the word flatus is synonymous with fart.
the word afflatus means divine inspiration.
draw your own conclusions.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Mitch Hedberg was hilarious.
i came into work today and had a voice mail. it was just hold music. how does hold music call me and leave a message? this is out of control.
and reminded me of Mitch Hedberg...
My belt holds my pants up, but the belt loops hold my belt up. I don't really know what's happening down there. Who is the real hero?
more quotes
and reminded me of Mitch Hedberg...
My belt holds my pants up, but the belt loops hold my belt up. I don't really know what's happening down there. Who is the real hero?
more quotes
Monday, April 7, 2008
im on youtube
a few years ago i was in college. there was a fire drill. ryan made this video of it.
me on youtube
haha, thats silly.
me on youtube
haha, thats silly.
beauty and basketball
so i dont like to post stories about my day to day life generally, but i feel like it so i am. i promise that there is a point i will eventually reach, and you wont have to read about my boring day to day life, this was pretty exciting for me.
Friday starts with happy hour at work(one reason why my company is a good one to work for) then to a local bar to continue the fun. during this my brother calls and tells me he got free tickets to the Washington Wizards game. i see-sawed for a while then decided to to go, so i would be tired Saturday at work, whats new? so i race home, change and metro to the game. i meet my brother and he hands me a ticket. our section is gold w and the face value is $450. we are in the second row behind the basket. we had a waiter. sure beats the cheap seats i can afford.
the game gets over, and the night is still young. so we head out to meet up with the brother's wife's sister and her friend. what ensues is a heady mix of drinking, dancing and music. turns out i dont give a shit about being tired when pretty girls want to drink and dance with me. the friend is gorgeous and i have a great time. better than i anticipated. and i didnt get home til 1 or 2. i dont really know.
7:23 my alarm goes off. good thing i set it before i went to the ball game. i down a couple glasses of water and a few asperin, fill up a bottle to take with, grab some nilla wafers to eat and take my half drunk, half hung over ass to the job site. i sit there for half an hour before the glass guy who i was to babysit shows up. he looks like a bad as biker, but is all about peace and love, and goes by Shorty. this guy is kick ass. good at his job, and a funny guy. i got the impression that hes a genuinely good guy. hes the real deal. he is who he is and its clear that hes not going to compromise. youve got to respect that. hes the type of guy that, despite his being twice my age, i would love to hang out with. it would be a riot.
so we finish up around 2pm. i head home, guiding some out of towners to their destination on the way, have some food, and pass out for a couple hours. the next few hours are spent grazing and relaxing and willing my hang over to pass so that i can go out and do it again.
i get the call from the girls at 8 and head out. ive eard good things about Brickskeller(sp) but i was disappointed in the bar but wholly satisfied with the company. with my recollection of the end of the previous evening a little fuzzy, i wasnt entirely sure of what the reception would be. it was all good. its great to be able to blend into the conversation with people you dont know all that well. it so often can be awkward.
some good laughs were shared and we moved on to another bar where they had service. the pretty girl, the friend, and i chewed the fat for the next couple hours as the drinks continued to flow. my tolerance goes way up after the first night of drinking and nothing is nebulous about Saturday night.
closing time comes. we head out. we head in separate directions. i always feel weird about asking a girl i just met back home. i dont know what it is, i cant get over feeling like a creep. so i hint and look for a response. it wasnt all that strong. we left with a kiss. it was a good one. but i rode the bus home alone and we exchanged a couple texts.
she left yesterday. heading back to Michigan. then some sort of grad school in the fall in Boston. yet again i meet a great girl, who also happens to be freakin hot, from the mitten. and yet again her time in my life is ephemeral. we left with sentiments of hoping to see each other again, but with the geographical obstacles in the way, i feel the chances are somewhat remote.
snap back to reality and i am bummed. the crash after the high. the hangover. the fall from grace. i couldnt help but be a bit down yesterday, doing laundry and cleaning. just me and only me. it was a bit lonely. and today too, but to a lesser degree. the sting fades. the wounds heal.
all this from a couple nights at the bar. how i am so affected by something so short still astounds me. when its right, its right, i suppose. and it just be nice to have these things play out. since i moved here a couple years ago, every promising girl i connect with either turns out to have a dark side or, more frequently, be from Michigan and head back there before anything really develops. only once have i had the chance to let it find its own conclusion, and that was so casual and short lived that its barely worth counting.
what is it about Michigan that haunts me? i want to be there. my friends are there. the girls are there. at least the ones with any potential that have any interest in me. here i am in DC, cursing geography and missing the D.
