Turkey day, this year, was FANTASTIC! The food was phenomonal, and the company even better!  The Merrell clan was nice enough to invite me over for the holiday, seeing as I have no family in the area.  I would have loved to go home, but it’s just too long of a drive for dinner, plus, I’ll be up there for Christmas (God willing).

My sausage dip was a hit (usually is, not bragging, just sayin’), but I think the star of the night was the turkey!  Sometimes, turkey, in my opinion, isn’t all that good, ends up too dry, but this turkey was WONDERFUL!  Stefan had been working on it since the night before, and it paid off! We even had asparagus, which I’d never had at thanksgiving dinner, but it was perfect.  There was the green bean casserole and sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes that are a staple, and did not disappoint.  After dinner, Andrea and I helped the kids decorate a gingerbread house, which was fun.

I put the tree together, and looked fabulous.  Then Emma got hungry..It was a great little activity for the kids, just not something you wanna eat after a 3 year old had his fingers in his mouth and up his nose while touching everything.  I kept making him use “hanitizer” as they called it, but just wasn’t quick enough sometimes LOL.  Then, little Sarah decided she wanted to try some too, which led her to taking the candy off the house, licking the icing off, and putting it back!  After watching her brother just stick his finger in the icing, she realized it was so much easier doing it that way too!  The kids had fun, and we got some good laughs, so it was a win win.

Then, I was introduced to 2 new card games, called Blink and SkipBo.  I couldn’t beat Andrea at Blink, but had slightly better luck ast skipbo…until Emma beat me!  It was all in fun, and I’m glad I now know how to play skipbo.  Last year, my friend, Sarah, bought the game for us to play when we went to her house for Thanksgiving, but couldn’t figure it out.  I think really we were just VERY unmotivated at the time.  It was a lot of fun…and you’d be surprised how much a 6 year old can trash talk!  I was getting looks and her telling me I was goin’ down!  LOL

Andrea was nice enough to send us home with leftovers, which, I think, were better the 2nd time ’round!  And she included a piece of her pumpkin log, which is AMAZING!

I had a great turkey day, and hope everyone else did as well!

What was your favorite part of the holiday?

* Soms is het leuk in De Boîte. Vandaag werd ons een heel pakket Red Bull Energy Shots toegestuurd. Of de Kuikens nu effectief eens gewerkt hebben dankzij de drank wiens geur mij altijd doet denken aan die antibiotica die ge als kind moest nemen en waar ge elke dag een microbeke mocht uitprikken weet ik niet. Ik heb mijn Energy Shot gepakt en ben vertrokken. Overuren opnemen, wetenie. Maar ik heb wel nog eerst een ‘luxepraline’ in mijn mond gestoken, want ook de Lidl vond vandaag de perfecte dag om ons wat goodies op te sturen. Over dat ‘luxe’ valt wel te discussiëren, maar ge moogt een gekregen paard niet in de bek kijken naar het schijnt.
* De geplande voorraadkast-die-eerst-uitgemest-moest-worden heeft de taak op zich genomen. De oude frigo, waarvan ik al acht jaar dacht dat het een Smeg is, ook. Maar het is dus geen Smeg eigenlijk, ontdekte ik vandaag. Hoezo, het ding in geen acht jaar afgewassen? Het is niet dat het nog werkte he, of dat het een duidelijk doel had vóór vandaag, behalve stof staan vergaren. Wedden dat ons moeder morgen binnenspringt en zegt dat ik die frigo eens zou moeten afwassen?
* Ik heb bij het uitmestenvan de snoepkast een pak Kings gevonden dat maar goed was tot 2002. “Wóónden wij hier toen eigenlijk al wel?” was de niet zo heel onterechte vraag van de sidekick. Ik zal mijzelf ten gepaste tijde daarvoor straffen zene, gene paniek.
* Het vorige impliceert dat ik Grote Boodschappen heb gedaan om de volgende maand tijd uit te sparen wat betreft korte shoppingtrips. Ik heb die met haar twee dingen voorgelaten aan de kassa. Uit compassie. Die staat daar morgen terug voor nog eens twee dingen, de arme trien. Ik niet zene! Maar ik heb wel mijn zetels moeten platleggen en hier en daar wat puzzelen. Eigenlijk heb ik dus in het kader van efficiënt timemanagement een grotere auto nodig. Time is money.
* Mijn lief heeft daarjuist kwaad gezegd dat ik belachelijk bezig was en ik moest daarmee lachen. Maar ik vind het wel treurig dat niemand mijn zwarte humor begrijpt. Zelfs als ik lastig ben, loop ik nog te zeveren en moppen te tappen, maar niemand schijnt dat te kunnen vatten. Humor, was dat niet het überteken van intelligentie?
* Snoop was bij de noorderburen en ik wist het niet. Dat zuigt nogal.
* Ik heb gisteren alle achterstallige Californications gezien en nu vertoon ik ontwenningsverschijnselen. Ik zou ze vandaag nog eens allemaal terug willen bekijken, maar dan gaat er iemand vinden dat ik belachelijk bezig ben en er de humor niet van inzien. Hoewel hij gisteren ook heel hard dicht lag toen Moody over een plantenbak viel.
* Blondine en ik hebben op Facebook een heel mysterie opgezet over Thais gazettenpapier. It’s almost a hype. En dan hebben we en plein public nog met geen woord gerept over dat andere project. We so rule. Bescheidenheid is geen teken van intelligentie. Weten wat ge waard bent wel. Sms’en over erotic nuts ook.
* La mama is officieel kankervrij. Ik ga daar ene op drinken binnenkort. Eén van die dertien flessen wijn die ik blijkbaar in huis had zonder het te weten.
* De uitspraak “Dat verdient een pruim” vond ik wel te pruimen.

