so, maybe i was lying when i said i was going to start blogging frequently.

but friends, let it be known, i am not lying when i say this:
I am moving to Portland. Oregon. September 4, 2008.

A friend just sent me this article, which I quite liked: Is Google Making Us Stupid? - published in the most recent Atlantic Monthly.

It speaks to my internet addiction, or my fear of that.

"For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind.
... it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even a new sense of the self.
... as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence."

On the one hand, I have to ask, "Who let this guy talk?" But at the same time, this exemplifies exactly what I've always loved about him. Of course he should talk! A-frikkin'-men!



"People weren't excited about Franklin Delano Roosevelt because he was the first candidate to do the wheelchair. ... I'm sick of fine presidents, and good presidents, and mediocre presidents. I'm sick of Rutherford B. Hayes, and John Buchanan, and Franklin Pierce, and Millard Fillmore. We got Barak Obama ... for cryin' out loud!"
(quoting that line sounded worse than it was. he wasn't dissing on FDR.)

Hi! I write this as my blog is uploading, because I just tried twice to blog the same youtube video, and I guess it's still thinking about that.

I recently (finally) bought myself a digital camera - so I can (potentially) do a much better job sharing my world, now (than I potentially could have; considering my lack of blogs, there's not much of a precedent to compare). I also recently had a three-week road-trip adventure with my friends, which I did document with said digital camera. I didn't blog (at all) as we went, which would have been nice, but I can't regret it now. Since returning, I (finally) started myself a flickr account, so now I think I'm really, finally ready to start being a real blogger. So, expect blogs- and (maybe) I will deliver.

So, I wasn't planning to watch the Academy Awards show tonight, but I wound up catching a good bit of it, anyway. I wouldn't have much to say about it (although it was awesome to see Morgan's dad win! and now I have to see the film, which I previously didn't even know about..), as I didn't see most of the nominated movies and generally don't pay attention to these things -- but, but but, for all the hype on There Will Be Blood, why no mention of the score? That shit was intense!

The Keep Company doesn't make their shoes in China. They make 'em in Brazil, sweatshop-free, with vegan-friendly components (and a little wool). They tend to be pretty expensive for the little sneakers that they are ... but right now, it seems that most of what they have is on sale.

The other thing is that though they're mostly androgynous in style, they only make shoes for women. Girls have had to hunt down tiny men's sizes, so the boys will have to deal with large women's sizes. All of the colors are fun, and they fit better than I expected them to.

Thus ends this unpaid promotion. Why aren't there more shoes like this?

Last night I had a great dream. Firstly, it was some kind of assignment, maybe even a punishment (?), that I had to go help with the putting-out of the light in the desert. It wasn't a fire, the desert plants and stones were just kind of glowing, and it was apparently a routine task that every night, you had to go wash over them with something, just to put them out. So I set out with the rest of the team, which included some familiar faces from high school and such, but was for the most part composed of strangers to me. I found myself liking this task, in a sort of meditative way, in that it seemed to just go on and on and there was always more to do, but it wasn't tiring, and the landscape was continuously beautiful. After putting out the glow, the surroundings would become completely dark, such that there was no back-tracking or even back-looking. After a little while, though, we came across a sort of fort in the desert. It wasn't actually as big as a normal fort would be, but was square, and stone, and unadorned, and the entrance was a sort of hallway that went along the side, behind one (or each?) of the walls. It wasn't an intimidating fort at all; it was an obvious stopping-place. Inside, it was more of a movie theater, and a lot of friends were there. I don't remember much happening there so much as it was a fun time, and there may have been music? Something led me to believe that it was probably the Fortress of Amplitude.
In the morning, when I woke up, I wanted to get back to the dream so much that I made myself fall back sleep. The dream-scape remained mostly the same, but I was out putting-out the light, again, and this time came across a sort of cottage where someone was going to feed us. I also ran into Hillary Clinton there, and she kept asking me who I was going to vote for, and I wouldn't give her a direct answer, and I think that that upset her, and that made me uncomfortable.

nice new look, tim. when will mine look like that?