I’m not a narcissist, at least as far as I can self diagnose.  But, I think the way people use the internet and especially social networking is introducing a bit of narcissism that is very difficult to escape as a member of the connected population at large.

Like many people I know, I spend a lot of time on Facebook and to a much lesser extent now, Myspace.  A couple of nights back I decided that my main profile picture was starting to feel a bit stale so I went through the handily linked list of pictures I am tagged in (758 and growing) to find a new virtual head shot.  As I mostly failed at this task- skipping over many ridiculous and unflattering pictures before finally settling on a mildly ridiculous picture where at least I’m dressed in snazzy wear- old thoughts from the back of my mind returned about the nature of an individual’s constructed online persona and how it correlates and conflicts with the real person’s persona.

As I’ve said before, it’s astounding how much things have changed in just the past decade with the advent of the internet and the ubiquity of the cell phone.  It’s just bizarre to look back at the evolution of how people have used these tools and how they’re now converging.  I remember early on even way back when my friends and I used ICQ then jumped mostly to AOL Instant Messenger, people’s “profiles” would start to include more and more information, going way beyond a simple about me.  When I hit college in 2001, AIM was somewhat of a de facto social network of its own, to the point where people were checking away messages and profiles much more often than they were actually chatting with each other.  In hindsight, it’s hard to imagine why social networking sites didn’t explode sooner.

When Facebook expanded to Purdue’s campus somewhere around 2003, I joined as a curiosity.  It was mostly worthless then, just a picture and about me sort of thing, with ways to find common classmates.  I already had AIM, why would I want to browse the all aim profile website?  But over time something started to happen- as the network grew so did the value of the site.  Imagine that.  Then myspace came on the scene and though I was resistant to it as the home of idiot pre teens and idiots in general, the network of friends there and the new ways they were interacting with each other became increasingly interesting.  And as the interactions increased, so did the intricacy in crafting the information that was the public face of the user to the network.

Cut forward to now- with the various networks copying and expanding features, even adding chat as a secondary feature (welcome back to AIM) they have become more than a way of looking people up, they’re becoming integral in how people interact and communicate.  I know many people who would first send a message or post on a wall before sending an email, even if they have the address handy.  Event organizing and photo sharing have all been co-opted, because when you combine information with easy access to your network of friends and family it becomes even more valuable.

But, do we act the same as our online counterpart as we do in the flesh?  How much is filtered out?  The unflattering pictures, the bad moments, etc.  How many of us are consciously or unconsciously limiting information in order to be seen differently than as we are?  To be fair, this happens ‘in real life’ all the time.  It takes time to get to know the real person rather than their representative, as Chris Rock will tell you.  However, the amount of tools currently at our disposal to put our best face forward is greater than ever.  In fact, not using them can have a serious detrimental effect.

With companies and colleges and potential dates searching social networks and the internet in general for information on people, allowing the real person to have too much visibility can be hazardous.  Personally I tend to let the ‘real me’ out on purpose more than most, at least in my opinion.  But you can bet I use those privacy controls to their fullest extent and with all their granularity.  I am happy I’m not searching for a new job or school just because of the amount of effort required to make sure I look as good as possible is beyond exasperating.  As for dates, the sooner they find out about the real me, the better.

Since I enjoy pouring my thoughts and misadventures out onto the internet at large, I’ve even created this whole so and so pseudonym as a mild bit of security through obscurity.  But as any security student knows, this is woefully inadequate.  A google search for my name has my twitter profile on the first page of results.  But not before a couple of results for someone who shares my name, the openly gay musical composer.  Compose on, brother.

Either way, I hope as connectivity continues to expand and more of our communication is done electronically instead of face to face, we collectively find a way to maintain our sense of who we are really amidst the snapshots we leave facing the window.  The more we have to dig to find the person the more time we waste.

Can you see the real me doctor?

*Classic hits is an attempt to consolidate all my internet written content, and also to revisit it from the present*

One of my original stream of consciousness updates, this one from December of 2003.  My musings on longing a bit for the real world are funny now given I would kill for 3 weeks off for Christmas even if I had to work 100 hours next week, but hey the grass is always greener.  Sometimes I think I’d like to go back to school full time, but those thoughts are fleeting.

The mention of my astronomy class is a funny memory, because somehow my lab group ended up being me and three girls, and I ended up just doing all the lab work and then explaining it to them.  All three were nice- one of them was attractive, another was extremely attractive, and was the subject of another throwaway comment, but she gave me the laugh and the arm touch I ended up commenting on in another entry.  If only I could have developed some more self confidence earlier in my life, ha.  C’est la vie.  I probably wouldn’t even recognize her face if I saw her today anyhow.  The mention of the discrete math is a less funny memory, as that class mostly sucked.

Snoop style izzle speak has mostly disappeared in the intervening 5 years, aside from the occasional extremely lame dad or over-ironic hipster.  The original image that was there was the photoshopped weather map with every word ending in izzle.  It’s decidedly less funny now, heh.

I’m your huckleberry

Four years later and I can’t sleep after this result either.

I am an unabashed politics junkie- I don’t really go out of my way to discuss politics, but over the past 10 years or so I’ve turned into somebody that follows every excruciating bit of minutiae of our great experiment.  But, I’m no sycophant.  I tend to agree with Democrats more overall, but the Democratic party is not my party.

I remember that night in 2004 after an election I cynically participated in, voting for a candidate I had talked myself into but didn’t really believe in.  Four years after an election I participated in but was still learning what it meant to be the news hound I have become, and four years after an election that took place in what seems like a different world and in many respects did.  That night in November 2004 I felt sick.  Rove’s lasting Republican majority was a reality, and another slim majority passed another mandate for an administration I disagreed with on every major policy point.  I couldn’t sleep.

Tick, tock.

The political pendulum swings in this country, and will continue to do so.  However, this is not a pendulum that swings in two dimensions.  I can see vividly in my mind the Foucault’s pendulum at the Indiana state museum that stuck in my mind more than anything else on the many trips I took there on a child.  It swings in three dimensions to demonstrate the Earth’s rotation- and this time it may not be swinging right at my individual peg, but it is swinging my way.

Barack Obama, a man I had never heard of until the keynote speech of the DNC four years ago, has been elected president of the United States, and it is still sinking in.  I remember watching him that night and thinking ‘that guy has a bright future’ and wondering how he would prove disappointing over the years until maybe he ran for president in 2012 or 2016.

When he announced his candidacy this time, I supported him skeptically, but with a sliver of optimism.  I never truly believed he’d have a shot.  But something about his message and campaign hooked me still.  I’ve never been happier to have been wrong.

This election has been a perfect storm, but one that has resulted in a clear message being sent- not a drawn out dogfight marred by recounts and allegations of fraud and caging.  It is a mandate, and one I believe President Obama will not overreach and squander, but use wisely.

There’s a reason I believe in the man, and it’s not his campaign policy platform.  It’s because he’s always been pragmatic and realistic in almost every chance I’ve had to see past the campaign to the man.  Even when he’s taken stances I disagree with even strongly, I can see his reasoning and respect it.

He will anger some of his base with some decisions he makes.  He will not treat White House appointments solely as rewards to dole out to the true believers.  He will make many decisions I like, and if he strays from that I will criticize him.  But, I do not fear for understanding during an Obama administration.

I take no joy in being correct about my gloomy temperament in forecasting the future four years ago.  I think George W Bush has mishandled quite a few things in his second term, but some things were forces of nature.  He has achieved some positive things as well, especially since ‘06, even if some steps were taken much later than necessary.

But, the president is like the quarterback- they get all the credit, and they get all the blame.  The economy was headed for the reckoning at some point as a result of the American lifestyle and our collective economical irrational exuberance from the poorest citizen up the wealthiest.  It might have been slowed or accelerated but it was coming eventually.  The water has withdrawn, and we now face a tsunami of unknown size approaching that will test the mettle of this nation. I have faith in our collective ability to fight on and endure, and return stronger even.  The president does not fight on, the nation fights on led by the president.

The deep wound caused by our nation’s original sin got its largest bandage yet tonight, but it the wound itself will linger on for at least another generation.  There is a rift politically between a lot of people tonight, but a bridge can be built even as our ideological differences remain.  One man can not do it himself, but he can do his best to point us in the right direction.

Above all other things we now have our great chorus of voices led by one that remembers that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.  We will stand up and fight the very real dangers of this world head on.  We will assess frankly the depth of the great challenges we face on energy, the economy, and the environment.  We may stumble, and we may be wounded, but at last we have someone to remind us that we are a great nation of great people, and that we are not afraid.

I have always had faith in this country and its ideals.  That faith has been tested in the past, and going forward it will almost certainly be tested again- maybe even very soon.  The pendulum will eventually swing in another direction.  But, just like in one of Einstein’s dreams about time- this moment has a decent chance to last longer than others.

While I breathe, I hope.

*(the application, on windows)

I listen to a well above average amount of music while sitting at a computer, both at home and at the office. I have a very large collection of music, but I don’t think my musical needs and computer music quirks are all that outrageous. It very well may be a symptom of my inaction or seeming inability to migrate away from Windows as a primary operating system, but iTunes causes me an inordinate amount of aggravation.

Why do I use it you say? Well, until recently I lived a blissful musical existence without it even installed- until I bought an iPod.  Since it was a new fangled revision, all the third party iPod syncing software was useless.  So, I installed iTunes for the first time on my new desktop, and I was pleased that it didn’t seem as molasses slow on Windows as it was the last time I tried to use it.  However, I continued to use my personal favorite music player, the open source musikcube.

Then the last.fm plugin for musikcube stopped working reliably.

This presented a problem, because I happen to like last.fm quite a bit, it’s a great tool for finding new artists and music to listen to, as well as a provider of cool analytics based on what you’re actually listening to.  Without a steady stream of data, it’s not nearly as effective, so even though I soldiered on for a while, I became annoyed enough to seek out an alternate music player solution.  Preferably one that integrated with last.fm’s official application so I could easily integrate the radio.

While I was initially impressed with the iTunes speed improvement at a glance, heavy usage made it feel like a molasses bath coming from the snappy musikcube with its native ui and blazing fast sqlite database for music metadata.  Then there’s the library management.  One thing I am pretty finicky about is my music collection’s organization, and there’s no way I was going to give up my intimate knowledge of my sizable music collection to a different format.  But, I still hated having to manually add every new album I ripped or got online.  Musikcube does this out of the box, and iTunes and I entered into a shaky truce when I discovered the iTunes Library Updater, which was somewhat of a MacGuyver solution to do this that I could set up a scheduled task for.  But, recent iTunes updates seem to have turned my MacGuyver utility into a MacGruber, detonating my e-truce.

So here I am, installing the most extensible and powerful music player out there, (for Windows anyway, I’ve really liked amarok when I’ve used it in the past) foobar.  Of course, it’s also the player that requires by far the most tinkering and configuration out of the box, which is what I’ve been trying to avoid.  However it is supported by the official last.fm application, is lightning fast, and it is possible to do some pretty incredible stuff with its interface.  It just requires putting a lot of time and effort in getting it just right and making sure all the plugins I want are installed- time that I could be spending on other projects, but since my hand is now forced it’s time to queue up a bunch of music (on iTunes) and commence to configuring.

For all the flak I give iTunes though, I will say I prefer it to Windows Media Player since I really never did like the way they organize their library, and when I think of Winamp, I think back to the days of a big long list of 1500 songs I downloaded off of napster and audiogalaxy.  So I guess I will award a little something extra to the apple developers besides the parks & rec standard ‘participant’ trophy.

As for the iTunes music store, I have no problems with it.  When I’ve bought an album from there aside from the annoyance of getting aac files to play outside of iTunes and iPods it has been a pleasant experience, but if given the choice I’ll never again buy an album from there, given that #1) I like to own the cd and rip it myself in variable bitrate mp3, and #2) Amazon’s music store provides all their music without drm and in high bitrate mp3, I really have no reason to ever look at the iTunes store again except for media that it sells exclusively.

For many nerds I know, how they choose to listen to their music is a deeply personal choice.  Am I missing some grand solution?

Well here I am with my fancy new website, with my own hosted blog powered by WordPress, with syndication feeds powered by FeedBurner. Hooray!  I feel like I’m now officially a king nerd, what with a main website that has actual content on it.  I’m planning on always having the blog up front, but toying with a couple of side projects in Python and / or Ruby on the side with the same domain.

I have several ideas for new posts coming up, but like the infamous (at least to me and possibly two or three other people) grape Mr. Misty review, I’ll have to sit down and write them soon or they’ll vanish forever.  Since I don’t want to cannibalize the content of said posts here, I’ll leave you with an idea I’ve been working on recently:

A line of designer purses, priced more modestly than Coach, named Dauber.

*Classic hits is an attempt to consolidate all my internet written content, and also to revisit it from the present*

This post was borderline cheating when I originally put it up since it was mostly just something I wrote for a class, but it still seems pretty relevant today, even though there aren’t a lot of people braying about bias in the media these days. By far the most interesting dialog going on about the media right now is happening right now in the final season of David Simon and HBO’s The Wire. The show’s depiction of the newsroom and the conversation going on in the journalistic community about its portrayal is pretty fascinating. I want to watch the rest of the episodes so badly, but I do not want the show to end.

Other funny notes from this post include me mentioning my homepage as fark.com, a site I don’t believe I’ve visited in a couple years, and poking fun at dateline well before the “To Catch a Predator” thing became wildly popular.

I have included the stupid ‘mood’ and ’song’ fields because I have to give myself some credit for starting my internet tradition of saying I felt dirty every time the internet asked me what mood I was in over 4 years ago. That and the song I was listening to is really awesome, and Y O U is a great band that’s giving their cd flashlights away on pleaserock.com.

Makin’ love on the radio

I’ve just finished what appears to be a successful all nighter writing a sociology term paper on bias in the media. I achieved new heights of procrastination on this one- I did no research at all until the night before it was due, and didn’t start writing until around 1. But, due to my silly perfectionist complex that decides to rear its head every once in a while, I couldn’t bear to halfass it. One thing that was fun about this paper is I got to write a 2 page section on what theory I thought best addressed the problem, so I’ve decided to post it here for your viewing pleasure. -disclaimer- I’m a bit delirious at this point and it was the last thing I wrote so it may not be completely coherent. Enjoy:

Dr. Media-slant or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pundits

If one were to listen to the pundits, be it on television, the radio, or the internet, one would think that media bias was everywhere. Of course, if one were to keep listening to them, one would be inclined to suffer a brain aneurism due to all the issues to be upset about.I think media bias is an important thing to keep an eye out for. After all, if we can’t get reliable news, or at the very least get the same news from a variety of sources and then settle on a reasonable conclusion, how can we reach any logical conclusion on world affairs, or even social and political issues? However, none of the theories or opinions I researched seemed to resonate completely with me. I think the answer lies somewhere in-between the lines.

However unrelated they may seem on the surface, the many different topics that were discussed in my research, whether it was the liberal media junta, the menace of mega-media corporations, or Rush pontificating into his microphone over the issue of the day, all are part of an ever-increasing problem in media presentation.

Perhaps it’s not media bias that is the problem per se, but the bias that seems to be as much a by-product of showmanship in news reporting as hard-line political views. News today, regardless of medium, doesn’t seem to be about the five Ws anymore, but about answering the question at hand in the most entertaining fashion possible. It almost seems like a new, twisted form of yellow journalism.

Evidence of this emergence of entertainment as king of news can be seen as the 24 hour cable news networks become overpopulated with pundit fueled debate shows that seem to be less about debate and more about yelling opposing viewpoints that are far from those of the real mainstream citizen. It may not represent all the viewpoints very well, but it sure is fun to watch. Even headline news, the network that just gives you the main news details, inundates its viewers with a screen full of information, much of which is entertainment related.

Hardly any of us are innocent of contributing to this trend. As a confessed internet junkie, my internet homepage is www.fark.com, the very definition of entertaining tidbits mixed in with the news. My mother, despite vehemently disagreeing with his political views, listens to Rush Limbaugh whenever she can because she thinks it’s funny. She’s one of the 40 million reasons he has a 250 million dollar contract.

Even investigative reporting has let some of these aspects slip through. The Datelines, 60 minutes, and Primetime Lives of the world keep us inundated with new, upsetting, and titillating hour-long segments to shock and horrify middle-aged women every day of the week it seems. What fun is the latest investigative report without the deadpan wit of John Stossel?

This is not to say that bias in the traditional sense does not exist or is not a problem. Bias is most likely present in virtually every story whether the author is aware of it or not. It’s very possible that just in what small details are revealed or remain unrevealed, or even the wording of a sentence, can be interpreted as bias by someone with a personal connection to the issue at hand. I’ve witnessed firsthand the “hostile media effect” examined in the UPS teamster strike study. I’ve almost certainly fell victim to it as well.

What is worrisome is the increasing inability of reporters, columnists, and editors to write on any subject without stepping on the toes of the people who give them a paycheck. Even if a member of the media has an outright liberal bias as some claim, it is most likely not in their best interests to show it. More likely it is in their best interest to reverse that bias. Unfortunately, these economic influences put even the most impartial writers in a position where they cannot upset the stockholders else they end up out on the street dancing for nickels.

I think that bias in the sense that most people are worried about is not going to develop into a huge issue. Despite what insidious motives the conspiracy theorists may ascribe to the media, for right now most of the established media is concerned with maintaining their integrity. I think the bigger problem lies in the replacement of that integrity with the profit-driven bottom line and what we may lose in the end. But, even I can say I would tune in to watch CNN’s Crossfire: the Cage Match.

 

Current Mood: dirty

Current Music: You - Radio

Classic Hits is a new feature for Craig T SoAndSo, which has a two pronged purpose- To take old material I’ve written on the internet (substantive content articles only) and have it all moved here, and to do a bit of reflection on it. I’m going to go from the very back, to my then famous (10 comments!) post inspired by a silly saying that I saw again recently, even though it was kind of the setup for a decently funny joke.

This was written on October 27th, 2003 on livejournal, and the 21 year old Craig was still very much in a Jason Lee in mallrats phase of his life involving a lot of rants and general malaise directed mostly towards the opposite sex. He also was not very self confident around the ladies. The ‘wahh, nobody wants a nice guy’ stuff is especially fun. Just soak in the angst
————————————–

Warning: if you are the average girl, this will probably piss you off.

Everyday, be it through general observation in the outside world or cruising the away messages and profiles on my buddy list, somebody says, does, or writes something that just kind of pisses me off. These somebodies usually have no Y chromosome. Now don’t get me wrong, There are way more than enough idiot guys around, but for some reason the things I’m about to talk about are more of an irritant. Fire and ice, baby.

First on the list- no matter who your boyfriend is and how many nice things he does for you, odds are he is not the best boyfriend in the world. In order to fit that criteria the guy would have to be able to deliver amazing sex, take you shopping, buy you roses and dinner, appreciate your feelings, and ride a white horse, all at the same time. If you can document your boyfriend doing this, then I’ll give you that one. I also request the videotape, as it would be highly amusing.

Next- girls are not apples on a tree. They’re not bananas or pears either (but maybe melons AM I RITE? ROTFLOLOLOOLLL). “Boys don’t want to reach for the good ones because they’re afraid of falling and getting hurt.” What? Speaking for myself, if all the best girls were at the top of the tree, I sure as hell would own a lot more climbing equipment. But, it’s not that simple. I just think this is a ridiculous metaphor. Relationships and why they do and don’t happen are quite a bit more complicated than you don’t have a boyfriend because the guy who’s supposed to be with you is having saucy apple sex with all the rotten fruit sluts on the bottom branch. Odds are you don’t want the idiots chasing after every fruit, vegetable, and legume that gives it up easy anyway. On second thought, maybe this is true and those patient good climbers do eventually come for the best women. Perhaps this is why I see all the best women with stupid apes :p.

Third- I realize many of you ladies fantasize about being a princess. Waiting for that prince on the white horse to come and sweep you off your feet and live happily ever after. Ain’t gonna happen. True love does happen, and I’ve seen it. That doesn’t mean there’s such thing as a problem free relationship. You may meet some person that complements you so completely that you can live the rest of your life with them. But odds are this person will not be the guy that comes on to you in the bar and feeds you exactly what you want to hear so he can get you to come back home with him. You want to know why you keep getting mixed up with assholes? Because flattery gets them everywhere and they know it. I’m becoming bitter and disenchanted enough to subscribe to the “not many girls want a nice guy” school of thought anyway. In real life, a true happy to the end relationship is a two way street. A guy should work hard to earn the affection of a lady, but it’s like the transcontinental railroad- you need people working from both directions. I mean come on, that loveable ragtag bunch of railroad workers from California can’t get the job done by themselves!

Professional sports are a curious enterprise. People expending a lot of energy, emotion, and oftentimes money pulling for grown men, most of which are millionaires, to score points based for the most part on where they happened to grow up is kind of a silly idea when viewed from the outside in. But, I don’t care- sports are interesting, entertaining, and fun to invest in emotionally. Yes, even professional sports. There’s something to be said for seeing athletic competition at its highest level, and if it’s fun to participate in as a spectator too then I’m all for it.

Growing up in central Indiana I’ve had some interesting experiences following the pro teams nearby, at least once I got past the ‘front running little kid’ phase of my sports fan experience. I don’t really care much about major league baseball other than I generally wish the Cubs and the Reds well. The Colts are king around here right now, and I am enjoying it immensely. The NFL is a great league and having one of the elite teams is a great thing for a football fan especially now that they finally got over the hump, and I can’t wait for our season ticket spots to open up next year.

One thing I do have to cop to, which is true really mostly everywhere, is that I share a spot in the fan base with an extreme amount of bandwagoners. Of course, this holds true for almost any good team, but it seems like our ratio is much worse than other places like Green Bay, Cleveland, etc. The last Colts game I went to the fans started doing the wave when the offense was on the field. I get absolutely infuriated by our fans way too often.

Which brings me to the Pacers. I remember feeling the electricity around the state when those mid 90s playoff series were heating up. Reggie. Spike Lee. John Starks. The Dunkin’ Dutchman. Boom Baby. Indiana is ‘the home of basketball’ and no place rocked quite like Market Square Arena during the eastern conference finals. An elite team that always fell just short (sound familiar?) but that always had the support of a great fanbase. Getting edged out in game 7 of the 98 eastern finals in Jordan’s last Bulls year was a heartbreaker. But the team made the right moves and persevered until finally it looked poised for a championship run in the 2004-5 season.

Pretty much everybody knows what happened next.

What people don’t seem to remember is the stretch after the brawl how large crowds continued to show up while probably the least talented group of players in the league fought (not literally) through every game and still made the playoffs. But the damage was done. The brawl and the subsequent flip out of Artest put a stigma on the Pacers that sticks to this day and will continue for years. After the brawl was a few months old but still a major sports topic the word ‘thug’ started to pepper more and more conversations involving the Pacers. Reggie Miller retired. Jermaine O’Neal battled injuries. Jamaal Tinsley got a huge contract but struggled under Rick Carlisle. Stephen Jackson fired his gun in the air outside a strip club. Tinsley and Marquis Daniels got into an argument at a bar. The Colts continued to prosper, Conseco Fieldhouse attendance dropped.

Enter 2007- the Pacers are a PR disaster, but they have a new coach who may be just the guy for the roster they have, and the guy with the system to really unleash the talent on the squad, and nearly every game is on tv. Ron Artest is long gone. Stephen Jackson is gone. Jamaal Tinsley is still here, and the fans are not happy about it. But, quietly the Pacers are quietly adjusting to the new system and Tinsley is the centerpiece of the team, playing up to his contract finally. Jermaine O’Neal’s purported unhappiness starts to disappear after he rests his knee for some games, and the momentum is building behind the positive play of the team, putting them maybe in position to win some fans back.

And then Tinsley, now a big leader on the team, decides to step out in the middle of a few days off to the wrong part of town. Goes with his brothers, a couple friends, and a pacers employee and Larry Bird’s friend (you think he’s not there to keep an eye on things?) to an R. Kelly Concert, watches the Mayweather - Hatton fight, and then makes the decision after midnight to head to a west 38th street club where the after party for the concert is being held. When word hits the Tinsley group that a fight broke out earlier, they leave immediately, but when they get back to their cars, some real thugs are waiting, and they want to party with the rich guys. When told they’re just heading home, said thugs are reported to have said ‘We’re going to party with you whether you like it or not.’ Words exchanged, high speed chase downtown, Larry Bird’s friend shot in the elbow. Everyone lucky to be alive.

