Since no one (save for 5 people) visits my site, I’ve decided to disable comments due to the huge amounts of spam that I get. I am always available to discuss things via e-mail. See the About page for contact information.
I bought some new shoes (and really nice ones too), and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take some photos of them (and also since I was going to return some of them).
The best weight loss advice I have ever heard came from Alton Brown when I heard him speak at the Coolidge Corner Theater during his book tour last year. Someone in the audience had mentioned that his figure looked better, and Alton proceeded to explain how he slimmed down. What he did was he started keeping a log of everything he ate — cookies, cake, and so on — and noticed a pattern. He would always have a glass of milk with those things he ate. One important point he mentioned about diets and why they don’t work is because they are based on the idea of “moderation” (he used air quotes) and likened unhealthy eating as an addiction. The analogy he used referred to drug addiction, that no drug addict would ever stop using if he thought, “Oh, I’ll only do a little injection of cocaine today.” Once Alton eliminated the milk everything else went away, and he hasn’t had a desire to eat sweets. It wasn’t just eating habits that caused him to lose weight. Exercise was also very important. He was very proud that he could run 5 miles without falling over huffing and wheezing (which he demonstrated vivaciously). What Alton Brown said about losing weight was the most sensible thing I had heard about it. It made me realize that kind of change, the commitment, has to come within the self first. Nothing else will provide that for you.
There is something very special about Pixar films that captured my mind since I saw the original Toy Story movie Thanksgiving Day in 1995. I remember it being a special family occasion that we did together. I was in the sixth grade at that time, still very young and still growing. I remember Toy Story was the first major motion picture that was entirely computer-generated that I saw in my life.
I remember the film was one of the most visually appealing things I had seen. I had no previous exposure to Pixar except for Sesame Street shorts that featured their little lamp. The other thing I remember about the film was that it had a very engrossing plot. Anytime a Pixar film came out, I would always be eager to go to the movie theater and watch their latest film. At some point, Pixar started screening shorts right before the movie started. As this became a regular feature, I looked forward to seeing these short films as part of my movie experience. I didn’t understand what it was about the film that made me like it so much until I was in my late teens and early adulthood.
What makes Pixar so fun to watch and experience is in how they present their content. The storytelling aspect is what draws the viewer in and is what captured me when I saw the first Toy Story movie. What they did was open up a world and invited everyone into it. It was stuff of pure imagination and somehow they were able to tap into the childhood recesses of the mind that had been displaced by the reality of growing up.
Pixar’s films are really stories for adults and not just children. It has a universal type of feeling to it, that everyone can connect personally with the film deep down inside. They don’t resort to fart jokes, toilet humor, and cheap thrills like in other movies produced by other mainstream animation studios. I think those things are very insulting, and watching those kinds of movies is the visual equivalent of eating junk food. Even Pixar’s bad films are still good compared to other movies.
Somehow Pixar doesn’t try to one-up themselves and upstage their previous films. I believe that is what hurts sequels more often than makes them better. More importantly, Pixar also manages to find a balance between art and entertainment (which I associate the terms “film” and “movie” with respectively) and still be marketable a pleasurable story for everyone.
With Toy Story 3, Pixar took me back to the world that I felt when I was young. That was 15 years ago, and the premise of the Toy Story 3 is that the toys have to contend with growing up and facing reality. Seeing old characters was exciting and disheartening when others were not present anymore. It is one of the more emotional movies Pixar has produced because it represents how we all have to deal with change and growing up. It’s about ending and beginnings, letting go of the past but not forgetting it either
I don’t understand why some people (mainly women) think that bathrooms — public ones no less — are these psychological shields from the outside. I feel most vulnerable when using public restrooms. Despite whatever “protections” these spaces provide, they don’t stop sound waves traveling through walls that separate the men and women’s bathrooms. It’s something to keep in mind if you ever want to bitch someone out on your cell phone in an office complex.
A huge emotional investment came to closure late in the night after I finished watching LOST. I had a hard time falling asleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about the final episode, and I still couldn’t shake things off my mind when I was going into work this morning. I’ve only heard one perspective on the ending, and it’s one that resonates deeply. My first reaction after watching the show was that I needed to go hug lots of people. That’s a simplistic surface reaction, but I knew deep down there was something more that I hadn’t realized or comprehended yet. It was a lot to take in that late in the night, and I was still trying to make sense out of the details.
