Love of money, the root of all evil

http://www.getipm.com/personal/cancer-racket.htm

http://www.ralphmoss.com/

I don't think that chemotherapy is the way to go. If you have to roll the dice, better to roll it towards the natural, not towards that which kills you in order to save you...

I have some thoughts on the power of "science" as practiced by today's scientists. They'll be forthcoming.

Don't mess with fruitcake.

It will kick your ass everytime.

To the Tuna lady

don't throw down no gauntlets to me, I'll pick 'em up :D

Rachmaninoff's Prelude in B-flat Major

baaaaad piece of piano-work in this tune.

this is what I want, what I really really want

I need some generous soul to purchase me one of these babies right here :) and I mean the black one. Any takers? hehehehe

post relocation

I moved my year in review blog to a more hidden part of the site, since I had a lot of info therein. If you really want to be nosy and read it, good luck hunting.

The best national security plan any president can have is 4 words: "Get me Jack Bauer."

Daniella Cicarelli

I hear that she's Ronaldo's ex-girlfriend. Just goes to show what football skills can do for ya :) Anyways, there's this big hub-bub about this video of her having sex with her current bf that was making the rounds on Youtube, and how the Brazilian government was trying to get tha Tube to take off all those videos or be blocked in Brazil ad infinitum.

I saw the video (search for her on google and you'll find it. YouTube is the least of her worries) and my impression is that she and her guy have none but themselves to blame. Sure, whoever shot the video is a sleazy jerk, but my opinion is that she and the bf started to exhibit PDA's and then got turned on from that and decided "what the heck, let's go all the way." People were around them the whole time that they were kissing, and when they started to kiss in a way that you should never do in public...that's where I lost sympathy for them. At least they had the presence of mind to go into the water when they decided to actually have sex.

So, the lesson of this experience is: Get a room, you horny buggers!

The music of Alkan

Here's a story about how I made a spur of the moment purchase which led to various things happening.

I went down to Liguanea yesterday to go cash a check. Before heading to the bank, I went to this pharmacy in the plaza across from the bank, and discovered that they were having a sidewalk sale. In this sale, they had two thriller-type novels going for less than $10 US a pop. I haven't read a good story in a while, and they both seemed interesting so I picked 'em up for the heck of it. I started one of them last night called "The Book of the Dead" by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and am currently just past the halfway mark. While the story has engaged me thus far, I freely admit that it is a totally weird story. It's taking a while for the connections between 4 seemingly disparate plot lines to come together (right now I can see circumstantial connection but I'm still reading on to the grand reveal) and it seems that this novel builds upon events in previous novels which I never knew about. Lack of knowledge about these events isn't crippling me TOO much, but the characters are currently acting in a vacuum to me. I have an idea of WHAT the previous events are from dialogue, but I don't know WHY the events happened. Still, I've gone too far to turn around. I'll look it up on Amazon after I finish it.

However, the point of this blog post comes from a throwaway reference by the tale's chief villain. Think of a twisted cross between Frasier Crane and American Psycho, and that's him. In the book, he is full of high class tastes, drinking absinthe, reading all manners of books and authors I've never heard of because they'd be "out of my class and intellectual level". Snob to the MAX. I took a pause when he mentioned this composer called Alkan, the "forgotten musical genius of the 19th century" and said "few pianists are up to the challenge" of playing his pieces. I've never heard of the man, and if I hear "forgotten musical genius", i'm all over that. So I took a gander at Youtube (:drops on knees: "Oh Lord, thank you so much for inspiring whoever it was that created Youtube. May they truly enjoy the money they get from selling out to Google, because they've damned sure earned it." :rises from knees:) and searched to see what clips I could find.

I've heard Chopin's Revolutionary, and while it's difficult, I could play that with a whoooooole lot of practice. I did Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor on my own time, and did it pretty fairly. I can get back up to speed and finish it to performance level if I include it in my new practice routine, which I will probably do. I plan to try Rachmaninoff's Prelude in B flat in the near future; while it's just as hard as (or harder than) the Revolutionary, I like it more and that's enough motivation to keep me working at it when I get the score. But there is NO WAY, no way at all, that I could ever hope to play this fellow's work. A wise man knows his limits, and I believe I just met mine. Take a look at this, y'all.




I'm going to see what else I can find from the composer (and maybe the artist) on tha tube and on Amazon/iTunes. I suppose it's not surprising I never heard of him, since it's not everyone who'd be able to play this. You can't write music that no one can play, 'cause who will listen to it? On the other hand, we all should aim for the stars, eh :) Here's to Alkan, that forgotten virtuoso.

Fortunate Son

Creedence Clearwater Revival. One of the best anti-war songs from the Vietnam Era.

Bill Evans

I really really like this arrangement of this song.

Fantasy Basketball time, baby!!

yeah, it's time for me to lay a smackdown on some suckas!! Of course, I haven't yet won a league, but my time will come :)

I started playing fantasy bball on Yahoo's free leagues about 3 years ago, and I was immediately hooked. It took me a while to get the hang of it, and I am still working out certain things but I did pretty well for my first year. I came in second in one league (rotissiere), and while I missed out on the playoffs for my other two leagues, I did win the consolation league playoffs in both. My second year wasn't as good, because I made the mistake of having 6 teams on two Yahoo IDs, and trying to pay equal attention to all of them. Yeah, that wasn't a smart move...I placed no higher than 7th in all of them. This year, I determined to focus only on 4 teams on my main yahoo ID, and I wasn't going to get any more teams.

Then I said "bugger that, I wanna play."

Thing is, I've gone overboard. Right now, in addition to my main 3 leagues (the 4th league doesn't seem to be taking off), I've set up 4 teams on my secondary Yahoo ID, and I'm about to add an additional 4 on another ID for the heck of it. Yeah, 12 fantasy Bball teams. How will I manage it???

I won't :)

I'll just focus day-to-day on the main yahoo ID leagues, which are all head-to-head. The secondary leagues are all rotissiere, and as far as I can tell, those mostly need regular checking to make sure that the guys on the team are all playing up to par. The last ID leagues, well I'll probably just draft 'em and leave 'em. See if I can actually win without doing anything. That worked for me the one time I tried fantasy football; I came in second for that league and I didn't have a CLUE what I was doing.

So for next season, let me know if you want to take me on in fantasy bball. I promise I won't hurt you. Too much.

The Adama Maneuver (from Battlestar Galactica's episode 4 season 3)

Ain't no way the Enterprise could have done this :D

Oh Lord this one thing I beg of Thee,
Don't let me get hooked on Grey's Anatomy

Travelogue#2: Australia

In 2000, during my sophomore year of college, I became intrigued with the notion of studying abroad. Well, I was ALREADY studying abroad, but I began to think of doing it again for another semester. Heck, why not? Of course, I was limited by my language skills...I was barely holding it down in my mandatory Spanish classes that semester, and I didn't have the time or interest to learn a new language. So, if I wanted to study abroad, I was going to have to go somewhere that spoke English. Canada? Not exotic enough. England/Scotland? The UK has never really appealed to me. I should visit at least once to see my family over there, but I don't think I would like an extended stay. Ireland? Hmmmm, that could have worked, but for some reason it didn't cross my mind at the time... What did cross my mind was Australia and New Zealand. Exotic, but not unfamiliar (especially as they are Commonwealth countries like Jamaica), far away that I can really be out of my element, the ability to awe people when I say "yes, I've been to Australia, don't you know" etc. I chose Australia over New Zealand for a variety of reasons. Firstly, Australia admittedly has it going on over New Zealand. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that NZ is a beautiful country and it is definately on my "must see before I die" list...but if you've never been to either place, which place sounds more exciting, or has stuff you've heard about before? I also liked the schools I saw in Australia, but the main reason I chose it was because I had a "foster" mother of sorts down there, named Barb Loman whom I met on an Adventist email forum. She took an interest in me, and was very helpful to me when I was there, I'll never forget it (or her). She's also the reason why I chose Adelaide as my city of interest, as opposed to the expected Sydney or Melbourne.

So, between Jan 2000 and July 2000, I applied for and was accepted to Butler University's Study Abroad program. I chose this program on the advice of Dr. Klingelhoffer (W&L's INTL student advisor at the time) and I have no complaints about their program. I'm sure the others are good in their way, but I highly recommend Butler University's program for anyone who's interested in study abroad. I got my travel grant, started to save up for living expenses, got my student visa, and in January 2001 I went back home to Jamaica to visit for a month before heading out to Adelaide in February 2001. I left from BWI on Feb 6, and flew to Philadelphia, then to Los Angeles to meet with the rest of Butler SA students heading to Australia. We all got on the same 14-hour flight heading to Sydney, then broke up to head to our various cities. Our Adelaide group was split between two universities: the smaller group going to University of Adelaide and the rest (including myself) to Flinders University. We were together for Butler orientation with Cathy Romeo as our co-ordinator. I just have to give props to her, she did an AWESOME job with us! We arrived in Adelaide on Feb 6, and classes didn't start until Feb 21, so we had a lot of time to acclimatize ourselves.

