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Dear Fucking Idiots of Vancouver.

People who rioted last night, you’re a disgrace and an embarrassment and I’m not just talking about the few people who decided to tip over a truck and lit it on fire. I’m also talking about the stupid idiots who started jumping on top of the wreck, running through the flames, and started posing with pictures. Seriously, what is the point? Just to say that you were in the Vancouver Riots of 2011? You add nothing to society. Zero, I hope Darwin has his way with you.

The looters? You should be ashamed of yourself. Not only did you decide that being idiots is an imperative you took it one step further. One, don’t you know that there are so many cameras in these stores. Businesses (small or large) don’t have insurance to cover looting and rioting. If anything they’d get coverage for part of the damage. Regardless, they’d still have to close down the store to get it repaired. Families depend on these stores being open. So really, you just starved a baby. In my books, you’re lower than scum. You’re like the stuff that scum throws up after realizing that you were in it’s food source.

And a fucktard who decided to jump the viaduct, who didn’t make it and landed in the streets below; you honestly deserve what you get. I’m pretty liberal about giving every one medical care. I mean, homeless people who have heart attacks get treated at my wife’s hospital (for free mind you) but I can’t bring myself to believe that doctors are wasting their time trying to save your life.  If you live, and procreate there will be more people with your stupid genes in this world. This is probably fate talking and saying that your gene pool shouldn’t exist in this world.

On a serious note though, the whole world is now looking at Vancouver, wincing at the things that you rioters did and associating the rest of us with you idiots. In a span of 3 hours, you’ve managed to ruin the good karma that we’ve built up during the 2010 Olympics. People probably will be remembering this for a little bit.

I look through the photos, I see the videos and even though there are some good people keeping the peace;  I’m glad that I stayed at home with my daughter and that she’s too young to ask me why people are like that.

Shameful.

Like most Internet addicted people who maintain a blog like me generally go through their RSS feeds and  read. There usually isn’t much to write about but this Monday morning there were 3 little awesome jewels. Ones that were pretty cool to share.

http://lifehacker.com/5747371/what-we-use-kevin-purdy-edition – Most people who read my blog probably read lifehacker. Since I’ve been trying to write out a “what I use” post, this was really interesting to me. It’s really interesting to see what tools people with similar methodologies use. Most of these guys use similar things to me. GTD, Inbox Zero and some sort of minimalist philosophy.

http://www.geekmom.com/2011/01/my-top-ten-tear-jerking-moments-in-science-fiction – Ok, when I first saw the article I really did want to ignore it since the summary was that scene in Men in Black where K was explaining to J that he was not the partner but the replacement. Sad? Hardly, but the title reeled me in. I agree with most of the list and although I haven’t see the Futurama episode, that one really make me tear up just reading the description.

http://zenhabits.net/lose-stuff/ – An interesting read. Cheryl and I really do have differing philosophies when it comes to “stuff”. Less is more is sometimes not the case for us. While I try to adopt minimalism to my own stuff, I do think of how she’d do if I tried to convince her to live without her hair straightener. Then I say, “Haha! Not going to happen” and move on.

You know, a long time ago. I started this blog because I read volatile.org, maganda.org and thought, man thats cool! I wanna do that! I wanna write like that and be as profound like those blogger guys and gals. Then it dawned on me I actually had the means. After a $79 registration fee to get the domain, and a commitment of $20 a month for the hosting macapinlac.com was born. I kept immersing myself in the culture, and at one point even became one of the rowdy kids at sxsw; eating bbq, flying back and forth from Vancouver to San Francisco and socializing with (who I considered) the web’s elite. Those were fun days!

Today, everyone seems to be a social media marketer because they “tweet” on a regular basis. Or they seem to recycle some abstract idea and translate it into web (e.g. What is the sound of one finger tweeting when the fail whale is up?). Or they obsess about followers and retweets, facebook friends and meetups.

Then I read Patton Oswalt’s article: Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die and it all made sense to me. It’s too saturated! Everyone seems to have written a how-to book on how to blog with the first 3 chapters dedicated to (Step 1) installing wordpress, getting a posterous account, getting a twitter account or even signing up for blogger and how much they hate MySpace. Step 2? Recycle an opinion and market the hell out of it. Forget about understanding it, just keep saying the most outrageous things. The more you offend, then the more traffic you get. And of course the most glorious step? Monetize (Did I mention that these days Step 3 is always monetize?)

There is too much noise and not enough substance. It seems that these days the goal is blog traffic, sponsorship and a maybe even a book deal. Where is the love? The joy of finding a hidden gem on the Internet and sharing it with people. The thrill of self-publishing your thoughts. Making connections and friends through ideas, getting inspired and not because you want to network and get more twitter followers? Is it still worth it?

I miss the days when I look for a book recommendation that I get a caliber of book like the Life of Pi or Ecstasy Club and not Twilight. There was a time in the internet when personal stories were meaningful, deep, sensitive and inspiring. A time when the Webby Awards weren’t hosted by BJ Novak but John Halcyon Styn! When meme’s were cool mirror photos taken with lomos and not with instagram.

I know it totally sounds like I’m hanging my keyboard up and leaving. I’m not. It’s just a little rant to clear my head and get on with blogging about the banality of what I had for lunch today (pasta).

Look, since whenever I blog about movies it’s usually about how much I hate them. So I wanted to churn it up a little bit and blog about something that I really liked. Let me talk about Easy A.

Since Mackenzee was born, having movie nights together with your wife needs to be scheduled, planned and negotiated. When the movie came out, it was our movie night and since Cheryl likes Amanda Bynes and I love Emma Stone, the choice of movie worked. You can’t really go wrong with having Stanely Tucci and Patricia Clarkson cast as parents as well. Malcom McDowell (of Entourage fame) as the principal is simply brilliant.

The synopsis? Well, let me do some copy and paste magic.

A clean-cut high school student relies on the school’s rumor mill to advance her social and financial standing. From IMDB.

It loosely takes from the Scarlet Letter.

The script was out of this world (in a good way) and the casting awesome because the lines were really delivered well. Honestly, if I talked like these people I would sound awesome (I guess I should stay away from using the word awesome). I haven’t felt this way about dialog since the West Wing. Like this:

When she takes off her panties and her gay friend notices her taking it off. (Newsflash: they pretend to do it with the whole school listening by the door.)

Brandon: Hey hey! What are you doing?
Olive: Relax! Jesus! What is with you gays? Are you really that repulsed by lady parts? What do you think I have down there a gnome?!

The bad part about it? Well, the director Will Gluck produced Andy Richter Controls The Universe. I suppose I could forgive him for that since this movie was awesome and I’ll definitely be buying the BlueRay in a major way.

In continuing with the NaNoBloMo I am continuing on with my promise of 1 quality post every day.

My wife and I have been married since Aug 16, 2008. A little more than two years and although we dated for 5 years before that, there are things that I continue to learn everyday about her.

1. My wife is obsessed with Edward. You know the thin, shiny, pasty guy from the Twilight movies. She doesn’t like Robert Pattison, actor of roles like Cedric Diggory from Harry Potter. She loves Edward, but not Robert. Don’t ask, I don’t get it either.

2. My wife is crazed with Oprah. As I write this she is watching a Tivo’ed episode of Oprah saying, “I wanna watch Oprah live so bad. ZooOOOOhhhh eeeehhmmm geee (read:OMG)! I looooove her!” I’ve threatened to cancel cable and she has, in turn, threatened to withhold food from me if she can’t watch the last season of  Oprah. I don’t dare because I think she is far capable of  doing crazier things than that when withdrawn from Oprah.

3. Did you know that my wife is obsessed with designer bags? Yes, she carries a Gucci baby bag in one hand and a Louis Vuitton purse in the other. Please don’t steal her purses.

4. She is obsessed with the iPhone games: Godfinger and WeRule. Ngmoco :) you have robbed me of time with my wife!

5. My wife is obsessed with Amanda Bynes. Not in that creepy stalker way. She just thinks Amanda (yes, she’s apparently on a first name basis) is really funny. Therefore she makes sure that Amanda Bynes movies are always available. If Amanda Bynes was a guest on Oprah, my wife would travel to Chicago, hide herself in the set and jump out at the most opportune moment. Probably when Oprah asks Amanda what was her most profound moment in her career was (Probably Sydney White). No serious. She would.

I love my wife. Never a dull moment around her!

ps. She just turned to me and said, “Psst! I like Vampire Diaries too. I love Stephen and Damon.” I think the crazy is starting to get ahold of her. I should call the doctor / ambulance, or maybe Van Helsing.