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6月29日 ?
4月2日 The Four Two"There was a terribly ghastly silence. There was a terribly ghastly noise. There was a terribly ghastly silence." -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, describing the destruction of the planet Earth. And so I'll post what is most likely the final post of Don't Panic. I've been working on a new website, and I've finally got it to a point where I can now keep a regular blog, among other things. I've used this service at Live Spaces for almost 3 years, but I've come to a point where I need to move on. Which brings us to: TheFourTwo.com It will essentially be the same as this Space was: a blog and place for me to store and share photos and other digital odds and ends. But it will also allow me to do other things that I couldn't normally do on Live Spaces. So I hope you'll still come by periodically and check out my blog at my new home. I will keep this Space and my Live account so I can stay in contact with all my Live Spaces contacts. If you have a link to my Live Space, I'd appreciate it if you updated it to http://www.thefourtwo.com ...thanks. So long, and thanks for all the fish. 3月13日 Know your bodyQuick quiz. Without looking, do you honestly think you could answer a series of questions about the back of your hand? How many wrinkles on the left main knuckle? Which way does the hair on your hand sit, from thumb to pinky or pinky to thumb...or wrist to fingers? Do you have any freckles on your hand? How many? Where are they?
Yes, how well do you know the back of your own hand? As the famous idiom goes...do you know the back of your hand "like the back of your hand"?
If you do know the back of your hand well...you deserve a handshake; you're keeping the dream alive. If not, like myself, then you'd agree with me when I say that it's a silly saying.
3月11日 And I RanI've got a number of different endurance based events already set up throughout the year. I've done the Disney World Half Marathon in January, and I'm ready for more. So here's what's lined up so far.
Urban Dare
May 24 - Tampa, FL
I'm probably most excited about this one. Think Amazing Race on a smaller scale. The following is from their website.
The teams are on foot, but can take public transportation if they want. I forsee we'll still be doing a lot of running. It reminded me of when we did our own kind of thing like this back in '06. My friend that set up that race, Michael, is the other member of my team. Our team name is Taco vs. Grilled Cheese (if you're wondering where such a name comes from, watch this movie). Both of us are pretty competitive, we've already started to strategize and plan for the race, trying to cover as many bases as possible. I think we may have a good chance to actually win or place.
Also, they hold these all over the country, so there may be one in your area. If you're interested, check out the website.
ING Philadelphia Distance Run
September 21 - Philadelphia, PA
I haven't signed up for this yet, but if I ran another half marathon this year, it would be this one. The only thing is that it's only a week away from another race that I've already signed up for, which simply means it will take some careful planning to work it all out.
2008 Expedition Everest Challenge
September 27 - Disney's Animal Kingdom, Orlando, FL
This is a brand new race they've added to the Disney endurance challenges. It's a combination of a 5k run, obstacle course and scavenger hunt through Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park. Like the Urban Dare, this is for teams of two. The event is held in the evening, at 7pm. What's cool about this is that after the race, they have a private after-party in the park (from 10pm to midnight) with food and refreshments, and some of the rides will be open. You also get a one-day pass to either Animal Kingdom or EPCOT.
Race for the Taste 10K
October 21 - EPCOT, Orlando, FL
An easy 10K run through Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios) and EPCOT, which finishes at EPCOT's International Food & Wine Festival. It's a great time to go to EPCOT (my favorite of the parks in Disney World), with special foods and drinks from around the world. I haven't been there in a while, so it'd be a nice chance to go with a group of friends...who I'm trying to recruit for the run.
So there it is. It should be an interesting year. 3月6日 WHA? > What happened??
Rock of Gibraltar, you've been professionally absent, Josh!
Just look at this place...cockroach turds everywhere, a thin layer of dust over everything, and the apples in that bag have turned into a single lump of dark brown "that's where those went!".
