The fact that life has no meaning *is* the reason to live.

Please do me a huge favor and visit The Deli SF and vote for The Dead Westerns for artist of the month. Voting ends at midnight tomorrow (EDT) and right now they're ~20 votes behind. I can't let them lose by such a small margin.

Full disclosure: a friend of mine is in the band, but they're actually really good - their myspace page is here.

I know many of you probably have (access to) more than one computer - hint hint. :)

I made my first eBay purchase last week and it finally arrived. A refurbished Garmin zumo 450. Amazon's price is $700, I got it for $400. I've been wanting one for a while, but was always hesitant to drop so much cash on it. But with the help of beatmyprice.com, I found this listing and took the plunge. Turns out it'll mount nicely to my clutch mount, so I just need to grab some longer bolts and figure out how I'm going to wire it to my battery.

Woot!!

Apologies for lack of posting lately. I'm on twitter constantly, though, so you can always find me there, @serafinak

I might start posting my riding routes here (found an amazing one a week or so ago - pics here & here) if I decide to give in to turning this a motorcycle-centric blog. ;)

I also revamped my website - much cleaner now. Yay!

I took my motorcycle to the racetrack on Easter Sunday. The weather was perfect.

Met and hung out with a bunch of cool people. 'Twas much fun passing bikes with 2-3x the hp on some of the turns. ;)

Instructors were super helpful, and the classroom sessions were quite informative. Rode 2-up with an ex-racer, which was probably the most terrifying experience of my life, and also one of the most fun.

I learned a few things about my general riding style that I'd kinda been aware of before, but were incredibly noticable on the track. Also, I really really need a garage instead of street parking. I need space to do things to my bike.... dirty, dirty things.

And HUGE thanks to epim and Stan from BARF who helped me prep my bike and get it up there and back. :)

Fuck rollercoasters. :D



Click for more pics

I rode down to San Luis Obispo and back this weekend.



More pics here

Anyone who doesn't "get" Twitter seems to focus on the egotism and boringness of the possible answers to the question "what are you doing?", which is how Twitter frames itself. And they're right. But the most interesting tweets on my stream dont answer that question. More often, they answer "what's on your mind right now?". Twitter is valuable for its ability to spread information to lots of people immediately. Any information. Memes, links, videos, news, spontaneous gatherings online and off, etc.

Regarding the issue of politicians twittering during Obama's speech, lots of journalists are framing it as if that makes them as bad as gossipy schoolkids. Twittering politicians is not a bad thing. The spontaneous, and succinct nature of tweets reveals a side of a person you do not get any other way. You get a certain honesty, or at least a feel for their personality on a day-to-day level (there are exceptions). You get the Republican who recommended people watch a basketball game if they didn't want to "watch Pelosi smirk for the next hour", and you get Claire McCaskill reporting on the new Health and Human Services secretary, saying she'll "be terrific", minutes after it's announced. These are their unfiltered opinions of an event as it happens. No filter, no delay. How is that a bad thing?

Twitter's not just useful politically. As I said, it spreads any information. Patrick Norton tweets one of my flickr photos and I get 7200 views in one day. Kevin Rose (and others) regularly brings down websites by sending thousands of followers to a page all at once. Veronica has an interview in twenty minutes, so she asks for interview question ideas and has plenty of material in no time.

The list goes on. It's ironic that twitter's usefulness can't be properly summed up in 140 characters. At least, I havent seen it. And twitter's not helping itself any, but that's another blog entry.

Sen. Claire McCaskill tweeted it best: "Those naysayers bout twitter don't get it. It's all about communication. Communication is always a good thing especially in my job."

There was a massive public pillow fight yesterday...



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CES was amazing, and live tv production is so much fun. I'm still recovering.



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Did I mention I met and talked with Jimmy Fallon and LeVar Burton? Super nice guys, both of em. <3

I'll be in Las Vegas for the next few days, for CES.

Veronica wrote up the details, and since her schedule is my schedule (mostly), I point you here.

(this was today's practice)

My top 10 movies theatrically released in '08:
1. Synecdoche, NY
2. Funny Games
3. Transsiberian
4. Benjamin Button
5. Milk
6. Let the Right One In
7. Burn After Reading
8. Iron Man
9. Changeling
10. Happy-Go-Lucky


Movies that probably would've made the list had I not missed them in the theatre:
Frost/Nixon
The Wrestler

All the movies I saw theatrically in 2008 - I think:
Michael Clayton, Be Kind Rewind, The Year My Parents Went On Vacation, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Wall-E, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Cassandra's Dream, The Savages, The Orphanage, Into the Wild, There Will Be Blood, Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Penelope, Paranoid Park, Funny Games, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Visitor, Priceless, Snow Angels, Son of Rambow, Iron Man, My Blueberry Nights, Indiana Jones 4, Flight of the Red Balloon, Wanted, Elegy, The Wackness, Gonzo, Dark Knight, Transsiberian, In Search of a Midnight Kiss, Choke, Changeling, Hamlet 2, Burn After Reading, Religulous, Around June, Happy-Go-Lucky, Synecdoche NY, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, Doubt, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Australia, Beauty In Trouble, Let the Right One In

I've been tagged by eileen, so I have to:

“It works like this: if you use Flickr, go to the sixth page of your photostream and pick the sixth picture there, then post it to your blog, and pass it on to six other people.”


Panorama of Diamond Lake, OR.

I pick jaberwockynmt, paisleychick, roessnakhan, tromar, pdx6, and smokyscott.

I ordered a 2009 calendar from cafepress with these photos of mine:

Jan - April:

May - Aug:

Sept - Dec:

The first one was taken Feb '07 when I bought it. The rest were taken in 2008.

I hope to do this every year. :D

Thanksgiving in Yosemite with my mom.



Click for more.

I heard a line in a tv show a week or so ago, and I've been quoting it ever since.

"That's the thing about traditions - you can make new ones."

Most specifically, in regards to the religious background of the upcoming winter holidays, and about same-sex marriage (in a religious sense, rather). We're arguing over tradition, here, and traditions are only what you make them.

People had written on the sidewalks with chalk in support of the protests today, and I tried to get a still photo of this one, but the bright sun combined with the flagpole's shadow made it impossible. Then I realized a short video would look even better. Artistically, I think this is the shot I'm proudest of from the set today:



I read this and cant help thinking of the coincidence that it's exactly 40 years later and here we are again. This is a huge national movement, one I'll be telling my kids/grandkids about, and to be in (arguably) the center of it - San Francisco - is incredible.

found this icon today, from greencow:



:)

I attended the massive nationwide protest against Prop 8 this afternoon. It began as a gathering in front of city hall with speakers and music, then the crowd moved down to Market street and marched to Union Square, stopping all traffic in its tracks, though most actually didn't seem to mind, and honked in support.



Click for more (38 photos, 3 short videos)

2 of California's most beloved dishes have combined to become one delicious/disgusting treat:


The Where-Is-Your-God-Now? Burger from MAKE MOVIES on Vimeo.

This has been around forever, but it deserves a repost right about now: