Loved this…

Not Me Uncle Sam

So I’m new to this whole paying taxes thing, right? Last year I went the H&R Block route and this year… Well, I went the “Oh shit, today’s the 14th?” at 9PM route. So I went to that TurboTax.com because, you know, it’s on the radio so it has to be cool. And it was cool. Pretty fast. To the point.

That and well, it got me a pretty handy dandy “hefty” return from Uncle Sam. But then it did the damnedest thing… After it was all said and done and I was pretty happy it charged me $9.95. What a fucker. But by then who cares? It’s midnight. So I paid the $9.95, watched another episode of Smallville and went to bed.

But anyway, I got my money back thanks to being a student. Next year…oh boy, I may have to flee the fucking country.

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Why Macs belong in every Office

We recently had a company meeting regarding employee tardiness.  (Guilty!)  It resulted in an agreement that we’d all be at our desks, ready to start the day at 9:00:00 AM PST sharp.  No if’s, and’s, but’s, traffic or death in the family’s about it.  9AM.  That’s the law.

And so I try my best.  But I’ve got two roommates and one bathroom in the morning.  And we all work locally, starting at 9.  So when the clock hits 7:45 it’s a war-zone.  Slicing razors, dropping bombs and battle cries–It’s every man for himself.  I’m the small guy so I always lose.

I make it to my territory at about 8:20.  That gives me 25 minutes to be walking out the door at 8:45 to make it to work by 8:58AM.  Except today, somewhere between the shampoo and the conditioner I lost 10 minutes and didn’t get into the office until 9:07.  But I was able to sneak in quietly through the office kitchen.  I make it to my desk unnoticed, steal someone’s cup of coffee and sit down and stare at my beautiful white G5.

So I shake my mouse but my screen doesn’t turn on.  I must have shut it down the night before.  Oh well, I turn it on and lean back in my seat.  9:09AM.

-DING-

My Mac purrs, announcing my nine minutes of tardiness to the world.  Alas, she was a spy all along.  I was almost in love.

-Lex

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

==–
“Hey Lex, what’s the server call to return a friend’s list?”
“Hey Lex, should the meta data be on this loading screen?”
“Hey Lex, can you send me the Communications PRD?”
“Hey Lex, make sure the Mobile Velocity team has the documentation for development. And are you still managing the BREW, J2ME and Symbian projects?”

Say what? I don’t know what happened between now and then but just five months ago I didn’t know cell phones had operating systems. I was too busy driving across the country every other week, going to Burning Man festivals, meeting random girls and sharing a two-bedroom apartment with four of my college buddies. Now, I live in a house with a guy who’s about to be married, have two dogs, have gotten a promotion, pay TAXES and have medical, life and dental insurance. Who the heck do I think I am? And where did this all come from. What’s more, what happened to that nice guy with no temper that partied hard and wrote screenplays in the dark? Because today, I yell at co-workers on a whisper’s whim, forgot what a party looked like and couldn’t tell you what Final Draft is supposed to be used for if my life depended on it.

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that whatever you plan in life, forget it! In fact, whatever you DON’T want to do, plan on doing it and it won’t happen. There are too many paths in life to pick just one. As long as I’m happy, I guess I’m where and who I’m supposed to be. . . Right?
-Lex

Time and Time Again…

I know that time moves faster, perspectively, the older we get. But it bothers me now because it feels as if time is moving at the speed of light.

I’ve recently thought back on things that feel so fresh in my memory that I can still feel them, smell them… But when I stamp a time on any of them–it turns out to have occurred long ago. Many months had already passed since that moment. And I have to beg the question, “How? Where did that time go? And why does six months feel like two?”

It leaves me in this strange predicament. I can’t determine, (if I could exist in the perfect existence), whether I’d want time to be a controlled variable or if I’d simply want the ability to observe, appreciate and take in more things than I can now with the time I’m given. But I do know one thing. As much as I love my life. As much as I love my friends. As much as I love my job. I’ve been through a lot of changes within the last few months (years, really) and it doesn’t feel quite as wonderful as one may like to think.

