Would Be 70

Holy Shit!

I Want MSG

NHL Center Ice is holding a free preview Oct. 7-24. After that it will be 4 payments of $42.95. Hopefully MSG will settle with DISH Network, because there is no way I am switching to Cable and I will be damned if I am going to miss hockey.

incartare un gatto

An Important Message from Ellen About Bullying

Survey: Americans don't know much about religion

By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer – Tue Sep 28, 3:42 pm ET

"A new survey of Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths."

Full Story

Former Teammates

Buffalo Sabres Drew Stafford, right, battles for the puck with Toronto Maple Leafs Clarke MacArthur during the third period of a pre-season NHL hockey game in Toronto on Monday, Sept. 27, 2010. [AP]

So my favourite teams played each other in the last 2 games and each won their home game.

Sick

I have been sick for almost two weeks. It has been really tough having a busy schedule, people counting on you, and the only think I wanted to do was sit or lay in bed. Since I did not slow down I got a lot worse, but now that I barely did anything this weekend I feel better, not 100%, yet I am behind with everything I needed to do. Getting better is most important. I will figure out later how to catch up with everything else.

That time again

With the preseason in full swing . . . hockey is back!
Toronto won again (against Philly).
Buffalo plays Toronto on Saturday.
Oh to have tickets to that game.

A Gripe

Sometimes I cannot understand why students attend a class they have no interest being in and then proceed to create distractions for others. They should have dropped the class or skipped today if writing within Facebook was more important than Tibetan Buddhism.

Nessun Dorma

Luciano Pavarotti

Simon's Cat in 'The Box'

The most beautiful thing filmed

Ricky Fitts: "It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."

--- American Beauty (1999)

Little Mouse

I managed to save this little one on August 21, but today I could not save it's friend. I tried to coax him to drink, had food ready and even chanted over his worn out little body, but he was too far gone when I found him in the window well. He died shortly after and I buried him under the Lilac bush. I am going to measure the window wells and get covers so this does not happen again.

Compassion from Anger

People harm others only when they are unhappy. No one wakes up in the morning and says, "I feel so great today! I think I'll go out and harm someone!" When we can allow ourselves to know the depth of the pain and confusion felt by those who have harmed us, compassion--the wish that they be free from such suffering--can easily arise. Thinking in this way does not mean whitewashing or denying harm that was done. Rather, we acknowledge it, but go beyond amassing resentment, because we know that grudges help neither ourselves nor others.

--from Working with Anger by Thubten Chodron, published by Snow Lion Publications

Все́волод Илларио́нович Пудо́вкин

(Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin) (16 February 1893 – 20 June 1953) was a Russian and Soviet film director, screenwriter and actor who developed influential theories of montage. Pudovkin's masterpieces are often contrasted with those of his contemporary Sergei Eisenstein, but whereas Eisenstein utilized montage to glorify the power of the masses, Pudovkin preferred to concentrate on the courage and resilience of individuals.

- Wikipedia

HW1 - DMS438

This is a screenshot of the first stage of homework 1: use the Island Demo in Unity 3D and add a village by the shore with Heron on the roof. I did not model any of this section, as the point is to use what is created to learn the program and how the "behind the scenes" work without spending countless hours modeling everything (modeling come next semester). It is a relief to not have to model everything from scratch this semester since I know how long that takes.

Defintion

Compassion: sensitivity to the sufferings experienced by other beings, coupled with a desire to help them to overcome suffering and its causes

New Guest Today

Red-headed Woodpecker 

Melanerpes erythrocephalus

2 Months Later

I am restarting my blogging everyday -- I am online everyday anyway. Who knows, maybe this time I will not stop after completing a full year. Sometimes I have a lot to say sometimes I struggle to find something. Never-the-less there will be a new post everyday.

7 Eleven on 07-11

Big Gulp Day
7 Eleven: Lockport, NY

One day this will be true:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator w/certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness." 

Declaration of Independence

adopted July 4th, 1776

Petition for the Release of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche

“I am not guilty, please appeal for justice for me….call all people together and do everything possible to help me overturn the verdict”.

Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, revered religious leader and visionary advocate for Tibetans, is serving a life sentence for allegedly “conspiring to cause explosions”; a crime he did not commit. Since his arrest Tenzin Delek has maintained his innocence and no credible evidence has ever been found linking him to this crime.

Now, in a remarkable act of support and bravery, 40,000 Tibetans inside Tibet have signed petitions demanding justice for their leader.