 There’s only two episodes to go until David Tennant bows out of Doctor Who and Matt Smith will be introduced as the 10th Doctor on New Years Day. If you didn’t see the waters of mars; the penultimate Doctor Who story for David Tennant; you missed an absolute treat.

Tennant was in blistering form and the story was probably one of the best that i’ve ever seen.Tennant’s run as the Doctor will finish on New Years Day, and what a run it was. I’ll be gutted to see him go and there’s some HUGE shoes for Matt Smith to fill. I’m really not convinced that he can pull it off but to be fair, I said the same about Tennant when he replaced Christopher Eccleston in 2005.

Smith will be joined for the new series by Karen Gillian who you may have seen in The Kevin Bishop Show on Channel 4. I’m kind of used to the Doctor by himself now so seeing the 10th Doctor with a new companion will be a clean slate all round.

Tennant will be leaving with Russel T Davies who is pretty much solely responsible for the current Dr Who revival and he’ll be replaced by Stephen Moffat. Moffat wrote the Brit comedy drama Coupling and has also tried his hand to various ‘Who’ storylines during the past 5 years, with great success – even managing to bag a couple of Hugo awards in the process.

It’s a crucial time now for fans of the Doctor. If Moffat is good enough, he’ll cement the series and it will run on prosperously for many years to come. If he bombs, Doctor Who could slip away like it did prior to the 1996 feature film. Let’s hope the new series does do well, my only criticism of Russel Davies is his insistence to re-use Dr Who villains. We’ve had the Daleks every series now since 2004, the Cybermen returned for two series and even the Master will be back during ‘The End Of Time’. If Moffat can come up with a new menace or some fresh ideas rather than ‘monster of the week’ style creatures, I think all will be well.

With that in mind, here are my all time favourite Doctor Who episodes of the past five years:

No 5:

The Parting Of The Ways

This was Eccleston’s Swan song and the episode where we actually found out what the hell ‘Badwolf’ meant. After cropping up all through the series at various points in time, it turns out that Badwolf basically means that Rose Tyler is B-A-D-A-S-S. After facing certain death at the hands of a Dalek fleet, the Doctor get’s saved by Rose, albeit at the expense of his 9th incarnation. Full of emotion, the final words uttered by Eccleston were a great way to say goodbye..

“Rose, before I go I just wanna tell you — you were fantastic…absolutely fantastic…and d’you know what? So was I!”

No 4:

 The Impossible Planet/ The Satan Pit

This was brilliant two-parter that introduced us to The Ood. The Doctor and Rose arrive on a planet orbiting a black hole and shortly after the docile Ood start to talk of ‘the beast’. It turns out that the beast is in fact held prisoner in the depths of the planet and has taken over a crew members’ body in order to escape his black hole prison. The special effects are spot on here and we’re given your typical bread-and-butter Doctor Who story. Fantastic.

“Maybe that’s what the Devil is, in the end. An idea.”

No 3:

Blink

Blink was a standalone Who story (as some of the best are) written by Stephen Moffat, so any doubts you may have about him taking the helm for Doctor Who should be eased if he continues to produce work as good as this. We’re introduced to the Weeping Angels, who feed from peoples ‘time energy’. They’ve already got the jump on the Doctor and sent him back in time (minus the Tardis) to the 1960’s. Enter Sally Sparrow, an unlikely heroine who is given various clues in order to solve the riddle of how to save the Doctor. Intelligent, Jumpy and well written, Blink should be high on anyone’s favourite Who episodes of recent years.

“Don’t blink. Blink and you’re dead. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t blink. Good Luck.”

