Nerd Analysis: the Pleasures of Imagination

Check this out (by a professor of psychology at Yale). I'm willing to buy this, given how I spend much of my leisure time (when I have any!) with all sorts of imaginative things, including my two favorite current obsessions (the Doctor and the Bard, of course).

OK, so here is a blurb from the article (and I have highlighted a bit that really hits close to home):

How do Americans spend their leisure time? The answer might surprise you. The most common voluntary activity is not eating, drinking alcohol, or taking drugs. It is not socializing with friends, participating in sports, or relaxing with the family. While people sometimes describe sex as their most pleasurable act, time-management studies find that the average American adult devotes just four minutes per day to sex.

Our main leisure activity is, by a long shot, participating in experiences that we know are not real. When we are free to do whatever we want, we retreat to the imagination—to worlds created by others, as with books, movies, video games, and television (over four hours a day for the average American), or to worlds we ourselves create, as when daydreaming and fantasizing. While citizens of other countries might watch less television, studies in England and the rest of Europe find a similar obsession with the unreal.

This is a strange way for an animal to spend its days. Surely we would be better off pursuing more adaptive activities—eating and drinking and fornicating, establishing relationships, building shelter, and teaching our children. Instead, 2-year-olds pretend to be lions, graduate students stay up all night playing video games, young parents hide from their offspring to read novels ...

OK, for the record, I haven't stayed up all night playing video games (though I adore my Wii). But I have stayed up all night watching movies, marathoning TV shows on DVD, reading books, and such!

How about the following suggestion for this kind of behavior? People like imaginative pursuits because those pursuits are ... *drum roll* ... FUN.

Geek News: Lego Rock Band Video Game!

Due out this Christmas, "Lego Rock Band" is going to be a great enabler of my dreadful Wii addiction.

One Small Leap for Womankind: Girls' Ski Jumping

Well, hey, why not? I think I'll stick to my kind of ski jumping, though!

Thrill of victory or agony of defeat?

Earth Hour Silliness Tonight

I had mentioned this before, but I'm reminded of it by Samizdata's rebellious declaration: "Turn every **** light in your house on!"

FIAT LUX! Let there be light!

Party on. I for one shall be playing my Wii during Earth Hour. I'm also currently making a lovely big pot of beef tagine, encouraging the climate-destroying meat industry and also manifesting my basic predatory instinct to kill and consume things below me on the food chain. (Does this make me a foodistic, species-ist imperialist or something?) And of course, the kitchen lights are on, the stove is on, the laptop is on, yadda yadda yadda. Basically, I'm treating Earth Hour like every other hour of me living selfishly as I please -- knowing that it drives eco-fanatics mad.

Besides, I have a lot of reading to do for school, and I kind of need light to read at night. DUH.

Oh, but I do really, really like this humorous comment on Samizdata: "On the contrary, I shall be turning all the lights off, having an accident, suing the organisation who suggested this idea, costing the NHS money and claiming on the insurance. The latter will lobby for it to be illegal to turn all the lights off, legislation will follow." Awesome! Beat 'em at their own game.

More here.

I can't help myself. Oh, go on and watch this video! (I can't figure out how to shrink it. Oh, well!)

Satire Alert: Stimulus Bill Will Give $160 Billion to Roiling Mass of Snakes

The satirists and parodists of the Onion strike again with this bit of fake radio news:




Well, why the heck not? Every other special interest wants to grab a piece of the pork-tastic stimulus bill passed by our illustrious Congress. In fact, how about you grab a piece for yourself? I want a government handout so I can play Mario Kart Wii all day instead of doing any real work. Besides, engaging in real work only means that I get my paycheck taxed to death. MEH.

Oh, and here's a thought: a huge part of the stimulus bill goes to government agencies, bureaucrats, and such, so maybe the Onion IS right after all and the cash is going straight into the Indiana Jones-like snake pit called Big Government.

Political Humor of the Day: Write Yourself into the Stimulus Bill!

Here's your Personal Stimulus Generator!  You can get up to $350 billion in your own earmarked personal pork project, so go hog wild!  This little piggy went to Congress!

