This is NOT me
I was just innocently google-searching myself and I saw this on page 1 and just wanted to be clear that this is some other guy who is BESMIRCHING MY NAME.
Matt Nathanson on Modern Love
Matt Nathansonthe idea was... future. where does love live in the future?
in a 'room at the end of the world?' at the 'bottom of the sea?'
fascinated with japan.
a place where modern architecture was smashed up against tradition.
against history.
bullet trains. everything moving fast
i read a ton of haruki murakami.
sexuality. and lust. against the cold backdrop of tradition
'room at the end of the world' came from this.
ended the "some mad hope" tour in australia.
same idea. same inspiration..
fascinated by the modern architecture there
and how it pushes right up against the outback.
cutting edge smashed against brutal, water starved, uninhabitable nature.
how these cutting edge, progressive cities sit on the rim of the totally untamed.
and keep expanding out into it.
the push of the city.
we move fast. we build things to move us faster.
where does the soul go in that?
"love comes tumbling down" came from that.
where does desire live? where does actual molten human emotion live in
a culture with facebook and twitter and light speed?
where do the molten parts of ourselves come out?
in art.
in music.
Matt Nathanson has been my favorite musician for some time now, and he finally (after 4 years) has a new album coming out which looks like it’s going to be incredibly awesome. The first single ‘Faster’ is already out and is dangerously catchy, and now you can preorder the album on Amazon/iTunes. Amazon also has a really cool series of videos of him talking about the process of creating the new album, plus the Artist Bio where this quote is from. If you’re not already a MN fan, get ready.
People Groups
I had a conversation a long time ago about the names of different animal groups. Most people know, for example, that a bunch of lions is a Pride, lots of fish form a School, and you run away from a Swarm of bees. Some lesser known examples that you’ve probably heard: a Murder of crows, a Pod of whales, an Army of ants, and a Gaggle of geese. But there are even better ones than these. The San Diego Zoo website has a page with all manner of crazy animal group names. For example: an Obstinancy of buffalo, a Mob of emus, and a Crash of rhinoceroses. Check out the page for more; my personal favorite is what you call a group of wombats.
Clearly a creature of great intelligence
This popped back into my head recently when I walked past a group of motorcyclists. Even though these weren’t a bunch of leather-clad harley riders, it seemed appropriate to refer to them as a Gang of motorcyclists. Which got me thinking, what other names do we have for groups of people? And more importantly, what can we make up? Here’s what I’ve got so far, and please please please add your own ideas in the comments.
First, the obvious ones:
- Gang of motorcyclists
- Board of executives
- Legion of fans
- Band of musicians
- Class of clowns (wocka wocka)
- Chain of fools
And now, the new ones:
- Brief of lawyers
- Bundle of babies
- Corollary of mathematicians
- Function of programmers
- Furrowing of farmers
- Hush of librarians (my favorite! courtesy of Sandra)
- Irony of hipsters
- Jam of motorists
- Palin of idiots
- Round of doctors
- Scoop of journalists
- String of physicists
That’s all I’ve got so far. What else can you come up with?
The New Look
Can anybody recommend a good mustache wax? Because this is seriously the new look I’m going for.
Osama bin Laden buried at sea according to Islamic law
From CNN.comOsama bin Laden's body was buried at sea according to Islamic law because no country was willing or able to take his body for burial on land, senior Defense officials said.
"When there is no land alternative, Islamic law dictates that the body be buried within 24 hours, and that was the basis," one official said. "
A second senior Defense official said there was no country willing or able to accept the body for burial, and U.S. forces "took pains to observe Muslim law."
"Today's religious rites were conducted on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in the Arabian sea. The ceremony started at 1:10am and finished at 2:10am ET," the second official said. "Procedures for Islamic body were followed. The body was washed and placed in a white sheet. A military official read prepared remarks, which were then translated into Arabic by a native speaker. The body of Osama bin Laden was placed on a flat board, which was then tipped up, and allowed to slide into the sea."
I was really happy to hear this. We’ve come a long way since 9/11 and learned a lot of very painful lessons. But we’re learning, and that’s the most important thing.
Buy Chris Bathgate’s new album Salt Year right now
Ho. Lee. Shiiiiiiit. You are not ready for the beauty, soul, rock, and hardcore FOLK of Chris Bathgate’s new album. It’s for sale, now, on his website, in whatever digital format you prefer. Best $10 you’ll spend this month.
Ending the Radio Silence
It’s been a few months since my last post, and I’m determined not to let this blog fall into obscurity and disrepair before it even gets going, like so many housing development projects of ’08-’09. My excuse this time around is that my creative attention has been drawn away these past few months by a new job.
