Five Things: Blast from the Past - Songs

Here's an old blog from two years ago.

At this point, I'd been wrestling with the possibilty of single-fatherhood, was hating my living situation, had seriously let down my brother, and had intentionally isolated myself from the woman who would later let me come to my senses and spend the last 19 months with her.

Wonder how much I have changed and how much it's just that my environment/viewpoint has changed....

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Posted: Leap Day, 2/29

I’ve just been rocking out a lot lately, so I thought I’d share some. Here below are my favorite lines from the first five songs in my playlist.

Rest My Chemistry by Interpol

“And I’ve made stairways/ such scenes for things to regret/ oh, those days in the sun/ they bring a tear to my eye/”

While My Guitar Gently Weeps by The Beatles

“With every mistake we must surely be learning/ still my guitar gently weeps/”

Martyr for My Love for You by The White Stripes

“And I bet we could build a home/ but I know the right things for me to do is to leave you alone/”

Tear You Apart by She Wants Revenge

“It’s only a crush, it’ll go away/ it’s just like the others, it’ll go away/ or maybe this is danger and he just don’t know/ you pray it all away but it continues to grow/”

I Saw Her Standing There by The Beatles

“Well she/ looked at me/ and I could see/ that before too long/ I’d fall in love with her/” While often times my fews on the viability of love and it’s further institutions can easily be contrued as “cynical” or “anti-”, I think the songs above illustrate that even when we tell ourselves we are stepping back and resolving our own demons, we cannot help but encounter unknown possibilities. Maybe there is truth to the old maxim “it’ll come along as soon as you stop looking for it”. Or perhaps it’s just obsession. Certainly we all know people who are addicted to one behaviour or another. I’d hate to think of someone as “my new drug”, but in hind-sight, I think we can all easily call to mind at least one person from our pasts who would fit that describtion. Sometimes a fling is just a fling, but sometimes a fling is a fucking harsh life lesson. In fact, I will venture the following hypothestis; it is easier to stand tall and firm in the snarling face of adversity than in the comforting warmth of awful embrace.
When it’s all said and done, I wonder who will think of me as their “Best Mistake”.
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By the way, the rest of the songs follow a vague narrative arc. I don’t think this applies to any one person so much as the natural cycle of my own love-life.
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Then again, it could all be “true love” and I haven’t realized it yet…..

Actions to Avoid

Too Much or Way Cool?

Even I'm not this big of a comic-book nerd, but I'm not sure if this guy's piece is really overboard or totally cool.   I mean, Rorschach was a total whack-job, but in the end he was right, much like Jose Canseco. 

Good Quotes

“Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” ~Albert Caumus

“Before you insult someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you insult them, you are a mile away, and you have their shoes.” -Frieda Norris

Love is a Puzzle

I'm happy we put the first we pieces together.

Happy Valentines.... wait, you got me what?

This could be a deal breaker. 

I mean.... not a walk-out-of-the-room deal breaker.

But probably, I'm only going to call you when I feel like I'm missing a "bat-shit crazy chick" in my life.

Random Admission

Let's start with a quote from a blog I read the other day:

"I guess he throws himself into everything he does that way, always over the top." -- BeAwesomeInstead

Sometimes I'm Ted.  To really accomplish something, I have to drink the Kool-Aid.  I have to be all in, or I don't think it will pan out.

As we all know, when you leap before you look, you get burned.  But sometimes being burned proves you're alive.

Sometimes I'm Ted.

Blast from the Past: I Still Can't Fight It

Today I'd say my love for coffee is stronger than it's ever been.  Even on days when I don't need or want any stimulants, I still love coffee. Now that Lola Cafe is literally a three minute walk from my living room, I'm sure this is a love affair that will continue until one of us can't stand the other one.  Even then, it will probably be coffee that breaks up with ME.

P.S.:  I still want this on a T-Shirt. Or a headband, karate-kid style.

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From 8/28/08

One day, decades from now, I imagine I’ll be sitting around, telling stories to my grandkids about how we all used to queue up in lines in this little storefronts to by 20 ounces of caffeine and sugar and cream for $7 a pop. The kid will think these tales are outlandish because by then caffeine will be illegal and Starbucks will be thought of as a millennium version of the crack-house or opium den. I also think by then coke will be legal again and it’ll all make no sense..

Finally, a guide that makes sense

Dear Future Self,

   If you find yourself in need of this chart below, I do not blame you.  We had a good run of it, lots of laughs and great stories to tell later on.  I promise, self, that I won't shake my head in dismay that you've found yourself (us) in a place where you are once again debating size, cut, clarity, color, etc.  Not to your (our) face at least.   Since I'm pretty sure this day will eventually come, let me give you a little help now, while I'm still of sound mind & body.

Sincerely,


The Guy that Loves Being Awesome

If you don't love this movie, I don't know what's wrong with you.

 (500) Days of Summers rocks.






P.S.:  High-Five Anie

Hooray for street-art

(P.S.:  high-five, babe.)

mmmmm mmmmm hood

I love street art.

I love design

Mix the two and I'm ON IT!

holy crap this is a detailed tat

I'm into cameras a lot, but not THIS into cameras.

I do, however, really like the contrast between the tattoo and the hazy depth-of-field background elements.

Newfoundland, really??

This is pretty gross, but it's about Newfoundland, and that's pretty rare, so I decided to run it.

Know when to make things racy and when not to

Sad Robot is sad

and this is how they should all be.

damn robots

Robot-Apocalypse: It's Happening and YOU'RE paying for it

Now this cannot be avoided.  Semi-intelligent, can go on for 24-hours straight and carries weapons.

Start your stock-piling now.

From FastCompany:

Robocalypse Alert: Defense Contract Awarded to Scary BigDog

BY Kit EatonMon Feb 1, 2010

You remember BigDog, don't you? It's that loud all-terrain prototype robot quadruped that peopled your dreams with Terminator-esque nightmares when you saw the video. DARPA just awarded a $32 million contract to build it.
The contract's been won by maker Boston Dynamics, which has just 30 months to turn the research prototype machines into a genuine load-toting, four-legged, semi-intelligent war robot--"first walk-out" of the newly-designated LS3 is scheduled in 2012.
LS3 stands for Legged Squad Support System, and that pretty much sums up what the device is all about: It's a semi-autonomous assistant designed to follow soldiers and Marines across the battlefield, carrying up to 400 pounds of gear and enough fuel to keep it going for 24 hours over a march of 20 miles.
To remind you of the tech we're talking about, here's BigDog in a disarmingly "cute" promo video, kicking it on a beach in Thailand:

LS3 is a direct descendant of BigDog, and it'll be battle-hardened and clever enough to use GPS and machine vision to either yomp along behind a pack of troops, or navigate its own way to a pre-programmed assembly point. Yup, that's right, LS3 is smart enough to trot off over the horizon all on its lonesome. That opens up all sorts of amazing military possibilities, like resupply of materiel to troops who are deployed in difficult remote locations, as well as the standard "If LS3 can offload 50 pounds from the back of each soldier in a squad, it will reduce warfighter injuries and fatigue and increase the combat effectiveness of our troops" as described by BD's president Marc Raibert.
And its clear that these, and other, potential benefits have been proven to DARPA enough that it's prepared to fund what seems to be an extremely future-focused piece of military hardware. But LS3, of course, stands for much more than its simple "squad support" label would suggest. It's placing artificially-intelligent robots right next to soldiers on the battle field, which is a natural extension of the way robots are currently used in combat--essentially as smart remote control units for situations too dangerous for a human to risk. And in that sense, LS3 is a significant piece of kit. Because it won't be too long before someone considers the benefits of replacing its 400-pound load with a heavy gun, and LS32 becomes an AI-equipped armed battlefield robot. More terminator-dog than K9, you see.
Here's BigDog auto-tracking a human, just to give you an extra robocalyptic chill:

[BostonDynamics]