I love you. — Lex

I wonder if anyone noticed that every paragraph in this entry began with an “I”.

My Life as a Rose

So, I’ve been thinking about this flower for a long time. Thinking about it long and hard. And I can’t determine if flowers are smart or fortunate. Highly intelligent in choosing their life form if they had a choice in it. But really, I guess we all had something of a choice in how we decided to interpret reality. Right?

What is it that humans fear most?

Change. Think about it. Humans fear change the most out of anything. In the morning when you wake, it’s uncomfortable because you don’t want to move. Infants cry during birth because the change is so incredibly dramatic. People fear death because besides birth, it is the most drastic change we can interpret. No one knows what death brings and yet it is so terribly feared by many because of the change. From living, to not living. From singing to silence.

You could say that many people desire change. But I’d say that people want to be changed but don’t ever want to be changing. They want new conditions, but the process is uncomfortable, unsettling, difficult. What we truly want is to find a good moment, freeze and be that way forever.

But time moves on. Hearts are broken. Hearts are healed. Things change. People die. And people are born.

The thing we fear most is constantly haunting us and the thing we want most is an impossible reach to obtain. All we can do is enjoy the tragic adventure. Because we’re alive, right? We might as well live!

But flowers… Oh flowers have it. Their change is slight. Their change is absolute. They grow into themselves, become beautiful and stay put until death. Their roots dig deep into the earth and claim their territory, their space and their time in the world. They are the most consistent creatures in existence. And yet, they can still communicate. They can still procreate. They can still live admirably in an ever-changing world. They aren’t distracted by each another. They get what life is about long before any man does, if any man ever does. The flowers, they have time to consider it. And they live. And then they die.

And no, I’ve never once seen a flower cry at death or scream in sadness. No, not once. Not ever.

Which brings me to my next point. Flowers are engineered one way, we’re engineered another way. The thought struck me as my alarm went off the other day. “I can’t possibly have heard the alarm as it went off. I can’t possibly see things as they are happening.”

Not only does sound and light take time to travel, but the brain has to take some amount of time to process and interpret the information it’s receiving…right? So no matter what we do, because our brains are not constant we are constantly living in the past because we are intrinsically blind to the present.

Which brings up my final point. Our brain interprets the information we accept as our reality. But what about the information it cannot interpret? What about the information our brains are not designed to understand? What are we living ignorant to, amongst?

We don’t know anything but what we do know! Which comparably to all the knowledge in the universe draws terribly near to zero’s limit.

I’ll end with a quote from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead:

“Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death?
There must have been one, a moment, in childhood,
when it first occurred to you that you don’t go on forever.
It must have been shattering, stamped into one’s memory.
And yet I can’t remember it. It never occurred to me at all.
We must be born with an intuition of mortality.
Before we know the word for it, before we know that there are words,
out we come, bloodied and squalling…
with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass,
there’s only one direction and time is its only measure.”

Who Am I?

My friend asked me what came to mind when people thought of her. What type of person, what type of feeling do we get when we think of her? And I told her what I thought and how I felt. But then I thought about it more and said that everyone’s opinion would be different and I’m partial so she should take it with a grain of salt. Even if some of us said the same thing, those very same words mean different things to each of us. She agreed. And it ended disquietingly there. It wasn’t until later that I started to think about it again. What a strange concept! Everyone’s impression/opinion of you is based off of their instinct, experience and memory of you. These combined create your essence to them. And everyone’s is different. That said you wear a new mask for everyone you’ve ever met or will ever meet. You are 1 million versions of yourself to 1 million different people at the same time and no two versions the same.

So then who are you? To everyone else you are true in their mind. But in everyone’s separate mind you are true differently. And if two truth’s are different, how can that work? Perhaps the truth is that one person cannot hold the truth independently and that truth is the collection of everyone’s experience of you from beginning to end. But if that’s so, then it’s a lonely thought because it means that no one person can ever know you truly, only partially. And even if this is the case, what mind is supreme enough to collect all of these truths and realize you for you–head to toe, soul to spirit? And if there isn’t one, does this mean that you will never been fully known?

