Once upon a time it was the Americans who were terrorists to the British. They’ve forgotten their history already.
-Traitor

The word Islam apparently means submission (also from the movie). The Quran says killing an innocent person is like taking a hundred lives, and conversely, saving an innocent life is like saving a hundred lives.

Frankly I don’t understand Coen brothers’ movies.

I just watched Burn After Reading. Like all their other movies, it seemed to have no point. It ran and ran and then just ended. There didn’t seem to be any conflict that was resolved, or any mystery solved, or any memorable characters to relate to. It was just…there. The DVD cover says “A comedic masterpiece,” but I didn’t find a single thing funny about it.

I felt the same way about No Country For Old Men, which was actually long and slow. Maybe it’s just me, because the world seems to love their movies.

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10:18 AM Poignant quote from the book I’m currently reading:

…I clung to my notion, ill defined though it was, that a serious study of any important body of human knowledge, or theory, or belief, if undertaken with a critical but not a cruel mind, would in the end yield some secret, some valuable permanent insight, into the nature of life and the true end of man.

-Fifth Business, pg. 162

2:31 PM I’ve never been Weezer’s greatest fan, but their new single is catchy and fun.

• NewsRadio Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  I hadn’t even heard of this show, but it’s hilarious! And I finally know where this Joe Rogan guy came from.
• Gary Unmarried Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  Light and funny.
• Action Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  An old show from the late 90s I hadn’t even heard of before, starring Jay Mohr. It seems like a predecessor to Entourage.
• Unhitched Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  Good for background noise - funny and doesn’t require full attention, like most sitcoms.
• Back to You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
• Bones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
• The Loop Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  This show is funny.
• She Spies Rating: 0.5 out of 5 stars
  This has to be the worst show ever made. It’s worse than Pamela Anderson’s VIP (and along the same theme).
• Stacked Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  Actually pretty funny, even though I had my doubts because it’s Pam Anderson.
• House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  Not as great as everyone makes it out to be, but it’s not bad either.
• Dream On Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
  Some HBO show from the early 90s about a divorcee’s adventures in New York City. It’s a good reminder of what people wore and looked like in general almost 20 years ago, because it’s quite different from today.
• Murder One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  Seems like a highly rated crime show. I haven’t seen enough of it to say if it’s good or not.
• Chuck Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  Sufficiently entertaining.

That’s a lot of TV shows. Incidentally, I would like to note that I would be watching ABC shows online too if their website didn’t require me to download something in order to do so.

And yet, having arrived upon this moment in 2008, I couldn’t help but think back in memory to the same day in 2007, 2006, 2005…back to the turn of the century, at which point memory fades into an incongruous jumble out of which some dates stick out while others are lost (for now at least).  I remember where I was on this day last year, what I was doing, and who I was with, and it’s anybody’s guess where I’ll be one year from now and what the parameters of that day will be (where, what, who).

One may think, as I used to not too many years ago, that to think in the terms I now do would render much of life’s efforts meaningless.  (What’s it all for?  Why am I struggling just to get by and leave it all behind?)  That’s only innocence and lack of perspective, through no fault of one’s own.  In fact, I find having the belief and outlook I do detracts in no way from my will and desire to make every effort possible while I’m here, while this journey’s carrying me around its infinite circle, where every night is but an hour and every death is but a night.

I will even go so far as to say that it adds to my desire to seek and perform action, knowing that I’m not doing it for some greater reward than for the here and now, because one day this particular life will all be over and everything seen and gathered will simply vanish.  It’s not a sad thought, not at all.  It’s poetry, beauty; it’s art.  It’s more divine than anything that claims to persist forever.  I am here, I am now.  That’s all.  There’s no need for anything more.

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This ended up being 75.6 miles. For comparison, the way there (below), was only 46.2 miles.

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