A few things that are cool

Ergonomic toilet seats, Band-Aids that look like strips of bacon, cellular telephones, saying the full name of things, cartoons that are not intended to be viewed by children, astrophysicists, Canada, home made clothes (well some home made clothes),

house plants, geodesic domes, that book Buckminster Fuller wrote: Untitled Epic Poem On The History Of Industrialization, nano-bots, coffee, Reggae, sustainability,

Laser floss, silent bullets (bullets aren’t especially cool because they kill more people than moustaches, but if they were silent, now that would be something worth noting, and possibly even referring to as cool)

When you say something seriously and then people laugh because they think you’re joking and then you can say, “No but seriously, sharks DO have very sharp teeth and your father probably DID die a very painful death.”

The Navy's controvertial "Shark Antagonizing Prorgam"

So when I was in Junior high I had this word processor, and I used it. I used it to make these lists; the two that people liked the most were “Things that are cool” and “Stuff that sucks”. They were by no means exhaustive, I mean really how would that even be possible? Seriously? how could someone keep up with all the new stuff that is sucking all the time?

In this last year I’ve been getting lots and lots of requests to  recreate these two lists. Of course I can’t capture that youthful idealism that I used to have; I think all the pockets of my identity where the hope and fantasy used to live are all musty and caustic  from the cynicism that I’ve been growing in there. What I mean is that I can’t possibly recreate those lists, but what I can do is update the idea, or at least try. I mean I can’t decide what’s cool and what sucks, I”m just really good at identifying which group things fall into.

Well I guess it’s not that cut and dry but something can’t be cool at the same time as it sucks.

Since, as I mentioned, I won’t be able to list everything that is cool and everything that sucks, you may have to send my your thoughts of things that I’ve missed. I wrote some stuff out this morning over breakfast (by morning I mean 12:00).