6 of 52: The Few Times I Like Media

Sometimes I hate media. That's a lie. I almost always hate media. Chris and I saw two reporters from NBC at the corner of Fullerton and Sheffield. They were questioning a woman about Lincoln Park and of course all I heard was irrelevant shit coming out of her mouth. Chris and I waited at the light intentionally so we could go next but they already turned around. I was pissed because I actually wanted to say something insightful. It seems as if whenever you watch T.V. or hit up Yahoo or something all the stories are worthless or depressing. And it’s not like you can get away from it. We live in a propaganda based world, and there’s no way around it.

I try and avoid the news because it is surrounded with animosity and problems. Not once in five years have I seen news regarding, War in Darfur, Poverty in India, Child Prostitution in Russia, Communism in China, or even current reports on the non-profit charity Redcross. Instead I see drug busts, corrupt politicians and Chris Brown with iron fists. I love sports so if I watch T.V. it’s always on ESPN Sportcenter.

And no I don’t like seeing reports on 150 players who ALL used steroids, especially one of the best players in the game getting paid more then anyone else… to cheat. Or an Olympic champion who is an idol for many kids, who supposedly is a class above the rest, smoking a bong. But this is America. And they only care about America.

So I like when I see a feel-good story. Like the one I saw today about Clemson freshman guard Tanner Smith who used all of his money to give tote help bags to teens with cancer. No, he’s not the only person who does this, but just the fact that he can, inspires me.

There are a number of historic philosophers in history, but honestly none of them would have been heard if they were just regular people. Aristotle came from a family that was one of Greece's wealthiest. Sure his thoughts were great, but nobody would have ever listened if he wasn’t a “somebody.” It’s kind of sad but for the most part you need to have connections or money to be heard.

That’s why I think people in positions of power have an ethical responsibility to not only ‘not mess up’, but to help others. Tanner Smith is no superstar to anyone who watches basketball, but at 9 he only had 3 wishes.

• Play pro ball
• Get a Dog
• Make kids with Cancer Laugh

I don’t know about you but I’ve never met a nine year old who’d think of that third wish. This is why it’s a crying shame that there are not more people like him.

I always wonder why people with money are so vain and selfish. It starts off good, with most stars keeping their ego and slowly dwindles away resulting in them bitching out one of their colleagues for “stepping in front of him.” I always tell myself that if I ever had that much money I’d never turn into one of them. But who knows?

That’s why I find certain people admirable, like Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, Tim Tebow, Oprah Winfrey and especially Warren Buffet, who donated $43.5 Billion last year !!!! That’s what I want to see on the news. I don’t need some guy talking about change, I want to see people making a difference. If I wasn’t so broke I’d love to go to impoverished areas and help people enjoy a higher standard of living.

So I don’t care if Tanner Smith averages 3 points a game for the rest of his career. I have a tremendous amount of respect for someone who can do something like that. That makes him a Superstar.

5 of 52: A Shining New Era, is Tiptoeing Nearer… Be Prepared

The beginning of the end if you will. The past century has been a magnificent one. One of industrialization, social righteousness, and great magnitude. Sure the British Empire was the greatest this world has ever seen, but that was in a time of the New World. Impoverished nations and third-world countries scattered the globe. The emergence of the United States as the world’s superpower was unmatched as they had to fight all odds to overcome the Royalty of Britain, the Communism of Russia, and the Dictatorships of Germany and Italy. A century of pure power. But all good things must come to an end.

15 degrees and 800,000 people stand on Capitol Hill to witness a black man take the Presidency. The shear will of people to travel there to see a man who just two years ago was virtually unheard off. And Clap. Clap. Clap…. What a speech. People are going crazy. You’d think Mr. Obama was the new messiah, the savior. And he certainly addressed the problems of this crumbling nation. Not struggling, Crumbling.

Personally I don’t think HOPE will change the minds of most financially fucking stupid American’s to continue buying things on credit, we all know they can’t afford.

I don’t think CHANGE will facilitate a new U.S. defense that will step up to the aid of suffering nations. Forget Darfur, Rwanda, Israel/Gaza, and Senegal. Now we only invade countries we have no business occupying.

I don’t think FAITH will fix increasing domestic problems of Drugs, Teenage Pregnancy, Alcoholism, Gun Violence, and the early corruption of this nation’s children.

I don’t see 10,000 Inauguration Balls as the way to raise money for suffering families, while athletes could lose $5 million and would hardly blink.

This isn’t called being Pessimistic, this is called Stark Truth. If you actually look beyond the realm of North America you’ll see that it’s no longer filled with third word countries who have to rely on the United States to "have their back." If you pay attention then you will notice countries like China and India have been buying an obscene amount of airliners and such an outstanding number of nuclear weapons, it would make 1970's Russia cringe.

