nanovivid

The new "SuperBowl Trailer" for The Matrix: Reloaded and Revolutions has been posted! And dang is it cool! It was definitely my favorite commercial from the Bowl this year, though as usual Budwiser had some good ones.

And since I’m not in a huge blogging mood right now, that’s all you’re getting. :-)

♫ Bright Eyes - Something Vague

In the entry below, I forgot to mention one thing…

Thanks to a post on Tastyfresh by JT X, I recently discovered RazorMouth.com. It’s a very interesting site where a bunch of writers express opinions about all facets of Christianity. One article that caught my eye is entitled Everybody Hates Us. It’s about why evangelical Christians are typically so unpopular. I think there are a lot of good insights in the article, so go read it. :-)

♫ Crydamoure Presents "Waves"

If you’ve been wondering what this Crydamoure presents "Waves" thing is all about and why I can’t stop listening to it, well, wonder no more. I’ve posted a review of the cd for your educational enjoyment. :-)

Thursday I was talking to one of my friends (who shall remain unnamed for the sake of whatever dignity he may have left) and he was trying to convince me not to buy a Mac. The funny thing is, I’m not sure why he felt the need to do so. Throughout the discussion, the best argument against getting the Mac he could come up with was gaming. I simply replied that I hardly ever play games and he was all, “well, you should.” Heh. It was funny, and frustrating.

As I told Jeremiah, I think I’ve always been a Mac person at heart, just one who used BeOS for a while. However, now that Be is gone and it’s going to be a while until anything new comes out (Zeta, OpenBeOS, or others) the time has come. MacOS X is also a big influence on the decision. I don’t think I could have switched from BeOS to MacOS Classic, because I’ve used OS 8 and 9 other places and they just didn’t feel right for me. OS X on the other hand… ahhhh.

Last night, for no real reason, Steve and I went and watched Darkness Falls. It started off quite suspenseful and seemed like it might have a good plot, but then it degenerated into more of a horror/action combo with just about everybody dying. Not one I’ll be seeing again. I mean, it didn’t even keep me from falling asleep at night, and what good is a "scary" movie if it doesn’t invade your mind while you’re lying in bed? (At least The Ring creeped me out for a bit. With Darkness Falls, as soon as I saw the thing I was supposed to be afraid of, it wasn’t quite so scary any more. The Ring did a better job of keeping me in suspense, which I prefer to horror stuff.)

I’ve finally gotten back into lifting this week after about a month of slacking… and man am I sore. It hurts so good.

House update: Wednesday I called the landlord of the house we’re looking at and he’s going to call me back next week to arrange a time to meet and talk about stuff.

And I guess that’s about it.

♫ Cloud2Ground - Melt Into Minor

Welcome to weekend update. No, not that weekend update. The one about me.

Friday night Dave, Tina, The Scoot (aka Scott) and I watched Farscape. I had been keeping up with season four for a while but then I missed a few episodes and got out of it. Watching Kansas last week and then Terra Firma this week has gotten me interested in the series again. Seeing Moya’s crew on earth was very entertaining and Terra Firma had a very good message about the need to think globally, not just about our piece of the pie. Very timely.

Then Dave and I watched Moulin Rouge. It was my second viewing and I enjoyed it even more than the first time. I really like both of the Baz Luhrmann films that I’ve seen so far (Moulin Rouge and Strictly Ballroom) and I’d like to see Romeo + Juliet sometime. Anyway, Moulin Rouge is a beautifully tragic story, and the music is wonderful. The way songs from all eras just seem to fit right in and make sense is amazing, and Baz’s visual style is as excellent as ever. Definitely one to see if you haven’t.

Afterwards, we talked for a while. Learning more about Dave’s faith journey has helped reassure me that what I’m going through is ok and it’s also given me hope that things are going to work out. It’s also given me a lot to think about in regards to theology and how to approach the Bible and think about God and so many other things. The last year or so has been full of changes for me in regards to faith and now realizing that I may not come out believing the same way I always have or even very similarly to most of my friends is both frightening and exhilarating. Right now I’m still at a very "I don’t know" sort of stage about most things, and I’m ok with that. It’s not exactly comfortable or easy to explain, but it’s where I am now. I know that’s rather vague and is probably going to make people worry about me, but I’m just being honest. :-) Maybe I can try to explain things better in a future entry.

Saturday morning Steve and I went and looked at a house that we are now really hoping works out for us (and Andy) to rent. It’s two stories with three bedrooms upstairs, a living room, dining room, kitchen, and back room on the main floor, and a cellar/basement. The house is a little old and has a lot of personality (in a good way). The only thing we’re a little concerned about is that apparently the landlord has had bad experiences with tenants in the past and may be wary of renting to just-out-of-college people. Hopefully it works out because it seems like it would be a really fun place to live.

