the mind of the upper echelon athlete

this extremely illuminating piece about Dirk Nowitzki's Chapelle-esque retreat to Australia after the Mavs' first round playoff exit got me thinking again about the nature of thought in sports. it seems to me that professional athletes are better off not being particularly intelligent, or at least intelligent in an intellectually curious, humanist sort of way. the tendency of such people is to over analyze things or be almost too aware of their surroundings. the professional athlete, on the other hand, while needing to be aware of and react to situations, cannot overthink, and has to rely much on instinct. Nowitzki seems to be a well-rounded, smart guy, which makes me wonder about his ability to truly succeed in the NBA, to become a champion. it's not that he could "choke" in the commonly understood definition of the term. rather, it's a matter of too accurately feeling the burden of your surroundings and position. a normal, super high-level athlete may be aware of these crunch time expectations, but only of his responsibility for them, not necessarily their full weight and import and the true consequences thereof.

simian mobile disco Radio 1 big weekend mix

i played this for my sister and she loved it and wanted a copy. after not being able to find it again online, i uploaded it. figured i'd share. it's from sometime this summer.

back to...1980s nostalgia blogging

i was just talking about 3-2-1 contact and mathnet the other day. and i totally remember that fat boys one billion song, especially the chorus. i was jumping around the house singin' that all day. i think i drove my mom nuts.

getting a little ridiculous at this point

i just don't really get how this thing happens. this administration has the reverse midas touch...everything turns to shit. i think the general conclusion i've come to is that even if the administration has a good idea (take more accountability in schools, for example), their record has proven that they are completely incapable of competently implementing such ideas. basically, you have to tune out their discussions of substantive policy, because they're just going to screw it up.

the link in question refers to a bizarre intersection of bush's oil company cronyism and efforts at iraqi political reconciliation. but then again i guess it's not so bizarre, unfortunately.

Feeling Good, Lewis!

i told you. here's the recent summer mix, reminding us that while it's ebbing slowly, there's so much good stuff still left.

cosmo baker, still good. via 5151.





cracked crab and lobster for everyone.

Looking Good, Billy Ray!

this dropped a while ago (the beginning of summer, to be precise). i've been derelict, but it's a companion piece, so stay tuned for more.

cosmo baker dropped this amazing summer mix, feeling good, as a way to start off the summer in the appropriate mood. still o' so fresh today. enjoy it, with more soon.

bonesaw q. doorjamb

Simpsons avatar's can be created here, in advance of the movie that opens July 27th. Fidelity to my actual appearance is of course limited, for various reasons, ranging from aesthetics to design engines to vanity/ego.

It remains to be seen if it'll be old-school or new-school Simpsons. The more important question I guess is whether or not it will suck. Fingers crossed on my end.

jheri curl alert

the rub djs are always rockin' it out in brooklyn and around the globe. unfortunately, i've never made it out to a rub party or been able to check any of them live. although i like to get down, my nyc friends aren't really down like that, and i've never been able to motivate much. not that i pushed too hard i guess.

but whenever they have a mixtape drop, i'm up on it. given that we've just hit the first day of summer (and it almost hit 100 in DC today), wanna pop out and throw back to a classic summer mix that dropped this past. from their own dj eleven comes summer madness, a collection of funky, laid back cuts that perfectly fit that summer aesthetic. this was the precursor to his winter sadness mix that i sent off to my boy after we hit that bad winter stretch in january. although similarly amazing, thankfully we've turned the corner and summer is back. now get out there! tracklist

the unbanal drollery of spectrum auctions

I don't think I could agree more with this sentiment by Kevin Drum about the upcoming 700 Mhz spectrum allocation auction. Political issues can be boring enough as it is for the average person, but I think telecommunications policy faces some additional hurdles to being relevant to the public. I hope above all that some politician, preferably a presidential candidate, can turn this into a viable issue. The ramifications for the public sphere, for innovation, and for consumer choice and service improvement, could not be more clear. via MY

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latin heaters, comin with cumbia et. al.

while the whole blogariddims series has been killing it completely (check them out), the newest mix is complete fire. them dudes out of London, the Heatwave Collective, send in a latin diasporic blend of all things funky, "sung, rapped and MC'd almost entirely in Spanish, from reggae to soca, dancehall to cumbia and reggaeton to hip hop."

these guys have been killing it for a while in London (check out Blogariddims 10 for more, plus their remixes), now if they only could make to the States! or better yet, if I could make it to London

movie of the week: the vice guide to travel

i can't say that i've always been an unquivocal fan of vice. previously i've been accused, in this regard and others, of "hating." this term specifically i find bothersome, in it's connotation as downgrading things or people that may be successful. not to get all serious here, but my dad always told me as a kid not to hate, because that was the reason that so many people in our family died during the Holocaust, and i've tried to live by that maxim.

my friends and i have a misanthropic attitude in general, especially when together. so one might fit my attitude within that paradigm, but i feel that there are legitimate complaints with vice. specifically, mine stem from a number of aspects of the magazine. first, although vice might be considered an originator in this regard, i find the postmodern 21st century ironic, biting, contrarian-style of writing extremely tiresome. not only that, but it seems that this type of sarcastic prose is easy to do in many respects. vice however, probably does it pretty well. but as my friend mike has pointed out, their content is often inconsistent. there are often a few issues that backslide into this lazy, sardonic writing, but then they produce an excellent issue, such as the applachian issue, that avoids this tired formula.

my other complaint is that the magazine projects a totally anti-establishment ethos, but is completely supported by advertising, often from major multinationals at that. they even decry the corporate drive behind subscriptions, but at least subscription-based magazines have some amount of money coming in besides ad revenues, while vice is completely ad supported.

the vice guide to travel:

all that being said, i thought the vice guide to travel was an excellent piece of work, especially for a documentary-style piece. there is some crazy shit that happens, and while not all of the short pieces are equally enthralling, overall it was quite fascinating.

a lot of the stuff in the movie is stuff that really needs to be reported (the pieces in palestine, pakistan, and bulgaria particularly). my question during these parts was "how is vice doing this and not other media outlets?" it seems like we should be getting an inside look at the transmission of jihad ideology to youths in palestine, the culture of guns in pakistan, and the ease in which one can aquire a nuclear weapon, from mainstream media outlets. at the least what vice found should be more widely reported.

the pieces i mention (palestine, pakistan, and bulgaria) i liked the best. the report from the favelas is brazil was also great...jesus, the correspondent outfit that the guy was wearing was ridiculous. i though he was going to get shot at any moment when he was inside the party.

the extras were very cool, but they definitely needed more. the only major letdown was the piece from the congo, which wasn't that interesting and was sort of anticlimactic. it felt like the author went to the jungle and just got too fucked up to do anything meaningful while there.

one question was: where do they get all money for this stuff? all the offices (they have like 20 or something)? is this all from products and advertising? i'm sure these perks and the cachet of working at vice allows them to pay people very little, a la the music industry. but i digress.

overall though, great stuff. now if i can just make time to watch more of Vice TV.


other movies:

empire of the sun
interesting, but unfocused and melodramatic. christian bale is quite intriguing in his first role.

a bronx tale
for a movie billed as a conflict between two powerful men over the control and future of a young boy, there really isn't much from those male roles, specifically de niro, who practically disappears from the second half of the film. and the young male lead was just so stiff. there was an interesting overall plot, but it wasn't sufficiently novel or compelling. de niro directed, which may be why his role is diminished in the latter stages, as he might have reacted too strongly against the perceived tendency of actor/directors to insert themselves into their work. chazz palminteri, who plays the counterpoint to deniro's character, wrote the screenplay. maybe that's part of the reason he plays such a larger role. overall, i wasn't really impressed and expected a bit more. the moral parables felt forced as well.

unbreakable
an okay flick, but very uneven. m. night always crafts a great movie visually, but otherwise, his work is inconsistent. this movie felt overwrought, and always weighed down by it's own sense of self-importance. you certainly can say that about most of his movies. the comic aspect is initially intriguing, but gets tiresome, although the final aspect of the device is quite interesting.

stripes
hilarious, but completely ludicrous. bill murray always seems to play a variation on the same character. in this case, it's an early iteration, and it's pretty funny.

say anything
apparently according to an article i read, all women really want is lloyd dobler. i can see that. from a guys perspective, diane court wouldn't be so bad. this is also part of the reason why john cusack has had such a good career, because of this enduring legacy (i'm sure it's also related to the fact that many of his characters are dobler-esque).

other flicks:
casino royale, beerfest, millions, million dollar baby, wall street, the princess bride, brokeback mountain, true romance
st. elmo's fire - i don't see what all the fuss was about.
talladega nights - ditto
ray - jaime foxx was fantastic, but i had the same complaints about this one as i did about walk the line. plus the historical liberties were a little annoying.

