Reality

"Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe from the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering." Lucius Annaeus Seneca

I have received some negative feedback offline from more than one person who visits this blog regarding my earlier post about the Vogue "Police State" photos. If one took the time to read my comments associated with photos, it can clearly be seen that I was not in approval of their message. While I feel bad that they have offended some, I do not apologize for the post because life and reality is often offensive. Always avoiding the unpleasant at all cost is not healthy and cop-out in my mind. My blog is a journal of what's going on in my life and of recent note to me. It is by no means solely focused on the negative. Believe me, I could have posted a much starker reality, such as video of perpetually detained illegal immigrants in Australian desert camps, to video of tortured Iraqi prisoners banging their heads against the wall in attempted suicide. There is so much going on the world and it depresses me that many are happy to focus solely on the feel good foolishness such as Tom Cruise's baby or Paris Hilton's glorious record of accomplishment. On that note, to lighten the mood (and fill up space so the Police State post goes to archive sooner), here is a video of some rednecks shooting a beer can gun. Intellectually stimulating stuff indeed. (Make sure sound is on for the montage)

Texas A&M "Aggies" Football Game

I finally experienced American culture that seemed missing from my U.S. experience so far. The miles and miles of freeways and strip malls in Houston leave little room for a sense of community. However, yesterday I attended a college football game with some friends from work and was blown away by how big a deal these sporting events are in the U.S. We made the trip up to Texas A&M University to watch the Aggies take on the LA Tech Bulldogs. As we neared the stadium we were engulfed in a sea of maroon (school colors). I quickly realized that this simple non-conference college game was going to be much larger than any grey cup final in Canada. On the way to our seats we were treated to enthusiastic (meaningful-to-someone) chants at the mascot graveyard and a thundering fly-over by 3 F-18 hornets that flew so low the ground seemed to shake. As we arrived at our seats the stadium was ordered empty due to a thunderstorm that blew in. We waited it out for a 2 hour delay of game in the concession area and were treated to a steady shower of guano from the bats that were also seeking refuge above. Finally the game started and all throughout, they really put on a show. The student’s side of the stadium led the loudest chants I've heard in a stadium and everyone seemed so into it. The lightning continued during the game for a real show as well. Notice the picture below where the lightning is arching right towards the end-zone stands where we sat. The picture at the top is taken from my seat during the game. Football seems so tied to their heritage, with the announcer and big screen recognizing all the former Aggie players of note that were in attendance, and even the most devoted fan, (who was a 3rd generation A&M alumi that has had seasons tickets for 30+ years). The marching band was interesting at half time, doing all kinds of cool formations shaped in Texas-specific symbols. We left for Houston (1.5 hour drive) at the end of 3rd Quarter because the Aggies were slaughtering the Bulldogs (the final score was 45-14). The stadium was almost full and capacity is 82,600. So, college football is a very big deal here. I doubt I'll go back but it was an interesting experience.

The Tesla Roadster Electric Car

How did Exxon and BP let this happen? The Tesla Roadster goes from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds and has a 250 mile range before recharge. I first noticed the car as featured on CNET and here is a cool video of the car in action. Supposedly the first 100 sold out immediatly with a 100,000 dollar deposit. The efficiency is mathmatically equivalent to 135 miles per gallon and it can be fully charged in 3.5 hours. Larger scale production is scheduled for 2007-08. Elon Musk, PayPal founder is chairman of Tesla Motors so I guess they are well financed.

The company is named after Nikolay Tesla, the inventor who gave us A/C power and who some say was ruined by his financial backer, J.P. Morgan, due to his quest to invent free energy devices that could not be metered. But there I go again with the conspiracies. When ask about why General Electric's EV1 electric car failed Musk responded "Don't explain...by conspiracy what you can explain by incompetence." Good advice, I think, and applies well to goverments too.

Normalizing Police State Brutality

Vogue Italia's September 2006 Issue State of Emergency has some pretty sick depictions of models being brutalized in a sexy-sicko display that attempts to normalize and de-sensitize people to the every growing police-state tactics used by governments to "Protect our Freedoms." Notice how some of the imagery used ties directly to the recent prisoner torture scandals in Iraq, from the barking german sheppard to the orange colored dress/prisoner jumpsuit.

Notice even the orange clad man in the background behind the model with the dog picture. Can you pick out the non-Vogue photo? The below picture takes it to a point where one could question if the magazine is glorifying rape imagery. Any way you slice it, these pictures are an explicit attempt at normalizing us to disturbing behaviors by authority figures.

Calgary Real Estate Market

My absence from Calgary over the past year has proven very good for the real estate market. What on earth is going on there in Calgary? Maybe I should move back and see.

Average Real Estate prices for Calgary 1985-Present

Steve Irwin (Not!)...Some idiot stole my snorkel video on YouTube!