Andy Gapin Instagram

2010!

January 3, 2010 - 10:48 pm

First of all, I don’t get why everyone is hating on 2009 so much. I feel like people do this every year. One year ends and everyone hates on it saying it was terrible. But it’s the same routine every year. Maybe you have your reasons, but I bet some good shit happened to you too. Sure, a lot of celebrities died in 2009. A lot. But, you know what? You don’t know those people! Yes, it’s terrible for them and their families and friends and some of them probably brought some joy into your life through their work, but still, you don’t know them personally so don’t let that make you feel like it was a bad year. You know, if that’s your reason–hey! I’ve heard it! But that’s besides the point. Maybe that’s not your reason for hating 2009, maybe you’ve got some good personal reason and that’s fine. Maybe the recession hit you or your family hard. Fair enough. I’ll give you that, but I know one guy who would say that being laid off right in the beginning of the year was the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Anyway, the fact seems to be that people tend to hate on every year. A year ago, I was sick of everyone calling 2008 “tw0-thousand hate.” Now, I’m sick of everyone saying that 2010 better be better than 2009. People like to focus on the negative things.

I’m sure that if you think about it, there were plenty of good things that happened to you or that you did in 2009. I took up snowboarding, went sky diving for the first time, went to Paris and London, went to Chicago again, started dating the girl of my dreams, got more serious about running, spent and awesome weekend in New Hampshire with some great friends, saw a ton of great movies. The list goes on and on, but I’ll stop. There were some bad things that happened too–my dog dying being at the top of the list–and ultimately, the thing I wanted to do most in 2009 didn’t happen, but fuck it, why worry about that stuff if you don’t have to? And it’s funny, while I was going and grabbing those links back there–I had to sort through almost 200 posts from 2009–I realized that there was even more great stuff in 2009 that I had forgotten about. Hell, I went on a first date on Valentine’s Day only to never go on another date with the girl again. I totally had forgotten about that and that’s great story potential right there!

But anyway, this post is about 2010, right? Right. I think this is going to be a great year too. I hope so, at least. I’ve got some little goals. I’m going to be running my first half marathon, I’m going to Disney, I’m hoping to make good on my plan to one day move to Chicago, and I’m taking up photography. For Christmas, I got a beautiful Canon EOS t1i digital SLR. I don’t really know how to use it very well yet. I mean, I know what most of the buttons do and all that, but just getting my pictures to look decent is going to take a while. I’m really excited about it though. I’ve wanted to get a nice camera for years and years, but I was always afraid that I’d never use it because I wouldn’t want to carry the thing around all the time. Well, I got a over that. I take thousands and thousands of pictures on my little point-and-shoot, a Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS, and it’s great, but it definitely feels lacking. It will still get a ton of use, but there are plenty of times where I know ahead of time that I’m going to want to take some really nice photos. And those will be the times that I have my SLR with me. What I’m getting at here with the photography thing is that if all goes the way that I hope it does, I’ll have a lot of great pictures to post here. And post I will! I’m going to try to post more of other stuff as well this year, but we’ll see.

But for now, here are pretty much the best shots I’ve take so far with my camera. They’re all of my cat, but she makes for a great subject and the past couple of days have been way too cold and windy to go outside. Obviously, you can click them for larger versions.

Alright, so let’s go 2010! Woooo!


Celebrity deaths, who cares?

January 23, 2008 - 9:36 am

Yesterday at about 4:30pm, it seemed like the entire internet got taken over by Heath Ledger’s death. It was only an hour after he was found dead, yet almost every site had something about it. The message board that I post on everyday became pretty consumed by it. There were about a dozen threads. Some were serious discussions about it. Some were discussions about the upcoming Batman movie, Dark Knight, in which Heath Ledger plays the Joker. And then there were the parodies and jokes. CNN.com and MSNBC.com had huge banners at the top of their home pages with the headline.

Honestly, Heath Ledger dying is the most important news from yesterday?!? Nothing else happened? Nothing that might actually affect more than a few people? Anytime someone dies–well, unless they’re a douche–it’s sad and I feel for his family and friends, especially his two year old daughter, but really, he’s just a dude. His death means nothing more or less than anyone else’s death. Being famous shouldn’t mean that everything else stops when you die.

Unfortunately, in America, this is the news that sells. Americans care much more about celebrities’ lives than things that actually matter and affect them and other people around the world. We, as a population, would much rather be entertained than know what’s going on.

Sigh.