Raptly Wistful Maunderings

What wid' all dem monsters?

2011-02-04T23:14:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure why there seems to be an abundance of songs in the past year or so about the monster inside, or the monster in big business, or the monster in entertainment, or the monster in fame, but add Lady GaGa, Skillet, and Kanye West to the monster bin. Now you may love some of these songs, but I am not a fan of Kanye West's Monster.

Now, I'm actually a fan of Kanye West's music (I don't care about how he is in real life, so I leave all that celebrity gossip to someone else). His song Monster and the accompanying video are simply terrible. Check it out for yourself if you don't believe me. If this link is down, search for it and I'm sure you can find one.

Whether or not you like or dislike this video/song, Key of Awesome's parody of the video is infinitely better. Check out the parody here. If you like that, Key of Awesome puts out some pretty amazing parody videos that are sure to give a few chuckles if not some laughs so search for them on YouTube.

Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

2011-01-28T19:49:00.000-05:00

Night Watch, Day Watch, Twilight Watch, and Last Watch are all books part of a tetralogy by Russian writer Sergei Lukyanenko. I've just finished the first two books as audiobooks and have to remark that it is some of the most intriguing and thoughtful fantasy I've ever read. The books deal with people who have supernatural abilities and are able to perceive the supernatural world. These people are called "Others" and don't actually consider themselves human. Once they plunge into the supernatural "twilight", which is like an unseen alternate world that regular humans can't see but surround them, they lose their status as a human and attain the supernatural abilities of an Other. When this happens, they have to pick their controlling force (think light side and the dark side in Star Wars) which is either towards the light (the good) or the dark (implied as evil but better described as simply lacking morality in the conventional sense and living for oneself). While you might want to classify these books as simple creative fantasy, think again.

What Lukyanenko creates in these books is more than a complex intriguing storyline in a well thought out complex world. He creates characters and archetypes that permit discussions on morality, theology, and philosophy much in the way that Fyodor Dostoevsky did in books such as Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov. The world presented here is the literally a world ruled by the laws of yin and yang. Light and dark Others are in constant opposition to each other striving to tip the scales from a balance that is meticulously maintained through laws of a truce between the two sides. The onces who enforce the balance are the Night Watch (who monitors the dark Others and ensures they live according to the treaty) and the Day Watch (who monitors the light Others and ensures they live according to the treaty). The two sides are constantly trying to find ways to outwit the others within the bounds of the treaty to shift the balance towards their own side in the world. The books focus on members of these watches and as you can imagine by the book titles, the first book focuses primarily on the Night Watch and the second book focuses primarily on the Day Watch. Not only are the plots and conflicts intriguing, the dialogs are rich in philosophical contemplations on the forces of good and evil, of free will and destiny, and are littered with references on topics from music to religion.

If you like fantasy, and you like to read things that will make you think, then these books are for you. Be warned though: this is not the kind of fantasy that is jam packed full of action and events. This is the kind of fantasy that moves at a methodical pace interlaced with a significant amount of thought provoking and heavy dialog. There's plenty of action as well, but if you don't enjoy lots of discussion and dialog, then these books aren't for you.

Thoughts on the Novel: Anthem by Ayn Rand

2011-01-09T14:04:00.001-05:00

Unlike many dystopian novels that provide discourse and critique on politics and human values, Ayn Rand’s Anthem, written in 1937, delves into a deeper discourse on human nature and juxtaposes the concepts of living for the collective whole (the “we”) and for the self (the “I” or “ego”). I’m not going to give a summary of the book since I mainly want to discuss a few thoughts related to this juxtaposition of “we” and “I” as presented in this book (very briefly so I apologize in advance for any poorly laid out ideas). I encourage anyone who hasn’t read the book to do so and it can be found as a free download in both ebook and audiobook form from various sources on the web.

Society in Anthem revolves around the peace and equality of the collective whole. The goal of the society is to provide a social construct where everyone is equal, all jobs are equal, all working knowledge is equally accessible, and where there is no “I”, only “we”. In fact, people here do not even know the word “I” and refer to themselves and the whole indiscriminately as “we”. The people in Anthem are trained to be more like clones than individuals. By stripping away individualism, people do not need to rate or compare themselves to everyone else. Since only the most intelligent could possibly comprehend advanced knowledge and technology, knowledge and technology have all been stripped down to only what everyone can understand equally so that no one is smarter than anyone else. In fact, when the main character tries to introduce electric light as an invention to further mankind, it is rejected over the candle primarily because the knowledge that would be comprehended by few would give them power over those who couldn’t comprehend. Society of the “we” is simply to live as “we”, not to advance itself and fall victim to the times of inequality and knowledge of their past (modern civilization).

The moment people decided to reject the “I” and accept the equality and unity of the “we”, they forever limited the power of the collective whole to the weakest link. This idea seems counter-intuitive at first because working as a group allows people to make great advancements in science, technology, and society. There is a distinction that should be made though of a group of individuals working together, with their own individual perceptions of their strengths and weaknesses, to a single collective hive-type society, where every single unit of the whole has a specialized function to maintain life for the whole without individual conceptions that their purpose is any higher or lower than anyone else. In a collective “we”, individualism (i.e. the ego) would destroy the entire structure of the whole with impulses such as individual desires and goals that would conflict with those of the collective good. While maintaining peace and satisfaction of the collective good through absolute equality may be a noble cause, it stifles any progress since the initiation of each new idea or invention must be carefully planned out to carefully maintain the delicate and structure of that equality. Thus, if equality means unanimous peace at the cost of progress, then inequality is the biggest threat to aspirations of peace in society as it is and has always been. Since inequality stems from the ego, or individuality, then human nature itself is the largest hindrance to achieving peace among its own race.

The juxtaposition of ultimate peace and disorder, the “we” and the ego, and of equality and inequality, forces us to accept a couple of implications. If humanity strives for absolute peace of the collective whole through equality, then the pleasures of individual desires and experience must be given up. Conversely, if we strive to fulfill the desires and goals of the ego, then humanity at the same time must accept that conflict is the result. While Anthem abstractly places these absolute positions on opposing pedestals, we all have desires stemming from the ego and desires for the whole. Rather than live for one or the other, isn’t life about living with a compromise between the two?

Goodbye Elbryanland....

2010-12-09T18:39:00.000-05:00

As some of the readers of this blog might know, I've had a website up since 2001 named Elbryanland that contained all sorts of random assorted passions such as art, poetry, and photos. As of last night, this site has been accidentally deleted by me. The servers didn't die, I wasn't hacked, nor did I fail to pay to renew the domain. In the end, the site died by the fell swoop of an accidental asterisk typed by my own hands.

Since the site hasn't really been touched in over two years, you might think "oh, no big deal." While it's not a "big" deal, it does have some consequences. Elbryanland servers originally hosted this blog until Google stopped supporting hosting via ftp. The blog was migrated to Google servers which is why everything is still here except the pictures. The pictures were hosted on an image server on Elbryanland and when the site was deleted, so too were the pictures. Since the site was old and is hosted by a friend of mine, backups were not being maintained by me or my web host. It's undetermined at this time whether or not any of the data will be recovered but I am going to assume the worst.

Oh well. I doubt anyone will miss such a poorly maintained and outdated site that was long lost to the inevitability of irrelevance. So long Elbryanland, we had a good run but it is time to bid thee farewell.

Gnocci Anyone?

2010-02-23T22:22:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted in a very long time, so here's an adventure in cooking.

Tonight I had the random inclination to create a dish using gnocci (potato pasta). I've never cooked anything with gnocci before so this was just a random idea in my head. I took a package of gnocci, a jar of Newman's Sun-Dried Tomato Alfredo sauce, some spinach, chicken breast, and cilantro and got to work.

Idea of the dish was this: Lightly marinate the chicken and pan fry it. Heat up the sauce and add thinly sliced fresh spinach in it until it had nearly a third spinach consistency (almost like creamed spinach but no where near that thick). Cook the gnocci, then on the plate put gnocci on the bottom, then chicken (probably about 1/2 of a chicken breast worth cut up in small chunks), then sauce, then cilantro on top. It turned out good, but definitely needs some refining.

