Do You Realize That We're Floating in Space?

Here's a TED video as a prelude to my next post. Freeman Dyson, a physicist and author of books including Disturbing the Universe (1979), Weapons and Hope (1984), Infinite in All Directions (1988), talks about real estate appraisals outside the Earth in preparation for the "big freeze." Which planet is it going to be? More of this on my next post.

Currently listening to:

Currently getting a good grasp of:

And now for something completely off-centered:
Text the Vote
By GARRETT M. GRAFF
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: August 13, 2008
Announcing Barack Obama’s running mate by text message has little to do with proclaiming the selection and everything to do with getting out the vote on Election Day.

What did I say in my previous post? Yeah.

How to Pretend You Give a Sh-t About the Elections

One thing I do is I try to keep up with the latest trends in politics.

Trend #1: Besides the ongoing march of gladiators since it's first runway show in 2001, flip-flops are still a classic staple during the hot summer months of the election campaign. And who best parades this obsession du jour of democrats but Senator Barack Obama.

Trend #2: The Dark Knight. The best movie of the summer? The greatest superhero movie of all time? Either way, nobody beats Heath Ledger's spectacular performance except, of course, the joker of all jokers, Senator John McCain.

Now, who wouldn't look forward to November 4th? It's going to be just as stupfying as American Idol and Tila Tequila's reality show. Next thing we know, we'll be texting "Obama" or "McCain" to some 6-digit number. Today Now!: How To Pretend You Give A Shit About The Election

PS- Be on the lookout for the biography of Barack Obama and John McCain on DVD. It streets August 5th!

Shop Victoriously!

What else can you buy and sell on eBay? Find out what the Prince of Darkness and the Son of God are bidding for, and vote for Shop Victoriously in the Wildsound One Page Screenplay Competition.

From over 200 entries to 30 semi-finalists to the top ten, JT's one-page screenplay is up for votes, and the winning screenplay gets made into a film! So vote for Shop Victoriously as many times as you can using as many e-mails as you have access to. Voting ends August 31st.

Understanding Darfur

Understanding a grave situation like the conflict in Darfur is one thing; actually doing something about it is another. Sara Cartwright, Cooper, and Drima are three of the many bloggers I found while working on a project at work, and I salute them and their teams for their commitment to creating awareness about the crisis in Darfur and taking a step towards stopping the genocide and securing peace.

If you'd like to get a wider understanding about this issue, two documentaries called Darfur Diaries and The Devil Came on Horseback are now available on iTunes for download.

Through the voices of refugees, displaced persons, and in particular women and children, who are always among the most vulnerable in any conflict situation, Darfur Diaries seeks to provide space for the marginalized victims of atrocities to speak and to engage with the world.

An up-close, honest, and uncompromising look at the crisis in Darfur, The Devil Came on Horseback exposes this on-goig tragedy as seen through the eyes of one American witness.

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading

Check out this documentary called TED: The Future We Will Create, and hear from different people around the globe as they talk about stimulating, inspiring, and sometimes funny topics ranging from arts and technnology, business innovations, and even human emotion.

My favorite speaker right now is Ken Robinson. Here, Robinson talks about how the education system anywhere in the world is putting so much time and energy training only the left side of students' brains while the right side is downplayed. Very profound and witty at the same time.

The TEDsters have much to do with my own personal growth, so go ahead and get a copy of the DVD, or visit TED.com to watch many "inspired talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers."

Cartoons, Chicken, and Chaplin

There's not one topic that interests me primarily, so you will be reading indiscriminate yet thoughtful information from this blog ...like, cartoons.

Bill Plympton's The Tune, an off-beat animated romantic comedy, is now available on iTunes for download!

The Tune is Bill Plympton's first feature-length extravaganza was nominated for a Sundance Grand Jury Prize. It tells the story of Del, a struggling songwriter who must come up with the perfect ditty for slimeball media mogul Mr. Mega, or run the risk of losing his job and his girlfriend Didi.

(Hey, JT, if you're reading this, this one by Plympton is for you.)

And while I was researching about toons and animation for work, I stumbled upon this 1985 Betty Boop and Felix comic strip: Makes sense to me, but the bare fact is that as long as there's oil, there's going to be war.

And where there's oil, there's fried chicken (well, that was an exceptionally bad segue). I had Popeye's fried chicken last night and had to ponder over whether Popeye the Sailor Man is Greek or not (because he likes spinach and has a sweetheart named Olive Oyl). Thanks to my (Greek) boyfriend who insists this idea.

We also tried to watch Charlie Chaplin's Limelight but didn't get the chance to, which means you have to keep coming back here until I finally see it and can talk about it. Until then, watch Chaplin's Modern Times, the truth in jest film about the proletariats' plight as working class marionettes or, as JT puts it more appropriately, "cogs in the corporate wheel."

Oh, and that picture above is The Tramp's portrait I sketched a while ago.