thesochillnetwork:

Cook Valentine’s Dinner for two…

Yeah. Pretty much. 

This is waaaaaaaaaaay to much coffee.

The elongated ‘way’ wasn’t for emphasis, by the way. My arm spasmed from drinking to much coffee while I was typing.

Music For Your Monday Tuesday:

Chris Thile and Michael Daves — Bury Me Beneath The Willow 

Any woman whom I ever marry would have to love this song as much as I do. Which is a lot. 

sirmitchell:

Breakdancing Jesus by Cosmo Sarson

Fantastic. 

Last night as I was leaving my class, on the way back home after a long day, I stopped at the Village Pantry across the street from the synagogue at the corner of Council and Jackson. It’s in a bad part of town. Boarded up old houses, which 100 years ago were beautiful and new, are now closed up with plywood and 2x4s. A few are crack and meth houses.

Some lived-in houses are in no-better condition. Most are rented out to extremely low-income families by people for whom the term ‘slum lord’ is almost flattering. They are falling apart inside and out, and many of them smell like garbage and urine. 

As I walked in the door of the VP, the lady behind the counter asked me if I was a doctor. I realized I still had my stethoscope on from class. As I brought my diet pepsi up to the counter, I explained that I was going to school, majoring in paramedical sciences. 

The lady—almost with tears in her eyes—began to explain to me how in the preceding half-hour she had dealt with drunks, a crack dealer, a meth-head, and young kids who thought they were gang-bangers coming in to steal chips and candy bars because that’s what one of their older brothers does, and he’s a real tough guy. 

It struck me that this is the city we live in. This is the city that I want to ride around in an ambulance and try to help people in. 

Today I was walking from my house to the music building at Ball State to teach a friend a music lesson. As I walked a few blocks away from another Village Pantry I heard a handful of gunshot sounds coming from a few blocks away. 

Gunshots don’t sound like most people would think they do. From a few hundred yards away, they low pitched parts of a gunshot’s sound drop off and the remaining sound bounces around buildings until it hits your ears a second after the trigger is pulled. It sounds like two flat pieces of wood being smacked together forcefully in a cavernous room.

I didn’t think much of it. Maybe I thought it was farther away. Maybe, somehow I’ve gotten to a frightening point of numbness to the reality of crime or violence. 

Walking towards the village after finishing the lesson, I could see the road blocked off, with fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, and curious bystanders in a half-circle around the gas pumps and parking spaces in front of the building. 

I asked, and people had conflicting stories. Mostly the stories were that a police officer tried to arrest a suspect and the suspect opened fire. Some ended with a relatively unscathed police officer shooting and killing the suspect. Some other variables existed. 

Now, news helicopters from Indianapolis are hovering over Muncie. There are likely good-looking, well-dressed reporters standing by a news van in front of the county building. They’ll say something like “Live from the Delaware County Building, I’m [so-and-so] from [such-and-such] and toss the proverbial microphone of importance back tv “Stan the Weatherman” who will tell people about the newest weather forecast for superbowl weekend.

A retired couple a few counties over will be watching and one will say something like “oh isn’t it a shame what the world’s come to? It was so different when we were in college.”

A wealthy business-man from suburban Boston who has tickets to the Super Bowl will think to himself “man, I can’t believe they gave the Super Bowl to Indianapolis. This state is so trashy.” Then he’ll turn off the TV in his hotel room and have sex with a woman who isn’t his wife. The portrait of his young family and their golden retriever will burn a hole in his slacks and straight down to his soul. 

And all I can think about was that this is the place I live, and no place I could move could really end up being much better. I’ll still put up with the crap that ruins people’s lives and drives people slowly insane for no real, good reason.

Everywhere we live, there we are, people who were created by Someone better and for Something better and turned our back on it before we could really even understand what it was we were doing. 

This is the world we live in. 

Music For Your Monday:

Mizzone Bros. — Flint Hill Special

I think that banjo weighs about as much as he does. 

thedailywhat:

Whomp!

[tastefullyoff.]

Seriously, though. This changes everything. 

thedailywhat:

Heartwarming Tearjerker of the Day: As one of her last official acts as a member of congress before tendering her resignation, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords completes the “Congress On Your Corner” event tragically interrupted by the Tucson shooting that nearly ended her life.

Above: Giffords hugs Daniel Hernández, her former intern and the man credited with saving her life.

[@gabbygiffords.]

Wow. I think if there’s a classiest-person-of-the-year award, Rep. Giffords is my hands-down nominee. Maybe classiest-person-of-ever. 

I think if the rest of our elected representatives had an iota of her grace and decency, well… I don’t know, but it would be an amazing thing.  

laughingsquid:

House(hold) Beat, A Song Created From Household Sounds

I gotcha Music For Your Monday right here, pal!

wilwheaton:

neil-gaiman:

We, the undersigned, are musicians, actors, directors, authors, and producers. We make our livelihoods with the artistic works we create. We are also Internet users.

We are writing to express our serious concerns regarding the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works.

We, along with the rest of society, have benefited immensely from a free and open Internet. It allows us to connect with our fans and reach new audiences. Using social media services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we can communicate directly with millions of fans and interact with them in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services - artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result.

We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA’s impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods.

We urge Congress to exercise extreme caution and ensure that the free and open Internet, upon which so many artists rely to promote and distribute their work, does not become collateral damage in the process.

Respectfully,

• Aziz Ansari
• Kevin Devine, Musician
• Barry Eisler, Author
• Neil Gaiman, Author
• Lloyd Kaufman, Filmmaker
• Zoë Keating, Musician
• The Lonely Island
• Daniel Lorca, Musician (Nada Surf)
• Erin McKeown, Musician
• MGMT
• Samantha Murphy, Musician
• OK Go
• Amanda Palmer, Musician (The Dresden Dolls)
• Quiet Company
• Trent Reznor
• Adam Savage, Special Effects Artist (MythBusters)
• Hank Shocklee, Music Producer (Public Enemy, The Bomb Squad)
• Johnny Stimson, Musician

I’m just going to go ahead and add my name to this:

• Wil Wheaton, Actor, Author, Producer

• Taylor Sloan: Musician, Audio Engineer, Amateur Music Producer