I was expecting full closure but intellectually. LOST was a show that was very well written with its complexity in story, characters, and unfolding. It had a huge amount of depth that kept viewers hooked and guessing what would happen. With the past season, the questions I had still weren’t being answered. After the end, I’ve decided that my questions don’t need to be answered because ultimately I don’t think it really matters. The final hours of LOST were emotionally fulfilling as everything came together and ended the events that started in the first episode and continued being told throughout the series touching upon past, present, and future.
Directly answering any lingering questions that people have had would have been too insulting for a show like this. I don’t doubt that there is more backstory that just hasn’t been revealed, and if LOST hadn’t ended now then maybe we would have seen it. I don’t think the writers were jerking the audience around (for the most part), and I think there is a larger message that they wanted to use the show as a carrier for. I think it’s up to us to decide what to do or how to interpret it. That’s exactly how I felt when I finished watching Broken Saints, and its creator, Brooke Burgess, really touches upon an important point.
The first season shows us why the people do what they do, how their past establishes their present. Later seasons show us the effects of the present actions on the future. Answers just lead to more questions. Everyone, cast characters and audience alike, are constantly asking questions of why. The audience finds out why through flashbacks that explain the character’s actions. We may not agree with their actions, but we understand their intentions and end up judging based on that.. In reality, judging on actions and drawing up conclusions is faster “rational” answer because it is so very externally apparent.
What I’m taking out of the show is to never forget who, what, and why we are. It’s all there sprinkled in every episode in all the characters’ lives and how their stories are told. We identify with characters and their flaws, values, and self-worth. At the end, it all comes to an emotional close. Leaving everything else unanswered, I think, was intention to keep everyone guessing and having them draw their stories for themselves. It’s a mirror for our own lives. It’s not about being lost physically but spiritually, confronting ourselves, and finding the things we really need to be whole again.
For a little over a month now, I have been shopping exclusively at Whole Foods Market. It was an experiment in managing my money given the type of food products they sell. I never really gathered any data from my experience. I made mental notes about how much I spent per week (which is usually how often I go buy groceries) while tracking all my other expenses in a separate application. I don’t think I can claim any real conclusions based on the “data” I have.
Initially I was spending more than I was normally spending at the other supermarket chain I regularly shopped beforehand. The amount though was not a significant total at all even if I include the extra fuel cost in transporting myself to somewhere not as convenient as my regular supermarket. The fact that I knew I would be spending more at Whole Foods that I knew (or so I think) cost more than regular supermarkets put me in a mentality of curtailing my spending. My diet hasn’t changed; it’s very regular and occasionally I buy something on a whim just to try it out or satisfy whatever craving I randomly have that day. I knew what I was going to buy and had a rough idea how much I would be spending. If I ran out of food, I would usually just buy a pre-made meal at the local supermarket or do a Chipotle run. I don’t have a budget per se for food. I tried making one but my value is an arbitrary ballpark number that is based on a weekly estimate of what I typically spent per week.
After spending over a month of shopping at Whole Foods, I don’t think I can go back to a normal supermarket. The atmosphere in Whole Foods doesn’t make me depressed or stressed like normal supermarkets do with their white tile floors and bright flourescent lights. I remember leaving Rochester and visiting the supermarkets back home where no Wegmans existed (but will in 2011!!!) and feeling like I have to shop to survive and having a generally unpleasant experience. Whole Foods gives me that relaxed feeling I get when I used to walk into Wegmans (which I will hope to do again in 2011). I don’t feel stressed to hastily buy my food and rush out of the store.
Another reason why I am sticking with Whole Foods is because of their values. I started eating more healthily when I returned home from college and more so (I think) after I moved out of my parents’ house. That still wasn’t enough though, and watching Food, Inc. made me glad I started shopping at Whole Foods. I was already concerned about what was in my food, but Whole Foods takes it a step further. I don’t really feel any healthier physically, but I do feel more mindfully peaceful that they have a high set of standards that must be met before the products in their stores end up in people’s bodies and that my money is going towards values that I support.
Whole Foods is the closest I can be to Wegmans without having to drive miles and miles to Roche Bros. or going even more out of my way to Trader Joe’s. Would I drive even more out of my way to go to Wegmans once they open up in the area? Probably. Sorry, Whole Foods, but you will never replace Wegmans in my heart.