That evening a group we went out to eat at The Little Grill, a local place with wonderful vegetarian cuisine. I had a "Greek Alyce" which is spinach, mushrooms, olives, falafel, and other yummy stuff wrapped up in a tortilla. It was excellent. Afterwards we came back to my place and watched some Trading Spaces, and the episodes they showed were confirmation that Hildi is indeed on crack.

The final activity of the evening was pizza and watching About A Boy with Dan, Lynley, and Courtney. I really enjoyed the movie, which is a quirky, offbeat sort of romantic comedy. It’s almost what I would consider a chick flick, but it’s not quite sappy enough to turn me off. :-) So thumbs up on that.

Then I came home and wrote some poetry.

Quite a good weekend. And I didn’t even talk about Sunday, which was also a lot of fun. Tomorrow I’m going to call the landlord guy… I hope it goes well. :-)

♫ Katie Grove - It's Not Easy

Tonight after getting home from hanging out with some friends I was in a total poetry writing mood… and here’s what happened…

do you know how life feels
from the exhilaration of conversation
to the aching beauty of a moonlit night
i think you know it well

i want to wrap words around these feelings
bind them in language and tie them to the page
so i can hear you say "yes, i know. i feel it too."
yet whatever small eloquence i have is failing me
failing to capture the fullness of the beauty
and depth of the wistful cry within my soul

all i can offer you is a song whose words i don’t know
with a melody too deep, too rich for this voice of mine
and i hope one day to hurl myself into the choir
forever joining their heartfelt hallelujahs
but tonight all i have is the hope of my heart
that this faltering voice somehow belongs

you know how life feels
from the exhilaration of conversation
to the aching beauty of a moonlit night
yes, you know it well
and we all feel the longing

♫ Sigur Rós - Untitled 3

A big thank you to Courtney for a most excellent late Christmas present — U2’s Best of 1980-1990 (with B-Sides… it’s all about the B-Sides). Less than a month after getting the new best of, I now have both of them. I know some would consider me a heretic for not owning U2 sooner than this point in my life and I would pretty much agree with them. As someone recovering from the listen-only-to-"christan"-music mentality, it’s taken me a while to be able to appreciate good music. But I’m getting better.

It’s kind of ironic that it took me so long to appreciate U2, since they are only one of the most spiritual bands ever. However, the mentality that was drilled into me was one of only accepting music that was, I now realize, often very shallow. I’m not going to get into a big rant about the christan music industry here, but so much of it is shallow, derivative crap. Not that the rest of the music industry is somehow hugely better, but, yeah, anyway… must… not… rant… ok, I’m better now.

As I’ve recovered from my previous mentality, I’ve enjoyed music so much more and found many groups that now hold incredible meaning and enjoyment for me that I would otherwise never have discovered. Like what, Adam? you ask. Well, Sigur Rós, Spiritualized, Daft Punk, and as I’ve been saying, U2.

Anyway, other stuff… there was this big hullabaloo today over the huge snowstorm we were supposed to get… and we got less than an inch. Lousy weather. I enjoy the cold weather much better when there is actually some benefit to the cold weather. I guess all the snow-haters are happy about this one. :-)

My roommate Steve and I are trying to figure out where we’re going to live after the lease on this apartment runs out in April, so we’re going to be doing some looking around. There’s this one house that we’re hopefully going to be looking into soon, don’t really know that much about it, but it might be nice, we’ll see. On the one hand, living right next to work is incredibly convenient, but the rent here is kinda pricey for the small space and it would be nice to have a house where we could be loud whenever we wanted to… like all our… parties… with the… ladies… yeah…

Dave and I are going to be hanging out tomorrow night and watching Moulin Rouge, which I’m looking forward to. It’ll my second viewing of that most excellent movie.

♫ U2 - With Or Without You

Now that the new design is up, blogging can resume. So here goes. Last Saturday, I finally saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Believe the hype. It really is that good! It’s a very funny, quirky, strange and entertaining movie. If you haven’t seen it, well, I don’t know why you’re still reading this instead of rushing out to watch it.

I was talking to Jeremiah on Sunday after he arrived home from his MacWorld adventures and found out that he had been in an accident. But not just any accident. He seems to have this amazing ability to get himself into the most interesting situations, and he pretty much outdid himself this time by being in a helicopter crash! I was pretty freaked out when I found out about it… he is so not allowed to die yet. Now, thanks to As The Apple Turns, we know the real story behind the crash — it was sabotage by Ellen Feiss who has declared Jeremiah to be her "nemesis." Foiled again, Ellen! Soon, we will have our revenge! I mean, Ellen, we love you.

Oh, and lest I forget… Happy Birthday, Jeremiah!. Thanks for being such an incredible friend. :-)

Shout outs: Tonya in her "Tonya box," TROGDOR the BURNINATOR, and Andy’s soon-to-be website theEmu.org.

♫ Sheltershed - DJ:Culture [dimmerswitch]

As you probably noticed, nanovivid.com is sporting a fresh new look. There are still some odds and ends to tie up, but it’s 95% done. The exciting thing for me about this design is that it is done in XHTML and CSS with no layout tables (except for the few that are left on the comments page and places like that). Yay for moving foward!

