I got this from one of those e-mail forwards (have you heard of them?)... "Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened." Yep. I think this should be the subtitle to this blog. (Thanks to Barb Hinkins!) …
Jason's Random Musings
Tremendous
Kim and I got in late last night from Orlando and the National Speakers Association convention. Our bodies are tired and our minds are swimming. What a privilege it was to be in the company of so many great individuals. Among the highlights was seeing Charlie "Tremendous" Jones receive the coveted Cavett Award (sort of like the MVP award for professional speakers). What a genuinely great man. Here are a couple of my favorite quotes from Charlie: "You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read." …
Goodbye Rockford, Hello Orlando
Sometimes as a speaker, you just wish you could take a specific audience with you on the road everywhere you go. Last night in Rockford was one of those occasions. The crowd was energetic, attentive, involved, and they even laughed at many of my jokes. Thank you to everyone who was in attendance, especially for your welcoming attitude and kind comments afterwards. You made it extra fun. My grandma was also in the audience -- it was the first time she's heard me speak. That was pretty cool. I'm sure she had the hardest time believing that the guy giving the presentation was the same grandson …
Superman Returns
Kim and I finally had a chance to see Superman Returns this past weekend. (Tip: matinees are a great way to cool off when your apartment's thermostat has melted.) I hadn't heard too many reviews or read too many articles before the viewing -- I didn't want to spoil my own experience -- other than hearing that its box office take dropped off the second weekend. Well, I for one thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought director Bryan Singer did a nice job of sticking to the main points of the Superman legend. (I actually read that one of the cast aside scripts involving Tim Burton floated the idea of …
Gotta Love Spell Checker
We're currently working on producing a dead tree version of The Escape Plan, featuring all 40 challenges and journal pages to record your adventures. Today, Kim was proofing the first draft and alerted me to a passage from Challenge #37 (Tastes Like Childhood.) In it, I am describing my experience eating a childhood favorite, Sour Patch Kids. Here's how the original copy reads: ...Most grown-ups I knew didn’t know why I’d subject myself to such a horrible abomination disguised as candy. Sour Patch Kids truly are an assault on the ol’ tastebuds; I couldn’t get enough of ‘em as a kid. It’s been …
Rejuveniles
Ian Ybarra was the first of many to point me to a new book called Rejuvenile, written by Christopher Noxon. Noxon has written for the New York Times Magazine and worked as a costumed character at Universal Studios. He defines rejuvenile as "People who cultivate tastes and mindsets traditionally associated with those younger than themselves." Christopher has done quite a bit of research on this burgeoning phenomenon of grown-ups who refuse to "grow-up." I am anxious to get my hands on the book for a closer look. It appears that his writing paints a wide brush of the entire movement, …
Are Kids Supposed to Make Parents Happy?
Childlike. Childish. There is a difference. Not everything about kids is worth emulating. For instance, they have a pretty good handle on being childish. (I guess that's why they call it being "childish," and not "adultish.") Children can be quite compassionate and perceptive to the needs of others, but, left to their own desires, they can also be quite selfish. They have to be instructed in the ways of sharing things like toys and candy and the backseat. It is true that grown-ups are responsible for developing a less me-centered attitude in kids (and shows like Nanny 911 thrive on those …
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The Universality of Childhood
Sometimes I get suggestions from people that I should add more diversity to my comic strip. Why not introduce new characters with different ethnic backgrounds? Within the context of the strip, I have included people of different races in a few storylines here and there. Perhaps I will develop one of them into a major character some day. But creatively, with the strip being relatively young, I have my hands full developing the characters I already have in place. Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, said that new characters should be added when a strip is starting to become dull and needs a …
I Like Grilled Cheese, But…
...I like maintaining my girlish figure better. Kudos (I think) to Joey Chestnut, who downed 47 grilled cheese sandwiches in ten minutes to set a new world record -- eleven more than the old record of 36. Impressive. I can't help but be giddy with wild anticipation for the chicken nugget eating contest. It reminds me of a post from Stinky about the five food groups of childhood: …
Why the Debate About “Stem Cell Research?”
Stem cell research. A hot topic in today's day and age. It may seem a bit off topic for a blog like this, but it's something I've been quite curious about as of late, and as we all know, curiosity is certainly a predominant trait in children. By the same token, certain stem cells -- the embryonic kind -- have the potential to actually become children. And in my exhaustive studies, I have found that children are also quite... childlike. I heard a lady on the radio yesterday -- a mother of a little girl with juvenile diabetes -- espousing the importance of stem cell research. To be honest, I …
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