For me to go into detail with what happened for the entire 5 month period would take a book to account, and maybe one day I'll write such a book. I will sum it all up by saying that that semester abroad was the best time I ever spent in college. To me, it was the right mix of people at the right time, and it all just clicked for the most part. It wasn't all perfect all the time, and I had some rough times there too...but the entire experience was one that I wouldn't have changed for the world, and one that changed my whole outlook on life and on myself. If I could go back and change anything, I wouldn't change a thing. Well, I probably would have spent more time hanging out than studying, especially this one time when I had to turn away a welcome guest in order to hit the books. I'm sure that I was under pressure from the books then, but in retrospect...damn, that was a dumb move!!! Still, who knows...

Things I loved about Australia:

1. The people. Before I left, someone was telling me that Australia was a racist society, akin to South Africa in some respects. I've read the history and I agree that all wasn't rosy in their history and there may be some grey spots here and there; but I didn't experience any racism when I was there. Based on the people I met when I was there, I say this without apology: Australians are the coolest people on the planet. Hands down, objectively speaking, they just rock. Friendly, funny, plain-spoken, no frills or airs, what you see is what you get. Aussies of the world, I salute you!
2. Adelaide. It's a big city with a small country town feeling. That's the best description I have of it. It's the third or fouth biggest town in the country, but it feels comfortable and home-like. I could see myself living there.
3. The environment: To have a kangaroo hop out of bushes to within 12 feet of you and watch you watch him is an experience to remember.
4. The people: I have to mention it again :) This time, I would include the schoolmates I met there, but that's for a separate post about my experience. This post is about the country.
5. Low prices. The US dollar was worth about $2 AU, but prices in Australia are numerically comparable (a meal that would cost $5 in the USA would cost about $5 AU in Australia.) So, if you go to australia, don't do what I did and keep some money in the USA. Take it all with you, change it all, and budget.
6. Danish Caramels from Balfour's Bakery. I would import that stuff to Jamaica if I could, in all seriousness. I never had a pastry like that before I went to Adelaide, and I've never had one since I left. I'm here remembering the texture and flavor, and wata come to mi eye. mmmmmmmmmmmm...yeah, I really miss those :(
7. The People (you see a theme coming out here? And remember I'm not really a people person either :D), especially those at Adelaide City church. Will say more about those experiences later.
   

Things I didn't like about Australia:

1. Lack of ice. Call me weird, but don't Australians ever use ice in their drink??? The only time I might have gotten any ice was if I went to a fast food store. Besides that, it seems that the only thing they drink that's non-alcoholic is cordial (aka syrup) and water. Their food is great, and the wine and liquor is very good if you do that sort of thing, but they need to step up for the "dry" people of the world.
2. "Neighbours" and "Home and Away." It takes a lot to beat "Dawson's Creek" for the title of Worst Show Ever, but these two manage to do so.
3. The cafeteria food. The caf workers were nice people, but God only knows what they did to the food, yo. I mean, how can you make RICE unedible? I ate what I could when I could stomach it. All of us on dorm lived for Tuesdays when they had an Asian cook come in for Asian night, because the food was then just a bit above mediocre. Interestingly enough, the Asian students on dorm HATED Tuesdays. Not only was the food borderline for eating, but the caf was closed on weekends, so we had to fend for ourselves those times. There were kitchens on dorm, but funds to buy food to prepare in said kitchens were limited. I had no luck in finding a part time job, and I found myself having to subsist on ramen noodles and cordial on Sundays and some Saturdays, if I was unable to hustle a lunchtime invitation from people at church. To this day, I refuse to eat ramen noodles unless it is the only thing between life and starvation.
4. "Live hard, party harder" seems to be the Aussie motto. I've never seen an official uni orientation where a pub crawl was the focal event, until I went to Flinders. Well, that's a plus for some people, but I'm a square :) besides, it's not healthy.
   
5. Hmmmm...that's pretty much it. Any other negative thing were experience-based. I told you it was a cool country :D

I was hoping to go back to do some further schooling after New Mexico Tech, but it didn't happen...if I ever return to school, I think I'll try to go down there. Highly recommended!

Travelogue #1: California

I lived in California for 3 and a half months, from May 14 2005 to September 3 2005. I was in Orange County, in the city of Tustin and worked in Irvine. It was an interesting experience...and I don't just mean my entire job thing, which I will not detail on this website.

I liked the time I spent there, because it was different from anything I had experienced before. However, I don't think I would have been able to stay there for more than 3 years or so, and I definately would not want to settle there. I had heard that Northern California was the place to be, and Southern California was all congestion and sucktitude. Well, I didn't get the chance to visit NoCal, but SoCal wasn't as bad as I had feared, in some respects.

