According to my Linguistics professor every time there is a revolutionary invention people tend to make that invention into a symbol for thought. The light bulb was one such invention. Cartoon characters often have light bulbs appear over their heads to indicate that they've had an idea. Then of course there is the phrase "The lights are on, but no one's home." Anyway, in that grand tradition of making technology a symbol for thought I submit this thought. I'm pretty thoughts are like a streaming video. When everything is working right the picture is decent and the sound is correctly synched. Sometimes though the video catches up to what's been buffered and the video lurches along in two second clips if something isn't done to fix it. I've haven't felt particularly inspired as of late. Strangely, I haven't been thinking about new philosophical subjects much. Even when I try to do so my train of thought seems to get derailed rather quickly (another example of technology as thought). So I've concluded that I'm at the buffering stage in my philosophical pondering. In all likelihood it means I need to do more reading to stimulate my brain. Does anyone have any books to suggest?
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Friday, March 17, 2006
Happy Birthday and Delaying the Inevitable
Today is my birthday, my 23rd in fact. To celebrate, I'll be taking a Statistics test and working. Potentially those fun-filled activities are to be followed up with a little trip to IHOP and some philosophical discussion. So I was thinking about the whole birthday practice and I'm asking that gifts be given to me in the form of quotes. No books of them, no long lists, just one or two quotes with something of weight to consider. Something like "Selfishness is self-destruction in slow motion." Got to love that Maxwell. In all honesty I'm writing now because I am delaying my stats test and work just a little longer. It's my birthday I get to be a little lazy right? That would beg the question "What's my excuse for the rest of the year?" but I'll just gloss over that.
On a more serious note, the last month or so has been more or less torturous to me to one degree or another. I've been trying desperately to figure out what the problem was. Finally, last night as I was praying one of those look,-I-know-you-know-what-you're-doing-but-I-don't-know-what-you're-doing prayers and things became clear. I was reminded of the importance of our thoughts. I really believe that there is no other way to truly be happy in life short of focusing our thoughts and consequently our actions on the things of eternity. For me right now, that mainly means thinking more about other people than myself. I hope that doesn't come across as cliché, but either way the principle holds true. Martin Luther King Jr. said "Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?" Guess that means I need to leave my ivory tower a bit more often.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
A Taste of My Taste
Between three months at an insurance company, three at an engineering supply place, and four or five at the BYU I have had copious amounts of time to listen to music. Each of these jobs has been mindless enough that they allowed me to listen to music while I worked. In the summer alone, I was working full time so that meant eight hours of music a day five days a week for a few months. Early on my good friend Brett informed me of Yahoo's music services. I tried the free trial of their launchcast radio and quickly became hooked. At first it was slow going getting my "personal" radio station fine tuned. Over the months though, I've been pleased to come across quite a few new bands that I enjoy immensely. As a public service, I will list my top three favorite new bands, a few of the songs I like the most, and what they have to offer.
- The All-American Rejects: "Move Along," "Swing, Swing," and "Your Star" Emo/Indie band with some good lyrics and upbeat rhythms. Both of their cds are high quality.
- Death Cab For Cutie: "Crooked Teeth," "Marching Bands of
- Snow Patrol: "How to Be Dead," "Chocolate," and "Spitting Games" Another classic "Run" was recently posted on Provo Platinum, which in no small part inspired this post. Emotion charged vocals and hypnotic beats of pure goodness.
- Guster: "Fa Fa," "Two Points for Honesty," and "So Long" I heard "Fa Fa" years ago and the chorus was forever popping into my head, but I didn't know the song or band name. Thanks to James who reintroduced me to the glory of Guster. Very catchy and singable, (yes, that's a word now) the songs have some noteworthy ideas.
So originally this was going to be a list of five bands, but it occurs to me that it is now one in the morning and I want to sleep. Perhaps this wasn't the best time to post. In any event for what it's worth here are some songs I recommend. I'm sure you can listen to them somewhere, somehow. They're worth the effort.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Pandering to the Masses
Being an astute observer of cartoons I've come to love a variety of shows that both well-written and entertaining. The best of the best as far as I'm c
oncerned is as follows:
2. Invader Zim
3. The Tick
4. Big Guy and Rusty
5. Batman Beyond
Aside from being high-quality however there is one other common thread connecting these shows. They've all been canceled. I'm appalled when I consider that, in contrast, Power Rangers still lives on in some form to this day after some twenty different variations. The irony is that the title of the show (lightspeed monkey force to ultra rescue people) changes more often than the plot of the individual episodes. If you've seen one episode you've seen them all. You'd think with all the monster attacks the city would start to look the worse for wear, but they must have some killer construction crews. The hardest part of the writing is probably deciding what to name the monster. I mean the name Obliveron sends a totally different message from Decimax. We all know that the public school system has been failing for some time now. I turned to cartoons to compensate, but where will the rising generation turn? Spongebob? I really hope not. It just goes to show that the masses will support crapulence they know and understand over genius they don't. I just barely found out that Teen Titans was canceled. I'm very disappointed with the viewing public.