29 April 2008

Primary Colors

From Darby Conley's Get Fuzzy

CarolinaMom got her primary vote in early for next week's Democraptacular drama in the Tar Heel state. Today's NY Times article Demography is King aptly describes the party divide.

18 April 2008

April 19th is Record Store Day

recordstoreday.com

Get your slackass out and support your local record store. Word!

15 April 2008

Sheena's Style is Catching

It already seems too long ago that Sheena visited Hotlanta for Cheek's f*ck forty festivities. Supporting Sheena's thwarted Target fetish (they ain't got no Targets in Canuckland) yielded a Sheena-inspired decorative item now hanging chez Cheek:


Sheena traveled home with Sheena-themed containers scored by Cheek at Ikea; I wonder what's inside them now?


It's "Sheena" style that should be celebrated, never feared:

From Natalie Dee

13 April 2008

Sunday's read: Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?

Yes, it's a long a**-article from today's New York Times, but it's a fascinating read: Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?

This is when I voiced a careless thought about whether there might be something negative about the lightning spread of technology, whether its convenience was somehow supplanting traditional values or practices. Chipchase raised his eyebrows and laid down his spoon. He sighed, making it clear that responding to me was going to require patience. “People can think, yeah, monks with cellphones, and tsk, tsk, and what is the world coming to?” he said. “But if you wanted to take phones away from anybody in this world who has them, they’d probably say: ‘You’re going to have to fight me for it. Are you going to take my sewer and water away too?’ And maybe you can’t put communication on the same level as running water, but some people would. And I think in some contexts, it’s quite viable as a fundamental right.” He paused a beat to let this sink in, then added, with just a touch of edge, “People once believed that people in other cultures might not benefit from having books either.”

. . .

Some of the drawings were basic pencil sketches; others were strikingly elaborate, with arrows pointing to different dream features, which were really just a way of pointing — I realized then — to the dreams themselves.

Jung and Tulusan said they’d found this everywhere, the phone representing what people are aspiring to. “It’s an easy way to see what’s important to them, what their challenges are,” Jung said. One Liberian refugee wanted to outfit a phone with a land-mine detector so that he could more safely return to his home village. In the Dharavi slum of Mumbai, people sketched phones that could forecast the weather since they had no access to TV or radio. Muslims wanted G.P.S. devices to orient their prayers toward Mecca. Someone else drew a phone shaped like a water bottle, explaining that it could store precious drinking water and also float on the monsoon waters. In Jacarèzinho, a bustling favela in Rio, one designer drew a phone with an air-quality monitor. Several women sketched phones that would monitor cheating boyfriends and husbands. Another designed a “peace button” that would halt gunfire in the neighborhood with a single touch.


- Sara Corbett, contributing writer to the New York Times

10 April 2008

You know you're a BSG fan when . . .

You look at the cheese tortellini you've made for dinner and realize they are shaped like a Cylon raider.

09 April 2008

Remember your Freegan days?

From Toothpaste for Dinner

A long-held Cheek-ism is that the best kind of food is *free* food. Learned me that one in my college days. Today's view yields that while it may not be the best, it's not to be scorned.

To wit: free beer is always good beer. If you can't embrace the joy of a free PBR Tallboy because it's not "good enough" for you, then step aside from Cheekdom. If you're paying for it, you can be picky, but free is always welcome.

07 April 2008

Today's word of the day: Osmosissing

Courtesy of Bucky Katt:

From Darby Conley's Get Fuzzy

04 April 2008

Guess I've been channeling Summer Glau

Who knew?

From Randall Munroe's xkcd.com

Only recently discovered Joss Whedon's Firefly and Summer's River.

01 April 2008

I'm not just some chick

From Married to the Sea

But I am indeed "just some chick", who happens to blog. I'm not yet struggling with the "why am I here" question as Cap'n Noise is wont to do. It's an occasional ponder, yes.

I read about the couple - Pat and Cat - who shirked the possession thing and biked around the world. What Pat had to say has stuck with me:

"Pat says that, more than anything, biking around the world has changed what he values in life. Pat admits that when he was in his 30s his philosophy could be summed up as, "The one that dies with the most money wins." But, once he started making money, he realized he had to find a way to spend it. By the time he reached his 40s, his philosophy had become, "The one that dies with the most toys wins."

"So, I had the cars and the things," Pat explains, "and then, about that time, I took off out into the world on my own for a bike ride, and decided it was experiences; the one that dies with the most experiences wins."

As Pat was preparing for his trip with Catherine, he turned 60. He calls that birthday, and the change in mindset it brought, "a biggie." His philosophy became, "The one that dies with the most friends wins."

"I'm realizing what it's going to be in my 70s, and that's different. It will be 'The one with the most memories wins.' "


Whoa. Profound and simple stuff, here.

The one that dies with the most money wins.
Have never cottoned to this, nor like those who do.

The one that dies with the most toys wins.
Ok, I may like a few toys, but it's not my idea of "winning".

The one that dies with the most experiences wins.
I know a few who roll this way, and I roll with them occasionally.

The one that dies with the most friends wins.
I've been here for a while. Do I win points for figgering it out way before 60?

The one that dies with the most memories wins.
Too many studies verify this. Do things to keep your brain engaged, and participate in the world, and you're less at risk for many health problems. The friends, the experiences, the toys - they collude to bring the stuff of life.