Month: February 2010

Conan’s On Twitter

Conan opened a twitter account yesterday and instantly has more than 250,000 followers.

His bio states: “I had a show. Then I had a different show. Now I have a Twitter account.”

Yes, that pretty much sums it up.

This twitter account coupled with the spike in ratings during the recent NBC late night meltdown really proves only one thing: America is more interested in this washed up celebrity’s bearded, anti-corporate-television rantings than in his actual television show.

Good luck CoCo.  I for one do not feel badly for you at all, nor am I going to care that you are sitting in your Hollywood mansion crying your eyes out every morning in your huge cereal bowl.

But I’ll still follow you on twitter.

Like a Phoenix From the Ashes

Like a phoenix from the ashes, I rise again to blog…

…Renewed in spirit, and with fresh new opinions to opine…

…Unashamed of even the most poorly-researched commentary…

…and unafraid of being lampooned, harassed, technologically abused, and left for dead.

Here’s a quick smattering of topics to get us up to speed:

Politics:

Congress now has a “jobs agenda” instead of a “jobs bill.”  Switching from an actual bill to an agenda seems to mean it will be even less likely that anything actually gets done in congress.  Is there a negative approval rating?  That’s seems to be what they are heading for.  People were harassing Obama that he got very little of his ambitious agenda done in his first year, but I would definitely say Congress gets the prize for completely wasting its time working on mondo-legislation that will be forever gridlocked.  My solution?  Congress needs to focus on incremental, consensus change.  Get what you can get, because it will be better than getting nothing at all.

Religion:

Lately I’ve been reading a biography of Brigham Young.  So far, I’m at 1848, right after he’s entered the Salt Lake Valley for the 2nd time.  Here are few things I didn’t know I never wanted to didn’t realize:

  • Brigham came from a very poor family
  • He was one of the most ardent protectors of Joseph Smith, oftentimes threatening and exposing apostate church members who were seeking to harm him.
  • He served only one mission to England, which was less than 18 months, and still baptized and gathered over 8000 converts.  The message was not well received in London, but was best received in the British countryside among the working class.
  • Brigham left Winter Quarters shooting directly for the Great Basin, in spite of others who made strong cases for California or Oregon.  It wasn’t quite the ‘wandering children of Israel with miraculous discovery of the Salt Lake Valley’ portrait that has oft been painted.
  • After Brigham got to the Valley, he basically turned back around and went directly back to Winter Quarters.  I wasn’t sure I knew that.  He left most of the men of the initial 1847 company there to start planting winter crops, and his thoughts then turned exclusively on initiating the massive migration the following spring.
  • I’m surprised how poor of a writer he was.  All of the direct quotes from his diary are extremely poor in grammar and spelling, while things like “Journal of Discourses” are just replete with flowery language.  He must have been a much better orator than he was writer, and he certainly had some help committing it to paper later.

American Idol:

I’m not going to be able to watch the Top 12 Boys and Girls until Thursday… so stay tuned for a massive blog on Thursday.

Neglected

This blog has been sadly neglected.

Excuses:

  • A2 has been sick, so I’ve been focused on barking at her that she’s not drinking enough fluids.  She, for her part, is putting Vicks vapor rub on her feet in order to keep from coughing at night.  Does this sound completely illogical to anyone else but me?
  • Work has been busy.  I’ve been swatting software bugs faster than you can spell supercalifragilesticexpialidocious.  (I think I spelled it wrong)
  • I’m feeling a bit uninspired.  I think being married is training me have fewer opinions and just defer to what my spouse says.  Even though other married men are nodding their heads as they read this, it doesn’t make it right.
  • Blogging is on the decline.  I think blogging hit its peak in 2008-09, but now that there’s been movies about blogging, it’s going out of vogue.  Those of you who know me know that, if anything, I’m EXTREMELY conscious of staying in vogue.  This is why I’m still sporting a hair style from 2003.

Does anyone even read this, still?  Or have I completely falled off of your blog reading list.

Outlandish Want: Retirement by Fifty

I always joke about retiring by age forty.  How nice would it be to not have to formally work at anything for the rest of your life?  Or any of your life, for that matter?

The thing is, I have a bunch of jobs and projects I want to do on my own time.  I have enough to keep me busy for two lifetimes, I think.  It’s too bad that feeding and sheltering myself (and now my family) has to take precedence over doing those various projects.

I could seriously be happy sleeping in until 9 or 10 every day, getting up, enjoying some relaxing music while I cleaned the house, exercised, worked on a few personal or church projects, made a fresh lunch and dinner, and played a game or went on a walk.

I could get used to travelling a few times a year, or even travelling most of the year if I could.  I love seeing new places and getting to know new cultures.

I could spend time volunteering, mentoring, running a side business, mastering a (low impact) sport, learning more musical instruments, or learning how to cook better.  I’m not at a loss for ideas of how to spend my time!  Really, I’m not!

The problem is… all of it takes money, and so I spend most of my life chained to a desk and a computer to work most of my life to support the rest of my life.

Why retire by 50?  Well, as an artist, I enjoy symmetry.  The first 25 years of my life were focused on education, and being the consummate planner that I am, I now plan to spend the next 25 years working, and the following 25 in retirement.  I’m thinking I’ll be gone by 75 or so…

Yeah… I’m the creepy dude planning his own demise.  I ask, why not?

Oh well, back to work…

Outlandish Want: My Own Private Island

After working for weeks on end in a fabric covered container, with no vacation in sight or in recent memory, sometimes you just wish you had your own private island.

Granted, my island would have more sandy beaches than this, but this picture is a start.  I want to open my large sliding doors and windows to open air breezes.  I want to enjoy lazy days on the deck, eating slow roasted BBQ and soaking up the sea breezes.

A man can dream, right?