One of my favorite parts:

6. An expresso machine ? Are you kidding me ? Shoot yourself before you spend money on an expresso machine.

For me, the most surreal moment was sitting in the infamous grotto having a drink with the guys. Such an amazing night.

If you don’t believe me, make sure to check out the pictures on flickr.

The face of Miami was literally changed by cocaine. They suspect that an insane 85% of urban development was in some way shape or form funded by drug money during the city’s rapid 1980’s growth.

On top of the Propeller stuff though I’ve started a project on the side that while I can’t share just yet, will absolutely blow people’s minds. It’s something that is very personal and that I am so so proud of, it’s hard to put into words. I can’t wait to show it off to the world.

So this all means that I’m pretty much working around the clock. Luckily it’s work that I really enjoy. Til next time.

I’m happy I watched both Undeclared and Freaks & Geeks for the first time AFTER I had become a fan of Jason Segel from How I Met Your Mother, because I don’t think I would have been able to look at him the same on that show. He’s very good at playing the slightly creepy, and too needy boyfriend on both. Hopefully that should make him a natural in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the new film by Apatow’s crew where he plays *drumroll* a slightly obsessive ex-boyfriend. See? Full circle.

I guess to this wasn’t a tedious enough task so I decided to watch American Gangster and Gone Baby Gone to help lighten the mood. A well thought out plan.

The basic premise is that after many years of being cosmically and karmically shat on, the alien race of the Skrulls have decided that they’re more or less owed Earth. Since they’re able to not only shapeshift, but also mimic superpowers, they’ve replace many of Marvel’s most prominent and powerful beings, sowing distrust and setting themselves up in places of influence. Leaving Earth ripe for the pickin’.

I don’t want to talk about specifics, but it had more than a couple “what the f*$%!!!” moments and left the landscape radically change after only this first issue. Again, this was only the first of eight main issues, with many more spinoffs, one-shots and crossunders to follow. I can’t wait. It felt very much like a season finale for a great TV show, but luckily we only have to wait a few weeks to get the next issue, not three months. I love comic books.

One day, I offered a number of children a basket filled with tangerines. The basket was passed around, and each child took one tangerine and put it in his or her palm. We each looked at our tangerine, and the children were invited to meditate on its origins. With some guidance, they began to visualize the blossoms in the sunshine and in the rain. Then they saw petals falling down and the tiny green fruit appear. The sunshine and the rain continued and the tiny tangerine grew. Now someone has picked it and the tangerine is here. After seeing this, each child was invited to peel the tangerine slowly, noticing the mist and the fragrance of the tangerine, and then bring it up to his or her mouth and have a mindful bite, in full awareness of the texture and taste of the fruit and the juice coming out. We ate slowly like that.

This story reminded me of when I was younger and would watch Mr. Rogers, or Sesame Street when they would take a visit to some big factory or show you the behind the scenes of how something worked and how cool those episodes were. I specifically remember Mr. Rogers visiting a crayon factory (which was particularly awesome because of all the bright colors and mess) and then later that day looking at my crayons and thinking how awesome it was knowing how they got there. I don’t know what I did after that because I can’t draw for shit, but it was cool knowing how the crayon had come to be.

Granted, it’s much easier to get into the state of amazement as a child, but I’ve been slowing down and trying to appreciate everything a little bit more today. I wish I could have found the crayon video, but most of the Mr. Rogers videos on YouTube are all prank call vids, so here’s a random episode that I found.

Mr. Rogers