Sitting Down and Having a Conversation

Don't get too comfortable...

2008-04-30T13:30:00.007-05:00

I have moved this blog to wordpress.com. I simply like it better. More templates and options...

Nothing against blogspot.com Follow This Link and update your bookmarks. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Progress Report, Day#2: Vegetarian Week '08

2008-04-25T02:00:00.003-05:00

I'll keep this one short, because it's like 0:00 am right now and i am quite tired.

Breakfast:

-two whole grain waffles
-o.j.

Lunch:

I cooked cheeze pizza, but that seemed boring. So I made a topping.
-diced bellpeppers
-diced onions
-diced garlic

it spread on like relish, and it was quite good.

Dinner:

exactly what i had for lunch, except with two shiner bocks. c'est bon!

Today, i had 0 meat cravings. Pretty interesting so far...

Vampire Weekend

2008-04-24T20:00:00.005-05:00

I know I'm quite a few months behind the rest of the blogosphere on this one, but I'll be willing to bet that some of you are too. (Marc, I'm looking at you.)

Vampire Weekend, the blog band of late 2007.

So I'm driving to work today, and it is one of those beautiful, warm springtime days. I have my windows down, and the neighborhood I am driving in contains many, many rosebushes which are quite fragrant.

I pop in VW, and everything seems exactly right. Am I in a wonderful mood because of the album, or the weather, or both? who knows. I have decided one thing, though. If this band is polarizing, that's okay. If you are of a romantic mind like me, pop this album in today and I am quite sure you will enjoy it.

I really cannot get enough of the first four tracks lately. I've posted them for you to enjoy. Play them. Even if you, like me, have been enjoying this album for a little while now. This is really happy music.

Mansard Roof

Oxford Comma

A-Punk

Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

Progress Report, Day #1: Vegetarian Week '08

2008-04-23T12:54:00.003-05:00

Last Night's Dinner:
My Grandma (affectionately "Granny") had already prepared a plate of leftovers from lunch that I could not in good conscience ignore.
-roast beef
-chicken
-okra
-turnips
-baked beans
-rice/gravy

Not a vegetarian meal, but still better than fast food. And it satisfied a final meat craving before VW '08 really kicked off..

This morning's Breakfast:
Woke up around 7:30 am, hungry as hell.
-coffee
-banana
-cheerios
-whole grain waffle
-orange juice

Breakfast really is key to an energetic day. I suggest you all take note. It works wonders!

Lunch:
I was a little worried I'd give in for lunch. We have plenty of heatable ribs, hamburgers, etc. in our freezer. Luckily, I found a bag of Lenticchie (Sicilian Lentil Soup) in my pantry.
This contains:
-lentil Beans
-wheat pasta
-semolina (gratefully not "dripping from a dead dog's eye", as mr. lennon would have it)
-onions
-carrots
-tomatoes
-garlic
-celery
-parsley
-and of course, fennel

all enjoyed with a glass of water and two slices of whole wheat bread.

This soup makes 8 servings, so I am sure I will revisit it during this whole harrowing ordeal.

Dinner:
Things are really getting questionable here, people. I was running a little behind for work, so i had no choice but to stop by Subway. Now, I know Subway isn't really fast food, but that doesn't justify what i got:
-12 inch veggie on honey oat bread
-lettuce
-tomato
-bellpepper
-olive
-onion
-banana pepper
-salt/pepper
-oil/vinegar
-mustard/mayo

I should have gone 6 inch and I should have ignored the condiments, but whatever. I was preempting a hunger while sitting in my lifeguard chair. (If you are asking how I can post from a lifegaurd chair, the answer is of course telepathy.)

I can see myself getting hungry during the day, but no problem. I plan on drinking plenty of water and will never be without a package of raisins, nuts, fruit or some other sort of healthy snack. I'll keep you guys updated.

The "journal-y" update.

2008-04-23T12:27:00.000-05:00

Well this web log is certainly proving to be proactive in my life. After that kerouac post, I cracked open Big Sur. It's a refreshing read, even if it does deal with delerium tremens quite a bit! Sometimes I need reminding of life through Kerouac's eyes. I feel like even at his worst, he still can (in his own weird way) find God while observing nature, people and most importantly himself. Great!

So I'm reading Big Sur, which is in some ways the end of his big, long, Duluoz Legend. I am reading it while admittingly skipping quite a few of the novels in the legend, and it is inevitably making me want to start from the first book, Visions of Gerard. That's a lot of reading, and Kerouac is kind of hard to swallow in large amounts (at least for me). We'll see how this all turns out, considering I am notorious for abandoning books indefinitely once a new literary interest comes along.

But really, I cannot get enough of Kerouac's naive, innocent, restless worldview. It's quite comforting, actually. His prose is so refreshingly lacking in pretention or literary norms that it is really no wonder that some novelists and professors hate him.

Oh well.

(btw, this post is not really what i envisioned for my web log. It's too "dear diary". I sincerely hope that I have informed my readers about life in general, not just what is pertinent to mine.)

McBye-Bye

2008-04-22T17:31:00.001-05:00

Don't get me wrong, I don't like animal cruelty. I read The Jungle and was pretty disgusted by the meat industry pre-FDA. I've gone through my vegetarian phase and I have personally reasoned that, for my own life, it is simply not necessary. No biggy.

Despite all of this i am hereby declaring (belatedly) that this is VEGETARIAN WEEK '08!!

That's right, for one full week (minus yesterday and half of today, apparently), i will not be eating meat.

This is not permanent, and it has nothing to do with animals.

I have decided that I consume much more fast food than the average American, and if you look at statistics concerning America's love affair with fast food, this should cause you to have great concern for my heart rate, arteries, waist-line, and brainpower.

This is not a condemnation of fast food. I simply have decided that in my own life, fast food is too much of a vice. I greatly admire those of you who can eat it occasionally, yet not become addicted. I consider this an addiction in my life.

I realize that to most of you, this seems pretty extreme. "You eat too much fast food, so why throw out the baby with the bathwater and give up meat entirely?" Well, i am a pretty "all or nothing" type of person and I am not yet disciplined enough to cut out fast food and just try to eat healthy portions of "good" meat. It's gotta be the whole hog (and you gotta love that pun.) One week with strictly fruits/veggies/whole grains will, I plan, be enough to raise my awareness that eating healthy food is not unbearable. If my hypothesis is correct, I will then be able to ween myself off of fast food and stick to a nice, healthy, preferably free range grilled chicken breast. As of right now, all i think of is the McChicken sandwich. Mmmm.

We'll see. Wish me luck, I can't wait until sunday.

In other news, Happy Earth Day, everyone. I want to camp out in google's festive logo:

sunday afternoon lol, vol. 1

2008-04-20T17:37:00.000-05:00

Each sunday, i will try to upload a humorous picture or picture series. Enjoy your week :)

Kerouac, DCFC, and the "meaning of life" (oh my)

2008-04-18T20:54:00.000-05:00

I like Paste magazine. If you are a music, film, or literature fan of a certain ilk(read:"hipster-ish"), i think that you would too. Ben Gibbard, the singer/songwriting force of Death Cab for Cutie, recently spent some time in the cabin Jack Kerouac did in Big Sur, Cali. when writing the novel of the same name. i am more interested in this article for the Kerouac elements (not that big of a dcfc fan, but still)

here, read it.

in case you absolutely think that this article is a waste of time, here are excerpts of note:

I pulled On The Road off the shelf and found myself reading it between classes, and at that time in my life it was exactly what I craved, exactly what I needed to hear. I thought, “That’s the way, that’s the ideal life, that’s great. You get in a car and you drive and you see your friends and you end up in a city for a night and you go out drinking and you catch up and you share these really intense experiences.

