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October 25, 2005
Search game
It's time once again to play consitently fun game of "What funny search terms have brought people to this site this month?" A fascinating peek into what people are trying to find on the internet. Someone out there was so curious about these phrases that they typed them into that little box and clicked "Search":
- cartoon owls on the beach
- huge grasshopper
- personal life of paul kariya
...and tons of variations on Propagandhi and Potemkin City Limits. I hope whoever wanted to know more about the personal life of Paul Kariya found what they were looking for (this place probably wasn't very helpful). As for me, I think I'll keep my distance.
Posted by lld at 08:43 PM | TrackBack
New toy
I got a new macro lens
Non-point-and-shoot photography is a new thing for me, since getting my D70
Posted by lld at 11:36 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 21, 2005
All alone
Posted by lld at 01:43 PM | TrackBack
October 14, 2005
Grizzly Man
I saw the newest Werner Herzog documentary Grizzly Man a few weeks ago, and I've sort of been incubating my reaction to it ever since. It's a film about the life of Timothy Treadwell, told through footage he shot of himself and interviews with people who were close to him. I've had a difficult time getting a handle on how I feel about it.
It was a superb documentary (I'm a big fan of Herzog), but Treadwell was a puzzling person, judging from the footage in this film. He'd moved out to California to become an actor, but didn't find much success. Somehow he become very interested in grizzly bears and began spending his summers in Alaska, camping in national parks and filming himself interacting with them (often dangerously closely). As he films, he delivers long, often rambling monologues about the bears' habits, his activities to "protect" them, and occasionally delves into very introspective ruminations on his sanity and sexuality. He seems at times like a very macho egomaniac with a seriously over-blown idea about what he's doing (he claims to the camera as he's about to leave the park for the winter that he's just finished another season of protecting the bears, but it's unclear who he's protecting them from or how him camping in the park constitutes protecting them), but at other times like a selfless, slightly misanthropic but caring person who deeply loves animals, despite his misguided methods.
It seems to me that he'd found a niche with what he was doing--spending part of the year with the animals he loved, and then using that experience to make a modest enough living to keep it up. Probably the refuge from the modern world was comforting at first, then became a bit of an obsession: he filmed rude tourists in the park and expressed his contempt for them on film, and he grew viciously angry with the National Park Service, at one point filming an obscenity-soaked rant against them. During this diatribe he said something that resonated with me, despite the pure hatred and anger displayed on his tape. He shouted, "animals rule!" and it's been in the back of my mind ever since, because he's right. Lately it seems like everywhere I turn, I see evidence of how we're screwing up the planet: producing mountains of trash, guzzling energy at un-sustainable rates, mowing down habitats and destroying ecosystems. Animals do rule, and we totally suck.
So I'm left with weird mixed feelings about Treadwell. He was delusional, unreasonable, and probably not doing the bears any favors, but he was also a guy with a lot of love for animals. He died because he got too close, too late in the season, and pushed it too far. I don't think his way was the right way, but I can't help but think he was right about a few things.
Posted by lld at 09:55 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 12, 2005
Housekeeping
I just set up a Feedburner feed to handle all new syndication readers. Those of you reading this in the older formats need not do anything, but if you want to be hip and cool you'll switch your feed settings to use http://feeds.feedburner.com/lalitree from now on. If you don't feel like bothering or don't know how, don't worry, the old feeds will continue to update.
Also, a few days ago I got rid of the old links blog and set up my del.icio.us account to send links to the sidebar. Simplify, simplify, simplify!
Posted by lld at 10:40 PM | TrackBack
October 06, 2005
Hockey's here!
In case you missed it (and I mean that in at least two senses of "miss"), the 2005-6 NHL season started yesterday. I'm excited about this. There have been so many trades, deals, and signings that practically no-one is with the team they were with when I last saw them, and I think this is a good thing. It means, for example, that Paul Kariya now plays for a team within a day's drive of me, one without an embarrassing cartoon name and logo (yet sadly one not in the same division as the team down the street, so they meet only twice this season).
Tomorrow night we're going to see the Carolina Hurricanes' home opener against Pittsburgh. Should be a good one--Lemieux is still workin' and they have a new rookie sensation who's already been crowned the new Chosen One. Meanwhile Carolina has a new rookie goalie, who will get his first NHL start because their intended starter is busted somehow. Carolina also has a bunch of ex-Ducks, including one their former centers and a defenseman or two (Hey Hurricanes, I know where you can find a great ex-Duck left wing, but he ain't cheap, even after that totally lackluster year in Colorado). Both teams lost their season openers, with Lemieux going scoreless and rookie Crosby picking up an assist (over in Nashville, Kariya had scored a goal and (gasp!) served two minutes in the box in the Preds' win over San Jose). Should be a good game, since nobody wants to start the season 0-2. Rookie goalie + one of the two greatest players to ever play the game could possibly = blowout. We shall see.
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© Lalitree Darnielle 2006
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