Pork-tastic!

I played with the Personal Stimulus Generator, and this is my piece of the stimulus bill's plunder.  See it embedded amid all the other pork in Title II Subtitle A?  Hey, can we ALL get pork?  YES, WE CAN!  

National Telecommunications and Information Administration

salaries and expenses

For an additional amount for `Salaries and Expenses', $350,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2011: Provided, That funds shall be available to establish the State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program, as authorized by Public Law 110-385, for the development and implementation of statewide initiatives to identify and track the availability and adoption of broadband services within each State, and to develop and maintain a nationwide broadband inventory map, as authorized by section 6001 of division B of this Act.

wireless and broadband deployment grant programs

(including transfer of funds to Mad Minerva for the Mad Minerva Personal Economic Stimulus Program)

For necessary and unnecessary expenses related to the Wireless and Broadband Deployment Grant Programs established by section 6002 of division B of this Act, $2,825,000,000, of which $1,000,000,000 shall be for Wireless Deployment Grants and $1,825,000,000 shall be for Broadband Deployment Grants: Provided, That an additional $250,000,000 shall be paid directly to Mad Minerva in the form of subsidized loans that do not require repayment. Provided Further, That the funds be used by Mad Minerva to play Wii all day and drink cherry limeades or for whatever.  Provided Even Further, That Mad Minerva will receive free Colbert Report tickets for life. Provided Even Further Still, That Mad Minerva shall be treated as a cabinet-level appointment for the purpose of income tax reporting, and therefore no taxes shall be paid on any of the aformentioned benefits. And one more thing: Chuck Schumer is hereby expelled from Congress, effective immediately upon enactment.

digital-to-analog converter box program

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, and in addition to amounts otherwise provided in any other Act, for costs associated with the Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program, $650,000,000, to be available until September 30, 2009: Provided, That these funds shall be available for coupons and related activities, including but not limited to education, consumer support and outreach, as deemed appropriate and necessary to ensure a timely conversion of analog to digital television.

Hilarious!

Nerd Journal: Wii Boxing Is Cathartic!

Oh, boy.  I've only had my Wii for a few days, and I'm already head over heels in love with it.  The latest fun?  This lovely bit of cathartic gameplay (because, hey!, every nerd needs a little stress relief):

Float like a butterfly, sting like a Mii.

Nerd Journal: I Go A-Vulturing at the Carcass of Circuit City

Alas, poor Circuit City!  After 60 years of doing business, the electronics store chain is going under.  I had two nearly-simultaneous reactions:

1.  Aw, poor Circuit City!

2.  *grabs purse and rushes to the nearest Circuit City to hunt for bargains.*  Yes, I am a vulture!

Remember what I had said at Chinese New Year?  That I was hoping for some ang pao?  Well, I took my ang pao money and went shopping for deals and discounts.  And I found 'em.

Circuit City had slashed prices on everything in its liquidation, and I picked up some lovely new ear buds for my music addiction, half a dozen DVDs, and my self-indulgent splurge for all of 2009.

I got a Wii.  AND IT WAS ON SALE FOR 20% OFF.  So awesome.

It was like Christmas all over again.  Better, in fact.  This past Christmas, everybody was rather subdued and careful about spending.  I blew all my ang pao on the Wii, so I feel rather naughty for that, but then again, IT WAS ON SALE. 

Wii games and accessories were on sale too, so I got the game that I really wanted: Mario Kart Wii.  I'd played it before with friends on their Wii, and I just love this game!

Guaranteed to drive you bananas.

How do I describe this gloriously entertaining game that has endless replay value?  How about this: 

COMPLETELY UNHINGED ANIMATED VEHICULAR PANDEMONIUM.

The fast and the furious.

OK, nobody tell my Nerd Lords about this!  I could be, should be locked up diligently in the Library of Doom, not zooming around in cartoony video game mayhem with my buddies.  But hey!  It'll be a fun little break from research -- take a quick spin around one of the Mario Kart racetracks!