We've moved....Find me on Tumblr

Hey everybody... I am not doing updating here.

You can check out my latest on Tumblr.

It's really close to the old URL  I've moved to laurentcourtines.com (NO DASH)

For the love of the (fill in the blank)

Things have been a little rocky for me in the last few weeks... nothing serious,  just some work stuff, some life stuff and some other stuff.  Nothing bad and I am well. Nothing a great vacation cant cure.  One thing has been made clear   - do the things you love,  love the people you choose to hang out with and to find things you love in general.  
Too often people do or work in places that make their souls collapse,  or make their life collapse or simply go through the motions (which might be worse)  This may sound froufy but it's real.  Keep looking for things to love. Be it people,  a street,  a thing,  a class or anything keep seeking the thing that make you happy.  

Baseball is doomed if it loses people like me

I am a huge baseball fan.  In some ways my baseball fandom has been a defining trait.  Its long seasons and requirement that you take a nuanced view of the game always appealed to me.  This year baseball lost me.   I didn't participate in a live fantasy baseball league,  I didn't buy and read any pre  or post season baseball analysis or anything like that.  The game simply slipped away and I didn't miss it.  Why and how did this happen?

Couple of reasons come to mind.  One,  nuanced and statistical view of the game is now accepted.  That was the one thing that got me excited about the game, now everyone views the game, that way. Two, having folks to talk to regularly about the game. I used to go to the same bar week after week and talk about the game.  Without the constant need to catch up, the drive to be informed has waned.  Third,  the game itself has changed.  Most of my deep fandom seasons came during the "steroid era" offense was big and pitchers were bad.  My entire understanding of the game was based around offense.  This is no longer the case.  That shift has cause so much of my game understanding to shift.  Third,  fatigue and lack of intrigue.  Fundamentally,  the best team in town,  the Yankees, are boring.  I'm tired of the narrative.  Without the Red Sox as their "Cowboy up!" foil they simply aren't interesting.  The team has taken on Derek Jeter's personality - boring, buttoned down, with no personality. 

Lastly,  other sports have taken up my brain space.  The NBA has been outstanding the last few years - the decison, the hated Miami Heat, and Lebron in general is a better story.  The Premier League - the great game is so good, that just watching it for a couple of weeks gets you hooked. It has the passion of college football,  with the atleticism of basketball and poetry of baseball.  (Plus Manchester City's Mario Balotelli is the most captivating sportsmen on the Planet - an African Italian,  with a blond mohawk he is just as likely to kick a guy in the face as score a goal!)  It seems I don't have the patience for the pace of baseball anymore.

You will catch me on Saturdays watching Premier League football and not watching Sunday night baseball.

Keep learning, keep reading, keep writing.

 

I was going to post about how hard writing is but it was too hard so I didn't.  Instead I started reading a book, Running Lean.  Running Lean is just another in the long lines of business books I read to keep up.  For me, reading ALWAYS leads to writing.  A sentence here, or a word there inspires me, and I just have to write.  Everything flows from reading.

All that shit they told you in school is true.  The more you read, the more you know, the more you read the better you write, the better you write the better you are at expressing your thoughts, the better you are at expressing your thoughts the better you are at your job, the better you re at your job the more opportunities come your way.... you see where this is going.  (Maybe they didn't tell you this in school?)

If you're an avid reader, stop sitting on the side lines.  Start writing.  It can be done.  If you are a regular writer,  read more!  The two go hand in hand.

Break some goddamn windows! Change won't come without breaking some eggs.

I am all for peaceful protest and I mostly believe it works.  However,  for change to come,  real change,  eggs have to be broken.  In the United States the authorities have gotten very smart.  They learned from the turbulent 1960's that beating the shit out of protestors doesn't work.  So now,  they just wait use the law and apathy ( see Occupy Movement).

Its time for the protestors of the world to change their strategy.  Its time (if you really think things are that bad) to break glass. Got beef with the banks?  Smash the windows!  Got beef with a brand? Deface their ads. Yes,  I am advocating radicalism,  I understand that - but really,  I am advocating action.  If things are that bad.  Do something.  Sitting peacfully isn't working, the man is wise to it.
If we have a real issue with guns, people should drive down south and destroy the stores!  

The mob has power.  People fear the mob, the rabble and anarchists,  You will get peoples attention when you start breaking shit. 

No change ever occurred without some sort of violence.  We're not that far evolved. (you can look it up)

When things  are bad, breaking a few eggs is sometimes necessary. 

The hurdles that go undisccused

If you read business books or productivity books they very rarely have any context written into them.  I assume they are written for white-middle-aged-middle-managers.  Which would make sense,  these are the types who read these books trying to justify their existence.  But what about everyone else?  What about the specific context of the urban poor?
How do you make a business or get thing done book for a 20 year old with a 3 year old kid who is struggling to survive? 
Where is the "How to survive the ghetto in 10 easy steps" book? 
Where is the "How to get straight A's while you have to take care of your siblings" book?
How about "How to get ahead in with a junkie parent in 20 days"
How to survive the ghetto for dummies - (short book, dummies don't survive)
Where is the "How to keep your dignity when you're wear your brothers shoes (that you wore last year too)"
Or even better "How to feel great about yourself when everything smells like piss in your building"?

Where is this information?  Where are these how to and easy steps books for the urban poor?  I guess hip hop is the only medium that describes the life?  Are they blue prints for survival though?  They are what we have so I suppose we should be thankful we have it.   I just wish there was more. 
You know what my system was?  Get out and don't come back.  Hold it inside and pretend it didn't all happen.

The origin of MeowSplash - feels quaint now.

I pulled this from the original about page of the first incarnation of MeowSplash.  It was my first personally host WordPress site.  (Thanks Willis Lambert) I set it up in my brothers study and just thought I would be a jerk about the world and capture my general snark.  It's not serving that purpose anymore (that's what this blog is for)  

So without further ado - from December 17th, 2008.

 Meow Splash?  WTF is meowsplash?  Iḿ still trying to figure it out but I know where it comes from.  Meowsplash is a term that I came up with when yelling at a whiny co-worker who was complaining about having to spend $5,000 to save his cat. My thought was was ¨Fuck!  That is a hell of a lot of cash to save and old cat.” He of course said ¨You don´t know my cat - heś awesome”

I have a problem with that.  Your cat isn´t $5,000 awesome.  Shit IḾ not $5,000 awesome.  I blew a gasket and said for $100k you can get a herd of cats an find and new awesome one!  I may have in the middle of the rant mentioned that we could throw the old one in theGowanus Canal and go ¨MeowSplash”  Someone picked up on the term ¨meow-splash¨ and itś been a legend ever since.

Meowsplash.com is the FIRST UR: I have ever purchased and I am damn proud of it.Oh right,  the about should be about me.  My hope is that youĺl figure it out as you move through some of the posts.

If you want to know about me,  you can find out here:http://twitter.com/gamesdotcom

here: http://blog.games.com.

Any questions?  No?  Good.