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Friday Night Magic at Amazing Discoveries is alway a lot of fun. The competition is stiff and the stakes are high. Tonight I’ll be returning to esper control after aggro-ing it up the last few weeks. But perhaps the most awesome thing about FNM tonight in particular is that this will be my awesome girlfriend’s first sanctioned Magic tournament. She has trained the last few weeks and she’s pressing forward into new heights of geekyness. Village inn after for some EDH mayhem! I love Magic.

It has been quite some time since I have considered posting an entry about my life. To say that the last couple of years has been timultuous would be a massive understatement, given the circumstances of the events of the last several years I felt that the thoughts that consumed my life were really not suitible for a public blog. Interestingly my own crisis seemed to have coincided with the global economic crisis, though my recovery seems to be much faster.

- I have given up filmmaking for the forseeable future. At some point I will pick it back up again, but I have decided to spend my time and energy on things that are more practical.

- I returned to school in the summer of 2010, taking classes at Pima Community College in order to transfer to the University of Arizona’s department computer and electrical engineering. I feel that this education will lead to a more professional career and may even combine with my media arts education to finally put me in a position that integrates art and technology. I plan to start at The U of A this summer.

- My condos are gone, one short sale, one foreclosed. I’m living with my parents again and paying off debt.

- I’ve been playing Magic: The gathering a lot over the last few years. I play competitively twice a week and and am also an avid collector and trader. I’ve recently begun selling cards online as well. I enjoy it all immensely, and it has completely replaced the need to go out and drink and be social. While I still do every so often it’s not a regular weekly thing.

- Since I’ve started playing magic and going to school, I have become a generally happy and relaxed person, I don’t rant and rave nearly as much as I used to and have pretty much returned to being the fun loving guy I used to be in high school. In fact, even though I’m now 33 years old, I feel younger than I have in years.

- A few months ago I met a girl that has redefined my expectations for the role a girlfriend should play in my life. She’s all the things I was looking for and a few things I had no idea I wanted. I’m very happy and comfortable with her and so much of my anger, frustration, and bitterness toward women has disappeared as well, however, much of that had already vanished once I let go and began persuing more intellectual endeavors.

I’m now sitting at Starbucks (incidentally I don’t go to Safehouse much anymore either) after meeting her for a quick coffee before she had to go to work, considering what deck I will be playing tonight, and reflecting on how different my life is now from how I seem in much of this blog, so I finally felt compelled to update it. I’ve wanted to get back to writing my thoughts down and I think I’m finally ready to start doing that again.

Do you ever look around and wonder, “What happened to all the normal people?”.

In today’s ultra-stylized popular culture, more and more people seem to adorn themselves with tattoos, body piercings, designer fashions, and high-tech gadgets.  Every time I turn around I meet someone who thinks they are the next big thing.  Musicians, Filmmakers, Artists, Designers, most of which are wannabe’s chasing down this “Rockstar” image.  I even see this behavior in fields you wouldn’t expect, like Entrepreneurs, Technology Professionals, and even Gaming Nerds, who are the last group of people that I’d expect to have an overdeveloped sense of ego considering their place in society.  The Internet allows them all to create and nurture this image, and the expectation is that they are “undiscovered” geniuses, and that some day they will “make it” in whatever field they are pursuing.  Of course most of these people end up just being miserable, and never amounting to anything.  But what is it about our culture that has created this narcissistic compulsion in people?

It might be easy to blame technology.  The access to more affordable tools to produce art has enabled these people to envision a world in which they are “Rockstars” in their chosen field.  This really shouldn’t be a bad thing, Society needs Art to survive.  But perhaps it is not Art that these people are chasing. Indeed, technology has enabled several legitimate artists to prosper and continue to work creating what they love.  But, wouldn’t these people have been successful anyways?  Talent always floats to the top, and one would expect that only the very best would be able to make a living creating their art.  I have to wonder if Justin Beiber would have ever been noticed without the access to YouTube.com, which is largely credited as the gateway to his success.  I think so, and so then the question remains, why in the world do we love Justin Beiber??

There is clearly a larger problem at work here.

Our society has been reduced to a wasteland of sensational consumerism, in which we are bombarded by images of how our lives should be, and if we do not purchase all the things we need to complete this image, we are not “normal”.  Since we as a people have an intense need to belong to something larger then ourselves, we buy into this image and the cycle continues, as the manipulation becomes ever increasingly invasive and cunning.  The whole concept of the “counter culture” of the last 20 years, tatoos, piercings, studded belts, and being an “independent” artist, is marketed as a way to stand apart from the norm.  The whole concept of being independent, in and of itself, is becoming “normal”, and as such is completely dependent on the products and services being marketed to serve this image.

This is not a new phenomenon.  In fact most of the 20th century was spent evolving more and more manipulative ways of convincing people to purchase things they didn’t really need, the roots of which can be found in the philosophy of one Edward Bernays.  In his publication, Propaganda (1928), he writes:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

We have come to accept this as the normal functioning of our society when it is anything but normal.  A few illustrations of this concept come to mind.  The band Cake has always been on the fringe of the mainstream, as seen by their latest album, Showroom of Compassion, which was self produced in their own solar powered studio and debuted at #1 on the Billboard Album Chart despite being distributed totally independently.  However, on their first album, Motorcade of Generosity, they had a song entitled “Rock ‘n Roll Lifestyle“, which defies the entire concept of counter culture through music. I’m also reminded of a scene from the film Roger Dodger in which the protagonist, Roger, a magazine writer in New York City, attempts to explain to a beautiful young lady at a bar how her choices in life were already decided for her by some marketing executives.  Of course she doesn’t want to hear it.

And who would.  We all want to believe that the choices we make are our own, that we create our own destiny, that we are in control and no one can tell us who to believe and what to buy. But if that is true, then I ask you, Why are you reading this?

It’s not what you think.

In having actual conversations with me about women, you will inevitably hear me mention “the hot French girl”.  Yet for some reason she has yet to grace the pages of this blog.  So since I spent hours last night scouring the internet in vain trying to find a way to contact her, I figured I should relate the story to you, in hopes that someone might be able to help me reconnect with her.

It was July 3rd, 1998.  Melissa Madonna, an old high school sweetheart and good friend of mine had just broken up with me.  I was a mess.  I was working at “El Grecos”, my Godfather’s family’s restaurant and I remember the conversation we had where she told that she never loved me.  I lost it, left work with steam rising from my head.  Her younger brother worked with me, I’m sure he’d never seen me like that.  I was crazy mad.  She was staying with some old high school stoner friends so I raced over there, and we had it out in the street.  Yelling, crying, it wasn’t a pretty sight, for over an hour we carried on.  In the end, there was no solution.  it was over.

Exhausted, I took her brother to meet up with their parents, they tried comforting me, I dealt with it.  For some reason a group of friends I loved spending time with called me up to hang out.  I thought that it would be a good idea considering what I went through and before I knew it I was at Denny’s surrounded by great poeple.  Of course Brian was there, but also, good guys like Anthony Sipsas, Justin Hawley, and of course, Mike Mazarakis.  Now I always thought Mike was a cool guy but I never hung out with him enough.  He was another Greek guy, but different in a way, from the rest of the Greeks, somehow, more my speed.  It turned out he was very much my speed because we ended up getting into an extensive conversation about computers and technology and the Internet, and it turned out he was the tech support manager for a local ISP called Dakotacom.net, which of course is the company that I eventually gave over seven years of my life to in exchange for a lifetime of opportunity, and he was looking to hire a new technician.  At the time I was only working at the restaurant because I had just gotten fired from Bookman’s and I needed an income, so you can see where that was going.  I was feeling much better so after that we stayed up all night playing “You Don’t Know Jack” and passing out on the floor.

The next day was July 4th, 1998, Independence day.  My Mom woke me up to let me know that there was a girl at the door.  That doesn’t ever happen by the way, so I didn’t know what to expect.  It was good old Stacy Bennon, this awesome girl that I met my first year in college, had always been attracted to, but never had the opportunity because I was always with someone at this point, first Tanya, then Melissa.  Since I was now officially single I decided to put myself out there and tell her how I felt about her.  She kissed me, and told me she couldn’t hang out because she had a bunch of stuff to do for the 4th.  I actually had plans myself, though I wanted to cancel them to be with her, but I figured there would be other chances.  There actually never was ever a chance for the two of us, but it was a nice idea.  She’s now married to one over her old sweethearts and they have 2 kids now I think, wow…

Anyways, the reason I couldn’t hang out with her is that Mike had informed me about a party going on Shannon Preator’s parent’s house.  Shannon was an awesome girl, when we were a bit younger there was a night where a bunch of us were driving around, girls in one car, guys in the other.  I remember we even had a boom box in the car blasting the Mortal Kombat soundtrack.  At a stoplight, Brian jumped out of the back seat of our car and jumped through the open window into their car, which was funny enough.  But then, at the next light, Shannon jumped out of the backseat of their car and into the back seat of our car, wrapped her arms around me and said, “I love you!”.  Anthony was driving, and looked at me like “wtf”.  I responded with, “I’ll be right back” and I hoped in the back seat, right on top of her and started making out with her.  Then after a moment, I uttered the most amazing thing a guy could have ever said in that moment. “What’s your name again?”.  Yeah, I know I was a moron, but she didn’t care.  It was totally innocent and fun, and never went anywhere serious, but it was nice to be able to just have fun, it really has been a long while since I have been able to do anything like that.

However, that was not “the hot French girl” that this ridiculously long blog entry is supposed to be about so I’ll get back to the main story.  I show up at the party, expecting to have a decent time with friends, just chilling.  I was actually looking forward to just relaxing with the absence of drama for a night and just enjoying the holiday.  Just then Mike shows up with the most amazing girl I have ever seen.  I really can’t use words to describe this girl’s beauty but it was beyond belief.  She was tall, but not too tall, dark, but not too dark.  Had amazing long, thick, beautiful brown hair, gorgeous face and green eyes.  And then her body… she was wearing this one piece white button up dress skirt thing, that I’m pretty sure was translucent, although it could have just been my imagination, but either way, she was a strong 10, by any standard.

I was standing there with Justin, and once I got my bearings back, I finally said “Who the fuck is Mike with??”, because lets face it, Mike was a computer geek, in a time where computer geeks weren’t sexy to women. I mean, Windows 98 had just come out, 512MB was considered a RAM upgrade, the hot topic was that you could overclock the Intel Celeron 300a to 450mHz.  it was practically the dark ages of computing.  It was very unlikely that any of us would have been able to interest a girl like that to hang out with us.  So naturally I was curious what her story was.  We went over and said hello, and Mike introduced us.  Her name was Emilie Berthou and she was 18 years old.  It turns out that she was visiting her family in Flagstaff from Lyon, France.  Though there was no one her age up there, but she happened to have an aunt in Tucson who was friends with Mike’s mother, and so they sent her down to Tucson.  Wow….. and as we went inside I thought that I already knew how the night was going to go, and she was going to be just another amazing girl that I would have no chance with.

So we all sat down outside to eat the usual 4th of July fare, hot dogs, hamburgers, etc, and somehow Emilie happened to sit next to me, I really didn’t think about it much.  Everyone was asking her questions about France and if she liked it in the States, you know, generic questions like that, which eventually subsided and they broke off into conversations of their own.  Then something amazing happened, I started having a conversation with her.  We talked about a lot of different things, and she really seemed interested in talking to me…. more so then the others.  We talked about music and I found out that she sometimes works as a Go-Go Dancer in night clubs back in Lyon, which was actually no surprise to me.  Finally I asked if she wanted to go listen to some music in my car and she quickly said yes, almost is if she was relieved that I asked.

So we spent the next couple of hours sitting in my car listening to music and talking, just talking and getting to know each other.  it was nice.  And I started to realize that I really liked this girl.  She was smart, beautiful, and really had a great personality.  All of a sudden I didn’t care about the fireworks, or the bullshit of the week, or anything else.  And at that point, while we were sitting on the trunk of my car having another cigarette, I kissed her.  And she liked it so I kissed her again…

I’m just taking a moment to remember that kiss…

Well, she ended up spending the next 10 days, and nights, with me.  And while I’d like to say that it was just about the circumstances or whatever, it was a whole lot more.  I grew as a person that week, I became something more, something greater.  Not to mention there was something amazing about coming home from working in a hot kitchen to find this amazing beautiful girl waiting for me in my bath robe.  I mean, that only happens in movies right??  We did all kinds of stuff together, had amazing conversations for hours.  I admit, at times I had to pinch myself, because it really was like a dream.  My Godfather told me once that I was going to collapse once she left, and I knew it, but I didn’t care.  I really was having the time of my life.

And then it happened.  She had to leave.

So I took her to the bus station.  The old Greyhound station, which is actually torn down now.  But I remember clearly, the process of driving to the station, the silence in the car.  And once I finally let her go, and she walked away to board the bus, this wave washed over me, and I started to cry.  I think I knew that she was a once in a lifetime chance, and I would have to continue knowing that no one would ever make me happier then this girl.

The whole time I was with her, I never took a photo of her.  Maybe I felt like it would be too painful to have an image to look at.  Maybe I felt like it would cheapen the experience, that I preferred instead to remember the feelings.  And I do very much so, even now, over 10 years later.  She wrote me a couple of times that month after she left.  I wrote her back a couple of times, each time was farther and farther apart.  And then nothing, from either of us.

A couple of times since I have tried writing letters, but I’m sure she’s moved, and married by now.  But sometimes I wonder if somehow, we are still connected and that perhaps one day we will be reunited.  Maybe that’s exactly what I’m waiting for.  Maybe I’m just fooling myself.  But it really would be nice to be able to sit and have coffee with her again, just one more time…

The following is reposted from http://www.kiplinger.com/features/archives/2008/10/10_things_going_right.html.

The markets may be in turmoil. The economic outlook is grim. But not all the news is bad.

Never in modern memory have Americans been so gloomy about their future. A record 90% of registered voters say the country is seriously off on the wrong track, according to the most recent ABC News poll. A long economic slump lasting well into 2009 looks likely (see What’s Next For the Economy?).

But take heart. The editors of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and Kiplinger’s forecasting came up with ten things going right these days. See if you agree:

1. Oil Loses Its Swagger: With the U.S. and global economy hurting, oil prices have dropped 50% in just three months, from $147 a barrel in July to the $70 range. Remember $80-$100 fill-ups at the pump? The national average for a gallon of gasoline is down to $3.00, from $4.11 in March, and should stay in the $3.00-$3.50 range through next year. Prices for home heating oil and natural gas are also headed lower this winter than last.

2. A Tipping Point for the Auto Industry: After years of talk and false starts, finally, all the major carmakers are furiously developing hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles that could lessen our dependence on foreign oil. Meanwhile, desperate dealers are offering unheard-of incentives on new, gas-fired models. For example, Toyota is offering $1,000 cash back and 0% financing on the 2009 Camry, the most popular car in America. Don’t drive much? If you’ve always wanted an SUV or truck, the discounting on some models is extraordinary.

3. Interest Rates Are Low and Headed Lower: The prime rate is at 4.5%, which is driving down interest rates on home-equity lines of credit and some consumer loans. The interest rate on a traditional 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is averaging 6.5%, the highest it’s been since the summer of ’07, but still not too far from the historic low of 5.8% reached in 2003-05 and 1963-65. And although credit-card companies are cutting personal spending limits, rates are dropping, too. The average rate on credit-card purchases fell to 11.89% in the first week of October, down from 12.13% in September, according to LowCards.com, which tracks 1,260 credit cards.

