Setting the tempo

I've got rhythm. I've got music. I've got... whoa... that's where it stops for me, Gershwin.

Well, maybe I don't even really have rhythm. Bear with me folks. This is going to be a bumpy ride.

Right now I'm knee deep in exploring my new music software (Ableton Live, if you must know), getting a feel for my new guitar (Epihpone Casino, if you must know), and getting some ideas recorded for all the people of earth to cherish (you, if you must know). But creating a tune by myself means learning about something I've never really been a part of: drum beats. Bass drum = thud, snare = snap, hi hat = click. OK. Got it. so.... thud click snap click. repeat. There. All done. What say you, drummer friends? Well. Even my "never-touched-a-drum" friends are not impressed. So I continue to pursue learning the drum beat.

In this struggle to conquer a continent of musical expression, is it possible the concept has seized my subconscious? As I was just flipping through my phone's photo gallery, it seems that it has. My shoot-from-the-hip camera photography tendencies have been gravitating to images with strong graphical rhythms. Of course some of these may be a stretch, but then again, so may some of those "drum beats" I've been smushing together the last couple months.

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What's your sentence?

Ready, set, think! Well, watch this video (embedded below), then think.

Daniel Pink, business and technology brainiac, recently spoke at TED. If you're not aware of TED, get on that. Anyways, Pink's articles have appeared in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Wired, where he serves as a contributing editor. Translation: he's a flipping smart guy that people listen to. (as if TED was not enough evidence).

I could spend days watching videos on TED. That brain porn keeps me jumping from one intensely appealing subject to the next. I love it all. But according to Pink, that might be a problem for me. In his newest book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, he suggests an individual needs to focus their energy on a cause, rather than scatter on several interests. The video below examines this concept by referencing presidents Lincoln, FDR, and JFK. It states simply, ask yourself this question: "What's my sentence." Time to get thinking...

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

Taco Triumph

Taqueria del Sol is no secret to Atlantans, but in case you haven't tried it, these are some seriously good tacos. Soft tortillas contain fresh, delicious ingredients made to order. The fish was so tasty it demands a repeat, the carnitas were good, but I'll try another option next time. We started with the salsa trio is also--a must. Yes, charging for chips and salsa is usually a capital offense, but these salsas are worth it. Not just for the chips they come with, but to add to the tacos as well. Taqueria del Sol deserves a place in your regular restaurant rotation.

Two kid ninjas in the office

TM: one time i fed my dog doritos in milk
she puked
and i had to clean it up

me: HAHAHAHAHAAHA

TM: yeah
that was a brilliant idea
stupid 6 year-old brains

me: no kidding.
drawing on walls.

TM: yeah

me: one time I gave my carpet a haircut.
wtf...
I honestly thought it was a good idea.

TM: obviously
or else you wouldn't have done it

me: when you get in trouble for stuff like that, you're so confused.
you're like "no, just hear me out...the carpet—it’s fluffy like hair…"

TM: i made myself some numbchucks

me: ME TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TM: NO WAY!?!!??!
how did you do it?

me: my mom had really hard cardboard tubes for fax paper, or something like that.
so I took a small chain, took a screw and put it through to tube to secure the chain, and ta da - nunchucks.

TM: i climbed a tree with some hedge clippers and cut some branches for the numbchucks

me: you're going all natural

TM: and then took a nail and nailed a hole through each
and then threaded it with twine
it was pretty badass

me: that's awesome.

TM: b/c those things could actually hurt someone i got in trouble

me: I kept mine secret in the toy room.

TM: i tried
but i took them everywhere
so they eventually found out

TM: i never would have thought in a million years that someone else made numbchucks

me: Well, I haircut a carpet and you fed a dog Doritos in milk. We were bound to match up on something. Thank god it was something as awesome as nunchucks.

Coke noses and pop can gestation

In our office kitchen there just appeared a bountiful stash of Coke, Diet Coke, and Sprite. It's a soda drinker's paradise. I imagine coworkers sitting at their desks with a piles of full and empty cans, product dripping from their noses and mouths, a la Pacino in Scarface.

Well Tony Montana, say hello to my little friends. They're free, unlike your product--all 90-some of them bound together with bird-killing plastic can six-pack thingies on cardboard half box palates like those things at Sam's Club. (Hmmm, that soliloquy really lost steam at the end.)

