The JMS [NO SHOW]: Great St Patrick’s Day
Posted by Josh | Filed under Hope for the Future, The Josh Mormann Show
I hope you all had a great St Paddy’s Day like I did. Two pints of Guinness with Brigid at the Asgard in Cambridge. Good times, good times.
The JMS 105: All that Talk About Better Episodes?
Posted by Josh | Filed under Hope for the Future, The Josh Mormann Show
Something of a Friday Episode. My week dragged. I promise a good show Saturday, but I’ve decided not to post that episode. If you want it you’ll have to ask me for it, and I’ll post the MP3 somewhere for you ;)
Music Played:
* Love is a Place by Metric
* Wet Blanket by Metric
The JMS 001: Don’t Fire Your Receptionist
Posted by Josh | Filed under Ex Mormonism, Hope for the Future, Reciprocal Affection, The Josh Mormann Show
I rave about Tiki Bar TV, and rant about an old ex-friend’s terrible business sense.
Antsy, Bored, Busy, and Bound for Failure
Posted by Josh | Filed under Hope for the Future
I wish I could say that my lack of activity on the ol’ blog was due to an over abundance of drinking, and Guitar Hero III, but I can’t. Not only have I been cutting back on the spirits, but I have also decided against purchasing a gaming system just for the sake of GH3. The reason, and possible excuse for my reduction in blog production is the efforts I’m spending on another web project. Now, I’m not 100% pleased with where my efforts have gotten me yet, but I’m getting my ass back into podcasting, and for a number of reasons. I’m not really going to get into those reasons just yet, because I have learned that although it helps many people in society to tell others their personal goals, for the “keeps you honest” factor, I tend to find that I have the exact opposite to the desired result when I tell people my goals.
I have had such a history (going way back to my childhood) of not doing what I say I’m saying I’m going to do, if the project is personal. If it’s for someone else, I could tell anyone, and it will happen, but if I’m going to do it for me, all I have to do is tell someone about my idea, and the idea is as good as never considered in the first place. I don’t know where the break down is in my psychology, but I have just developed a habit of quiting all personal projects once the project has been voiced to someone other than myself. The notion of a personal project suddenly becomes a monumental mountain of boredom, as soon as I’ve talked it out to someone. I’ve even noticed that If I do something stupid, like tell myself in a mirror, or say it out loud in anyway, or write it down in too much detail somewhere (all things that self-help books recommend by the way) It’s the same as telling someone, and therefore an instant boredom barrier goes up between me and my personal goals.
I wish I know what caused it, or how it started. The worst part about it all is, that I can’t seem to help myself when it comes to telling people my plans. As much as it seems that telling someone is the exact thing causing, or leading to the break down, I tend to do it anyway, and often before I realize it. In fact I just told a friend of mine over IM all about the project, and it wasn’t until I stopped talking to her that I realized I had just committed the infamous personal project no-no.
So that’s why you have me blogging all of a sudden, in the middle of my project. Firstly, because now that I’ve told someone, I have time again to do anything but this project [because the personal project boredom has already begun], and Secondly, because writing this entry is my last ditch attempt to keeping my project alive. I figure if I tell the world I plan on failing, I’m bound to fail at failing, and possibly forever.
I hope it works, even if only for this one project, that I’m not going to tell you about.
I have a bit of time
Posted by Josh | Filed under Hope for the Future
I have been a bit lazy on this thing, haven’t I? Well I have about 5 minutes left of my lunch hour here at work, so I thought I’d post something quick.
Problem is, there really isn’t much to say. My hope is though, that this weekend I’ll be able to get “Click Nation Army” into email recruit mode, and that I’ll have the time to set up a meetup group in Somerville to kick things off. If all goes well, I’ll be getting some people signed up soon. The main trouble with Click Nation Army is going to be finding true recruits. I’ll be needing people with Blogs, Websites, and a knowledge of your standard Bookmarking web services, ie, reddit, digg, stumbleupon etc. I figure my main push to start off, will be training on these subjects rather than worrying about it too much. Offering screencasts could actually be a reasonable method of initial promotion of the program anyway.
If this sounds like a bunch of babble about something that makes little sense, it’s okay. I have yet to actually mention the CNA on this site yet formally, but since most readers of this site are close friends, it’s probably not a big deal yet, when traffic of this site builds, and when CNA opens, it will be time to share more, and I will add a link in this article to an article that explains it in plain English.
Finding good stuff these days…
Posted by Josh | Filed under Hope for the Future, Reciprocal Affection
For the past couple day’s worth of free (stolen) time, I’ve found myself with a greater desire to read someone else’s material rather than write out my own feelings or ideas, and here are a couple of the things I’ve been reading.
10 Articles that Changed my Life
By Shaun Boyd
This alone is a great read, but as you’ll notice, it will put on on many additional paths of great reading.
Real Men Love the Fifth Element
By The Viking
This just reminded me how good one of my favorite movies really is. It also had me thinking about how my father watched his favorite movie so many times that he found deeper and more specific reasons to love the film as he watched it. It had me thinking that I should dig deeper into the things I love more often.
