knows; I’m not that dumb… about that.) While consulting full-time, I wrote lots of articles and got lots of essays posted just about anywhere I could to get my name/email/URL out there. I did it in order to generate business, establish “my personal brand,” and get good SEO for my blog and company Web site. So… long story short, lots of Andy Havens’ marketing crud on the Web.

About two years ago, I get a call from a guy I’ve never met. But he knew me from some of my legal marketing articles. How cool. He recalled my particular (peculiar?) brand of wit and wisdom. He specifically recalled a piece I wrote for my good buddy Larry Bodine at the LawMarketing Portal back in 2004, about a year prior to his calling me.

He wanted to know if I was aware that another fellow was using this material, almost word-for-word, in his hand-outs at a professional marketing seminar.

Gulp. No. I was not.

My reader faxed me the materials. Yup. Almost exactly the same stuff. In fact, it even had the same cheesy clip-art that Larry pasted into the story (Hi, Larry!).

I contacted the fellow. I told him what I’d discovered and asked him what was up. He told me… that the piece had been put together by one of his subordinates.

It had his name on it. The name of his marketing firm was his name. The presentation at the gig where my reader had found the piece was given by this guy, and it was his name on the program. He explained that his workers “assembled” lots of his marketing material (hand-outs, fliers, Powerpoints) for him.

Then he assured me that the fellow in question would be fired. That he (the owner) took this sort of thing very seriously and had a zero-tolerance policy about plagiarism, and that I could rest assured that it wouldn’t happen again.

I told him that what happened between him and his staff was his business. I just wanted to be sure that anything I’d written was attributed to me.

He, again, made the point about firing the subordinate. He said something about him being “a relatively new guy.”

Again, I said, “That’s up to you. It’s your company. How you handle it internally is your business. I just want your word, since it’s your name on my work, that this won’t happen again.”

He, again, told me that the person in question would be fired.

He didn’t get my point. I said, “I don’t need you to do that. I need you to tell me you will be responsible for making sure this doesn’t happen.” He agreed to that, still not getting it, I think, and we never spoke again.

I hung up the phone feeling very, very shaken.

Why? Because one of two things had happened.

1) He lied to me. Which, if I had to bet money, I’d bet on. For a whole string of reasons that I can get into based on the professional services marketing industry, how we come up with stuff, what we let our “people” do for us, etc. etc. But that’s my gut. I don’t think there was “a new guy.” I think it was a put-on to get me to go away.

2) He told the truth, and fired some kid who’d made a mistake. A bad mistake, yeah. And a mistake that, frankly, isn’t one where firing is an inappropriate reaction. But I think that, on some level, if somebody on my staff had done something like that… I would have blamed myself a bit more than this guy seemed to. And if my name was on something like that…
I’d take it a lot more seriously than Katie et CBS al seem to be doing.

The date on which that post went up on the CBS blog page now reads:

Correction: The April 4 Notebook was based on a “Moving On” column by Jeffrey Zaslow that ran in The Wall Street Journal on March 15 with the headline, “Of the Places You’ll Go, Is the Library Still One of Them?” Much of the material in the Notebook came from Mr. Zaslow, and we should have acknowledged that at the top of our piece. We offer our sincere apologies for the omission.

We “apologize for omitting… ” Err… Yah. McNamara (bio still live on CBS site… interesting) was fired for “omitting.” Sins of omission. That’s kinda funny. Where I come from, we call plagiarism “stealing.” Which is a sin of “commission.” You know… walk into a store, take something, leave without paying. Oh. I guess that’s kind of an omission. Never mind…

Here’s the thing: the (maybe) kid that lifted my essay, and/or his boss… that’s pretty minor stuff. One of the reasons I didn’t make a stink is that my “personal brand” has a good dollop of live-and-let-live. I’m a peaceable guy. The piece was a fun little deal that, I hope, sent a few readers to my site/blog. Making a big stink would’ve been more trouble than it was worth.

And yet… and yet… I really, really wish that the dude had said, “What can I do, personally, to make this up to you? Can I send you an Omaha steak? Or make a contribution to a charity in your name? Can I put a mention of your services into my next seminar kit?” Nope. Nothing.

And who is he? Some small-time, Kinko’s-materials consultant like me. But to make it good, he should have offered something.

But… Who is Katie? She’s the $15 million spokes-face on one of the Big Three evening news shows. News. Not fashion. Not punditry. Not opinion. News. You know… that thing with journalism and facts and stuff.

Katie’s post clearly made it seem as if she wrote it. The op-ed “feel” of a story that starts with, “I still remember…” is unmistakably intended to leverage her $15 million-ness into getting us to pay attention to what is, frankly, a pretty lame, puffy piece.

