simplicity

YouTube – OK Go – This Too Shall Pass – RGM version

YouTube – OK Go – This Too Shall Pass – RGM version.

Wow…

Bone Snaps While Arm Wrestling Video

This has to be fake, come on now.

Bone Snaps While Arm Wrestling – Watch more Funny Videos

Little Kid Stoned After Visiting the Dentist

Great video of a seven year-old reacting to what can only be described as some tasty medication. Just think, without YouTube we would have had to wait for “America’s Funniest Home Videos” to see such a clip.

Twenty-One (21)

I read “Bringing Down the House” during my senior year in college. It was a particular fun read and I’ve tried to pick-up all of Ben Mezrich’s books since then. The interesting thing about his books, while all based on true stories, they tend to have an almost Hollywood feel. The way he embelishes certain things or takes liberties with certain ideas. Anyways, now with 21 set to hit theaters and the idea of card-counting becoming mainstream you’re starting to see a lot of articles about the MIT blackjack team and card-counters in general. Here are two recent ones that I thought everyone would find entertaining:

Of Card-Counting, Startups, and the Real Story of the MIT Blackjack Team | Xonomy

Blackbook Easy Money | Men’s Vogue

Fantastic Warren Buffett Q&A Session

I enjoy what I do, I tap dance to work every day. I work with people I love, doing what I love. The only thing I would pay to get rid of is firing people. I spend my time thinking about the future, not the past. The future is exciting. As Bertrand Russell says, “Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.” I won the ovarian lottery the day I was born and so did all of you. We’re all successful, intelligent, educated. To focus on what you don’t have is a terrible mistake. With the gifts all of us have, if you are unhappy, it’s your own fault.

The quote above as well as the quote from the previous post are from a fantastic Q&A session that Warren Buffet held at UT Austin. The notes are available at the Underground Value blog. I had the opportunity to go through the entire post and as per is usual with anything Mr. Buffet does, I came away impressed.

The Q&A session discusses his success, his drive, his work/life balance, as well as his thoughts on the future of the economy.
One thing that has always struck me about Mr. Buffett was his stance on the tax-code. If you follow anything Mr. Buffett does you know that in the past few years he’s been pushing for a flat income as well as payroll tax. He criticizes the fact that the tax-system is “tilted for the rich” and discusses this during the session:

We did an informal office survey by looking at the total tax footprint versus the total income. I earned 46 million and paid a tax rate of 17.5%. My rate was the lowest, the average was 33%, and my cleaning lady paid 40%. The system is tilted towards the rich. The Forbes 400 total net worth has gone from 220 billion to 1.54 trillion, an increase of 7-to-1. You see in legislature that there is lobbying carried on by the powerful over issues such as the estate tax and carried interest for private equity investments. We need to flatten income and payroll taxes, and those making under $30,000 shouldn’t be bothered.

It’s a fascinating read and I highly recommend it.

NBC Moving to Year-Round TV Schedule

The New York Times has an interesting article on NBC ending fall-debuts and instead going to a year-round schedule

NBC Universal took a big step toward undoing one of the television industry’s oldest traditions by announcing Tuesday that it would move to a year-round schedule of staggered program introductions. The move is intended to appeal to advertisers, who crave fresh content to keep viewers tuned in.

From a business perspective this makes complete sense. Again as the article states this isn’t a brand new idea

The idea of a 52-week schedule is not really new. Most networks now have programming scattered throughout the year with specific shows set aside for summer, like “Big Brother” on CBS (though it was used in the regular season this year because of the strike) and others for midyear like “24″ and “American Idol” on Fox and “Lost” on ABC.

But where NBC has a potential edge over its competitors, is that it will announce the entire schedule ahead of time

But NBC intends to give advertisers a much earlier look at its plans for the entire year. That will presumably make it easier to match advertisers to specific shows, an idea that is growing in popularity.

