Pretty flowers

I found these lovely plants with their lovely reds and purples and greens. The were in a spot either welcoming me to Evanston or Northwestern's Campus (or maybe the downtown Evanston area). They were just really bright and cheerful so I took a few photos :)

The photos didn't come out as well as I'd like but you still get to see them since I liked them. The two that didn't get thumbnailed are here and here

Can anyone tell me what these are? (Perennials?)

Totally off topic: So sometimes when it's late and I can't sleep I'll occasionally take a sleeping pill, I don't do this too often but my schedule is a little off so I needed to get to sleep. The point of this is that it makes me a little loopy and when I opened the draft of this post this morning this is how it read, “I found these lovely plantsa wwith their lovely reds and purple and green. The were in aspot that made me think they cow accopmplisment and would you survive.” So it has some typing and grammar issues but those last four or five words really confuse me. Fortunately they must have been enough for me to not hit post :)

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Posted by Gary on Monday at 11:26 AM on July 4, 2005.
Related categories: general, me + myself + i, photos
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You can be in a movie trailer!

So this is kinda different you can put yourself (and an optional friend) in the trailer for Wedding Crashers. You upload your photo and they superimpose it on Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Vince Vaughn, Isla Fisher or Christopher Walken. The move the mouth as it talks and everything. You just need a head shot and it crops out the background and everything. Plus you can save/e-mail it to your friends!

I'm not saying this is War of the Worlds special effects or anything, but it's entertaining...

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Posted by Gary on Monday at 9:56 PM on July 4, 2005.
Related categories: general, money, movies
Thanks for the 1 comments/trackbacks from: TIARE
Gary Said... http://garysaid.com/

Does Freedom=Happiness?

So I don't want to complain too much and this post has mutated into something way different that what I started with. But I'm the devil's advocate and every time I sung a praise for today and the country I had a “but” pop up. So read on if you want some rambling related to safety, happiness, taking things for granted and the US. Maybe I'm just bitter that it rained and there weren't any fireworks tonight...

So I live in the United States of America. We've really got it made here (we really do), I can't complain too much (but I'm going to whine a little). We've got so many freedoms everyone takes it for granted. We have so many freedoms we give the benefit of the doubt to the criminals and while many fall through the cracks it's still a pretty safe place to be.

I'm extra happy today because I think this is the one of the few holidays since the fall of 2001 where we haven't been on high alert or if we are everyone is taking it for granted and it is “old news”. I think we take a lot for granted these days and it's not good. If we take it for granted how can it make us happy?

I'm not happy with everything the people in charge do but in general they keep it moving along pretty well (and since I don't do much about it other than vote so I really shouldn't complain). It's generally just the bad or stupid stuff that we hear about all the time. The day to day good stuff gets taken for granted so we don't hear about it so much (if at all). I pay my taxes and follow the rules and just hope they do significantly more good than bad (and generally they do). Some day I'll do a “If I were in charge” entry.

But people aren't happy enough! Many people have been the past few days, lots of picnics and parties and fireworks (I love fireworks). But if we have it so great why aren't the people happier in general? Is it the “grass is always greener” syndrome? Or the “I want/deserve more” syndrome? or are they all happier than I think (I really have no hard data on this other than I think people should be happier).

Occasionally I think wouldn't it be great to live in ____(insert some country here)____. It's the good stuff I like when I'm there, I assume they have all the other stuff that I take for granted here. It's like when you look at a different job and you see the extras it has but what you don't see is the extra hours, parking/traffic is worse, the insurance isn't good but it still somehow looks better until you get there.

I know I'm whining and I know I have it great here and we're celebrating our independence but I wasn't here when we were “dependent” so I don't know what it was like before. And I know we weren't to nice to each other back then for more than a few years after we got independent, so I'm not sure how much it was valued back then and I'm still not sure how it's valued now...

So once we colonize Mars, at what point do they decide they want to be independent and free of the tyranny of us telling them what to do? (and declare their own independence day?)

Although, I still feel that tug to live in some little town off the ocean in Costa Rica or some flat in London not to far from the tube so I can go downtown whenever I want. But I am still here, mostly because I know this country is a great place to live in.

(This was really not the direction I was going when I started this post. If all you see is me complaining above, read between the lines, these are issues because this is such a great place to live.)

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Posted by Gary on Monday at 10:30 PM on July 4, 2005.
Related categories: general
Gary Said... http://garysaid.com/