Non Sequitur - Japan v. Russia

I was musing geopolitik today and wondered about the world's largest countries by economy, land mass, and population. Among the standard pool of top contenders, an interesting comparison came to mind: Japan v. Russia.

GDP World Rank
Japan is #2
Russia is #8

Size
Japan covers 374,744 sq km
Russia covers 16,995,800 sq km

Population
Japan has 127,288,416 people
Russia has 140,702,096 people

So here's the punchline:

Japan's economy is roughly 3x the size of Russia's economy, however Japan only has 2% the land mass of Russia, which is the largest country in the world in terms of land mass AND Russia's population is only 1.1x greater than Japan's - nearly the same number of people in both countries!

Additionally, 13.7% of Russia's population is 65+yrs compared with Japan's 22%. The average life expectancy in Russia is 66yrs, while Japan has one of the highest average life expectancies at 82yrs!

So who wins in Japan v. Russia? The island nation of Japan has some compelling figures for it's relatively small size, however, it's military spending as a % of GDP is only 0.8% compared with Russia's 3.9%. Considering that Japan's not allowed to have a strong military per the 1947 Constitution and for post WWII cultural reasons you could say the USA + a small native defense force, is the de facto military for Japan. Since the USA's % military spending is 4.06% I'm going to go ahead and give the win in this country comparison to Japan.

*data comes from 2008 & 2009 estimates on www.cia.gov and 2008 IMF estimates.

MCA aka Adam Yauch has cancer! Get Better Soon, Nethanial Hornblower!

It's hard to imagine that MC Adam Yauch is 44 years old. Born in 1964, the oldest, and in my opinion the most god-fatherly of the NYC based rap trio is my favorite B-Boy and I was sad to hear today that he has a type of cancer of the salivary gland. Luckily he says it's "very treatable" and should not affect his voice. His YouTube announcement was very lighthearted and was done with Adam Horowitz aka Ad-Rock in a studio. For more details check out the WebMD article on the matter... surprising that WebMD has written an article in the first place!

My friends know I'm a die-hard Beastie Boys fan. I bought Check Your Head & Ill Communication back when I was 11 years old (Ill Communication had just been released) and Licenced to Ill and Paul's Boutiques shortly afterwards. I remember making off like a bandit just like all the other kids using the BMG CD subscription service - yup - all done by snail mail. Remember that service where you could pick up 10-20 cds for just a few pennies?

Ill Communication quickly became my favorite CD. The B-Boys and Encarta '95 sound clips of grandmaster flash basically introduced me to the world of hip hop. These guys were my heroes, and I was always blaring their music in my '93 red honda civic. MCA's maturation from unruly, irresponsible teen-punk to Buddhist, Free Tibet activist was astounding to me. Tracks like Bodhisattva's vow, which include signature guttural Buddhist prayer chants, were inspiring to a kid very interesting in Hinduism and Buddhism...

After moaning and groaning about a lack of west coast concert dates over the years, I finally saw the b-boys live at the Bill Graham Civic in SF back in 2004. I was pretty much at the front of the line, I waited there all day maybe the second or third person from the entrance, reading a copy of enders game or speaker for the dead, I think... being at the front paid off when I had the chance to shake MCA's hand and have a fraction of a second cameo in the they filmed of the line outside the auditorium for the Mix Master Mike intro.

Adam Yauch, hope you have a smooth and speedy recovery so you can get back to pouring down the dharma for all the sisters and brothers.

RIP Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed MacMahon, So Forth

Today we were blindsided by MJ's death. Tomorrow we'll be blindsided by the details reporters dig up about his life.

It's been a tough couple weeks it's a media feeding frenzy out there, bigger sharks are feeding on smaller sharks every half hour:

MJ has died suddenly
Iran Contra(versy)
Riots everywhere
Pre-Troop Pullout Violence in Iraq
Beautiful & Courageous Neda
US Beefing up Missile Defenses "just to be safe" while N. Korea sails a ship possible laden with nuclear "magic dust" bound for an equally totalitarian Burma
Euna Lee and Laura Ling are sentenced to 12 years hard labor in North Korean death camps. Godspeed on their safe release.
NY Times Reporter escapes taliban captors, NY Times asked all other media outlets to keep his capture a secret, they comply, I'm scared about what else the media is hiding
Oh in fact they are hiding more stuff: Mark Sanfords infidelity and possible abuse of power - an SC paper had the details for months, but decided not to print anything allowing him to provide the American public with a surreal press conference
Jon and Kate + 8 - Too Late... omg. But I thought reality tv strengthens couples, like when Speidi went on that bs celeb island show and got kicked off in a humid costa rican minute.
Mexico's war on drugs has killed over 8000 mexicans in the last two years (on both sides of the law)

hmmmmmmmmm kind of makes you want to write a new version of:

we didn't start the fire (billy joel)

OR

it's the end of the world as we know it (REM)

Cheers America.