No 2:

Human Nature/ Family of Blood

As a standalone two-parter, Human Nature and Family of Blood were exceptional, but what the episodes served to do was to pave the way for the Master’s return towards the end of the series. Here the Doctor is being attacked by the ‘Family of Blood’ and in order to survive, he takes up human Form in the early 20th Century. His memories are transferred to a watch via the Chameleon Arc and is given false memories by the Tardis in order to hide from the family. The story gives us a glimpse into the other side of the Doctor’s persona and both episodes are equally important during the first part of the season finale, ‘Utopia’. Once Martha realises that she’s seen a watch similar to that carried by Professor Yana, all hell breaks loose…

“He’s like fire and ice and rage. He’s like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun.”

No 1:

The Waters of Mars

The most recent Who story was a proper belter. The Doctor arrives on Mars in 2059 and finds the first human colony on Mars. The problem is that all is not well here. The crew are unaware but they don’t actually make it back to Earth, the expedition goes missing in 2059 never to be heard from again. This is a massive event in time and one that the Doctor knows he can’t alter. After the colony vanishes, the knock on effect for humankind is great. The missing Astronauts inspire generations after them to reach for the stars and although they disappear, fantastic things come out of the tragedy. It quickly transpires that the Colony doesnt simply vanish, they are killed at the hands of the Ice Warriors of Mars. The Doctor is ready to leave and let time take its cause but after the realisation that he’s the last time lord, he decides to intervene and save the remaining colonists. This action has massive repercussions and the result will end with the death of the 10th Doctor Who….

“There are laws of time. Once upon of time there were people in charge of those laws but they died. They all died. Do you know who that leaves? Me! It’s taken me all these years to realise that the laws of time are mine and they will obey me!”

I don’t think this is finished yet. How ironic. Comments/Suggestions are always welcome. Started writing this in my head when we were riding The Grizzly’s Pick-Up from CS. Thanks thanks for the inspiration.

Once, there existed the greatest book ever written. Pages filled with lines pulsing with the entirety of life. Pain, joy, grief, understanding, and every emotion – named and yet to be named – spelled out in each word engraved.

Written by a young couple from shared sleep and waking. The book was both a nightmare and a dream, heaven and earth, illusion and deception, weight and lightness. Stories of each and every being that lived and will live. Both history and forecast; stories worth re-telling, and stories despised with cynicism.

The couple from worn-out mourning, worked restless day in and out to write the book. They knew no rest, and writing became a chore they couldn’t break off of. They hated the book, and in turn they learned to hate each other.

When the day came that writing another word was no longer possible, the couple compiled all the pages for mass production.

Insane from writing, the couple argued about everything and nothing on the way to the car. The publication house was minutes down the road, but spending another with each other was unbearable. Immersed in yelling they forgot to bring in the book and they left it on top of the car as they both slammed doors on each other.

Engine mourning bitterly, they head to the highway. The loose pages start breathing parallel to their velocity. And the first page danced with the wind as it flew. The others, envious of its freedom followed hastily. The road was soon littered with scribbled pages. Crookedly written lines of perfect clarity.

People curious about the unusual confetti began picking up pages. One for each. Some read hurriedly; anxious. Some took their time devouring each letter. Different reactions from different pages fueled the mass. One guy tore a page in anger, another went mad. A girl cried in somberness as she read on. A mother kept a page in her pocket as she went home and forgave her abusive husband. Kids made paper planes out of pages. Lovers celebrated in unison.

And when all the pages were gone, and every reaction expired, the couple almost instantly felt an unexplainable elation. The book that was never meant to be written; gone, and both the nightmare and dream ended.

And they never looked back.

unfinished. sitting in front of me like a germ.
thinking about those roses and ‘tines.
kinda like a sick puppy waiting.
dark blue with those arms could kill.
insulting you-know-me spiel can melt.
the undeniable choice throwup in your face.
not yet inevitable but getting there. maybe.

Love is so sudden, a lighting flash from no where. Or is it? Roger Housden in his book Ten Poems to Open Your Heart offers one poem by Wislawa Szymborska titled “Love at First Sight.” This poet won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996; at the time she told others that a poet lives to create by saying, “I don’t know.” This mystery space helps so much to notice the world and moments that seem to have a cause but truly arrive from a place we don’t know. Some call this Chance capital C. Malcolm Gladwell argues this in his amazing book Blink, Thinking Without Thinking. Just by arriving to life without knowing we can learn so much–instantly, in the blink of an eye.

What then of love at first sight? Star crossed lovers will remember their first meeting and recall in surprise how this was their first view of each other. But is this true? How would you know if perhaps on the bus, in the bank line, or at the bakery you had seen her before? Maybe. Hard to say. We don’t know. Szymborska laughs at these lovers, their blindness as to the first mystery meeting. She writes about the lovers in her poem:

They’d by amazed to hear
that Chance has been toying with them
now for years.

Not quite ready yet
to become their Destiny,
it pushed them close, drove them apart,
it barred their path,
stifling a laugh,
and then leaped aside.

