9rules Commentary Community

Sunday Roast: I can’t believe I left a nuclear bomb in an elevator

Sun, 11 May 2008 11:55:55 +0000

Hello again people. I hope you are enjoying the sunshine as much as I am right now. Ah, the joys of spending the evening sitting in a beer garden, or the afternoon at the marina having a BBQ - which, by the way, was where I was last week, hence no Roast. Which gives us oodles to go through this week! Before I go any further though, how many of you wonder at the titles each week? A conversation the other week led me to realise that perhaps people were reading a bit too much into them. When a guy opens a conversation with “so tell me about what happened when you picked a guy up in a cemetery?!” it tends to throw you slightly, till you work out he is referring to a roast title from a few months back. Yes, it says something about my circle of friends that he was willing to...

Weekend Block

Sun, 11 May 2008 04:33:13 +0000

You have so many things that you have to do right now. You have so much to tell the world. You have so many words to pick and choose from. Then all you can comes to mind are the fleeting thoughts of a good idea that you forget as soon as you think about it. It's just one of those days that go nowhere no matter how much you try. So why bother? It's too good a lazy weekend to waste on that much brain matter. Especially when it feels like it was trying to escape from your head. What I need is a tall order of martini and a balcony to drink it on. Failing that, there is always a good book and a bed to sink yourself in. I know you know where I'm coming from. ---Here are some more related posts for your reading pleasure:

Presque vu LVI

Sun, 11 May 2008 03:01:34 +0000

This from PEN World Voices: Rushdie, Eco, and Vargas Llosa by Dorothy W. at Metaxu Cafe: Then Lopate asked a couple questions solicited on index cards from the audience; the first question, asking the writers to describe their writing methods, got only boos from the audience because of its banality, and I was delighted to see Richard Ford yell out �

Upcoming Journalistic Events

Sat, 10 May 2008 17:41:57 +0000

I’ve got several things cooking right now that readers can look forward to in the coming weeks. 1. I’m writing a review for the New York Post of the new book from Richard Engel titled War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq. The book will be released on June 3, 2008. The review will be published in both the printed and online versions of the paper. I’ll save my comments for the review, but I will reveal that I think this book is worth reading if you are interested in the history of the war in Iraq. 2. I’m writing a two part article on fitness for Primer, an up and coming online magazine. The magazine is targeted at the young professional audience, somewhere between Maxim and GQ. I think it’s a great idea and I look forward to contributing. My first article will...

half the battle

Sat, 10 May 2008 16:42:19 +0000

I was ten, maybe eleven years old, when I read The Stand for the first time. I’d been on a Stephen King kick since the babysitter, tired of dealing with my shit, sent my seven-year-old self to the bedroom with her copy of It. It didn’t scare me; I’d expected it to, but it didn’t. The Stand, on the other hand, scared the crap out of me. Even at seven I could tell the difference between implausible horror and very, very plausible horror. Movies about blade-fingered killers didn’t scare me. But after The Stand I read The Andromeda Strain, and that scared the crap out of me, too. Stories about mankind and where we’ve been are interesting to me. But the stories about where we’re going, and how we might not make it to where we’d like to be, are...

A Book To Change Your Life

Sat, 10 May 2008 03:17:25 +0000

A panel at the PEN World Voices session came up with the following titles: Antonio Muñoz Molina: Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner Catherine Millet: The Lily of the Valley by Honoré de Balzac Yousef al-Mohaimeed: first the Arabian Nights, then poetry (including haikus), and then, of all things Nikos Kazantzakis Zorba the Greek Olivier Rolin: Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry Annie Proulx: Before Adam by Jack London The surrounding circumstances and reasons for the choices were, of course, as interesting as the selections: Proulx discovering the obscure London as a seven-year-old child, or Yousef al-Mohaimeed listening to his sister read from the Arabian Nights (which seems almost too clichéd�

Balcezak

Sat, 10 May 2008 02:12:48 +0000

I am both grateful that I checked my blog stats and looked at the Search Terms stats - and profoundly sad at the same time. While I have heard some people put forth the claim that the internet is not truly growing larger anymore, but instead, is fragmenting off into specialist areas, today I was forcibly reminded that the internet is still growing larger and that it has shrunk our world considerably. One hundred years ago, if you moved some thousand or more miles from your home town, you would be hard pressed to hear any news of anyone you...

