bakkheia

9.58s

2009-08-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

To put it in perspective, 100 meters in 9.58 seconds is like running an average speed of about 24 miles per hour. However, Bolt was accelerating for the first 20-30 meters, so its likely that his top end speed reached 30 miles per hour. Let me remind you, this man has two legs. Unglaublich.

A wise person is like a jazz musician, using the notes, but dancing around them

2009-08-09T22:08:00.000-07:00

Pretty brilliant points of interest (from Barry Schwartz's lecture):
1. A wise person knows how to make every exception to every rule
2. A wise person knows when and how to improvise
3. A wise person knows how to use these moral skills in the pursuit of the right aims
4. A wise person is made, not born (wisdom requires experience)
5. You don't need brilliance to be wise
6. Without wisdom, brilliance is simply not enough and is as likely to get you into trouble as anything else
7. Rules and procedures may be dumb, but they spare you from thinking
8. Neither rules nor incentives can substitute for trust in moral wisdom
9. Moral wisdom is composed of both moral will and moral skill
10. Moral skill is chipped away by an over-reliance on rules
11. Moral will is undermined by an incessant desire to adhere to rules
12. Rules or scripts and infallible adherence to them are "insurance policies" to prevent disaster. Even though they may insure against disaster, the stunt creativity and ensure mediocrity.
13. Rules are necessary, but too many rules erode moral skill and will.

LE "VIRTUAL" TOUR!

2009-07-11T22:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, so its our desire ('our' is of course synonymous with Megs and myself) to someday go to LE TOUR! No, not quite what you're thinking (blushing unstoppably). I mean, it is certainly flattering that you would consider us that fit (gold and spoils to you and your family!), but you'd be remiss to find we're no where close to that kind of shape (shame on you for believing!). So, because ice cream plays such a critical role in our well-being, we won't ever be racing in France (unless its on some sort of reality TV show). BUT, we do hope that someday we'll be watching this race LIVE, from its pebbled shoulders and mountainous overlooks. Since dreaming should not just be a phenomenon of REM sleep, I embed for you LE "VIRTUAL" TOUR DE FRANCE!

ASCHENHALLE!

2009-07-09T22:22:00.001-07:00

HOLY CLUTCH

2009-05-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the two-month hiatus! (I guess I'll blame the fabulous engagement news for jarring me out of blog rhythm! Plus, when your fiance equates your blog with weak sauce, it gets personal.)

My first post since March has to appropriately feature the King himself. Just watch in awe.

GETTIN' HITCHED!!!!

2009-03-25T18:18:00.000-07:00

Got engaged in Cesky Krumlov (Czech Republic) this past weekend! Stay tuned for more soon!!!

Take away

2009-03-02T06:43:00.000-08:00

Usually, nothing good comes out of having your car towed (especially if you were supposed to have already learned your lesson - car towed twice in two months). But, I am a half-glass full type of guy. So, here is what happened. I was working late at the university (as usual) and came home around 3:30 AM. Home is NE Minneapolis. So, I pull up onto the even side of the street and, probably a tad tired, didn't notice any one-sided street parking (as is often the case in a snow emergency). Like a clueless idiot, I just meandered into my apartment. With aspirations to wake up super-early, I cooked lunch for the next day (or later that day) and fell asleep on the couch. I woke up four hours later, only to yet again not think about the plows that were probably sweeping the street that was out front. I started studying for the day's exam and decided I was going to take it easy until the time of the test. Three hours later, it was around noon and about time to head out. My statistics exam was to be taken on the St. Paul campus at 12:50, so I had better leave earlier than usual. I was thinking, .."boy, it'll be nice, I'll leave around 12:10, get there around 12:30 and have like 15-20 minutes to settle in, organize my thoughts and channel some energy! I have it all planned out!" So, I actually ended up stepping out of the apartment around 12:15 only to notice a light bulb was about to blind-side me: "OMG! (I thought) I'll bet a catholic school full of nuns that my car has been towed!" So, I cringed and ran out to the street. "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!", I screamed. Then, I shrilled in anxiety. "Ah, man, my test!" So, I panicked. I started calling person after person, friend after friend, I even thought about calling Megs for a second (which would be reeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaallly helpful, yeah), but no one was answering. Except for one person, that is. My mom. I had remembered that she was planning to come to Minneapolis for a doctor's appointment for around 1 PM, so I told her, "say, ma', is there any chance that you could come pick me up now?". She tells me, "sure, but why?". I explain to her the situation and she panics, you know, like mothers panic when their child does something terribly stupid. She ends up leaving her work (which is in St. Paul, mind you) to come pick me up in Minneapolis to then take me to St. Paul again (whew!). At that point, I start walking. Not sure exactly where I was going, but I thought I should try to go somewhere. 12:24: I call my mom back. "Mom, just wondering where you are?". She replies, "Just leaving St. Paul, will be there in like 15, maybe?" I feel a little, itty-bitty lump in my throat and mom can sense it. She says, "But, you're okay, right? You said your test is at 1:50?". My jaw drops just a tad and I remind my mom of the dire straits I have found myself in. "12:50, mom. My test is in 25 minutes!" I almost jumped in front of a moving car. Not because I wanted to kill myself (come on, it's only a test), but because I had dazed off, walked across the street during a red light. I keep walking and I make it to the British Petroleum (BP) on the corner of University Ave. and 10th St. I call my mom, she is not answering. "Great", I'm thinking. She probably stopped to ask for directions. Okay, just kidding, I didn't actually think she stopped for directions (I mean, this was no road trip). She calls me, I swing around, there she is. I jump into the car and the first thing my mom says is, "That's all you're wearing, where is your coat?!" She was referring to my me only wearing my favorite patagonia long-sleeves, but I countered, "hey, look at this (pointed to neck), see...I am wearing a scarf, so all that cold is is being warmed up all the way down to my lungs, mother." Like that was the most important thing in the world right now. C'mon, it was 12:42, we were in Minneapolis and my test was in 8 minutes on the other campus! We drove, my mom was a maniac. Nonetheless, it seemed like torture. Every possible traffic light turned red, every slow driver seemed not to be turning off the road we were on. 12:56: We made it. I walked into the room, everyone looked up (yes, everyone). The professor, sitting in the front, held out my test as if he were passing me a lunch tray. I take it from him and lean in, "Uh, so, I had car troubles this morning." Sort of like the being-late-to-your-test equivalent to 'my dog ate my homework'. I walked to the next available seat, slowly. A few of my fellow students peeked up, I took my time. Started reading the instructions to the exam while un-wrapping my scarf, then finally sat down with around 40 minutes remaining. To be continued...