I don’t want to spend too many words on that now, as a transition like that is always a personal and delicate thing. Suffice it to say that I really loved my previous employer (www.yogapro.com), worked with a bunch of great people and learned and grew an incredible amount in just 3 short years, but it came time for me to move on. And somehow amid the job crisis I was lucky enough to do just that. In fact, I had quite a long conversation with a very close friend about how I’ve led a seemingly charmed life, with many major events “falling into my lap,” and whether that meant it was important or not to “seek out” your life’s purpose. But that’s all for a separate post.
Which brings us to the present, where I’m currently working for Greenview Data, a very cool and nerdy company whose office abuts a cornfield and who employs a dog named Otis to ensure that no scrap of food goes un-begged for. I wear a few hats at the company and I’m still feeling my way around, but I’m mainly responsible for managing the website (with a redesign hopefully coming soon) and new social media efforts, which is all a fancy way to say I’m spending my days tweeting and blogging. Thus, not as much attention for my own online social presence. However, in the coming months I should have some more time on my hands (more on that later), so now seemed to be as good a time as any to climb back on the horse. I’m getting ready to throw my hat into the Tumblr ring (tumblr.dgoings.com) so hopefully that will fill the void a bit between here and twitter.
In other news, I still really want a Nook but keep forcing myself to hold off for that sweet Android tablet with the Pixel Qi screen that I’m sure is gonna show up any month now. I’m almost certainly getting an HTC EVO next month, assuming they get more in stock, which will be my fourth smartphone since April ’07 (Moto Q, iPhone3G, myTouch3G) and keeping Verizon the only major carrier I haven’t used in the last decade. And I’m more upset by the World Cup not having instant replay for goals than by the U.S. national team losing.
My Bracket
I’m certainly no expert, but on the off chance that I get insanely lucky this year, I want to rub it in the world’s collective faces.
Of course I filled out several brackets, but this is the one I like the best. Below is also the link to my bracket on ESPN, to show that it was in fact filled out and submitted on time. No fakery hear, just truth.
http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/en/entry?entryID=5287089
My Hairpocalypse
As promised, in preparation for the 826Michigan Mustache-A-Thon, I have undergone a transformation. I have lost inches, pounds, and perhaps even years off my head (please ignore the copious gray hairs). It was in effect like going through a Haircut Time Machine. Hopefully it won’t get made into a movie.
Before
After
Now the difficult part begins. Many of you have already generously donated or pledged to the Mustache-a-thon, and in return I am going to try and grow the best damn 5-week mustache you have ever seen. I’ll continue to update here as things progress.
And of course, if you haven’t donated yet, please consider it. You don’t have to donate much, even $2 would be appreciated. And it’s super-easy, just use the donate button below and use your credit card (no paypal account required). Or, you can always check out my profile page on the official 826Michigan website. You can even donate for some of the other growers there (just make sure you throw me a little something).
And if you’re interested, you can view a gallery of my transformation here.
Growing a mustache for a cause!
The walrus. The imperial. The handlebar. The fu manchu. Mustaches: they grow on you.
And, now, they can help school children ages 6-18 improve their literacy, creative and expository writing skills!
I’m going to be participating in the 826Michigan Mustache-a-thon. What’s that you ask? Well, I’ll let them tell you all about it at their official website – http://www.826michigan.org/mustache/. But in summary: author Dave Eggers started the non-profit 826Michigan to focus on mentoring kids in creative writing. It’s a great organization that offers tutoring, writing workshops, seminars, field trips and publishing for Ann Arbor area students and even adults, all at no cost to the students.
The Mustache-A-Thon is an aptly named and equivalently awesome fundraising event, where participants get together and yes, grow out their mustaches for charity! It runs over 6 weeks, during which we’ll start clean-shaven and slowly let our upper-lip hair run wild. No goatees. No soul-patches. And hopefully in return, if you care about education, or creative writing, or just feel bad for the embarrassment some of us may endure, you’ll make a small donation. It’s a mustache cash bash!
So if you’d like to help out, please just use the Donate button below, which will go directly to 826Michigan in my name. And your donations are tax deductible! That’s right, you can get a tax rebate from my mustache. If this wasn’t a charity to support education, I might have said it was too cool for school.
Not sure how much to donate? $8.26 is a great way to start, but even $2 will be appreciated. The A-Thon goes for six weeks, so if you don’t feel like you can make a donation now, you’ll have all the way until April.
You can also be a grower yourself! If you’re in the Ann Arbor, MI area, check out this poster image to see how you can participate: http://dgoings.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mustache-poster.jpg
The official website will be posting updates as the weeks go by, showing the progress of all the growers. You can check out my personal profile page here, and I’ll also post some updates on this blog. Just to give you some final motivation for donating, I’ll leave you with this – a photo of my current facial hair, which will ALL be coming off, along with a serious haircut, in preparation for this event. That’s right, I’m sacrificing all this manhood and winter-mountain-man pride for the children. All I ask in return is that you skip that double-tall latté tomorrow morning and instead help some kids to become better writers.
Update: Seems that I had the wrong link code for the paypal donate button. Should be working now.
I'm cool