Mark Sanford - A New Martyr for Fiscally Conservative Republicans?

Mark Sanford is the governor of South Carolina. He's also been touted as one of four top choices for a 2012 GOP run for the White House. A few days ago he stirred up great concern after reporting to his staff that he was taking a hike through the Appalachia. He could not be reached and "the public" speculated on his whereabouts. Today at 11:30AM Pacific Time we found him on the major cable news stations: MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, giving a highly anticipated press conference a few hours after he initially told reporters he'd actually been in Argentina (a reporter met him at the airport).

I randomly tuned into the broadcast, knowing a little bit about the story beforehand, and immediately and not surprisingly guessed where his press conference was headed - straight to infidelity land. After making a series of heartfelt apologies to his family, father in law, staff, people of faith, etc. he announced that he had been unfaithful to his wife with a woman he befriended in Argentina 8 years prior. The relationship had "become something more" only in the last year or so and he provided lots of details during the Q&A portion of the press conference. He revealed that his wife/family had discovered the affair about 5 months ago and that this was his first instance of infidelity.

While I've followed most of the recent political affair-scandals in newspapers and on second hand reports via the local TV news, this one really struck me as surreal, since I was catching it live with the rest of the Nation. Here is a man, a governor of a state I know next to nothing about, who is apparently a top choice for the republican presidential nomination in 2012 (with others like Bobby Jindal). And he's telling the whole country of his lecherous behavior with an Argentinian woman. I just guess I had one of those, "we live in strange times" moments.

Other than the fantastical nature of the admission itself, I was curious about how the different cable news stations would cover this breaking story. I watched most of the live press conference on CNN and then some of CNN's commentary, later I switched to Fox News to hear their commentary. I was trying to put myself in a neutral mindset even though, I was expecting more searing commentary from CNN and a more defensive posture from correspondents and commentators on Fox News...

The woman at the CNN news desk expressed a restrained contempt for the Governor and towards the end of the segment praised the Governor's wife for not being "at his side" during the press conference as the correspondent felt it was a sign of being "fake". Strong feminist undertones, but with a calculated restraint. Fox News was interesting because they were able to get comments from people very close to the Governor and so the tone was extremely sympathetic... but even more interesting was what I perceived to be Fox New's strategy of how to frame this political-scandal narrative.

Governor Sanford has made a lot of enemies on both sides due to his rejection of the Obama stimulus package, he was overridden in South Carolina but made lots of fellow Republicans enemies in the process. The Fox News report went out of their way to suggest that perhaps a political opponent forced this scandal out in order to further weaken his strength SC and also his nomination potential in 2012. The guest on the program didn't think that was at all plausible, but the seed was planted. Fox News also went on to frame the Governor's plight in this way: that he was a responsible, fiscally conservative republican being ganged up on by egregiously spendy democrats and the socially conservative republicans that dominate SC politics.

I just have a hunch that the political commentary around this scandal will be interesting to look at retrospectively as we move closer to 2012 as republicans try to posture to find a fresh platform and fresh face for their next bid at the White House.

$7000 for a 1000 sq ft home? Sign me up.

I've never visited Slate.com to read an article. Perhaps I've read an article or two forwarded to me in the distant past, but a couple days ago I thought, why not, they're supposed to have interesting reads...

So I just read this article about Flint, Michigan in Slate. It's apparently a dilapidated, crime-ridden town with few job prospects, but that aside the San Francisco transplant who writes the article drops some values on the homes out there, it's really surprising!

The SF housing bubble is ridiculous. The slate article (below) relates that a perfectly good 1000 sq ft house near a university campus went for 7 grand in a short sale recently. WTF. Aside from all the quality of life factors, housing bubble dynamics, robustness of local industries, etc. just compare that number for a second to the $2750 you could be paying for a recently renovated sub 800 sq ft'er 2 bedroom in Mission Dolores. Less than 3 months of rent for that bigger house in flint, it just blows my mind. I mean the author here talks of crack dens, etc. plaguing some of these Flint neibhorhoods with really low housing prices... it's not like people don't regularly get shot just a few blocks away from the ivory tower mission dolores neighbhorhood. I'm thinking below 16th and Mission... and that doesn't include all the dealing that goes down just at Albion and 16th... ah, but the grungy hipster entrepreneurial lifestyle!

The Slate Article About Flint by Gordon Young

SF Murders - A great interactive feature

I count roughly 10 murders alone near my old Mission Dolores pad, they occured between 07-08.

Gordon Young, the Slate article that inspired this post also has a blog, I've included a link here to his Flint murder map... I love how they call themselves Flint expatriates... maybe they should be known as refugees...

Maybe someone can write a robust post on the concept of Murder Maps...

Foodie FAIL

A friend of mine attended this and it was so bad he received a refund upon request. Apparantly expecations were extremely high and the event under-delivered.

I told him I thought this was the absolute worst aggregation of Yelp reviews I've ever seen (and in such a short period of time)

http://www.yelp.com/biz/great-american-food-and-music-fest-mountain-view#hrid:1d5Jj7n5rgvCACMAQibyrg

Up - the new disney/pixar movie

I went to the movies last Friday with my parents. We wante to see Up, but the 8:30PM show was sold out. In a fit of confused rage I purchased 3 "night at the museum II" lie-max (thanks rich) tickets (@ $16.50 for adults, that's stinking nuts) but then my wise parents exchanged those tickets for the 10PM up showing. THANK YOU PARENTS. 

Disney/Pixar's "Up" was awesome! But beware, it's not your typical happy go lucky animated kid film: it's rated PG, there are two scenes with a little bit of blood, and the beginning story arc is very poignantly sad - but it will "lift" you up with great laughs, a fresh-current story, and a strong moral compass.

Angst(er) Rap? No thanks, Lil Wayne.

I recently discovered, much to my horror, Lil Wayne's new(ish) single "Prom Queen". Click on the link and watch the music video if you haven't already, you'll have more sympathy for my ensuing tirade.

It's apparantly a #15 billboard chart topper that debuted on Jimmy Kimmel Live back in Januaray, but it's off his new album coming out this August (see the wikipedia article). Typically, I really enjoy consuming Lil Wayne's music. What, with such great hits as "Stuntin' Like My Daddy", "We Takin' Over" (DJ Khaled), and "Lollipop", it's hard to deny Lil Wayne's charming mainstream rap bankability. However, "Prom Queen" imho is an unwelcome foray into the nether regions of rock/hip-hop fusion (read: Pharrel and NERD) and cross-demographic espionage. I hope to devote some attention to the latter, in two forthcoming posts about mainstream rap's often absurd lyrics and the insidious caricature mainstream hip hop is today (and why I feel duped).

I'll admit: when I'm driving to a party on a Saturday night I "need me some" Lil Wayne to hype the mood and get in the groove. I can more than tolerate Lil Wayne's highly nasal rapping voice, belting out limericks about hot hoes ("Hoes"), menstrual issues (listen to the extremly catchy "A Milli"), and lollipop licking (from the eponymous, "Lollipop"). But if and when Prom Queen resurafces on the 94.9 & KMEL 106.1 airwaves, I will cringe and switch over to one of my other presets (NPR).

In trying to seem fresh and versatile, Prom Queen instead noisly rehashes an age-old, teen-angst drama. Nerdy high school kid is infatuated with hot uber-girl, unrequited love ensues, he becomes famous while she languishes in squalor. The music video for Prom Queen might have catalyzed my atypically violent reaction to this type of song. It's boring and unoriginal. Unless you feel that the following are avante-garde: Lil Wayne in thick framed, taped in the middle, glasses and Lil Wayne wailing on electric guitar (they only seem to show his body in that shot, who's his guitar weliding stunt double, I wonder?) It's kind of like that recent Chris Brown song about a nerd and his high school fantasy girl, except that the nerdy Chris Brown gets his girl and the music video doesn't take itself too seriously, has great dance choreography, and is otherwise highly entertaining. Oh and it also contains the "Auto-tune" effect that we've all grown to love in our mainstream rap music (thank you very much Cher and T Pain).

When Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters commented on his love ballad "Big Me" he apparantly said, "Everybody has to have their pop crap token love song... you know you know boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl tells boy to fuck off!" When he said "everybody" I'm fairly certain the esteemed Mr. Grohl did not have Mr. Wayne in mind. BTW the Big Me video is a great spoof on those 90's Mentos commercials.

If Prom Queen is emblematic of the new album, I might have to say no thanks to Mr. Wayne. Even though he's trying really hard to reach out to me and my demographic by getting revenge on the girl that broke his heart in high school, rapping a tribute to the beastie boys, and laying a verse over instrumentation that "sounds" like Coldplay's Viva La Vida... I must (dis)repsectfully pass. The only rapper who's allowed to crossover and morph gangster rap into rock and roll infused "angster" rap is Tupac Shakur (think the posthumously released"Changes"), but then again he could pretty much get away with anything and I'd love it.

And for those of you who instantly recognized my inccorect use of "eponymous" in the second paragraph - your talents would be better spent figuring out ways to improve mainstream hip hop's horrendous grammar and diction. Ok, I'm just playin' I don't want the diction to change. (someday we'll all look back on this and say: yay for malapropistic easter eggs)

Southland - NBC's new cop drama

I love this show. Cop drama following the lives of beat cops and detectives in lapd. It's got a catchy well-lit noir intro, features a quick glimpse of something that happens in the future, and then the show moves from past-present and onwards thereafter. I saw an episode on Hulu.com last week and now I'm hooked. I'm in the middle of an episode now, unforutnetly Hulu only features the most recent 5 episodes so I haven't seen the first and second episodes. 

Funny thing is that I don't even like "cop dramas". Nope. I never got into NYPD Blue, CSI Miami, Law and Order: Whichever. Barney Miller was before my time, but I'll get around to it since the namesake character was featured in a "top 100 characters of all time" on either Bravo or E!... whoops I can't remember which network...

The closest things to cop drama's I ever got into as a youngster were Quincy and Rockford Files, neither of the guys were cops. Southland is great because it basks in a background radiation of gritty LA life: gang bangers, drug dealers, rapists, so forth. However, it's the foreground we're all after - it strives for in depth character development. It's serial not episodic, which is something that turns me off of most crime drama's and their mindless money-making spin-offs. Oh and of course being about cops and taking place in LA there are a few sub-story-arcs or sub-plots about racial and socio-economic divides.

So when is Oakland going to get a successful police drama franchise on Network TV?

Sinus Surgery - Day 8 - Sinus Rinse Fun Time

I'm sleeping at really odd times, like 5AM to 3PM and napping in the evening. It's weird. Ever since surgery... hmmmm.

So yesterday after the doc's visit I picked up a Sinus Rinse as he instructed. I'm supposed to use this rinse daily. In his ultra-space-y-ness he forgot to explain to me what a sinus rinse was and why I needed it, until I probed him further before our "time was up"... skip to this morning... whoops I mean this afternoon. I wake up and whine about how ridiculous the instructions are... can't use tap water, has to be filtered by a 0.5 micron filter, we don't know our home filter size so my sister suggest that I use the drinking water tap, ok that'll work. I microwave some water and add it to room temp water to make it warm then add 8 ounces worth to the sinus rinse bottle.

It's designed to be held to one nostril over a sink... you mix the aforementioned water and a packet of bicarb solution and then squirt about 2-4 ounces of water in one nostril while tilting your head over the sink... the rinse then swishes around your sinuses and spills out the OTHER nostril. SO WEIRD! I did that in both and it was actually pretty neat, not too much discomfort at all and it really cleared out the blood, etc. that had accumulated. Yay.

I want to post photos of this thing in action, its such a simple product and they charge 9.97 for it at walmart and 11.67 on sale at safeway. It's a plastic bottle, nozzle, and packets of bicarb - probably all made in china... for like 10 cents a unit. Man they're making a killing at NeilMed the san raefel company that produces this stuff.

Sinus Surgery - A Week Later (Day 7)

I still need to fill in the gaps with blog posts about the day of surgery and immediately after, it's been quite a ride since last week (and I originally thought my anxiety over the surgery was nuts!) The surgery went pretty well last Tuesday and the doc has said that he hopes to have addressed the "mechanical" breathing problems I've been facing, but the key caveat is that everything needs to heal properly and that's why I've visited his office 4 times in the last week post-operation.

I just had to sneak in a post here because today's ENT visit was near horrific, but had some aspect of extasy whereby I left the exam room bleeding like crazy, but oddly very excited about how I handled myself. If that makes sense...

So the scheduling nurse had already set up this standard week after surgery appointment and my dad drove me as he has throughout this process. We arrive for a 1:15 appointment and as always I'm seen 30-45 minutes late (sometimes it's a longer day). The doctor squirted a set of nasal numbing agent and decongestant and left me alone for what seemed like an eternity (about 15 minutes). He returned and asked me to hold the instrument you see above, a 5 inch long needle looking sheath that has a tine camera on the end which feeds to a TV in a corner of the exam room. I was asked to put my knees together, and that means pain is on the way. He stuck the rigid needle up my right nostril and poked around checking out the passageways between the nose and ethmoid sinus, but not actually through the tiny openings that reach the sinus (that's for next week).

It was super painful! He then moved to the left nostril and by that point I was all tearing up, but definitely keeping my cool. After the left nostril we chatted about my progress, he said he'd corrected a slight lateralization of the left inferior turbinate and I was otherwise healing well. He prescribed me an OTC Sinus Rinse and sent me on my way. I proceeded have a crazy nose bleed and met my dad outside - he'd always joined me in the exam room, but this time I wanted him to wait outside because I thought it was going to be a bit more excruciating. And it was!

I really felt like I handled the pain well and was somehow really excited after. Or maybe it was the hydrocodone kicking in! Those opiate pain killers are dangerous!

Sinus Surgery - Night Before the Surgery

I'm getting up at 4:30AM and will arrive at Fremont's Washington Hospital around 5:30AM for a 7AM sinus surgery. It'll be my first surgery, and I'm definitely anxious, but I'm also optimisitic that the procedure will help reduce the constant pain/pressure I'm experiencing in my sinuses and upper jaw and the frequent recurring sinus infections, nasal blockage, snoring, ear pressure issues,and reduced sleep quality. Whoa those are a lot of issues!

Before I forget I wanted to include some interesting links I've discovered while researching the surgery procedure:

1) A UCSD medical school diagram/flowchart showing the escalation of treatment from the initial acute sinusitus finally to an exacerbated condition that requires sinus surgery.

2) An informative first person account by a patient who underwent surgery for recurring sinus infection that involved turbinate reduction and correction of a deviated septum.

It's taken me quite a while to actually discover I needed surgery, and after that to actually schedule a proper date and get up to speed on what the surgery entails and the outcomes it hopes to achieve. I still feel a little in the dark as I reviewed a lot of qualitiative information about outcomes and risks, but obtained no quantitative info regarding how these surgeries improve symptoms and quality of life. I had a pre-op with my surgeon last Tuesday, CT scans taken the day before that, and a pre-op testing with nurses at Washington Hospital last Friday. I may not have asked the most pointed/specific questions to my surgeon and therefore received pretty vague answers. In fact the first time I saw a list of the actual procedures being performed is when the hostpital pre-op interview nurse asked me to a sign a form consenting that I know what procedures are being performed on me!

They include:

Middle Bilateral Endoscopic total Ethmoidectomy
Bilateral Endoscopic Antrostomy w/ removal of Maxillary sinus mucosa
Right Concha Bullosa resection
Nasal septoplasty (repair of nasal septum)
Resection of inferior turbinates (with risk of atrophic rhinitis which sounds scary!)

I'm also not clear about how my sinus tissues began thickening in the first place! I definintely didn't have chronic sinusitis 8 years ago, but I have always had allergies and asthma. I've taken lots of different medicines indicated for treatment of nasal and lung inflamation and constriction. The topic of allergies deserves a whole separate discussion/post, but anyone who wants to get a refresher on why we have allergies and how the circumstances in the environment create a perfect storm for allergies year after year, listen to last week's Science Friday w/ Ira Flatow and two allergy doc's.

So I'm going to wrap up now, I wrote this post with two aims: 1) kickstarting a few articles that will chronicle my sinus issues, the surgery, and the outcomes (also with the hope of educating others and helping them ask the right questions before surgery!) 2) writing this helps me organize what I've learned and so I get to synthesize the info and it sinks in a bit more.

Wish me luck!

I'm Back in the USA - bank account is poorer, brain is richer? maybe?

I've been back for over a week now. It's not weird to be back even though this is the symbolic end of my escapades around the world. I visited 14 countries and over 35 cities since I left my Google gig back in May 08. I wasn't traveling the whole time by any means, it was more like 6 months of traveling. The rest of the time I spent in San Francisco and other parts of California. Europe was so expensive, I keep telling people I should've visited Europe before SE Asia and India some common commodities are 15-30 times more expensive in Paris and London than on the western beaches of Southern India. But that gripe is mostly a joke, I'm glad the timeline worked itself out the way it did.

The last 3 weeks of my trip were awesome. I stayed with local friends for about a week each in southern france, sw germany (rhineland pfalz) and berlin and it was a much richer experience because of the local contacts.

In the picture above I'm free as a bird, having enjoyed a wine tasting in Sankt Martin and overlooking the town of Diedesfeld. The vantage is next to Hambacher Schloss, famous for being the site of the Hambacher Fest held in 1832, which symbolizes the rise of German democracy. Alleged by locals as the site where the black/red/gold of the german flag was popularized.

Altrip, Rhineland Pfalz, Germany - Why am I here? There's a fantastic explanation.

I met Sabrina briefly in Varkala Beach, Kerala. On Christmas Eve last year. Little did I know at that time that I'd run into her again at Hampi Ruins, Karnataka a few weeks later while travelling with my sister and uncle. Even stranger still - I mentioned to her that I was travelling to Germany with a final destination of Berlin - she generously offered me her family's extra room in their awesome Altrip home. And so I've been here for the last three nights! It's been wonderful to relax, do laundry, have "psuedo parents", and sneak in some amazing german wine, history, architecture all while nestled in the beautiful riparian landscape of the Rhine River.

Altrip is a small village of 8000 inhabitants. It's very close to Mannheim where I first trained in. The post office in Altrip is in the back of a vegetable and pet food store, it's very small, but also very awesome. Believe it or not Altrip comes from the Roman Alta Ripa meaning raised up land next to a river ecosystem. Believe it or not Altrip was founded by the Romans in 369 AD. That's one old village.

We went to Speyer yesterday. Martin Luther officiallly split from the Catholic church here in the 1500s. It has a beatiful main street to the largest gothic cathedral in Germany "Dom". There's also an awesome mideival clock tower/city gate on the other and of the picturesque restaurant and shop lined cobblestone street. Nearby we visited a near 1000 year old Jewish Baths in the heart of the City, the ruins have been turned into an informative museum.

Last night my friend Sabrina's father took us to the SAP ice hockey arena to watch Mannheim proceed to kick Berlin's ass in a best of 5 playoff series. They're 1:1 now, it was a great game with awesome perks such as unlimited German buffet and excellent german beers! Dunkelweisen Jaaaa!

Today I woke up very late and in the afternoon we visited Dr. Burklin-Wolf winemaker. Sabrina's brother Glen's good friend works at the Cellar and gave us an excellent and informative tour from fermentation chambers all the way to bottling. There was a 1937 Vintage locked in a basement cellar-cave - it was preserved - and costs 1000+ euros, but many of it's "mates" were pillaged by American and French troops after they occupied Germany at the end of WWII. We ended the tour by sampling 4 different styles and vintages of Reisling in a well appointed tasting room - all after closing time! It was really a treat! BTW the word for wheat and yeast in German sound exactly the same, "heffe".

I finally watched Slumdog Milliionaire on a perfect transfer pirated pre-release-copy. More thoughts on Slumdog later. Let's just say I'm not sure why it won all those oscars. That's provocative perhaps? Well, germany's provocative.

Day 17: My First Post in Europe

this post should read as follows: dear me and friends, my sincerest apologies for letting myself and my small, but elite group of readers down. I have had ZERO coherent downtime on this trip... till today... in Paris... where I've barely set foot outside my 5th arrondisement , humble hotel's door.

At this point I've burned through 5 cities in 3 countries in a little over 2 weeks. My buddy justin and I are putting together a day by day comprehensive digest of what we actually did do in the last 2 weeks, otherwise we'll forget the details. And oh how many details there are!

Some highlights:

Shared bunks, chocolate, cookies, and stories with Sudanese/Eritrean Refugee's on an overnight train from Milano to Paris.

Uttered Catzo & Figa innumerable times with two great Milanese friends I made while hiking to the hilltop granary in Ollantaytambo, Peru.

Justin and I were nearly incommunicado by one of the above mentioned friends for dining at MacDonalds for lunch one day in Milan (where the local food is second to none, we are very guilty, mi dispiache FP)

Justin, Frank, and I have discovered the most fantastic word in the english language: Chav.

Started dinner with friends at a legitimate family restaurant in Barcelona at midnight. People eat only after 10Pm here...

I took my first mass on Ash Wednesday at San Pietro in the Vatican. Not a bad place to take mass, I have set aside no prohibitions for lent though.

After mass we saw the pope. He was being driven in the back seat of a BMW, there was a rapid street closure as they approached and people barely knew what was happening, they took such a fast turn towards San Pietro it was just awesome. He had the light on and windows rolled down and was waving to anyone who recognized him. They must've been hitting 50-60mph on narrow Roman streets that evening...

I visited the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world.

Have already purchased three expensive Eurostar Train tickets and not yet purchased my EuroRail global pass. Que idiota.

Admired the most expensive marble colummns and perhaps the oldest working lock/key doors in the Roman paladino.

The vatican art collection (see photo top right) is incredible.

On a Jet-Plane to London Tomorrow!

Hi loyal readers! (aka my friends under extreme duress)

I'm back after a travel hiatus of just under 30 days.

First of all, there's a glitch in my posterous account that's posting from my new concept facebads.posterous.com (the service is really awesome, a buddy of mine started it, and you should sign up at www.posterous.com) I will fix that shortly. I'm not converting this blog into a facebook ad critique circus... yet.

So I just checked in online at BA.com and got my travel companions back row seats in the premium economy section. Only 36 in our premium economy cabin versus 227 in the back two cabins of coach. Woo hoo! Apparently our back row seats will recline all the way... crossing my fingers. The gang and I scored RT tickets for around $500 which also includes a $50 one way upgrade to Premium Economy on my SFO to London leg. I went for it because of peer pressure, but secondarily because there's 2'' extra legroom 2-4-2 seat rows instead o 3-4-3 rows and electrical plugs in all the seats. I haven't flown BA since I was 10 years old and I don't have great memories (because Singapore Air just rocks the house) so I hope to make some good one's tomorrow!

Most of you know I'm headed to Europe for 2 months, but what you may not know is that I've only planned out 10 of those days, the other 50 are quite up in the air although plans are starting to coalesce around cities where I've got some college buddies and dare I say it, the middle east! More on that when things get finalized.

Our high school crew, which will be 6 people strong on Monday, will be in London for 4 days and then 5 of us will be moving on to Barcelona for another 4-5 days.

Please post any "must see" attractions in the comments section and a question I have for anyone reading this is: what's your take on the value of a EuroRail Pass? There are several types and I'm considering picking one up since I'll be in Europe for so long, but with 1 way flights relatively cheap (avg around $50) I'm wondering if it makes sense. Thanks for any input!

When you're down on your luck, good 'ol Forex always comes to the rescue!

Sure, I'm behind on my mortgage payments. I can barely feed my kids, and I wiped out my eldest son's college retirement while watching my own 401k lose over 50% of it's value... to top it off I just lost my job. On the bright side I get to spend lots of time on facebook "networking" with friends and other professionals and oh... what's this? a Forex ad!

One of the most exciting markets on earth??
Countless opportunities??

Count me in! Where do I sign up. What was I thinking? Of course, Forex is the answer to all my credit crunch woes!

...

I have kids? And a mortgage?

....

This seems like a Talking Heads song.

Posted via email from The Ads on Facebook Are Often Crazy

Does my profile make me look Parent? (fat == parent)

I'm not old enough to have a baby, and def not old enough to have a 10 year old. I found a Digg link that suggests that at least 75% of facebook's 200M users are under the age of 25. Apparantly, Dr. Kapus and his marketing team of Indian Jones fanatics, has better demographic information. So now, for me, the insecure question of the month is:

Does my facebook profile make me look parent?

Posted via email from The Ads on Facebook Are Often Crazy

Welcome - I'm creating a forum to share all the Crazy Ads that appear on Facebook.

