Everything is Vignetted

nickholmes: (via thatslifekepalapisang)

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:52:56 -0600

(via thatslifekepalapisang)

I am still eating turkey in copious amounts. Copious as in every meal. And I am about halfway...

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:03:18 -0600

I am still eating turkey in copious amounts. Copious as in every meal. And I am about halfway through. I think tomorrow I will make turkey nachos.

I found this audio clip on the website of Media Matters for...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:18:55 -0600

I found this audio clip on the website of Media Matters for America, a “not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.”

Note the word “conservative” in that sentence. I do not believe that liberal news organizations (if they even exist anymore) never massage the truth, as Alec Baldwin puts it on 30 Rock; but since Obama’s election to the White House one year ago this week, conservative news outlets — mainly Fox News — have gone absolutely ape shit with their vitriolic spew about our “radical” president and his heavily Democratic Congress. If a news consumer had any of their wits about him or her, 90% of the garbage that comes from the mouths of Limbaugh, Beck, Savage, Hannity and CNN’s Dobbs is bullshit fermented in hatred.

So Listen to what Dobbs has to say about the timing of yesterday’s Fort Hood shootings when juxtaposed with today’s vote on health care reform by Congress. The female caller and Dobbs think it makes so much sense that the Dems “sneaked” the bill into Congress as if “under the cover of night,” and that they all have no respect for the families of those affected by the shootings.

Yes, this is all Obama’s fault. Just like how the PATRIOT Act was the fastest bill to ever be passed by Congress during the period of mourning after the September 11 attacks. I don’t remember hearing a resounding “WTF?” from the Heartland accusing Bush for being insensitive. That was important legislation, and so is health care reform, whether you agree with the bill or not. Do we not pay our representatives handsomely to craft these bills? And as for sneaking it in, Obama and his Congress have been sneaking it in for about 11 months now.

If anybody is using this shooting as a cover up, it is Dobbs using it to mask an unnecessary blasphemous attack on Obama and Pelosi.

And I won’t even discuss the woman I found on Twitter last night who actually suggested that Obama/the Dems set this up to take attention away from the health care reform vote… there’s a place in Hell for her.

Weezer covering MGMT’s “Kids” and Lady...

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:52:52 -0600

Weezer covering MGMT’s “Kids” and Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface”

This is a great pair of cover songs… like whoa. Rivers Cuomo rocks “Kids” so much better than the wussy-sounding singer from MGMT, and there will be nary a better cover of a Lady Gaga song.

This made my day!

Spring 2010 is my last semester as a graduate student (God willing). I have all my required courses...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:26:00 -0500

Spring 2010 is my last semester as a graduate student (God willing). I have all my required courses for graduation, but struggle if I should take an additional course recommended by one of my advisers. Tina is the horticultural maven for the research committee of my green roof applied research project. I noticed a paper taped to her office door yesterday of landscape design and horticulture classes Texas State offers, and asked her if there was a course she recommended I take for my research. She recommended a class about woody plants to me, and I am excited about the idea of increasing my botanical Rolodex, but I would have to take out more student loans to pay for it.

Earlier today, I said to myself…

“I’m finished with the passive, and ready to continue with the active. A healthy lifestyle is active not only physically, but is also intellectually active and what I consider to be emotionally active, or rather a state when one is true to oneself in recognizing real desires, strengths and weaknesses. I should live this way.”

But is there a line that should be drawn? Like taking out another $2,000 to take a class that is “a good idea” but I don’t really need to graduate? In the grand scheme of things, $2,000 will have a different value to me as time passes while I pay off my student loans. And what my grand loan total is after seven years of higher education is less than what some students pay for a semester of private university education. But right now $2,000 is a lot of money to me. Do I let that fact (or perception? which is it?) outweigh my motivations to have a more active lifestyle? Which should be more important?

“Poised and Ready” - Brendan Benson I enjoy Brendan...

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:39:00 -0500

“Poised and Ready” - Brendan Benson

I enjoy Brendan Benson’s music (…otherwise I wouldn’t post it on here, eh?). He is in The Raconteurs with Jack White and those other guys that nobody knows the names of. My friend Miguel introduced me to his solo stuff earlier this year, and I like it much more than The Raconteurs and The White Stripes. All I listened to was The Alternative To Love while I was in Japan and South Korea; each song is fresh and fun (except for the Motownesque “The Pledge,” an out-of-place tune that doesn’t fit his style nor the album).

So after months of waiting with uber-bated breath for more Brendan Benson music, here it is, under the alias My Old, Familiar Friend. It is not as, er, Brendan-y as Alternative is, but it still good, and it gives me my fix. The above track is one of the poppiest (read: radio-ready, though I doubt you will hear solo Brendan on any station other than those run by college radio).

Now, the only thing missing is a tour date in Austin! The nearest place on his current itinerary is Chicago. C’mon, Brendan, you can’t skip out on AUSTIN!!!

It is interesting how Janet Jackson’s breasts are more offensive to the FCC than Glenn...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:11:15 -0500

It is interesting how Janet Jackson’s breasts are more offensive to the FCC than Glenn Beck’s violent comments are…

I noticed that now is more than 4 years later than when he spoke the comments …which I guess is why the What Would Jesus Do? instance makes a scoache more sense… but I originally thought that Beck was targeting Moore over “Capitalism: A Love Story.” Since that can’t be possible, the wtf? factor just got higher.

