2.26.2009

Happy Birthday Johnny Cash





Johnny Cash is one of my all time favorite musicians. Songs like Folsom Prison Blues, and I Walk the Line resonate across all styles of music to this day. For my money though, his best song was a love poem written by his soon to be wife, June Carter. I remember the first time I heard Ring of Fire. I was in the car with mi madre and mi hermana and we were driving up north to L.A. for some reason. I turned the radio to the legendary KROQ station and heard this great song by (another one of my favorites) Social Distortion. I had previously caught the tail end of the song and was stoked to hear it in its entirety. I turned the radio up and sang along, when my mom (so it seemed at the time) ruined the moment. "This is an old country song". Screeeeeeeech. "No way" I replied. But mom assured me that it was an old country song, and she sang along. I knew my mom wasn't a Social Distortion fan, so she must know what's she was talking about. A few days later we were at the mall and I stopped in to the Wherehouse music (remember those?) and for the first time ever ventured into the country music section. There it was, Johnny Cash: Greatest Hits, right there at the start of the 'C's. I put on the headphones and scanned in the cd and for the first time heard the infamous horn riff that provides the memorable melody to what instantly became my favorite song. It was a few years before I told anybody that there was a country singer that I really liked. These were the grunge years, the ska years, and the punk years. I remember one day my friends were going through my cd collection and they laughed at this out of place country cd. We put it in the discman and cruised downtown seattle. I thought my music cred was gone, but my friends loved it too. I was floored. Pretty soon I started playing guitar, and with Ring of Fire being a simple GCD chord riff, it was first on my list of songs to learn. Over the years most of my friends have heard me play this, or at the very least know that I am a huge fan.

So why is this a big deal? I'm a music person. A large part of the reason that I am a music person is because of Johnny Cash. So thank you Johnny Cash. Thank you for providing me with a great soundtrack to my life. R.I.P.

One love, one heart.

2.25.2009

Confessions of a Wrestler.



Things that should have tipped off me and brohymm that we were in the wrong theater when we went to watch The Wrestler last night:

1. The lack of men in the theater.
2. The preview for the Hannah Montana movie.
3. The light, bubbly music as the movie started.
4. The opening monologue with a cheery voice.

Yeah, so as soon as we saw the words 'Confessions of a Shopaholic' appear onscreen we booked it out of the theater and managed to find our theater just in time to see the preview for T4.

By the way, to the ticket taker at the AMC in Mission Valley, it's second theater on the left, not the first.

Oh yeah, The Wrestler was really good. Not a kid friendly movie by any means, but good none the less.

one love, one heart.

2.24.2009

"I Recycle. I Cycle to work and Recycle home." - Nick Thune


Hola blogworld.

I've never been one to get caught up in much in the hype machine that it is environmentalism. I'm not going around emptying aerosol cans into the air, but I've always had my doubts as to how effective these measures are. There seems to be a lot of inconsistencies in mainstream environmentalism, from studies funded by oil companies, to groups like the ELF (earth liberation front...worst anagram ever) burning down new homes.

Anyways, here are a few things that I came across recently that I thought were noteworthy. I'll include a list of sources at the end.

Organic food.
It seems like a good idea. Eating food that is free of those nasty chemical fertilizers, pesticides and such. Anything that's natural has to be better for you right? Well, not necessarily. Cancer rates have dropped since farmers began using chemicals, and organic farming uses a lot of manure which results in a greater risk of contamination. Despite accounting for only 1% of the food supply, organic food accounts for 8% of cases of E. Coli.

Another funny thing about those chemicals is that they were invented for a reason, to increase food production. Organic farming is pretty inefficient. The current acre of farmland produces 200% more than it did 70 years ago, and the same goes for meat and poultry. According to some guy that won a Nobel Prize, we could feed 4 billion people if we all went organic, which is pretty lame for the other 2.5 billion left to starve.

As for the environment, organic food has a whole lot of issues to overcome. Because it is inefficient to farm, there is a shortage of organic food available to people that desire it the most. This means that organic food is being shipped hundreds of miles by (diesel) trucks. So in a way, organic food might actually be harming the environment.

Recycling.
Another seemingly good idea. Let's reuse everything. I was raised with images of forests getting clear cut and burned, and then panning out to shots of the globe being covered in water. Did you know that the number of trees on earth has actually increased over the past 50 years? Logging companies have long made it a practice to plant more trees than they cut down in an effort to ensure future growth.

As for landfills, some researcher at Gonzaga did a study about U.S. consumption and figured out our garbage over the next 1,000 years would fill a 35 square mile area 100 yards deep. This is less than 1/10th of the land that we currently use for grazing, and this is over a thousand year period. Also, our paper disposal has gone down significantly over the past decade with the rise of electronic communication.

Another flag recyclists wave is that of saving resources, which really is a matter of perspective. If you consider human labor to be a resource, then Los Angeles alone shows the ineffectiveness of recycling. In L.A. there are twice as many garbage trucks as there would be if there weren't a recycling program. Recycling requires more trucks and more people to oversee the process. So it's tough to measure the effectiveness of the overall impact of the recycling program.

