Periodically, I'm going to poll the chasm audience for their favorite this or that. Today, comic book character. Sure, you might never have read a comic book, for shame, but I'm sure you know a couple characters. Tell ya what, I'll include cartoon characters as well. We've all seen cartoons, right? SO, comment your favorite character and book / series. A reason or two for your selection would be nice plus commenting on other people's selections will be half the fun :-) I'm still deciding on mine but I'll comment my choices later today. Go at it!
There's a site out there that I used to check every now and then that up and disappeared several months ago. It appears that after a brief hiatus it will make it's triumphant return in June. Why don't some of the shitty sites disappear for a while? Anyway, I used to use Glassdog for web design guidance but I don't even know if the content will remain the same with the relaunch. Regardless, I bet it'll be interesting. Check it out, Glassdog returns!
Stumbled onto this one from a Yahoo! maps page. Philly can proudly boast that it owns two of the top three most dangerous intersections in the US. Just like its sports teams, however, it couldn't grab the number one spot. How appropriate. Check it out ... http://www.statefarm.com/di/danlist00.htm
DAMN was it hot. I hear it was hotter for mine just two short years ago but I think that's bullshit. Kel was nice enough to go with me and I really enjoyed Kurt Vonnegut's speach. It was concordant with the thoughts and emotions I had anticipated after reading Slaughterhouse-V and having read an article or two about the man in the last few days. I bet he's a cool guy to hang out with. Believe it or not, we share a lot of fundamental ideas about the world and it feels somewhat comforting knowing that someone MUCH older than I has lived the majority of his life in this oft-tragic and depressing world and can STILL feel the way he does about life. I can only pray that I share some of that positivity when I'm his age.
The good news is that I've been busy with web-related work. The bad news is that I've got so much to do that I'm not sure when I'll be able to post again. Hopefully, I'll find some time soon to post something substantial. Until then, you can check out my progress on More Performance Inc.'s new website.
We all have our materialistic fixations and obsessions. Our fetishes and affinities that exist in the gray area between healthy, acceptable desires and OCD-driven impulsiveness. Rest assured that whatever your personal degree of obsession, Ebay will more than likely sate your hunger.
I've casually used Ebay for years but over the last two days, I've spent quite a bit of time on it and I'm still astounded by what you can find. Some queries were for guilty pleasures, some were for things I kidded myself into thinking that I "needed" while others were out of pure curiousity. Many returned hundreds of results while very few searches were fruitless. NEVER before has the old adage "it's only worth what someone is willing to pay" been more clearly exemplified for the world to see.
Do you know the going price of original die-cast Voltron collectibles? What about an original He-Man figure WITH his trusty Battle Cat in full armor?? A sizable lot of Spawn comic books from the early 90's??? A working, woodgrain, Atari 2600 with four single-button controllers????
Maybe they're worth more than you think or maybe they're worth less than you think. Maybe you don't think. Regardless, the market forces at work on Ebay are not too dissimilar from those found on Wall Street. Trading is trading. Money is money.
While the onus for visiting Ebay was to search for one or two items, my focus was quickly derailed and I searched for items ad infinitum. It wasn't long until I forgot what had brought me to Ebay's great auctions halls in the first place. Tangentially related at best, my queries took me to a far away land where my realistic, material needs were irrelevant and my academic curiousity was king. It was fascinating to see what items were quick movers and what items sat stagnantly for days without one bid. Economic visions of supply and demand curves became interspersed with marketing theories and even voter fatigue from an old AP Government course in high school. It was a great reminder that I did, in fact, learn something about the world in the last ten years or so and I got to see what it's gonna cost me to buy back all my childhood memories to boot!
Here I am, trying to enjoy the beautiful weather while I can and I get sunburn. Hell, might as well call it a 3rd degree burn for the way it feels. How could it take me over an hour and a half to mow my grandfather's lawn this afternoon? Space-time never ceases to amaze me. Could my focus have been so intense and myopic as I moved from mowing to edging to bagging to clean up that I simply didn't notice the total amount of time I spent getting the job done? Nah, probably not (although I do some mighty fine work in the yard). I probably just spaced out ... and by "spaced out" I mean deep in existential musings, obviously. Perhaps those thoughts will make their way here someday. Perhaps.
I can only hope that this burn heals quickly and that I don't lose multiple layers of skin as it "heals". Lesson learned. ( Yes, I also said that last weekend when I got my last case of sunburn :-)
Woohoo. It's finally here. The much anticipated launch of CHASM. Freshly hatched from the "clean" MT template, CHASM is ready to show the world its stripes (and equally as important, it's balls). Those that know me at all know that I've grown particularly fond of blues with coordinating browns. My specific affinity is for baby blue with sundry browns but I eschewed them in favor of more subdued hues that would be more appropriate for this site. Besides, it's a Blog's content that is supposed to grab your attention, not the graphics, right?
It's the first site I've designed in what seems like years but it's probably only been about 10-12 months. For those that have never taken a year-long sabatical and then attempted to dive back in, watch out, it's DEEP and you can quickly drown in fuzzy Photoshop memories. Persevere and you might be rewarded. (Warning - there's also a good chance that you'll remember why you stopped doing it the first time around and you'll simply quit again. Yeah, I was close.)
I've posted a couple things prior to this entry but they were just tests and will hopefully be discarded from your memory with little effort. Today CHASM begins anew. It rises from the darkness to bring you sardonically witty diatribes inspired by the world around me or the world existing only within the confines of my underutilized synapses. Well, that's the idea anyway. Most entries will probably be more laconic than sardonic and will contain little of interest to anyone but myself. We'll just have to see how it goes now, won't we?
WELL, I had HOPED to get this site design up by now. So it goes. I'm still trying to hold off on posting until I "launch" the site and I don't intend to "launch" it until I've got the design up ... SO, this is another half-hearted entry simply to get used to the routine of posting regularly.
Maybe you've seen it before. Maybe you haven't. It's the trippiest thing I've EVER seen. I have never doubted my own eyes to this extent before.
http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~moraes/illusion.html
I just called the jury duty hotline and discovered that my panel was NOT needed for tomorrow. Woohoo! All that "civic responsibility" crap went out the window when I realized jury duty was severely going to rearrange my plans for the day. The ONLY thing that ALMOST made me want to serve on the panel was the movie Runaway Jury that I watched a couple weekends ago. Luckily, I don't have to show up for my panel so I won't be disappointed with the experience OR the lack of authenticity in the movie.
BTW - I have a strong sense of public duty and civic responsibility, tomorrow was just a bad day for me. As a matter of fact, I don't foresee it being a good day for me until I'm at least 30. Please don't call me again. I'm sure they're guilty ... or innocent ... or whatever lets me NOT have to serve.