Hail to the king

2009-02-14T23:28:00.000-08:00

Late-night blogging calls for two ridiculous Lebron commercials, this one and than this one.

No surprises here

2009-02-14T21:16:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentime's Day!!!

Oh, yeah, your lenses aren't blurry, Valentine's with a nice little "m" in place of the overly-popular "n". Well, we're trend-setters here, plus we empathise with those foreign nationals (i.e., 'English is my second language') that say 'time's instead of 'tine's. You read it all here first.

This is a major blog-o-shout-out to my Valentime. For those of you who may not know Megs as well or simply don't know what I see in her, here's a brief introduction:

Eye from Thomas Suszynski on Vimeo.

Now, Megs isn't just cheap entertainment for me. It goes way beyond her acting out monkey tantrums or mocking poor Italian street performers. She is the love of my life. Gag, I know, but it's true. In fact, it couldn't be more true. In this spirit, I salute her with another video-recording:

Valentime Cheer from Thomas Suszynski on Vimeo.

There you have it, folks. Short, sweet, simple and a wee-bit frenzied, all what bakkheia has ever been made of.

P.S. For those of you yearning for more, I promise there will be another blog entry, someday in the near, that will acquaint you with our beautiful love story. 'Til then, I leave you with a song dedication for my Valentime.

REMNANT.

2009-02-10T16:06:00.000-08:00

I call this one 'Remnant' and I f-in love it. Actually, it is more like REMNANT (period), only because it gives off this strength that only bold capital lettering and a strong, firmly placed period can capture. Maybe sometime tomorrow in the afterlunch, I'll run a copy of it at ProEx, frame it and then find someone to gift it to. Oh, before I forget; So, if you SEE a different title for this drawing (okay, so I also grafikked it a bit, ...but just a bit), leave a suggestion as a comment. The original colour-penciled drawing is actually going to be published/printed along with a review article that I am still writing.

Flea and fly flew through a flaw in the flue

2009-02-09T12:37:00.000-08:00

I am still fighting off a creative binge hangover, so I post another one, this one being my (and Megs') favorite limerick (by Ogden Nash). Voile, people!

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "let us flee!"
"Let us fly!" said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

Bees knees

2009-02-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

So, I wasn't joking about posting a haiku. I didn't come up with this one, but someone whose really clever or has a premium Netflix package of sorts (ahem!) may very well figure out where this poem comes from. Here it goes.

Worker bees can leave
Even drones can fly away
The queen is their slave

Welcome video-cast!

2009-02-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

Welcome to bakkheia! from Thomas Suszynski on Vimeo.

The meaning behind the meaning.

2009-02-07T14:32:00.000-08:00

Just to do the title of my blog justice, I should do a tad bit of explaining. The word bakkheia derives from Bacchus (or Dionysus), the liberator, the patron of agriculture and theater, the god of wine. He was known for inducing BAKKHEIA, a frenzy, like a freeing of oneself through madness, drinking and ecstasy. For those of you that know me, ...very nice.

Now, with this blog you should expect everything and everything. Video diary-ing galore, commentary, photographs, satire, blah, blah, BLAH and, of course, much grafikking (see link)

Try to keep up with me. I double-double dare you.

2009-02-04T13:06:00.000-08:00

This blog will be frenzy, stay-tuned.