heart ache

we love our customers. it says it on our paychecks!!! but there can be some heartbreak due to customers at times...

sharing happy!

i don't care what ya momma told ja, sharing is caring.

patrick wolf

patrick and paris

when it comes to music, movies, commercials, and television –i live in a virtual cave. thing is, i don’t mind living in my little bubble away from the latest episodes of the o.c. and brittney’s latest venture. but when you live in a cave, you still have to go out and hunt for food (in this case my metaphor for food is media/content). while hunting one day i came across a wolf, patrick wolf. now for all i know, mr. wolf could be all over the radio and mtv without me even knowing*, but i doubt it.

so let’s get to it, patrick wolf is a young english musician. it was love at first hear, for me. from there it only got better!

the first song from patrick i heard, paris, caught me by surprise. the song starts out with three violins in a classic style, all three are patrick no less. i felt as though an orchestra would follow the violins. is patrick wolf a classical composer i thought? a brief pause followed by a “heyaa” completely wiped classical music smile off my face.

a high energy drum machine coupled with aggressive distortion synth chords hit you in the face immediately. holy crap this is crazy!

through the song the violins appear and disappear, the heavy distorted synth smashing also visits us throughout the song. his melody is catchy, yet atypical. there’s a raw, bitter, uncontrollable rage to this song. he closes the song of with none other than an accordian and his lyrics "all in the palm of your hand". genious!

my favorite line from the song:
"i found myself in paris, in that cemetary rain" - patrick wolf, 'paris'

i expected to hear this same tone throughout the rest of his album. again i found myself surprised. some of his songs are more tender, some i would call more vulgar.


in an interview, i read patrick wolf quite joni mitchell. she said something along the lines of ‘your first work as an artist confines you to your future works’. pat took these words to heart and made his first album as erratic as possible, as to not lock him into a certain style of music. lycanthropy (his debut album) accomplishes this goal. oh, and he released it when he was 20 years old.

download: paris
download: to the lighthouse
download: epilogue

*note: i gave a sneak peek of 'paris' to a fellow music lover friend of mine. she said it sounded like NIN. i wanted to strangle her at first, but i remembered that she, unlike me, had at the time only heard the song once. she hadn't heard the other tracks, and didn't know what i was hitting her with. NIN is as close to patrick wolf as dr. dre is to the killers. or perhaps the cave i dwell in has transformed me into a complete looney.

superplane

i've got an obvious affinity for arrows and descriptions. this is my interpretation of a superplane.t.

waste

waste

in general, when it comes to women – almost all men share one thing in common. they want more. men desire the ability to attract so many good looking women, that they are able to reject or deny hot girls whenever possible. the same goes for money. and time. ok i’m going to throw in the kitchen sink on this one, people want more of everything!

having more is better! more money, more friends, more shoes, more boyfriends, more houses, more more.

to what extent is more finally enough?

how does one measure the ‘more’? how do we know when we’re comfortable with what we have? at which point can we turn around and start to enjoy the work that we do each day?

my answer is waste. waste isn’t bad, waste is good! wasting is the new black. wasting isn’t an action, it’s a state of being. wasting is the indication of achievement.

have i gone mad? am i a complete loon? no, i’ve always been a mad loon, and you can’t go mad if you are mad – that’s all besides the point, and yes there is a point.

i’ve defined my situation of contentment, aka the achieved state, with the concept of wasting. the moment you allow yourself to waste, you’ve realized you are content. maybe you haven’t realized you are content, but you most likely are.

for example i love to waste money. buying stupid overpriced products that don’t serve a purpose is one of my favorite forms of entertainment. a drink at the bar can cost >$10.00. albeit a full 750ml bottle of the top shelf alcohol that comes in the $10.00 drink will only cost you $30.00 elsewhere. yet we purchase these drinks and have a hell of a time doing so.

money is fun to waste, but it doesn’t stop there. we want to be able to waste everything.

food is hard for me to waste. i certainly don’t look as though i’ve skipped a few meals, in fact i carry around a bit extra these days, yet i still can’t push myself to waste good food.