Check out the rest of the article @ Red Monkey (c) 2005-2008

but neil sedaka is headlining

Fri, 09 May 2008 22:47:57 +0000

G.: fuckin artfest J.: what is it G.: they want their eighty-page festival program by monday G.: fuckers J.: fuck them J.: nobody goes to artfest G.: haha G.: not only that but i am completely redesigning it so it’s like — fuuuck J.: tell them you demand to see ticket sales numbers first G.: shitbag, it’s like 350,000 people J.: because i swear you’re gonna be busting your ass for like seven people and a dog G.: haha G.: HAHAH! G.: ‘and a dog’ G.: man G.: fuck

I yam what I yam

Fri, 09 May 2008 12:45:32 +0000

Sierra’s ready for her nine-month pictures tomorrow, so I thought I’d bring back one of the most popular six-month pictures (at least with my family) for Sierra Picture Day: the Speedo cap, Popeye look. Spinach, please.

Doodle Daze

Fri, 09 May 2008 12:23:33 +0000

So, quiet week, eh? Perhaps on the blog, but certainly not life this week! I had another job interview Monday - my favourite kind, we talked for a bit and then Tuesday, I was emailed an assignment to complete. The catch was I had 48 hours to design, cut, and code a website of approximately four pages. They wanted to see creativity, use of colour, movement and sound. In 48 hours. Design a site look, cut the images apart and optimize them. Build at least one Flash piece - design, code. Put Flash into a page. Code all the pages. Write a...

Check out the rest of the article @ Red Monkey (c) 2005-2008

It’s 6AM: Start to Run

Fri, 09 May 2008 07:25:48 +0000

It began this morning. I’d long wanted to do it, but I needed some added input and motivation. And now it’s actually happened. At six a.m. I got up, changed into my new running gear (shoes, trousers, tee and stopwatch) and headed out the door for the first stage of my freshly-downloaded running program. It’s called Start to Run and has been rather popular recently. It begins with a mere 9 minutes of running spread over 18, and promises to have me doing 5 kms in 10 weeks. I’ve no idea if this is a lot, or in a reasonable period of time, but I’m excited to get at it. This morning went well, the will and urge are there, what could go wrong? If you’d like to try it, I translated and put up a PDF of the schedule. Or, maybe you’re more experienced...

The Blank Page by KC Constantine

Fri, 09 May 2008 05:08:53 +0000

Mario Balzic is the Police Chief of Rocksburg, a town in Pennsylvania where the mills have closed and the mines shut down. In this 1974 novel, as in other novels in the series, the Chief lives with his wife Ruth, their two daughters, and Balzic’s elderly mother. It had taken years for the hedges to grow as thick as they had, but it had only been in the last few years that Balzic felt he could loaf in peace without hearing later on from God knew who about how he stood around with his hands in his pockets when he should have been out rounding up the beasties and nasties and things that went bump. The neighbours, Balzic snorted thoughtfully. He had to ask himsdelf what their names were. He couldn’t think of it. Yurkowski, Yurhoska, something like that. Good solid squares,...

I Need Another Job

Thu, 08 May 2008 16:30:08 +0000

So you have a cool and rewarding job and new-found love and things are going swell �

When The Best Part Of Love Isn’t Love

Thu, 08 May 2008 10:34:29 +0000

"You know, now that we're apart, ironically it feels like we're doing everything together." "That's because we spend so much time cuddling and hugging before that we didn't have time to do anything else." The thing about love and relationships is that the best part of it isn't always the cloud 9 moments when you're floating in the air with someone you love. The best parts of a relationship is when a normal day you've gone through is appreciated by that someone rather than just shared. Maybe that's because a long time ago, there used to be this little boy who always believe that being with someone meant that you're doing things for them just as they would be doing things for you. But experiences along the way taught that little boy that you...

