More on What the Bleep

So a few days ago I got an email from a reader named Kelly regarding What the Bleep do we Know. She made the following observation:

Todd – I do not like telling others what to believe. I try to view everything with a wish to know Truth. So when I watched the movie (“What the Bleep…”), I was intrigued about who the people were and their research and so on. When I saw that one of the “experts” was JZ Knight, I admit I lost faith in the rest of the presenters. On that note, you might (or may not) want to read this entry about “What the Bleep do we Know”. Just to know what others are saying.
The movie features Ramtha (JZ Knight) of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment. There is a different site that discusses (I think rather impartially) the history and beliefs of this group as well as other religious groups.
Perhaps you’ve already looked into it. If you believe in this group, I do not want to offend, but I do believe that people have a right to know that the movie is actually in support of a religious group and was made by them.

And I have to say, that explains a lot for me. I was totally unfamilar with that group or their connection with the movie. As I said before, I really enjoyed the discourse of the movie. What I didn’t mention before is that while I found most of the presenters interesting and believable, I found JZ Knight to be a bit out there compared to the others and I couldn’t take anything she said seriously.

So what did I like about the movie? I think the two things that stuck with me were the discussion of the difference between perception and reality and the principle that reality is perception. This lines up very much with how I view the world, and with the Buddhist idea that suffering is caused by delusions – reality viewed through the filter of our own perceptions and biases. I think we’ve all had the experience of imagining some conflict or problem by piecing together “evidence” and adding a bit of conjecture. Unfortunately the conjecture part is where we get in trouble. As I get older I’m able to avoid that much more than I once could but I still am not where I want to be in that sense.

The other, slightly more unusual part that I liked was the idea of our world being influenced by our selves. I’m not sure how much I believe this – and it varies day by day, I think. That said, there have been so many experiences where we’ve wanted something to happen and lots of things many of which were unlikely came together to make it happen. Very often it seems like we get exactly what we need when we need it. I don’t know that I buy into it to the point that the one person did who suggested that you could lie in bed in the morning and visualize your wishes for the day and have them be realized. But our lives together have given us enough confidence that we will be provided for that we probably take many more risks than others like us would do. We were nervous about moving to the yurt with no idea what we were going to do for money but we knew somehow it would work out. The same was true for moving here, or for giving up our car. And I know, if an interesting opportunity comes up in the future with some associated risk, we’ll give it very serious consideration because we’re pretty sure it will all work out for the best. I guess in this sense I can understand a bit of the mentality that many Christians have of just stepping back and letting God take care of things. While I might not believe in that particular idea of a diety, I can certainly understand and relate to the idea of taking a leap of faith.

So did anyone else watch the movie? Any thoughts?

It’s a matter of context

Sage took a clip I recorded of Zanta on the subway on Sunday and used it in today’s podcast, and while I loved today’s entry, I had a few other thoughts that she didn’t include (hey, she did include a few, though).

First off, the first time I saw him, I found him to be somewhat intimidating. Now, though, knowing a bit more about him, I am actually glad to see him – he’s one of the characters that makes Toronto a fun and interesting place to be. What changed? I think the biggest thing was that the first time I saw him I didn’t know his schtick and had no idea what to expect. For all I knew he could go from what I was seeing to homicidal in a matter of minutes. Now, though, having seen him a few times, heard Molar Radio’s interview and even watched a documentary on him, I get the distinct impression that he’s basically harmless. Something of an attention-whore but harmless nonetheless. And a listen to the clip on Sage’s podcast illustrates that I’m not the only one who finds him entertaining. After he left the car, people were obviously pleased with the “show” and many were doing their own impressions of him. It is easy to see why the huge restraining order against him was really over the top and I’m glad that it has been revised.

