As a hipster in the making it will be my goal over the next 30 days at least, to log more miles on the bike than I will in my fat four-wheeled beast.

I will have a decent headstart since my friend Rujii (it’s red and is a Fuji) is currently much more accessible at 5 ft away from me right now, while the fatso is a few miles away under the care of Dr. Mechanical House.

Here will be my partners in crime:

Let’s begin then:

Below then is how they ranked, females first:

1)

Obvious choice.

2)

I squealed every time she came on, stunning performance by her.
3)

Next few choices were tough.

4)

Sentimental favorite, she’ll be moving down this list in a few years.

5)
6)

How old is she again?

7)

HELL yeah

Cougar representin’

9)

Sorry Julia.

Most importantly then, here are the guys:

1)

Yum.

2)

How original, he plays a super hot doctor in this movie.

3)

Grey’s goes 2 of the top 3, monopolizing the list

4)

HE JUST TURNED 18!!!
5)

He turned 18 a while ago.

6)

Too many pretty boys already in this movie.

7)

Lovable.

Foxxy.

9)

This kid brought it hard. “I don’t usually like girls my own age”.

10)

Not funny or good looking.

Q: “Can you tell about the investment club you’re in?”

C: “Oh I’m not really involved in it much anymore…did you want to know something spceific about it?”

Q: “What made you specifically apply to our position?”

C: “I’m just looking for experience”

Q: “Did you get a chance to look at our website?”

C: “No I haven’t…what do you guys do?”

And this too.

On the other side of things I’m enjoying single life, go out every weekend, and am renting a place in an area filled with frat boys and people reliving the college life on a daily basis.

He’s on track at his company to move up the ladder once/twice a year and steadily grow his income, I’m at a startup with friends in which we all quit our jobs for to pursue, something none of us had had any experience in doing so before.

In short, in 5, even 10 years my cousin can pretty knows exactly where he’ll be at in life: at the same house, same job, with the same girl.

For me, other than (hopefully) being at the same job–though our company will likely be drastically different than where it is today–probably living in a different place, with my relationship status up in the air (insert spider joke here) in probably less than a year.

In fact I can hardly predict where I’ll be in 1-2 months, much less the next decade.

And I cannot possibly imagine it any other way.

It scares the heck out of me to have my life planned out to the point that in a year I’ll know where I am, to the point that I really don’t want to buy property of any sort or even sign a year long lease.

I have other friends who I went to high school with who are in Ph.D/MDother graduate programs as well as being engaged, which is just baffling to me, to know that you can point to a calendar sometime in the future, pick out a date, and accurately describe that day for them.

The question is then, at what point does/did life become predictable to you, and is it intended to be intended to be this way? When do you know you’re ready, and do you wish that you had waited further?

Since I’ve been home in the past few days I’ve spent a good amount of time re-playing old NES/SNES games, namely the Mario series and reliving that childhood nostalgia.

Each one has about 8-10 worlds to pass, and the best parts by far come from within those first x-1 levels, where ‘x’ is the total # of levels, right before you reach the final boss.

However in reaching Bowser and saving this princess who fails in not getting captured, the thrill is over, just like that.

One would think that with the sense of accomplishment gained by completing each of the previous levels/worlds would be magnified in completing the entire game, but it was the complete opposite of that.

It’s akin to that great movie you never want to end, or that perfect day at Disneyland as a kid, the most depressing part by far is knowing it’s ended, or even when it’s about to end. You leave satisfied but wanting more. You face withdrawal, which like any pleasurable moment eats you up inside like a drug.

Society tells us that the “American dream” is defined as settling down, having our 2.3-2.5 kids, buying the house + minivan and from there it’s all lollipops and rainbows.

However for those who don’t achieve any/all of this, they reflect back on life and think where did they fail, which is soon followed by feelings of cynicism and hatred of life.

It is my feeling though, that for the ambitious among us, that life becomes infinitely more depressing once our goals are reached.

It’s a catch-22 in the sense that the ones whose expectations far exceed those of a “normal” person’s, that they need more to accomplish in life. It is those who are never content with life that accomplish the most, otherwise, why try?

