I could take pictures of the First Unitarian Church in Providence all day, I think. Fantastic architecture. Bell in the tower cast by Paul Revere. I doubt this is the last time you’ll see a photo of that building show up here.

I don’t think I’ve ever in my life played a good game of Truth or Dare.

I’m thinking about my previous ToD experiences because Brian sent me a link today to Truth or Dare Online, a site partygoers can use to suggest various questions to be answered truthfully or actions to be accomplished, um, darefully. The kinds of questions the site spits out are configurable so that they’re appropriate for anything from pre-teen sleepovers to full-on adults-only orgiastic bacchanalia.

Every time I’ve ever played a game of ToD, it’s been in a group of people containing at least one, usually more, female in whom I had some level of romantic and/or sexual interest. Hell, even the one time I played a four-person game of ToD, I’d have gladly made the mad monkey sex (or any smaller subset of those activities making up the mad monkey sex) with either one of the two girls involved. And isn’t that what Truth or Dare is for (as an adult, anyway)? To have an excuse to play around with other people without the pressure of it meaning anything?

But oh, no, that’s not the way it ever worked for me. For some reason, I’ve always been the Offical Truth or Dare Comic Relief.

I’d watch as my friends, who tended to have better luck with the ladies than I did and therefore didn’t need the drunken lowering of standards of acceptable behavior provided by ToD, would take dare after dare that involved making out with hot chicks, or licking the bare bellies of hot chicks, or whatever else they were dared to do with hot chicks.

Me, though?

“OK, Allen, you have to sit at the bottom of the hottub and pretend like you’re enthusiastically masturbating while thinking about Stan. For one minute.” (Stan (not his real name) was our boss at the record store at which we all worked; his uncanny resemblance to Kermit the Frog did nothing to help put me in the mood for my mock masturbation. Neither did the fact that he was a guy.)

Here’s another of my favorites, one that I’m sure at least three of the readers of this blog will remember. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, one of the readers of this site was responsible for this particular dare as we sat in a big circle on the beach:

“OK, Allen, take off all of your clothes and go jump into the Gulf.”

The best part about that one, though, was the fact that I couldn’t find my glasses when I came nakedly up out of the Gulf. Fumbling around the beach for my glasses, Little Allen just kind of hanging there in the cool night breeze… not my most dignified of moments, I have to tell you.

Don’t get me wrong–I accept that these kinds of happenings are part of the game. You don’t play Truth or Dare in an attempt to seem elegant in front of your friends. I just hated the fact that in every game I ever played, I was the one to whom these things happened.

I think a large part of that was the fact that back in the days when I had less confidence than I do now, I’d give off the sort of desperate vibe that indicated to others that it probably wasn’t the best idea to foist me onto any girl who wasn’t already interested in me. Which I completely understand; god knows how badly I might have pulled the puppy-dog-follow routine on anyone dared into as much as kissing me.

But man, does part of me (only a part of me) wish I could have those days and those games back now–because I am such a different person in so many ways than I was then. I’m much more confident and several orders of magnitude more comfortable with myself…which, of course, makes me far, far sexier. The outside doesn’t look all that much different, but the inside has undergone a drastic revolution over the last few years.

So, to sum up… Me then: lonely; desperate; probably more than a little creepy to women. Me now: happily married; not even remotely desperate; far, far sexier.

The moral, of course: be comfortable with who you are, whoever that person might be, or no one else is gonna be, either.

Apparently, the city of San Jose, California has now become one of the ten most populous cities in the United States. I’m a bit shocked by that, honestly–I know it’s the “capital of Silicon Valley” and all, but still…wow. This news got me thinking about the other cities in the top ten–and gave me a Google Earth-related post for this week for you guys, you lucky dogs!

First off, a challenge: how many of the ten most populous American cities do you think you can name? Write ‘em down and we’ll compare them in just a minute.

No, really. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

(whistling)

(’net surfing)

All done? OK, sweet. Look here for the answers:

There you have the locations of the top eleven cities by population, according to the United States Census Bureau. I’ve included Detroit at eleven because that’s the city that was bumped out of the top ten by San Jose. Did any of you get all ten correct with your guesses? If any of you did — you’re lying, you bastards, and you know it! You did not guess San Antonio or Phoenix were in the top ten.

A couple of things I thought were pretty interesting:

• Three cities in California (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose). Three in Texas (Houston, San Antonio, Dallas). NONE in Florida.
• And for that matter, none on the Atlantic Coast, none in the Southeast. None in the Midwest or the Pacific Northwest. What does the placement of these hugely-populated cities tell us about migratory patterns in our country? I’d like to compare these cities with population densities of the surrounding areas–are Dallas, Houston and San Antonio super-populated because most of the areas around them aren’t, for instance? Are these areas with fewer suburbs and bedroom communities, so more people live in the cities themselves?
• Phoenix, but not Boston? San Antone, but not Atlanta? San Jose, but not San Francisco? Miami? Seattle?
• It’ll also be interesting to see this list ten years from now, after the next census–will San Jose still be in the top ten, or will all of those tech jobs that have boosted it’s numbers so much have spread out by that point? Will our lessening reliance on industry cause the population of Detroit to continue to plummet? What will be the next city to see huge gains or losses in population?

Anyway. Discuss. Or not, as you see fit.

More reasons why I hate the American media: the hysterical exploitation that accompanies the sort of news coming out of London today. I present to you screenshots of four of the major news outlets in the U.S.; note the tone of the coverage and the photo choices designed to be as prurient as possible.

Now compare and contrast that coverage with the home page of the BBC–the major news organization in the city where the bombings took place.

And there you have one of the many very good reasons I decided not to become a journalist.

Wow, I’m sure glad we’ve been fighting this “war on terrorism” for the last four yaers. We’ve given those terrorits what-for, haven’t we? I feel much safer now. They wouldn’t dare attack us or our allies after the way we invaded Iraq and captured that Saddam guy who masterminded 9/11, right? I mean, c’mon, that was clearly the best course of action we could have taken to curb the threat of terrorism, and it’s obviously working wonderfully.

Thanks, Mr. President!

Yesterday, the family and I found ourselves spontaneously gripped by the spirit of Fourth of July weekend and wound up driving out to historic Plymouth, Massachusetts, about an hour from where we live. Terry wanted to see the ocean, and I was certainly fine with that; I hadn’t realized lately just how much I missed seeing gigantic bodies of water on a regular basis (I’ve lived on the coast almost my entire life, and am hoping to do so again at some point).

But there’s only one reason, really, why I wanted to go to Plymouth, and that was to see The Rock. Plymouth Goddamn Rock. The Rock On Which Our Country Was Founded. Or something like that. I was always a little fuzzy on my history.

I’d always thought the pilgrims on board the Mayflower had seen this enormous rock as they were sailing into the bay and used it as a navigational aid of sorts. I’m not sure exactly how that story got into my head. I don’t honestly remember if that’s what I was taught in school or if I just made it up. But c’mon…this was one important friggin’ rock, right? It’s got to be something to behold. At the very least, it’s got to be pretty massive, right?

Really, not so much. I could easily fit Plymouth Rock in the backseat of my Mazda 626.

The town built a large viewing area around The Rock in 1920, a thirty-foot stone portico and platform from which viewers can look down at The Rock, some six feet below on the beach. The portico is far more impressive than Plymouth Rock itself. It’s just…it’s a rock. Nothing distinctive about it other than the “1620″ carved into its surface. The Wikipedia says that it’s been called “the most disappointing landmark in America,” and I can certainly see why. I expect to be awed by my historical landmarks, not nonplussed.

And the thing is–we don’t know for sure that this rock is the rock. Plymouth Rock itself, like so many of our historical stories and signfiers, is largely myth. There’s no proof that this rock is the one onto which the pilgrims stepped off of the boat for the first time (yeah, I did some research after realizing just how wrong I had the story). All we have, 120 years after the fact, is the rememberances of some geezer who told the town leaders which rock his father had told him was the right one. It’s story that we hold now as fact. Y’know, kinda like hardcore Christians do the Bible. (Ba-DUM-bum.)

So if any of you were ever considering taking the time to go see this tiny little piece of Americana…don’t. Boston’s an hour north, and there’s plenty of sights to see in Boston that have unquestioned historical significance. You can see rocks just about anywhere.

Our friends’ nine-month-old is still at that incredible stage all babies go through–both boys and girls–where they look like old men. In this case, it might be especially true–there’s a worldliness in Parker’s eyes, like he’s seen just about enough of the world already and has decided he’s not all that impressed by it. This picture was taken in our backyard during our Official Fourth of July Weekend Barbeque, the first time we’ve really used our backyard in the year since we moved into our house. Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!

You know what I like about memes? Yeah, yeah, sure–they give me just a little bit more insight into the pasts or psyches of my friends. But the important thing is that they keep me from having to think of topics to write about.

Saundra tagged me with the Childhood Memories Meme, and since I’m never one to turn down an excuse to keep from doing any real work for a few minutes, I’m game to give it a whirl. Away we go:

Remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog’s name in the #5 spot; link to each of the other blogs for the desired cross-pollination effect.

1. Write on Right Now!
2. One Over-Caffeinated Mom
3. Blerg
4. Secrets & Lies
5. Do or Do Not

Next: select new friends to add to the pollen count. (Obviously no one is obligated to participate).

Hmmm, let’s see:

• Terry, of course.
• Michelle, since she has a shiny new blog and needs stuff to put on it. (Jay, you’re welcome to do it as well, but since your new blog’s photography-oriented I’m not gonna explicitly tag you.)
• Amy, returning the favor for her having tagged me with the last one of these things I did.

Then add your memories.

Five things I miss from my childhood:

1. Free time. I was an only child being raised by a single parent who worked full-time and had a life of his own to deal with, so I had plenty of free time to draw, to write, to learn how to do cool things with my Commodore 64/128, to read, to learn whatever I wanted to learn. I can honestly say that a great deal of who I am as a person today comes from having so much alone time when I was a kid. Nowadays I’m a husband and father of two, and free time can be hard to come by.
2. The time I got to spend with my dad, just me and him.
3. Grapico, the best vaguely-grape-flavored soft drink ever. (I had so much of it when I was a kid that I reached that point where I just couldn’t drink it anymore. But that doesn’t stop me from missing it now.)
4. Feeling like I was smarter than everyone else. I’m sure that sounds strange and more than a little egotistical, but being hella smart was just about the only thing I ever took much pride in when I was young. As I’ve gotten older, I haven’t used my brain as much as I felt like I should have, and that’s made me feel somewhat less bright. And now I work at a video game company where everybody is really friggin’ smart, which takes away some of that uniqueness I always used to feel. I know I’m still a really bright guy, but my identity isn’t quite as centered in my intelligence anymore…and I reckon there’s probably a little of both the good and the bad in that.
5. Starting back to school in the fall. So many kids hated it, but I loved it–I loved back-to-school shopping, getting new school supplies, starting new classes…and getting away from the excruciatingly hot and boring summertime.

So there ya go. Over to you, Terry, Michelle and Amy!