Expressed Interest

Sundance was an amazing experience, and it won’t be my last time at the festival.  I saw the six movies above, and they were all wildly different and mostly entertaining.  Seeing these with Patrick and Nick added another dimension (mainly, someone to chuckle at my insensitive jokes.)  And don’t forget director/actor Q&A after the film, which might have been my favorite part of the festival.  Everyone in the theater had genuine interest in the proceedings, and the people who dedicated themselves to the film wanted to impress the audience.  Usually, this ended well.

I’ve got my take on the first three movies (the left side of the tickets).  I’ll save my second round for later.  Let’s start with a bang…

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Give me that cliché, Johnny!

“Back in the old days, life was simpler.”

No really, it was.  There was less TO DO.  The emphasis is, of course, my own here.  Consider this: every conceivable measurement of time available to us (minutes to centuries) from the current time has at-or-near exponential information growth.  We are inundated with stuff, most of it garbage, that simply wasn’t available to previous generations because they hadn’t built the circuit boards to handle its flow yet.  Well now, we have it all, and it has positive and negative aspects.  The potential for learning is literally unbounded; we can never learn it all anyway, so we get to pick and choose to the nth degree.  But we have to get smarter, we need to evolve even, to make sense of the “news” overload that is now commonplace in the developed world.

Genetically, I have my doubts on our ability to handle the data that we are being hit with now (See “migraines”).  But we are sentient beings, so hit me with another cliché:

“Fight fire with fire.”

Done.  Below are software tools to help you fight the personal information crisis caused largely by software.  If you can’t taste the drip, drip, drip of irony falling in to your drink of choice, use a palate cleanser and retry.  Or not; it’s really up to you.

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Halftime adjustments (or lack thereof) cost the Broncos

The NFL season has been an up-and-down affair for me.  Last week was no exception, and luckily (for you, the reader) this post will not discuss the epic collapse of the Patriots this past Sunday night.  It was front-page-of-the-paper material in many parts of the country, so you probably heard about it anyway.

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I had the wonderful gift of Talan’s help during my move to Boston in August.  He drove 8 hours with my Dad just to lend a hand.  Fantastic.  And naturally, on the drive back, we had plenty of time to talk.  Topics varied, including political philosophy, education, and the good ol’ days of high school.  The last of the three rarely yields particularly scintillating conversation, but nostalgia struck (and struck hard.)  You see, we reached a discussion of the most delicious meals from our hut lunch program at Blue Mountain Union.

It had to be documented.  I present to you (in no particular order) the BMU Hot Lunch Hall of Fame.

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First, two tenets:

1. I really enjoy cooking.
2. I enjoy eating more.

Now that we understand the priorities, it’s clear that the timing of cooking is important.  If there is limited time, there is a clear precedence.  Those of you who have seen this in action know that I transform into a fearsome beast that must eat now or else the consequences are, at best, uncomfortable for those around.  At worst is a bottom-shelf-dwelling B-movie that has literally never been rented.  And there are B-movie fans. At least, I think there are.

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Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds

I have two modes of preparation.  In some situations, I fully research and understand an event I’m going to attend.  Essentially, the who/what/where/when/why of an experience in detail, so that I can accurately define my expectations.  No need to be disappointed if you know what’s coming.  A defense mechanism?  Sure.

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Cesc scores during Everton vs. Arsenal (8/15/09)

You’ve heard the buzz.  There’s this soccer thing.  It’s a sport, everyone plays it overseas, the World Cup is great, but really, it’s a little daunting.  Even if you know the rules, you know you’re not one of those crazy fans you see on TV with a flag and face paint.  After all, in the ‘States, there’s the MLS.  But you’ve heard it stinks.

I’m here to tell you that once you’re hooked on the English (read: England, not America) game, you won’t go back.  I’ll give you a few reasons why you should take the plunge.  Need a team to cheer for?  Viva La Arsenal!

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After looking at a steadily growing mess in my apartment, I did some serious cleanup this past weekend. It’s not the topic of my post, because frankly I’m not writing to cause severe boredom. But tidying up has been a theme in my life (and another post) recently, as I try to control the tangled mess of tools and distractions that have rooted themselves into my daily routine. Life is about having fun, that’s absolutely clear. But it’s also about being productive and getting the most out of each day. To that end, I need a clean apartment. I also need clean habits.

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I’ve finally recovered from my eight day Florida adventure, and returned to work. But in the land of full-time sun, I learned many things. Being within walking distance of a beach is absurdly nice. Having time to power through a whole book makes reading more fun. The Wii is an ultra-portable system when on vacation. And Disney World is built for adults.

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First of all, who doesn’t love a spider monkey? And a shocked one at that.

Now, for the real story, which is my near-perfect escape from the 920-pound software gorilla in the room, iTunes. Yes, that iTunes. The one that runs multiple applications in the background when it’s not serving a purpose, the one that grinds 300 MB of RAM in a heartbeat on my PC, the one that doesn’t use the standard ID3 tag structure, the one that works so much better on the Mac it frightens me. I simply needed the Windows iTunes experience to end.

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Big changes were announced Tuesday (3/17) for the iPhone and iPod touch. New firmware is currently in beta for the devices that will bring a host of new features (link here). Copy/paste, MMS, A2DP, push notifications; these features all mean improved Apple products and continued development. I’m excited by the news, but the press conference wasn’t particularly captivating, as many of the upgrades were predicted beforehand by insiders. The fascinating part was the media coverage itself. In short, Twitter is changing the news world, and quickly.

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I’ve listened to over 9,000 songs and podcasts that’ve been scrobbled to Last.FM, a social music website. Scrobbling involves letting the Last.FM software record what music you’ve listened to and save it to a profile. I have stats going back through July ‘07, which is an impressive run. My tastes have improved significantly since I joined the service. I’ve really enjoyed my forays into new music, most of them courtesy of Patrick and other college friends. But those benefits come from listening to music, something that I (almost) never do on the Last.FM site itself. I listen on portable music players, my phone, my computer, my stereo. But if I don’t listen to the web stations, what has recording all my listening habits actually given me?

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Let me make one thing immediately clear.

I have never used any performance-enhancing substances.

Unless you count coffee.

Or Advil.

Or other painkillers after a few sports injuries.

Or chocolate milk. (It’s really good for you.)

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