Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.

They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

While some see them as the crazy ones, there lies genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.

---
a modified version of the Apple manifesto.

eBay - 1960's-70's Mens Clothing Store OLD STOCK

I WOULD NEVER HAVE TO BUY CLOTHES AGAIN. EVER.

Seeking: Person willing to donate 2500$. Quick.

all that, and I ran into a door, which has left a vertical scar on my forehead. for better or for worse.

well, i'm back from costa rica.
I haven't shaved in a week. I haven't cut my nails. I haven't used shampoo. I feel so good. I'm kinda liking the whole no-shampoo thing. I probobly won't go the rasta-distance, but I'm gonna try it out for a while and see what kinda of crazyness results.

I finished the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy... in the airport and on the plane. A really quick, amazingly entertaining read. Amazing. I'd pull quotes, but I'd rather have people read the whole book. It's good. Really good. And a really easy read. I'm a slow reader and I pulled it off in 4 or 5 hours. Now I'm just dying for 'the restaurant at the end of the universe', and all the other follow ups. Dang nabit. I'll have to order them, and polish them off some weekend in the near future.... heh.

That still leaves people's history as the current read. I read maybe 50 pages out of it, and was getting into it, but it felt right to check off HHGTTG... I'm on page ~200 of PHOTUS..haha.. that's acronym-speak for people's history.. =-p

I did a lot of thinking in costa rica, along side the canoeing and horseback riding. I guess it was the startling vistas that gave me the opportunity to dwell on obscure matters. I thought about things. I thought about people. I thought about trips. I thought about france with erik. I thought about brittany. I thought about a lot of things. I fell ... confused. It's a state I can't really explain right now. Sorta like Zaphod Beeblebrox.. =)

Well I need to set all this confusion aside. On the 5 hour bus ride from MonteVerde to San Jose I thought about a lot of these things, and I need time to absorb some consequences. Not to mention the conversations I had during the later part of the bus ride. One of my travelmates was a man from Philidelphia who had been teaching in MonteVerde for 3 years... English and History to ~4th graders in a private school. What a jump. He was kind of weird, but he 'taught' me a lot. Beyond Costa Rica (which I learned a lot about from him, more then (then, than? I can never remember) the rest of the whole trip), he was the first person to enlighten me to the completeness of the ostization of Cuba from American society. No planes fly from USA to Cuba, AT ALL, EVER. wow. We entered the conversation after talking about how coca-cola was everywhere, including costa rica, and he mentioned how it wasn't in cuba and north korea. He had also read PHOTUS. good guy...

Well my other ride-mates were a couple in theyre early twenties out of atlanta, the home of coke. They were hichhiking through central america and were maintaining an impressive budget with the help of a fishing pole and a tent. Too much to talk about there. For these people, there was too much to document, but it was most certainly a key part of the whole trip for me.

Now to calm down all these crazy thoughts that have been sturred like a river bank under a footstep. ehh....

And as an appropriate bridge back into my digital existance which I abandoned and returned to, 458 emails later, This makes me soooooo happy.

LPSG: Large Penis Support Groups. damn. Talk about 'beggers can't be choosers' =-p

I'm off to costa rica tomorrow, for a week without technology. Maybe the current:book will be updated when I get home. If I'm lucky...

Adios.

AT&T Black History Month 2001
WHAT THE HELL? "You've got game"? What are they doing with this? A black kid holding a basketball-like att logo? Why don't they just say "ATT supports African American's and there contributions as the workhorses of athletic entertainment." Whoever did the marketing for that campaign, and whoever designed that page, and whoever ok'ed it, and whoever presented it... the whole chain there, is all whiter than my ass. Well my ass isn't very white. You get the point...like, ultra-white. Aryan WASP republicans.

geez... www.corporatefatcatsplayingoffminoritypublicitypoorly.com

"Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what
makes the ride worthwhile."

- Franklin P. Jones

Good Will Hunting is a good fuckin movie...see it again, for the first time.

It made me think. It made me laugh. More on the thinking later, because I'm crazy tired, but here's to the humor of it. Best response ever. EVER.

-------------------

The way I see it, the question isn't why should you work for the NSA, the question is, why shouldn't you?

----

Why shouldn't I work for the NSA? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at the NSA and somebody puts a code on my desk, something that no-one else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it, maybe I break it, and I'm real happy with myself because I did my job well, but maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East, and once they have that location they bomb the village where the rebels are hiding, 1500 people that I never met, never had no problem with, get killed. Now the politicians are saying, "Oh, send in the Marines to secure the area," because they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there getting shot, just like it wasn't them when they're number got called because they were off on a tour in the National Guard.

Maybe some kid from Southie is over there taking shrapnel in the ass. He comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from, and the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job because he'll work for 15 cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes that the only reason that he was over there in the first place was so that we could install a government that could sell us oil at a good price, and of course the oil companies use the little skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices, a cute little lancelary benefit for them, but it ain't helping my buddy at 2.50 a gallon.

They're taking there sweet time bringing the oil back, of course, maybe they even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes drinking martini's and fuckin play slalom with the icebergs. It ain't too long till he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy is out of work, he can't afford to drive, so he's walking to the fuckin job interviews, which sucks because the shrapnel in his ass is giving him chronic hemorrhoids, and meanwhile he's starving, because every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're serving is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State.

So what did I think? I'm holding out for something better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard. I could be elected president.

-------------------

your welcome. enjoy.

Well I updated the site a whole lot today, adding the photo section. This will be used a whole lot more once I get a digital camera, but I will try to snap pics whenever I can. I really want to get into photography.

So it turns out two of the three rolls of film from the X-games were ruined. That SUCKS. Well, the first time around is always a learning experience, I just wish that I didn't have to learn the hard way. Apparantly the only roll to make it is the last one, which was where I was getting the hang of things. I snapped about 15 shots of X games on that roll, all of which I think were moto-X. The rest is my expiriments. It's gonna be exciting to see what my initial efforts have yeilded.

What a great week. Snowday - Special Olympics Volunteer - Wednesday - Half Day - Friday. I love being me. I'm soooo good at what I do.

How can a nation that grew up listening to the lyrics of Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son elect g.w. bush for president? It boggles the mind. . .

Well, I'm really only procrastinating my english Grendel journal. Back to work.

snow day, snow day, snow day. score.

Well it's 4:30, when I would normally get out of school, so I kinda have to start all that work that I didn't do because it was a snow day. I've been procrastinating all day, doing stuff like this update. Procrastination is like masturbation. It feels good, but in the end you're only fucking yourself.

I need to write my chapter summaries for Grendel (and I'd like to note that the fact that the 'punch the monkey' campaign has returned in the form of 'shock the monkey' on sparknotes is going to slow my efforts considerably) I have that monkey. Java ad banners suck the life out of browsing.

And o ya, a 12 or so page research paper. Good luck to me.

How bout them X-Games. Unbelievable. The games where just sooo sick. And having a (as far as my experience goes) decked out camera with a telescopic zoom lens just made it all so much better.

There I was, huddled amoung 20 of the world's biggest sports photographers, panning for the perfect snap of Tanner Hall doing a Switch Rodeo 720 Tailgrab. And man was that a tailgrab. Not to mention the stomp.

In other news, I got mail back from jack. Posted below.


---------------------- His Mail
johan,

i'm guessing english must not be your
first language (forgive me if i'm
mistaken in this assumption).

let me just clear a few things up..
"emo" was a word that was used to
describe a certain style of music,
but eventually it became a parody
of itself, and so no one uses the
word sincerely anymore. that's why
i cringed when i read your post.

i didn't go through a "transition
between punk rock and emo" recently.
whatever emo is supposed to be *is*
punk rock. and punk rock encompasses
everything i do; that's just the way
i am. punk isn't a style of dress
or a style of music.. it's a mentality.
and i don't even feel like it's a
conscious thing. i don't go around
saying, "i am punk rock," because that
would be silly.

i don't live alone, actually-- i have
roommates. and i'd trade you my high
san francisco rent any day.

i've seen midtown live.. they struck
me as a mediocre pop-punk band. no
offense, though-- that's just my opinion.

anyway, i hope i cleared up a few things.
i know you were only being genuine, but
if someone walked up to me at a show
and said, "i wish i could be as emo as
you," it would be like the ultimate
sarcastic insult. does that make sense?

take care,
--jack--

---------------------- My Reply

Ok, yes.

FIrst, I consider myself bilingual, fluent in both. I was born here in the states, so I hope I am, anyways.

I see what you mean, and I'll retract the comment if you want. I guess emo isn't the word then. For me, emo isn't an insult in any way shape or form. But there's a major arguement to be fought there that comes down to 'that's not how i use the word'. I actually have a friend that believes whole-heartedly that he is jesus, used as an idea noun to describe truth to oneself. Whenever he says this christians cringe. I was using emo to describe truth to the world, because thats what it is to me. Being true about yourself. It's a HUGE compliment (once again, as I see it), because not many people do that.

I wasn't saying that you did go through the transition to emo recently, I was suggesting that you had, sometime. Once again, sorry about my assumptions, I suck at making them. I was trying to relate my situation to yours, woops. I was trying to say that I found emo as an amazing outlet for ... emotions. For me, it was a niche I found. punk rock is still where it's at, because yes it's a life style. A lot of punk rock (once again, to me) is about being true about yourself, so maybe my explanation of emo is more suiting here.

I would never catch myself dead going up to someone saying 'you're punk rock'. You just don't do that. ever. EVER. It's like wearing a bands shirt to a show. Don't be that guy...

It makes sense, and I'm sorry for the confusion. What I meant was I wish I could be as true to the world as you. Could you take that as a compliment?

am i making sense? Sorry if I'm being dumb. Tell me so.

take care
/johan

----------------------

The reason I post these is in no way because I'm bragging about having an exchange with jack, it's because there is a message in his words, and I try to put one in mine. See where it's going?