Friday starts with happy hour at work(one reason why my company is a good one to work for) then to a local bar to continue the fun. during this my brother calls and tells me he got free tickets to the Washington Wizards game. i see-sawed for a while then decided to to go, so i would be tired Saturday at work, whats new? so i race home, change and metro to the game. i meet my brother and he hands me a ticket. our section is gold w and the face value is $450. we are in the second row behind the basket. we had a waiter. sure beats the cheap seats i can afford.
the game gets over, and the night is still young. so we head out to meet up with the brother's wife's sister and her friend. what ensues is a heady mix of drinking, dancing and music. turns out i dont give a shit about being tired when pretty girls want to drink and dance with me. the friend is gorgeous and i have a great time. better than i anticipated. and i didnt get home til 1 or 2. i dont really know.
7:23 my alarm goes off. good thing i set it before i went to the ball game. i down a couple glasses of water and a few asperin, fill up a bottle to take with, grab some nilla wafers to eat and take my half drunk, half hung over ass to the job site. i sit there for half an hour before the glass guy who i was to babysit shows up. he looks like a bad as biker, but is all about peace and love, and goes by Shorty. this guy is kick ass. good at his job, and a funny guy. i got the impression that hes a genuinely good guy. hes the real deal. he is who he is and its clear that hes not going to compromise. youve got to respect that. hes the type of guy that, despite his being twice my age, i would love to hang out with. it would be a riot.
so we finish up around 2pm. i head home, guiding some out of towners to their destination on the way, have some food, and pass out for a couple hours. the next few hours are spent grazing and relaxing and willing my hang over to pass so that i can go out and do it again.
i get the call from the girls at 8 and head out. ive eard good things about Brickskeller(sp) but i was disappointed in the bar but wholly satisfied with the company. with my recollection of the end of the previous evening a little fuzzy, i wasnt entirely sure of what the reception would be. it was all good. its great to be able to blend into the conversation with people you dont know all that well. it so often can be awkward.
some good laughs were shared and we moved on to another bar where they had service. the pretty girl, the friend, and i chewed the fat for the next couple hours as the drinks continued to flow. my tolerance goes way up after the first night of drinking and nothing is nebulous about Saturday night.
closing time comes. we head out. we head in separate directions. i always feel weird about asking a girl i just met back home. i dont know what it is, i cant get over feeling like a creep. so i hint and look for a response. it wasnt all that strong. we left with a kiss. it was a good one. but i rode the bus home alone and we exchanged a couple texts.
she left yesterday. heading back to Michigan. then some sort of grad school in the fall in Boston. yet again i meet a great girl, who also happens to be freakin hot, from the mitten. and yet again her time in my life is ephemeral. we left with sentiments of hoping to see each other again, but with the geographical obstacles in the way, i feel the chances are somewhat remote.
snap back to reality and i am bummed. the crash after the high. the hangover. the fall from grace. i couldnt help but be a bit down yesterday, doing laundry and cleaning. just me and only me. it was a bit lonely. and today too, but to a lesser degree. the sting fades. the wounds heal.
all this from a couple nights at the bar. how i am so affected by something so short still astounds me. when its right, its right, i suppose. and it just be nice to have these things play out. since i moved here a couple years ago, every promising girl i connect with either turns out to have a dark side or, more frequently, be from Michigan and head back there before anything really develops. only once have i had the chance to let it find its own conclusion, and that was so casual and short lived that its barely worth counting.
what is it about Michigan that haunts me? i want to be there. my friends are there. the girls are there. at least the ones with any potential that have any interest in me. here i am in DC, cursing geography and missing the D.
