Sep 112011
 

Paying attention to the news these past couple years and it’s easy to get the sense that everything is coming to a calamitous end. The environment’s gone haywire, the economy is irreparably broken, and so on. That today happens to be *that* anniversary only crystallizes how unstable the world feels right now.

The thing about that though is for the first ten years or so I was alive I was absolutely convinced the world was going to burn in nuclear fire. It was plain as day that at some point the US and USSR would stop playing coy and lob ICBMs at each other. “Weird” Al made jokes about it, we and movies with the aftermath, World War III was just a given. And then of course it wasn’t, the Soviet Union collapsed, the bombs were put into storage and we stumbled our way on.

It occurs to me that I am probably of the last generation to grow up with those fears and certainties, and part of me is almost nostalgic for those times because it does seem simpler. But at the same time who wants to live in a world where everyone is sure they’re going to burn? Then again, it was a more focused fear, less nebulous than a terrorist bomb, more final than an underwater mortgage, the erosion of the middle class, and systemic unemployment. You don’t have to worry about the aftermath of a nuclear war because odds are you won’t be alive when it’s over.

Still, whenever I get too down over the state of the world I think back to being a kid, absolutely convinced in a nuclear apocalypse that never came, and it makes me feel a little better.

Jun 192011
 

20110618-114837.jpg

There are two albums that really are the first that I remember as having a real impact on me. One of them was Dire Straits Brothers in Arms. The other was Born in the USA. I wore my parent’s cassette of that one out the summer of 1985(?). And The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle was one of the first albums (well, cassette really) I ever owned. So it’s fair to say the news that Clarence “Big Man” Clemons died hit me.
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Nov 172010
 

Kevin Pereira (@kpereira)
11/17/10 1:10 PM
Ali Velshi: Read a wiki or three before making statements about terrorism and the TSA, or STFU!! Come on AOTS. I’ll end you.
https://twitter.com/kpereira/status/4959654337585152
This is why I enjoy wasting spending time on Twitter, you occasionally see the host of an hour long light comedy program just light into a CNN reporter over the new TSA screening policies. Ever since the Internet first came around there was a lot of talk about how it “flattens” social structures, and I believe Twitter is the purest expression of that phenomenon.

Oct 232010
 

I’m standing here at an Umphrey’s McGee show, and I can see the Kevin Browning’s — Umphrey’s sound guy — Twitter feed. Why does this matter? Because I can see the tweeds I’ve sent today that mention him and the band. This makes me feel rather presumptuous, even though that’s one of the points of Twitter. Still, I don’t like being that guy who @ mentions every celebrity-type he follows in hopes of getting a response.

May 292009
 

Got really drunk
Watched a ton of movies, including NewTrek(for the third time!)
Tried Sushi for the first time — didn’t care for the nori wrappers.
Brought some order to the chaos of the apartment…but not much.
Spent a lot of time hanging out with the family.
Spared the life of a dog.
Will be attending two Tragically Hip concerts — I keep saying it to make sure I actually go.
Got Older

All in all, not a terrible week.

May 282009
 

Well, I’m another year older so that can only mean one thing, the return of the Birthday Basset!
birthday_basset_09

Protip: spending the majority of your birthday hungover is not doing it right. I shall now have a birthday scotch, deal with some laundry, then go to bed. Tragical Hipness is nigh after all.

Apr 042009
 

I was sitting I’m front of my computer as I’m usually prone to do on a Saturday when I happened to look out my window. It’s a fine day, so I logged off WoW and went for a walk. I don’t do this nearly enough, get out and breath fresh air, soak up natural lighting. This is the good stuff. As and added bonus a circuit around the the apartment property takes a good twenty minutes to a half hour so it’s decent exercise. And I even took pictures!