Baby, I'll totally hook you up with a tri-level rooftop garden penthouse downtown

What would you say if I was a stock broker, and had managed thousands of Fortune 500 portfolios, including companies represented in your 401k holdings? You'd want me to maintain a public perception of stability and integrity, right: an erect member of the community ever pointing truthward on the moral compass of the financial landscape, yes? Of course you would.

Now say that I had this squeeze on the side, and I wanted to make sure that she knew how deep my pockets is. I wanted this girl to feel this here game, you know wha'm sayin? Word. So... say I slide a couple thousand Berkshire Hathway shares my company owns right on into my lady's account, ya'll ain't gonna trip, right? It's all good, right? Don't hate the playa, hate the game, right?

Then let's say that someone got wind of this little fiduciary collusion, and made a big stink about it [Sheesh...haters]. Say people wanted to fire me for this little itty-bitty thing. Then suppose that my old boss, who just happens to crash at the White House, comes out and supports me in my time of need because he and I go waaaaayyyy back. We used to roll P-gon style back when I was in the DOD.

Would you trip? Would you think it unethical that I did this?

OK, what if instead of managing stocks I was the President of the World Bank and instead of sliding my lady shares of B-H, I hooked her up with a phat compensation package that broke bank rules and smacked of nepotism and was just generally irresponsible. Would you be concerned if I did this?

What if you had some bigshots from the current executive administration make comments like these:

'"What we've said is, yeah, he made mistakes," [White House spokesperson Tony] Snow said. "That pretty much is obvious. On the other hand, it's not a firing offense."'

'"It doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that you would want to see the dismissal of the World Bank president over," [Secretary of State Condi] Rice said. "I hope it will be resolved in a way that is true to what really happened there but also strengthens the bank, which is a really important institution," she added.'

Would it seem like an ironic slap in the face with a metal studded glove laced with salty lemon juice when you know that the World Bank exists to fight poverty on a global scale?

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that it's highly probable that I shouldn't remain in the capacity of President, as these actions could be construed as...evil? irresponsible? callous? selfish? a manifestation of a propensity for rolling big pimpin' style? Any one of which doesn't really mesh with the goals of the Bank, given that, y'know, there are like people starving and shit, and I'm like hooking up my girlfriend with stupid cash.

If you haven't guessed, I'm like TOTALLY Paul Wolfowitz.

Let me take it one step further, and say that it casts a further shade, characterized by twilight, upon an administration that continues to fail to offer any kind of accountability, which further amplifies the message to the American people and our global neighbors that this country's leadership lacks a moral core. Please mind that I'm referring to the current White House administration, and not the American people. I'm betting that Americans are hungry for some changes in policy and political attitudes. It's frustrating to know that our children will be paying decades for eight years of bad choices made by one President.

I don't know if I'll make use of it all, but I want it

AMD will be coming out with a new, completely redesigned multi-core processor , which will compete with Intel's dual multi-core processor model. It's going to be sick I tell you...sick!

AMD lost some of their momentum in the chip market because Intel came out with their design first, but AMD apparently wanted to re-engineer the processor in order to differentiate themselves from Intel's 2-chip model.

Put simply, there are actually 4 distinct cores in the AMD Agena (branded now as "Barcelona" for servers, and "Phenom" for desktops) 10h architecture. Intel's "quad-core" product is actually 2 dual-core processors, which basically exhibit the same performance of their earlier chips.

AMD's are redesigned from the ground up. According to an article on Informationweek.com, each core's clock cycles operate independently in order to maximize instruction processing within each core. Previous AMD and Intel dual-core architecture had each core maxing out for all tasks, which could cause some systems to hang should some intensive calculations be required. From the looks of it, Barcelona and Phenom change all this, as the 10h architecture looks to optimize power usage, which should also help keep the temperature down. I'd imagine these systems are going to run a little hot.

Why do you care? Well if you just use your computer to rip music, burn CDs, send email, and update spreadsheets, probably nothing. You won't need to upgrade anytime soon.

For those that are drooling for DirectX 10 games like Crysis and Bioshock, this news coupled with the upcoming release of the nVidia 8800 Ultra Superclocked PCI-E video card should make your implants shudder and quiver with cybernetic ecstasy. Barcelona is supposed to be available this summer, with Phenom will following shortly after.

Haven't seen the Bioshock footage? Check some out...

IGN has an excellent collection of additional Bioshock media. I recommend the Developer Commentary. It's a bit long, but contains great highlights without spoiling anything.

Who knew that fire poi was such an 'it' thing?

Or is it really 'it' with some, and not with others? This is something to really consider for later, I think.

So, many years after high school I have the honor, privilege, and pleasure of keeping in touch with some excellent people I met many years ago. Just this past weekend, me and one of these friends shot out to NYC to hang out with 2 other friends.

It had been about 6 years since my last visit out there, which just so happened to be the weekend of Oct. 11, 2001. At that time, we hit up The Pizza Box, Joe's Pizza, Rocco's Pastry, the Met, the Guggenheim, saw "Rent", and saw the empty skyline from my friend's Empire State Building office and gazed out to where the 2 towers used to fill space. The remnants of the World Trade Center were still smoking, and windows downtown were all boarded up from the shrapnel and various destructive effluvium. American flags were everywhere, and New Yorkers were effectively moving ahead as New Yorkers do. Eff you, Taliban/Al Qaeda - you lose.
Fast forward to last weekend, and again we hit up the same restaurants, while also tooling around downtown and SoHo, walking from the Village up along the river into Midtown to the Carnegie Deli (obscene amounts of pastrami), scoring new Adidas at the flagship store, throwing the football around in Central Park (because the weather was amazing) and lounging at my buddies house on Allen. Enter fire poi.

So, one of my friends is in school getting his MFA in Dramatic Writing. His roommate is an ER doctor, who on off hours, hosts gatherings at the pad, where occasionally the big draw is fire poi. What's that? Well if you didn't click on the first link (and please take everything you read from Wikipedia with a grain of salt), does fire spinning sound more familiar? It's basically when someone spins these flammable devices using the ropes that are attached. It's best when you rock Fire Gauntlets, which is what I called the Renaissance Faire-warrior garb that the spinners wore. They either improve your control, protect your arm, or make you look like a thaumaturgic cheerleader...probably it's a combination of all three.

Of course, I cheered while a group of 20 or so watched the spinning. Everyone cheered. If you didn't you risked the spinner getting upset and spinning the fire chakras upside your head! You better cheer...fuhgeddabawtit. Excuse the HORRIBLE quality of video...the camera phone isn't exactly HD.

We also stopped by the New York Scientologists Central Office of Culty Goodness. Me and one of my buddies took a photo in front of it, and I know we were captured on the closed-circuit camera, so I know that my days are numbered. They know I know that they know, and we're now existing in a somewhat uneasy truce. I won't talk about the flying saucers, Xenu posters, and anti-psychiatric literature I saw through the window, and they don't threaten my family. Or worse still...John Travolta would crush me between his succulent hairy man-teats...ewwwww.

Needless to say, we had a blast. The city is amazing. Lots of big ballers, Ferraris, Maybocks, Lamborghinis, and Bentleys out there. The subway puts BART to shame. On the flight out, Joe Montana and Tracy Chapman were on board. The running joke for the weekend was a De La Soul lyric that we uttered at random, "De La Soul? / No Tracy Chapman". Alas, there were only non-celebrities on the return flight, and some suspect mystery farters that kept making the air a bad thing to bring into your body.

theonion.com on the vetoed spending bill

theonion.com does great work. I laud their rigor.

Bush Rejects Iraq Funding Bill

On Tuesday, President Bush vetoed a congressional bill authorizing financing for the war in Iraq contingent on a timetable for troop withdrawal. What do people have to say? Read on for all your withdrawl needs!

Big angry men who love Obama

Last night we got to hang out with a couple I've known since high school. It was awesome seeing them, catching up, and hearing about what they're up to these days. He works for an organization that directs cadres of big angry men who break down doors and kill bad guys. At least that's what he calls it. I thought it sounded sublimely and descriptively non-committive which is just what we need in the hearty age of information and its impact on rhetoric.

Speaking of rhetoric, Barack Obama has smartly requested "'that copyright rules be waived so that video from Democratic presidential debates is publicly available "for free and without restriction.'"

