tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30268852011-04-21T14:22:45.057-07:00The Red Headed Ubersmensch!"The usual ambient aroma of free-floating malaise"Brandonnoreply@blogger.comBlogger521100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-1108733919572571302005-02-18T05:17:00.000-08:002005-02-18T05:45:23.740-08:00Some body's -I walked around work today. Its a large company - the largest I have worked for. And I realized what the biggest tragedy of an employer of this size is and subsequently the folks that choose to come here on a daily basis.The fact of the matter is that in a sea of so many "body's" - you tend to look right past people and never actually see the "some". I don't often make eye contact Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-1064874171369897762003-09-29T15:22:00.000-07:002003-09-29T15:22:51.323-07:00"All I really needed to know about the Vietnamese I learned from Chuck Norris"
You tend to get a funny idea about people and cultures when you are young and influenced by movies and television. If ever there was one culture that I have inadvertently inflicted more stereotypes on then any other it was the Vietnamese. Why you ask? It wasn't because my Dad was in Vietnam or that I had an unusualBrandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-1058887925116381792003-07-22T08:32:00.000-07:002003-07-22T08:32:05.090-07:00A Little Venting
So occasionally I get a little mean spirited... yeah, I know, not really something allowed for in Galatians 5:22, but bear with me as I will lean a bit on Romans 7:15-17.
What's worse than Christina Aguilera's song "Genie in a Bottle"?
How about a chunky Hispanic girl trying to sing along with it?
What's worse than a chunky Hispanic girl trying to sing along with it?
A drunkBrandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-955239452003-06-10T15:11:00.000-07:002003-06-10T15:11:48.000-07:00Language
"Don't let that s#@t bother you... there is better s#%t to be gotten then that s#$t" - Female co-worker
When did language turn so foul. And just when did it hit the work place. For those of you out there that have been gainfully employed by the same company for say 20 or 30 years can you remember when this phenomena took place?
I am not one to pass much judgment, at least I try Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-946545122003-05-20T15:29:00.000-07:002003-05-20T15:29:04.013-07:00"When you had a different face"
She will tell you what she thinks. She will tell you whether or not you want to hear it. And some times she will tell you something so simple about yourself that you will think she is not real. Because no real person can see you so clearly and so simply at the same time right? Fake people can see what they want to see. Mean people can see you from the top of Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-932430532003-04-25T08:15:00.000-07:002003-04-25T08:15:05.270-07:00My Cover Show
6 years going and I am a rock star. In my car at morning and dusk I am a rock star. At the front and center, covering songs by Bob Dylan, U2 and the Replacements. My voice rises and falls to each song typically ending in a fever pitched crescendo.
"Won't you take me down that long 8 Mile Road"... I am Grant Lee Buffalo, with a less cool name.
"I don't wanna be no man's women"..Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-875931032003-01-17T07:35:00.000-08:002003-01-19T15:48:18.000-08:00Death
The move was swift and timely, the marble fell into the metal indention, filling the red triangle, the final white decimal. She smiled and made a small gasp like laugh beneath her oxygen mask. The first of 9 games she had won, beating her mother to the finish. She was only half the player of Chinese Checkers that her mother was and this certainly was a fulfilling victory. A dizzying Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-842401032002-11-08T10:00:00.000-08:002002-11-08T10:00:06.640-08:00"Dressing like your sister
Living like a tart
They don't know what you're doing
Babe
It must be art"
U2Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-831313092002-10-17T12:33:00.000-07:002002-10-17T12:33:35.603-07:00Funny
A recent interview I read in Newsweek with Mary Hart... you know... Mary Hart, Entertainment Tonight? Here are a few questions asked of her:
Interviewer:
"What's tougher: pretending you like a celebrity's terrible new movie or listening to John Tesh's double CD "live at the Red Rocks"
Interviewer:
"A doctor wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that your voice triggered seizures Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-824688892002-10-03T08:06:00.000-07:002002-10-03T10:08:32.000-07:00One Tree Hill
I was driving to work today, as I perpetually do, and it finally dawned on me that the Fall has arrived. After a long dry summer of fires, death, viruses & other mayhem it was revealed to me by a small tree in our suburban neighborhood that Fall is here and ready to reconcile. There are moments of such clarity in my life, where everything around, that moves at a million miles an Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-820483102002-09-24T09:06:00.000-07:002002-09-24T09:06:40.000-07:00Quote from one of Japanese Anime's best, if not THE best:
Taken from an interview with Roger Ebert on the topic of the Japanes word "ma" and its use in his latest work "Spirited Away"
He clapped his hands three or four times. "The time in between my clapping is MA. If you just have nonstop action with no breathing space at all, it's just busyness. But if you take a moment, then the tension Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-820023492002-09-23T10:43:00.000-07:002002-09-23T11:00:07.000-07:00Debt
Debt and a few quick observations:
1.America is riddled with people in debt
2.America is riddled with people depressed about their lives
3.America is riddled with people depressed about their debt
4.America is riddled with people who have very little to worry about other than their debt and their own depression over it...
Maybe the reason people accumulate so much debt is in an effort to Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-815091172002-09-12T08:27:00.000-07:002002-09-12T08:46:32.000-07:00It's ok... its a mothers right... right? Oh my stomach turns. We make so much of 9-11, and that is fine. I spent the day mourning with fellow americans. But 9-12 comes and we find these stories that just don't go away. Such disreguard for life is sad. In the wake of something like yesterday, nearly unbearable.
The arguments are always the same in abortion, it's murder after the baby Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-814680962002-09-11T11:55:00.000-07:002002-09-11T11:55:17.773-07:00"I sort of mark today as a point in time where the rate of change in my already changing world seemed to accelerate beyond recognition." My friend Elizabeth Daveport said this and I just thought it was so well articulated that I need to share it with the rest of the world... i.e. the 4 people that sometimes read this page.Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-814586952002-09-11T08:07:00.000-07:002002-09-11T08:21:27.000-07:00Bad
"Now that's a nice color Audi...green...wait a second..."
why am I thinking this on a day like today... It seems like any thought out side of what happened exactly 1 year ago from today just seems wrong. Thoughts like this are as bad as thinking covetous thoughts during a church service... you just don't do it right? And yet the entire day today will be like this. Me driving in my car Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-814083862002-09-10T08:45:00.000-07:002002-09-10T08:45:53.620-07:00Ever take things too far? You get to a certain point with your spouse where you feel pretty comfortable making lewd jokes or pretending like you are going to curse, but not REALLY doing it... (I.e. - pretending to get mad and saying "shi.......cago" or just saying "Mother Fu....." but not really completing the word). It's juvenile and I am sure many readers just say, "well what's wrong with Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-812518312002-09-06T14:03:00.000-07:002002-09-06T14:03:04.063-07:00"When I write songs, I write songs about love. That's it. I mean, politics is like something you have to wipe after, then you flush." - Mark EitzelBrandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-812404892002-09-06T09:04:00.000-07:002002-09-06T09:04:46.610-07:00"But I'm here in my mold
I am here in my mold
But I'm a million different people
from one day to the next
I can't change my mold"
- The VerveBrandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-812027912002-09-05T13:20:00.000-07:002002-09-05T13:20:32.620-07:00I have not done much with this page in a while so here you go...
As I sat in church (you know, church... Sunday School, the Bible, Felt Board Displays, people dressed up criticizing other people's outfits) the other day something happened. Or rather... something did not happen. Well anyway, I must have been particularly moved by something the pastor said because I found myself crying. Yes, Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-795645082002-07-29T14:13:00.000-07:002002-07-29T14:13:43.013-07:00So this guy is writing some really great stuff ... a little like Douglas Coupland/ Mark Twain. Check it out.Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-775188452002-06-08T20:53:00.000-07:002002-06-08T20:53:32.706-07:00On Television:
"The medium has absorbed and eradicated the idea of a pre-television past; in place of what used to be we get an ever-new and ever-renewable present. The only way we can hope to understand what is happening, or what has already happened, is by way of a severe and unnatural dissociation of sensibility." - Sven Birkerts
(Substitute the name of your town here)...."if nothing else, Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-775183282002-06-08T20:33:00.000-07:002002-06-08T20:33:18.740-07:00.... My brother in-law shared this with me... somebody's got this flash thing all figured out.Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-767680582002-05-20T12:53:00.000-07:002002-05-20T12:53:41.093-07:00I can see the Indian guy crying right now... I wonder what ever happended to that guy... according to this he may have died of lead poisoning....Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-767605762002-05-20T09:09:00.000-07:002002-05-20T09:18:02.000-07:00Such great Internet Radio. I owe this recommendation to a certain Flagstaff Falstaff if you will. Thanks DC... Only problem is, and I wonder if anyone else notices this... Everytime I log in I always look at previous songs played and am completely bummed by the fact that I missed all those songs. I think I would only like to see the last 3 previously played tunes but ah well. This is by and Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-760858012002-05-02T10:27:00.000-07:002002-05-02T10:27:48.053-07:00So if anyone read my blog on my Grandpa you will be happy to know that the Prostate Cancer is being dealt with fairly optimistically. They are doing some kind of seed planting in the prostate to try and counter the cancer cells. The whole idea of planting seeds is pretty metaphorical for his life since he is a long time farmer. Now these internal seeds of medicine if you will are now acting asBrandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-760076902002-04-30T11:08:00.000-07:002002-04-30T11:08:52.040-07:00raising hell : about A friend sent me this link. Funny and if you are a parent, relatable!....Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-754750552002-04-16T13:06:00.000-07:002002-04-30T08:24:19.000-07:00Yes, but what people keep forgetting is that this a religion of antireligion... its all so wonderfully ironic and stupid at the same time. What do these people really think, that doing away with God in public places will some how level the playing field? The act of not believing is as much a step in faith as believing and clearly as passionate. Its all so organized and methodical and doctrinalBrandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-113811082002-04-02T09:26:00.000-08:002002-04-18T07:06:57.000-07:00[4/1/2002 2:07:40 PM | b barnes]
"Do you ever wish sometimes you just kept every cd/record you bought? I mean really, there was a reason for it. The best part of High Fidelity (both book and movie) was the idea of music as a sort of autobiographical thing... souvenirs of your past and what not. I regret doing this. I wish my cd collection had all of that stuff. Mostly I would laugh, but it would Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-113548852002-04-01T14:07:00.000-08:002002-04-16T13:07:00.000-07:00Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-111498362002-03-26T14:04:00.000-08:002002-03-26T14:04:46.270-08:00So my Grandfather is 88 years old and just found out he has Prostate Cancer.... What do I think of this... (why do I capitalize this?) Well you tell yourself things like "he is 88 years old this is the kind of thing that happens in the end". Or... "he lived a long full life, blah, blah, blah".... Really, all I can say right now is why? Why now? Is it ever really a good time to die even at 88?Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-111486142002-03-26T13:28:00.000-08:002002-03-26T13:28:12.366-08:00So I have started a new job... Changing the scenery but not much else. Its a good change and one I think I can feed off of for a while, still waiting for something great to happen. Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-94060742002-02-05T10:14:00.000-08:002002-02-05T10:14:23.180-08:00Have not checked in for a while... Am very excited by some recent readings of Blaise Pascal... please read the following if you have time:On the Infinite Nature of things:
Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere. Ultimately, it is the greatest perceptible feature of God’s almightiness that our imagination should be lost in that thought. Let man, Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-67078412001-10-29T12:24:00.000-08:002002-04-30T08:27:35.000-07:00And the winner is - Gearn Blanston.... and his/her quote sent to me "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" (Jenni Craig)...
Thank you Gearn... the chief end of mankind is in fact in our hips. Give me 15 minutes and I'll show you the world.....Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-65901142001-10-24T14:37:00.000-07:002001-10-24T14:37:24.333-07:00Could someone please remind me once again what the chief end of mankind is?Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-65269852001-10-22T09:16:00.000-07:002002-04-30T08:32:05.000-07:00"I have not seen a day like this one, before" - Karen Ferris
Days when I see so much, don't seem replicable and of course they are not completely... parts maybe and ideas maybe but overall content is not. I say this because part of the excitement of life is seeing another day unlike the day before. What a simple concept but full of hope and fear at the same time. What will I see today? WhereBrandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-59127332001-09-25T14:52:00.000-07:002001-09-25T14:52:29.850-07:00There is a Bible verse handily available for every tyrannical cause, to be exploited by those who use the Bible as an ideological weapon. - Franky ShaefferBrandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-47902682001-07-28T22:32:00.000-07:002001-07-28T22:32:28.046-07:00Two posts from a personal journal I kept while traveling on buisness to Australia, Singapore and Japan in 1999:
Dec 4th, 1999
At what point in our existense does life begin playing tricks by allowing you in the game, but not passing you the ball? I watch as a man filled with alcohol hits his wife. In a plane over Australia. At what point does life relieve itself of excess players? I watch Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-47652732001-07-27T11:58:00.000-07:002001-07-27T11:58:18.190-07:00"They are forever caught in the act of demonstrating their natures, without prologue or outcome" - Roger Ebert on the Federico Fellini film Fellini Satyricon
More and more I see our media as a way of assembling various landscapes with the intent of doing just this, capturing the nature of human's without prologue or outcome. How does this affect/effect who we are as humans? Are we relegated Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-45915832001-07-17T19:29:00.000-07:002001-07-17T19:29:39.270-07:00Showing my dad my on-line journal. Dad's current favorite Bible verse is Isa. 45:2
Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-44546242001-07-09T12:32:00.000-07:002001-07-09T12:32:54.780-07:00"Where the dew drops drop & the cats meow" - Stonehenge, Spinal Tap...
Just watched the DVD version of this true comedy classic. I don't know when I have laughed as much. I want to spend more time blogging on and on about this movie, but what can I say that has not been said already. This is a true parody... I guess nothing looks quite as silly when you really feel passionate about something, Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-44540752001-07-09T11:59:00.000-07:002001-07-09T11:59:41.820-07:00"It is either not knowing or denying the createdness of things that is at the root of the blackness of modern man's difficulties" - Francis Shaeffer.
A few quick thoughts:
*In a very personal world, how can we deny the existence of a personal creator?
*In a world full of form and beauty, how can we deny the existence of a creator with form and beauty?
*Love and Communication are intrinsic, from Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-43535792001-07-02T21:37:00.000-07:002001-07-02T21:37:54.810-07:00Why Christians should give up VALUES - By Steve McVey "Grace Walk"
1. An obsession with right and wrong makes people SELF-conscious instead of GOD-conscious. KEY: Abide in Christ. Failing to abide in him affects our actions. The Holy Spirit with in the Christian calls attention to those things which need to be changed.
2. An obsession with right and wrong emphasizes human values instead of Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-42882352001-06-28T12:15:00.000-07:002001-06-28T12:15:43.513-07:00"Little Man What Now?" - Morrissey:
By far one of the great titles from a great song. A song about the erosion of self importance in the public eye. "to old to be a child star, to young to take leads, 4 seasons past and they axed you"... I think I got the quote right. Oh how we delight and bask in the stardom of ourselves and others, only to turn and be turned on at the first sign of poor Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-42733882001-06-27T15:11:00.000-07:002001-06-27T15:11:18.653-07:00Doubt... The most healthy thing any faith filled person could ever have. Faith can not exist with out doubt. Doubt exist in nearly everything that we can not prove, and yet as humans we continue to seek out that which eludes us. I wonder sometimes, when people question their Faith because of a major doubt that has occurred in their life if they are in fact doubting their Faith or excusing Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-42518892001-06-26T10:26:00.000-07:002001-06-26T10:26:04.770-07:00''I like mass entertainment. I've written mass entertainment. But it's the opposite of art because the job of mass entertainment is to cajole, seduce and flatter consumers--to let them know that what they thought was right is right, and that their tastes and their immediate gratification are of the utmost concern of the purveyor. The job of the artist, on the other hand, is to say, wait a second,Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-42378892001-06-25T14:11:00.000-07:002001-06-25T14:11:32.116-07:00Feeling good today. Our back yard project is coming to its completion... from the outside of our house with the fence and retaining wall it looks similar to Noah's Ark. Which is a metaphore for something I am sure. Maybe its the care and love with in. The safety from the storms that consistently hit our small but relevent and significant lives. Maybe its just because I clean up a lot of crap,Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-38878892001-06-01T10:30:00.000-07:002001-06-01T10:30:41.613-07:00Top 5 Movies:
Never Cry Wolf - The first movie I saw in the theater that made me want to
like movies with meaning more... if that makes any sense. Also the first movie I remember looking at my
Dad and seeing him cry. (Since then obviously I realized this happens at
sappy McDonald's commercials as well, especially the ones having to do with the
Special Olympics)
Wild Strawberries - A foreign Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-38877192001-06-01T10:12:00.000-07:002001-06-01T10:12:52.466-07:00A guy I pretty much started with over 4 years ago with the company just came by my cubicle to let me know he just did his "exit interview" since he is leaving the company. Anyway, talk about envy.... The guy saved a bunch of money and is going to live in South America (Venezuela area) for the next year or two. When I asked him what his plans are, here is the great part, he says "nothing".... Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-37929262001-05-25T11:11:00.000-07:002001-05-25T11:11:57.766-07:00Of not feeling:
My lack of empathy or better stated, my growing state of apathy is concening me lately. To feel passionate about life is to feel heavily "caused". The "cause" I refer to here is just really about anything. I suppose for me, I need to feel a passion about what I am doing the majority of the time. Its hard for me to be passionate about my hobbies that occupy maybe a small Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-36592632001-05-16T11:25:00.000-07:002001-05-16T11:25:18.850-07:00An excerpt to a friend on why I took great pride in Hair Metal bands my Freshman year in High School:
Anyhow, to answer your question of my quick turn from heavy metal... It was never really me, or wait scratch that, it was me and I will defend my status as a 14 year old Freshman in highschool for a brief moment... At this age I remember certain things as strong as an "Altoid"... One thing for Brandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-36267572001-05-14T14:13:00.000-07:002001-05-14T14:13:59.403-07:00Let me elaborate on this afore mentioned statement...
Top Five Books:
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
CS Lewis - Mere Christianity
Shampoo Planet - Douglas Coupland
Young Men & Fire - Norman Mclean
1984 - George OrwellBrandonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3026885.post-35925252001-05-11T11:27:00.000-07:002001-05-11T11:27:03.873-07:00My name is Brandon. I have red hair. I like to read books.
Brandonnoreply@blogger.com