Slaying the Chowderbeast

Its always interesting to see how my, um... tactics look from the outside. The Oatmeal (the guy who does this webcomic) sounds like someone I could identify with.

People don't understand - letting annoying/rude/evil people get away scott-free is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Worse, because I know they'll just do it again more in the future. Why not? Nobody said anything to them before! Even though I know I occasionally make bad situations worse at least it gives these types of people something to think about the next time they do it. Which I'm sure they will. But at least they'll realize for a few split seconds that they're annoying/rude/evil.

"I'm a champ, and you eat seafood from a giant bucket."

random acts of kindness

I've been meaning to post on this topic for a while now, its overdue.

So if you've driven around the Drake neighborhood much in the past 2 years, you've probably seen the guy that stands right next to the road, waving and pointing and smiling and giving peace signs to EVERY car that goes by. I'm pretty sure he's not all there, but he's pretty good about staying out of traffic even though he's pretty close to the road. He's not hurting anybody, just standing by the road, throwing out peace signs with a huge smile on his face. If you wave back - he'll clap and point back at you like you just made his day.

At first I really didn't give him much thought. I'd wave, laugh, and keep on driving. But the past couple of months I've had a few rough days where I would be driving home from work and in a terrible mood, pissed at the world, and saw this guy and got my giant smile and wave - I usually give the peace sign back as that seems to be the one he enjoys getting most - and suddenly my day isn't so bad.

Yesterday on my way home from work, I saw him again - right on the corner by our house! I waved, asked how he was doing, got my wave and smile and went inside. While sitting inside for about 20 minutes I knew he was still out there as I could hear cars honking about every 30 seconds. People honking and waving back I assumed (they didn't sound like mad honks). This guy just stands by the road for a while and makes other people feel good for hours at a time.

There's lots of different types of people out there. Crazy, homeless, or handicapped - its good to see a lot of people getting exposure to someone like this guy so that more people understand that 'different' doesn't always have to get a negative connotation.

Wherever - whoever you are, man.... keep it up and God bless.

There's mishaps and then there's THIS

The owner of the company that makes Segways died over the weekend. In a 'segway related mishap.' After reading the full story, the 'mishap' was in fact "falling off a 30 foot cliff into a river on his Segway."

Yet another reason I don't think Segways will ever catch on.

The soundstage is alive...

with the sound of music.

I'm not all that interested, but something tells me that Mom and Roscommon will be.

I have talented friends...

Leslie B - holy F this is awesome.

Matt G - your songs deserve complimentary visuals like this. And DANG! Check out the most recent track review! Thanks One Track Mind!

Its not about the Rusty Trombone

Something is wrong with Coralville....

I'm so tired of being alone...

after all of the crushes have faded
and all my wishful thinking was wrong,
I'm jaded
I hate it

Have a Nice Trip This Fall...

the tracklist for my autumn mixed 'tape,' in case the track text didn't come through:

Have A Nice Trip This Fall...

1) Don't Kid Yourself, You Need A Physician - Anathallo
2) tristan - failotron
3) A Little Opera Goes a Long Way - Sky Sailing
4) Turnpike Ghost - Steel Train
5) Hitchhiker's Guide - Speechwriters LLC
6) Its Getting Hectic - The Urge
7) Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground - The White Stripes
8) Broke Down - Radio Moscow
9) Dear Liz - Dave Lowensohn
10) Cold War - The Morning Benders
11) Better Off Alone - Alice Deejay
12) Fire It Up - Modest Mouse
13) For Alex, Who Hates the Word Lonely - Canby
14) Who Knows, Who Cares - Local Natives

ideas in the works

I've always liked this particular painting. Its called "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," a wood block print by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai in the 1830's. There are great wave and flood myths in many different cultures and ancient writings. The biblical flood, Manu, Australian Aborigines, Gilgamesh... all symbolizing a cleansing of the world - a new start.

Just batting some ideas around. I just think it might be better wearing this on my sleeve than wearing my heart on there...

Don't kid yourself...

Anathallo - Don't Kid Yourself, You Need a Physician

"In my room, in my room,
in this gospel I have made, salvation is a broken cistern in a handmade frame.
I cut the sheets into a flag,
paint it red,
self-pity hangs over the doorway in. From seven times seventy scraping knees,
blood lets, deficiencies,
these are the layers of bandages, protection from the sting.
In this great lacking,
I've found a way.

...all the secrets of fitness,
all the fitness he requires
is to feel your need for him."

Oh, how the tables have turned...

I was going to leave this topic alone, as I hadn't had any coherent thoughts on the topic and Roscommon already had a good post on it.

But this article I just read from TIME summed up my sentiments on the issue too well not to post.

My initial rants about this so-called pastor running this so-called church were infused with a snarky point of view that this was some kind of sick joke poking fun of the xenophobic types who are trying to prevent the Islamic center a few blocks away from ground zero in NYC. I had made the ironic connection but hadn't really fleshed it out yet.

The TIME article does a much better job of it than I did.

We've spent the past few weeks in America pretending that there might actually be a legitimate reason to not want an Islamic center near ground zero. There isn't. Intelligent people know this. Simple-minded people who can't understand that muslim does not equal terrorist - they're the ones trying to guilt these people into moving. 'The wound is too fresh' said Sarah Palin. (I paraphrased her tweet to fix grammar and edited out made up words like refudiate) This is a dangerous sentiment. Its obviously playing on the heartstrings of other unintelligent people who feel the same way. Smart people stop and say, "wait - what? What wound? 9/11? What did these people have to do with that?" Answer: nothing. They just happen to be muslim. So obviously - they're to blame for the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Never mind that 20% of the entire world is muslim. The rub here is that they're being blatantly anti-Islamic (I'd personally just call them generally xenophobic) but don't you dare accuse them of it!

Now to this week.

Suddenly everyone wants to say, "hey world - don't lump us all in with this one small group of crazies burning your holy book. We're mostly pretty cool." Ironic that people weren't giving THEM (the Islamic world) that benefit of the doubt last week.

Do we deserve that benefit of the doubt? Most of us do. Will we get it? We'll see, I guess.