The poem reminds me that I’m living from the “I don’t know” school of philosophy. That’s too neck-up actually. I just mean that each day will unfold in a way I cannot predict and so I simply attend the gatherings mostly to watch and see what will happen next; I’m insatiably curious to know but all bets are off.

Housden, for example, bumped into a woman who greeted him joyfully thinking he was someone else. They excused themselves once real recognition settled in. One year later the same woman booked ten days at a monastery where Housden had to stay by accident. Her name is Maria and two years later they were married.

This evening I went for a swim in the outdoor pool at the UCSF Baker Fitness Center and stared at the stars above. A bright crescent moon hung way up high too. Pool lights filtered through clear water and I felt bathed in moonlight and pool light; my swim felt easy and happy. The water always pulls me into an “I don’t know” mood where cognitive thought turns off and intuitive sensing washes in. I’m not thinking about anything in the pool suspended by water, grateful for the chance to take a load off my feet, so after when I’m dressed some of my best “ideas” surface. Yet I’m still unsure about love’s fire.

Housden helps me ruminate more lucidly about love at first sight in the following words:

“The poem reminds us that there is a season and a time for things that cannot be orchestrated. It’s like death–when it’s our time, we fall. Lovers need to ripen on the vine. You will know the right moment by the ease with which you fall into this next chapter of your life. It will require no effort, just an assenting to what wants to happen” (54). Perhaps then I will turn off the light now and simply say my prayers to close this day, sleep well, and wake to see what the next day brings. Good night.

Frame, I told you I can write about something that’s not entirely grim.

She stares at the blank screen. The throbbing white background and the emptiness it resonates. Chasing words, she reaches out her hand and grabs the faint echo of lucidity. It escapes her, tragic as innocence did, unwillingly.

It hurts to remember and fatal to forget. She reminds herself that those who don’t know themselves are in the greatest danger. She was always sure of herself. As simple as words etched along the crooked lines of cheap paper, she knows exactly where to lie. She’s been read and reread for unaccountable amount of times. Memorized by strangers’ fingertips she was forced to burn. And with every shard of her soul she vowed to be remembered. And forget, they never will.

But it’s no longer the screen that is throbbing, no longer the emptiness burning.

He made it go away. Made everything mean something than some blind remembrance it once stood for. He made her see. She’s still empty, like before. But now she sees that so forth she has everything to gain. She’s never been so unsure of herself. And that gives her life. The very reason to move forward. She’s in danger. Exactly where she’s supposed to be. She never belonged between lines nor under anyone else’s fingertips. She belongs to herself. Unmemorized, unread.

She opens her palms and lets go of words. She closes the screen, and lies down beside him. Between his arms. Together they’ll dream, and lose themselves.

I’m going over my vacation plans for next year (i.e. deciding which out-of-state comic book events I’ll be attending, that is) and as I’ll occasionally do (and who doesn’t?) I Googled my name (to see if any of the shows I’m attending have me listed as a guest). Of the shows that do have me listed, this one made me want to write a blog entry.

Back in March, I met Michael Marcus (of the Hamtramck Idea Men) and signed up for the Southern Michigan Arts and Creativity Conference in July, 2010.  One of my fellow listed guests is Jay Jacot, whom I also met back in March @ SPACE and got reacquainted in October @ MOC.  Jay is the artist of  The Tao of Snarky Compilation & contributor/publisher of Comics Obscura as well as an enthusiastic comics evangelist and a damn cool guy.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the cover of BLINK: Breathe in Beat on Jay’s most recent blog entry, which is a month old at this point.  (I know the feeling well.)  I was also surprised and pleased to see a link on Jay’s entry to Tony Isabella’s World Famous Comics “Tony’s Tips” site where he reviewed said book (along with Stuffed! by Glenn Eichler and Nick Bertozzi and Mr. Jacot’s The Tao of Snarky and his 24-Hour comic, The Chase: A Twist of Fate), all of a month ago.  The line that Tony wrote and knocked my socks off with was this one:

Ink’s work and his sure comics-drawing hand create moments that are gentle and quietly profound. These stories, and others he has done and will do, are all leading to a bigger story. I’m looking forward to that.

That’s damn sweet.

I wish I had more to write here, but I’m just going to get myself back to the drawing board so that the larger story of Blink can be created.

11/27/09

Families! Join us Thanksgiving weekend, at the music hall Portsmouth, for a hilarious fun-filled comedy-magic show. Watch for unpredictable routines and a trio of special guest artists! An incredible evening of award winning magic.

The Pediatric Insider

© 2009 Roy Benaroch, MD

Mark’s frustrated. His son has gone through several months when he seems to blink a lot—then it goes away, then it comes back later. It doesn’t seem to bother the boy. One doctor said it was allergies, and prescribed an eye drop; another one says it’s a compulsion, and that dad should ignore it. What’s going on here?

