Friday, June 5, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
two weeks
yes, grizzly bear is blowing my mind. they actually have a song on the dark is the night compilation album called deep blue sea and it's amazing. the national have a song on there too that's incredible.
david carradine is dead. i had never seen him in anything until kill bill, which i thought he was strangely calm and unnerving. his superman speech is great.
this is nice: a worrier's guide to economic recovery. after all these months of pessisism (sp?), could we really be coming out of it? can i believe yet?
because then you read something like this that says rising interest on the world's debts will continue to sap growth.
look at this prius!! it gets 50 mpg! that's incredible!!! wow. i want one.
david carradine is dead. i had never seen him in anything until kill bill, which i thought he was strangely calm and unnerving. his superman speech is great.
this is nice: a worrier's guide to economic recovery. after all these months of pessisism (sp?), could we really be coming out of it? can i believe yet?
because then you read something like this that says rising interest on the world's debts will continue to sap growth.
look at this prius!! it gets 50 mpg! that's incredible!!! wow. i want one.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
kicking television
did anyone catch the entire "earth 2100" last night? i only caught the last 45 minutes of it. i'm going to try and find it on the web and watch the whole thing. it deals with the possible environmental ramifications of our actions if we do not accept that our current way of life is unsustainable. i've been making this joke lately that my mom and other baby boomers don't really appreciate, but at least they laugh. the baby boomers experienced the most perfect period of life on this planet. they were raised during u.s. dominance and they matured and grew older when stocks were high, land was cheap and medicine was advancing. they could run their air conditioners all day and they could drive their inefficient cars as much as they wanted. but that period is ending. and the aftermath will fall on us.
i have no scientific data to back this up. but i'm not an idiot. i've seen changes in my life. i've seen the choices we have made about how we live, work and surround ourselves with exploits of life. so i wonder, what will change during my lifetime? i wonder if world leaders are determined enough/smart enough to really get a handle on the seriousness of the situation. do they understand what raising sea levels will be like? do they really understand how fast disease will spread when changing temperatures allow it to permeate and breed much more easier in areas where it used to be uncommon? do they understand that globalization will end overnight if our infrastructure is challenged and compromised? and it really wouldn't take much for that to happen.
one of the reasons i want to leave houston so bad is because i would love to live in a city where a car is not a necessity. i dream of the idea of waking up, grabbing a book and hopping on a train and reading the whole way to work, or listening to a new album. it would make my life so much easier and cheaper and also help the environment around me. i see all these condos going up inside the loop here in houston and i wonder, how do they plan on moving all these people around? cause each high-rise will have about 100-200 tenants and each one of those people will get into their car and drive to work everyday. they have no choice.
we've taken "the old ways" and we've industrialized them. what happens when we have to go back to the old ways? we'll have to have a garden and grow our own crops and possibly raise our own animals to eat. and think of all the advancements that have been stored in some electronic database that will be lost. it all seems so pointless when you think about it in these terms. why did we advance ourselves to the point where we ended our civilization?
and i'm not saying these things as a means of scare-mongering. this is real stuff. our actions have consequences. our choices have consequences. we never realized we were partners with the earth and maybe we never will. but the earth knows we're just renting from her. and she'll evict us eventually if we don't change. i know we have the technology to do this. but do we have the stomach? it's got to be our generation that mandates these changes, otherwise, when we're 70, we won't recognize the world around us.
so what changes can you make right now around you? well not big ones. but you can change your light bulbs. you can insulate your house and install thicker windows that don't leak. you can grow a garden. you can ride your bike or take the bus/train/lightrail if you can. i know in texas that's not easy/plausible. you can use re-usable bags instead of plastic bags. you can turn down your water heater a few degrees and maybe your a/c too. that's also not easy in texas summers. i don't have any grand ideas for your everday life. those will have to come from somewhere else. but imagine a world where your car is electric and you drive to work/home and you plug into something like a carport that is outfitted with solar polars that are used to recharge your car. those are the kinds of ideas we need to get behind.
anyway, i just think our lives will be so much simpler when we do make this leap. our generation will experience the worst. we'll have to work out the kinks and pay the highest prices for this change-over. i'm ready to do it. i can't wait to see it.
i have no scientific data to back this up. but i'm not an idiot. i've seen changes in my life. i've seen the choices we have made about how we live, work and surround ourselves with exploits of life. so i wonder, what will change during my lifetime? i wonder if world leaders are determined enough/smart enough to really get a handle on the seriousness of the situation. do they understand what raising sea levels will be like? do they really understand how fast disease will spread when changing temperatures allow it to permeate and breed much more easier in areas where it used to be uncommon? do they understand that globalization will end overnight if our infrastructure is challenged and compromised? and it really wouldn't take much for that to happen.
one of the reasons i want to leave houston so bad is because i would love to live in a city where a car is not a necessity. i dream of the idea of waking up, grabbing a book and hopping on a train and reading the whole way to work, or listening to a new album. it would make my life so much easier and cheaper and also help the environment around me. i see all these condos going up inside the loop here in houston and i wonder, how do they plan on moving all these people around? cause each high-rise will have about 100-200 tenants and each one of those people will get into their car and drive to work everyday. they have no choice.
we've taken "the old ways" and we've industrialized them. what happens when we have to go back to the old ways? we'll have to have a garden and grow our own crops and possibly raise our own animals to eat. and think of all the advancements that have been stored in some electronic database that will be lost. it all seems so pointless when you think about it in these terms. why did we advance ourselves to the point where we ended our civilization?
and i'm not saying these things as a means of scare-mongering. this is real stuff. our actions have consequences. our choices have consequences. we never realized we were partners with the earth and maybe we never will. but the earth knows we're just renting from her. and she'll evict us eventually if we don't change. i know we have the technology to do this. but do we have the stomach? it's got to be our generation that mandates these changes, otherwise, when we're 70, we won't recognize the world around us.
so what changes can you make right now around you? well not big ones. but you can change your light bulbs. you can insulate your house and install thicker windows that don't leak. you can grow a garden. you can ride your bike or take the bus/train/lightrail if you can. i know in texas that's not easy/plausible. you can use re-usable bags instead of plastic bags. you can turn down your water heater a few degrees and maybe your a/c too. that's also not easy in texas summers. i don't have any grand ideas for your everday life. those will have to come from somewhere else. but imagine a world where your car is electric and you drive to work/home and you plug into something like a carport that is outfitted with solar polars that are used to recharge your car. those are the kinds of ideas we need to get behind.
anyway, i just think our lives will be so much simpler when we do make this leap. our generation will experience the worst. we'll have to work out the kinks and pay the highest prices for this change-over. i'm ready to do it. i can't wait to see it.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
the good part
apparently this song is on the war on war single. the good part. check it out. it's a little tasty tune.
what is the deal with this jon and kate make eight or something? who are these people? i had never heard of them until like two weeks ago and now everywhere i go, i see their faces or i'm staring at their pictures in line at the grocery store. did these people have eight babies and they were given a tv show? is that what's happening here? man, i really want to punch these people in the leg. like real hard for interferring in my life. i also had gone this long without hearing that old scottish woman sing until last night when my wife had on the jimmy kimmel show and she was singing. i was proud of myself for going this long without hearing her. it's not that she's bad, it's just that i do not appreciate cultural phenoms thrust down my throat. or hot pizza bagels.
here is an important piece of journalism...can white women and black women get along. i thought oprah was bringing all the women together. oprah has let me down.
during the summertime, the avclub does reviews of old classic television shows while the real shows are on hiatus. newsradio is one of them. it's in my top five of all-time sitcoms/television comedies which are numbered as such:
1. arrested development
2. seinfeld
3. newsradio
4. the simpsons
5. cheers
number six would be out of this world.
"would you like to swing on a star, oh oh oh, carry meanbeams home in a jar, oh oh oh, and be better off than you are, oh oh oh, or would you rather go to earth?"
what is the deal with this jon and kate make eight or something? who are these people? i had never heard of them until like two weeks ago and now everywhere i go, i see their faces or i'm staring at their pictures in line at the grocery store. did these people have eight babies and they were given a tv show? is that what's happening here? man, i really want to punch these people in the leg. like real hard for interferring in my life. i also had gone this long without hearing that old scottish woman sing until last night when my wife had on the jimmy kimmel show and she was singing. i was proud of myself for going this long without hearing her. it's not that she's bad, it's just that i do not appreciate cultural phenoms thrust down my throat. or hot pizza bagels.
here is an important piece of journalism...can white women and black women get along. i thought oprah was bringing all the women together. oprah has let me down.
during the summertime, the avclub does reviews of old classic television shows while the real shows are on hiatus. newsradio is one of them. it's in my top five of all-time sitcoms/television comedies which are numbered as such:
1. arrested development
2. seinfeld
3. newsradio
4. the simpsons
5. cheers
number six would be out of this world.
"would you like to swing on a star, oh oh oh, carry meanbeams home in a jar, oh oh oh, and be better off than you are, oh oh oh, or would you rather go to earth?"
Monday, June 1, 2009
deep blue sea
it's already a big day. GM filed for bankruptcy. that is huge. GM was one of those pillars of american business. you had coca-cola, johnson and johnson and stuff like that. GM was in that bunch. now it's gone, owned by the government. also, a freaking plane disappeared over the atlantic. apparently it ran into some lightening and freaking disappeared.
more than two people read this blog. i stand corrected. by christmas of 2011, this blog will be seen by four to four point five people. aim high.
pretty good article from the new york times about banks digging in their heels against regulations even when the business they were trying to protect was disintergrating.
the new republic does a write-up on arianna huffington. it's not pretty. she has a website called the huffington post, which i use from time to time for stories on this blog.
this guy has ideas about how to spend stimulus money. like instead of spending it on parking lots or signs for blind people, we can spend it on outfitting our buildings/homes/public arenas with green appliances/techonology.
i saw the wrestler this weekend. and while it was a great movie, because i used to get really into wrestling and kind of followed some of the guys careers and my cousin wrestled in humble for quite a while, the story was a little predictable to me. but the performance of mickey rourke was outstanding. he was great. i think everyone should check it out.
more than two people read this blog. i stand corrected. by christmas of 2011, this blog will be seen by four to four point five people. aim high.
pretty good article from the new york times about banks digging in their heels against regulations even when the business they were trying to protect was disintergrating.
the new republic does a write-up on arianna huffington. it's not pretty. she has a website called the huffington post, which i use from time to time for stories on this blog.
this guy has ideas about how to spend stimulus money. like instead of spending it on parking lots or signs for blind people, we can spend it on outfitting our buildings/homes/public arenas with green appliances/techonology.
i saw the wrestler this weekend. and while it was a great movie, because i used to get really into wrestling and kind of followed some of the guys careers and my cousin wrestled in humble for quite a while, the story was a little predictable to me. but the performance of mickey rourke was outstanding. he was great. i think everyone should check it out.
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