This is very cool. Be sure to watch to the end to see the swarms flying in formation.

Imagine this scenario. A close friend comes to you and says that they have had a powerful religious experience. The Creator of the universe has audibly spoken to them, commending them for their strong faith. But the voice also made a request. It commanded your friend to take their 13-year-old son, tie him up, stab him in the heart and then burn his body as a sacrifice to the voice. Your friend soberly tells you that he intends to obey the voice. Do you a) congratulate your friend on his strong faith and offer to help carry the wood for the fire, or b) promptly call the police?

Now imagine the same scenario, but rather than a close friend in the present day, it's a stranger in the distant past. Rather than hearing your friend's firsthand account, you read about the story in a legend that has been passed down through the centuries. Do you think of this person who is willing to kill their own child as a hero or a villain?

Of course, I didn't invent this scenario, it comes straight out of the Bible. The story of Abraham and Isaac is told in Genesis 22. This is not some obscure passage that I'm taking out of context. Abraham is a central figure in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and all three religions include this story as evidence of Abraham's great faith. The Christian New Testament refers to this episode specifically when listing some exemplary displays of faith (Hebrews 11:17-19).

I wish the scenario I presented above was just hypothetical. Tragically, the members of some present-day religions are still asked to place their faith above the well-being of their children. A Jehovah's Witness stood on my front step and told me that if her own child needed a blood transfusion to live, she would rather let them die than to violate her religion's rules against transfusions. Like Abraham, she had faith that her god would raise the child from the dead.

The problem with faith is that, by definition, it's detached from reality. Abraham is considered a hero because he was willing to look past the consequences of his actions and focus on that voice in his head. The Witness at my door was also ready to downplay the consequences of her beliefs. It seems to me that making a decision based on faith is misguided at best. There is a better way.

Or, today's theists can hope that Doc Brown will have intervened and spared them the humiliation of trying to defend and spread a religion supposedly founded by a man who agreed to obey a disembodied voice by killing his son.

Behold, my first brendoman.com post of 2012! Unfortunately I don't have much to say. I am in a weird nostalgic mood today because it would have been my dad's 60th birthday. I started thinking about old friends and then, thanks to modern technology, I added some of those old friends on Facebook. Thanks internet!

Living in Irvine is cool but I now feel completely detached from north Orange County and like a planet away from L.A.. It is taking some adjustment. I saw Haywire the other night with my roommate Jon and our friend Edgar. It kicked a lot of ass. You should go see it. It is nice living right by a cool Imax theater but it is not nice paying $19 to see said Imax films. Batman will be worth it though.

How's it going, folks?

Work is slightly less busy in January, so I finally have a chance to say hello and reflect back on this past year, the first year in which I haven't really posted on this blog. Today I'll be reflecting on the professional changes I've made in the past year.

I'm still working at the university. My job continues to shift around a lot. The program I was working with is shutting down, which led to a shift for me to the more technical side of things when we changed our student information system software. Now I'm a Student Information System Specialist, whatever that means! I work on a lot of little projects related to all of the softwares that our office uses. One day I might be setting up course information so that if you took ENGL110A and failed it but then passed the class when it was under the course number ENGL112 the system will catch the repeat for your GPA. Another day I might be setting up complex rules to calculate your academic standing.

I started out with the intention of doing things like this full-time, but it was lacking in structure, and as it turned out, a coworker went on maternity leave and I stepped in to help with course scheduling; that turned into about a third of what I do. Course scheduling includes maintaining all of the course information in our system, data entering all the classes that get offered each term, exporting them to our classroom assignment software, finding rooms for every class, importing them back into our system, and then interfacing with tens of department contacts for all of the changes that happen each year. I've gotten into the techie side of things and learned a lot about how to improve what we do by using our softwares to their full potential. I also joined a board on campus that reviews proposals from groups wishing to put on major events on campus; it's been fun to network a little and know more about what's going on on campus - something very important when you need to be up-to-date about all of the classrooms and their availability.

Yet another coworker went on maternity leave, and I was designated as the fill-in for reporting. Reporting is a whole other beast that involves another software that connects to our system and collects snapshots of all of our student and course information. I construct reports in some rather clumsy software and then tweak the results to display correctly. It's more complicated than most people think it would be, and dealing with the people side of things (politics, expectation, lack of knowledge) has surprisingly been the biggest challenge of all. At any rate, I'm hoping that this year I'll start learning some SQL tricks that will help me in this area, so this ought to be yet another year full of learning.

Speaking of learning, we did a staff development day aback in November, and took the StrengthsFinder test to find our "signature themes". I was not very interested in doing this, but that's probably because one of my top ten themes is Individualization, which doesn't quite appreciate being labeled. At any rate, it was an opportunity to learn more about my coworkers and what we may or may not have in common. It was also an awkward experience when I had to give feedback to some folks and couldn't think of examples to agree with their results. So the process also turned out to be a growth experience for me in learning to speak the truth honestly but kindly. Well, since you're dying to know, my signature themes are Achiever, Connectedness, Responsibility, Relator, Learner, Harmony, input, Developer, Positivity, and Individualization. My number one theme was actually the biggest surprise, because I don't see myself as an achiever, but I did learn that I like to accomplish things in the work setting and like to conquer new things, even if I don't feel an undying drive to do them.

One fun thing I've gotten to do is join the team in working on our departmental website. I haven't worked on websites in a very long time, but I always enjoy doing it. We redesigned our site for content over the past few months. Hopefully we'll be going live with the new organization next week, and then later on this year our marketing department will give us an updated look.

Well, I think that's probably more than you wanted to know about my job, but it was good for me to reflect back on the year. It was a busy one for sure. It seems that I'm destined to be in a job that is always changing and providing learning experiences for me, and I enjoy that very much.

2011 was a pretty epic year for me. My good friend Derick Armijo invited me to co-host Pop Sickles with him and that is still going strong. Even though we said goodbye to Smodcastle in June, it will always live on in my (and many others') memories. The other highlight of the year for me is definitely the fact that Phil and I finally published the first Brax book.

Even though most of my online activity has been on Facebook and Twitter, I still have a huge place in my heart for this blog and all that it represents. We are celebrating our tenth birthday in 2012! That is crazy! We've all moved on to various things, many of the original folks have families now. We've come a long way from that group of young college kids who tended not to sleep very much. This blog helps me remember what good friends I have and that thanks to this site and many others, we can still keep in touch and share thoughts and ideas.

I wish you all the best in 2012 and thank you for being part of making 2011 awesome!

Flush a toilet, take a shower or drive across town. What makes these important, everyday things possible? Over several generations the citizens of our community have pooled their resources in the form of a city government. One of the main functions of that government is to build and maintain the infrastructure that we all depend on: streets, water and sewer. If we want to see our community flourish, we must continue to invest in the maintenance and expansion of these vital systems.

In the summer of 2011, the city street crew applied three inches of asphalt to 1st Street, Old 71 and Kentucky Street. In the summer of 2010, they did the same to 8th Street. That spring the city government purchased the equipment to allow our crew to do this work in-house, stretching your tax dollars to cover as much street as possible. I'm proud of the work of our crew has done and I look forward to seeing the improvements they bring to other streets in the coming years. All of this is possible because the citizens of Adrian voted on a tax issue in 2000 to provide funds for street maintenance. The money was raised ahead of time and the work was done without borrowing money.

In 2010 and 2011 city crews and private contractors replaced over three miles of water mains in the city. These new lines deliver water to local homes and businesses and provide enough pressure to supply fire hydrants around the city. Many of the retired water mains were smaller, corroded, cast-iron pipes.

In 2009, after years of frequent boil orders, the city of Adrian opened its new water treatment facility. The 500,000 gallon per day membrane filtration system was capable of providing clean, safe water to the residents of Adrian for the next two decades at least. In the fall of 2011 the plant capacity was doubled to 1,000,000 gallons per day, enough to provide water to the city of Adrian and Public Water Supply District #5, which serves the surrounding area.

These improvements were possible because of a new contract with District #5 and because we made use of grants and low-interest loans. But, the city also had to increase water rates to cover the ongoing costs of producing cleaner water in the new plant. That rate increase would not have been so dramatic if the city had gradually raised its rates as the old plant approached the end of its life. While I'm convinced that our new water production system is worth the cost, I think there are lessons to be learned when it comes to future infrastructure improvements.

Our sewer system is the next element of our infrastructure that needs some attention. Aging and leaky sewer lines around town are allowing too much water into the system, which risks overloading our simple lagoon based sewage treatment system. In a few spots, the water coursing through leaky sewer lines is even allowing raw sewage to escape the lines after heavy rainfall. The city council has already begun to consult with our engineering company about ways to assess what needs to be done to our sewer system.

For years now, the city has been pursuing grant money for sewer improvements, but we also need to begin to gradually raise our rates. That's why I proposed a $0.50 increase (per 1000 gallons) in December of 2011. The rate change passed, so a household that uses 3000 gallons of water per month will see their sewer bill go from $10.50 per month to $12 per month. I don't take this increase lightly, but I think we should start to invest in our sewer system now rather than waiting until we have an emergency and need a dramatic rate increase.

This spring we will perform some tests on the sewer system and then we’ll be able to plan for addressing the system’s most critical problems. Our sewer rates are still lower than most towns in the area and there will almost certainly be a few more gradual rate increases in the coming years.

We will continue to pursue federal and state funds to help with the costs of these improvements. You may be able to help with one of these. One of the grants we would like to apply for requires that we first collect some data about the income levels of a random selection of households. We have sent out these surveys twice, but there haven’t been enough responses to allow us to apply for the grant. If you received a survey, but didn’t return it, please call or stop by city hall and get another copy of it. It won’t take more than a minute to fill out and it will make a big difference for our infrastructure and the rates we charge over the coming years.

The health of a city’s infrastructure is no accident. It requires careful planning, wise management of limited resources and, most importantly, a shared investment by the citizens of our community.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The conclusion of the dissenting opinion by Justice Stevens in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission:

At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.

I've been listening to The Smile Sessions a lot on Spotify and it's really taken me back to a lot of good memories I have listening to albums like Pet Sounds and Spirit of America with my dad, who was a huge fan of the group. I remember seeing them a few times play at Padres games, which were always a blast. I will never forget dancing to "I Get Around" from our field seats as the band played in the outfield. The greatest Beach Boys memory I have though occurred the summer after my senior year of high school. I was at a party at my friend's house in Del Mar and we were outside in his front yard. We could hear "Good Vibrations" playing down the street but thought nothing of it. Then we realized it was a band playing and decided to check it out. So we went over to his neighbors house and there was Brian Wilson strumming a guitar. My friend's neighbor had hired him to play their party. It was pretty nuts.

I debated about whether I should put a spoiler alert on this. On the one hand, I do reveal most of what happens in the movie, but on the other hand, is it really giving away the plot when the story is this nebulous? Either way, consider yourself alerted.

I wasn’t quite sure what to think of The Tree of Life at first. I definitely enjoyed watching it, but there were a few glaring problems that caused me to at least question whether it deserves to be a truly Great Movie.

In case you haven’t seen it, the story revolves around a boy growing up in the 1950s and his relationship with his father, mother, and younger brother. The movie cuts somewhat between the past and the present, with Sean Penn playing the boy as a grown man. Apparently Sean Penn said in an interview that he didn’t know why he was even in the film. Frankly, I don’t either. The movie gains nothing from his scenes in the present, in which he mostly mopes around and thinks about the past. I don’t mind the nontraditional structure of the movie, the long break from the story to explore the creation of the universe, or the whispered voice-overs, but the one place the film did lose me is in the end when we see the adult protagonist daydream about the people from his childhood.

Aside from that, though, I think The Tree of Life is fantastic, full of gorgeous visuals and interesting biblical allusions. It opens by quoting lines from Job chapter 38, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” followed by the introduction of two parents learning that their child is dead. In voice-over the mother asks the expected questions about God, suffering, and death. From there the film begins to dramatically illustrate God’s response Job in a sequence that traces the history of the universe from the moment of creation to the generation of life, to the time of dinosaurs, and finally the Ice Age. Visually, this whole sequence is easily the most impressive thing I’ve seen in a long time. It combines chemical effects, photos of distant galaxies, natural footage of oceans and volcanoes, and some computer-generated effects to weave together a coherent visual history of the known universe. Did I mention it’s gorgeous? And through the whole thing these astronomical events are set in contrast with the death of a single child. The result is profound, going beyond the simple “look how insignificant one human life is” to a broader sense of the beauty, wonder, and weight of the entire universe.

After going through the entire history of the universe, the film returns to the human characters in the story and the birth of who will turn out to be the main character. As we are presented with a montage of his infancy and early childhood, the passage of time gradually slows and finally settles into one time frame that dominates the rest of the movie. I kept waiting for the story to revisit the death of the son and the question of suffering, but it doesn’t. It seems that the whole Job aspect of the film is completed at this point.

Instead, the film begins to explore other biblical themes. The mother and father are presented as embodiments of two opposing ideas, Nature and Grace; or, I would suggest, God’s Judgment and God’s Grace. Brad Pitt as the father is a strict disciplinarian who devotes much time and effort to instructing his sons, but through his harshness creates a climate of fear in his house. The mother is the opposite: all comfort and forgiveness and unconditional love. For much of this section we see the oldest son grow increasingly fearful and resentful of his father, and increasingly affectionate toward his more caring mother, and the movie clearly seems to imply that she is the better parent.

But then the movie takes an unexpected turn: with the father away on a long business trip, the mother finds she has almost no control over her children. The oldest yells at her, leaves the house whenever he pleases, and indulges in acts of destruction and rebellion. If the parents represent God’s Judgment and Grace, then the theological implication is that both are necessary.

While this is happening, the movie also explores the relationship between the oldest and middle brothers in a way that echoes Cain and Abel. Whereas the oldest is rebellious, resentful, and mean, the middle child is sweet, innocent, and obedient. He enjoys special attention from his parents because of his aptitude for art and music, which clearly inspires jealousy in the oldest. At one point the mother discovers a painting that the oldest son has ruined. And in later scene, when the two boys are in the woods far from home, the older brother intentionally inflicts physical harm on the younger, paralleling the first act of violence in the Bible.

