Three Things 1. Dear Littering Residents of NYC, if I was a more violent person I would kick your f*cking asses every time I see one of you turd-for-brains throwing trash on the street. What the hell is your problem? Hoot-hoot don't pollute, you bitch ass muthafuckers!
The other day I am riding down Jay Street on my bike and some retard woman almost hits me with her ice-cream bar wrapper. She's just standing there at the bus stop throwing shit in the street.
Or last weekend, after our marathon 'take CDs out of dusty rack and put in big book and throw out jewel cases' project I deposit a trash bag of old, scratched up jewel cases which the neighborhood kids decide to open up, and then smash them all up and down the block. Literally, come over and walk up our block - even after a week - and count the smashed jewel cases.
2. Casual Church. There is a church up the street from where we live and on Sundays I always notice the parishioners coming out with their casual dress. Granted, you have men in suits and women in their Sunday best, but then you also the guy in shorts and a Old Navy t-shirt. I think if my parents had taken us to casual church (if there was such a thing in my hometown) I wouldn't have issues with church and formal dress in general. It would save me so much money on therapy... if I went to therapy. (would happyrobot be my therapist? Let's say it is.)
3. Red Head Club. I married this nice red-haired girl and now when I ever see a red-haired girl (red 'head'? her head isn't red - her hair is) I want to give them a secret red-haired club signal... I assume I would have some sort of status in the club via marriage - like I could go to the meetings for spouses.
The Digitial Sacrifice I mentioned a while back that we are now digital cable subscribers. Got a new fancy cable box that allows us to have 900 channels, most of which are duplicates of duplicates of duplicates (I mean, M2 shows up like 5 times). We also get a relatively crappy picture on our shiny Wega TV. Compared to the old cable, there is a big difference in the picture. I saw a minute of the MTV VMAs the other night, and if you saw it last year it looked great. Last year's show had this amazing almost film look to it and I assume they did the same this year but through the digital cable it looked crappy. I bit too lossy and soft. Actually really soft. Soft to the point that I couldn't watch it.
Then we have DVDs with all their nice compression, which you generally don't notice (unless it's a crappy mastering - sadly happens too often), but does pop up whenever you have still scene and the frame freezes. Ugh.
MP3s are another medium that stinks a bit. I am always amazed when I hear a real CD on a real stereo how much better it (well, naturally) sounds than the compressed MP3 format.
Digital video I like, but it's not really that hard to make something better than VHS. If it's better than movie film, well, I don't know.
Oh, and then there is digital photography. After about 4 years of shooting digital I have decided that digital photography and printing just generally looks like crap. (granted I am not shooting with high-end digital equipment - may be the problem) Sure, it's fine to give to your mom or grandmother or to your friend to post in their cube at work... but we when are talking about actual good prints, a good negative still beats a digital file in my book. And not just in grain/pixels, but in the character of film. My low light shots in film look 20 times better than a comparable shot in digital. (My current distaste in digital may have a bit to do with the amateur 'digital darkroom' types who can't seem to stop messing in photoshop with their images - look a pretty frame around my photo!)
My point is... are we sacrificing quality for convenience? Will a whole generation of kids grow up with lossy, artifact filled media?
Who's your daddy? I am working on a "Who's your Daddy" list of the nation's of the world. Since so many countries seem to be another countries' bitch, I think a handy chart would be in order. Canada - are they anyone's bitch? Recently, they have been doing their own thing, so I think not. Who is the world's Daddy? I am putting my money on Saudi Arabia and Israel, since everyone seems to be their bitch.