Dude, this guy is awesome. He sent a letter to Howard Dean, our favorite exuberant Democratic National Committee Chairman, and the Republican National Committee Chairman Mel Martinez "asking them to ensure that debate video can 'be shared, re-used, and freely blogged about without the uploader of the video being deemed a lawbreaker.'"

In the letter, he got signatures from Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist; Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia; former Federal Election Commission Chairman Brad Smith; Markos Moulitsas, founder of the political blog DailyKos.com, and MoveOn.org Civic Action executive director Eli Pariser.

Either Obama himself is brilliant, or he's got some great campaigner expertise coming up with these ideas. His actions in these areas help define him as innovative, tolerant, and facilitative: all good qualities we'll need in a new President.

So, to all those wonderful Obama hopefuls, and big angry men who break down doors and kill bad guys, I want to devote this song to you and your loved ones. May it inspire you for the challenges to come.

It's like a line of dominoes

Oh man. This is just too good. So, my soon to be old job and me are essentially calling it quits, which is a good thing. I was basically asked to agree to a mutual dissolvement of employment. And I did. Kinda like Colin Powell turning in his letter of resignation, because he serves at the pleasure of the President. So I guess technically I'm not really being "terminated".

Whatever. I still feel like I escaped The Rock.

So get this. Oh man, this is just so good. First, I'm thinking that everyone in my group is just sailing merrily along and then someone who heads a major 2-year over-budgeted quagmired project leaves the group...red flag I says to myself...then yesterday's email announces "staffing changes" and I find out that my officemate is leaving - in the same month! He's been miserable as well! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHA!!

WAIT!

It gets better! I'm talking to another group member, who, at this point lets the cat out of the bag (because when you're leaving it doesn't really matter what you say as long as you don't burn any bridges you need to maintain) and tells me that she's leaving. She mentioned that she didn't feel supported by her boss (my supervisor) and didn't like the way the group was managed. She wasn't alone in feeling that way. I'm thinking that someone may show up on Rate Your Boss.

4 people are leaving the group in the space of a month. Damn. I guess it wasn't just me. Others found their job to be not what was advertised, and didn't like the group going in a direction that wasn't expected or desired. I'm smiling so hard right now. I feel vindicated and liberated. This was the best thing that could've happened. I was feeling like Mugatu and thinking that I was taking crazy pills, but really there was a deep bone cancer-like sickness that permeated the group dynamic making people unhappy members of a dying enclave.

Get the ejection handle, Goose! EJECT! EJECT!

Light at the end of the tunnel

My current job is breaking up with me. I'm glad. It was making me insane. I'm talkin' ka-ray-zee insane. Like, "the prices are insane!" It was only a matter of time before I broke up with it, so I'm actually pleased to have a clear exit strategy [wink-wink, check out the iRack] for my current slave. You could probably tell from some of my posts. They are rich with venom.

If anyone ever tells me that the job that they're at is a bad fit, I will now have perfect clarity on the situation. I'm talkin' perfect like Alexander Overwijk draws a freehand circle.

The good thing about all this is that I know what I don't want to do, so I'm interviewing like crazy, and I'm focusing my efforts on finding something somewhere that makes my happiness happy.

I've got some amazing friends and colleagues who've turned me onto other opportunities, and I'm pursuing them like Mark Foley goes after an underage man-brad.

So who called me today out of the blue for a pre-screen? This was for a job I thought wouldn't amount to a callback given they get somewhere around 1,000 resumes for a single job. Google. How sweet is that? Not just because it was Google, but because after months of fitting a square peg into a round hole I was getting to feel pretty negative, and now that I'm fully injected into the employment vein it's nice to know that I at least warrant a pre-screen from the Fortune-rated Number 1 company in the U.S. at which to work.

We'll see what happens. Regardless of the outcome, at least I have Stuart Smalley's teachings to keep me going.As a postscript, during my initial plans for hari-kiri I found the Commencement Speech to the Stanford graduating Class of 2005, as delivered by Steve Jobs. It was a good read, and highlights how the bumps in the road of life shouldn't be seen so much obstacles, but as experiences that should be taken as new opportunities...not to get all Tony Roberts on you.