Richard's Reveries and Rantings: I likes it

Peer rating service

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 07:54:30 GMT

Check out this cool peer rating service called Tom's List. Its sorta like an epinions for people. You can provide anonymous ratings of people you know, and also look up yourself to see if you've been rated. The site is just getting off the ground and can be a very informative resource once it reaches critical mass.

Great new toy

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 07:16:59 GMT

I recently bought the portable Garmin Nuvi 360 Navigation System thanks to recommendations from Schack and Heejin, and I'm thoroughly impressed. If you're in the market for a GPS device, or are planning to buy a new car soon, I would highly recommend this product (its so much better than the standard GPS systems offered with new cars and costs half as much). The maps and directions are fantastic, but the best thing about the 360 is that its blue tooth-enabled so it can synch with your mobile phone. This means you can click-to-call any location in the system, or upload your entire phone book and use the device as a speaker phone. It also doubles as an MP3 player, translation/travel guide (if you purchase the dictionaries), and photo viewer. Its a snap to use, right out of the box.

The only criticism I have of the product is that it needs a volume control dial as it can get a bit tricky changing this on the fly.

Inside Man, a Good Spike Lee Joint... Oh, and Crash Sucked.

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 03:35:05 GMT

I saw Inside Man this weekend with E and my buddy Sonny... he didn't mind playing the third wheel. I heard very little about this movie but Sonny said that it got really good reviews in the SF Chronicle, which is generally harsh on mainstream Hollywood movies (as I am), so we decided to watch it opening night.

With absolutely no idea what the film was about, I sat in my chair and was extremely entertained as I watched the movie unfold in a very intelligent and suprisingly hilarious way. Denzel was, as expected, great in the film, as was Willem Defoe and Clive Owen. Jody Foster was a bit annoying but effective in her role.

What surprised me the most was that this film was a Spike Lee Joint, but had very little in common with some of his more contraversial, and best-known works like Do the Right Thing (one of my faves), Jungle Fever, and Malcom X. There were flavors of Lee's patented filmography in some of the characters and scenes (especially the little boy with his gaming device) but overall, the movie was more like a mainstream, Hollywood blockbuster with a cast of top notch, expensive actors than it did an artistic and politically motivated film.

I wonder if this past blockbuster weekend for the Inside Man is an early sign of Spike Lee's selling out to the mainstream movie industry. I hope not.

BTW, I've been meaning to write this for a while but Crash, which won a bunch of Oscars, was one of the most unintelligent and superficial movies I've seen in a long time. Sure it had some scenes that were a bit difficult to watch, but its treatment of stereotypes and race relations was at such an elementary level that it reminded me of conversations I used to have in highschool! I guess that explains why it catered so well to the American public that it won so many awards.

Adam Carolla and Gift Giving in 2006

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 19:33:23 GMT

First of all, I must say that I've become a very big fan of the Adam Carolla show in the mornings on the way to work. If you're in the Bay Area, you'll find him on 106.9 FreeFM and if you're in Seattle, he's on 107.7 The End. I started listening to him once Stern went off the air and I got bored with some of the dry stories in NPR. Now he's my default on my tuner during the morning commute. He's got a familiar abrasiveness and he is very vocal about passing judgement and sharing his very simple, yet insightful and amusing, opinions on world events.

In anycase, the sports guy on his show, Dave, got married this weekend and this morning, Adam had a brilliant idea for giving him his wedding gift. Basically, he wrote several dollar amounts on pieces of paper: $5, $250, $500, $1000, $5000. Then he had Dave put his fate in his own hands and pull out a gift amount from the bag. Adam's wife kept saying that she would buy Dave's wife a gift, if he picked the $5 prize but clearly, that undermines the underlying principles of this tactic and Adam would not allow for such nonsense.

That is Brilliant! I wish I had employed the same tactic for my wedding. In fact, for those of you who have yet to send me your gift, why not try this out?... instead of getting my "Thanks... for Nothing" card which is due to release in October of 2006.

Anyway, Dave ended up pulling the $500 prize... which was an appropriate gift amount but unfortunately, made for a less amusing bit on the show.

See my previous blog on modern day gift giving practices from Tom.

Transcript from Greenspan at the Wharton Graduation

Tue, 17 May 2005 20:15:09 GMT

http://www.sitepunch.com/greenspan_051505_2432.php

[Excerpt]

Rules exist to govern behavior, but rules cannot substitute for character. In the years going forward, it will be your reputation--for integrity, judgment, and other qualities of character--that will determine your success in life and in business. A generation from now, as you watch your children graduate, you will want to be able to say that whatever success you achieved was the result of honest and productive work, and that you dealt with people the way you would want them to deal with you.

I presume that I could offer all kinds of advice to today's graduates from my nearly six decades in private business and government. I could urge you all to work hard, save, and prosper. And I do. But transcending all else is being principled in how you go about doing those things. It is decidedly not true that "nice guys finish last," as that highly original American baseball philosopher Leo Durocher was once alleged to have said.

I am glad this man is guiding our national economy.