goals list

I just needed a quick place to put this. It may be updated or moved in the future as I see fit.


The five most important things I want to do before I die:

• Fly a plane
  
• Kill, prepare, and eat my own cow
  
• Roll around in the snow naked, then jump in a hot tub
  
• Eat from a wild cactus while backpacking
  
• Touch a real live tiger
  

Lesser goals:

• climb a 6000+ meter peak
  
• sky dive
  
• go caving
  
• make a java or flash game
  
• make out with a hot girl at a drive-in theater
  
• play roulette
  
• go bungee jumping
  
• backpack through the Andes and see the Incan ruins
  
• drive a 911
  
• fall off a dirt bike
  
• visit the fjords in Norway
  
• travel through the Amazon basin
  
• stay in a hostel in Prague
  
• visit Tokyo
  
• see the pyramids of Egypt
  
• visit the Getty
  
• learn to juggle
  
• read all the philosophy books I own
  
• travel through India
  
• travel through Kenya
  
• learn Hebrew
  
• learn Greek
  
• base jump
  
• publish a poem
  
• throw a grenade (pin removed)
  
• go camping in the snow
  
• see a platypus
  
• grapple with a tame bear
  
• learn Python
  
• ride an Elephant
  
• own a ferret
  
• visit Jerusalem
  

Welcome to Soviet America

Hail the glorious leaders, comrads. And keep your mouths shut.

damn you, al gore

I keep waiting for the crazy heat to end, but it just gets worse. If you'll note the screenshot of today's weather history, you'll see that we exceeded the previous record by 12 degrees Fahrenheit. The previous record was only 10 degrees above the average, thus the standard deviation for July 22 max temperature was no more than 10. Most likely, the standard deviation was somewhere midway between the average and the record. If it was 7 or less, then today's heat was three standard deviations away from average! That's a little alarming. Especially since the hottest month is still ahead.

Welcome, William. Enjoy the Ride.

Many congratulations to Kurt and Jenn. Their first son was born this afternoon, weighing in at 9 lb 10 oz. Ouch. If you know Kurt and Jenn, do send your best wishes to the new family.

Way to go guys! I look forward to meeting him.

movie night themes

Insomnia is pissing me off. It takes away from what I can get done in the daytime without adding any extra time in the night. So, in an effort to be productive instead of browsing fark at 3am, I thought I'd throw out an idea.

Now that the theater room is basically done, I've been wanting to hold a semi-regular movie night and have folks over. We will provide movies, popcorn, and maybe even cheap beer. The idea is to hold various themed movie nights: Western, Vietnam, sci-fi, detective mystery, Kubrick, anime, and so on. Probably just two movies in an evening. And people would be encouraged to hang out and chat afterwards. Perhaps even about the movie. Art house style. Maybe we'll even make coffee or tea.

Anyway, are there themes or particular pairs of movies that you all would enjoy seeing in a cozy, private, soundproof theater room with 108 inch screen and a sound system better than any comercial theater?

To start things off, I couldn't think of a better theme than our very own City of Angeles. We could just pick out a couple movies about LA. Or (this is the extended plan) we could make three LA themed nights: Los Angeles Past, Present, and Future. Past could be films like Chinatown or Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Possibly even LA Confidential. There are many candidates for Present. Swingers and The Big Lebowski come quickly to mind. Both are great movies and show an interesting cross-section of LA. Magnolia and Mulholland Drive are also possibilities. Falling Down isn't quite a classic, but it's a great view of the trek across LA on foot. Short Cuts looks interesting. And, Collateral and Crash were recommended to me, but I've not seen either. As for future, all I can think of is Blade Runner. I guess Strange Days and Escape from L.A. would count, but they both look pretty bad.

Any other suggestions?

Lastly, I'd like to throw in a plug for di.fm. I wouldn't be able to stay focused this late at night were it not for them. Nothing like trance thumping through my foggy mind in the dead of night.