One Thousand Gratitudes, Part XV: 650-626

I wish it were easier to tie up categories without post overlap, but what're'ya' gonna do?

Things -- it would seem -- got a touch intimate in this installment, and I hope that when that happens my coveted army of three readers doesn't get squeamish or offended. I'm trying to keep things real both in here and anytime I write. That's always been the intention and until I learn otherwise it always will be.

After I posted the last installment, my wife asked me if I thought this series had changed me.

I think the answer is "yes," but I think it's also a work in progress. It's easy to be in one mindset, then slip into another.

Rest assured, though, I'm trying to view the world as a thankful dude.

There's a lot of awesome out there.

And all of you are certainly part of it.

Thanks for reading.

Because It Was On: The Karate Kid

          This is either the initial installment of a new series that will effectively waste a lot of people's time, or it is a one-timer. Either way, without directly doing so, it's about good, old-fashioned American laziness and our tendency to vaporize precious ticks of the click by zoning out in front of the tube, even if what's on is crummy. Even if what's on is crummy and we've seen it before. Even if what's on is crummy, and we've seen it before, and we freaking own a copy of the thing. That last piece isn't the case here, but it has been on countless occasions. It's the ultimate dose indolence when, nestled in a dusty box or bin in our basement, is a copy of the original form of a movie, but, out of sheer stubbornness and lethargy, we will sit through an edited version of it -- with commercials -- because, well, getting up and being productive is entirely too much work.

                 When we got Google Fiber this summer I never anticipated being in a situation where I was on the couch struggling to find something to watch on TV. If I’m flipping channels -- which is maybe twice a month -- I’m toggling between two or three programs, irritated that the commercials airing during each are doing so at all of the wrong times. Last Saturday, however, I was a solid three-quarters through the guide and the feeling came over me that I might be forced to find something else to do. It’d been a long day, a long, emotional week, and I wanted nothing more than to find something mindless -- or some decent comedy -- to which I could doze and arise at six a.m. to root for Team Sweden in the gold-medal game.[1]