And the end of the year is making its way around again this year. I know because that Gregorian calendar on he wall and last weeks edition of am New York with that front page article titled “End of a Decade” says so. And that day of Christ holy holiday just passed also with those seasons greetings of yet another a happy new year. And so back to that am New York article that reviews the past 10 years in news and culture. And some of those words in those letters ’00s read something like, “Jam Master Jay, bailout, Staten Island Ferry, Playstation 2 Xbox released, Cheney, Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, Y2K, MySpace, September 11, Katrina, Afghanistan, who wants to marry a millionaire, Google becomes a verb, Obama, American Idol, Britney Spears shaves her own head, Michael Jackson, Walter Cronkite, Tribeca Film Festival Opes, Jay Z, Nintendo WII, MoMa, Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith, Saddam Hussein, USS Cole, blog, Hulu, Ugg Boots, MTA Strike, Oprah, The Euro, Howard Stern on satellite Radio, iPhone, Palin, Tsunami, Iran, McCain, $2 Metrocard, McCAIN, h1n1 Virus, Slumdog Millionaire, James Brown, and the list of those end of a decade events goes on and on…… And according to am New York, it is a world transformed. Happy 2010 year of the new.
Category Archives: life
Cremation
And so I found myself at Luther’s memorial the other day. Yet another person who has passed away to death from living here on planet earth. And as I looked up to behold the eulogy, there he was, a bowl of dust, cremated, burned to ashes. Is this what life amounts to in the end sometimes, a bowl of dust to be scattered somewhere? Cremation, what’s the meaning of that word. Does Wikipedia, that internet bible dictionary have an entry for that word, as I gather it has something to do with death. Is there some sort of verse in the bible about this ashes to ashes, dust to dust thing about life and death? What’s the purpose of life to wind up cremated in an urn in a bowl of dust, next to a vase of flowers and a photo. Is cremation some sort of second death? What’s the purpose of being born if one is going to wind up as a bowl of dust, and what’s the meaning of life with meaning, to hear the angels of death. And I have heard it said that the only thing constant in life is change.
The Concrete Jungle
And as I found myself wandering along that East River Park in that city of New York the other day, (which was actually a while ago by now…), I found myself beholding that East River with its ships, boats, runners, joggers, bikers and roller skaters passing by. And so I found myself walking inland afterwards, towards the city, towards what seemed like the concrete jungle, maybe. And for some reason that phrase prison industrial complex came to mind. What’s that phrase all about. Does Wikipedia, that internet bible dictionary have an entry for that? Would Halliburton and that welfare war machine know what that phrase is all about. What do those words mean. And in other thoughts, what happened to that Salvation Army thrift store that used to be in that city of New York that is no longer there. And as far as I know when I went there looking for it in my thriftness, it seemed to have fallen to the latest victim of gentrification, genocide and was replaced by the latest trendy, chi chi restaurant, bar, cafe, shopping or housing venue. And that real estate and gentrification in that city of New York topic, well, that could be a whole another blog posting. Have a great concrete jungle, gentrification day.
Kids
Hey Bloggers, or at least whoever may be reading this blog post. And I am not exactly sure how I came across this one in my internet travels in internetland, though it seems to be from that publication WIRED, and I sure seem to find it sitting in my email inbox as if it could be waiting for me to post it on this blog or something. And the following is one of those postings I find myself posting that I thought was interesting to repost, and besides, hey it’s less writing sometimes… Have a great 100 things your kids may never know about day.
Audio-Visual Entertainment
1. Inserting a VHS tape into a VCR to watch a movie or to record something.
2. Super-8 movies and cine film of all kinds.
3. Playing music on an audio tape using a personal stereo. See what happens when you give a Walkman to todays teenager.
4. The number of TV channels being a single digit. I remember it being a massive event when Britain got its fourth channel.
5. Standard-definition, CRT TVs filling up half your living room.
6. Rotary dial televisions with no remote control. You know, the ones where the kids were the remote control.
7. High-speed dubbing.
8. 8-track cartridges.