First off, I did not have the proper ingredients for a quick marinade. I wanted olive oil but was all out. Instead, I used 2/3 vegetable oil and 1/3 white vinegar with garlic, basil, and fresh cilantro. As I didn't have a couple of hours for this to marinate, I forked the marinade into the chicken and let sit for about 5-10 minutes (it was already 9:00 and I was hungry). Then I threw the chicken in a preheated skillet and cooked covered for a few minutes before I stupidly realized that the chicken would take forever to cook unless I sliced it up. So slicing I did, while it was cooking in the pan and finished cooking the chicken uncovered. Then I started slicing up the spinach for the sauce (oh, this has been slowly heating the whole time). It actually took a LOT more spinach than I thought it would to get what I was looking for. The gnocci was easy...3 minutes in boiling water and tah-dah, done. With the sauce, chicken, and gnocci done, it was time to eat it.

The results: Good, but, properly marinating the chicken would have made this dish much better. Also, a little fresh cilantro goes a LONG way and there is definitely no reason to put 2 whole leaves worth on your dish like I did (maybe I put three...what in the world was I thinking!). In the end, the dish was overwhelmed by the cilantro but luckily still good.

Next time, much less cilantro and a better marinade for the chicken :)

I'm a D-J-HEROOOOO!

2009-11-10T18:14:00.003-05:00

Just thought I'd share with the world that yes, I got DJ Hero. Yes, I think rhythm games are cool. Yes, I think this game is cool. And Yes, this picture of me rocks!

Some Surfing Pictures

2009-09-04T22:40:00.002-04:00

A few people have asked for pictures of me surfing so I finally have some. Laurel was kind enough to take some of me when she was down to visit so enjoy!

The wave may have closed out but I still feel like superman!
Me riding a really small and soft wave.This is my favorite of the pictures Laurel took.

Yeah, nothing fancy or amazing but just a little proof of the talk. Unfortunately, there weren't any really good waves when she was down here so just pictures of me on small stuff.

Henri the Hippo

2009-08-30T20:38:00.004-04:00

As usual, my infrequent blog postings have resulted in an utter lack of excitement on this blog for quite a while but fear not. I present to you an interesting blog started up by my fiancee. The blog follows the adventures of a blue stuffed hippo name Henri as he travels around the world from person to person. Laurel and I started his adventures here in Florida and took a few photos of him/with him on our own adventures. Hopefully, as more and more people take pictures with him, the blog will provide an interesting perspective of both the unique scenes Henri is included and the personalities of the writers. So, check it out at Henri's Adventures.

Finally, France Photo Album Up

2009-07-14T00:40:00.004-04:00

Okay, I promised this over two months ago, but better late then never. The photos from my France trip in April are up. There are only a few Paris pictures this time since my last trip focused on Paris. This time around, the focus was in the Loire Valley to see a few of the Royal Chateaux (french castles). My fiancee and I took nearly 700 pictures and of those pictures, I've picked the best 200 or so and put them up on my picasaweb account. Enjoy!

Link - France Trip Photos

Waiting for France Photos but Here's a Video

2009-04-30T23:12:00.003-04:00

It's been awhile since my last blog entry but wanted to let people know I'm getting pictures ready from my trip to see my fiancee last week. It was a great trip and I'll give out more details as soon as my pictures are processes, cleaned, organized, tagged, and finally sub-sampled out to share the best pictures of the bunch.

Until then, I stumbled across this guy who has cleverly used news broadcasts to create a both political satire and catchy music parody. Check it out:

Love Lobster!!!!!!!

