Ebb And Flow

It's that time of year again when we celebrate the measurement of the movement of matter through space and another complete trip around the sun. Isn't that really all time is? Just a concept, a measurement. Im ok with it though. It's another excuse to drink and party.

2007 in a nutshell:

Traveled across the country with friends
Moved
Lived in 2 different states
Left some of my best friends behind
Made a few new ones
Flew around the country more than usual
Went to Disney
Went to Vegas
Had 3 different jobs
Laughed a lot
Got upset a little
Drank a few beers
and overall had an amazing year

Thank you to all my friends, and my family for a wonderful year.

Beauty is human born

Are we the only species that have an understanding of beauty?

Army Special Forces

I'm really not sure who reads my blog other than a few close friends, but i'll continue doing it even if just for myself. If you know me I'm sure i've mentioned my desire to go into the Army over the past few months but I haven't really written about it, or discussed it in full.

Ever since I was a kid I've always enjoyed playing "army man" either with myself or with others. When I was younger living in Maryland our house backed up to 100+ achers of woods, creeks and exposed rock faces. And I often found myself floating down a creek with eyes at water level, clinging to the banks with visions of enemy patrols scouring the surrounding woods or sending a friend out in the winter to see if I could track him (i could). I would hike, explore and play in those woods for hours upon hours. If not with a friend then with myself. When I was in middle school I found the shell of an Army BDU jacket with my name on it. And despite being my first name it called to me. I joined the Boy Scouts and loved the hiking, the "roughing it" and the camaraderie. Something has always been there that fascinated me.

Maybe it's this sense of exploration or a new challenge that has driven me to this decision. Maybe I want to prove something to myself or experience that sense of camaraderie again. Maybe it's just another fanciful dream fueled by my imagination. Either way i've sat on the idea for 4 months or so and it's still something I want to do. Not because I want to play "army man" like in the woods I played in but for reasons that may seem silly to some, yet meaningful to myself; and is that not a good reason to do something? You are the only person that knows what's best for yourself. And despite the possible dangers, it's something I want to do. Everyone has their reasons, all that matters is it was for exactly that; their own reasons.

While I'm on the subject, check out these videos of gunships. The first being a Huey with a minigun and the second an AC130 Gunship. I would hate to be on the receiving end of either of those things. But I bet its one hell of a show for those guys marking the target in the second video.

Holiday Break

After finishing up Jarhead over christmas and finding out I accidentally took an additional day off of work that wasn't needed, I decided to buy another one to read. I didn't really expect myself to finish it so quickly and lent out The God Delusion but wanted something along the same line; and it seems likes an easy read. I also don't know how i've gone so long without watching Bottle Rocket all the way through so I bought it as well. Speaking of which, if you haven't seen Wes Anderson's original 15 min short from his film school days have a look here; fourth clip down. Have a good New Years everyone. Get drunk and make some mistakes.

French Assassins Etc.

I never got into comic books as a kid, but I have read at least one adult oriented graphic novel in the past few years. I heard The Killer by Luc Jacamon was supposed to be a good read. It's filled with french assassins loosing their minds and cool stuff like that apparently. And seeing as how I'm actually starting to read again maybe I should pick it up for myself for christmas.

On a side note, Half Life 2: Raising the Bar is really $100 on Amazon? I remember it being something more like $45 when it came out at EB Games ages ago. Wtf Amazon... ill just download it in .pdf format. Owned.

The Universe = Math

I've been told that ever since I was a baby i've had an infatuation with figuring things out. Trying to understand the world around me and myself. I used to have 5 VCR's in my closet I took apart and failed to put back together. I've blown up radios and electrocuted myself while taking apart a Commodore 64 printer. And since about the 9th grade i've been interested in figuring out "deeper" things I guess you could say. In a world history class in high school I discovered Buddhism and immediately picked up a dozen books I have to this day. After taking a few philosophy classes in college i've done the same with Aristotle, Kant and Hoobes. Ill often find myself debating why people do this, or how is something else possible and usually i'll hit a brick wall; and love it. I've decided cornering yourself into one way of thinking is an insult to the human intellect and it's possibilities; and that is no way I want to live. A few months ago I picked up a book entitled Coincidences. Chaos, and All That Math Jazz and pretty much haven't touched it since halfway through. I'll get into it again soon, but my laziness is beside the point. We really do live in a world of mathematical chaos and to deny such claims is purely stupid. Take a look around you and you'll see it everywhere. Thats why when I came across this post from someone else I had to share.

