Offer? No one had ever offered. What were they talking about? Was this even allowed without her consent? She never gave her consent! What had her family been thinking??? And what was she supposed to do now?!

Mist

Myst :)

I LOVED THAT GAME! I got through the whole thing with no cheats - played it obsessively - and didn't even own a copy! I played on and off at a friend's and finished it while working elsewhere for a summer, playing on an office worker's computer.

Eventually I got my own copy and then the sequels came out. I pre-ordered Riven and it arrived a day early! I couldn't believe it. Sadly, that was all I looked forward to at the time. I remember, for some reason, the question arose "If I died tomorrow is there anything I'd miss?" and I thought for a long time and realized, no. There wasn't really anything I'd feel like I missed. If someone flew down and said "Hey you wanna go now?" I'd have said "Ok!" But then I realized Riven hadn't come out and I WANTED to play, and was waiting, and I realized I'd be really upset if I died before I had a chance to play that after all my waiting! - Lame huh? :D

I did a two day marathon of playing once I got it and finished the game, - Alive again. No hints. - Then kept seeing maglevs in everything as I walked around my neighborhood. Weird the brainwashing that two straight days of playing can do to you! I liked Riven, but liked the first a bit better.

The third I didn't like at all. I needed two hints for that. One was due to the graphics which I thought were terrible. I literally couldn't see the clue. Not because I wasn't looking but due to the quality of the graphics. The 2nd was my fault. Too immersed in the game. I felt pressured to make a split second decision and panicked and chose incorrectly. Had I taken myself out of the game and put it on PAUSE - which you can do because it's ONLY A GAME! I might have figured out the correct thing to do. But that NEVER OCCURRED TO ME! It was so strange, afterwards, when I realized that. I felt the pressure and immediacy to choose QUICKLY! - and I did. And it didn't go well at all. And my heart SANK. Really truly did. I had chest pains, I lost my breath, I believe I screamed or did one of those silent screams.... - WAY too immersed. Very real at the time. My reaction surprised me. I was very shaken!

I bought Real Myst and loved it. Then got the next in the series, and lost patience with it pretty early on. It was sad to see how poorly the game progressed once it was sold to another company.

I have all 3 books, in hardcover. A t-shirt and a squee somewhere. A CD somewhere too. All part of a bonus package. Loved the world. Used to visit Cyan's website and wonder about playing frisbee... Still remember the action figure mockups of the staff :)

Angry the Myst series was sold to others.

Years later someone bought me Pyst (speaking of "being taken over by others!") which I'd always wanted, out of curiosity, but never wanted to shell out money for because I'd heard it was THAT bad. - I am thrilled to have a copy now. But oh yes, it is THAT bad. It's terrible.

Myst is the only computer game I was ever into. I tried a few others and had zero interest. The puzzles weren't challenging. The worlds didn't interest me... I do like virtual reality games but can only use a helmet for up to 15 minutes. After that my brain goes all wonky and it takes me too long to recover (as in over an hour to re-establish equilibrium!)

What else can I say - now that I'm way past 60 seconds!

I loved Myst. I even have the demo on my phone :)

Edit: I just realized I DID get a clue to the first game. Sort of. Someone looking over my shoulder made a comment about the sounds, and I hadn't really been paying attention to the sounds (and often played on mute!) and I realized there might be audio clues I was missing. There were. I'd thought the sounds were just there for ambiance. - Didn't make that mistake again!

"It's great to be a secretary in the White House, DC.
You get inside information on Algeria.
You know every move they're making in Liberia,
You learn what's what and what is not in the land of the free.
Every corner that you turn you meet a notable,
with a statement that is eminently quotable.
Oh it's great to be a secretary in the White House, DC"

Lyrics again. Did that show years ago. Didn't even like it. Still doesn't stop me from remembering the lyrics. Though I'm uncertain about one word... and I think I was uncertain about it then too.

Have I mentioned before that I still know all the lyrics AND dance movements to my first grade Easter play? ;)

destruction

Weapons of Mass...

Did you know that one of the very real concerns of scientists "back in the day" was that if an atomic bomb was detonated, it could ignite Earth's atmosphere and a chain reaction could wipe out our atmosphere completely? Before the first test bomb was deployed this was a very real theory of theirs and a genuine concern.

- AND THEY SET ONE OFF ANYWAY! :oO

May the Force be with you ;)

I always liked the idea of "the Force." An energy that surrounds and connects all things in the universe, that could be tapped into, and would enhance your own energy and abilities depending on what parts of the force you were tuned into.

"The Force is ... an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together."

The song comes to mind.

