I'm sippin' on a Four Loko with my homies and I thought I should go ahead and crap out one more post before the New Year is upon us, even though it's upon many of you in other parts of the globe.
I went on my last run of 2010 today and it was a balmy 55 degrees so I decided to do said activity sans shirt. This always invites heckling and I'm down with that. The first line I got was a very sarcastic and morose "Happy New Year," from some schlub. But that's cool. As always I don't know why my goofy shirtless figure inspires ire and slightly more mild derogatory responses but it does. Anyway, I don't let that ruffle me, and I talk about that shit more than enough in here. And plenty of folks gave me horn honks and smiles, so I'll take it.
There were some other bits and pieces I meant to go about discussing here but man, I am getting rapidly lokoed and I've got other business to attend to. Shout outs to all of my WesTech homies who made it out to the Chi and shout out to all of my WesTech homies that could not and shiiiiiiiiiiit all my other homies and family folks as well.
So have a safe and happy New Year celebration all. Dress like an asshole (I will, and always do), get down, do your thing, this holiday is no big deal, but yeah, make it count. Dave Matthews it up, because it's not where but who you're with that really matters.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
The House [in which] YouTube Was Built
My time in California is about to draw to a close but I want to thank it for a jolly good Christmas. I thought it would be nice to get a post in while situated in the locale where much of YouTube was developed. I will not give this place a name (which I initially typed as name a place) because I like certain vagaries and anonymity to things, especially in this ever-expanding creepy universe of everyone knowing seemingly everything about everyone. Diminished privacy would be the Cliff's Notes way of putting it. What I like about this place, aside from being a vaguely charming independent coffee house with tasty coffee and treats, is that within its bounds very much of what is used on the internet these days was developed here. Yes, these people work, and have worked for, a broad range of companies, and it is an extraordinarily small community that completed the bulk of what the bulk of folks are using these days.
It's not that I'm trying to make this seem cool and exclusive, because this is just a regular shop that a crapton of people come into. The anonymity of the folks who are behind-the-scenes is what I would like to preserve. I am not sure the view that many people have of programmers/computer engineers, but for many of them the interest is in solving a problem, improving efficiency and the like. And all along the way there are bunch of really cool things created that most of us don't even realize are out there. I like to think of myself as moderately technically proficient; I am not whiz, but I can get by. One of the nifty little tools I came across just the other day is in Google Labs. This little thing lets you search the frequency of a word or words over a period of time (you can set these and other parameters). Google has uploaded at this time, I believe, roughly fifteen million texts (and by that I mean books) in several different languages. Your searches, then, are run through all of the words that have been uploaded. It's kind of a fun thing to play around with.
The other night I was viewing the roast of Frank Sinatra. It is pretty great if you have a chance to check it out, even if some of the jokes are dated. What I mean by that is only that they reference certain things relevant to that time period and the years prior which I did not witness and continue to be unaware of. One thing I did note, though, was what I deem an uncanny resemblance between comedian Milton Berle and strange ad/marketing production Noid from 80s Domino's pizza advertising. You will see both of them below.
Without having said much of anything, I think this is a good place at which to call it. Hope you all had delightful holiday breaks there and have prepped your livers for some good living on New Year's Eve and beyond.
It's not that I'm trying to make this seem cool and exclusive, because this is just a regular shop that a crapton of people come into. The anonymity of the folks who are behind-the-scenes is what I would like to preserve. I am not sure the view that many people have of programmers/computer engineers, but for many of them the interest is in solving a problem, improving efficiency and the like. And all along the way there are bunch of really cool things created that most of us don't even realize are out there. I like to think of myself as moderately technically proficient; I am not whiz, but I can get by. One of the nifty little tools I came across just the other day is in Google Labs. This little thing lets you search the frequency of a word or words over a period of time (you can set these and other parameters). Google has uploaded at this time, I believe, roughly fifteen million texts (and by that I mean books) in several different languages. Your searches, then, are run through all of the words that have been uploaded. It's kind of a fun thing to play around with.
The other night I was viewing the roast of Frank Sinatra. It is pretty great if you have a chance to check it out, even if some of the jokes are dated. What I mean by that is only that they reference certain things relevant to that time period and the years prior which I did not witness and continue to be unaware of. One thing I did note, though, was what I deem an uncanny resemblance between comedian Milton Berle and strange ad/marketing production Noid from 80s Domino's pizza advertising. You will see both of them below.