Facebook recently celebrated it's 5th birthday, later this year I'll be celebrating my 5th year college reunion. Let's face it we're both old and need new hobbies, but this was something I couldn't resist. Don't get me wrong, I love FB. I've been using the site for the last 4 years and 10 months, today there are a 150M+ users, but I was probably using FB when there were <10k users. Seriously. When they first started placing ads on the right hand column, I remember thinking, geez these ads don't make any sense, they're boring and irrelevent. Soon Microsoft was in the fray, investing money in the company and inking a contract to siphon their own advertising on the site, but we all know about that. Now facebook ads are a little more relevant and much more creative. They are also some of the weirdest and most hilarious ads in town. I've set this site up so I can share all the funny ads I see with you and you'll be able to post funny ads as well (or send them to me and I'll moderate) I haven't decided yet... :)

Let the ad critiques begin!

Posted via web from The Ads on Facebook Are Often Crazy

Obama-Nation Inauguration Celelbration Coverage Part 1 of Quotable Quotes

paraphrased: 1 billion muslims watching this around the world will be very surprised and will be very happy when they hear Barack Hussein Obama take the oath and they hear him say "Hussein".

He doesn't look old, he's walking old. - Commentator B to Commentator A on MSNBC when A suggested George Bush Senior looks old.

The first grandmother as well, another prominent individual in the white house very soon.

The Washington mall has been at capacity since 9AM this morning.

This is the network of the 21st century and we're MSNBC.

The crowd is Booing George Bush Junior! 8:30AM PST

First Lady will be taking an active stance against Acid Violence against school girls. So many soldier's felt that Afganistan was Forgotenstan.

Hanuman Hijinx

This temple commemorates the birthplace of Hanuman ,the famous monkey god, son of Vaayu and faithful devotee of Rama. Today it bears an "engrish" inscription for patrons, with puzzling spelling and capitalization: Fut wear leving Hear.

That's a Wrap, for now... wait... till Feb 15th actually...

And that's a wrap! For Asia! At least for now! Thanks to everyone who's been keeping up to date on my posts. I'll be adding reflections from the heady last 2 weeks I spent in India touring amazing ruins and reconnecting with awesome family members. I've returned to the US with a fresh perspective and I've undoubtedly accrued some great learning expereinces over the last 50+ days on the road.

If I write one more "filler" post, feel free to call me out on it when we have a drink sometime over the next month.

Don't get too excited that you don't have to keep up with this blog - I'll be heading out to Europe on Feb 15th... for 2 more months... yeah - I really must hate this economy!

Day 50: Last Day in India!

My posts have been few and far between for the last couple weeks. A real function of all the fun I'm having with friends and family out here in India. The family part has been awesome. My sister landed a couple weeks ago and we went on two amazing trips to the resident ruins near Bangalore: the Vijyanagar capital of Hampi in the North and the Hoysala kingdom in Belur & Halebid in the West. We made the first trip with our maternal uncle ("mava") who's pretty much travelled ALL over India via his defense department connections. The latter trip we made with my cousins.

I'm really not quite sure what I'm writing now, as we had an epic 4AM "last nite" in india cousin shindig yesterday so I'll resume this when I've got a clearer state of mind.

Colonial Panjim and Old Goa

These places are so refreshing after a solid few days of beach party scene and subsequent beach party fatigue. The afternoon sun hits you in the perfect way while you're sipping a sweet fresh lime soda and eating Goan fish curry at one of the hertiage hotels at the base of a hill that contains the elite housing of Goa (minsters, archbishops, etc.) Old Goa is a trip because it's all 16th Century portugese catholic churches, I might as well have been in Latin America!

I hope to get some pictures up soon, internet has been much spottier for me in India (IT hub of Asia, right? Ironic) than in SE Asia!

Goa Goa Goa Goa

Goa is nuts. So many beaches, so many churches. Scooting around evading the Police. ALL night new years beach parties with full open bar at Mandrem Village. Why not? It's Goa Only.

I'm in Calangute/Baga, 10 minutes scoot to Titos. That's the party scene. Also checked out Goan Trance at Curlies on Anjuna beach. Shiva Valley style. Going to extend my stay for a couple more days.

Anyone who's really my friend will travel to Goa with me when I return next year, and the year after, and the year after that. It' great for groups and mixed company.