Perspective.
Today or yesterday, I’m watching TV and there’s some news show or something on, your basic talking head kind of thing. The interviewee is one of those pseudo religious bozos who is commenting on how people should be sitting up and taking notice of the horrible shape the world has managed to tumble into. The increasing number of natural disasters, the breakdown of society, you get the drift. All these incredible horrors which signal (cue the clap of thunder, please)... THE END OF DAYS!
(we should immediately grip our heads in both hands and run around the room screaming at the top of our lungs in horror)
Yes, life is horrible, horrible, horrible according to our pious friend!
Then, I stop for a second and I wonder to myself, mmmmmm. So, the days when Europeans were shipping Africans across the ocean by the boatload, these were our salad days?
The nazis, rounding up people towards the middle of the last century, our sunshine years?
The middle ages, full of plague, the inquistion and all kinds of other suffering, blue skies?
I mean, what the f is this idiot talking about? Or any of these other people trying to foist off this load of turd on the public, intending to scare them somehow. Are we talking about a bunch of glass half empty pessimists or what? Man, all I can say is nothing makes me dive for the remote faster than seeing one of these guys with the beautific if vacant smile equating crappy weather and natural disasters with some kind of divine retribution out of the old testament.
I keep waiting for a divine sign in some kind of boom or light rigging to fall on one of these idiots during their pronouncements. At the very least if not a divine sign the workings of a lazy stagehand.
Oct 26, 2005
Oct 24, 2005
Gotta love Bobby V and Matt Franco!
The Chiba Lotte Marines crushed the Hanshin Tigers 10-0 yesterday in Game 2 of the Japan Series, that country’s baseball championship. Chiba won Saturday's Game 1 by 10-1.
Being a Mets fan, while I was happy with the way the team performed this season under Willy Randolph, I still think Bobby Valentine got the short end of the stick for Steve Phillips’ goofs when he got canned. Regardless of how the media might have portrayed him, Bobby V was certainly a favorite of mine and I think he got the most out of his players as a shrewd manager and a good motivator. So, it’s no surprise to hear the recent news:
The Marines, once a Pacific League doormat, have excelled since Valentine returned for his second stint with the club.
When they face the Central League champion Hanshin Tigers in the best-of-seven championship starting Saturday, the Marines will be bidding for their first title since 1974, when they were known as the Lotte Orions.
It will be Valentine’s first trip to a championship since he went to the World Series in 2000 as manager of the Mets. They lost to the New York Yankees in five games.
“The Marines and the Mets of 2000 are quite similar,” Valentine said. “If it came down to a question of bullpens, I would say the Marines are better.”
Former Mets Benny Agbayani and Matt Franco, who were with Valentine in 2000, had productive season and are expected to play a key role in the Japan Series.
Valentine, very popular among Lotte’s fans, is the first foreign manager to reach the Japan Series since Hawaiian-born Wally Yonamine in 1974.
The Chiba Lotte Marines crushed the Hanshin Tigers 10-0 yesterday in Game 2 of the Japan Series, that country’s baseball championship. Chiba won Saturday's Game 1 by 10-1.
Being a Mets fan, while I was happy with the way the team performed this season under Willy Randolph, I still think Bobby Valentine got the short end of the stick for Steve Phillips’ goofs when he got canned. Regardless of how the media might have portrayed him, Bobby V was certainly a favorite of mine and I think he got the most out of his players as a shrewd manager and a good motivator. So, it’s no surprise to hear the recent news:
The Marines, once a Pacific League doormat, have excelled since Valentine returned for his second stint with the club.
When they face the Central League champion Hanshin Tigers in the best-of-seven championship starting Saturday, the Marines will be bidding for their first title since 1974, when they were known as the Lotte Orions.
It will be Valentine’s first trip to a championship since he went to the World Series in 2000 as manager of the Mets. They lost to the New York Yankees in five games.
“The Marines and the Mets of 2000 are quite similar,” Valentine said. “If it came down to a question of bullpens, I would say the Marines are better.”