 |  |
Without having said much of anything, I think this is a good place at which to call it. Hope you all had delightful holiday breaks there and have prepped your livers for some good living on New Year's Eve and beyond.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Santa Clause
This one is written in the American Constitution, but not that old weathered document from 1787, the one that declares Christmas is a shopping holiday and not the celebration of the birth of the Jesus Christ character. Religion studies are not my strong point, but then neither is Santa Claus lore. Thanks to the internet, though, you can check out all of his evolution on the linkety-link back there. It's really rather fascinating stuff to poke around in. A lot of us take for granted a whole lot these days, like for instance this internet I am using right here. I believe it is proper grammatical technique to capitalize the word "internet" but I am not down with that because I don't think it's as properly proper as has been proffered by the Merriam's, Websters, and the like. But yeah, for granted, I don't know about you fools but I never really considered where in the heck Old St. Nick came from. I have my doubts as to whether he was a tubbledy man from the North Pole who dressed in red velvet with white trim. The idea of someone sitting down and concocting such a character then seems to line up pretty well with advertising. If I had to do my college thesis over, I might very well analyze the origins of Santa Claus.
This is how I best like to picture Santa.
Of course, there is the possibility that Santa was not always as rotund as he has become. After all he is consuming, milk, eggnog, and lots and lots of cookies. If you believe that he has a fantastic metabolism even at hundreds or thousands of years old, then he may very well be lactose intolerant and horrendously bloated as a result of these alleged dairy gifts. That, and he should be a diabetic. But with my half-Jew faith and half-celebration of Christmas, I never was one of the kids headed to the department store to take a stint on Santa's lap.
This year, though, I had the pleasure, and while Christmas has helped perpetuate, if not spawn, some terribly spoiled individuals, it has also helped foster some simple joys and cheer. Kids look happy as shit to meet Santa, and let's not forget the tree. I mean that and the snow, and the way department stores decorate shit, it looks pretty. And without doing any research as to why The Nutcracker has become a Christmas tradition, I will say that it is one I love. I guess a good reason for it to be performed at Christmas is that the play is set during Christmas. It's really all about the score from my boy Tchaikovsky. It's more than just good music to play Tetris to.
There really is a whole hell of a lot to go over when it comes to Christmas: the love/hate relationship with the music, the showing of Gone With the Wind (which I have still never seen), stockings...So what I'm getting at is that this post is far from complete, and there is surely more to come in inane Christmas commentary. But should I not get to it before the holiday comes upon us, consider this the Happy Christmas post. And there I've gone and forgotten all about Chanukah, my primary holiday, which has come and gone.
Anyway, I hear next year for Chanukah they will offer a Womenorah, in addition to the traditional Menorah, in the name of gender equality.
Of course, there is the possibility that Santa was not always as rotund as he has become. After all he is consuming, milk, eggnog, and lots and lots of cookies. If you believe that he has a fantastic metabolism even at hundreds or thousands of years old, then he may very well be lactose intolerant and horrendously bloated as a result of these alleged dairy gifts. That, and he should be a diabetic. But with my half-Jew faith and half-celebration of Christmas, I never was one of the kids headed to the department store to take a stint on Santa's lap.
This year, though, I had the pleasure, and while Christmas has helped perpetuate, if not spawn, some terribly spoiled individuals, it has also helped foster some simple joys and cheer. Kids look happy as shit to meet Santa, and let's not forget the tree. I mean that and the snow, and the way department stores decorate shit, it looks pretty. And without doing any research as to why The Nutcracker has become a Christmas tradition, I will say that it is one I love. I guess a good reason for it to be performed at Christmas is that the play is set during Christmas. It's really all about the score from my boy Tchaikovsky. It's more than just good music to play Tetris to.
There really is a whole hell of a lot to go over when it comes to Christmas: the love/hate relationship with the music, the showing of Gone With the Wind (which I have still never seen), stockings...So what I'm getting at is that this post is far from complete, and there is surely more to come in inane Christmas commentary. But should I not get to it before the holiday comes upon us, consider this the Happy Christmas post. And there I've gone and forgotten all about Chanukah, my primary holiday, which has come and gone.
Anyway, I hear next year for Chanukah they will offer a Womenorah, in addition to the traditional Menorah, in the name of gender equality.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
I'm Not a Blogger...
I just post a lot. That's got to be one of my all-time favorite go-tos on the quick parody front. Sometimes my brain is so tuned into pop culture it frightens me but then I will read an excerpt of someone like Chuck Klosterman or any of the many accomplished blogger/journalists that write for popular sites these days and realize I keep it at a much safer distance than some. Whenever I read them I have to wonder how many people get all of the included references. Sometimes it makes me feel a little bit uninformed (a cover word for dumb) and others I could care less.
It's a pretty cold bastard lately and the shortening of days isn't helping. That and a bum foot have made me quite lazy indeed, the irony being that lack of activity seems to make my achey old man's body feel worse. Standard writing rules tell you not to use "being that." Moving a sentence back, I suppose this isn't as by the numbers as irony goes, but it's better than a lot of the things people seem to offer up for irony, where the only true irony is their suggesiont that it is irony at all. This is where I am supposed to provide an example.
Many say that to err is human, and I do not disagree, but to complain seems to be even more human. I wonder if this is an original component of the human condition or if it is resulting and somewhat predicated upon what our lives have become. I am not the first to entertain the idea, as I find it implicit in the concept that money cannot buy happiness as well as in the consistent theme that has emerged in much modern writing, fiction and non, that so many of us are so privileged and yet unsatisfied and ADD. This goes beyond simple cash flow.
I have to step back to Klosterman quickly because I think that if you read that sentence it comes across as a dig. It's not. I haven't read much of Klosterman, but some of the snippets I have are, well, really good. If there is something I don't like about Klosterman, it's mostly myself. See, he's clever and well-written (I'd say spoken, but I've never heard him speak), and on some level, though it's less now than it might have been at one time, I'm a little jealous of that. It's this little inherent rivalry thing that a lot of human beings feel that I wish I didn't. I've seen people do it to me and the reason I can recognize it is because I know I've entertained if not acted upon it myself. The good thing is that when other people attack others out of simple jealousy it reminds me not to do that. Of course, if they point out their knowledge of such jealousy and cite it as the reason for their dislike, it can end up endearing me to them. Because, I don't know about you, but I like when people have flaws. It makes them human. Remember that bit about to err? As a rule, you kind of wait for those perfect people to trip up. Maybe you are not in that universal you. If so, good for you. I have a tendency to say "maybe" a lot. The counter, to an extent, of those perfect folks you loathe are the ones who, for some other inexplicable reason, you completely love the shit out of and perhaps aspire to attain the sort of effortless perfection they project. Speaking of, I may be doing just that here, projecting, exhibiting a small segment of human condition that applies to me and a minority, rather than the human condition. Do you ever get it all in one?
So then it is that I like the analysis I have seen tiny parts of from Klosterman, and yet sad how much popular culture shapes us, and simultaneously intrigued by the way it unites us and uh, this is also simultaneous, separates us from those who do not have those same memories. It's inter-generational. And I envy the people who have led these pure, or what I consider pure, existences away from television and dumb shit (by some arbitrary definition for "dumb shit"). Sometimes I can see why David Foster Wallace had trouble sticking around, you know? And I'm not a quarter as smart. Anyway, if you read this far, congratulations? Next time, less seriousness, more jokes or joke attempts.
I am glad I am listening to music because, based on body language, I hate the people sitting near me. Thankfully two of them just got up and have been replaced by two girls eating macarons. And you know what they say, "two macarons make it right." I think this positions me well to go home and watch last night's Gossip Girl.
Cheers bitches.
It's a pretty cold bastard lately and the shortening of days isn't helping. That and a bum foot have made me quite lazy indeed, the irony being that lack of activity seems to make my achey old man's body feel worse. Standard writing rules tell you not to use "being that." Moving a sentence back, I suppose this isn't as by the numbers as irony goes, but it's better than a lot of the things people seem to offer up for irony, where the only true irony is their suggesiont that it is irony at all. This is where I am supposed to provide an example.
Many say that to err is human, and I do not disagree, but to complain seems to be even more human. I wonder if this is an original component of the human condition or if it is resulting and somewhat predicated upon what our lives have become. I am not the first to entertain the idea, as I find it implicit in the concept that money cannot buy happiness as well as in the consistent theme that has emerged in much modern writing, fiction and non, that so many of us are so privileged and yet unsatisfied and ADD. This goes beyond simple cash flow.
I have to step back to Klosterman quickly because I think that if you read that sentence it comes across as a dig. It's not. I haven't read much of Klosterman, but some of the snippets I have are, well, really good. If there is something I don't like about Klosterman, it's mostly myself. See, he's clever and well-written (I'd say spoken, but I've never heard him speak), and on some level, though it's less now than it might have been at one time, I'm a little jealous of that. It's this little inherent rivalry thing that a lot of human beings feel that I wish I didn't. I've seen people do it to me and the reason I can recognize it is because I know I've entertained if not acted upon it myself. The good thing is that when other people attack others out of simple jealousy it reminds me not to do that. Of course, if they point out their knowledge of such jealousy and cite it as the reason for their dislike, it can end up endearing me to them. Because, I don't know about you, but I like when people have flaws. It makes them human. Remember that bit about to err? As a rule, you kind of wait for those perfect people to trip up. Maybe you are not in that universal you. If so, good for you. I have a tendency to say "maybe" a lot. The counter, to an extent, of those perfect folks you loathe are the ones who, for some other inexplicable reason, you completely love the shit out of and perhaps aspire to attain the sort of effortless perfection they project. Speaking of, I may be doing just that here, projecting, exhibiting a small segment of human condition that applies to me and a minority, rather than the human condition. Do you ever get it all in one?
