pre-game

3:34pm Loving Patreaus at the coin flip. Subtle reminder of The Surge®

first quarter

3:39 Hines Ward COMPLETELY UNCOVERED. AZ defensive FAIL
3:42 Roethlisburger ran that TD like a fullback. Tough dude.
3:44 Angels & Demons commercial Рmore like Cornballs and Clich̩s
3:46 BEST CHALLENGE EVER.
3:47 Holding the Steelers to a field goal on their opening drive is a big deal. Makes it a little tougher for them to build a head of steam.

(note, now changing time stamps to Quarter & Time Left, rather than local time. Duh)

4:34 Rogers-Cromartie just saved his life
3:09 AZ defense looks slow.

0:00 At this rate, Steelers are going to win 12-0

2nd Quarter:

14:01 – Russell with the rush TD Steelers. I bet Willie Parker is pissed.
13:54 – Star Trek: Best movie advertised so far.
10:46 – AZ appears to be finding their sea-legs.
12:27 – “Big” Breaston with a big first down.
8:34 – Warner trips, then makes amazing throw. Patrick makes amazing catch. TD Cards.
6:56 – Rogers-Cromartie with his second big pass defense. He’s now officially in the “shutdown corner” category.

2:00 – dreading the halftime show
1:54 – Kurt Warner rolling out is like John Madden in a beauty contest: Makes no sense.
0:18 – Warner & Cards are way too smart for Steelers! I smell a TD and a halftime lead coming up.
0:00 – Oops. 100-yard pick six for Pit. Wrong.

Halftime

Every time I see Matt Millen commentating, I cringe. This is the man that built the only 0-16 team in NFL history. He has as much credibility on football as Wolfowitz has on foreign policy.

30 seconds in and so far the halftime show is far worse than I had feared. But I feel like I have to keep watching so I can live blog it. Kill me now.

John Madden’s head is the size of a steering wheel.

3rd quarter

14:02 – James is a beast.
10:53 – Cards blew that drive. They needed to score. If their defense does not stop Pittsburgh cold, that’s it.
10:05 – Pitt in weirdest formation ever – 4 receivers split to the left? Now I’ve seen it all. And then a facemask penalty against AZ. Not good.
7:31 – Pitt at AZ 20. The End Is Near.
(commercial break) Coke insect CGI commercial was beautiful.
1:38 – down 20-7, Arizona still clinging to life. Please score on this drive, so that the 4th quarter will not one of supreme suckiness.

4th quarter

13:51 – Can I revise my prediction now?

7:33 – Fantastic touchdown drive by Warner & the Cards’ offense. This thing ain’t over!
5:14 – Arizona driving again. Al Michaels with the sweet dig at Pitt defender Taylor, “He’s not swaggin now” after he got called for a personal foul.
3:41 – 3rd & 20. Oh man.
3:26 – ok, so Arizona had to punt. But they pin PIT inside the 1.  ZOMG!
2:58 – Holding penalty in the end zone for a safety. Do not recall a game so dominated by penalty calls. (In this case, nearly all have been totally legit.)

2:37 – LARRY FITZGERALD 60 YARD TD. FOR! THE! WIN!

1:16 – holy crap Pit is driving. … Past midfield already.
0:49 – 35 yard pass-and-run to the 4-yard line. Second amazing drive. Pitt might win this one yet.

0:00 – Wow what a finish. So good I forgot to keep live-blogging it. Holmes made an astounding, leaping catch in the back corner of the end zone … FTW.

Conclusion

Final Score: Cardinals 23, Pittsburg 27

Hell of a game. Could have gone either way. Biggest play of all was the 100 pick 6 to end the first half. But Pittsburgh earned it. Harumph.

