I'm beginning to realize that besides food and beer, one of my greatest vices has become sensory input. More specifically, listening to podcasts, going on the internet and watching TV. When you are alone all day and tired of listening to your inner monologue, you need something to keep your brain busy. But I think in these times of instant access to everything, we can definitely over do it. A good example is when I'm watching something on TV and then pick up the laptop to see what other movies or shows some actor has been in. Now, not only am I taking in input from two sources, but my braining is thinking about a third source. If I'm walking the dog or doing the dishes, I've always got a podcast going on the ipod. From time to time I've been having trouble sleeping. This is nothing new for me, but I find that the voices and scenarios from TV and podcasts are creeping into my psyche on the edge of sleep and my brain won't shut down. I know its important to exercise the brain, but I'm learning that its equally important to let it rest. I came to this clarity of thought on a 6 mile hike, during which I didn't break out my ipod, I just let my brain wander where it would. I can tell you that having not had more than 2 hours sleep last night, there was a huge data dump going on, like a waking dream. I feel a little clearer now and hopefully, I'll sleep tonight.
Ask yourself when the last time you sat quietly alone with your thoughts.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
A Low carb Alternative Food
Those little honeys are bacon wrapped chicken drummettes. Finally, the pig and the chicken have come together to form the perfect food. Next time I might take the chicken skin off and wrap a jalapeno in there. Lauri made broccoli in a futile attempt to try and counteract the bacon.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
happy days
When was the last time you had a really really good laugh? Like the kinda laugh that is uncontrollable! The laughing spell where you need to gather yourself but just can't cuz you keep thinking about the funny thing? When was the last time you laugh so hard you peed your pants, or spit out a drink or even had tears in your eyes?
I think we could all use one of those moments soon. :)
I think we could all use one of those moments soon. :)
They finally made a monkey out of me!
Rise of the Planet of the Apes Trailer
Click on the Link to Watch on You Tube.
I have to say, this looks pretty cool. But I'm not sure of I'm up for a movie that turns realistic looking apes into enemies. The state of the Gorilla and Chimpanzee species is pretty dire right now and having stupid ass people see them as dangerous is the last thing they need right now. Having said that, I'll probably still see the movie.
Click on the Link to Watch on You Tube.
I have to say, this looks pretty cool. But I'm not sure of I'm up for a movie that turns realistic looking apes into enemies. The state of the Gorilla and Chimpanzee species is pretty dire right now and having stupid ass people see them as dangerous is the last thing they need right now. Having said that, I'll probably still see the movie.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Facebook This!
I watched 12 hours of Sons of Anarchy yesterday. It's on Netflix instant viewing now. It became so ingrained in my brain that I couldn't sleep. I had the phrase SAMCRO repeating over and over again. I had visions of Katey Segal smoking a joint and kidnapping Alison. So now I have to watch no more than 1 or 2 episodes a day. None today, too scary. Today, I'm goin to retreat back into middle-earth, where I have been pretty much living for the last three months.
ConAgra foods makes my favorite taco sauce and engages in price fixing. Matt Damon told me so. Its a little vexing to know that I could be getting cheaper taco sauce.
ConAgra foods makes my favorite taco sauce and engages in price fixing. Matt Damon told me so. Its a little vexing to know that I could be getting cheaper taco sauce.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
A Mystery!?
You are faced with an unsolvable mystery. Your life hangs in the balance. Do you call on Batman or Sherlock Holmes for help. Several things to consider, Batman is also a Ninja but he only works at night. With Sherlock Holmes you also get the keen mind of Doctor Watson, however Holmes is a coke fiend and Watson is probably his dealer.
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Oprah
Did you know that Pete loathes Oprah Winfrey? It makes me giggle just thinking about all the little snickers and comments he makes when i watch her shows. Yes, i watch Oprah. Don't judge me! If you were home for four months and time no longer had meaning, then we can discuss it. I also feel like i'm somewhat justified in watching Oprah cuz its her last season. they don't do repeats of talk shows so i'm in the clear after her series is done. of course, there is her new network, OWN. Guess i'll still be watching some Oprah related stuff. sorry Pete!
Facebook, The Audience Isn't Listening Part 2
By chance I had heard of a T-Shirt called Three Wolf Moon. Its a T-Shirt with three wolf heads on it howling at the moon. It became a sort of internet phenomenon when someone stumbled on it on Amazon and wrote a review of it, imbuing it with magical powers. There are now over 1200 reviews of the shirt on Amazon and some of them are really funny. Anyway, I thought it would be worth the $20 to send Randy the shirt, addressed to “Mad Dog Moe” It made me laugh. So I order the shirt and have it sent to Randy’s house. Now, this is another attempt by me to get a rise out of someone. (Namely Randy, in this case) Performance art if you will.
I eagerly check my Amazon account to check the delivery status of the shirt. The package was delivered yesterday and would be waiting for Randy on the doorstep when he got home from work. I relished in the response I might receive. I laughed just thinking about it. Yesterday came and went and I got no response. This morning, I confirmed with Tim that Randy had received and opened the package. Tim, at least , let me know that he thought the gag gift was “very funny”. Ok so, Randy is not the type to over emote for sure, but to say nothing...? I thought maybe the gift had confused or angered him in some way. So I took to Facebook and in a jokey kind of way explained the gift. Randy confirmed that it was “a very interesting shirt”. Here is the thing though, as I said before every single thing I post on Facebook is meant for an audience reaction even when I write directly on someone’s wall, I hope for a reaction from our mutual friends. I won’t go into the play by play, because you can check Facebook and see that my post got no reaction. I checked it all day waiting for someone to do some investigating on Three Wolf Moon and appreciate, via comment, my little piece of performance art. As of this writing, there has been absolutely no reactions. It’s stupid, I know, but I’m really disappointed by this. There are several factors that may be contributing to the lax response, the first is that I posted on a weekday morning, so by the time people got home from work, my post could have been buried under 50 other posts, depending on how many friends you have. I also posted it on Randy’s page and Randy is not very active on Facebook, and we all know, if you don’t post regularly, people tend to stop checking your page. There may be people who would feedback but haven’t seen it yet. But on Facebook, if you don’t get the reaction you want in 24 hours your post is buried under hundreds of other posts and you may as well forget it.
I eagerly check my Amazon account to check the delivery status of the shirt. The package was delivered yesterday and would be waiting for Randy on the doorstep when he got home from work. I relished in the response I might receive. I laughed just thinking about it. Yesterday came and went and I got no response. This morning, I confirmed with Tim that Randy had received and opened the package. Tim, at least , let me know that he thought the gag gift was “very funny”. Ok so, Randy is not the type to over emote for sure, but to say nothing...? I thought maybe the gift had confused or angered him in some way. So I took to Facebook and in a jokey kind of way explained the gift. Randy confirmed that it was “a very interesting shirt”. Here is the thing though, as I said before every single thing I post on Facebook is meant for an audience reaction even when I write directly on someone’s wall, I hope for a reaction from our mutual friends. I won’t go into the play by play, because you can check Facebook and see that my post got no reaction. I checked it all day waiting for someone to do some investigating on Three Wolf Moon and appreciate, via comment, my little piece of performance art. As of this writing, there has been absolutely no reactions. It’s stupid, I know, but I’m really disappointed by this. There are several factors that may be contributing to the lax response, the first is that I posted on a weekday morning, so by the time people got home from work, my post could have been buried under 50 other posts, depending on how many friends you have. I also posted it on Randy’s page and Randy is not very active on Facebook, and we all know, if you don’t post regularly, people tend to stop checking your page. There may be people who would feedback but haven’t seen it yet. But on Facebook, if you don’t get the reaction you want in 24 hours your post is buried under hundreds of other posts and you may as well forget it.
Facebook, The Audience Isn't Listening Part 1
In February of 2005, Randy and I started a blog on Google’s Blogger service. The idea was that we would post our opinions on Movies, TV, Music, video games etc. and someone would eventually stumble across it and begin to pay us for our awesome writing skills and pop culture observations. What actually happened was that we ended up documenting a period in our lives, before we started working full time and were having a lot of boozy adventures, probably way too far into our adulthood. However, I did put in a lot of effort and wrote a lot of stuff that I’m pretty proud of, we even had an essay contest that had, at least, our group of friends talking about it.
Three major things have happened since 2005 that for all intents and purposes shut the blog down. The first is that I began working full time and a lot of the wasted days that were so interesting to write and read about came to an end. MySpace, Blogs and the internet in general were becoming more accessible than ever and I began to worry that if I wrote about work, someone would eventually see it.
The second, is that I got a cell phone. My job made me get one. I was like the last hold out on getting a cell phone and I wonder sometimes, if my job didn’t make me carry it, if I still wouldn’t have it. Anyway, I absolutely fell in love with texting. I could instantly send my thoughts and ideas out to a dozen people at a time. Really at that point, thats what the blog was all about. But with texting, people had to tune in. It was passive, they didn’t have to go searching for my latest post, it was sent to them and they eventually had to read it. Not only that, but because of the format, I had to be brief and did not have to spend time to flesh out a thought or even censor myself. My thoughts were laid bare in 100 character messages. In 2005 we had 474 post, the next year was a little over half that and then a little over half that the next year. 2007-2008 held pretty steady but by then we were at a quarter of our production of 2005. In 2009 production fell off by half again and in 2010 there were only 18 posts.