Former Mets Benny Agbayani and Matt Franco, who were with Valentine in 2000, had productive season and are expected to play a key role in the Japan Series.
Valentine, very popular among Lotte’s fans, is the first foreign manager to reach the Japan Series since Hawaiian-born Wally Yonamine in 1974.
Fresh from the pages of Ooh Laa La magazine:
The Kanye West video for Gold Digger, simply awesome - Real Player and fast connection required. Alternatives at the Kanye West website.
The Kanye West video for Gold Digger, simply awesome - Real Player and fast connection required. Alternatives at the Kanye West website.
Take drugs with an open mind.*
People always wonder what designers do. I came across this article in New York magazine awhile back and clipped it out to save. Designers impact our lives in ways we can’t begin to imagine and when they do their job well, it benefits all of us.
By the time an object, or an apartment, or a company hits the half-century mark, it’s usually been through a redesign or two. Yet the standard-issue amber-cast pharmacy pill bottle has remained virtually unchanged since it was pressed into service after the second World War. (A child-safety cap was added in the seventies.) An overhaul is finally coming, courtesy of Deborah Adler, a 29-year-old graphic designer whose ClearRx prescription-packaging system debuts at Target pharmacies May 1.
* – As spoken by an ex of mine. Copy she had written for a PSA she taped while going to broadcasting school. Needless to say it was one of those things which looked better on the page than when it was spoken into a mike.
People always wonder what designers do. I came across this article in New York magazine awhile back and clipped it out to save. Designers impact our lives in ways we can’t begin to imagine and when they do their job well, it benefits all of us.
By the time an object, or an apartment, or a company hits the half-century mark, it’s usually been through a redesign or two. Yet the standard-issue amber-cast pharmacy pill bottle has remained virtually unchanged since it was pressed into service after the second World War. (A child-safety cap was added in the seventies.) An overhaul is finally coming, courtesy of Deborah Adler, a 29-year-old graphic designer whose ClearRx prescription-packaging system debuts at Target pharmacies May 1.
* – As spoken by an ex of mine. Copy she had written for a PSA she taped while going to broadcasting school. Needless to say it was one of those things which looked better on the page than when it was spoken into a mike.
Oct 23, 2005
In praise of Gentleman Gene.
Nice column, worth the read by Eric Larsen on the work of Gene Colan whose work I have loved and admired for years.
One of the many things we don’t have in comics is motion. Motion, sound, smell, taste — most of the big ones — we don’t do. In movies, characters move. In comics, we can only approximate it, at best. Gene comes about as close as we’re likely to get. Gene’s characters are often a blur of motion. I’ve heard he’s a big movie buff and it shows on every page. While most of us struggle to make a guy in a suit look like anything other than a mannequin standing in a store window, Gene pulls it off with ease. His characters live and breathe.
Nice column, worth the read by Eric Larsen on the work of Gene Colan whose work I have loved and admired for years.
One of the many things we don’t have in comics is motion. Motion, sound, smell, taste — most of the big ones — we don’t do. In movies, characters move. In comics, we can only approximate it, at best. Gene comes about as close as we’re likely to get. Gene’s characters are often a blur of motion. I’ve heard he’s a big movie buff and it shows on every page. While most of us struggle to make a guy in a suit look like anything other than a mannequin standing in a store window, Gene pulls it off with ease. His characters live and breathe.
Oct 21, 2005
Oct 15, 2005
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
I’ve heard a bunch of babble lately about all the calamity affecting the world - psunamis and hurricanes and diseases, OH MY! Well, I just ascribe it to our world being a much smaller place then it used to be and the fact we can now watch cable news 24/7 and become disaster junkies. I did find this article a bit interesting though and thought I would pass it along.
It is the virus’s tendency to make mistakes when replicating itself that makes it so dangerous and unpredictable. Here are some facts about H5N1 avian influenza.
I’ve heard a bunch of babble lately about all the calamity affecting the world - psunamis and hurricanes and diseases, OH MY! Well, I just ascribe it to our world being a much smaller place then it used to be and the fact we can now watch cable news 24/7 and become disaster junkies. I did find this article a bit interesting though and thought I would pass it along.
