How to stop a 500 foot monster or your mother in law

Wired's Danger room has a great post about our possible options if King Kong attacked New York today. He knows his military hardware and his classic movie monsters.
Link

america, you call to me a little bit or: I want to be home for a black and an atheist

Two reasons I would like to be back in NYC:

1. To be able to read the New York Times and watch this amazing dog and pony show election that might just put someone outside the establishment into office

2. Richard Dawkins starts his God Delusion tour. He might be the only male where I would be so embarrassed that I would get tongue tied and then wet myself.

Also, there's that group of amazing friends who I miss so much but they're not famous (yet) and so don't count

His and her diary or: dear lord, now i'm posting email forwards, what has this blog come to?

HER DIARY

Tonight I thought he was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a bar to have a drink. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment.

Conversation wasn't flowing so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk. He agreed but he kept quiet and absent. I asked him what was wrong; he said nothing. I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said it had nothing to do with me and not to worry. On the way home I told him that I loved him, he simply smiled and kept driving. I can't explain his behaviour; I don't know why he didn't say I love you too. When we got home I felt as if I had lost him, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there and watched TV.

He seemed distant and absent. Finally, I decided to go to bed.. About 10 minutes later he came to bed, and to my surprise he responded to my caress and we made love, but I still felt that he was distracted and his thoughts were somewhere else. He fell asleep.

I cried. I don't know what to do. I'm almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster .

His Diary:
Today Liverpool lost, but at least I got laid .

a call to arms or: where the fuck is tibet?

An opportunity has arisen I've been considering and the timing seems opportune. For various reasons, I don't think I'll continue to live in Mumbai once my lease runs out in June (stop staring at me, for the love of all that is holy, I don't want to be a rock star anymore). This puts me in the odd position of what to do with myself. Through a friend of a friend, I found out about the March to Tibet(website works about half the time, a good sign).

In protest of the Chinese occupation of their homeland and the Olympics in Beijing, a large number of Tibetan refugees will march from Dharamsala (northern India) through New Dehli and onto the India-Tibet border. The march begins on March 10th and should reach the border August 8th to coincide with the first day of the Olympics. They demand an end to the occupation of Tibet, a return of the Dalai Lama and a release of all political prisoners. They also ask the International Olympic Committee to take the games away from China.

Now, do I think any of these demands will be met? Of course not. However, anything that brings China's various abuses to public attention is a good thing. I personally believe China to be one of the foremost threats to world peace but I will save those rants for another day. Luckily, the chinese seeem to be more concerned about world opinion than ever before.

Also, I'm trying to be a writer and it's a good story. Here's the part where my faithful readers (currently around 75 a day) might be able to help: put me in contact with any media outlets that might be interested in this story whether it be newspapers, magazines or Playboy (I know it should technically count as a magazine but it's like the Michael Jordan of the biz, I only look at it for the articles though). Also, in case any potential editors read this, I can write real articles without stupid jokes and parentheses. It's just hard.

And finally, here's a video about the march. Of course, I can't watch it so let me know if it's any good:

Warren Buffett comments on nudity or: gallivanting financial institutions ruin a day at the beach

via the Old Man (who probably does not want his name on this website although it might take a rewrite of the will to keep the best stories off the presses)


In comments on his profitable year, Warren Buffett earns my prestigious BSI award for funniest statement concerning the US housing market this week:

Buffett ladled blame on lenders who weakened their underwriting standards in the false belief that housing prices would go up and keep going up. "Today, our country is experiencing widespread pain because of that erroneous belief," Buffett wrote. "As house prices fall, a huge amount of financial folly is being exposed. You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out -- and what we are witnessing at some of our largest financial institutions is an ugly sight."- Reuter's

Can't you just picture all of those naked financial institutions out in the ocean somewhere off the Jersey shore (maybe Rehoboth Beach, it's a very financial institution friendly place), their faces flush with embarrassment as they frantically try to cover their financial private parts while multinationals cover the eyes of their smaller holdings who stopped building shell corporations in the Caymans out of sand to see why all the stock brokers started screaming like six year old girls? What a glorious sight.

old photos or: those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it (bring back the corset!)

from Goligorsky's excellent design blog Perpenduum:

He points to oldpicture.com, a themed collection of photos covering many topics. Some of the diverse themes include lots of Civil War collections, portraits of Bedouins, beautiful castles, Eqyptian stateman and various Native American tribes. A wonderful collection.

Lincoln at the battle of Antietam (the bloodiest day in American history)

a child at Ellis Island

Ike addressing the troops before D-day

an Apache child in a papoose

political compass test

As my friend Mark Storella put it, this is a good way to waste ten minutes at work. The political compass test asks you some questions and then rates you on two scales: economic and social.

My scores:
economic: -1.75 (slightly left, I'm a free market guy who hates any protectionism and wants to see a hefty dose of regulations to keep companies from exploiting workers)
social: -5.74 (don't bother me, keep governments out of my affairs at all costs)
I'm proud to say that the closest men to me on the scale are Ghandi and the Dalai Lama.