Thanks, Paul Gilbert, for making me think of this more than I already do.

When Kevin and Liesl got married last fall, I asked Kevin if he wanted to come to the Sidewalk Scramble after-party for a bit. Their plane for the honeymoon left late enough the next day, and he had been involved in the Scramble entry, so he had mentioned that it might be doable, post-wedding. And what he said — more specifically, the sincerity in his eyes that underlined the words — will stick with me forever.

“No – I think I just want to go home and be alone with my wife for a while.”

I have been loved a loot in my life. More than I deserve, certainly — more than any one person should ever be loved in one lifetime, possibly.

I have loved a lot. Without confining it, perhaps it might be described as shallow love, infatuation, obsession with an idea. “Was it love / or was it the idea of being in love?” (Thanks, David Gilmour)

What I dream of is feeling what Kevin felt, long after the roller coaster has stopped.

Alternately titled: Most Unlike a Blackberry Souffle

THE DOVES: new york (acoustic)
COLDPLAY: speed of sound
DAVID WEST: goodbye blue sky (from PICKIN’ ON PINK FLOYD: A BLUEGRASS TRIBUTE)
exit music (for a film) (from STRUNG ON ON OK COMPUTER: THE STRING QUARTET TRIBUTE TO RADIOHEAD)
XTC: your dictionary
EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL: good cop/bad cop
CRASH TEST DUMMIES: a worm’s life
SNAKE RIVER CONSPIRACY: how soon is now?
BUTCH WALKER: joan
HARVEY DANGER: problems and bigger ones
SUZANNE VEGA: queen and the soldier
CATHERINE WHEEL: delicious
JOSEPH ARTHUR: you are the dark
JEFF BUCKLEY: nightmares by the sea
EELS: restraining order blues
GOMEZ: tijuana lady
MASSIVE ATTACK: what your soul sings
TOM WAITS: the piano has been drinking (not me)

Burn it, build your own backstory, and hit the road in late afternoon. Feel like I feel. Thank me later.

Entertainment Weekly’s EW.com | Movie Review: Crash: “Role for role, the acting is superb, and the cinematography is strong, with a stylistic emphasis on blur and confusion interrupted by knife-carved incidents of prejudice and consequence (aurally stitched by Mark Isham’s anxious electronic score)”

Quite possibly one of the strongest movies that I’ve ever seen. Perhaps largely because this one came out of nowhere — there was no hype that I was aware of, and going in I had very little idea what the movie was about — but it completely and utterly exceded anything I had hoped for in a Saturday afternoon showing.

There was nothing wrong with this film. More importantly, the acting, editing, score, and cinematography — oh, man, the cinematography — were fucking BRILLIANT. Paul Haggis inspired me today, showing that a truly great film across all levels can still be made and find and audience.

Drive down the road from the theater toward the steakhouse, an old CD playing too loudly on the soon-to-be-replaced stereo. The sun is at the perfect place in the sky, behind me and to the left, not so low as to be in a mirror, casting a cool light over the late afternoon. Almost sunset, May, unseasonably cool, exactly how I wish for it, and I feel like I’m in another town, far away,

The movie was wonderful, a perfect beginning to my Saturday, a perfect extension of a beautiful Friday leading to a Sunday with potential. And this is the perfect moment, find the center and snapshot for later nostalgia.

Regarding the past few days and weeks and months; regarding the last thirty-odd years:

I am confused, and perplexed, and intrigued, and just as unsurprised to find that theories about the way the universe works have more evidence to substanitate them.

I am hopeful, perhaps too much so given past hopes and moments of excitement, that perhaps I was wrong about so many important things, important to me, not wrong as much as wrong to doubt.

I am in awe of the paths that the universe lays out, and how they cross.

I wonder if we find evidence to fit our theories, ignoring that which doesn’t — the theory in question being that the universe unfolds as it will, and that everything happens in its own time, for reason — or if I just question too much, if I am too skeptical for my own good. It’s difficult for me to take things at face value.

I was told last night that I am one of the smartest people that she’s knows, and that’s quite the compliment. It didn’t quite click last night, but this afternoon it really struck me. And it falls into place given another conversation snippet, regarding context. A statement that the sentiment of a compliment given is not necessarily equal to the sentiment of a compliment received, and from my perspective, it’s so important and relevant to consider the source of the compliment.

I am told that the greatest gift you can ever give a woman is the jealousy of her friends.

I believe in kindred spirits, and a right and just universe, and breaking promises of self, and that perspective defines good and bad.

“The people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect – simply a confession of failures.”

-Oscar Wilde

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sibling Nail Gun of Desirable Mindfulness.

Get yours.

Ces Marculiano is a brilliant cartoonist. His blog is great, his comics are funny, and he’s a really good guy married to a really great gal.

Go. Read. Laugh until you vomit.

Shameless stolen from Warrenellis.com: “A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it�s actually the far less ominous 616.

The new fragment from the Book of Revelation, written in ancient Greek and dating from the late third century, is part of a hoard of previously unintelligible manuscripts discovered in historic dumps outside Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Now a team of expert classicists, using new photographic techniques, are finally deciphering the original writing.

Professor David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Paleography at the University of Birmingham, thinks that 616, although less memorable than 666, is the original. He said: �This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people�s names. Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula.�

�satanists responded coolly to the new �Revelation’. Peter Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan, based in New York, said: �By using 666 we�re using something that the Christians fear. Mind you, if they do switch to 616 being the number of the beast then we�ll start using that.�”

(Stolen from Warren since the source is not opensource)

(Does anyone hear the sound of air escaping slowly from a pinprick in a billion Christian conspiracy theories?)

It’s Xbox. It’s an RPG. It’s set in the East. It’s made by Bioware, makers of the best RPG engine and games EVER.

Why haven’t I bought it yet? Good question. Damned fine question.

Oh, and the website is incredibly well put together. The best use of Flash technology that I’ve yet seen — unobtrusive and not unnecessarily blingy.