here

It’s been too long since I threw any thoughts down into eternity. This is Shangri-la, what it does to you. The past recedes and the future becomes reality, slice by slice. No looking back at license plates or sideways glances at sidelong faces in the marketplace, no use wondering how mothers and fathers met. You can only connect the dots, even if you can’t make out the picture.
This is a dream I could drown in. The air is clearer here, the signs more vivid, though I can’t always know what they mean. You could run forever in those forests, up there in the morning veil of soft cotton haze and mist, find a sense of home and call it a place, where no one can find you if you don’t want them to. Neon jolts the city into its night existence. Music is playing somewhere, a child’s upturned toy, an automated garbage truck, underground bass. Wonder when I’ll get to see the beach, see sand between my fingers, let the waves cradle the horizon to sleep. I will let it all flow.

Day 6

Finally have a few hours of rest to work on this.
There’s always somewhere to eat. Feel like I’ve been running a marathon with my stomach. Walked around the RaoHe night market last night, a grungy arcade of lights and smells.

You can find anything here, all kinds of goods both genuine and knock off, if you’re willing to brave to waves of stinky tofu. How to describe the smell? A few adjectives come to mind but inevitably fall short. Fetid, rotten, like old gym socks filled with last night’s vomit. It’s worth it though, to make it to the glorious boba milk tea menu. The best goddamn drink in the goddamn world.

I’ll take the taro, thanks, but I’ll be back for them all. Not everything here is for everyone though. There’s bound to be a few controversial delicacies around the corner.

Day 1

The 13 hour flight wasn’t bad. The cigarette after, in the airport parking lot, was godly. Squeezed in 3 movies (Youth in Revolt, How to Train Your Dragon and the Wolfman) and 2 documentaries. Got placed next to an Old Guy, well below Business Milfs on the hierarchy of people you want to sit next to for 13 hours, but still drastically above the dreaded Fat Dad or Fat Mom. The closer I got to the city, the hungrier I got. Oh God the food. I couldn’t wait for to start the eating binge that would officially mark my entrance into the Ilha Formosa, but I managed to restrain myself long enough to settle into the condo. First things first.

Home for the next 2 months. From my window I can see the elementary school my mom attended. In the morning I can see kids running around and doing jumping jacks like ants on meth.

took a walk around my new hood, looking for first breakfast.

love how this is chillin randomly next to a 7-11. old and new clash everywhere here.

spent a couple hours at the espn office meeting the general manager. about ready to crash now, so.

Conan O’Brien joins Vampire Weekend

Had no idea Conan could jam like this.  Kinda wish he could join the band permanently, feel like it could only do good things for his career.  Seems like Conan has been really making a conscious effort to tap into a new generation of tech geeks lately, via the Tweeter, the Youtubes and the Google machine.  Colbert even makes an appearance.  Is some some new vast cross-promotional synergistic business model at work here?  Maybe its all just good fun.

JJ

wanted to try the ultimate porker, but when the JJ lady asked me what i wanted, i pussed it and went with the italian one again. wish i was more adventurous in my sandwich choices, but feel i might be too afraid of disappointment/regret to take the risk. #9 has always been good to me. feel like picking another sandwich would be like turning my back on a lifelong friend.

wish jimmy johns delivered to africa so every one could know the joy of a #9.

wish smelling things wasn’t so expensive. if only there was somewhere i could go to smell delicious ingredients for free. o wait

thank you, JJ. you turn my frown upside down.

I Can Change – LCD Soundsystem

Thanks Vision – Toro y Moi

the toro y moi buddy seems like a chill buddy

new toro y moi single:

Leaving Everywhere – Toro y Moi

Space Adventures undercuts Virgin Galactic — announces $100,000 space tourism flight

Space tourism is something we here at Engadget have always been pretty fond of in theory — it is the final frontier, after all — but the prohibitive (exorbitant, extravagant, ridiculous) $200,000 price tag on a Virgin Galactic flight pretty much ended any small hopes we ever harbored of getting on one. So, would a reduction of about 50 percent be enough to get us to sign up? That’s the question that Virginia-based Space Adventures is asking. The company’s just announced it’s going to offer flights into suborbital space through an exclusive agreement with Armadillo Aerospace, which is currently developing the rockets for the journeys. A trip with Space Adventures is set to cost just $102,000. We still can’t afford it, but we’re certainly glad to see the prices fall from insane to outrageous. So, what about you? Are you in?

Space Adventures undercuts Virgin Galactic — announces $100,000 space tourism flight originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 May 2010 11:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Jaunted | MSNBC | Email this | Comments

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/13/space-adventures-undercuts-virgin-galactic-announces-100-000/

home for 5 days

Haven’t been able to post much lately since the internet at my house has been ultra patchy. I’ve narrowed it down to a few possibilities: faulty wireless adapter, secret roommate torrents or pr0n virus. Anyway, being home has given me some perspective on my life and made me realize what a horrible year it has been. Here’s home in a grainy low-res parallel universe:

(took this pic with my bberry in my backyard, feel kinda proud that it worked out)
My mom keeps telling me that I don’t read enough. I keep telling her that books will be obsolete once Google has finished absorbing every library on earth. I think its a generational gap thing.
I’ve noticed that the roads are smoother here than in Tucson, as if Phoenix has the money to filter radioactive carcinogens out of its groundwater AND fix potholes. Another sad thing I realized is that even though I lived here 18 years, I still have trouble spelling Ahwatukee right on the first try.

Want to announce a new direction I want to take this blog over the summer.
Over the summer I will be working overseas in Taipei, Taiwan as an ESPN intern (for the ESPN Taiwan branch), then I’m heading to Shanghai for the 2010 World Expo. Along with two and a half month’s worth of luggage, I’m going to bring my point-and-shoot vid recorder, my camera, audio recorder, and tripod (all extremely compact). I’m going to try and capture what it’s like to work in another country, and this blog will be my realtime, FBook and Twit linked journal, which I will post in every night. I will end it with my own personalized coverage of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, which you can see here before it ends up on YouTube.

On a completely different note, RATATAT’s LP4 continues to impress me.
(hipsterrunoff.com)

This is the only song I can post for now because the rest is on my hard drive back @ Tucson but I will try to post more asap

Party with Children – RATATAT

This song makes me think of Neuromancer and the other 80s cyberpunk influences that made me want to be a hacker/assassin when I grew up.

Untrust Us – Crystal Castles (Alex Zalenka Remix)

One of the first of what I’m sure will be many great remixes of Celestica, off the new Crystal Castles. This one could be described as some kind of haunting techno witch-house fusion, imo.

Celestica – Crystal Castles (Alcala remix)

Rio Nuevo

A video project I did for my multimedia class on the failures of the Rio Nuevo development project which has wasted millions of dollars:

the tallest man on earth

I don’t post enough chill folk on here.  This blog needs some folk.  I’ve been chillin’ to the Tallest Man on Earth.  Not to be confused with this guy:

The Tallest Man on Earth kinda makes me wish I lived in simpler times.

Burden of Tomorrow – The Tallest Man on Earth

All is Love – The Tallest Man on Earth

the sky

Why is it that the most meaningful thoughts only ever come to me before I all asleep? The best writing I’ve ever done (I think) has been during bouts of insomnia, bleary eyed and brain addled with the sky turning blue behind the window. I need to escape this place. I need a fresh perspective. Clear air that’s been filled with dust for too long.

Must have picked up a hundred cigarette butts from my front yard today. Must be a thousand left. Somewhere in there, working in the sun, I realized how much time I’ve wasted on things that don’t matter, caring about self destructive people that bring out the worst parts of me. The endless cycle of ego masturbation I see every time theres another meaningless conversation between people who have never had a real, original thought in their lives.

Is jounalism really the right career path for me? Part of me says so, the part of me that gets annoyed at misinformed opinions, at social injustices, the part of me fascinated with the sociology of ignorance, the part of me that wants to know everything. But there is the pessimist in me, clinging to high school nihilism, the part of me that wants to be Howard Roark and create something pure and devoid of the human element, parts of me that just want to sit and make music until I die. How can I possibly reconcile everything I want to be into one resume, one portfolio? Can journalism be art or is the objective accuracy required by journalism inherently compromised by any attempts at aesthetic appeal?

Maybe I can do it all, but where should my priorities lie? Where the money is? Am I betraying myself by picking one thing over all the rest? Or is that what everyone is essentially, an ever evolving set of contradictions? I want to do serious investigative journalism and force people to look at ugly things, evil things, to make them acknowledge issues that matter. I want to write a novel that breaks hearts, that reminds someone of something, anything, the essential loneliness of being being human, maybe, and the occasional joy. Is there a spectrum between journalism and art where I can exist?

I guess all my interests do have one thing in common, the overarching theme of solitude. Its morbid, maybe even masochistic, but fittingly Nietzchian. I love being alone. I’m comfortable in my own selfish mind.