News Flash: Wheel of Time Rolls Over Author

Yeah, the title is tasteless, but by the end, so was the whole cash-cow series, which will never end now.  I want closure, damnit.

Robert Jordan, dead.

Voiture

I’m still scratching my head over this one.

Seen in the INSEAD parking lot last week:

Caballos

So I’m sitting at the track, drinking piss-poor quality, watered down beer sold at a price point that would make NASA toilet contractors blush, when I hear a commotion behind me.

A mother and her brood of 4, which made more noise than a brigade of 40,000, were shuffling around as mommy dearest got up to gamble away her welfare check and refill her “drink” (she was holding a soft-drink cup, but whatever was in that cup sure didn’t smell like Coke). The kids wanted to go with her, but since seating was on a cutthroat, first-come, first-steal basis, she told them to stay put.

Just as I’m turning around to deliver the 5-Point Exploding Palm Shut The Hell Up look, mommy calms the rugrats down with these words of wisdom:

“Save the cheerleader, save the seats!”

Since I haven’t ever seen an episode of Heroes, this meant nothing to me, but everyone within earshot starting cracking up like mommy was Richard Pryor reborn.

Man, people need to stop watching so much TV, or I’ve got to start watching more. I feel old when I don’t get these pop references.

Nuevo Punto Bajo

What do you get when you cross a Cold War Bogeyman with an over-hyped luxury brand? CNN Article here.

THIS:

Great picture, but I still feel bad for poor Gorby. He looks like he’s thinking something along the lines of, “What the hell happened to my career?”

We wonder too, Gorby, we wonder too.

Cubierta

This post has been languishing in the “Drafts” section for a while, so I figured it was time to dust it off and give it a go. Oh, how very British of me. “Give it a go, ol’ chap. You must be thirsty after that furious go you just had. Fancy a pint?”

A few months back, INSEAD released it’s 2006 Career Report which potential students and new admits eagerly peruse like crones over tea leaves, for indications of how much gold, frankincense, myrrh they can expect to have tithed to them upon graduation.

My issue isn’t with the content (though I have some issue with the potentially misleading numbers, but that’s fodder for another post) but rather with the cover, which I’ve attached below.

Analysis of 2006 Career Report cover

Cover: It’s sunny! There are pretty green trees! Hey, look at all the glass and steel around. This must be a modern building, full of high-tech wizardry and gadgetry, just like our school! It’s shiny, and we know how you all love shiny things. That’s why you’re getting an MBA after all, so you can score that €144K EUR salary and buy all the pretty, shiny things your black, black capitalist heart desires.

Reality: Though I have not seen the Fonty campus, current and past students say that it is constantly under (re)construction, and that any dose of modernity lost its relevance in the ’60s. INSEAD literature explicitly states that Macs are not supported, and that there is no WiFi in the amphitheaters. As Hallonman, NYFrog and other recent student bloggers can attest to, it’s not always sunny in France. Even in late May. Or June, for that matter.

Cover: Look at our crazily diverse student body!  Look at how representative of the world we are!  There are about 19.5 billion Asians on the earth, and growing, and the balance is made up of whites!  Let me present you with our Benetton Ad, Lite:

1) Shorter Asian woman, young-ish, in sandals and casual clothes smiling up at big white man.

2) Big, animated white man in shirt, slacks, dress shoes, explaining something to the younger, diminutive, (dare I say subservient?) Asian woman.

Reality: OK, what the hell. Why not just put her in a cheong sam, throw a pair of chopsticks in her hair and post a thought bubble with something to the effect of “Five dowah, ruv you rong time” and complete the picture?

If INSEAD is going to play the diversity angle to sell the school, at least put a few non-Caucasians on the cover. Would it be so hard to portray up an Indian female or for that matter, a mid-30s Indian male IT professional with 12+ years of post-IIT graduate experience who wants to change careers and be an I-banker or management consultant?  Te he.  INDIANSEAD jokes will never get old.

Maybe a black male? Oh, wait, J08 has all of n blacks, where n is less than or equal to .00314159

To add insult to injury, the big white man is probably a frog too, since the French still make up a disproportionate 10% of the class.

So much for diversity.

Citas

Let’s see. In the short time I have left here, I have to get the following taken care of:

Dentist

Doctor

Optometrist

Banker

Lawyer

Haberdasher

Have you ever tried to get an appointment with your local haberdasher? It’s a pain, lemme tell you. First of all, you have to chase the bastard down a rabbit hole. Once you catch him, you’ve got to get through to his cracked-out mercury-filled head. Then and only then can you start talking about hats.

—

I’ve found a back-up job in case recruiting doesn’t pan out.

Piensas

Status messages seen on G-Chat over the last few days:

You kiss like a dementor.

Pull a Pettigrew and go choke one out.

Your mom’s a horcrux.

—

Up until last night, I didn’t think I was adequately preparing for the imminent departure. Then I realized that I’ve been slowly shutting down, mentally, for a while now. How is this good, you ask? Well, I have a tendency to think, over think, and think some more, with a dash of thinking thrown in for taste. What is it that they say about MBAs? That they’re guilty of paralysis by analysis? Yup, that’s me.

So shutting down is good, in my case. There are non-essential matters that are taking up brain capacity (the delusion of inter-gender relationships, and their true evolutionary purpose, for example) and those need to be put aside, at least for the next year. Anything not INSEAD related is being filed away for future review by that green-visor sporting, vest wearing hamster that resides in my head. Christ on a cracker, we’ve got a nutjob in our class, you say? Where? Perhaps s/he and I will get along.

Idiomas

I’m a Russell Peters fan. If you haven’t seen his stand up, block out an hour of your life and search YouTube for the Comedy Now segment. Below is one of my favorite RP clips.

Growing up around a smörgåsbord of languages, surrounded by friends of all backgrounds, I’ve always appreciated the nuances and accents behind the world’s tongues, which partly explains why I find Mr. Peters so funny.

A friend sent me the following clip of Anjelah Johnson who sounds like an up-and-coming female version of RP.

Some have accused Mr. Peters and his ilk of being a racist and exploiting his own race for personal gain.  These same people no doubt find Hello Kitty and Teletubbies offensive as well.  And to them, I say, in my best Cantonese accent, which really isn’t very good,

“Yoh mutha is soooooo fat…”

Fantasia

I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows around 0400 this morning. I’m so sad that J.K. Rowling killed off Harry and all of his friends. So sad, in fact, that I’m still crying at work. QQ.

Whoops. I hope none of you who read that first paragraph are planning to read the book.

The book tries too hard to be what it isn’t. It’s not mature, epic, high fantasy geared towards an older audience but Rowlings attempts to incorporate standard elements found in such novels, and in my opinion, fails. The attempted rite-of-passage and maturing sections along with the “Hey, everyone’s going to die!” bits bog down Deathly Hallows, and are a shade too much for young kids. Then again, kids these days have probably seen and done a lot worse than the kids from the age I grew up in, when we had to walk to school barefoot, uphill, both ways, through snow, fire, and brimstone.

If you’re looking for some good, epic, fantastical reads that don’t involve Hobbits or the never ending cash cow Wheel of Time, series try the following:

Green Angel Tower Trilogy, by Tad Williams

A Song of Ice and Fire Series, by George R.R. Martin

The Liveship Traders Trilogy, by Robin Hobb

The Initiate Brother and Gatherer of Clouds by Sean Russell

The Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman

The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper.

This last series is amazing. Though it’s geared toward an early adolescent audience, the books are dark, richly written, and way too short. Think Chronicles of Narnia meets Tolkien without the cheesy, choking, Christian allegory.

Well, that’s my dose of nerding for the day. Back to work.

Propósito

I’ve lost all motivation to write. Actually, I’ve lost all motivation to do anything but pick up and move.

A month and change left on the calendar.  As they say in France, le sigh.

Here’s a recent G-Chat conversation in place of a well thought out post.

C: when i had my xanga,

i tried to be cryptic about it for obvious reasons

first for the people that knew me, they would offer their 2 cents

but after awhile it was just a downer to read/write

 

Me: I kind of feel like that about mine right now.

I can stand on my soapbox and preach all day about all the negative shit I see at/about school

But it’s not funny.

And if I’m not making people laugh, there’s really no point.

 

Which makes me question why I’m writing this in the first place.

I haven’t gotten really “personal,”

 

and since I’ve established it as an anonymous blog, I can’t, really.

So it’s not a journal.

Is it just to make people laugh?

Then I should charge fuckers.

C: Also i thought shit, whats the point when I can’t really be personal, afraid of what people will find out about me

I remember you telling me about that re. myspace

= you cant get personal

which is true

yours isn’t that bad

and yes, entertaining or uplifting would be cool

but then again, if its too up lifting then it’ll be like Doogie Howser’s journal