Pink Ribbon Post

October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month I figured I'd get a head start on everyone. I'm going to cross-post this into my community blog as well because I think it's a great idea and I want to make sure as many folks as possible see it. Anyways, Wired recently did an article about the Blogger Boobie-Thon. The article tells you everything about what the site represents. Basically they donate all proceeds to either Breast Cancer research (a great thing, save the boobies, forgive my crassness), or to the Red Cross to help victems of Hurricane Katrina. It's a cool idea that is done in good taste so everyone at least check it out. If anyone donates a picture let me know. I'm currently thinking about it.

Check out this post that inspired me to go ahead and post about the Boobie-Thon. Since most of you are mindless liberal followers, I mean free thinkers, you'll enjoy it. Hahaha.

Image provided by http://www.carolsutton.net/pinkribbon.html from their free page. Thank you much.

After some brief web surfing...

Okay well I've been goofing off all night and just cruising around random sites to find interesting things. I don't really have anything to do tomorrow so staying up all night wasn't that big of a deal, I've got two books to read but that's become like second nature so shouldn't be a problem at all. Anyways, on to the cool and interesting things which I have encountered.

Okay so I was reading a supplement to my Wired magazine intitled "Fashion Rocks". I found this idea interesting in that it comes from a magazine about tech and gadgets, but with a picture of Gwen Stefani, David Bowie, and Alicia Keys on the cover I couldn't really pass up reading about of a few of the featured musicians. The most intriguing was Gwen's as she talks about her high-end fashion line L.A.M.B. as well as her easier access one, Harajuku Lovers. Now the whole Harajuku thing interested me because it seemed a Japanese word (I was right) and yet it had some imported-into-English feel about it (I was partially right). Harajuku isn't really defined yet (other then being a district in Tokya near Yoyogi-koen park). It also is a fashion culture (to me it is an overendulgence in all things cute and the idea of cuteness) as illustrated by the following image which may disturb some of you.

If you really wish to see more of these crazy pictures just search on Google Images for Harajuku.

Next I came across a great site about music videos, those things you can never find on TV anymore even though three stations used to be entirely dedicated to them. Anyways, cliptip is providing streaming video of a different indie groups, though sometimes big names as well, and commenting on the videos posted. Great site, I learned about this one from my regular Wired magazine.

Rocketboom.com a great video log from a young lady in New York City that talks about interesting things her viewers have submitted. They range from technology, fellow bloggers, TV, and nearly anything I think. I didn't check out that many of the videos, which usually last less than three minutes, but they all seemed to be very interesting and up-to-date.

Writely is actually something I found the other night and never got a chance to write about because I needed sleep after working all day and needing sleep for the next day of work. Anyways, it is about colloborative writing online. An amalgamation of word-processor and e-mail. Everyone who you include as a user to a document can log in and either edit or simply view it depending on the permissions you assign them. No longer would companies, or colloboraters in general, need to worry about document version everyone would be accessing the same document from all over the world through the world wide web, think project editing in real time. An interesting and brove new frontier in the field of literary development.

Lastly, I began to visit a few photoblogs for some strange reason, I was just compelled at about 5:30am to begin checking a few out. Here are my two current favorites (if you have any photoblogs you enjoy please let me know). First, Chromasia, great photos with descriptions of the shots and details about how they were shot, very professional in feel. Here are the permalinks to my two favorite, so far, from this site. Company Fierce #2 and Under Ice. Secondly, Bluehour, a slightly less professional feel but still very intense images. The descriptions of the photos aren't as in depth as chromasia but still good for a person who enjoys photos but knows little about photography. Here are my two favorites A Tree Stops For A Drink and Caught in the Sun. Both seem to me to be very intense shots that convey real power somehow.

Lost in Thought

Last evening I went and saw a great unknown band called The Chris McCarty Band. They are based out of Gainesville but do some touring, and Tampa is one of their favorite stops because the bongo player is from here. I picked up their third CD Dreaming in Stereo, they didn't have the first two there for sale. They were also doing some recording for a fourth live album that'll be released later. Anyways great band, if they are coming near you, Nathan they have a New York show, I'd highly recommend checking them out. They can best be described as a Modern Hootie and the Blowfish. They do a lot of original work but also do some great covers. Very high energy show, I may post a few pictures later (might even try to get video to work with the mobile blogger). Anyways, check out the website and you can hear some of their work through that MP3 link on their page. Hope you like them. Now onto other thoughts.

Okay if you haven't ever watched Lost (TV show) and plan to stop reading now. If you missed the premier this evening you should go find a recording of it and then come back. I don't want anything you read off of a spoiler website that's total BS when people do that. I want your personal thoughts and ideas about where the show is going and what is going on.

First off we have this hatch turn out to be some type of quarentine thing, why is it written on the inside though? (perhaps the online is on quarentine from those inside?) everything inside the hatch seems to be from around the mid60s or so, except one person pointed out to me that the washer and dryer are very modern. The guy inside the hatch was actually outside recently (we learn this through Jack's flashbacks during the episode) and he was apparently preparing for some Around the World Race...how did he get on the island? and how did he get inside the hatch?? Lastly concerning the hatch...what the HELL do those numbers really mean????

Next what happens with the three guys from the raft? We can assume they make it back somehow (we'll learn next week).

Another thought, we know what is going on with all the survivors from the midsection of the plane (they are the stars of our show), we know there were no more survivors form the front/cockpit of the plane. What about the later/tail section of plane? The one lady's husband who was in the bathroom? Anyone else back there? Are they somewhere on the island as well? Or did they all die out at sea?

Last question, where did the "Others" come from? and where did they get a boat with a motor at? I was originally thinking they were maybe somehow the descendents of folks who wrecked on the island in the "Black Rock" slave ship but their English (if that was even what the majority of them spoke) would be a bit different from ours? So who are all these people on this mysterious island and who did they all get to and survive on this island that is apparently not on any maps (even though it is fairly large)???

What are your thoughts folks?

By the way it was an excellent show answering some questions but also causing more questions. I also watched Invasion afterwards, while I think it is not up to the same level of quality, or even mysteriousness, it seemed a decent show. Thoughts on that as well if you have any.

Science Fiction

Well this evening was the season finale of Stargate SG-1 (nice thing about Sci-Fi is that their season is the offseason, now I have Lost to look forward to). What is really annoying about TV shows is that they are always leaving you with these very disturbing mind-boggling cliffhangers. The SG-1 season ends with three threads left dangling just from the last two shows. Will the Jaffa go into a Civil War? Will the Prior's (think priest type guy of the devil) powers be effected by the machine Samantha built? Will America remain under quarantine due to the plague that the Priors have unleashed upon the Earth? Now SG-1 has been around a while and they do deal with the ethical questions, doubtful that it is on the scale which Battlestar attempts to tackle and grasp with such issues (as that entire show seems to be based on ethical/moral/religious conflict), however I can not imagine the agony that will befall Battlestar fans next week as that series has its season finale, which will undoubtedly be a cliffhanger. Why do they do this to us? Why are Season Finales always cliffhangers? Some question before going off...some hero protagonist in danger (sometimes mortal danger)... There has to be a better idea to run TV shows then the current model. This whole season idea drives me nuts...I'd much prefer they produce an entire show and run it beginning to end as well as selling the DVD. All in one go...no crappy season break-ups...you'd also keep actors better this way as well. The audience wouldn't lose interest as easy (as long as the writing remained well thought out). Hmph, I hate TV network executives. Who died and put them in charge of my entertainment schedule?....Tune in five months or more later for the answers to these and other questions you never thought to ask...because you're still going to be caring.

Yet another Monday...

Okay here is yet another Monday to be annoyed with. Sunday football utterly destroyed my chances for this week's matchup. Culpepper posted a very disappointing 1.7 or so...basically less than 2 points from a guy who should have put up more than 20. O well on to other things.

I really need to work on my motivation for school and my planning abilities. I have a fair bit of reading in Don Quixote still left over, I'll get it done I always do. And tomorrow before classes start I've got to buy the book that Amazon lost, read the General Prologue of Canterbury in the Middle English and then write a quick paper comparing a few of the professions to modern equivilents (no outside research just personal thoughts and comparisons). The paper is supposed to be around 1000 words so it won't be that difficult but once again my procastination is getting the better of me. Perhaps I should begin to treat myself like a child and not allow myself to do anything until my homework is all done. Ugh, I'm an idiot at times.