oh look, a pony

although i don't have a horse in this race (and in all actuality, as a wizards fan should be rooting against the cavs), i'm throwing this out in the midst of cleveland pushing for the EC finals. take any inspiration as needed.


artist: Randy Newman

still flying

i was jamming to the lyssnar! mix by Caps and Jones, particularly the last song, and was thinking "where have i heard this before?" hopped to google and typed in some of the lyrics (a completely unheralded google usage, btw), and realized it was the song from the silence of the lambs. q-lazzarus never meant anything to me prior to that.

four boys and a guitar

one late evening a few years ago, back in vt, my friend charlie and i were at this girl sophie's house. she threw on some old pre-doo wop vocal music, the authors of which i had no clue. charlie then asked "is this the mills brothers?" indeed it was, and it was quite good. i had been meaning to download some of their stuff, and finally got around to it. i'm still sifting through their prodigious discography, but i grabbed this track for a couple of reasons. enjoy. title: across the alley from the alamo.



this song is also apropos to some recent travel i did for work. i visited the alamo bend navajo reservation in new mexico this week. it was definitely interesting, but i'm going to resist the temptation to use this as an excuse to pen a long missive about the state of native americans. suffice it to say that the mescalero apache a few hours to the south seem to be doing much better economically than the alamo navajo.

rolling rocks

this song does really make you want to go to the roller rink. that's something i need to do more of i feel. although it wouldn't be the same place as compared to what it was in the 70s and 80s. the glory days, it would seem, in this context. artist: vaughn mason & crew

robble robble

from awesome african music-oriented blog Benn Loxo Du Taccu, we find this song, Tchop Tchop, by artist Humbertona. i'm totally obsessed with it right now.

it's traditional-based cabo verdian folk from the 1970s (for lack of a better description). apparently the album was banned by the portugese, as it was released prior to independence, and the colonial overseers were trying to suppress expressions of indigeneous culture. rereleased now by Morabeza Records. original post from Benn Loxo is here. enjoy!

why we love the internet

ah, technology...via el stence, the top 15 unintentionally funny comic book pages. hilarity. although jughead should have made an appearance somewhere it seems. iirc there was a lot of bizarre innuendo around his eating habits that made it into those archie comics.

stepping it up

to reflect all that it is that i am, gonna start doing some mp3 bloggery up in here.

first, today, a track that i listen to almost every day when i get to work. i've gained such an appreciation for anthony hamilton, and desperately need to get his other albums besides 'Ain't Nobody Worrin.'' he's at the top of my music listening for last week, as you can see on the right (at least this week anyway).

courtesy of next-level web file sharing from divshare, you can listen to this inline on the blog, and download it straight from here. track is 'Can't Let Go,' sorry title is obscured. will adjust file renaming accordingly. hotness! enjoy.

inconceivable!

despite a thorough addiction to television as a child, i have only just watched the princess bride today. maybe it was that i didn't have cable until i was almost in college. apparently the movie was played on tv nonstop during the early 1990s. despite this deprivation, i still managed to somehow know and use the inigo montoya revenge line though.

populism, venezuelan/dc style

so apparently dc law has it that you have to clear the sidewalk in front of your property. of course, the dc government hasn't managed to do that quite yet for a lot of city properties or areas with ill-defined property rights, a week after our "big" snowstorm. but that's not what we're talking about here.

occasioned by my running loop, i head down massachusetts avenue down embassy row. the only delegation on my route that has yet to clear the snow from the sidewalk in front of it's embassy is venezuela. you'd think a country that gives out free/discounted heating oil as a sign of it's goodwill towards the poor could manage to shovel off the sidewalk. after all, the people walking skew poor. power to the people indeed.

classic bball - swagger jacking

browsing around free darko the other day and came across their euro guide. awesome stuff as always, especially the illustrations.

this one especially. he only needs a cig.

democracy and a dash of common sense

so, i was reading about the power sharing government that's been formed between Hamas and Fatah. given the terms, and the lack of concessions that Hamas has made towards Israel (namely, recognizing it), denouncing violence, etc., i'm not so sure how effective it will be at quelling violence in and around Palestine. looks like we'll have to wait a little longer for some meaningful developments in the middle east.

one thing stuck out in the article:

The agreement calls for Hamas to control nine government ministries, the most of any party, followed by Fatah with six.

this got me to thinking. wouldn't it seem that some of the failures of democracy in other countries is that they still operate in ways akin to some sort of spoils system? the spoils system was how the American system operated in the 1800s, where whichever party was in power distributed civil service jobs to friends, contributors, etc. now of course we have a non-partisan civil service, except for the higher level positions which are political appointees in executive branch agencies.

the situation where certain factions, either de jure or de facto, control certain ministries/agenices, certainly seems to contribute to die hard political activism, violence, etc., because people really do stand to lose access in some cases if their party loses. and while with non-partisan ministries/agencies means that it's very difficult to get around bureaucratic obstructions, treatment by these agencies is egalitarian and we have limited corruption. having partisan ministries leads to all sorts of trouble: bribery, graft, selective policy application, use of power against political rivals, etc., with all the concomitant problems. iraq, for example, has situations where certain parties (i'm unclear whether this is de jure or de facto) control certain ministries, where these problems have become endemic.

the point can be made, and it has been made in similar situations, about how the current administrations fixation on "democracy" as a fixative for the problems in other countries is completely misguided. this issue of partisan government agencies only serves to highlight the inadequacies of this perspective.

CW watch - dc real estate edition

since i've moved to dc, i've been talking about changing the height restriction. now it looks like some scholars from the brookings institution are saying the same thing.

for those who don't know, buildings in dc can't be higher than 130 feet (which i believe is the height of the capitol building). now, some people have told me that this makes dc more aesthetically pleasing. while i do like the row houses, i'm not sure if i totally agree with that sentiment. i certainly don't agree with that sentiment in the face of skyrocketing rents and home prices.

i usually think of this issue in terms of the effect of the policy on home prices and apartment rental rates, but the brookings scholar Christopher B. Leinberger was talking also in regards to the price and supply of office space, which seems also to be an issue. all the more reason.

dc is such a low density city, and the height restriction is one of the problems. if you've ever travelled out to NOVA or seen the MD suburbs, you've seen some of the consequences. concentrating the region's growth within the district has any number of advantages, including reducing driving (with the reduction in road construction outlays, pollution, gas consumption), reducing sprawl, and making the city more affordable, among other things.

unfortunately, for the expansion in housing supply to have the full impact and to attract families with kids, the dc public schools need to improve considerably. the leadership of the city, however, is well aware of this and how it factors in to the city's ability to retain the high tax base young couples (read: yuppies) who have moved to the city in recent years. whether or not they can actually achieve anything in the schools remains to be seen.

some sort of sensible policy that keeps the restriction in place for the areas around the mall and the capitol seems like an appropriate solution. this would allow the historic areas to retain the gravity they have now, while allowing larger development in other areas of the city. with so much of the city's row houses designated as historic, you'd save large portions of these homes while still allowing for larger development on fallow or underutilized land. the key here is sensible, which sometimes is a foreign term for the dc bureaucracy. and some upgrade in the architectural designs of the new developments (compared to what we're getting now...yeesh) would be nice, and might help dispel dc's image as an unimaginative cultural wasteland (which isn't entirely untrue).

i couldn't finish this without commenting on the quote at the end of the wapo piece.

"Rosslyn has tall buildings and views of the city, but if you change the height limit and someone builds in the air rights above the Watergate then you've blocked that view," said Don Kreuzer, a dentist who has lived in Foggy Bottom for 35 years. "D.C. is beautiful because of the height limits. If you change that you're going to ruin the view."

who cares what the view from rosslyn (i.e. virginia) looks like? i'll agree that the height limit does make dc somewhat more pleasing and manageable, but a maximum 12 stories for buildings is just ridiculous (in our nations capital no less!). for the most part, people who live in dc don't have a view of dc, it's only there for the people in the suburbs. i suspect that this guy lives in one of the few high rises in foggy bottom that actually have a view of the lincoln memorial, and he's just phrasing it in a manner that seems less self-interested. furthermore, if you keep the restrictions in place around the mall, the capitol, and the monuments, then this wouldn't even apply.

hopefully this idea reaches the point where it becomes more than just something academics mention occasionally at panel discussions and gets some serious debate.

Update: DCist harks on this as well, and raises a lot of good additional points. they come out on the same side of this as i do. they also pointed out the faulty assertion about the relationship between the capitol building and the height restriction. mythbusters!

whither iran...and iraq

so, despite the fact that we haven't even come close to figuring out the first mess that we started, as josh marshall points out, the true question right now in american foreign policy is unfortunately whether or not we will attack iran. the administration can't even be bothered to stay focused on staying the course. hawks are out insinuating that iran was behind the recent attack on US forces in Karbala (although they are now apparently saying that it was actually a bunch of iraqi generals).

meanwhile, i'd say things were going from bad to worse in iraq, but i think we've past the point where such a statement is actually meaningful. it turns out that we're fighting an ever fractious group of enemies, and that, sadly unsurprisingly, the mahdi army has been using the iraqi defense forces as a way to equip and train their members. i think most people thought this was a problem, but not on this scale.

with the new national intelligence estimate on iraq released today, we find the intelligence community extremely pessimistic about the possibility of success for the president's surge plan, and for the future of iraq generally. basically, it finds that even if the surge plan could pacify baghdad to a significant degree, such that political dialogue could even be possible, it wouldn't make a difference. the political and sectarian gridlock is just too insurmountable. the sunnis can't adjust to their new role, the shiites can't make any concessions or accept any affronts to their majority status, and the kurds and their play for kirkuk could have drastic consequences (and lets not even mention the situation with turkey).

not only that, but the NIE explicitly rejects the possibility that iran can have any significant influence, given that iraq is already rending at the seams. i guess that might be the only positive thing about it. but then again, that probably won't even matter to the contingent pushing for confrontation.


Update: James Fallows has a gret piece about how while the choices in iraq are hard and necessitate losses and sacrifices, the choice concerning iran is straightforward and unambiguous: No war with Iran.

shotgun willie

lately, i've been listening to a lot of willie nelson, and although i'd listened before, it all really came about over christmas when i borrowed my mom's car. yes, normally i would never be taking musical cues from my parents (especially not my mother, who usually has the same 6 cds in her car for months), but that's how it happened.

now at certian moments of extreme pain or embarassment, you'd be willing to trade lives with anyone. as a rule though, the list shortens when you aren't under duress. i try to shy away from this kind of thinking, but if i could trade lives with anyone, i think willie nelson's life would probably be the most interesting, if not necessarily the most enjoyable. make great music, meet interesting people, travel all over the country and the world, consume large quantities of drugs and alcohol, and still be kicking around and respected, with enough movie cameos to allow me to never play another concert should i so desire. i would take all that, even with the bankruptcy/tax evasion problems.

then again, i think it's somewhat of a sign of a weak human being if you'd be willing to throw away all your experiences to have someone else's life. i guess it becomes palatable if you've had a somewhat boring existence, but i'm not sure i qualify. so maybe this particular instance points to my inherent weakness, although as i added i try to avoid this kind of thinking. you be the judge.

movie of the week: stalag 17

seeing as how i have become quite fascinated with films and see quite a lot of movies (part of the manifestation of this movie fascination i will explain shortly), a good running feature that i've decided to implement is the movie of the week. on occasions where i see more than one that week (or in this case since it's the first feature and i've got a backlog), i might give a short synopsis of multiple pictures in one post, as you'll see below.

ah yes, a manifestation of this movie fascination. so, i've got quite a burned dvd collection that i am building, and i've got a serious Netflix queue and monthly bill; i just had to downgrade to five at a time, as needless to say, they're coming in faster than i can watch them. an rss feed to the top five in my queue is off to the right. anyway, on to the movie(s).


stalag 17
classic flick from the 1950s. Robert Strauss and William Holden star, the latter winning an Oscar for his role as the hard nosed Sgt. Sefton. Set in a Nazi POW camp for Americans in WWII, it's a fantastic mix of comedy and drama, with the ensemble cast of POW characters spanning the broad cross section of the American diaspora.

Billy Wilder, who I'm not extremely familiar with, directed. Some have complained that this didn't gel with Wilder's other work (Sunset Boulevard for example) as far as being too dark, but I don't think that's a legitimate criticism. The film did minimize the atrocities of the Germans a bit, especially considering how recently the war had ended, but American POW camps were, from what I understand, bastions of calm among the chaos and genocide of the other German prisoner operations.

Holden's character is fantastic...never yielding to anyone, and never letting you be sure if he's doing the right thing because of moral or fiduciary considerations. He's a classic anti-hero who provides no moral redemption to his fellow POWs and no easy answers for the audience. The cinematography is pretty decent considering the period, and the traditional overacting of early American movies is considerably muted.

The blend between comedy and drama/tragedy can be uneven at times, with the movie decidedly front weighted with comedy, but during most of the film, as the suspense builds, it strikes a great balance and provides an amazing range of emotions rarely found in concert.

overall, an excellent movie. highly recommended.


