Visual DNA

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Sorry. It's broken code and I don't know how to fix it. Blame Trixie.

Encore

Mosker posted this some time ago, but it's worth enjoying again.

Apocalypto

Last night, we saw the big Mayan action-adventure movie from everyone's favorite drunken anti-semite. Given Mel Gibson's recent bad press, it was tempting to skip this one, but I, for one, am glad that I saw it. It was visually stunning, as one might expect from the director of Braveheart. From what my social-sciences colleagues tell me, it is very historically accurate (though I noticed that no one went around with their eyes crossed.)

The best thing I can say for the movie, I think, is that it left me wanting to learn more about the Mayan culture - and, tangentially, about Aztec and Incan culture.

Now, be warned, the movie is as gory and filled with realistic tribal nudity as one might expect, and it is not political commentary like some of his films are, so far as I can tell. It's just an action movie set in the Mayan civilization near its collapse under European conquest and disease.

One curious point, though, is that the film is introduced with a quote from Will Durant, Author of The Story of Civilization - "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within." If this is Gibson's idea of social commentary, then it is a poor one. If the goal is to depict the Mayans as degenerate and base, he fails woefully. While the city dwellers depicted in the film clearly have a poor understanding of epidemiology, the fact that Mayans engaged in sacrifice, and even human sacrifice, is not evidence to me that they were a corrupt people, only that their values and beliefs are different from my own and from the cultural norm of the society in which I live. In fact, Durant's quote refers to Rome: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars." The focal characters in Apocalypto are a beautifully simple tribal people with noble values and mundane failings and the destruction of their lifestyle comes about through the hunger of urban society - the conquest of modernization over agrarian life.

If the culture depicted in the film is corrupt, its corruption is no different from our own.

Blogger Ads

So, one of the features available for addition on to one's blog is AdSense, targeted advertisements visible to all those who view the blog. The promise is that the blogger will be paid for hosting advertisements, but the reality is that I am under no illusions as to how many people actually read my Feckless Ramblings.
I'm not really interested in earning income from this site as I am just intrigued to know what sort of ads would pop up as targeted to readers of this blog.

Would I get D&D ads? I doubt that. I don't really blog much about D&D.
Photo ads? lots of blogs have photos - many better than those found here.
I don't know that this blog has a sufficiently consistent theme to target ads.
I suspect that I would just get generic ads and I would end up having to face the unpleasant reality that I write a generic blog.

"Negative Personality Test Outcome" or "Ray Copies Yet another of Trixie's Posts"

Your Score: Scumbag- ENFP

60% Extraversion, 70% Intuition, 33% Thinking, 46% Judging

I have a feeling you're not going to like this much. Do I care? No.
How do I know? It's because you hate criticism. You love to be loved and you'll do anything to be accepted.

Unfortunately for you, I can see right through your insincere compliments and over-the-top greetings. No matter what you do, I'll always hate you for what you are. An arrogant, unstable, overly enthusiastic scumbag.

I bet you're pretty proud of your accomplishments, huh? You seem to achieve at whatever you put your little mind too. Trust me. Nobody likes the person who is good at everything. NOBODY LIKES YOU.

This might also have something to do with the fact that you're a cheating machine. You're just not the type of person to make long-term commitments. You enjoy seeing "what could be", rather than being satisfied with "what is." This, of course, means you often leave others in the dust while you seek out another lover.

Well, at least you're not the one left in the dust.

Unfortunately, when you're the one lying in the gutter with a bloody knife in your back, you might think differently.

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If you want to learn more about your personality type in a slightly less negative way, check out this.

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The other personality types are as follows...

Loner - Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving

Pushover - Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Criminal - Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving

Borefest - Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging

Almost Perfect - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

Freak - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging

Loser - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

Crackpot - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging


Clown - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving

Sap - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging

Commander - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving

Do Gooder - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging


Busybody - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging

Prick - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

Dictator - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Link: The Brutally Honest Personality Test written by UltimateMaster on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Busy Day

Alani kept Shel up all night with her barking and now we have a fairly busy day.

Sand and gravel delivery for the new patio out back.

Stump Grinding for some eight stumps (yeah, try to sleep through that!)

A dentist's appointment at 11, unless they call to ask me in at 10 (a follow up appointment to one I had yesterday).

My niece is visiting for a day of (sunscreened) swimming and Uno.

I guess, looking at it, that doesn't sound so brutal. Maybe I should quit whining and go have a shower.

Who's on First

Clean up a dirty mouth

In honor of my one-hundredth blog entry, I give you. . .

