36 posts tagged “qotd”

Greatness is not a destination, but a journey. What do you do for your family, career or community that you’re most proud of?
Sponsored by Nature Made

I find it highly amusing that this quote appears today, the day I decide to make my reappearance in the bloggosphere properly. Perhaps this is my synchronicity powers working again. I certainly seem to be more in tune with the universe as a whole lately.

What am I most proud of that I do? I understand most fully the implications of living as part of a greater whole, and realize that everybody has within them an ability, a power, a spark of divinity or trace blood of mythic heroes, and because of this they also have the responsibility to live up to the same standards we imagine in our role models, both real and fictional. 

The synchronicity here is that I have only just recently restated my purpose in life: exploring the magic of stories as inspiration for real world heroes and role-models throughout time and space in order to learn the best ways to inspire greatness in those around me, starting with my family and clan, and through them the rest of the world.

Which band or artist which is no longer performing or alive would you have loved to have seen?
Submitted by Rev Stan.

Do I have to pick just one? I mean there's the Jim Morrison and the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra...then there are the bands that were never the same after a core member died, like Led Zeppelin or the Allman Brothers or The Grateful Dead. That's not even scratching the surface of defunct musical acts (and I'm still hoping Soundgarden might reunite for a tour or even a single concert like Rage Against the Machine). But if I did have to pick just one, it would be the man I consider to be the greatest guitarist to ever live, Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (Live)

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble

1 comment

Have you ever had a dream that came true? 
Submitted by rescout.

This happens to me all the time.

What are the 10 most memorable music performances you've seen? (Remember, "memorable" may not be good.) 
Submitted by Bill. 

• Roger Waters performing Dark Side of the Moon last year - my favorite album performed live
• Molly Hatchet/Jefferson Starship TNG/Steppenwolf when I was 13, my first real concert
• Big Head Todd and the Monsters at Rec Hall when I was in high school
• Phish at the Civic Arena - first contact high
• Rush at the former Starlake Amphitheater performing all of 2112 - conned a new acquaintance into giving me his spare ticket
• Hootie and the Blowfish - worst show I've seen, they were rude to the crowd for which they were performing and got booed off the stage
• Toad the Wet Sprocket - playing after Hootie and the Blowfish, they managed to please an angry, sullen crowd
• Helmet on Old Main Laws, first free concert and first real mosh pit
• Royal Crown Revue - first time I called in a favor of a staffer for free admission
• Big Jon (AKA The Ogre), lead singer for a band that I roadied for, singing bawdy sailor songs in an empty venue because only three friends showed up to see the concert.
  

What were you doing one year ago today?
Submitted by CassandraMorgan.

A year ago today, it was the middle of the Tax Season slump, and I was going crazy--struggling to keep afloat a failing family tax-prep business while short-staffed and under-funded. The entire debacle ended a month later, and in two months I had decided to move from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Scottsdale, Arizona. 

If you could have three wishes from a genie, what would they be? 
Submitted by tatteredhalo.

I learned long ago the folly of counting on wishes to come true. Djinni are imprisoned for a reason, and I don't care how much it promises, I wouldn't trust it, even if it spoke with the voice of a famous comedian.

If you put together a time capsule today, what would you put in it?
Submitted by Lilia.

Assuming an unlimited budget, I'd put a bunch of books and magazines in it:
A full encyclopedia set
A collection of medical journals form the past twenty years
some essential philosophy texts
an art encyclopedia

I could go on, but the idea is that I'd be storing hard copies of some of the most important information of my generation, in case there is some kind of apocalypse or cataclysm that destroys modern technology and therefore renders all electronic media useless.

What are your three favorite snacks?
Submitted by Sunscreem.

cheeeeeeeeese!!!!!

Tropical trail mix

Clementines

Have you ever played matchmaker?  How did it go?

I once loved a girl, who was young and spirited and and far to naive to actually be in a long term relationship. We loved and fought and broke up and got back together many times, so many that at one point I decided to drink myself into a stupor for 6 weeks straight rather than deal with her. Eventually I thought I got over her and tried to move on, but nearly a year later she showed back up in my life. At first it was easy to be friends with her, and I concocted a plan by which I would hook her up with my best friend. I had the idea that she needed a rebound relationship at that point and would get along as well as I did with him, since I knew them both so well.
I enacted the first stages of this plan a few days later, by introducing them to each other at our favorite hang-out spot, a counter-culture coffeehouse infamous for its proximity to the campus I attended (Pitt) and the archaic castle-like structure in which it was built. As I suspected, they hit it off, and in the next few weeks I made sure to invite her to as many group events as I could so that she and my best friend would have time to interact.
Unfortunately my plan backfired, since this meant I was spending just as much time with her as he was. More, when you factored in other things we did together. One drunken night (that turned out to be exactly one year to the day since we had broken up for good) she expressed her lingering feelings for me, and a desire to give a real relationship one more go.
Knowing that love never truly dies from what was in my scarred heart, and wanting so desperately to believe in second chances, I agreed. I abandoned my plan, forgetting why I had forged it in the first place and fell back in love with her. Thus my great plan was reversed on me, and for several months we were quite happy. Then seemingly out of the blue, she broke up with me. Distraught, I thought about drowning my anguish much the same as I had before, but with the help of some close friends I avoided that disaster. At that time I never considered the vague answers she had given my tearful inquiries could have been covering a deeper conspiracy.
I saw little of her in the next few weeks, and also almost nothing of my best friend. I don't know if I caught it by chance or my misery made me more sensitive, but it seemed that they were avoiding me--or at least avoiding being seen together while I was around. My despair deepened, and I struggled with school and social obligations and a general loss of direction.
My birthday that year, the one where I turned 21, was a quiet tragedy when they both showed up, together, and confessed to me their love for each other. Worse, she had left me for him, and they hadn't known how to tell me. I spent most of the night vomiting what alcohol I drank, but out of frustration and anger than any drunkeness.The worst part wasn't the feeling of betrayal, which was rather too easily dismissed. It was that I was actually happy for them. I had known that they would do well together, and seeing them that night had made me briefly joyous as much as it did jealous.
They married a few years later, and are happy to this day. And I still love them both.

Nature Boy

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose?
Submitted by J.T.

Though I already have a superpower, that is pretty nifty if uncontrolled, I always wanted to be able to teleport, so I would choose the ability to open and control stable wormholes.