Academia

All totally factual.

Swimmin' in the Water

Is it any good? Let me know.

Re-Using Music

I recently watched Gladiator with Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix, and it was a pretty good movie. At a few points in the movie, I noticed a theme in the music that sounded extremely familiar:

It took a couple times of hearing the theme, but I did eventually realize where I had heard it:

So dramatic. That's Russell Watson singing the theme on his album Amore Musica, appropriately titled "Il gladiatore." It really fits in the movie. According to Wikipedia, Pavarotti sang it on one of his CDs first, and almost sung it in the movie.

An interesting find.

It's All In the Emphasis

"Nowhere" can become "nowHERE."

Amazing, isn't it?

Just Googling

Just Googling along seeing what shows up about myself in the omniscient oracle, and I find this. This is a comment I made a few weeks ago on a Digg article that got quite a few hits. And it shows up in an online Linux magazine? The Internet (with a capital "I") is an amazing place.

Disparities

There is a disparity between my social self and my intellectual self. Being busy with other people simply distracts me from the things I really want to focus on. But there are aspects of my social side that do not get fulfilled when I am living a solitary existence. I start to feel like I have no drive; Like there is no point. Thus, the disparity between my two sides makes me horribly unproductive. The solution lies in bringing the sides together so they can collaborate. I need people that can think with me, not people who dill distract me from what I really want to do with my life.

There is so much in this world that needs fixing, and I feel drawn to help in whatever way I can. Though I may be more self-disciplined than some other people, I am not disciplined enough. I need other people to work with.

Everyone is always comparing themselves to a lower standard. "I may not be much, but I'm better than that guy over there," or so the logic goes. Immediately, I want to say that everyone needs to raise the bar and "get up to suck," but then I just feel like I am resorting to useless generalizations as always. "The world" and "everyone" are such vague terms that get used far too often, further decreasing our productivity.

It's the vicious cycle: I don't do anything, so I feel bad, which makes me do even less. It's been almost 4 years since I started this mode of "enlightenment," and this whirlpool has been here the entire time. I am always saying "Take action! DO something!" I am a shameless hypocrite with no spine.

So I write things like this. What else could I be doing with my time? I could be saving the entire human race from extinction for crying out loud! 1,001 things are out there in need of attention, but I can focus on them because of these ridiculous personal tribulations. Did Tesla or Orwell waste time on themselves?

Let's face it: I'm on a different plane, and I'm alone. Maybe it will end oh-so-classically and I'll die penniless, too.

That is all for now. I have pictures to take, novels to write, food to taste, foreign countries to visit, and a world to figure out and save. And I'm going to do it all sans pantalones. Booyah.

150,000

That's how many farmers in India have committed suicide since 1993. That's 9,375 a year, or about 26 a day. And it's because their farms were failing. Thanks to Monsanto and their wonderful terminator seeds, pesticides, and INSANE industrial agriculture attitude, 150,000 Indian families may no longer have a father.

Thank you, Monsanto. Thank you.

Video: Connections

How the current elements of my life relate.

Uh, Blogger?

Does anyone know why you can't use the fancy new (well, newer; they're a few years old now) templates for Blogger blogs when you're using FTP publishing? I think it's ridiculous.

Something to Live By

From Kayla Shay's blog.