South Beach Video

A video I put together of our labor day weekend (Sept 1 - 4) trip to South Beach (a.k.a. SoBe)

Austin City Limits Recap

Well ACL is over and done with and it was tiring as all hell but was still a blast. This year they did a much better job of containing the dust bowl effect of last year. This is a good thing. This prevented the whole black stuff coming out of my nose and ears. Yuck. Apparently they installed a sprinkler system and planted more grass this year which helped keep the dirrrrty dirt where it belongs.

The one thing they really need to improve for next year is the damn food court. There was never a time when the line for food wasn't 50 people deep. On top of that they were constantly running out of food (or they didn't have what you wanted- hey I wanted a slice of pizza not a microwaved pizza roll!). If they had more than one food court, that would probably help the situation, but what do I know about controlling 60,000 people?

Anyway, enough whining, a little recap:

Gnarls Barkley: Unfortunately they didn't live up to my high expectations. I wanted to be blown away but I wasn't. It may have been the heat (they played at 4:30PM on Friday) or it may have been the crowd (obviously most of them were there to hear them play "that Crazy song"), but whatever it was, it wasn't as high energy as I wanted it to be. They were very good live and even played some obscure cover songs (one 80's song and one Doors track). I liked Storm Coming the best.

Thievery Corporation: Easy one of the best performances of the festival. I think they increased their fan base by an order of magnitude based on their performance. Being on a bigger stage this year surely helped but they sounded better this year for some reason. I think the crowd really dug their international fusion vibe that mixed reggae, hip-hop, South-Asian, and vocals. Tres cool.

Massive Attack: Another one of my personal highlights. They really didn't fit into the "ACL theme" this year since they were one of the only electronic acts on the playbill. Still I was really psyched to see and hear them and they lived up to my massive expectations (pun intended… is that even a pun?). I really liked "Tear Drop" and "Angel" but almost all their songs were amazing. The lighting backdrop was also really cool and fit the ambience of the show perfectly. Opposite to Gnarls, I think Massive was on at exactly the right time of the day (or night as was the case). Great weather and a cool crowd helped as well.

Flaming Lips: Admittedly I knew barely anything about this band. I knew they sang that "Jelly" song but other than that I was clueless. They rocked the house! Starting with a Christmas theme they had a bunch of people (fans obviously) dressed as santas and elves jumping around on the stage. They also fired "snow" on to the crowd. Their energy level was astounding and they were just really positive. An orgy of happiness is how I would describe their show. From the lead singer walking over the crowd in a big plastic bubble (think man in a beach ball) to the way they got the audience involved in singing they were astounding.

Tom Petty: The headliner to the whole festival actually exceeded my expectations. I never thought that Tom Petty would be so sing-along-able but the songs really do lend themselves to just that. "Learning to Fly" was probably my favorite along with "Mary Jane's Last Dance". They didn't play "You Wreck Me", but that's ok since the rest of the show was great. Halfway through it started raining like crazy…. lightening and all! The band, for fear of electrocution (wusses!) took a 45 minute break while the storm blew over. I had wanted it to rain all weekend long since I'd never been to a concert in the rain and figured it would make a good story sometime later in life. It did feel really good after the heat of the weekend and it did change the whole vibe of the crowd (mush of whom left as soon as it started to rain). After the rain stopped they finished their set with American Girl, Refugee and a few other songs. Good stuff!

Now I have Shakira w/ Wyclef this Friday in San Antonio and Rolling Stones next month. Phew! Going to be an active live music fall in Texas!

Cutest Pics ever!

ps. I haven't updated this in a while but I will soon!

Dallas Weekend Trip - August 4th, 2006

Went to Dallas a few weekends back and this is a group pic of some of us.



On the left is Toby and his girlfriend Jill who both live in Dallas. Then there's me, my boys Sameer and Dave (who loves to stick his tongue in people's ears apparently) and our host Mahjabeen. Good times! They had really good 80's and early 90's music that we all sang along to all night. Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer was the highlight!

Some more pics:

Some more of the crew

Toby and me hitting the high notes!

Dave and me looking "mean and mysterious"

The day after with Sameer's friend Adrian

Little Miss Sunshine

You must go watch this movie!

That's pretty much all there is to it.

I think this little movie should get massive word-of-mouth buzz and become a classic in the vein of American Beauty. The premise is not very important but way each character goes through a personal journey to arrive at a new (higher?) plain is the crux of the story. On the surface the movie is about a dis-joint family who goes on a road trip to take their daughter to the "Little Miss Sunshine" Pageant on California. The little girl (the same one who was Mel Gibson's daughter in "Signs") is no little beauty queen but the family wants to take her anyway since it's the only positive thing going on in their life. Grandpa is a junkie, the uncle (Steve Carrell from "The 40-year-old virgin") is suicidal, the son is a goth who's taken a vow of silence, the dad is a loser who gives self-help/motivational seminars. The mother is pretty much the only "normal" one here, which is not that different from every family. The mother is generally the anchor on which the family is moored and in this family it's not that different. The mother is flawed in that she has lost her family among the daily rut of suburban life.

The journey that this wacky, and unlikely, group takes is funny, dramatic, heart-warming, and insightful. Everyone will find someone in this movie to relate to. Who hasn't felt lost in their job? Who hasn't had their heart broken so badly that they wanted to disappear? And who hasn't felt that they could win no matter what the odds?

I suppose everyone will have their own interpretation of what this movie represents, but to me it is a journey of self discovery. The final pay-off, to me at least, is to be comfortable in your own skin. Everyone goes through a lot in their life but you have your friends and family to love and support you along the way. Be happy with who you are.

Oh, and the climax of this movie is the FUNNIEST segment of celluloid ever! Do not drink any water or eat any food before the climax or it will come shooting out of your nose or mouth!
AJ

Ad-battle royale!

These ads require no explanation....

First the punch from BMW:


Then the left hook from Audi:


Then the jab from Subaru:


And the final blow from Saleen (obviously fan made):

The Smart Egg Tells You When It's Cooked (boiled)

The Smart Egg Tells You When It's Cooked - Gizmodo

How ingenious is this? An egg stamped with heat sensitive paint that tells you when it's boiled just right! No longer will you have runny eggs when you want a nice, firm boiled egg. Cool!

Palestine vs. Israel.... on the basketball court!

ESPN.com - E-Ticket: Hooping with the Enemy

This is a great story I just read and I figured I'd share since the world needs some positive news right now. With all the Lebanese-Israeli was news right now it seems like everything is going to hell in a handbasket, but it's refreshing to know that people are trying to make a difference... and are succeeding.

The Play for Peace (PFP) program is designed to bring people together through the game of basketball. Successfully implemented in Africa, Ireland, and other conflict hot spots, some folks decided to use the program to bring together Israelis and Palestinians. If you can be good friends and teammates, maybe you wont grow up with the hate and predigous that everyone else holds.

Being a huge basketball fan I think this is great since it spread the popularity of the sport and will eventually increase the talent base for the NBA. Besides that I think sports are a great way to de-emphasize the politically charged times we live in. On a football field or b-ball court, people are just teammates and friends and that's all that matters until the clock runs out and the game is over. In this day and age when entire nations are judged on the political affiliations of their leaders it's nice to see a ray of light that is trying to poke through the clouds.

0-60mph in 1.67 seconds... for a car!?!

Barabus Sportscars Limited

I have no idea how this is even possible but this Barabus company, not to be confused with Brabus which is an aftermarket supplier for Mercedes Benz, announced their 1005HP twin turbo V8 supercar that's going to take you to 60mph in less than 2 seconds AND a top speed of, get this, 270mph. I don't even know how the wheels will gain traction on the road for that long. Why not just add wings to the thing and call it a jet for crying out loud. I'll believe it when there's a legit road test.

Human Pong!?

This is equally weird/cool/scary

Real life space invaders!?

No this doesn't mean that we are being attacked by an alien race, hell bent on destroying us, but limited to the fact that they can only move in 2 dimensions.

Some French performance troupe spent 4 hours moving 67 people around a theater to recreate the classic space invaders game!! This has to be seen to be believed:

Snow Patrol

I've recently become a huge fan of the band Snow Patrol. If you haven't heard them I suggest you give them a listen. They're like a less abstract version of Coldplay in my opinion. They have less of a "chilled" out vibe than Coldplay as well. Some of their songs are more rockin’. If you only listen to or buy a few songs I recommend "Chasing Cars" and "Run". The lyrics in both those songs are really great. A little melancholy but not too sappy. Anyway I’m spreading the word (even though they’re already pretty famous).