Most likely, he’s got a tic. Not a tick—that’s a blood sucking beetle-looking thing—but a tic, which is a quick, short involuntary muscle movement. The most common tics seen in kids are blinking, followed by throat clearing; sometimes kids have a little quick facial grimace or a neck-turn.

You’ve got the wiring for a tic, too. Let’s watch yours. Go ahead, stop blinking. I’ll wait here. Dum dee dah dum. Still not blinking, right? It’s getting hard….hard to not blink…have to concentrate…so, do any fishing lately? no? ….wait …no blinky….wait….arrrgh blink blink blink blink blink blink. Aaaaaaa. That’s better.

What happened? Believe me, your eyes didn’t dry out that quickly. So why did you feel an urge to blink?

That’s basically what a tic is. It’s an involuntary movement—you can’t put it off, you’ve just got to do it. If you don’t, it gets harder and harder to stop it…until…blink blink blink! Blinking, in all of us, is like a helpful tic, an automatic mechanism to keep your eyes healthy. But sometimes that mechanism causes excessive blinking, or other sorts of quick involuntary movements that can’t be suppressed.

About 1 in 20 of us has a tic, and tics usually start to develop in early childhood. Usually, the individual tic goes away after a few months. But children who’ve had a tic in the past are quite likely, even after several months or years, to once again develop a tic, often a different one.

Do not tell a person with a tic to stop it. If he tries, the tic will become harder and harder to resist, until it returns in a more exaggerated fashion. The best therapy? Don’t talk about it.

Tics do get worse with emotional upset, anxiety, or tiredness. They stop completely when you fall asleep. Many people blame incessant throat clearing on “allergies”—but oddly enough, when they sleep, there’s no need for throat clearing at all. You’d think lying down would just encourage a nice pool of mucus, wouldn’t you? So why is there no need to clear the throat during sleep? Most throat clearers aren’t allergic—they’ve got a tic. But their minds “invent” the feeling of phlegm and the allergy story. Amazing, the mind, what it will come up with.

Most children with tics have only one, and it goes away on its own after a few months. No treatment is needed. Rarely, children develop multiple complex motor and vocal tics, often associated with difficulty concentrating at school. This is Tourette’s Syndrome—more serious, but far more rare than an ordinary tic. If your child has multiple tics and especially if school is becoming a problem, see a pediatric neurologist. Medicines are almost never necessary for simple, non-bothersome tics, but for the rare child with more serious tic issues medication can be very helpful.

Sekian lama aku tunggu saat macam ni baru ade peluang untuk menulis dalam blog kecintaan pilu.(ntah ape punye tajuk blog la..haha).Aku tunggu peluang ni sebab bleh apply gune duit sendiri.maklum la sebelum menjadi penanam anggur sepenuh mase.hoho.But now,x sepenuh mase pun I have my own money.(belagak sikit kat sini.jgn marah ye)

Bila sudah ada duit sendiri boleh la do sumthing sesuke hati.Ni la die perbelanjaan pertama dari pendapatan bulan lepas.Merasa jugak penat lelah bulan lepas.hahaha.Ade jugak benda yang aku boleh buat time mata belom rase nak lelap.

Janji ade isi aku punye blog.itu je yang aku fikir.BTW,aku skang ni kena bergerak pantas untuk isi poket aku untuk bulan depan.GAMBATE!!hmmm..macam biase la aku akan cari video2 yang akan memberi semangat untuk aku berusaha.Tibe2 aku terfikir nak bubuh lagu ni sebab idola aku selalu nyanyi lagu ni untuk bakar semangat die.haha.I FOLLOE..

Malcolm Gladwell (b. 1963) and Steven Levitt (b. 1967 [same year as me, which of course makes me feel like a loser, because what have I done, right?]) both have new books out.

Both are GenXer and both are innovative thinkers. Indicative of the GenX mindset they think quite differently than most others in their respective fields, which is why they are so successful.

Gladwell’s book , What the Dog Saw, is a collection of his essays from The New Yorker where he has worked as a journalist since 1996 according to his wikipedia page. I’ve only glimpsed the intro to this book but am very eager to read it. Loved The Tipping Point and Outliers especially. Blink is interesting but I’m still not sure I entirely buy into the premise. (ah, ever the skeptical GenXer, even in regards to one of my own — yeah, I wish I could consider MG a peer. HA!)

Levitt’s new book, SuperFreakenomics (nice little play on the Rick James song there) is the follow up to his his first book, Freakenomics (2005), which he co-authored with journalist Stephen J. Dubner (b.1963), also a GenXer. Levitt and Dubner turn economis on it’s head by applying the economic thought process or whatever you call it to non-traditional subject matter, from drug dealing to global warming — often to much criticism as well as praise. But they wouldn’t be a GenXers if they didn’t ruffle a few feathers in such a traditional field. Levitt’s economic take on things is fascinating, and he has the uncanny ability to remove all emotional/more predjudice from his researh, which perhaps sounds like a a  “not good” thing but it seems essential to this particular kind “pure thinking,” (whatever tha means, right) the results of which can be mucked up later with barnacles of emotion and sentimentality and morality — junk like that. I’ve just started SuperFreakenomics but am already ready to drink the Kool Aid a second time. Glug glug glub. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. And you will too!

You never realize you’re doing it until someone mentions it. Once they do, it’s hard to not be so focused on how often you blink. Too fast? Too slow? Try to pace yourself. Your body will figure it out eventually.

I’m sorry for mentioning that but it’s OK you’ll be distracted soon and stop thinking about your blinking patterns.

I always felt the New York Times was kind of the jack-of-all-trades paper more than the paper of record: somewhere approaching fair in its coverage of every subject, but not a standout in any subject.  Their book reviews would be the exception: They are far and away the best articles in the paper.

Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker provides an excellent and fair review of Malcolm Gladwell’s newest book, What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures, and in effect provides a review on the author himself.

I very strongly agree with Prof. Pinker in his praise of Gladwell as an essayist in prose, style, and his ability to provoke thought.  I am equally concerned with Gladwell’s somewhat lackadaisical approach to science (his writings tend to be in the realm of pop psychology, and the scientific rigour of his assertions seem to match that field).

The boldness — and counter-intuitive — nature of Gladwell’s assertions make the claims interesting and provoke further thought, perhaps the primary objectives of a writer or essayist, but tend to fall apart within the theses of his collected works (such as Blink, The Tipping Point, and Outliers).  As a result, I have always preferred Gladwell in the smaller units apportioned by The New Yorker over the lengthier helpings of his books.

Steven Pinker’s reasoned criticism is much needed considering the scope of Gladwell’s influence (I can hardly enter a bus or train without seeing one rider reading one of his books.  Which isn’t a bad thing considering the alternative would be Dan Brown or Harry Potter) and, as should be clear from my comments above, I agree strongly with Pinker’s review.

Simply put, enjoy Prof. Pinker’s review and keep it in mind the next time you read Gladwell’s excellent articles or somewhat unconvincing books.  Gladwell is a fantastic essayist, an extremely interesting and inquisitive author, but his writings are perhaps more properly viewed as very constructive than well-constructed.

[Nonetheless, I am always happy to see a new article of his appear at The New Yorker]

… and the cow goes moo

på blink

Vi har kjøpt oss luftpistol. Jeg synes det var kjempemoro. Traff jammen blinken også! Så nå skal jeg trene litt innimellom. Hvis jeg synes det er gøy har jeg lyst til å begynne å skyte på bane. Men først hjemmetrening.

Every so often there comes a line of silver jewelry that takes the world by storm – the Tiffany heart necklace à la Elle Woods, the 2-finger ring made popular on The Hills and who could forget those letter crystal charms you’d buy for your BFF. This year silver reaches a star-studded level of sophistication as international jeweler Thomas Sabo teams up with Barbie as she celebrates her 50th birthday with a fabulous collection of 36 new charms.

In true Barbie fashion, fashionista’s can buy the base silver bracelet ($39 CDN) or black charm band ($11 CDN) and individualize with as few or as many charms as they please – all sold separately. Charms range from $45 – $89 CDN and are available now across Canada at European Jewellery and other fine jewellery stores.
For more details visit www.thomassabo.com

Thanks to Faulhaber PR for images.

After a few nudges from friends and readers alike, I’m going to begin offering a few BLINK products for sale at Zazzle. The first Blink-related item I’ve created is this mug (or, if I understand the website correctly, any mug) decorated with the Blink logo and my homage to Bill Watterson’s masterpiece, Calvin & Hobbes.  It’s available for $13.95 (and up).  There are many many more products that I can plaster my art on, but I’m gonna start slow and see how things progress before I get all slap-happy and put my art on a $50 pair of kids shoes.

I had a dream. I was a superhero, with my skin-fit tights, neon colored boots, flowing cape that threatens to betray me every time I fly near a plane, and my unique weapon of hand carved silver pen. Yes it was a pen.

Imagine my disappointment when I encountered the demon incarnate and I stood firmly, proudly on my ground as I drew from my pocket what I thought to be a heavy sword. And with one swift motion of my hand, as I hold up my weapon with every belief in me that I am nothing without my sword, it turned out to be pen. A thin silver pen. In my almost panic and desperate move to keep my composure I called out “Do not underestimate my Pen! I’ll come back for you”, and fled to wake land.

I questioned myself, why, of all the things I could, would I pull a pen out of my pocket? A gun, knife, bow and arrow, rock, frozen turkey, anything? And the pen has got to be the lamest weapon ever. What the heck was I supposed to do cover him in words, punctuation marks, syllables? I felt betrayed, my own dream betrayed me. The world conspired for me to have a sucky dream, to make me believe that I was a mighty superhero bound to save the world, and then pull me down to rock bottom with a pen.