Let me explain my situation with an illustration. Think of moving into a new house, but not because you just want something bigger. You have to, because your old house has simply vanished. All your stuff, everything, is gone. This is what happened to my hard drive. No, it didn't disappear. It crashed without any hope of recovery. It went beyond not working correctly, it can't even be bothered to work just enough to retrieve and transfer my data. All my data, my music, work, pictures, anything I had solely on that hard drive is locked in it's uncompromising grasp. I'd been working on my website for a while...and poof, suddenly it's as if I never started it. But don't you have a backup hard drive? Of course not. I'm too busy being the only person in the world who doesn't have a backup hard drive to be bothered to go out and get a backup hard drive. I'm doing this for you. You know, Gallant would've never been that effective without Goofus. So anyways, my old HDD is now a brick and I finally got a new one after a few snags. So it's time to rebuild. I've got MP3s on my iPod and more music on CD...thankfully, many of my recent pictures are at flickr, in their full size (I knew I'd justify buying the pro service), and I've already started to get cracking on the website. It's good to be back. 1月30日 The best music video of all timeI'll keep the video posting kick going with this...the greatest music video ever made.
Here are some reasons why:
1. Everything acted out by kittens.
including:
- Kittens waking up at 10 am
- Kittens riding a train to town
- Kittens ghost riding the whip
- Homeless kittens
- Fake kitten arms exchanging small US currency for catnip
- Kitten hallucinations
2. Director not afraid to have a human hand in the video that's supposed to be only kittens (and other baby animals)
3. Exciting story
HitchHiker's Guide Entry> Kittens
200801.30 - A domestic juggernaut of pocket-sized winsomeness, the kitten enjoys its popularity while it is still young. Anything it does during these feline salad days is usually characterized by such adjectives as "cute", "adorable" or "wicked precious", and then immediately immortalized in a calendar or your mom's shirt.
The tragedy that every beloved kitten faces is adulthood. After some time, kittens skip puberty altogether and--seemingly overnight--turn from "ooh, a kitten", into "oh, a cat...I'm allergic to cats". Kitten owners have an animal that everybody loves and has a great time with. Most cat owners, though, have an animal that is now known for shedding hair all over your sofa and chairs and suits and dresses. With adulthood, a cat develops the ability to poop into sand chemically designed to hide odor, and have the aforementioned turd smell like it's right under your nose, perhaps resting on your upper lip.
Needless to say (but I'm going to say anyway), people usually like kittens more than they like cats, but you can't have one without the other...unless you just got a full grown cat. 1月23日 The Flight of the ConchordsI've just finished watching The Flight of the Conchords season 1 DVD.
At this point your reaction could go one of many ways. Here are a couple.
1. You not only have heard of Flight of the Conchords, you've already seen season 1 of their show as well as their live act and you're so hard core you've even seen their "other stuff" like Tongan Ninja. You already know how great the show is. High five.
2. The name sounds familiar. You're pretty sure you've seen some of their videos on YouTube. You may even be planning on renting or buying the DVD sometime soon. Do it. You know it'll be good.
3. You have little to no idea who they are, and you probably lost interest and started trying to remember the plotline to Flight of the Navigator. Well, a kid flies away in a UFO. There's some time travel involved.
I think that whichever reaction you had, you'll appreciate these videos. The videos show mostly music, but the show isn't all musical...in fact, there's usually only a couple songs in each episode. The duo writes their own music, and the lyrics are clever and very funny.
Enjoy.
and then this one:
This is the first song of Episode 1:
Here's some of their live stuff:
1月21日 13 miles and we're back where we started.It's nearing 6am and Mike (my brother) and I are walking up to our corral where we'll start the marathon from. We walk past thousands of people, some sitting down and stretching, some standing up and stretching, some peeing the woods. We're about right in the middle of the 12,000 participants of the 2008 Walt Disney World Half Marathon.
A couple minutes go by and the gun goes off and runners pour across the starting line. The entire line slowly moves forward; 18 minutes go by before we begin our run. Before I go any further, let's rewind 2 weeks. Aside from my regular running training, I'd been playing soccer every Saturday-- which I figured would also count for the amount of running involved during the games. Two weeks before the race, I sprained my ankle during a high-speed challenge for the ball. It felt OK the moment it happened, and I even finished the game, but later that night I wasn't able to put any weight on it.
