Youtube
I am so sick of Youtube right now. It’s been playing videos miserably! I don’t know why, but it’s chopping them up, and freezing, and it freezes often when I put my pointer over the screen or that new “captions” tab. Sick of it! I wish John Green and the Gradual Report would move to somewhere else!
I am going to be making shirts and carving pumpkins tonight! I don’t know what I will do for them, but we’ll see!
Eamon
Whats the most i can weigh to be a coxswain?
Betsy
Most? You mean least? You can be a 300-pound coxswain, but your team will either hate you, lose well, or consist entirely of the spectres of long-dead Olympians. The minimum weight for women internationally is 110 lbs, below that, they have to wear weights.
Writering
So I have decided to attempt to participate in NaNoWriMo. I hope I it will actually encourage me to continue, and put at least a massive dent in my novel.
I realized today that my style of linking pages for more in-depth content is actually a big help to improving the working productivity of the Google search engine. Not mine alone, mind you, but mine paired with millions of others. I really just want to encourage people to use the Internet for more than Facebook, chain emails, porno, and buying cheap junk. I want people to experience the Internet I have come to know, something that is important to me, something that makes a house a home, and one of the few things I get riled up about when governments step on.
I am making the jump to Google Chrome. Cause yes, open-source matters to me. I think my biggest beef was that I didn’t want to take the 30 minutes or so to set up another browser. Well I did, and I must say. It’s so clean and stuff, it’s worth getting to know your browser. I just want CLEAR SPACE on my compy. Now to convince the wife to switch to Ubuntu Ibex in 2 days…
I’d like everyone to know that I am something of an Internet 2.0 person. I have a Twitter account that I use to update the trivial or humorous, and sometimes just a minor vent(read:notblogworthy“). I have a Youtube account that I don’t update anymore because it’s massively time consuming and I don’t have the materials to keep it up. I do enjoy watching many on Youtube, and use my account on more of an “audience member” kind of level. I have a Livejournal that I don’t use for serious blogging anymore, due to its inbred, captive audience feel…but the history contained in it(about 4 years now) is pretty important to me, for posterity or something. I will be getting a G1 in the next year-or-so, as it is a private obsession of mine(I am a very obsessive person, and I don’t plan to change that), which will make my communications level a very entertaining, I mean, functional asset.
I use this blog to talk about big events in my life, opinions, and honestly to get half of the gratification I get from a real life conversation about things that matter(to me at least). I hope to have enough questions to keep my questions section separate from my blog, but they are still coming in somewhat slowly. I realize that if my dream of people being able to self-educate and learn on the internet for free, with no babysitter, about ANYTHING, my questions service will be reduced to asking me inane, sophmoric, or entertaining/offensive questions. I am totally ok with that.
Eamon
Are you there, Jah? It’s me, Ras-Trent
So I’ve been scarce lately.
The weather is cooling down, which I appreciate. I’m really hoping to get another job soon after my car gets fixed. I’ll be super stoked if my dad can get my car into legal shape!
I don’t know what to talk about, beyond that you all should know who Ras-Trent is and if you don’t, you’d better look it up.
Eamon
what are some fun things to do in austin?
Where are the bats i hear about?
Betsy
Ditch the car, ride the bus, and meet new people everyday! Find local businesses and make friends of the employees. Go to Zilker Park, cross the river, and get lost in the Green Belt. Visit the Alamo Drafthouse AT LEAST once(this costs money, except on Wednesday night at midnight). Hit up a drum circle, at Ruta Maya(every…um…tuesday? If you really wanna know I’ll call Eli). Or the one at Yoga Yoga on South Lamar every full moon. I really reccomend the Green Belt, there’s a cool back entrance that goes all the way to the river, but I won’t dare post that on the internet! DO NOT miss a taste of Austin Java’s amazing coffee, but please spend your recreational coffee time at Dominican Joe, and learn what Makarios is. It’s AMAZING. AH-MAZING.
The bats, the world’s largest urban bat colony, are below the South Congress bridge over the section of the Guadalupe River lovingly(and erroneously) called Town Lake. The best time to see them(though they do it year round, and on their own schedule daily) is mid to late fall around 8pm. It’s free to stand on the bridge, or on the grass on the south side next to the Austin Chronicle building.
Funny that I could think of all that fondly and clearly, though I lived there less time than I’ve lived here in Arlington. This place is way less fun!
(sort of) Surprise!
So last night, Mae got me my birthday present that I “have to wait for”. It was pretty simple, two lines.
I’m a dad!