4. Homes Are More Affordable: Real estate, which was overpriced during the housing bubble, has returned to earth. That’s especially good news for first-time home buyers who were priced out of the market. While scare stories persist of credit drying up, the reality is more a return to traditional lending standards that had been thrown overboard-recklessly in many cases-by lenders. That means to qualify you usually need a 20% down payment, sufficient annual income, good credit and a tolerable load of debt.

5. Your Bank Savings Have Never Been Safer: The $700-billion federal rescue plan more than doubles the amount of federal deposit insurance on individual bank accounts, to $250,000 from $100,000. Uncle Sam sweetened the pot further on October 14 by providing unlimited FDIC insurance on non-interest-bearing accounts. That will provide more coverage for the nation’s small businesses, which use these accounts. Plus, a new temporary federal insurance program covers the full value if your money-market-fund shares fall below a net asset value of $1.00 (called “breaking the buck”). The program provides coverage for shareholders for the amount they owned on September 19, 2008. See Your Financial Crisis Questions Answered for more.

6. Stocks Are on Sale, and Many Bonds Offer Terrific Yields: The current bear market is approaching the 1973-74 and 2000-2002 downturns, the two worst retreats since World War II. That’s the bad news. The good news: Individual blue chips are selling at bargain prices. For example, shares of AT&T (symbol T) sell for about eight times estimated 2009 earnings and yield 6%. Networking giant Cisco Systems (CSCO) sells for only ten times earnings estimates for its July 2009 fiscal year. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), as steady an Eddie as you’ll find, sells for just 13 times ’09 forecasts, and Google (GOOG) is going for less than 15 times estimates. Triple-A-rated tax-free bonds, an extraordinarily safe investment, are paying 5%-plus for ten years and 6% for 20. That’s more than the Treasury offers for bonds of the same maturity.

7. The Miracle of Technological Innovation Continues: Been to Best Buy, Sam’s or Costco lately? For $799, you can now buy a 42-inch, high-definition flat-panel TV that will knock your socks off. Throw in another $200, and you can get a surround-sound system to truly transform your den into a home theater. A top-of-the-line PC with more memory than you’ll ever use now costs $1,000; high-end laptops with all the bells and whistles go for $1,200, down from $2,000-$4,000 five years ago. And giant leaps in handheld devices, such as Apple’s new iPhone, have revolutionized the way people interact with the world. (Use our PriceGrabber tool to compare prices.)

8. Prosperity Reigns in the Heartland: The fall harvest is shaping up as one of the best ever, despite the destructive weather and floods in the Mississippi River corridor since last spring. Exports of U.S. farm products will increase more than 40% by value this year. And recent years of high profits have allowed farmers to pay down debt so low that it accounts for a measly 9% of their assets — providing all the credit they’ll need for 2009 operations. At home, while food prices jumped sharply earlier this year, the weak economy is now expected to slow further price increases.

9. A New Tone and Direction in Washington: Whether it’s Barack Obama or John McCain who enters the White House in January, election of a new chief executive should provide at least 100 days of galvanizing certainty for markets, and a new direction and sense of purpose for the country.

10. Shoppers Can Expect Great Gift Buys This Holiday Season: Retailers depend on robust end-of-year sales to turn a profit, but for 2008, the National Federation of Retailers forecasts holiday spending will increase only 2.2% from last year. That won’t even beat inflation. It’s good news for bargain hunters, though. Both brick-and-mortar and online retailers are gearing up to offer huge discounts to boost sales. For example, Deal News predicts a DUAL Core Intel Laptop will go for as low as $299 on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and a Canon PowerShot SD1100 (recommended in our Simple Tech picks) will go for a very low $139.

So chin up. We’ve been through hard times before. To quote Rudyard Kipling, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs …”

SEE THIS STORY IN A SLIDE SHOW

It’s not the war… it’s not the housing market…  This excellent, thought provoking interview describes the root of our current economic crisis and what could be yet to come.

Take a break from your BS myspace posts and listen to something with some substance for a change.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89338743

Unbelievable…. you know… I kinda wish I was a chick …. not just so I could buy a pink leather laptop without making people think I was gay… but also so I could ignore guys’ messages, give guys’ fake phone numbers, and then throw myself at those same guys at a club after I turn 37 and realize that no one wants to have sex with me…. or not..

Incidentally… I really want to meet that girl showing off that laptop… she’s hot! There’s just something about young hot girls who are into technology… and hummus…

As I have become less and less entertained with the standard myraid of bullshit on MySpace, bulletins and other such nonsense, I have been checking out the featured books when a title catches my attention.  This evening my interest was definitely piqued.

First, it seems that J.R.R Tolkien had been working on a prequel to the lord of rings series and the hobbit before he died.  Now, his son Chrstopher Tolkien has put together this new book from his father’s original writings.

The new book is called “The Children of Húrin” and it takes place in the same galaxy, a long long time ago, before the hobbits found the ring. This is kinda like when they released that new Beatles song from recordings John Lennon made before he died!

Maybe we’ll see another 3 hour Peter Jackson film in theaters soon… then released to DVD, then released to DVD again as a 4 hour Extended Version, then released to DVD again as a Platinum Series Special Extended Version!

Speaking of which, the next book I noticed was a book called, (and I love this title), “Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole”.  This is brilliant. It’s basically about how capitalism used to be good for democracy because it accelerated growth in “need based” businesses, which are basically businesses that produce stuff that people need to survive like food, water, and steel for making weapons to kill communists.  But now, capitalism has become so full of itself that it essentially has been creating the need in people to buy the new shit they are selling, the shit they don’t need, but they think they need in order to survive.  This practice has always been around, like the door to door salesman selling the vaccum cleaners and late night infomercials, but now it is in the mainstream, and affecting people at younger ages so that they grow up dependant on these things.  I experienced this first hand recently when offering to help a friend out, the things she made be buy… iPod, Big Screen, etc, and she was in a crisis situation and was absolutely convinced she would not be able to survive without them… unbelieveable.

Among the usual incomprehensible comments from your average idiot MySpace users, was this gem of a comment:

“I’m not sure the author is scapegoating corporate America, though the consolidation of power through wealth and surplus is historically a BIG warning sign. Whether you read this book or not, free-will and independent action are pretty rare things, and those that think otherwise ought to try viewing their life and desires with a little more incredulity. It’s not as simple as better priorities or spending less money; our sense of worth and adequacy depends entirely on our successful integration into a social schema built more and more on accumulation, fetishism, and the constant enticement of upgrade. To actually step outside of this system is not easy and can bear serious consequences. The illusion of consumer choice is one of the most insidious devices that market capitalism has yet offered.

Seriously, I can’t believe how many people take MySpace book reviews as a chance to congratulate themselves on their own wage-slavery.”

So beautifully stated!  That made my night.

Then it dawned on me… this whole new world we live in, PodCasts, InternetTV, iPods that hold 20,000 songs (because the bus ride home is really that long, or maybe you just like to play the first 20 seconds of each song and then change it because you are ADD and got bored, in which case you still wouldn’t need 20,000 fucking songs you idiot), is a world where entertainment is a Need!  Not just a hobby, not just something to enjoy from time to time, but a serious part of people’s life and actually something that is nessessary to maintain one’s existence in this new world.  The important news of the day is what new band is hot or what new movie just came out, or what new gadget lets you maintain your access to your entertainment better.  It used to be if someone was classified as poor, it was because they didn’t have the money to eat.  Now, poor people are defined as people who can’t afford cable.  Entertainment is the main focus of our entire culture….   There is another civilization that behaved very similar to this just as it began to collapse…. The Roman Empire…

That’s it… I’m moving.

ARE YOU HOLLYWOOD?
–written by Joe Joe Pellegrino / Joe Alexandrow

You’re so Hollywood if . . . .