Monday, August 25, 2008
5 years?
J last night asked me where I wanted to be in 5 years. August 25, 2013.
I said something about owning a motorcycle. I suppose I'll be working somewhere. That's it. That's as far as I got.
Disappointed with myself I reflected on it some more this morning. I want to help Mother Earth and future generations. I really want to do as much as I can. Right now I recycle and use those compact fluorescent bulbs and try and shop locally as much as possible. But there is so much more. The motorcycle will help with using less gas. I would love to collect rainwater for my larger garden. I know it's a lofty goal but I would love a LEED certified house or at least a very energy efficient house (south facing windows and a few skylights would really help). We both want to travel. So many plans and good intentions and then it all came crashing back to the present and right fucking now. I need to write. I need to graduate. I need to get a job. I need to lose weight (probably). Sure these plans will be possible if I don't graduate and just stop writing, but they'll be much easier if I keep on keeping on, finish writing, get my advanced degree and find a job. Maybe even a green collar job so I can help the planet at home and at work.
So in that vein of thought.....back to writing!
I said something about owning a motorcycle. I suppose I'll be working somewhere. That's it. That's as far as I got.
Disappointed with myself I reflected on it some more this morning. I want to help Mother Earth and future generations. I really want to do as much as I can. Right now I recycle and use those compact fluorescent bulbs and try and shop locally as much as possible. But there is so much more. The motorcycle will help with using less gas. I would love to collect rainwater for my larger garden. I know it's a lofty goal but I would love a LEED certified house or at least a very energy efficient house (south facing windows and a few skylights would really help). We both want to travel. So many plans and good intentions and then it all came crashing back to the present and right fucking now. I need to write. I need to graduate. I need to get a job. I need to lose weight (probably). Sure these plans will be possible if I don't graduate and just stop writing, but they'll be much easier if I keep on keeping on, finish writing, get my advanced degree and find a job. Maybe even a green collar job so I can help the planet at home and at work.
So in that vein of thought.....back to writing!
Labels: environment, future, motorcycle, writing
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Congrats to Princess of Power on 1000 posts!
The Princess of Power hit 1,000 posts the other day. Drop by and say congrats! You could even offer her a book deal if you wanted, like Stephen Dublanica aka The Waiter from Waiter Rant. Slashfood article with pic.
On a break from writing, I stumbled upon ecomodder.com and more specifically, this thread about a hypermileage Honda Civic. Pretty awesome. Sure it looks a tad weird but he's laughing all the way to the gas pump and hopefully speeding up car design to boot. As I've mentioned before, I love the future (or the idea of it at least) and am somewhat of a amateur futurist. Ever since I saw Luigi Colani's biodesigned cars on a Discovery channel program, I knew this is how cars should and hopefully will look. They're so curvy, sexy and aerodynamic. It combines my love of cars with my love of metals and chemicals into a rolling work of art. The Discovery channel blew my mind previous to that with Jesse James' shows, Motorcycle Mania, which met up with Jesse as he pounded and worked aluminum into a smooth curved shape and (it can be argued) revitalized the entire metal working and custom motorcycle scene. He wasn't the first and he won't be the last but his reasons and passion were so pure and untainted. The third show detailed how he made chopper mostly out of copper. It was gorgeous and the best part about copper is it starts shiny and then oxidizes and the color gets so much more intricate. Chemistry, art and physics all rolled into one.
I don't have the time or space right now, but I think a handmade super aerodynamic car, and lightweight of course, would be a really fun and environmentally friendly project, assuming I reused metal. Not even sure if that's possible, but I would love to give it a go. Sure fiberglass is easier to mold but isn't nearly as cool. Seeing how I have roughly zero experience with metal work, it might take a while. So, for now, plastic and Al sheets might have to suffice
On a break from writing, I stumbled upon ecomodder.com and more specifically, this thread about a hypermileage Honda Civic. Pretty awesome. Sure it looks a tad weird but he's laughing all the way to the gas pump and hopefully speeding up car design to boot. As I've mentioned before, I love the future (or the idea of it at least) and am somewhat of a amateur futurist. Ever since I saw Luigi Colani's biodesigned cars on a Discovery channel program, I knew this is how cars should and hopefully will look. They're so curvy, sexy and aerodynamic. It combines my love of cars with my love of metals and chemicals into a rolling work of art. The Discovery channel blew my mind previous to that with Jesse James' shows, Motorcycle Mania, which met up with Jesse as he pounded and worked aluminum into a smooth curved shape and (it can be argued) revitalized the entire metal working and custom motorcycle scene. He wasn't the first and he won't be the last but his reasons and passion were so pure and untainted. The third show detailed how he made chopper mostly out of copper. It was gorgeous and the best part about copper is it starts shiny and then oxidizes and the color gets so much more intricate. Chemistry, art and physics all rolled into one.
I don't have the time or space right now, but I think a handmade super aerodynamic car, and lightweight of course, would be a really fun and environmentally friendly project, assuming I reused metal. Not even sure if that's possible, but I would love to give it a go. Sure fiberglass is easier to mold but isn't nearly as cool. Seeing how I have roughly zero experience with metal work, it might take a while. So, for now, plastic and Al sheets might have to suffice
Labels: cars, environment, future, writing
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Which of these button calls your parents to pick you up?
- Triumph the Insult Dog, from the Conan O'Brien show during his hilarious interviews of people waiting to see one of the Star Wars prequels. There you go, it's 10 min. long but very funny.
So with my vegetarianish diet, I haven't seen the weight come flying off but I do feel better and can feel the heart disease and diabetes draining away from me. Basically I need to get off my ass and do more cardio. If only I had an actor's schedule and was paid to be in shape. I love the first thing workout. I reveled in it during college. First class wasn't until 11 am so you could sleep in till 9-9:30, go workout, shower, catch a quick snack for breakfast and make your way to class, energized, focused and ready to take on the world! Now, it's struggle out of bed at 6:30, feed the cats, make lunch, make and eat breakfast, clothes then work around 8-8:30. I really miss that morning endorphin fest. Why don't you wake up earlier? I might have to when I get a real job but for now, I'm not willing to go earlier. A 5 am wake up routine would definitely allow a morning jog and (quick check of weather.com) shows sunrise at 6:30, so it might be light enough at 6. Maybe a 6 am jog isn't out of the question. Hmmmm, I might have to look into that. Also every Southerner will tell you that the only time to do outdoor activity is early morning or late evening. Only crazies jog in the early afternoon with peak humidity and peak temperature, that's a good recipe for heat stroke. Ok, enough of my "exercise regime".
Thanks to Cynical Chris, I found a link to the Funky Ghetto Hijabi and her confessions. She's a Nigerian Canadian who comprised a list of 50 mixed race actors, musicians, writers and models. Very interesting list and a couple surprises. Of course J knew already, but I didn't know that Rob Schneider was mixed (Filipino/European American) or Tera Patrick (Thai/European Jewish) was also (porn star link, so probably NSFW). As some of you know, I'm in an interracial marriage and at least one of our kids (others will be adopted) will be mixed (Euro American[white!]/Korean) so I have a vested interest in seeing how society views them. Thankfully they are more and more accepted everyday and aren't subject to as much ridicule as before. I even saw a "mixed" box under the race section last time I donated blood, hooray! In the future those boxes will dwindle to "mixed" or "inbred". Yeah, it's only a matter of time.
But Funky Ghetto Hijabi has a very interesting background and point of view when it comes to racism (which she says didn't affect her too much) but especially classism. Read her post White Trash Pride for her point of view.
Through her website, I wandered over to Saudi Stepford Wife:
Also, I've been reading through Rantings of an Arab Chick's archives. She is an Arab who married an American and is now a special education teacher. I like her blog for her common sense approach to teaching and discipline and her outsiderish views of our nation and education system and she's racing a mixed race daughter as well.
Okay, off to read a bit more then to work!