9. Vinyl records. Even today’s DJs are going laptop or CD.
10. Betamax tapes.
11. MiniDisc.
12. Laserdisc: the LP of DVD.
13. Scanning the radio dial and hearing static between stations. (Digital tuners + HD radio bork this concept.)
14. Shortwave radio.
15. 3-D movies meaning red-and-green glasses.
16. Watching TV when the networks say you should. Tivo and Sky+ are slowing killing this one.
17. That there was a time before ‘reality TV.’
Computers and Videogaming
18. Wires. OK, so they’re not gone yet, but it won’t be long
19. The scream of a modem connecting.
20. The buzz of a dot-matrix printer
21. 5- and 3-inch floppies, Zip Discs and countless other forms of data storage.
22. Using jumpers to set IRQs.
23. DOS.
24. Terminals accessing the mainframe.
25. Screens being just green (or orange) on black.
26. Tweaking the volume setting on your tape deck to get a computer game to load, and waiting ages for it to actually do it.
27. Daisy chaining your SCSI devices and making sure they’ve all got a different ID.
28. Counting in kilobytes.
29. Wondering if you can afford to buy a RAM upgrade.
30. Blowing the dust out of a NES cartridge in the hopes that it’ll load this time.
31. Turning a PlayStation on its end to try and get a game to load.
32. Joysticks.
33. Having to delete something to make room on your hard drive.
34. Booting your computer off of a floppy disk.
35. Recording a song in a studio.
The Internet
36. NCSA Mosaic.
37. Finding out information from an encyclopedia.
38. Using a road atlas to get from A to B.
39. Doing bank business only when the bank is open.
40. Shopping only during the day, Monday to Saturday.
41. Phone books and Yellow Pages.
42. Newspapers and magazines made from dead trees.
43. Actually being able to get a domain name consisting of real words.
44. Filling out an order form by hand, putting it in an envelope and posting it.
45. Not knowing exactly what all of your friends are doing and thinking at every moment.
46. Carrying on a correspondence with real letters, especially the handwritten kind.
47. Archie searches.
48. Gopher searches.
49. Concatenating and UUDecoding binaries from Usenet.
50. Privacy.
51. The fact that words generally don’t have num8er5 in them.
52. Correct spelling of phrases, rather than TLAs.
53. Waiting several minutes (or even hours!) to download something.
54. The time before botnets/security vulnerabilities due to always-on and always-connected PCs
55. The time before PC networks.
56. When Spam was just a meat product — or even a Monty Python sketch.
Gadgets
57. Typewriters.
58. Putting film in your camera: 35mm may have some life still, but what about APS or disk?
59. Sending that film away to be processed.
60. Having physical prints of photographs come back to you.
61. CB radios.
62. Getting lost. With GPS coming to more and more phones, your location is only a click away.
63. Rotary-dial telephones.
64. Answering machines.
65. Using a stick to point at information on a wallchart
66. Pay phones.
67. Phones with actual bells in them.
68. Fax machines.
69. Vacuum cleaners with bags in them.
Everything Else
70. Taking turns picking a radio station, or selecting a tape, for everyone to listen to during a long drive.
71. Remembering someone’s phone number.
72. Not knowing who was calling you on the phone.
73. Actually going down to a Blockbuster store to rent a movie.
74. Toys actually being suitable for the under-3s.
75. LEGO just being square blocks of various sizes, with the odd wheel, window or door.
76. Waiting for the television-network premiere to watch a movie after its run at the theater.
77. Relying on the 5-minute sport segment on the nightly news for baseball highlights.
78. Neat handwriting.
79. The days before the nanny state.
80. Starbuck being a man.
81. Han shoots first.
82. “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.” But they’ve already seen episode III, so it’s no big surprise.
83. Kentucky Fried Chicken, as opposed to KFC.
84. Trig tables and log tables.
85. “Don’t know what a slide rule is for …”
86. Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
87. Swimming pools with diving boards.
88. Hershey bars in silver wrappers.
89. Sliding the paper outer wrapper off a Kit-Kat, placing it on the palm of your hand and clapping to make it bang loudly. Then sliding your finger down the silver foil of break off the first finger
90. A Marathon bar (what a Snickers used to be called in Britain).
91. Having to manually unlock a car door.
92. Writing a check.
93. Looking out the window during a long drive.
94. Roller skates, as opposed to blades.
95. Cash.
96. Libraries as a place to get books rather than a place to use the internet.
97. Spending your entire allowance at the arcade in the mall.
98. Omni Magazine
99. A physical dictionary — either for spelling or definitions.
100. When a ‘geek’ and a ‘nerd’ were one and the same.
My thanks go out to all of my fellow GeekDads for their contributions to this list.
A Film
And so I somehow found myself watching this interesting film titled “The Black Legion” the other day. And according to that internet bible dictionary Wikipedia, “The Black Legion was an additional organization within the Ku Klux Klan and operated in the United States in the 1930’s”. And the film could be a political film that seems to be about some disgruntled factory worker who did not receive that promotion because of a foreigner who took his job. And we wrestle not against the powers of the flesh but against the spiritual wickedness that lies in high places. And this seemed to be one heck of a race relations film that could have been written by the republicans, democrats, or some segment of society themselves straight out of the civil rights movement and even to this day, some sort of law and orderism. And it is that tower of babel. And this Hollywood film seems to be about race relations, power, authority, violence, corruption, mind control, hate, revenge, capitalism, conspiracies, money, war and life . And it could be Cain and Abel and much more to be said about it. And I thought this film to be fiction, some made up story, though this made up story actually seems to be based upon real life events of long lore times ago and who knows, even these days and times. And this film could be the Illuminati, that secret society that may have designed and measures the dollar bill, the statue of liberty the Washington DC capital area, charts, graphs, architecture, structures and buildings. And this secret society could be the seeing eye that sees all, the scull and crossbones, the tree of life, x and y, male and female, good turned to bad, that snake on the medical staff of mercury that flies away on the wings of love mysticism and some sort of religion. And this film could almost be George Orwell’s 1984, maybe. And it could be a depiction of life here on planet earth. And so I thought to add that interfaith symbol above as it is all the faiths and religions of a world. Coexist.. And what does a New World Order mean anyway. Does that have something to do with globalism and one world government, the upc bar code, RFID tag, the mark of the beast or something. And that could be a whole another blog entry. And who are these people in this film and who do they represent in the real world beyond film. Where is the world headed. And what if anything does this have to do with a No Police State.
The Lease
And so that Spring Equinox and turn off the lights on planet Earth go green day have both come and gone in this past week, and time on planet earth has rolled around to yet another Sunday in that day of the week, the day of rest, or is that Saturday, the Sabbath. And yet I find myself blah blogging away again for some reason, probably for the purpose of attempting to find content for this blog to maintain it whenever possible. And so on this day, I find myself wondering about the word “lease”. What’s up with the meaning of that word. And I keep thinking that word lease has something to do with a month to month lease on life. And the car dealer comes to mind with the lay a way plan, to temporarily rent a car as in lease it. And that housing comes to mind as in to pay the rent each month to some lord of the land for ones temporary lease to that dwelling. And isn’t a leash something that is attached to an animal to keep him from escaping. Are these two words related in some way? And this word could be symbolic of the meaning of life, one living from paycheck to paycheck, bill payment to bill payment, promissory note to promissary note on the month to month 30 day cycle of leases of life. And so that term a month to month lease on life comes to mind, as what could happen if one of these promissory notes were not met in that 30 day month to month lease of a cycle. Could ones life or lifestyle unravel in a matter of 31 days,. A 30 day notice on life. The lease. What’s up with the meaning of that word. Have a great day of dios, the sun.
