There is no word to describe this scene's sheer perfection, therefore I shall make one up right now: 'equinerific'.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
I wonder
My fellow fru-fru hairspray marketer turned financeer, VJ, sent out an article announcing that someone had held a vote (of which i was not aware) and that a new list of 'the seven wonders of the world' had been compiled: www.new7wonders.com. Adding insult to frivolity, the Pyramids of Gaza, were not selected as part of the seven (clearly a slap in the face to Egyptians everywhere and likely another political machination of - you guessed it - Karl Rove).
Here is the new list as selected by 90 million votes and an excerpt from the article:
• The Great Wall of China
• Petra in Jordan
• Brazil's statue of Christ the Redeemer
• Peru's Machu Picchu
• Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid
• The Colosseum in Rome
• India's Taj Mahal
Before the vote ended Friday, organizers said more than 90 million votes had been cast for 21 sites. Voting at the Web site, www.new7wonders.com, ended at6 p.m. ET Friday. Traffic was so heavy Friday that the site was crashing at times. The new wonders were announced at a star-studded event Saturday in Lisbon, Portugal, that featured performances by Jennifer Lopez and Chaka Khan. The event was hosted by Oscar winners Hilary Swank and Ben Kingsley as well as Bollywood star Bipasha Basu.
Of the seven ancient wonders of the world, only one remains standing today, the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
But the new wonders campaign hasn't been universally recognized. The United Nations' cultural organization, UNESCO, issued a statement saying it has "no link whatsoever" to the vote.
Egypt's top antiquities expert also objected to the list. He said Egypt's pyramids are a "symbol of the genius of the ancient people" -- and are above any sort of online poll. As a result, the organizers struck up a compromise. The pyramids have been assured honorary status, in addition to the new seven wonders.
The new wonders project was the brainchild of Swiss businessman Bernard Weber. He said he wanted to invite the people of the world to take part in selecting the world's greatest wonders. "So that everybody can decide what the new seven wonders should be and not some government, not some individuals, not some institutions," he said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I also held my own vote for greatest wonders of the world.
the list included:
-- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
-- The letter 'S'
-- The Call on me" music video
-- Pizza
--Cathrine Zeta Jones
-- 7-11 Slurpees
--Happy Hour
Close contenders were:
--Wonder Bread
--Wonder Bra
--Wonder Woman
-- Why everyone likes applejacks even though it doesn't taste like apples
I announced these results from my air-conditioned cubicle on the 21st floor in Manhattan, and while J-lo was not in attendance, i did play 'Jenny from the block' (not a wonder) on Itunes in the background
Favorite foods of blond-haired blue-eyed asians everywhere
Two firsts today. And legitimate firsts not artificially fabricated like the ones the girl in Garden State tried to pull off, although recognizing and celebrating any first is better than not. The two California squatters and I ventured into Chinatown this morning for dim sum, which when you know what you’re doing (or have someone with you who does) is a guaranteed culinary odyssey and in this case, one of my ‘firsts’. On canal street, a veritable sea of Chinese men, women, children, and trinkets, we met up with two friends from work who know their way around the dim sum carts. One speaks fluent mandarin, and the other doesn’t but has a resume that suggests he should (president of the Chinese student association at Harvard). We broke fast at an enormous banquet hall on Elisabeth street. Cantonese women in brightly colored shirts with walkie-talkies guided the five us to one of the ‘prime-time’ elevated tables and within seconds perky purveyors of peculiar delicacies had approached us. We sampled so many strange (to me) selections that I won’t even try to describe them all, but they were delicious and probably as nutritious as anything else I eat. At any rate, the first notable ‘first’ at dim sum was eating ‘chicken claws’. Now ask me if I would prefer for them to be called ‘chicken talons’, and you know the answer, but either way, they were a far cry from chicken fingers. Feasting on the joints of a brittle battered chicken’s talon is not something I’d recommend for a first date, but it did make for a great ‘first’. I’ll have to bring my camera next time…
The second ‘first’ also originated in Chinatown. I acquired a dragon fruit, and spent a subway ride home ponder how good a fruit with such a cool name must taste. Dragon fruits, have a perlandrian appearance on the outside but are really only giant albino kiwis on the inside. Delicious giant albino kiwis. 