I've seen some other movies recently in the theatres, so I'll put a little bit about those as well.

The Painted Veil - Ed Norton is one of my favorite actors, so I was excited for this. I'm not familiar with the book (by W. Somerset Maugham), but from what I understand this version, that Norton has been trying to make since the late 1990s, looks more at the politics of the times and further develops some of the romantic elements. Despite occasional forays into areas of overwrought drama, it was quite a good picture. Some interesting concepts, aside from the obvious story about how people truly come to love one and other, are the idea of games that people play, as well as the readily apparent contradictory sociopolitical conceptions put forth by Norton's character. The few complaints I had revolved around: a) the passage of time, as portrayed, often felt disjointed, and b) the movie was shot on location in China, but the cinematographer chose to shoot mostly very tight shots, not giving a sense of proportion or really allowing the beautiful countryside to affect the movie in any significant way. This overly tight framing also found it's way into much of the rest of the movie, but my aversion in this respect may be more personal preference as far as filmmaking goes. Overall, a very good flick.

Volver - putting aside an pejorative connotations, if any movie deserved the label "chick flick," Volver certainly is it. There are only a handful of male characters, and the only one of any consequence (it spoils nothing to reveal this) makes an early exit. I had my issues with this movie, but it was quite funny and engaging nonetheless. Penelope Cruz is excellent in her role. A primary complaint was the final plot twist, which I just found far too outlandish. But still worth seeing, particularly for Cruz' performance.

Children of Men - despite the fact that it usually seems that Clive Owen is always playing the same character (maybe it's the accent), i always enjoy his performances (see Closer: "why? because i'm a fucking caveman, that's why!"). This was a really interesting movie, and the second half is really thrilling and pulse pounding. Sci-fi always requires a bit of suspension of disbelief surrounding the original premise or situation that led to the particular future condition experienced by the characters, but i still felt that the writers could have provided a bit more information on the background of the time period, rather than asking the viewer to accept it on faith. they dole out information in small doses, but ultimately it's not enough. i also found the documentary style camera work to be annoying in the early stages of the movie, but as the action develops it ceases to become a concern, as there is enough going on on-screen to distract from it. the ending i felt was great, with the sharp cut to the credits and the end score setting a great final tone for the whole feature. good, and worth seeing as well, despite my complaints.


so that's that. happy movie watching. more next week.

thanks again riaa

dj drama and don cannon busted for making mixtapes. i think the riaa is finally really off their rockers, as most of the "bootleg" music used in mixtapes comes direct from the major labels, who use these things to promote artists (see jeezy, t.i., etc.). read about it here, here, and see it on youtube here. Note the copious amounts of ridiculous innuendo in the fox tv report, and the deep, soulless glaze to the riaa guy's eyes. i don't think they could be more clueless if they tried. guaranteed that drama had tons of contracts with labels to help promote their artists.

a little on the motivations

so i started this more just as an outlet, so if it ends up being a tree in the woods kind of thing, then so be it. but i'd been meaning to start a blog as a place to collect my thoughts, and this is the result. the other day at work i got a snappy idea for a title, and for the URL, like i mentioned, and i then spent 5 minutes on blogger and got it running.

of course, part of it is that humans like to hear ourselves talk (or think), and i guess this is the 21st century equivalent. and obviously we perceive our insights as important. and partly because i've got a lot of random crap on my mind.

so we'll see what comes out of that combustible mix.

a little bit (on the) country

smart people of course can deduce quite a bit from the title and URL of this blog (assuming you know a bit about washington, dc) , and may in fact come to some additional conclusions that may in fact not be unwarranted.

the title and URL came about as my lamentations about my neighborhood have grown greater. just something that had been on my mind, and served as a snappy title and whatnot. needless to say though, this will not be some lame neighborhood blog about all the random crap that annoys me, or something that will be full of NIMBY-esque proclamations about what should and shouldn't be going on in columbia heights.

rather, this will just be a lame blog generally (aren't they all these days. especially those that are started in 2007!); general interest i guess would be a category, and by general interest, i mean my interests.

that being said, i do have some forthcoming posts about columbia heights related stuff. so stay tuned.

episode iv: a new hope

well well, look what a random thought at work will get you. i feel like i'm looking over at the edge of the grand canyon, waiting expectantly for the echo of my voice to return. we shall see what this all gets us (me, and god forbid anyone who actually reads any of it).

tim