I know there's no health vaule in this stuff. It's a can of soda water, chemicals, and citric acid, among other undesirables. But reason has no influence on this instinct. If you think I can pass on free pop, you are wrong. I've been conditioned to desperately desire this crap (damn "My Coke Rewards"), so naturally I thought this was a late Christmas bonus, a special gift from someone who cares, or just a damn lucky. I wanted to know who to thank, which hands to shake, who to send a well-crafted thank you card. It's not often I get my afternoon caffeine fix without dropping $1.50. (Speaking of which, here's a tip: the 20-oz bottles cost $1.50. Two 12-oz cans cost the same. 4 free ounces. Ya gotta do the math!)

So I grab a can off the stack of goodness. "Gotta grab one of these," I say under my breath, directed half at the wall, half at the other guy in the kitchen, like we do in the office.

"Yeah, take as many as you want," he says. "They're all expired!"

You gotta be kidding me. He's messing with me. Bottom of the can? "MAR0209CBP." I'm no expiration date writer, but that looks like we're more than ten months past the expiration date. Ten months! 83.3% of a year! That's longer than it takes a human baby to gestate. You could have opened one of these cans on its last day of....non expiredness, drank it, assembled a test tube baby in the can, and had a one-month-old live human by now.

I crack it open and take a whiff. You think 10 months are going to stop me? Wrong again.

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New Years Devolutions

Seeing that most New Years resolutions are abandoned quite quickly, I find it appropriate to include "buy a bunch of things I want" in mine.

So here's what I'm salivating over.

A new camera. I have ideas at the bursting point for which I need a decent camera. I bought a point and shoot about two or three years ago for $300. In the eighties, wouldn't that get you something that would last? This thing sucks now. Sometimes you just want a photo to remember things. Artistic superiority would be nice, but recolection is the minimum requirement. I either have early onset alzheimers, or my camera sucks. I'm going with the later.

Canon Digital Rebel xTi: ~$700 or something like that.

Guitar Pedals. More, bigger, better and weirder than I already own. My effects pedal hunger is an unsatiable one. It would be great if I could break this one, but I promise you I will not. I got an early start and ordered the EHX Cathedral pedal for 20% off or something the day after Christmas. How can you not agree to that deal? I kick myself for not also ordering the EHX Memory Man with Hazarai. But wait, that money could go to a new camera.

EHX Cathedral reverb: ~$190 (with discount)
EHX Memory Man w/Hazarai: $214
Countless other blow-your-mind effects: $lots

New hand soap for the bathroom. I'm running out of my Method minty foam soap. That one smells like the time I moved to Atlanta. Because that's when I bought it. 2010 calls for a new scent. Let's get creative.

New hand soap: $7?

Sticky pans. Nonstick pans are bad for deglazing. They don't make any glaze with which to deglaze. Major cooking fail.

Calphalon 8-piece cooking set: $399

Albert's BBQ sliders. These things are delicious. And on one night a week, they are cheap. Can't remember what night. So here's the first prerequisite resolution of the year: figure that out.

BBQ sliders at The Albert: $1 a piece

I should put "do more exercise" on this list, but I don't want to abandon that one.

Unmanned. Unnamed. Coincidence?

This could just be the conspiracy theorist in me (inspired by The Mind's new show on TruTV--seriously, it's about conspiracy theories. And it's called Conspiracy Theory. Clever.), but a December Newsweek article about unmanned drones in Afghanistan ignited my critical thinking skills. And conjured images of Valerie Plame and Karl Rove (well, the name of Valerie Plame--a quick mental search brought 0 results for images).

The article probed the dilemma of a super top-secret "clandestine CIA search-and-destroy program" which shoots missiles from unmanned drones in the sky. The dilemma: shoot bad guys, and probably also some good guys. Important debate, but here's my problem: Since we're reading about it, IT'S NOT A FLIPPIN SECRET!!!

In Newsweek, reporter Mark Hosenball writes government officials won't confirm the program exists--at least not officially. He then cites a "U.S. national-security official--who...declined to be named..." and another who speaks on anonymity, and so on and so on. And the faceless voices tell one story: the success of the secret operations.

So you can see beginnings of my conspiracy theory start to take shape, right?

Hell, if I told you I wouldn't reveal what I ate for breakfast and then Tom in Accounting told you he knew what it was, you'd get curious, wouldn't you?

And on top of that, doesn't it seem convenient that there are these mysterious deep throats running amok and leaking all these positive stories about this controversial operation? There aren't any rogue advisors leaking the story of dead civilians all over the place.

Recipe for success
1) Make (name of clandestine death program here) secret.
2) Leak only the details you want to be known. (The best part is, they don't even have to be true! You're an unnamed source!)
3) Watch the media write up stories you want published

Conspiracy or not, leave Tom in Accounting alone. I dropped my fried egg sandwiches on the garage floor.