BLOG

Earlier, I have written that I feel there is someone manipulating the stock and economic markets in this country, since it was very strange how the market dumped right after Bush took office. Not that I feel it was unjustified, since if, I was a business person with a lot of money, I'd be wary of his "Aw, shucks." mentality driving this country.       The reason I bring this up is because in the latest day or so, they reported that the GDP was higher than it has been in the last two decades in this last quarter. That usually translates into a strong economic forecast, since it is a measure of production. This in turn would translate into a strong rally in stocks, right? No, wrong.       The stock market was largely unaffected by this and gained only minor points. This may have been due to it being a holiday weekend coming up, but still, the people in stocks rarely care about holidays.       I haven't seen the economy pick up at all. I know some friends who are getting some contract work here and there, but these people were always getting contract work. They're good, that's why they're working. From where I sit, the economy is only different in that it isn't completely falling apart, it is in more of a holding pattern now. It seems as if the attrition from 2000 had to be taken into account and people are either hiring or buyind, simply because they can hold out to see what the economy holds in the future. So, I guess what I'm saying is that I think neccessity is driving purchases and buying now more than anything else.       On the top though, I think people are fudging the numbers. But, instead of one group, I know think there are two groups. One that is fudging the economic numbers and the other that is fudging stock numbers. I know, a lot of fudging going on, but things happen suddenly and make no sense out there. This is just one theory as to why it happens the way it does.

This is a nifty cellphone that I spent too much money on to buy. It is very similar to the T610, except I believe that model is US only.       It's cool because it is a worldphone that can be used anywhere in, well, the world when you buy a plan or simcard there. It also has a very nice color screen and polyphonic ringtones which give you a lot of different options, unlike the normal beeps that most cellphones have. The buttons are nice and easy to use. It also has a joystick for navigating the menus. It has other features I'm not too crazy about like a camera (which does take good shots for a camera of this type.)       The sound quality is fantastic. It is very clear and easy to hear. In that department, it's the best phone I've ever owned.       Standby time is great. I regularly get 4-5 days. Talk time isn't amazing, probably somewhere around 3 hours.       Its bad points are that it has some importnat buttons on the side of the phone, like the volume control, which, if you don't lock the buttons and put it in your pocket, will get bumped and pressed, usually decreasing your earpiece volume. Also, you absolutely must luck the buttons when it's in your pocket, or you'll inadvertantly call people.       One feature request that would have been nice would have been to allow you to group your phone book. While I have been reduced to using voice commands, or scrolling through many numbers, I miss the grouping ability that my Siemens S40 had.       Oh, don't get the phone thinking that wireless web will be a breeze. That has to be one of the most trying things to get working correctly and Cingular phone people are little help.       Overall, it's a great phone if you're into the latest and greatest, but probably not the best phone if you just want a phone. It is very portable and small though, even with the large screen.

Like a lot of people, I like to travel. I finally made it to Europe last year after many long years of delluding myself into thinking that the prices were too expensive and what not, which, in the end, came down to me being a bit timid to take the first step out there. Luckily I have a girlfriend who is good at kicking me when neccessary to do the things that need to be done.       As the story goes, I told her I'd like to go to London and Paris if she could find roundtrip tickets for less than $500 US. That was on a Saturday. The next Monday she called me to let me know that we were leaving that Thursday and the price was $425 in the end. She's a resourceful girl!       A lot of people don't realize that there are a lot of cheap ways to travel. If you you are under 26 or a student, use STA Travel - http://www.statravel.com you can get some really great deals. But, a lot of times, you can go to an airline's website like http://www.united.com or http://www.lufthansa.com and find some great deals. If you're in the UK, use Ryan Air http://www.ryanair.co.uk       Of course, it helps if you travel during the off season months, which are anytime outside of May through the end of September. While it makes for some colder travelling, it also makes for very affordable travelling and you avoid the truly annoying tourists.       Case in point, I've recently found roundtrip tickets to Munich from San Francisco for $425 USD. This is a great jumping off point for my soon to be adventures into Croatia. Obviously I'll have to dress warmly, but honestly, I like the cold and not only are the tickets cheaper, but so are accomodations.              While all of this is great, there is the problem when you try to book things on a website that it wasn't really designed to do.       I was trying to find some fares to St. Petersburg in Russia and while I could get a flight for $650 USD out the door, roundtrip, a one way ticket was something like $3,500 USD. Crazy? Yes! But, that's what happens, when you do something that most people don't do on the site. My assumption is that you'd need to go to a travel agent to chisel that price down a little bit, unless of course, you're rolling in dough and just want to blow that much money for an economy class flight!