In the aftermath, the fan base reaction has been mostly on the level of another club rio incident, when really the only thing Tinsley is guilty of is being out too late and at the wrong club. He and his group made every effort to avoid trouble, and yet is fired on by an assault rifle, but he’s ‘in trouble again’ and the fans around town who haven’t seen the turnaround this season and have their mind made up on the guy want him gone. Oh, and trade Jermaine while you’re at it! At the very least you probably won’t see any Pacers go anywhere remotely sketchy again soon, at least I hope not. For somebody who’s been won over by the team’s great effort and play on the floor, this is the most frustrating thing that can happen because it’ll keep people from tuning in to watch the turnaround. And Jamaal Tinsley did nothing illegal.

I guess all I can do is keep watching the games, and telling people how things are different this year. And watch as Jermaine O’Neal returns to form and looks like a happy player on the floor again now that he doesn’t have to carry the whole team on his back. Even Mike Dunleavy is putting up career numbers and looking like a solid player and I hated the guy last season. I guess Donnie Walsh was right to make the trade he did, the ingredients just needed a different chef. And did I mention the games are much more fun to watch now? Give it a shot former Pacer fan, tune into FSN, and read Indy Cornrows. Tonight you would’ve seen Troy Murphy get half punched in the face and also ejected, and watched the Pacers come from 16 down to winning convincingly. It’s hard not to be entertained by that.

Last night I got the opportunity to take in a preview screening of The Golden Compass. Since I’m a nerdy enough guy I don’t mind a good fantasy movie here and there. Initially I was lukewarm on the movie (may have had something to do with having to sit in the front row).

After a day to think about it I’ve come around quite a bit on this movie. My major gripe with it is the pacing was way too fast, and a lot of major plot points and settings were packed in together, but it’s very difficult to introduce and frame an entire fantasy world in less than 2 hours. I think it would have been better off with an additional 30 minutes to let things breathe a bit.

Part of the problem is that Peter Jackson set the bar too high with the Lord of the Rings movies, but The Golden Compass seems to stand on its own pretty well. The special effects and art direction are unique enough from typical fantasy, leaving the theater we had a discussion about how the aesthetic is reminiscent of the game Final Fantasy III on Super Nintendo if you remember that sort of thing. The Industrial Revolution type fantastical technology meets magic and monsters sort of vibe is a nice change of pace.

Overall I did enjoy this movie and taking a step back from the ending and realizing that there definitely are going to be a couple more movies it works pretty well. They really were heavy handed about wrapping it up there, and there is a pretty neat battle towards the end, despite the couple of GIANT AWESOME BEAR OUT OF EFFING NOWHERE moments. Can’t help but smile at those though.

Casting was great, the girl who plays Lyra was good for the role, Nicole Kidman is great as the creepy Mrs. Coulter, Ian McKellen was a good choice for the voice of Ioric the bear, and we’ll see how Daniel Craig does more in the next couple of movies I’m guessing. Even though she’s not as ridiculously attractive as she was opposite the aforementioned Craig in the last Bond movie, I liked Eva Green as the prominent witch character. Last but certainly not least, I think Sam Elliot plays pretty much the same role in every movie, but I love it every time he’s on screen, and his ‘daemon’ was perfect.

Overall, I’ll give the movie 3.75 out of 5 fountain cokes, to Fellowship of the Ring’s 5 out of 5. Definitely worth seeing if you’re able to enjoy fantasy kinds of movies. I still haven’t seen Chronicles of Narnia, I probably should get on that.

SCANDAL RELATED Postscript: After seeing the movie and then reading about the ‘Controversy’ surrounding it, it all seemed pretty silly to me. I haven’t read the series of books that this movie started the adaptations to. Evidently they’re known for their themes against ‘organized religion,’ but in the movie they’re really toned down. If anything it’s more anti-authority than anti-religion, on a level similar to the Star Wars trilogy (IV-VI anyway). The “Magisterium” in the books is supposed to evoke a church similar to the old church of rome that has strayed from its roots and now seeks to control everyone rather than enlighten them. Kinda Paradise Lost-lite themes of free will in there, but really I don’t see what the fuss is about other than they use the word heresy a few times.