It is interesting, and strangely inspiring to watch him, though. In many ways, he’s the antithesis of my own very quiet public persona. He just gets up, says what’s on his mind (though admittedly it is pretty much the same thing every time) and puts himself out there. Sure, there may be other reasons he does what he does, but it is still encouraging to see that you can just put yourself out there and not care at all what people think of you. At what point is unselfconsciousness considered a bad thing?

It sort of reminds me of podcasting or even one of my earlier entries where I talked about “real-world” blogging. In other words, I was wondering about why it was considered socially acceptable for me to sit here and blather on but if I were in the corner of a party just talking about what was on my mind I’d be labelled a nutcase. Is someone who refuses to take context into account when talking about what’s on their mind, really mentally ill? Certainly every one of us bloggers and podcasters would be given wide berth if we were presenting our material on the subway instead of on the web? What is it that makes us look strangely at a person who reads poetry on a streetcorner but pay to go to a poetry night at a cafe? Is the choice of venue really that important? Is being outgoing and confident a sign of mental illness?

Why We Fight – Followup

I watched most of Why We Fight, a fabulous BBC documentary now in the theatres (at least here in Toronto) last night while Sage and Paul were out (It wasn’t really kid-appropriate so I turned it off about 10 minutes before the end) and it was absolutely fascinating. For someone really well informed, it might not tell much, but it certainly did a great job of describing the military-industrial complex, and how it works. Where I wasn’t clear before watching this was where the think tanks like Project for the New American Century fit in. I have seen Bill Kristol now on a couple of documentaries and I have to say, there seem to be few more evil people in America than that man.

I also found some of the soldiers, particularly the two men who flew the stealth bombers in the first attacks on Baghdad to be beyond creepy. More than anything, they seemed really thrilled with the whole experience they had. The were barely suppressing grins as they told their story. The appeared to be seduced by the technology and perhaps how “important” they were. Not only that, they offered no accountability, stating that they were just doing what they were supposed to do. Are these guys familiar with the Nuremberg Trials?

All in all, it is definitely worth watching. While you’re at it, you might also want to check out the old Frank Capra propaganda films by the same name.

• Why We Fight (BBC Documentary)
• Why We Fight (Propaganda Films)

Documentary – Why We Fight

I was wanting to go see Why We Fight in the theatre one of these days but it appears that that won’t be necessary. You can watch it for yourself here courtesy of Google Video.

I can’t keep away from this thing

This is yet another interesting experiment – just blogging when I feel like it for as little or as much as I feel like. Though I don’t necessarily think that the content quality has changed at all, I’m certainly feeling less pressured to always be out there writing something.

Yesterday I got an email notification from bookcrossing saying that one of the books I released almost three years ago turned up again. Around the time I released last book I would leave books on peoples cars trying to guess at what they might like. Many of my books on Buddhism were left on the cars of people parked at a Buddhist centre, my copy of “Dude Where’s My Country” by Michael Moore was tossed in the open window of an empty car that was covered in liberal bumper stickers. On one day I went to the parking lot of a nearby independent bookstore and left books on the windshields of cars. Hey Nostradamus was one of those.

For the most part I find bookcrossing fairly discouraging. Most of the books I leave are never heard from again or if they are are only heard from once. This latest one, though, was especially cool because it was, for me, not unlike hearing from a long lost friend or relative. The last time I saw it was in New Mexico. I “heard from it” again in a library bookstore on the other side of the country in Virginia. It really made my day (my day is really easy to make, apparently) to find that the book was still out there and travelling. Of course the voyeur in me is dying to know the rest of the story. How did this book manage to travel nearly 1,800 miles? Who read it during that time and what did they think of it?

That said, Sage and I are getting a mailbox in the next couple of days and we’ll be much less neurotic about revealing our address and I can get into bookcrossing a bit more with actual members or readers. Have a look at my bookshelf (there will be more added soon) and see if there’s anything you’d like. In particular, I would really like to send Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey to someone who would appreciate it though you’re welcome to any other book. Don’t be afraid to ask for “To be Read” books since that flag is more for me to maintain my reading list than to deny anyone a book. The only difference is that I might want it back (but then again I might not). All I would ask is that you keep me posted as to where the book ends up.

