If you haven’t yet seen JibJab’s amazing political parody animation set to the tune of “This Land,” go watch it right now. I’ve transcribed the complete lyrics in this entry, and I annotated them myself for those who may not be able to watch the video. You should, if you like the original, also pay to download the flash file—support these guys, they deserve it. Oh, and read their blog.
I realize that I haven’t told you about my most recent camping trip. It took place the final weekend I was up in Vancouver. This outing was not, shall we say, without incident. These days, _my_ idea of a great outdoors experience usually involves fresh sushi and patio seating; the trip planner’s involves scaling something tall while carrying four days of food and a first aid kit.
The song contest is off to a good start. Participants are psyched and somewhat obsessed with the idea of putting together good mixes. Today, I sent out the participant packs with blank CDs, etc. Take a look at the photos.
This is the 1,004th post on this blog. I’m including the side links, the quote section, and my occasional rant here. I always miss when my car hits a 10,000 mile mark, and I also missed post 1,000. Still, I thought it was worth mentioning.
My friend Liz came by today. She was out for a walk with her small person, Alex, riding in a jogging stroller. It’s his first visit to our place since he acquired mobility; he’s about 15 months old now. It soon became evident that our house is somewhat of an instant baby death zone.
Earlier this week I wrote about an idea for a contest. I was hoping for 7 people to compete. So far, I have 3 confirmed and one maybe. But when I got no additional responses, I looked into it a little more deeply, and discovered that, lo! My column had not successfully been emailed since July 1! Apparently, when upgrading my ISP account in early July, my mailing lists were destroyed. And unrecoverable. Gotta love those ISPs.
While driving in may car, I had an idea for a fun contest for EXACTLY SEVEN people who like music. It seemed brilliant when I was cruising past Medford; you tell me me if it’s still that way where you are… The premise is this: Seven people each create a mixed CD and swap them by mail with each other. Then, each person tries to identify the songs on the CDs that arrive in the mail. Winners are given valuable (seriously!) iTunes gift certificates. Sound fun?
In an attempt to sample on this trip the full spectrum of healthy to unhealthy activities, I spent this morning in a brutal form of self-flagellation known as Hot Yoga.
“I find myself thinking of a checklist Wozniak wrote a few years ago describing how to become a genius. His advice was straightforward yet strangely terrible: You must clarify your goals, gain knowledge through spaced repetition, preserve health, work steadily, minimize stress, refuse interruption, and never resist sleep when tired. This should lead to radically improved intelligence and creativity. The only cost: turning your back on every convention of social life.”
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.”
You can scroll right easily by holding down the SHIFT key and using your scroll wheel. (Firefox users trying this will end up jumping to old Web pages until a) Firefox releases a fix, b) they change their settings like so.)