spacemonk

although i envy folks that have year round great weather, perhaps there is no better feeling in the world than the first real nice spring day after winter - especially a long hard winter like this one. today was in the 60's - the neighborhood seemed a different place than just two days ago when we got nailed with an ice storm. i got a nice long skate in and felt great...

alienation is a chicken/egg kind of thing. is a person who feels alienated treated differently and that's what causes the alienation - or does a person who feels alienated behave differently which in turn causes a different treatment from others...or is it a vicious cycle...

wow - this is a slap in the face...took an online survey - one question was age - they listed 10 categories - my age fit in the 7th oldest category....

crikey...

watched faking it on tlc tonight. the premise is they take a person who, with a bit of training, tries to convince a panel of experts that they are something they are not. example: today's episode, a harvard grad, leslie, tried to convince a panel she was an atlanta falcons cheerleader. she was able to do so - although i was a bit suprised. i really liked leslie - she was very pretty, intelligent and witty (gotta love the choice of books on her shelf) - but she just didn't necessarily have the look of a cheerleader. i actually found her much prettier than the other cheerleaders - who all tend to have the same kind of look - she had her own look. she did have some prior dance training, which i'm sure helped. in the interview segment, i really thought she blew it. she answered a question about cheerleaders being role models - by saying something to the effect that "as amazing as it seems, cheerleaders are role models". well, to ordinary folks like us, it seems amazing. to a professional cheerleader though, it probably seems like the natural order of things. of course, i knew she was faking it, while the panel did not know which of the 4 who performed was the fake - so the comment seemed like an obvious tip-off to me - but to someone who didn't know...

good for her though...

as someone who really knows how to party hard (imagine andrew wk as a middle-aged computer science instructor) i took my last day of spring break and went and saw daredevil. i admit there was only one reason i went to see it. it wasn't because it was a comic book - i never read comic books much and never heard of daredevil until recently. it wasn't because of ben affleck - good looking, talented, smart and rich - what's there not to hate - though i DO find him slightly less despicable, for some reason, than matt damon (the only thing i liked about dogma was it portayed affleck and damon as evil - well that and alanis morisette as god) if you've read my blog more than a few times, you can probably guess the reason - the movie co-starred alias' jennifer garner. alias is a favorite of mine - haven't missed more than one or two episodes since it debuted (when dave holland came to oberlin a few weeks back, i secretly breathed a sigh of relief - alias wasn't on that sun PM) - the best description i heard of alias was, in one writer's words "felicity meets mission impossible" anyhow, besides being very attractive - i think ms. garner is a good actress - now, i am not so smitten to proclaim her the next meryl streep or something - i recognize she ain't doing hamlet - but i think she plays the part of "sometime butt kicking secret agent/sometime girl next door" very well - she adopts different mannerisms and her face even looks different depending on the context...btw - my brother in nyc (who attended the actor's studio) knows a friend of hers - he also knows bradley cooper (the will tippin character) - who attended the actor's studio a few years back...

anyhow - daredevil was suprisingly good - there definitely is kind of a template for comic book movies - but within those confines it was pretty good - cool villains, jennifer kicking butt, neat special effects and well, ben affleck (fortunately daredevil has no sidekick, so we were spared damon). i broke with a nearly 30+ year tradition and had milk duds instead of raisinettes

the previews they showed included 2 other comic book movies - the x-men - some promise there - and the hulk - which i wouldn't think twice about except it is directed by crouching tiger's ang lee?!

i had convinced myself that the stones are the greatest rock band ever - then i hear a song i haven't heard in a while on bbc6, the faces - "had me a real good time" and i'm not even sure the stones are the best band ron wood was ever in...

shucks, if this is true, i'll live to 100...

i'm going to be doing a good/bad web design class soon. please post in comments your favorite examples of good and bad web design. gratuitous hyping of one's own site is strictly prohibited.

i have suspiciously little to say these days. i am on spring break - but am working very hard anyhow. the optimist in me takes this as a re-affirmation of my career choice - as i would have never previously cared enough, nor even could have, by threats of violence, been persuaded to work on my vacation.

those that know me - even if only through the blog - know speechless is a rare state for me (and i will probably ramble on at great lengths at how speechless i am), but really, i have nothing important to say - or even unimportant. i watched vh1's 50 sexiest video moments, and it was great - not for the reason you might think - but because the commentary was hilarious. example: "there's more to no doubt than the beauty of gwen stefani - there are two or three other musicians"

i am listening to sandinista - a record i didn't really like when released - but i have grown to at least respect the courage it must have took in releasing it. and to be fair - how can a band top the greatest rock record ever...

feel free to make up stories about what i am doing if this isn't exciting enough...kinda have the nagging feeling that i should be *doing* more, but am clueless as to what it could be - much of what i would like to do is not really possible at this point in time...

test yourself at fontlover.com!

Little darlin' I feel the ice is slowly meltin'
Little darlin' it seems like years since it's been clear
Here come the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's all right - george

one of my favorite songs. heard it once when coming off of a depressed period and really, hearing it was like something lifting from me...

but anyhow, no heavy post today - today the song has a literal meaning - finally, perhaps, and i am sure only temporary - a glimpse of spring - put the shorts on and did a quick zip around the block - wearing old skates of course - much like a car fanatic won't drive a vintage 57 chevy during bad weather - i am not exposing the salomon's to puddles, salt, etc... anyhow - probably only out 10 or 15 minutes - very windy - but that's not the point - just great getting out...

had a meeting today w/folks at a nasa lab re:a potential summer project - it went well - perhaps too well - i reviewed with them how they could achieve their goals without me developing an app - it is likely they will have other projects though...a tip of the hat to alan cooper's the inmates are running the asylum gave me great insight to the systems development process...

then went to lunch with former co-workers. i don't want to compare my lay-off with lance armstrong's cancer - but lance said in his book a cancer patient told him early after being daignosed "you don't know it yet, but we;re the lucky ones." i feel that way about myself being laid off. i was lucky to be laid off because it forced me to grow and to take a chance and do something i needed. no way i would switch places with my old self. i know, this is not everyone's "laid off" experience - but i made it through and came back stronger than ever...

well, i'm on spring break - although the use of the word "spring" is not accurate both literally (still winter for a couple more weeks) or practically (with a predicted high of 22F, can't exactly start the gardening, can we?). still it comes at a good time. i am completely done with one of my classes - the one compressed into 6 weeks - plus i had the first session saturday (8 hours worth?!) of the new class i picked up - so last week was pretty busy. went out fridays with the guys from the compressed class. they are a great group - all displaced workers participating in a vigorous 18 week program to help them change careers. the weekend class saturday went great. i was warned by other instructors it's hard to fill that much time, but i had no problem. one of the activities - an online chat - went exactly as i planned - it's so cool to have an idea and have it get carried out exactly as you envision it. anyhow, i think the class on the whole was very effective. it is a one credit hour class about the use of the internet done on three weekend days - this past saturday - then again sat and sun in two weeks. went to a party saturday night and was a blast. yesterday was kind of a crash day - although i got the homework done for the class i am taking and organized my week.

anyhow, all won't be fun and games this week - still have papers to grade - meetings to attend - simulations to write - tires to fix - hairs to get cut - still i wake up today with the wonderfully odd feeling of not having having to be anywhere at anytime - and really isn't that what springtime is about ;-)