Tag: gaming

America, How do We Stop It?


      Across America everyday, more and more violence and strange acts get committed and people act stranger and stranger. Why is this can I ask?

       I believe fully Americans have lost sight of what really counts in their lives and what they need most. They fumble about, allowing their children to do as they please, addicted to drugs, alcohol and video games and yes even computers.  Why is that, well the morals and ethics of our forefathers and grandparents have faded from American Society. The churches have less people, the decisions made are made more loosely and the lack of discipline is fully apparent in the generation currently running the youth of America.

         When I was a kid in the 1950’s and 60’s, parents smacked ya if you spoke back, were disrespectful, and they did things like take away your favorite toys or, grounded you. Today parents are too lax and easy going. Discipline is totally lacking in America’s Society. Now I remind you I am not saying abuse your child, or destroy them, nor am I saying mentally torture a child no, I am saying for all things done wrong there must be a consequence and a result for all done right. Reinforce the good and discourage the bad. one must or society in America will become a rabid bunch of dogs, barking at one another and fighting till it destroys the country.

       Yes I believe the American Dream is still alive I just think too many Americans are letting it slip away because of a lack of morals, ethics and discipline within themselves, taught by their parents who gave them all they could and let them run wild. We have become a society in America who doesn’t teach our children what it is like to earn what they want, but we give them everything and spoil them, and ultimately it makes for a person of loose morals and ethics and beliefs who thinks they can do whatever the hell they really want at anytime and not pay for it if they did wrong. Sadly, proof of this walks across America each day, in the modern era. Children blinded and brain washed by Television, computers, and video games. They have no idea what a real book is, if it is not on a tv, computer or tablet or cell phone screen. Look around you, Americans at Doctor’s Offices, Hospitals, Hair Dressers, stores, movies and more, wherever you go some screen is running, keeping someone’s attention in check. Whatever happened to reading a book, writing a story or poetry,playing outside,playing board games with family members, all of the things that kept families intact for centuries in the world?

      American Society has gone from the we society to the me society in too many ways. It is no longer we the people united can do this, or that, or we fight together, or hurt together  or improve together. It is now the me society, I got mine and you don’t, go “f “yourself and get your own!. The days of helping a neighbors child or them, is gone, Americans look at one another with too much suspicion and anger and worry. Why because we allowed the American Society to get out of control, it needs to be reined in again and given some discipline and moral and ethics rules and character once more. Who will do this I don’t know, but, I do see America’s Great Republic and Society finally beginning to crumble much like the predecessors of Rome, The Incas. and The Aztecs. Will it happen, is it time that America’s reign as the world leader is coming to an end? It needs to be examined closely by the brains and geniuses in the world but as a simple middle class American I see it happening slowly all around me. The only question should be for American’s how do we stop it?

 

Television-End of Seasons and Programs!


     Television Stations across the country end and begin new seasons at different times and they end shows and begin new shows in the same way. Most of what we watch on television is based upon ads for products they can attach to them, the ads as we know pays the bills.  Yet I find it sad when favorite shows complete their runs and go off air and we are left hanging as to what happened to the characters, we watched and loved and laughed at. Funny some of them become so real to us we even imamate them in public places. This happened with shows like Mash, Friends, and many more, and they left holes in television lands viewers hearts.

        Every year in the spring they kill programs without asking the public about them, then they bring new summer ones out in trials and see if they are good enough for renewing. Then we have shows like Desperate Housewifes that ended last night after a 8 year run, House is leaving us too, among other that have left in the past like Monk. To be replaced by live action shows like Survivor and Amazing Race and Big Brother and The Bachlorette and more. The live shows are fun at times but, they get boring for me too. No real plots, no real characters that change each week or show.

       I want to go back in time to the days when we d tube television and black and whites and antennas just to see the shows that went by. Shows I loved, laughed, cried and sat amazed at and wonder why they aren’t on television today. 

