New website

Inspired by my favorite internet aggregates like, BoingBoing.net and lifehacker.com, I created a new website where I will be blogging from now on. It will still have personal thoughts, but be more of a collection of what I find interesting.

www.thisisradionick.com

I swear I am going to keep blogging

Finals week is wrapping and all the madness the comes along with that. Haven't written anything in a while because of all the crying and stress (not literal crying, I only seem to cry during cheesy girl movies like Ten Things I Hate About You).

Yesterday I was waiting for traffic to clear at a large intersection so that I could turn right. I looked to my left and saw someone crossing the street, since my car was in the middle of the crosswalk he was headed right for me. About half way across the street he started making stabbing motions. He didn't have anything in his hand, which somehow makes it creepier. Nothing seemed to provoke the stabbing, it's as if he just remembered to practice stabbing things. He went around my car and continued to make stabbing motions. His stabbies were less like Psycho (reee reee reee) and more like sticking a schiv(sp?) in someone, or at least the way it is portrayed in bad prison movies.

I will write more soon.

-Nick

Jarhead

I watched Jarhead with Jake Gylllenhaal tonight. I had not seen it up until this point because the one scene I had watched had him shoving a gun into the face of one of his own men and acting like he was out of his mind. I thought there was a chance the entire movie was going to be like this. When I think a movie is going to be depressing it makes it hard to make the decision to watch it. I still haven't seen Maria Full of Grace, even though it looks like a great movie, because of the depressing subject.

Jarhead was an amazing movie. If No Country for Old Men had not come out recently Jarhead would have been the best movie I had scene in a very long time. It was laugh out loud funny in the way few dramas ever are (Pulp Fiction is my vote for funniest drama).

The music was incredible, the score was superb and the period music was chosen perfectly. There is a great scene of soldiers getting drunk and singing O.P.P. by Naughty by Nature. This movie also gets my vote for best use of a Nirvana song (my runner up is smells like teen spirit in Moulin Rouge).

There were several nods to the great war movies of the past. There is a great scene with a theatre full of soldiers singing Flight of the Valkyries while watching Apocalypse Now.

This movie really struck me for two main reasons. I really miss the early nineties, my favorite year is 1993, and I feel I will always have one foot stuck in this period the way a lot of people who work in corporations or sell cars still have a little bit of 1968 still left in them.

Jarhead also reminds me of the time following 9/11 when I was torn about entering the military. If I was going to fight for my country that was going to be the time. I just could not bring myself to do it. A lot of my problem was not wanting to die, but the bigger problem is my contempt for authority. I have never been any good at letting people tell me what to do and it seems like there is nothing but people telling you what to do in the military.

Go rent Jarhead.

Ukulele

My friend Paul sent me this video of Jake Shimabukuro playing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on the ukulele. To quote Paul, "it's way cooler than it sounds" and it is. Coincidently I learned last week that ukulele is pronounced ooh-coo-lay-lay. I had no idea, I'm probably that last person in the world to find that out.

I am an atheist

I am an atheist, just to make that perfectly clear. Instead of believing in a god, that I have seen no reason to believe in, I believe in people. I love my girlfriend and my friends and family. I believe in morality without religion or god. Since I am not playing the spiritual lottery hoping everything will be better on the other side I focus more on how I can make my life and the life of those I love better now.

I can not go through a ritual and be forgiven of my sins. I need to get it right the first time and live with my mistakes. That is a good way of looking at the world, a great way.

I believe that reason, logic and science (all variations on a theme) are the best way to understand the world. I want real clear truth (when it can be found). A painful truth is better than the sometimes comfort of delusion.

-Nick

the universe

I am not writing about the universe as a metaphor for life, I mean the literal universe. It is huge ridiculous, gigantic, enormous and if I dare say a bit obscene. I think of obscene because it is generally not polite to bring large mind shattering philosophical topics at a casual lunch. If I started talking about how ridiculously gigantic the universe is it could be considered rude.

I have been wrangling galaxies into classifications on the galaxy zoo website and I am up to about 1,500. I can not really wrap my head around the idea of billions and there are hundreds of billions of stars in each galaxy and a star is more massive than anything I have ever seen close up enough to get a real sense of it's giganticness. Then it gets really big, there are billions of galaxies, I just looked up an estimate, 500 billion galaxies. Quite frankly at this point I think the whole affair is just getting a bit silly.

Let me review: we start with a star, which I can't imagine how big that is, then we have a galaxy with hundreds of billions of stars, I can't really understand a billion and I can't understand the size of a star so now it is clear I have no chance of understanding how big a galaxy is. My head is starting to hurt. Add on top of that the 500 billion galaxies, of which I don't understand a billion, I don't understand the size of a galaxy, which is full of billions of stars which I can't understand how large they are.

All of these concepts are way into the abstract, but awe inspiring.

-Nick

my obligatory valentines day post

Every year I am at least somewhat surprised at the number of Valentine's Day curmugines(technical term). I have never had a problem with this holiday, Christmas I have some issues with, but not Valentine's. I hear a lot about how it is a hallmark holiday and they just created it to make money. I don't know what the origins of the holiday are, but if it is a corporate scheme I am fine with that. It's a fine excuse to take some time out and show your significant other some extra appreciation.

Who cares where it came from. Things come into our lives and become a part of our culture and the more culture we have the more interesting we will be. People put to much pressure on themselves and if they are with someone who demands extravagant gifts or elaborate plans there is probably more wrong with the person than the holiday.

If Valentine's day reminds you that you are alone or recently went through a bad breakup my heart goes out to you. Collateral damage in a holiday about love.