Brown Motion

 If Russia invades and takes over Ukraine as we know it today, what happens to all the cultural sights, sounds and menus of the erstwhile Soviet Republic?   Does the west frown on Russian anything now? Do we not get to enjoy the Hermitage anymore? Would the chickens from Kiev now be forgotten for Moscow Mules? But wait. That is not what happened. Bartenders revolted.  They poured out Russian sounding vodka brand down the drain.  'Sounding' because much of the liquor you see was made somewhere else. Globalization and what not. Stolichnaya changed its identity to Stoli. Moscow Mules too were apparently rebranded in a gesture of revolt to the senseless brutality we hear of in the media. The human tragedy is ghastly.  No war is a victory however you cut it. I think the Russian citizens (those that are aware of said war) do not think it benefits humanity. Certainly those in Ukraine think not. Let us hope that sanity will prevail sooner than later and we will go ...

 The Rams win in the Superbowl has to have Ramifications.  LoL. I mean Hollywood now has all the brothers portrayed on the silver screen in their quest to make millions. They have clearly boiled the ocean for mythical figures. Superman, Batman (really?), Iron Man and even an Ant Man? C'mon y'all. Looking east we had myths too.  And our own ocean to boil. Famous one involved Ram, Laxman and Hanuman (sticking to the male dominated industry that we live in). Gender identity was not an issue.  Even Simians were fair game. Now when you look to what the studios in Los Angeles have been churning out over the last decade or two they seem to have missed the one bro that I am eager to promote. Laxman. As the name may suggest he is just chill.  As in lax.  Does not get perturbed by every explosion or rape or misdemeanor. But when Ram is in trouble he will step up. So LA has to either buy a QB called Laxman or introduce a blockbuster of the ways of a bow and arrow toti...

 Media circus and social media together do a lot to make or break celebrity.  From sports to arts to politics and business there are many examples of random people achieving fandom and overnight clicks only to find that they are complete bozos. This immature adulation that society exhibits for people propped up by media reports is now a global phenom.  Whether it is royalty, Hollywood, Bollywood or ridiculously paid sports athletes, people that fall prey to hype are to blame. How stupid do you have to be to join the cult in a desperate attempt to belong?  Buying expensive and wearing team jerseys is where it may start and then goes on to buying tickets to events that are priced beyond the affordability for certain individuals. Then when their stars fall from grace for variety of reasons there is pandemonium and the obvious incessant drumbeat from the same media pointing fingers and doing retarded analysis (as if this was finding a vaccine level important) for what we...

 If you are still in the job market and working at a medium to large sized corporation you have by now no doubt encountered the ill effects of zoom. Ill effects I say? For many it is an escape from having to drive to work. For some (including me many times) it avoids having to go through the overhead of dressing for work and then dealing with mindless chit chat outside of work. But face to face interaction has its merits. For one you can see body language and intent clearer than a flat screen and that is if the video is on. But the side effect of using zoom is mind numbing. For one there is no zoom etiquette for the most part. Covid has given all employees a hall pass to do whatever when on zoom. Kids yelling, crawling into laps of speaker parent is one example.  Some mutt barking uncontrollably like a background theme music and getting mentioned every time a person speaks is another. Oh I wonder why Sparky is being fussy...  Really?  Because he is an idiot being a c...

 Feb 14 - a made up celebration day for love.  Valentine's day.   But get this - Vlad has other plans.  He might just send a torpedo or a missile to his closest neighbor's front yard as his sign of love.   Ponder the Russia invades Ukraine headline on Valentine day as a sign of undying love. Gen Z rooting for our planet to not get hot and avoid global warming..  Yet daily headlines of this same generation mining for crypto.  The largest energy suck this side of Los Angeles at night.  Even the Kardashians cannot compete with this excess. Education - students rack up debt to go to college and end up paying it off while making no use of their degrees whatsoever.  Then we try to subsidize this very education so we as taxpayers can keep paying for bogus college time. California can spend $5B and complete the football stadium in Inglewood near Los Angeles, which is great for entertaining the denizens but when it comes to actually providin...

 Today we decided to hang in a definitively teeny bop aka Gen Z neighborhood at the south end of Charlotte's downtown (called uptown). This is what local city planners might call gentrified neighborhoods.  Converting old mills and foundries that once dotted the low rent district of the industrial city into brick edifices with concrete floors and new glass all around. Multiple small locales all connected with narrow lanes and barely allowing two cars to pass this network of up and coming eateries, bars, pastry shops with a healthy dose of Aromatherapy and CBD/ Bong shops complete the scene. Here are some views of the landscape.   At lunch we tried Emmy Squared pizza (a NY like taste in a deep dish preparation)... ours came with spicy Calabria peppers and basil over a dollop of cool Burrata cow cheese. Demographic was largely white people in their 20s with a canine of varying shape, pulling them around in all directions.  Women were in uniform that was largely mad...

 In a gender strained world an engineer asked another about Iron Man's gender. Reply - Fe Male Rene Descartes walked into a bar.  Barkeep asked him - Would he care for a Martini? Descartes answered - I think not.  Then he disappeared. A neutron rolled into a bar and ordered a martini.  Barkeep said - for you - no charge. On a toilet seat in a college physics department is carved a note - Heisenberg may have sat here.

 Every so often I think about the human condition.  A mother delivers a baby.  That baby arrives to much fanfare in many cases amidst those that surround it.  Such is our lot. To what end?  No one knows. This new baby might solve the energy crisis or go shoot an entire stadium full of people.  No one knows. Yet there is glimmer of hope.  Aspiration on behalf of. Such is our condition. Then that baby grows and eventually dies.  I think of these things as I see people I know send me birthday wishes.  Happy birthday!  May you enjoy this day some spell out.  Ironically one of my parent died the same day as my birthday, couple years back.  So now what? Clearly most of it is muscle memory for those that are trained to follow social norms. But what of it I ask / ponder? Should one exercise enjoyment of being born or finding out that you get to spend time on this planet and consume? Is there happiness for others that know of my existen...

 So is a book title by a Univ of Michigan professor Erin Cech.  I have not read her book.  But the gist of it seems to suggest that what a few elite have preached to graduating classes over the years, including a famous man called Steve Jobs may be meh and impractical for most of us.  Now that is a refreshing suggestion. Follow your passion and do not settle for less was the yogi advice of those that made it.  They dropped out of their curriculum or whatever prescription they were chasing for a degree at one of the elite schools no doubt. But that advice does not work for majority of the people.  The late Sir Ken Robinson preached a theory that we crank out mindless citizens year after year because our schools do not do a good job of identifying true character or specialty in each student rather force them to adopt to a uniform code. More emphasis is placed on adherence and compliance than to learning and growing. More emphasis is placed on Aptitude Tests a...