I think that this same “tracking fetish” is why I really like the idea of geocaching, something I’m wanting to do more of once it warms up. In particular, I think Paul and I are both intrigued about the idea of Travel Bugs – little items whose progress from cache to cache are tracked as they travel around the world. I think this year Paul and I will be registering one or two of these and maybe setting up a cache or two of our own.

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Since I had to go to a client on the US side of the border near Buffalo, I picked up a rental car two nights ago and I have to say that if anything I like driving even less than I did when I first gave up the car. Driving just takes far too much sustained focus and attention that I’d rather put to someone’s podcast or my book. Not only that, I dont feel nearly as maneuverable in a car as I do as an individual walking or riding transit. Where when I used to drive I felt like my car was something of an extension of me now it feels sort of like an injured limb feels – bigger than it should be with deadened sensation. The combination of that sensation and the fact that it goes at high speed makes for a really bad combination. And of course I also really dislike how isolated I feel. It is lonely driving a car. Sure, I am not someone who talks to everyone around me as I travel to/from work on transit. But there are little exchanges, gestures for one person to get off the bus before you or to take your seat, giggles as you try to hold the same spot on the subway pole twice as you try not to hold the same spot, listening to the sound of independent musicians, or even just sneaking a peek at what your neighbour is reading. All of these things are missing from the driving experience and if I were to drive every day I would truly miss it.

What the Bleep do we Know?

It appears that What the Bleep do we Know is now up on Google Video. You can see it here. The concepts are fabulous and make a great deal of sense to me. If you haven’t seen it yet, definitely watch it. I found the backstory a bit forced and hokey but the speakers are really interesting. There’s a sequel with more speakers and less story (more my speed for sure) that I want to go see soon. Enjoy!

On Hiatus

Last night I spent almost two hours trying to get the yurt years podcast right. And I came to a conclusion. The time isn’t right for me to do that podcast. Things are just too busy for me to be creating another reason to be on the computer. Perhaps someday, but for now, despite the snow squall warning outside, spring is coming and I want to spend some time outside this year.

At the same time, I think that I might take a hiatus, or at least dramatically decrease the frequency of entries here. I realized last night, as I started to write an entry about something so insipid and boring that I can’t even recall it now, that I often consider generating content just so I won’t lose my few readers by not having frequent content updates. Looking at some of my more recent entries, I’ve been spending talking about “meta” content – thoughts on ads in podcasts, for instance. And you know what? While I don’t like ads, I also don’t see it as something to have a bit opinion about. I am also finding that I am seeing the world in the context of the blog. In other words – viewing experiences as blogworthy or not rather than experiencing them.

And so the decision I’ve made is to walk away from this blog for a while. Or at least quit updating for the sake of updating. I annoy myself when I do that. What I’d like to do now is become more discerning in what I spend my computer time (and podcast listening time for that matter) doing. Ideally, I hope to get to the point where the only content I’m taking in is information that improves my “offline” life – information on local happenings, recipes, independent musicians, and limited social contact. At this point I keep catching myself doing the net version of “channel surfing” and it’s eating my time up.

The same is true for podcasts. While I’m subscribed to 45 podcasts right now, there are only a handful of ones I actively look forward to listening to. The time may hvae come for me to give up some of the ones I’m apathetic about in favour of a good book. This week without an mp3 player has reminded me that I really like reading, and podcast listening is really eating into my time.

That said, I hope y’all keep in touch, and I do intend to do an entry every now and again. How’bout this: Copy the link for this site’s RSS feed, go over to bloglines, sign up if necessary and subscribe. It’ll tell you when I update.