I went to CVS the next day to pick up an ankle brace.
"Hey, man, are you OK?" says the guy at the counter.
No.
"Yeah, I'm alright...I just busted up my ankle playing soccer yesterday."
"Cause you don't look too good."
"Heh. It'll be OK." I say optimistically.
"Well, take it easy."
The brace and a little rest (had that Tues. off) had me walking with barely a limp by Thursday. I even played soccer again (cautiously) the next Saturday.
OK, so as I start the marathon, I'm thinking about my feet. Are these new shoes going to help prevent shin splints? Will I get blisters? How will my ankle hold up? Why did I bother asking that second question? Of course I'm going to get blisters. I had blisters by mile 3. I had set out to run 3, maybe 4 miles before I took a walking break for a few minutes, and getting the blisters just seemed to solidify that scenario. But beyond the blisters, I felt good, so I kept running. Mile 4, Mile 5, through the Magic Kingdom, through the enchanted castle, Mike and I are still running. We didn't actually slow our pace to a walk until after mile 7.
After we ran through the Magic Kingdom we started on the road back to EPCOT. Miles 9, 10 and 11 seemed to drag on, and by mile 12, my ankle started to go numb, so I walked until I got to the final mile at the entrance of EPCOT.
The track took us in the park and then back out, and as you round the corner and exit the park back onto the parking lot, you finish mile 13 and have only one tenth of a mile to the end. Seeing the Finish line felt so great. It makes you forget about everything else. My ankle was numb, my feet were cramping up, I felt like I stepped on a nail for each of the (about) 3000 steps I took during those last 10 miles. But you put all those aside and pick up the pace for the last stretch.
My goal (and Mike's) was 2 hours, 30 minutes. Mike finished in 2:28:13. I finished in 2:30:03.
One of the scariest moments of my run came at around mile 10, when I started to feel the onset of the dreaded "runner's nipple". It's painful to see and embarrassing to get. What happens is that as you run, the salt from your sweat can create friction with the fabric of your shirt. Enough of that friction leads to chafing and then bleeding. Thankfully, I didn't have any bleeding. I did see one poor guy that was bleeding pretty bad from his nipples. It was such a nasty sight to see, and I cringe in pain every time I think about it.
After everyone in our group (there were 6 of us in total) finished, we slowly walked back to our cars and headed back to our respective villas to clean up, and then headed back out for some wings and beer. We stopped by Downtown Disney for a bit, and then came back to our place to watch the Patriots beat the Jaguars. Top it all off with a few minutes in the hot tub and a good night's rest, and I'm good to go for the next marathon...which probably won't be until September...so I suppose I had plenty of time to rest up.
Here's the rest of my marathon numbers:
1月17日 Blisters vs. Shin splintsGASP! What's this? An update?
Yes. It's been a while. I've been diverting all of my allocated blogging/online free time effort into figuring out Wordpress and trying to make my own design from scratch (which is proving to be a little difficult to implement as I'm new to php). But I've had much going on elsewhere as well, so I figure I'd take a break from coding and troubleshooting and actually do something that shows I've done something.
Now that we've got that introductory tangent out of the way, let's get to the subject at hand -- addressed in the theme: blisters vs. shin splints
Those were the contenders in my mind on Friday night. Last Saturday (Jan 12) was the half marathon. I had a pair of shoes that I use for running, but they weren't the greatest running shoes. I had been getting shin splints from running in them (as well as from soccer...but we'll get to that in another post). So I was thinking about picking up a pair of running shoes with proper support. I leaned toward not getting them and going with the ones I already had, and so I left for Orlando ready to take on my shin splints.