So I shrug of my draem, and liv anothur normal day. I listaen to my songs, and watch youtube. I argue with sumone named elmaraviyoso21 because he thinks thaet Bukowski was smokeng weeid when he writen A Little Atomic Bomb. And I tell him, thaet he is an iliterrate fool and doan’t know hes poetry. I tell him thaet he nids to rid a book more like I do, because I am litearate. And right then and ther, Wuthout my cape, and my tighths, I feeled like a superhearo. I was defeanding litteracy and Bukowski, and I thot to mysealf, maybe ther is hope for us. All we nid ar words.

Language is meaningless, without a shared context.

About 4.39 million Filipinos don’t know how to read and write, you tell them it’s meaningless.

We sit in our homes comfortably, mocking Youtube grammar, but imagine every word misspelled in Youtube is equivalent to a kid without a book in our country. They can’t afford books, hence they can’t read.

You can afford subscriptions to unlimited internet and purified water, sleep, and dreams of superheroes and weapons; you can afford spelling, grammar, and words.

What’s your excuse?

The demons in my sleep are faint reflections of the grandiosity in which we live in.

If I can hold myself proudly in my dream against the demons, then why couldn’t I in wake?

Why can’t we?

Book read: The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight by Marc Weingarten

Perfect reading mate: I’ll Read You A Story – Colleen (2005)

Great video for the song btw.

Mediene har vært fulle av oppslag i løpet av 2007 om nettstedet facebook. Innfallsvinklene er mange.

Hvem er på Facebook, hva brukes det til, og hvordan kan det eventuelt misbrukes? Mobbehistorier er en gjenganger. Da Benazir Bhutto ble drept i jula, og hennes 19-år gamle sønn overtok, var hans facebook-aktiviteter noe av det første journalistene kastet seg over.

Oppmerksomheten i mediene har sine gode grunner. I september 2007 hadde facebook over 720 000 norske brukere. Men facebook er langt fra det eneste nettsamfunnet som er populært. Nettby, Biip, Blink, HamarUngdom, Deiligst og World of Warcraft har alle over 100 000 norske brukere. YouTube, MySpace, Me, Fettnerd, MSN, og Backstage er noen andre populære steder. De fleste bruker to eller flere. Forskning fra tidlig på nyåret 2007 viste at omtrent 1 million nordmenn var innom et nettsamfunn en eller flere ganger i uken. Og dette var før facebook fikk sitt gjennombrudd i Norge! 2007 har nemlig sett en norsk eksplosjon i nettstedets popularitet. Norge er i dag nummer 4 (etter Australia, Tyrkia og Sverige) i antall facebook-brukere, dersom en ser bort fra USA, Storbritannia og Canada.

Fra sin spede begynnelse i 2004, vokste nettstedet til 5 millioner i 2005. 11. september 2006 ble det åpnet opp for alle. I løpet av 2006 fikk den over 10 millioner brukere og i februar 2008 regner man med over 61 millioner brukere verden over, med over 250 000 nye brukere daglig. Den var i 2007 den sjette meste besøkte siden, og den aller viktigste i forhold til å dele bilder med andre.

Hva er det så som er så spesielt med facebook? Brukervennlighet er et stikkord, samt at det inngir tillit ved at de fleste fremstår med fullt navn, og som oftest bilde. Det er lett å spore opp gamle venner, bygge nettverket sitt på reelle venner fra forskjellige sammenhenger. Kikkerbehovet er nok også en vesentlig grunn for suksessen ved at man kan se bilder og videoer fra vennene, lese andres kommentarer på “veggen” og så videre.

Dette har gjort sitt til at facebook ikke bare er et nettsamfunn for de unge, men også de eldre tar det i bruk. I Norge er det de over 24 år som er den raskest voksende brukergruppen. Noen har facebook som sitt eneste sted på nettet. Der har man alt man behøver, også mulighet for å sende elektroniske meldinger til sine kjente. Nettsamfunn er rett og slett blitt et sentralt ledd i den nye medievirkeligheten vår. En undersøkelse foretatt i 16 land, inkludert USA, viser at aldersgruppen fra 8 til 24 år har i gjennomsnitt 94 kontakter på mobilen, 78 IM-kontakter og 86 venner i nettsamfunn. Trenden går fra massemedier til personlige medier, fra å være passive konsumenter til å være aktive deltagere, fra å være tekst-orientert til å bli multimediale, fra å bruke mediene innimellom, til alltid å “være på nett”. Nettsamfunnene binder sammen nettavisen, nettbutikken, e-posten, videoer, tv’en, blogger, chatting og “instant messaging” (IM), fotoalbumet vårt, mobilen vår og så videre.

