Take a look at the picture to your left.  Do you know who that is?  Yes, it’s Christian Bale, the actor who saved the Batman franchise.  In the movie The Machinist, Christian Bale plays an extremely gaunt individual who has not slept in over a year. 

In the beginning of The Machinist, we do not know why he has not slept in over a year; in the end, we do. 

The question then is this:  Is it worth the time finding out?  Continue Reading »

Sometimes, you think the world is going to hell and a hand-basket.  (Where did that expression come from?  I don’t like it.  It’s so cliché and I don’t even really get it.  Let’s start over….)

Last night, the news reported that someone was plotting to kill Barack Obama after mass murdering more than a hundred black people and beheading some of them.  Continue Reading »

Summary

This page contains a reading in Spanish from Paulo Coelho’s book: Como El Rio Que Fluye: Pensamientos Y Reflexiones 1998-2005. This reading will not only provide you with the tools to learn and pronounce new vocabulary in Spanish, it will also expose you to the timeless ideas of Paulo Coelho. Continue Reading »

Sometimes you should listen to your movie store guy.  I know…many of you go to blockbuster and your movie store guy is a tweaked out teenager who would rather be skateboarding.  Others of you never see your movie store guy because he is now a computer screen that reads Netflix. Continue Reading »

Last night, John McCain and Barack Obama appeared together at the Alfred E Smith Memorial Foundation dinner.  They poked fun at each other, and themselves, in a night filled with political celebrities raising money for charity.

Their speeches highlight a great tradition of competitive friendliness as they laugh at, and with, each other.  It is hard to believe that the previous evening they were going at each other so intensely.  Continue Reading »

A British couple was just arrested for having sex on a beach in Dubai.

This news comes as a surprise to many.  Of course, the surprise comes not from the fact that they were arrested-Dubai, though a modern country, is a predominantly Muslim country and frowns on publics acts of indecency.

No, the surprise to many is that a British couple was having sex. Continue Reading »

There are many different ways to wake up.  You can’t control them; they just are.

I liked the way I woke today.  Normally, I wouldn’t have liked it because I woke up too early.  When you wake up too early, it often means that you did not get enough sleep.  Who wants to start a new day without enough sleep the night before?

People sleep different amounts of time each night.  I know some people who can survive, and even thrive, on 4 hours of sleep a night or less.  I don’t know how they do this.  It seems not human.  Can I trust these people?  I normally need 8 hours. Continue Reading »

I usually never discuss who I vote for.  There is a reason for that:  As a Republican-leaning independent, I would normally vote Republican.  Having lived in San Francisco for many years, you could not have a rational discussion with anyone if you voted Republican-they are all Democrats or Green Party.  And San Franciscans, though open-minded about a lot of things, are not politically open-minded.

I am only talking about how I voted this year because this election is so important.  In the beginning, I liked both candidates.  In the end, I voted for Continue Reading »

It’s Friday…your time to say, “wait, hold on, I don’t have to get up early tomorrow. I can do WHATEVER I want tonight!”

“But wait,” your friend says, “don’t you want to go running tomorrow?”

Running? I need new friends, you suddenly think. All of my friends are Goody Two Shoes.

If you don’t know what a rhetorical question is, listen to Adam Ant below, who wonders…don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do? Continue Reading »