Matthew Supert

Man the past month or so has been brutal. I am not sure if it is a case of the "winter blues" or what, but I jusdt have a constant tension in my mind. I feel agitated, burned out and just constantly tired. May be things at work a getting a bit mundane in this winter period or something, but I sort of feel like I just need to escape it all. 

It all came to a bit of a flare up this past weekend. I was trying to install something on my motorcycle. Saturday i thought was supposed to be nice weather, but instead was in the low thirties. I decided to push on anyways and after five hours of wrestling with the horn I was trying to install I was ready to just smash the thing on the concrete. 

God, I hope spring gets here soon so I can get out of the house a bit. 

Wow, it has been a while since I have posted a reading list. Since my last postng about the Hobbit, I finalyl got around to a book that I had sitting on my Kindle for almost a year. In early December I picked up "Gardens of the Moon" by Steven Erikson. A lot of people have made apt comparisons to this series and "A Game of Thrones". I can see where the similarities come into play since this is another huge world with dozens and dozens of characters. 

I am surpised to say that I immediately took to this book and the series. So much so that I read the second one immediately and have just started the third one. This is all very unsual for me as I usually get burned out on a world after a book and have to move on. I can't tell you exactly how many book series are one or two books in for me currently; not becauase I didn't like them, but because I just needed a break from the world. 

I am also tryng to get into "reading" some more audio books, particularly classics. I figured an audio book would be a good way for me to read some books that I normally would not read. I have found Librivox to be an excellent site for finding public domain audio books. The recordings are hit and miss, but overall very listenable. Librivox allows you to subscribe to the audio books as a podcast which I am listening to with the Podcast app on my iPhone. It takes a little fanagling, but works for the most part very well. I am currently reading "Around the World in Eight Days" by Jules Verne. It is very good so far. 

My Arduino kit is here. Lets see how this goes.

Several months ago I jumped on an opportunity to purchased some really nice Giclée prints for my office and home studio. I had them sitting at my house for months knowing that the framing would cost a fortune. I finally bit the bullet and had them framed and the end results turned out really nice. 

The first set for my studio are three limited run Zelda prints from Marinko Milosevski.The printing took a while, but the end result was gorgeous and it was really cool to have the individually numbered prints

The second batch were four art deco sort of science fiction travel posters from an artist called Steve Thomas. Again, the results turned out quite good I think. 

For the past couple of weeks at work, we have had a discussion ongoing about the greatest films of all time. Now, one of the best courses I ever took at college was a film course my very last semester at U of I. It was am amazing course that opened up my eyes to a whole bunch of films I had never seen or even heard of. What's more is that the university had an actual theater to use so all of the films were viewed in their original film format. It was an amazing experience. 

So back to our discussion at work, a few of us have set out to list our top ten list of films. After getting into the discussion a bit we decided to make a top ten films list and also a top ten movies list. We felt the films list was for the films that made technical or thematic impacts in film making or the industry, while movies are the sort of thing that may be wonderfully fun, but may not technically be a defining element in culture or the industry. Of course when you really sit down to think about it, limiting your list to just ten films is insanely difficult. So I also have listed my notables that didn't make my top ten, but certainly could have.

Top 10 Films

1. Blade Runner
2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
3. North By Northwest
4. Ghost in the Shell
5. The Lord of the Rings
6. The Godfather
7. Kagemusha
8. Once Upon A Time In The West
9. Metropolis (1927)
10. 12 Angry Men

Notable Films

• Unforgiven
• We Were Soldiers
• Rashomon
• Akira
• 2001 Space Odyssey
• Waltz With Bashir
• Bram Stoker's Dracula

Top 10 Movies

1. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
2. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
3. Enter The Dragon
4. Dr. Strangelove
5. Tampopo
6. Space Balls
7. The Princess Bride
8. The Fifth Element
9. Evil Dead II
10. The Nightmare Before Christmas 

Notable Movies

• Meet Me In St. Louis
• The Little Mermaid
• Dark City
• Ong Bak
• Metropolis (2002)
• Young Guns
• Terminator 2

I have come to realize as a motorcycle owner that part of this experience is lusting after more and more motorcycles. It really is too bad that there isn't more opportunities to rent motorcycles for a day or two. I also of course feel I need a larger garage for all of these lusts. A two car garage just doesn't cut it unfortunately. 

All right, so here is my new list of wanted motorcycles. 

1. Ryca CS-1 (aka Suzuki Savage Conversion)
2. Ural (Orange!!!)
3. Harley Davidson XR1200 (best looking HD no one bought)
4. Royal Enfield Classic 350
5. 197X Honda GL 1000 Goldwing (Strip it down to cruiser)
6. Honda VFR400 (Love the ugly headlights)
7. Triumph Street Triple (2012 Purple)
8. Yamaha TW200 (Dat ass.....I mean tires)
9. Honda NC 700x (Ultimate Commuter)
10. KTM Duke 690

2013 is here!!!  So last year I had a whole bunch of goals from last year . Did I complete most of the ones I set out to do?  Let's find out and givet hem a quick review. Let's cross of what I think I succssfully accomplished. 

1. One Song a Month 
2. Learn about Buddhism 
3. Skydive
4. Finish furnishing house
5. Personalize office
6. Donate at least $100 a month to charity  
7. Learn to rock climb
8. Cross country ski
9. Be a better husband
10. Zen
11. Go on a date once a month with wife
12. Go see a musical  
13. Pickup model building again 
14. Goto a concert 
15. U of I football game 
16. Ride more motorcycle
17. Don't look back in anger 
18. Replace valves in other 2 toilets 
19. Build a workbench
20. Take more quiet time
21. Expand my musical repitoire
22. Be patient

OK......So not too bad. I missed some of the big items, but some of the smaller more interpersonal items I definitely accomplished. This year has been very busy though with Megan getting into the full groove with her new job. I think one thing Megan and I need to focus on this year is more personal time together. But I will save that to a post next week for my 2013 goals. 

So Guns………… So I was initially going to prepare a whole long discussion on the whole aftermath of the shooting, but instead of espousing a lot of text, I am just going to bullet point my thoughts.

• Children Died.
• It was horrible and I cried.
• Journalists interviewing the children are in poor taste.
• Journalists still have every right to do it.
• The parents need to say no.
• Let’s stop pretending journalists are some sort of bastion of integrity. Journalism has always been a slimy business in America.
• Your prayers aren’t doing shit to help anyone. Take real action.
• Don’t treat children like idiots. Talk to them and let them process this event. Don’t hide it from them.
• God and schools have nothing to do with anything.
• The gun was the mechanism, not the cause of this problem.
• Don’t erode civil liberties in the name of protection.  
• Mental Health is ONE OF the root problems.
• Assault rifles are not what the media is telling you they are, and they are not what you think they are.
• Stricter gun control does need to happen in this country.
• That said people should be able to own any gun they want for whatever reason they want.
• Self-defense for gun ownership is mostly bull shit in my opinion.No one I have ever known or talked to has known anyone who has ever been involved in an incident needing a gun for self-defense.
• Stop with the hyperbole.
• People are upset and want answers.
• Don’t let emotions rule your judgment.
• Sometimes there are no answers.
• Sometimes there is no solution.
• Sometimes there is nothing that could possibly have been done to prevent something.
• This is the real world and bad stuff happens all the time. Face it. Accept it. Learn from it. Grow from it.