Now that the site is done, blogging can resume. I know hearing that made your day.

Make sure you leave me your opinion about the new look!

♫ Moby - Novio

That’s right, boys and girls. The new site design is almost ready and I’m pretty excited about it. I should be rolling it out in the next couple of days, Lord willing and the river don’t rise.

Now it’s off to bed so I can get up and go to work. Mmmmm… work sleep…

♫ Sigur Rós - Untitled 3

I realized yesterday while talking to Tonya that I totally forgot to tell about one of the funnier things that happened on Sunday. After church, we noticed that there were some children’s books around so we decided to show off our maturity and education and read a few. The most memorable ones were It Could Still Be Endangered and Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things That Go. Especially the latter. Toward the end of the book there is a picture of this corn harvesting machine that is painted so it looks like it has teeth and is really kind of scary (no pun intended). Tonya made a hand motion that was reminiscent of the machine and said "I’m gonna get your corn!" Maybe you had to be there. But we think it’s pretty funny and that’s what counts.

Now on with the final entry of this catch-up series [part 1 | part 2] that I am affectionately calling Ketchup is Mustard. This section covers Saturday through Monday (January 4-6). After sleeping in a good bit, Scott, Jeremiah, and I caught the end of MST3k - Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues (a great and rather painful episode, btw). After going and visiting people, we got on the road to DC. Tuneage for the trip was supplied by Spiritualized - Let It Come Down (such a wonderful album), Vigilantes of Love - Summershine, and Dijitol Kitchin - Snax For The Masses (thanks for the snax, Rod :-). stopping on the way at the Apple Store in Clarendon (and getting a bit lost on the way there). Who knew Wilson Blvd would be so hard to find? Of course, Jeremiah Cohick, Mr. Switcher Man had to get his picture taken with one of the store employees :-). I had fun checking out the hardware, including the very cool (and nice sounding) Harmon Kardon SoundSticks. After leaving the Apple Store, we were both pretty hungry and decided on some Asian influenced cuisine from Big Bowl.

Talk about good choices! If you’re ever in the vicinity of a Big Bowl restaurant, I highly recommend checking them out (and I’m sure Jeremiah would second this). I had noodles with spinach, tofu, blackened peppers, and peanuts, and Jeremiah had noodles with veggies. Actually, he ordered rice, not noodles, so they ended up giving him his order for free. It was an awesome meal, especially for hungry stomachs. Oh, and don’t forget to check out the bathrooms at Big Bowl… the sinks are so cool looking! (I tried to find them on the Kohler website but gave up).

Of course, we couldn’t just go and get right back on the interstate, so we decided to take another getting lost detour. We finally made our way back and arrived at Cynthia’s a bit after 9pm without further mishaps. Knowing that we would have to get up early for the drive to the airport, we went to bed fairly soon after getting there… and proceeded to stay up talking for several hours. 5:30 Sunday morning came all too early and we were on the road to Dulles and Jeremiah was on his way to San Francisco for MacWorld.

I got back to Cynthia’s and got a few hours of sleep before getting up for church. Cynthia made some yummy eggs and toast and we zipped down the road to Christ Our Shepherd Church. I honestly don’t remember that much from the service except for the lady who was doing an announcement and stopped in the middle of a sentence to say "Oh! It’s snowing!" After the service, we stopped by Popeyes to get some food and then went back to Cynthia’s place. Since she was busy with work for much of the afternoon, I passed the time reading Phillip K. Dick - The Minority Report and Other Stories (yes, Minority Report is based loosely on the title story). Prior to reading some of his stuff this summer, I had only heard of him in reference to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (the book Blade Runner is based on). He’s quickly become one of my favorite scifi authors though. I also watched part of Volcano! It was full of stupifyingly entertaining volcanic action. :-)

That evening we went to Union Station to pick up Logan, who had just flown in. After we found each other, we went and got some delicious gyros. While were were eating, I did a double-take as Kirsten, one of my friends from back home approached. She and her friend (whose name I don’t remember… sorry!) sat with us and talked for a while. We eventually decided to go back to Cynthia’s and watch a movie. Last of the Mohicans was the choice, and it was my first time seeing it. I can see why so many people like the movie… and it was extra entertaining with Logan’s comments about "making babies" and Cynthia’s other interesting comments. Afterward, Logan and I took Kirsten and what’s-her-name back to Union Station and then it was bedtime.

Monday morning Logan and I got up and headed back home. After we got back, I went into work, and it was a really busy afternoon. And they lived happily ever after. The end.

Well, it feels good to be finished with that. Hopefully my future blogs can be as quality as these past few have been. Apparently nobody has gotten my obscure song reference… that’s not unusual though. According to Courtney, I am "songquotingman" but I think she’s making stuff up.

♫ Crydamoure presents "Waves" (yes, again... I love this cd :-)