       Mutual of Omahas’ Wild Kingdom, Wonderful World of Disney, Soul Train, American Bandstand. Comedies ruled too- I Love Lucy, Car 54 Where are You, My Mother the Car, McHale’s Navy, Carol Burnett, Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin and more. The wholesome shows of yester-years have gone to the graveyard and not come back at all.  We even had war shows, like Combat,The Rat Pack, then we had Mod Squad and The Dukes of Hazard. What happened to Charlies Angels and the likes of it? Television is continuing to change but I wonder if it is for the good or bad. 

        In my book there are channels few really watch, we do in my home, Green Planet, Discovery, History 1 and 2  A&E, USA, and more. The premium channels I could probably do without like HBO,Showtime and Max and such, not enough variety or shows I like on them, but they are in my package for now.

        I find myself leaving shows behind I didn’t want to see go like House and TNT’s The Closer, while shows I wish would leave still stick around. Sadly, the directors, and producers and stations run the shows and what they put on, and we really have no control except to change the channels or shut it all off now a days. What happened to good old-fashioned comedies, and wholesome shows and dramas that made sense without getting too violent or bloody? Maybe someone will read this and understand what I am saying these days.

 

The Avengers A Comic Fans Movie!


     Movies, movies, movies! I am not rich nor do I get a chance to go to a movie often, yet, after waiting for a long time, a movie I waited on finally came out, The Avengers by Marvel and Disney Studios.

       As a child and boy I grew up buying comic books about these characters and teams, such as the Avengers, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, and then the DC comics side too, such as Green Lantern, Batman, Superman, and yes even Wonder Woman. It was the art work that drew me in and then the stories as they got better over time. Even Spiderman was fun and different in a world full of pain and no pleasure they brought hope to mine.

        I am glad that Stan Lee who created these superheroes, allowed people to finally make movies out of them, and create a world of fantasy, fighting and joining and getting along on-screen. He stuck to his guts and told the Studios and Producers to do the characters his way as they were in his books and wham the hits began hitting the big screens. Spiderman, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, The Silver Surfer, Iron Man and now The Avengers. The characters in the books stayed for all time as Stan Lee and Kirby made them. And I hope they will on-screen too, for the characters are loved by so many of the baby boom generation and their offsprings they deserve to be given the right production and way on the screen. The Avengers brings a cast of characters to the screen that needs little improvement at all, and is fun to watch, including the villains and beasts and armies. It’s all a fun time at the movies if you go, the intensive fight scenes, the teamwork and the way it all goes leads you to believe in teamwork and heroes, right down to Nick Fury!

      If you like excitement, a plot, a story to follow and great graphics and three-D affects The Avengers is a film to see. If you were a comic book fan as a child and want to see them come to life on the big screen and cheer and laugh and enjoy, then The Avengers is a movie for you!

 

Internet Invention needs maintaining:


Lets all discuss something that bugs the hell out of me for a change, fools and assholes on the internet who want to destroy the greatest information highway in the world. Why would anyone want to ruin anthers web site? When you have zillions of places online to go and look at things and learn and chat and more, you aim at one web site and take it down with bullshit, that’s crap. If someone doesn’t like a web site or what someone says or writes  on it then ignore it and it will not bother you. The Internet is an invention that gives billions access to history, learning how tos, and millions upon million of pieces of data and a place to be creative. Don’t attack what may be the greatest invention ever by being stupid folks, leave other people’s stuff alone, no one bothers yours.

       It’s like Elementary School all over again, larger bullies picking on smaller people or starters. Listen up bullying is illegal! Let everyone have their say, acknowledge them and then move on with what ever decision you make and say ok. Don’t intentionally ever attack someone or something because you don’t like them, you don’t like their work or you don’t like what they said or do. Just walk away it’s the best thing for both of you.

      As day after day, on the information highway that is the internet data is uploaded stored and turned into information the world can use to save lives, and more, like all good inventions it does get misused also. History has shown terrorist organizations using the internet to voice threats or instill fear in innocent people. Yet the internet is also a device used for fun, information and education, so no matter what anyone says, we all have abusers somewhere don’t we, that we know, well we avoid them in real life and we should do so on here too.

