Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling

Another cold snap coming today and tomorrow. I struggled with whether to put out my tomato plants last weekend, then finally settled on putting out nearly half of them. Temperature is supposed to drop to 41 tomorrow night. Under 40 is a danger zone for tomatoes, but they're not in serious trouble until it gets under 37. I hope I'm not playing the "cover up" game tomorrow night. * * * * * * * This picture at Reddit cracked me up this weekend: Some guys at my school thought it would be funny to pass around a pineapple shirt on picture day. * * * * * * * I try not to let these kinds of stories alarm me, but I admit it grabbed my attention: A leading psychologist has warned that young men's brains are being 'digitally rewired' by unprecedented use of video games and pornography. To the best of my knowledge, McLuhan ever talked in terms of "hard wired" brains, but he was aware that something like that happens when a person (or a whole generation) starts using a new tool. We also know today that brains are malleable and its circuitry changes with the age and jobs we give it. The "good" news about this study: It applies to those sociopath-wannabes who hole-up by themselves for hours to play video games (or watch porn). Marie and I have always been intuitively more tolerant of prolonged video game playing if the boys are playing one another or are with a group of their friends. In that setting, there's a sociability component. * * * * * * * Blogging will be a little slow this week. A lot on the family plate.