The Okay American Eclipse

I live in the path of the recent solar eclipse in an area of 100% totality. I was able to see it. I also saw some of the news coverage. One man talked about how emotional it was, which he didn't expect. One of the reporters mentioned how emotional it was, too. Mmm. I don't think so. I saw other people talking like that as well. I hate to say this, but it was just an eclipse. It wasn't an emotional experience. It's a big shadow. Shadows don't make me emotional unless they're coming up behind me holding a weapon. :) I was playing this video game one time that had a day/night cycle, which created moving shadows. I was standing alone on this planet during a rare moment when I wasn't running or driving, and I saw what looked like someone's shadow walking up behind me. That was more emotional than the eclipse. That scared me, because it was technically possible for that to happen, although it was mostly a solo game with no other players. When you're the only person on a planet, and you see the shadow of a helmet, it gets your total attention fast. It turned out to the tip of a hill.

One of my friends on Facebook said the eclipse was beautiful. I thought that was a good and much more reasonable comment. The eclipse was neat. The problem was it didn't last long enough. It didn't get as dark as they said it would either. There was a band of light around the horizon. The clouds were gone by then, so there was no surrounding sunset effect. Basically, almost nothing the experts said would happen actually happened. It gave me the realization that they don't know what they're talking, because they've never been through one. They were only reporting something they've read about in a book. It's not the same thing.

After all the hype it was a bit anti-climactic. I saw two or three stars during the darkest part. Just when I was getting used to it, it started getting brighter. I couldn't believe it had been two minutes already. It made me feel sorry for the people who drove a thousand miles or some long distance. A lot of people did that. A lot of people put so much time and money and effort into what ended up being a two-minute experience.

Have a great weekend.