And shaking.
This will be the last post on Freefalling & Flightless. I am moving on to bigger, better things.
Introducing: Freefalling & Flightless!
Okay, so what I said up there is misleading.... but everythings ok in the end right?
The new website is basically a fancy-pants version of this one. One wicked-tastic feature however, is that F&F V2.0 has it's own comic hosting within the site itself! No more linking to Drunk Duck.
So hop on over to the new site, and get accquainted!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Longevity.
Or, has anyone figured out I have nothing to write about?
In the story I tell my kids about how I met their mother, I've realized the first chapter is going to be even more boring than Ted Mosby's. "In the summer of 2008, I did nothing at all. In the summer of 2009... well kids, your old man did more of the same."
So I'm trippin'. A few weeks ago, I went to New York City. It was a good, if all too short vacation. I saw the usuals, Empire State, Statch of Lib, etc. But the best times I had were just walking to and fro. I met artists, talked with homeless people, even witnessed someone get arrested.
At one point, I was with one of my traveling companions, as we were looking for flowers for his girl. We stopped at a small general store esque place and began selecting. After a minute or two, this trendy dressed dude who looked like he walked out of a Kanye West video started loudly asking the store clerk for a bag. He was already carrying a few.
"Do you have a bag or some shit? I've got a lot here." He shouted. The clerk brought him a bag, and as the two struggled to put three separate wraps of flowers into it, my cohort started talking to him. In one bag was an alarm clock.
"You must really like that girl." He said. The man shot us a look, maybe expecting someone he knew, then smiled. In one bag was a set of candles.
"This is what happens when you cheat." We were shocked. We joked back and forth for a moment, assuming he had slept with another girl and was now trying to make it up to her. In one bag was a wii.
"Naw, I just have a few girlfriends on the go. I'm dropping this wii off first."
By now he had our full, undivided attention. My buddy responds: "How do you decide which one gets which gift?"
"Longevity. The wii goes to my main girl, we've been together for three years. I've got this new one since christmas. She just gets candles."
The kinds of people you meet in travel are astounding.
That's why next on the list, is a tour of Europe. I'm heading off in June. Same group of people, this time for a month.
In the story of how I met their mother, I'll have plenty more anecdotes like that to share with the youngins.
-K
In the story I tell my kids about how I met their mother, I've realized the first chapter is going to be even more boring than Ted Mosby's. "In the summer of 2008, I did nothing at all. In the summer of 2009... well kids, your old man did more of the same."So I'm trippin'. A few weeks ago, I went to New York City. It was a good, if all too short vacation. I saw the usuals, Empire State, Statch of Lib, etc. But the best times I had were just walking to and fro. I met artists, talked with homeless people, even witnessed someone get arrested.
At one point, I was with one of my traveling companions, as we were looking for flowers for his girl. We stopped at a small general store esque place and began selecting. After a minute or two, this trendy dressed dude who looked like he walked out of a Kanye West video started loudly asking the store clerk for a bag. He was already carrying a few.
"Do you have a bag or some shit? I've got a lot here." He shouted. The clerk brought him a bag, and as the two struggled to put three separate wraps of flowers into it, my cohort started talking to him. In one bag was an alarm clock."You must really like that girl." He said. The man shot us a look, maybe expecting someone he knew, then smiled. In one bag was a set of candles.
"This is what happens when you cheat." We were shocked. We joked back and forth for a moment, assuming he had slept with another girl and was now trying to make it up to her. In one bag was a wii.
"Naw, I just have a few girlfriends on the go. I'm dropping this wii off first."
By now he had our full, undivided attention. My buddy responds: "How do you decide which one gets which gift?"
"Longevity. The wii goes to my main girl, we've been together for three years. I've got this new one since christmas. She just gets candles."
The kinds of people you meet in travel are astounding.That's why next on the list, is a tour of Europe. I'm heading off in June. Same group of people, this time for a month.
In the story of how I met their mother, I'll have plenty more anecdotes like that to share with the youngins.
-K
Monday, March 2, 2009
Why I love the Matrix
And yes, I do include Revolutions.
This is the second part of the "Why I love" series of entries. Every now and then it hits me that I have a seemingly irrational love for something. These things, generally media, tend to define me. For a long time in high school I went through a "dark" phase. I wore nothing but black. I had stupid, Neo like sunglasses, and yes - I even sported the coat.
But today I was in the shower, thinking about the future - as one does - and feeling pretty down about the whole thing. The futility of my endeavors can sometimes be as crippling as the botched attempts to practicalize (that's not a word, don't worry) them. It was then that I was reminded of a speech.
It's in the third one. The final battle is crackling, Neo gets punched around, Smith gets tussled slightly, but then finally, for once, it seems the bad guy has the upper hand. In a traditionally campy pre-victory rant, Agent Smith asks Neo one last question before the KO.
This is the second part of the "Why I love" series of entries. Every now and then it hits me that I have a seemingly irrational love for something. These things, generally media, tend to define me. For a long time in high school I went through a "dark" phase. I wore nothing but black. I had stupid, Neo like sunglasses, and yes - I even sported the coat. But today I was in the shower, thinking about the future - as one does - and feeling pretty down about the whole thing. The futility of my endeavors can sometimes be as crippling as the botched attempts to practicalize (that's not a word, don't worry) them. It was then that I was reminded of a speech.
It's in the third one. The final battle is crackling, Neo gets punched around, Smith gets tussled slightly, but then finally, for once, it seems the bad guy has the upper hand. In a traditionally campy pre-victory rant, Agent Smith asks Neo one last question before the KO.
Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Yes? No? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love. You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?
Neo's answer is quick, and at first glance, obvious: "Because I choose to."
You can say what you want about the Matrices (heh.) You can downplay their importance in the CG world. You can claim corny dialogue and hammy acting ruin it. Or you can say that "they just started running out of ideas". The first two are understandable - Keannu Reeves sucks at acting, and he brought the rest of them down, and since, oh, 2005, bullet time has practically been demoted to "fad" status. But one thing is certain - they had this plan from the beginning.
Lawrence Fishbourne said once in an interview that the films are a poem, the first about birth, the second about life, and the third about death. And this is paramount to what I'm trying to say, because the question posed by Smith - at least in my head - is the exact question that we all face in life: It's futile, so why bother?
The answer is up to you, but you only have two choices - option one: end it all, or option two: keep pushing forward.
I like to think that any person's life is a poem. We burst into the world, brash and energetic, threatening to tear the world apart, and instead slowly find a place to exist within it. In death, we come to terms with what we have seen, we look at our mistakes and see others making them too. It's a culmination of knowledge that yeilds wisdom, and peace.
Or maybe it's just a stupid kung-fu movie with a derivative anime plot and cardboard characters.
Meh.
-K
You can say what you want about the Matrices (heh.) You can downplay their importance in the CG world. You can claim corny dialogue and hammy acting ruin it. Or you can say that "they just started running out of ideas". The first two are understandable - Keannu Reeves sucks at acting, and he brought the rest of them down, and since, oh, 2005, bullet time has practically been demoted to "fad" status. But one thing is certain - they had this plan from the beginning.Lawrence Fishbourne said once in an interview that the films are a poem, the first about birth, the second about life, and the third about death. And this is paramount to what I'm trying to say, because the question posed by Smith - at least in my head - is the exact question that we all face in life: It's futile, so why bother?
The answer is up to you, but you only have two choices - option one: end it all, or option two: keep pushing forward.
I like to think that any person's life is a poem. We burst into the world, brash and energetic, threatening to tear the world apart, and instead slowly find a place to exist within it. In death, we come to terms with what we have seen, we look at our mistakes and see others making them too. It's a culmination of knowledge that yeilds wisdom, and peace.
Or maybe it's just a stupid kung-fu movie with a derivative anime plot and cardboard characters.
Meh.
-K
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