2013 April❮❮prevnext❯❯
2013.04.01
2013.04.02
Praise is very hard to come by in Cleveland. People here are bitter; I can't blame 'em. I still haven't gotten over how we lost the 1954 World Series.I highly recommend "Harvey Pekar's Cleveland", one of his final works. He's in top form, and the art by Joseph Remnant is perfect.
Omnia quae sunt, lumina sunt -- All things that are, are lights
You know when I was younger I was under the impression that quick sand was going to be a serious issue in life...
Whenever I see a shirt worn off the shoulder I can never get enough shoulder
Yeah, you catch more flies with honey, but shit gets more attention.
2013.04.03
I would seriously kill to see an urban fantasy series where fairies and demons are in awe of humans: our inventiveness, our creativity.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Do you think the Aryan Brotherhood counts as a "well-regulated militia" that is the justification for our 2nd Amendment?
2013.04.04
All the things we value, however rare, however small, that give point or meaning to our lives -- the friendships, loves and absurdities; those soundscaped memories entwined with shared passions and glances that magically ensnare and enfold; the intoxications of wines and words, and wayward musings and music, with which we wrestle into misty slumbering nights, our senses revived by sparkling waters, much needed at dawn; the seascapes of wild waves, mysterious moonlights and images and widening skies that stretch the eyes -- do indeed all cease to exist; and curiously the most enchanting are oft those which we lose ourselves and also cease to be -- yet they, and we, existed at some time remains timelessly true, outside of all time.
2013.04.05
What a remarkable coincidence! Jaromil, who had been enraptured by Magda's weeping eyes, knew all about the beauty of sorrow and fully immersed himself in its enjoyment.
http://www.facebook.com/home Facebook Home would be WAY too much FB for me, but in theory I dig big video and big scrolling image backgrounds
You are too young to know yet what nostalgia truly means. It takes time to become sentimental. But for the sake of your success, you must quickly learn. When you touch a man's nostalgia, he is yours.
2013.04.06
Blender of Love
2013.04.07
As always exclamation marks point out videos that are more than just static images.
Hiphopish
- So Fast, So Maybe (K.Flay) Just a terrific song -- attitude, a good beat, surprisingly thoughtful lyrics. This close to being 5 stars.
- !Werkin' Girls (Angel Haze) The 3 1/2 star song I was thinking of.
- !!Adam vs Eve (Epic Rap Battles of History) This is a very amusing series of videos. If I like the background music, I generally like the battle.
- !Ah C'mon (Chuggo) Finally decided I couldn't live without 2006's biggest hiphop hit. Terribly bad, or badly terrible? Still his paired couplets are catchy.
- !Be By Myself (Asher Roth & Cee-Lo) Funny little hiphop bit, with a Cee-Lo Motown sound.
- !Fun For Me (Moloko) Kind of weird faux-retro stuff, like the voice is over the old tannoy loudspeakers.
- !Ooh La La (Goldfrapp) Also retroish, maybe an austin powers vibe.
- Valentine (Fiona Apple) A really odd, soft, and thoughtful piece. Took a while to grow on
- Rock Me Now (Metric) Kind of an odd spoken word piece as well... I like when she clears her throat and says "sing with me".
- !Just Give Me a Reason (feat. Nate Ruess) (P!nk) Hopeful but melancholy.
- !!Silent E (Tom Lehrer) Terrific old Electric Company bit... I was kind of hoping to find the naughty version, but no luck.
- !6 Underground (Nellee Hooper Edit) (Sneaker Pimps) The 90s called....
- !Back to Life (Soul II Soul) ...they want their music back.
- !Come Out and Play (The Offspring) "Gotta keep 'em separated" is kind of an earwig.
- !Inside Out (Eve 6) BAck to the 90s. I kind of missed the "Heart in a Blender" / Love Blender reference 'til recently.
- !Joy in the Salvation Army (Chicago Staff Band) Video isn't the version I had friends dig up. I enjoyed playing this song, especially the puckish "TRY AND FIND IT" riff in the lower brass.
- !Hot Lunch Jam (Irene Cara) From the movie Fame -- but my marching band played this, nice bassline.
