....its a cement truck full of Wonder Bread!
Haha
You might not find this funny, but I as highly amused.
All in It's My Life
This kid was at the Hammerstein Ballroom last night... talk about quality time with Dad! More videos here, especially now that Phanfare has MP4 support!
Technology can be a very powerful thing. A computer and an internet connection can give you the tools to create very positive change in the world around you... right at your fingertips.
Or, in my case, they can be weapons of self destruction.
I have two traits that, when combined with the ease of publication and distribution afforded me by blogging and e-mail, have come back to bite me time and time again. One day, I think I'll learn.
First is that I'm very "principled". When stuff bothers me, I always say something about it and make an issue of it. I think, more than anything else, its because I never think that the people around me make enough of an issue with things. Sometimes, I've spoken out for people and defended them, or defended issues I believe in...and its a good thing. Too often, I find myself wandering too far ahead of the crowd and putting myself out there alone without backup or a leg to stand on.
Second, my tone is... well... call it what you will... abrasive, snarky, threatening... I mean, it never seems that way to me, but it certainly comes off that way to others. Sometimes, I'll read an e-mail twice, think its fine, and then wind up totally pissing someone off... and somehow still not know why. I've never really concerned myself with style. Style is style, but content is what really matters to me, so I've never really had trouble dealing with difficult people. I had a finance teacher that would routinely say obnoxious things, but at the end of the day, he was the best teacher I've ever had, hands down... and that's all I cared about. However, not everyone works that way and I need to do a much better job of realizing that.
So today's lesson comes when I was supposed to play with a team of people in a big dodgeball tournament with a lot of tech firms tomorrow afternoon. There was an entry fee, which is fine, but then I balked that non-members of this venue would have to pay $25 each for a "day pass" to use the "facilities" even though we were already paying to rent the space. So, I went around the organizer, straight to the venue and e-mailed them. I basically said, "Hey, we're not even going to use the other facilities, and you know what, you guys are getting a lot of publicity out of this because its going to be full of bloggers... so how about some free passes."
Well, that was the jist of what I was trying to say anyway. I think the part about how my blog gets more traffic than the venue's website was probably overkill... definately.
The result?
The venue passed it back to the organizer, who then decided that, probably rightfully so, that I was more trouble than my participation was worth, and poof, we're out on our butts. Booted from the tourney!
We were so excited... I had a whole team together that was all pumped to play... I've been talking about it for days... and now nobody on my team can play because of my own stupidity.
Sucks.
I suck.
Its amazing that any of you still read what I write...
Today's weather in NYC:
So I've been e-mailing with a Jesuit scholastic (someone who is studying to become a priest) about some family values issues and I wanted to blog my response to something he said about beliefs and how I arrive at them:
"Going to be tough to chat via phone... have a very busy schedule over the next few days. Plus, admittedly, I'm a writer. I kind of hate the phone and do my best thinging when I can sit, go back to something, think about it... I find the phone to be unecessarily syncronous when my brain doesn't work that way.
Plus, this is the way the Paul did it, right? :) He would have made a great blogger.
I'm sure we'll run into different definitions of the word faith, but here's one from the Catholic Encyclopedia that seems that you would go on that I have a lot of trouble with.
"...faith must necessarily result in a body of dogmatic beliefs....Objectively, it stands for the sum of truths revealed by God in Scripture and tradition and which the Church presents to us in a brief form in her creeds..."
"That such Divine faith is necessary, follows from the fact of Divine revelation. For revelation means that the Supreme Truth has spoken to man and revealed to him truths which are not in themselves evident to the human mind. We must, then, either reject revelation altogether, or accept it by faith; that is, we must submit our intellect to truths which we cannot understand, but which come to us on Divine authority."
The problem I have, where this breaks down for me and where it breaks down for a lot of Catholics, or people in general, is that once you get to the point where religion needs to be explained to you by someone with a lot more schooling that you, you don't trust it... because you know that no one is infallable and we are all subject to our own biases. Religion has been used to exploit people, as an excuse to start wars (not talking about today), and as an instrument of fear. (You should see V for Vendetta, btw...) Individual faith doesn't have those negative charactoristics, or at least not to the same extent. If I base my faith on what I believe in my heart and my innate sense of right and wrong, while it is no doubt subject to my own biases, I also don't get the sense that I am using religion to justify an end. Whereas, when you have Divine Revelation explained to you by others that seems to contradict what's in your heart, people get a little suspicious.
So, you could tell me that there is Divine revelation that dictates what family means, but I say that, to me, family is love and support and I see the best kind of love and support in a multitude of different arrangements and architectures. I believe that... it is my own personal faith that it is acceptable to God. Scholars and experts could point out otherwise, but then again, some Church scholars thought the world was flat at one point, too, and that notions of a round world were contrary to scripture. Such is the result when imperfect people try and interpret the Divine."
First off, there are four new all-fruit flavors at Jamba. I had the grape one... it was grapetacular. Even better was that *finally* they have a loyalty card program... so I only need three more all-fruit smoothies to get the next one free.
But the most important thing is that my favorite Jamba employee Carmen is back at the Jamba Juice on 5th and 22nd. I think she's probably everyone's favorite, because when I started talking to her, some lady on line said, "See, everybody missed you!"
Why was she gone?
She had a baby! Congrats Carmen!
I thought it was a little fishy that there was a news helicopter hovering above my subway stop this morning.
Turns out that some lady was late for her train and tried to pull up right up to the train by parking on the platform...underground.
They just don't make city streets like they used to, eh?
Its slightly unsettling to me that, no matter how big that watermain is or how long it was spewing water into the subway station, that all it takes is a little H2O to make the whole damn street collapse.
What happens when it rains hard? Should I not be driving the 'Stang on 4th avenue?