Funny

This ad actually highlights some interesting linguistic concepts (interesting to linguistics geeks like myself, anyway), but I just wanted to post it 'cause it makes me smile.

Watching the Blogosphere - positive

On the upside, if I never looked at anyone else's blogs, I wouldn't come across pictures like this one of Nikita. Incidentally, of the three pictures of the same kitten in the same post, this is the least cute.

Watching the Blogosphere - negative

So, I don't usually take the time to read blogs.

I read mosker, and Thus says Suzanne, and Azi, and I read 32 Flavors, but that's about it.

I confess that I blog as much out of a filial piety as I do out of actual enjoyment. That sounds terrible, perhaps, but I would much rather keep up with people in person, live a real life rather than a virtual one, and maybe turn off the computer once in a while. I want to keep up with Trixie, 'cause I haven't seen her in ten years and mosker is my sister, but lives halfway across the country. Suzanne is so busy that reading her blog is the only way to keep up with her goings on. I encouraged my mother to blog because I thought she would enjoy it and knew that she would have a lot to share after her return from Germany. Now, I wouldn't feel like a very good son if I didn't even read her blog.

I don't want to be thought of, or referred to by people I know, particularly people I've known my whole life, as "Feck, Feckless, or Mr. Feckless."

My name's Ray. My students call me Mr. Newland.

Now, I've gotten started and I can't help but continue.

Thanks, Trixie

I'm not sure if this is good or bad...

Oh, well, at least I'm in good company. My mother's and both my sisters' blogs rated the same.

Free-Running

When in doubt, post more parkour.

Despite some lame cinematic FX and what I am taking for a half-baked narrative, this video has some cool moves set in the remains of what I assume are Soviet-engineered construction for a dramatic distopian effect.

Printer Quest III: The Arrival

UPS came by today with a big ol' box full of printer. I managed to get it installed and will soon find something that desperately needs printing, or scanning, or copying, or something. I spent a good thirty minutes at Staples today having photocopies made and printing from a flashdrive. I have been running around a fair amount lately making PDFs and borrowing the use of other people's scanners, and getting help jury-rigging worn out printers to do simple print jobs so that I could apply for work.

Now that I have the means to do all that stuff myself, I think I have it all done.

Oh well, like I often say, "Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it."

Printer Quest II: The Tentative Decision

I think that I've found a printer I'll be happy with.

I have narrowed the candidates to one: The HP Photosmart C3180, $70 from Amazon. It takes 92 and 93 ink, which I have not used before, but the customer reviews I've read don't complain about burning through ink too fast. It prints photos, obviously, which is a feature I'd like to try, but not the one for which I'm buying it.

It appears to be an adequate b/w & color printer with an integrated flatbed scanner of adequate quality. For the price, adequate is all that I expect, and the next best thing seems to be a fair amount more.

The Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is cool. So is StumbleUpon, which brought me this.

The Quest for a Printer

A few months ago, our latest Deskjet crapped out on us after about a year-and-a-half of service - not too bad, really. I've been printing at work in the meantime, but it's Summer vacation now and I do occasionally need to print stuff.

The printer I used at work was this cool all-in-one monstrosity from Brother. The school bought the toner and I had plenty of desk space for the beast. It didn't do color, but I had another printer for that.

I like having a flatbed scanner. It makes life easier. I need to have a printer to stay productive. I've been happy with HP, but I'm open to anything that will print both color and black-and-white without spending a fortune on ink. Scanning would be a big bonus.

So, any advice?

Parkour

Also known as free-running, or yamakasi, this is a big deal with super-athletic youths today, in Paris, London, New York, Rio de Janiero, and elsewhere, I'm sure. I don't really aspire to take it up myself, but I am endlessly impressed with the sport. I think that this should be in the Olympic games. I think that P.E. classes should teach this.

I think this is just too cool.

This video features a few neat moves and seems to focus mainly, if not exclusively on David Belle, one of the creators of the sport. I almost didn't post this, thinking "any of my readers could find this on their own on YouTube if they were interested, so I don't need to foist my interests on them."Then, I realized that foisting one's ideas on others is one of the chief reasons to maintain a blog.

DISCLAIMER: If you don't want me to try to foist my ideas on you, don't visit.

Nike ad

Able vs. willing

Commissioned Art

For my Dungeons and Dragons game, Shel made up a cool new PC race for me - a hybridization of a dwarf and a dire (giant) wolverine. I love it. I'm excited to try it out - so much so that I commissioned a sketch of the creature from a professional artist who works a great deal in the gaming industry.I'm not thrilled with the illustration. It's much rougher than I had hoped. The wolverine portion of the body is about half the size it should be. The weapon is too short. Minor details, I suppose, but I'm still disappointed, but only in the illustration, not in the concept. The creature Shel made is still cool and perhaps one day, I'll commission another illustration. This one set me back just $25, and while that's probably the limit of my art budget for the month right now, I can still dream.

A Thousand Words

Buddhist thought of the day

On my Google homepage, I subscribe to a feature called "Buddhist thought of the day." I thought today's, in particular, was nice. It simplicity, truth, and directness are all admirable.Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity. - Buddha

A new Blogthing

You Are a Grilled Cheese Sandwich

You are a traditional person with very simple tastes. In your opinion, the best things in life are free, easy, and fun. You totally go with the flow. And you enjoy every minute of it! Your best friend: The Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Your mortal enemy: The Ham Sandwich

What Kind of Sandwich Are You?
This is so much better than the Pirate vs. Ninja debate.

1 in every 20

Apparently, there are not many men like me in the world. Blogthing results are guaranteed to be 100% accurate, aren't they?

Your Personality is Somewhat Rare (ESFP)

Your personality type is playful, charming, open minded, and energetic. Only about 7% of all people have your personality, including 9% of all women and 5% of all men You are Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

New Car = Collision Magnet

We had the car just one week to the day yesterday. We've been together for 5 years, give or take. We decided to celebrate our anniversary by going to Il Fornaio. While in Roseville, we stopped by World Market to look around. Shel's still getting used to driving again, still getting used to driving a car newer than 1968, and still getting used to this car, and its transmission (manual, each of which, I'm convinced, has its own personality). We park the car at World Market and get out to decompress. A woman backing out of the parking space behind us backs up right into the new Yaris. Like such things often are, it took place in a rushed slow-motion. We watched her backing. We saw that she wasn't going to stop her SUV in time to avoid our compact car. We yelled. We waved. We ran. We watched while a big SUV backed slowly into our seven-day-old car and dented the bumper. Shel, wisely, just walked away, saying "handle it." As the SUV driver pulled forward, the plastic bumper returned to its intended shape, and the impact wasn't even forceful enough to set off the car's alarm, but it did leave a very faint scuff.

The poor SUV driver was very apologetic, obviously flustered and upset by the incident, and was just the kind of person you'd want to get into an accident with if you have to get into one with anybody.

Then, you really never want to get into an accident, do you? Particularly not in your parked seven-day-old car.

Anyhow, we bought about $50 worth of wines that we're looking forward to trying, including two different Barbera's and a Carmenere. We passed on an accordion for Suzanne's little one. We bought some chocolate and went on with our day. If a new car has to get into a wreck, it's better that it be a truly minor one.

Requiescat petaso

I confess that my recent post about the kid in Georgie who took down a big wild boar has been on my mind since I posted it.

I have been thinking about my wife's reaction when I showed her the picture (she really doesn't like pigs). I've been thinking about my remark that I don't care for trophy hunting. I've been thinking about that big old pig and the only (semi-)wild pig I've ever encountered.

Wild, living animals have a certain majesty that I think hunters probably appreciate like few others. How ironic, then, that they should kill them. I have no problem with people killing and eating their own food. I think that that's just fine. I also believe, though, that pork is still available at the supermarket and that this huge beast (who must have gone unnoticed in the wild for many years to have grown so large) was a rare treasure.

I'm sorry that this big, ugly beast is dead.

I posted the picture because I thought that the pig's immense size is impressive. Now, I just feel bad that we can't appreciate it still alive.

Out of the loop

Trixie posted a reference to a tv program which which I was previously unfamiliar, called "Deep House Dish." This program - just knowing it exists - upsets me. It shouldn't, but it does. One more group of addle-pated lame-brains being paid well to make asses of themselves and then subsequently becoming role models for America's youth - for MY students!

Who thought "I Love New York" was a good idea?

Why is "Jerry Springer" still on the air?

Are we really this base, this prurient, in our tastes?

Of course, I calmed down a bit when I realized that "Deep House Dish" is only a recurring SNL skit (I haven't watched the show for years), but, then again, in my experience, SNL doesn't parody things until they've actually seen them. After all, tragically real is funnier than hypothetical.

And simultaneously sadder.

"They call me 'Mr. Pig!'"

I don't have any particular fondness for hunting, particularly for trophy hunting, but I also don't think of myself as an opponent of hunting. I actually don't want to get embroiled in any kind of a debate on the manner.

I just want to share this photo I found at this site. This thing is ridiculous.