Explanation

Time for an explanation of the title of my blog. ("Tales of a Ninja - A Prison for your Mind") It's pretty simple if you haven't already gotten it or even thought about it.

"Tales of a Ninja" should be plain and not require much explanation at all. Most know my history of affinity for ninjas. I am a Ninja. These are my stories/tales. (Enjoy.)

"A Prison for your Mind" is a reference to what this blog is to readers and to me as well. My interpretation of this statement doesn't have to be entirely accurate for me to include it in my title or to like it. This title phrase illudes to the Matrix. It is a phrase used in the movie "The Matrix" in describing what the matrix is. (If you have never seen "The Matrix", then you have no business reading this post or blog for that matter.) "The Matrix" is one of my favorite movies. In a sense we are slaves to the internet. The internet is an invaluable source that the world relies on. The internet will continue on forever (until the world ends). We are slaves/prisoners to the reality it provides. My blog is but one element of the internet but is still included and trapped in its reality. It's also something that is intangible. It is no more tangible than the hardware we use to access it and no more tangible than the matrix itself. It's intangibility only makes it more of an entrapment for the mind. I could go on and elaborate and be more in depth, but I'm sure you get what I'm getting at; besides I don't feel like going any further.

Why would I not inlcude (elements of) something I enjoy in my title of my blog?

-"Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you." - Neo - last line of "The Matrix"

powers

I wish I had a super power. Flying. Teleporting. Control of an element (or elements). Etc. I'd take anything. How awesome would it be to do something that no one else in the world (or the majority) could do or thought possible to do? (I assume if it were possible, but improbable, for me to have a super power then there would be a select few scattered around the globe that would have a power as well.) In order to think about it in realistic terms (or to bring it as close to reality as I can), I have always thought about the energy or stamina it would take to practice the super ability. Flying for example: Do you just assume that whoever can actually fly, can fly at the speed of light or faster effortlessly and totally in control? Doubt it. People have trouble controlling a vehicle at speeds over 100mph and they are focusing on driving and staying in control when going that fast. They are not effortlessly cruising at 120mph while talking on the phone, surfing the radio stations, or thinking about what they are going to do that weekend. If running makes people tired, I can only imagine how tiring flying would be. You are having to fight gravity the whole time (or at least manipulate it) in order to move above the earth in directions you choose. How fast would someone be able to fly? Some people can run extremely fast and others don't run fast at all. I imagine that some that have the ability to fly may be able to fly faster (or have the ability to manipulate gravity in their favor better) than others who would have that ability. Could you fly faster than you ran? If flying is like the next step up, then maybe you could fly faster than you ran, but it took more energy and was more of a work out. Walking, Running, Flying?

I would love to type more about super powers and my thoughts on them, but I've gotta "fly"/go. So maybe I'll publish a new post about it or edit this post later...or maybe I'll just leave it at this.

...fin?

people are lame

It's the little things that get to me. Unimportant circumstances, minor details, small mistakes. People look over these things. They don't care about them. They excuse these things. I can't do that. The small things, the "unimportant" details are important to me for some stupid reason. It's even worse when they are important to me, but everyone else I'm around could care less. So when I care about it or tend to focus on the small things, it's blown out of proportion to the careless people. From their point of view it makes me seem utterly ridiculous, irrational, overreactive. (Though I'm sure my point of view is sometimes just as limited, wrong, obscured, lacking, etc.) It's not that I ignore what "really" matters or focus on the small things where I lose sight of the big picture/idea. It's that I want the bigger matters to have nothing missing and to be as clearly defined as possible. That's what I'm into (usually). HDTV--it's so clear and awesome looking. It makes regular cable look blurry when you actually see the comparison. HDTV is made so clear because they add more detail--they add more lines of pixels--for more lines to fit on the same size tv, they have to be smaller which allows there to be a clearer picture. They don't take away the small details, they focus on them and add to the small things in order to make the bigger picture more clear. Not all things have to matter or be important or need to be focused on or scrutinized. Some things I'm sure shouldn't matter. I'm just saying--people tend to be lame (from my point of view of course) when it comes to looking at the big matters of situations without figuring out or considering what small details have affected it.

Details.Details.Details. Yet specifics are not included in any of the above.
Go figure.

