The stamp set marks the 75th anniversary of Mexico’s AAA Baseball League and features the work of four popular Mexican illustrators.
Clockwise from upper left, they are Francisco Toledo, a graphic artist well known for his social commitment to his home state of Oaxaca; Gilberto Aceves Navarro, painter, teacher, and member of the Academia de Artes in Mexico City; Eduardo Del Rio (Rius), a widely read political cartoonist, author, and activist; and the late Abel Quezada, another leading Mexican political cartoonist and painter. Quezada created over a dozen New Yorker covers between 1981 and his death in 1991.
Text and photo by Michael Bartalos
On set, Alfred Hitchcock would always refer to Anthony Perkins as “Master Bates”.
Psycho (1960)
Reblog if you can TRULY say you have never seen an episode of Jersey Shore.
(via skeptikitty)
Source: rainbow-blaze-and-bolt
Willpower Part One—In Which I Go Paleo
Since I wrote this, I’ve been thinking a lot about why I’ve started and started and started—and finished so little. There’s never just one answer to a question like this, but one has to start (ahem) somewhere.
I recently read Willpower, by Roy Baumeister. I was already suspicious of my willpower, as in I suspected that I’d let it atrophy. (I’ve always believed willpower could be strengthened, and I’m glad the book confirmed my thoughts on this.) There are a lot of factors that contribute to willpower (whatever the level at the moment), but one that caught my eye right away was diet, and its contribution to energy levels. Read the book for a greater discussion of this; I won’t try to recreate Baumeister’s findings or arguments. The basic point I want to convey here is that low energy and/or nutrition was linked with low willpower. If you think about the advice never to grocery shop when hungry, you get an idea of the premise involved.
So, I gave thought to my diet, and how my energy levels fluctuate (and mine are a lot more volatile than I’d like). Earlier this year, I flirted with a paleo diet, and noticed that my energy levels were higher and more even than I could remember them being for a long time. And then, of course, I went back to eating more or less whatever the hell I wanted (I have cut portion sizes, and thus calories quite a bit, which has led to a 21-pound weight loss since January 2012, but this has been hard to maintain, and the energy levels still vary a lot).
So, I’m back. As of…now, I’m on the paleo. I’m starting with Mark Sisson’s Primal approach, which is a little more forgiving than some more strict paleo-oriented diets, but I plan to move in the stricter direction in the months ahead. If this works as I think it will, I’ll get leaner still, and I’ll find myself better able to handle all the stuff I want to do to make my life better.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
How Did it Come to This?
I did two things this week which would seem to be unrelated, until you know the details. On Wednesday, I watched a documentary. Today, I ate pizza for lunch. The pizza was delicious, but I left the place depressed and baffled.
The documentary was Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life. But, this isn’t about Ayn Rand or her ideas, and if you don’t like her, I don’t care. Save it. This is about some of the footage in the documentary.
Do you remember Phil Donohue? My mother watched his show a lot when I was a kid. I remember thinking he seemed very calm and reasonable. There are multiple clips of episodes of his show in which he interviewed Ayn Rand. It’s clear he disagrees with her on any number of issues, but it’s equally clear that he respects her, and respects her mind. He asks serious questions, in a serious way, and is completely engaged in conversation with her.
It’s important to realize that Phil Donohue was the Oprah Winfrey of his day—in terms of the size of his audience (content and tone are a very different matter; I’ll just say that I prefer Mr. Donohue). A lot of people watched his show, and they watched it year after year for a long time.
Back to the pizza. When I walked in, and for some of the time I was there, the two television screens in this place displayed artist information for some music service that played songs through the speaker system. The screens listed artist, track, etc., information, and some artist-relevant trivia.
And then, someone changed the channel, because the Maury show came on (I can’t bring myself to link to this; you’ll have to find it yourself). The entire episode was about women finding text messages on the phones of their boyfriends that indicated the boyfriends were cheating—suggestive and explicit messages, photos of nude women, etc. Everyone else in the place immediately shifted, so they could see the televisions. They talked about whether they thought the problem was the cheating men (ok, alleged; I didn’t stick around to find out what happened), or whether the women were nuts.
