10.30.07
05_Adding Up
_I’m getting some stories ready to post. In the meantime, here’s something fun and useful. FreeRice is a vocabulary test that donates ten grains to hungry people around the world for every answer you get correct. Next time your friends make fun of you, you can bust out your new vocabulary to knock em down a peg, and feel good about it because you helped hungry people eat.
_Regardless of what you use your new vocabulary powers to do, this is a great, fun and addictive site. Last night I racked up 200 grains of rice in about five minutes and I could have kept going. Check it out and I promise stories by the end of the week.
- Kid
10.28.07
04_Roller Derby. Who Knew?
_A few weeks ago I went to see the Charm City Roller Girls skate their championship bouts. This is a sport I knew nothing about. I didn’t know it existed. On my way walking to the place from my parked car I was followed by two guys who also did not know the sport existed. We bonded over this fact. We also bonded over the fact that we were shucking off other plans to go see Roller Derby. How cool was that? The only thing I did know, up to that point, was that the parking lot was packed.
_Rollery Derby, apparently, is really popular. The lady at the door said that attendance was just under 700. That’s about the attendance of most high school sporting events, and at those events most of the attendees have to be their because they are related to the kids playing. The Roller Derby fans were there strictly because they wanted to be there. And I found out why.
_Roller Derby is a very simple sport. There are two teams, each with a five girl team. Four of the girls from each team skate in the Pack. One lucky lass from each team hangs back and is a Jammer. The two Jammers have to skate into the pack, through the pack, around the rink, and come back to do it again. The pack tries to either help or hinder the Jammers from getting through, depending on what side they’re on. The games are divided into twenty or thirty minute halves (I forget which), and each half is divided into two minute “jams.” At the start of each jam the Pack takes off, then the Jammers take off a few seconds later. When the jam is over, the teams stop, make adjustments to the lineup, and new Jammers take over.
_This can all get very physical. There was no wall around the rink, because a Roller Derby rink is smaller than a regulation skating rink. This means that half the time when people fell, they went careening into the audience. The audience seemed to enjoy this. The players enjoyed it too, to some extent. After the bout my friend and one of her competitors were talking about how awesome one of their falls was. Once the bout ended, they were all totally friendly with each other, which is very reassuring to see in the world of competetive sports.
_Even though Roller Derby is to sports what punk rock is to music, it’s all very family oriented. Kids, of course, love watching people smash into each other. This is the reason eight year old boys get involved in football, so they’re bound to have a good time. The teams, at the bout I saw, were selling pumpkins to benefit their travel fund. They also do charity fundraisers from time to time. The girls might look tough and be covered with tattoos, but plenty of them have husbands and kids. Roller Derby is sort of like a bowling league on steroids, in that respect. Except that, unlike a bowling league, Roller Derby is awesome.
_That all being said, if you’re going to be around The Otto Bar on Wednesday, the Charm City Roller Girls are going to be there for their third annual Bruisers Ball. All the information is avaliable on their website. It looks like a damned good time.
- Kid
10.26.07
03_Incoming Signals
_Some friends of mine have sent me links to their blogs.
_First, Literature Is Not Dead. If you like writing, it’s a blog for you. Lee Future/Mike Cook (this apparent case of identity confusion is explained) has a very wry voice when talking about everything from books and writing to the political/social ramifications of broom handles. He’s also been to Kyrgistan. When was the last time you read about someone going to Kyrgistan?
_Second, Can I Change A Life?. This blog relates Christian ideas and morals to pop-culture references like My Chemical Romance. It’s very smart stuff. Apparently Janet is also working on a book, but she’s never mentioned it before. If it’s like the blog it’s bound to be a good read.
_Third, Light And Storm. There is so much content on this blog it’s a bit hard to describe. Kristen runs a book/movie club off of it, picking books and movies that are more than just good reads, but have had an impact on the reader at some point or in some way. There are also pictures of really cool bugs and lectures about Kierkegaard. Unfortunately there is no explaination as to why Kierkegaard got so many vowels in his name.
_Finally, Switchfeed. This is primarily a Switchfoot fan blog, with lots of tour pictures and videos and such. Anyone who knows anything about Switchfoot knows that the band, especially their lead singer Jon, is about a lot more than just very decent music, and the blog follows suit. In between the Switchfoot reviews and interviews you can find stuff to make you think about religion and philosophy. It’s fun and smart, which is a dangerous combination.
All these links are in the Blogroll, as well as here.
- Kid
02_Connect
_Here on the internet our hearts and minds become intangible code that flies through cyberspace. Without the sense of sight, it is impossible for others to judge us by our skin color or appearance before we have a chance to speak. The code in our own minds is all that transfers. Even though the words on your screen make no sound and do not exist except as a digital display, they can resound loudly and carry weight.
_My name is Kid Brother. My parents were literalists. I live in East City where I spend my time writing. Somehow I’m making a living. I created The Digital Scene when I realized that some of my best friends came from the internet. Our codes collided and sparked across incredible distances that friendship couldn’t traverse without this sort of technology.
_This place is a place for silent, typed words to sound loudly, for the light of a computer screen to carry weight. It is not just for me and my writing, but anyone who wishes to give their writing sound and weight. Here we are as real as we make ourselves. This is an open offer to anyone who wishes to make themselves real: Send me your stories, articles, essays and opinions. I’ll post as much as I can.
If you want to submit, e-mail me at thedigitalscene@yahoo.com
- Kid
10.24.07
01_Initialize
_Electricity sparks at the tips of your fingers, moving through your muscles, twitching them to send pulses down the wires of your computer. Code forms and disintegrates inside your mind, establishing the world you see and react to as your brain processes terabytes of information at a time, without you ever realizing it.
_The internet has given us a new place to exist. Here we are more than just flesh and blood, but disembodied, electronic code that becomes as real as we make it. We give ourselves names that we can change. We give ourselves faces and shapes. We create personae, opinions and voices from words typed into code, transmitted through the air onto digital displays.
_ We meet on the internet. We talk on the internet. We read our news here, we do our banking here. Despite all of this, none of it exists. It is all as immaterial as the electricity that twitches your fingers. Still, in this dark, nonexistent world of digital code, we still have the spark of conversation.
- Kid