Last I checked Christianity did go similarly astray from its roots there in the middle ages, even I received the smoothed over version of those events in Catholic school. There were reasons for the clash between the Franciscan and Benedictine schools of thought, and reasons that Martin Luther went redecorating, and reasons there was a counter-reformation that got things started back on the right track. Obviously things never got even close to as bad as they do with “The Magisterium.” But if you’re really getting that upset over the comparison then I’m not sure what to tell you, read a history book. But this sort of stuff is really harmless and in no way attacks anybody’s faith. Most dystopias are pretty outrageous but still plausible intentionally so as to remind people not to let things even get half as out of hand.

Last weekend I was involved in one of those late night philosophical conversations that pop up occasionally, this one involved the subject of having a passion in life and what exactly that means. As a result of this conversation I realized that I don’t really have a capital P level ‘Passion’ as most people define it, and I also realized I’m perfectly fine with that.

Part of the discussion revolved around how my friend and bandmate’s one driving focus is music- it’s all he wants to do with his life and monopolizes most of what he’s thinking about, and my drive in no single area is anywhere near as strong as that. There was some discussion of ‘passion envy,’ and while I do admire that sort of singular drive, and recognize that it’s responsible for the great art that I love so very much, I don’t necessarily wish I had it.

I love to play music, and I’d like to get much better at both playing and writing and learning new instruments, but barring a life crisis or some huge shift of luck it will probably remain a hobby I spend an unusual amount of time and money on. In a way, I’m patterned after Sponge from Salute Your Shorts. I love to read and absorb as much information as possible on every possible subject- music, current events, politics, science, technology, literature, stupid trivia, everything. Like Depeche Mode, I just can’t get enough.

If anything I don’t have a ‘Passion’ because my passion is spread too thin across too many pursuits, but I like it that way. I love to write even though most of my writing is on this blog that probably gets just a few readers. I love to try and get back into shape even though the past couple years have shown that I’m not very successful at it. I will keep slogging my increasingly bad knees to the gym at irregular intervals. I do have the ability to focus intently on a pursuit, but I’m not as astute at honing that focus on more than one thing at a time. But, I think part of that reason is that my brain is always seeking that next new thing to whet its appetite, and I think for me that’ll do just fine. I’m happy enough being a jack of all trades, close to a master of a few.

The other, intertwined subject of this conversation was how we as individuals are going to be remembered. Without a driving passion to create something truly great, how am I going to leave a legacy? I think every philosophy has something to lend to the idea of leaving something behind for those still on this mortal coil after someone is shuffled off of it, and I put a lot of credence in the idea of making a mark and being remembered. However, my thinking on this in the past few years seems to be influenced by two quotes, the first of which is from a speech by Carl Sagan in regards to the picture at the top of this post:

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The second quote is one that one of my oldest friends likes to use that is actually old Honest Abe quoting an ancient eastern society, although Wikipedia says the origin is attributed in a few different places:

It is said an eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him with the words, ‘And this, too, shall pass away.’ How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!

Both of these statements have shaped my personal belief that eventually the greatest accomplishments in this lifetime will be swept away, but if anything that drives me to try and accumulate the knowledge and create whatever creative works I can and share them with people I care about while I’ve got my shot.

I know many people will draw many different conclusions from that sort of an idea and I’m also aware it’s nothing revolutionary in a theological or philosophical sense, but it gives me a bit of direction. I am extraordinarily thankful for the creative geniuses, a couple of whom I’ve written about in previous entries, who often destroy themselves under the weight of their own passion for their art or their science- without them there would be much less love to spread around.

In the end I realized my goal is to end up as a less literal, somewhat higher-brow version of Earl Hickey. I’ve got a quite a ways to go, but I suppose that can be my ‘Passion.’ Given how things have been going recently for me, I need to be a bit more proactive, but personally I think it’s good to take stock of that personal philosophy occasionally and get re-centered.