Tag Archives: NetFlix

2012 Year In Review

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2012 is so over.  I have compiled a month-by-month list of the ‘Best of SPA/Waldina” and posted it below.  I love best/worst lists at the end of the year.  In fact, I included some that I found over the internet at the end of this post.  I hope 2013 is astonishingly kick ass for you.

Instagram. We love it. We hate it. I have chosen one photo of a moderately artsy nature (less faces and such) from each month of 2012. There is a link to my Instagram profile on the right-side navigation bar, I am parkeranderson.

JANUARY: A street mural in Puerto Vallarta.
MARCH: “Re-Bar” The photo booth where so many great memories have been captured over the last 20 years.
FEBRUARY: The photo booth at Re-Bar is responsible for some of my favorite memories for the last 20 years.
APRIL: “Push For Signal” We are the 99%, we are. I love the small messages that are placed everywhere in the city, I love that activism.
MAY: “Uh, what are you trying to say?” This was seen on a walk near the train yard in Interbay.
JUNE: “Drive in Movie” It is still a real experience, still exactly the same as you remember it.
JULY: “Pistachio Pac Man.” I found these little guys on the street when I was stepping out of the car.
AUGUST: “Moped a Go Go on the Ferry.” A group of 30 mopeds and scooters all got on the Vashon ferry with us, it was amazing.
SEPTEMBER: “However, the alley is free game and slightly cleaner.” Columbia City, keeping it classy as always.
OCTOBER: “The discarded wig at the CC Station is easing my transition to suburbia. #RoughNight” I do miss that wig.
NOVEMBER: “There goes the neighborhood. #haters #liars #crooks.” It’s true, they use their new-found born-again christian spirituality as a weapon against everything they disagree with.
DECEMBER: “I love how the glow of the street lights refract off the aluminum foil over the windows. #MobileMethLab” Seriously, I need to know what’s going on in there.

Now let’s take a look at my favorite blog post from each month.  Amongst all the Style Icons and Not So Secret Obsessions, I have chosen the ones that I like the most.  Or the ones that I think are worth a second look.  I may be re-fry some of them for 2013, but for now these are my favorites of 2012:

JANUARY:  Screwball – If you have a chance, you should see “Holiday.”  It is probably one of my very favorite screwball comedies, although choosing one is impossible.  You could just add everything that George Cukor directed to your Netflix and that is a great start.

FEBRUARY:  “Mrs de Florian – Style Icon” – For 70 years the Parisian apartment had been left uninhabited, under lock and key, the rent faithfully paid but no hint of what was inside.

MARCH:  “Open Letter To Politicians.” – I want to cast my vote for who I believe in the most, not for who I disagree with the least.

APRIL:  “Coffee: The Greatest Addiction Ever” – Every day the world consumes 300 tones of caffeine – enough for one cup of coffee for every man, woman and child.

MAY:  “Tornado” – Tragedy blows through your life like a tornado, uprooting everything, creating chaos. You wait for the dust to settle, and then you choose. You can live in the wreckage and pretend it’s still the mansion you remember. Or you can crawl from the rubble and slowly rebuild. Because after disaster strikes, the important thing is that you move on. But if you’re like me, you just keep chasing the storm.

JUNE:  “Forgetting Does Not Mean Forgiving: A Father’s Day Message” – Be the parent you wanted, not the one you had.

JULY:  “But I’ d rather know a shover than a pusher ’cause a pusher’s a jerk.” – I came to a realization this weekend.  It’s not that I don’t like children as much as it is I really don’t like some of their parents.

AUGUST:  “What Was Saved” – Your house is burning. You have to get out fast. Suddenly you are forced to prioritize, editing down a lifetime of possessions to a mere handful. Now you must decide: Of all the things you own, what is most important to you?

SEPTEMBER:  “The Art of Coffee: A Mad Men Era Short Film” – How, then, do we make the perfect cup of coffee to our taste? Success lies in a single word: Care.

OCTOBER:  “Karl Lagerfeld – Humanity’s Antagonist” – “What can you write that hasn’t been written already?”

NOVEMBER:  “Daily Prompt: Last Words (of Advice)” – “Never tell anyone you collect frogs.”

DECEMBER:  “Stick Figure Model Confidential – Fire” – I like the end results of the shoot and think that my work here will save lives.  That’s what it is all about, isn’t it?

2012 LISTS

Best Books of 2012 by GoodReads (voted by readers)

Ten Greats We Lost In 2012 by EOnline

Top Wikipedial Searches for 2012  by The Washington Post

The Most Compelling LGBT People of 2012 by The Huffington Post

Anti-LGBT Villains of 2012 by The Huffington Post

But this is by far the best of 2012:

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I didn’t have a picture of pilgrims, but I had a picture of pills.

 

Since a large portion of us still remember getting our first cordless home phone, and testing it’s boundaries by walking as far away from the base station as we could (ours worked all the way to the mailbox), it is understandable that we can get annoyed from time to time with how constantly connected we are now.   I do not need to know everything going on in everyone that I follow/friend always now, right now, 3 seconds ago.  The ever-so-slightly younger generations are used to this level of connectivity and do not find the minutia exhausting, it is kind of like an advanced filter or just plain old ADD, but they have managed to deal with the constant updates.  This is why I am thankful for these little helpers:

Nutshellmail sends an email of everything that’s happened on Twitter, FB and Linkedin since the previous message. It cuts off at a given point which you can set, so you won’t get everything. But you don’t need to see every post. Status updates, replies, comments, likes, everything can be done through links in the email (which take you to their site).

IFTTT seriously changed my online life and made it less online without being less.  Does that make sense?  It allows you to create “recipes” that you design yourself (or borrow from other users).  If you like to tweet everything you post on facebook, they will do it automatically for you.  If you want an email every time NetFlix adds new streaming movies, or a new LifeHaker DealHaker post is created, or to have your facebook status updates automatically tweeted, it is all done automatically.  Brilliant.  Do you want to know when the CDC reports a Zombie outbreak?  They got your back.  Oh, it stands for IF This Then That, since you are creating specific criteria that triggers the recipe to launch.
Thank World Wide Web

You’ve Got to Sell Your Heart

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Today is the Birthday of F. Scott Fitzgerald.  He is an oft-chronicled obsession here at waldina.com and for good reason:  his writing is crisp and style makes you feel glamorous and witty while you read it.  I have read everything by and about him that I can find, I even loved “Midnight in Paris” because of him.  I noticed recently that NetFlix has the 1973 “The Great Gatsby” on streaming, I will watch it tonight.
There are a few authors wh0se writing people will connect with, I think it is lucky to have “found” him early and have been able to think of his novels as close personal friends.
Raise a glass of champagne everyone, Happy Birthday, old sport.
Late-1938, eager to gain some feedback on her work, aspiring young author and Radcliffe sophomore Frances Turnbull sent a copy of her latest story to celebrated novelist and friend of the family, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Before long the feedback arrived, in the form of the somewhat harsh but admirably honest reply seen below.

November 9, 1938

Dear Frances:

I’ve read the story carefully and, Frances, I’m afraid the price for doing professional work is a good deal higher than you are prepared to pay at present. You’ve got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell.

This is the experience of all writers. It was necessary for Dickens to put into Oliver Twist the child’s passionate resentment at being abused and starved that had haunted his whole childhood. Ernest Hemingway’s first stories “In Our Time” went right down to the bottom of all that he had ever felt and known. In “This Side of Paradise” I wrote about a love affair that was still bleeding as fresh as the skin wound on a haemophile.

The amateur, seeing how the professional having learned all that he’ll ever learn about writing can take a trivial thing such as the most superficial reactions of three uncharacterized girls and make it witty and charming—the amateur thinks he or she can do the same. But the amateur can only realize his ability to transfer his emotions to another person by some such desperate and radical expedient as tearing your first tragic love story out of your heart and putting it on pages for people to see.

That, anyhow, is the price of admission. Whether you are prepared to pay it or, whether it coincides or conflicts with your attitude on what is “nice” is something for you to decide. But literature, even light literature, will accept nothing less from the neophyte. It is one of those professions that wants the “works.” You wouldn’t be interested in a soldier who was only a little brave.

In the light of this, it doesn’t seem worth while to analyze why this story isn’t saleable but I am too fond of you to kid you along about it, as one tends to do at my age. If you ever decide to tell your stories, no one would be more interested than,

Your old friend,

F. Scott Fitzgerald

P.S. I might say that the writing is smooth and agreeable and some of the pages very apt and charming. You have talent—which is the equivalent of a soldier having the right physical qualifications for entering West Point.

via Letters of Note: You’ve got to sell your heart.

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This is the Zodiac speaking – Not So Secret Obsessions

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I have seen probably every episode of all those crime reenactment shows on A&E.  I am endlessly fascinated with the whats/whys/hows of crimes.  I am not interested in doing them myself, but I am interested in what makes people think it’s OK to do it.  (Watch “God Bless America” on NetFlix to get an idea of what I am meaning if you don’t understand.  Watch it anyway, it is amazing.) The Zodiac Killer interests me because of the desire for notoriety, the need to prove intellectual superiority over the law enforcement attempting to catch him.

Below is just one of many letters sent to the San Fransisco Police Department by the self-titled Zodiac Killer, a person whose identity is still unknown. This particular taunt was received June 26, 1970. 5 deaths have been officially attributed to the Zodiac Killer whilst the killer claimed to have actually murdered 37 people. The case is still open.

This is the Zodiac speaking.

I have become very upset with the people of San Fran Bay Area. They have not complied with my wishes for them to wear some nice (symbol) buttons. I promised to punish them if they did not comply, by anilating a full School Buss. But now school is out for the summer, so I punished them in another way. I shot a man sitting in a parked car with a .38.

(Symbol) -12   SFPD – 0

The Map coupled with this code will tell you where the bomb is set. You have untill next Fall to dig it up.

The Wiki:

The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer’s identity is still unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women between the ages of 16 and 29 were targeted. The killer originated the name “Zodiac” in a series of taunting letters sent to the local Bay Area press. These letters included four cryptograms (or ciphers). Of the four cryptograms sent, only one has been definitively solved.

Numerous suspects have been named by law enforcement and amateur investigators, but no conclusive evidence has surfaced. In April 2004, the San Francisco Police Department marked the case “inactive”, yet re-opened the case at some point prior to March 2007.  The case also remains open in the city of Vallejo, as well as in Napa County and Solano County.  The California Department of Justice has maintained an open case file on the Zodiac murders since 1969.

ᔥ Letters of Note: This is the Zodiac speaking.

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