(Argentina vs Mexico) Maxi Rodriguez 2-1 (Victor Hugo)

beautiful goal, beautiful call...

music to your ears

i came across this interesting site regarding music labels... it highlights two major points: 1) sometimes you never really know where or to whom your money is going, and 2) the number of businesses controlling the music industry (and other industries) is actually very limited. click on the image for a larger display...

satellites and stories

hey oh here i am
and here we go
life’s waiting to begin

...so i started work this week.. so far its pretty interesting. its at a startup company, and we're developing some pretty extensive computational biology software. we're still in the early stages, and there will obviously be a lot of challenges, but its gonna be a very interesting experience for sure. this week we actually moved to a new office, so we had to setup some furniture lolz... we should hire some french maids to vacuum... they suck good...

this whole week ive been figurin out the shortest way to get to the office,... the damn transit website picked a very long route that took me like 2.5hrs to get to work on monday, but i found a different route that takes me just over an hour or so and i dont have to keep switchin lines, so its a lot more relaxing... im happy about that...!

i slept in today :(

i still havent got around to finishn my project :S... been gettin home late this week... on top of that i saw my reserch prof at the subway station this morn lolz... i tihnk she saw me too, but i pretended i dint see her lol.. ive got a crazy excuse in the bag, i think ill email her tomorrow... wish me luck! baga!

ive been listenin to edge 102.1 online here at work... havent found a station round here that comes even close to playn as many good tunes and funny djs... josie dye sounds hot, whoevrs in TO should chek her out at republik sometime heh...
Josie: "Hey remember when u used to blow bubbles?"
Lunchboy: "Yeah, fun times..."
Josie: "Yeah, well bubbles says Hi and wants you to call him"
LOLZ

anyways... i also heard fred penner is playn tnite in TO! haha... i used to watch this guy on tv strum his guitar and sing songs like Puff the magic dragon and The Cat came back when i was like 6... i never knew he was still around or even still sang... his website is jokes too fredpenner.com.. although, i think he musta been puffin that dragon real good when he wrote some of those magical tunes lolz... booya fred!

the town i take my train into in NJ, parts of it seem so americana/stepford wives suburbia... predominantly white area, most drivin either jags/bmws/benz or lincoln continentals, typical american-bred vehicles... and in the evenins some pretty wife will always be waiting wit her 3yr old kid at the train station for the husband, in his blue blazer and khakis and tie, to come home... a nice area to live, but lotta rich white ppl who stick to themselves, itd be wierd lol... unless i was more loaded than them... then id just mock them on the way to my private yacht for some quail hunting... ahh quail hunting... Vince Vaughn is: Jeremy, Owen Wilson is: John

Jeremy Grey: Have you ever shot a quail before?
John Beckwith: The whole 17 years we've known each other I've been sneaking off to go on little hunting trips around the world. No, I don't even know what the fuck a quail is! (hah neither do i, but it must be QUeer)
Jeremy Grey: I look totally ridiculous. Like why do I have to be in camouflage? So the big bad quail doesn't see me?
John Beckwith: I know. Why can't we hunt something cool like a hawk or an eagle, something with some talons?
Jeremy Grey: That'd be awesome. We could get something like big game. Even like a gorilla or a rhinoceros or a fucking human being! That'll get you jacked up.
John Beckwith: That's a little heavy.
Jeremy Grey: I mean like, hunt a human being right now, "Most Dangerous Game". Like a worthy adversary. Not a human being that's armed, but a clever, a clever, human being who knows the jungle. Or the woods.

ahaha jokes... World cup, spain is my #1 team, and theyre goin all the way, and argentina for silver! im a brazil fan too, but who isnt... if they win thatd be awesome too, but im goin for the dark horse.... i dont mind germany i guess, but england sux... i hope someone crushes them...

peAce

Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
Malcolm Forbes (1919 - 1990)

*

Education is a state-controlled manufactory of echoes.

Norman Douglas (1868 - 1952)

soundtrack of our lives

while youre reading this you should be listening to paul van dyk's politics of dancing 2... select the title above in a new window and escape from its shutters, become transported to that ethereal world...

its been a crazy 4 or 5 months, more new people, more new experiences, some experiences a lot better than others ;)... the semester is pretty much over, but i still have a project to wrap up. partly my fault, ive been dragging it out but ive also been pretty busy. this past week was the first time in a while i could sit down and work on it, but i still didnt! yeh needed a vacation from the busy vacation... so hopefully tomorrow ill start looking at it and prolly start feelin the heat again. most likely i will have to meet with my phd guy early next week sometime...may have to come up wit some wild excuse...

i am also slated to start work next week, our office is relocating to a somewhat closer location, but my commute will still be pretty damn long. theyre giving me a laptop, so i figure ill work on the way into work and out of work, and leave the office early. maybe i can convince my boss to let me work from home 2 days of the week or somethin...

on a related note, i still havent received my work permit from homeland security... and i can only get paid with it... so i gotta get somethin in writing from my boss saying that once i do actually start "working" he will pay me as agreed + compensation for the time ive already put in... he seems like a cool guy, i hope it works out...

ive started working out and yogging this week... ive been yogging in riverside park which runs right along hudson river... started at about 4km, which took about 20mins today... decent i guess considering i wasnt over-exerting too much, since this was my second time jogging in like 10mnths lol... watchin old world cup matches online is pretty motivating too... those guys are in such insane shape, i figure if im in bad shape when im 26, i have no hope when im 36 or 46.. so i bettr get movin...

i need to clean up my room.

oakenfold's new album a lively mind came out this week; chek out his website, the link is on the left sidebar... the first single faster kill pussycat is tru club jive, and surprisingly brittany murphy (sin city vixen) is doin vocals, and does a pretty hot damn good job at it too!... you can hear that song and the song souther sun on the website too... both are jivin', though most reviews seem to say the album has too much of a mainstream club pop vibe that deviates from oakenfold's last release bunkka... even so, im sure many of the tracks are killr...

world cup starts today... google/ig has this great world cup update feature you can add to your personalized page... small things like this make google v cool... i am rooting for the spanish side, they should be able to come out of their group h fairly thoroughly...

im still contemplating paying 20$ more in june and 60$ more in july to get espn and espn2 on tv... those 2 channels combine to show 52 world cup games, while abc shows 12 games, and i already get abc... almost all the espn games are during the day on weekdays (while ill be working (hopefully)), while abc games are usually on the weekend, including july 9th sunday championship match... i wish espn was showing the games at nite, tape delayed if need be, theres somethin authentic about watchin great futbol in the wee hours...! anyways, i can add the espn package anytime, so ill see how my schedule goes...

ive been trying to eat better since i am working out... i dunno bout others but it takes a real conscientious effort on my part to get my lazy ass up and eat properly... maybe if i can keep forcing myself to make the effort it will become habit...

oh ya, i plan on flyin up to Tdot for the july 1 weekend... maybe if my boss is cool i can leave the thursday evenin and be in TO to party thursday nite heh... july 4 here is a holiday and its a tuesday, so maybe ill fly back here tuesday evening... i think my guelphtimes roommate ben shack is plannin on bein in town too, in from halifax, thatll be cool... guess i need to talk to my boss about it first though... im not really working for a lengthy period to begin with,.. maybe i can scam some extra weekend hours...

anyways, thats pretty much wats goin on right now... yuko is on her way to germany, hopefully she gets world cup tix:) and mebbe grab me a team spain jersey too!:) hev fon wid ze gerrhmanns...

aight thats about it for now, life & muzak... peAce

war & history

to war is human. on this lonely planet, life among the vast ocean of seething stars, war has been an inescapable reality for our species. to explain this undeniable thirst for conflict, many arguments have been proposed.

before tackling the why, we may first ask, is war a bad thing? in today's world more and more people are opposed to violence, but there are those who would not agree. at the outset of WWI, german writer and nobel laureate thomas mann wrote "Is not peace an element of civil corruption and war a purification, a liberation, an enormous hope?" i would not be surprised if many men of power, even in democracies, believed in some aspect of this statement. but why do such sentiments arise in the first place?

psychologically speaking, there is a theory that individuals from an early age identify "self" relative to others; children first comprehend this reality as the existence of an "I" and a "not I". This simple, yet essential actualization forms the basis for further growth of the individual. throughout our lifetime we continuously interact with, and measure, and compete against the people around us, continuously molding our sense of self.

in the same way, groups of peoples, whether they be tribes, states, or nations, also define their politics, doctrines, and values relative to other societies, past and present. although individuals within the group may hold slightly varying beliefs, as a collective, the group acts as a single entity, alive in its own right. thus, the group entity too has its own psychology; within this assimilated life form, there is a drive to assert itself over other groups, violently if need be.

within the group other factors also may increase the likelihood of agression. one is technology; a group lacking advanced military technology will rarely push for war, while a group with such advances may in fact act to maintain their "well-oiled war machine". a second factor may involve those in power within the group, asserting their power upon other nations in order to incite fear, hate, patriotism, and political lethargy among their own people. george orwell describes war in this way, an "opiate of the masses", whereby a state wields controls over its members.

others may argue that war is not inherent to man's psychological nature. agression may be an effect of the religious and ideological pressures in the society itself: agression by nurture, not nature. this mode of thought believes that if some society could be rebuilt and redesigned, taught to think it certain other ways, the act of war would eschewed by all.

fortunately, after horrors such as hiroshima and the many genocides, opinions such as mann's are rare (or not openly stated). nevertheless, misguided armed conflicts persist unheeded. perhaps, if our species survives long enough, our evolutionary ancestors will have the minds, the strength, and the resolve to realize kingdom come.

*

as time passes, we must rely on the written word and documentaries as relics of past horrors. as the remaining survivors of WWII whither, the reality of the past becomes shaded and buried. no longer will we see live images of war veterans standing at rememberance day ceremonies, or the aged faces breathing still to tell their tales. once these men and women are gone, our efforts to remember last century's wars must be strengthened.

last year, a lost diary written by a north vietnamese doctor during the vietnam war was returned to the rightful family by an ex-american soldier. the writer, dang thuy tram, died during the war at age 27, leaving the end of the diary filled with empty pages. this year, the diary has been published as a book, and has sold in record numbers.

the diary is a stark reminder not only of the brutality of war, but also of the lonely, passionate suffering the victims feel - a reality almost always lost in today's textbooks and dry history lessons. excerpts,

Later, if you are ever able to live in the beautiful sunshine with the flowers of Socialism, remember the sacrifices of those who gave their blood for the common goal.

Please come to me and hold my hand when I am so lonely. Love me and give me strength to travel all the hard sections of the road ahead.

Just yesterday a badly wounded soldier 21 years old called out my name, hoping I could help him, but I could not, and my tears fell as I watched him die in my useless hands.

Oh! Why was I born a girl so rich with dreams, love, and asking so much from life?

unfortunately, it is too common that the heart wrenching tears of war are forgotten in the decades that pass. it is a pain we pray we do not know, but remember. read the full article here.