-DB

P.S. Somebody (which I know who and shall not mention) kept driving by our house last night between the hour of 1:00a.m. - 2:00a.m. These drive-bys included incessant honking which forbade me sleep. I.was.pissed. I'm sure they thought it was a funny idea and had a good time doing it--but that's just there point of view. The first occurance denied my entry into my nightly coma. If I had fallen all the way asleep, it would not have woken me, but they disturbed me (deeply). Since I was so close to gone, it took a long time for me to come back to, but they honked a lot and for a long time at first, which finally brought me back into reality with a fury. I hope--HOPE--they do it again. I will make it stop, and I will make them wish they had never done it in the first place. Bring it.

Fun & Injury

So after an awesome weekend at Resonate/DNOW with some friends and cool 8th grade guys and a little rest, I celebrated MLK day with a few friends. A yum yum lunch at Trace Grill, a little 3:10 to Yuma action in our home theater, some jam time and some chill time, and then some b-ball to top things off. Sadly though pleasure doesn't come without pain. Before we went and ate lunch I randomly decided to do a little free-style stall on a brick ledge at the Belhouse. It was in the kitchen and there is not a lot of room to maneuver, so it was going to be kind of a low-key, nonchalant, confined stall. Well unfortunately I had more ups in me at the moment than I realized and my feet went over the top edge where I was supposed to stall and my toes (pointed down) landed on the plateau of the brick hearth. This rendered my lower body helpless and stuck on the bricks while my upper body which had just been launched in the air then proceeded to abide by the laws of gravity and plummet back down towards the floor. Feet helplessly atop the bricks--my right arm caught on the table attempting to rip my shoulder out of socket and tear all the ligaments and tendons in my shoulder--it partially succeeded. The rest of my body (middle/torso, knees, head, shoulders) unsuspended by bricks or tables was free to fall the rest of the way down to the floor while eventually pulling my arm and feet down with them off of the traps above. This beautiful crash happened so quickly and unexpectingly. The immediate response of everyone (including me) was to laugh at my peril. Here is an amateur sketch of the scene.

Also Conan O'Brien has been accepting fans' ideas and sketches of diagrams about what to do in his Late Night Show. He has been showing the ideas on air and also been incorporating some of them into his zip line performances on the show. It has been hilarious. Here is my sketch that I sent in to conan@nbc.com. It would be awesome if they used it, but I'm sure they are swarmed with fans' ideas and emails.

Weekend + MLK day

I am helping FBCJ this weekend with their Resonate/DNOW. I am a small group/bible study leader, and I will have 9th grade boys. This weekend also leads to the national holiday this coming monday celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. This holiday means I get Monday off of work which also means a longer weekend! I was planning for the past two weeks or so on going to Nashville this weekend with some friends and hang out there and see our friends Todd & Laura and others. I didn't realize until this past Sunday that it was the same weekend as DNOW which I had committed to at the end of last year (2007). So unfortunately I will not be able to go to Nashville this weekend. I am pretty bummed about this because sadly I have never been to Nashvegas, and I know several friends and cousins of mine that live there. Also the day after I found out I couldn't go, I found out that if I WERE able to go I could have been in MUTEMATH's next music video--the icing on the cake! MUTEMATH needs extras to be in their next music video for "Control" (I think). They are shooting in Nashville THIS Saturday, and I could have been there! All I would have had to do was send an email to the address they sent saying I was going to come be an extra. (MUTEMATH posted a bulletin about it to their MySpace fans.) They would have told me where to go, what time to show up to the studio, and the compensation I would receive. That would have been a freaking awesome weekend! Oh well. I'm going to be teaching 9th grade boys about Jesus and the importance of God's word. Haha. Bummer that I have to miss all of that, but I do enjoy DNOWs, and I'll say it how my beloved friend Mikey B. (youth minister in Cali who loves MUTEMATH as much as I do) said it: (paraphrasing) I'll pray the time spent at DNOW will have more enternal effect/value than a music video. Amen.

Perpetual Life

Today is the day that I continue to live. Today I continue breathing. I continue seeing. I continue hearing. I continue smelling. I continue sitting. I continue walking. I continue typing. I continue reading. I continue thinking. I continue to continue while things around me continue as well. I continue to think more and more that the word "continue" is an odd, funny-sounding word the more I type it and say it. I continue to exist. My truck continues to chug gasoline. Gravity continues to hold me down to the earth. I continue to wear clothes. The weather continues to change. I continue to want food. I continue to hang out with friends, have friends, make new friends. Friends continue to disappoint me, frustrate me, excite me, love me, despise me, etc. My body continues to always have something wrong with it. Things continue to begin and end.

I continue to type about nothing because I have nothing awesome to report in my first blog post...and so this begins and shall continue for life seems to be perpetual.

To be continued.