There is no place more quiet than the suburbs at night. You can travel to the most remote location imaginable, as far away from human civilization as you can get, and you will still find things stirring in the midnight hours. Burroughs called the suburbs “lifeproof houses“, and he was right. They lie far from the main roads, on roads people never travel down, roads only used for coming or going. Walking down those roads at night, you are truly alone. There are no creatures to rustle the perfectly sculpted bushes.
If you find yourself yearning for peace and tranquility, and want to get away from the stresses and complexities of your life, chances are you don’t have to look farther than your own street. You can walk down the center, and feel the power that comes from being alive. While the rest of the world lies dead in their bedrooms, you embrace your own life as you wonder down streets which, in a few hours time, will be busy once again.
Blog
Stupid Technology
One More Saturday Night by moe. with Bob Weir
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/moe1997-09-27.matrix.flacf/moe1997-09-27d3t03_64kb.mp3]
Things are spiting me again. Oh well.
I went home this weekend, and since this is my last week at school, I figured I’d leave some crap I wouldn’t need this week there. Like my laptop and a bunch of clothes. So inevitably when I get back to school, my desktop is having issues. File system corrupted, stuff like that. This has happened to me a couple times now, I’ve been debating about switching to Gentoo. But that’ll all wait until I’m gone from Storrs. For now I’m just running off an Ubuntu live cd. Its nice when all my vital things like pictures, documents, and music (well, a lot of it anyway) are in the cloud. Thanks Google.
I’ve been questioning the need of my desktop recently, probably because I have to lug it home at the end of the week. Is it really necessary? Well, if it didn’t keep dying on me, ya, it would be worth it. But as it is right now (and really has been all year), I might as well be running an ultra-light laptop. Eh.
Iron Man
We prefaced the movie with an Iron Man game at Laser Quest (half hour game).
That’s right – we did Iron Man, then Iron Man.
Good movie. I have to admit, I never read the comics, but I think I read a few issues of Spiderman with Iron Man crossovers. So I went into the movie completely unfamiliar with Iron Man’s story. He is a much more American superhero than most others (with maybe the exception of Batman). By this I mean he is a successful businessman, and his powers come from something he made with his own ingenuity.
There is something else about Iron Man that is different from most other superheroes, and it really jumped out at me in the fight scenes: Iron Man can’t really will himself over an obstacle. Other superheroes can push themselves further than what you expected of them, but if Iron Man’s suit breaks, he’s kinda fucked. I wonder if they’ll ever address that.
Also, Jeff Bridges plays the bad guy in this movie. It took me a while to realize it was him, but it totally is. If you ever want to really amuse yourself during this movie, just picture him as the Dude.
But I have to admit, I missed something. Jack and I left early because he had to wake up early in the morning. We usually stay for the credits if the movie was good. But we missed a scene with Sammy J as the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. that plays after the credits. So if you go to see this movie, stay for that scene.
Whoops
I missed a post yesterday. I’m surprised it took me this long. Though, 11 posts in a row is probably a new record for me. I was debating earlier this morning whether to just write something up and back-date it so it appeared as if I wrote it yesterday. But missing a post is just as important to this project as making one, so it will stay lacking.
Otherwise, I’m pretty much done with the school year. I still have finals left, but they should be pretty easy this year, so I’m just waiting for the week to end. If I end up seeing Iron Man tonight I’ll write about that later.
RSS Awareness Day
So apparently today is RSS awareness day. Who knew? It turns out only about 5% of internet users use RSS feeds. Which is kind of sad. If you’re reading this in an RSS reader, give yourself a pat on the back. Anyway, I’ve been thinking for a while that I oughta post some of the RSS feeds that I love. As I’ve said probably too many times: Google Reader is amazing. I’m using it to aggregate 102 feeds right now, and its a breeze.
Anyway, on to the feeds…
According to Google Reader, some of my most read feeds are:
Fark.com – read only for the headlines
Gizmodo – I’m a gadget geek
Ask Metafilter – This is quickly becoming my favourite subscription
Waxy.org Links – great source of interesting links
I’m bored with this. Maybe I’ll post more about it later. But not today.
Nap
Garden III by Tea Leaf Green
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/tlg2005-12-15.flac1644.akg483/tlg2005-12-15.d2t04_64kb.mp3]
I just woke up from a nap in the recliner. To this song. It was excellent.
Now I get to write ten to fifteen pages about Revolutionary War pensioners.
Lamberton
Lamberton is the first name of one of the guys I’m writing this huge paper about. Its a great first name. So is Hezekiah. And Jair, Ozias, Elihu, Philemon, Cuff, Comfort, and a bunch of other great first names that haven’t been seen in hundreds of years.
I’m writing about Revolutionary War veterans from my hometown. To find out about their personal experience in the war, I’m looking through their pension applications, where they have to prove they were in the war, usually through a list of battles they were in, people they served under, or an anecdote of something that happened.
That’s what I’m doing tonight. And tomorrow night.
Russian Reggae
Alex turned me on to these guys. The song is Soldat by 5’Nizza:
Reflecting
So spring weekend is over, and I still have faith in humanity. Probably because I didn’t go out much. But last night I went to bed feeling good. I don’t know why, but a feeling of good hit me when I was getting ready to go to bed.
I’ve been taking down notes of what I’m thinking about before I go to sleep. Not of everything, but of the things I want to remember. It usually takes me about an hour to fall asleep, unless I’m actually tired from doing something, which is rare. So I’ve got a lot of time to think. Like when you take a shower, and ideas come to you. Its the only time of day when you’re away from distractions that keep your from quality time with your mind. I’m glad I’ve been taking down these notes too, because I’ve gotten a lot of decent ideas, and I would have otherwise forgotten them.
Fuck Holidays
Joe: i didn’t do anything for earth day
Joe: except the usual small miracles that make every day a celebration unto itself
John: good
John: fuck holidays
John: I was thinking about that today, and how much I dislike the idea of that
Joe: right, we don’t have to care about the earth any day but today
John: concentrating all this [whatever] for one day of a the year, and then going back to normal afterwards
Joe: i think it’s supposed to be more like new year’s
Joe: where you think about how you can more wisely spend your next year
John: and we all know how well that works out
I had been thinking about the worthlessness of holidays, then Joe chimed in on that, and a little later Dan did too. Good.