It is the virus’s tendency to make mistakes when replicating itself that makes it so dangerous and unpredictable. Here are some facts about H5N1 avian influenza.
New York poster?
I want to make a poster out of this! When I saw it it had me laughing my ass off (ouch)!
I came across the thing looking through the referral logs for the blog. It was up on what I thought was a german language blog, awholedifferentstory (but which didn’t seem to translate through Babblefish) but the image is actually hosted on the Jeepster’s webpages.
I want to make a poster out of this! When I saw it it had me laughing my ass off (ouch)!
I came across the thing looking through the referral logs for the blog. It was up on what I thought was a german language blog, awholedifferentstory (but which didn’t seem to translate through Babblefish) but the image is actually hosted on the Jeepster’s webpages.
Oct 14, 2005
Say it isn’t so!
She’s well-spoken, but her complaint is much the same as those of most every other girl I’ve spoken with: “SuicideGirls is the Wal-Mart of alt-porn.” She’s said the same at her page on the site, but you won’t find the comment there; it’s been purged, along with just about every other critical comment any Suicide Girl has made has made about SuicideGirls.
Alas the myth of Suicide Girls debunked.
She’s well-spoken, but her complaint is much the same as those of most every other girl I’ve spoken with: “SuicideGirls is the Wal-Mart of alt-porn.” She’s said the same at her page on the site, but you won’t find the comment there; it’s been purged, along with just about every other critical comment any Suicide Girl has made has made about SuicideGirls.
Alas the myth of Suicide Girls debunked.
Small pictures.
The image below is linked to a larger image but before clicking through be sure to read the entry below it.
I came across this website over the weekend. The website is called nowthatsf*ckedup.com. It’s basically a porn site in that it has pix of wives and girlfriends, pretty standard stuff. I’m sure everyone will be shocked that men actually like to look at pictures of naked women. Here’s the hook though, the site gives service personnel serving in combat free access in return for posting pictures taken during the course of combat ops.
Now, I think a lot of people here at home have this somewhat sanitized view of war and that’s a bit of a problem. I’ve seen some fairly gory things during the course of life even if I never worked as a part of the PD or EMS.
Three things that come to mind are:
My point is, I still carry these things around with me to this day. However, as gory as these things might have been, they pale by comparison to what a generation of Americans are experiencing on a daily basis in the service of this country. The reason this comes to mind is a conversation I had over the weekend with my friend Kevin. Summed up, it was about the current state of affairs domestically in this country and a general dissatisfaction with the direction our leadership has taken us.
Kevin expressed a very genuine fear whatever damage our nation incurred over these two terms of faltering stewardship would wind up being irreparable. I don’t think that’s the case though. First off, we’ve suffered through far worse during the course of the nation’s history. Second, there is going to be a generation of people who will be returning from all over the world after having served their country - in general, these will be people of conviction and a strong sense of what they think our country should be. These veterans will not suffer the fate of the Vietnam era veterans in that their contribution will be diminished because of an errant foreign policy decision. They will return, perhaps jaundiced by what they have seen, but determined to return to a society worth their efforts.
I imagine many of the next generation of leaders may in fact come from their ranks.
Kevin had referenced the movie Wall Street as a point in our society when the prevalent view of the rich changed (greed is good). Something we can recognize when The Apprentice or Survivor are the popular entertainment of the day. The question is can we really believe a generation of returning veterans who embraced the concept of personal sacrifice, will not challenge the values of an ethically vague society where greed is promoted as a positive trait?
The image below is linked to a larger image but before clicking through be sure to read the entry below it.
I came across this website over the weekend. The website is called nowthatsf*ckedup.com. It’s basically a porn site in that it has pix of wives and girlfriends, pretty standard stuff. I’m sure everyone will be shocked that men actually like to look at pictures of naked women. Here’s the hook though, the site gives service personnel serving in combat free access in return for posting pictures taken during the course of combat ops.
Now, I think a lot of people here at home have this somewhat sanitized view of war and that’s a bit of a problem. I’ve seen some fairly gory things during the course of life even if I never worked as a part of the PD or EMS.
Three things that come to mind are:
- 1) Finding a detached limb while working at a metro area beach.
2) Seeing a women get decapitated right in front of me while walking along a Manhattan street.
3) The overall carnage surrounding a 30 plus vehicle accident that I was in the middle of but managed to walk away from totally unscathed.
My point is, I still carry these things around with me to this day. However, as gory as these things might have been, they pale by comparison to what a generation of Americans are experiencing on a daily basis in the service of this country. The reason this comes to mind is a conversation I had over the weekend with my friend Kevin. Summed up, it was about the current state of affairs domestically in this country and a general dissatisfaction with the direction our leadership has taken us.
Kevin expressed a very genuine fear whatever damage our nation incurred over these two terms of faltering stewardship would wind up being irreparable. I don’t think that’s the case though. First off, we’ve suffered through far worse during the course of the nation’s history. Second, there is going to be a generation of people who will be returning from all over the world after having served their country - in general, these will be people of conviction and a strong sense of what they think our country should be. These veterans will not suffer the fate of the Vietnam era veterans in that their contribution will be diminished because of an errant foreign policy decision. They will return, perhaps jaundiced by what they have seen, but determined to return to a society worth their efforts.
I imagine many of the next generation of leaders may in fact come from their ranks.
Kevin had referenced the movie Wall Street as a point in our society when the prevalent view of the rich changed (greed is good). Something we can recognize when The Apprentice or Survivor are the popular entertainment of the day. The question is can we really believe a generation of returning veterans who embraced the concept of personal sacrifice, will not challenge the values of an ethically vague society where greed is promoted as a positive trait?
When worlds collide.
Andrew Parker, an urban planner and professor of public affairs at Baruch College, and his wife, Suzanne, a technology consultant for artists and arts organizations, have lived in the house since 1974, and raised two daughters there.
Short article about the Parker family of Forest Hills and how Spider Man impacted their life.
Andrew Parker, an urban planner and professor of public affairs at Baruch College, and his wife, Suzanne, a technology consultant for artists and arts organizations, have lived in the house since 1974, and raised two daughters there.
Short article about the Parker family of Forest Hills and how Spider Man impacted their life.
The glass is half full?
Yeah, I’m amazed at the days of unending overcast weather we’ve been having up here in the Northeast lately. Wednesday my neighbor was out in the street screaming at the village worker because of the two feet of water making it’s way into his garage (again, nothing new over the last decade). However, even though I count the days until we see the sun again - we needed the rain as local governments were just beginning to plan for ways to deal with the drought.
Yeah, I’m amazed at the days of unending overcast weather we’ve been having up here in the Northeast lately. Wednesday my neighbor was out in the street screaming at the village worker because of the two feet of water making it’s way into his garage (again, nothing new over the last decade). However, even though I count the days until we see the sun again - we needed the rain as local governments were just beginning to plan for ways to deal with the drought.
Oct 11, 2005
Women like Avis?
They just try harder - I don’t imagine they’re out there with the same requests.
I came across this during my lurid wanderings and found it quite funny. If your prudish be forewarned and don’t click through but, the whole thing is humorous if you don’t take these kinds of things too seriously.
Via MissFuzzyBunny.
Dear Men of Craig’s List:
The membership of the National Federated Union of Porn Stars wishes to register an official complaint and related Cease and Desist request. Your incessant searching for a “girl who f***s like a porn star,” the somewhat similar “girl who s***s d**k like a porn star,” and the unending fake posts regaling how “she took my s*****g c** all over her face like a porn star” are interfering with the conduct of business in the legitimate porn industry. A recent study conclude that the prevalence of these requests and reports have in fact begun to convince a startling proportion of otherwise normal women that they should and must behave like porn stars. This is still a trend in its infancy but gentleman, should this phenomenon reach critical mass we, the real porn stars of America, will be shit out of luck, not to mention jobs.