The 1st of the Month
Hey bloggers, and one this day is Sunday in that country of America at the moment. That day of rest, or is that Saturday the sabbath. And yet I find myself blah blogging away on this blog again. And on this day is also the first of the month again. I know because that Gregorian calendar and clock in the lower right hand corner of this computer says so, today is Sunday, February o1, 2009. And some days are behind us. And with those first of the months sometimes comes those first of the month how am I going to pay my monthly bills stories. And with that economy thing being in the news a lot lately, I imagine more and more of these month to month, paycheck to paycheck, how am I gonna pay my monthly bills stories taking place around that country of America. And it is a new moon, a new month, the beginning of a new moon and the beginning of a new month that waxes and wanes in its cycles of its month. And it is that order of the universe thing again, that yin yang thing. Every action has a reaction. And it is change. And the only thing constant is change. Have a great 1st of the month day.
Unrest
And there is unrest in the world. And I know because there are headlines in the news and sitting in my email inbox seemingly piling up upon each other with no end in sight with titles that read, “Defiant Hamas hits Israel with dozens of rockets, Taliban burning, beheading its way through Pakistani valley, Man shoots talker at movies, ‘Santa’ opens fire at Calif. party , Clashes hit Athens ahead of boy’s funeral, shots fired in SoCal Toys ‘R’ Us“. And these headlines seem as if they want to be endless. And even though the mantra of the day seems to be “Happy Holidays”, it sometimes does not seem so happy. As a bleak grim photo of the world seems as if it is being painted between the economy, people who are losing their lives on a daily
basis due to gun violence, that subject that seems to be nowhere found in those presidential election campaigns, an endless amount of seemingly never ending wars that seem as if they have been around since the beginning of time, and a seemingly endless amount of other atrocious and incomprehensible headlines that are too innumerable for me to mention in one blog posting. And are these merry happy holy dayze in this seasons greetings, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year time of year. Are they to be found somewhere here on planet earth. And I wonder if this world that seems as if it is spinning out of control is all part of that 2012 on track thing, or that Kali Yuga iron age descending thing, or some other magical explanation that could be written the stars somewhere in prophecy. And is there a reason to celebrate the holidays this year, these days and times. And it is an observance. Where is the world headed. No one is free when others are oppressed. Is another world possible. Peace on earth and goodwill to all mankind.
A Place Somewhere
Hey bloggers, is there another place somewhere. I mean, do you long for a better world where people live at peace with one another? a world in which thee is no war, no crime, no oppression. And those words are to be found in that Watchtower publication, newsletter, some article about Noah’s Ark I think. And I find myself receiving those Awake and Watchtower magazines from those Jehovah Witnesses that seem to roam the streets of that City of New York and possibly everywhere these days, seemingly in the more downtrodden areas. And these are the days and times of travails, trials and tribulations. And what were the words to that song I came across the other day, something like, “I wish there was a place somewhere, where there’s love and no despair. I would not have to be so special, just no more crying and no more pain”. Is another world possible. Peace on earth and goodwill to all mankind.
This Day
And this day seems to be another one of those Sundays of the week that has made it’s way around in that cycle of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and life. That sabbath day of rest, day of God, or is that Saturday? And yet on this day I find myself blah blogging away again to this blog as if it could be some sort of magic crystal ball or something in the age of that internet web 2.0 social media user generated content world that one now finds themselves living in, in these days and times. “You must be the change you want to see in the world. -Gandhi”. That is a phrase I just came across in my cyber webosphere travels on this day. And it is a phrase that caught my eye for some reason or another. And I am wondering about those New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority vintage trains that are back for the holidays. Those trains appeared on the tracks sometime last year I think, and they seem to be a ride back in time. And then there’s those vintage buses that are supposed to be on the road also for the holidays, so the newspaper articles say. And I find myself on the lookout for them, to see some sort of ride back in time. Have a Great Sunday day.
No Police State Girl 