Lastly, a chemist figured out that you would have to use a ceramic mug over 1,000 times before you would see benefits over using styrofoam cups for those 1,000 cups of coffee. This is taking into consideration the amount of energy it takes to make the mug, and the amount of energy and water it takes to wash it after each use. My dad had this beat, he used the same mug for years without washing it. It was gross.

Carbon offsets.
This is by far the worst idea environmentalists have come up with. A carbon offset is basically paying a company to reduce their carbon emissions to make up for your usage. This is basically paying for your guilty conscience. Currently, there is no structure set up to monitor these purchases, so you have no idea what, or how much you are buying, and what that exactly means. In fact, government investigations have shown that a large number of carbon offsets were just empty promises, or that companies were already planning on reducing their emissions. That's like offering me money to drink less diet soda.

Like I said before, these things do not mean we should package stuff in excess materials or waste energy and empty out cans of hairspray for fun. But, I think it is time we stopped worshipping the Earth and started worshiping the creator. If we focused the same amount of time and energy into serving others and caring for those in need we would rise up a generation of people that knew how to take care of all of God's creation. It's easy to get sidetracked by good intent, but when we get so caught up in preventing Waterworld from happening that we are willing to believe anything that lobbyists, and extremists cry out, I think we miss our true calling, which is a life of worship. We were not made for a life of fear, or trying to cover our guilty conscience, or searching for personal identity by identifying with a tree, and definitely not for satisfying self-interest groups.

If you need me, I'll be at the beach picking up trash.

One love, one heart.

p.s. here are some of the sources:










**** The links show up in my editor, but for some reason they aren't showing up on the post. If you really want them just comment****

2.19.2009

What am I gonna do with 40 subscriptions to Vibe?

Hola Blogworld,

Office.


I love the office I work at now. It's pretty cramped but it makes for some good times. Just like any other place we have our own little quirks. Here are a few of my faves:
At least once a week we have issues with our printers, which automatically qualifies us as an official office space. I have to fight the urge to yell 'PC load letter! what does that mean?' every time we have a hiccup with printing.
The secretary and I are about three feet apart so I typically have my headphones in, which means every time she says something I turn around and almost pull my laptop off of the desk.
Whenever somebody brings food in we all get hungry, but the office always smells good.
Our preacher has his own room, but it is only glass that separates us, so most of the time we are talking to each other through a single pane of glass. If I have anything serious to say I have to walk into his office because there's no way I'm keeping a straight face talking through glass.
At least once a week we start quoting a Mel Brooks movie. By we, I am not including our secretary. She's a saint.
Everything in our office is a shade of tan. The building, the carpet, the bookcases, our desks... everything.
My cheap target bookcase can not stand up on its own, we have to wedge it between another bookcase and a cabinet just to keep it standing.
When the sun is out, crows will fly into the window right in front of my desk. I jump every time.
Our preacher has Napoleon Dynamite stuff on his desk, I have my Goulet autograph. We get along really well.

Creeper.
So a bunch of my stuff is still in storage up in Simi, which is run by my least favorite creeper. When I was setting up the account, I picked up that she was trying to flirt (poorly) and tried to be as nice as possible. Sidenote: complaining about everything is not a good way to get someone's interest. Anyways, I went up there for the first time in a few months to pick up a few things, and when I got there my gate code didn't work. So I walk into the office (with nonickname alongside, I refuse to go in by myself) and ask her why I couldn't get through. She says she isn't sure and then proceeds to look up my account WITHOUT ASKING FOR MY NAME. I asked her if there was a problem with the gate, or if there was something wrong with my account, and she tells me that somehow my access was switched off. Mind you, this is the only person I have ever seen working there. She activates my code, we load up my truck, and on the way out nonickname points out the possibility that creeper probably messed with my code so I would have to come into the office. yikes. no fun at all. oh yeah, she also has access to my address and credit card information, so if you're out there creeper storage lady... let's be friends!

Universal remote.
I recently bought a universal remote for my tv and dvd player. It was a little more complicated to set up than I had anticipated, so I ended up reading the little instruction manual that came with it. Recently our government passed the single largest spending bill without anyone reading through it. Good idea. That's change you can believe in.

And you are...
I was up in l.a. on sunday night crashing at a friends' place in hollywood, and decided to go to the corner pizza place to grab some dinner. I walked in and it was like the scene from swingers where the crew walks in to the party, everyone stops and glances for a second, and then immediately turns their heads back to their really important conversations. I just chuckled and walked up to the only empty seat in the place and ordered a pizza and a pepsi (yes i'm drinking sodas again). Anyways, I'm sitting there at what is essentially the bar chillin waiting for my pizza, when the people around me turn and ask, 'so what have you been in?' not 'where do you work?' or 'where are you from?', but 'what have you been in?' i love that you just have to assume that everyone in l.a. wants to be an actor. and i'm love that i live in san diego.

214
Not always my favorite day, but this year I went to surferchica's birthday party and had a blast dressing up, hitting up a sweet sushi spot, and chillin with some new folks. Not a whole lot to tell there, but it was nice not to have something chill to do on 214.