I can ease your guilty conscience for 10% less than the other guy
I came across the following website www.easybeinggreen.com (probably on Drudge) and became filled with indignation at the pervasiveness and sheer lunacy of the scam rooted in global warming that is being shoved down our throats by those 'in the know'. I anticipate penning future diatribes regarding global warming, but for now, here is the essay, the website inspired:
Global patriots and lovers of the sweet smell of freedom worldwide,
As you know very well, an odoriferous cloud hangs over this planet and poses a clear (invisible actually) and present, danger to us all. For decades we have fought to keep destructive means out of the hands of nefarious powers, while all the while ignoring the perils constantly rising at our back(sides). We have fought wars over WMDs, but the greater danger to all of mankind is SBDs.
Recent research indicates that 'Silent But Deadlies' are disseminated by every person on the planet except Al Gore and the French, and are the leading cause of global warming today. SBDs make up around 80% of the world's flatulence, and this percentage is even higher in developing countries such as China and India, where opportunities to 'blame it on the dog' on scarce.
Only a few savvy cosmopolitan citizens around the world have abandoned causes such as Nuclear research and micro-finance programs in order to focus on the fight against SBDs and gas passing in general. In spite of the general global myopia, a global champion of the fight against SBDs has arisen in the south. Easy Being Green is easily Australia's second most significant contribution to saving the world (the first being Paul Hogan), and the company's website www.easybeinggreen.com offers a vision of hope to English-speaking peoples, which heavy pockets and consciences everywhere.
The site allows one to purchase 'indulgences', which absolve (in this life and any afterlife) the recipient of his/her carbon-emitting transgressions for the year. Both environmental and religious experts have praised the company practices for surpassing lent as the most-promising purveyor of self-satisfaction, and experts note that EBG's strengths lie in its products that offset the carbon emissions of household pets as well as non-Catholics.
Inspired by EBG's mission, Bob Barker has reminded his viewers that it is no longer enough to have your pet spayed or neutered; you must counteract the environmental impact of their kitty/doggy farts. Future generations owe a dept of gratitude to EBG's creators, who with great personal sacrifice, pomp, and vainglory, shoulder 'the liberal-man's burden' and educate the ignorant masses who remain stubbornly ignorant to the error of their ways.
So the next time someone olfactorily assaults America and the world, call them out on it. Terrorists will try to shirk their global duty, but for the innocent who have been duped by Conservatives/greedy corporate capitalists into exacerbating global warming, allow them to apologize and then tell them to put their money where their mouth is.
Global patriots and lovers of the sweet smell of freedom worldwide,
As you know very well, an odoriferous cloud hangs over this planet and poses a clear (invisible actually) and present, danger to us all. For decades we have fought to keep destructive means out of the hands of nefarious powers, while all the while ignoring the perils constantly rising at our back(sides). We have fought wars over WMDs, but the greater danger to all of mankind is SBDs.
Recent research indicates that 'Silent But Deadlies' are disseminated by every person on the planet except Al Gore and the French, and are the leading cause of global warming today. SBDs make up around 80% of the world's flatulence, and this percentage is even higher in developing countries such as China and India, where opportunities to 'blame it on the dog' on scarce.
Only a few savvy cosmopolitan citizens around the world have abandoned causes such as Nuclear research and micro-finance programs in order to focus on the fight against SBDs and gas passing in general. In spite of the general global myopia, a global champion of the fight against SBDs has arisen in the south. Easy Being Green is easily Australia's second most significant contribution to saving the world (the first being Paul Hogan), and the company's website www.easybeinggreen.com offers a vision of hope to English-speaking peoples, which heavy pockets and consciences everywhere.
The site allows one to purchase 'indulgences', which absolve (in this life and any afterlife) the recipient of his/her carbon-emitting transgressions for the year. Both environmental and religious experts have praised the company practices for surpassing lent as the most-promising purveyor of self-satisfaction, and experts note that EBG's strengths lie in its products that offset the carbon emissions of household pets as well as non-Catholics.
Inspired by EBG's mission, Bob Barker has reminded his viewers that it is no longer enough to have your pet spayed or neutered; you must counteract the environmental impact of their kitty/doggy farts. Future generations owe a dept of gratitude to EBG's creators, who with great personal sacrifice, pomp, and vainglory, shoulder 'the liberal-man's burden' and educate the ignorant masses who remain stubbornly ignorant to the error of their ways.
