Posts (page 2)
The Bonkers Institute for Nearly Genuine Research.
This is just too fucking funny to pass up. The site's motto is to work towards "advancing in the general direction of bona fide science since last Tuesday." Some of the fascinating, heavily-researched articles include Addictive Properties of Shiitake Sesame Vinaigrette, Science made Simple: Shopper's Guide to Mental Disorders (brought to you by the makers of Abilify, Adderall, Celexa, Concerta, Cymbalta, Daytrana, Depakote, Effexor, etc.). Oh, and let's not forget the all important Therapeutic Efficacy of Cash in the Treatment of Anxiety and Depressive
Disorders, featuring a case study of how winning the lottery cured the patient's depression. The guy behind the site has a serious beef with pharmaceutical profiteering. Party on, dude!
Drove out to Road America last weekend to watch some AMA Superbike Racing. Had a fun, if very wet time. I'll post details and pics later, bu the season has officially begun. I'm riding the bicycle and the motorcycle and loving most of it.
I saw the movie Ghost Rider on cable tonight. Overall the movie was nothing to write home about. Mediocre, predictable script, stuffy acting, etc. The two big standouts were the production design, which was excellent, and Eva Mendes' breasts, which were amazing. In every scene she appaers in, whether it's day or night, she's wearing something tight and low cut, scientifically designed to show her incredibly perky, anti-gravity busom off to best effect. I could NOT stop staring at her tits the entire movie, and I'm normally not that kind of guy. It just became physically impossible to look away. I felt entrapped by the rapture of her mamalian protruberances. Held hostage against my will to those suclient symbols of female fertility and vivaciousness. I could continue to wax poetic on the subject, but it's late and my Ambien's starting to kick in, which makes me dangerous.
P.S. The movie also had one of my favorite character acters, Sam "Do you want to drive, or do you want to shoot?" Elliot. He pretty much always plays the the same character, but he does it SO well. I love the man.
I don't understand some of these extremists. I'm not talking about anyone in the Middle East, but rather our own home-grown extremists -- the Hillary supporters flooding the DNC rules committee meeting Saturday. When they didn't get their way (full votes at the convention for Michigan and Florida delegates) they started jeering and taunting the committee members, and yelling "McCain in '08!"
What exactly is it about Hillary that they love SO much that is not transferable to another candidate? Especially one from the same party, whose stances are largely not that different from hers? To rephrase an old quote, the other candidate is the loyal opposition. Republicans are the real enemy. How could they think about voting for the enemy over the loyal opposition?
You are passionate about your candidate and really want her to win. Ok, I get that. In 1980, I was eligible to vote in my first presidential election. I was in college at the time and very passionate about my beliefs. John Anderson, the former Congressman from Illinois who ran in that election as an Independent, was the "artist in residence" at my dorm for a couple of weeks. I found him to be very open, engaging, and developed quite a respect for him. I was encouraging my friends to vote for him, until I finally realized that there was no way he could win and I would be throwing my vote away. So I changed my mind and ultimately voted for Jimmy Carter. Why aren't Hillary supporters able to make that transition to Obama?
People are maddingly inconsistent. I was looking through my iTunes genres, most of which were either automatically generated when I ripped the album, or generated by someone else when I "found" the music somewhere on the Internets. What exactly is the difference between rock, rock & roll, rock/roll, and rock/pop? And speaking of iTunes & iPod (or is it iTunes/iPod?), why are genres case sensitive? When I browse by genres I see Rock separate from rock, and Alternative separate from alternative. Not to mention alternative rock and alt/rock. Isn't this just splitting hairs?
P.S. While I'm dissing iTunes, why can't you change the naming format when it rips songs? Why does it have to be "# track name"? Even Windows Media Player lets you pick any combination of artist, track number, track name, album name, AND you can specify the delimiter -- dash, space, etc. Way for Microsoft to have one up on Apple.
Took the bicycle out today for only the second or third time this year. Trying to be careful of my delate knees, I kept the pace in the mid 14teens for only six or so files, but I really fealt food to bo bck out there on the road. LIke i own it. It was fun. Wheeeeeeee! Yipppeee!@!@!@!!!!@#.. Spreak your awms out and banarhatic
The Health Guide section of NY Times recently had a good piece on ADD/ADHD. It's a series of short audio interviews with a wide range of people with ADD or ADHD -- children, adults, even a Ph.D. who wrote a book on coping strategies. I'm always fascinated to hear other people describe symptoms and feelings that I thought were unique to me. One person describes it as your mind being a wall of televisions and you don't have control of the remote. That's very close to how I feel most of the time. I can't stop my mind from going at a million miles per hour. There's always something, either a song running through my head (often one I hate -- those are always the ones I seem to get stuck with), or I'm telling myself a story, or envisioning something I'd like to post about and trying to come up with more than just a topic sentence, or replaying some event from my past over and over trying to extract some new meanings. This is why I have trouble sleeping at night. Even when I'm not taking my puppy uppers, I may be tired but have a hard time falling asleep, and then staying asleep.
Also noteworthy to me is the story of a 12-year-old from New Orleans, who discussed how being on stimulants hurt his creativity at school. This is a side effect that I wasn't previously aware of.
The weather has been glorious here the last couple of days. This means I've spent them indoors in a depressive funk watching lots of movies and being as lazy as the cats (the same ones who need 20+ hours of sleep per day).
Watched Snow Cake, an excellent but somewhat moody and depressing drama with Alan Rickman (who I love), Sigourney Weaver, and Carrie-Anne Moss. Rickman is a troubled man involved in a fatal car accident. Wanting to apologize and make sense of the accident, he visits the victim's mother (Weaver), a high-functioning autistic woman who lives alone in a very small Canadian town. She convinces him to stay until Tuesday to take out the garbage (you have to see the movie to understand that) and they develop a strong friendship. As he does with the attractive neighbor, Moss. Weaver does an impressive job as an autistic person -- she has the awkward facial expressions, the walk, and the child-like enthusiasm for life all down perfectly.
Separately, my friend Greg & family are in town this weekend. A group of about ten friends & family went out to dinner last night, and half the group stayed up drinking till after 1 am. Thank God I took half a puppy-upper in the afternoon or I never would have made it. One of the guys there was talking about his time living in Italy a few years ago, how he sat at a cafe somewhere in a small town, having a simple lunch of bread and cheese with the locals, and what a wonderful experience it was. His point was that this is what's really important in life--friends, and a little good food--not what kind of car you drive, or how much money you make, etc. His point is valid, but I found it a little hollow coming from a high-paid business consultant who is in the middle of building a multi-million dollar home in a trendy area of the city. It's easy to say that when you can have all the good things in life, including expensive cars and houses. I would be more convinced coming from a construction worker or busboy; someone with less means.
I am SO in love with Holly Hunter right now. I got Living Out Loud this evening from Netflix and the movie rocks. She always plays strong, outspoken characters -- Home for the Holidays, The Incredibles, even the mom in Thirteen. She's the person in the room who says what everyone else is thinking, but too afraid to say. And says it with flair and a certain je ne sais quoi. Her late night conversations with costar Danny DeVito are refreshingly honest and straightforward. No bullshit. No game playing. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Or more importantly, say what you're feeling. Good, bad, or otherwise.
There's a great scene where she runs into her soon-to-be-ex husband and his new (younger) girlfriend in the lobby of a building. The other woman comes up to her and gives her the "I'm sorry it happened this way, I didn't mean to hurt you, I'm not a home wrecker" speech. Holly's deadpan response: "Gee, you sound wonderful. Can I fuck you?"
That's what the movie is all about -- dialog between a small cast of characters. The scenes create a strong emotional response. Longing, heartache, a little laughter, and an honest look at some happy and unhappy relationships. All set in New York, of course.
Then there's the encounter with an agreeable masseuse (an encounter that's just about perfectly written and acted). She peels off her robe, displaying all of her perfectly-proportioned body to the camera. Not only does she have a great ass, the woman has great shoulders! I love her deltoids, strange as that may sound. She was 40 when the movie was released about 10 years ago, but has the body of someone half her age. Such incredible talent and beauty all wrapped up in one tiny little package.
Thank you for indulging my little rant this evening. But seriously -- see the movie if you haven't already.
This sucks. I should be in bed. I'm tired, and tired of being tired (tired of being admired? Let's face it -- I'm pooped). But somehow I seem to be unable to make the concession to sleep. Going to sleep is admitting that the day is over, and I've done nothing useful all day. I should try to be productive; work toward the goals of getting more money (i.e., actually billing some of my clients), or a cleaner house. But all I can manage to do is randomly wander the Internets, clicking from site to site, consuming everything yet producing nothing in return. My attention wanders, like an ADD-infested rat on Ritalin. Quickly jerking from one idea to the next, to yet another, than back to the first again for a few more minutes. Then repeat three or four times.
I'm tired, but not sleepy. There are plenty of stories about people who get bursts of energy in the middle of the night and will go on binge projects -- clean their entire house, write a book, or create a masterful work of art in one sitting. I want to be one of those people. To wake up Wife at 6 am, dreary yet elated from the stupendous results of my project. Babe, look what I did while you were busy sleeping! The place is gorgeous! The painting is a masterpiece. The pottery...well, I don't have a wheel in the house. Just way more imagination than sense.
As yet another manifestation of my depression, I bought a new computer. I've been planning on buying around this time anyway; waiting for a certain conflux of technologicial events -- Intel's Penryn family of CPUs to become affordable and Vista Service Pack 1. Well, they're out now, so with much trepedation I bent over, picked up the phone, and called Dell. Approximately $2,500 later I have one brand, spanking (that always sounds so kinky) new Dell XPS 420. Four gigs of RAM, E8500 CPU @ 3.16G, 2 x 500G hard drives, nVidia 8800GT 512M video card, and yes, two monitors. I went nuts and got the 24" with adjustible stand, and every video/audio input the guys at the factory could come up with. Next to it is my "old" 17" digital, fully-adjustable LCD screen so I've got my two monitor honey pie. I'm going to keep it for six years, just like my previous ones, so it's not as outlandish as it may seem.
But all this system is is a giant enabler. Letting; nay, helping me multitask, making it very simple for me to do a bit of A, then on to a bit of B, then some of C, and finally back to A. But Just for a minute, because B and C are still calling for me. Having a new computer let's me run 30 IE windows, Outlook, 10 Firefox tabs, iTunes, and a mapping program all at once, each working on a different project. It's just amazing (I know I keep coming back to that word, but I can't think of anything more appropriate right now). Technology as an enabler. Who woulda thunk?
