A Blog

As my friend Jason was explaining how horrified he has been while working at Target and seeing a large number of people buy the movie Wanted, I realized that the masses have always done atrocious things at the expense of humanity in general. I would venture to say that a person who spends more than $20 a month on sensationalistic entertainment in our modern-day box office is the very same person who would spend a day at the Coliseum watching Christians and other minorities get slaughtered for the sake of entertainment.

Succinctly: If you willingly watched Wanted after seeing even one preview, you would murder someone who is a minority just for entertainment, given the right societal environment.

The very same lack of ability to explain why one would see such a crappy movie is what we see in cruel mob behavior.

I thought my hyperbole would be justified by rottentomatoes, but it turns out that the movie got a 71% fresh rating. Insane. Either I’m being way too critical of a decent movie I haven’t seen, or film critics are the type of people who would endorse mob-behavior. I’m favoring the latter proposition…

The issue of economic responsibility has recently converted my apathetic attitude about politics into one of sincere interest. In my day-off perusing for music, I saw a link for the half-hour documentary I.O.U.S.A. while I was listening to some clips of Stevie Wonder.

http://www.iousathemovie.com/ was an excellent documentary if you want to learn more about why the current amount of government spending and debt is unsustainable. I especially liked the depiction of debt as a percent of GDP which keeps things in perspective.

http://www.pgpf.org is the website advertised in the film on http://www.iousathemovie.com/ and has some pretty good discussion.

The following is a good follow up article by the WSJ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123033898448336541.html

Me and Ryan headed down towards the San Rafael Swell for some swell slot canyoneering. Our hike in the Main fork ended up being pretty technical, with most of the time spent squeezing through the narrowest slot canyons I have ever hiked. Not just one part, but the whole main fork of Leprachaun was too narrow to walk straight on. You had to go sideways, carrying your pack in one hand, and sliding through the sandstone. Much of the time you could hear the canvas of our clothes scraping against the walls, and a few times we almost got stuck squeezing through tight spots, spots where your hips carried most of your weight while your feet dangled above the canyon floor. It is always like a playground in those canyons, and this one was no exception, though my headlamp, camelback bladder, and hands didn’t make it out 100% intact.

The weather was perfect.

Anything of note? We did see a pass on a passer. A truck passed a car that was passing a car on a divided highway where we had one lane, and oncoming traffic had two lanes. I thought it was a nice maneuver. Subway set a record for most time spent making a sandwich while Ryan waited his turn. And someone left a wood pile for our campsite. The car got 36.5 mpg, which is good.

I just paid for music for the first time in a while. Well, if you don’t count concerts. Amazon.com has the option to pay for pure, unadulterated mp3s. This is a huge step because, until now, any legit form of digital music sales has had DRM (Digital Rights Management). DRM is the stuff that makes it so your iTunes music can only be played on an iPod and the stuff to which the record lables have demanded that online retailers use.

Congrats to the Bravery for being the first band whose music I have paid for in about a year. Great Band. I think it was $9 for 24 songs. I’d say that’s a fair price. Bizet and the Switches are next up for purchase.