Que Lo Cumplas Feliz

Two birthdays to celebrate today. First is Kathy's, who is 20. Unfortunately, she is in Texas so hard to do much celebrating on that one. But, happy birthday! Second is the World Wide Web. Yep, today the web portion of the internet (they are different, if you didn't know) has it's sweet sixteen. Your webpages want cars. If you are interested, here is a link to the history of the world wide web.

Harry pasted me this link to a sweet new sport that I think everyone should take up. What I think would be really funny is to extend this by getting about 8-10 people in a store to simultaneously run out when the alarm goes off. Everyone would just split, running in a pack to the nearest burger place. It would be hilarious.

Been mostly doing chores around the apartment and such. While doing laundry yesterday I started reading the Economist again. I had forgotten how much I loved it. I still have a lot to go (been distracted), but I just find it so interesting and in depth about things. It is quite the brilliant weekly magazine (over 100 pages about the entire world every week). If you want to be up to date on politics, economics, business, technology, and new books about said topics, then it's definitely worth a look.

Also read a really insightful article entitled Mind the Gap by Paul Graham. He discusses the idea of the 'income gap' in capitalist societies and has some very good points. I especially like his description of the "Daddy Model of Wealth" and agree completely. As a recent college student myself, I know how it is to view the world through those eyes. The basic idea is that most kids and students see wealth as something that comes from a central source and gets distributed, hence feeling that it should always be fairly distributed, whatever fair means. They consider it injustice if the distribution is not fair. Graham argues that wealth is not distributed from a central source, but created by everyone everywhere. A job is by definition an exchange of money for your wealth creation. You create wealth by doing whatever it is you do, and in exchange for that wealth the company gives you money, since that is an easy way to trade wealth you don't want (the newly painted house or peice of software), for wealth you do want (food, tvs, fancy cell phones).

I've had sort of a crisis of belief lately, and not in the religious sense. The more I read and understand about economics, management, and business, the more my views shift on such things. The crisis is that now I can't really agree with either political party on things. I find the Democrats too protectionist, and pandering (the minimum wage hike and capital gains tax hikes make me ill). I find the Republicans too paternalistic (gay marriage, stem cells... legislating their religious beliefs), and pandering (flag burning amendments, etc). Also, both parties just seem so corrupt and apt to just pass tons and tons of pork. We need a new party. In fact, time to follow through on an idea I had. Stay tuned for that one I guess.

In more personal news, finally bought groceries after working out today. Going to try and stop eating out every meal and eat more fruits and veggies. I already can lift more in just about every exercise than ever before, and it's only been a month now. I am definitely more focused and motivated to go work out than ever before as well. Hopefully I will keep that up.

Mmmmm, orange juice! And with that, I'm done.