They just try harder - I don’t imagine they’re out there with the same requests.
I came across this during my lurid wanderings and found it quite funny. If your prudish be forewarned and don’t click through but, the whole thing is humorous if you don’t take these kinds of things too seriously.
Via MissFuzzyBunny.
Dear Men of Craig’s List:
The membership of the National Federated Union of Porn Stars wishes to register an official complaint and related Cease and Desist request. Your incessant searching for a “girl who f***s like a porn star,” the somewhat similar “girl who s***s d**k like a porn star,” and the unending fake posts regaling how “she took my s*****g c** all over her face like a porn star” are interfering with the conduct of business in the legitimate porn industry. A recent study conclude that the prevalence of these requests and reports have in fact begun to convince a startling proportion of otherwise normal women that they should and must behave like porn stars. This is still a trend in its infancy but gentleman, should this phenomenon reach critical mass we, the real porn stars of America, will be shit out of luck, not to mention jobs.
Because you need to know:
Courtesy of the Monster blog...
Here are 10 “excuses” — five smart and five not-so-smart — to help you save face and your sanity.
Courtesy of the Monster blog...
Here are 10 “excuses” — five smart and five not-so-smart — to help you save face and your sanity.
Oct 8, 2005
I walk alone.
The Empire State is an innocuous presence in the middle of Manhattan. It’s the city’s tallest building and I pass it all the time but hardly give it a second thought.
I love the way it looks, it’s not that I don’t think it’s a beautiful building because it is, I just seem to take it for granted. It’s this thing which has always been there and I can’t think of life without it. I haven’t been up to the top in a long, long time. Not that I haven’t wanted to go but, when I have been in the building the line looks so incredibly long, I don’t see the use in waiting on, I keep thinking I’ll go the one day or time when the rest of the world is asleep or off doing other things and I’ll be able to really enjoy the experience.
Many years ago, a friend used the observation deck as the place to propose to his wife - it struck me as so very romantic and I’m sure there are a lot of stories similar to that one.
It just reminded me of the World Trade Center in a way and how everytime I’m outside of Manhattan looking at the skyline, it seems so unbalanced now. Whether I’m out in the Meadowlands, driving along the BQE, coming down from the Bronx, or just riding the Hudson line there is this big gaping absence, it’s like looking at one of those cartoons where your supposed to compare the differences between two pictures that look the same. In this instance, the image is the one I grew up with, the mental picture that is jarred when I look at the skyline now.
Anyway, I do find myself looking up at the ESB when I’m walking up Fifth Avenue sometimes and looking up seeing the telltale flashes of photo takers on the observation deck thinking how I have to get up there one of these days soon.
The Empire State is an innocuous presence in the middle of Manhattan. It’s the city’s tallest building and I pass it all the time but hardly give it a second thought.
I love the way it looks, it’s not that I don’t think it’s a beautiful building because it is, I just seem to take it for granted. It’s this thing which has always been there and I can’t think of life without it. I haven’t been up to the top in a long, long time. Not that I haven’t wanted to go but, when I have been in the building the line looks so incredibly long, I don’t see the use in waiting on, I keep thinking I’ll go the one day or time when the rest of the world is asleep or off doing other things and I’ll be able to really enjoy the experience.
Many years ago, a friend used the observation deck as the place to propose to his wife - it struck me as so very romantic and I’m sure there are a lot of stories similar to that one.
It just reminded me of the World Trade Center in a way and how everytime I’m outside of Manhattan looking at the skyline, it seems so unbalanced now. Whether I’m out in the Meadowlands, driving along the BQE, coming down from the Bronx, or just riding the Hudson line there is this big gaping absence, it’s like looking at one of those cartoons where your supposed to compare the differences between two pictures that look the same. In this instance, the image is the one I grew up with, the mental picture that is jarred when I look at the skyline now.
Anyway, I do find myself looking up at the ESB when I’m walking up Fifth Avenue sometimes and looking up seeing the telltale flashes of photo takers on the observation deck thinking how I have to get up there one of these days soon.
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