- Marching Band Medley (Drum Line) Love the music sequences from the movie "Drumline". (This video isn't quite the track. Wish I could find the lyrics for the part that has a guy singing about a "train comin'"
- D&K Cadence (D&K Cadence) Short and sweet rhythm.
- My Dreamy Jeannie - Level 4 Cadence (Cassidy Byars) Still on that Marching Band Kick... no video though.
- Look-A Py Py (Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band) Fun Instrumental -- lots of steel drum (AND BONGO FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO LIKE THAT SORT OF THING)
- !In My Life (Johnny Cash) Very moving cover from his swan song album.
- !Rumour Has It / Someone Like You (Glee Cast Version) (Glee Cast) Miller has got ne listening to these Glee covers. I wouldn't dig a whole album of 'em but sometimes they do some new cool stuff..
- Try a Little Tenderness (Glee Cast Version) (Glee Cast) More coverage.
- Call Me A Hole (pomDeter/NIN/Carly Rae Jepsen) This mashup made some noise recently... some are offended by dark poster child Trent fitting in so well with the upbeat "Call me Maybe", but there's overlap in the production personnel.
2013.04.08
--Gladstone, in Cracked.com's 6 Seemingly Simple Tasks Everybody Sucks At
via
2013.04.09
2013.04.10
It is human nature to look away from illness. We don't enjoy a reminder of our own fragile mortality.Kinda poignant for today. (2019 update: this was about the day of his death.)
2013.04.11
We are born into a box of time and space. We use words and communication to break out of it and to reach out to others.(I will be on a Roger Ebert quote kick for a week or two.)
Logic is what other people use to prove that you're wrong.
2013.04.12
I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.
2013.04.13
I remember seeing this video but not paying it nearly enough attention; both the video and the song are terrific. (You can get an MP3 from the video version, which I find a lot more viscerally appealing than the (also good) studio track.)
Its chorus "Needing is one thing, and getting, getting's another" brings up a point that might sound pedantic as hell, but for me is serious, and existential, and came close to disrupting a romance of mine at one point. (And I found out while writing this, might echo for my vision of relationships to this day.)
What does it mean to "need" something?
Some part of me (a well-meaning yet still smart aleck inner child part) wants to say it HAS to be existential; without the needed object, the needing subject would fail to exist. "You can't live without me? Why aren't you dead yet?"
But that seems a little blunt. Some old guy might need his meds, but that doesn't necessarily mean he'd die without him, or right away. As a young man I needed my dad, but I survived his passing. (The romance I mentioned stumbled (but recovered, for a long while) over my reticence of using that kind of "I need you" language; I think I might have used that logic of "I survived my dad's death, so I guess I'd survive you leaving me or something happening to you." For a guy who runs loveblender.com I really have my moments, or lack of them.)
So is it just a form of "extreme want"? Or to avoid the side effects of not-having? That seems to lack a certain rhetorical punch...
OK, I think I figured it out, and actually figured it out for the first time, after pondering it a few days, while writing some disclaimers as a now-deleted second part of that smart aleck paragraph, which I then decided to save for this conclusion: properly used, "need" IS existential, not necessarily in terms of life or death, but a true need is such that lacking the needed object the thing needing would become a whole 'nother thing. I survived my dad's death, but I'm not nearly the same guy I would have been with him, I think. The old guy without his meds just isn't the same person.
(A "needed" but lost romantic interest, then, should leave a husk of a man or woman behind. He or she may grow back into something stronger, but it will be strong but different. Hmmm... This may be why I find "I want you" sexier than "I need you". I worry I had my "need" romances in high school and college and what's left, the me that is... doesn't want to need, or be subject to the responsibility of being needed. I guess I prefer love that springs from a rich luxury of two self-realized and independent people over a "need" that is tough to separate out from codependence, or other types of dependence, like financial.)
Thanks for reading. Writing helped me figure some stuff out. Let me know what you think.
2013.04.14
What I believe is that all clear-minded people should remain two things throughout their lifetimes: Curious and teachable.
2013.04.15
Eyes Wide Shut is an even better film when you understand the central theme: Tom Cruise is not nearly as cool as he thinks he is.
Aspartame tastes like sugar made of JPG artifacts.
2013.04.16
How do I keep finding myself talking to programmers who think *more* code and *more* levels of indirection is 'simpler'?