• TV: So far, Sunday Ticket + 42″ HD x NFL = hot damn! I recognize that this indulgence in watching football could be seen as, I dunno, juvenile. However, the fact is that I love the NFL. To be able to choose fromt the full schedule of games, pick the ones I most want to watch, and record and watch them on a big fat crispy screen in Dolby surround …. I mean, wow! Not cheap, of course. But not a moment of doubt or regret (so far, at least!)
• Best new color guy: Brian Billick. He did the Saints game, which was the early game that I watched. Dude has chops. As a head coach, he was always one of the best, in terms of quips and cleverity, for post-game interviews. As a broadcaster, he brings the deep insight into stratgey and psychology that only a head coach is likely to have, and offers the kind insightful comments that you never get from all the John Madden wannabes that have dominated the second-tier broadcast booth teams for the past decade. Also, he seems to have decent chemistry with play-by-play guy Dick Stockton.
• Logo overload: Between the league logo neck shield, Gene Upshaw patch, American flag decals, special event memorial patches (Colts’ stadium opening), athletic apparel branding, helmet manufacturer, and acual team logo, the players’ uniforms have become almost unbearable to look at. Jesus H. Christ, what is next? TV screens on the side of the helmets?
• Trend alert: crazy eyeblack. Last week I noticed that lots of college players are wearing the band-aid-like eye-black patches with professionally printed text on them. Sure, no problem. This week, I saw at least five NFL players with eyeblack grease that looked more like war paint. It looks mean, I guess.
• Loose ends:
  - Play of the day: Reggie Bush’s 4th-quarter score, starting with a great catch, followed by some darting cuts, finished off by a wicked dive into the end zone. Dude has skills.
  - Matt Forte, rookie running back for Chicago, looked phenomenal against Indy. Too bad I didn’t start him on my fantasy team.
  - Lucas Oil Stadium: Wow. Why are all the good football stadiums other states? Also, cool first name.
  - Hyundai Genesis commercials: Yawn. Third rate Lexus riffing.
  - Other commercials: Skipped ‘em all! DVRs rule.

Oh yeah, I have a TV now. Did I mention that?

Heretofore, my political activism has been sporadic. In college, I didn’t do much, if anything. I attended rallies (we were faced with a bunch of anti-immigrant state initiatives back then), and probably signed a few petitions. In 2000, I campaigned for Al Gore in the last month of his campaign for the presidency. In 2002, I attended a few anti-war marches. Mostly, that was about it. Not much of a showing.

Then in 2006 I started getting my feet wet in the real work of activism. Thanks to prodding from my cousin Nicole – working at the time as an organizer for the Contra Costa County Democratic Party -  I spent a weekend canvassing door-to-door for – the first time I’d ever done work like that. It was a fantastic experience and one that convinced me of the value of doing the old ‘shoe leather’ kind of political work.

Since then, I have continued to remain active – in local Democratic events, fundraisers, campaigns, and party politics. It’s been a wonderful, and educational experience. And with each new experience, the fires are stoked and the sense of really taking part in the wider community, of taking responsibility for not just my own life but for our democracy as well, it is something that has value and meaning. And I want to do more.

What am I going to do?

I love what I do professionally, and I feel gratified that I have actively pursued and achieved a career in the field that I chose. It gives me pleasure, and I beyond being a profession, web design enables me to help my family and friends express themselves online, as well. I love that.

But there is more to do. I will soon be launching a political blog, and working on ideas for tools to help the netroots community spread our ideas. I expect there will be many long nights, a lot less free time, and possibly some moments of doubt as to what the heck I think I’m doing. But I know the value of and meaning in connecting with other people in my community and across the country who are working to create positive, progressive change for our world, for our future. And I mean to do my part.

I have moved residences umpteen times in my life (I shudder to ponder the actual number), and thus have been forced, on a semi-regular basis, to leave old, unused things behind. And as I have lived in small city apartments for most of the past 5 years, space limitations have further encouraged me to banish the types of possessions that people often hang on to: files, papers, jackets, broken furniture, dishes, whatever.

So it is with regularity that I troll the corners of my closet, ‘junk drawers’, or beneath my sofas, looking for those objects which no longer belong in my home. Often, it is hard to make the decision to discard an old hat, pair of shoes, or towel. “Hey, I might use that if (fill in the circumstance).” Of course, that never happens, and one just ends up with the same unused crap six months later.