 We got up to Orlando (Lake Buena Vista, actually...but it's easier to just go with Orlando) by the afternoon, and headed to the Wide World of Sports complex to register for the marathon. There were about 12,000 people registering for the 1/2 marathon, and most of them seemed to be in the line I was supposed to be in at the time I was there. Meanwhile, my brother's line had about 6 people and his wife's had fewer than that. Instantly impatient, I asked my sister-in-law to see if they could take my registration at one of the less busy registration booths. I got a thumbs up (as vocal confirmation at that distance is hardly possible), and I immediately spared my life from another hour or so of waiting in line. After we were all registered, we went to the expo going on in the same building. There were a decent amount of vendors there, and I did a quick lap around to get whatever free stuff I could get. Right in the middle of everything were several vendors selling running gear and, more importantly, shoes. So the battle raged on as blisters (new shoes!) arose from the grave with renewed vigor and excitement. I tried on a pair of Brooks that felt immediately good on my shins. The expo pricing was cheaper than normal, and so with that I chose blisters as my racing partner for the next day.I'll save the details of the marathon for another post. Maybe later on today or tomorrow (Fri). 12月20日 MetamorphosisI'm beginning this post with a hitchhiker's guide entry, for dramatic effect.
HitchHiker's Guide Entry> Metamorphosis 200712.20 - Defined as follows: Example: Butterfly. ...Before a butterfly is ever a butterfly as we know it, it goes through several stages of life before realizing how great it is to be a butterfly. Entering visible existence as an egg, this stage is rather insignificant and usually overlooked by most living organisms and always ignored by non-living organisms. Emerging from the egg is a caterpillar, at which point it begins eating. The caterpillar so enjoys this newly-learned ability that it continues to eat for a few weeks. Having eaten far too much, the caterpillar pauses to loosen its belt and maybe even unbutton its pants for comfort. Lethargic with food, the future butterfly decides a nap will do it well. To assure an uninterrupted sleep, the caterpillar spins a cocoon around itself and promptly nods off. Due to the lack of alarm clocks in the butterfly world, our subject remains in this pupa stage for another week or so. It wakes up and and comes out to a good news/bad news scenario. The good news: it now has large, colorful wings and no longer looks like a grub. It also no longer has to pay a penalty to rent a car. The bad news: It spent half it's life crawling around, eating salad and sleeping. At which point it immediately flies off, completely unaware of the potential havoc it could wreak with a simple flap of its wings.
When it comes to computer hardware, metamorphosis is never as beautiful. It's usually backwards in comparison to the process of the butterfly. I woke up Monday to find my butterfly of a hard drive had rolled itself up and proceeded to eat its own wings off. In other illustrative words, it went from an intricate piece of machinery to a brick. We (and by we I mean my friends who actually know a thing or two about fixing computers and hardware and stuff, of which I do not include myself) are working on a few things to recover the data off of it, but with no success so far. I'm starting to come to terms with the loss of data...pictures, music, artwork, an excel worksheet that I custom made to keep track of my budget, all my editable files for my websites and other work. Oh, for crap's sake! But, as is my custom, I am not panicking. I still have access to a computer and the internet from my house (as evident by my ability to write this post). I just do not look forward to getting a new hard drive (and an external backup while I'm at it), installing XP + SP2, installing all the other stuff (office, CS3, drivers...). Oh well. So they say things happen in threes. I don't recall this being something I've ever confirmed in my own experience, so I can't say how much there is to that statement. If it is true, this would be my 2nd of 3. The first was my iPod (which is back to normal). So I worry what #3 would be..the red ring of death on my XBox? My left arm falls asleep and never wakes up? My icemaker in my fridge goes crazy...oh wait. My icemaker already does that. Great. 12月13日 Something to sneeze at.We are all too familiar with the process. When it happens, it's as if our head is putting on a street performance and all other parts of our body take notice and crowd around to see what's going on. Yes, a sneeze has the amazing ability to stop all other activity while our head performs a delicate dance of muscle contractions and saliva spraying. And there's usually an encore. Sometimes more. If we do enough repeat performances, other entire bodies take notice and stop to watch. I'm sure if you got past 10 people would actually start chanting and clapping with each successive sneeze.
After our fit of spit and whatever other particles and liquid we've unconsciously felt we needed to shake around in our bodies has come to a close and we successfully gathered ourselves together, we're usually presented with a seemingly instinctive "bless you" or some variation. What does this mean? Does a mostly involuntary function of our bodies really put us in line for some type of religious consecration?
Let's look at a few of the explanations dealing with the origin of "bless you" to see if we can find some understanding to this reactionary reply.
Many people will point to Pope Gregory I as the original "Bless you" sayer. In an effort to combat the Black Plague that was going around at the time, he encouraged an increase of prayer and chanting. Sneezing was thought to be an early sign of one's having the plague, so saying "God bless you" was a way to prevent the plague from progressing.
Your heart stops temporarily when you sneeze. This untruth (the heart might skip a beat at best) has been compounded with a couple different extensions. One is that saying "bless you" allows your heart to start back up; another goes with the belief that your heart already returns to normal and saying "bless you" is merely confirmation that you have been blessed by having your heart start beating again. Another states that this stoppage of heart allows time for the Devil to enter. Apparently, it's much easier for Satan to enter into a temporarily stopped heart than one beating normally. An audible "bless you" seems to be enough to stop this powerful spirit creature, thankfully.
Some say that when you sneeze, your "soul" leaves your body. "Bless you" ensures the safe return of said "soul". Hopefully it hasn't gotten too far that it forgets which body it was fired out from.
A similar explanation says that the sneeze expels an evil spirit living inside you. Telling a sneezer "Bless you" would prevent that now homeless parasitic demon from re-entering their body.
Another suggestion is that a sneeze is a good omen that God will answer your prayers. Saying "bless you" in this sense is simply a way of making sure the sneezer gets his blessing.
The fact of the matter is this: There is no clear evidence that gives us a solid explanation as to why people say "bless you". The earliest writings that talked about sneezing and blessings never got into any detail as to why "bless you" is said. What we can conclude is that it wasn't important enough to be documented. Following this line of logic, we can rightfully conclude that the proposed origins/explanations are unfounded and not at all true. I mean, stoppage of the heart and dealings with angels and demons and former angels would seem to be pretty serious.
So from what we've learned, saying "bless you" after somebody sneezes is likely nothing more than a superstitious ritual disguised as politeness. People are raised to say "thank you" and "please" and "your welcome", as well as "bless you". Do you say "bless you" or some variant? Why do you do it? Perhaps it's because you've always done that and that's how you were raised. Or it just seems to be the polite thing to do. Either way, I'm going to safely assume most people aren't seriously thinking about saving your "soul" or preventing the plague or restarting your heart. The response is as involuntary as the sneeze nowadays.
How did something so questionably superstitious and mysterious work it's way into the category of manners? We all know there are no pieces of our soul flying out of our noses. We all know a sneeze isn't Phase 1 of the Black Plague. And we all know that saying "bless you" does nothing but merely acknowledge a sneezer's existence.
I don't say "bless you" when someone sneezes. I say nothing. I've gotten looks from sneezers for my silence. As if I'm the one dropping the ball there. Joe Schmo breathes a bunch of dust and tiny particles through his nasal passage, causing a chain reaction which results in him emitting a violent spray of tiny droplets from his face. I just can't see how it is polite to ask for God's blessing on such activity. What is said when someone coughs? Nothing. Why don't we do it for other bodily functions? Let's make a grain offering every time somebody's stomach growls! Hiccups? Blinking? Muscle spasm? Why can't we turn these things into causes for obligatory response?
My point is, even though most people will acknowledge the superstitions behind saying "bless you", continuing to say it under the guise of politeness is still too much. Reacting to something like that with a statement (which we have little idea of the origin of) only shows our ability at simple recognition and response. A robot could do that. There's other, more fitting ways to show we're polite. Break the mold and show you're a logical, reasoning person who isn't controlled by silly superstitions-- next time someone sneezes, and you honestly don't believe their life is in danger lest you utter the magic holy words, say nothing.