What I liked about California:

• Tustin. It's a nice suburb of the OC. It wasn't as slick or yuppie as Irvine, where I'd drive past the apartments and say "yeah, I ain't gonna be able to live up in here for a loooong time, if EVA!". It wasn't as beat-up/ghetto as Santa Ana or La Brea, where I'd drive through and say "don't these people ever clean up the place?" Tustin had the perfect mix of upper-middle class and blue collar-class, for me at least. My apartment was the right type for me at the time, too bad I didn't have any furniture for it :D It just felt "real". I just wished I could have gotten to know more people around there, but I'm a quiet guy anyways.
• The Orange Coast SDA church. Beautiful people, multi-cultural church, all that's good about so-called "California Adventists" and nothing bad...at least not from what I saw in my three-plus months over there. It was a bit weird to see the church go out for dinner at Soup Plantation after church, but to each their own. Pastor Ken was a really wonderful pastor, and I always had a blessing whenever I went to church there.
• Bible study at Russ and Megumi's place. Their house was the first place I went after I moved to California, on the emailed advice from Pastor Ken, and this bible study became the high point of my week. The people I met there had a great impact on my spiritual life, and Russ and Megumi really helped me during my stay in California in more ways than one. I'll never forget them, and they've got a friend for life in me. Open line for any assistance I can give 'em! Special mention to Courtney and David as well :)
  
• Anything I wanted was within 10 minutes drive. From Ikea to groceries to chinese food to car marts to Barnes and Nobles to sushi to movie theaters...you name it, and it's around close enough. Coming from small towns in New Mexico and Virginia, this was enough to make my head spin...and I loved it ('specially that B&N thing, hahahaha.)
• Variety of scenery. When I was driving to Tustin from NM, all I saw was desert, and the two-hour stretch from the Arizona border to Bakersfield, CA (where I-40 merges into I-15 N&S) was probably the second worst stretch of driving landscape I've had the displeasure of passing through. I'll describe the worst in another travelogue. Anyways, I was surprised when I headed south on I-15, and saw the whole range of scenery! From desert to snow-capped mountains to beach scenery, all within 3 hours of driving. The range in the OC wasn't too bad either. I went out on a drive a couple of times, and took a bike ride a few days before. The first drive was through the south mountains, and the second drive was through Malibu with Lauren. The bike ride was along one of the trails to the beach, but I didn't get to the beach. I did find this really nice small park, and had a good meditation there. My point is that California does have a good range of climates.

What I didn't like about California

• Traffic. Freakin' Traffic. Sodding, bloody, disgusting, traffic. Let me tell you, I have experienced rush-hour traffic in Jamaica every morning heading to work. I've driven in NYC, and I've been in the best of beltway traffic in DC on many an occasion. None of those in any way prepared me for the horror that is Southern California rush hour traffic. It has to be seen to be believed, but let me give you an idea. Imagine a 12-lane highway, 6 lanes running one way, and 6 lanes running another. Now imagine this highway packed to the brim with cars that aren't moving, for about 30 miles or so. That, my friends, is I-405 every day after 5 pm. I mean, I lived about a 10-minute drive from my office at a regular time. Leaving early in the morning, I would make it in about 15 minutes or so. Coming home in the evenings, if I reached home in an hour, I was lucky. It made no difference if I used the freeway or tried to find local roads, it was clogged either way. Traffic would have played a major role in making me leave Cali if I had kept my plan of working for a while in that state.
• Heat. The whole place was just MUGGY, and the fieldwork I was doing in the Inland Empire (near Loma Linda and San Bernardino) made me aware that smog is really REALLY bad around these parts. If you live near the coast, you might catch some breeze, but other than that, you salt.
• High cost of living. I never did understand why everything was so overpriced over there. Was I supposed to pay for the privilege of living in this "wonderful" state? sheesh! From rent to movies to groceries, it was all high-priced. I learned a lot about living on the cheap...
• Fakeness of people. It said a lot to me that in my time in California, the only friends I made were people who were not native to California. Every last one of them came from somewhere out of state or out of country, or even out of SoCal. I never knew that people could be so two-faced until I experienced OC natives.
  
• Being black in California. I had my first and only DWB experience in California.
• Earthquakes. I experienced two tremors in my time there, and it only reminded me that the Big One is overdue. If you live in California, keep on dreaming that it won't come. People in New Orleans thought the same thing about the levees.

All in all, I had an eventful and fruitful time in California. It would not be my first choice of a state to live in, but I would go back there to work for a while if the situation was right, with the proper expectations in mind.

And i never even got a chance to truly go through Los Angeles...but that was probably for the best.