Knowing this reality, I find it fairly easy to let go of the unused, or even minimally used bags of things that I compile every couple of months. Usually I take them to Goodwill, sometimes I just place them on the sidewalk (goodbye, crappy microwave!), and I have even been known to throw the junk in the garbage can (slightly guilty about that maneuver). Afterwards, though, I always feel better: lighter, more comfortable, more relaxed. I even sleep better.

Why is this? I don’t really know. Perhaps it provides balance to the more common behavior (consumption) that I engage in pretty much daily. Maybe it is a symbolic gesture that reinforces the emotional cleansing we also require. Or could it just be that my apartment feels more organized, less chaotic, and less cluttered than it did moments before. I think it is all of these things. But regardless, the good feeling reinforces the value of the behavior, which is why these periodic purges are now just part of my life, whether I’m moving or not.

—

A favorite quote, from a speech given by Yoko Ono in 1966:

I think it is nice to abandon what you have as much as possible, as many mental possessions as the physical ones, as they clutter your mind. It is nice to maintain poverty of environment, sound’ thinkina and belief. It is nice to keep oneself small, like a grain of rice, instead of expanding. Make yourself dispensable, like paper. See little’ hear little, and think little.

Urban co-housing

Vulva liberation

Light Wood

Toys for tots: a collection of information on toys

Jag söker job

Vegetarian inspiration

Over and out.

In other news:
• This morning while walking from my work parking garage to the office building, I saw two different men, in two different locations, peeing.
• For the geeks amongst us, this short video on what makes web2.0 is a delight

The dark flipside of this seemingly awesome compulsion was a near total inability to relax. So all the times I’d be at a happy hour, or a barbeque, or nightclub, or on a date, my mind was also busy reminding me of the precious and valuable time that I was, in some sense, wasting. I dealt with that anxiety for a period of several years until one day I made a conscious decision to start learning how to relax again – to be able to tell myself that it was OK to ‘waste’ an hour, or an afternoon, just doing nothing (at least nothing ‘productive’).

Changing my mindset was not easy. There I’d be, say, having a drink with friends, when I would have to tell myself (silently, in my head) “Rick, it is OK and it is NORMAL and it is HEALTHY for you to spend time just chillin’.” And, lo, over a period of months my attitude began to change. Eventually, I was able to watch a whole movie without reminding myself of an item to add to my ‘to do’ list or think about my schedule for the next day.

It was fabulously liberating. The sense of constant low-level anxiety that I’d been bearing for years was radically diminished and, after some time became pretty much extinguished. Victory! Right?

Well, not so much. See, my self-training worked better than I had hoped. Instead of learning to find time to relax, I taught myself to love to relax. So that mindset that had once turned my weeknight evenings and most of my weekends into design sessions, editing time, gym visits, and list-making has left in its void a lot of web-surfing, phone-chatting, and Tivo watching. I’m up-to-date on all my blogs, news, and RSS feeds, I’ve seen all the highlights of this weekend’s NFL playoffs (twice) and my iTunes playlists are on point. But my design business has kind of evaporated, my gym shoes are pristine, and I can’t recall the last time I worked on a Bad Seed Music project. (Also, I appear to have written a grand total of 2 blog posts since October.) And I’m sick of it. It’s time to change things again.

So this being that time of year of resoluteness and all…

Clearly, some sort of balance is what I really need. While I love the fact that I can check-out all my ‘productiveness’ compulsions – I don’t want to do that all the time. I have a bunch of things that I want to do in 2007, very few of which I will be posting on this site, but I will say this: I intend to re-ignite the fire, just not at both ends of my metaphorical candle.

This means, first of all, getting back to spending time doing web and graphic design. You will see my web design site and portfolio brought back to life within a month or two. Second, I will be cancelling my satellite TV signal. Sorry folks, I just can’t handle temptation. Last, I will be re-connecting with SGI. I need the organization in my life right now; I think it will help me find the balance that I need.

Sure, I have a longer list of goals here on my (stand up) desk, but for now this is where I am starting. Wish me luck