Friend's Wedding Video from last year

I found this movie I made from August 2005 that I figured I'd post on here as well. The guys in this movie are some of my best (and oldest) friends from when I went to school in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia). We did some crazy and fun stuff together back then.....




(In the first shot of us in the video from left to right is: Nabiel, Samer, me, and Saad)

- Stacey (Philippino- American) and Nabiel (Lebanese- British) moved from Phoenix to London and now have a beautiful baby boy (Nicholas)
- Samer (Syrian-American) lives in NYC and works for a financial services company
- Saad (Pakistani-Malaysian) also lives in NYC and just finished his MBA and works for the Financial Times

My epic 11 minute China montage

It's late, I'm tired, but it's done at least. I made this video with some of the 600+ pics and 30 minutes of video I took in China. It took a lot longer than expected but I'm done and it looks good me thinks. Let me know what you think. I'm off to bed.

one red paperclip

one red paperclip

I had read about this guy a while ago in Wired magazine. His goal was to trade a red paper clip on craigslist for something else. He planned to keep trading up to something more desirable until he turned that paper clip into a house.

Well I guess he finally did it!

Arrr Matey, give your scurvy-dog lovin' self a pirate name... yarrr....

I found this amusing website that turns your real name into a pirate name.  I am supposedly "Black Buckthorn" (!!??)

Not sure how they got that from my name exactly.  Anyway, give it a shot and see what you get.  There are seperate male and female versions.  I tried some of my friends names and got some really funny results. 

Lads:  http://www.mess.be/pirate-names-male.php
Lasses:  http://www.mess.be/pirate-names-female.php

linese.com??

I was watching the world cup final at my place with some friends and thought it was interesting to see that one of the ads for Budweiser beer was half in English and half in Chinese. Just gives you a better perspective of how many people were watching the game and the demographic makeup of those people!

Also today I guess China launched a website to teach Chinese for free! I'm going to have to check it out (seems to be a dead link right now) since I've been interested in learning Chinese ever since I got back. Seems like it would be a useful personal and business tool moving forward.

On a side note all my picks for the World cup lost. I picked France today and in earlier games I had picked Argentina and England in their respective knock out games. Ugh.

I vooood lik to bui daburgaa

I watched a few crappy movies on the plane ride over and back from China. On the way there I watched the Pink Panther and Firewall with the latter being far more poopy than the first. Pink Panther wasn't great but it wasn't a complete waste of time like the Harrison Ford craptacular-fest that was Firewall. On the way back I watched that movie about the dogs in Alaska with Paul "2 Fast 2 Furious" Walker. I forget the name but the movie wasn't too bad. Seemed like it would be better suited going straight to video though.

I rarely laugh out loud when watching a movie by myself but one scene in the Pink Panther actually had my eyes tearing up I was lauging so hard. The inspector wants to go undercover in America so he hires a dialect coach to rid him of his extreme French accent and.... well just watch it:



On a side note if you've never seen the original Pink Panther movies they are pretty funny. Peter Sellers crowning achievement, however, has to be "The Party". That movie ranks up there with Airplane as one of the funniest ever.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig jig

Well, my trip here in China draws to an end today. My departure is sort of bittersweet because I don't feel like I had enough time here. Regardless I squeezed as much as humanly possible into 2 weeks. I made a bunch of new friends. they are my co-workers but I regard them as my friends after my experiences with them here. China is an amazing place and I hope to return soon and for longer next time.

To give a one sentence summary of what I did here: Shopped on cultural street, ate scorpions (!), played 4-on-4 basketball in the parking lot of a temple in the mountains, rode a zip line over the ocean in the fog (!!), saw a live filippino cover band at a hole in the wall bar in Tianjin, taught English to a very friendly (and cute) shopkeeper at the silk market, pulled an all-nighter in a train overnight from Qing-Dao to Tianjin talking with a person I had met the day before, rode a public bus to the Summer Palace, climbed the Great Wall, talked with students in Tiannemen square, took a self guided tour of the Forbidden City, cooked my own food at a hot-pot restaurant and Korean BBQ restarant, played hours of Uno on the "hard seat" section of a local train, watched a world cup soccer match at 11PM in a co-workers room at a really crappy hotel room, and laughed along with my co-workers until my stomach hurt.

Thank you China!

ps. I'll post pics when I get back.

I used to like Craig David

I haven't posted in a few days since I've been really busy here at work in China. I get up at 7AM, generally work till 8PM or later, go home and do some homework for school and go to sleep at 11 or so!

So a few quick notes:
- The Chinese people are all generally very friendly. They are eager to talk to you in English and like to practice other languages. They also appreciate the broken Mandarin I speak back to them from my handy dandy lonely planet guide
- Haven't eaten too many exotic things since the hot pot I tried last weekend. We did go to this hole in the wall Chinese place called "Jo Mama" or something like that. The food was great and 6 of us are for under $20 including drinks! Plus there was a ton of leftovers.
- My hotel restaurant, where I generally eat breakfast, only seems to have one CD that they play on a loop. I think it's the best of Craig David. Now I used to like "Fill me in" and all those other songs but after hearing them every morning since Saturday, my patience has expired!
- I haven't mustered up enough courage to try Chinese breakfast yet. They have all these dumplings and noodles at the buffet but they labels are not very insightful so I don't want to bite into some mystery meat!
- This Saturday I'm going to some mountains near Beijing and on Sunday we hit up the great wall! Can't wait.
AJ

Full day in Tianjin

Have to head out in a little while to go to Beijing for the day but I wanted to write a quick summary of my day yesterday. I slept pretty well throughout the night and got up at 9:30 to have some breakfast. One of my friends/co-workers picked me up at noon to take me on a tour of the city. People had said that there isn't much to see here but I was pleasantly surprised to discover the contrary.

We went to a couple of "mall" type stores where I browsed and bought a few handicrafts etc. The general merchandise here isn't cheap (like clothes and electronics) but groceries and handicrafts seems pretty reasonable. I got stared at a lot since I was probably the only non-Asian looking person roaming around. There were tourists from other Asian countries but very few other tourists that I saw. On this cultural street we went to some of the shopkeeprs could not help asking me all sorts of questions and trying to practice their english. Everyone is very friendly and genuinely interested in your background and culture. This one little asian girl who must have been 3 or 4 was very cutely trying to practice some English with me. I tried not to make her too conscious but she got a little shy after a few sentences back and forth.

Anyway, short update for now. I need to catch a cab to the train station so I can meet up with my ex-boss and head to Beijing. Should be fun. I'll try to post the pics from my first few days soon.
AJ

Domo Arigato Mister Roboto

Greetings from Tokyo. I made it here after my epic 13 hour flight. It actually wasn't too bad with the fairly good food, crappy movies, and reading material I had. I slept a bunch as well so I could get used to the local time as easily as possible. It's 1:10AM my time so I do want to go to sleep but I'm sitting close to a window to mazimize the light I can get to prevent me from fallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll...... had you there for a second huh? :)

First impressions of Japan? It's very clean and everything seems to work really well. Example? The escalators make a nice light hissing noise. The elevator doors whisper open and closed. Everything seems well oiled, for lack of a better word.

Thankfully most people speak English so finding my way around wasn't too bad. Of course I'm in the lounge which is by gate 12 and my flight leaves from gate 58! That ought to be a fun hike. I think I'm going to roam around the terminal and take some pics before my flight. I'll probably be writing from China next!
AJ

From Howdy to Konichiwa to Nin Hao

I'm writing from the Dallas airport right now. I left Austin this morning at 6:45AM (after sleeping at 1AM and waking up at 4:30AM) and my flight out of here is in another hour or so. I had to give myself extra time in the Dallas airport in order for the wonderfully efficient folks in US immigration to allow me to "exit" legally. But that's a different story.

I'm flying from Dallas to Narita (Tokyo, Japan), and then on to Beijing. From Beijing I'll be taking a limo to Tianjin which will be my final destination thank goodness. I've flown a lot but never over the Pacific and never over the international date line. I live Dallas at noon on the 15th and get to Japan at 3PM on the 16th!!! It's a 13 hour flight but I lose more than 24 hours! Can I get a refund please?

I plan to blog somewhat regularly during my two weeks of travel. Hope to post some pics along the way as well. I get to go to the beach in China over the weekend before 4th of July. My ex-boss is posted in China and his team is going via train to this beach town (that is supposedly and coincidentally the town where Tsing Tao beer is brewed). I figured it would be a great way to see the countryside and mingle with the Chinese team over there. We'll see if my "vision" of this trip matches up to the "reality".

More later. From Texas, we'll see all y'all later.
AJ

Cutest Picture Ever!

Polar bears are awesome

That new toy smell

We all like new gadgets and toys. Why? Partly because opening something new for the first time is cool. Knowing that you are the first person to open and touch a new gadget or piece of electronics is an experience that, for some, borders on religious. Much like that (toxic!) new car smell, that smell and tactile feeling of a plastic toy newly liberated from it's shrink wrapped prison is amazing. For all of you that can't get enough of it there's a site that caters to your fetish:
Unboxing.com

See all types of gadgets and electronics being slowly, lovingly, sensualy unwrapped and opened. Now go take a cold shower!
(just goes to prove the axiom that there's something for everyone on the internet)

We were are all immigrants at some point

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Web users to 'patrol' US border

Texas lawmakers are setting up webcams along the Mexico-Texas border to allow internet users to monitor the border 24-7. I know this is better than vigilante justice that some areas have resorted to but in typical fashion this seems to be addressing the problem rather than proposing a solution to the root cause.

To me this is just another way to feed the cycle of xenophobia that has been growing in world as of late. I'm not just talking about American's afraid of everyone else and vice versa, I'm talking about people not trusting one another. Unlike what the media would like you to believe you are not always in imminent danger and not everyone hates you or wants to do you harm. allowing regular Joes to "patrol the border", besides entertaining the conservative elderly while they point and click their way to immigration enforcement, seems like a poor way to address the problem.

What is the problem? Well there isn't one simple answer and I'm sure if you ask 10 different experts they'd give you 10 different answers. In my opnion the issue is one of integration and of a wealth gap. My highschool history prof once told us an interesting anecdote of the migration patterns of the "white Americans" and how they were driven from the center of city to he periphery of the city and then to the suburbs where they lived in gated houses with security systems to keep "the others" out. Are "other people" really a danger to you and me or are there third-parties that would like you to think so.

I'm not blaming the integration issue on white people. Every race is guilty of shutting out other races because that is what the kids observed the elders doing. Just because something was done before doesn't mean it has to be done again. Still I suppose many have said before that history repeats itself, but we should resist the necessity to act like those before us have acted.

The wealth gap is also an issue that has been exacerbated in recent times. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The GDP difference between the US ($11,750 B) and Mexico ($1,006 B) is collosal and the per capita GDP difference is huge ($40K vs $10K)! Where such a large delta occurs one can reasonably expect the forces of the free market to cause the supply in labor to want to move over to where the equilibrium price is higher.

Beyond illegal immigration, the wealth gap just seems wrong to me. In Pakistan I saw beggars on the street under billboards for Porche's new Cayenne SUV. Something doesn't seem right about that from a common-sense perspective. When the gap between rich and poor gets to be overwhelming, the imaginary walls we build to protect us from the poor masses will only stand for so long.

UK firm to unveil wall-socket PC - ZDNet UK News

UK firm to unveil wall-socket PC - ZDNet UK News

Wow, now this is cool. The entire PC fits inside a standard wall socket and is powered over ethernet. I doubt this is the future of techonology since we are probably moving towards all client side based computing, but for those without ultra fast network connections this is quite a breakthrough.

Can you picture the day when you walk into home depot and pick up a fan, an extension cord, and a wall socket PC!?

Nice sepia shot I took of sunset on the beach in Jeddah. Think I may set this as my desktop wallpaper! 

So I recently got back from Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) where I was visiting my parents and sister. My little nephew, who is 2 years old, is quite a piece of work. Full of enegery and always up to something he loves to draw at the dinner table (since distracting him is the easiest way to feed him!). It's funny how at this age their minds are like sponges and they absorb all sorts of information from the environment around them. He was imitating everything I did which was pretty cool. He's also bi-lingual (he speaks Urdu and English) which is really neat to me. Of course I have no idea how kids acquire language so it's all voodoo to me.

Anyway, here's a little video I took of him drawing and describing how a helicoptor flies. Too cute: