January 2007
Asceticism
Asceticism. Recently, I have been feeling like I have way too much stuff. Being halfway moved out has only strengthened this—I like having no furniture at all in my room, and I’m not even minding sleeping on the floor. Now I just have to get rid of the rest of my stuff. Asceticism, here I come.
Five remakes I heard long before the originals
Five remakes I heard long before the originals:
- Weird Al doing Bob Dylan
- Cake’s “I Will Survive” (A Diana Ross cover)
- Smash Mouth’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends” (A War cover)
- Deftones’ “The Chauffeur” (Duran Duran)
- A Perfect Circle’s “The Nurse Who Loved Me” (Failure)
Melbourne is great
Melbourne is great. Awesome weather, great atmosphere, and lots of little cafes hiding out in alleyways. They have excellent ice-cream too:
(It’s basically a ‘Rocky Road.’ I bought it solely for the name.)
They also have cool big old buildings in town, not that you can tell from my nasty cellphone picture:
Finally, sorry-but-it-needs-to-be-said, hottie ratio: way high.
On Tragedy of the Commons
On Tragedy of the Commons:
Among their various recordings, ‘Live at Zebedees 2005’ stands out as the quintessential in-your-face indie record of recent times—capturing the TotC live show at its wild, offensive best—with no pretense to modern obligations such as studio engineering or gracious behaviour towards one’s audience.
— Greg Brown, in an inspired piece of music journalism.
Twitter is hopelessly addictive
Twitter is hopelessly addictive. It falls somewhere between instant messaging and blogging—each entry is limited to SMS size—and it encourages constant trivial updates about pretty much nothing.
It also integrates with IM—just add twitter as a GTalk or AIM contact (probably MSN too), and you’ll get updates as IMs, and be able to send your own right back. I’m using it to get BBC headlines and to follow the day-to-day life of Darth Vader.
(And if other people join up, it’ll feel less like shouting meaningless crap about my empty life into the void. Just think, it’s blogging without the time commitment! Also, I don’t have much to blog at the moment.)
GAH!
GAH! After a week or so of the TT, my car feels much like this:
(And from the backseat, not the front.)
#56
On my way to work this morning, I saw a large group of Asian tourists crossing the road, every single one of them holding up an umbrella. I wonder what the collective noun for ‘tourist’ should be? I am favouring ‘gaggle,’ but ‘phalanx’ is a close second.
Steve Pavlina on God
Some beliefs I found consistently disempowering, meaning that if I adopted them, I would be denying myself access to valuable potential. These included the belief in heaven/hell and the belief in a higher power. That second one may seem surprising, but I opted to let it go because I consistently found it less empowering than a belief in a lower power. An example of a higher power would be a consciously aware God or gods such as found in Christianity or Greek mythology. A lower power would be like a field that is able to respond to your intentions, sort of like “the force” in Star Wars or what some people refer to as “source.” You can pray to either type of power, but in the first case you’re asking, and in the second case, you’re declaring. Many people, myself included, have noted that declarative prayer works better than no prayer and better than asking prayer. I see it mainly as putting out an intention.
People used to know how to insult one another
People used to know how to insult one another:
I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend… if you have one.
— George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.
— Winston Churchill, in response
From Reluctant Nomad’s list of insults.
#53
25 percent of people in the US expect Jesus’ second coming in 2007. So much for ‘no-one will know when.’