So then it is that I like the analysis I have seen tiny parts of from Klosterman, and yet sad how much popular culture shapes us, and simultaneously intrigued by the way it unites us and uh, this is also simultaneous, separates us from those who do not have those same memories. It's inter-generational. And I envy the people who have led these pure, or what I consider pure, existences away from television and dumb shit (by some arbitrary definition for "dumb shit"). Sometimes I can see why David Foster Wallace had trouble sticking around, you know? And I'm not a quarter as smart. Anyway, if you read this far, congratulations? Next time, less seriousness, more jokes or joke attempts.
I am glad I am listening to music because, based on body language, I hate the people sitting near me. Thankfully two of them just got up and have been replaced by two girls eating macarons. And you know what they say, "two macarons make it right." I think this positions me well to go home and watch last night's Gossip Girl.
Cheers bitches.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The Blog Days Are Over
Back-to-back bloggin' days is rather uncharted territory for my ass these days, but it's happening. And even though I can't be sure my titles ever make any semblance of sense, this one certainly doesn't as the blog days are continuing as I type along here. So why am I back? So I can shout out the east coast, my place of birth and much of my life development. It's been largely good to me but the more I think of it the more I think I'll be making a long-ish goodbye. Not permanent, but certainly for a lengthy period. I was happy to see folks in Jersey, New York, and in Mass (also en masse), but the bulk of the humanoids with whom I did not have a pre-existing relationship ended up leaving me largely cold. No, it was not just the temperatures, because it's nut-bitingly cold here back in the Chi which means I am speaking in one of those what you might call metaphors. It is not as if the temperature of my body actually dropped upon interacting with these folks.
In other metaphors, my legs and feet are motherfuckers. I reference this a little too frequently I feel, and the fact is I've no idea what the legs of others are like, so I am in many ways unqualified for commentary. I will just say that I hope this is not what other peoples' legs and feet feel like. While it's been a hell of a long time, I can still remember when my shit was normal, and by shit I mean feet and legs. I am clarifying as I have quite the penchant for discussion of poo. It used to be if those bastards hurt, not how much. I will direct the rest of this rant to my yet-to-be-purchased web domain: www.quitchabitchin.com.
In non-metaphors I just ate two really unsatisfying big cookies. I wish they had been soft, or I had had some milk for dunking. This, I am sure, would have taken care of much of the hardness issue. I am thinking I am going to engage in devoid-of-sweets-December. Yeah, I love the shit out of sweets, but I'd like to keep my type two diabetes jokes as jokes. Really though I just want a glass of milk. The rat-tail, much to the disappointment of my loved ones, is likely to remain.
And this right here, folks, is a perfect reminder of why I do not blog daily: it gets to getting an awful lot like a dear diary and, well, there are diaries for that. Between that and concluding this post, I did take in the Victoria's Secret Fashion show. It didn't quite have the magic of 2009, but it was still damn good. I want to say it will improve your life, man, woman, and child, but it may give all unrealistic expectations on what humans look like.
And lest I go an entire entry without including an outside link I exit on an exposé of the wonderfully corrupt world of higher education or, I should say hire education. L-ooooooooooh-feckin'-elle.
In other metaphors, my legs and feet are motherfuckers. I reference this a little too frequently I feel, and the fact is I've no idea what the legs of others are like, so I am in many ways unqualified for commentary. I will just say that I hope this is not what other peoples' legs and feet feel like. While it's been a hell of a long time, I can still remember when my shit was normal, and by shit I mean feet and legs. I am clarifying as I have quite the penchant for discussion of poo. It used to be if those bastards hurt, not how much. I will direct the rest of this rant to my yet-to-be-purchased web domain: www.quitchabitchin.com.
In non-metaphors I just ate two really unsatisfying big cookies. I wish they had been soft, or I had had some milk for dunking. This, I am sure, would have taken care of much of the hardness issue. I am thinking I am going to engage in devoid-of-sweets-December. Yeah, I love the shit out of sweets, but I'd like to keep my type two diabetes jokes as jokes. Really though I just want a glass of milk. The rat-tail, much to the disappointment of my loved ones, is likely to remain.
And this right here, folks, is a perfect reminder of why I do not blog daily: it gets to getting an awful lot like a dear diary and, well, there are diaries for that. Between that and concluding this post, I did take in the Victoria's Secret Fashion show. It didn't quite have the magic of 2009, but it was still damn good. I want to say it will improve your life, man, woman, and child, but it may give all unrealistic expectations on what humans look like.
And lest I go an entire entry without including an outside link I exit on an exposé of the wonderfully corrupt world of higher education or, I should say hire education. L-ooooooooooh-feckin'-elle.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)