I just typed "me bawling as a baby" as "be bawling as a maybe". Which is kind of poetic but man, my whole m/b mixup is so weird.
I like calorie counts at restaurants- never would have thought a Panera PB-dream cookie has the same calories as a large Thai Chopped Salad.
2013.04.17
2013.04.18
2013.04.19
Emma was a fine cat. I really appreciate that she liked being pet but wasn't really a lap cat, so she'd keep company and then enjoy the petting and attention when the human was willing/able to give it. (I never knew her during her fat cat days with Amber and Karen and David -- too me she was always a skinny old lady.)
This photo, the final photo with her, tries to show off another one of her lovely features: she had terrific two tone fur, darker grey towards the end, lighter towards the roots. It made it so pretty!
RIP Emma. You were a sweet old cat.
I'm kind of worried this will bring Russia and the USA closer together, in a shared populist loathing of Chechnya.
Again to paraphrase some dude on twitter- the Elvis impersonator who tried to poison the President is the 10th craziest story this week
Meet the 28-Year-Old Grad Student Who Just Shook the Global Austerity Movement This is an awesome story. Go Evergreen and UMass Amherset!!! Sometimes just paying attention is enough. (I guess economics is pretty far from being sufficiently "peer reviewed")
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it -- and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again -- and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
Getting iTunes to keep ratings and metadata when moving to a new machine is like pulling teeth. Hack the XML-- maybe THAT will "just work"
2013.04.20
2013.04.21
We are put on this planet only once, and to limit ourselves to the familiar is a crime against our minds.
2013.04.22
The social media is a lot like Ancient Egypt... writing on walls and worshipping cats.
Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.Not sure if I believe it or not.
TECHNOLOGY RANT So I had a brilliant idea that if I can't preserve or restore "Date Added" to my iTunes collection, I could try a different file copy method than I had previously used that would then preserve "Date Modified", and then I could just sort my "recent music" smart playlist on that. Smart, huh?
Turns out you can sort a playlist on "most recently added", "most often played", "most recently played", but not "most recently modified". Holy living fuck, why do they make this impossible? Is it such a vanishing minority of people who A. like to listen to their recent music more and B. change computers that it's a bizarre thing to want?
I've found 3 or 4 potential ways to potentially keep this sort order, and Apple has thwarted all of them. Damn.
Think Different my ass.
2013.04.23
via
Life's missed opportunities, at the end, may seem more poignant to us than those we embraced -- because in our imagination they have a perfection that reality can never rival.I find solace in this thought, a way to temper the bittersweet nostalgia I'm blessed and cursed with.
http://boingboing.net/2013/01/25/the-secret-to-feeling-like-you.html -- the secret to not feeling time starved is to have a feeling of awe.
For two jobs, five of the last ten years, I worked a block or two from the end of the marathon...
2013.04.24
Here was each set of letters:
[sphmtwdlfb][hnruoailey][enmlrtaosk][dsnmpylkte]
I ran that against a list of the 5,000 most frequent words in English, and in order the 360-odd make-able words were:
that, they, from, that, what, make, will, time, when, them, some, take, than, like, then, more, want, look, more, find, here, many, well, tell, work, last, feel, when, most, mean, same, seem, help, talk, turn, hand, part, most, week, work, play, like, hold, must, home, book, word, head, line, lose, meet, team, best, lead, sure, walk, food, foot, send, home, fall, plan, late, hard, pass, sell, mind, pull, free, less, full, form, site, base, land, wall, test, film, tree, look, soon, less, term, well, fire, bank, west, seek, deal, past, fill, drop, plan, fine, than, dead, fund, list, hard, loss, deal, bill, miss, sort, dark, help, form, seat, that, firm, ball, talk, head, base, play, best, deep, past, heat, fall, whom, test, beat, tend, task, shot, born, wind, fast, like, bird, hurt, turn, date, hole, park, boat, wood, farm, band, tool, wild, tiny, feed, shop, folk, warm, past, deny, burn, shoe, bone, wine, mean, hell, fire, hire, will, lean, tall, hate, male, lots, fuel, pool, lead, salt, poll, desk, like, last, mark, loan, deep, male, meal, link, file, duty, wake, warn, meat, late, part, host, hall, tank, bond, file, mean, seed, busy, mass, tone, hill, hand, land, milk, mind, weak, list, wrap, mark, diet, post, dark, bike, link, mass, lake, bend, walk, sand, pose, sale, mine, tale, pass, dust, sure, boss, mood, boot, bean, peak, wire, holy, toss, bury, pray, pure, belt, moon, soon, line, date, pink, poem, bind, mine, drop, fast, flat, snap, teen, bell, beat, wind, lost, like, pant, port, dirt, pole, bake, sink, tire, free, hold, mask, load, fate, poet, mere, pale, load, flee, plot, palm, pile, fund, mall, heel, tent, bite, pine, boom, host, wise, firm, sake, dare, mess, hunt, pill, bare, shop, pump, slam, melt, park, fold, dose, trap, lens, lend, warm, last, leap, past, pond, dump, tune, harm, horn, beam, fork, disk, hook, mild, doll, hers, bite, fist, bold, tune, hint, peel, bias, feel, lamp, pump, silk, wake, hook, seal, sink, trap, fool, mate, slap, heat, barn, post, lane, seal, bull, loop, pork, seat, lion, harm, sort, soap, shed, heal, damn, mill, hike, tray, sole, weed, deem, pile, fame, toll, butt, bulk, part, poke, fare, soak, slot, tile, till, bolt, till. Oddly the word I chose was a real world that wasn't on the list, so maybe my method wasn't so good.
I know this lock isn't too secure, but A. I want more flexibility than with a U-shaped lock, B. my old steel cable lock probably was only a minor inconvenience for a thief and C. it's a cheap bike.
He would see this country burn if he could be king of the ashes
The old scholar was watching the noisy young people around him and it suddenly occurred to him that he was the only one in the whole audience who had the privilege of freedom, for he was old. Only when a person reaches old age can he stop caring about the opinions of his fellows, or of the public, or of the future. He is alone with approaching death and death has no ears and does not need to be pleased. In the face of death a man an do and say what pleases his own self.
This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as barrels...
via-- man that's a tall bike!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/photos-you-really-need-to-look-at-to-understand Lauren Garside's new favorite thing.
2013.04.25
In 2001, the Supreme Court put into place one of the worst presidents ever, and we have the charts to demonstrate that: George W Bush's Presidency in 24 Charts
You don't just find true love. You team up with somebody, and build it from the ground up.
http://mightygodking.com/2013/04/25/the-family-tattoo-problem/ -- the problem with Obama's clever idea for pre-empting daughter's tattoos parallels his problem with the GOP: things break down if your opponent doesn't give a damn about the common good.
2013.04.26
Kindness covers all of my political beliefs, no need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
Leaving is not enough. You must stay gone. Train your heart like a dog. Change the locks even on the house he's never visited. You lucky, lucky girl. You have an apartment just your size. A bathtub full of tea. A heart the size of Arizona, but not nearly so arid. Don't wish away your cracked past, your crooked toes, your problems are papier mache puppets you made or bought because the vendor at the market was so compelling you just had to have them. You had to have him. And you did. And now you pull down the bridge between your houses, you make him call before he visits, you take a lover for granted, you take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic. Make the first bottle you consume in this place a relic. Place it on whatever altar you fashion with a knife and five cranberries. Don't lose too much weight. Stupid girls are always trying to disappear as revenge. And you are not stupid. You loved a man with more hands than a parade of beggars, and here you stand. Heart like a four-poster bed. Heart like a canvas. Heart leaking something so strong they can smell it in the street.
2013.04.27
New glasses. 10 days to decide if they're too much.
2013.04.28
It is strange how the romances of the teenage years retain a poignancy all through life - how a girl who turns you down when you're 16 retains an aura in your memory even long after you, and she, have ceased to be who you were then.
2013.04.29
Just found out OSX has all these great accented voices. Sangeeta's "English (India)" is really fun to listen to, and I like the strong accents you get with some of the voices that are meant to read other accents.
2013.04.30
A man walks into a bar. He walks into it again. And again. And again. There are thousands of him now, confused & screaming.
http://kotaku.com/i-am-stereoblind-but-the-3ds-lets-me-see-the-world-as-484508038 -- A stereoblind man sees 3D for the first time ... on a game boy. Bittersweet story!
Kids Say the Creepiest Things!
For me, a movie is like a machine that generates empathy.