Brain panning.

Some big thoughts on a gray Friday.  Inspired by a truly inspiring talk I attended on Monday by Dr. Miriam Diamond, U of T prof.

1. Growth is an inherently stupid model upon which to rule our world.  Really stupid.  But what else do we got?  Exponential population, arithmetic resources.  It’s an extremely old argument, but everyone’s answer to refute this is the magic of technooology!

2. Don’t put your faith in technology to solve our problems, environmental or otherwise.  Carbon capture and storage sounds great, but it won’t work very well.  Clean coal is the biggest crock of shit.  The concept that technology will save us has been heavily mythologized.  Don’t count on it, count on your brain and your legs.  I promise.

3. Our civilization, both peak and demise, (will) completely mirror the Roman Empire.

We ain’t better than nobody.  They were brilliant, they had sophisticated societies.  They knew lead was a neurotoxin but kept using it anyway.  Not to say that other factors were at play in their demise (political, thirst for power and desire to spread the movement across the globe).  But… haha.  You can tell where I’m going with this.  This exactly mirrors our current situation – the desire for Abrahamic religions to “spread” both word and their ideals, the massive concerns of geopolitics, fundamentalism, and complex levels of pollution.

Exactly like the Romans, we are fully aware of our potential downfalls – we know that fundamentalism is dangerous, people are becoming more divided and more unhappy, along with the billions of known pollutants around us along with their effects.  Doom gloom scare you.  I don’t want to scare, it’s unfortunately been the natural way to get people to detunnelize and pay attention.  We need these sorts of transormative messages to be charismatic, somehow positive, harmonizing, unifying, and actualizing.  I’ll get back to you.

Fear won’t get people to fully follow through.  We need to be aware of these sorts of things, and have a greater sense of this whole thing’s destination.  ‘Cause this thing ain’t a journey, for humans at least.

All comes back to self-awareness, AGAIN.  I win.

Kudos to Coen brothers.

I’m glad these beautiful men decided to help with clarifying the “clean coal” concept, now on FunnyOrDie.  We’re broooooos!  A bit of fun poking is a good start, but only a start.  I have yet to see Obama’s investment in coal, and I should also investigate how coal compares to Harper’s dirty backyard.

Read my coal rant here, see why Coen brothers are brilliant here.

The Besnard Lakes.

This band is playing their hometown of Montreal March 6th, and I could not be more excited about it.  Easily one of the most underrated and underappreciated bands in Canada.  Thank goodness for Jagjagwuar.  Pink Floyd + Beach Boys + Low + Montreal, space pop at its finest.

And You Lied To Me

I can’t hear you, part of your hand may be on the phone.  It’s late but you don’t seem too shaken from it.  Then my brain flashes to ringing cashes and those alligator and moustache scenes where the son is downright pissed at his dad.  And we lined up and the whole line looked around at each other.  Once we got in and the credits started, we all knew of our own seemingly private fun.  But the best part about it was that nobody was embarrassed.  One person started laughing and then the entire audience just chorused.  We all felt truly better.  That’s why I like it so much.

We almost forgot we were spies.  You sort of treat it like passive aggression.  You remind me of Alan,  Alan something.  I’ve said his last name before, probably even written it.  I like you, though.  You’re one of mine.

From top to bottom: moon, Mercury, Jupiter, Mars.  [via NASA]

I said no, but that’s a real nice ski mask.

Top Chef finale.

Calling a Mr. Bob Bummer.

So Hosea wins Top Chef Season 5, a big time bad move.  I liked Hosea early on in the season, and then his antics made this show as smutty as every other overly dramatized reality show.  Plus his food never really grabbed me.  The reason why I let myself enjoy this show is because it’s not (completely) like every other top american next biggest real time.  It is really about exciting food, with obvious sexed up and extremified moments to make what mediocre TV thinks makes good TV.  Regardless, I get floored by the inspiration and talent on the show every week.

In contrast to my previous post, Carla was growing on me near the end.  I totally respect her philosophy on food, I just was a bit anti-face, no big deal.  On the whole, her vibe is great.  If she had seen any previous seasons on the show, she should have told her beautiful Jennifer Aniston wannabe sous chef to shut her sous vide trap shut.

Stefan should have been the clear winner – he won the most challenges, consistently made the best food overall, and was a dick.  The perfect recipe for a Top Chef.  Plus Hosea had my all time favourite chef as his sous.  Without Richard Blais, the judges would have  thumbed down the shit out of Hosea.  I will argue this to the grave, offering minutia that would scare any person grounded in real and meaningful things.  En garde.

A great article on how this show needs to change here.

Less than zero.

Bret Ellis must love this guy.

Without adding too much to the noise, I look forward to seeing the unedited version of LVD’s Storytellers, especially when he stumbles all over his autotune.  I will pray to the nongods about an internet unedited leak.  I don’t want to say any more words because I feel like saying words just makes him seem more important.

Well looky looky, he just got me.

I want to raise a kid +/- exactly like this, no kid.ding.

After the show, I would buy him a bag of sour cream and onion chips and any flavour of Crush he desires.

Conaaaan.

It’s Conan’s last night in his 12:30 timeslot – White Stripes are coming together tonight to celebrate his self-deprecating brilliance.  So watch.  Too bad Leno has officially become an ass by refusing to step outside of the limelight and let Conan speak to the thirsty masses, masses Leno couldn’t quench even if he donated his chin dimples.  10PM time slot, yeah we’ll see.  Maybe it’s cause no one wants to buy his 150 vintage cars.

I hope it’s just a see ya and not a bye Mr. Conan.  Everyone would miss you too much.  SO don’t mmkay?

Vacuity tonight @ Boathouse.

If you’re a tri-cities tranny, you should come to Vacuity at the Boathouse tonight.  Old tunes, new tunes, live mixed brainmelting visuals, and stuffed fowl and/or waterfowl.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to a jam of theirs last night, new tunes and all.  Bring your pounding shoes.

Brief thoughts on their new album here, celebrate digitalism by downloading their record for FREE here.

White gloves.

Check out a neat map of subway use and traffic of major cities around the US/world.  Blue shadowpeople represent the number of citizens in millions (top x axis), subway cars represent cumulative length of all subway lines (bottom x axis).  Info on each system is on the right.  Click to enlarge.  Too easy.  Via digg.

Creeper Lagoon.

Creeper Lagoon’s “Wrecking Ball”, 2001.  This video predates the music, but one of my favourite pop songs of all time.

Fact: it’s in about 30 seconds of Vanilla Sky but didn’t make the soundtrack, just credits.  Fact: bears eat beets.

Things I love about this thing, in order of sternum abuse:

1. One of the best pop pre-choruses ever recorded to music (0:47 through).  This part is the soundtrack to my lucid flying dreams.  It’s one of those musical moments that incite spirits.

2. Cute acoustic intro for an anthem.  Anthems rarely start this way.

3.  Having the balls to use phaser and actually pull it off.

4. A well executed E – C#m – Asussomething.

5. Washy piano in the choruses.

6. High harmony in second half of second chorus.

7. One f word.

Metaustralia.

The people that took the picture were also eating Jesus shaped cheetos.

[via Digg]

I’m looking forward to a break from academia for the reason of perspective.  As time goes on, you learn more and more about something and you spend your time on things that get conceptually smaller and smaller.

Eventually, as a seasoned researcher, you will know everything about nothing.

I’m an aggregatorrrrr.

A massive palindrome.

by Demetri Martin.  I only like him some of the time – I am overly partial to graph comedy.  And a 224 word palindrome is pretty darn impressive.  His new Comedy Central show “Important Things with Demetri Martin” (produced by Jon Stewart) is good enough.  I could do without all of the unnecessary noun tagging and Hedbergisms, but math and minutia comedy always goes down soo smooooth.

Dammit I’m mad.
Evil is a deed as I live.
God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help?
Man, it is hot. I’m in it. I tell.
I am not a devil. I level “Mad Dog”.
Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp,
In my halo of a mired rum tin.
I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
No. It is open. On it I was stuck.
Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web.
Be still if I fill its ebb.
Ew, a spider… eh?
We sleep. Oh no!
Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
Both, one… my names are in it.
Murder? I’m a fool.
A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash,
A Goddam level I lived at.
On mail let it in. I’m it.
Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet!
A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name.
Name not one bottle minus an ode by me:
“Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog”
Evil is a deed as I live.
Dammit I’m mad.