hello, goodbye, and to remember with affection.

Seattle was cool. Boregon was hipster nation, therefore/despite that I'm going back in the summer, probably for a longer stay.

nah

 

a relatively unedited email exchange

Cheeky Student: The first concert I attended was the 20 year anniversary of The Bouncing Souls; my work schedule did not permit any more appropriate concerts.The only proof of attendance I have is the strip of paper on my right wrist.
May I still turn that [thing on my wrist] in?
I am aware that I will be penalized for the nature of the concert and my generally cheeky demeanor.


Ms. Attractive Piano Instructor: [I love you,] so you will only get marked down because it's an unapproved concert, but overall, it's not that many points docked. Make sure you include a list of all of the songs played in the concert and the program will not be necessary.
And, the comments are entertaining. But, don't include the cheeky stuff in your concert critique or research papers. Scholarly writing does not bode well for that. In the written reflections, it is fine.

Pick your own adventure!
A. "Good thing I've been practicing fingering those scales!"
B. "No, you are fine." <-
C. "I don't know no languages."
D. "I guess this one is going to the El Monte Station..."

Kayfabe

I attended a taping of that show The Doctors a couple of weeks ago. It might air sometime the following week or next next week.
If I learned anything at all from it, it was that cameramen are the coolest people in da biz. They would talk and laugh about the audience members and occasionally do "action shots," which they seemed to be really into, and then go right back to making fun of the audience. Man. They would even have candies on the cameras that they'd be eating throughout the show. The one closest to me gave me a snickers bar because I asked him if he'd ever seen Eye for an Eye. The actors were douches. No one gives love to the cameramen (and -women) and I intend to change that through a series of strongly worded open letters sent to my local newspaper and congresswoman.

"The Dao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces; the more you talk of it, the less you understand."
Laozi

"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
Carl Sagan

"Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world."
Miyamoto Musashi

"All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry."
GK Chesterton

"A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."
GK Chesterton

"I feel sorry for people who don't drink, when they wake up that's as good as they'll feel all day"
 Frank Sinatra

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplacable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours."
Ayn Rand

"Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty."
Oscar Wilde

Here's one for Geocities

"What happened to the days when people made websites dedicated to other people?"

-Miles Espinoza

website by Gerard

First Things First

Was everyone at work talking about DotA today?
Want to spend some quality time with your family after you come home but they just seem to want to talk about DotA?
Do you then seek to run away from your problems with some traditional WC3 ladder matches or Footmen Frenzy on battle.net, but find only a deluge of "dota 6.64 -aremso lc pros"? Does it seem like this is the perfect time in your life to go partying with Tina again?

Well put that syringe down buster. Here's a pretty good article explaining the history and genius of what the heck those all those kids are even talking about.

Quick side note:

Barkley, Shut up and Jam: Gaiden

A perfect mix of cross-cultural satire, nostalgia gaming and indie development. Check that shit out. 

Death comes on a Beautiful Autumn Day

I found the DotA article while trying to escape from all the quantitations of my quantitative polisci class laboratory computer hour today. I also came across this puppy:

The name of the artist is Andy Kehoe and he has a blog as cool as I wish this one were. All(?) of his pieces here. If his artwork seems familiar and you like Wolftron, then you should already have put two and two together and I need to say no more! One may purchase his available prints on etsy.

"Hey Ayn Rand! Money sucks!"

-Ayn Rand: "Oh yeah?
Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men are able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made -- before it can be looted or mooched--made by an effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced...
Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the choice of what to see. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent...
Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started. Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune...
Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it will not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of all your hatred of money?
The man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it...
So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun...
Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."

-"I thought you said 10 bucks got me the whole hour..."