Wanna see what's going to happen next

Would you see text auto fomatted? If so,...

After watching Glengarry GlenRoss one can only be left feeling better about their position in life. Sure there are many questions about being satisfied and pressures in life. And I thought what I have to face on a day to day basis is mildly challenging, if not a bit frustrating. There's little comfort though in comparing my position to needing to bring in sales every day. That would be amongst the most hateful jobs I could imagine. I would much rather spend my days working on systems supporting descisions or leading up to my own for that matter, but cold calling? I don't think so. Tried it for a minute once working for the censis. Um, let's see, New York City, and people that didn't return the long form. Sure. Knock on their door, they'll be more than happy to pass answers through the chain for 30 minutes... I lasted a couple minutes in that one. Actually, 20+ hours of training and only about 8 hours or sactually on the job. Not one of my finer moements. Had no interest in being the number one solicitor of surveys.

The Bravery played a great show at Webster Hall indeed. It had a touch of stadium performance while trouncing around the stage. Any band insistent on slugging Jaegermeister on the stage leaves questions aloft. Quantity of music consumption is an amazing feat. Constant expansion requires attention and leads. Not to mention a steady stream going out if one were to purchase the desired music. I have respect for the artists, and I certainly believe they deserve their share. Sadly, not many are willing to do it without the compulsory reward. Marketing and market in general require some many caveats and grease slicking. Paying to get music on the air is somewhat ridiculous. Do you really need every possible revenue stream if you're already on a network require payment. Why do other sources of copyrighted information have the right to be paid for? It's a huge disadvantage to those trying to make their mark. They need a label boosting them forward in order to share the talent, rather purchase their market share. Let the marketing department have at them, and they will all strike up some deal. Speaking of mega blockbusters, Coldplay's X&Y strikes a nice cord with me. There are some sweeping melodies. Tickets at the garden would have been nice. They are striking up five nights like U2, which has it's own arrangement for the garden at this point; although, even for waking up early on a Saturday morning, 20 minutes determined my fate, ticketless.

So much of recent has been light. I have not been quite as worked up at the office. Deciding a softer tred has mended relations and left quite the sweet tooth. Though, it is not always so sweet. However, no matter how loud you yell, sitting quietly is infinitely more effective in that moment. Just as in the question of inhabiting New York, there needs to be balance. New York or anywhere for that matter, a second, a minute, then, to collect oneself. Determinism shouldn't be wielded haphazardly.

Finding focus now
Infinite moments before
disolving other

Months and months go rolling along, and so much goes unsaid. While I was traveling this blog served a purpose of sharing my experiences with others, but when I’m in the city connected to those I ordinarily laugh and love, I’m left questioning a little bit what purpose this has.

There are certainly questions of anonymity. As this is linked directly to my website I am not immune to ranting too much, yet there’s still room to retell many other tidbits, some interesting and others undoubtedly interesting to me and few others…

Lately, I’ve been asking the question, “What music are you listening to,” a lot. This has primarily been my source for new music because I don’t often turn on the radio (despite having it at my fingertips), and I don’t often find myself in stores or online hunting around for tips. All of those would be good sources as well, but I’m making out reasonably well. I have more music at this point than I can become familiar with before hearing about something else. Fresh might be an understatement. Just the other night, Nathan, my brother asked if I had heard of The Bravery. I had not, but after getting their self titled album, it’s with no great surprise that I just got a pair of tickets to see them at Webster Hall.

I was watching Charlie Rose last night; his guests were professional bloggers: Andrew Sullivan, Joe Trippi, the lady from Wonkette, and a couple others. It was interesting hearing their insight into the "Rathergate" incident having been on the frontlines themselves. There likely will not be much in the way of breaking news coming through this line. I wonder if I'll ever even figure out how to run an RSS feed for this site. All of this is possible if I can get caught up some in my work a at AJWS. All work and no play makes Jack...

Oh yea, oh yea, oh yea. I love playing with new toys. It's not nice to be devoid the creative. Space time and motion found in cutting a straight line. But what of warm water. And, who, if anyone would ever attempt to deecipher this? Patience or personal interest; strong contenders...

Gasp, it's already been eight days. Not entirely sure where they have gone. I've just finished laundry thankfully my clean socks admit. Unfortunate to learn that Steve Madden didn't have good material specialists working on their insoles. Even after having them reglued they managed to bunch up under my feet by mid-day, and those socks bit the dust as soon as the shoe were off. Bella suggested trying to soak them in hot water; however, the glue used during the shoe repair is not likely to be light weight or effected by water. So long soaks; you've served me well. J Crew, actually. Not that I've ever owned much from there. Nothing that fits all that well. And what about Eddie Bauer. They guarantee their products for life, and my new jeans couldn't last a month. Insult to injury is that neither could the price. They were discontinued for not being too successful, and I only got 60% of the original price in a credit. This does however serve as some justice because when I was in high school I had the better of them. Traveling from New Orleans to Taft regularly, I was quite tough on luggage. My Eddie Bauer bag, which was entirely too big took me many places over six years or better. Finally, it got tired of me putting more than forty pounds at a time in it, and the strap stitching came undone. In my mind life was life, so I brought the bag back and got a credit. It almost makes it appropriate for the jeans to serve as retribution of sorts. Not that putting any credence whatsoever maintains an ounce of guilt; merely intrigue.

Tomorrow will officially be my first day as a Development Associate at American Jewish World Service. It has been great working there over the past three years. In addition to having wonderful professional experience, meeting amazing people, and doing good work in the world, I have began to develop a sense of social justice. I am in large part ignorant to the complexities of the world we live in, but each day my eyes open a little bit more. The sights before me invite a rush of thoughts and feelings. Can we really be doing all of this to one another? Why don't we do more for each other? I have not chosen the most lucrative path in this new endeavor, but the opportunity for growth may very well be unavailable eslewhere. Regardless, I'm happy with what I have, and that's a really wonderful feeling.

Tonight Bella and I had our first game on the Deluxe Scrabble board I received from Merle. It's no surprise that she kicked my ass, again. She beat me a couple times before on her old set, by 70 points or so, then again by 40. This time was a real walloping though weighing in at a monsterous 90+ points. Reading Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis has gotten me back into my old competitive game mode. While traveling I thought about taking up chess again as I have on several other occasions. However, now, I want to follow through on this desire. I have on my desk a posting for the 7th Annual Foxwoods Open, which will take place towards the end of March. If I can commit to training enough, I will eventually register for the event. This is a huge event that I would like to compete in, so I'm contemplating. But back to Scrabble for a moment, I need to learn some new words, yea. Bella has a significantly larger vocabulary and wields it accutely crossing triple word scores and racking up huge points. I'm going to narrow my margins with the hopes of one day surpassing her. I'm not counting on lucky tiles, I need to do some work...

"Napoleon, this is Pedro, will you show him his locker." Starting afresh at AJWS won't require too much adjustment. I began in Communications, shifted to IT, back to Communications, now on to Development while still dabbling in Communications. It has been a full on submersion since returning from New Orleans. We have been responding to the atrocities in South East Asia. I have a very difficult time comprehending 150,000 lives extinguished within minutes. There is so much going on in the area; I find it difficult to keep up with what is happening in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India. We have been inundated with support from all over. Our website has proven to be an amazing asset during this time. To process all of the requests by hand would have taken a great many more people for the sheer volume. I'm glad to say we can keep our overhead to just 5%. Unfortunately, I missed the presentation on what the latest relief efforts were focusing on, but I was off settling another network's affairs.

Merriam Webster's hottest word of the year, 2004 -- blog. It's a great way to spread the word. Happy New Year to everyone.