Eamon
Early Start
So I’ve found two new artists I love! Gregory Isaacs and Steel Pulse. What’s strange though, is that while I really am into the music, I know I am not exactly a welcome member of the Rastafarii movement…being a Celt and all. It makes me think to hear this kind of music, music I actually like, with nationalist propaganda(re: the song “worth its weight in gold”), Race pride(”Africa Unite”), religious praise(”No Speech”), and justified political paranoia(”Mind Control”). I mean, I’m used to hearing this in like, street rap, modern Country, and that aweful genre of repeatative tunage, “Christian P&W”. It reminds me a bit of the day that I was at Oysterfest and thought how much fun a place like that would be if I actually LIKED the crap the bands spew all day. If it was, say, a Jam Festival, with rides, fried foods, eating contests, beach breeze and some friends, I’d probably have the bloody time of my life! I should probably just move to wherever I like the local music.
Articles about Muslims and other disenfranchised citizens really appeal to me. Not because I like them, but because I can somehow relate. The folks in and gunning for Washington D.C. like to appeal to the Middle Class–something I am not nor have been. In fact, the Middle Class is shrinking in this country, so I’m not sure who they are talking to, because “Joe the Plumber who is looking to buy the business he works for” just doesn’t bloody happen. I work in a restaurant and make under eight dollars an hour, as do all my coworkers, and to open ONE Panera Bread, you have to have 3 million in liquid capital, and proof you can and will open at least 3 locations. In case you don’t know, “liquid capital” means “money you can wipe with, or shred for giggles” as in CASH.
Truth is though, I’m just happy I don’t have to get Obama or McCain to do for me. One of the best things about listening to God speak is that you can hear Him tell you that there is so much more than our little country, government, or lives.
Eamon
Dreams
So I’ve been having some strange dreams lately. Most unsettleting, my wife has stopped being vegetarian.
Let me explain.
I don’t know if there is a name for it, but when something happens in a dream of mine, it carries over to all my future dreams, until played out or affected. So if I fall and injure my knee and have a limp, tomorrow, I will dream of me with a limp, perhaps for a week or so until the limp goes away. Mae and I got married about 2 months early in my dream-world, I had long hair for a while(when I did not have long hair yet IRL).
But lately, she’s been more and more lackadaisical about her eating habits and last night, ate one of the most foul of meat-bearing creations, a piece of cold hamburger pizza. I do not think my dream world is at all real, because I do not have heavy interactions with people I would consider strangers in this one, but I do hold that it has meaning and purpose. I am just not sure what.
Opera has a Pandora Widget that is one of the most amazing things ever! Having Pandora on an iPhone or G1 is seriously cheating somehow–it’s like having a bazillion-gb memory capacity. One of the things that it’s shown me is that I am a big fan of Reggae, in the old-school Rasta fashion. And also am a fan of some genre of House music that I can’t pin down.
I wish my life had less loose ends. It makes me feel pressured.
Eamon
Word origin
There is an interesting word misusage that I am perplexed by. It’s really common to hear this phrase:
“James got beat up by a bunch of homophobes for wearing too much glitter.”
Homophobia.
We are led to believe that this means that James is homosexual, and those beating him up do not approve, and are so insecure that they hate homosexual people.
Homo - The same
Phobia - An irrational fear.
So if you are saying someone is “homophobic” it means they have an identical fear.
So now the sentence means, more than likely, that the group of guys are united by a fear of glitter. It really does bother me that words can be altered or created by common misuse.
Eamon
Don’t Stop Believing
Please watch the videos if you haven’t before, you will be impressed.
So some time ago, my then roomie Jarod showed me some Filipino kid named Arnel Pineda, who did a really good job covering a WIDE variety of acts, from Aerosmith to The Police. We joked around about his backing band, who was decent, but not stellar. This kid grew up without a mother and on the street, and dedicated his life to singing, because his mother had encouraged him to sing before she died. His videos on Youtube are pretty popular, and, sure enough, all the way around the world, someone took notice.
He’s now the lead singer for Journey, and performed in front of 25 million people on Chilean TV and countless internet viewers. Just goes to show that with a lifetime of dedication, you can do amazingly huge things, from forming Journey to joining Journey. I can’t help but think that it never would have happened without the global internet community, but without a global community geared toward interconnectedness, Arnel Pineda in the Phillipines would likely never have heard of Journey.
I’m considering switching to Linux. Like, for very serious. (Not so)Fond memories abound, however, of a friend of mine who used to interrupt or cancel potentially amazing evenings of Half-Life and Diablo II because he was ADAMANT that he would install Red Hat on one of his PCs. *sigh*…it never worked. While there is something to be said for nerdly techno-wrangling as a past-time, there is something to be said for “productivity”.
