The Bravery played a great show at Webster Hall indeed. It had a touch of stadium performance while trouncing around the stage. Any band insistent on slugging Jaegermeister on the stage leaves questions aloft. Quantity of music consumption is an amazing feat. Constant expansion requires attention and leads. Not to mention a steady stream going out if one were to purchase the desired music. I have respect for the artists, and I certainly believe they deserve their share. Sadly, not many are willing to do it without the compulsory reward. Marketing and market in general require some many caveats and grease slicking. Paying to get music on the air is somewhat ridiculous. Do you really need every possible revenue stream if you're already on a network require payment. Why do other sources of copyrighted information have the right to be paid for? It's a huge disadvantage to those trying to make their mark. They need a label boosting them forward in order to share the talent, rather purchase their market share. Let the marketing department have at them, and they will all strike up some deal. Speaking of mega blockbusters, Coldplay's X&Y strikes a nice cord with me. There are some sweeping melodies. Tickets at the garden would have been nice. They are striking up five nights like U2, which has it's own arrangement for the garden at this point; although, even for waking up early on a Saturday morning, 20 minutes determined my fate, ticketless.

So much of recent has been light. I have not been quite as worked up at the office. Deciding a softer tred has mended relations and left quite the sweet tooth. Though, it is not always so sweet. However, no matter how loud you yell, sitting quietly is infinitely more effective in that moment. Just as in the question of inhabiting New York, there needs to be balance. New York or anywhere for that matter, a second, a minute, then, to collect oneself. Determinism shouldn't be wielded haphazardly.

Finding focus now
Infinite moments before
disolving other

Months and months go rolling along, and so much goes unsaid. While I was traveling this blog served a purpose of sharing my experiences with others, but when I’m in the city connected to those I ordinarily laugh and love, I’m left questioning a little bit what purpose this has.

There are certainly questions of anonymity. As this is linked directly to my website I am not immune to ranting too much, yet there’s still room to retell many other tidbits, some interesting and others undoubtedly interesting to me and few others…

Lately, I’ve been asking the question, “What music are you listening to,” a lot. This has primarily been my source for new music because I don’t often turn on the radio (despite having it at my fingertips), and I don’t often find myself in stores or online hunting around for tips. All of those would be good sources as well, but I’m making out reasonably well. I have more music at this point than I can become familiar with before hearing about something else. Fresh might be an understatement. Just the other night, Nathan, my brother asked if I had heard of The Bravery. I had not, but after getting their self titled album, it’s with no great surprise that I just got a pair of tickets to see them at Webster Hall.

I was watching Charlie Rose last night; his guests were professional bloggers: Andrew Sullivan, Joe Trippi, the lady from Wonkette, and a couple others. It was interesting hearing their insight into the "Rathergate" incident having been on the frontlines themselves. There likely will not be much in the way of breaking news coming through this line. I wonder if I'll ever even figure out how to run an RSS feed for this site. All of this is possible if I can get caught up some in my work a at AJWS. All work and no play makes Jack...

Oh yea, oh yea, oh yea. I love playing with new toys. It's not nice to be devoid the creative. Space time and motion found in cutting a straight line. But what of warm water. And, who, if anyone would ever attempt to deecipher this? Patience or personal interest; strong contenders...

Gasp, it's already been eight days. Not entirely sure where they have gone. I've just finished laundry thankfully my clean socks admit. Unfortunate to learn that Steve Madden didn't have good material specialists working on their insoles. Even after having them reglued they managed to bunch up under my feet by mid-day, and those socks bit the dust as soon as the shoe were off. Bella suggested trying to soak them in hot water; however, the glue used during the shoe repair is not likely to be light weight or effected by water. So long soaks; you've served me well. J Crew, actually. Not that I've ever owned much from there. Nothing that fits all that well. And what about Eddie Bauer. They guarantee their products for life, and my new jeans couldn't last a month. Insult to injury is that neither could the price. They were discontinued for not being too successful, and I only got 60% of the original price in a credit. This does however serve as some justice because when I was in high school I had the better of them. Traveling from New Orleans to Taft regularly, I was quite tough on luggage. My Eddie Bauer bag, which was entirely too big took me many places over six years or better. Finally, it got tired of me putting more than forty pounds at a time in it, and the strap stitching came undone. In my mind life was life, so I brought the bag back and got a credit. It almost makes it appropriate for the jeans to serve as retribution of sorts. Not that putting any credence whatsoever maintains an ounce of guilt; merely intrigue.

Tomorrow will officially be my first day as a Development Associate at American Jewish World Service. It has been great working there over the past three years. In addition to having wonderful professional experience, meeting amazing people, and doing good work in the world, I have began to develop a sense of social justice. I am in large part ignorant to the complexities of the world we live in, but each day my eyes open a little bit more. The sights before me invite a rush of thoughts and feelings. Can we really be doing all of this to one another? Why don't we do more for each other? I have not chosen the most lucrative path in this new endeavor, but the opportunity for growth may very well be unavailable eslewhere. Regardless, I'm happy with what I have, and that's a really wonderful feeling.

Tonight Bella and I had our first game on the Deluxe Scrabble board I received from Merle. It's no surprise that she kicked my ass, again. She beat me a couple times before on her old set, by 70 points or so, then again by 40. This time was a real walloping though weighing in at a monsterous 90+ points. Reading Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis has gotten me back into my old competitive game mode. While traveling I thought about taking up chess again as I have on several other occasions. However, now, I want to follow through on this desire. I have on my desk a posting for the 7th Annual Foxwoods Open, which will take place towards the end of March. If I can commit to training enough, I will eventually register for the event. This is a huge event that I would like to compete in, so I'm contemplating. But back to Scrabble for a moment, I need to learn some new words, yea. Bella has a significantly larger vocabulary and wields it accutely crossing triple word scores and racking up huge points. I'm going to narrow my margins with the hopes of one day surpassing her. I'm not counting on lucky tiles, I need to do some work...

"Napoleon, this is Pedro, will you show him his locker." Starting afresh at AJWS won't require too much adjustment. I began in Communications, shifted to IT, back to Communications, now on to Development while still dabbling in Communications. It has been a full on submersion since returning from New Orleans. We have been responding to the atrocities in South East Asia. I have a very difficult time comprehending 150,000 lives extinguished within minutes. There is so much going on in the area; I find it difficult to keep up with what is happening in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India. We have been inundated with support from all over. Our website has proven to be an amazing asset during this time. To process all of the requests by hand would have taken a great many more people for the sheer volume. I'm glad to say we can keep our overhead to just 5%. Unfortunately, I missed the presentation on what the latest relief efforts were focusing on, but I was off settling another network's affairs.

Merriam Webster's hottest word of the year, 2004 -- blog. It's a great way to spread the word. Happy New Year to everyone.

I'm glad to hear something can bite into Internet Explorer's market share. Brian told me the NSA does not suggest people use it for security reasons, and now the newest thing to hit is Mozilla's Firefox. I'm downloading, installing, and about to quite using this browser I despise. Thankfully, Safari has helped me avoid using much of Internet Explorer since early summer. Now, an alternative for when I'm on PCs...

The choice was celebrate or commiserate. Unfortunately, we've run out of positive options. This evening was a wonderful gathering on the upper west side. Not quite the scene of votergasm.com, but we congregated with a common hope. Well, Bush's victory may be the sign of Hillary's opportunity four years from now. But, really, I would rather be re-electing John Kerry than having her as president. Besides, who wants to wait four years of misery for something positive? It's a very sad night as the polling speculations become dreary realities. With any luck, we won't really be stuck with a Republican House, a Republican Senate, a Republican President, and a soon to be nominated Republican Supreme Court Justice. However, I wish Judge Rehnquist comfort in this difficult time. I just recently witnessed my Grandmother in the throws of cancers, and it not something anybody should endure no matter what their politics. I have compassion for him, and I am hopeful these next four years may echo my sentiments.

I was just reading on a pretty interesting site. The author asks many interesting questions within ethics. His September 14th post regarding Sudan asks many good questions.

what must we do?... what can we do?... well first, what are the implications to each of us?... i mean, in doug's word, 'how does this news implicate you, me, us?'... and then what must we do?...

I have been giving some thought to what it would entail to be more involved with ethics. Going back some time, this is a topic I have enjoyed. It is something I look forward to writing more on.

When the mood strikes...

Rest assured, this blog is not a thing of the past. Only, I have not been paying to much attention to entering my musings of late. It has been hard to put into words what's happening and the places I'm traversing. Considering the appropriateness of happenings in this, such a public yet personal, domain has left me without putting anything online. Many changes in my life just recently and every moment leave me wanting to express more, and it shall come.

Programming phone numbers into a phone that isn't mine is not my ideal way of spending time; however, that's an internship for you. DC has been really good to me, and while I don't feel it's okay to discuss much of what my actual work has been the same does not hold true for my opinion of government. Damn things are sticky around the Beltway. Everybody's partisan, this is something I've benefited from greatly because I have been quite cautious not to step on anyone's toes for the longest time. Well, I'm discovering if you don't speak up you're going to get washed over. So, I keep my mouth shut as ordered from the outset when necessary. Otherwise, I throw myself right into the fray of it all. This campaign season has helped me learn quite a bit about how the backbone of candidacies operate particularly since my boss and co. are major conrtributors as well as organizers.

Yes, well, my interest in politics has led me deep into the belly. This party is definitely not for me; although, I have a better appreciation for the necessity of diplomacy. You can't achieve all ends by playing solely to your base. Work both sides of the isle if you intend to ever really get somewhere. Remember to play well with others.

Having a little tribute to Rick James this evening. No Brian, I'm not doing coke, either. Surprises come on occasion, but nothing like that, at all. Easy doing set up a wireless network. Spent some time this evening gathering info on the new sidekick. Both attorney Robert and Kaleb have been excited about it's upcoming release. I have my notifier set up...

Need to be rolling along with all those other pebbles to be pushed off the hill... It's a momentum thing.

So there's this article about Michael Moore's Farhrenheit 9-11 and it's eligibility for oscars. The trouble is the film was screened in Cuba on television from a pirated copy. Both parts are important because to be eligible for Oscars a film cannot be screened on television or the internet within 9 months... It's just such a coincidence that it would happen there, or that people would be in an upheaval. Strange, I think not.

Bloody hell, I dare say, do not try and 'target disk' connect an osX laptop with a windows machine. Perhaps with a bit of software it may go down well, but I tell you something; my machine got spiked. Luckily, it remembers how to be a target disk still. I also happen to be quite fortunate to have gotten an external drive all set up today. Merci Beaucoup Brian. I type as the 17+ hour backup is happening before I bring my sad, caughing computer to the Apple SoHo store, tomorrow. How fortunate, also is it that I have an excellent apple technician living next door. Kaleb has been a great help in bringing me up to speed on repairing these machines.

I got to give credit to the good folks at Big Apple Group, they did nice work on some banners for AJWS. There was a slight techinical problem, but it probably would not have happened if I hadn't rushed them. Even if they had done it still, they are kindly redoing the work, and it will be ready in a couple days time. Wahid is my connection within the US for cricket. We spoke much about this past weekend's Sri Lanka v. India match. While traveling throughout India cricket played a tremendous part in my experience. From Dayal in Lucknow through the villages in Rishikesh, across to Bombay via Delhi. You've never seen a more populous city come to a standstill than when a match between Pakistan and India is going on. Imagine the stadium in Calcutta; Eden Gardens seats 120,000. If that's not effervescense, I simply don't get it. What an overwhelming experience. I also understand Calcutta's sweets are supposed to be quite incredible. Although, I would take an Old Delhi Jalabi, any day of the week, and twice on saturday. All of it...

I didn't quite understand all of it. The excitement, the buzz, the character. I was overwhelmed at times when I was in India. There were moments of complete silence juxtaposed with frenzied leaping. Up a wave and through a corridor maneuvering about the shifts. Concentrated at the board. Again, I find myself whirling about. Printed pages amidst missing advertisements. Numbers, letters, coalitions. Alpha Beta Gaga and then some. There are some projects that I would really love to see come to fruition. Tomorrow will be such an opportunity to tee up on. Quiet allows for rest. more,,,

I've recently been on a bender for advocating my friends. Now I put it out there for everyone. Well, at least all the eyes falling on this lolely internet page amongst billions.

Get some information about Sudan. Also, sign my orgainzation's advocacy letter. American Jewish World Service does some really great work.

Ekk, it's almost been a week again. What to do about all of it? Hitting the road isn't always a bad idea. So, Howie and I are off to Pennsylvania. We'll be relaxing at his summer place on the Delaware river. It'll be a nice two nights hopefully with some sunny days. Then time to come back and bear down on that wiley GMAT. It got the better of me this week. There is a lot of room for improvement, and then the better may be had of it. Meanwhile, uptown, things are great and lusciously green here. I have finally sorted out my electrical conundrum, and I seem to be doing fine if not running up the electricity working late into the night. Amazing how easy it is to stay up hour after hour starring at a screen. Here's one result.

We're were in the theater last Friday for Farenheit fun, and tonight will be the same. This time going as a group, our numbers have increased from 2 to 5, is approriate as the screens showing the film nationally has also increased from 868 to over 1700. I highly support this film, and encourage everyone to see it. I'm glad to hear my brother, Nathan, went to see the film. He was telling just yesterday that people have come out to question Moore's film, including Democrats. Well, I haven't found too much out there speaking to false information in the film. Moore anticipated an onslaught of criticisms and prepared a team of great minds to react. As I have been writing this I have been searching around. We must get different news. If you haven't seen the film yet, I highly recommend it.

I've been surrounded by co-workers, friends, and family pointing out different parts in the film that I will pay closer attention to tonight. One comment in particular was about Moore making a nod to race issues towards the end of the film. Discussing this point I thought he did it much earlier in the film. I am curious to see what she was talking about.

"You want happy ever after. Go to a fucking movie." ~Josh

It is possible for just about anything to be the case. Nothing having been said there. I am amidst mayhem. Every which way I turn I find myself pulled, pushed, turned about. There's the rational and the emotional predominately. Occasionally, the spiritual slips in a word from absence. Josh has helped in that way a lot. Spiritual was a realm I sought out or at least contemplated (same thing?) while I was traveling. Now, the clanging screetching wheels of the F train take me elsewhere. That's not a negative commentary on the city. There are so many things I love about it. Although, it's nicer when there're clearer for sure. Couldn't tell you what it was like outside today. Everytime I was there I was doing or thinking about something. I love to walk for walking's sake. What a difference 'no mind' can make. Don't confuse that with being unproductive. Josh explained that one well.

I'm studying for the GMAT. I've decided. I'll apply to a part time MBA program in Information Systems at NYU. It would be an interesting program to say the least. My concentration recently has been reassuring that I could conceivably take on such a challenge. Another day and I might have been intimidated. Fear need not apply here.