Towse: views from the hill

August 20, 2008

"We become what we think about." Earl Nightingale

Filed under: life,lifehacks,people — Towse @ 3:42 am

I grew up listening to short, inspirational spots on KCBS narrated by Earl Nightingale.

What a voice that man had.

Through some weird click to click to link to click, I stumbled across a free audio of Earl Nightingale’s classic The Strangest Secret today over at the Mark Victor Hansen site with added commentary by MVH, but … well, I stopped the audio to write down a thought and backtrack and had to start ALL OVER AGAIN!.

and again…
and again…

Yeeks. Can’t deal with that.

Go over to YouTube and find Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret, unfiltered and uncommented.

part 2
part 3

“We become what we think about.” — Earl Nightingale
“A man is what he thinks about all day long.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you want Mark Victor Hansen (he of CHICKEN SOUP fame) and his commentary and Earl Nightingale’s classic, here ’tis.

August 9, 2008

Found at Looney’s — Matt’s video

Filed under: life,travel,web2.0,webstuff — Towse @ 9:36 am

Watch Matt do his silly dance around the world from Thimpu to Timbuktu to the Giant’s Causeway to Rio.

Like Looney, I’d never seen this before, although it’s one of those viral things that swept the Web three years back. Where was I? Obviously not where Matt was filming his clips.

Looney said this was a happy vid and it is, but it also made me tear up a bit. All those places. All those people. Every one linked by Matt Harding and his silly dance.

Update: I figured what the tearing up was about. Matt and his dance reminds me of the younger nib, who will be “away” until June 2010 — dancing, like Matt, with people he meets along the way.

Update2: An earlier Where the Hell is Matt? and another.

July 30, 2008

Prop 8 update

Filed under: California,causes,culture,life,politics — Towse @ 6:42 pm

Prop. 8 backers sue to change ballot wording

Seems Jerry Brown (formerly Governor Moonbeam, currently State Attorney General perhaps Governor again after the next election, who knows …) has authorized the following ballot language for Proposition 8: “eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry.”

Says he, since the time the petition signatures were collected, the court confirmed the right of same-sex couples to marry. Therefore, Prop 8, which reads “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” would disenfranchise those who just May 15th got the right to marry and his wording is fine and good and valid.

Prop 8 proponents claim Brown’s verbiage is “inherently argumentative and highly likely to create prejudice” and they aren’t eliminating anyone’s rights. They’re simply trying to reinstate the definition of marriage that existed in California before the judicial decision in May.

Ya. Right.

Yay! hooray! for Jerry Brown. You go, guy!

July 27, 2008

Neighborhood dinner

Filed under: food,life — Tags: , , — Towse @ 6:59 pm

And so it came to pass that we had our second annual neighborhood progressive dinner last night.

As usual, I skipped town — after offering my minimal help in designing the flyer and settling on dates (dinner scheduled for a week and a day after we got back) — and left the delivery of invites, acceptance of RSVPs, and scheduling to my charming co-conspirator, co-host and next-door neighbor.

We got back from Africa and I sent a note: Is dinner still on? Did we get enough RSVPs? Indeed it was. Indeed we did.

Some last minute re-shuffling of venues and a dinner we had. First stop, Napier Lane for kickoff and appetizers. Next stop our lane (and the charming next-door neighbors’) for appetizers. Then upstairs next-door for salads. Then here for tapas (goat-cheese-stuffed Anaheim peppers, chicken piccata empanadas, beef and pepita sauce empanadas from me and vegetable frittata from a Napier neighbor). Then back next door and yet another floor up for dessert and coffee.

Neighbors included a couple who is putting their San Francisco life on hold and heading to Malaysia for a few years, a neighbor I’d never met but whose apartment I’d wandered through on one of our open house Sundays a couple months back, a neighbor who has left her job to go back to school for a post-graduate degree, the neighbors who have the colossal re-model just uphill from us, others, and the chocolate guy.

The chocolate guy lives on Napier Filbert but, because his life is still in boxes, decided he couldn’t host and in lieu brought the desserts for the final gathering on the top floor next door. He had chocolate bars

 

Posted by Picasa

and two types of chocolate gelato (chocolate/cardamom ym!) and I went home the happy owner of a bag of chocolate nibs from his latest tonnage. My assignment: think up new ways of using chocolate nibs.

“add to salads” is already a known use.

I finally put the bag away this morning. I’d been nibbling out of hand during and after breakfast, over reading the Sunday papers. Nibbling out of hand is good enough for me.

Say, Timothy. Why not just sell nibs as a straight-to-the-vein snack for chocolate lovers who don’t want to wade through all the other ingredients needed to make a chocolate bar?

Tcho — the chocolate guy’s chocolate — is that good. Tcho is a San Francisco company, working out of Pier 17.

Buy online! but only if you think milk chocolate is not worth the paper it’s wrapped in and dark chocolate with chocolate content > 70% is the way to go.

July 25, 2008

RIP Randy Pausch

Filed under: damn,life,people — Towse @ 5:55 pm

U.S. professor of inspirational “last lecture” dies

Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:46pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Randy Pausch, a university professor whose “last lecture” celebrating life in the face of terminal cancer became a book which made him a best-selling sensation, died on Friday at age 47.

Pausch died at home of complications from pancreatic cancer, Carnegie Mellon University, where he taught for 10 years, reported on its Web site.

The computer science professor was best known for his “last lecture,” entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” which he gave in September 2007 just weeks after learning he was suffering from terminal cancer.

Footage of the poignant and inspirational lecture became a hit on the Internet, viewed by millions of people.

A book based on the talk, “The Last Lecture,” was translated into 30 languages and became an international bestseller, Carnegie Mellon, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said on its Web site.

[...]

The server at Carnegie Mellon is swamped and not responding, but when it comes up for air, click here for more Randy Pausch information. (I’d checked in just yesterday to see how he was doing. … and was glad to see he was still with us. And, now, not.)

June 27, 2008

Back in a few

Filed under: life,travel — Towse @ 3:56 pm

Article ideas/commentary plucked from the aether

Filed under: books,life — Towse @ 6:01 am

First Monday’s book for discussion in August, as I think I mentioned a while back, is Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA

I went over to Book Bay this afternoon looking for a copy, thinking I could take it with me when we’re away and read the book way ahead of time instead of during the last few days before First Monday.

I looked under /Marquez/ in the FIC section. Nada. I wandered over to the back of the store and got distracted by the $0.50/item table (3/$1) What is this? Gazillions of first edition mysteries, some in dust jackets, some in dust jackets with plastic covers.

Wah?

Science fiction classics too. Watty Piper’s THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD (with Sanrio stickers front and back and pencil scribbles inside but the ILLUSTRATIONS are there and I [heart] Watty Piper.

I stack stack here and stack stack there. …

(Excuse me. Could I stash these books somewhere? I haven’t finished shopping but there are too many for me to carry around with me. Oh, thanks.)

I took my stashes from the $0.50 or 3/$1 over and stacked them on the counter. I also had a “full price” $5 copy of Maupin’s TALES OF THE CITY. We already have a copy of TALES, but maybe I’d like to take a copy along with us on our next trip. (We are looking for lightweight books we can take along with us and abandon along the way. Our next trip requires us for a major portion of the trip to have a combined checked/carryon luggage weight of 26 lbs. …) Before then we have layovers in London and other long stretches.

I wander over to the “new additions” still looking for LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA. Nada. I do find another $5 book I want.

I check the shelves and displays. Surely there’s GGM somewhere in this room.

*FLICK* the light comes on.

I go back to FICTION and look for GARCIA MARQUEZ. Two copies of CHOLERA, one HB, one PB. I choose the PB for weight reasons. (That and the price of the HB, which is the first NAm edition. …) PB cost $5.

I go back to the front counter and start counting through my $0.50 or 3/$1 books three-by-three and discover I am one book shy of a number that divides by three. I go back to the tables and find an African travel book (how à propos, eh?).

Back to the front counter. The clerk, a volunteer, is counting. xx yy zz aa bb … and forty-seven. I hand over the African travel book, making it forty-eight. She rummages around with what that all may mean and I say, “$16 plus $5 for TALES OF THE CITY and $5 for LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA.”

She adds it all up.

AND! I tell her, I have a Friends of the Library card (10% off) and a one-time extra discount (25% off).

Forty-eight books plus this and that and my total (with tax) is sixteen dollars.

Plus … that Watty Piper LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD? I plan to sell a human interest/slice of life commentary about cleaning up the childhood classic to pass it on to my grandchildren.

Article ideas/commentary plucked from the aether.

June 26, 2008

Smoky haze

Filed under: life — Towse @ 9:43 pm

Woke up to the news station warning of smoky haze. Elderly, children, those with health problems should stay indoors. Set your A/C to “recirculate.” Do not exercise outdoors.

Yesterday as we were walking up the path I noticed that the neighbors who’ve been remodeling one of the older houses on this side of the hill had repainted their gazebo a soft butter cream color.

“Nice,” I said, pointing it out to his nibs. His nibs in turn pointed out to me that the gazebo was still as titanium white as ever but the smokey sunshine’s golden hue was making the gazebo seem a different color than it was.

Karolina Kurkova Labeled Too Fat (VIDEO)

Filed under: culture,life — Towse @ 6:43 am

Karolina Kurkova Labeled Too Fat

Her walk is at the 8: marker, mas o menos.

Fat?

Too fat?

Oh, puhleeze. No wonder we have Olsen twins and the girl next door worrying about their body images.

Ego is not a dirty word

Filed under: life,music — Towse @ 2:36 am

Retrieved a couple old Skyhooks cassettes this afternoon, including LIVING IN THE 70s.

I’ll have to get CD versions if I want to listen to them at the computer or on the BO, I suppose. We don’t have a cassette player here; I can only play the cassettes in the car.

Ego Is Not A Dirty Word

If I did not have an ego I would not be here tonight
If I did not have an ego I might not think that I was right
If you did not have an ego you might not care the way you dressed
If you did not have an ego you’d just be like the rest

Ego is not a dirty word
Ego is not a dirty word
Ego is not a dirty word
Don’t you believe what you’ve seen or heard

If Jesus had an ego he’d still be alive today
And if Nixon had no ego he might not be in decay
If you did not have an ego you might not care too much who won
If I did not have an ego I might just use a gun

Ego is not a dirty word
Ego is not a dirty word
Ego is not a dirty word
Don’t you believe what you’ve seen or heard

Some people keep their egos in a bottom drawer
A fridge full of Leonard Cohen
Have to get drunk just to walk out the door
Stay drunk to keep on goin’
So if you got an ego
You better keep it in good shape
Exercise it daily
And get it down on tape

[...]

If you’ve never heard Skyhooks, “Ego,” “Horror Movie,” and a couple other cuts are available at their MySpace page

I probably haven’t listened to them for going on thirty years. Wish I could remember what made me decide I needed to rummage the cassettes out of the stash. Something that was going on online. …

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress