Each week (give or take one or two here and there) I share three things I like – It could be a book, a movie, a podcast, an album, a photo, an article, a restaurant, a food item, a beverage, or anything else I simply enjoy and think you might too. You can find a whole pile of things, especially books, I like and recommend HERE.
1) Nintendo Gameboy
Ours is not a video game household, nor was the home I grew up in. (Shoot, that wasn’t even a TV home.) Video games were not a massive part of my growing up years, yet they do hold a certain nostalgic place in my heart because of the good times I shared with friends, mostly in basements, playing Super Mario Bros, Golden Eye, NBA Live, WCW vs. NWO, and Madden. And I have particular memories of killing time after school with friends while our parents were in some boring church meeting swapping a Game Boy back and forth competing for the high score in various games. (I was pretty terrible and generally lost, yet somehow the memories are good. Nostalgia is a weird psychedelic.) So when my wife found her original Game Boy at her parent’s house recently, complete with two copies of Tetris and no other games, it was more time machine than game system. It has been a blast clicking that unergonomic brick of plastic on, hearing the electronic assault of pseudo music, and trying get the top score once again. If you have one of the stored away, go find it. They are so much more fun than any phone games, even down to the mechanical mashing of buttons, nd especially because there are no notifications or interruptions from other apps. If you don’t have one, keep an eye out at second hand stores or garage sales. It’s a good time.
2) Window Seats
This is not an argument trying to persuade those of you dedicated to aisle seats that my preferences are better. In fact, on the return leg of any long trip, the aisle seat is nice because of the time it saves in getting off the plane and back to home. This is simply an ode to the benefits of the window seat. (I would say the “joy” of the window seat, but airlines have effectively removed all joy from the flying experience, especially for anyone taller than an Oompa Loompa.) First, the window seat removes any possibility of being asked to move because your row-mate has a small bladder. Second, the window seat provides a side head rest so you are ever the awkward person slumping into your neighbors air space or, God forbid, leaning on their shoulder. Third, unless you are in a tiny plane with only one seat on each side, the window seat protects you from the malicious crashing of the drink cart, which flight attendants wield like Thor’s hammer, and from the spacial cluelessness of your fellow passengers and their flailing backpacks, elbows, and posteriors. But the capstone reason why the window seat is the best is in its very name: it has a window. I have flown hundreds of times in my life, and to this day I have never not loved the views from an airplane window whether it is the thrill of take off, the majesty of huge clouds, the birds-eye-view of great cities, or the vast perspective of unfamiliar landscapes. I will take the window seat pretty much every time.
3) “Amazing Grace” by Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson is one of the greatest gospel singers of all time–operatic, soulful, powerful, rich. Her rendition of Amazing Grace will take you to church and then half way to heaven.
