Twitter?

I don't have twitter. I don't understand twitter. I don't see what value twitter will add to my life. As far as I have been able to surmise, twitter seems like an updated version of the AIM away messages I used to put up (that is back when I still used AIM regularly). Honestly, the only purpose of those was to put up song lyrocs that vaguely related to something or to tell everyone where I was all the time. Now, I have texting and facebook if anyone wants to leave me a message. Also, I have outgrown the need to passive-aggressively post song lyrics at a particular person in the vague hopes that they will understand the deep emotions I am trying to convey to them.

I was slower to adopt Facebook because I was uneasy about the slightly creepy voyeuristic nature of it. I still think it's a little creepy and voyeuristic, but it is invaluable for keeping in touch with friends and managing my social networks. I have a myspace account, but mostly so that I can listen to bands. How is it that I need yet another way to keep people updated on what I'm doing? Are you supposed to tweet about what you're doing, thinking, and feeling? I'm not that interesting. The only benefit I could see would be as a way to receive breaking news alerts. But even as a news junkie, it's not hard to get updated almost instantly on what's going on.

I fully recognize that in the future, my lack of buy-in to twitter may make me look like a fool. However, until someone can clearly show the benefits of twitter I will probably not be joining. So, in a nutshell - Why twitter?

Utica Music and Arts Fest

This year's Utica Music and Arts Fest is going to be even bigger than last year's! It's really going to be an awesome event this year. I know that it's kind of early to start planning for September, but early bird tickets are on sale now for only $20. That will get you over 200 bands playing in 20 venues over 3 days and this year there will also be free transportation between venues! You can go to www.uticamusicandartsfest.com to find out more about the bands that are going to be playing this year and the event.

There will also be the first ever Utica Greens Fest, Arts events, a tattoo convention and even more going on at the same time! Make sure to plan to be around September 10-12 because there's going to be a lot to do in Utica that weekend.

Loves me some Amy Sedaris

She is so good - even in a commerical!

MWPAI and Cafe Domenico Fridays

Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute is easily my favorite place in Utica. Located on Genesee St. in downtown Utica, Munson Williams is a center for fine arts, performing arts, film, history, and cultural events. Additionally, MWPAI is home to the Utica campus of the Pratt Institute. Architecturally, Museum of Art is a strong, modern building designed by Philip Johnson, a renowned American architect. I absolutely love the Art Museum. One of my favorite pieces is Thomas Cole's The Voyage of Life. The originals are in Utica, and a second set that Cole painted later in life are at the National Gallery of Art in DC. Imagine my surprise when I walked in and saw my favorite paintings from Utica in DC!

Though I love the museum, the thing I appreciate most is the weekly film series. Central New York is lacking a good independent theater and MWPAI fills this void. In the last three weeks I've seen I'm Not There, No Country for Old Men, and Starting Out in the Evening. Ticket prices are $7 for general admission, but are only $3 for students! In addition to the quality of films, I love the idea of seeing a movie in an art museum and sometimes linger over the art outside the theater before I go in to see the film. Though I certainly don't (and won't) go every week, I've really started to enjoy my friday routine of getting coffee and reading at Cafe Domeinco after work and then heading over to Munson Williams for a movie. It's such a calming and fun way to end a busy week of work.

Simply Amazing...

This is one of the most amaing things I have seen in a while...


Hillary Clinton is Tracy Flick!

Happy Surprise

Today I walked into Cafe Domenico and Blacklisted by Neko Case was playing. I really love that album and hearing it instantly turned my mood around.

English Breakfast tea, The New Yorker cartoon issue, and Blacklisted. Yeah , life can seriously be that good.

Less of Me

So this weekend, my dad was talking about the healthy challenge that he's participating in/leading at work. He's going to be doing Weight Watchers and trying to lose weight. I was thinking that it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to try to start eating healthier so I decided to challenge him! So, I'm going to eat better and work out more and see who can lose the highest percentage of their body weight by June 1st. I set up a homepage at sparkpeople.com and made a few silly pictures of what I would look like if I was significantly skinnier. (I was going to post the link to my page, but you have to have a sparkpeople account to see it.) My dad is going to be making a trophy for the winner, so there is a lot at stake here! Hopefully this endeavor will be more successful than a typical new year's resolution.

I have about 20 weeks before the June 1st end of the contest, so if I lost 1.5 pounds per week I would lost 30 lbs by June and I would weigh less than I have since early high school or maybe even middle school - basically since I don't know when! We'll see how it works out. For now, I'm off to the gym :)

Adventures in Central New York - A photo essay

Yesterday, Colleen and I embarked on an adventure of fun in Central New York. The first order of business was to complete Erin Welch's CNY Scavenger Hunt Challenge #1 - 'First mission: A picture of yourself looking sad after being told that you could not go bowling since it is "League Night".' Since one of the bowling alleys in Oneida recently closed and the other one tragically burned down, this was going to be a tough assignment! So, Colleen and I went to take a picture looking sad because the bowling alley burned down.
While we were looking at the hollowed out alley and the trophies that somehow survived a man in a sleeveless dress shirt yelled from across the street "Ain't nothing there!" and then whistled at us. Even though Colleen and I have both lived independently in large crime-ridden urban areas, we ran scared back to the car. Hungry, bored, and full of excitement about having completed scavenger hunt mission #1, we headed to Sylvan Beach in search of adventure.

It was a beautiful but chilly day and there was free parking! Luckily, the amusement park was open!! Colleen and I, of course, decided to ride Laffland the "scary" dark ride from the 50's. It was three dollars to ride - $1 for fun, $1 for nostalgia, and $1 for history. We were scared and amused at the end, and the teenagers running the ride sneered at us. Clearly they are too good to ride Laffland, but not too good to work at it.


Next went played Skeeball. I won all three games and 12 tickets and Colleen won.... 0. When I went to choose my prize, the nice girl at the booth let me have 3 extra tickets so I could get a sweet bracelet (the last hot pink one!), but Colleen didn't win anything
.
Next, we played with the shooting gallery game - which apparently works with light. When the flash from my camera when off, all of the beer cans, pigs, piano players, and other animatronic things went haywire!

Then, Colleen and I went to look at the piece de resistance of Sylvan Beach Amusement Park..... BUMPER BOATS!! It is extremely unjust, but Colleen was never allowed to ride the bumper boats as a child, and this still upsets her. We did NOT ride the sketch ball roller coaster that they have, because we have no interest in dying.

Afterwards, it was time for a lovely walk along the beach. There, Colleen announced to the world her crush on Ira Glass of This American Life. Finally it was time to head to Eddie's for delicious dinner. What a fun day at the beach!!

Spring is here... again!

Things are going really well. I start working at Lane Bryant on Tuesday; I'm going to Geneseo to see some people this weekend; it's nearly 80 degrees and sunny out; Colleen is coming home soon for a little while; etc, etc. Also I bought 4 dvds for $20 at Blockbuster today (The Constant Gardner, Goodnight and Good Luck, Akeela and the Bee, and Thank you for Smoking)!

Spring really is my favorite season, and I've kind of gotten to experience it twice this year! Before I left DC, the flowers had bloomed and the trees were starting to show leaves. Now that I've been home almost a month, and 1 blizzard later, spring is coming to Upstate NY! Crocuses are starting to bloom and you can see the colored buds of leaves on all the trees. I'm thinking of trying to do a series of photos of places in Sherrill, Oneida, and other CNY hotspots soon. There are a lot of interesting looking places and scenes here that I should probably take advantage of.

Murder and the Media

Is there an international sliding scale that determines the value of a life? When I watch tv/read the newspaper/listen to the radio, I become more and more convinced that there is. As upset as I get when I read news reports about horrible, senseless, violent acts happening on a daily basis, I'm almost more upset about the people's who tragedies go unnoticed (or barely noticed) as a single unheralded news item. Now, clearly American media is going to place more attention on things that happen to Americans, but the disparities in coverage are amazing to me.

Honestly, I didn't put much thought into these things until today, when I was looking at New York Times web page and thought about just how many violent killings there are every day, and how I don't really pay any attention until those killings take place in middle class America. I had to scroll down the page to read the headline "Bombs Rip Through Baghdad, Killing 171". 171 people killed in a single bomb blast. These people are just as much vicitms of being in the wrong place at the wrong time as any one else. Granted, Iraq is in the middle of a bloody war - but should civilian deaths in a time of war seem any less tragic than civilian deaths unrelated to war? 171 people killed in one day - a day that is just one in a string of deadly days. I'm ashamed of myself for not instantly wanting to know who these people were the same way I wanted to know who the victims at Virgina Tech had been. Shouldn't an Iraqi life mean as much to me as an American life? It's amazing how I'm able to compartmentalize horrible death, so that I only have to deal with the real consequences of human violence every once in a while.

It's overwhelming to think about the vast amount of violent death surrounding us every day.
- 1,247 women and 440 men were killed by an intimate partner in 2000.
- There are over 12,000 murders a year in the US (.043 per 1,000 people), and 8,000 of which are murders with firearms.
- There are over 26,000 murders a year in Columbia (.62 per 1,000 people) and 21,898 of which were murder with firearms.
- On average, there are .1 murders per year per 1,000 people worldwide.
And those are just murder statistics. The worst part is that I don't have any idea how to stop it. I also don't want to see more sad stories on the news, and I don't necessarily want to have to think about it. Every time something happens like the horrible killings at Virginia Tech, we tell ourselves that we'll never forget. We tell ourselves that we won't let it happen again. Then, we change the channel, ignore the reports of the 60 people murdered in Russia, and do nothing until something awful happens close to home again.