The Daily Show - "Myspace"

Just hilarious... As a recovering myspace adict, I actually think Myspace has been brought to us by the devil and no longer use it. But when the man's right on emo rock, he's right on emo rock.

:)

good for a larf.

Excellent Video

One of my favorite videos ever.

Jon Stewart makes an awesome speech on Crossfire completely dismantling Tucker Carlson. Begala pretty much doesn't participate in the conversation. I replied to a post re: Bowties and remembered Tucker Carlson and remembered this video.

Most assuredly worth a watch.

Not afraid to expose some awful truth?

Seems to have an intense left-wing slant... but then that may be reflective of the documentary industry.

Interesting Films
Free Downloads

http://www.freedocumentaries.org/

Been awhile

I'm vastly aware no-one/very few people read this... hence it is going to become way for me to organize and publish my thoughts, and work on communicating and recomending in a public forum.

However, I'm hoping to encourage readership in Spring and have something meaningful by summer.

Here's what that requires of me:
More effort
Consistant Blogging
Interesting Commentary
Spreading the word

Sometime soon after Feb. 1 I will be moving to a movabletype client hosted on my own website, at which point this will become more serious about the whole deal and focus on the goals.

Goals:
120 Posts between Feb. 1 - June 1
20 Articles, reports, summaries, etc. each of a minimum one page... of higher quality then the posts
Significant readership (I don't know what number is a good goal, I think 50-75 feels like do-able.)

School

Well,

I woke up at 6 am, couldn't sleep (at all) last night for excitement and now I'm fueled only on Espresso - my body is weak and flabby, I hate it for not sleeping!

I'm off to Ethics, International relations, History of Western Civ, and then General Psych!

Fun Day, Fun Day! I can't wait.

Reflections on Health

I think a lot at the gym, it's my refuge to go over the meaning of feelings in my human experience, and dissect my day. I'm tempted to get all Vonnegut one of these days and write a story about the absurdness of it all and how my human experience was so confusing compared to my Tralfamadorian experience... but I'm not that good a writer yet. :)

Today I made the faithful trek into my local YMCA and about halfway through my workout I reached some conclusions on Love and Friendships - usually the topic that dominates my thoughts. So I started to think about health and general body maintenance.

Yesterday I played some pickup football with friends and acquaintances... despite now fighting with my knee I was pleased with how well I'd performed. I've never been an extremely athletic fellow, but the month or so I've spent focusing on improving my eating habits and aerobic exercise have helped a lot. I'm still not the greatest guy on the field, but I'm holding my own. It felt good to start to excel at football. I was always better at rugby and I'm curious to see if my improvements have helped my rugby game in the same way. Either way I noticed that I'm feeling a lot better -- apparently I look better as well. I have a weird memory or body image viewer, I can only see the most drastic of physical changes in myself and others (you can imagine the problems that poses with girlfriends), but others have commented that I look more fit.

I don't know what drove me to embrace a healthier lifestyle but I have some thoughts on my experience. I'm curious if they translate outside of fitness.

1. 95% of results lie in the obvious. There's no secret to it, exercise and good eating are plenty. You don't even have to be exact in your methods (unless you have an extremely high and hard to reach goal). Seems to be true in life (secret to success: 1. Write down what you know needs to get done. 2. Do it.)
2. It takes a little while to get, but positive feedback comes. It took me (19 year old male) about 2 weeks of intensive training to notice a difference in how I felt when physically exerting myself. I could run farther and breathe easier. Each timeline is different but I think everything takes primary investment before you get positive feedback.
3. You have to want it. I notice that similar to education, business, whatever -- you usually can't accurately rate you're own potential. You can't know your potential until you reach it. The only way to perform better is to go after that next level. Cost-benefit analysis isn't what you want in this situation. You want pure heart (drive, passion, call it what you will) to win or go down having given it your all. Otherwise you will talk yourself into mediocrity.
4. Motivation is key. I enjoy going to the gym. I actually love going to the gym, I can think about a lot of stuff that I simply can't think about in other settings. I also think about these heavy topics outside of the gym, usually in the morning or at night -- but the gym gives me time to think more, to expand on previous ideas and form connections. Blood-pumping mid-day short-burst sessions allow for much more effective thinking then seemingly-endless, fuzy sessions right before or after sleeping. I also sleep better if I can clear my head mid-day instead of having my thoughts build up. That makes my trip to the gym a pleasure not an inconvenience, that's my motivation. In life most of the difficulty is finding the motivation. There will always be tasks you don't want to do (that last 10 minutes on the treadmill when my knee is on fire), but if you look for the silver lining there is usually good in the bad.

Maybe I'm stretching to apply those to non-fitness settings, but there is at least some correlation.

New Sidebar

I've added a small button for my comments online. I realized that alot of my writing is done as comments on other peoples blogs. I saw someone had the idea of making a del.icio.us tag for all comments and using that RSS feed to allow people to descirbe to my comments. I stole the idea with a quickness. Chris Yeh gets full credit for the idea.

so I've added a small button that looks like this

Comments Blog

There you go, exciting info eh? now I'm working on getting feedburner to recognize my normal feed. More site updates to come soon - I'm not sure how soon.