        We have news, comics, information, television, films, books and games all at our fingertips, as well as factual history and more in the world and at home. Be blessed folks and enjoy it all, but, do yourself and everyone else who uses the internet a favor, stop spamming, stop viruses, stop malware and stop destroying the one invention in a long time that now covers all people, all nationalities, all colors, all races period. We all need a platform for information and our say also, well the Internet has now become that and much, much more. Lets protect the wealth of information, the access and the information, lets keep the Internet clean and useable for all.

 

A Short Story for Today


Video Ending !

It is ancient history so to say now, as to when the first video game appeared on the world market and the electronics craze really began. The 1980s is now decades ago when companies like Atari, and Commodore Computers came about. All hooked to a TV antenna on the back of your television and or with a monitor of its own and keyboard and silly joysticks. It now seems so long ago after all the inventions and progress since, doesn’t it. Pong, Table Tennis and then graphics came about as children and adults got fascinated by Intellivision and then PlayStations and X-Boxes and personal computers. Lap Top computers became the craze and now Tablets and E-readers abound, everywhere a person goes is someone reading, or playing or working on an electronic device. Amazing isn’t it folks we have become total and unashamed electronic geeks who love having video games to play and watch.

As a kid born in the fifties and raised in the sixties and seventies, we never had game consoles, computers, e-readers or video games. We had erector sets, microscopes, dolls, rings, jacks, jump ropes and balls. We had puzzles and paperback books and hard covers, and a little TV if we were good. Today’s children live and die with electronics and it is sad when you removed it from the kids they get lost and don’t know what to do anymore.

Such is the preamble to what happened to a child born in 1982, little Gerald McLaney. A young boy who by the age of fibe years old was given a controller to an Atari Console and got lost in simple games like pong and table tennis and grew from there. His parents didn’t think anything of it, it calmed Gerald down when he was upset, it made him quiet and happy and they could hear him in the next room each day, laughing and making fun sounds as he played for hours.

His days were spent staring at a Television screen full of pixels and shapes and laughing and yelling and sometimes crying when he failed to beat the games. Never though would Gerald ever give up no

matter how many times he was beaten by a game he always went back to play again, to prove it was beatable to him. Usually Gerald would figure it out even at five years old, a small boy who’s brain sped as fast as light pixels across the screen. He mastered games like pong in no time, tennis in no time, Mario Brothers by 7, and was on to games of Champion Tetris and puzzles and more.

His days were spent going to school, coming home rushing through homework, finishing it and on went the Television and the game console and Gerald would be lost once more to the world, in an electronic wasteland staring at a screen of colored pixels now that moved at the same rate as his brain cells fascinated by the games invented to play with. Gerald never worried about making friends or going out to play and his parents saw no problem letting him do as he wanted and what made him happy. After all Gerald was happy as he was and no one cared if it was the video games and Television screen keeping him company, all they knew is Gerald was a happy kid and never caused trouble.

His life went on and on as the video games grew, he went from Atari, to Intellivision, from Intellivision he graduated to X-Box and Play Stations. The games went from simple games like pong and table tennis to games of more violent natures now, war games, battles, battleships and planes and then the shooters. Yes the all-time favorites for Gerald, his shooters games of war now allowed to be played across the internet now, as servers sprang up and blood and gore and sounds of explosions and fights and yells of death filled the room Gerald played in. Gerald staring at the screen to see a dot move and shoot and duck as a player’s pixeled characters head exploded 300 feet away in the game and the scores rang up and awards He joyed in being able to kill as many opponents as possible and being the best on the score boards around the world now. Yet behind the screen as others were being beaten and seeing Gerald’s pixel character in the game come up victorious and win, no one knew the real Gerald who was now home alone always with no

one to watch him. He was snacking on so many things over time that between the age of 7 to 17, Gerald had somehow grown to 300 pounds and could barely move. Yet he refused to put down his controller and stop his game playing for it was all he knew. He ate whatever he wished, no his parents didn’t pay attention, nor stop him as long as Gerald didn’t bother anyone and was happy.

The video game sounds could be heard in the halls with Gerald’s door shut as he played on and on seldom stopping except for bathroom breaks and to get snacks. He would rush as fast as he could across the hall to the bathroom to go and then wait when no one was looking and get food and drinks and run back in and play more. He lived for the video games each day, looking online for new ones to play, buying and downloading what he could on a credit card. Each game was more complicated to win, each shooter more violent and gore filled as Zombies died, and Soldiers and Hit Men and Mobsters all at Gerald’s hands. As Gerald sat back in his chair in his room his eyes filled with the colors and pixels of the screen his thumbs and fingers gliding effortlessly across the controllers, smiling and never caring about anything else.

The pressure from the weight and his lack of physical exertion began to get to Gerald each day, slowing his heartbeat down and causing bladder and bowel problems, but Gerald didn’t care much, he wanted to just sit in the dark stare at the screen his fingers and thumbs sliding over the smooth buttons on the controllers and watch pixeled characters on a screen bleed and die left and right as he worked through each map and screen. It was after all Gerald’s whole life now, he knew he couldn’t run and play with the other kids now. Gerald could barely make it to the bathroom 100 feet away and the refrigerator 200 feet away downstairs once a day. He would sneak down when no one was looking with a tray and climb slowly back up the stairs, with the try loaded with drinks and snacks and junk food.

Once a week Gerald would get up and empty the trash when no one was home from his bedroom. Bags of trash he stored like a rabbit storing food, until no one was around and then disposed of them. No one knew Gerald existed except for the fact they kept feeding him food and drink and hearing the sounds of the games in the hallway and down the stairs throughout the house. This went on for a good 5 years and at times only visitors would wonder how Gerald was to his parents, but when they asked to see him, Gerald would tell his parents, he was too busy doing things and the game sounds would get louder. Slowly but surely over the next two years the gaming sounds from Gerald’s room would fade a little at a time. Becoming less and less to be heard from Gerald’s room daily. His own family tended to believe Gerald was fine, because the sounds did keep coming and going on and off and he never ever complained of anything.

Finally, after five long years, Gerald’s family began to wonder how come they didn’t see or hear from Gerald much anymore, what was he doing now a days. Was he really ok in that bedroom of his and  why didn’t he come out  or answer anymore?

One day, they decided it was time to see Gerald again and make sure he was alive and ok. As they pounded on his door there was only video games sounds inside and no verbal response from him.  They knocked harder and harder but no response still. So they tried to open the door to Gerald’s room, and failed not once but three times. Now worried frantically, they dialed 911 for help.

10 minutes later the fire department and police arrived to find out what this was all about, Amazed they listened to how someone wa sin this room and had been for so long no one knew what was happening, with him. They knocked first looking for response like everyone else did, but nothing. They asked for a key to the door but no one had one to let them in. The Police decided to try to break the door down by their shoulders yet it did not budge.

The Fire Department brought in a saw and they cut thru the door to Gerald’s room. They found Gerald who was now 400 pounds and leaning against the door as the door gave the rest of the way under his weight. Gerald died 400 pounds, happy with a tray of snacks, sodas and his video game controller in his hand! Sadly Gerald never bothered with anyone but the gamers online and ate like he did to do so, but he never interacted with real people in the outside world either.

Three days later they buried Gerald McLaney in a piano box, to hold his 400 pound body and before they tossed the dirt over his casket, they threw in his X-Box 360 and a controller!. He could now play video games forever more!

 

Lessons in Life for All


Life my friends sometimes brings with it lessons we have to learn in order to survive. For some it is not easy to survive, because they don’t know how to fight back against what represses them, for others it is all a game they people to see who they can one upmanship on, and for others it is I don’t give a damn. Lessons are learned everyday by everybody in the world, for some it is pure survival methods, for others it’s business survival, and others love survival. Again it is all different for each of us isn’t it?

I was asked once long ago, which is the best way to go, I can’t give that answer, for no one can, it must fit each woman and man. We all learn lessons of how to live, eat, clean and survive from our parents, and then use those same lessons to move forward and guide us in life. We may not always recognize the traits, the lessons or ways of another, but we sense the danger when it comes around and back off. Mankind is made up of predators and prey; the docile shall be eaten alive, just as it happens in the animal kingdom.