I’ve been itching to see a bunch of movies, but haven’t due to lack of time. Most movies I don’t see in theaters generally because most movies are not worth seeing. There are specific ones I will pay to see in theaters even if they are tremendously horrible only because I’m a sucker for them (or extremely bored). For most of my life, my family had always gone to Blockbuster or other local stores for video rentals. When I was in college, I started collecting DVDs of movies and films that I liked, but there was always someone who had some movie you wanted to see lying around. Now that my lifestyle has changed once again, I began looking into a new outlet of consumption.
I have a sufficient amount of bandwidth for streaming videos, however I am hugely disappointed by the supplied quality. It’s okay at best and a huge disappointment that suppliers can’t provide the purported better quality technology over a medium that is changing the way people interact. People are becoming more and more mobile which means that data will have to be compressed or reduced in order to satisfy technical requirements. That irks me on a huge level since entertainment echnology is turned into a cheapened video and audio experience for the sake of convenience. That is why I have turned away from streaming video. The price point of renting a poor quality streaming video online is not worth it either.
My cable/Internet supplier does provide video on demand and pay-per-view options which seemed like an initial attraction but extremely overpriced for what it is. I would have to upgrade my package and pay more out my pocket per month for a service that I would have to pay more money for should I choose to actually use it. That’s a huge no for me. That basically left Blockbuster and Netflix. For a while, I had been considering the advantages and disadvantages to both services. Blockbuster has a physical store in a very close proximity to me, but also an online service to compete with Netflix.
I decided to sign up for a one-month free trial of Netflix, and I was hooked on it instantly. I never found the service to be all that attractive, but my lifestyle has changed greatly over the last ten years, and now I finally understand its popularity. It’s nice to have a queue of movies to watch on DVD that are automatically mailed to you with no late fees, free shipping, and all the time you want to watch it. Having a queue gives me more motivation to actually watch the movie and receive the next since I can only take out one movie at a time (which is Netflix’s most basic plan). The time factor and having a physical disk is more incentivizing to watch than having some file downloaded onto my computer and sit there. The price is a good deal that would make it worthwhile for me to pay the for the service.
Blockbuster is also competing with Netflix now in the online business. Their plan is roughly the same with a few extras. I’ll probably sign up for a one-month trial with them after my Netflix trial expires to see what their service is like. I imagine it won’t be hugely different on the surface. Either one should be able to satisfy my need for media consumption.
One of the things I learned over time is that life becomes less black and white as you get older. Right versus wrong tend be very relative since there can be many factors that decide what is a proper course of action. Hard, known facts will never change. One plus one will always equal two (in a base 10 numerical sytem). However, what we know (or think we do) will not preclude our will to act based on how we judge or interpret that knowledge.
For about twenty years, we go through educational system where we are taught basics and fundamentals in various subjects. We are told what to do or how to do, but why we do is something that I have always felt was lacking. I came to the conclusion that it is that can’t be taught; it’s a more personal learning experience that has to be realized on its own.
It is considerably frustrating conteding with people who act upon the notion of doing something “the right way” when there are clear, multiple alternatives. As long as there are good reasons why choices are made, I could care less about what the actual choice is. However, that is not an invitation for stupid choices. Knowledge is a powerful thing and should be used responsibly.
Whenever someone asks me if there is a right or wrong way to do something, barring moral situations, when there isn’t a clear answer I always have to answer, “It depends.” Then I typically have to follow-up with various why one would choose to something one way as opposed to another method. I believe that a good solution should be found as long as it is the best solution for the situation.
I am seeing this more and more as I grow older. Many people seem to lack this foresight and become stuck on a detrimental path or become too preoccupied with minutiae. I myself have down this road before, and I try to make myself better from it. The end goal is what really matters, but it shouldn’t be a justification for amoral means. What we do or how we carry out our life doesn’t matter as much as why. Without it, there is no point behind anything.
Usually whenever someone asks me a question, I always have to respond with the following question:
People aren’t typically upfront about what they want, and getting through their bullshit is really annoying. Another follow-up question I sometimes after that, and tone can vary a lot with this one, is:
That tends to either put a stop to people’s queries or get them talking about what the real problem is.