… that we were floating in space, connected to each other by only a thin umbilical cord. The cord snapped and I began to drift away from you. I was helpless. I tried to swim back to you but in the frictionless vacuum of space, I was only flailing and spinning.

Suddenly I became aware that I was carrying a lot of stuff in my arms. Whatever these things were, they were dear to me and I didn’t want to give them up. But my despair grew as I drifted farther away from you. Finally I lifted a parcel over my head and heaved it away from me. My departure from you slowed ever so slightly.

Encouraged, I lifted another item high over my head and shoved it away into the blackness. Looking back, I noticed that I had stopped moving away from you. Now I began enthusiastically throwing away these dear things, watching them float away in the opposite direction as I picked up velocity toward you.

I began to weep as the distance between us closed. At last I was left with a lone package in my arms. My dearest possession. I hesitated, realizing that it wasn’t necessary to release this package in order to reach you. All it would do is further increase my velocity.

I strengthened my resolve and shoved this last parcel away into infinity just before you embraced me and I felt more whole than I knew was possible.

Then I woke up.

November 1 marks the start of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month), where the goal is to make (at least) one blog post each day for 30 days. After nearly being preempted by my hosting provider, I’m here to throw may hat in the ring. I’ve been beating myself up lately about neglecting this blog, so this is an opportunity to get into the good habit of establishing a connection between the cloud of ideas and opinions in my head and the output of Ridiculosity.

P.S. Wanna help out? If you read this blog, and especially if you like what you read, leave a comment, tweet or retweet a link, or post a Facebook link. There’s nothing like positive reinforcement to help establish a new habit! Thanks!

I upgraded to WordPress 2.8 and added a new theme. The coolest thing about 2.8 is the ability to add themes and plugins directly withing WordPress.

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Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro dashboard:

Looks like a clown puked all over it, huh?

The country (and the world) is enthralled with a frumpy woman from a Scottish village who can sing like a nightingale.

So I asked myself, “What’s the big deal? What makes Susan Boyle so special?” The answer lies in the fact that everyone loves an underdog. But, by definition, being an underdog means that there’s something apparently insurmountable overshadowing the path to success. What was this 47-year -old, single, self-avowed cat lady’s insurmountable obstacle? Apparently herself.

We all have to overcome our own doubts, fears, and inhibitions from time to time in order to wrest ourselves from the rut of ourselves and make a new self more like the self we want to be. Surely Ms. Boyle struggled with all of this as she decided to participate in the Britain’s Got Talent auditions. But that’s not the insurmountable obstacle I’m talking about.

There are thousands upon thousands of people in the world who have a natural singing talent. They open their mouths and angels weep. It’s not really that uncommon. So why is Susan Boyle so special? Susan Boyle’s insurmountable object–the thing threatening to prevent her success–was other peoples’ opinions of her. No one expected her to have anything worthwhile to offer because her appearance contradicted popular notions of grace, beauty, eloquence, talent, ability, etc.

Wrong? … Right? … Food for thought.

I switched to WordPress to provide the blogging framework on this site. I really liked Movable Type, but there were certain things that I wanted that MT just didn’t provide. WordPress definitely seems more widely used and supported, and I like the clean, simple interface.

As I was looking for a hotel to stop at that’s halfway between my house and my sister’s house in Georgia, I got a little crazy with Google Maps’ scroll-wheel zooming and inadvertently stumbled upon what may be the greatest discovery in modern philosophy: parallel worlds!

In physical appearance, the worlds are similar. However, it does seem that only the East Coast of the United States and Canada have survived the brutal conditions on the leftmost world; whereas eastern Asia has completely been blown off the globe in the rightmost world.

Perhaps these two alternate realities provide an insight into the possibilities of a renewed era of nuclear proliferation. Either way, I’m glad I live in the nice, calm, middle-world.

OK, just a quickie. I didn’t even read the article, but I thought this was interesting.

Take a look at this teaser headline from Slate Magazine: