Month: March 2007

all about me, listen up!, politics, venting

frustrated

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Sometimes… this is how I feel. Completely and utterly frustrated with things, so much so, that I just want to throw my hands up and scream.

For the past two days, things that I have said have caused a handful of people to just go on the warpath, and continually berate me about how wrong I am, and why. What is missing from what they have decided to argue with me about, is what I believe, and why my opinion is just as valid as theirs. I am all for having a discussion with anyone about their views, and I am all for someone disagreeing with me, but my desire to continually go back and forth with someone ceases when the person with which I am speaking continually tells me I am wrong, and they are right, if for no other reason, than because they are right. Also, when people say that I am a certain way, and that they have determined this based on one thing that I have said, I get extremely irritated, especially when this picture they have painted of me simply isn’t true. I want to be fair and say that I enjoy people coming to this site and expressing their opinions, this is in no way a request for that to end. I am totally fine with you saying that you don’t agree with what I am saying. I am even fine with you pointing out how I was wrong, and helping me to see a different perspective. But what I am not fine with, is coming here, taking things that I say, and then using them to describe me as delusional, irrational, and living in a dream world, because that simply isn’t true.

If I were constantly writing about crazy off the wall shit, that I believed to be factual and correct, then I can see where this would come from, but that isn’t what I have ever done on this blog, so this form of proving me wrong is a little confusing to me. Most of the time I write about something, it is to offer my opinion on what I think of something that is going on in the news or in the world. While that opinion may not work for you, it is MY opinion, and I am not delusional or irrational just because I don’t have an opinion that is a carbon copy of your own. If you want to continually think this way about anything or everything that I write about, that is fine, but I don’t see how it is productive to continually come here and see who can shout the loudest, causing us to go back and forth, all the while getting nowhere. If, on the other hand, you want to talk about my opinion, refrain from insulting my intelligence during the discussion, and avoid using an all or nothing allegory to describe what I have said, then I welcome your input on the subject. Don’t mistake this as a notice that I will begin moderating or removing comments that I don’t approve of; as I have said before, and I will always believe, the only time I will remove a comment, is when someone directly attacks me, which I find inappropriate, and since it is my blog, I can extinguish.

All in all, I am glad that you read my blog, and that you actually take the time to hear what I have to say. What I want for the future of this blog, is less of a dick measuring contest to determine who is the “rightest”, and more of a dialogue, which may result in a more well rounded perspective. I honestly believe that while we may not agree on something, there is definitely a gray area on every issue, and a “best” choice about something is definitely subjectively determined. While that is the case, I think that a happy medium is often the best stance, and given the way the past two days worth of back and forth guerrilla finger pointing have gone, I think that we can find a better way to converse, and ultimately, either agree, come to a middle ground, or agree to disagree. Remember, I have changed my views on things in the past based on being shown different perspectives, and by being open minded, and I can guarantee that the same thing will occur in the future. What I will not tolerate, is people continually twisting what I say, and using all or nothing comparisons to invalidate my opinions just because those opinions don’t work for them.

Again, thanks for reading my blog, and I hate writing posts like this, but this one has been actually very cathartic. I feel that this is a more civil and responsible way to express what I have felt continually for the past couple of days, and I hope that it is a step in a new, and better direction. Remember, I welcome your feedback, in fact, I look forward to it, but please realize that you don’t have to hammer it home that I am so wrong that I am delusional, just to get me to recognize that you have a differing, and equally valid, opinion. Thanks for listening.

is it just me?, listen up!, music musings, politics, venting

a brief coulter note, band notes, and a few words about veteren benefits/care

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I was going to call this post, Tuesday whatnots, but I have read that you are supposed to be clear about what your posts are about, so there it is. Enjoy the lengthy url as well, won’t you? Alright, let’s get this party started, shall we?

Based on the response to Coulter’s stupidity, and complete ignorance about what gay people go through as children “on the school yard”, people are pulling their ads from her website. Perhaps what I want to happen will happen; people will stop putting her in front of a microphone and cameras, and her voice will die out. That would be the best that could happen, in my opinion; although, I do agree that one great thing she does, is make the conservatives look even crazier. Even so, I would rather her be gone, because most conservatives do a great job of being crazy on their own. So whether or not you agree with the use of the word (which, I don’t really think should be up for interpretation, but whatever), people are obviously responding, and that is good, in my opinion. Maybe she’ll wise up? I doubt it.

Basically, the band notes are just a shameless plug on bands that I have discovered, and have been enjoying a lot recently. No one commented on the Mat/Matt post, but I figure that my music tastes may not be for everyone (even though Mat K is insanely good, so you are missing out if you ignore it). Either way, I have laud praise where praise is due. Right now I am spinning the Kaiser Chiefs newest CD, Yours Truly, Angry Mob. I fell into it through the single “Ruby”, and I have to say, it is bloody good. I have never really payed much attention to Brit-punk rock, but I am liking this. Also, I think the lead singer is pretty cute. Another CD I can’t get enough of, is Kellie Pickler‘s CD, Small Town Girl. I don’t usually go for country, but it is flawless. I love her voice, and I think she is super cute (and you know you agree… she totally owns the ditzyness). I think that if this is the direction her career is headed, she has a successful future ahead of her. And just think… she wasn’t even in the top 4 of American Idol.

Other CDs I am IN LOVE with as of late: Lily Allen – Alright Still (LOVE her… seeing her on March 19th, and I can’t wait), Amy Winehouse – Back in Black (Is is me, or is her voice like one of the most amazingly beautiful things ever? And the music… wow), The Good, The Bad, and The Queen (YAY! Damon Albarn gets back to more of a Blur feel! And it’s good!), Dashboard Confessional – Dusk and Summer (Um, first of all, the lead is HOT, and I don’t know why I ignored them before now… love them! I know… I’m so emo), and of course, Katharine McPhee’s CD is great… but I already told you that.

Now, at the risk of making this kind of long post longer, I have to say, I have been following this Walter Reed/soldier benefit atrocity, and I have to tell you, it makes me sick to my stomach. Regardless if you believe in socialized health care or not, if ANYONE deserves the utmost respect and full financial support from this country, it is the troops. First, we don’t give them the training they need for combat. Then, we don’t give them the equipment to safely patrol a war zone. Then, when they get hurt, we fuck them over again, by making them stay in a hell hole. Then, when they try to get their benefits, they don’t get what they need, or worse, they get rejected or denied benefits. What the fuck is going on??? People that keep saying that they support the troops need to throw a TON OF MONEY at them… NOW. It is unacceptable that people that fight for our country come home battered, bruised, suffering from disease (mental and physical), and we turn our backs on them? How can that be possible? Some of those billions and billions of dollars need to be going to these awesome men and women, and NOW. I am sick of hearing about soldiers that are homeless, denied benefits, denied care, and whatnot; that is just sick, and you can’t point the finger at anyone but the government. SO DO SOMETHING, GOVERNMENT! They are counting on you!

And that is what I am thinking about today. You?

is it just me?, politics, tragic, venting, well?

why are these people the ones that continually get heard?

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And who is listening to them? What I am talking about, is those people that, for whatever reason, have been given the ability to spread their views and opinions to the public, via books, speeches, etc; and regardless of free speech, are people that I believe really shouldn’t be heard at all. Alright, while I know that I can ignore them, and that I know that we all can, I can’t help but wonder why they are even given the mic in the first place? I wonder this, mainly, because I know that I am not the only one that goes “WTF?” at pretty much everything they say, because if that were the case, people would stop listening to them, and take the mic away from them.

What pisses me off about people like Ann Coulter (who is pretty much the focus of who I am talking about when I say “those people”), is that they really have nothing to add, other than their bitchy, and often hate-driven, rants and raves about stuff they do or don’t agree with. While I am all for someone stating their opinions on something, I just don’t think people that always have something completely off the wall, totally negative, completely untrue, and often batshit crazy to say, should continually be given any of the public’s attention. These people are often not very intelligent, they often make claims that are untrue, they usually base things on their own personal beliefs rather than the truth, and they often speak about things in the past that didn’t happen, or in cases where they state that they did, they tend to add or subtract facts as necessary to “prove their points”. Ann Coulter is an easy one to call out for this, because she does all of the above effortlessly; yet, she continues to remain popular among conservatives, regardless of the fact that she is just an ignorant loud mouth. What I wonder, is how people like her have managed to place themselves firmly in the media, and continually pop up with their opinions; whether they are wanted or not. I ask, because if it is so easy for people like her to go out and spread their stupidity, why can’t other people, like me, go out and do the same thing (except, I wouldn’t spread stupidity… she’s already got that covered)? Why can’t I just go around calling Bush a fucking idiot all of the time, and have ABC news eat it up? Why can’t I get on c-span, giving a speech all about how Cheney is actually Satan, and say that he is causing global warming so that the earth will be warmer and more comfortable for him and his other demons? Because that is pretty much what Ann Coulter, and others like her do over and over again.

Now, I do understand, and fully agree, that when Ann Coulter, Jerry Falwell, Zell Miller, and the other people I am referring to in this post, open their mouths, they almost always say something completely daft and void of any fact or relevance to anyone other than themselves, and most of what they say can be completely laughed at or ignored; I wonder why so many others still listen to them long enough, to give them more and more forum to spread around their nonsense. There are very few people that I can think of that are at the polar opposite side of these types of people and continue to garner significant attention from the media; and I for one, would like to at least see the playing field levelled, if we can’t get rid of the Coulters of the world.

If Ann Coulter can go around using the F word, while in the same breath exclaiming that she is not anti-gay, and then in her next breath, reinforce stereotypes about gays in her reasoning, while still pointing out gay marriage is an abomination; why can’t there be public figures that bash her and those that are like her, in the way she bashes everyone she doesn’t agree with? I am all for free speech, but just about anything that comes out of her, and her fellow crazies mouth’s, shouldn’t be making its way to c-span, the front page of any paper, and certainly not a book shelf. I guess I just see an inequity when it comes to loud mouthed conservatives, whose messages seem to reach a wider audience, and liberal minded people that don’t slander people to get their views across being represented similarly. I know that many of you will think, “well, the media focuses on scandal, and those people provide it”, but shouldn’t we stop listening to those people if most of what they are doing is spreading hate and ignorance?

I know that there will be at least two people that disagree with me on this, but I don’t care, because this is how I see it. Frankly, I think that if people can really love those like Ann Coulter and Jerry Falwell so much, and think that they deserve the right to spread their hateful nonsense all over the front page, then they should have no problem realizing that those people, in many ways, represents the “conservative” views of the party they belong to. By allowing them to continue on their rampages in the name of the conservative Republican party, it solidifies my belief, and the belief of many others, that many conservatives really are hateful crazies. Getting them to shut the fuck up might actually work to the conservative advantage, in my opinion.

flickr, movie musings, photography, the catch-all-egory

zodiac and a new lens

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So last night, we went with Barry and Rebekah to check out the newest Jake Gyllenhaal flick, Zodiac. For those of you that know me, know that I love all things Gyllenhaal (Maggie included!), so there was no way I was going to be able to wait for this movie to make its way to DVD. So, I braved the Friday night movie crowds (those of you that know me well, know that I HATE going to the movies on opening night… crowds make me angry), and we managed to have no problem sitting together, thanks to Daniel and Andrew meeting us at the movie, and saving us four chairs. Score!! So just before the movie, when we were eating dinner, Barry mentions that the movie is 2 hours and 40 minutes long… uh, I wasn’t expecting that, but nevertheless, I was excited to see a new Gyllenhaal movie. So we made our way into the theater, settled in, and watched Zodiac. While it definitely was a long movie (seriously, almost 3 hours long, remember!), it was actually really good. There was lots of “thriller” moments, and there was actually a bunch of surprisingly vivid violence in the recreation of the Zodiac’s killings. It really captured the hysteria of the time, being that a mass murderer was just out there killing people, and no one knew who he was or where to look for him. Surprisingly, there was actually quite a bit of humor in the movie, which cut the suspense very nicely. Most of that came from Robert Downey Jr., which was nice and welcome in this serious movie. It was also cool how they followed the reporters and the police as they worked to try and uncover who the killer was before he killed again. Eventually, the police give up, and Jake’s character takes it upon himself to find out who Zodiac is years later, while writing a book about him. Overall, I really liked the movie, and I will definitely get it for our collection when it hits DVD. The only thing that I didn’t really like (even though it was totally necessary), was the continual splicing together of scenes labeled with how much later they were than the previous scene (i.e., 2 months later…). They did that A LOT in the film, and it was a little distracting, but overall, I really liked it. I’ll give it a five out of six (); perhaps another viewing will make that go up, because I get distracted in the theater sometimes, and all that time jumping plus the almost 3 hour movie proved to be a little distracting. Either way, that’s what I thought, now you go see it! [picture from iheartjakemedia.com]

drinks anyone?Other than that, I am completely reeling over my newest purchase; I got a new (very inexpensive) lens for my camera. The lens is a 50mm f1.8, which is awesome, because it has a wicked aperture, allowing me to do awesome DOF things. I am in love with it. I messed around a little yesterday, and got some pretty great pictures. I look forward to learning more and more about it, and hopefully, I will just get better with time. To the right is one of the pictures that I took yesterday (if you want to see it bigger, click on it, and it will take you to the flickr page). What do you think? (you can see the rest on my flickr page) I am impressed with how well this camera handles, and the impressive pictures that come out of it. YAY great purchase!

I hope that everyone is having a great weekend, and relaxing accordingly. We are going to have a rousing Wii Boxing game this afternoon as our workout, and then hang out with friends tonight and tomorrow night. God, weekends are the best. I wish they lasted longer!!!

blog on blog, flickr, the catch-all-egory

fruity friday

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mix-‘n-match, originally uploaded by duanecmoody.

Hope everyone is having a great end of the week day. I am having some pain in my leg, but other than that… no worries. I thought the fruit was a great way to brighten the day, no?

I am having a hard time dealing with mundane, repetitive tasks today, but then, at least I am getting stuff done, right? I will be happy when it is completed!

Last night, I was up very late, because I got really into updating my dvd library pages and whatnot. I am going to try and get all of my html files into wordpress, mainly because it is much easier to update that way. I do wonder, though, if anyone actually reads that stuff; other than to poke fun at it, that is. Oh well, I love the organization, so I guess it doesn’t really matter, now does it?

What does everyone have planned for this weekend? I am torn between things to do tonight, and I might have to make a choice for the one that I wasn’t planning on, but would make someone else very happy. I am fine with that, though; I just don’t want to let others down. Tomorrow should be relaxing, and I think that I am going to try and come up with new photo ideas… Anyone want to go on a photostroll?

Also, I am loving Lily Allen and Kellie Pickler today; talk about opposites. I am going to see Lily at the Loft on Monday, March 19th if anyone wants to come… we have a little group going, and I think it will be a blast. Oh well, let me know! That’s all for today!

mixed media, music musings

two boys named matt

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Well, close enough anyway; one of them has two T’s, and other one only one in his name. But that doesn’t really matter.

I have been in a rock mood lately, and I was lucky enough to stumble on two great CDs that I had to share with you; after all, I like sharing music when it’s good. I encourage everyone else to do the same. I know I appreciate finding new music, and definitely appreciate hearing about it from others as well. Now, onto the music.

The first CD, Nothing Left To Lose, is the second CD by Mat Kearney (obviously the one with only one T). I discovered him by randomly seeing his video for the song “Nothing Left To Lose”, and I loved the song enough to snag the CD. And after a few listens, I can say that I am in love with it. I love his voice, because it is soft and sweet to the ears; all the while maintaining a worn, harder undertone. He sounds a lot (vocally, that is) like a mix between Chris Martin from Coldplay, and Adam Duritz from The Counting Crows; but has a little bit of that hip-hop funk Jason Mraz likes to throw down (without the cockiness). His sound is sort of light pop-rock, but sometimes has an interesting blend of folk sounds with some hip-hop beats and rap-lite singing. The whole CD is definitely a good listen, and is one that I find myself craving a lot lately. A few of the songs are so infectious, I find myself waking up with them in my head. With the initial praise aside, I must say that the more hip-hop oriented songs were harder for me to get into, but after listening to this CD over and over for a few days now (I told you I loved it), I am digging the whole disc, start to finish. I was hooked on “Nothing Left To Lose”, and have been reeled into the rest, because, well, the CD is damn good start to finish. It also doesn’t hurt, that when I listen to his beautiful voice, I have a mental image of his beautiful face, and I just imagine that he is singing to me (*swoon*). All hail the hotness that is Mat Kearney; beautiful face, beautiful voice, and a great singer/songwriter to boot. I will have to see him when he comes to Atlanta, for sure. I am also going to have to pick up his first, more independent CD, because if this is his sophomore effort, who knows what gems may be on that one. I hope he gains more momentum, and gets a lot more attention, because unlike many artists today, he actually deserves it; and this CD deserves the full six out of six stars (). Standouts: Nothing Left to Lose, Undeniable (this will get stuck in your head!!!), In The Middle, and the beautiful, What’s a Boy To Do (probably my favorite).

Another CD that I have been spinning lately, is the new disc by Matt Wertz, titled Everything In Between. Since I reviewed the other Mat’s CD, I will start by saying that this Matt’s sound is a little like Mat Kearney’s sound, but without the hip-hop stuff. Also he definitely has more of a Mark Broussard quality to his music, as it is pretty upbeat, somewhat jazzy-poppy-rock (and even a pinch of country), and fun to listen to. He definitely uses more of a jazzy-rock influence to his stuff, and manages to create a mature pop-rock vibe with his stuff. There is a lot of guitar, mandolin, organ, and other great sounds on th CD, and his voice is extremely pleasant to listen to. For whatever reason, he really reminds me of someone, but I can’t put my finger on exactly who it is… I would say that he is probably a little bit Bebo Norman, Stephan Jenkins (of Third Eye Blind), and maybe a little bit of a less emphatic Gavin DeGraw; but not necessarily all of those things rolled into one. Either way, I love the slight raspyness of his voice, which really makes for some great songs on this disc. It is a little bit more rock-y than the other Mat, and definitely more pop, but that isn’t a negative thing at all. The whole CD is a good listen, and I like the ballads just as much as I like the upbeat stuff. Interestingly enough, I checked him out on allmusic.com, and he lists Jars of Clay as one of his influences, and he even started out by touring with them, doing Young Life concerts and whatnot. I find this extremely interesting, to say the least, because Jars have always been one of my favorite bands. Even though he got his start at religious concerts, I don’t think that he is a Christian singer, as he really doesn’t say anything about religion in any of his songs on this record, and, he doesn’t say one way or another on his website. Well, not that his religiousness really matters to me at all, I just thought the close connection to one of my favorite bands was definitely interesting. Overall, I liked this CD right from the first listen, and while I definitely like every song, for whatever reason, I’m going to give it a five out of six stars (); but not because there is anything about it I don’t like, it is mainly because there are CDs that I love, and this one falls just shy of that love. Either way, no need to split hairs, because it’s definitely good, and I am glad I discovered it. Standouts: I Will Not Take My Love, With You Tonight, Capitol City, and Carolina.