Getting control of our money

Okay, we’re not entirely doing that, but I have started to at least track it a bit. I’ve started really tracking what we spend for the first time perhaps ever since we’ve been together. It’s been helpful, too. Not only have I been tracking cheques and debit transactions but I’ve even set up cash accounts to account for what is happening to our money after we take it out of the ATM. So far it has been interesting to see where the money is going. The biggest revelation was that we were spending way too much on ATM fees just out of laziness for not wanting to walk to one of our banks but just using whatever was available. In five days we spent $9 last week. So there’s an easy $30-40/month we’ve saved.

I’ve been using gnucash which a friend of mine has been raving about since the late 90’s. And I agree – it’s a fantastic program. The downside (or upside for some of us) is that it only runs in unix environments – linux, OSX, bsd and other unixes (unices?). Maybe it’s time you set up a linux partition for yourself and played around.

Balmy Sunday Morning

It’s a shame it is going to be rainy today since it is supposed to go up to 16°C (61°F) today – the warmest its been all year just before it goes back down to just above freezing later this week. Still, it is really nice to have some decent temperatures for a change. I know, given how mild it was this winter I have little right to complain but still – winter is a season I really don’t like and like summer here is for Sage, it is a mild inconvenience I have to go through for the privilege of living here.

Yesterday Paul and I took advantage of the weather and went geocaching for the first time this year. We did two caches – one out on the Leslie Spit , and a second not far from it. This was our first time realy exploring this part of town. We had a good time but all in all I found it to be a fairly dismal part of the city. The spit itself is nice in that it is mostly free of cars and has lots of room for wandering. Sadly, it is without a doubt the trashiest park I’ve seen in Toronto – lots of piles of broken brick, concrete, and twisted rebar were all around. Still, if you look beyond that the lake is really quite beautiful and there are tons of birds including one bird at the top of a lone tree that was, the people watching it said, a falcon.

The walk between the caches was quite pleasant – the area is riddled with bike/walking trails. However, when we walked to the area where our third cache was going to be we couldn’t figure out how to get to it as the approach from where we were was posted with “No Trespassing” signs. From there we decided to walk to another cache a couple miles away and headed down the road towards the other cache and civilization. This road (Unwin Street if you’re curious) is not the most pleasant street in Toronto – there are no sidewalks (but fortunately large lawns between the fences of the businesses and the road) and most of the industrial buildings along the way appeared pretty run down. We did pass one lot full of cars, though, that was quite interesting – a whole fleet of New York City cabs and a New York City bus, the latter up on blocks. I think it was a salvage yard though we weren’t far from the film studio district by this point so it is entirely possible that they were props.

A few minutes later Paul reminded me that we had plans to go to the Goodwill to go book shopping again and just as we changed our plans we came across a bus that was heading back downtown and so we headed over. I had intended to be frugal when we got there but sadly I ended up spending almost $50. For whatever reason there was a huge cache of Boxcar Children books – and so we grabbed about 20 of those as Paul really likes those. They also had a fair number of Bailey School Kids books. I found another book coauthored by David Suzuki – It’s a Matter of Survival. I figure I’ll need to read that if I feel like things are too cheerful around here.