So if Katie didn’t write it, but felt OK about using it glommed onto her image/ego to begin with, and then was (as far as the public is concerned) the face of the company that did the plagiarizing… what should we expect from that organization?

Right. Fire the producer. Not the one worth $60,000/day. Not the face we trust (who apparently doesn’t read the WSJ). Not the one who clearly doesn’t write her own notebook/blog, even when it’s in the first person. Not the one who didn’t take any responsibility for plagiarism, but who had “Editors” apologize for “omissions.”

Is this what Katie wanted for her career? Regardless of the plagiarism… is this what she signed up for? To be part of a news team that writes her “personal thoughts” and then covers for her to an extent that is, frankly, grotesque? Is her own sense of what she brings to this enterprise so withered that she can’t even sign her name to the apology?

Quit, Katie. Just quit. Not because you’re really responsible for the plagiarism. I don’t think you are, nor do I think you should be fired. The ding-dongs in charge at CBS are even less in control and less worthy of it than are you. But in the immediate aftermath of this situation, nobody’s first response was, “Yoiks! These words came out of Katie’s mouth… she should be the one to apologize!”

That they didn’t — that you didn’t — is bad. Real bad. Prove to all the kids in my History of Advertising class, and all the junior copywriters out there, that the Top Dog cares about this. That in the age of easy, Internet Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V, the people we turn to to make sense out of our lives are ones who take that responsibility seriously. That when we turn on the TV to watch somebody talk about war, government, education, health and all kinds of other issues… those issues mean something when applied to her own field.
All I wanted, when somebody stole the words out’n my mouth (er… page), was for the guy in charge to take responsibility. His version of that was to fire the kid who did the lifting. That didn’t cut it for me, and I don’t think it cuts it for Katie.

The $15 million bucks stop somewhere. And it ain’t on the desk of a junior producer.

So, Katie… Make a point about responsibility and theft. Quit in protest over how poorly CBS has handled this situation.

And, since that won’t ever happen, how about you just personally sign your “mea” to the editorial “culpa”?
[Note: I will almost never be this smarmy (mean, call it what you will) again on this blog. I don’t like the tone I’ve chosen, and am *this* close to not publishing the post. But I really, really hate plagiarism and really, really don’t like it when crap like this doesn’t get taken seriously enough by the people in charge. For those of you who prefer my usual, light-hearted, pseudo-intellectual side… it will resume shortly. My apologies for being more churlish than I really rather prefer.]

Doctor, doctor… it hurts when I do this…

I hate making up new words. And yet I keep doing it. Why? Because I love making up new words. Love and hate are not so far apart. We learned this from Mr. Spock on Star Trek. The opposite of love is not hate… the opposite of love is Andy Dick. Anyway…

So. If you don’t think that "edutainment" or "infotainment" are NOT real words… and the very idea of regular people like me inventing new words makes you itch, then stop reading right now and go play Flow.

But if we use "edutainment" to mean content that is both educational and entertaining, and "infotainment" to mean those things that are entertaining and informational, well… we have a new form of entertainment online that revolves around all the new social thingies that we’ve got going on. Do any of these sound like things you’re doing these days?

• Heavy commenting on blogs — not just leaving one comment, but engaging in comment strings, learning who the regulars are, developing a personality on the blog for yourself
• IMing with a cadre of friends whom you only know online (another word of mine, "eLationships" applies here)
• Creating avatars and personnae in virtual communities in order to vent various feelings and thoughts you wouldn’t under normal circumstances
• Engaging in online gameplay not because of the game, but because of the relationship potentials
• Posting and replying on bulletin boards until all hours of the night because of the back-and-forth with various members
• Chatting in chat rooms, being clever, being sweet, being sympathetic, zinging each other, being flirty, being outright sexy

Well, if the appeal of any of those activities stems largely from the interpersonal drama, the friendships, the wit, the arguments, the zingers — all the communications that aren’t specifically related to the material itself, but to the feelings of the participants, you’re involved in what I’m now calling emotainment.

Isn’t emotion entertaining? I don’t think we’ve thought of it that way before, but I believe it now is. In the same way that we didn’t use to think of education or information as ever being entertaining… but now we do; hence edutainment and infotainment.

When we engage in social interactions on the Web, we are doing so in a medium that we observe even as we interact with it. We are the audience of our own performance. And so,

• As I type in my own zinger on Digg and dugg somebody, I get to mutter to myself, "Nice one, Andy!" I have been emotained.
• A group of friends gathers in IM or a chat room and one gets out of hand, bringing a bit too much drama, another soothes the gang, chilling everyone down… impressing the bunch with her words of wisdom. Emotaining them all.
• A guild leader in World of Warcraft dresses down one of his minions in front of a crowd of guild members after a series of infarctions. The offender leaves in a huff, but all the others agree, "That droog had it coming, and totally had to go." A nice bit of emotainment.

It has been remarked on often before that we engage in higher levels of emotional outburst on the Web, in IM and in email than we do in real life. We don’t self censor, it is said, because we don’t have the social cues of real life. And we don’t have the other person in front of us. I also think we tend to jump on the drama llama online because, well… it’s fun. It’s emotaining. It’s fun to get a little frisson of excitement from being a bit more brusque, risque, flirty, sweet or angry than we do in real life.

And since the consequences aren’t (usually) so severe, we go ahead and push the envelope. Which is what entertainment is about. It’s just, in these cases, rather than the moments being crafted by a screenwriter or author, we make them ourselves with our own emotions.

Emotainment. Now playing at an adrenal gland near (er… “in”) you.

Turns out my brother John has talent.

Which I’ve known for years, but now we have independent confirmation. Besides his IMDB page. Besides the fact that he was in a for-real Broadway musical, "Steel Pier." (see #12, "Harmonica Specialty"). Besides the fact that he’s an amazing writer and has finished an historical fiction novel. Besides the fact that besides harmonica, he plays amazing guitar, drums and banana.

He’s a good kid. For a younger brother, that is. Anyway…

Independent confirmation of his talent comes from the fact that he has now been named the About.com guide to podcasting. He makes money when you go to that page, click on things and leave comments.

So go do that now. I’ll wait. There’s a prize for you when you come back.

Did you do it? No. I didn’t think so. Go do it. Then there’s a prize.

If you did it, the prize is that your karmic burden has been lightened, and I love you more. See? A blog with free prizes inside. Isn’t that nice?

Anyway. I don’t ask for much. But you need to either send an email to everyone you know and point them to this blog post, or to John’s About.com podcasting page (simple link, easy for cutting and pasing is):

http://podcasting.about.com/

He gives some great advice and information on podcasting, and I swear he puts the banana down before recording any of his shows.

Interactive Buddy. Be prepared to waste 30-60 minutes.

Last weekend, I got about an hour into a longish post about creativity tools that I use at work and in my personal writing. And then I hit the wrong key combo and lost all that work. Pissed me off. So I don’t want to re-write that post just yet.

Instead, I’m going to tell you about another creativity tool. One that I use with my 6-year-old son, Dan. Often on the back of paper placemats at Bob Evans restaurants. I’m not sure how it started, but I do know that I made it up myself at one point when Dan wanted to draw, but wasn’t sure what he wanted to draw.

The game is called "My Team, Your Team" (MTYT). Its rules are very simple.

1. You draw a character with a power.
2. I draw a character whose power cancels your guy’s power.
3. Repeat.

You do this until your chicken tenders and smiley fries arrive, or until you run out of paper, or until you are hysterical laughing. You can intensimify the game if you like by only allowing:

• robots and cyborgs
• bugs
• dinosaurs
• robot bugs
• cyborg dinosoar bugs
• aliens
• alien robot bugs
• fire and water powers
• underwater creatures
• things with wheels
• things without wheels
• blah blah blah

You get the point. You’re really better off playing free-for-all your first few times, especially with kids, as they go bananas on you. Really. The stuff Dan comes up with blows my mind. Here’s our most recent game as an example for you. We’ve started numbering the drawings as it helps us explain what the heck was going on to Chris (Mom) later.

1. Giant Ice-Crystal Guy.

(Dan) He is made of one giant ice-crystal.
He can blow super-cold freezing wind at you.

2. Waffle Iron Clam

SUPER COOL ALERT:

Lego has just recently put up some free software called Lego Factory that lets you design your own creations, post the resulting model in a gallery on the site, and order a kit from them of the actual pieces necessary to build the model in real life. Obviously the parts cost money. And, if you’re like me and my son, you’ve probably got all the parts necessary to build 3,248,905 models straight out of your head. And I’m not sure we needed a virtual building tool for modeling a real building tool that was already about the zippiest, most creative toy ever invented. But…

DAMN — THAT’S JUST WAY TOO COOL!

I can’t quite figure out why. Maybe because it bridges some virtual-to-real gap or divide. Maybe because it will let me create something in my head/computer, and then on my kitchen table. Maybe because it is another example of those super-duper crazy-creative Danish Lego-monkey-freaks doing everything they can to improve my building experience.

I can’t say enough good things about Lego. Some people get all pissy about their tie-ins with movies, about the whole "Bionicle" thing and how they’ve "gone commercial." Screw ‘em. My son, at 3.5 years of age, because of Lego, came up to me and asked, "What do you call somebody who decides how things are built?"

I replied, "Those are ‘mechanical engineers.’"

"That’s what I want to be when I grow up," he then told me.

He’s six and a bit, now. And that’s still what he says he wants to be. God bless Lego, I say. Bionicle, Harry Potter and Star Wars tie-ins and all.

