I caught a show on Cartoon Network that I used to love as a kid. It was one of the first all-CGI, 3D cartoons to be a series on TV, called Reboot! From what I can remember it was about a civilization that lived inside a mainframe, and when ever the user wanted to play a game, it would crash down on the city in a huge purple block, and who ever was trapped inside it had to become a player in it. There was also an Antagonist who's sole purpose was to shut down the "mainframe" and if things got too hairy, the protagonists would simply call for a Reboot - but only if necessary, because everything would get destroyed.
Looking back on it, it sounds like the entities in the game were just bits of RAM trying to live their life uncorrupted without having to reboot the system - since that causes all the RAM to reset. But I was a kid back then, and I didn't know anything about computers. I just saw it as a flippin' sweet cartoon. But watching it now on TV doesn't hold the same excitement as it did 15 years ago.
In fact, many things that I once loved I can't get into any more...even things that are fairly recent. I guess it's just that time of year again, just as a Freshman English paper I wrote was titled - "Autumn: A Season of Change."
With the wedding being less than 365 days away now, most of the big things are taken care of. We have picked out the date, the venue, the time, most of the guests, the caterer, the colors, the concept, the honeymoon, and most of the people in the wedding. All that's left are the flowers, the clothing purchases, the ring purchases, and all the parties/get-togethers in between.
Yet, people on the outside don't get to see all of that which is already in place, they just want to ask questions about the frilly stuff...which is all the stuff we haven't picked out yet. The reason we haven't picked it out is because it doesn't matter if we don't have an infrastructure in place for the wedding first.
Going through all of this planning, with the understanding and realization that there is a pretty good chance we're going to have to pay for it all ourselves, puts many things into perspective. It requires a change in how we live our current lives, what we spend our time doing, and making sure that things get taken care of (especially on my part) so that we have an uncharacteristically smooth wedding day, and first couple months.
All the sudden, playing World of Warcraft is much less important in our lives. However, its time allotment has been filled by Sims 3. The game is cheaper (since I didn't pay for it) and it helps put things into perspective. It shows you just how much you focus on your character versus the other characters in the house - especially if the other character is designed as closely as possible to your future spouse.
Both times that I have spent a significant time playing the game, I have found that once my child character has lived to reach her true potential, I am no longer concerned about my character and am ok with it dying. It was strange the first time I played it, because it felt like a piece of me was dying - but I was ok with it since I knew that my kids would live on to be successful.
I guess that is the kind of experience that actual parents have in some form or fashion when they realize that they aren't the 20-somethings their mind's eye thinks they are - but are actually 40-50-60-somethings who are biding their time, enjoying the rest of their life, knowing that their kids were raised right, and will be just fine when their time is up.
Something else I can't seem to get that into this season is sports. With the Official NHL Team taking over the Dallas Stars twitter account, and posting updates manually (as well as Twitter changing their authentication methods, breaking my simple bit of code I was using), I don't really have much reason to keep up with the Stars as often as I used to. I'm sure that comes as a disappointment to the couple thousand people who follow The Dallas Stars and Dallas Stars Live, hoping for live updates during the games...but it's just not there for me. I think 3 years is a pretty good run, and enough time for the actual team's marketing department to pick it up.
I was very hopeful for the Cowboys this season as well, but after going 1-7 in the first 8 games, that quickly went out the window, until their most recent game put them at 2-7. I was glad to see that Wade Phillips was fired - it sucks for him, but he wasn't able to cut it with the Cowboys. Perhaps Jason Garrett can pull them out of this ditch and get them to round 2 of the playoffs next season.
I'm also finding it hard to get back into photography. I picked up the FlipVideo camera, and that goes with me nearly everywhere these days. However I record very little with it - and mainly intend to use it for important events related to the wedding and family firsts. When it comes to photography though, I am forced to rely on the technical shots instead of the artsy ones - I just don't feel the art in me any more. Maybe it's because I've all but lost my Muse, or perhaps I have just been out of it too long, I lost my touch.
Whatever the reason, stuff is changing for me, only this time it's different from the others. I guess it was like when I moved to Plano back in 2008, and I wanted to cut ties with just about everything that tied me to Fort Worth. I didn't do anything the same as I did back at my old apartment - I wanted to feel completely new. Perhaps I'm getting to that point now, with this marriage on the way, and plans to move into a Rental Home somewhere in Plano the month after.
It's nice to have a season of change every once in a while; I just wish it would progress a little faster sometimes.