I also picked up a lowfat cookbook – the companion book to Eat More Weigh Less. I’ve always hated the subject of dieting since I feel like so many people are doing it unnecessarily or for reasons other than their own – i.e. they feel that someone else will like them more if they do. My reasons are different – partly it’s about health and fitness plays a big part, too. Every healthcare professional who saw me about my back suggested that regular exercise would help. And I figured if I’m already doing the exercise part why not start eating right and get double benefits out of it. Anyway, Ornish’s book comes highly recommended. He makes an excellent case as to how dramatically limiting fat consumption while still eating enough to keep you full will enable you to lose weight. And so far for me that’s been true. In 1994 I weighted 145 lbs – probably too skinny for a 6 foot tall person, really. At that time I was mostly vegan eating lots of pasta, salads, and stir-fries. The following year I got more of a desk job and had more money to eat out and ate more junkily and ended up gaining a little. While Sage was pregnant with Paul, we discovered refried bean burritos which rapidly became a staple food. I would typically eat half a batch of those (i.e. 1/4 stick of butter) with cheese and sour cream on top. We’d do this maybe once or twice a week sometimes. Add to that some of the other dishes I started making – chickpeas with butter and onions, for example, and you can see how even eating the same amount as I did in 1994 I would end up as I was a few weeks ago at about 205 lbs. So now all I’ve done is go back to my 1994 eating habits, eat whenever I’m hungry (i.e. lots of healthy between meal snacks), and spend 30-60 minutes in the gym every day. I feel tons better and at this point am down to 197 lbs. Effort required has been very minimal. I eat what I want when I want it for the most part, but just choose a little differently. Dining out has been a bit more difficult but I’m finding that I can either eat a salad, or just be smarter about how much I eat. My big problem dining out has been that I know lots of good restaurants of the quality that inspires you to eat until you can’t eat another bite, not just until you’re full. With a bit of self control I just eat a normal meal and all has been fine. It’s been interesting to see the progression for sure – and to be able to easily see where diet changes over the past ten years have been accompanied by weight gain.

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Oh, and an update on my dental visit. First the good news – no cavities at all. Sadly, I do need to spend some more time with the cavitron – a tool of torture cleverly disguised as an ultrasonic dental cleaning tool. I also seem to have been grinding my teeth a bunch lately – probably due to my having had two teeth removed back in 2003 that were preventing me from being able to do so (but crowding my front teeth so much that there were other issues to be dealt with). So it appears that I have cracked a tooth in the back of my mouth from that. Best case is that a filling takes care of it (I have my fingers crossed) but worst case is that I do, indeed, need a root canal. *shudder* Still, I’m glad to have had the motivation to find a dentist and get back on track there. And the one we found is really close to home and they’re extremely nice. Oh, and they electronically file my claims so that last time I paid at 7PM and by 8:00 AM my insurance company reimbursed me and the money was in my account.

Man that was seriously boring – sorry about that.

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So it looks like the yurt years podcast is a go. I’m working on it now – getting some ideas for how it will flow, what music to use. I’m most overwhelmed by the theme since the techno-ish theme inspired by Sage’s “If the republicans get any worse…” phrase that I was using before just doesn’t fit. And of course I’m also trying to psych myself up to just start instead of waiting for the perfect moment. Still, I have to figure out when I’m going to do it. Waking up early as I have been to go to the gym has made me be ready for bed by 9:00 PM. I’m sure I could have a coffee in the afternoon but at this point I am back down to 1 cup a day in the morning and would hate to lose that ground. Don’t worry – I’ll figure it out.

An unintentional experiment

Like a fool I rushed out of my client’s office today leaving my mp3 player sitting out on my desk. If things go poorly it won’t be there tomorrow. And the thing is, I won’t be there either since I don’t plan on going back there until next Wednesday. So now the best I can hope for is to get a coworker to pick it up on Friday and bring it to the office where I can get it then. Worst case is I get it back Wednesday or even a week from Monday.

Still, I’m kind of looking forward to the lack of an mp3 player – it will be nice to be forced into doing some more reading. And for those of you who have podcasts and know I’m a listener – don’t be surprised if you don’t hear back from me – without my mp3 player my listening time is really limited and I probably won’t get to it for a week or two.

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As I’m feeling a bit of a twinge in one of my teeth I decided to go to the dentist today. And guess what – no cavity at all. The bad news is that instead of a cavity I have a small crack. If I’m lucky it is only a small crack and they can just fill it. If I’m not lucky it will be a root canal. Not something I am looking forward to. Still, I found something out there – apparently I grind my teeth alot. I’m pretty sure I don’t do it during the day and Sage never noticed my doing it at night. Still, I’ll probably have to wear a mouthguard at night to keep from grinding my teeth way down. Strange for my mouth to have this whole hidden life without my knowing it.