Friday, April 4, 2008
chasing the wind
today the Free Press published an article about the building that is probably the best physical symbol of the city of Detroit: Michigan Central Depot. its frequently referred to as Michigan Central Station, and thats what i have always know it as.
the building was built as Henry Ford's empire was coming together. it thrived through Detroit's industrial heyday. it began to wither as the racial divide in the Detroit deepened in the late 60's and 70's. its doors were shuttered in the late 80's as Detroit's hard times set in. since then is has been a majestic decrepit symbol of the city.
i remember coming into Detroit as a kid, and i knew that the hockey game, Greektown, or the Tigers were only a few minutes away. its broken windows and stained facade were a sign to me that the we had arrived. we made it through the decay of outlying Detroit and that downtown was mere moments away.
as i made this same trip through out the years its status as a well visible signpost remained, but it took on the deeper meaning of embodying Detroit's woes. i have given credit to that building in creating my interest in construction on a large scale. somewhere in high school i thought that it would be great if someone fixed up that old station. somewhere in college i decided that it would be best if i could fix it up, then i Detroit at large. and while those dreams are like chasing the wind, i still think it deserves credit for helping to funnel me into my present profession.
the station has been shuttered for all of my memory. for the last 20 years. there have been a number of renovation proposals of late, but none have come to pass. but in that time my perspective on Detroit has changed. i used to view the downtown area as an outpost in a decaying, dangerous urban jungle. ive come to see in recent years that Detroit at large is inhabited by good people. sure it has its urban prairies, its main street shabbiness with crumbling and condemned businesses. but behind these are their old proprietors. Detroit's residents today are largely victims of the past. the legacy that the race riots and the sputtering manufacturing industry. the adage is that is takes money to make money, and in the 70s all the money left for the suburbs and only visited for hockey games and baseball games. more recently it has left Michigan all together. people like me have moved out in search of greener grass.
while i have found greener grass in DC professionally, i still miss Detroit. its shabby facade, its tenacity(sometimes to a fault), its blue collar ease. in DC i have found work. i have also found that vagrancy, crime, and slums are not unique to Detroit. Detroit has a reputation for it, and perhaps a larger problem with these issues. but that can be in large part attributed to the economic decline and recession that Detroit has seen. i have never been one to assign blame to 'hard times' for people's bad situations, but its hard not to at least allow it to factor into Detroit's equation. the people suffering there today cannot be blamed for Detroit's decline. the auto execs who failed to see changing trends arent suffering in slums. but those who are voted to keep Coleman Young in office for decades as their city rotted beneath their feet.
they are those who accepted union jobs on the lines for generations and didnt try to better their lot. they found a meal ticket and clung to it. unfortunately that ticket has lost its value. the article that sparked this cites Ford's ground breaking $5 a day wages in 1908 and revolutionary assembly line and Model T as what made Detroit. since then little has changed. we still manufacture cars on that same premise, and still pay people roughly the same when adjusted for inflation. but it makes sense to any person in management that if your value has not increased, then neither will your pay. you cant lament a steady wage when you havent added value as the author of that article does.
what can bring Detroit back to boom is not early 20th century manufacturing. its the resurgence of early 20th century style ingenuity. the kinds of leaps that Henry Ford and Jimmy Durante made are what we need now. Jake Sigal, who started up Myine Electronics to make internet radios, is the future of Detroit. people like him who innovate and take a chance could be the next Ford or Durante. Detroit needs some ingenuity like that of a century ago to make it great again. its not going to be easy, but it never was.
the Freep found R. Kelley. now Detroit needs to find a new Ford, and new Durante, another Peter Karmanos, another Dan Gilbert, and a real leader.
the building was built as Henry Ford's empire was coming together. it thrived through Detroit's industrial heyday. it began to wither as the racial divide in the Detroit deepened in the late 60's and 70's. its doors were shuttered in the late 80's as Detroit's hard times set in. since then is has been a majestic decrepit symbol of the city.
i remember coming into Detroit as a kid, and i knew that the hockey game, Greektown, or the Tigers were only a few minutes away. its broken windows and stained facade were a sign to me that the we had arrived. we made it through the decay of outlying Detroit and that downtown was mere moments away.
as i made this same trip through out the years its status as a well visible signpost remained, but it took on the deeper meaning of embodying Detroit's woes. i have given credit to that building in creating my interest in construction on a large scale. somewhere in high school i thought that it would be great if someone fixed up that old station. somewhere in college i decided that it would be best if i could fix it up, then i Detroit at large. and while those dreams are like chasing the wind, i still think it deserves credit for helping to funnel me into my present profession.