Now… back to the neat idea of this virtual-to-reality thingy…

Think about ways to connect your Internet communications and media to what you’ve got going on in the real world. Think about ways to engage your buddies, customers, employees, colleagues, peers, pets, imaginary friends, etc. not just online… but in online-to-offline ways. Or ways that offer true 360-degree creative communication a-la "The Lego Model."

Here’s an idea for us: I invite any of my four regular readers to assign me blog topics at any time. Go ahead. You tell me what to write about. I don’t promise to do a good job, but I promise to give it a whack. I’ll build your blog post in this space. Leave the idea as a comment to this post, and we’ll see what happens.

No deep thoughts right now. I’ve been down with some kind of plague for three days and the deepest thought I’m capable of is, "Yes… the tree can go in a different room this year."

This site is just fun, smart and good. Check it out. Many fine tips from the bunny at Brian’s Guide.

The one to the left (you know… the one you’re looking at right now) is my favorite. Made me laugh my tuchus off. If you don’t know why, see this. Warning to anyone over the age of 9 and those with a Y-chromosome; you may need sunglasses and Zanex to view the site properly.

If you don’t know what a tuchus is, see this.

Thanks to Hazelfaern for the pointer.

In 1979, Coke aired a commercial where a tiny, young, Caucasian boy approached an enormous, African American football player to congratulate him on a great game. After initially rebuffing the kid somewhat gruffly, the player — Mean Joe Green — swigs a Coke that the boy hands him in a long series of gulps, and then, made friendly (one assumes by the tingly, sweet concoction), calls the kid back and throws him his jersey. The kid shouts, "Thanks, Mean Joe!" and they share a nice moment. All courtesy of Coke.

Somewhat standard American advertising fare, sure. But it struck a nerve in the American public’s mind at the time, for whatever reason. Maybe it was the contrast in size between the two — the kid couldn’t have weighed 60 lbs. soaking wet. Maybe it was that the sugar water "melted" Mean Joe’s heart (I’d been told by Mr. Frost, my 7th grade Social Studies teacher that Coke could dissolve rust off a bicycle chain, so I suppose that melting an NFL player’s heart is no big deal). Maybe it was a nice moment in race relations. Maybe it was a combination of all of these, or just a really well written and well shot ad.

Whatever the reason, the commercial proved so popular, that it was turned into a made-for-tv-movie, "The Steeler and the Pittsburgh Kid."

I am not kidding. They made a movie based on a TV commercial. That’s why I included the IMDB link in the preceeding paragraph. To prove it to you. When I have this conversation live, I often get the, "No freakin’ way," response. Here in cyberspace, I can put my hyperlink where my mouth is.

I use this event to date the beginning of the wonderful weirdness of modern genetic content mutation.

Yes, I know. Books were made into movies and plays and musicals long before 1981. Same for songs. In fact, I’m tempted to go back and revise my date to 1976, and to the making of the movie, "Ode to Billy Joe," based on the 1967 Bobbie Gentry song of the same title. I’m tempted… but I’m not going to. "Ode to Billy Joe," is weird, yes. But songs have had stories in them, well… forever. The leap of creative evolution to take one and turn it into a movie doesn’t quite do it for me in terms of calling it "mutation."

Turning a commercial into a movie though… yeah, baby… that’s a mutant love child.

Was the TV movie "The Steeler and the Pittsburgh Kid" a good film? Hellll no. That’s not the point. The point is that, as Forest Gump’s mama might say, "Content is as content does."

If you create something that causes an effect… it can live in other media. It can mutate and change and have a effect elsewhere, if you know how to take out the pieces of the DNA that can live in another environment. Or, as I like to ask my students, "How can you put that on a T-shirt?"

I don’t mean that statement literally, of course. Usually.

Andy Warhol saw pop and commercial culture as art. Ba-da-bing. Before that, pop and commercial culture had borrowed from the world of fine art, but had rarely been seen as art per se. Why not? Because the worlds of "art" and "business" were kept apart by people who stood to gain from doing so in most cases, either monetarily, psychologically or culturally. I don’t mean this as harsh criticism, though it comes out as such. It’s an anthropological fact, and not a judgement — people look at the segments of the society they are given and are hard-pressed to de-segment them. Church = religion. School = education. Home = family. Art = culture. Business = economics. You play on the playground, you drive on the freeway. The white zone is for the loading and unloading of passengers only.

The problem for artists, writers, marketers and other creators, is… this kind of thinking is linear and predictable. It leads to the same place it started, often with the same results. And the same results are… well… boring. And boring is the enemy of creativity.

Mean Joe Green and Andy Warhol. Keep them in mind when you try to think of new ways to put your stuff on a T-shirt.