The difference between mankind and the animal kingdom is the human brain works a little better reasoning out logic and solutions. We also can devise solutions no animals would come up with and make them work. Amazingly, mankind is advanced this far ahead of our animal kingdom, but is it really that far we are ahead? Mankind can regress when needed to, and become a raw, wild animal fighting for its own life. It’s just a fact of life that we all understand, but avoid and never deal with.

Lessons are taught to us from the day we are born, swaddled in a diaper and sucking from a bottle or nipple.  Slow down when you eat, drink plenty, and learn to wipe your rear, sound familiar? I bet they do! We all learn these lessons, as children and growing up. Things like wash yourself brush your teeth; comb your hair and more instilled in child years. Then they take us through Kindergarten and Elementary School days, to refine those lessons and teach you more lessons building on

the ones you learned at home. Lessons come every day for people in the world; it’s amazing what some may be, for many. For not all lessons even for humans are nice or learned easily, for mankind can be a stubborn being in more ways than one.

Learning to communicate properly is the most important lesson we all learn each and every day.  At times we come up as misunderstood, misheard or not clearly expressing ourselves and our feelings. Learning when and how to do so is perhaps the hardest thing to do. Some of learn to do so through schools and others through the streets and friends and there are still some who never learn properly. Communication is vital as we all know to the advancement of humanity; the clearer and more openly we can communicate the better it is for all around us and ourselves. Expressions of love, caring, hate, violence and more are included in this, and so is something vital to all humanity if you wish to remain human that is and get along properly in society, self-control.

For some self-control is beyond their control, they lose themselves in fits of laughter, fits of anger, of violence or hate, and don’t know how to control themselves. These individuals end up outcasts from society, hidden from other, or paranoid and needing medication for things like, OCD, Bi-Polar and other mental diseases. It is not their fault of course it is a disease a real chemical imbalance in the human brain that causes these.  Then we have those who get depressed also, which can be brought on by events, reactions or shut downs of the human mind due to stress, pressure or chemical imbalance. Many can overcome these with medical help, prescription and careful watching, there are some though who shall never reach the real world and feel left out and isolated, again it is not their fault?

Lessons for dealing with these things include as you grow up lessons in communication, lessons in sexual orientation, lessons in belonging, and lessons in interacting with others. Stop and ask yourself,

why is it one person has a certain effect on me and others have a different effect on me? Why is it in one family of ten people, you may be loved by half the family and hated by the other half. Perceptions are why, people percept things different and from different angles so to say no one sees the same instances and circumstances the same. One may take something you say as a loving reminder, or a fond memory, and another might take the same thing as an attack upon their family, for instance. In the end though we can’t all see things to do, and at some point the best you can do is express yourself and your feelings clearly and hope in the end it can all be understood and worked out in the end.

We all have learned lessons in fighting too, some in how to physically beat others to pulp and some in how to mentally beat someone to a pulp. But we all have learned how to fight in our own special way whether we are violent or just smart. Funny how that part is formed by family life at home, and how you are raised by parents or in some cases ignored by parents. Sadly humanity is the only species on the planet that rejects its own children for social issues.

One big important lesson for all people to get right is this one my friends. No matter the color of your skin, nationality, or race, or where you are born, we all have traits in common. We all bleed red, we all die if injured bad enough, we all die in time, and we all live through many of the same experiences and traumas that make us who we are today.  We are humans and the biggest lesson for all to learn and understand is simple, humankind should stop killing itself, we should stop killing each other off and learn the biggest lesson of all, Humanity is a species, we all belong to and we are indeed all created equal. So in ending I say this to the world the biggest lesson for all of us to learn whether we are Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Oriental or any other race, is this we are all human, we are all one species and we all must get along to survive, or in the end we shall leave a planet, empty and devastated by all of us. And that my friends is not a Lesson I wish to learn!

Trayvon Martin, Justice


Lets discuss something, I find a problem with America, its media arm so to say. As we all know, media is going electric data route like all things these day, which to me is fine if it happens. On the other hand, magazines are dying out because of the price raises of them, these days and the average income of the American Household.

         Television is today the ruler of the media age, but for how long  with some of its bias views of issues and people. Almost every story is colored by some bias and more, stories that flash across CNN, Fox, and more all are colored by the stations political lean, or the newscasters view on a personal basis Some are pushed by racist announcers and newscaster while others do it out of fear for their jobs, and the racist comments allowed and the actions of certain people can cause great harm to America.

