Play-list while working out

What song are you listening to while working out at the gym?
The following articles are good reads.
Tunes for every tribe and Time to work out

Presidential Candidates - Debate in NH

Contesting in Presidential elections is a challenging task.

I personally liked John Edwards. He seized the moment and explained the audience how personal his contest is. I think the audience connected with him. He got his message through conveniently and successfully.

The presidential candidates in the republican debate were beating around the bush. There were no direct answers. For instance, the Republicans failed to answer a simple of question from the President. The president asked for the principles based on which they are running. Most of them gave out their policies.
I think the correct language here is to first list out their principle and state an example from the past and state an example from the future.

The democrats kept repeating what they did earlier. Only John Edwards was different and he really got his message through by citing a personal situation. He said running for President for him was personal.

Apart from this, whatever happened to humbleness. All the candidates were boasting about their achievements. I guess that is the language of politics. Bill Richardson kept on repeating his energy secretary experience and foreign policy. Hillary Clinton about her 25 years of experience. Obama about his fresh face. John Edwards seems to me as a reasonable guy who showed positive energy when debating.

A comparison table such as the "issues matrix" is a must see for voters before the choose sides.

The countdown starts now

Apple has made its products ubiquitous. Be it listening to music, watching videos, or even study for an exam. You name it, Apple has it. It will be interesting to watch Apple's foray into cellular phone market. As the countdown nears for the release of iPhone, people are getting crazy. The commercials are simply superb. David Pogue provides a very good review.

Einstein’s perspective

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson is a best seller. I got a peek at one of the chapters through Reader's Digest. I liked the closing comments in the article where Einstein talks about his approach to life.

"I discovered that nature was constructed in a wonderful way, and our task is to find out [its] mathematical structure," Einstein explained about his own education. "It is a kind of faith that helped me through my whole life."

Simply superb! That ought to do to convince me to buy this wonderful book.

U2

This two letter combination can act as a noun when referring to the famous rock band. It can act as a noun phrase, when read out loud, as a response to a clerk's greeting at a superstore. It is also a commonly used phrase in other forms of communications in instant messages,text messages, email, letter, student report, etc.

I have seen many forms of communication follow the chat lingo. Some examples include using "u" instead of "you," "2" instead of "too" or "to", "r" instead of "are," "rite" instead of "right," and "k" instead of "okay." I receive many such communications and I have always wondered if the text is still English.

Watch Cingular's text messaging commercial that is attached below this post also. There is a significant difference in the language that sub-titles in English had to be included for all the characters that the daughter utters.

This article illustrates my pet peeve: using chat lingo in emails.

Instead of well-crafted writing that adheres to accepted standards, the critics see e-mail, chat, blogs, and instant messages that lack standard punctuation and capitalized words. Complete sentences are as rare as misspellings are common. To make matters worse, words are seemingly misspelled on purpose: certainly a student who misspells "separate" as "seperate" and "sulfur" as "sulfer" has a very different intent than one who misspells "see you" as "cu" and "hate" as "h8". Acronyms are used with-out definition, and they are used so frequently as to render entire passages as cryptic as a secret code.

Counterfeit or Genuine

Last week, the entertainment industry, especially the movie (Hollywood and Bollywood) and music, was affected by two different aspects. It was wriggled by two sides.

On one side is the American administration that has a dual but paradoxical goal of curbing piracy yet increasing the awareness of American products in China.

… for the Bush administration to file two separate complaints. One addresses what American companies say is China's reluctance to use criminal laws for people caught selling DVDs with pirated material on them.

A second complaint would be about expanding "market access" for American products in China.

On the other side is the aggregation of radical clerics who want to enact Islamic law and shut the video stores in Pakistan.

On Friday evening, dozens of students gathered in front of the mosque around a smoldering heap of Pakistani, Indian and English CDs and DVDs. "These are all dirty movies," one said, claiming that they had been handed over to the students voluntarily by a local video store owner.

These two different sentiments achieve one common goal: reduction in the sales of movie DVDs and music CDs, whether counterfeit or genuine.

Bill Richardson for President

Will an able Governor get a chance to become an able President?

Many Americans tend to brush aside this simple, articulate, humble, passionate and witty Governor from New Mexico. I am talking about Bill Richardson, a person who exudes confidence with a lot of achievements by his stride. He is a popular political persona and commands respect from everyone. Residents of New Mexico love him, his opponents regard him, and the international community adores him.

Bill Richardson is not only a household name in New Mexico, but also has his presence felt in cyberspace. He is in myspace, facebook, youtube, flickr, zanby, and partybuilder. These aforementioned links convey volumes of his achievements.

Mr. Richardson is a natural leader. Recently, he was listed in the Top 25 doers, dreamers, & drivers for the year 2006. Chad Vander Veen names the governor among top space voyagers.

Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong. Voyager, Apollo and the Space Shuttle....Bill Richardson may soon find his name listed alongside the pioneers of human space travel.

He recognizes his position as an underdog. Elections are an expensive affair in terms of the money. He is looking for funds. With candidates like Hillary Rodham Clinton raising record funds ($26 million) during the first 3 months Bill Richardson seems really underfunded.

... he had raised $6 million in primary campaign money and had more than $5 million cash in hand at the end of the three-month period...

I have been living in New Mexico for the past 5 years and everyone regards "Bill Richardson" as their own family member. He has an immaculate record and is passionate in his job. He was voted into the governor’s office again with ease.

I firmly believe that Bill Richardson has everything, except the affluent wealth (read funds), that takes to become the president of USA. Give him a chance to enter the white house and you will never regret it!

Refer to America for Richardson, a comprehensive portal/blog, for more information.

Question

What do you call a person who spends most of his time in front of computer, whiling away their time? In other words, is there a term that is similar to a "couch potato"?

Pursue your dreams

Two distinct movies: The Pursuit of Happyness and Guru. One theme: Pursue your dreams, no matter how many obstacles you face.

Abhishek Bachan (as Gurubhai) and Will Smith (as Chris Gardner) gave commendable performances.

Some quotes from The Pursuit of Happyness:

Don't ever let someone tell you, you can't do something.

You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. You want something? Go get it. Period.

Some quotes from Guru:

There is a saying in our village, if people say bad things about you, you must be doing something good

If you don't dream you will be stuck to your village all your life

If a law can be made in one day it can be changed in a single day

I don't want to walk... I want to run

Mourning Mahatma

The school bell rang at 10:00 am. All the students in school stopped their chatter, quarrel, day-dreaming, games, and lectures. They stood up in unison, bowed their heads down, and maintained silence. At 10:02 am, the bell rang again. This signaled the end of their silence period. The students went back to their regular schedule of chatter. They never talked about it later. But, it was rooted in their minds and hearts that on this day in 1948 their nation’s great leader, Mahatma Gandhi, was murdered. This was how young minds were made to remember the man who sacrificed his life for a free India.

I wonder if the school administration still carries on the custom.

Dog Shows and Beauty Pageants

What would a model in a beauty pageant do when a judge is physically inspecting her?

Today, I watched a dog show on TV. I was wondering how the dogs would have felt when a judge was holding and feeling their teeth and touching them.

Severe Weather

After a dry winter, weather department is positive about snow this weekend. I am hopeful of some wintry weather. I am eager to get out of my circadian activity and shoot some pictures of the snow. Today, it was very windy and the town was fogged by dust.

Scientific Probity

Creativity should be used in designing experiments, not in formulating the results.

One of my friends was tempted to tweak the results of a scientific experiment just so that the final graphs of that paper look better. Later this person had a feeling of malaise and reverted to the earlier not-so-good, but observed, results. I am really glad that this person reported observed results and preserved the integrity of the scientific mind.

Lunch Buffet

It was a cold day on Friday. I did not cook at home and had a craving for pizza. I and two of my friends were looking for a warm place to eat quickly. All the fast food restaurants in Socorro appear to be on the degringolade. Pizza Hut is considered as the best among vox populi. So, we decided to go to Pizza Hut for the lunch buffet. Little did we know that we were in for a stark contrast to our expectations.

We entered the premises. Without wasting our time, the waitress asked for our choice of drinks and escorted us to our seats. Two of us were vegan, but wouldn’t mind eating Chicken. The buffet table consisted of all forms of copious pizzas except for veggie or chicken. We requested the waiter for veggie or chicken. He said it is coming out. We waited for more than 45 minutes. It never came. The waiter and waitress were unbeknown of what was happening in the baking pan. The heater was turned off. Here, I was shivering and eating the appetizers while waiting for a hot veggie or chicken pizza. But, we got the check quickly charged with an extra Pepsi.

I am not being a fussbudget over this incident. I came out poorer, snarky, and esurient. It was a good lesson for me and I decided to cook and not rely on fast food restaurants.