"The Carnival of the Animals" (Instrumental Introduction)
"Aphrodite"
"The One"
"Wow"
"Illusion"
"I Believe in You"
"Cupid Boy"
"Spinning Around"
"Get Outta My Way"
"What Do I Have to Do?"
"Everything Is Beautiful"
"Slow"
"Confide In Me"
"Can’t Get You Out of My Head"
"In My Arms"
"Looking For an Angel"
"There Must Be an Angel (Playing With My Heart)"
"Love at First Sight" (contains elements of "Can't Beat The Feeling")
"If You Don’t Love Me"
"Better the Devil You Know"
"Better Than Today"
"Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love)"
Encore
"On a Night Like This"(contains elements of "Heaven")
"All the Lovers"
20 May 2011
WTF?!?!
It's a huge shallow pool, and there are definitely a lot of candidates to sift through without delving too deep into the parodies. There are a couple of parodies here (since there are some YouTube phenoms that have based their entire existence on gaying up hit songs) that are actually pretty good. And of course the gay porn stars trying to jump into a music career and the perennial gay faves like Ultra Nate. Enough flaming going on here to burn your body hair off.
Here are a few of the gayest videos produced EVA.
Here are a few of the gayest videos produced EVA.
WTF from Matt Zarley on Vimeo
05 May 2011
The problem is....
- Christianity along with all other theistic belief systems is the fraud of the age.
- It serves to detach the species from the natural world, and likewise each other.
- It supports blind submission to authority.
- It reduces human responsibility to the effect that ‘god’ controls everything and in turn, awful crimes and great successes can all be justified in the name of the divine pursuit.
- most importantly, it empowers those who know the truth but use the myth to manipulate and control societies.
- The religious myth is the most powerful device ever created, and basically serves as the psychological soil upon which other myths can flourish.
- In the deeper sense, and the religious sense, a myth serves as an orienting and mobilizing story for the people. The focus is not on the stories relationship to reality, but on its function. A story cannot function unless it is believed to be true in the community or the nation. It is not a matter of debate, if some people have the bad taste to raise the question of the truth in the ‘sacred story’ the keepers of the faith do not enter into debate with them. They ignore them, or denounce them as blasphemous.
- It serves to detach the species from the natural world, and likewise each other.
- It supports blind submission to authority.
- It reduces human responsibility to the effect that ‘god’ controls everything and in turn, awful crimes and great successes can all be justified in the name of the divine pursuit.
- most importantly, it empowers those who know the truth but use the myth to manipulate and control societies.
- The religious myth is the most powerful device ever created, and basically serves as the psychological soil upon which other myths can flourish.
- In the deeper sense, and the religious sense, a myth serves as an orienting and mobilizing story for the people. The focus is not on the stories relationship to reality, but on its function. A story cannot function unless it is believed to be true in the community or the nation. It is not a matter of debate, if some people have the bad taste to raise the question of the truth in the ‘sacred story’ the keepers of the faith do not enter into debate with them. They ignore them, or denounce them as blasphemous.
28 March 2011
My thoughts exactly
I love this comment from Clusterfuck Nation this morning. It's how I feel, EXACTLY. The comments were made on the topic of James Howard Kunstler's review of Charles Ferguson's documentary, Inside Job.
Jim, I tend to agree with you that our B-schools produce a lot of blinkered thinking:
"shameless academic mandarins caught on camera trying to weasel out of their greed-driven misdeeds"
On the other hand, last week I had lunch with a prominent academic economist. He shocked everyone at the table with his belief that our economic system, since long before the Crash, has been based on hallucinations and that the "recovery" is as fragile as a 100-year-old dowager with a bad cough.
He did not sleep the week after the Japan catastrophe. He also believes that it will only take one such event to lead to a new and deeper Crash, including an American default. It does not make the papers, he noted, that the Fed is quietly buying back Chinese-held US debt so keep America from collapsing. China has lost faith in the idea that American debt is worth a thing, he claimed. We just don't know it yet.
He says to watch two indicators: the value of the dollar vs. a market-basket of other currencies, and the price of oil, to see where the nation is going.
And yes, he understands and accepts the premises of Peak Oil. Maybe we'll get a new breed of economists in a future who understand scarcity and help others understand it. If we have universities.
Over lunch this guy stunned his listeners (but not me) by saying it's over, essentially. His students don't want to believe him when he tells them "the US will have to default on its debt. There is no way to repay it through either tax hikes or spending cuts. We are screwed."
Those Millennials had best learn some 19th century skills and stop texting on their smart phones.
I'll only disagree with you on one count: we may, in time, see Bernanke and his ilk less as cowards and shills and more as sad and doomed figures who knew the lumpenproletariat were not ready for the hard truth.