Perhaps it means that only you are capable of knowing yourself truly. But then the odds are against you because in the grand scheme of it all, you’re only one of millions that know you or have experienced you. And I’m inclined to say that none of us know ourselves absolutely because we’ve never experienced ourselves the way others have the privilege of experiencing us. And that itself is a terrifying thought because if it is true it may very well mean that we ourselves know our true selves the least out of everyone we know.

So then who knows? “Not I,” said the cat.

Rocket Science

Oscar Award winner Jeffrey Blitz brings an intensely personal story to the screen with Rocket Science (2007), a film based on his life that swept the crowds at Sundance and is bound to further win over nationwide audiences upon its August 11th release. The film captivates the heart and brings the viewer along for the not-quite-so-typical coming of age story of Jeffrey Blitz in disguise as Hal Hefner on screen.
It cannot be stressed enough how incredibly refreshing it is to see a writer/director allow so much of himself to be exposed to the public eye. And it is an intensely wonderful experience to see something real and less Hollywood formulaic on the screen. Jeffrey Blitz has a lot of himself to share and an incredibly wonderful eye for style, talent and a great understanding of the human condition.

From extras to the socially awkward, speech stumbling lead Hal Hefner, Blitz’s characters are fantastically original and memorable. It would seem impossible to keep an audience’s attention with a stuttering lead but his character was so strong, so unique and so endearing it becomes a rather engaging experience, especially as the audience is taken with him on his journey to win 1st place at State on his high school’s debate team. Yes, indeed, this boy with a horrific speech impediment! By the ending of the film, the audience goes through every track of the emotional roller coaster with Hal and every possible awkward moment a person can stand to bear in one theater sitting.

This cannot, however, all be accredited to writer/director Jeffrey Blitz as Canadian actor Reese Thompson’s performance had quite a bit if not just as much to do with it. The brilliance of his performance led the show, pulling in the audience closely and personally. That is absolutely not to discredit the rest of the ensemble, as they too were incredibly well cast, particularly Anna Kendrick playing Ginny Ryerson, Hal Hefner’s ill-fated love interest and eventual semester-long foil. Most unwillingly admit that she becomes the girl everyone hates to love, but somehow do despite the blackness not so deeply buried in her heart.

The visual style and direction can only be related to that of Alexander Payne’s Election (1999). Every corner of this film was preconceived and thoroughly considered from hair and make-up to high angled shots to the steam left on the school bus windows. The dialogue is smart. The cinematography is smart. The editing is smart. It is a very well directed movie that is clearly accepted and can be appreciated by the viewers. It all pops out in a very, very good way.

Blitz is quite successful at making the mundane overtly interesting and has succeeded once again with this piece. Rocket Science, though marketed as a comedy, truly stands in its own genre and leaves the audience with something more than a laugh and couple of jokes to run with. In the end, no raised questions are answered and the heroine doesn’t quite get what he’s sought out because though love shouldn’t be rocket science, it somehow his. But some great things are accomplished in Hal Hefner’s effort; the viewer is somehow left feeling a little less alone in the world. And that accomplishment deserves a slamming high five at the very least. And maybe even a nice, warm pat on the back.

IMDb

Hey, it’s official!

http://imdb.com/name/nm2760431/

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash

In general documentaries tend to argue one side over another. And of course ‘A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash‘ is an opinionated piece. But that is what documentaries do. They bring an under represented issue to attention and cause a stir to get movers and shakers roused up. This documentary does that well. It does not lie to you. It gives you the facts as they are. It is necessary.

And of course it does not strongly argue that there may be potential in finding oil reserves elsewhere. Why would it? That’s not the point. The point is that one day the resources will be depleted. The point is that we are too lazy to care and that one day there will be a ‘peak’. It may not be today and it may not be tomorrow. It may not even happen during our lifetime. But it is simply irresponsible to dismiss the fact that it will happen someday because we are too comfortable to find an alternative to something not affecting us today. But it is impending.

It is time to stop standing idly and embrace knowledge and education. Ignorance is no longer a luxury we can afford. ‘A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash’ is an important film and a must see for everyone.