If I were president

I have really been impressed with the way Barack Obama has used the internet to his advantage.

By using the internet, he was able to launch a grass roots campaign and raised him a lot of money, giving him the upper hand over McCain.

His campaign setup and maintained a good website connecting him with the people, keeping them informed of his stance on issues, and keeping them up to date with his current campaign events.

Likewise, he utilized twitter as a good complement to that website. I really hope he keeps tweeting during his presidency, though I doubt that will happen.

After the election, he revealed a flickr album making him look more like one of us.

It is rumored he will create the nation's first Secretary of Technology. I do not know why a position like that has not already been created.

After he won the election, he created another website to aide his transition into the White House and keep the people aware of what's happening

And now, building on President Franklin Roosevelt's "fireside chats" in the 1930s, his weekly addresses to the nation will not only be broadcast over the air to radios but also be filmed and put on youtube.

Good job President-elect Obama.

January 20, 2009 cannot come fast enough.

UPDATE: Here is the first of his youtube videos.





UPDATE 2: Apparently he will have to retire his blackberry though.

Culture

One of the best parts about New York, in my opinion, is its culture. There are just so many different things you can do here. Whatever it is that you're into, you can find it here. Lately, I have done/seen some pretty cool stuff and thought I would share.

Avenue Q and Spring Awakening:
My friends Krithi and Vineet decided to make a trip to NYC during some time off. We ended up seeing two different shows on Broadway with them. We saw Avenue Q and Spring Awakening, and Arch describes them as the two shows we would not be able to see with our parents. Avenue Q was very funny. Think Sesame Street for adults, and I am serious about the "for adults" part (there was puppet sex involved). Spring Awakening was every single after school special you could think of, rolled into one. Set in 18th century Germany, it featured bad grades, teenage pregnancy, gays, teenage suicide, and more. I liked the music and choreography but thought they tried to cram way to much into one show.



The Village Pet Store:
I am not exactly sure where or when I had first heard about graffiti artist Banksy, but he had made some news relatively recently with some of his work in New Orleans on the anniversary of Katrina. I'm also not sure how or when, but I heard he had an exhibit opening in the city. I slept on it for awhile, but after my boss mentioned it to me and that it was closing soon, I decided to check it out. The exhibit is called the Village Pet Store, located in small shop in the west village. The place has no mention of Banksy at all, and actually if it weren't for some people gathered around the place, a person could easily walk by thinking it was an actual pet store. Upon closer inspection, it's FAR from a regular pet store. Arch and I walked up and saw a display with a chicken in a hen house and chicks feeding ... except when we got closer, we realized the chicks were not chicks at all but rather chicken nuggets. To go along with those, there was a family of security cam birds, a leopard coat leopard, a monkey watching monkey porn, fish stick fish, and hot dog hamsters (I think). If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's because the exhibit is hard to describe. Just check out the pictures. Really bizarre stuff but very interesting too.

The Roots with Gym Class Heroes and Estelle:
I already told you about the Roots concert, but like I said before, it was AMAZING.



First Friday at the Guggenheim:
Every first Friday the Guggenheim opens its doors at nights, hosts a DJ, and serves alcohol. Luckily, we got there early enough to avoid the long lines. It was good times, despite the current exhibit not being that great. The exhibit featured some photography but the main section basically had random sayings in random places throughout the museum. At times, I felt like I was on an Easter egg hunt, searching for the next saying, stuff like "I've been watching you", "It's not you, it's me", and "The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing." A lot of the walls were left completely bare. It was a fun experience, but I don't think I'd do it again.



NYC Chocolate Show:
Saturday night, we caught wind of the NYC Chocolate Show being around this weekend. We went Sunday, and for those of you who've been, it's basically the chocolate version of Beerfest. The show featured chocolatiers from all over the world, and exhibiting, and, more importantly, sampling their products. There were some booths showing how chocolate is made, some cooking shows, and some art exhibits with the art made almost completely of chocolate, but for the most part, we spent our time walking around, trying different types of chocolate. Halfway through the show, both Arch and I were basically sick of chocolate, but we powered through it. One of our favorite booths ended up being the SerendipiTEA booth because the tea was a nice change of pace from the chocolate and helped clear our palettes. Unfortunately, they ran out of chocolate-covered bacon before I could try any. In any case, I'm not eating any more chocolate for awhile.

Click any of the headings for links to albums on flickr.

Who am I?

Who am I?

I like basketball.
My dad grew up in Kenya.
I like listening to the Fugees.
I like playing Scrabble.

If you say me, you'd be correct ... but if you had a different answer, you'd also be right.

Ignite the People like OBAMA!

Congrats, America! Congrats, World!



Oh, and for my readers who live in the Marvel Universe, congrats to you too.

UPDATE: nevermind

The Legendary Roots Crew

Now this is why I moved to NYC. Ok ok, I moved to NYC for another reason but things like this are icing on the cake.

Last night, I saw the Roots with Gym Class Heroes and Estelle. I have been to a few concerts since I moved to New York, and all were good, but this is what I expected from a concert in New York.

When I got there, Estelle was already on. Now I hadn't heard much of her stuff, aside from her "American Boy" song, but I had heard a lot of good things about her, mostly from the folks over at okayplayer. She put on a good performance and served her purpose as an opening act: get the crowd warmed up. I'll definitely have to check out more of her stuff. Gym Class Heroes came on and got the crowd more hyped for the Roots to come on. I was a little more familiar with their stuff, like "Cupid's Chokehold" and "The Queen and I", than I was with Estelle's. They came out with a buncha energy, got the crowd growing, and were active on stage.

Finally the Roots came on and rocked a LIVE show. They did a good mix of old and new. Of course, ?uestlove worked his magic on the drums. At some point, they brought out Q-tip to spit a few verses (and hype his album set to drop next week). Kamal on the keys, Tuba Gooding Jr, and the bassist all did some sweet solo stuff. I don't know who the new bassist is, but as good as he was, I miss Hub on the bass. That guy was ridiculous. Then they started up with probably my favorite Roots track, "You Got Me". They started with Captain Kirk singing the hook, but to no surprise, Estelle came back out and took over. As the song was ending, she headed back stage and Captain Kirk proceeded to do his solo thing on the guitar. He started off with some usual guitar riffs, but then he went into a sick rendition of "Sweet Child O’ Mine". From there, he somehow smoothly transitioned into "Bad to the Bone". Eventually it all melted back into "You Got Me" with Captain Kirk singing again once again. They kept playing some more songs and soon got going with the title track off their latest album Rising Down. To the crowds delight, the mighty Mos Def came out and spit his verse on the song. He helped out with a couple other songs, including the "Next Movement", before heading back off stage. This exactly the type of stuff I expected/hoped for from a concert in NY: random people showing up and performing.

Another great Roots show. I wonder when they'll be back in NY.

Head over here for some live footage (not mine) of the show.

UPDATE: Read a review of the concert by the NY Times here.

it's still the economy stupid

most people who know me know that i enjoy gambling in the stock market. i may even be slightly obsessed. of course, it helps that i've been doing well lately ... well at least relatively.

i have two goals while investing: 1) make money and 2) do better than the s&p 500 index. the first goal is obvious. the second is in place because even if i make money while investing in stocks, if i do not do better than the s&p, i would have been better off investing in an index fund (i don't believe in mutual funds). it would have been easier and a lot less time consuming. up until three weeks ago, i was succeeding with both those goals; unfortunately, the market tanked, and now i'm only succeeding at one of those. it makes me feel better though that "according to Morningstar (MORN), the average U.S. stock mutual fund is down 28.5%." that article is now two days old, and i would guess that those losses has increased since.

for the most part, i primarily invest in small cap companies. with that territory comes a lot of risk. you have to have the stomach for large swings up and down, and boy has my resolve been tested in the past few weeks. i've seen the price in some of my stocks be cut in half in the matter of weeks ... sometimes cut more than that. fortunately, i think my selection process is at least doing a bit right. i currently own stock in 3 of the top 10 small businesses, according to forbes.

saying the economy sucks right now is both pointing out the obvious and a huge understatement.

a week or so ago, when the market dropped a record-breaking 777 points, i thought maybe we had seen the worst. i took some cash, which i had set aside for non-investment purposes, and poured into a few stocks that i felt were greatly undervalued. i never intended to invest with that money, but i couldn't pass up the bargains (or at least what i thought were bargains). of course, the market has fallen a lot more since. there are some people that think now may be a good time to cautiously put some more money back into the market.

was it a bad decision? maybe. i definitely could have been more patient. if i had wait a few days, i would have been much better off. do i regret it? no. i'd probably make the same decision today. only time will tell whether it was the right thing to do or not. i'm hoping large gains with that money in the future . when? who knows. maybe a two years? a year? 6 months? sooner? i guess that's part of the reason for this post. sometime in the future, i'll be able to look back at this and decide whether or not i made the right choice.

all i know is that i'm glad i wasn't planning on retiring anytime in the near future.

hey nas

nas has always been one of my favorite mcs. at this point, he may be my favorite mc that i have not yet seen live. i tried seeing him perform a year or so ago, but that did not turn out too well. a couple days ago, a friend of mine told me about a free concert coming up with nas headlining. i signed up on the guestlist and thought i'd finally get my chance to see nas perform.

we got there relatively early and had a decent spot in line (it went around the block behind us). unfortunately the line did not remain a line for much longer. there was only one security guard managing the line, and even then he wasn't doing much. the line in front of us just started getting wider and wider. doors were supposed to open at 9 (website said 8), but you could sense the unrest when 9 rolled around and nothing happened. things got worse when two large luxury buses rolled up, filled with people who did not look like they belonged at a nas concert. the buses just sat there for awhile, but eventually they rolled up to the front, and all the passengers got off and walked straight into to venue. people started chanting, "tip - the - bus." eventually the line turned into a mob surrounding the club, spilling over into the street blocking a lane of traffic. around 10, they started letting people in, but even then, they were selectively picking people from the crowd. at that point we gave up and went to a nearby bar.

0 for 2 for nas concerts. third times a charm?

what's the word

i came across the website wordle recently. wordle let's you create cool illustrations of word usage in just about anything. you can give it some words or point it to an rss feed, like i did. it's pretty easy to use and shoots out some cool looking word clouds.

let's go to sleep in paris

with archana having a rare 4 day break, we decided to make the most of it. after a bunch of deliberating, we passed up the caribbean, vermont, and miami for a short hop over the lake to paris (not sure why it took so much consideration). 4 days was more than enough time to see all of what we wanted to see. sure we could have seen more, but we got to what we wanted. it was pretty awesome seeing such beauty and history all over the place.

the highlights for me were:
- seeing the amazing architecture of notre dame and the view from the top
- all the famous artwork at the lourve and musee d'orsay, especially the winged victory of samothrace and all the great impressionist pieces
- the paris night lit up by the blue lights of the eiffel tower
- hanging out at cafes, eating crepes and drinking wine or beer
- hearing arch converse with locals in french

you can find pictures on my flickr and two smaller highlight sets on facebook, or you can just check out the brief slideshow below, courtesy of animoto.

the twist

billboard just released the top 100 songs of the billboard hot 100 chart era, and the song at the top may not be what you would expect. according to them, the hottest song of the past 50 years is chubby checker's "the twist." while i like the song, i'm not sure i think it should be at the top. i definitely do not agree with the rest of the top 5, which are:

2. Santana's "Smooth," featuring Rob Thomas,
3. Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife"
4. Leann Rimes' "How Do I Live"
5. Los Del Rio's "The Macarena"

the artists/groups who appear most often on the list at least restore some order to things.

The Beatles do top Billboard's all-time Hot 100 artists, followed by Madonna, Elton John, Elvis Presley, Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and the Rolling Stones.

anyway, what do you guys think?

ms. hill

the folks over at okayplayer put it best:

Anyone else miss the old Lauryn Hill? Well this is as good as it gets for now, an unreleased song titled "World is a Hustle"

rolling stones wrote an article commemorating the 10th anniversary of the miseducation of lauryn hill, and i've been meaning to read it for awhile now.

ny state of mind

it's been about 6 months (already?) since i moved to new york. i've been meaning to jot down some thoughts for awhile now but had been putting it off. this article, which was tweeted to me by my old roommate michael, finally got me going.

inevitably when i see or talk to family or friends again for the first time since i moved to new york, i get a barrage of questions of what it's like to be living in new york now. one thing that almost always comes up is the pace of the city. new york city comes with a perception that it's bustling fast-moving city, and to survive, you better keep up. but you know, i don't really see it. well ... i do see it, but i don't really feel it. i actually feel quite the opposite. since i live so close to work, i walk to and from work everyday, and there's something about walking, which just slows everything down (and i don't mean that literally). walking around with my pandora on blast usually gets me into my own world, filtering out the hustle and bustle of the streets, and allowing me to enjoy the walk. as far as i can tell, i'm not walking faster and rushing everywhere, but i do notice myself weaving in and out of people sometimes ... but then again, that's how i used to drive.

speaking of driving, i don't have a car here and thought i would miss my car a whole lot more than i actually do. that has nothing to do with high gas prices either. i enjoy walking around and taking the subway everywhere. the only time i really did miss my car and driving was on a long drive for our camping trip on long stretches of highway (though part of that may have been because of the driver of the car i was in). i'm getting familiar with the subway system; however, i occasionally make mistakes here and there, like thinking the D stops at 14th St. my iphone and the city transit app help for those moments. i still think it's cool seeing people of all races, walks of life, and social status crammed together in one train.

my apartment is in a great part of town. i don't think i could be anymore in the middle of manhattan. my apartment is easily accessible to four different subway lines. there are a bunch of good restaurants nearby, including an awesome chicken and rice cart right downstairs (i swear i grab food there at least twice a week). things are open late. best of all, i'm REALLY close to columbus circle and central park. i had an epiphany a few months ago: it would be a sad sad thing if when i eventually leave new york, i realized that i lived so close to central park and didn't make the most of it. now, i sometimes grab lunch and sit under a tree in the park. if i have nothing to do on the weekends, i often grab a book or my laptop with a blanket and sit in the park for a few hours. just being to chill in the park like that also contributes to the fact that i think my life has slowed down since i moved here. columbus circle has also become a hang out of mine. it's like my new sproul. sometimes on my way home from my work on a nice sunny day, i'll just sit in the circle and just watch people go by.

in terms of social life, mine hasn't been the greatest but not that bad either. i also expect it to improve. a couple friends were gone for the summer but are now back. ol' dirty is moving to brooklyn soon, which should make for good times as well. i've seen a couple hip hop shows, and the fact that they were new yorkers (immortal technique and talib kweli) made them even better.

i do have a few gripes. first, it's not even winter yet, and i'm still adjusting to the weather. in my 6 months here, i've probably seen more rain than i did in my 3 plus years in sd (maybe that's why we had fires so often). i'm sure by the time january rolls around, i'll be crying ... but i'll get used to it. second, watching sports since i've been here is tough (and not even because of the way boston took out the lakers in the finals). i usually have to be awake till about 1am watching lakers games. now with the start of football season, i'll probably complain some more. in cali, i was used to waking up around 10am on a sunday morning, rolling out of bed to the couch, and sitting there watching football all day. here, i'll have to wait till 1 before any games start. oh well.

but if the weather, which i expected, and having to adjust my routine for watching sports are my two biggest complaints, i guess you can say i'm enjoying it here. i used to think that the window of opportunity for me to live outside of california sometime in my life had long closed. of course, things changed, and i'm glad they did. i know i will eventually move back to california, but for now, i'm very happy that i'm living in ny.

the rotten apple

whoops. the guys over at bloomberg accidentally published steve jobs' obituary. i think someone forgot to mention to them that he's not quite dead yet. good job guys. reminds me of that scene in monty python and the holy grail.

The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.

baby got back

i recently came across this article on wired.com about a couple of visual artists, who break down musical genres and the parts of the body they mention most.

Across all of the categories, the eyes are most frequently mentioned body part (Hall & Oates, "Private Eyes"), with the exceptions of hip hop, which places a firm emphasis on the posterior (Sir Mix a Lot, "Baby Got Back") and blues (Louisiana Red, "Keep Your Hands Off My Woman") and gospel music (The Gospel, "Put Your Hands Together"), which are respectively focused on the keeping off of one's hands and the clapping or raising of one's hands.

i thought it was kinda interesting. check it out.

never can say goodbye

i recently picked the new game album LAX. the album has some good names in terms of collabos (common, raekwon, nas, ice cube) and producers (kanye, hi-tek, scott storch). i haven't given the album a whole lot of listen yet and won't comment on it overall, but one particular song did stand out on first listen.

the song is called "never can say goodbye" and begins with la radio personalities yo yo and julio g from kday reportings on the deaths of tupac, biggie, and eazy e. the game then goes on to flow as each of those MCs in the first person, recounting their last moments alive. interesting concept, and i think he pulls it off well. he even gets into each of their styles during the three verses.

check it out.

watch out

if you live in san francisco, watch out

mash out posse

for some reason last night, archana started singing that silly barney song. it reminded me of a barney video that i actually like. i quickly grabbed my iphone, pulled up the video on youtube, and showed it to her (the iphone has surprisingly good speakers btw).

here's the video:

and while this barney video is the first i can remember in the hip hop/kids' show mash up vein, my cousin shawn recently put me on to this video, which i think is much better and done incredibly well. i love both these songs.

enjoy!

call of da wild

before there was facebook or myspace or even friendster ... or any other social network, for that matter, there was the OG social network: the goan network. throughout my life, my mom would tell me that some person or family was coming over for dinner or something. if i ever asked who they were, i would usually get some convoluted answer about a friend's brother's daughter's cousin. luckily for terence, my cousins, and me, the network was rarely used to get us hooked up, though some of my aunts have thought about it.

but hey, goans are extremely nice, helpful, and hospitable. when i moved to ny a few months ago, i was put in touch with the young goan group of new jersey. i was actually "connected" to the group through two different people. i was put on their email list, and a month or so ago, i found out about a planned camping trip. since it'd be good to know some more people in the area and camping is usually a lotta fun, i thought i'd sign up and go. yeah, i wouldn't know anyone else going, but they're goan ... it's all good.

despite some delays getting to the campground in PA, i got to the site and had a lot of fun. there were 20 of us total, and we all had a really good time. even though i just met everyone, people were super friendly and fun. we went white water rafting saturday morning. since the rapids were not so rapid, we went the majority of the time angling our raft in the best possible position to toss buckets of water onto people on other rafts while staying wet ourselves. of course, everyone was drenched in the end, but it was a really good time. the rest of the day consisted of a bbq, volleyball, dodgeball, and of course, ghost stories (provided by google on an iphone) and smores around a campfire. unfortunately, mother nature decided to pour on us sunday morning, which confined us inside our tiny cabins playing taboo. all the guys and one girl went paintballing that afternoon, which was a blast, despite continually foggy goggles and rain and hail. all in all, it was a great weekend, and now i know a few more people in the tri-state area, and the fact that they're goan is even better.

UPDATE: apparently not everyone was goan ... those phonies!

too short

i've recently been obsessed with a couple j.dilla tracks off his unreleased pay jay album. yeah, yeah ... i know, i know ... i shouldn't be bootlegging his shit since his family is hurting for money after all his medical bills, but damn it, i wanted some more dilla. i'd gladly pay for it ... if they would finally release it. anyway, not the point.

starting over ...

i've recently been obsessed with a couple j.dilla tracks off of pay jay, particularly "no one knows." i'm not sure what exactly it is about track that i love; if it's the hook, the sample, his flow, the production. unfortunately, once i really start getting into, it's done. 2:19. that's it. no more. it just kinda leaves you hanging, yearning for more, unfulfilled. sucks.

i felt the same way about "unwritten" featuring mercedes martinez off the roots' rising down. this roots track even has the same sound/feel of the "no one knows" ... and when it ends, i'm like, "that's it?! no more?!" common's whole album be gave me this feeling too. and while i appreciate the songs/albums, don't tease me like that!

changes

quick thanks to everyone who responded to this post and voted for my cousin. her video won, and she and her partner now have an all-expense paid vacation to ottawa.