Favorite Quote

"Genie, wake up and smell the hummus"

It's from Aladdin when the Genie is asked what he would wish for and he says freedom- and how great that is- and then he tells himself "who am I kidding...(quote)".

Life and Poverty

According to Statistics in the www.worldbank.com the life expectancy of high income countries is 79 years and a population growth rate of .7% annually. In low income countries the life expectancy is 59 years and growth rate of 1.8%. 1 Billion people live in high income countries and 2.3 billion in low income countries. These aren't exactly surprising- but just think what you could do with an extra 20 years of life?

Happy Carnaval

Happy Carnaval to everyone. This celebration in Brazil precedes Lent and continues until Tuesday Feb 20th.

Geography Moment- To make a bigger world

Croatia is situated in Southern Europe and is home of the necktie. The capital Zagreb is nicknamed 'little Vienna' and home to about 1 million of the nations 4.5million inhabitants. In June 1991 Croatia was separated from Yugosalvia and became a democratic Republic. It has long been a favorite tourist destination featuring the Dalmatian coast which was home to world explorer Marco Polo.

Singles Appreciation Day-Dark Chocolate

It seems like chocolate get cheaper the day after Valentines, as if to honor all the single people. And dark Chocolate (m&ms, hershey kisses) seems to be growing popularity. Maybe its my taste buds but it seems like a lot of this mainstreem dark chocolate has a bit more sugar and sweetness than dark chocolate normally contains.

What do you think? (post comment)

"No Marketable Skills"

My roomate has a friend who does pump up type enthusiasm motivational stuff for high level executives, according to him she lives in New Zealand and they fly her out to wherever so they can be excited about what they do for work. My roomate Jason told me she said "I have no marketable skills". That makes me wonder what marketable skills are, and what people are willing to do to have the motivation to use those 'marketable skills'. By marketable skills I guess this includes using Microsoft Office, proffesional writing, mathematical/statistical analysis or other skills along these lines. Having Marketable skills makes a big difference- but not all the difference.

I like New York

I like New York. It's full of tons of history and a lot of diversity in culture, the arts, business and international politics. As a city it has a lot to offer for singles, tourists and I guess everyone else.

Freakonomics

I am just over half way through the Book Freakonomics, I read in on the subway trains mostly now. It's at times very interesting, mainly from the story telling with real numbers and statistics to back up what you observe and could really only just speculate beyond, such as teachers cheating and the financial structure a crack dealing gang. If you're in to informationally rich stories and particularly like the subversive nature of getting the real facts, then you would enjoy this book.

Supply Side Climate Change

Ok, the stern report that came out last year which predicated a global increase in temperature and spoke of the economic implications of the increase.

I wonder about the Supply Chain side of the climate change. If the media forces are telling people the earth is heating up and the seasons are losing or increasing in severity, and people believe this to a point of changing there living habits, how does this change supply levels needed?

Will property values increase in some regions and decrease in others? If so, which regions will increase or decrease (summer condos in the Yukon?)? Will transportation become slower and more expensive from weather conditions or possible disaster increases? Will bottled water sell out earlier in the summer season, and cost more later?

Basically my point is there could be big business in preparing for the economic changes as a direct or indirect result of people becoming more aware of climate change/global warming and the implications thereof.

Some of my favorite sites right now

www.iht.com , www.paulallen.net , www.wikipedia.org/ , www.craigslist.com , www.news.google.com , and of course www.youtube.com

What the title really means

The title of this blog comes from an idea for for a book I had in January of 2005. I basically was fascinated with how we all view the same world and surroundings (variation with geography of course) but we often end up with very disparate interpretations of what's reality or what is important. Often what we feel on the inside seems extends to what we see around us. I only wrote or compiled 10 pages worth of quotes and analysis. It's still a great idea for a book (in my view of course) or discussion, and it's the title of my blog.

My First Blog Day

So, I have always thought blogging is pretty cool, and I can try it out. I have finally gotten around to setting one up. It was pretty simple