But then in reading Big Sur, it’s the end of the road. You end up with a series of failed relationships and you end up being an alcoholic and in your late 30s, and not having any kind of real grip on the lives of the people around you. That’s the potential other end of the spectrum when you’re never tied to anybody or anything. I run the risk of losing touch with the people in my life that mean the most to me because I have made the decision to live like this.

And moments in Big Sur are starting to become very analogous to my life, where I show up in a town and call up my friends, and I’m like, “Guys, we gotta go out. Let’s hang out, I haven’t seen you in forever.” And their response is “Yeah, well, our baby needs to be going to sleep and I can’t be out all hours of the night anymore. It’s time to move on in our lives into another phase; we can’t live in this perpetual adolescence forever.”

It's evolution, baby!

2008-04-18T12:53:00.000-05:00

people, we all need to be on the same page. it's time to talk. let's be frank here. this blog is very much a work in (constant) progress. i don't know where it's going, and subsequently neither do you! once things get successful, i will most likely delete this post and deny that i was ever this unsure of my blog. or not! denying your roots is no way to go, and acknowledging them in the face of success makes for such a great story. take ~~bob dylan~~ charles schultz for example. his work was essentially a glorification of his own uncertainty and insecurity, yet he was profound and prolific all the same. so, as always, stay tuned.

in the meantime, i am experimenting with templates. i think this one looks a little lame. thoughts?

also, i have had numerous requests to explain the previous post. don't you think this guy looks funny? it's a non sequitur, above all else. he very well may become the mascot of this blog. i'm thinking of using him for my header pic. thoughts?

2008-04-08T11:40:00.001-05:00

Chris Duffel, if you are reading this...

2008-04-03T11:33:00.000-05:00

pandora is amazing. thank you.

sincerely,

reid

Today, a new Co-Cathedral is dedicated. Laudate Dominum!

2008-04-02T14:46:00.000-05:00

Photos from the Houston Chronicle's coverage of the building and dedication of St. Mary's Co-Cathedral

If I may be so bold, this reminds me of Santa Maria del Fiore, or the "Duomo Cathedral" in Florence. Not so much in architecture or scale, but in the "closeness" of the church to the community. In Florence, even though the Duomo is overwhelming in size, you still stumble upon it because it is buried deep within the city. You can get a sense that the Church was very much a part of the Florentine life, then and now, for better or for worse. The same seems to go for the brand new co-cathedral in houston. While completely apart from the rat race of downtown houston, these pictures illustrate that Sacred Heart is at the same time in the heart of the city. whew!

Bush to be nominated for...a peace prize?

2008-04-01T11:41:00.000-05:00

Nobel nomination for Bush and Blair

I'm on the fence as to whether this is an April Fool's joke or not. It's coming from the BBC, but I found the link posted on wonkette shortly after midnite this morning. We all know the internet is silly on april first. I guess it's real though, albeit strange. The timing of the headline is unfortunate. Stranger things have happened.

This is not a joke

2008-03-31T13:49:00.000-05:00

The empire records soundtrack is one of the best albums ever made.

Empire records scored a mere 13% on rotten tomatoes. The movie is really good. To say otherwise would be to betray everything that I have ever come to know and love about nostalgia. Maybe the window is different for every individual in my generation, but there was a period roughly between 1994-1998 that everything i absorbed is amazing to me. Things that are punchlines now; silverchair and bush's first two albums, doug and boy meets world, independence day! This stuff formed me, no matter how hard I will ever try to deviate from it.

So the soundtrack. So 1995 that it hurts. I actually only bought it about a year ago. A reason i didn't buy it back in the day, ironically, is because bands like the gin blossoms and toad the wet sprocket were punchlines to me and my friends. Now the gin blossoms sound so dated that they are one of my "go-to" bands for mid 90's nostalgia. I suggest you revisit your own nostalgic window and rediscover the bands you used to make fun of as well. You might find that for whatever reasons, what used to not be cool to you is exactly what you crave now. the gin blossoms for me were "safe" alternative music, a little too much classic rock and not enough eccentricity . Now i am considering downloading their entire catalog simply to have something to play in the background while i read.

post your nostalgic guilty pleasures in my comments section.