So the next time someone olfactorily assaults America and the world, call them out on it. Terrorists will try to shirk their global duty, but for the innocent who have been duped by Conservatives/greedy corporate capitalists into exacerbating global warming, allow them to apologize and then tell them to put their money where their mouth is.
Prologue
When I moved up to NYC this past September to start my job as a financial services consultant, I sent the following letter to friends, family members, and some of my students from college. The following weeks, it was great to receive responses from people recounting their wanderings and adventures and sharing how much they had enjoyed hearing about mine. Even better, however, were the many responses from acquaintences, who had missed irony -at least in part- and applauded me for not taking the typical Whartonesque career path and instead 'pursuing my dream of becoming a broadway actor'. Just last weekend, I ran into another of my former students in Murray Hill, who midway through the small-talk ritual inquired about my histrionic happenings. My friend Greg (Cyclone in the picture below) and I looked puzzlingly at her for a moment before bursting out in laughter. I somewhat sheepishly informed her that I had been kidding. Needless to say, it was an awkward farewell. See the letter below.
Hello family, friends, awkward acquaintances, and creditors. It's been a long time since I've seen/spoken to many of your and I am reaching out to let you know that I would love to hear about what's going on in your life as well as to share some stories from mine.
I am now living in New York City, pursuing my life-long dream of becoming a Broadway actor. I have the equivalent of 4-5 part-time jobs with the same company (a financial services firm called Novantas) that pays the bills. Novantas is a consulting company of less than 80 people (over a ¼ of which are about my age) that helps large banks develop long-term strategies and price products such as Certificates of Deposits or Money Market Deposit accounts.
My job as an analyst is to look at your records to see if you have been funneling money to terrorist organizations, and then segment your and all of the other accounts by a variety of other metrics. Working alongside me are my two office mates Alex and Jon. Alex is a fun, outgoing, chain-smoking, Ukrainian/Australian, Yale-graduate who blasts Euro-dance hits music in the office over itunes, helped bring European sensation 'Gunther and the Sunshine Girls' to America for the first time, recently converted to Islam after spending the summer in Pakistan and fervently believes that she has never lost an argument. Jon, on the other hand is a laid-back native of Detroit who's 'randomness' is at least on par with mine. For example, last week he came into our office with a stopwatch, talking about a study that said in order to sleep as soundly as possible at night, one should be standing for at least 10 hours a day. At any point in the day, which required sitting, Jon would click his stopwatch off and then on again when he stood up. He is currently adhering to a 'Caveman diet', which he discovered on a web-blog, that eliminates grains, long-distance endurance exercise and a number of other things that the Paleolithic people lived without.
I recently finished writing my thesis on Nationalism in response to cross-border mergers and acquisitions activities in Europe, and finally graduated (after five years) from Penn. Most of you may not know that I spend the following summer at the Betty Ford clinic recovering from my thesis and overcoming addictions to ginko balboa, aspartame, and cheetos. However, had I been able to make alternate summer plans, here's what I would have done:
My cousin Peter was studying abroad in Argentina, so two days after hearing Jody foster gripe about Ronald Regan during the Penn graduation ceremony (at least his movies were better than Flight Plan or Panic Room), I hopped a flight to Buenos Aires. I stayed in an awesome house with a prime-time location which I shared with a Spanish Senora, Frank from University of Richmond, 4 Argentine girls and two British girls. Peter had previously served as a Marine safeguarding the Embassy, so we spent a lot of time with the current Marines on-duty and were on-occasion chauffeured around in the bullet-proof suburban from nightclub to nightclub. We experienced almost everything Buenos Aires had to offer including: eating steak, kayaking, eating steak, partying, eating steak, visiting historic monuments like the casa rosada and the Evita musem, eating steak, and visiting the World's only religious theme-park (straight out of the Simpsons episode where Flanders opens one--- seriously, it's there).
Upon returning stateside, I toured up and down the west-coast with my college friend VJ before ending up in Stanford for my 5th and final (for a while at least) season at ID Tech Camp (or nerd camp as all my friends in leveraged finance —*cough cough*--call it). This was one of my favorite years at camp and by far the most fun. I taught both Video Game creation and Digital Video and Movie Production classes during the week and spent the weekends around Palo Alto or at the beach in Santa Cruz. Watching old movies at the Stanford theatre renewed my interest in classic films and rock-climbing with my friends Spooky, Chile, Montreal and Slick on our nights off was the beginning of a hobby I currently enjoy.