Childhood umbrellas. I remember a clear plastic one that was shaped like a dome. Not flat like other umbrellas. I believe there was a cartoon character on it. I'm picturing the color red, yellow, and black, but I can't remember what the character was. I want to say Annie, but that might be incorrect. I think there was a red plastic ball on the tip too, but I also remember a long silver tip, so maybe not?

I tried jumping off the jungle gym with it once. You know.... to use it as a parachute. It didn't work. I considered jumping from higher spots to catch more air, but wasn't completely confident that that was the problem and decided to not take the risk.

I experimented but I wasn't a complete idiot.

Silk

My dad gave me a little silk kit thing once. It was a small box, with a small square of pink silk, and I think half of a silkworm cocoon. It was some kind of sample or promotional item from some business related "silk" thing. My sister got one too.

Poison

Earlier, I was thinking about drinking water vs washing water. I'd just as soon have everything filtered, but it's not practical. When people ask me why I want my cooking water filtered too, since it's boiled, I compare it to urine. What if unfiltered water = urine. You might use it to rinse off your plates, but would you boil your food in it or use it in your soups? I think not.

(Ok, some people know that urine is actually quite sterile and that some people drink it for health benefits on purpose, but those aren't the kinds of people who ask "Why do you want filtered water for boiling?" :P )

Attempts to silence people by disgusting them aside, not all contaminants in water can be boiled away. Where I live, one of the bigger issues is rust from pipes. Do you know how much rust, lead, and other metals are removed from water when you boil it? - None. 'Nuff said.

Transport

"Any time people eagerly board a transport, en masse, to get to a 'promised land' there's bound to be trouble." She said. "This isn't charity. How about giving them a bunch of free tickets to come and go at their leisure. Anybody ever think of that?"

Thread

Unravelling...

Fix the problem or start anew. There is no right, unless you're trying to fix something that it's truly time to throw away.

Near

I tried to write something creative, but all I can think is that the people outside are TOO NEAR MY WINDOW RIGHT NOW!!!

If it were a quiet celebration, I would enjoy it. I'd hang out, I'd buy stuff. Give me quiet festivals any day. Or move the music indoors.... nowhere NEAR me.

Discovery

Channel.

Grrr... Commercial stuff again.

[Eyes closed.... erase.... next.....]

He led her to an open lot. Empty, except to her. The boy had suspected as much.

"Is it them?" he asked. "What do you see?"

She stood, silent. How could she not have known? Where had all these people come from? And how had this graveyard come to be?

answers

She wanted answers. But she was never going to get them. Really, she had the answers already. She just hadn't heard them. And until she was capable of understanding the answers she already had, newer information would not be revealed.

Elastic

Super elastic bubble plastic!

And Stretch Armstrong!

... I need to get some "later in life" memories.

Isn't that what senile people do? Remember everything from their childhood, because those memories have been in the "brain system" longer? But they couldn't tell you about newer events, like what happened yesterday?

- I can tell you what happened yesterday. I had a crappy day!!! I can also tell you lots of other more recent things, but they're not the first things that come into my mind with these exercises. More ingrained stuff pops immediately to mind. - Like "Super Elastic Bubble Plastic!"

I can still remember how that stuff looked (dull mixed colors, and the (relatively) clear bubble that would come out the side, never in the center of the glob on that red straw, no matter much how I tried to position and re-position it and aim my blowing), felt (Cold. Why did it feel cold? It did though.), smelled (Hard to describe, but I remember it.) - and every other detail from puncturing the tube, to making the small ball of goop and pressing the edges onto the straw to make a seal so the blob wouldn't shoot off like a piece of gum when you started to blow. To rolling the tube to squeeze the last bits of the plastic-y stuff out, to when the tube would tear (as part of that effort,) and the goop when it hardened (in bubble form or not,) when it wrinkled as it'd deflate and feel like a dried up skin, to the blobs that would harden, but not all the way, and the sound and look and feel and the tension of those blobs as you tried to stretch them and they'd snap in half, and what a clean snap it'd be... flat, and short. Both sides.

I could go on but the details are overwhelming. This is from eons ago! But my brain forgets very little.

Edit: Super Elastic Bubble Plastic at Retroland

Driving

Wow. I thought of that JUST as the word came up. Really. I was thinking about car rentals and gas fees as the word appeared.

Spoooooky!!!!!

I was having a bit of "flight" syndrome. "Flight" being the other half of "Fight or Flight." I generally choose "Flight."

But just now, when I looked up what it would cost to literally "fly" last minute, I was not amused.

It's unlikely I'll go anywhere. I'm just having a bad bad day and thought hey, maybe I should get away. But since that's not going to happen today, by the time I go to sleep and wake up tomorrow morning, I'll have talked myself out of it.

Nevertheless, while I was waiting for the page to load, I'd started to think "What if I drive..."

* Note to the world: If I'm not doing "Flight" that leaves "Fight. It would not be advisable to show up at my door today uninvited and without cookies.

I'm not particularly cheap. But I don't like wasting money. I think that's pretty Basic right?  Isn't that fairly Basic for anyone? Specifically, does anybody want to spend more money than they have to? Ok maybe that's not Specific enough. Here's a better Example. I try to exercise some Control in my spending, so I don't get Swept away in the excitement of seeing a new product and pay ridiculous prices for it. It Almost always works. I've Wondered at times about people who think that spending more money on something makes some kind of Statement about their own self worth. Like people who wear expensive Scarves in February and March.

This post is not a OneWord exercise. It's an attempt to fix Blogger's broken search feature on this site.

The search feature on Blogger doesn't work correctly. Hasn't for years. As such, some of the pages on this site don't appear in search results - which kind of makes the search box pointless! 

I noticed that most (all?) of the pages that don't show up in searches also aren't indexed by Google. So let's see if linking to some of them in that first paragraph gets Google to wake up and say "Oh! Those pages!!!" It's not my best writing but the links are there. We'll see if they show up in a search in a few weeks.

Brick

"A splendid edifice can climb one brick at a time...."

"The work a mason does, is made to last..."

Songs and musicals keep coming to me first, recently.

Also the typical loose brick that opens a secret door or hides a key or box, or serves as a stepping stone to climb...

I'm remembering an exercise I did years ago. In my late teens. Some kind of test (for fun) that a friend was giving everyone, where we were asked to picture a number of things and then were asked to describe what we'd pictured, and then she tried to interpret what our specific images said about our personalities.

I remember for one part we were supposed to be walking in the woods, and then come upon a wall. I pictured a brick wall. I think that, later, she said this part of the "test" had to do with how we viewed and dealt with obstacles.

One person had a huge insurmountable wall that went all around the forest and they tried to go around it. Another person had pictured a little short stone wall and they just stepped over it. My wall was tall, but not massive. Maybe 20 feet tall, and about as wide. It looked new and out of place in the forest. It was just "there." When asked what I did about it, I said I climbed over it.

I realized later, when I'd heard some of the other descriptions, that my wall wasn't super wide. It didn't go on and on like some others. I wondered why I hadn't just walked around mine? All I can think of, is that I felt like I was supposed to climb over it. So I did. - I wonder what that says about me.

Canvas

"White. A blank page or canvas... So many possibilities."

If I became an artist, it'd be such a mess. Large canvases all over the place... The problem with creating art is figuring out where to store it. What to do with it when it's done. I couldn't just paint over it. I created it! I'd want to save everything.

Manager

I don't really like managing. I like doing. Managers tend to sit back with a lot of paperwork in small offices with desks and phones. - That's not my idea of living.

If people need someone to get them organized I can do that. I can "manage" people, but I wouldn't want that to be my every day job.

I've often annoyed "higher ups" by turning down managerial positions and staying at my lower paying position. Their confusion about my not wanting the "honor" of their promotion - or the pay increase - and their lack of understanding as to why anyone would like the job I currently had, told me a lot about how much they'd lost touch with their clients and the mission of their companies. They no longer dealt with either. They dealt with paper.

Level

I saw this yesterday and didn't answer because I've been working with tools recently and I thought that kind of level would be boring. But, I'm almost finished with my project and again, that kind of level (with the little bubble) is what's coming to mind.

I'll say this... putting in an air conditioner is best done with two people, not one. And in looking at my almost finished project, -I think it was more level before. The tilt looks too far to me now but it's sturdy and staying as is.

Man I'm going to be sore in a few hours.

Boiling

Springs.

I drove through a town with that name years ago. The directions I was given consisted of phrases like "Turn left at the cornfield," "Turn right at the bungalows," and "There's no traffic light in our town, but we do have one stop sign!"

- I felt like I was driving through a cross between a Stephen King movie and the Twilight Zone.

It's changed since then, which makes me sad in some ways. I'm not big on change. Especially when it saps a place of its charm.

Root

I picture treasures hidden in the roots of trees. Or underneath them. They can stretch out so far and so long....

I hid a couple of "treasures" once. Money. Just because. I knew exactly where I'd buried each and there was something almost magical about returning to those spots over a year later and finding everything exactly how and where I'd left it. Somehow, I'd expected my jars of money to be gone. I don't know why. But they weren't. They were there. Exactly how I'd buried them. There was something immensely comforting in that.

Wings

Wow... old favorite line.

"Wings! I don't have wings!"

"Of course not! You're a boy."

Although I've often thought flying would be nice, I've rarely wanted wings. They look so fragile to me. And I imagine they might be cumbersome for a human. I also think flying with wings would be tiring for a human. But maybe not. - I'll have to ask the next winged human I see.