Join with the people of Tibet now and add your ‘thumbprint’ to the petition below to help free Tenzin Delek Rinpoche.

The petition is to Zhou Yongkang (pictured right), Party Secretary in Sichuan Province when Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was detained and currently one of the highest ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party with authority for overseeing implementation of the law throughout the People’s Republic of China.

Sign Petition

Napoleon Dynamite was right!

(Photo: aliwest44 / Flickr)

Ligers

Ligers are the cross of a male lion and a female tiger, and they are the largest of all living cats and felines. Their massive size may be a result of imprinted genes which are not fully expressed in their parents, but are left unchecked when the two different species mate. Some female ligers can grow to 10 feet in length and weigh more than 700 pounds.

Ligers are distinct from tigons, which come from a female lion and male tiger. Various other big cat hybrids have been created too, including leopons (a leopard and a lion mix), jaguleps (a jaguar and leopard mix), and even lijaguleps (a lion and jagulep mix).

source

Sleep Position

• Fetus position - A whopping 41% of participants sleep in this curled-up manner. Women are twice as likely to rest like this and it is listed as the most common position. These sleepers are said to have a tough exterior but are still sensitive and may appear to be shy but warm up quickly.

• Log position - If you sleep on your side with both arms down, you are a social, easy-going person who is trusting, sometimes to the point of being gullible. The study showed 15% of people sleep like a log.

• Yearner position - A close third is the side-lying position with both arms out in front of the body, with 13% of partipants sleeping like this. Yearners are noted to be open-minded and still cynical, suspicious, and stubborn about sticking to decisions once they are made.

• Soldier position - These sleepers lie on their backs with arms down and kept close to the body. This 8% study is said to be reserved, quiet, without fuss, and hold themselves and others to a high standard. Soldier sleepers have a higher likelihood for snoring due to the flat-back position, which may not cause them to wake up often but may result in a less restful night's sleep.

• Freefall position - Those people who lie on their bellies with arms under or wrapped around a pillow with head turned to the side, make up 7% of the population studied. Freefallers are brash, outgoing, and are very uncomfortable with criticism. 

• Starfish position - Sleepers who lie on their backs with arms up near their head or the pillow account for 5% of participants. These people are good listeners, helpful, and are uncomfortable being the center of attention. People who sleep in starfish position are more likely to snore and to suffer from a poor night's sleep more often.

If you think you are one of those people who move through all of these positions, that's not likely to really be the case. Idzikowski said the research reveals most people stay in the same position all night and only 5% lay differently night by night. Also interesting is that the study showed only one in ten people cover their bodies entirely with a blanket, with most people exposing an arm, leg, or both feet.


source

I am a Yearner and Soldier, who moves around a lot during each night and mostly prefer to be covered entirely.

Verbatim

Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem - Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even. (Horace)

Age. Fac ut gaudeam - Go ahead. Make my day

Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est - Yes, that is a very large amount of corn

Amicus verus est rara avis - A true friend is a rare bird

Brevis ipsa vita est sed malis fit longior - Our life is short but is made longer by misfortunes. (Publilius Syrus)

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam - I have a catapult. Give me all your money, or I will fling an enormous rock at your head

Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre? - Is that a scroll in your toga, or are you just happy to see me?

Liberate te ex inferis - Save yourself from hell

Mater tua criceta fuit, et pater tuo redoluit bacarum sambucus - Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries

Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione - I'm not interested in your dopey religious cult

Non vereor ne illam me amare hic potuerit resciscere; quippe haud etiam quicquam inepte feci - I don't think anyone knows I love the girl; I haven't done anything really silly yet

Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae - There is no one great ability without a mixture of madness

Obscurum per obscurius - The obscure by means of the more obscure

Omne initium est difficile - Every beginning is difficult

Postatem obscuri lateris nescitis - You do not know the power of the dark side

Quid agis, medice? - What's up, Doc?

Scio me nihil scire - I know that I know nothing. Certain knowledge cannot be obtained. (Socrates)

Sit vis vobiscum - May the Force be with you

Sona si latine loqueris - Honk if you speak Latin

Stultus est sicut stultus facit - Stupid is as stupid does

Suntne vacci laeti - Are your cows happy?

Te audire non possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure - I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear

Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur - Oh! Was I speaking Latin again? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips out

Words to live by

"I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself."

– "Self-Pity" D. H. Lawrence

Noted photographer probed in misuse of Buffalo State cameras

By Phil Fairbanks NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: April 09, 2010, 7:45 am
Published: April 09, 2010, 12:30 am

Leslie Krims is known across the world as a surrealist photographer with a dark, satirical style.