One of my most memorable moments at camp occurred on the patio outside one of the dorm houses during one of the weekly talent shows, when Montreal and I decided that we needed to spice things up a bit. After conspiring together, Montreal snuck away into the house to make a few preparations, while I informed the show organizers that I wanted to perform the night's final act. A few bland knock-knock jokes and boy-band serenades later, the MC handed me the mike and I announced to the crowd of counselors and kids that for my act, I would be breaking a world record, and would require a volunteer from the audience. The kids went wild, all yelling for me to choose them, but quickly quieted down after learning that the record-breaking feat would be too dangerous for a camper. I asked the campers which counselor they wanted to volunteer and the shouting restarted. After selecting one counselor, I announced that I would in fact need 2 volunteers. 10 rounds of shouting and cheering later, I had ever counselor (who was not a judge) on-stage along side me, and I revealed what world record I had determined to break. Our objective was to fit 12 people (including myself) into a 16in. by 16in. square that I had marked-out on the ground next to the house. With eyebrows raised suspiciously, the counselors followed my instructions to link arms with each other and form a circle around the small 16x16 square. I had the camp director and one other counselor step into the middle of the square and told the rest of the group that on the count of 3, we would all stand on our tippy-toes inside the square, with arms linked, leaning our torso's away from the square so that everyone could fit. Slowly, I counted down from 3…2….1…., when at that moment, my accomplice Montreal dumped an enormous Gatorade-container full-of ice-cold water on the circle of counselors from the third floor of the building. The chain of arms held-strong as gallons of water gushed down on the camp-director and then ricocheted off her body onto the surrounding counselors. The campers went nuts as Montreal and I broke the world record for most counselors dunked at once.
So now I'm living at 319 East 75th street Apt 6a, in a cozy studio on the Upper East Side. I have a bed, a comfy air-mattress, a couch, and an exercise mat, so in all I could sleep 6 people comfortably. I'm mentioning this because I would love to have you come visit/stay with me anytime! I work a tad during the week, but if you would like to explore NYC and not drop the dough on a hotel room, I have a (3rd) world-class exercise station (see walmart.com product called "The Power Tower"), and a subscription to blockbuster online that all guests may enjoy free of charge. There's a dude in a cart down the block who serves a continental breakfast, and a dry-cleaners in the building who speaks Mandarin and nothing else. So please, come visit, drop me a line, or put me on your Christmas card list- I'd love to stay in touch.
Un abrazo,
Jeff
Halloween Costume this year: American Gladiators
I am now living in New York City, pursuing my life-long dream of becoming a Broadway actor. I have the equivalent of 4-5 part-time jobs with the same company (a financial services firm called Novantas) that pays the bills. Novantas is a consulting company of less than 80 people (over a ¼ of which are about my age) that helps large banks develop long-term strategies and price products such as Certificates of Deposits or Money Market Deposit accounts.
My job as an analyst is to look at your records to see if you have been funneling money to terrorist organizations, and then segment your and all of the other accounts by a variety of other metrics. Working alongside me are my two office mates Alex and Jon. Alex is a fun, outgoing, chain-smoking, Ukrainian/Australian, Yale-graduate who blasts Euro-dance hits music in the office over itunes, helped bring European sensation 'Gunther and the Sunshine Girls' to America for the first time, recently converted to Islam after spending the summer in Pakistan and fervently believes that she has never lost an argument. Jon, on the other hand is a laid-back native of Detroit who's 'randomness' is at least on par with mine. For example, last week he came into our office with a stopwatch, talking about a study that said in order to sleep as soundly as possible at night, one should be standing for at least 10 hours a day. At any point in the day, which required sitting, Jon would click his stopwatch off and then on again when he stood up. He is currently adhering to a 'Caveman diet', which he discovered on a web-blog, that eliminates grains, long-distance endurance exercise and a number of other things that the Paleolithic people lived without.
I recently finished writing my thesis on Nationalism in response to cross-border mergers and acquisitions activities in Europe, and finally graduated (after five years) from Penn. Most of you may not know that I spend the following summer at the Betty Ford clinic recovering from my thesis and overcoming addictions to ginko balboa, aspartame, and cheetos. However, had I been able to make alternate summer plans, here's what I would have done:
My cousin Peter was studying abroad in Argentina, so two days after hearing Jody foster gripe about Ronald Regan during the Penn graduation ceremony (at least his movies were better than Flight Plan or Panic Room), I hopped a flight to Buenos Aires. I stayed in an awesome house with a prime-time location which I shared with a Spanish Senora, Frank from University of Richmond, 4 Argentine girls and two British girls. Peter had previously served as a Marine safeguarding the Embassy, so we spent a lot of time with the current Marines on-duty and were on-occasion chauffeured around in the bullet-proof suburban from nightclub to nightclub. We experienced almost everything Buenos Aires had to offer including: eating steak, kayaking, eating steak, partying, eating steak, visiting historic monuments like the casa rosada and the Evita musem, eating steak, and visiting the World's only religious theme-park (straight out of the Simpsons episode where Flanders opens one--- seriously, it's there).
Upon returning stateside, I toured up and down the west-coast with my college friend VJ before ending up in Stanford for my 5th and final (for a while at least) season at ID Tech Camp (or nerd camp as all my friends in leveraged finance —*cough cough*--call it). This was one of my favorite years at camp and by far the most fun. I taught both Video Game creation and Digital Video and Movie Production classes during the week and spent the weekends around Palo Alto or at the beach in Santa Cruz. Watching old movies at the Stanford theatre renewed my interest in classic films and rock-climbing with my friends Spooky, Chile, Montreal and Slick on our nights off was the beginning of a hobby I currently enjoy.
One of my most memorable moments at camp occurred on the patio outside one of the dorm houses during one of the weekly talent shows, when Montreal and I decided that we needed to spice things up a bit. After conspiring together, Montreal snuck away into the house to make a few preparations, while I informed the show organizers that I wanted to perform the night's final act. A few bland knock-knock jokes and boy-band serenades later, the MC handed me the mike and I announced to the crowd of counselors and kids that for my act, I would be breaking a world record, and would require a volunteer from the audience. The kids went wild, all yelling for me to choose them, but quickly quieted down after learning that the record-breaking feat would be too dangerous for a camper. I asked the campers which counselor they wanted to volunteer and the shouting restarted. After selecting one counselor, I announced that I would in fact need 2 volunteers. 10 rounds of shouting and cheering later, I had ever counselor (who was not a judge) on-stage along side me, and I revealed what world record I had determined to break. Our objective was to fit 12 people (including myself) into a 16in. by 16in. square that I had marked-out on the ground next to the house. With eyebrows raised suspiciously, the counselors followed my instructions to link arms with each other and form a circle around the small 16x16 square. I had the camp director and one other counselor step into the middle of the square and told the rest of the group that on the count of 3, we would all stand on our tippy-toes inside the square, with arms linked, leaning our torso's away from the square so that everyone could fit. Slowly, I counted down from 3…2….1…., when at that moment, my accomplice Montreal dumped an enormous Gatorade-container full-of ice-cold water on the circle of counselors from the third floor of the building. The chain of arms held-strong as gallons of water gushed down on the camp-director and then ricocheted off her body onto the surrounding counselors. The campers went nuts as Montreal and I broke the world record for most counselors dunked at once.
So now I'm living at 319 East 75th street Apt 6a, in a cozy studio on the Upper East Side. I have a bed, a comfy air-mattress, a couch, and an exercise mat, so in all I could sleep 6 people comfortably. I'm mentioning this because I would love to have you come visit/stay with me anytime! I work a tad during the week, but if you would like to explore NYC and not drop the dough on a hotel room, I have a (3rd) world-class exercise station (see walmart.com product called "The Power Tower"), and a subscription to blockbuster online that all guests may enjoy free of charge. There's a dude in a cart down the block who serves a continental breakfast, and a dry-cleaners in the building who speaks Mandarin and nothing else. So please, come visit, drop me a line, or put me on your Christmas card list- I'd love to stay in touch.
Un abrazo,
Jeff
Halloween Costume this year: American Gladiators
Al principio
Hi, my name is Jefe and this is a record of my musings, passions, and activities as I explore the world and try to make sense of it and the people that shape it.
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