I think these financial kingpins in government will be recalled, in whatever histories we write in 200 years, as desperate men who tried to prop up a doomed system, based upon promises and emptiness, that took them down with it.
07 March 2011
22 February 2011
15 Styles of Distorted Thinking
1. Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them, while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. A single detail may be picked out, and the whole event becomes colored by this detail. When you pull negative things out of context, isolated from all the good experiences around you, you make them larger and more awful than they really are.
2. Polarized Thinking: The hallmark of this distortion is an insistence on dichotomous choices. Things are black or white, good or bad. You tend to perceive everything at the extremes, with very little room for a middle ground. The greatest danger in polarized thinking is its impact on how you judge yourself. For example-You have to be perfect or you're a failure.
3. Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again. 'Always' and 'never' are cues that this style of thinking is being utilized. This distortion can lead to a restricted life, as you avoid future failures based on the single incident or event.
4. Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you. Mind reading depends on a process called projection. You imagine that people feel the same way you do and react to things the same way you do. Therefore, you don't watch or listen carefully enough to notice that they are actually different. Mind readers jump to conclusions that are true for them, without checking whether they are true for the other person.
5. Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start "what if's." What if that happens to me? What if tragedy strikes? There are no limits to a really fertile catastrophic imagination. An underlying catalyst for this style of thinking is that you do not trust in yourself and your capacity to adapt to change.
6. Personalization: This is the tendency to relate everything around you to yourself. For example, thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc. The underlying assumption is that your worth is in question. You are therefore continually forced to test your value as a person by measuring yourself against others. If you come out better, you get a moment's relief. If you come up short, you feel diminished. The basic thinking error is that you interpret each experience, each conversation, each look as a clue to your worth and value.
7. Control Fallacies: There are two ways you can distort your sense of power and control. If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you. Feeling externally controlled keeps you stuck. You don't believe you can really affect the basic shape of your life, let alone make any difference in the world. The truth of the matter is that we are constantly making decisions, and that every decision affects our lives. On the other hand, the fallacy of internal control leaves you exhausted as you attempt to fill the needs of everyone around you, and feel responsible in doing so (and guilty when you cannot).
8. Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what's fair, but other people won't agree with you. Fairness is so conveniently defined, so temptingly self-serving, that each person gets locked into his or her own point of view. It is tempting to make assumptions about how things would change if people were only fair or really valued you. But the other person hardly ever sees it that way, and you end up causing yourself a lot of pain and an ever-growing resentment.
9. Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem. Blaming often involves making someone else responsible for choices and decisions that are actually our own responsibility. In blame systems, you deny your right (and responsibility) to assert your needs, say no, or go elsewhere for what you want.
10. Shoulds: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you, and you feel guilty if you violate the rules. The rules are right and indisputable and, as a result, you are often in the position of judging and finding fault (in yourself and in others). Cue words indicating the presence of this distortion are should, ought, and must.
11. Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid or boring, then you must be stupid and boring. If you feel guilty, then you must have done something wrong. The problem with emotional reasoning is that our emotions interact and correlate with our thinking process. Therefore, if you have distorted thoughts and beliefs, your emotions will reflect these distortions.
12. Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them. The truth is the only person you can really control or have much hope of changing is yourself. The underlying assumption of this thinking style is that your happiness depends on the actions of others. Your happiness actually depends on the thousands of large and small choices you make in your life.
13. Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities (in yourself or others) into a negative global judgment. Global labeling ignores all contrary evidence, creating a view of the world that can be stereotyped and one-dimensional. Labeling yourself can have a negative and insidious impact upon your self-esteem; while labeling others can lead to snap-judgments, relationship problems, and prejudice.
14. Being Right: You feel continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness. Having to be 'right' often makes you hard of hearing. You aren't interested in the possible veracity of a differing opinion, only in defending your own. Being right becomes more important than an honest and caring relationship.
15. Heaven's Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You fell bitter when the reward doesn't come as expected. The problem is that while you are always doing the 'right thing,' if your heart really isn't in it, you are physically and emotionally depleting yourself.
*From Thoughts & Feelings by McKay, Davis, & Fanning. New Harbinger, 1981. These styles of thinking (or cognitive distortions) were gleaned from the work of several authors, including Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, and David Burns, among others.
2. Polarized Thinking: The hallmark of this distortion is an insistence on dichotomous choices. Things are black or white, good or bad. You tend to perceive everything at the extremes, with very little room for a middle ground. The greatest danger in polarized thinking is its impact on how you judge yourself. For example-You have to be perfect or you're a failure.
3. Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again. 'Always' and 'never' are cues that this style of thinking is being utilized. This distortion can lead to a restricted life, as you avoid future failures based on the single incident or event.
4. Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you. Mind reading depends on a process called projection. You imagine that people feel the same way you do and react to things the same way you do. Therefore, you don't watch or listen carefully enough to notice that they are actually different. Mind readers jump to conclusions that are true for them, without checking whether they are true for the other person.
5. Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start "what if's." What if that happens to me? What if tragedy strikes? There are no limits to a really fertile catastrophic imagination. An underlying catalyst for this style of thinking is that you do not trust in yourself and your capacity to adapt to change.
6. Personalization: This is the tendency to relate everything around you to yourself. For example, thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc. The underlying assumption is that your worth is in question. You are therefore continually forced to test your value as a person by measuring yourself against others. If you come out better, you get a moment's relief. If you come up short, you feel diminished. The basic thinking error is that you interpret each experience, each conversation, each look as a clue to your worth and value.
7. Control Fallacies: There are two ways you can distort your sense of power and control. If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you. Feeling externally controlled keeps you stuck. You don't believe you can really affect the basic shape of your life, let alone make any difference in the world. The truth of the matter is that we are constantly making decisions, and that every decision affects our lives. On the other hand, the fallacy of internal control leaves you exhausted as you attempt to fill the needs of everyone around you, and feel responsible in doing so (and guilty when you cannot).
8. Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what's fair, but other people won't agree with you. Fairness is so conveniently defined, so temptingly self-serving, that each person gets locked into his or her own point of view. It is tempting to make assumptions about how things would change if people were only fair or really valued you. But the other person hardly ever sees it that way, and you end up causing yourself a lot of pain and an ever-growing resentment.
9. Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem. Blaming often involves making someone else responsible for choices and decisions that are actually our own responsibility. In blame systems, you deny your right (and responsibility) to assert your needs, say no, or go elsewhere for what you want.
10. Shoulds: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you, and you feel guilty if you violate the rules. The rules are right and indisputable and, as a result, you are often in the position of judging and finding fault (in yourself and in others). Cue words indicating the presence of this distortion are should, ought, and must.
11. Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid or boring, then you must be stupid and boring. If you feel guilty, then you must have done something wrong. The problem with emotional reasoning is that our emotions interact and correlate with our thinking process. Therefore, if you have distorted thoughts and beliefs, your emotions will reflect these distortions.
12. Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them. The truth is the only person you can really control or have much hope of changing is yourself. The underlying assumption of this thinking style is that your happiness depends on the actions of others. Your happiness actually depends on the thousands of large and small choices you make in your life.
13. Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities (in yourself or others) into a negative global judgment. Global labeling ignores all contrary evidence, creating a view of the world that can be stereotyped and one-dimensional. Labeling yourself can have a negative and insidious impact upon your self-esteem; while labeling others can lead to snap-judgments, relationship problems, and prejudice.
14. Being Right: You feel continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness. Having to be 'right' often makes you hard of hearing. You aren't interested in the possible veracity of a differing opinion, only in defending your own. Being right becomes more important than an honest and caring relationship.
15. Heaven's Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You fell bitter when the reward doesn't come as expected. The problem is that while you are always doing the 'right thing,' if your heart really isn't in it, you are physically and emotionally depleting yourself.
*From Thoughts & Feelings by McKay, Davis, & Fanning. New Harbinger, 1981. These styles of thinking (or cognitive distortions) were gleaned from the work of several authors, including Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, and David Burns, among others.
10 February 2011
03 February 2011
Scottish Compassion
A man was sitting on a blanket at the beach. He had no arms and no legs.
Three women, from England, Wales, and Scotland, were walking past and felt sorry for the poor man.
The English woman said "Have you ever had a hug?" The man said "No," so she gave him a hug and walked on.
The Welsh woman said, "Have you ever had a kiss?" The man said, "No," so she gave him a kiss and walked on.
The Scottish woman came to him and said, "'ave ya ever been fucked, laddie?"
The man broke into a big smile and said, "No".
She said, "Aye, ya will be when the tide comes in."
Three women, from England, Wales, and Scotland, were walking past and felt sorry for the poor man.
The English woman said "Have you ever had a hug?" The man said "No," so she gave him a hug and walked on.
The Welsh woman said, "Have you ever had a kiss?" The man said, "No," so she gave him a kiss and walked on.
The Scottish woman came to him and said, "'ave ya ever been fucked, laddie?"
The man broke into a big smile and said, "No".
She said, "Aye, ya will be when the tide comes in."
23 January 2011
Burns Night
Love In the Guise of Friendship
Talk not of love, it gives me pain,
For love has been my foe;
He bound me in an iron chain,
And plung'd me deep in woe.
But friendship's pure and lasting joys,
My heart was form'd to prove;
There, welcome win and wear the prize,
But never talk of love.
Your friendship much can make me blest,
O why that bliss destroy?
Why urge the only, one request
You know I will deny?
Your thought, if Love must harbour there,
Conceal it in that thought;
Nor cause me from my bosom tear
The very friend I sought.
Tragic Fragment
All devil as I am-a damned wretch,
A hardened, stubborn, unrepenting villain,
Still my heart melts at human wretchedness;
And with sincere but unavailing sighs
I view the helpless children of distress:
With tears indignant I behold the oppressor
Rejoicing in the honest man's destruction,
Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime. -
Ev'n you, ye hapless crew! I pity you;
Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity;
Ye poor, despised, abandoned vagabonds,
Whom Vice, as usual, has turn'd o'er to ruin.
Oh! but for friends and interposing Heaven,
I had been driven forth like you forlorn,
The most detested, worthless wretch among you!
O injured God! Thy goodness has endow'd me
With talents passing most of my compeers,
Which I in just proportion have abused-
As far surpassing other common villains
As Thou in natural parts has given me more.
Talk not of love, it gives me pain,
For love has been my foe;
He bound me in an iron chain,
And plung'd me deep in woe.
But friendship's pure and lasting joys,
My heart was form'd to prove;
There, welcome win and wear the prize,
But never talk of love.
Your friendship much can make me blest,
O why that bliss destroy?
Why urge the only, one request
You know I will deny?
Your thought, if Love must harbour there,
Conceal it in that thought;
Nor cause me from my bosom tear
The very friend I sought.
Tragic Fragment
All devil as I am-a damned wretch,
A hardened, stubborn, unrepenting villain,
Still my heart melts at human wretchedness;
And with sincere but unavailing sighs
I view the helpless children of distress:
With tears indignant I behold the oppressor
Rejoicing in the honest man's destruction,
Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime. -
Ev'n you, ye hapless crew! I pity you;
Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity;
Ye poor, despised, abandoned vagabonds,
Whom Vice, as usual, has turn'd o'er to ruin.
Oh! but for friends and interposing Heaven,
I had been driven forth like you forlorn,
The most detested, worthless wretch among you!
O injured God! Thy goodness has endow'd me
With talents passing most of my compeers,
Which I in just proportion have abused-
As far surpassing other common villains
As Thou in natural parts has given me more.
10 January 2011
20 December 2010
A Little Running Ditty
They say that running's good for you
So do it every day
It makes the sun shine in your heart
It pushes clouds away!
The more you run, the more you'll smile
`til people stop and stare.
They'll ask you what the magic is...
Perhaps the clothes you wear?
Even when your legs are sore,
When you can barely move...
Get out of bed, you sleepy head,
And find your running groove.
Ignore the doctors when they say
To listen to your body...
For if you do, it screams and yells,
And says "take up karate!"
Achilles Tendons, they will whine,
And Plantar says "Don't go!"
Hips and knees will plead with you
They're not your friend but foe!
Unless they're black or falling off,
Nails are rather dumb!
Who needs nails? They are a waste
of precious calcium.
Just tune it out, the whole damn thing
From toe to empty head.
For if you listen, you'll be found
Alone and sad in bed.
Your ass will fill with fatty cells,
Your belly it will swell,
Your lungs will shrink,
You'll lose your dink
Your feet will really smell!
So run, run, run, You Dicks and Janes,
Put on those shorts and shoes!
At Seven Miles you'll find those smiles
Have pushed away the Blues!
So do it every day
It makes the sun shine in your heart
It pushes clouds away!
The more you run, the more you'll smile
`til people stop and stare.
They'll ask you what the magic is...
Perhaps the clothes you wear?
Even when your legs are sore,
When you can barely move...
Get out of bed, you sleepy head,
And find your running groove.
Ignore the doctors when they say
To listen to your body...
For if you do, it screams and yells,
And says "take up karate!"
Achilles Tendons, they will whine,
And Plantar says "Don't go!"
Hips and knees will plead with you
They're not your friend but foe!
Unless they're black or falling off,
Nails are rather dumb!
Who needs nails? They are a waste
of precious calcium.
Just tune it out, the whole damn thing
From toe to empty head.
For if you listen, you'll be found
Alone and sad in bed.
Your ass will fill with fatty cells,
Your belly it will swell,
Your lungs will shrink,
You'll lose your dink
Your feet will really smell!
So run, run, run, You Dicks and Janes,
Put on those shorts and shoes!
At Seven Miles you'll find those smiles
Have pushed away the Blues!
08 December 2010
Ah, Memories
This will be remembered at one of the pinnacles in Vancouver's history! What an amazing time it was; it's very hard to believe it was almost a year ago already.
12 November 2010
08 July 2010
01 July 2010
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