Unfortunately for Krims, a longtime professor at Buffalo State College, there’s a new unwanted wrinkle on his international resume: allegations that he took two school cameras worth $45,000 and used them solely for personal and private business use.

Krims, a professor for 41 years, could face disciplinary action as a result of the state investigation into his use of school equipment.

“Krims used both cameras to create photographs for sale and used a Buffalo State College printer to print these pictures,” according to a new report by State Inspector General Joseph Fisch.

The inspector general goes on to claim that “these cameras, to date, have been used exclusively for Krims’ personal purposes, and neither camera has ever been used in teaching a class at Buffalo State College or for any school-sanctioned purpose.”

Krims declined to comment Thursday when contacted by The Buffalo News.

The New York Times in 2004 described Krims as “the bad boy of photography in the late 1960s and ’70s.”

The paper also suggested that Krims was a major influence on photography during the Modernist era and cited his photo of a “screaming, legless man on a small table in a windowed alcove” and the “image of his naked mother seated at a distance on the sofa in her dimly lighted, busily decorated living room.”

The Times credited the 67-year-old Brooklyn-born artist with opening photography to “possibilities of imaginative, formal and technical invention that countless artists continue to explore today.”

In 1993, then-Buffalo News Art Critic Richard Huntington described Krims as “something of a surrealist with an absurdist bent.”

Buffalo State College officials declined to comment on the possibility of disciplinary action against Krims, although the inspector general’s report indicates the school has initiated an investigation.

In addition, school officials are reviewing the inspector general’s recommendations on how it can improve its monitoring of college-owned equipment and property.

“We are reviewing our processes,” Stanley Kardonsky, vice president for finance and management at Buffalo State, said Thursday.

source

Help another

Give blood, 

it is the least we can do for 

each other.

Remember Tibet

I placed new prayer flags to commemorate 

the 1959 Tibetan uprising against the presence 

of the People's Republic of China in Tibet.

ALL TIME 100 Novels

TIME critics Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo pick the 100 best English-Language novels from 1923 to the present

(Going to try and read all)

A - B

1. The Adventures of Augie March (1953), by Saul Bellow
2. All the King's Men (1946), by Robert Penn Warren
3. American Pastoral (1997), by Philip Roth
4. An American Tragedy (1925), by Theodore Dreiser
5. Animal Farm (1946), by George Orwell
6. Appointment in Samarra (1934), by John O'Hara
7. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (1970), by Judy Blume
8. The Assistant (1957), by Bernard Malamud
9. At Swim-Two-Birds (1938), by Flann O'Brien
10. Atonement (2002), by Ian McEwan
11. Beloved (1987), by Toni Morrison
12. The Berlin Stories (1946), by Christopher Isherwood
13. The Big Sleep (1939), by Raymond Chandler
14. The Blind Assassin (2000), by Margaret Atwood
15. Blood Meridian (1986), by Cormac McCarthy
16. Brideshead Revisited (1946), by Evelyn Waugh
17. The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), by Thornton Wilder

C - D

1. Call It Sleep (1935), by Henry Roth
2. Catch-22 (1961), by Joseph Heller
3. The Catcher in the Rye (1951), by J.D. Salinger
4. A Clockwork Orange (1963), by Anthony Burgess
5. The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), by William Styron
6. The Corrections (2001), by Jonathan Franzen
7. The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), by Thomas Pynchon
8. A Dance to the Music of Time (1951), by Anthony Powell
9. The Day of the Locust (1939), by Nathanael West
10. Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), by Willa Cather
11. A Death in the Family (1958), by James Agee
12. The Death of the Heart (1958), by Elizabeth Bowen
13. Deliverance (1970), by James Dickey
14. Dog Soldiers (1974), by Robert Stone

F - G

1. Falconer (1977), by John Cheever
2. The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), by John Fowles
3. The Golden Notebook (1962), by Doris Lessing
4. Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953), by James Baldwin
5. Gone With the Wind (1936), by Margaret Mitchell
6. The Grapes of Wrath (1939), by John Steinbeck
7. Gravity's Rainbow (1973), by Thomas Pynchon
8. The Great Gatsby (1925), by F. Scott Fitzgerald

H - I

1. A Handful of Dust (1934), by Evelyn Waugh
2. The Heart is A Lonely Hunter (1940), by Carson McCullers
3. The Heart of the Matter (1948), by Graham Greene
4. Herzog (1964), by Saul Bellow
5. Housekeeping (1981), by Marilynne Robinson
6. A House for Mr. Biswas (1962), by V.S. Naipaul
7. I, Claudius (1934), by Robert Graves
8. Infinite Jest (1996), by David Foster Wallace
9. Invisible Man (1952), by Ralph Ellison

L - N

1. Light in August (1932), by William Faulkner
2. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), by C.S. Lewis
3. Lolita (1955), by Vladimir Nabokov
4. Lord of the Flies (1955), by William Golding
5. The Lord of the Rings (1954), by J.R.R. Tolkien
6. Loving (1945), by Henry Green
7. Lucky Jim (1954), by Kingsley Amis
8. The Man Who Loved Children (1940), by Christina Stead
9. Midnight's Children (1981), by Salman Rushdie
10. Money (1984), by Martin Amis
11. The Moviegoer (1961), by Walker Percy
12. Mrs. Dalloway (1925), by Virginia Woolf
13. Naked Lunch (1959), by William Burroughs
14. Native Son (1940), by Richard Wright
15. Neuromancer (1984), by William Gibson
16. Never Let Me Go (2005), by Kazuo Ishiguro
17. 1984 (1948), by George Orwell

O - R

1. On the Road (1957), by Jack Kerouac
2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), by Ken Kesey
3. The Painted Bird (1965), by Jerzy Kosinski
4. Pale Fire (1962), by Vladimir Nabokov
5. A Passage to India (1924), by E.M. Forster
6. Play It As It Lays (1970), by Joan Didion
7. Portnoy's Complaint (1969), by Philip Roth
8. Possession (1990), by A.S. Byatt
9. The Power and the Glory (1939), by Graham Greene
10. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), by Muriel Spark
11. Rabbit, Run (1960), by John Updike
12. Ragtime (1975), by E.L. Doctorow
13. The Recognitions (1955), by William Gaddis
14. Red Harvest (1929), by Dashiell Hammett
15. Revolutionary Road (1961), by Richard Yates

S - T

1. The Sheltering Sky (1949), by Paul Bowles
2. Slaughterhouse Five (1969), by Kurt Vonnegut
3. Snow Crash (1992), by Neal Stephenson
4. The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), by John Barth
5. The Sound and the Fury (1929), by William Faulkner
6. The Sportswriter (1986), by Richard Ford
7. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1964), by John le Carre
8. The Sun Also Rises (1926), by Ernest Hemingway
9. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), by Zora Neale Hurston
10. Things Fall Apart (1959), by Chinua Achebe
11. To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), by Harper Lee
12. To the Lighthouse (1927), by Virginia Woolf
13. Tropic of Cancer (1934), by Henry Miller

U - W

1. Ubik (1969), by Philip K. Dick
2. Under the Net (1954), by Iris Murdoch
3. Under the Volcano (1947), by Malcolm Lowry
4. Watchmen (1986), by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
5. White Noise (1985), by Don DeLillo
6. White Teeth (2000), by Zadie Smith
7. Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), by Jean Rhys


***
Italicized books read to finish

Giant Beavers!!!

VANCOUVER, BC - FEBRUARY 28: Entertainers perform during the Closing Ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics at BC Place on February 28, 2010 in Vancouver, Canada.
(Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

USA Hockey --- Miller!!!

VANCOUVER, BC - FEBRUARY 21: USA players celebrate after they won the ice hockey men's preliminary game between Canada and USA on day 10 of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics at Canada Hockey Place on February 21, 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

ལོ་གསར་བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས།

ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པ་དྨེ་ཧཱུྃ། Tibetan Year 2137, The Tiger

新年快乐! 2010/4708: Year of the Tiger

Children dressed in tiger costumes perform during the opening of Longtan Temple Fair
on the Lunar New Year Eve in Beijing.
Photo: AP

To someone special

Happy Birthday M.J.J.!

I do not know where you are or what you are doing, but I am thinking of you. It has been far too long and I really miss those night long talks. I am in the space where you left me all those years ago.
You found me once, find me again.

All my love,

J

A Very Special Friend

Requiescat in pace Michele A. Wolff January 17, 1950 - December 27, 2009 Just one word: ut

(The hardest death notice I have ever had to post. I never got to say goodbye.)

One Day

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
(28 August 1963)

FW: misc

"01. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi."

"06. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery."

"12. Atheism is a non-prophet organization."

"15. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'"

"21.. A backward poet writes inverse."

- source unknown