A Day Off

It was a pretty pleasantly unproductive weekend for me. I had already got most of the hours I needed for work by Friday evening, so I decided to take a day off on Saturday. I spent the morning riding around Boulder on my bike looking for an El Chapo CD for Raissa's birthday, but apparently Boulder doesn't have a very big El Chapo following because none of the several CD places I went to had any El Chapo. So I got her a NOW: Musica Latina CD and some inappropriate postcards (warning, these postcards all contain humorous usages of the F-word and may be offensive to some people) instead of El Chapo. I also gave her some used video games, at least one of which was actually hers to begin with anyway... Aren't I just a swell brother?

Then I went with Amanda to see Little Miss Sunshine (which was pretty funny), followed by tapas at The Med. Then I went home and played video games and watched TV for the first time in many months. It's amazing how TV just sucks you in. I have pretty much weaned myself completely from television, but I ended up watching a good three hours of it anyway. At least I did find myself enjoying it less than I think I used to...

This got me thinking about vice and guilt. I wonder if addiction, guilt, and shame are exclusively human traits. Are there any other animals that get addictions? Do they feel shame or guilt for these addictions? Does this shame/guilt make them want to rid themselves of their vices? Probably not. I can't picture, let's say a dolphin, thinking to himself or saying to his friends in dolphinese, "man, I can't believe I just sat around all day doing back flips. I didn't do a single productive thing today! I need to work on that!" Or, perhaps, a dog saying to his cat friend, "man, you need to lay off the catnip. I think it is starting to really affect our relationship..." Somehow, I find these scenarios difficult to imagine...

Anyway, then on Sunday I decided to go for a long bike ride up to Dad's house. I was contemplating riding all the way from Boulder to Berthoud, but then I ended up not starting until too late. Also, I've never ridden anywhere near that far before (about 27 miles according to Google Maps), and so I thought that maybe I should try something shorter first. So I took the bus to the north end of Longmont and then rode from there. I thought it might take me an hour, but it only took me a half an hour because I'm awesome (haha). I went up there so he could give me some financial advice because Infoture has offered me participation in their 401(k) program (man, that makes me feel like an old man). So he was helping me figure out how to do that and such. Then I was thinking about maybe riding all the way back to Boulder on my bike, but (naturally) the wind was blowing in exactly the wrong direction and I would have had nothing but headwinds the whole way back. Also, because I still haven't bought a nice seat for my bike and it just has a cheap crappy one still, my boys were already going numb by the time I got to Longmont, so I took the bus back. It was a nice ride though and as soon as I get a better seat I think I would like to try doing a longer ride. I would also like to see the looks on other biker's faces as I pass them on my fixed gear, haha... I hope I make them feel inferior... (of course they will be the ones laughing when they pass me struggling up the steep hills while they glide along in their low gears...).

So overall it was a pretty nice, relaxing weekend with a good dose of some well-earned "mental health time"


Anyway... on to today's video. This video doesn't really have anything to do with what I've written about today, and I know that I already put up a Muse video not long ago, but since they are pretty much all I've been listening to lately, I guess it's okay to put up another one of their videos. This one is called "Bliss" apparently, and just like all of their songs and videos, it is awesome.