Evangeline.
I talked with Evangeline Clothing about putting some designs to their shirts and possibly skateboards. It's a great company that's starting to blow up pretty decent. Be sure to check out the new site at evangelineclothing.com, and look for my stuff soon.

Pictures.
I found my box of pictures from back in the day, which look like they are mostly from church camp. If I knew then how much they would mean to me now I would have taken hundreds more.

Mere Christianity.
Is so much better on audiobook when read by someone with an English accent.

Reach for the stars.

A big birthday shout out to my main man Nicolaus Copernicus, who was born this day in 1473. Mr. C was the first guy to figure out that earth was not the center of the universe. He proposed that the sun is the center of the universe, and Galileo and Keplar backed it up a hundred years later. Nowadays we know the universe revolves around Kanye West.

Toilet Talk.

Another birthday shout out to Jeff Daniels, who will always make me laugh with the toilet scene from Dumb and Dumber.

anyways, there's a bunch of big stuff on the horizon that i'll hopefully be able to share with the blogworld soon. until then,

one love, one heart.

2.02.2009

Liveblogging at the DMV.



12:42 arrive. Found starting point, get ticket B531.

12:43 robot lady voice says, "now serving B 391".

12:47 inappropriate tank top guy offers suggestions as to how the DMV can expedite his unique, obviously more important needs.

12:55 pretty sure roofing guy just farted.

12:56 "now serving J102". What happened to B?

12:57 call james.

1:04 give up seat for a vet.

1:09 standing next to me in line friend suggests the DMV add a bar.

1:11 barefoot cowboy hat lady makes her entrance.

1:19 awkward kissing at the dmv couple embarrassed kid near them.

1:20 massive wrestler guy gives up seat for sweet little old lady.

1:25 standing next to me in line friend suggests we start the wave.

1:30 kind old man let's extremely large lady sit next to him and is now trying to figure out how to move over to empty seat next to him without being rude.

1:33 Its not my fault I forgot my paperwork lady is upset at the DMV lady because someone else must have forgotten her paperwork.

1:34 giant wrestler guy laughs at tiny skinny wanna be gangster guy.

1:39 sit still guy moves to his third different chair.

1:40 standing next to me in line friend calls me, 'look at me typing on my phone guy'.

1:42 I'm kind of a big deal guy does not realize that he has ketchup on his tie.

1:43 barefoot cowboy hat lady is singing.

1:44 excited guy is really excited about registering his vehicle.

1:49 abe Lincoln beard falls asleep.

1:49 sit still guy moves to his 4th chair.

1:50 I got dressed up for my drivers license photo lady is wearing blue eye shadow.

1:51 standing next to me in line friend and look at me typing on my phone guy debate whether or not the lady on the drew carey show was named mimi.

1:52 robot lady voice says, "now serving G221". goodbye standing next to me in line friend.

1:56 abe Lincoln beard listens politely to catlady talk about her "children".

2:04 matching t shirt couple make their entrance.

2:07 headphones guy goes into bathroom to answer phone.

2:11 best daughter in the world brings in burrito for mom, makes other 200 people in the waiting area jealous.

2:16 check ESPN mobile for sports news and realize I don't have anything to check until spring training starts.

2:18 funny lady yells bingo when B517 is called.

2:22 robot lady voice has no stopped for 6 minutes.

2:23 debate on whether or not to go to bathroom and risk missing robot lady voice call my number.

2:25 B351!

2:26 need a smog test.

2:29 drop off car at smog test shop.

2:33 downgraded to c154.

2:44 over to the corner store for a snapple.

2:49 pick up paperwork from smog check.

2:51 back over to DMV to hang out with long lost friends; barefoot cowboy hat lady, navycouple, and massive wrestler guy.

2:55 joker hair does not pass his test.

2:59 navycouple notices robot lady voice is not calling C numbers.

3:00 finish snapple, throw bottle into trash can with sign that reads, 'this not a secure trash bin'.

3:01 talk to trash bin to make it feel more secure

3:03 "now serving every letter but C".

3:06 C140!

3:11 skaterguy says to friend "hehe... 311 dude".

3:12 ponytail through cap guy makes his entrance.

3:18 I forgot my paperwork lady us back

3:20 J264 is pretty cute.

3:23 quick dry guy asks if anyone wants to go get some Mexican food.

3:24 quick dry guy starts clapping for people getting numbers called.

3:25 quick dry guy tried to auction off B640 ticket.

3:27 J264 chica says hola to blogworld.

3:31 quick dry guy teaches little kid how to make elephant noises.

3:35 quick dry guy yells,"B639 come on down, you're the next contestant at the DMV!"

3:39 "I'm not as think as you drunk I am" t shirt guy makes his entrance.

3:44 realizing I will probably be haunted in my dreams by robot lady voice.

3:48 pretty sure rent a cop is walking quickly back and forth just to look busy.

3:51 C154!

3:52 angels sing, trumpets sound and I get my tags and am out of here.

3:55 affix tags and hit the road.

one love, one heart.