My personal belief is that depending on the way NBC handles the line-up this will end up being great for viewers or an absolute travesty. NBC can’t be willing to just “fill” the schedule by padding it with trashy reality shows, bad sitcoms, or awful dramas. Obviously there’s a reason why brand new shows, except reality shows, are not released during the summer. It’s a difficult time to capture and keep viewers, but with selective quality programming you can succeed. HBO for example has had great success releasing shows during the summer season such as Entourage and Flight of the Conchords, the quality programming keeps viewers tuned in.

Finally it is understandable that this is a positive for marketing/advertising agencies in particular, giving them the ability to put input into potential shows as well as giving them a head-start on their campaigns. But I only hope that the shows are storyline focused, as opposed to being streaming billboards. Such was the case this past week, with the remake of the Knight Rider movie where you couldn’t get away from anything Ford related, either during the movie or during the commercial breaks. I’m hoping that the co-chairman of NBC Entertainment is true to his word

But Mr. Graboff said this did not mean NBC would base its programming on input from advertisers. “The ultimate decision is going to be made by program executives who believe in the shows,” he said.

Transformers

Finally had some time to catch a showing of Transformers today and being a fan of the cartoon, I can’t stress how entertaining it was to watch the movie. Obviously everything is over-the-top, it’s a Micheal Bay film after-all, but the movie was done really well. Not to mention Megan Fox is absolutely gorgeous:

Computerworld – Jobs takes top CEO pay spot, makes $US646M

Computerworld – Jobs takes top CEO pay spot, makes $US646M

Steve Jobs’ $US1 salary was dwarfed by $US646 million in stock compensation for 2006, Forbes magazine said Friday, ranking the Apple CEO as the highest-paid executive in the U.S.

Wow is all I can say…

Short Drive: Show yanked after two episodes – CNN.com

Short Drive: Show yanked after two episodes – CNN.com

It’s been a short “Drive” for Fox’s midseason drama, which has been pulled off the schedule after two weeks on the air.

Two-weeks. After all the god-damn advertisement, the build-up, it took two-weeks to kill off the show. I can’t say I’m surprised, the show looked as much fun to watch as watching moss grow on a rock. Let me just point out why I brought this up: I don’t have a hatred for Fox, sure their the epitome of white-trash television with an abundant of shitty dramas and even shittier reality shows (Cops), but they have had and do have a few decent shows in their portfolio (Family Guy). But I hate Fox when it comes to sports, they are just plain awful. I’m not a fan of the god-damn commentators and plain and simple not a fan of the broadcast. Especially baseball, I can’t cite how many times they’ve come back from commercial to miss the first or even the second pitch of the inning. It’s an absolute embarrassment. The most notable was about 4 years ago when Manny hit a homerun during the ALCS at the top of an inning. Fox comes back from a commercial to show Manny chugging around the bases, it was awful. Why do I bring that up? Because for the past few weeks every time you attempted to watch baseball on Fox you would be absolutely bombarded with those advertisements for Drive. Not just during the commercial breaks, but also while the game was being played. And not to sound like even more of a jackass, but that show looked absolutely awful. I mean the person who gave the green light for the project had to have been on some sort of drug binge, starting from when the script was read till post production on episode one. So do I feel bad the show was cancelled? No, I praise it because Fox keeps making dumb mistakes. What other dumb mistakes have they made? Cancelling such fantastic shows as “Arrested Development” and “Undeclared”.  I’m just sad they’ll replace Drive with some other asinine show to advertise during sporting events, maybe “Are you smarter then a dog?”

Tapping the Power of Your Morning Routine : Yahoo! Finance

Tapping the Power of Your Morning Routine : Yahoo! Finance

If you want to maximize your success while achieving the best possible balance in your life, you may want to take a fresh look at what time you wake up and what you do with your time before getting to the office.

It’s always interesting to read how executives and CXO’s manage their limited time. Time-management and work-life balance seem to go hand and hand. I think it’s a major key to achieving success not only in your professional career but also in achieving success in your day-to-day life.