First Person Art

Thu, 08 May 2008 08:00:59 +0000

This week had us gawking at art and photography that put us in places far away — magical, funny, troubling. First Person Soccer - super visceral ad by Guy Ritchie (Mr. Madonna, Lock Stock) makes you the soccer star First Person Parkour - graphically beautiful game puts you in the head (and in control) of a free running master (find out how it works at Edge) First/Third Splitscreen - Radiohead goes activist with a video that thoughtfully compares a kid’s life in the first and third world. Kudos to MTV Exit Subway Culture Jam - mystery editing of NYC subway ads results in fall down hilarity Massive Moving Wall - Beijing’s GreenPix gets in your face with is a huge, gorgeous media wall that has zero carbon footprint Where the Mekong Die - Suthep Kritsanavarin captures...

Gary Snyder

Thu, 08 May 2008 03:56:35 +0000

American poet, Gary Snyder was recently awarded the Ruth Lilly Prize - a $100,000 lifetime achievement award. This is one of his poems: For a Stone Girl at Sanchi half asleep on the cold grass night rain flicking the maples under a black bowl upside-down on a flat land on a wobbling speck smaller than stars, space, the size of a seed, hollow as bird skulls. light flies across it –never is seen. a big rock weatherd funny, old tree trunks turnd stone, split rocks and find clams. all that time loving; two flesh persons changing, clung to, doorframes notions, spear-hafts in a rubble of years. touching, this dream pops. it was real: and it lasted forever....

rich man bored man

Wed, 07 May 2008 23:18:16 +0000

“I haven’t received any offers on Barry since he became a free agent,” said (Barry) Bonds’ agent, Jeff Borris. (Source) So, you know, naturally, the owners are conspiring against baseball’s grand poobah. That’s the obvious conclusion, right? All of this seems to follow the release of Frank Thomas by the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays dropped Thomas on his ass because he wasn’t hitting, and they wanted to give his spot to other players who might be able to carry their fair share. Speculation grew from there — if the Jays didn’t have a DH, wouldn’t that mean they needed one? Wouldn’t they want the most powerful one? Wouldn’t they want the Queen hisself? Then Oakland picked up Thomas’s contract, and suddenly the...

Web 2.point.Mac: Developing software on Apple computers

Wed, 07 May 2008 22:13:56 +0000

There seem to be some misconceptions about Apple computers. Some of the common questions that come up, at least when thinking about for-University laptops, are along the lines of “Will I be able to write programs on a MacBook?” and “I thought Macs were just for arts…”. I will try to challenge that view. Note: This is not a OS X vs. Windows vs. Linux argument. There are plenty of those just about everywhere else. If you really feel like repeating any of the arguments that have already been mentioned many times before — try the forums instead. The use of Apple computers among the software developers is actually quite common. And with a plethora office snapshots available on Flickr, this calls for a visual case study! Adobe Original photo by:...

What I’ve Been Reading – April 2008

Wed, 07 May 2008 17:24:32 +0000

Books Acquired: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn �

Rebooting My RSS Reader

Wed, 07 May 2008 11:36:37 +0000

I’m starting to feel “not-so-fresh,” you know? Starting to feel the bloat, starting to feel the… well, you know. It’s that time of the month. Or year. Whatever. Time for me to update my RSS reader, eliminate some of the feeds gathering unread posts like dust on my monitor and add in some new, fresh bits. Mostly eliminating old feeds, since I have something like… well, hell, I’ve lost count. But there are a lot, some of which no longer interest me (I’ve moved on), and others which simply haven’t updated in forever and a half. It should be noted that, to me, not updating for a while is fine. In fact,the world would be a better place if people only spoke when they actually had something to say. But do your readers a favor and tell us...