While I believe all these biblical allusions are clearly intended in the film, I think it’s important not to go too far in extending the allegories. I think Terrence Malick is more interested in calling up these archetypes to get at some universal themes about existence. These are just the elements that make up the whole. There is a plot here (despite complaints to the contrary), but to focus on the plot is to miss what Malick is really up to. I think you could look at the film as a mosaic of images, ideas, and archetypes that may or may not all connect to each other, but when taken all together present a unified and universal picture. Although I found a few individual parts of this mosaic unnecessary or tedious, they don’t ultimately detract from the beauty of the whole.

Thanks to my awesome friend Ross I got to go to the PGA screening of The Muppets yesterday at The Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. It was everything I thought it would be and then some. There was a great mix of new and old songs and it really captured the spirit of the first three Muppet movies, something I really felt has been missing in the later efforts. I was smiling pretty much the whole time. While it was definitely a nostalgia trip for me, there is plenty here for kids who might not be as familiar with the Muppets to enjoy. There were a lot of kids in the audience I saw it with and they loved it just much as the adults. Walter, the new Muppet, fits right in with the rest of the gang and Jason Segal and Amy Adams hold their own as well. As it wouldn't be a Muppet movie without them, there are also plenty of great cameos. If you're looking for something to watch this week, this is definitely the one to go with. I know I'll be seeing it again.

I recall watching an interview with John Lasseter in which the Toy Story director said that movie’s creators were purposely going against the formula for Disney movies at the time. In Toy Story they wanted no singing characters (the Randy Newman songs were a compromise) and no talking animals. This on top of it being a completely computer-animated movie, a risky venture at the time. It’s enough that Toy Story dared to go against the formula of what had worked in the past, and it must have been very satisfying for the creators when the movie not only met with commercial and critical success, but also ushered in a new era for animated films. Toy Story has been followed by a long line of great computer-animated films from Pixar as well as from other studios trying to replicate their success.

Unfortunately, such success tends to stifle creativity in the movie industry, as filmmakers copy what has worked in the past instead of take risks with something new. Now, for an animated movie to be successful, it has to be computer-animated, be filled with epic actions sequences, and feature a large cast of recognizable celebrity voices. It’s a formula that has become just as stagnant and constricting as that of the Disney musicals twenty years ago.

I find it appropriate, then, that John Lasseter, in his role as head of animation at Disney, has co-produced this new incarnation of Winnie the Pooh, a movie that seems to rebel against everything that guarantees success today. Here is a cel-animated film that features no villains, little suspense, and virtually no celebrity voices (excepting John Cleese as the narrator). It’s easy to imagine what it could have been instead: just look at how many popular children’s cartoons and books are transformed into big, flashy, computer-animated crapfests today. I have to admire Winnie the Pooh’s producers for their restraint. In every way this movie dares to be absolutely old-fashioned.

The film obviously takes as its model 1977’s The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, preserving the classic elements that worked and losing the ones that didn’t (I’m looking at you, annoying whistling gopher). The result is a quiet little movie that is probably the best adaptation of Winnie the Pooh to date. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its faults. Not all of the jokes work, the many musical numbers get a bit tedious, and the movie may adhere a bit too close to the original movie (especially in regard to Tigger, whose characterization suffered the most in its adaptation from print to screen). I would have liked to see a more direct adaptation of A.A. Milne’s books with more of the clever wordplay that makes them so much fun to read.

But for all its faults, there’s a lot of innocent fun in this movie and I actually laughed out loud at several parts. Most of all, it’s just nice to see a 2011 movie with the boldness to do its own thing.

It's coming up on the anniversary of my dad's death. I can't believe it's been 18 years. The last few years I've decided to spend some time on Veteran's day remembering him instead of that horrible anniversary. I think he would have wanted it that way. He was extremely proud of his service to this country. My uncle and grandfather are both navy veterans as well and let's not forget our very own Gringo. Here's to all you veterans out there.

Hello there. Yes, I know it has been awhile. Work is NUTS. I am getting ready to move to Irvine. Skyrim comes out tomorrow. That is about it.

Awesome

• Skyrim
• Free Corey Doctorow ebooks
• Stephen King's new novel, 11 22 63. I don't want to spoil anything, but the main character goes to Derry in September of 1958 in the beginning of the book. It's awesome.
• WoW heirloom gear. Makes leveling go crazy fast. Where have you been all my life?
• Spotify

Not Awesome

• I have nothing to complain about right now. Come back later.

I really want to make this a Wordpress blog. I feel like I would use it more if I did, but that's probably wishful thinking. So I'm thinking of ways to make that possible. We'll see. Oh, I am really excited about The Muppets. And the Pete and Pete Reunion I am going to next week. Seriously, holy crap.

The Flaming Lips' twenty-four hour song is currently streaming here. It started at 12:00 A.M. the morning of Halloween, so it only has about four hours left at this point. According to Wayne Coyne in an interview, though, it will start over and continue to stream for possibly as long as a year.

And if you have an extra $5,000 and don't know what to spend it on, you can buy a chrome-dripped human skull with an enclosed hard drive containing the complete song. You might even give it to me if you're looking for a birthday idea.

Meet Me in St. Louis: classic musical, instant favorite
The Passion of Joan of Arc: Kind of slow, honestly!
Black Swan: Crazy fun
Oldboy: Twisted but not actually all that memorable for me
Shop Around the Corner: Classic Christmas, better than its remake
Rabbit Hole: DE-PRESS-ING. But good.
Skyline: Turns into hokey and very lame ending
Secretariat: Great costumes, boring movie with a little too much feminist bent
The Kings Speech: Great movie with great actors (and great Beethoven!)
The Fighter: Misery loves company, but I did not love this generic story despite the talent involved.
The Last of the Mohicans: Good as long as you know is 75% different than the book.
Tangled: Actually quite charming!
Blue Valentine: Very sad and well done, but could have explained the gap between happy and sad times better
Brothers Bloom: Fun little flick
Megamind: Good for kids
Another Year: Another hit for Mike Leigh (and another downer despite its pleasant moments)
Love and Other Drugs: Hathaway is slightly less annoying; better than expected
The Illusionist: Perfect animated movie with almost no dialogue; beautiful
The Secret in Their Eyes: Very well done crime solver
The Square: Gets deeper and deeper into trouble, better than average
Unstoppable: Decent movie about stopping a train. Succeeds even with Denzel in it.
Adjustment Bureau: Interesting premise, but aesthetically challenged
Rango: Cute
Source Code: Interesting premise, disappointing resolution
Hanna: Simple, cool soundtrack, interesting visual effects. Effective creepy whistling
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Fun and exciting, with two great leads
Treasure of the Sierra Madre: Bogart is the man.
Cedar Rapids: Not perfect, but has its moments
The Jerk: Love Steve Martin
Enter the Dragon: Bruce Lee is the man.
Thor: Surprisingly really effective and not at all what I expected!
Cave of Forgotten Dreams: Caves are pretty, but Herzog stretches the material a little thin
Bridesmaids: Kind of sad, actually, with gross-out humor forcibly injected. Like the love story.
X-Men First Class: Disappointing, and too much Kevin Bacon
Kung Fu Panda 2: Looked good but could have used a little more character development
Green Lantern: Not bad, but not that good either
Midnight in Paris: Creative, fun, interesting idea
Gates of Heaven: I don't like to think about my pets dying, but interesting.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Down with Chicago! I actually liked it, and it had awesome bit parts for Tudyk, Malcovich, and Senor Chang!
Tree of Life: Loved the family scenes; not sure what to do with some of the rest (fell asleep in theater for a couple minutes)
Roman Holiday: Instant classic; can't believe I'd never seen it
Knock on Wood: Long setup, but awesome emphasis of Danny Kaye's talents
Harry Potter 7.2: Satisfying end to the series, although I would have stayed truer to the final scenes w/Voldemort
Robin Hood (2011): Pretend it's not about the legendary character, and it's actually a decent adventure movie.
Dead End: Classic 1930s story about slum kids/future gangsters; wonderful acting by Sidney, McCrea, and Bogart
Captain America: Could've gone a bit deeper, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Horrible Bosses: Fun in parts - Charlie Day stole the show.
Los Angeles Plays Itself: Second viewing was better.
Night Moves: Gene Hackman in a sleepy suspense flick = I now want to use his signature moves and drive his car.
Robin Hood: Men in Tights: Not as funny as I'd hoped. Very hit or miss.
The Adventures of Robin Hood: fun, adventurous, and impressive scale for such an old movie
My Dog Tulip: Harmless, a little too slow for being short. Not particularly endearing or meaningful.
King Ralph: Less outrageous than expected, but a good story.
Slap Shot: Crass and funny story, very enjoyable, especially seeing Ontkean in his youth
Contagion: Interesting, although lacking an emotional connection for the audience
Drive: Much gorier than expected, but I liked the quiet lead by Gosling
Cowboys & Aliens: A little slow and episodic, but entertaining, and surprisingly similar to Super 8
Super 8: Great summer movie, a little over-heavy on nostalgia factor
Tokyo Story: Fantastic picture of Japanese life and family
Moneyball: Great writing and acting, although a little too much baseball for my tastes
50/50: One of the better movies of the year; funny with heart, and sincere when it comes to the topic of cancer
The Thing (remake): Surprised by detail, CGI, music, and overall tone. Pretty good.
30 Minutes or Less: I laughed at almost every joke; surprisingly the funniest movie I've seen this year.

So you’ve decided to run a half-marathon. Good for you! But before you start preparing, it’s important to know what you’re getting yourself into. Is it a street race or a trail run? Paved roads provide steadier, more consistent terrain, whereas a trail can be full of tree roots, stream crossings, and dramatic inclines. Conventional wisdom would say a first-time runner should begin with a road race, so naturally you’re going to want to sign up for a trail run.

Now, you may hear some people recommend that you go out to the course well in advance to get used to the terrain and plan a racing strategy. Ignore them. You are far too busy for that. I recommend that you don’t even set foot on the course until the day before the race. Every day of training leading up to that should be on nice, paved streets with very few hills.

The modern runner has at his or her disposal a vast wealth of information about training methods and schedules. In fact, a simple Google search will point you in the direction of several free websites that will generate a training plan for you. This is the easy way out and should be avoided. It’s really best if you make it up as you go, based on your experience running around your neighborhood in your spare time.

Many of those fancy websites and experienced marathon runners say that you should do several shorter runs during the week and do a long run just once a week, gradually increasing the distance until race day. This is to avoid the kind of injury that can occur from adding too much distance too quickly. You, however, are invincible, and don’t need to worry about such things. You’re only running 5 miles a day right now, so if you’re going to be ready for a 13-mile race in a couple of months, you’re really going to have to start training hard. I recommend a long run about every four or five days.

Once you get up to 9 miles in training, you may begin to feel some slight hip trauma. It is very important that you do not seek medical attention at this point. Pain is just the body’s way of letting you know that the training is working. Even if the pain persists for a week, under no condition should you stop your training. You already paid the registration fee for the race and it’s non-refundable.

If, on the off-chance that your hip problems increase to such a degree that you can no longer run, you may want to take some time off. Stretch, walk on it, stretch some more, whatever. If nothing helps, then four days before your race you may seek the help of your friend the Osteopath. He will find that one side of your pelvis is completely out of place and will fix it for you. Of course, your hip will still be in quite a bit of pain for the next several days.

By this point, you have not done any real training for two weeks. This is not ideal, but what can you do? (Don’t forget those essential words: non-refundable entry fee). Fortunately, the day before the race, your hip should be feeling better. Not totally healed, but better. Now is when you want to actually try out the course for the first time. It will help you limber up after your overlong resting phase and, when you see how fun and invigorating it is to run on a trail for a mile and half, you will gain the overconfidence you need, coupled with the blissful ignorance of how impossibly cruel those hills will be in the final three miles of the course.

It’s finally Race Day. Wake up early, eat a healthy breakfast of oatmeal, and be sure to take three Ibuprofen. This will mask the lingering hip pain during the start of the race. When you get to the starting point you’ll feel great. For the first time in weeks you’ll think you can actually complete this run at the pace you’ve been training at. Don’t bother trying to warm up. You have a mile and a half of paved roads before you get to the trail, and you can use that to loosen up. Let everyone else start out ahead of you, then pass a good number of them in the first 5 miles. Even though you’ve been telling yourself that you only want to finish the race with a decent time, you have to treat it like a competition: if you pass people more than you get passed, you win.

Feel the soft ground you’re running on. It feels pretty nice, doesn’t it? And that cool breeze blowing across the lake, and that sun shining through the trees. It’s a gorgeous day for a run, and you feel fantastic. You feel like you could run forever. This is your runner’s high kicking in. You should assume this feeling will continue indefinitely and increase your pace accordingly.

Since this is a trail run you’ll be navigating hills almost constantly throughout the whole thing (they don’t call it Thousand Hills Lake for nothing). Most of these will be no problem for you. There will be some slopes, though, that are so steep that it’s nearly impossible to run up them. Make sure you keep running anyway. Even if you have to use your hands to help support you, as long as you keep your feet moving you’re technically still running. Your legs may burn once you get to the top, but you’ll have a good five or ten seconds of downhill running to recover before you get to the next hill.

Even if you maintain a moderate pace, the never-ending hills (and perhaps your two weeks off, if you're really honest) will begin to take their toll, and you will begin to grow fatigued. By mile 9 your calves will feel tight and sore, and by mile 10 you will no longer be able to run up the steeper hills. When you get to this point it’s best if you just stop caring. Stop caring about your goal of running the whole way. Stop caring about your time. Stop caring about the people who are now passing you. Your only thought should be to get to the finish any way you can, even if that means walking up the hills and running the rest.

With a little over half mile left you will exit the trail and reach a nice, flat gravel road to the finish line. Normally, this would be time to open up your stride and use everything you have left to run in to the finish. However, when you finally get to this point you won’t have anything left. Every muscle in your legs will ache and it will take all the will you have just to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Don’t get discouraged when the 40-year-old man you’ve been fending off finally passes you.

When you are in sight of the finish line, you’ll see your loving wife and kids waiting and cheering for you, and despite your fatigue you’ll feel a little rush of delight. Enjoy this moment. You deserve it, because even though the way you trained and ran the race was probably not the smartest, you just finished a 13-mile race, and within a minute of your goal time. And even though you'll barely be able to walk for the next few days you'll know it will only be a matter of time before you do it again.

The way I consume music has just changed.

A month or two ago I signed up for Spotify. I had heard what an amazing service it was back when it was only available in Europe, and I was anxious to try it once it saw its North American debut. As advertised, Spotify offers its users streaming access to 15 million songs, which is a very impressive selection. There are some artists who do not have deals with Spotify (including the perpetually behind-the-times Beatles catalog), but aside from the usual holdouts I was hard pressed to find artists who were not available, no matter how obscure.

What really sold Spotify for me, though, was when I finally figured out a way to install it on my Linux-powered netbook, which spends most of its time sitting idly around the house. I realized I could hook that up directly to my living room stereo, leaving my primary laptop free for other uses. Soon I was streaming music around the clock, listening to all the albums I didn’t have the money to buy.

Spotify is not without its drawbacks. First of all, I have to install their music player on my computer, which is fine at home, but is not allowed at work. Second, their free service is unlimited only for the first six months. After that it will be limited to ten hours of music per month, which I would probably surpass in a matter of days. It’s also supported by ads, which at first seems like a small price to pay for unlimited music, but it does get annoying. Of course I can pay $10 a month to take away all these restrictions (and add streaming to a smartphone if I owned one), but I’m just not willing to pay that right now.

Then I found out about Rdio, which, aside from having an annoyingly unpronounceable name, rivals Spotify’s services and resolves nearly all of my complaints. It boasts ten million songs to Spotify’s fifteen, but I have yet to find anything on Spotify that is not on Rdio. If anything, the latter has produced positive search results where the former has not. In addition to a desktop app, it also offers browser-based streaming, which means I can listen to it at work. In fact, if I begin listening to an album on one computer, all I have to do is close the browser, drive home, and open the browser on my home computer, and Rdio will automatically resume where I left off. Pretty neat. Rdio is not ad supported and offers a limited amount of monthly streaming with a free account. They won’t say how much you get because they intend the free account as a trial, not as a long-term subscription (although there's no time limit on it that I'm aware of). I probably would have reached my monthly limit in a couple of weeks, but I just signed up for a paid account. Why? It’s only five bucks for a computer-only streaming plan, which is exactly what I need.

That’s where I am now: listening to the new releases that catch my attention, the classic albums I read about, and the artists about which I’ve always said, “I really ought to give them a try sometime.” And if I ever want to listen to some rare release that isn’t available on any music service (like the ultra limited edition stuff The Flaming Lips have been doing this year), there’s Google. This summer I turned my entire music library over to Google Music, which has since become my preferred music player for stuff I actually own.

So for most of the music that exists in the world that I don’t yet own, there’s Rdio, and for everything else there’s Google Music. Currently, I’m working my way through listening to Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest albums of all time, in addition to checking out whatever new releases grab my interest. I’m finding that there is so impossibly much music out there to discover and so little time to do it in. More significantly, though, I think I may be changing the way I think about music ownership. With millions upon millions of songs at my disposal (and not likely to go anywhere), I find myself questioning whether, aside from the occasional rare release, I will really need to buy or download music at all.

I was having this conversation with a friend from work. When he was younger he amassed a sizable record collection, which he later sold and switched to the physically smaller format of CDs. When mp3s came about he again made the switch, filling terabytes of space on his hard drive. But he says that’s the end for him. He can’t get on board with music streaming because then he wouldn’t own the music. I thought it was really interesting that someone can gradually go from a completely physical, analog format to a completely digital one with no physical product, yet that final step from storing files on one’s hard drive to merely accessing audio files over an Internet connection is too great a shift.

I have to admit I’m not sure I’m completely ready either. I’ve had time to get used to subscription models of media consumption through other services. Thanks to Netflix I’ve quit buying TV shows on DVD, and I’ve virtually quit buying movies. I think I’ve come to see these as things I can enjoy without owning. But a piece of music by a favorite band I do feel like I need to possess, even though it exists only as data on a hard drive and I may go years without listening to it. It's just nice to know it's there. I think the generation growing up right now will have no such problem. For them, music will not be something you own. It will be what you listen to on your computer or on your phone, and the actual location of the file will be irrelevant.

Phil and I are pleased to announce that Brax The Alien Rocker Presents: Tales From Planet Earth Volume 1 is available for purchase. We got our first copy and it looks even more awesome than I thought it would. Thanks to Wil Wheaton for recommending Lulu for on-demand publishing. HUGE thanks to my cousin, Jeremy for the awesome cover art. It turned out really great. Thanks to everyone who supported us in this ordeal as well. Now that we figured out how to do it, the next book should hopefully get finished a lot faster. You can order the book here and it will also soon be available on Amazon. Please tell your friends or anyone else you know that likes comics, music, or cool things in general.

There are a group of people I guess I would consider my geek forefathers. Without them, I wouldn't be the person I am today. I wouldn't enjoy the things I enjoy now. I definitely wouldn't be in the career I am now. Steve Jobs is definitely one of those people. While the first computer I ever used was my mom's monstrous IBM that my dad sat me in front of before I could even read, the computers that actually planted the seed that would bloom into the geek I am today were the Apple II's in the computer lab at my elementary school. I learned simple BASIC programming and graphics creation using LOGO. I played hours of Lemonade Stand, Oregon Trail, and Gertrude's Secret.

When I was in 4th grade, I was finally old enough to use the shiny Macintosh that actually had a modem. It was so special it had its own desk at the front of the library. It was on this computer that I first connected to an educational BBS and sent my first email. In high school I played my first LAN game on a Mac Performa. My fellow geeky classmates and I had managed to sneak in a copy of Marathon and install it on a bunch of the computers and we would play over the AppleTalk network during our computer class and after school.

Fast forward almost twenty years and even though I've never actually owned an Apple computer, I'm still being influenced by the creation of Jobs and Wozniak. For this, I am forever grateful.

Link: http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/06/30/258494/hartzler-doesnt-want-young-gays-to-feel-bad-about-her/

G4 was at the signing for Ernest Cline's amazing book, Ready Player One and they interviewed me. You can see for yourself at the 1:50 mark. They misspelled my name but that was probably my fault for not writing legibly on the release form. Thanks to Nerdist's Jonah Ray for deciding I was interesting enough to include in this segment.

A few days ago The Flaming Lips sold the first 11 of their StroboTrip light toy with six-hour song included. Members of the Flaming Lips fan community immediately worked together to get the song on Soundcloud so that everybody can hear it. Apparently six hours exceeds the site's limit, so it had to be broken into three parts:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

It took me two days of sporadic listening, but I finally finished the entire song. I must admit it's better than I expected. I listened to it off and on while driving or working at school, and I found that after hearing it continuously for long stretches of time it has a bit of a mesmerizing quality. There are some harsh noises early on (particularly around minute 20 or so), but if you get past that (or skip it) there are some much more rewarding sections later. The whole last hour, with its dark drone and tripped out jam I enjoyed quite a bit.

I also have to admit I was wrong about the reading of the names of people who donated the $100 to charity. It seems I underestimated The Flaming Lips' ability to make anything sound beautiful and profound. The band recruited none other than Sean Lennon to read the names for them, which he does in a tender, otherworldly voice in four sections spread throughout the six hours. I strongly recommend listening to the final ten minutes (although the effect might be better if you start even earlier than that). After the final name is read, Lennon soothingly adds, "We love you. We will always love you," which is then repeated over and over like a mantra. It's actually quite beautiful.

Awesome
1) Breaking Bad. Holy crap, this show is amazing and now it is on Netflix Instant and did I mention it is awesome.
2) I went to the book signing for Ready Player One in Hollywood on Saturday night and met author Ernie Cline. He was really nice and very cool. I also got interviewed by Jonah Ray of awesome comedy and Nerdist podcast fame for G4. Maybe it will be on some show there sometime. I have no idea.
3) My new teen melodrama of choice right now is Pretty Little Liars. It takes the insanity of 90210 (which starts tomorrow, wooohooo!) and ramps it up about 10 times. It is hilarious and awesome.
4) The True Blood season finale was really great and full of great quotes. "We are not puppy dogs!"
5) The fall TV season is starting. Can't wait for new 90210, Parenthood, all the NBC shows, and whatever other stuff I have time to watch.

Not Awesome
1) HBO very lightly teased the second season of Game of Thrones before True Blood Last Night. Now I wish it was next year already.
2) Everything else is pretty awesome, so that is all I got.

I was actually planning to buy one of these strobe light toys they've been working on before they announced it would come with a six-hour song.

(Here's a video of a working Strobotop™ put out by another company)

So the Flaming Lips version will be like that, but with an assortment of weird drawings by Wayne Coyne. I think it looks awesome.

I'm not so sure about this six-hour song, though. I'm willing to try just about any kind of experimental music, but this is something I wouldn't even be able to hear all in one sitting (who has that kind of time?). And now I find out that this ridiculously long song is going to be filled with The Flaming Lips reading off a list of random people's names. That sounds about as much fun as watching the ending credits for The Return of the King Extended Edition.

I still want the toy, though.