Open Mic for Kyra
After yesterday's mic snafu during the president's speech, CNN's Kyra Phillips has either eaten her weight in M&M's while huddled in the corner with her bath robe on, or beaten a technical director within an inch of his life before demanding he be flung off the CNN Tower. My guess is both.
Geotag on Flickr
Flickr has added a new feature; geotaging your photos to a map. That is, to place your photos on a world map allowing you to see the precise location of where the photo was taken. A nice step for the flickr guys.
update: you can also link to detailed area maps with points of interest such as New York, Oklahoma, Europe, Asia, or Australia / New Zealand in my case.
Little Miss Sunshine
I haven't seen a movie better than this in years. Quite possibly perfect. The kind of movie that reminds you that you still have a soul. After the worst movie ever last week, it was nice to see something still being made that won't embarrass us all in a thousand years when aliens dig through our remains.
what nathan wants to be
So far it has gone in this order from most the recent to the earliest I can remember him saying he wanted to be. I think I will keep this handy and update it as needed.
2006: Designer (wants to travel like his dad)
2006: Soldier (saw a national guard ad at the theatre)
2006: Photographer (likes to play with dad's camera)
2006: Film Director (likes to make movies on the camera I got him)
2006: Race Car Driver (from a movie)
2005: Astronaut (later decided he wasn't crazy about heights)
2005: Scientist (this was / is to coincide with being an astronaut)
2003: Policeman
2003: Fireman
His self proclaimed college plans: University of Oklahoma.
Everything's gonna be all right
Dear first half of my thirties; I would like to say it's been fun, and it has. Probably some of the best years of my life so far. I traveled so much and did so many things.
Still I have to say, I am not at a point where I am ready to let you go so, I'm not going to. Enclosed with this note you will find a small amount of the antidote to the poison I injected you with while you were sleeping. This antidote is a temporary agent and will keep you alive and healthy if administered once a week. If you promise not to leave me to be left at the hands of my upper thirties, I will keep giving you the antidote every week so you may live. I didn't want it to have come to this but you left me no choice. I let my twenties go away nicely and what did it get me? Allergies and more hair growing in places I don't even like to think about.
So, play nicely, stick around, get comfortable. We are all going to be just fine. We are going to just pretend like Sunday is just any other day.
48 hours
Three weeks ago, I was piled on my plate a mountain of shit to achieve a goal.
24 hours ago, the goal became unobtainable, due to a system that is just really, really messed the %$^#$ up.
5 hours ago, I found a way around, a compromise to achive the goal in a limited capacity.
1 hour ago, that final plan was shot in the foot and I really had just reached a level of not really giving a rats *&*$ .,ass about it anymore. All because of a single persons inability to sign an overide.
pissed, pissed, pissed, pissed. pissed.
Calling Erin Brockovich
Hey, remember my weird red eye allergic thing? Turns out the thing that has been causing it the most has been, wait for it, water. Good ol' NYC Tap water. The one constant with every attack has been downing a glass of water or getting it in my mouth or eye in the shower. So Yea, buying up plenty of bottled water now so I don't get a blood filled swollen eye, swollen throat, and swollen brow. Im sure it's also brought on with other things but the main bulk of my troubles has been the water bringing on the symptoms.
I [heart] NY.
Little Man Nate
Nathan starts the first day of the fourth grade today. He had a rough day yesterday not getting the games he wanted on the final day of freedom and some other stuff going just a little foul so I hope his first day back goes well. I asked him if anything could be done yesterday to put him in a better mood and he piped up real quick "I could go to Incredible Pizza?" Good try kiddo.
I'm a dad to a nine year old in the 4th grade. Amazing.
Update: Nate's first words on the phone: "I totally scored with my teacher!" After a second of wondering if Debra Lafave was now teaching in Oklahoma, I came to understand he meant he got a teacher he likes.
Worst, Movie, Ever.
I can't begin to tell you in proper detail exactly how horribly stupid the movie Pulse is but I will try to give you the run down. I would warn you that my rant here will be spoiler filled but if you want to see this movie after I have warned you, then you're dead to me. I had a goal to find at least 30 ways this movie sucked so here it goes;
1. We get it, we are all plugged in with our cell phones and our PDA's and our text messaging and our wireless connections, I wonder if it will some how be the downfall of us all? Seriously, like 20 min into the movie they can't drop the pushing on us how digitally connected we all are. At one point instead of screaming, I thought she was going to pull out her phone and text "OMG, AUUUGHH!" to all of her friends.
2. Somehow, we find out that Red Masking Tape will keep the booglies out. How the hell did they figure that out?
3. The booglies want to capture you and suck out what I thought was your soul, turns out it was your "will to live" which makes you both want to die and infects you with something that consumes you or makes you wall paper. Except that the only kid you see actually kill himself is the first kid to go (with phone cord, that is sooo deep). After that they go away screaming, which seems to suggest, a will to live.
4. Wes Craven made this movie, which is the remake of another crappy Japanese movie of the same name, which is a remake of about 20 other teen horror movies that Wes Craven crapped out of his brain.
5. The original guy who was part of the team that found the booglie's signal which brought on this horror, somehow got away from the slaughter and made it back to his room, and somehow had 20 rolls of red tape and somehow put it up on every square inch of his walls within seconds before the booglies came after him too.
6. What the hell are the booglies anyway? I call them booglies for fun but they weren't really defined in the movie except it was implied they are the dead trying to come back to get what they want from us, our life. Except when they suck out your will to live, they don't come back to life or anything.
7. How the hell do you write a computer virus to stop the booglies from coming through your computer?
8. The black guy didn't turn to dust, he was sucked into the wall, why did he die differently?
9. what was up with the skinned cat?
10. How many times does a computer have to run without being plugged in before it stops freaking you out?
11. The stupidest kid in any class you grew up with, figured out before the main girl in this movie did to throw out the mother$&%*'n cell phone from the car, even after the radio tells you that the booglies come in through the connection.
12. Why do all the kids in this movie live in really freaky crack-house types of apartments? We get it, they are so nerd, ipod carrying emo cool.
13. Why doesn't anyone have a laptop? Everyone has a tube monitor from about ten years ago and yet can all afford expensive cell phones.
14. Who forgot to take the blue filter of the camera before sooting this film? It didn't work for Mel Gibson and it didn't work here either.
15. Why are half the scenes from the trailer not actually in the movie? NO ONE jumped off a water tower. Bitches.
16. Why do the booglies just sit an d look at you through your computer monitor and let you look at them? Why does Hell only have a 56k connection judging by the quality of the video. Why do they ask their victims on the computer if they want to meet a ghost? Is it like the vampire rule where they can't kill you if you don't invite them in, or are they just being pricks?
17. Why was the first dead friend asking for help via IM? Was he still himself in the booglie hell? Would he not become one of them trying to be a prick on someone's computer?
18. With gazillions of dead people sucking out your will, why was it the same looking guy going after everyone we saw getting killed?
19. Could the lead girl in the movie possibly wear any more ironic t-shirts?
20. Why Ohio? I mean sure, I always assumed the downfall of humanity would start in Ohio but they never explained why a university there? Why not MIT or something more plausible?
21. Who was the creepy old dude in the library at the very beginning? Did he get paid off by the booglies who wanted to be pricks?
22. What was with all the eye makeup? was she trying to fool the ghosts into thinking she was already dead? Oh, right, Ironic shirts and all...
23. Bathtub scene, side-on car collision scene, virus upload will save us all; Reused and tired schticks used in 50 other horror films, why even do a remake if you can't even be innovative in re-telling the story.
24. Most of the time you were supposed to be seeing the booglies, they kept flickering the screen like a bad monitor about to give out. This seemed to be a cheaper effect than actually showing us scary booglies.
25. Why did the booglies even bother hiding from the lead girl in the beginning like in the bathroom scene when they were all GOTCHYA! with all the other friends?
26. Why did the booglies come out of dumb places like the dryer instead of just coming through a wall or a door. I mean, when your a dead creature from the beyond, do you need to keep being a prick just for the effect? Your already scary just by saying "Hi".
27. Guy from "Lost", also another one of the pretty people who know a lot about computers and can't seem to get a job. damn hippies.
28. Why did Josh make a video diary? I mean, if he's so connected, why didn't he blog? or podcast? Hmn? Hmnn?
29. When the girl almost got her will sucked out, how did the guy pull her away, I mean, why didn't they just smack him around too?
30. In the end we lost the war and all of humanity had to evacuate to the areas where there was no mobile phone or signal (leaving parts of Ohio and South Korea) "We lost the cities to them" Of course with no humans in those cities to run the generators to power those devices, wouldn't it all be a done deal in a relatively short period of time?
Katz's Deli
Went to Katz's Deli today, my first experience to visit the famous establishment. After seeing a near fight with a customer and an employee who seemed nothing but courteous, I noticed the sign above our table said we were sitting at the table where the scene in "When Harry Met Sally" was filmed with Meg Ryan doing her fake orgasm.
Upon careful consideration, I decided not to reenact the scene for everyone.
Oh, and in the past 48 hours I have ran into Rita Cosby (formerly of FOX news, now at MSNBC) and Michael Musto from the Village Voice and many gossip shows on E!. Also, had a beer with some people, one turned out to be Rebecca Gordon, one of the red headed twins in the movie The Great Outdoors.
Training
I finally committed to getting back on an exercise routine and the short term goal is to be back on the same training as I did in the military by six weeks, progressively increasing the work out by the week.
I did cardiovascular and strength training yesterday. I think I over did the strength training since today I can't extend my left arm and it feels like I really messed it up. ow.
leopard
Apple unveiled their next line in kitty cats today: Leopard. It has some nice features but hard to tell which is just eye candy and which is really useful. I think the iChat app advances are probably the biggest leaps forward to user interface.
Things fall down. People look up. And when it rains, it pours.
I find that when I get really down, I start to analyze myself and the things around me as being normal or out of sorts. Am I the one doing things wrong or is the world doing me wrong? It's usually an equal chance of either way but I can account for what I do and the world does as it pleases. Since all I can change is myself, I try to focus on that. You can accept the world as being fair or unjust but you still have to find a way to fit in it.