Perhaps the definitive reason religion was initially accepted was because no one seemed to be able to explain how earth and human life was created. The requirements to make human life are so specific, how can pure randomness produce them? But I’ve never really understood why the concept was so hard to grasp. Yes, it involves understanding the basics of probability and the relativity of global and universal magnitudes, but so little of them that anyone can grasp this. So here it is: It’s all about the relationship between probability and sample size. Simply put, it’s a direct relationship: the larger the reference size is, the higher the probability that something seemingly impossible will happen within it. That is precisely what happens in this case. Here’s an example: If I asked you what you thought the probability that someone would roll a “6″ consecutively 1000 times in a row, you’d say very very very slim. But, if I were to say every single person on the entire earth was rolling dice — then what would the probability be? Near guaranteed to happen once, actually. The person who rolled “6″ consecutively 1000 times might think they are really quite special, but in reality, the event is unsurprisingly expected. A random thing to you and I isn’t random at all when your reference size is 5 billion people. This is exactly the case with the creation of human life as well — except it’s actually way more likely. I’m not saying humans aren’t amazing as a specimen, and I’m certainly not saying the conditions required for humans aren’t incredibly specific. I’m simply saying that knowing that the earth is one planet inside one galaxy, and there are one hundred billion galaxies, it’s suddenly not so improbable anymore. The chance that something seemingly random as human life can happen with a reference size of one-hundred billion samples is really quite high. It’s not a phenomenon, it’s not a miracle — it’s math. It was predictable. It always has been.

I couldn't have said it better or in more simpler terms myself. Via thoughtflow

Cable Bills and Disney World

$404.42 later and I have my internet and cable back on. Lesson learned. Pay it as soon as they shut it off not a few weeks after. Finishing up Jarhead, working and being generally fatigued has been on the daily list of things to do lately. I will be heading off to Disney World with my mom during the week of christmas. I was going to say "for some much needed r&r" but we all know that's all the time for me. Regardless it will be fun to spend some time with my mom and ride old rides I loved as a kid. I need to get back into doing crunches and pushups and stretching every day. Im not where I want to be with that, but I still have some time.

Achilles

Some of the best music I've listened to in a long long time. Achilles has basically been playing on my iPod or Cd player a few times a week for the past 6 months since the summer. Thanks Matt for introducing me. If you get the chance pick up either "The Dark Horse" or "Hospice" do so, and listen to them in said order.  

myspace.com/achilles

My gf Lily Allen

I guess I can give up on ever being with Lily Allen now that shes all prego by the guy from the Chemical Brothers. Ill just move onto Jamie Lynn Spears. Wait shit, too late there too?

I Am A Horrible Movie

After being picked up around 1 today by Kiel, we headed to Newark to get some food and go see I Am Legend. I was originally excited about this movie but after seeing it I can easily say I was horribly disappointed. The background to the events sounded sweet and they could have done so much more with the movie. It was only about an hour and a half long too which didn't help. It felt like the first half of the movie was great; action, a few chilling scary scenes but then after some other survivor woman and her son who doesn't have a single line shows up it all goes down hill. Leave it to a woman to ruin everything. There is of course a few obligatory product placements but nothing like I Robot. And there had to be a scene showing off Will Smiths amazing body of course... I just felt like so much more could have been done with the movie, it didn't entirely suck but what made it suck really makes it not worth watching at all.

Barebones

the earth did quake

I will always care about you, worry about you, look after you and be here for you.

Cahones

"Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Friday rejected demands from congressional leaders to share information about the CIA's destruction of detainee interrogation tapes." - CNN.com

Dear Current Administration,

Grow some balls and fess up to fucking up.