Tyler

Negative Branding

I kinda feel bad calling this guy out -- but for all I know it was an intentional move on his part, and it made me chuckle, so I don't feel that bad.

So as I was chuckling at this and I decide that I want to know more about Andrew Hillman and PlugStar. So after a Google search I find the site (predictably plugstar.com) and that Andrew Hillman has a name twin who is a notorious comment spammer, irrelevent. Hillman has me curious - but the site is pretty dull, except for a link to his Graphic Designer. I was bored so I followed it, that's when I started laughing.

There is a logo that says under construction but the logo says VD. There is also a drop inside the d. I'm sorry to have my mind in the gutter on this - but knee jerk reaction is "I wouldn't pick that as my logo." It probably doesn't matter for him one way or the other, but I can't help thinking this isn't what you want to have your name attached to. I shot off an email to ask him about his experiences with branding. I'm eager to see if I get a reply.

Email...

Sorry to send an intrusive email.

I was catching up on some blog reading and I see a creative pitch by a company called plugstar, I Google it. A link to your site is featured predominantly so I click it.

I see a logo and under construction message.

I notice the logo...

I have to ask, ignore me if you want. Does that negatively affect your business? I have to think that having a brand associated with Venereal Disease can't really qualify as positive branding. Probably sticks in the clients minds though.

Thanks

Tyler Willis

Gambit Weekly

I've been quoted in the cover story of this week's Gambit.

Here are the excerpts.

"One of the few non-architects in the room, Tyler Willis, 19, was surfing in Portugal when Katrina struck. Thoughts about how he could help would not leave his head, Willis recalls, and he was prompted to action after being challenged via email by an ex-girlfriend, who asked him, "If you have all these ideas, why don't you go there and do something with them?"

A friend forwarded to Willis an email invitation explaining Rethinking New Orleans. "I didn't know what to expect, I was worried it wasn't even going to be worth the bike ride," he says a week after the meeting. "But I was impressed by the knowledge everyone brought. It wasn't just a bunch of people bitching and getting drunk."

Willis was most impressed, he says, with the ideas for preserving the city's distinct neighborhoods and the culture of each. A native of California, Willis is enjoying his transition to life in post-Katrina New Orleans. "The atmosphere seems a lot different from what I hear it used to be, with lots of negativity and [an] almost fatalistic approach to things," he says. "But I've experienced none of that. The energy I feel here now is positive."
...

Despite concerns about a lack of cohesion among the far-flung grassroots groups and their varied approaches to rebuilding New Orleans, activists are making inroads, holding meetings, generating new ideas and sustaining the passion that propelled them to action in the first place.

Tyler Willis created a Web site, www.projectneworleans.info, that includes information on an online math tutoring program, hotmath.com, that he says has great results in helping students. Citing education as critical to rebuilding what Willis labels the "New City of Hope," he has started lobbying local school officials on behalf of the program. He says he has gotten good responses, especially from the proposed charter schools."

here's a few corrections

1 - It was a phone call from an ex-girlfriend, who was significantly more supportive then that sounds. Quite frankly I wouldn't have done it without a kick in the pants from her, and she allowed me to bounce ideas off her and moan about how much some of the work sucked. Less of a "Challenge" and more of an influence.

2 - Blake invited me through IM... I wish I could say I didn't say "bitching and getting drunk" but that sounds suspiciously like me. I guess I should work on my cynacism a bit. Sorry everyone involved, especially Blake. PS - the wine was Fantastic.

3 - I'm not a Native of California, I was born in Missouri and spent most of my life in Ohio. I do like California quite a bit, but I wouldn't wanna ignore my roots. ;)

Aside from that, I'm still very excited. I hope this will give me a bit more traffic and visability - At this point donations are going to be what makes or breaks what I can do here.

Check out my website (www.projectneworleans.info)

Steve Pavlina

Okay

I have yet to find a good RSS reader for windows that I like. They all seem to range for eh to horrible. If you have found a good one, let me know. I'm likely to drive myself nuts until I finally get a mac. This is my problem so I will get on with the show.

Here's a short recomendation about someone I subscribe to. I was switching my RSS from Sharpreader to Feedreader which ranks right up there at eh, I'm importing my feeds and I come across a guy who I've recently added and who is worth checking out. Steve Pavlina.

I found a link to Steve's blog when he had started his polyphasic sleep experiement. I've been interested in polyphasic sleep for awhile, adding 40 waking hours a week to your life is pretty enticing and hey, it worked for Jefferson. Polyphasic sleeps replaces one long sleep with a series of small naps every few hours. I was interested in it and reading Steves post about it I devoured his experiences with it. I think I just might try it when I begin to have more control over my schedule. Right now I have things I want to do that simply don't fit in a 4 or 5 hour time period, and missing one of the naps is aparently pretty bad. I'll have to do a bit more research on the subject before I decide if I want to give it a shot, but reading about Steve's view on it is motivating. Give it a look