12月2日 Na Na Nana Nana Nana....Batman!
Throughout the years of the past 2 decades, Batman has been the focus of six movies. The first Batman (simply called 'Batman') was pretty good. Michael Keaton had a good Batman face. The sequel (Batman Returns) wasn't too bad, either, but you could tell it was starting to lose that Batman feeling. Christopher Walken riding on a duck with Danny Devito? Make a face that shows approval with a hint of skepticism, that's me.
OK, Tim Burton got a little carried away, so they bring in another director (or something like that, one way or another, Burton out, Joel Schumacher in). New director, new Batman (Batman Forever): Val Kilmer (but Alfred stays). Throw in some good ingredients: Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey,
You're slipping Batman...
"People like George Clooney from that doctor show, let's make him the next Batman" (Batman & Robin).
They managed to make this one worse than the one prior. The funny thing about this is that the character Bane is in this one. In the comic book, Bane paralyzes Batman by breaking his back. This movie did the same thing for the Batman movie franchise. To try and recover and continue the story would be futile.
So the Batman franchise lay dormant for about 8 years. And then, Batman Begins. "Oh, here we go again...what is this, a prequel? Good grief."
But wait. This one was good. And not just *not as bad the other ones* good. Not just *not painful to watch*. It was entertaining. A lot of people I know liked it, most of them said that was the best Batman movie of them all. They rightfully ignored any preexisting storyline that might have survived the disaster of the last couple movies. They scrapped the whole thing and just started from scratch. Everything is new, including Alfred (No! Oh, but it's Michael Caine... Oh...well, yeah, that's awesome).
The end of Batman Begins hinted toward another movie at some point in the future. That point comes in July 2008 with The Dark Knight. There's a few trailers and stuff out there at the moment, and here's an article with a behind-the-scenes video to whet your appetite. Be forewarned, the excellent journalists of the Today show use a fake, fanmade Joker picture [this is the real Joker]. Oh, and I'm pretty sure Al Roker is gay. 11月30日 December - National Blog Recovery Month 30 blogs in 30 days!...although I'm going to have to keep going another week to be able to honestly say I did it. I've got a couple more left in me, so I'm gonna go for it. After that I'll be able to fully focus on the new Blog. I'm familiarizing myself with Wordpress, so once I get the*******.com (it's a mystery) up and running, I'd be glad to help out those who are looking to start their own Wordpress blog. 11月29日 Good as new-ishAfter tireless hours in an attempt to revive my iPod, Chuck & Mike were successful. And with minimal loss of blood. Thanks, guys!
The last couple days have been quiet, but today my ears were filled with the renewed life of my old iPod, good times indeed.
Unrelated random link: Download the dragon. Print it out, and put it together. Stare at it as you bob and sway back and forth, freaking yourself out. BetamorphosisWindows Live Spaces has been very good to me. I was able to start and keep an active blog with photo albums, music, lists, and a variety of other bells and whistles. My space has grown as they have. I'm thankful for all that they've automated to make their users look good. One can take advantage of these liberties they grant us and make a nice-looking, well-rounded site, as I've seen in so many Live Spaces out there.
But in some areas, it just wasn't enough. *Only comments from users with a Live ID or MSN Passport* *HTML is allowed, but many tags are not* *CSS styles are difficult to incorporate* It seems that while the box they gave us was fun and all, there was no room to venture outside the box. Perhaps that's for the best, though. When you look at sites that offer some way to attain quite a bit of freedom, like MySpace, you may end up with some nicely done spaces, but you also end up with loads more users that completely turn their Space into a digital eyesore. So I suppose the limits placed are for the greater good.
But I know how to design a website. I know how to write a style sheet to carry the design throughout the site. So I'm expanding my boundries. I've set up a website where the bulk of my blog-related activity will be carried out. Right now, I'm still in the design/set-up process with the blog software. While I will miss the convenience of Live Spaces, it will be nice to have full control over the design elements and everything else.
