Completely useless blog with only one purpose: to serve as a therapeutical outlet for my moments of anger, frustration, or sometimes happiness. If you don't know me, I doubt you'll find anything useful in here.
If you DO know me personally, then I doubt you'll find anything useful in here, but feel free to read and comment.
On rare occasions I do say intelligent things, but don't expect them on a regular basis.
I do a lot of reading out there and always get baffled by how quickly people see "evil" everywhere. The most recurrent case is when people immediately call "Machismo" or "Misogyny" as soon as there is a picture of a woman with no much clothing.
I understand women don't appreciate being "objectified" but my question to them is why is this a sign of machismo:
(source: wordpress)
But this isn't a sign of feminism?
(source: Vanity Fair via thebosh.com)
Isn't it the same thing?! Football-related picture with beautiful people in underwear. Why is it that if we show women in underwear it's evil, but showing a guy isn't. NONE OF IT IS EVIL!
People just like looking at beautiful things like scenery, paintings, pictures, and hard bodies REGARDLESS OF GENDER!
So come on, let's all take a nice deep breath and relax a little, no need to shout wolf when there's a picture of a beautiful person around.
I came across the chart of all charts for face type selection! Dunno what font to use for a project? Check this out!
Now I know you all hate Comic Sans with all your guts, so I wanted to help you find it in the chart. It's supposed to be used:
- If you are writing an invitation
- Do not like something hand-written
- Don't want something fancy and want something fun
- You have to be alone (since you wouldn't want to show to your fellow designers that you use that atrocity).
Note that if you're not alone, there is no font that matches that criteria :-)
I'm starting to think I should change the description of this blog to "I write things about music" cause here goes another post that is music-related, as a rant that I've been pushing off for too long and that I hope is a bit more understandable than other things I've complained about in the past.
Today I would like to complain about some people's idea of good music programming. I am a very happy customer of the Satellite service called "Sirius" (which now merged with their former competitor "XM"). Satellite radio comes with a fee but it has the advantage of providing uninterrupted music based on themes with no commercials at all, straight to your car. Now I understand that at home I can have the same service for free with Pandora, Last.fm and other services, but Sirius-XM works in my car and as I drive long distances I don't have to be tuning into new radios, just pick a channel and enjoy the music (plus the radio I have allows me to pause and rewind if I want to, as well as alerts when my favorite bands are being played in other channels). Anyway, the service rocks BUT there is a big problem I have been having for a while.
For a whole year I was an avid listener of Sirius 29, the Punk Channel. It was all I ever wanted to hear, non-stop punk 24/7! Unfortunately they decided it didn't have enough audience and moved it to Sirius 28 "Radio Faction" which was a collection of hard-rock/new metal and hear this... HIP-HOP! Since they were restructuring the radios, and moving punk music into it, I figured it would be a hard-rock/metal/punk station which makes perfect sense, but for some reason, some fucking retard in the programming department still thinks it's a good idea to put rap/hip-hop between hard songs!! To illustrate why my anger towards that channel is increasing I would like you to experience what it feels like with this true case that happened last week.
Imagine you have been listening to rock & punk for a while (and I'm assuming you enjoy it) and right after you finish the following song (Critical Acclaim by Avenged Sevenfold)...
(I personally like it, but that's beyond the point)
... they go and play this (50 cent featuring Eminem!!) WTF!!!
To then jump to something "normal" again, "They Say" by "Scars on Broadway".
Every now and then they'll do something ridiculous like that, including other "artists" like Nelly, Snoop Dogg, La Coka Nostra, ... Rap/Hip-Hop artist that as much as I would normally ignore (by simply not listening to a station where they are played) I am forced to endure (for the few seconds before I switch to Lithium (Sirius 24, early 90s grunge/rock channel)...
Now the thing that I don't get is: Who has the sick perverted mind to think that it's a good transition to go straight from hard rock to gangsta rap!??! It makes absolutely no sense to me. if they went from metal, to rock, then to something like Linkin Park (even if I don't like them, I tolerate them), then maybe some beastie boys and then the stinking rap... That would make a little more sense, a gradual progression towards that style, but they do it with such disregard for successive styles that it boggles my mind.
It really makes me wonder if there's anyone in the hip-hop station (there are about 10 of them on Sirius) that will do the opposite and put something like Slipknot right between Eminen and Jay-Z, personally I doubt it...
Here comes another music post, this time dealing with how great music can make anyone feel.
As a teacher, I tend to get the typical 10am look on students faces, aka "why the fuck did I stay up till 4am when I had to get up at 9am?". They are tired and you need to give them a good jolt to wake them up enough to get the class started and having them sort of listen to what I have to say. It is not an easy task by any possible measure but an important one nonetheless.
Now you might be wondering, why does this have to do with music? Did you plug your mp3 player with some speakers in class? NO. Better. The classroom I teach in 3 times a week happens to have an actual piano in it. And I don't mean no synthesizer, I mean an actual long tail piano right at the back of the room.
So I got into class a bit earlier than usual today, walked to the back, asked the students if they wanted to do some singing to wake up, and somebody asked for "Bohemian Rhapsody" right as I was about to start playing it. It's a coincidence with odds raised based on the fact that it's one of the 3 songs I know on the piano, plus a really popular one to sing in groups, so the effect was doubled when I started the song the second they finished calling it out.
The students were a little shy, so I started the first verse, and they all started singing along, all the way till the end of the first solo. I stopped before the breakdown because I had to start teaching (and because I don't know how to play it) but the effect was done. The class was all smiles, with applause included, and at least for the first 15 minutes of class they were more awake than they usually are.
So last week they were doing a blood drive at my work place, and as I was talking with some of the organizers, I learned that I would not qualify to donate blood even if I tried to because I had lived in Europe for over 5 years. Here's a copy paste from the rules: You are not eligible to donate if: [...] You spent (visited or lived) a cumulative time of 5 years or more from January 1, 1980, to present, in any combination of country(ies) in Europe, including [...] - France [...] - Spain [...]
Seeing how that's where I spent most of my life, I guess my blood is not good enough! At least I have a better excuse not to donate than "I hate needles"... The sad thing is that I actually wanted to help this time (for once).
Today I would like to write something on a VERY positive note, so don't expect any usual grumbling from an old man. I would like to talk about those things that you don't know are great until you try them and then realize that you've been missing out for a long time. The same as the first time you get laid (or at least first time you enjoy it, for those of you that might have had a bad first experience), the day you learn how to surf/snowboard, or even the day you meet someone that you can simply connect with effortlessly.
In this occasion I am talking about something I did not realize still existed in the world we live today: total respect, kindness and camaraderie among total strangers. In the society we live in, we have slowly devolved into individuals that think of our needs and rarely do little things like saying hello to a stranger on the streets. Try that on the streets and you'll get a wide variety of reactions, from a smile to a look of "why the fuck are you talking to me you prick?!". Maybe people just grew old of saying hi to strangers, maybe we're tired, or maybe there is just too many people. Fortunately, there is a small group that will still do such a small token of kindness: Motorcycle riders.
So I rented a motorcycle over the week-end and went riding on nice mountain roads for about 6 hours a day, and as much as the sensation of freedom you get from riding the bike is great, what really touched me, and made me want to write this long bla bla bla is the feeling of camaraderie you get among riders. I was told during my license classes how riders stand up for each other, and are generally happy kind people, but I didn't realize how far that statement goes. Every rider I saw while riding waved hi to me, and I quickly joined the ranks of those doing it. It is something as simple as extending your arm, or making some room on a lane for a new rider (me) to switch lanes without getting run over, or just generally asking how was the ride when you stop at the same places. But every single rider I crossed paths with (and there were a lot) was all smiles, showing a happiness you don't generally see on car drivers which spend more time cursing at each other (I'm the first to do so). It's like being part of a "secret" society where everyone is friends with each other for the simple reason of being on two wheels. It is something I am glad I found, and I realize now how much I missed that feeling.