On to better things. Last night was the Foozer concernt (Weezer and Foo Fighters). The opening band was some group named Mae they were decent but a bit loud thus distorted on the vocals so true ability was unjudgable. Weezer was the first main act and they utterly blew all expectations away. Solid playing combined with a real interactivity with the crowd just made the show phenomonal (my being on the floor about fifteen people away from the stage really helped as well). Their encore was great because the lead singer came up on the sound board island alone and did an acoustic then returned to the main stage for some more rocking. Next up was the band I really came for Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl was simply ON. Part way through the first song his mic goes out so what does he do? HE simply gets out almost into the crowd and just starts singing along with them getting everyone on the floor to combine into "his voice". After the mic is replaced he finishes and tells us we were great and to do the same thing if it happens again. Overall the best part of the show was everyone else in Foo Fighters leaving the stage for Dave's solo acoustic version of Everlong. I'm so glad they didn't do the rock version because the acoustic is just that much better. Anyways, it was a great night and now I'm off to cheer Philly on against the Atlanta Falcons. Hopefully Westbrook can make me some points some I'm not utterly crushed this week. I also have some reading to do.

It's been a while...

It's a decent song so stealing the title isn't that ridiculous and we all know I'm a thief when it comes to being online.

So it's been a while since I've posted anything. Man I think my brain finally exploded and everything will be a lot better now (kind of like Fight Club at the end where he just lets go of everything and eliminates the part of himself he dislikes). I didn't get rid of any bad habits but I guess I'm just beginning to realize that I'm only human and so I'll do as much as possible and make the rest up as I go along. The reading has been intense, this past week I've read nearly all of Part of Don Quijote (will be into Part 2 by Tuesday), I've read Night, Metamorphosis, The Dead, Paradise Lost Book 1, as well as a few poems and some introductory material/historical information on the Man from Stratford, Aka: Shakespeare. This is in addition to reading the interesting articles of The St. Pete Times, and the USF Oracle (where interestingly enough my response to the editor was published). I've also shot some pool inbetween classes, watched a few movies, Primer, Pi among them both interesting a far out, they really deserve second viewings for best understanding but time is money (especially with Blockbuster Online). However I have recently discovered the renewed power of Peer to Peer and so I decided to check out two shows I've heard a lot about but never seen. The first one, Lost is phenomonal, I've watched the first three episodes and I'm seriously thinking about buying the First Season DVD based on those three alone (see sharing causing folks to buy things they never would have before). The second show was Rome on HBO. I know get HBO as well as HBO on Demand so I can watch ROME whenever I wish, they are on episode 3 which I think I'll be watching later tonight (again file sharing caused me to buy something I would never have bought before, now having HBO I'll also checkout Entourage, also out on DVD First season), and Deadwood as well). Did I mention I've also managed to cram a few hours at work into all this mess? Well I somehow did.

More exciting and recently though. Fantasy football has begun. Last night in the first game of the season I had Deion Branch playing (Wide Receiver for New England) he was projected to post 8.88 points, instead my boy posted 17.65. The real deal is on Sunday (though I have a few players from Philly who play Monday night) I'm really excited about how well my team will hopefully do. A lot of thanks go to Matt Stites for helping me pick the team and stay on top of who should be played and such.

Anyways, check out Nathan's Blog for a great article about the impact of early dating life on marriage. Then stop in at Crystal's Blog for comments on the state of education and reform within our great nation. Both topics that I commented on then lost my train of thought as I've done with this post. Enjoy.

Edited In: Last thing for those who have ever noticed my scroll box in the sidebar. I've updated it so that you can follow my insane reading list, I also changed all the links from Amazon.com over to Barnes and Noble.com because Amazon lost a book of mine and didn't realize it until 8 days after it was supposed to be delivered, I had to call them, argue with their automated system in order to get a person (it wasn't an option I finally just started talking to the machine like I was giving it instructions, it said it couldn't understand finally and that it was connecting me with a person for future assistance). I will say that after five minutes he determined the package must be lost because after pickup on the 29th there were no future updates. The book now takes over 9 days to ship (when I ordered it, it shipped in 24-48 hours) so getting it shipped next day was out of the question. I got a refund and now have to go to the bookstore and buy the book like everyone else. Very upsetting. O well, guess I'll stick to Ecampus in the future and avoid amazon.