Is this the end of Don't Panic? No. Not for now. I hope to keep this going, if just to have a Live ID to comment with and all that. Hopefully I'll be able to automate the blogging part on this Space through an RSS feed. So there will be no goodbyes, this is not the end. I'll still be around, like usual, and if the whole thing goes in the crapper I'll be back in full force. 11月27日 Alas, poor iPod. I knew him, Horatio.A device of infinite entertainment, of most excellent fancy. It hath bore me on its shiny back a thousand times, and now how abhorr'd in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it.
My trusty iPod has stopped working. It's not completely dead, though, as the above quote might suggest (picture myself speaking to a lifeless piece of my iPod). Think of it like a coma. One day it just stopped working and never recovered since.
But there is hope! As it used to say comfortingly at the top of the one-color display: DON'T PANIC. I have the best iPod specialists in the area working on it as we speak, so I feel it's in good hands. If they get it working again, I'll be very happy (I was sure it was a goner). But if not, I've had it for a few years, and it was good while it lasted. I'll hopefully be able to retrieve whatever I can from it and move on. 11月26日 One week leftWith only a few days left I'll take some time to collect myself as a kind of review of things that've gone down during this month. Looking back, the month has gone by so quick (it also helped that I started late...), but so much has happened in that short time.
All the great new TV shows are slowly dropping off of the radar thanks to the strike.
I've finally gotten all the pictures from the camping trip organized, on this space and more extensively on Flickr. I've even started making stuff with some of the pictures.
Marathon training is going well. My last run was 3 miles and I kept a run/jog pace for practically the entire 3 miles. I've also been playing soccer every week, which has me running for a good distance up and down the field.
I've been extra careful around the elderly. I still hate pennies & love Rock Band.
While I wait for the cold weather to return (it is getting a little cooler here), I installed Corel Painter 9 on my computer and started painting.
Well, I'd better wrap this up before midnight lest the fairy godmother of blogging crashes through my window and pummels me into a bruised and puffy-faced mess. 11月25日 Utopie. Desir. Ame.I've gotten quite a few shirts from Threadless.
 Les tilleuls sentent bon dans les bons soirs de juin!
L'air est parfois si doux, qu'on ferme la paupière; Le vent chargé de bruits, – la ville n'est pas loin, – A des parfums de vigne et des parfums de bière... (Rimbaud) The lime blossoms smell so good in the good evening of June! The air is sometimes so sweet, you close your eyes The wind is full of sounds - the city is not far - Perfumes of grape-vine and beer Nous tissons notre destin, nous le tirons de nous comme l'araignée sa toile. We weave our destiny, we pull it out of us like the spider its web. la mort c'est le meilleur moment de la vie c'est pour cela qu'il est préférable de la garder pour la fin. Death is the best moment in life and that's why it's better to keep it for the end. "Le Temps nous égare Le Temps nous étreint Le Temps nous est gare Le Temps nous est train. " (Jacques Prévert) The Time is mislaying us. The Time is hugging us. The Time is is a railway station. The Time is a train. (that's a word play, étreint/est train & égare/ est gare) Les hommes sont comme les plantes, qui ne croissent jamais heureusementsi elles ne sont bien cultivées. (Montesquieu) Men are like plants, they never grow unless they are cultivated. Ce n'est pas le cerveau qui génère la pensée, mais c'est bien la pensée qui génère le cerveau. It's not the brain that generates thoughts but thoughts that generate the brain. Mais les belles âmes, ce sont les âmes universelles, ouvertes et prêtes à tout, si non instruites, au moins instruisables But the beautiful souls are the universal souls open and ready to anything, instructed or at least that can be instructed. On dit que le désir naît de la volonté, c'est le contraire, c'est du désir que naît la volonté. Le désir est fils de l'organisation. (Diderot) They say that desire comes from will, it's the contrary, it's from desire that comes will. Desire is the son of organisation. Celui