Now how do I find my articles and Blogs and what not? I use PopURLs.com as my browser home page. It’s hard to get anything done when this puppy is set as your home page, but it’s worth the distraction.
A Good “Life Hack” to start with
Posted by Josh | Filed under Hope for the Future, Me, Meaningful Labor
Some really good advice and perhaps the best introduction to the concept of a life hack. Some of these ways go hand in hand with what I was saying in my last post, making me feel somewhat vindicated in my words, and some stand on their own, causing me to consider altering my points made just a little. You’ll notice though, that it’s worded like a collection of “that shalts” and “shalt nots,” and I find that interesting because it gives me food for a theory I plan on putting in essay form for you somewhere in the future, and that is that all laws and commandments are written with the intent to compel people to live good advice, rather than just being good advice. I have a lot of research yet to do, but I promise to site all my sources.
From the iPhone
Posted by Josh | Filed under Hope for the Future, Me
Well in fact I am not actually writing this from the iPhone at the moment. The point is though, that I will be. I have decided to keep taking the MBTA to work and save money a little longer before buying the car. I have so many things I’d like to do, that buying a car right now would really cramp my finances. I did however buy the premiere smart phone to take care of business while I ride. I have found that taking the train home is just enough (ordinarily) to lose any steam for trying to get my personal projects done. So now, between my laptop, and internet/phone connectivity, I should be able to get started on any of my personal projects before the MBTA lulls me to a TV-watching, beer-drinking stupor. The plan is that by the the inertia of getting at least something done while riding home, will be enough to over come the current standard of my effectiveness/lack thereof when I get home.
Oooh MT4… Okay Maybe Not
Posted by Josh | Filed under Hope for the Future, Meaningful Labor
I dropped MT4 after installation took me 4 hours to get nowhere. I don’t know what I hate more, the terrible install directions, or the fact that I can’t seem to set my permissions properly to get it to execute. I actually had to install using an old set of install directions to even get half way to nowhere. It took me way too long to remember just how “easy” MT is to install. TextPattern is EASY to install. The only thing I don’t like about TXP is the templates all being database entries. At least with MT I can have the service check for external template files.
I like to edit my templates as separate text files, because it’s just part of my workflow and the whole copy and paste bit isn’t cutting it for me. I know there are plugins, but I haven’t fallen in love with them yet. I like how it works in MT, well, I like how it used to work in MT…
sigh
Moving On
Posted by Josh | Filed under Ex Mormonism, Hope for the Future
I had the preceding article partially written for months in preparation to be posted on an older yet far more complete site of mine, but decided to move it for fear of shocking the larger number of relatively close family and friends. The commentary is still a work in progress, however I believe it states the balance of my mood for religion these days.
I feel, for the most part, religion is just theological government, that in the age of reason, has been replaced. Even though now politically/governmentally redundant it continues on memetically by fear of the unknown.
Religion has always been the scepter by which larger political powers would govern their people. By securing or otherwise establishing a High-Priesthood, or an âin-roadâ with God(s), Kings could rule and govern with greatly reduced policing. With fears of a lesser Here After experience, subjects of a an earthly kingdom/empire, would also police themselves as subjects of God.
Jesus was a revolutionary, and followers of his belief system were considered heretics, and traitors, and political demonstrators. He believed in higher personal laws, but often scoffed at the laws of the land. Early Christians were not what we think of today when we consider Christians. They were more like hippies seeking political reform. Eventually Jesus was made into Krishna-like Deity, and made into the Son of God we know of today but for purely political purposes.
Constantine never converted to Christianity, he converted Christianity itself into something more politically useful. Killing Christians for treason, and heresy gets old after a while, especially when they keep popping up. Unfortunately for any ruling entity, the general public can become obsessed with the idea of freedom if they can be convinced they donât have it in the first place. Thus making revolutions difficult to squelch. Killing their revolutionaries only fans the flames after a while. Christ was little more than a peaceful freedom fighter, but he was a popular one. Eventually it became necessary to adopt his name and modify Christâs story a bit, to suit the needs of Constantine and maintain the roman empire. Eventually making Christâs name along with newly re-purposed pagan symbolism the sign by which peopleâs freedoms were removed once and for all. Ultimately the Vatican and the catholic church are living artifacts of ancient Rome, they are merely the bloody stain left by the late Roman empire.
The general message of Jesus, âgovern yourself, be free, but be nice about it,â has been modified to make Jesus a God that died for our inefficiencies. A brilliant political move generating an eternal indebtedness of the general population to a man made all powerful by rewritten legacy. A hand puppet God made for and by Roman rule. Christianity, a mere puppet show to subdue and control the masses.
Speaking for God, until recently has been the ultimate method of the powerful, and megalomaniacal. Ironically, the poster-child for this sort of government has been a man that had tried to bring this sort of thing to a close two thousand years ago.
