As good as a PlayStation for Xmas

News snippets do read like they are written by The Onion satirists some times. For example, this report of the kid in Florida who asked Obama a question and  apparently got a job in return.

It was quite a moment at the end of President Obama's town hall meeting in Fort Myers, Fla., yesterday. As The News-Press writes, 19-year-old Julio Osegueda "rocketed from a Cape Coral teenager who flips burgers for $7.85 an hour at a McDonald's to an instant celebrity of sorts."

And he got a temporary job.

...

"I have never felt this good except maybe when I got my PlayStation 3 for Christmas," Osegueda told the News-Press later.

Do read the News-Press article. What a big hooplah - including prank radio calls and such -- over nothing! But hey...at least now I know how it feels to get a job - even a temporary one - in this economic environment! :)

Of working on how to be a human being ...

...and time that lacks the expansive quality! Three great links from kottke.org

1.  An interesting interview with David Foster Wallace on writers 'working on how to be a human being'
  (.. via)


2. What lines to start a piece remembering your father! Maud Newton reminisces. (.. via)

Exactly how long the prostitute, unbeknownst to my father, stayed at our house and slept in my bed is hard to gauge. Nowadays time lacks the expansive quality it had when I was eleven years old. But more than three weeks and less than five months elapsed between the day she moved in and the terrible afternoon he noticed her crouching behind the frosted glass shower door in the front bathroom, and kicked her out.

and last but not least..

3. The Virginia Quarterly Review has made available their entire archive of articles, poems, essays, and book reviews from 1975 to 2003...all online and free to read for all.  .(.. via)

I'm an alpha male on beta blockers

I'm the modern man.



George Carlin, brilliant as always. Am sure he's entertaining everyone in heaven, if there be one!

Update: Shortly after the above post, I read this via twitter: Gay Fling on Second Life Leads to Real Life Divorce. Oh! The troubles of being a modern man :)

The City of Slumped Shoulders

I used to like Chicago in the 90s. Then, somewhere along the way, in the late 90s, I realized it is not really such a "nice" city to live in. The traffic was what got to me but apparently there's more to make Chicagoans miserable!

The Windy City looked may have looked like paradise to many the night hundreds of thousands gathered to hear Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, but that tranquil bliss didn’t stop Chicago from being ranked America’s third most miserable city. Corruption, unemployment, and “lengthy” being a descriptor of both the commutes and the winter drudge have the City of Big Shoulders slumping. Forbes took into account unemployment, tax rates, foreclosures, crime and corruption when creating the list o’ suck, which meant that while cities such as Detroit and Flint were no-brainers, the appearance of Chicago, Memphis, and St. Louis may turn some heads. Pittsburghers will be happy to know, though, that their contempt for the city of Cleveland now has the blessing of Forbes Magazine.

A vote of confidence.. NOT!

Just the vote of confidence I needed to hear about!!!

Banks Rescue Will 'Make Things Worse': Rogers 

The new financial rescue plan may not work and could even make things worse because it plunges the US further into debt and it is designed by the same people who failed to forecast the crisis and take measures, legendary investor Jim Rogers told CNBC Tuesday. 

Sigh!

Btw, all this talk of a stimulus package has made me want to get stimulated. 

Don't get ideas! Click the link! It's a book! To tell you what it is about, I'll quote the authors:

"Being stimulated is about expressing, practicing, and developing the habits of creative thinking and action." 

And in my case, in trying to get out of a rut, break bad habits, and hopefully be inspired to do something constructive/creative. Need to feed the "stimulus gap" and get out of a "creative abyss" that I seem to be trapped in!

The times they are a changin'

Changing times in India too! A blogger from India writes (emphasis mine):

Acceptable Losses

I lost my job last Monday.

...

Even a year ago, such an unceremonious exit in India for a senior manager of a company, who has put in more than 30 years of service, would have been unthinkable, unless of course he had committed some financial impropriety or been charged with sexual harassment or something equally unsavoury. But right now, unfortunately, we are not living in normal times. Companies, their balance sheets all bleeding and under pressure by the shareholders to reduce costs and increase efficiency, are becoming increasingly jittery and unsure of what to do.

We know desperate people tend to make impetuous decisions; the same is true for desperate companies as well.

....

The above blog post was found via Desipundit.

Bregović & Gasparyan

Long time since I put a music post. Here are couple artists who I had not heard about until now. (Thanks to Anand for the introduction)

Goran Bregović, who wiki enlightens is "a Bosnian musician, of Serbian and Croatian descent"




and next up is Armenian musician and composer, Djivan Gasparyan



Good stuff!