Sincerely,
Ross Zavoyna

1.18.08

While I do work at a movie theater so I should have the edge on those cool movies coming out, you should at least have heard of the [until recently] unnamed film accompanying the poster to the left. Previously known only as 1/18/08 among other fake working titles such as Slusho or Clover; "Cloverfield" as the current poster hanging next to the kitchen at my job states is drawing closer to release. Even after the release of an official name, next to nothing is known about this movie. The trailers explain nothing, only leading to a handful of questions. What is more interesting than said trailer is the official site, related myspaces and "fake" sites created for the film that have been dug up by enthusiasts in the wake of the trailers release. Not much has come from finding the myspaces so far. But as time goes on and the countdown to 1/18/08 comes to a close I'm sure more details, official and hidden will be discovered. Check out 1-18-08.com for absolutely no straight forward answers to anything at all about this until recently titled film. ...I can't wait.

edit: After writing this I stumbled across this interesting concept drawing on a Japanese forum.

Tears of the 1080i Shiner Bravia Blu-Ray Sun

There is something about watching Tears Of The Sun in high def on my dads new Blu-Ray player and 40" Sony Bravia 1080i LCD after a few Shiner Bocks and sashimi that makes my life rule. After watching something in HD, real life seems so... standard def, it hurts my eyes. It's only a matter of time before we start wearing glasses that upscale the real world to something past 1080.

By the way, the movie isn't that great. It's your a-typical hero shooting from the hip hollywood infused crap. But man in 1080i is that crap presented on a beautiful plate. Watch the Thin Red Line if you want a good war movie.

Jarhead

Probably one of the best books I've read in a long long time. Granted it has been a long long time since I've actually read a book, I'd like to point out I still have a knack for honing in on good story telling among other things. Reguadless, I'm glad I stubbled across Jarhead for $4 in Borders. I remember seeing the movie years ago when it came out with Jake Gyllenhaal and brilliant actor/comedian/musician Jamie Foxx. I remember it being an alright film but much like many book to movie films there is something lost in translation. And further more because these we're real life experiences told so vividly by one man himself, even more was lost on the big screen. I'm only about a third of the way through, but so far Swofford's personal memoir of his time in the Gulf War including vivid tales of events like being stationed in Okinawa are some of the most personal and heartfelt words you'll ever hear come out of a grown man let alone a soldier.

You Can't Really Dust For Vomit

Still my most favorite movie ever. That's all, I just wanted to make that known.

Oh yeah... I added a sweet thingamajig on the right so you can play music while reading my boring posts :)

MacBook Pro Update

I'm liking how it's turning out. New Thunderbird, Vienna (rss reader), Firefox, Safari, iChat, WoW, iPhoto icons and Download + Document Stack overlays. As well as a new icon for the Mac HD but i cant edit to "Untitled" partition that contains Windows Xp. I may down the road delete it and reformat in FAT32 so I can edit it or at least rename it sheesh. So far the MacBook Pro has been running like a dream. There have been a few hang ups in applications that brought forth the spinning beach ball of death. Yet unlike Windows its easy to force quit them and reopen. In XP Ive been forced to power down the system via the power button after waiting 5 mins for a frozen application to "End Now". I had a few issues with replacing icons but I think it was mostly in part to being unfamiliar with using PNG files and ICNS files. Luckily Apple includes a plethora of developer tools right on the Leopard install dvd. One of which converts image files into the appropriate sized icon files. And finally there was one instance where I logged out and the cursor locked up, it may have been my Logitech mouse or any number of other things, but a quick press of the power button and a hit of the enter key and I was rebooted and everything was working again. 
Off to work.

What a Tool (not the laptop)

"This is an amazing opportunity" It's a fucking $4.5k Laptop you douche nothing more.

Just listen to this guy speak. He is not only the biggest tool I've ever seen or heard but he sounds like he is sooo into Warcraft yet has no idea who the character on the poster is. Note the quick jab at an "unnamed" computer company who puts "way too much money in packaging a product", yet he spends a good 2+ mins describing the attractive and intriguing packaging.

And on a side note, I'm not liking how it bunches lines text together when I post a video and place "< center >" tags around it.

Of Os X Docks and Running Away

I've spent the last 36 waking hours finding custom icons for my desktop, downloading little apps like a newsreader, and generally feeling like shit. The desktop and dock are looking sweet and I couldn't be feeling shittier. It's an odd feeling, one I can't really put my finger on; a mixture of a few. None of us are perfect and I've done more than my fair share of immature things. There are just so many things about what she is doing that I can't help but be disappointed with. I don't need to go into detail because this isn't a rant or a flame. I'll miss her but I wish her the best of course.

Take your shit elsewhere

I don't need to deal with it.