       Trayvon’s case, may have been a crime, or it may have been what Zimmerman said it was? Only time and a full and fair investigation can prove that.  The New Black Panthers have no business in this and will only make it a larger issue, and they have no business in putting a bounty on a man’s head. Violence will only beget violence Martin Luther King said and I agree. We must all live in America no matter the color, nationality, race we may be, it is a Republic not a Communistic country, nor do we allow such tactics here.

       The Trayvon Martin Case has parents of all colors, nationalities and races, protecting their own children and working overtime to keep them safe now. This case does not affect just blacks, it affects all races and colors in America. Why was a man who is a volunteer for a block watch team carrying a weapon that was fully loaded? How can anyone say a child of seventeen attacked this full-grown man, after being followed by him causing his own death? Isn’t a full-grown man the size of George Zimmerman big enough to stop a seventeen year old from attacking him without a gun? Many questions come up in the case and I am sure given the time, the truth shall come out if legal authorities are allowed to do their job. The New Black Panthers aren’t needed here in this case, nor wanted by the Martin’s, Trayvon’s family. They don’t want revenge, they want justice is all and the Justice System needs time to do its job.

        Like all Americans and parents around the world, we empathize with the Martin family on their lost, and feel the pain of it. The color of our skin does not matter it is a child that is killed and gone, we all feel the same. Yet groups like The New Black Panthers come out and put a bounty on a man’s head and talk like they will kill him if they can. We don’t need organizations like the New Black Panthers, or any others who speak of an eye for an eye as a solution. What we need is peaceful solutions and a country united in finding the truth.

Electronics/ Staples


      Across the world, people including Americans are getting lazy and fat it seems. Almost every home owns a Television, a Game Console and more, and it is sapping the AMerican Spirit and energy from the people.

       So many Gaming Consoles and video games are out, that you go into people’s homes to visit and you find them on and the owners staring at a screen. We have Televisions of all types and sizes, and flat panels too, monitors from computers on and towers too.  Sadly no one has time or the will to even read books anymore, it is all electronic information. My wonder is what is this doing to the children and people of the world?

       Is it right when a five-year old child looks at you and says get me an X-Box, or a Playstation?. What happened to the child who wanted a ball, a sled, ice skates or to explore the woods and lands around them? What happened to the child who would read books, yes real books, and even comics for pleasure. What happened to children playing dodge ball, and hide and seeks and  1,2,3 Red Light? They don’t exist anymore do they?

        When I was a child our parents didn’t buy us electronic gadgets and games like that. Nor did they encourage you to stare at a television daily. We were told to go out play ball, find friends, explore the world but stay safe. We weren’t babysat by electronic gaming systems, or computers, we were given puzzles and Erector Sets, and building blocks. What happened to Lego, Erector Sets, Puzzles and more?. Today it’s give me X-Box, PlayStation or WII. Sad isn’t it?

       Next subject, talking about Electronics and people. I will say this once and it has been true since about ten years ago now, I will not shop at Walgreen ever again and haven’t since ten years ago. The next store to join this list happened yesterday, I had bought a product with a Staples two-year warranty on it, and when I was sold it I was told bring it back if anything goes wrong with it and we will take it and return your money. I was refused by the Store’s General Manager and turned away rudely if I may say so. Sadly Staples is now on my no more shopping list and they will lose more customers I am sure once it gets out.

       Staples use to be a decent store with decent people, who knew how to handle customers, properly, Now they have changed their employees and are rude, individuals who don’t care what you bought or how much you spent. When you sell someone a two-year warranty on a product and tell them it will cover the damage to it or failure of it to work, and then they bring it back telling you it doesn’t work, take it back. Don’t argue with the customer and refuse to take it back and make them call the company that made it!. Again, people are ruder than ever before in the history of businesses and ruin companies reputations. Not only did this incident at Staples cost them myself as a customer, it cost them customers they didn’t realize, my relatives, my friends and people who don’t even know me, soon. I guess Staples and their General Manager saved 400 bucks by not taking the Tablet back, but it will cost them thousands on thousands in customers next.

 

Events/ Family-Form Person


Events form our destiny they say, or is it Destiny the forms our life?  Could it be another thing, like we are the accumulation of the events and our base family‘s reaction to them? Many ideas come to subject on this point, but I have grown to believe, we are all, what we are taught to be, plus, what events  we live through you see. Each Generation is different because each has its own events they live through and we have the cultural, moral and ethical bringing up of the base family.

       Take a look back in time, for me i have only lived 56 years and I don’t know how long I have left. But I do not my parents didn’t hand us things on a platter, they didn’t give us cars, electronics, money or fancy clothes. We didn’t get our music through them or anything else, what we got pure and simple was discipline, work hard, go to school and stay the hell out of trouble or we will beat your ass. If you dropped out of school in my family’s world you went to work and paid for your rent and for food, you learned earlier than later, you had to earn your way.

        Each family, no matter how many children they have, has favorites, the ones who can’t do nothing wrong and everything goes right for. In our family we ran into that problem not once but twice. My elder brother was mom’s favorite, she would help him through everything and he  was attached hard and strong to her apron strings. He was Mr. Perfect. the one who could do it all right and play sports and be the hero.  As we grew older he disappeared into his sports and the family, ran as hard as he could, to find his freedom and escape the step-father we had. Violence was indeed a way our parents controlled him and none of the five of us were ever immune.

       Many have asked me what my first memory of life was, and how far back can I remember. Well Doctors, I go back to the year, 1961, I was five years old. It was the day after Labor Day, the first day of school for me, I was awaken and told to get up at 6 am, like my elder brother. I was washed and  cleaned by mom and then told to get dressed. I put on the clothes given to me like a good little man and then came the tie. The 1960’s school system had dress codes, the Elementary School code was ties that year. Mom pull ed me close and wrapped the tie around my collar and started to tie it. I was five years old I fidgeting and moved, that was it for her, the next thing I knew I was smacked across the face, crying and told hold still or I would get it again. Hows that for a first memory in one’s mind and head?

      Families have their black sheep and I was it for mine I think. My real father, had divorced my mother and moved back home, I would not meet him until I turned 18 years old and took a bus to another state on my own. As my mother would say, I looked like him and I talk like him, so I suffered for that all my young life living at home. Nothing I could say, do, or try to do, would ever make my mother and I get along well, till the day she died.

        The third child was one of my younger brothers. He was the first one mom had from our step-father.  I watched as he grew older and more anger came out of him year by year, from being beat upon by our father. The beatings were crazy and at night or anytime he decided we did something wrong. This kid got so angry as he grew older, he stole all of his father’s tools and belongings he could and sold them on the streets to make money. He wiped his own father out in that way and then they had the confrontation in the basement. By now my younger brother had grown to almost a full-sized man, he stood his ground against his father in that basement. As his father beat him he fought back finally, and took a pipe to dad’s head. As Dad stood there bleeding across his skull, he looked at his first full son and told him get out or I will kill you, leave. The kid packed up at 16 and left the home never to return, he died at age 32 in California, under an assumed name from Aids from drugs. Sad huh!

       The next was my baby sister, God Bless her for coming along when she did. She took some of the sting and violence out of her dad and mom. They loved having a little girl for a change. Dad would never hurt his little girl physically, but mom well she would and did, and beat her down mentally too. As our dad would say till the day he died, and he told her many times to her face, woman you have no motherly instinct at all. It was true and us kids knew it too, we really did all our lives.

       The final piece to the puzzle that was our family, is one last boy. A boy we all loved as he was small, smart and funny. He would laugh well the little guy back then and he  loved life. Before I left home I would babysit the two younger boys and my sister daily thru my high school years as our parents worked each day.  The third child would beat upon his younger sister and brother daily unless I stopped him. Anyway the youngest was given everything like my elder brother was as the eldest one, the baby of the family thing set in. But for him the  bad part was he also got the worst of his father’s habits and ways, he picked up over the years. I remember when he was small teaching him how to draw from the Sunday Paper Comic Strips. Today he has a talent for drawing that is immense and I hope he is using it somewhere.  But like I said he got things from his dad too, paranoia and at times anger issues hit this child on and off. He is suspicious of everything and anything around him, sadly for him. My understanding is early in his life after I left for military service he was hit by a car and it changed him. Sadly that is the family puzzle that was us, in our house.

       So like I say, events in history, family teachings and what we learned young became all of us and becomes all of us through out the World!.

Video Games-Destroying America?.


Video Game Wars seem to be taking over the entertainment of AMerican children and even many adults. Games like Zumba, and The WII games, and even Playstation all seem to be in every home you’re in. You can hear kids and adults talking about the great graphics, sounds and action these games provide, through a controller of one kind or another.

       Sports games, Action games. Shooter Games, Adventure games, even Exercise games. People drawn to monitors and Television screens of all sizes, staring at a game and how to beat it for fun. While it may be entertaining, and it may even be fun, is it really safe and what we want American children and adults doing so many hours they don’t do much else?.

       Back in the 1960’s the America I knew and loved and even yes into the 1970’s, children didn’t have video games and big screen televisions or computers. The parents told all of us go out and play, make friends and explore nature or sports or something for real. We ran, jumped, skipped rope, played ball and more. We learned many things in many different ways, but, we weren’t allowed to sit in front of a screen with a controller in our hands and do nothing else but stare!. Sadly, that is what is happening in America and many other countries around the world and it is killing the motivation, the minds, and the spirits of the children of the world. They have no objectives, or wants or needs other than a computer with great speed and graphics and games, in their minds. Like the game Zombies, our children are becoming zombies themselves.

       I will give you an example of what I mean and if you, anyone who reads this blog, thinks I am wrong, then you let me know, ok?

        I own my own home with my wife and we live in a rural area in Connecticut. As we are an older couple these days and we have a mortgage to pay and bills, we rent bedrooms out to people to make ends meet. We rented a room to a person ten years ago and he is still with us today in his mid forties. The man is 46 years old, weighs well over 300 lbs. and can’t work because of disabilities. 

        One day we invited him to have dinner with us, around 11 am was the invite. My wife gave him a list of things to pick up at the grocery store as follows, 1) ten lbs. of potatoes, 2) brocolli 3) squash 4) Some other veggie too.  We were in the kitchen cooking when he came back from the store and dropped the bags on the table will the bill.

         My wife said to him did you get all the vegetables, he looks back at her and said what vegetables you talking about I didn’t get any!.  My wife looked at him and said didn’t you buy what was on the list?. He said yes he did, so my wife says, so you got the vegetables, he says nope!. We looked at each other and went what? As we took the items out of the bags it was all there so we asked him if they were veggies, he said nope and started naming them by name!. Finally we looked at him and said these are all veggies!. Oh he says and shuffles off back to his video games and tv upstairs.

      Someone please tell me why a 46-year-old man has no idea, what vegetables are? He is so immersed in his video games and tv, daily you hear it running 24/7 unless he is sleeping. He hasn’t had a girl friend in ten years that we know of and he buys electronics like he is addicted to them. He sits in a lawn chair in his bedroom, an X-box controller in hand staring at Shooter Games on a big screen and nothing else. He buys frozen food to eat, so all he has to do is microwave it or put it in the oven and walk away. Is this what we want for our future children to be?

        I once had an idea that maybe just maybe, the Russians and Chinese and Japanese all got together and found a way to conquer us Americans by inventing video games to control our minds and soften our bodies.  Tetris was just out then and I could see Americans flocking to it left and right and sitting down playing it forever. What an attack huh, that would be, but I laughed it off but still I wonder.

        Is America getting weaker because our children don’t want to read, play sports or go outside and play anymore? They just want an electronic video game console and a controller and some stupid game to be immersed in, till they fall asleep staring at them. Sad isn’t it, what happened to the America of invention, innovation, exploration, and more. The healthy and strong people of a nation who wouldn’t ever give up? We lost it all to too much electronic niceties and too many gadgets, we are becoming lazy, fat, slow, dim-witted and worse. Wake up America, Wake up now, before you are too weak to defend yourself or anyone else!.