2009-03-12T00:09:00.005-04:00

I just finished folding an origami "Love" Lobster from John Montroll's Anime Origami for the Enthusiast and have photos, but I have a little story to go with this too. A couple of years ago, I was folding some good old origami and my fiancee was folding this lobster. The problem was, she was using a much too small square to start with and I even warned her that it wasn't going to work. Apparently, my words of wisdom turned into a challenge and a 1.5" version of this lobster was born that looked little more than a wierd 10 legged creature thing. I mean, if you knew it was supposed to be a lobster you'd recognize it, but if not, you'd have a little trouble trying to figure out what the model was supposed to be. So, showing all the love and affection I could muster, I died laughing when I saw the finished product. Hurt, she told me that it was a "love" lobster and reflected the love she had for me, so I better not laugh at it. Well, little "love" lobster only made me laugh more, but I kept it squished up in the book for quite a long time. Inevitably, the "love" lobster had to be thrown out as I got rid of all my origami when I last moved. It's kind of been an inside joke between us and she told me in a previous post that I owed her a love lobster.

Here it is. Surprisingly, despite the final size, this guy was made from a large 9 5/8" square of origami paper. There are so many layers of paper that even this size of a model was a little challenging to keep clean precise folds. After 2 hours of work and some custom shaping, here it is.

UVERworld - Just Melody

2009-03-02T19:43:00.003-05:00

Unfortunately, this video cuts off the really cool instrumental intro, but I heard this song today and loved it (kind of rediscovered it). So here it is for anyone interested in JPop. UVERworld is a pretty solid band that have done quite a few opening and ending credits for various anime in Japan. Without further ado...here's a video for you...

Let's Break Some Monotony with Some Origami

2009-02-22T23:56:00.004-05:00

So I realize I haven't written a post in a while, so I figured I'd post some photos of a few of my more recent origami creations. Unfortunately, I only recently decided to start taking photos of my work. More unfortunate is the fact that my camera is terrible for taking close up photos. Thus, the pictures won't quite give the work the full justice they deserve, but more credit should go to the original creators of the models anyway.

My recent obsession has been working some models by John Montroll and Robert Lang from some new books I've received (Origami Sea Life and Origami Sculptures). Now, the dolphin is definitely a model that could benefit from wet-folding, but I have yet to really delve into the tediousness that is wet-folding. Thus, I am still enjoying folding models from good-ole origami paper. Here are a few photos of my latest and greatest.

Sailfish folded with foil paper from Origami Sea Life

Dolphin folded with origami paper from Origami Sea Life

Husky folded with origami paper from Origami Sculptures

Now the dolphin I folded tonight. Somehow, my folds weren't quite precise enough and I ended up with a dorsal fin that didn't line up with the apex of the body, but oh well. The sail fish I folded over New Years in Oregon with foil paper and the sail is tricky (thus why it looks a little goofy). The Husky's body proportions need a little improvement but it still vaguely looks like a husky because of the tail (Husky was a gift to my grandmother). I would have loved to snap a photo of the Santa Claus model (a wonderful complex model by Steven Casey that can be found online here) I had to attempt 3 times till I successfully folded it, but that was given away as a gift as well.

So whether or not anyone cares about my dabbling in origami or not, there you go.

What? A Person with Intelligent Reasons for Voting for Obama!?!

2008-11-06T00:53:00.006-05:00

Many mornings I listen to the MJ Morning Show on the radio and for the past couple of days, MJ has had random callers give reasons for why they were voting for the candidate they supported. What shocked me was every Obama supporter that called in did not have a single valid and intelligent reason for voting the way they did. Let me summarize some of the reasons I heard for why Obama was the right choice:

“I’m tired of the way this country is run and I’m ready for a change. Obama is that change.”
“I didn’t even look at the candidates, I just voted straight democrat down the ticket.”
“Now that Obama has been elected, I won’t have to worry about being able to afford gas at the pumps or my groceries.” (Apparently, Obama’s vision of helping those in need means free hand outs for everyone).
“Bush screwed things up so Obama is going to change this country for the better.”
Something about how… “Obama represents a change in mindset and how that mindset is going to change the country for the better.”

Through 2 hours of callers, not one had anything more specific to say other than Obama is change (as far as Obama supporters anyway). It sounded as if Obama supporters understood nothing but the catchy campaign slogans pasted everywhere and never once cited a single policy or issue as a reason.