There are, without a doubt, tons of DJ's in the greater San Francisco area. As with any medium, some are great, some are bad. I got a free CD of Christopher Lobsinger, who is one talented kid (he's only 17!) and then I've been out at clubs in the area, where they usually always have someone spinning.       By no means am I a turntable jockey, but I do write music and have a musical background, which makes for an interesting analysis of some of the spinners. They all seem to fall into three categories. There are the ones that are flat out no good and probably don't have any musical education. There are the ones that are good and while they may not be the most amazing DJ's in the world, they either have some musical training or inate gift to feel out the beat. Then there are the people that are just gifted.       Here are a few things I've noticed in the not so good ones as time has gone on, which if they addressed, they would probably be much better:        I - Confidence -> While swapping out the back beats that they're mixing often may be a personal style, to me, it just seems like they have no confidence in what they're doing. They'll put on one song, mix in another really quick and drop the one they had on. It seems as if they're scared to express their musical interest and want to just fly through everything quickly in the hope that people will grasp on to things here and there.       II - Dropping the Beat -> Even if the songs you're blending have clashing beats, you can't let the beat drop out altogether. Watch the people in the club when that happens. They stop dancing and they get disinterested and not in a good for the club, drink buying way, more in a this place is lame, I'm leaving kind of way. You have to keep something in the air that keeps the floor bouncing. This is probably one of those things that comes about due to someone who has taught themselves to spin without teaching themselves musical composition.       III - None Moving Music -> It sometimes seems like everyone will only dance if they hear music they recognize. This is true in part, but it's also true because a lot of the popular music has a danceable beat. But, you don't have to play current popular music, you need just need to play something with a moving beat. You can leave Nelly off your list, so long as you know how to mix the low end of a Beatles song with anything, even Celine Dion if you felt like it.       IV - Knob Funk -> Twiddling with the balance and fader knobs is a fun gimmick every so often during your set, but doing a ten minute solo on the knobs is only cool if extremely good and can keep the beat moving (and this is very rare) or if you're just spinning for your other DJ friends who want to push the edge.       Anyways, these are just some casual observations. I might have more some day, or hop out of the peanut gallery and try my hand at what I preach.

I have found, that upon timing the length of the carhorns honked in my neighborhood that the average length is 1.8 seconds. "So what? That seems pretty insignificant" you may be asking. Yes, it seems that way, but keep in mind how an average works in that, the more amounts added into the total, the less the total will be. So, what I'm saying is that there are a lot of short horns behind honked in my area all the time, but there are still some long ones as well.       One such horn was this one idiot that honked his horned repeatedly for 30 seconds at a time. I don't know if he was a simple asshole or a complicated wanker, but he did it for so long that a cop who was cruising by finally got involved. Oh, what I would have given to have an old toaster to toss his way.       Next, I think I'm going to try and work out how many of these honks come from aggravated cab drivers, which on casual observation, seems to be where the vast mojority of the long honking originates from.

Everywhere anyone goes these days, you hear about this damned Atkins Diet, where you eat nothing but protein and no carbohydrates to lose weight. Then you always hear from all the people who say, "Oh I lost soooo much weight on that diet." This is driving me insane for several reason, so let's hopefully debunk some myths about the Atkins Diet.       One thing that people need to keep in mind is that if you shift over to a high protein diet, more than likely you are not eating as much food. I dare someone to eat as much steak as they ate in bread. If I eat too much meat, it makes me feel ill and more then likely, this is the same for some of the people on the Atkins Diet.       People also need to keep in mind that when you're cutting out carbs, you are really cutting out a lot of your caloric intake. Look at it this way, if you are taking away half of what you eat, are you going to immediately replace it? No, probably not, which is probably one of the reasons people report such significant weight loss immediately, since they are in essence, starving themselves initially.       Another bit that needs to be thought about on this diet is the health factor. I've got a great diet which will help you lose weight really fast. I call it the Hudin Diet. Basically, you eat nothing and just drink water. Sound nuts? Sure, but so does eating all meat. We know that meat isn't the healthiest thing in the world on a long-term basis. While the Hudin Diet is retarded and extreme, so is the Adkins diet when you look at it over the course of someone's life.       So, in summation, I feel that Atkins is bad, because it:       A) Starves you.       B) Is harmful over long-term usage.       C) I'm in great shape and eat mostly bread and with a bit of cheese and fruit, which goes to point       D) This is not a good diet for everyone.

I don't know if the commercials that we see on television follow what's happening in the country or if they set the trend for what is going to happen. There are two things I've been seeing which argue both point.       Firstly, if you watch commercials these days, you will see groups of people that are multi-racial. In adds for the latest kid's toy up to adds for Best Buy, it would appear to someone judging our nation by watching television that racial integration isn't a problem here and that we all get along fine and are happy little consumers.       Of course, anyone living in the US will beg to differ, noting that while people of different races are living in the same cities together, it is at best tolerable for those concerned and at worst, down right hostile with different areas of town for those of different colors.       But, this is definitely a strange thing in what we're seeing on tv and honestly there is no reason for the ad people to be doing this, since they typically will only do what sells the most of the product. So, I'm not sure as to whether the people in media are trying to create racial harmony by saturating the air waves with it, or if there is some marketing reason that I'm not aware of which is creating the phenomena.       The second trend that I"ve noticed has only come about during the current Bush Boy regime and it's based on the large contrast that I've seen from ads that were running during the Clinton years. Ads for any household products, or childcare, or anything else that was, traditionally considered the woman's domain have usually always featured women in the commercials. This changed a great deal during Clinton's time in office. You would see men chnaging diapers, men cleaning the house, and men taking care of the children. While the majority of the time, you would still see women doing these jobs, there were a good many ads that had men in these roles, which in my estimation was a good thing, since there is no reason that these have to be jobs for women.       Once 2000 rolled around and Bushie came into office, every ad that had a man doing what could be considered a woman's domestic job vanished. It's true! See if you can find one today. I haven't seen one in a very long time and it appears that we've gone back to the days when all that should really be on a woman's mind is incubating a fetus and wondering if her pots are cleaner than Sally's and if not, what S.E. Johnson product could make them cleaner.       It's a sad trend and it's sickening to me personally, but it seems to be a sign of the times when you have such things as Bush signing an abortion billed into law while surrounded by old, white, men, in black suits, which I hope someone uses against him in the next campaign.

Had a fun party at my place the other night and as alcohol would have it, we decided that at 1:30, when we should be calling it a night, we wanted to head out to somewhere. Sure, fine, no problem, except for the one problem that everything in San Francisco is pretty much closing or closed at 1:30.       Not to be daunted by that fact, we still went out. I found out about an underground dance party that was happening south of Market, which seemed to be the only thing going on, so we headed there.       One of the girls in the group, Gwen decided that it was a fine night to party and was pretty loaded on some bizarre Martini-esque things she had been making in the kitchen. As we neared the spot of the party, she hopped out of the car with beer in hand as we cruised in.       Unfortunately, in our way to this illegal party was a goofy, bearded, hippy, drugged-out, loser freak that was trying to do crowd control outside the warehouse the party was at, but was seeming only try to control our little group of six people.       It also was unfortunately revealed to us that this party was a mighty $20 to get into it and we just weren't quite ready to spend that much money for what would have been two hours of entertainment.       Gwen decided to explain this and also question the doofus guy about his crowd control techniques. She had an interesting way of doing this, which involved getting up in the guy's face and not backing down with a kind of aura to her that said, "I will knock you down skinny boy."       The guy seemed to have some wits about him as he tried to get himself out from the pickle jar he had slipped into. Ultimately this resulted in him getting down on one knee and proposing to her. All in all it was a strange displayed and we ultimately got her away from him before he did a strip tease for her or something, but there is a lesson to be learned in that you should never get between a girl who's been drinking and her having fun.

It used to be, just less than a year ago, that there would be now way in hell I'd ever go watch a play, musical, or other live performance, in favor of watching films. There was something that was always off-putting about live performance and I guess I had been tainted by seeing some bad performances early on as well as not liking the very voyeuristic and almost too real of live performance versus the fake realness of film.       This change rather abruptly after visiting London for the first time last March and seeing some rather tremendous stage productions that changed my mind on the whole issue. Upon returning back to the States, I got into watching more such entertainment, while still watching a lot of film.       Lately though, I'm drifting more towards liking live performance more. This has nothing to do with a diminished taste for film, which is still something I will always treasure as a fantastic medium, but it has more to do with the audiences that watch each type of performance.       Plays, while being about common, everyday things, still have something of an erudite edge to them and seem like something that belongs to the upper class. While this isn't true, this myth is enforced by the fact that occassionally some idiot who should be getting drunk at a Raiders game get dragged to a stage production by his woman and proceeds to either talk, blather, or otherwise interrupt the production. They're easy to spot, since for the most part, people watching plays are an extremely respectful group and you will never hear a cellphone go off during a performance or someone talk through the whole thing.       Movies on the other hand have become fodder for the masses. And it also seems that with the invention of home viewing through VHS and DVD rental, the line between watching at home and watching in a place with other people has faded.       Movie crowds have gotten steadily worse as I enter my sixth year in the Bay Area. People talk through the movie, they'll bring children that are far too young to violent movies, and then there's the worse one of all with fools who will talk on their cellphones through the film.       Luckily at more upscale establishments, the fellow patrons will yell at someone to turn their phone off if it rings, since afterall not one single person is that important that they need to be reached during a two hour film and if they are, then they shouldn't go. I've also heard that some theaters are putting up devices that block the cellphone frequencies within the theaters, thus blocking calls.       I think the later is definitely the best, albeit most passive-agressive way to go about stopping cellphone abuse in theaters and I would recommend to anyone who has to listen to a cellphone conversation during a movie to demand their money back after the show, since the theater has failed to provide the service you paid for. This might prompt more to opt for blocking signals in the future.

I'm getting over a whopper of a cold. Of course, the fact that I didn't want to sit still while I had it didn't help me in getting over it.       What I think is most frustrating about having a cold in the 21st century is the fact that there must be a cure to these damned things out there. In fact, I seem to remember a product that was on the market for maybe two weeks, which was an inhaler that killed the cold virus off in the lungs and permanently knocked it out of you.       Not surprisingly, you can't find any trace of this thing now and most likely that's due to the lengthy isle of cold symptom reliefs that exist. There is no money in a cure. There is definitely money in a prolonged illness that you must take a repeated dose of something for.       While I can get over a cold, there are many things that people can't get over and this current, market driven drug development system we have in the US is quite literally killing people off. Case in point was my father. He had a rare type of cancer, which there was a drug for that you had to take th rest of your life once diagnosed with the condition, but it would save you. The only catch is that it cost $5,000 a month. He was able to get on the drug about a year ago, but that wasn't enough to save him and he passed away several months due to complications with his illness.       This drug issue has also come into importance because many Americans are getting their drugs from Canada these days, since you can get them at up to 50% off what you can get from the US. Same damn drug, just a different cost, since the Canadian goverment limits what manufacturers can charge for prescription drugs. This has caused a lot of controversy of course, since Canadians aren't too keen on Americans taking all of their drugs from them, since we, afterall we apparently use 53% of all the drugs in the world. That's a crazy figure, since a very large percentage of the people in country are uninsured.       Well, this is all a far cry from there not being a cure for the common cold, but I think this all shows a huge problem in health care in this country, since afterall, there should never be any profit in the illness and suffering of others.