time, on the other hand, is a great thing to waste. sitting in bed on a saturday at 4pm is one of my favorite things to do. just waste the day away -especially if it’s bright sunny and clear outside. some people cannot afford to do so: kids, girlfriends, jobs, people who need their internet to be set up… these responsibilities obstruct your lazy saturday agenda. but if you have ample time (which we do all want) then you will be able to waste these precious minutes.

the concept of wasting previously brought forth a negative connotation, to waste is to do wrong. this was my mentality until i revisited the concept of waste, which had been drilled so deep into my thick skull. why is wasting so bad, why can’t i throw away half of my perfectly edible pizza.

i have the means to buy another one if i want. hell, i have the power and the means to buy 10 pizzas right now. if i wanted to, i could toss the 10 perfectly edible pizzas face down on the dirty street. i’m able to waste them and not feel a hit to my personal finances, my hunger, or my ego. i may be looked down upon by others, especially if they are hungry, but they don’t get it.

wasting is proof that you’ve arrived. wasting is exercising your comfort level. wasting is celebrating. i’ve deduced that having enough, means having just enough to fit your needs, and then some left over for frivolous entertainment value.

SIGG

sigg

i humor myself. a day or so after posting the blurb about nalgene bottles, i went and purchased a sigg bottle. i love my sigg bottle!





it's the camo forest one!

ncg logo

this was my attempt to make an nba/nfl/nbl type logo out of a dude sitting at a desk on a computer. it didn't happen.

this meeting included everything from texas-t, to aladdin's lamp, on to a paper clip, and finally the schematic and outline of my pc watercooled system. we also covered work stuff too.

sbucks goal

we talked about goals on the day that starbucks (aka starsbuck to one of my coworkers) was giving away a free cup of joe.

nalgene

waa waa

i love to drink water. i love to drink tea too. i love coffee, cranberry juice, dr. pepper, cactus cooler, arizona iced green tea with honey… i like drinking scotch, cabernet sauvignon, vodka, lager, cape cods, man i could go on for days.

but most of all i like water. no, i love water.

i played soccer since i can remember. during halftime, breaktime at practice, or during any physical activity i participated in, there’s was only one thing to drink, water. i can relate to adam sandler’s character in the waterboy –well i can relate more than most can. there really is nothing like some high quality h2o!

thing is, drinking water is boring. water has no flair, no color, no prestige, and no past. most people drink water from their aquafina 16.7oz bottles with the same enthusiasm as one would have while taking out the garbage. drinking water is often referred to as “good for you”, yet doing it is more of a chore than an enjoyably hydrating experience.

i’ve always enjoyed water’s taste. in fact, i’m notorious for diluting my cranberry juice (1/2-1/2), my milk (i just can’t drink thick milk… yuck!), i enjoy the bland taste.

purified spring water is available at virtually infinite amounts in almost any office across the usa. and few others take advantage of this fact more than i. word on the streets these days says 8 glasses (8oz per glass) of water per day is the recommended amount of water

most people fret at the thought of consuming 64 ounces of plain ol’ gross bland water in a short 24 hr period. they grab a huge ass 32oz coke from the jack in the box drive thru for lunch, and polish it off with no sweat, but drinking that 64oz of water just doesn’t appeal to them.

i’ll dust 32oz of water before lunch with ease. i’ll have a morning coffee or tea, then a glass or two of water or soda with lunch, and maybe an afternoon coffee or soda. of course i always have 32-64oz more water between lunchtime and when i go to sleep. that’s quite a bit of liquid!

how do i keep track of these quantities? well that takes me to my favorite part of drinking water, my bottles!



up to now, nalgene has been my bottle manufacturer of choice. the 32oz widemouth style constructed of lexan suits me perfectly, with the little insert splash guard for maximum splash safety. i love the feel, the look, the colors! nalgene put some quality behind their bottles, simple, yet done right. the lids fit so secure that i feel 100% confident that leaking will not occur under any circumstances. the vibrant colors make me want to drink drink drink away the contents. and of course, the approx volume indicator measuring up to 1000ml and 32oz on the side gives me a proper gage of how far i’ve come and where i need to go.

i’ve bought my family, friends, and co-workers nalgene bottles. if only everyone in the world had nalgene bottles, we’d sing “it’s a small world after all” all day while holding hands… and of course drinking water!