My favourite memory of California: Visiting Whistler Island (if that's the name) on July 4 with the OC young people. Beautiful place, and it got me into kayaking. Honorable mention goes to my bike ride through Costa Mesa towards the beach, the Monday Bible studies at Russ's place (and James's place sometimes), and the times I spent hanging with Bev and Lauren, especially with Lauren and her friend at that free Jars of Clay concert at Angel Stadium. Also, finally getting to meet Rachel!

Not so cool memory of California: Traffic, feelings of confusion after my experience, feelings of being BROKE, uncertainty of the future, speeding tickets.

Another review of "the wire"

This is the tail end of The Sport's Guy's review of Gridiron Gang. I was pleasantly surprised to see it as I came to the end of that column, on www.espn.com/page2
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One more thing ...

I found it fascinating that, in the same month that "Gridiron Gang" became the No. 1 movie, HBO ignored perpetually crummy ratings and renewed "The Wire" for a fifth and final season. After plowing through the first 37 episodes of "The Wire" in three weeks this summer, I agree with others who argue that it's the most important television show of all-time, surpassing even "The Sopranos" because of its ambition and social relevance. The "Sopranos" worked because the acting and writing was so exceptional, we found ourselves identifying with unlikable characters who were basically unredeemable (save for Tony's wife, his children and his therapist). We excused every horrible action because we grew to like these characters personally over the years. In real life, we probably wouldn't like any of them, and we would definitely be afraid of them. It's fantasy disguised as reality: Lose yourself in the show for an hour, digest it when it's over and move on to something else.

Well, there's nowhere to hide in "The Wire." The characters are stuck in Baltimore, a washed-up city ravaged by drugs, poverty and political corruption. Our closest thing to heroes are renegade detective Jimmy McNulty (a likable, hard-drinking iconoclast who disappears for much of Season 2 and becomes completely irrelevant in Season 4) and a gun-wielding nomad named Omar (a scarfaced Robin Hood, only if Robin Hood was gay and stole from drug dealers). We spend three full seasons watching Baltimore police break the city's biggest drug syndicate ... only to watch an angrier, more ruthless group of rival dealers immediately pop up in its place. The current season centers around four poor teenagers (all of them threatening to succumb to the drug lifestyle) and Baltimore's incompetent school system (which can't even begin to hope to save them), with the show elucidating in painstaking detail why these kids can't be salvaged: They have no role models and no chance to escape, and things will never change because the lead politicians and major police heads only care about themselves. There's no overall plan to save the city, no passionate leader on the horizon, nothing. All of it would take too much effort. Like a dead fish, Baltimore rots from the head down.

It's an exceptional show, and I'm not even sure "exceptional" is a strong enough word. Of course, barely anyone watches it. HBO deliberated over its renewal all summer until the gushing feedback for Season 4 left them no choice. Late to the party, I spent the past few weeks devouring the show, then the next week wondering what took everyone else so long to jump on the bandwagon, and more importantly, what took ME so long to jump on the bandwagon. Two weeks ago in this space, I explained how I'm one of those people who doesn't like when other people tell me, "YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS SHOW!" If anything, that makes me not want to watch it. I like to stumble across these things organically.

Now I'm wondering if I avoided "The Wire" because its central themes -- drugs, corruption, urban decay -- were realities that I simply wanted to ignore. Instead of being haunted by a show like this, it was easier and safer to skip it entirely. Most people feel this way, I'm guessing; it's the only conceivable reason why five times as many people would watch "The Sopranos" over a show that's better in every way. See, when most Americans dabble in inner-city TV shows or movies for our "taste" of street life, we're hoping for the Hollywood version. We don't want despair and decay, we want hope and triumph. We don't want the zero sum game of drug dealers killing each other, we want the Rock coaching juvie kids and turning their lives around in two hours. We want them to win the big football game, we want the movie to end, and we don't want to think about these people ever again.

That's the real reason why "Gridiron Gang" became the No. 1 movie last weekend, and that's the real reason why "The Wire" was barely renewed for a fifth season. Upon further review, maybe the problem isn't Hollywood after all.

Bill Simmons is a columnist for Page 2 and ESPN The Magazine. His new book "Now I Can Die In Peace is available on Amazon.com and in bookstores everywhere.
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Jimi's best rendition of his best work

No one would ever be able to cover this song, I don't think. It's in 2 parts because it's kinda long.

BSG

Good TV is coming back, baby! Both BSG and The Wire at the same time, mmm...

Who Knows

Youtube+Geoff+blogger= a whole lot of experimenting :)

This is one of my favourite Jimi Hendrix tunes. It's not his greatest work, but it has a really funky groove to it and I just wanted to put it up here.