Music to my ears

when my folks dropped me off at the train station on Sun, i realized that i left my ipod at their house. so my Mom lent me her nano to listen to while she listened and held on to my ipod. see, her ipod houses mainly the Beatles and Elvis and some Bhajans, all of which I really enjoy, and hence keep in my 30 gig ipod. But my ipod also has hip-hop rap and I'm really in the mood to listen to some Talib Kweli and Eminem right now. Jeez, what a quagmire :(

Integrating Indians into Pop Culture

wow, i swung by midtown comics other day and noticed that the cover of the latest Archie Comic sported a new character, one of Indian ancestry:








from what little i've read, it seems that he's modeled after M. Nigh Shyamalan

hopefully this will be the 1st step of in integrating the Indian scene into the mainstream pop culture

Bloomberg for President???

". . . The president is not an "elected king," no matter how many bombs he can drop. Because the "crude" Constitution doesn't trust him. He's just a bum, okay Mr. Pitkannan? He's just a bum" ~Joe Pesci in With Honors

I just heard that Mayor Bloomberg resigned from the Republican Party. Now there's speculation circulating that he may make a run for the POTUS. Preliminarily, I am not opposed to this concept. The position of the President is for selfless people, and Bloomberg's heart and priorities are in the right place. He's abnegated his salary and most luxuries, and his main objective is to make the City of New York a better place. He's done the city much good, and I believe he'll do equally if not a better job for the country

the price of borrowing

it is commonplace amongst both consumers and corporations to assume debt before building equity. i'm still debating weather i'm a bigger proponent of rubinomics or reagonomics conservatives argue against higher taxes citing that consumers will make better use of retained income, while liberals feel that a fatter goverment bankroll will better aid it in helping pay for services catering to the needs of the people. while tax cuts do put money back into pockets, it also curtails govt. revenue. how is this dearth of revenue compensated for? higher interest rates. look at todays headlines in the wsj and nytimes. bond yields soar. this is making it more difficult for the middle class to borrow money. doesn't this burden preclude them from building equity? doesn't a lack in equity reduce the volatilty of the dollar and preclude consumer spending? so, at the moment, rubinomics is appealling more to me, but who knows, someone might convincigly contravene the concept of demand side economics to me

Who's going to teach the teachers to be teachers?

Remeber those television ads where kids were asked to name their heroes and their responses included the names of their teachers? Well, teachers should be heroes. Young minds are very susceptible, and a teacher helps develop young individuals into the adults they will grow up to be. Unfortunately, these vital tasks are often assumed by rather incompetent individuals. Human beings do have a proclivity to be a bit biased, and favor one individual over another. Of course this also means that they also tend to dislike one over another, and teachers are no exception to this.

Read this article:
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=5387127

It is regarding a boy named Osama, who was flagrantly abused by his peers for sharing the name 1st name with the world's most despicable hitman. Yes, though there is no way to rationalize this, kids are puerile and have a propensity to be obtuse towards other. But to exacerbate the situation, the teachers also participated in this. I'm a bit ambivalent as to who the teachers abused more here. Was it the boy Osama, or his tormentors whose behavior they declined to check. Do not the duty of school teachers include reinforcing good intentions and stifling flagrance. In their failure to execute this task, not only have they failed to show their pupils the proper way to act, but they also drove a model student into a state of depression. Consequently, his potential was curbed and his self-esteem was wounded. Thx to these teachers, the world may be denied what he has to offer it. Teaching is an important task, one these Staten Island employees obviously failed to appreciate. If you're not suited for this line of work, do something more suitable to your intelligence, life picking up dog crap off the sidewalks.

Alejandro Toledo's editorial in the NYTimes

". . . silence breaks the heart and bends the soul . . ." ~John Cafferty from the Rock IV track Hearts on Fire

The former president of Peru is giving the current leader of Venezuela falk for closing down a radio station mainly b/c it eliminates the voices of his critics. I concur. A bona fide leader will be catholic enough to hear all perspectives, even those of critics. Being a leader of a nation is in essence being a servant to the people, and there is no shame in serving people. In fact, it is one of the most rewarding experiences life has to offer. Physicians serve the ill, teachers serve the inquisitive, and musicians serve those who appreciate culture. To be an effective leader, it is essential to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. Constructive criticism will be appreciated. Extremists like Rosie O'donnell will be derided anyway for their flagrant behavior, and in turn will denigrate their own character. So Mr. Chavez, I have to agree w / Mr. Toledo. Silencing your critics will only preclude you from serving your people optimally

Latest Poker escapades

". . . if you're too careful, your life can be a [F**cKn'] grind . . ." ~Matt Damon in Rounders

Ok, yesterday I kept getting bad beats, or more precisely, none of my hands were worth calling, especially when the guy to my right kept raising astronomically pre-flop. at one point i did call 15 post flop b/c i made middle pair, w / a Jack kicker, but then this guy raised to like $70. my guess is if he was that aggresive, he didn't have top pair, but who'd risk $70 to win $25 - $30. Poker after all is about fattening your pigi bank, so it's more sensible to win one enormous pot as opposed to a multitude of small ones. maybe he was hoping that I'd be a loose player, and he'd just still my pot, which was paltry relative to his. if you're too aggressive, you're perhaps cheating yourself out of a multitude of rewards, but are you concurrently exposing the tight players as well? The Best Poker player i've seen in a televised event is Matt Cherackal (sp)? Some say he plays tight, but I say he plays smart. there's a difference

cell phones: don't leave home w / o 'em???

"don't forget, i came from nothing, while i like these toys, i can live w/o them" ~vinnie chase

who had it better, the flinstones or the jetsons? with the emergence of these nascent technologies have we become more sophisticated or more dependent on an excess of material needs? i remember a point in time when mobile phonese were luxuries and the only person who owned one was zack morriss. today, the've become necesseties, and it's almost foolhardy to leave home w/o one. on sunday night, i attended a graduation party w / my family. the party was a rather bore, and i had brought w / me neither my ipod nor my mobile phone. so i had the option of relying on nothing other than my innate patience to carry me through the party. so i guess it's still plausible not to be completely dependent on these perpetually updating toys, eh?

Passion(s)

"don't lost your grip on the dreams of the past, you must fight just to keep them alive" ~Survivor

i have used the Rudyard Kipling analogy so frequently, that it must feel really hackneyed coming out of my mouth. but in spite of sounding like a broken record, if you recall, that the theme to his short story The Most Dangerous Game dealt with how when/if a man loses intrigue in what he is most passionate about, then he might as well be dead, and to revitalize himself, he must find a way to rekindle that interest. well, for those who know me can attest that i've never had a dearth of vocabulary, but lately i have not been visiting Dictionary.com and learning their new word of the day. am i drawing a proper analogy here? i hope not, or else, i will need some serious rekindling to do

1st post

ok, it's been a good minute since i blogged. perhaps this one will be more consistent. i was smoking a Rocky Patel up on the 30th floor of my building, but the nice breeze was precluding me from enjoying it fully. then Keri calls me and says she's off from work early for a change and would be free to meet at Sombrero's for a Margurita, so my enjoyment of it was curtailed nonetheless.

growing, up, i was addicted to television, and would often formulate my schedule in harmony with my favorite shows. but funny, now that emerging technologies such as dvr and tivo would alleviate this stringent burden on my schedule, there is no show that compels me to stick by the tube.

i do dig the wsop, but ESPN airs that rather frequently