What is your ultimate goal? What happens when it’s achieved? You’re not defined in what you’ve accomplished but in how you accomplished it.

The piece of paper that says you have a Ph.D in nuclearphysioradioscience doesn’t define you, it’s those 4a.m. mornings you spent 8 days a week soaking up the material that did.

It’s  not the Super Bowl trophy that defines a player, it’s the 25 years of practices, training camps, 2 a days, and hours in the film room that define him.

There are even cases of people that are misdiagnosed with cancer for years, who get into deep depressions when they find out they didn’t have it, as that defined who they are.

And once you take away what it was that defines you, that’s taking away everything you have.

Give me back my Mario, give me more reason to live.

Inevitable are the many ups and downs that come throughout the course of “ownership”. There are the “bears” who are slow and resistful to move, and the “bulls” on the other end who move hard and strong. And there’s nothing worse than staying involved for too long after the fall-out and leaving when things have bottomed out.

In the mid 1990’s the US stock market was soaring to levels that was almost fantasical.

However in early 2000 the Dow and Nasdaq began to experience volatility unseen ever before. Swings of a hundred to several hundred points were becoming the norm, and not long after setting a record that would stand until just a few months ago, the Dow spiraled downward until bottoming out a thousand days later.

The investors who bought these once blue-chip stocks, much like the ones who invested heavily in housing more recently and saw their fortunes multiply overnight, found themselves in the doghouse not long afterward.

The ones who put their money in more boring options like government bonds, CD’s, or plain savings accounts saw their money grow much more slowly than others, but, as strange as the concept may be, actually kept the money they saw.

Even those who put their money under their mattresses were *much* better off than the people who lost entire fortunes in just a few short months.

The point?

Relationships are the same way.

Figure it out yourself.

Earlier this week, New York Times reporter David Rohde escaped from a Taliban prison. He had been a Taliban hostage for the last seven months, but the general public had absolutely no clue. In a joint effort by The New York Times and Wikipedia, the story was kept quiet until his daring escape.

In November 2008, Rohde was captured and held hostage by the Taliban, along with a local reporter, Tahir Ludin, and their driver, Asadullah Mangal. But until he managed to escape, most of the general public had absolutely no clue. To prevent Rohde’s value in the eyes of his captors from rising, the New York Times kept more than 35 major news organizations from reporting on the story. They believed that the publicity from reporting his capture would inflate the value of Rohde’s life, increasing the difficulty of negotiating for Rohde’s release.

This is an interesting conclusion to the story..I wonder how this parallels to the Laura Ling and Euna Lee situation, which took the complete opposite turn when it came to coverage, and whose situations grow more dire by the minute.

CurrentTV has kept completely quiet about it, but politicians and the news networks have tried all they can to keep the public up to date–but is it effective?

Does all the attention given to them simply raise the “value” of the journalists who are captured, making it that much harder for them to either escape, or negotiate an escape?

Are the news networks and politicians helping the cause at all by bringing all this attention to their cases and making the public aware?

Based on the situation above, and through common sense, I’m inclined to say no…holding candlelight vigils and posting links of Ling/Lee on Facebook may be nice gestures and all, but uh no amount of online signatures asking for their freedom is going to make the North Korean government go, “well gee golly there’s so many people on the internet who are against what we’re doing, let’s release them!”

http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/facebook-search-2/

Facebook is testing a realtime search engine for users’ news feeds that will challenge Twitter search, the company revealed on its blog today.

Say what you will about Twitter, but the Iranian situation has shown that its real time search feature is unmatched in providing live information just as it’s happening.

Not Google, not CNN, not Ron Burgundy can match it in reporting breaking news first, and first hand–and as the site continues to grow it’ll only continue to get better.  Let’s face it, it’s still very very underutilized as it is.

Imagine then if/when this becomes fully launched on Facebook. Currently we’re getting information overload from just 5-6 million Twitter users, of which it’s been reported that 10% of whom provide 90% of the tweets, so imagine what we can get via 200 million users (and still growing).

Even the almighty Google or Microsoft will have absolutely no ability to compete with them on any level, given FB’s current user base.

If implemented correctly, Facebook’s current valuation of $10 billion will be multiplied by many many times.