Archive for the ‘Fun’ Category

I’m So White

Posted 12 Mar 2008 — by nick
Category Blogs, Friends, Fun

Recently Amy brought it to my attention, with the help of this blog, that I am white. Examples of my whiteness: being a vegetarian, running marathons, snowboarding, listening to public radio, a love for indie music, a love for the outdoors, the list goes on and on. Basically reading this blog I feel pretty pegged.

They nailed it today though: Outdoor Performance Clothing.

I walk around with a smile wearing my ARC’TERYX fleece or my Mountain Hardwear conduit softshell, knowing my jackets are super sweet even if others don’t know the logo or the brand and that I paid more for them than you would think reasonable. A grin and kinship sparks when I see another gear nerd sporting their outerwear and we sigh at the frat-boy strutting in his North Face fleece oblivious to the fabric technology and engineering that has gone into his pop culture status symbol.

A related blog, I’ve found pretty hilarious: White Whine, IE things white people whine about.

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Now playing: Snow Patrol – Chocolate
via FoxyTunes

The passage of time

Posted 19 Feb 2008 — by nick
Category coffee, Creation, Fun, Technology

EDIT: Me apologies and deep embarrassment for the inaccuracy of the original post, my Calculus skills are a little rusty these days. This should be correct now as well as including a caffeine variable.

Some days the time seems to pass with exceptional quickness, others with exceptional slowness. Today happens to be one of the latter.

I’m sure the slowness of time relates to how much I’m accomplishing and/or my enjoyment of the time. Maybe something in the form of this:Assuming this as true and that Schrödinger’s Cat lol’d… we’d find the rate at which time passes by a good ol’ derivative WRT time.Thus we see if no accomplishments are made the passage of time is merely constant, however should there be accomplishments made and their enjoyment be negative, time will appear to slow. Conversely when an accomplishment is enjoyed time would appear to move faster and when more caffeine is involved time speeds up.

This might explain why 8 hours at work can pass so slow, but how 8 hours at home can pass so quickly – also why the last 40 minutes I’ve spend working on this post has passed by so quickly. Leading me to conclude, I must accomplish less at work to quicken the rate time passes (assuming it’s a negative enjoyment factor of course).

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Now playing: Death Cab for Cutie – We Looked Like Giants
via FoxyTunes

Dost thou Pisseth Against the Wall?

Posted 10 Feb 2008 — by nick
Category Blogs, Fun, Jesus, Scripture, Videos

I usually avoid posting twice in one day since it can tend to cause posts to get lost as the noise floor of your daily input raises. This post will be brief:

I first saw this video on Walk The Razor, one of Noel Heikkinen‘s blogs and then later on Tall Skinny Kiwi. Can you say viral video?

I laugh when I watch this but later I find it just sad.

Photos: Icy Night

Posted 21 Jan 2008 — by nick
Category Creation, Fun, Photos, Winter

Amy and I took a couple quick shots of the Abbot cooling towers tonight. The cold weather has left them, as well as their surroundings, entombed in ice. I’ll do some editing of the shots and post them up on picasa but for now, here is one that didn’t need much editing:


(I upped the contrast a tad and the exposure a smidge)

Once

Posted 21 Jan 2008 — by nick
Category Friends, Fun, Movies, music

This weekend I had the chance to watch an excellent film, a rarity, the excellent part. Receiving high praise from friends whose musical taste I trust I decided it worth the adventure and rented Once to watch with Amy on Friday night. The film had been sold to me as a musical romance between two budding musicians, complete with a soundtrack begging to be purchased.

You need to see this film.

At first, describing the film as a musical left me uncomfortable. (This can probably be chalked up my general distaste for genre and misunderstanding of how everything is classified as either a “comedy” or “drama”). Thinking about it now, I am more content describing it as a musical. In all honesty, the story is told through the music. The characters lack names yet feel complete enough to be a good friend – we learn about them through their music and bond with them as their pain pours through their voices. After all, isn’t this part of the draw of music, the stories songs tell, the emotions they invoke, their empathy.

In honor of not sharing plot points or ruining the film for others, I’ll end on this note. My enjoyment resides strongly on the amazing soundtrack but also in the themes presented. Watching, I was reminded of the goodness of remaining faithful to commitment, the pain and worthwhileness of forgiving, the beauty of romance and the honor in being a person of moral character.

PS: The film has a low budget or indie film feel due to it’s minuscule budget of $160,000. More interesting back story, including how neither of the main characters are or plan on being professional actors, can be found here on the ever helpful wikipedia.

More Caffeinated Fun

Posted 17 Jan 2008 — by nick
Category coffee, Fun, Jesus, Technology

“This is like turning water into wine!”
~ Josh, my officemate while making our morning pot of coffee.

Strange, I’m actually sort of proud of the fact that I ranked so high in this quiz. I understand my dependancy on the bean juice and I can quit at anytime… really I can, but why would I want to do that :-)?

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Now playing: Chicago Public Radio – #303: David and Goliath
via FoxyTunes

Juno

Posted 10 Jan 2008 — by nick
Category Fun, Movies, music

Last night I had the chance to see Juno at the Champaign Art Theater – the pretentiousness of this theater felt right for this film. Since seeing the film I’ve had the above song in my head and thought I’d share it with you. Time is rather hard to come buy right now so this post isn’t to in depth, I invite you to interact with me about the film via comments or emails or in person. I really enjoyed it.

Playing in the Snow

Posted 16 Dec 2007 — by nick
Category Fun, Light, Photos, Volkswagen, Winter

It snowed pretty good here the past day or so. The weatherman called for 10 inches – seems about right. Playing in the snow so far included shoveling out my car, making a snow angel and taking pictures. Sledding and building a snowman were on my list but I figured I’d wait on those until friends wanted to play too.

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Now playing: Switchfoot – Awakening
via FoxyTunes

How GEEK are you?

Posted 16 Dec 2007 — by nick
Category Fun, Technology

81% Geek

The old Electrical Engineer joke comes to mind, you can’t spell geek without EE.

My Day Is Ruined

Posted 12 Dec 2007 — by nick
Category Fun

I just woke and began my morning routine – checking my reader for new feeds. I scanned a few posts and then saw the new xkcd comic for today.


I’ve been sniped! My brain will be useless all day until I get a handle on that infinite grid of resisters.