It's an internal shame that the world no longer wants to follow "The American Dream" because frankly today it's become an oxymoron. Why would the east want to follow the 'world power' when in their country technology, industrialization, and opportunity is at every block. There's no such thing as the epitome of a great nation, as the bars are always being raised. The rest of the world simply caught up.

It's a sad truth but the good years are gone. Even if the problems were minor I don't think Barack would be able to fix them. It's kind of like the longest standing game of Domino's ever. America's been going well; but once one bank crashes, the domino's all start tumbling.

Whenever I see it in my head I see the song "Be Prepared" with Scar in the Lion King, signaling a change that has been biding it's time. And now is Here.

4 of 52: Cause Everyone's Doing It

25 Things That Are So Random, You Won't Even See It Coming


1. I would love nothing more then to become a writer. I have soooooo many thoughts floating around in my head that sometimes I just have to write it down so I know it was once there. I prob have hundreds of pages of stuff just packed away.

2. I love pissing people off. Call it weird but nothing makes me happier then seeing someone tick. For most people I know exactly what will make them mad and I try hard to see them blow up. Weird I know.

3. I never do my laundry at school. I take my laundry home every weekend. The one time I did it at school, several socks when missing and I have refused to do it here since. Those sock thieves are fucking everywhere.

4. My family tends to have a lot of drama. Brown people tend to have even more drama. I HATE DRAMA. I like my white friends perfectly fine :)

5. Rap collaborations are awesome. Songs like: Drive Slow, Welcome to Atlanta-remix, We Takin' Over, are some of my favs just cause they all have so many different rappers with unique styles.

6. I'd expect that if anything happened then my boys would back me up, even if I was clearly in the wrong. I'd do the same for them. We'd discuss everything else later.

7. Rivalry's are what makes life interesting. Sports, Politics, Religion, Family, you name it, it's all about rivalry.

8. I sometimes believe God put women on earth INTENTIONALLY just to fuck with guy's heads. Sometimes I just have no idea what goes on in that puzzle that is a woman.

9. If were still friends by next year and you read this you’re invited to mine and Evangeline Lilly's (Kate from LOST, ABOVE) wedding. She's perfect and our babies will be perfect too.

10. I like to think I’m funny, and I LOVE making people laugh. Because when I see that smile it makes me in turn laugh again.

11. I wish my parents would have taught me ummmm 6 foreign languages when I was young, it would make me a stud today.

12. Athletes tend to become my idols and I hate when one of them lets me down. I pick them all for not just their athletic ability but for their integrity and the ability to be a LEADER which is harder then most people think.

13. I kind of have this thing where everyone has to like me. I like to think I’m a nice guy and don't really want to give anyone a reason to dislike me. I'm fine with some hating me, but that's only because I felt that way about them first.

14. I believe everything has a phase. It is only exciting for a small amount of time until something new and better comes along. Like Pokémon cards (see #15).



15. I'd probably have more money to pay for college if I didn't waste thousands of my parents dollars when i was young on those fucking pieces of thin cardboard with some retarded picture.

16. One of my pet peeves is when someone leaves the mouse cursor on the screen when watching a video. It must be dragged to the side and made invisible. Otherwise the video must be paused until the matter is taken care of.

17. I wouldn't really mind if my future wife had like 11 boys. I could create my own team for pretty much any Sport. ANY. A guy can dream right?

18. I can't stand Stupid people. They annoy me because they have nothing intelligent to say, therefore they should not say anything at all. They are simply here to make the rest of us seem smart.

19. I sometimes wish I was rich. Not so I could buy everything but just so I wouldn't have to think twice when buying something. So many of life's problems stem from worries about money. It'd be a nice change.

20. I think I’m cursed cause I try and stay away from getting too close to most people, and just when I finally do, Bam comes back to bite me in the ass.

21. I wish I had a cool animal that I could show off to people like a Koala wrapped around me when I go to classes or like an enormous lion in my backyard like Azlan from Chronicles

22. I like stalking people on facebook. Like a Lot. I’ve probably stalked you about 6 to 7 times..... In a week. NOTE: The Facebook Stalkers Motto is "It came up on my newsfeed"


23. The world is not what it seems. Not that I’m being a conspiracy theorist, but I believe there is sometimes a blanket over our eyes. Most people can't even accept that.

24. "Power Corrupts. Absolute Power, Corrupts Absolutely"
Favorite quote Ever.

25. I Love meeting new people, so I’m gonna tag a few random people from my friends list who I hardly ever or barely speak to after I tag close freinds. I can bet myself now that if even one of them creates one of these lists I’ll find something in common to talk about.

3 of 52: Nineteen and a Well Oiled Machine

I figured I'm turning 19 so I'd make a list of things I want to do before my young life ends, (i.e. now and marriage) because everyone makes mental goals, and even if you can't meet all of them, one's better than nothing right?

• Graduate with a Double Major not just to make my parents proud but for me

• Meet one of my Sports Idols, because Sports are an important part of my life, and you try especially hard to meet the goals dearest to you

• Find a Girl worth Hanging on to and not risk Losing

• Find at least one job that will help bring a smile to peoples faces. This one's not for me, it's for them

• Doing most things right by not only my family but my friends who I have come to realize mean more to me then they will ever know

• Go back to India and Uganda, and actually see them for the first time properly, it's where my parents grew up and I'm simply a footstep following in their wake

• Go to World Cup 2014, My hearts in soccer and if i could have a dream job, it would be watching that all day

• NOT become just another accountant at a firm, but a financial job that I look forward to, for the good of me and others

• Be more assertive in pretty much all aspects of my life

• Not have a routine. I don't want to become a "Well-Oiled Machine" where my life depends on a series of events that have to follow exactly.  

A life without excitement is one not worth living for

 

 :)

2 of 52: Click-Clack, Ding-Dong, & Charlie Chan

If you like observing people then there’s no better place than the Chicago El aka. The CTA. The extremities are crazy, with one seat occupied by a clean-shaven white businessman with his $400 briefcase and his equally expensive phone. You can tell he dreads the smell of piss and B.O. reeking all the way down the train, and he just can’t wait to get off so he can get his Mocha-Frappa-Fucking-Chinno at one of his 10,000 local Starbucks locations. You wonder does he enjoy being a state attorney working 60 hour weeks making 360 K a year, or is he doing it to escape his Shit-Brick of a suburban wife so he can fuck his secretary on weekdays and pretend to be a father on weekends to his kids. Who probably aren’t even his.

In the seat next to him sits a 6’4” black guy with his Braves lid tipped back and his denims pulled down so low you could swear they were about to drop. He has his cell phone pulled out playing some 36 mafia gangsta rap, loud enough so everyone on the train can hear, but quiet enough to not drown out his own freestyle rap: “Rhymes cash-money like Lupe Fiasco, Naw gon’ be peached like Rod Blago.” He’s going places. The real question is if he’s rapping to kill time before he heads to Rogers Park to hustle some nobodies for the day’s paycheck, or is he on his way to work so he can support his family.

Two seats down from there sits a white college girl all cozy with a Black NorthFace, Brown Uggs, a Spray-tan that has no place for January in Chicago, and a Coach handbag so enormous that you could probably fit 3 Small children, a Chihuahua, and Kim Kardashian’s Ass comfortably inside. Her layer of makeup has to be an inch-plus, and she’s texting furiously like her life depends on it. She looks like every other girl in this city and you wonder if she likes looking like a clone, or if she’s just trying to be the same until she finds out what makes her different.

If you stray your eyes past her you’ll see an 70 year old man, who knows the government is never going to give him his social security so he has to work hard for shitty pay. Or is he not doing it for the money but to show he still has the 2 balls and a dick necessary to make him feel like he’s young and up there with the faces of tomorrow.

Three Asians sit behind the old geezer and they have all the signs of a triad gang, with their jet-black slick hair and identical faces of monotone soldiers. Or maybe their guns are smaller than their dicks and they're less of a fearless Hero Nakamura mold and more like Click-Clack, Ding-Dong, & Charlie Chan. (- By Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino)

And opposite them sits me. A broke-ass college kid whose trying to make his own niche by staking out the traits in others. They’re all unaware I’m observing them, making defiant judgments that if spoken out loud would force them to reveal their true identity. Over the next few stops they all get off and I don’t say a word leaving my empirical views to recline to the back of my head until I see someone just like them. You’d think I’m simply relaying stereotypes but if you’ve ever been on the El you’d know not a day goes by without you seeing at least one of these.

So you’re probably wondering why I told you about the people of the El, but really it’s not about them, it’s about you. Right now check your Facebook Chat and see how many of those people you talk too regularly. There's 20 or so you don’t talk to, simply because you think you know them. When in reality you know nothing. Maybe they're depressed and need some hope, or maybe they're even exactly like you just waiting and wondering who’ll come online to put a smile on their face.

So I’m asking you for a favor look down your list of friends online and find someone who you wouldn’t really consider a "friend." And just say Hi. Maybe you’ll find out they're exactly like you thought with a blend of shallowness and bore. Or maybe, just maybe, you’ll find that you’ll connect and talk about random things that you would never have dreamt about and how you’ll be happy you had the guts to say hi because now you’re not judging, you’re learning.

“To correct the evils, great and small, which spring from want of sympathy and from positive enmity among strangers, as nations or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization”

- Abraham Lincoln

1 of 52: 2008 in Retrospective

Music: Lil Wayne in 08' has finally reached the point of "I don't understand what the fuck you're saying." Do you remember when he was part of the HotBoyz or even his album "Tha Carter I" with GOOD songs like Go DJ or Way of Life when he would rap. Now it's more like "Wayne's World, Bitch, Pussy-Money-Weed, Sister, brother, son, daughter, father mothafuck a coppa, Got the Maserati dancin' on the bridge pussy poppin, Vernierial disease, Whodawannadodaboyanoodlechooda, muthafucka dsfhdskjfhksjdfhksdfhksd3492834^&$^&utds8f7te....... " Yeah WTF?

- Besides that it's been pretty good, Kanye, Akon, Rhianna, The renaissance of Justin, T.I, and randomly what happened to "Band-Aid Face" Nelly?

Politics: Why bother? I'm sick of it, sick of hearing that Obama's "god's gift to man" after oh 0... days in office. Antigua actually is renaming its highest mountain Mount Obama. grrrrrrr. Sick of the democratic party the republican party, MILF Sarah fucking Palin, her MILF daughter Bristol, just politics in general.
- 8 years of a shitlly ( I invented it) run country and the worst Bush gets is a Shoe thrown at him, Awesome :)

The Economy: ooooo this is always a fun one. A bank crashes and people panic and take their money out of other banks. Those banks in turn crash and more people panic. The DOW JONES drops 20,000,000 as people sell all their stocks. Bush says he's Thinking of injecting banks with money. The DOW JONES rises 20,000,000 as people try to buy all their stocks back.......... Moral of story: PEOPLE ARE FUCKING STUPID.
- Iceland only has 2 banks. And both have now filed for bankruptcy..... Yeah, i don't give a shit either :)

Movies: Not the best but decent. The Dark Night by far was the best movie. I hate to say it but Heath Ledger's death probably earned him an Oscar.... True Story.
- Indiana Jones was the third top grossing movie. And you thought Harrison Ford was finally dead :(

People: Like: Michael Phelps, Rod Blagojevich for 11 of 12 months, Hiro Nakamura. Hate and hope they DIE soon: Taylor Swift (for her slutiness), Rod Blagojevich, George Bush, Barrack Obama, SO politicians... Miley Cyrus, Her perverse mullet of a father, Rachael Ray, Mortgage Brokers, Jeremiah Wright, Jamie Lynn Spears, Billary Clinton, Celebrities who think a new fad means adopting half the Eastern Hemisphere, Media.
- I know, Pessimistic much?

Sports WOW, probably one of the greatest sports years in History. Who do you mention as the story of the year? Micheal Phelps? Usain Bolt? Rafael Nadal? David Tyrees Catch? Cristiano Ronaldo? The Celtics and their Big 3? Tiger Woods? Albert Pujols? Kansas's Miracle Comeback? The Big 12? Fernando Torres? Nastia Liukin? LeBron James? Candace Parker? ...... I could go ON and ON. Just shows how amazing sports were in 2008. Individuals, Teams, Nations.
- Sports Embarrassments: T.O. The Detroit Lions, Marion Jones, Stephon Marbury

So in general a pretty good year. It does seem like just yesterday it was the Millennium and it's already 2009. Insane :)

Note: Not all the notes are gonna be this long. Just this one :)

Because I Felt Like It

2009 already. Shit, it seems only yesterday we passed the millennium mark. I figured it's time to make a New Years resolution again. For about the past 4 years its been get better grades. I guess I have kind of done that but that shouldn't need a resolution, it should just be something you do.

So I figured this year I'd start writing notes. Do you ever feel like you have to many thoughts and you need to express them. I'm no novelist but sometimes I feel like writing one, not cause I want that to be my career but just for the self-satisfaction of knowing I can. I have a lot of friends and we do talk about such random stuff that I'm happy they are there. But I still feel like there's sooooooo much more I think about that I don't really express.

The content of my notes are gonna be pretty random but usually something to do with sports, music, politics, people, news ( I feel we don't read enough newspapers), book, movies, reminiscing or just life in general.

52 shall shortly follow (maybe not shortly, but eventually)

You may agree with what I say, you may not. My aim is not to offend so i will try to respect that and responses should be likewise.