You may remember the late Dr. Randy Pausch from his famous Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. But this video is different, and it’s also well worth the watch. Enjoy.

Just count the number of hours you watch television in the next week. That’s my gift to you…

…If you have changed things then you probably have more time to spend with the ones you love and that’s important. Time is all we have. And you may find one day you have less than you think.

-Dr. Randy Pausch

Today is Blog Action Day. That means a link to the compact fluorescent light (CFL) Wikipedia and me telling you that they don’t just save money (no, really), but they save the world in oh so many ways: carbon footprint, coal mining, greenhouse emissions, energy consumption, etc. I know the light produced feels like a fifth-grade classroom but they’ve improved much. Try one.

They also leak mercury into your landfill so don’t be trashing the curvy/spinny bulbs. If you need to dispose your CFLs you can do so at your local IKEA store … they do trash the right way. Pick up some dorm furnishings while you’re at it.

An Earth-saving, curvy, spinny, and toxic CFL. Hg isn’t short for “hug”

I had this college macroecon prof who claimed Alan Greenspan to be the most powerful man in the world. Actually, so did every econ professor in every university across America. Didn’t yours? Regardless of whatever truth be held in that claim, it sure made for an interesting freshman-level econ discussion. Impressionable young minds, and I was one of them. Greenspan ‘08 son!

Here’s a fun read on the ambiguous aura of Alan, the sub-prime market, and trans fatty acids:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/118/the-hollow-man.html

Barack Obama in LA

I took the afternoon off from work and headed over to the West Adams area of Los Angeles to partake in a Barack Obama rally for his 2008 presidential campaign.

An appropriate hat in frame

I had heard of him years before but my initial interest in Obama started sometime during fall of last year’s political and media hype. It has recently matured for many reasons, mostly for what my dad articulates as “depth in any topic he discusses.” Really, that isn’t common nowadays. Depth is good, real good.

The crowd on my left side

This initial interest brought me to his 2004 DNC speech (Part I, Part II) and his book, The Audacity of Hope:

I wrote a book called ‘The Audacity of Hope’ and it was drawn from a speech that I gave but actually I’m here to confess to all of you, I actually stole the line from my pastor, Dr. Jeremiah Wright.

Some dude holding Barack Obama’s latest book

The experience was quite interesting taking place in a lot at the Rancho Cienega Sports Complex. I was surprised to see massive security precautions outside the complex, but when I got inside there wasn’t even an ID check, metal detector, bomb sweep, or anything. I kept scoping for some plain-clothed security but either they did a good job with them plain clothes, or they just weren’t there.

The crowd on my right side

I also got a chance to talk to some fellow rally goers who waited hours to see the Jr. Senator from Illinois speak. Some were hoping to get their book signed, some to get voters registered, but most were there to see Obama speak in person. The crowd was pretty very diverse: Occidental College students, fraternity members, online organizations, high school students, senior citizens, babies in strollers, Asian, Black, White, and Latin Americans, and a lot of local supporters. All local supporters? There was also this lady standing next to me with a Cal-Poly Pomona sweatshirt on!

The speech, although inspiring, was in many ways what I expected. He presented his domestic vision through health care and education, and he discussed his foreign policy focusing on Iraq, the War on Terror, and human rights and Darfur. But although almost every politically-cliché subject was touched on, his speech lacked that marketing pitch vibe. Obama’s speech had this straight forward and personal approach, without much of the rhetoric you typically see in politics.

Sure it’s early and the primaries are far from over and he can give such speeches without the political backlash. Regardless, it was…how do you say…good.

Obama after his speech

Check out the videos page for parts of his speech today at the Rancho Cienega Sports Arena in Los Angeles:

• Barack Obama Part I
• Barack Obama Part II
• Barack Obama Part III

Anaheim, CA — Someone almost drowned at Disneyland today. How to keep your kid safe from a torturously agonizing drowning DEATH, after the break.

Things like this piss me off. Ok sure I made that one up, but I see stuff like this all the time on news stations. It’s not really relevant to the public discourse and isn’t really news, is it? Good thing more and more people are becoming aware of this culture of fear that has always surrounded us.

I just saw a documentary that all of you need to watch if you haven’t already: An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore and this movie-film (hah!) do an amazing job painting a picture of the world if global warming keeps up its current trend. I finished with a feeling best described as uneasiness, maybe a dash of fear. But I want to make it clear that this fear wasn’t the kind I mentioned earlier.

This film does not take advantage of your fight-or-flight mechanism. This film, in a precise and factual format, opens your eyes to the very scary truth about about global warming if things don’t change. In the words of Roger Ebert: “You owe it to yourself to see this film.”

BEIJING (Reuters) – Beijing’s Forbidden City may close down its Starbucks in the face of growing protests that the presence of a U.S. coffee shop in the former imperial palace is an insult to Chinese culture, a newspaper said on Thursday…

Source: Reuters

Me at the Forbidden City’s Starbucks (2005)

Hope you’re all having a good day. This weekend…Vegas! Next weekend…Tahoe! I’m so excited.