Favorites of 2006

In no particular order, they are:

Albums:

Gov't Mule: High and Mighty
Bob Dylan: Modern Times
The Wood Brothers: Ways Not to Lose
Ryan Montbleau Band: One Fine Color
Christina Aguilera: Back to Basics (smart, fresh)

(Only 5 albums! Please recommend others!)

Movies*:

The Departed
Casino Royale
Borat (come on, it's poignant and funny)
Thank You For Smoking
The Libertine
V for Vendetta
A Scanner Darkly
The Prestige

(*I still haven't seen Children of Men, Letters from Iwo Jima, Volver, Babel)

TV:

24 (my true favorite in this category)
Heroes (I'm hooked!)
Entourage ('nuff said)
Scrubs (the season that ended in Spring 2006 was pure greatness)
Lost (this may be the last season I watch it, though...)
Battlestar Galactica (not afraid to admit it)

(I started watching Season 1 of The Wire. I love it, so I'm guessing Season 4 would be on my list if I was caught-up.)

Things That Make You Go: Mmmm

There were three events that occurred in sequence on my way to lunch today that made me smile and remember that life is O.K. Two of the stories are very cliché Christmas-esc type events and one is just something that made me laugh so I thought, it being the Holidays and all, that I would share them with you. I am typically very pessimistic, and I tend to like stories that are in chronological order, so I will begin with the first event even though it is by far the least inspiring.

Honk. Hooonnnnnnkkkkkkk. An electrical company's mini van filled with three or four people merged lanes cutting off a construction worker and forcing him and his passenger to stay in the left lane, as well as giving them the urge to lay onto the horn so that all within hearing distance would know of the minivan's driver's mistake. The horn alone must not have sufficiently belabored the minivan and the construction workers must have felt as if they had been personally insulted so the passenger rolled down the window of the truck and started shouting obscenities. Of course the driver of the minivan could not hear what was being said so he rolled down his window.
"What?" He asked.
"You're ugly," was the response he got, although the traffic in the background made it difficult to hear.
"What?" The driver of the minivan asked again, either in complete disbelief that a grown man was yelling at him to tell him he was ugly or because he honestly didn't hear.
"You're UGLY!"

That was all I heard but it made me feel nice and warm on the inside. Seriously! I love seeing that kind of stuff. Things like that really make you understand how truly ridiculous the world is and all the little problems that people get angry about. And speaking of little tings:

Two midgets, little people, or dwarfs, (I don't really know the difference or what is PC these days) were walking hand in hand down the street having a good time and laughing with one-another.

Yes, this was a brief and passing moment but it was enough to make me feel good. These are people that are out of the norm. They were undoubtedly made fun of more than most while growing up and must have, I would think, felt somewhat aggrieved at their situation in life. Putting that aside the two of them found happiness in a world that makes finding happiness in typical life difficult and yet they managed with atypical statures, and hence lives. Props.

As I already mentioned, I am typically a pessimist, which is why when I observe something to be optimistic about it makes me very happy. Young children have this effect on me. They are so young that the entire world is one large ball of optimism and innocence to them. Seeing this makes me happy, and just after the dour traffic incident I was privileged enough to see a good-spirited moment with a very little girl.

A little girl in a pink jacket was holding her mom's hand while crossing Stuart street. On the other side of the street was a man selling news papers that were taken from a free newspaper bin. The man was asking for money from people walking by and the little girl's mom told her daughter to go give the man a five dollar bill. The girl waddled up to the man and gave him the money then turned around and ran back to her mom with a big smile on her face. Handing a needy man some money turned out to make this cute little girl incredibly happy. She did not, obviously, take the news paper because she was probably not old enough to even know the alphabet.

It is this sort of scene that gives me hope for humanity. Not much hope mind you, because I have seen, read about, and heard stories of the horrible capabilities of man, and I'm naturally inclined to pessimism, but some hope it did give.

Brain Drain

I'm going to pose a simple question without detailing possible scenarios. I'd like to hear what you all think about this.

Assuming that birth rates are dropping within industrialized countries and that the majority of innovation occurs within these countries, is it safe to say that there will be a drastic decrease in innovation in the coming future?

Let's try to predict where intellectual innovation will come from over the next 200 years or so.