Baron VC

• lean muscle mass or cardio? which is better? Pushups and pullups seem to do more for me than the treadmill. #
• @edythemighty @topicm @vernieman @PatrickTulskie the IT lifestyle’s got me all flab. Pushups and pullups seem to help me burn more calories #

• got burned by train delays for the second time this month. Probably an indicator of suicide rates in Japan. Sub-prime got you down? #
• I wonder how Gree’s IPO will be going down. #
• @mopedronin sure beats “please wait a moment as we clean the brains off the train tracks” #
• @saitodaniel yeah, it couldn’t come at a worse time. all the advanced planning and paperwork that goes with an IPO for this market, yikes! #
• I’ve discovered lately that alcohol and junk food are my only source of real release, sad isn’t it? #
• @ElPocho yeah, the ultimate release being the heart attack and liver failure it will no doubt lead to. #
• Just passed by the Japanese Judo heavy weight gold medalist #
• @russmaxdesign would have got as far as "p" if I did #

Wanted is about an anxiety-ridden failure of an accountant, the every man Wesley Gibson played by James McAvoy, with his life completely out of control stuck in a dead end job and an unfulfilling relationship.  McAvoy does a great job portraying a highly wound up flunky.  His life suddenly takes a turn for the dramatic when he is initiated into a secret society of assassins carrying out pre-emptive hits to rid the world of evil.  It is a society his father was once a part of and the anxiety attacks are actually the side effects of high adrenaline which allows him to see fast moving objects in slow motion.

It has all the elements of a formula movie but McAvoy puts in quite an edgy and convincing performance and Angelina does a great job playing Angelina.  The thing that shocked me is how aged Angelina Jolie looked with her sunken cheeks and hallowed eyes.  Maybe it’s post-birth malnutrition or something but she needs to do something about that.  I think Brad Pitt and Angelina look a lot older since they’ve gotten together.  I tend to think of Mr. and Mrs. Smith as their prime (at least looking good as a couple).

The action sequences are nothing innovative, the typical slow motion close ups of bullets flying through the air and cars dancing in the sky as the usual mayhem unfolds.  The plot twist near the end was interesting.  All in all an entertainment flick.

• Got done watching Wanted and Tropic Thunder, two enjoyable movies #
• I wonder when this cold will go away #

Tropic Thunder is Ben Stiller comedy written and directed by the man about a bunch of hot shot Hollywood stars shooting a Vietnam War.  Everything that can go wrong does and the demanding financier of the movie (played by Tom Cruise) forces the actors to shoot the film in the live with handheld cameras and hidden cameras placed in the jungle.  What the actors think is an elaborate staging goes awry when they mistakenly end up in drug lord territory, realizing the stakes are real after it’s almost too late.

It was a typical comedy of the sort, a mix of a war film satire and a buddy film.  The actors really shine in unexpected places, especially their ability to act like they’re acting badly as third-rate actors.  I was also more than amused by Tom Cruise’s amazing portrayal as a scum-bag billionaire film financier.  The crunk dance he does at the end is priceless.

Been using as much free time as possible to read. It’s not that I haven’t been reading anything these past couple of years. If anything I’ve been reading tons of blogs and postings of various sorts. However, it’s apparent that the words you see on a screen are not the same as the words your read on a printed page. Books are simply a different beast as you concentrate across the span of several hundred pages as a narrative unfolds across the span of either hours or days. It just uses a different part of your brain. I like reading outside my current profession, which is programming. History, literature, and sometimes a little marketing or business.

Of course, reading takes up a lot of time and concentration so I no longer have that much time to watch many movies but I can definitely feel my brain really getting engaged. The funny thing is that since taking up reading in earnest, I’ve been performing much better at programming. Although, programming also involved a lot of writing and reading of code, they are completely different fields. However, it does seem to provide a tangible benefit.

I might cut back a little on my weekend reading though so I can work on some more weekend projects and maybe brush up a bit on technical stuff. I also need to catch up with some TV.

The Vietnam War had all the trappings of a Greek tragedy. America’s best and brightest picking up the French’s tab in a colonial war that ultimately marked the beginning of America’s decline, if not economically at least ideologically. In hindsight, we see the Vietnam War as one of the many conflicts in a series of failed foreign involvement leading us to modern day Afghanistan and Iraq. The specter of communism replaced by that of radical Islam for the lack of a better target to uphold American values of freedom and democracy against a backdrop of meaningless bloodshed, both theirs and ours.

Though “The Best and the Brightest” is far from David Halberstam’s work, having read “The Fifties”, it’s a competent and courageous work for a piece of its time, essentially exposing the foreign failings of the Kennedy administration and those that followed. The election of a bright, scholarly, and young president representing a new post-war America, John F. Kennedy, leading America with inexperienced yet head strong academics newly entrusted with America’s future. These bright young men would forsake wisdom for book-learning and rigorous quantitative analysis drawn from their success with World War II logistics and post-war economic success, essentially the art of “counting beans”.

Despite the academic camaraderie, their fundamental misunderstanding of the Vietnam situation and willingness to take over French foibles and in essence endorsing the repressive, colonial past in the name of fighting communism in Asia, lead to an endless web of underestimates and finally lies that put America at odds with itself.

It chronicles how otherwise brilliant men like Robert McNamara and decorated generals from World War II were faced with a different reality and a different kind of war where sheer scale and air strikes were essentially useless. It was a war fought without conviction against a strong native force, fighting for their independence with every fiber in their body.

One of the standouts of this book are the profiles of both the brilliant but misguided men who walked away from the Vietnam War broken, careers permanently crippled or their twilight years tarnished. Then there are the equally bright men of conscience, one line removed from the forefront of the boys club, who had their ears tuned to the grumbling that brewed beneath the surface in Asia. These were men who sacrificed their careers in vain against a silent wall of denial, the unsung heros and patriots.

The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam

• @JasonCalacanis try KoreaClick http://bit.ly/mXsL #

• having been forced to use WinXP at work for the past year only validates my choice to abandon this platform whenever possible. #

• “The Best and the Brightest”, another Halberstam classic is turning out to be quite a read, though not on the order of “The Fifties” #