Chernobyl Video

Sobering to watch.

Chernobyl on TV

There was a great show last night on the discovery channel. It was about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that took place in 1986. I'd never thought about nuclear energy before this show, at least not in a significant way. The main thing I thought, well I guess it was that I knew that Homer Simpson worked in a nuclear power plant, section 7-G if I recall correctly. And Homer seemed to walk the razor's edge, barely avoiding disaster after disaster. Yes, a nuclear disaster seemed like a funny thing, I mean, at least in the Simpson world.

Anyways, I learned quite a bit from this show, but my paranoia increased exponentially with each extra minute I watched about this event. My mind kept focusing on the fact that there's a nuclear power plant not too far away from Phoenix, and the more imagery I saw from the Chernobyl disaster, a disaster which could have been much much worse, I got more and more freaked out. The most admirable yet tragic part of this whole incident were all the people that worked to stave off a more terrible disaster. Many of the workers sacrificed their lives, or destroyed their health in their attempt to curb a far more terrible fate for their country, western Europe, and possibly the rest of the world.

Ultimately, the show has forced me to reconsider my stance on nuclear energy. I am more leery of it than ever, and find the fact that many people are so quick to embrace it as an enviromentally friendly alternative energy source a bit frightening. Here's a link on Chernobyl.

Me: Girl takes pic of herself every day for three years

This is cool, but I know this has been done before.

Artist: Ed Paschke

Posting on another artist whose work I enjoy. Sadly Ed Paschke passed away not long ago, he grew up in Chicago and taught at Northwestern. I really regret that I never got to take any of his classes.
This is his official website.
This is a good catalogue of his work.

Zugzwang, Panglossian, Weltschmerz: Three Awesome Words I've Come Across Lately

I love the Economist. Now I know that probably isn't the coolest thing to say, but I love reading it right before going to bed. You know what's great about it? The fact that I run across crazy words like zugzwang and panglossian in their articles. I feel like I'm finding more and more reasons to like the British. I like their magazines, their pretentious music tastes(but they do have great music over there), their sense of humor and comedians, their literature, and I wish I could say their food, but that is probably reserved for the true anglophiles.

I don't know where I ran across the word weltschmerz, and I'm not sure if I would be impressed or seriously annoyed if someone used that in a conversation with me. Probably depends on the person. All I know is the next person that uses that in a conversation with me, I'm going to give them $10 on the spot just for surprising me.

On the USA Basketball Team

Since the World Championships are coming up I thought I'd post this. Too bad the guy Carter humiliated was on the French team. Anyways, I'm cheering for the US this summer.

Mel Gibson

I'm not usually a huge fan of Time Magazine, but the other day I read a great article on Mel Gibson by Joel Stein. Here it is, Maybe We Should Just Make Mel Happy.

I don't know what's up with me lately. Since I've been sick it's hard to do real things, so I think I've been escaping from reality by loading up on celeb news. I guess I'm just pandering to some weird part of my brain that has hijacked the rest of my mind.

Deerhoof Music Video



What a great band! I discovered some free, legal downloads of their music at this post that links to Deerhoof's website and mp3's.

Artist: Roberto Matta

Just another post on another artist whose work I really enjoy. This is Roberto Matta's work, more can be found at such a link as this. I like the energy in the work, the surreal quality, the melting forms(and melting makes me think of fire, and God knows I love FIRE!!!). Also, some of his pieces have this feeling like they are electrified. Coooooooooollll.

Little Miss Sunshine

I've been doing ok lately, so I was able to go see another movie this weekend. Got to see Little Miss Sunshine, which I didn't know too much about beforehand, which is usually best anyways. The movie was great. Very funny, some quirky, off the cuff sort of humour. The film had an excellent script plus a superb group of characters who are fun and crazy. The pacing was good and there was pretty much always something funny going on, whether subtle or bash you over the head funny. Recommendation: Go see this!

Favorite Recent News

Favorites:
1. Britney Video
2. Jenna Jameson new boyfriend
3. Lindsay Lohan sex kitten remarks...see previous post
4. Weird.
5. Hilarious. I already posted about this dog earlier, but seriously, this is the best.
6. More Jenna Jameson news, taking place here in Phoenix! What's the big deal, it's just a lap dance?

I hope that in reading this people won't think that my interests fall under porn, celeb news, and dogs. Come on, I'm a bit more diversified than that, at least I hope I am.

Lindsay Lohan, Ain't She the Bestest

Best part of this article is Lindsay Lohan talking about how she aspires to be a sex kitten, it's what she has worked hard for her whole life. I love it. I've always aspired to be a dancing carnival monkey myself. Find the Lindsay post here.

How awesome is riding your BIKE? Very.