Næringslivet har for lengst sett mulighetene. Hennes & Mauritz og Ernst og Young har etablert seg på facebook. Det 3D-animerte nettsamfunnet SecondLife har store multinasjonale selskap som Toyota, Nissan, IBM, BBC, Adidas, Reebok og Intel som deltakere, og Sverige fikk stor oppmerksomhet da de etablerte en virtuell ambassade på dette nettstedet. Trenden er å gå bort fra enveiskommunikasjon til kundene, og over til brukervennlige og interaktive nettsamfunn.

Men hvordan kan facebook og andre nettsamfunn være farlige? En stor bekymring er for eksempel frykten for at private opplysninger, og bilder, blir solgt videre eller brukt av andre uten samtykke fra den enkelte. Det har også forekommet flere tilfeller av sikkerhetsglipper, der uvedkommende har fått tilgang til sensitive privatopplysninger.

Det er viktig å være oppmerksom på slike farer. Ikke minst for foreldre som bør følge med på hva barna legger ut om seg selv. Foreldrene tror ofte at de har god kontroll med hva barna deres gjør på nettet. I realiteten har de ikke det. 8 av 10 barn mellom 9 og 16 år ønsker ikke å snakke med voksne om ubehageligheter de opplever mens de er på nettet. Forskning fra England viser at nesten 60 prosent av denne aldersgruppen har sett porno på nettet, 30 prosent har blitt mobbet, mottatt seksuelle kommentarer og sett voldelig innhold eller blitt tilsendt seksuelt materiale.

2007 var året da facebook ble et viktig tema. “Jeg så bildene på facebook” og lignende kunne man ofte høre. Jeg mener at facebook og andre nettsamfunn er en suksess, og vil fortsette å være det. Dette nettstedet har truffet en nerve, et behov for å bli sett, for å se, og for å knytte nærmere bånd til hverandre på nettet, i en hverdag der tette og nære ansikt-til-ansikts relasjoner blir sjeldnere og sjeldnere. Dessuten har tunge markedskrefter sett denne suksessen, på godt og vondt, og er villig til å spytte inn penger slik at det blir muligheter til videreutvikling. Det er flest unge som blir hektet på dette, men også middelaldrende og eldre.

I større og større grad ordner man sine liv, og lever sine liv på nettet. Dette behøver ikke å være negativt. Man kan da også få større muligheter til å delta aktivt i livet utenfor nettet. Tankekorset blir jo da at dette kan føre til et stort digitalt skille mellom de som behersker teknikken og de som ikke gjør det, for ikke å snakke om de som av økonomiske eller andre årsaker blir holdt utenfor. Nettsamfunn er kommet for å bli. I likhet med andre nye medier som har sett dagens lys opp igjennom historien, blir de ofte møtt med en viss skepsis. En sunn skepsis er alltid god å ha, så sant man ikke skyller babyen ut med badevannet. Dersom en også har mulighet til å tilpasse seg, kan en få øynene opp for de uante mulighetene som ofte ligger slike nyvinninger.

Også publisert i Fædrelandsvennen og fvn.no 13. februar: (http://www.fvn.no/meninger/kronikk/article556482.ece).

With the help of my eldest daughter, Gigi, I will be giving this site a much-needed face-lift over the next few weeks (or maybe month or so… my schedule is so crammed as it is, posting an update like this takes time away from other tasks waiting to be done).  It will retain the same basic “blog” look, but the links will provide a bit more “snap” and “pizazz.”  As you can see, the change is in the works as I type this, with a new ONWARDStudio header.  (BTW, that is a single word, not two.)

Also, pick up a Short North Gazette and get your newsprint version of this month’s Blink comic strip.

Okay, that’s it for the moment.  I’ve got some pencil lines that need inking.

Everyone is ill again. No exaggeration. I haven’t been out in a while. I could have gone out last night with the English society but forgot about it. I have a lot of reading to do anyway.

I kinda want to go home sometimes. I get moments when all I want to do is get on a train and go home. I miss everyone so much, it’s crazy. Even people I didn’t think I’d miss, people I didn’t even really know, I miss them. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss Dan. I miss the good times. I even miss Bullers.

I get my first assignment back on Friday and I don’t think I want it back. I wasn’t best pleased with it and I don’t think it was that good.

I have a friend. Well, I call him a friend. Chris. He’s the geekiest geek in the world. He likes this girl and he wants me to be with him, when he tries to chat her up tomorrow morning. I’m scared. Not only for him but scared I’m going to burst out laughing when he says something really stupid. I’m a good friend though, I know I am. That’s why I agreed to be there for him, when he’s not REALLY what I’d call a PROPER friend. I mean, he doesn’t even know about this blog, I can write what I want, it’s ok.

Oh and just on time! Blink’s I Miss You just came on iTunes…