I once read that when we express anger, we are expressing what we hate about ourselves. We all have regrets and have done things we wish we hadn't. Those regrets and the guilt associated with them weigh on us and shape us into who we are. This is actually good for us to a point; our consciousness needs to be reminded of consequences but some of us out there, we're junkies for it. We need to feel regret and pain or we feel nothing at all because being satisfied just isn't all that satisfactory after some time.
In the past few months I have just begun to deal with all the raw emotions I have been carrying around with me since dad died last year. I'm still angry and I have no real means to reach full closure on that anger. You would think that with my repeated attempts at making things good between us and trying to fix our relationship would earn me a guilt free card in the finality of it all, but it doesn't. In the end I gave up and I resorted to plan C.
In the movies, an estranged father and son get a final moment to see each other just before the end and despite whatever was between them, they get to say they love each other and have a last ditch effort for some closure on both sides. This was my final resort option; my plan C. It didn't go that way because this wasn't a movie and in reality, my father was dead by the time I got word of anything being wrong.
My anger with my dad is coupled with equal empathy. I understood his limitations, and his fears. I'm becoming more understanding still of them everyday. I wanted to push him into being better because I had to push myself all those years ago and it was all I knew on how to react, but in the end it didn't take. My father had many faults but in his core, he loved, and he wished his children well. He simply made bad decisions with his life and if affected his ability on how he treated others.
So what can we live with? What can we forgive? In others? In ourselves? If we make poor decisions and later expect, even demand, to be forgiven because it's now in the past, do we deserve that out-clause? Do people incapable of foresight get a free pass to forgiveness to those who know how exactly every action they make will effect those around them in the future? How much of our own drama are we allowed to release on others knowing we are just projecting our fears for selfish reasons?
I accept that life isn't always fair, love finds a way to transcend, people are flawed, and pain heals with time. Really, I understand this and I am fine with how it all works, except in the meantime, I have to deal with some serious baggage that I am really tired of carrying and the trick is, to find a way to let it go without picking up any more.
I'm not saying any of this is new, these are mostly the realizations that came to me over a year ago when it occurred to me that dad was gone, our actions final, and the people I turned to for support, I had distanced myself quite far from. I find it more rare and strange to hold on to something from a life that made it acceptable to let go. Lifeguards are taught to just let go of a drowning victim that is too hysterical and a danger to themselves and others in the water. I learned to let go at a young age and for a time, it got me through. It's a stark realization when you realize you need people again.
So now then, some time passes by and we all go back into our routines and our lives and our relationships and some would say "it's all in the past" but something needs to be learned from all of this so that it can have some meaning. I see my father's fear in myself and I work hard to overcome it. And, I understand the pain he felt. Being raised up on a survival instinct makes it hard to be an instinctively compassionate person. Not everyone learns how.
Use the regret, love life, keep good company, let go of the regret that serves no purpose.
And I'm trying.
Blink of an Eye
Last night was the Blink of an Eye party for the flickr photo competition. It was interesting to see all the people there from all different areas of the industry as well as just flickr people whom I've talked to or followed and finally got to meet in person. After the event, the after party was held at Red Sky where everyone went to the roof and to end the night was an hour at a Korean Karaoke bar. It was very hot but when everyone else is glistening with sweat too, you tend to become less self-conscious about your own pool your leaving everywhere. So many more people I meant to say hi to at the event but didn't get a chance to. Hopefully I will get another chance in the future.
25 years of Mtv
On August 1, 1981, MTV was launched and a world of crap music video was there at our beck and call anytime we wanted them. It was the first of a new era; genre based channel stations that would soon take over cable. Tonight VH1 Classic has been rebroadcasting the first 24 hours of MTV. While chatting online during this event, here are a few of the choice comments made to the videos of the past;
"i'm skirred"
"i thought tesla sang this?"
"wtf is up with the onions?"
"why was there a butcher at the beginning?"
"special, so special.."
"mike hunter, heh, hehehe"
"he's singing to the paintings..."
"threre's nothing good about this song or video."
"i can see his nutsack"
"you're totally singing along, aren't you?"
"Jesus, change it butthead!"
"it doesn't get any gayer than this"
"I was wrong, it just did"
"Joey Buttafuco, the early years.."
"wow, the $36 budget went far in this video dont you think?"
"i'm glad white boy fros went out of style"
"I half expect a star wipe any second"
"he looked like he just forgot his own words (lipsync)"
"is he humping the boat?"
"(Rod Stewert) he made an ugly girl"
"is that Russel Crow?"
"i'm going to hork"
"looks like the start of a really bad porn..."
"it's like hall and oats were horribly reversed in a science experiment gone wrong"
"note to self: songs about briefcases: suck"
"ricky the intern got his moment of fame when they needed another slot to fill of video"
"why's he so angry?"
"because he's missing half his fucking face."
"You will do as the scorpions have done before you..(rock u like a hurricane)"
"air sax..hold on..i need both hands for this."
"split endz should have called themselves sucked ass"
"pat benatar's mouth kinda scares me"
"i'm sure video did this band in"