qui n'a rien désire peu de choses ; celui qui ne commande à personne a peu d'ambition. Mais le superflu éveille la convoitise : plus on obtient, plus on désire. (Rousseau) The one that has nothing desires nothing; the one that commands to nobody has no ambition. But the superfluous wakes greed: the more you get, the more you want. L'oubli est un puissant instrument d'adaptation à la réalité parce qu'il détruit peu à peu en nous le passé survivant qui est en constante contradiction avec elle. (Proust) Oblivion is a powerful tool of adpation to reality because it destroys little by little the surviving past in us that is constanly in contradiction with it (oblivion). Les grands crimes n'ont guère été commis que par de célèbres ignorants. Ce qui fait et fera toujours de ce monde une vallée de larmes, c'est l'insatiable cupidité et l'indomptable orgueil des hommes, depuis Thamas-Kouli-Kan qui ne savait pas lire, jusqu'à un commis de la douane qui ne sait que chiffrer. (Voltaire) The big crimes have been committed by well known ignorant ones. What makes and will always make of this world a valley of tears is the consuming greed and the indomitable pride of men, since Thamas-Kouli-Kan who didn't know how to read and until a chef's assistant (sort of...) who only knew his numbers. Les lettres nourrissent l'âme, la rectifient, la consolent (Voltaire) Letters (books, literacy) feed the soul, correct it and comfort it. Utopie Desir Ame Utopia. Desire. Soul Le superflu, chose trés nécessaire The superfluous, something very necessary. Etre riche, c'est savoir se contenter de ce que l'on a. Being rich is knowing to be happy with what you want. Croire à l'existence d'un fait imaginaire engendre des chimères. Entretenir des chimères provoque des utopies Believing in an imaginary thing creates chimeras. Keeping chimeras causes utopias. Ce qui se concoit bien, s'énonce clairement. That is well invented (or, thought) is well told. La vraie beauté est si particuliére qu'on ne la reconnait pas pour la beauté. Real beauty is so special that it is not recognized as beauty. A pére avare, fils prodigue. Stingy father makes a prodigal son. Je notais l'inexprimable. je fixais des vertiges. I looked at inexpressible. I was staring at vertigos (dizzy heights?) L'art se dessine à travers le regard. Art is created through a look (eyes). L'homme d'honneur n'a pas de remparts aussi sûrs qu'une âme sans remords et qu'un coeur toujours pûr. The man of honor doesn't have a safer fortification (protection) than a soul with remorses and a heart always pure. Aimer, écrire sont les seuls remparts que j'aie trouvés contre l'omniprésence de la mort, de la dépression. To love, to write are the only protections I found against the omnipresence of death and depression. Dans un monde idéal, l'Humanité n'existerait pas. In an ideal world, Humanity wouldn't exist. On a fait l'Amour aveugle car il n'y a pas de meilleurs yeux que nous. (Rousseau) We made Love blind because there are no better eyes than ours. 11月24日 A letter to Cold WeatherDear Cold,
Sorry to see you leave so soon, I was really enjoying your company. I really wish you would stay for longer than you do, it seems like each year your visits get shorter and less frequent. I know you have lots of work and stuff to do up north, but doesn't Freezing pick up the pace this time of year up there? I know how you don't get along well with Heat or Humidity, but those guys can be so tiring sometimes, I really would prefer your company. Now that you've gone Heat has come back and made me turn my A/C on again...and if you don't come back soon, Humidity is bound to come back for the winter.
How about this, you take a few months off, you need a break anyways. Come down to Florida will Cool until February, you can head back up then, and Cool will stick around for another month or so. You know you like it down here...sure all the old people yell at you for hurting their joints, but you don't have let that get you down. Plus, you'll have the beaches all to yourself.
Just think about it, OK? I miss you already.
Josh
(Made with Corel Painter IX) A stolen surveyAs the title declares, I stole a survey. In the sense that I, without asking permission, took a survey off of someone else's Space and used it for my own personal blogging venture.
GASP!
Anyways, the survey is very Australian...
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