/end writer's strike

2008-03-30T12:24:00.000-05:00

I may move this blog to wordpress. I may revamp. Time will tell. Stay tuned.

in the meantime...

The $3.99 update

2007-10-26T14:02:00.000-05:00

So the internet at my house completely disapparated, and I have resorted to having a cup of coffee at my friendly neighborhood barnes and nobles, along with an overpriced internet connection. I'm not cheap, in fact i waste my money on a lot of things. I draw the line with a household internet connection, though. My connection at home is gone, but it was never mine to begin with. i...stole it. My roommates and I decided long ago to opt for the free internet waves coming through our airspace instead. Now it's gone and this $3.99 not only pays for my internet, but i am also recieve a special bonus package that consists of:

-What I can only imagine is the Italian Pop Operatic Sensation, Il Divo, belting out an achingly earnest version of R.E.M.'s "EverybodyHurts".

-Eavesdropping. A woman with a kind old face and a pecan pie voice asking the lucky listener on the other end if they saw the space shuttle pass over us last night. Apparently it was a very beautiful sight. I'm sorry I missed it.

-Trash scattered about my table. I had to scramble to get this table next to the outlet right as the girls that were sitting here got up. They left their garbage, so now to the casual observer i look like I'm on my fourth cup of coffee. The more astute people watcher would notice that I am only typing about 35 wpm and grooving to the lush sound textures of Il Divo, a sharp contrast to the story that the trash on my table would dictate. But that's neither here nor there.

-Public places. I love public places. always have.

I could have easily just played at school and gone up to the internet lab there, but I didn't. Who knows why i do the things i do?

and this just feeeeels liiike...spinnnnnnnnnnningg plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaates!!

2007-10-10T20:09:00.000-05:00

the internet blew up today. 10/10/07. i thought i was the only one that was calling it radiohead day, but turns out several online articles i've read along with all of my internet radiohead cronies are calling today that.

if you're on the internet then you aren't far from many of the thumbnail headline type things on google and npr.com or whatever you have your homepage set too and you probably already know about this new radiohead album the kids are all calling "in rainbows". it's good, but it's more about the record industry than the music that it will probably be remembered for. look it up. (in brief, this album was announced a mere 10 days ago with the catch that it would not as of now be released in stores or by a record label, but instead would be a download you could decide the price of, if any, to pay online. the download code was e-mailed this morning to those who took the band up on this offer.)

but really, the internet is absolutely chock full of radiohead fans or else i've just got a very one-tracked mind today. it seems like this album is everywhere. good news for music fans, because i haven't seen this kind of mass hysteria over an album since the mid-90's and boyz II men.

The music's good, but if you aren't predisposed to liking a band like RH (and i believe whole-heartedly that it takes a certain personality to like RH), why start now? There's no middle ground for deciding if you are going to download this album. it is very good though. Starts off with a jumpy first two tracks that make you think that it's going to be a rocker like the old stuff then goes into the dense and haunting territory of their (thier? i never know.) newer albums: kid a, amnesiac and hail to the thief. really after 4 or 5 listens, i'd describe the music as a smoother take on HTTT. the lyrics seem more straightforward than i've heard from thom in a long time. most of the tracks flow into eachother until maybe one of the most heartbreaking songs in thier catalogue. the last track does end on a nice note though..

"No matter what happens now
You shouldn't be afraid
Because I know today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen."

now how do i get people to read this? i'll learn more tricks like italics and bells and whistles later.

a beginning.

2007-10-09T23:23:00.000-05:00

this is it.

"oh reid, you should make a blog". "i've been meaning to make a blog". "i don't know what to title my blog". etc...

stay tuned.

p.s. i hate the word "blog". so this is a web log.