The third and most devastating thing to happen to the blog was Facebook. Status updates killed blogging for the casual blogger. Once everyone was on Facebook, I could post any random thought and it didn’t even have to be particularly interesting and I could get almost instant feedback from my friends, with hardly any effort. And what has become clear to me is that I crave that feedback. I don’t really write for myself, I’ve never really been a journal keeper, I write for an audience, I fancy myself a writer. Not in any real way, of course, but I feel like I have limited ability to entertain with the written word. I’m no good at telling stories orally, but give me a chance to revise and rewrite and I can spin a yarn from time to time. So, I’ll admit it, every single thing I post on Facebook is to elicit a response from those who read it. If I post something, and get no comments, I’m always disappointed. And I’m always puzzled when I see other people post something like “Off to take a nap” and they end up with 15 comments. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not down on Facebook, I like Facebook and I know that Facebook will allow you to blog, but I don’t think anyone digs that deep on my page to read a blog. Obviously there was nothing stopping me from continuing to post on my blog, its just that posting on Facebook was always so much easier and most of the time it provides almost instant gratification. A lot of times when I’m trying to compose a blog post, I get off on a rant and can’t find my way back to the point and just abandon the post altogether.
So that brings us to the present and explains why I gave up the pleasure of writing long winded, mostly embellished daily adventure stories. But something happened over the last few days that has made me want to go dark on Facebook for a while and try to get back to a more, to my mind, artful way of expressing myself on the blog. Here goes, talk about burying the lead...
Three major things have happened since 2005 that for all intents and purposes shut the blog down. The first is that I began working full time and a lot of the wasted days that were so interesting to write and read about came to an end. MySpace, Blogs and the internet in general were becoming more accessible than ever and I began to worry that if I wrote about work, someone would eventually see it.
The second, is that I got a cell phone. My job made me get one. I was like the last hold out on getting a cell phone and I wonder sometimes, if my job didn’t make me carry it, if I still wouldn’t have it. Anyway, I absolutely fell in love with texting. I could instantly send my thoughts and ideas out to a dozen people at a time. Really at that point, thats what the blog was all about. But with texting, people had to tune in. It was passive, they didn’t have to go searching for my latest post, it was sent to them and they eventually had to read it. Not only that, but because of the format, I had to be brief and did not have to spend time to flesh out a thought or even censor myself. My thoughts were laid bare in 100 character messages. In 2005 we had 474 post, the next year was a little over half that and then a little over half that the next year. 2007-2008 held pretty steady but by then we were at a quarter of our production of 2005. In 2009 production fell off by half again and in 2010 there were only 18 posts.
The third and most devastating thing to happen to the blog was Facebook. Status updates killed blogging for the casual blogger. Once everyone was on Facebook, I could post any random thought and it didn’t even have to be particularly interesting and I could get almost instant feedback from my friends, with hardly any effort. And what has become clear to me is that I crave that feedback. I don’t really write for myself, I’ve never really been a journal keeper, I write for an audience, I fancy myself a writer. Not in any real way, of course, but I feel like I have limited ability to entertain with the written word. I’m no good at telling stories orally, but give me a chance to revise and rewrite and I can spin a yarn from time to time. So, I’ll admit it, every single thing I post on Facebook is to elicit a response from those who read it. If I post something, and get no comments, I’m always disappointed. And I’m always puzzled when I see other people post something like “Off to take a nap” and they end up with 15 comments. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not down on Facebook, I like Facebook and I know that Facebook will allow you to blog, but I don’t think anyone digs that deep on my page to read a blog. Obviously there was nothing stopping me from continuing to post on my blog, its just that posting on Facebook was always so much easier and most of the time it provides almost instant gratification. A lot of times when I’m trying to compose a blog post, I get off on a rant and can’t find my way back to the point and just abandon the post altogether.
So that brings us to the present and explains why I gave up the pleasure of writing long winded, mostly embellished daily adventure stories. But something happened over the last few days that has made me want to go dark on Facebook for a while and try to get back to a more, to my mind, artful way of expressing myself on the blog. Here goes, talk about burying the lead...
New Design...Again.
Hi All,
As you can see, I'm playing with the blog design again. I took down all of the pictures, just to simplify the look. I haven't changed any of the permissions so you are all still free to post. I'm going to try to post stuff on here rather than Facebook from now on. I've made that claim before, but who knows, maybe I'll actually do it this time.
As you can see, I'm playing with the blog design again. I took down all of the pictures, just to simplify the look. I haven't changed any of the permissions so you are all still free to post. I'm going to try to post stuff on here rather than Facebook from now on. I've made that claim before, but who knows, maybe I'll actually do it this time.
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