Michaelrileyforpresident2024’s Blog

I’ve been thinking on this subject for a while, the idea of the future, how there isn’t one future, but instead many futures, and how if there are an infinitely many futures, how there could’ve been an infinitely many pasts, but how there is only one present. I’m sure there are plenty of pedantic writings on the subject by philosophers that I’ve never read, and probably never will. However, today…or more likely late last night, I found a medium for my own writing on it. It will take the form of a novel about a novel written by a man (whose name I haven’t decided) engaged to be married (to a woman who will either be named Rachel, Rebecca or Natalie…or maybe something altogether different though at this point irrelevant). Feeling guilty about all the things he hasn’t been able to tell her, he decides to write this novel as a confession to her, though still unable to tell her the unobfuscated truth, taking the form of an exploration of the possible pasts and possible futures.

My biggest difficulty here will be structuring his novel (which is embedded in my novel about him writing it, further complicating things). The central threads will be the intertwining pasts leading up from the truth of his life and the truth of his life as she knows it, to the present. I don’t know how to make it work yet, since he will want to disguise the truth she doesn’t know (which she will obviously recognize when the only point of comparision is the truth as she knows it). I just know that size and structure will be an issue, there is so much I want to do with it, structural experimentation, exploration of the concepts of infinite pasts and futures, the nature of truth (subjective, objective, irrelevant altogether?), Its going to be a massive project, since I REALLY want to finish this one (something I have yet to do with any of my stories), and I want to get it right…

Back by popular demand, another “countdown”. This one was a little more work, and a bit shorter, but I think you may enjoy it.

Here are 5 songs, you’ll never hear these people cover, and probably for good reason:

Number 5: Kanye West

Covering Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”

Its a little weak, but he probably does think that song’s about him…

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Number 4:  Marilyn Manson

Covering the “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles…Seriously, that dude needs a tan.

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Number 3: Susan Boyle

Covering “Crazy On You” by Heart. Pretty self-explanatory…I kinda feel bad for her though. She’d do the song justice though.

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Number 2:

Adam Lambert

Covering Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman”. Either that or “Dude Looks Like a Lady” by Aerosmith…either way, do I really need to say anything…I mean, seriously…

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And Finally,

Number 1: Rihanna

Covering Britney Spear’s “Hit Me Baby One More Time”. Tasteles? maybe. Funny? Only if you have a twisted sense of humor. Of the songs on this list, this is the one you’re least likely to ever hear, which is why its Number 1.

Not that I would steal a vehicle, or anything else for that matter, but for the sake of something interesting to write about if I had to commit a crime, and the keys happened to be in them…and no one was around, these are the top 5 vehicles I’d take…

5) A Tow Truck

The serial car thief’s equivalent of wishing for more wishes. Thats why there are no awesome Mercedes, BMWs, Porsches, etc on this list.

Sucks to be this guy

4) A Lifted DeLorean

Where we're going, we don't need roads...

88 miles per hour, a nuclear reactor providing 1.21 gigawatts of power…and 48″ monster truck tires…Doc would be proud. And if you come across any Libyan terrorists in a VW Bus, you can run their murderous asses over.

3. M1 Abrams Main Battle tank

Nothing says “You’ll never take me alive coppers!” like 67 tons of guns and armor rolling down the highway. The only two problems; Sneaking onto a military base and convincing them to let you take one for a “test drive”. Secondly, if playing Grand Theft Auto has taught me anything, its that cops don’t have much trouble climbing on from behind and pulling your soon to be incarcerated ass out.

2. The Magic School Bus

Traveling into space, meeting dinosaurs, and shrinking down and going into Ralphie’s body to learn about germs, the magic school bus is guaranteed to make your next field trip the BEST ever. Which is why I want it…

1. NASA’s Crawler-Transporter (Space Shuttle included)

The 2400 Ton Crawler-Transport is used by NASA to take the Space Shuttle 3.5 miles from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the Launch pad, a trip taking on average 5 hours. To be sure, the top speed of 1 mph loaded wouldn’t make much for a high-speed chase, but when you’re in prison and your cell mate asks you what you’re in for, you can proudly say “I stole a frickin’ space shuttle man”.

To the Moon!

Well, since its 2:30 and I’m not sleeping, I guess its time to blog something. My plans perhaps? I’m sure your interested to know.

My brother got pulled over the other day. It turned out his license was suspended, so his truck was towed and he can’t drive. Since everyone else is working, it falls upon me to drive him to work, almost an hour away, in Chesapeake, at 10 in the morning. I should probably be asleep, but I fail at that. Anyway, while I’m there I need to stop by my old employer and either see if they need me to work again, or turn in my uniform and get my deposit back, that’ll be like $100 or so, cha-ching. Also, I can’t find my tax information from when I worked there, and I need to know how much I made from them to finish my FAFSA (I know I’m way behind on that, don’t judge me). Hopefully they’ll have that info. Then I get home, do the FAFSA and study for my Math Placement test. On a side note, I still can’t believe I missed passing it by one point last time. Anyway, after that I’ll start working on figuring out what clothes, books, etc I’ll be taking with me to school…and my brain just died. I’ll pick up my brother from work around 7 come home have dinner. Hopefully everything will work out swell and I’ll feel accomplished. That’s all I’ve got, goodnight.

After putting several of my life goals down in writing, I’ve realized I’ve got a long way to go. Since the majority of my goals are academic in nature, or at least can be advanced through means of academic accomplishment, I’ve decided its time to get back down to business with my studies. I’ve got a long list of subjects I spend a lot of time on, which makes it easy to get distracted jumping from topic to topic. Therefore, I will be narrowing my focus to the subjects I will be taking in the fall semester at George Mason (which reminds me, I’ve also been lax in my blogging. I’ve been accepted and have a room and a roommate now, whom I need to get into contact with…anyway) namely Intermediate Macroeconomics, Money and Banking, Calculus and Analytical Geometry, Intermediate Statistics and Advanced Composition. And since this isn’t enough for me, I’ll be doing one additional randomly selected subject when I get worn out on those. These subjects include but are not limited to: Abstract Algebra, Arabic, Astronomy, Biology, Bulgarian, Chemistry, Discrete Mathematics, Game Theory, German, History (of some sort or another), and/or Physics. If reading that list makes your brain hurt, imagine mine trying to find free reliable online textbooks for these subjects. Anyway, I think I’ve blogged enough for one day. Until we meet again.

Here’s a list of things I’d like to do before I, you know, move on. I don’t like using the word death, its intrinsically morbid and gets me thinking about the things I won’t get to do, see, read, learn…etc. Anyway, In no particular order:

• perform a stand up comedy show in front of a live audience (which would require overcoming my fear of public speaking).
• Become friends with Zooey Deschanel and hang out on a fairly regular basis. (If anyone knows how to make that happen, let me know).
• Attend either Yale, Harvard, Columbia or the University of Virginia for Law School.
• Spend a summer semester at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
• Run for public office (preferably be elected to public office, Senator or Governor would be nice, but I’ll take what I can get).
• Travel to Ireland.
• Visit the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Bahrain,  Israel and Egypt are the top on my list).
• While in Dubai, arrive by helicopter at the Burj Al Arab,  and stay in the Club Suite and dine at Al Muntaha.
• Run a Marathon (seems a bit more realistic than the previous item :-p)
• Go Skydiving
• Have something cool named after me (a building, an asteroid that destroys some minor planet, speaking of which Pluto is SOOO a planet)
• Learn the following languages and become proficient-fluent in them: Arabic, Aramaic, Biblical Hebrew, Bulgarian, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Ancient Greek, Irish Gaelic, Latin, Manx and Spanish (I know 13 languages sounds ridiculous, but so am I).
• Write a novel (or two or three, or more. I’ve had a few stewing around in my head for a while, I just need to start and/or finish them).
• Find the answer to an unsolved problem in science.
• Become a polymath and learn as much as I can about everything I can.
• Learn to fly (with or without an airplane).
• Have an extensive collection of rare books.

And a few more obvious things.

• Marry the lovely Jessica Hatch
• Have two kids, preferably a boy and a girl.

And a few more unrealistic things…

• Go to the moon and/or Mars (seriously, who doesn’t want to do that? Come on now, be honest)
• Get the Rhodes Scholarship (what could be greater?)
• Watch at least 3 GOOD horror movies with Jessica (why is this unrealistic you ask? She absolutely hates them, but when she watches them with me, and gets really scares and clutches me close, often digging her fingers deep into my arm, I feel useful, like a protector or something…)
• Own Dr Pepper Snapple Group and have a lifetime supply of Dr Pepper

I think that about covers it, I guess I’ll add more as it comes up.