the station has been shuttered for all of my memory. for the last 20 years. there have been a number of renovation proposals of late, but none have come to pass. but in that time my perspective on Detroit has changed. i used to view the downtown area as an outpost in a decaying, dangerous urban jungle. ive come to see in recent years that Detroit at large is inhabited by good people. sure it has its urban prairies, its main street shabbiness with crumbling and condemned businesses. but behind these are their old proprietors. Detroit's residents today are largely victims of the past. the legacy that the race riots and the sputtering manufacturing industry. the adage is that is takes money to make money, and in the 70s all the money left for the suburbs and only visited for hockey games and baseball games. more recently it has left Michigan all together. people like me have moved out in search of greener grass.
while i have found greener grass in DC professionally, i still miss Detroit. its shabby facade, its tenacity(sometimes to a fault), its blue collar ease. in DC i have found work. i have also found that vagrancy, crime, and slums are not unique to Detroit. Detroit has a reputation for it, and perhaps a larger problem with these issues. but that can be in large part attributed to the economic decline and recession that Detroit has seen. i have never been one to assign blame to 'hard times' for people's bad situations, but its hard not to at least allow it to factor into Detroit's equation. the people suffering there today cannot be blamed for Detroit's decline. the auto execs who failed to see changing trends arent suffering in slums. but those who are voted to keep Coleman Young in office for decades as their city rotted beneath their feet.
they are those who accepted union jobs on the lines for generations and didnt try to better their lot. they found a meal ticket and clung to it. unfortunately that ticket has lost its value. the article that sparked this cites Ford's ground breaking $5 a day wages in 1908 and revolutionary assembly line and Model T as what made Detroit. since then little has changed. we still manufacture cars on that same premise, and still pay people roughly the same when adjusted for inflation. but it makes sense to any person in management that if your value has not increased, then neither will your pay. you cant lament a steady wage when you havent added value as the author of that article does.
what can bring Detroit back to boom is not early 20th century manufacturing. its the resurgence of early 20th century style ingenuity. the kinds of leaps that Henry Ford and Jimmy Durante made are what we need now. Jake Sigal, who started up Myine Electronics to make internet radios, is the future of Detroit. people like him who innovate and take a chance could be the next Ford or Durante. Detroit needs some ingenuity like that of a century ago to make it great again. its not going to be easy, but it never was.
the Freep found R. Kelley. now Detroit needs to find a new Ford, and new Durante, another Peter Karmanos, another Dan Gilbert, and a real leader.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
black hole
is it just me, or is writing a blog about television a black hole of time. its wasting time writing about wasting time watching TV. you dont get time back. once youve pissed it away you cant get it back. do you really want to spend your life watching TV and writing about iton the internet?
unnecessary.
unnecessary.
its all perspective, man
A Dream Within a Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
i was reading random things in my Poe anthology last night when i happened upon that poem. its a great one. and it highlights something that has haunted (not necessarily in a bad way) my thoughts for years. it seems that its all about perspective for me. the books, movies, songs and poems that i like best either highlight a foreign perspective to me or in some way highlight the way perspective plays into our beleifs.
i wrote a poem years ago for some silly school writing contest and won top honors in the city for what i thought was a rather poor piece of writing. ill see if i can find it. the theme of the contest was 'wouldnt it be strange' or something of that nature. and my poem basically described a series of strange things then ended in pointing out that none of it would be strange if that is what we were accustomed to. a computer to George Washington would be very odd. but to me and you its perfectly normal.
its all perspective, man.
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep - while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
-E A Poe
i was reading random things in my Poe anthology last night when i happened upon that poem. its a great one. and it highlights something that has haunted (not necessarily in a bad way) my thoughts for years. it seems that its all about perspective for me. the books, movies, songs and poems that i like best either highlight a foreign perspective to me or in some way highlight the way perspective plays into our beleifs.
i wrote a poem years ago for some silly school writing contest and won top honors in the city for what i thought was a rather poor piece of writing. ill see if i can find it. the theme of the contest was 'wouldnt it be strange' or something of that nature. and my poem basically described a series of strange things then ended in pointing out that none of it would be strange if that is what we were accustomed to. a computer to George Washington would be very odd. but to me and you its perfectly normal.
its all perspective, man.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
