For those wondering where the road trip follow-up post went to, don’t worry – it’s coming VERY soon. I had some work to catch up on last week when we got back from our trip. I’m hoping to have some more photos from the trip and some other randomness from the trip up by the end of the week.

In the mean time, I ran across this video that I thought was interesting – especially to anyone that cares about inflation or the state of the US dollar.

The internet and constant media bombardment (there is an ‘AND’ there for you naysayers or defenders of all things internet) is quickly making people into sensationalist linguists. It seems that regular descriptions using appropriate language to fit the situation or subject at hand is just too boring.  We are now constantly inundated with the “Most”, the “biggest”, the “best”, and the ever so popular on things like digg.com – “EVER”.

HYPERBOLE!

“But Alan,” you might say, “even Jesus regularly used hyperbole to make a point.”  Well, maybe you wouldn’t say that, but I guess it could be a good point.  Except that one, he used hyperbole correctly – not just tacking on the word ‘best’ or ‘ever’.  And he used them in the context of generally life changing grand philosophical “this will blow your first century Jewish mind” sort of way – not to describe how well your freaking cats can bounce around.

There is no reason to  have watched this video in it’s entirety.  If there was anything redeeming at the end of it, you have my apologies, you still had to sit through all the stuff before it.

For the few of you that actually might read this, you might be pointing out The Best Page in the Universe – a satire site that drips with exaggerations and apparently is very popular.  So what?  It’s still annoying for it to creep from top ten lists on Digg and over the top web sites to our everyday language. Ever since I noticed this trend, I have been diligent to try and avoid it as best I can in my everyday life.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with occasionally exaggerating to make a point but there has to be a limit.  Especially when talking or more specifically – arguing – with my wife, there is little room for this kind of exaggeration.  “You always (insert phrase) and never (whatever)” or “You are the worst (blank)”.  Yeah, that’s fun.  Here’s an absolute for you.  NEVER use those kinds of phrases or wording.  Absolutes like that are never healthy.

The Media Made Me Do It

The ‘best of’ lists prevalent on the internet are not going away because people are lazy or just too busy to wade through the near limitless amount of material zipping around.  Plus it’s easy to get noticed on social networks if you have a ‘best of’ list.  Suddenly, you become an expert on whatever that list is about (or at least known for it for about 5 seconds).  In fact, there is no 15 minutes of fame anymore.  It’s now 15 seconds.  Thanks, internet.

But what about my original point of constantly being bum-rushed by exaggeration in the media (internet or otherwise)?  Bull crap, that’s what.  We, ultimately, still have the choice of how to exercise language.  The news is on 24-hours now and might have to make the mundane more sensational to vie for ratings but that doesn’t mean you have to mimic them.  The Swine Flu is not the worst epidemic ever.  This isn’t the worst economic crisis to have ever happened.*  Turn off your television or close your browser once in awhile and go for a nice walk.  When someone asks how the walk was you can say whatever you want really but I guess it could be something like “That was the BEST walk I have EVER gone on” though it might seem less than genuine.

*Both the Swine Flu and current Economic Woes are still crappy things to deal with so if you’ve been affected by either then… um… sorry for that.

Funny little experiment I found in my design folder.  The picture is from a camping trip to Oceano, CA my wife and I went on about a year ago (I think it was a year ago… darn this brain!).

That bird will mess you up

Upon a revisit to this image, it should say ‘Honk, Honk’ right?  Bah, I like it as it is.

I should probably upload the rest of those pics from Oceano up here sometime.  Hmm…  maybe this weekend.  Stay tuned!

Found this on http://technology.todaysbigthing.com and thought it was cool.  Basically, a blueprint of the little red riding hood story.

Awhile back a good friend of mine by the name of Elizabeth Joy Greene (formerly Koppa) introduced me to the hilarious folk parody duo known as The Flight of the Conchords.  Since then they’ve had their own HBO series by the same name and I love it.  It’s just so random.

In a earlier post I mentioned I recently took a trip to Austin, TX to check out some of the SXSW festivities.  Apparently, Flight of the Conchords performed there a few years ago and even made a lil’ documentary about it.

Oh, and I just found out they’ll be playing in the Santa Barbara Bowl on May 22nd!  I just wish decent seats weren’t so freakin’ expensive.

My sister, Sarah, will love me for posting this. I threw this picture together quickly one morning while she was visiting back when I still worked at UCSB a few years ago.

Gir face of Doom

I think it is actually one of the earliest designs I ever did in which Mr. (Not So) Smiley made an appearance.

Oh, and if you have no idea who Gir is or why there is doom then look up “Invader Zim”.  It has to be one of my all time favorite animated series.

I like to check out YouTube from time to time and watch cats playing the piano as much as the next guy but every once in awhile I actually come across something with a bit more substance.

I had heard of versions of this video floating around before called ‘Did You Know?’

It looks nice.  Decent effects, interesting facts.  Though perhaps I should surround facts as “facts”.  Many of the facts in the video seem statistically misleading and/or purposely provacative, which I suppose is part of the point.  Wait, what is the point?  I’ve watched the video a few times and I can’t really tell what the point is.  To make Americans afraid of the sheer numbers of China and India?  Or to prepare us for enslavement of our future robotic overlords?

Watch it if you’d like.  Maybe you can tell me what the point is the makers of this video are driving at.  Maybe it’s to show how you can pretty much indicate whatever you want with statistics given totally unrestricted parameters and control over the presentational context.

Ah, forget it… I’m searching for some more piano playing cats.

Once upon a time, I was a diligent sketcher.  I love to draw but have found that the more I become teethered to my computer, the more I lose a little bit of the drive (or time) to have fun with sketches, or as I prefer to call them – doodles.  I still have a journal that is often more doodles than writing but it’s still a pale comparison to what I used to do on a regular basis.  With this in mind, I decided to make better use of my Wacom tablet (as opposed to just making designs for money… pshh…) and doodle.  A few days after Valentines day I spent at most 30 minutes doodling randomness on my tablet in Photoshop and then maybe another 10 adding some extra effects to a few items I thought were cool or funny.  Now you get to partake of the weirdness that is my mind.  Hooray!

The full size of both of these photos (you gotta click them) are both 1920 by 1200 which makes for a great desktop background, assuming your monitor is the same size as mine.

This first one was obviously in reaction to Valentines day from a few days prior to drawing this.

He even dressed up just for you

The coloring is not very clean because I just used one brush size and sped through the whole thing just to see what I could get.  Nothing was really planned when I made these.  It was basically “free-doodling”.  That sounds weird.  Moving on.

Prepare for Doom

I drew this with *almost* never letting my tablet pen from leaving the proverbial paper.  Originally, he was supposed to be saying ‘Hahaha’ maniacally but when I decided this might make a cool desktop background, I decided to just flip him so that the icons on my screen wouldn’t cover him (I’m on a Mac).

If you’ve got some fun doodles, I would love for you share them.  Send me your links in the comments or via the contact page!

For those of you out there that like music and who actually pay for it legitimately online, I just can’t recommend Amazonmp3.com enough.  Amazon’s offering is VASTLY superior to Apple’s iTunes it’s ridiculous.  Personally, I like owning something tangible for the most part.  Digital music has always seemed to be “less than” to me.  In fact, most of my music library is from used CDs (and CDs are starting to really tick me off on how easily they scratch).  Apparently, along with being a pack rat I’m also a tight wad.  Right.  With that aside, when I do purchase music online it has always been with a feeling of incomplete ownership.  And this is where my comparison of the two digital music stores comes in.

I am thankful that iTunes helped to break down the boundary of purchasing something digital online for the average person.  Kudos to you, Apple.  However, iTunes is a flippin’ rip-off at this point as it stands.  Seriously, $.99 for EVERY song.  Every one?  No discounts or special sales?  I just admitted I’m a tight wad.  Work with me here, Apple. (*UPDATE: Apple has, in fact, decided to “work with me” and the day after I originally made this post, Apple announced they would faze out their DRM and introduce a new pricing structure) You make it super simple to purchase music, you say.  Well anyone who sells music online should make that one of their goals.  And yes, Apple, has the one up on this category.  Purchasing music is unbelievably simple once an account has been set-up.  But then you’re not really purchasing the music are you?  You’re temporarily borrowing it.  It’s called DRM.  It supposedly helps prevent piracy but last I checked piracy is rampant.  What it really does is tick off the people who actually do purchase the product legitimately.

Case in point:  I’ve gone through a few computers and/or hard-drives.  Normal wear and tear kind of stuff.  Every time I transfer my music library for iTunes I am asked to approve the “new” device.  Same goes for replaced iPods.  I can put the music on something along the lines of up to 5 devices or computers.  This concept works great if I purchase music like I purchase something from the grocery store.  But what if I want to own my music for 20+ years (like a good record).  Assuming a replaced computer or iPod every… I don’t know… 5 years (X2, one for the computer and one for the mp3 player) then I’m looking at losing full control of my music library in 15 years or less.  And that’s being generous. (My argument still stand against DRM in general, regardless if it’s not necessarily going to continue to be an issue specifically with iTunes.)

Enter the Amazon MP3 store.  It’s messy, it’s muddled, it’s all over the freaking place.  And I love it.  It’s like wading through an old record store discovering new music and finding all the hidden gems and best deals.  Ok, I admit it.  It’s offerings are hard, at times, to shift through and it’s not as easy to purchase from as it is from iTunes.  But it’s getting better.  There are two main reasons I love amazonmp3.com though.  The first is that all of the music sold is DRM-free mp3.  The second is that they have sales.  Real, honest to goodness, all items must go promotional sales.  And I’m a sucker for both.  They have a daily sale with a new album (read ALBUM) on sale each day for often crazy low prices – like today you can get the new Evanescence album “Open Doors” for $1.99.  And their daily prices usually have each track hovering around $.89.  That adds up if you purchase a lot of music.  And you really own it.

A few days ago I went really crazy and purchased several albums at once.  But I almost couldn’t help it.  Amazonmp3.com was offering the top 50 downloaded albums of 2008 for $5 each.  Five bucks.  That is such a sweet spot for me.  It’s the “golden” price for an album as far as I’m concerned.  I checked again today and they have taken down that promotion but the sale prices on the individual albums still stand – it’s just harder to get to from the home page since the albums aren’t grouped on one page as before.  But I noticed that the link I originally used a few days ago still works so here’s the shortened version – http://tinyurl.com/9yrgah – which I think still works.

As a final note or thought or verbal barrage, whatever, I have to also admit that if I didn’t work at my comptuer constantly that I probably would never have gotten into the habit of housing all my music there.  Couple this with my increased rage over the lack of durability of my CDs and you have me seriously considering investing in vinyl, a turntable, and better speakers in my living room.  I don’t think it’s just me.

*UPDATE*

I guess I’m not the only one with the complaints with iTunes.  Apple has already announced it’s intentions to partly solve some of the issues I brought up.  Very interesting development.  Well… not that interesting but still…   http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/06/itunes-going-primarily-drm-free/

*UPDATE #2*

An article at cnet.com here discusses and compares iTune’s and Amazon’s digital music offerings in more detail.

Just got back from vacationing in Arizona a few days ago and it’s good to be home.  Melissa and I visited her parents in Prescott, AZ for over a week.  I love Prescott.  It’s so… Western.  When you travel around Prescott, especially when driving to where my in-laws live, it really feels like you’re in the Wild West.  I’m not sure I’d want to live there just yet (I am a city boy afterall) but maybe someday.  Though horses do intimidate me and I don’t like hats (just the occassional beanie) and country music is not something I want to hear on purpose, so I guess I wouldn’t make the best cowboy.  Eh.  Oh well.  Guess I’ll have to move to somewhere with an art and music scene and no horses instead, not that I’m moving anytime soon.  Melissa still has a few years left with school and what I call “school follow-up” so we’ll be in Santa Barbara for at least that amount of time – though I’m always on the look-out for cool places to check out for the future.

Check out the rest of the pictures from the Prescott trip here.

I was reading random articles on-line this morning, as I am prone to do, and came acorss a list of foreign aid the U.S. disperses in order of amounts to the top ten countries.  The list always includes what that aid is generally used for and though I don’t know of the accuracy of the article, it does bring up some very interesting concepts.

I understand the desire to support Israel but why is the U.S. dumping BILLIONS into that region?  I don’t for a second believe that the U.S. government is doing it out of the goodness of their hearts or because of any Judeo-Christian belief that Israel are the chosen people.  If that were true then why is so much aid poured into countries that also generally dislike Israel?  I think there are two basic reasons that can be derived from the above list.  One, the U.S. likes having strong allies in that region.  This is clear cut and understandable if we have resouces at stake in the region such as say…. something like oil.  Two, the U.S. especially likes strong allies that spend money we give them back on our products (in this case weapons).  Speaking of which, where exactly is all this money coming from?  Thin air?  Or borrowed in the trillions from other countries like China and Japan?  The money we borrow and print is then given away to countries who then use much of that money to purchase weapons from us.  This is part of the “Military Industrial Complex” and much of our world economy is dependent is on it.  Scary.