I know biking as a viable form of transportation seems laughable to some people. I don't think so. This video shows how great biking is, especially if you are insane and not afraid of dying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmhV8OwSeQY

Useless info

Ok, I decided to ditch the old template because I think this one is simpler and making changes could prove easier with this basic layout.
Needless information of course.

I never thought I'd ever say this, but go Yankees! I don't know why, I've always hated them, but I kind of want them to win this year. I can't explain it, very weird.

Being sick is horrible, but sometimes it forces me to try new things. Case in point is all the time I've spent on the computer. I'm not much of a computer person, but being on the computer is one of the things I can do without getting bored or too tired and weary. I'm finally learning photoshop which is a great program, I've discovered blogging which is much more useful and interesting than I ever imagined, and I guess I never would have discovered all those great media things out on the net, like youtube and last.fm...

Changing template driving me insane

Oh my GOD! I waltzed into the template figuring I could change that stupid design stuff at the top with some sort of image. I mean how hard could that be? I have spent way too much time at the computer, all these different help pages make this stuff sound so easy. Now I am insanely angry, and still can't pull myself away from the computer. I feel like a poor little rat stuck in some crazy maze.

SERENITY NOW

I'm trying to figure out how to make some changes on this page. I'm realizing it's going to take more time than I initially thought.

Dude, I am sooooo tired. I feel like I've been on the phone all day. I didn't even get my proper dosage of mid-afternoon sports shows. But I did manage to catch one of my favorite Foster's episodes. I'm including a link to a video clip of one of the scenes from this particularly awesome episode.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k13pQo6a1iI

Also a couple links to vids of this awesome band, one of my sentimental favorites, never seen these videos, some are pretty hilarious. The one and only Pizzicato 5...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_A7qaX3R0o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRE_MJBIhtI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl3Hkqk5f7M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpqN_OBrfJc

Keeping with the Japanese theme, never heard this before but I like, Karia Notomo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvpRH9t0Ots

My dog

It seems that every night he comes by my room to harass me for more Milkbone cookies. He stands in the doorway, stares at me, gives me one of those hungry growls, and takes a couple of steps closer to me to make sure I see him. I'm a sucker for begging, so most of the time I acquiesce to his requests.

On another note I've been listening to this great album that I picked up at the Phoenix public library, Pere Ubu's The Modern Dance. It is sooooo good. I love the library here, they have so many dvds, vhs, cds, books(of course!) and its all free. Hurrary for the library.

Spongebob

So, I have to admit that I have been enjoying the Spongebob cartoon lately. Only now have I realized this could be a big problem for my sexuality, and for many other people and children like me who enjoy the cartoon.

I was interested and surpised that in my internet surfing I somewhere somehow stumbled upon a whole pile of crazy accusations that Spongebob is gay, will make you gay, and is a gay icon or something. Now, I won't lie, Spongebob does have some little mannerisms that are iffy, but hell, he's a cartoon character, so what, what if he is gay?
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6852828/

Kind of reminds me of the accusations that Bugs Bunny is gay. Someone vehemently told me this a little while back, and I have to admit I was surprised, I'd never thought about cartoon characters' sexuality before that moment, so this double whammy of both Spongebob and Bugs struck me as a cosmic coincidence.

Hilarious. I understand wondering if a hot person that you are interested in is gay, you know, because that could actually mean something to you in terms of hooking up. But a cartoon??? At least we live in a pretty weird place, where things are so topsy turvy and kind of crazy that we can be interested in very mundane silly things pretty much all the time. The saddest thing to me is turning on the tv news, I can't help but see how the news media masquerades as a purveyor of facts but is in fact such a circus and ratings monster that you're likely to glean more valuable information glueing your eyes to a channel like E or ESPN than CNN or Fox News. Thank you, and now if you will allow me, I will be getting off my high horse.

I love the irony of my writing such a post.

Artist: Thomas Hart Benton

Not too eventful of a day, so I don't think I'll write anything about it. I don't need to philosophize about life at the moment.

Just gonna post couple pics of another artist I really enjoy. I think you either like this work or you really really hate it. Sort of like Andrew Wyeth.

These paintings are by Thomas Hart Benton. Jackson Pollock studied under him a bit but almost went mental trying to paint like this. I like how Benton twists and distorts landscapes and figures. Everything tends to flow within his paintings, which is not something I usually enjoy but for some reason I do enjoy it in Benton's paintings. There's a wonderful lyricism and magic within these paintings that is just mesmerizing.

Posting stuff on another artist, Charles White

I love this guy's work. The way he distorts figures, very cool, very powerful. Can't find too much on him on the internet though. They have a wonderful charcoal drawing of his at the Prints and Drawing room in Chicago, called Harvest Talk. One of my all time favorites. It's the first picture in the four I posted.
Charles_White_a_lover_of_the_arts