The Game

[Adam] Thick founded Extreme Kidnapping in 2002 after being inspired by the old David Fincher movie The Game. (SPOILER: It was all a game!) For $500, Adam and his crew will abduct you at gunpoint and hold you hostage for four hours. A thousand bucks gets you ten hours, along with a bit of customized sadism. GQ was curious to see what $1,500 would buy me.

If it strikes you as obscene that people would pay to be kidnapped at a time when it happens routinely to other people for real, the fact is that we live in an age when a normal life simply isn’t enough for many Americans. If you watch enough movies and TV (as I do), you end up yearning for a life that is more cinematic than blissful. Experiences are the newest, hottest luxury items. I looked at it like I was paying for a memory implant, Total Recall-style.

-- Sully's Dish

Meh, I think I'd rather pay to be the kidnapper. Let the kidnappee be a fine and busty gal, but she can still have a taste for some specialized sadism.

Weather

Pop said they were forecasting rain for seven this morning. There was only a little drizzle. It looked like the 40% chance wasn’t going to pan out. But it has gotten darker and the winds are gusting. I’ll tell you one thing: if it doesn’t rain, at least it is getting a lot cooler again. Lovely! I wouldn’t mind some rain, though. Despite those storms last week, we are still dry and the landscape is thirsty.

* * * *

Hmmm, there is even a nip of winter in the air. Still no rain. But I did have to pull on a t-shirt.

1984 (2,10) We Are the Dead

As Winston and Julia stand side by side, in each other’s arms, looking down on the prole woman doing her wash, they enjoy their last moments of stolen freedom.

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All round the world, in London and New York, in Africa and Brazil and in the mysterious, forbidden lands beyond the frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin, in the villages of the endless Russian plain, in the bazaar of China and Japan - everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable figure, made monstrous by work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and still singing. Out of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day come. You were the dead; theirs was the future. But you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four.

“We are the dead,” he said.

“We are the dead,” echoed Julia dutifully.

“You are the dead,” said an iron voice behind them.

They sprang apart. Winston’s entrails seemed to have turned into ice. He could see the white all round the irises of Julia’s eyes. Her face had turned a milky yellow. the smear of rouge that was still on each cheekbone stood out sharply, almost as though unconnected with the skin beneath.

-- “1984” by George Orwell

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Three Journal

My Three Journal has been lying aside for too long. I also was feeling a little empty about my daily book-blogging, particularly since it has become a centerpiece of my show blog but there is only silence and it is like no one even looks at the thing anymore. So, I have decided to change the routine, and I will devote some days to the Three Journal and leave aside the book-blogging, which also can entail some zero-post days on the show blog, but as I was saying, this hardly matters. On these days, I will also read my hardcopy quotes and poems, as well as the Three Journal material once that becomes thick enough.

My first step toward this change was to try to figure a way to fit this reading material into my routine. I was thinking that I might be moved to work on the Three Journal more if I could make the reading of this material a regular part of my life, but I could find no way to fit it into my already heavily compartmentalized days. This change in the routine answers that problem.

I don’t know how many days I will spend on the book-blogging and how many days on the Three Journal. I am only beginning to see how this new routine feels. In fact, today is the first day that I devoted to the Three Journal, and I discovered that it was best to reserve it only for the morning, and to resume my book-blogging for the afternoon. This could become a common variation.

I feel good about this, but it isn’t happiness. As I descend into old age, I feel myself regretting only more strongly that I did not have a life. Friends, lovers, a career. I still can hardly believe that I could manage to blank out like this for my entire life. It seems too unreal. Wasn’t I more worthy than this? No? I guess not.

Chores

I took advantage of the cool day and cleaned out the kitty-litter box. It would have been an excellent day to take care of a mowing, but 95% of the lawn really is still quite short. I thought the storms last week would have gotten the grass to shoot up, but no. Plus, it's grocery week and I am putting the list together; it would be too many big chores at once. But soon, I think. Maybe this weekend, or possibly early next week, if only to even out the lawn and have it look a little sharp.

Daily Fun

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