This Is Content Organized (tico)

1981 by Ben Lalisan Don’t care what you think, it was a...

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:30:37 -0500

1981 by Ben Lalisan

Don’t care what you think, it was a great year.

"We all tend to imagine that great things come from people doing great things, but I think most of..."

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 14:05:06 -0500

“We all tend to imagine that great things come from people doing great things, but I think most of the time great things come from people just fucking around.”

- Thing a Week Redux

Crystal Castles, Not In Love. Love it.

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 12:17:35 -0500

Crystal Castles, Not In Love.

Love it.

"While marriage has fallen among younger people, the probability of getting married at some point in..."

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:57:09 -0400

“While marriage has fallen among younger people, the probability of getting married at some point in life still remains at about 90%.”

- For Many Adults, Marriage Can Wait, Census Shows

"SELDOM has an election victory tasted so bitterly of defeat."

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:20:02 -0400

“SELDOM has an election victory tasted so bitterly of defeat.”

- Venezuela’s legislative elections: A Pyrrhic victory

Amen.

Travels Debrief

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 02:51:14 -0400

I’ve just spend a month traveling. It was basically a combination of fortunate smaller trips that together made a great one:

San Juan (Puerto Rico)

An island full of flavor. With a duality incorporated to every aspect of life: latins in a anglo-saxon context. Business potential that could be the beginning of something or the end of something even bigger. I’ll be back.

Miami/Boca Raton

Friends that are family and real family you see less than friends. Things have changed but the love remains the same. When you have no answers you might as well listen and learn. Hope I was quiet enough.

Boston/Gloucester:

Amazing how good memories can still make you sad. Still, great friend from different places. Best wedding speech I’ve ever heard —including movies—, thanks Jake.

Istanbul/Göcek/Athens:

Borrowed life, might as well enjoy it. Get some friends together and postpone all problems, what can go wrong? Exactly. Don’t forget reality, but leave it behind on this trip. Look around and just smile, it very rarely happens this easily.

London/Paris:

The meaning of family. Brady Bunch and Flounders combined on a happyfest. Blame globalization or politics, we where not designed for distance relationships. Europe reminds me of many things I miss, but also of a loneliness I don’t.

Back to reality, don't forget fantasy

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 18:07:00 -0400

Just wrote this to somebody as part of an email, but soon realized it applies to myself. I’m 3/4 of the way on a month-long trip, but as usual, I’m changed:

As you get back to the real world and laugh at what was said and try to forget what you think you heard; don’t throw all of it away.

Remember some of the crazy ideas, and —even more importantly— some really fascinating plans.

In any case, from traveling comes clarity. Don’t waste the investment.

This Is Not A Business Card

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:08:09 -0400

This Is Not A Business Card:

This week I got my new personal business cards. I went with COLOURLovers, This Is Not A Rainbow ready-mades from Moo.com.

I had two objectives:

Cards needed to be ready in a week.
The couldn’t look like they came from Staples.

Since the last time I designed my own business cards it took me about a week to have the design ready, I just choose the most colorful/conversation starting design I found.

Very happy with the results,for $22 (50 cards), I think they would do just fine.

Trailer for Somewhere by Sofia Coppola. The most beautiful...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:22:39 -0400

Trailer for Somewhere by Sofia Coppola.

The most beautiful trailer I’ve seen since the original Where the Wild Things Are one.

A Month in the US of A

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:58:51 -0400

Jumping over the Atlantic

It been about a month since I arrived in the US after leaving Norway.

The first week in Boston with my family was a welcomed vacation. The days leading to it where tiring mentally and emotionally and the safety of being with my parents and sister was uplifting.

Boston sans University

Boston holds a special place in my heart. My two years there where really amazing, and most corners have a fun memory attached to it. This was my first time after three visits that nostalgia didn’t get the best of me. I just looked back and smiled.

I like nostalgia. It’s usually is the result of a extremely happy memory that is not easily replicated. It does hurt a bit, but in a good way.

Grunge and Starbucks

After Boston it was off to Seattle, where the most concrete part of my almost non-existent current plan lies. The results won’t be seen for some time, but the trip was still worth it. It reminded me lots of Austin -with its yuppie feeling- and any city with such a great science fiction museum¹ gets my eternal love.

I finished reading Enders Game on top of the Space Needle, this is something I will never forget for some reason.While I don’t know the significance, someday I hope to find out (or make it up).

Train South

Since I was already on the West coast, and I still had the adventureness feeling that Wolf and Nav radiate, I decided not to fly straight to Miami and take a train to San Francisco.

The Coast Starlight boast a scenic route all the way down to Los Angeles. The views are pretty, and the train itself is not half-bad, but what it lacks in speed and amenities compared to any European train, it makes up for in the friendliness of almost every passenger.

I got to met some interesting people along the way, among them: a surfer dude on his way to pick up all his stuff to move back to Portland and help his mom, and older guy who reads Greek novels and visited Caracas 30 years ago, or a sad looking girl that really doesn’t seem to want the train to stop ever, but has a lot of Kindle questions.

I don’t know if I never tried hard enough in Norway, or if I was in a very touristy train ride, but I never experienced this easy friendliness back there.

The City, for a Day

Afterwards, San Francisco was as inviting as ever. A city that looks you in the eye and tells you:

“I know you don’t want to be a tourist; stay a while longer”.

But isn’t the right time yet, or so I hope.

Welcome to Miami

Bienvenido a Miami, a place too messy to be American, but too organized to be Latin. Accents, customs and food seem all-too-familiar, yet at the end of the day, it’s a very different place.

Everyone is pretty, too pretty. The boundaries of sexiness are pushed at both ends of the age range. Some want to start right away, and others don’t want it to ever end.

While people in Oslo seemed to be fit so they could enjoy life, here it seems that fitness is a byproduct of trying to be beautiful.

Facebook Live™

The good thing is that there are friends here, great ones. The Internet let’s people keep in touch, but distance matters and changes things. You need to see people, friends and family in real life, not just in HD or commenting on their photos.

✈ to Home 1.0

On Friday I head to Caracas. My best friend is getting married and I couldn’t be happier about his happiness.

Plans continue to happen around me, and it makes me a bit envious. But that doesn’t change that I like what I see.

I can’t recommend this museum enough if you like science fiction, it has an excellent collection of displays and stuff that would just seem important to geeks (the handwritten manuscript of Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle) ↩

Saint-Tropez → Andorra → Barcelona

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:38:29 -0400

Saint-Tropez → Andorra → Barcelona

Genoa → Saint-Tropez

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:29:03 -0400

Genoa → Saint-Tropez

Genoa

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:05:07 -0400

Genoa

Zurich → Genoa

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 05:50:31 -0400

Zurich → Genoa

Paris

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 20:36:32 -0400

Paris

Amsterdam

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 20:08:35 -0400

Amsterdam

Off to South Europe

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:25:04 -0400

Call it Europa, Continental Europe or whatever, over the next two weeks I’ll be backpacking and road-tripping around Amsterdam, Paris, Zurich, Genoa, St. Tropez, Barcelona and Madrid. With probably a few stops in between.

I’ll be going with some good friends, some new ones and visiting some old ones.

View Eurotrip 2010 in a larger map

Going to try some post along the way, depending on Wi-Fi availability and energy levels at the end of the day.

Press read more if you’re curious of my backpacking checklist, could be useful to someone else.

Clothes:

T-shirt
Long Sleeved shirt
Polo shirt
Sweater
Jackets
6 pairs of socks and underwear
Two pants
Hat
Shoes and sandals

Gadgets:

Camera
iPhone
extended battery w/light
Chargers and plug adaptor

Logistics:

Documents
emergency number, insurance, passport, flight details, , etc.
ATM and credit card
Some emergency cash
Wash kit:
shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant/antiperspirant and a toothbrush + razor
Sun glasses
1st aid/medicine kit

Tidbits:

Small Moleskine
Pen
Packet of tissues
Towel
Sleeping sac
Earplugs, eye mask

Carry:

Money belt
Mini padlock
Drawstring bag
Tie wraps
Backpack

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - Official Trailer This is exactly...

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:02:14 -0400

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - Official Trailer

This is exactly why I love watching trailers. With a tagline like:

An epic of epic epicness You can’t go wrong.

"3-D is a distracting, annoying, anti-realistic, juvenile abomination to use as an excuse for higher..."

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:11:21 -0400

“3-D is a distracting, annoying, anti-realistic, juvenile abomination to use as an excuse for higher prices.”

- Roger Ebert

Fantastic Mr. Fox is great

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:29:05 -0400

★★★★★

Loved this film. It’s typical a Wes Anderson movie done in animated stop-motion. If you like his style, then you are in for a great time.

I loved the whole feel of the movie, and the way Anderson makes you love flawed characters. As most of his films, there is no universal measure of good or bad, no real heroes or villians, just life, with people (and animals) experiencing it.

Highly recommended.