In contrast, far more McCain supporters had solid reasons for voting. The reasons mainly revolved around McCain’s policies towards Iraq and the War on Terror, his ideas concerning the role of the U.S. in foreign affairs, strong opposition to the financial plan Obama presented to “fix” the economy, and strong opposition to the healthcare reform Obama proposed. You can argue whether or not those are important enough reasons, but what you can’t argue is that based on their beliefs, they were reasonably grounded in issues regarding policy and had a decent understanding of how the two candidates differed on those issues. There were some exceptions, some racists, and one crazy woman spouting on about Obama being the anti-christ, but the majority still seemed to know more about the issues than the Obama supporters.

Personally, I found the choice this year tough. First off, I do tend to lean democratic in my views and I definitely have never liked President Bush. I have strongly disagreed with the vast majority of Bush’s policies, but McCain is not a President Bush. As far as republicans are concerned, he’s much more radical and veers away in a lot of respects to what the rest of the party agrees with. I actually liked McCain, as well as Palin, and respected their approach and delivery of their issues. Politics aside, if I were to put my trust in either McCain or Obama as a person, I would trust McCain long before Obama. I don’t really like Obama and I don’t like Biden at all. Due to their associations and political history, I find it hard to trust them. There are a couple issues they seem to flip flop on without holding a solid stance. Furthermore, the financial and healthcare reforms proposed by BOTH candidates worry me. So, why did I vote for Obama if I don’t trust him, don’t really like him, and don’t like his ideas for financial and healthcare reform?

While pulling troops out of Iraq by a time-table may not be the wisest choice, McCain’s views suggesting that the US will always need to have troops in countries to fend off insurgents is too radical and oppressive for me. I believe we should not feed the fires of hate against our country by proving to radical extremists that we are a big country that can do what we want and put our nose in places we don’t belong. We should never have gone to war in Iraq and Obama also believed this. I stand with democrats on pro-choice abortion rights. I strongly oppose the Patriot Act, which McCain fully supports, and agree with Obama’s concern to protect civil liberty without sacrificing the tools for law enforcement to keep us safe. While I would like to see Obama’s policies towards energy strive more towards alternative energies than they do, McCain’s nuclear alternative seems to be a poorer choice long term. I like Obama’s approach to education better as well. But really the main deciding factors were:

I disagreed with McCain’s approach to foreign affairs and the current conflicts the U.S. is involved in.
I think Obama has a stronger ability to rally international support and help keep our noses a little cleaner from sticking it in countries where we don’t belong.
His proposed reforms in education have clearer goals and solid proponents to affect improvement.
With a democratic majority, Obama has a better chance of getting support from Congress to pass his reforms.
I find McCain’s willingness to forgo liberty and the ideal of “innocent until proven guilty” in order to find terrorists, as evident in his fervent support of the Patriot Act and comments regarding it, scary and wrong. I could gladly give an entire discussion on the Patriot Act and issues related to it, but that divulges from the topic at hand.

All in all, these strengths were selling points for me and my disagreements with McCain’s policies were simply too important to me. Let’s just hope Obama succeeds in fulfilling his supporter’s high expectations.

Fried Gray Hair!

2008-10-28T18:34:00.003-04:00

This post is going to be slightly out of order because I will post some stuff up from last week later. Until then, check out the mad scientist! I know what you're thinking. Is that really your hair? The answer: I drank some strange Halloween concoction and the hair just happened.

A Dreadful Sand Burial

2008-09-29T23:58:00.003-04:00

A couple of weekends ago, a few friends came out to visit me. Being the kind host I am, I treated them to a trip to the beach. Being the mischievous friends they are, they buried me and left me to die....

Okay, so now for the real story. I felt like digging a hole so I did. I dug it as deep as it could go (due to water) and dug it big enough for me to get in:

I then had my friends carefully bury me while I held my breath so my chest took up as much volume as possible (so I could breath when I was buried). Needless to say after you see the last photo, I needed help to get out and it was not as nice of a process as getting in.

New Poem - A Lonely Longing

2008-09-09T18:50:00.002-04:00

Watched the drama roller coaster that is P.S. I Love You and was inspired to write this, though it doesn't relate to the movie at all. It stems from the movie leaving me with a strong desire to hold my fiancee, who's far away in another country for a year.

A Lonely Longing

I need you baby
     as much as grass needs the sun,
     as people need hopes and dreams,
     as dreams need passion,
     and as passion needs love.
Without you, I'm not whole,
     as a man without legs,
     or a bird without wings,
     as shelter without a roof,
     and as a roof without support.
I yearn to hold you in my arms,
     to turn my mornings into your warmth,
     my nights into your caress,
     my days into your smile,
     and your smile into my home.
Just a little wait longer baby,
     and I'll give you my love,
     I'll then be your support,
     I'll provide your home and shelter,
     we'll make us whole.

Atonement

2008-09-06T23:40:00.001-04:00

I watched the movie Atonement tonight. It was a great movie with a lot of symbolism (something not seen in a lot of movies these days) and some great cinematography. I'm absolutely in awe of one of the scenes of English troops on the beach of France...it's a straight shot scene over a few minutes that is absolutely cinematically beautiful yet raw and horrifying at the same time. While this movie was good, it left me empty and sad afterward (something this type of movie does to me easily). So, with an urge to write, I went to the beach to jot some thoughts. Here they are:

Sometimes I feel a deep sadness from this world. The atrocities people commit, the coldness, lack of empathy, disregard, and lack of love all sadden me.

Loneliness. Does everyone fight it? Sometimes, the weight of all the negativity in the world becomes too much for me and I just break down and cry. I cry not only for myself, but for everyone. I cry for the countless atrocities that happen every day, for the lack of empathy, and how so many people can cause so much pain and hurt with irresponsible indifference. My mind simply cannot comprehend how others can treat people with stoic cruelty. I also cry for the pain I, myself, have caused others. From this, I ceaselessly strive to atone for my poor choices that cause harm and unhappiness.

Yet, what is atonement? Is it creating or affecting an increase of happiness in the world equal to the sins and harm from past deeds? Is trading negativity quid pro quo truly measurable within the web of impalpable implications and effects our actions have on this world? Or is atonement merely a mechanism to placate internal guilt and shame? Perhaps in order to maintain our morality and sense of ethics we must each live indebted to the poor choices we make. After all, it is often through these poor choices that our true potential to affect good is unveiled.

I left this open as I wasn't sure I had a solid solution to the questions I raised. But even if atonement is a selfish mechanism to remove guilt, wise acts of atonement benefit others, thus the overall effects can't be ignored. Atonement is necessary despite the motivations driving it.

Painting Excursion Extraordinaire

2008-09-02T21:57:00.000-04:00

Once there was this guy who had this certain fiancee who was coming to visit him after spending a year in France. After brainstorming ideas of fun activities for them to partake in, he stumbled upon the idea of painting pottery at one of those places where you buy the piece and they provide all the materials to paint and fire it. After a little hesitation on her part, claiming she was terrible at this sort of thing, the couple went, each picked a piece to paint, and spent the next few hours in artistic bliss while the plain white forms were adorned with a world of color and imagination. Turns out the owners really liked their results and show-cased the pieces in the front window for the local world to see.

Here's pictures for the larger internet world to see.

Enjoy!

WHY OH WHY

2008-07-29T00:57:00.000-04:00

I have a confession: I am a So You Think You Can Dance addict. It might be because I'm also addicted to dance. Maybe it's that I'm addicted to artistic movement, or perhaps I'm simply just addicted to music. Regardless of the rhyme or reason, the results of last Thursday's show (which, incidentally, I was finally able to watch tonight) was very disappointing. Not only that, I was utterly shocked at the way America's votes went down and I think the judges were a little shocked too.

For those of you who don't know, the show was down to the final 8 dancers (4 male, 4 female), and all the dancers at this stage of the season are excellent. However, after Wednesday's performances, there were two male dancers that clearly stood out. They had two phenomenal performances each while the other two had inconsistent performances. Will and Twitch have not only been fan favorites from the beginning, but they are amazing dancers who stepped up to the plate and delivered some highly memorable performances. Mark and Joshua (even though I've been increasingly impressed with Joshua's versatility)both had a performance that was not up to par. Based upon both popularity and performance, one would expect either Mark or Joshua to get the least number of votes and be the next male to leave the show, but this did not happen. In fact, not only did neither Mark nor Joshua get the least amount of votes, they both got the MOST votes. That left Twitch and Will as the bottom two dancers...which, completely shocked me. Will is definitely the most technically advanced and the best dancer there, but Twitch has shined time and time again with some of the best performances of the season and a personality to match.

So, before I rant on and on, I'll cut this short and say Will got cut and there's really only one explanation. Pity. So many people must have felt that Will and Twitch would surely make it that they all voted for the underdogs. Of course, this reaction on a large scale yields results opposite the true desires of the people voting. But what is more interesting here is what it implies about Americans who watch the show? Do we root so hard for the underdog that we under-write those that truly deserve the spotlight? Don't get me wrong, all four are amazing dancers that have had some amazing performances that I can't get enough of, but when all is said and done, the truth of the matter is Will has had the most consistent and highest rated run of all the males, without question. Yet, Will wasn't voted for. Even Mark himself was shocked he wasn't one of the bottom two dancers. With Will gone, I think there is going to be a hole that will be hard to fill.

I hope a lesson was learned. Vote for who you truly thinks deserves to win, not who you're afraid isn't getting enough love. I too would have been tempted to vote for Joshua (who I'm secretly rooting for...or I guess not so secretly now), but would have suppressed that urge and vote for who I think had the most amazing performance of the night. For me, that would have been Twitch, so I guess out of the two, I'm glad to see Twitch is still in the competition.

And for those of you who haven't watched any of this show and love dancing...what's wrong with you? There is some amazing dance here. Watching someone like Joshua or Twitch who came on the show with a pretty limited dance background turn around and perform dances exceptionally well in styles completely different from their own is something to marvel at. Do you think you could do the same in such a short period of time?

So You Think You Can Dance, in my opinion, is one of the best reality TV shows out there that pretty much drops the trashy drama that fills so many others. The competitors in this competition may all be competing against one another, but they all respect each other. This show I think also serves to inspire people. The contestants weren't given any special treatment and they weren't picked from some VIP list. They every day people like you and me with a soulful passion for dance. They came from all walks of life and worked hard to end up where they did. Any one of us with the same passion and work could achieve the same feat. And even if you dance for fun and have no desire to be famous, the choreography in these dances is delightful and offer seeds of inspiration for new ways to interpret and express music through dance.

So watch the show. And if you don't have the channel or a TV, download the episodes online. Be inspired.

2008-07-16T23:05:00.000-04:00

I've watched the first installment of Joss Whedon's newest creation, "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog". It was delightful. During the writer's strike, Joss Whedon got a small group of colleagues together to create a cheap but professional quality piece of entertainment to release on the internet. The first episode was released on Monday with the second episode being released on Thursday and the final episode being released on Saturday. All three episodes will be free to watch until Sunday July 20th.

It starts out kind of slow and quirky with Dr. Horrible in front of the screen like he's performing for a video podcast. After a couple minutes, the story starts with a very catchy song that I absolutely love. It's hard to really say much about a 10 minute short episode without spoiling anything so go watch this while it's free. After the 20th, the episodes get taken down and then released for download for a "minimal fee". So click on the link or visit www.drhorrible.com.

Update?

2008-07-14T01:33:00.000-04:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I made a post. So here's a pic of me sporting up some wicked sunglasses to liven up this page.

I should probably give a little update to the state of affairs in the life of this obscure blogger. In short, as an old late night radio host in Atlanta used to say, "Keep on truckin'". That's pretty much the state of affairs. It's hard living in a place far removed from all one's important friends and family and working at a workplace where everyone gets along great, but no one often gets together outside of work. It sometimes amazes me how isolated our lives are and how easy it is to get swept away in the bubble of our own life experience without reaching out to others. The endless process of reaching out and trying to make connections can be a trying and tiring business that leaves one even more isolated at the end of the day when the realization that one's efforts have been in vain hits. So we move on, "keep on truckin'" and try to find comfort or happiness in the simple mindless distractions of media, internet, and video games. As for me, I take a lot of trips across the state to see friends, get a good dose of socializing, and get my dancing fix. But taking trips a couple times a month only goes so far in terms of satisfying the need and desire for engaging and enriching friendships. Too bad there's not a decent social dancing scene in this city.

Overall though, life for me could be a lot worse and for that reason I'm thankful of everything that IS going right. I have a great job, the friends, family, and fiancee I have are wonderful even if I don't see them often, and I'm in good health.

But alas, I don't think I'm ever going to get my France pictures posted and hosted online. Sorry. Time just isn't kind.

Death in the Family

2008-05-28T22:38:00.001-04:00

Just to let some people know, late Tuesday night my grandfather passed away. He died painlessly in a coma from a long hard struggle with stage 4 throat cancer, chemotherapy, and radiation. He is going to be greatly missed by me and everyone in the family. I will be leaving for home on Friday to celebrate his life with the family. While I am deeply saddened, I am glad that he is no longer suffering any longer. I am deeply thankful that I grew up so close to my grandparents and had the opportunity to get to know them well and see them often. Not everyone has that opportunity and I feel blessed that my grandfather was able to give me so many great memories that I'll cherish for the rest of my life.

Papa, God bless you, thank you, and rest in peace.

I Have a Pet Pigeon?

2008-05-01T02:33:00.000-04:00

This morning when I left for work, I noticed a strange sight to my left as I locked the door: an adult Rock Pigeon sitting on the ledge of my screened in porch not more than 2 feet from me. I got up close to it to see if it would fly away and it was obviously intent on staying as it didn't budge as it kept it's eye on me. I thought this was a little strange, but didn't put another thought on it until I came home this evening.

The bird is still here, and it definitely has no intention of leaving. This made me wonder what the heck this bird is doing here. So I began my investigation online. After a while, I think I've figured out what it's doing. It is preparing to nest, though there is no nest yet. The lack of a nest kind of makes me suspicious and I decide to see if this is an adult pigeon or a nearly mature juvenile by looking at its eye color. As I'm checking the eye color, I find something even more curious...it has a leg band. After about 5 minutes of making sure I don't scare it off, I finally am able to make out the entire arm band. The band reads: AU 2007 41903, with the letter 'A' underneath the 2007. I then look up pigeon leg bands and am brought to the site interBUG Homing Pigeon. I learn what the band means and how to read it to learn that the "AU" means that the bird is registered to the American Racing Pigeon Union. After digging around a bit, I finally find the place to report that I found a registered pigeon. After all, someone may own this bird and may want it back, and I certainly don't want a mountain of bird poop on my ledge. So the bird has now been reported. Time will see if I am contacted about the bird, but I'm pretty confident it's going to be here for at least a month if someone doesn't come to pick it up.

So, maybe tomorrow I'll snap a picture and post that as well.

Expedia is an Underhanded Dirty Enterprise

2008-02-19T18:25:00.001-05:00

I've used Expedia many times before and generally it is a fast and easy way to find some of the lowest prices for airline tickets (of course these are usually the worst seats as well). I had saved my flight itinerary over night to check on my plans and came back to buy the tickets. The itinerary saved without a problem and the price was the same. I go to buy the tickets....everything is still good. I put in my billing info and credit card number and hit the purchase button and Expedia screws me. First, I'm using Microsoft passport to log in and passport just randomly gets logged out, taking me to the log in screen at Expedia. I can't remember my username password, so I log back into my hotmail account and reload the previous page. Expedia has now wonderfully jacked up the cost of my flight by $80. Stupid jerks. There's no reason for the price increase except their money scamming time sensitive cookies. Yeah, you got my money this time Expedia, but next time I take my business to Travelocity. Screw You!