How is it possible, in the space of my lifetime (41.5 years), that television went from that to this? How can anyone find entertainment in what would have been, not just beneath notice, but embarrassing, not very long ago?
I realize I sound like I’m about to tell everyone to get off my lawn, but I don’t mean it that way. I realize a lot of people (if they read this, and that isn’t likely) would think I’m an asshole. But, I think about those two scenes from this week, and I think about the upcoming elections, and I think about living hard and checking out at 60, because it isn’t going to be any fun at all to be around at 80.
My Setup
Welcome to what is likely to be the most self-indulgent, boring, and unnecessary post…well, that I’m going to write. (There’s a lot of crap in the interwebs; nothing in this post will be the worst of anything.
Hardware
My hardware and software are chosen according to the following criteria: 1—I have to be able to afford it; 2—It has to do the stuff I need done; 3—It has to be portable and/or syncable; 4—If at all possible it has to look good; 5—Whenever possible, it needs to not require me to learn new stuff, as I have more than enough of that on my plate.
I use a late-2010 MacBook Air (2.13 Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM, 256 GB solid state drive), an iPad 2 (32 GB), and an iPhone 4S (64 GB). None of this is likely to be upgraded until next year, as funds are tight, but if that wasn’t an issue, I’d upgrade the iPad and the Mac right now. The iPad, because I’d like more space and would very much enjoy a retina display (I read everything possible on it now), and the Mac because everything is beginning to run a little more slowly than it did when I got it. It’s by no means terrible, but I always want more speed. At any rate, I plan on upgrades next year.
I work at home some, but I go to the gym for work at least five days each week, and I work on the computer during extended down time, so an Air is essential. I simply don’t want to carry around anything heavier than necessary. My Tom Bihn Brain Bag (all black) is outstanding for all of this; I was using a messenger bag before, and carrying everything on one shoulder gave me neck, back, and hip issues. Those are steadily going away as I use the backpack daily (the messenger bag was a LOT more stylish, however).
As I alluded to earlier, the iPad gets used for reading—A LOT of reading. I read the New York times, RSS feeds, and whatever book I’m engaged with on the train to and from the suburbs (I live in the city, but my gym is about 12 miles outside Philly); I read various books during the day on it; I study from Stephen Kochan’s Programming in Objective-C 2.0 (4th Edition) on my iPad, as well. I read much, much more since I got an iPad than I had for several years before.
Occasionally, I head out without a bag on my back, and when I do, I often have to wait somewhere for something, ride transit, or both. At times like those, I will read on my 4S. I wouldn’t want to read on it for extended periods, but it’s fine for limited use. I call on it rarely, text on it often, keep up with Twitter and Facebook (yeah, yeah…most of my friends are tech geeks, and I have some family on there, too)…the usual.
Software
On the mobile devices, the apps I use most are Reeder, Instapaper, iBooks, social network stuff (Tweetbot and Facebook, mostly), and I manage tasks with Things, on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Yeah, I know. Omnifocus is better. It does any number of things Things can’t. It had sync ages ago. Well, I used Omnifocus right up until Things got sync, and then I switched. Things is a thousand times more pleasant to look at. There are a couple of UI choices I don’t like, but none of them approach how bad Omnifocus looks to me on the Mac, and…inspectors. Really? Inspectors, still, in 2012? No. Absolutely not. And the iPad UI (which a lot of people seem to love) seems like a bit of a mess to me, too.
I use Reeder, and not Mr. Reader, for the same reason. Mr. Reader has a great feature missing from Reeder: one can send articles to Omnifocus or Things directly. But…Mr. Reader is hideous to look at, and Reeder is wonderful on the eyes. Thus, I send everything to Instapaper, and then to Things, if I want to create tasks from RSS. The extra step is worth not looking at a horrible interface, in my opinion.
I use Byword, and sometimes the iOS/OS X notes app (yes, really) for writing. They both sync everywhere I’ll be writing, and they’re both very simple. I don’t bother with Markdown, as I just don’t want to learn more stuff right now (Objective-C and new skills and protocols for personal training have me more than busy).
I use Safari for browsing—everything is everywhere, and it’s about a billion times more pleasant to look at than any other browser. I use Mail.app along with Mail Act-On and MailTags. I use iTunes in conjunction with Last.fm. I use the Finder most of the time, but Path Finder when I need to move files around, as the two pane browsing is fantastic. Oh, and of course, I’m learning to use Xcode.
I use a bunch of other stuff, too, to manage money (ahem), and do this, that, and the other, but this has gone on long enough. I’ll update it all, if my career/life ever warrant that.
I have an IKEA desk and chair. I can’t wait to replace both of them.
Well, that’s it. Now, I can get back to talking about what a loser I’m trying to stop being. If you read this, I owe you a drink.
Q:WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?
Grand Teton National Park.
Q:I love your sentence, "when I find the person who started the trend of turning nouns into verbs, said person is due for a world of pain". I will help you inflict said pain on said person!! Every time someone says "prioritize" part of me dies, a screaming tortured death. Also, if the tweeter feed on your page is correct, Happy Birthday. {If it's wrong, consider the sentiment either incredibly belated or early}.
We will kick the ass of business speechification together. It’s not my birthday, but I very much appreciate the kind words, anyway.
30 had better not be too old to be on Tumblr, because if it is, I’m in trouble, too.
If that’s you in your thumbnail photo, you have gorgeous hair.
Hitch
I was going to to write my second post the way a lot of bloggers do, which is to describe my setup, the gear and such that I use, the way I find ideas, etc. I’ll do that tomorrow or the next day. I have to postpone that because I can’t get a book out of my head. (Yes, I know it’s absurdly early to write a post like that. Here’s the thing: almost all of those posts drive me nuts, but they seem both inevitable and obligatory, so I figured I’d just get it out of the way, and go on to things that are more interesting.)
I read Mortality, by Christopher Hitchens, Thursday. I read it between appointments at my day job, on the train, in the bathroom. I was already familiar with Hitchens; like many, I consider him a hero, for the usual reasons: he’s brilliant, he’s a gifted writer, speaks his mind, he’s an atheist, etc. But, this book struck me deeply. It made me think about all the defenses I construct to protect myself from myself. It made me think (I apologize in advance for what comes next) about how quickly everything can be gone, even for the best of us, even for those of us who have access to the best care (neither of which describes me, which is more frightening by a lot), even for those of us who fight like hell to get everything we can out of life (also frightening, as it also doesn’t describe me).
The first seven chapters of the book appeared in Vanity Fair; the eighth did not. It’s the difference between chapter seven and chapter eight that haunts me. You see, he wrote the eighth in fragments, sketches, near the end, long after his treatments robbed him of speech, at the point where the disease, the breakdown of his body, the treatments, and the painkillers made even the brief thoughts at the end of the book difficult for him to put together clearly. They’re clear thoughts, make no mistake, but they’re not crafted in the way we expect from his writing.
I’ve become very good at making it week to week without much in the way of backup, financial or otherwise. I’ve made it a point of pride, at times, to get by with very little, to cut my expenses to the bone, and skate through tough parts of life. It stopped scaring me a long time ago, living this way. But, if I’m to be honest, the thought of cancer, cancer without access to top treatment (which, from where I sit, equals hope, even in the face of the bleakest prognosis)—this scares the shit out of me.
You could read a lot of self-help books; I have. You could write down so-called inspirational quotes to help you remember what’s supposed to seem important, invigorating. I’ve done that, too. Or, you could think about getting cancer of the esophagus—but without the kind of friends, family, and professional care Christopher Hitchens had. That, more than anything else, makes the list of things I need to do today seem much more important.
One other thing: I don’t have a mind that approaches his, but the thought of going out without having achieved anything memorable…fuck, that’s terrifying. And, for once, the terror feels like impetus, instead of inertia.
Page 1 of 2