Sundays with the wife are the best. It’s good and important to really take the day off, not just skip out on work. Maybe I’ll convince her to watch the DVD I bought last night. *wink*
Eamon
Birthday!
Yesterday was my birthday, and my wife’s request was that I learn to enjoy my birthday as a special day. I didn’t have a lot of really special birthdays as a kid, and in her house, they were the most important occassion, which blows my mind since there are like 4 in rapid succession in June-July.
But I’m pretty happy about it, I got a metal egg slicer(which slices much more than eggs), new shoes, socks, amazing whole-grain-flour-chocolate-chip-pumpkin cakes, and Cameron took me to Al’s Hamburgers!
Best of all, the weather got colder!
I found out today that a coworker of mine is 7 weeks pregnant and when I was like,”Wow, that’s awesome!” she said,”No, it’s not, because my boyfriend and I broke up”. She immediately told me that her and her bf are not together, and she will be “having a baby alone”. Then, after about 5 minutes of her regurgitating her doctor’s medical excuses, she said that “it” doesn’t have a good chance of survival, so she’ll probably “just remove it”. I told her that there are far worse things than having a baby, and how frustrating it is for Mae and I to tell people we think we are having a baby and everyone says “oh, I’m sorry”.
Call me old fashioned for thinking my actions through, but if the majority of people are so opposed to anyone but wealthy yuppies having babies, then WHY ARE THEY ALL HAVING SEX WITH EACH OTHER?! It’s cause and effect! I enjoy driving, but don’t get mad or upset when I wind up at a new destination. I like it, but it has a purpose beyond “its fun”. Why don’t we have a pointless organ that is unrelated to sexual intercourse, but just blows our mind with endorphins and cosmic joy by rubbing it? BECAUSE IT SERVES NO PURPOSE! Sex is for bringing two people together to make children first and foremost.
I was born 2 weeks “late”. Odds are, I was right on time, but the a doctor’s wheel used to “determine” the date of conception and birth is very generalized guesswork, and akin to buying clothes for your friends and family assuming they are all exactly the same height, weight and shape. If people don’t believe in their children to thrive and succeed before they even have a gender or breath, how do they expect to believe in them when they are 21 years old? I will not hear “your baby isn’t strong enough”, “your baby probably won’t make it” or “your baby can’t birth itself”. I will trust my children will be strong and valuable, and always take their side, because I love them, even now, before they exist. I was born with my umbilical cord tied around my neck into a knot and did not cry, which had to have scared my mother quite a bit. I can’t help but think about how a 21 year old would think if they knew their single mom, who was on heavy steroids when conceiving, believed in the value of them enough to give them a chance. It’d be a lot better than being an accident or dead.
Eamon
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what kind of pants does sherlock holmes wear? Is a magnifying glass and a monacle over kill?
–Betsy
I think pants are secondary, really! Sherlock Holmes is distinguished by his short brown cloak, pipe, and hat! You could make a dog or tree look like Holmes if he has these three things.
Fall
The day has finally come where I can open all the windows in the apartment and turn off that bloody Air Conditioner, and when I turn it back on, it doesn’t switch on…good times!
Mae brought home a newspaper looking thing that’s called Free Market Foundation’s guide to the election. It’s kind of a judeo-christian company, so the democrats are too cool to talk to them, but it doesn’t provide a POV, it just lists candidates and their stands on major issues(if they know them for sure). But I can use InterNet to find out that stuff! It’s nice to have a comprehensive list of people to vote for. For those in Texas, DO NOT MISS THE DEBATE ON THURSDAY!!! PBS, IT’LL BE ALL THREE CANDIDATES FOR SENATOR!
Judging by what I read, Yvonne Schick looks amazing, I don’t care if she is a Scientologist. I’m not religiously biased. She either is or is doing a mighty fine job of looking like a Senatorial Ron Paul.
Our Representative is a Bush-loving Republican whose only positive trait is that he voted against the recent “Bailout” bill. His competitors are a libertarian nobody knows jack about(and doesn’t have a website), and an Evangelical Christian Democrat, which might make him some bastardized kind of moderate. His stand on Abortion is not on his website, probably for popularity reasons.
Eamon
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NEW QUESTION!
How important is it that peoples NOT of Faith wait till marriage?
What is the trend that you have noticed in this on-going debate?
–My lovely wife!
Well, this was the hardest question I’ve gotten so far. It was tough to find answers to your question, because what I’ve come up with, is that it isn’t. If people have NO religious reason to not have sex before marriage, they will simply take whatever measures they see fit to avoid the problems–using contraceptives, developing a strong sense of self-worth, (in some cases)monogamy, etc. But essentially if you provide kids(no matter when or where) too many religious restrictions/consequences, or too little, they will have sex with each other.
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