So with my vegetarianish diet, I haven't seen the weight come flying off but I do feel better and can feel the heart disease and diabetes draining away from me. Basically I need to get off my ass and do more cardio. If only I had an actor's schedule and was paid to be in shape. I love the first thing workout. I reveled in it during college. First class wasn't until 11 am so you could sleep in till 9-9:30, go workout, shower, catch a quick snack for breakfast and make your way to class, energized, focused and ready to take on the world! Now, it's struggle out of bed at 6:30, feed the cats, make lunch, make and eat breakfast, clothes then work around 8-8:30. I really miss that morning endorphin fest. Why don't you wake up earlier? I might have to when I get a real job but for now, I'm not willing to go earlier. A 5 am wake up routine would definitely allow a morning jog and (quick check of weather.com) shows sunrise at 6:30, so it might be light enough at 6. Maybe a 6 am jog isn't out of the question. Hmmmm, I might have to look into that. Also every Southerner will tell you that the only time to do outdoor activity is early morning or late evening. Only crazies jog in the early afternoon with peak humidity and peak temperature, that's a good recipe for heat stroke. Ok, enough of my "exercise regime".
Thanks to Cynical Chris, I found a link to the Funky Ghetto Hijabi and her confessions. She's a Nigerian Canadian who comprised a list of 50 mixed race actors, musicians, writers and models. Very interesting list and a couple surprises. Of course J knew already, but I didn't know that Rob Schneider was mixed (Filipino/European American) or Tera Patrick (Thai/European Jewish) was also (porn star link, so probably NSFW). As some of you know, I'm in an interracial marriage and at least one of our kids (others will be adopted) will be mixed (Euro American[white!]/Korean) so I have a vested interest in seeing how society views them. Thankfully they are more and more accepted everyday and aren't subject to as much ridicule as before. I even saw a "mixed" box under the race section last time I donated blood, hooray! In the future those boxes will dwindle to "mixed" or "inbred". Yeah, it's only a matter of time.
But Funky Ghetto Hijabi has a very interesting background and point of view when it comes to racism (which she says didn't affect her too much) but especially classism. Read her post White Trash Pride for her point of view.
Through her website, I wandered over to Saudi Stepford Wife:
American/Saudi with a dash of religiosity, a pinch of realistic feminism, and usually with humorous overtones.She hasn't posted in a bit but her archives are pretty interesting.
Also, I've been reading through Rantings of an Arab Chick's archives. She is an Arab who married an American and is now a special education teacher. I like her blog for her common sense approach to teaching and discipline and her outsiderish views of our nation and education system and she's racing a mixed race daughter as well.
Okay, off to read a bit more then to work!
Labels: blogs, future, injustice, racism, vegetarian
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Eeeeaaaaahhhh! But existing is basically all I do!
-Phillip J. Fry from the "Roswell That Ends Well" episode of Futurama, the emmy award winning episode for those impressed by things like that. Caution: Spoilers abound for this episode, so if you haven't seen it and want it to be a surprise, please skip this post.
I abso-freakin'-lutely love Futurama. And am obviously overjoyed that it's coming back. I also love time travel and that particular brand of sci-fi.
Recently I caught Ed Burns starring role in A Sound of Thunder. In a nutshell, Ed is a scientist who helps a corporation give time safaris where rich people travel back in time and kill a dinosaur. The only problems that I saw was that they kept killing the same dinosaur. Different people, different days in the future but the exact same moment in the past. I guess they were going for the "every day has its own future and past" school of thought, which I personally think is bullshit. There's only one timeline so, in my opinion, Ed should've kept running into himself and other customers over and over. Another aspect I wasn't too fond of was the idea that if you change anything in the past, the changes will come in waves in the future. Obviously something went wrong on one of their safaris and all hell broke loose. These "time waves" would come and change a few things instead of everything at once. NO! It happened in the past and just because it took you a few seconds to get back to the future, time still went along from the past to your present so all the changes would be instant, not gradual, but for the movie that would not have worked so time waves and ta da!
The premise of the Futurama episode is that the crew gets zapped into the past (they live in the year 3000) and "tear time a new space hole" and end up in Roswell, NM July 7, 1947. Fry proceeds to try and save his grandfather Enis from destruction and of course hides him in the house that was vaporized by an atomic bomb test. But he still exists and doesn't fade away, so he reasons that Mildred isn't really his grandmother and proceeds to comfort her after the tragic loss of her boyfriend Enis. They hook up and explains to the crew that Mildred isn't his grandmother. They say that she is. Then who is my grandpa?, Fry inquires. Doh, looks like he is his own grandfather. Yikes. This proves to be most useful in other episodes. But it really creates a nice little package of existence for Fry. So bizarre. I HIGHLY recommend this episode.
I abso-freakin'-lutely love Futurama. And am obviously overjoyed that it's coming back. I also love time travel and that particular brand of sci-fi.
Recently I caught Ed Burns starring role in A Sound of Thunder. In a nutshell, Ed is a scientist who helps a corporation give time safaris where rich people travel back in time and kill a dinosaur. The only problems that I saw was that they kept killing the same dinosaur. Different people, different days in the future but the exact same moment in the past. I guess they were going for the "every day has its own future and past" school of thought, which I personally think is bullshit. There's only one timeline so, in my opinion, Ed should've kept running into himself and other customers over and over. Another aspect I wasn't too fond of was the idea that if you change anything in the past, the changes will come in waves in the future. Obviously something went wrong on one of their safaris and all hell broke loose. These "time waves" would come and change a few things instead of everything at once. NO! It happened in the past and just because it took you a few seconds to get back to the future, time still went along from the past to your present so all the changes would be instant, not gradual, but for the movie that would not have worked so time waves and ta da!
The premise of the Futurama episode is that the crew gets zapped into the past (they live in the year 3000) and "tear time a new space hole" and end up in Roswell, NM July 7, 1947. Fry proceeds to try and save his grandfather Enis from destruction and of course hides him in the house that was vaporized by an atomic bomb test. But he still exists and doesn't fade away, so he reasons that Mildred isn't really his grandmother and proceeds to comfort her after the tragic loss of her boyfriend Enis. They hook up and explains to the crew that Mildred isn't his grandmother. They say that she is. Then who is my grandpa?, Fry inquires. Doh, looks like he is his own grandfather. Yikes. This proves to be most useful in other episodes. But it really creates a nice little package of existence for Fry. So bizarre. I HIGHLY recommend this episode.
Labels: Futurama, future, movie
Monday, March 26, 2007
America's favorite passed time
Some people live in the past, some in the present, and some live in the future. I'm with the latter. I really love the idea of the future. You'll have a robot to do most of the household chores. Your car will drive itself, which will be cool even if it can't fly. Your cellphone will be your access to your computer controlled house and robot and it will be able to talk with other devices too. I'm not sure if it will be thought controlled or take dictation but I can't imagine we'll still be using those stupid alphanumeric keypads in the future.
Doc in the Box Sean did a post that related who his Myspace "Top 8" were and why. It was old and new friends and #1 was his wife and not just because she said so. I would like to do a post talking about my friends. Ideally I would use first and last names also, so that when they're googling themselves (I wonder if that will ever not sound dirty) they'll run across this page and then we'll have a big teary reunion and talk about the good ol' days. I think as long as I put a disclaimer up and don't tell any embarassing stories, I think it'll be okay. And they could email me and ask me to take their name off if they wanted.
April 18th keeps getting closer and closer.
Doc in the Box Sean did a post that related who his Myspace "Top 8" were and why. It was old and new friends and #1 was his wife and not just because she said so. I would like to do a post talking about my friends. Ideally I would use first and last names also, so that when they're googling themselves (I wonder if that will ever not sound dirty) they'll run across this page and then we'll have a big teary reunion and talk about the good ol' days. I think as long as I put a disclaimer up and don't tell any embarassing stories, I think it'll be okay. And they could email me and ask me to take their name off if they wanted.
April 18th keeps getting closer and closer.
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