Friday, January 18, 2008

Hello? Is this thing on?

You know what i haven't done in a long time? Blogged. So i figured i'd sit down and tell y'all a little of what's going on lately.

WEDDING
As you may or may not know, i'm getting married - w00t to that! Wedding plans are complete and all that's left is the little things, so we're essentially gtg! It's pretty dang exciting to have the big day coming up ... more so to know that our "new life" together starts in a little over 4 weeks!

It's also interesting how little i actually anticipate our lives will change. I mean really - we've been living together for a while now, and i really can't see us doing anything terribly differently after all is said and done.

CLOVERFIELD
We just watched cloverfield tonight, btw, and it was hella good. i've seen some pretty negative reviews out there, and i really have to wonger wtf they're thinking. i mean, this isn't oscar material - i don't think it's meant to be. It ALSO is not the average monster flick. This is very much about a group of friends who find themselves mixed up in a panicky mass of pounding feet and terrified screaming.

What do you do in that situation? I guess ultimately you do the best you can - you cling to something you know, or think you know, and hold on as long as you can. Sometimes that thing helps you persevere ... sometimes it's ripped savagely away from you as tears of mad frustration roll down your face to join with the anguished cries of terror and denial emanating from somewhere deep in your soul.

Not that that happens, i'm just saying.

SPIRALFROG
BTW, if you haven't heard of it, there's a great new site out there called Spiralfrog that has a few agreements with some key record companies that lets them provide you with a decent variety of artists and albums for your LEGAL downloading pleasure. Unfortunately, the files are all DRM'd to hell, so you can only copy them to a portable device. Fortunately, there are ways around that. Of course, i don't recommend it or endorse it ... i'm just sayin'. ;-)

SOLVING THE UNSOLVABLE
I was having a conversation today about everyone's favorite "root of all evil." I ended up bringing something up that i've had in my head for a while now: I read this thing a while back on (someone else's) Starbucks cup. It essentially said that we can't solve poverty by giving every poor person money, and we can't solve humanity's negative effects on the global environment by changing a few lightbulbs.

I guess there's a lick of truth to that. Of course, that's the problem i have with it. It really grinds my gears (ha ha - love that family guy) that what people are really saying when they say "I can't just give every poor person money" is "i can't just give every poor person money and not be poor myself." Of course, if people would just stop trying to have more than the other guy, this wouldn't be an issue! There are no poor people if there are no rich people, you know?

I guess the real problem there, though, is how do you inspire people to keep working and coming up with ideas, etc. I mean, let's face it, most of the advances we've had ... well OK, like, almost all of them, have come about as a result of a person or group of people trying to be better than they currently are. Of course there are plenty of innovations and changes instigated by people with the purest of intentions, but let's face it, without the right financial backing it usually won't go anywhere.

I guess it all comes back to a balance - same balance that rules everything. You can't have everyone want nothing, and you can't have everyone want it all. Ideally you have a mix that balances everything out. Preferably a fluctuating one which sets up a situation like that guy that keeps having to roll the boulder up the hill.

I mean, everyone would work a lot harder if they knew what it was like to be poor, but if they could never be rich, where would they go? So you need a kind of cyclic pattern where people have to produce in order to maintain their status ... kind of like a permanent middle class.

Wow ... this is going off on a tangent.

Of course ... that's all this whole thing has been ...

BTW, check out "Name of the Game" by Crystal Method. Awwww yeah.

LATAZ
OK, this is me signing off. I'm going to try to wake up for the spinning class at the local 24 tomorrow. It's fun stuff ... challenging, but fun. Who knows! Maybe i can even drop some poundage before the wedding! (riiiiiiiiiiiight)

NEways - lata gata. Catch ya on the flip side!

Christian