Thank God for Jon Stewart

He's so good at exposing the hypocrisy of the Bush Administration...

In the case of stem cell research on embryos that would otherwise be discarded "the simple answer is that he [Bush] thinks murder is wrong...he doesn't want human life destroyed..." but in Iraq, where about 30,000 citizens "more or less" have died in the war, it's not murder, but rather "a lamentable...side effect".

Blurry

Whoah! Where does the time go? Tomorrow is August 1. It's been a blur! Wasn't it just a few days ago that it was May 1, and shortly before that, January 1? I'm told that the older you get, the faster time seems to pass because your relative experience is greater than that of, say, a five-year-old. I guess I see that. Summers used to seem to last almost forever.

Lately, work has been intense, and that's seemed to cause the days and weeks to fly past even more quickly.

This past weekend I sort of just crashed. Slept a lot on Saturday, even more on Sunday. Maybe the heat also contributed to it all, but it felt like I almost had no weekend at all. Maybe if I had had a reason to go out and actually do something it would have helped. On Saturday night I was invited out to see a local band with some friends from work, but I just wasn't up to socializing that night.

I guess I just need some more people in my life at the moment. I'm going camping this weekend with my good friend Karl, who's more like a brother, and some others. That should be fun, except for the 8 hours I'll spend on the road to and from the campsite. I'm really tired of living alone.

Do Not Fold, Bend, Spindle or Mutilate

Well, we've got our first virtual art exhibit online at the Pavilion now! It's an interesting show in that all the art has been created on or with computer punch cards. We received over 400 of them from across the world. I actually submitted one and it made the show. A very small version is shown at right.

Check out the show and let me know what you think. My submission is located in the "vertical" section.

Best post-apocalyptic sci-fi kung-fu cowboy video this year

The band's name is Muse, and they're from the U.K. Their new video for a song called "Knights of Cydonia" is the best post-apocalyptic sci-fi kung-fu cowboy video I've seen this year. If they made it into a TV series, I'D WATCH IT RELIGIOUSLY. Now I know on first mention you might not think these things go together, but I gotta tell you they do--perfectly. From the opening sequence showing a mustachioed rider galloping past a desert landscape featuring the Statue of Libery a la the Planet of the Apes to our hero's kung-fu training moves sequence to the holographic juke box to the damsel in distress's Buck Rogers space uniform and rayguns, this one has it all. There's even a unicorn!

To top it off, the song plays like a six-minute soundtrack to the 1970's version of Flash Gordon - complete with killer-Queen guitar riffs. The end roll credits "Production Finance Services by Euro Ballistic Rockets & Aerospace FilmCo, LTD." How utterly appropriate. What else could come from an album named "Black Holes and Revelations"?

Watch it here.

Check out www.muse.mu for more information.
Note: stills are screen captures from video! Check it out, buy the CD!

I wanna be a cowboy!

The Wal-Mart-ization of America

On my recent travels, I was struck by just how eerily similar all the Wall-Marts in America seem to be. In the last three weeks I've been back home in Minnesota, where I took my mom to the newest Wal-Mart Supercenter (she wanted to go), I've been to the two that are here in Sioux Falls, I checked out the store in Brookings, S.D., and I stopped at one in Spearfish, S.D., on my way to visit friends in Montana. It was almost scary to see that each of these stores was almost exactly the same. I joked with friends that maybe there's really only one Wal-Mart that exists and the doors are just magic portals that take us from wherever we enter into the Wal-Mart Zone.

Now I shouldn't be surprised by this, I know. All big-box retailers (Wal-Mart, Lowe's, Home Depot, K-Mart, Target, Best Buy, etc.) are like that in their own way, but it just became this sort of personal epiphany. In contrast, while in Bozeman and Missoula, I had the opportunity to spend some time checking out the character of the downtown of each city. Both had lots of smaller non-chain stores with lots of character. I found cool things you'd never find in a Wall-Mart, and the prices weren't bad. Rockin' Rudy's, the very cool music and "stuff" store in Missoula, totally rocked! I'd much rather support a locally-owned store or even a regional chain, knowing that I've contributed to the local economy rather than line the pockets of the richest people in Arkansas.

So why did I go into Wal-Mart in the first place? Well, among some of the things I collect are Marvel superhero action figures, and Wal-Mart has an exclusive line there. Unfortunately, they were all sold out. Generally, I really do try to support the locally-owned stores, but this was a special case.

If truth be told, I don't mind shopping at Target or Best Buy... Both are based in my home state of Minnesota, and from what I've read, both chains treat their employees and the communities they locate in pretty well, for a big-box store, that is. But if there was a Rockin' Rudy's here in Sioux Falls, I'd rarely set foot into Best Buy.

1,067 Miles...

I just drove 1,067 miles from Missoula, Montana, back to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. That's 1,067 miles and only stopping 4 times for gas and/or food. Very tired... Must get some sleep... More on my trip soon!