I am glad that I dodged during childhood becoming a television...

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:40:10 -0500

I am glad that I dodged during childhood becoming a television and video game junkie. Being a progenitor of the Internet generation instead is much more rewarding, and Internet savvy is much more applicable to modern problems than is the ability to push buttons in a certain sequence. There is no excuse for ignorance in the Internet Age, as anybody with access can learn how to do anything they think of. Which is why I’m incredibly happy I found this video.

…As seen on the backside of an unoccupied commercial...

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:05:12 -0500

…As seen on the backside of an unoccupied commercial building at Hopkins x Fredericksburg, San Marcos, TX. I am assuming the letters “TXHC” represent the Texas Hill Country, which is undoubtedly one of the fastest-developing regions in the country.

It is not just retiring Texans who are moving to the Hill Country, but now also those in states that are attracted to the Tuscan-like hills of limestone and caliche soil. And the rapid development of small-town TXHC and the encroachment of Austin’s and San Antonio’s urbanization is an issue neither endemic to Texas nor relevant only in the 21st century. Here is a 1985 article in the Wilmington [N. Carolina] Morning Star (penned by the NYTimes news service) that is written from point of views of former Texas Land Commissioner Bob Armstrong (personally) and Austin (geographically).

The New York Times recognized the Hill Country in 2007, calling attention to its “matured” cuisine (pan-seared scallops with chipotle lime hollandaise? YES, PLEASE!), and again in 2008 when the TXHC was put in the top spot of the paper’s “31 Places to Go This Summer”.

As a native San Antonian, many parts of the TXHC have been my playground: lakes Medina and Canyon; the Comal, Guadalupe, Frio, Blanco and San Marcos Rivers; family properties in Mason, Spring Branch, Kerrville and Medina County; and campgrounds on hillsides, in live oak glades and along riverbeds. I have watched KB Homes choke up Highway 281 north of SA in favor of careless cookie-cutter development, and observed Austin absorb the small towns to its north and south along Interstate 35. And now I live in San Marcos, halfway between the two cities, and am proud to participate in the “stay local” spirit of the city’s involuntary growth. TXHC locales have done a good job maintaining their friendly, relaxed climate, and I hope they continue to do so through the next decades.

Stay true, TXHC, stay true as the urban sprawl approaches your communities…

because it eventually will.

Facebook needs to get its shit together, geographically speaking. “Where do you live?”:...

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:40:49 -0500

Facebook needs to get its shit together, geographically speaking.

“Where do you live?”: Simple Facebook question raises problems around the world

“The Road to Ensenada” - Lyle Lovett I have had this...

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:39:00 -0500

“The Road to Ensenada” - Lyle Lovett

I have had this pretty song in my head for a few days, so I thought I would share it.

"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class..."

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:51:28 -0500

“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.”

- Mark Twain

Never before this oppressively hot summer of 2009 have I been so...

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:30:43 -0500

Never before this oppressively hot summer of 2009 have I been so glad to greet September. Fortunately for me, September makes me want to dance!

Next up: Boogie Wonderland.

Nicole and Richard: the half-hour newlyweds

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:10:00 -0500

Nicole and Richard: the half-hour newlyweds

Glenn Beck = 21st-century Joseph McCarthy

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:07:38 -0500

It has become apparent not only to me, but to exponentially larger droves of media monitors that FOX News’ Glenn Beck has found his niche: a niche of 5 p.m. Red-Scare tactics. From lambasting AmeriCorps’ community service simply because Obama has a background of community organizing, to assuring his viewers of Obama’s “deep-seated hatred of white people,” to likening the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill as a watermelon (“green outside, Communist red inside”)… and last night Beck suggested that the Obama administration will take advantage of localized bombings of Canadian natural gas pipelines to justify a takeover of Big Oil.

If you bothered to watch the video at the above link, you may have had the same thought I did: that Beck’s commentary is in no way a constructive critique of the leadership or challenges that the president and his administration have. He is using McCarthyist scare tactics when asserting the administration may use these bombings as an “emergency” to gain control the pipelines, which are controlled by the largest nat gas country in North America. The parallel is in no way significant, if it even exists at all.

If I had a friend or family member who rambles on as disjointedly as he does, I would be seriously considering the need for a clinical evaluation. I never thought someone could be better at serving up conservative misinformation as O’Reilly and Hannity, but Beck is definitely giving them a run for their money.

“‘Obama’s a socialist!’ Please, Obama is not even a liberal.”
-Bill Maher

Boycotting Whole Foods is the Wrong Response

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:58:58 -0500

Voting at the checkout line may be effective, but the Whole Foods boycott is affecting the wrong people. Matt Embrey writes at ecopolitology that those who are boycotting the store after CEO John Mackey laid out some constructive criticism of ObamaCare in a WSJ op-ed are aiming to either silence or change Mackey’s opinion. This is an awfully unconstructive way to use your purchasing power. It is not Mackey — who changed his annual salary to $1 on 1 January 2007 — who is feeling the pain of this boycott…

Read what Embrey has to say.