Stolen Photos

Sorry about double posting now you have more to read...you are closer to understanding my dilemma. Anyways, was blog-surfing with the next blog button when I ran across a blog about a woman from New Orleans (title links to it). Her most recent post was just hilarious and I had to steal it. Anyways, I'm sure you can all see the hilarity yet sadness of this picture for I'm sure that in certain places it is all too true.

The Joys of the College Newspaper

Today was another joyous day of classes here in Tampa, Florida. I had my Modern Short Novel class (the teacher I'm sure suffers ADHD which should make for interesting times in a three hour class). Overall, after one week of class I'm very excited about this semester. There is going to be a lot of reading as I've mentioned, as well as a fair bit of writing. I feel more than equal to the task.

The most annoying thing about being back on a college campus is the liberal bent to nearly everything that is occurring. I was reading the Oracle - USF's newspaper linked to in this blog title - when I ran across an article titled Above it All this article featured a picture of Bush in Air Force One looking out a window. As you can follow the link to read the full article I'll briefly summarize. "Hurricane Katrina and all the damage to New Orleans caused by it, and the loss of life caused by the Hurricane were all Bush's fault. And he isn't doing a damn thing about it even after the fact." Now this is of course a gross overstatement of the article however, as this is my blog I can do that if I want, go read the article yourself. What upset me was the misrepresentation of the truth. First off Bush did cut short his vacation to return to Washington to meet with Advisors. The photo opportunity idea is just absurd and the article's writer should be kicking himself in the ass concerning the stupidity of including those comments. In any case I wrote a letter to the editor, I'm sure it won't get published there, so I have decided to publish it here in order to gather the opinions of those whom (is that the proper use John?) I respect and believe more qualified to argue with me than those at the Oracle. Here is a copy of the letter I sent them.

In response to your recent criticism of the President's actions concerning the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina; I would like to ask what you would have done had you been President? Yes, going on the air prior to the impact may have encouraged a few more citizens of the city to evacuate - only for them to be stuck in traffic on I-10 with several thousand other individuals. However, due to the liberal leanings of the city it seems more likely they would have just ignored his warnings and done as they planned. They believed themselves more intelligent than the experts so they ignored all advice and decided to stay having no idea of the consequences of that decision. Now that Katrina has passed you say the President should do something. Perhaps the President should have followed your advice and been seen to consoling the victims of the hurricane in New Orleans where several shootings, rapes, and lootings have occurred. One man even began to fire at evacuees from Charity Hospital. In times as stressful as these we should most certainly endanger our Commander-in-Chief for mere photo opportunities. I believe his choice was the best decision he could make. He flew over, assessed the damage as he could, then proceeded to Washington to meet with Emergency Help Coordinators who are better trained to handle such situations and could advise him on the best course of actions to take. Such recent decisions as, sending in more National Guard and Reserve troops and releasing part of the National Petroleum Reserve in order to combat rising gas prices caused by oil shortage. You are correct that cutting funding to the levee system was a mistake, however past powerful hurricanes had hit the area and done minor damage; the unpredictability of weather is what caused this disaster not a decision by the president. A president can not just stand up and issue a command that a hurricane turn aside simply because it turning aside would be more beneficial to his people. A president needs to believe that his citizens are capable of thinking and taking care of themselves to a certain degree. As Katrina turned West then North after entering the Gulf citizens of the likely impact area should have been thinking about past storm intensity and seen the rate of growth that Katrina underwent, these should have been clear signs of imminent danger. Unfortunately they did not heed the warnings of Mother Nature or of the meteorologists whose job it is to predict and forewarn concerning these things. A government that is always telling citizens what to do is not a democracy but rather a dictatorship or socialism, neither of which are systems I wish to live under. Bush acted in a manner consistent with allowing a people to make their own decisions then helping them as much as possible once they realized the horrible bounty those decisions had reaped.



*Note* Please edit as necessary for grammar, spelling though I believe these are both fine. As this is simply an informal letter of opinion I did not give reference to the AP articles I used, if necessary please contact me and I will be happy to provide websites. I do however find it interesting that not all the facts of the story were correct, namely concerning Bush's vacation which he did cut short on Tuesday after hearing reports of the devastation, even if this response does not get printed please begin to check all your facts for validity before going to press. Go here. Thank you for this opportunity.

I'm hoping that you will find it a bit cutting, succinct, and yet tactful enough to be considered for publication. Everyone, let me know what you think I could have done differently with it.