It was one of the few days I head up into the city (San Francisco) for a couple of meetings. Instead of driving as I usually do, I decided to take the train. It was early enough in during the commute time that I could still get a seat. I sat down and started to have a look around. It’s habit. I like to be aware of the environment around me. It was the usual mix of daily commuters on the train, except for one. A lady; probably in her mid 20’s sat a few rows in front of me. on her lap sat her dog. One of those dogs that look like they have a beard and extremely bushy eye brows. A little research online told me that they are called Schnauzer’s. Cute little fellow, sitting there chewing on his chew toy. Beside her was a little baby pram. Seemed normal enough.

After a few minutes of vigorous chewing, her dog got fed up with his toy and dropped it. The owner bent down, picked up the toy and tossed it into the pram. Hmmm… that does not seem very sanitary for the baby; I thought to myself. Then I realized that the lady had been playing with her dog the whole time and had not even once looked into the pram to see how the baby was doing. I decided to pay a little more attention to the pram. It was then that I realized that the pram was not for a baby buy for the dog.. it was a doggie pram.

Just like regular human baby prams it had a sun hood, looked like it folded for easy storage, had zippers and compartments for storing toys and treats and actually seemed very very study. I would say looked more sturdy than a lot of baby prams. The only thing that gave it away was the brand that was stamped at the top of the hood – “Pet Gear” http://www.amazon.com/Pet-Gear-Trails-Stroller-30-pounds/dp/B0006Z9RB2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1271711560&sr=8-1

The following description is from the Pet Gear Inc, website:

“Pet Gear strollers are a great way to take your pet with you on a long walk through the park, a walk around the block, or maybe even shopping at the mall. They safely contain and protect your pet wherever you go. The Happy Trails Plus stroller has a fashionable Euro-Canopy, removable weather guard, large storage basket, parent tray, waterproof interior pad, front swivel wheels, shock absorbers, and rear brakes.”

Something is very wrong with this image. Isn’t the whole point of taking your dog for a walk to WALK YOUR DOG? For your dog to get exercise? I mean, am I being old fashioned by thinking that this is a little crazy?

What do you’ll think?

We as a race of people are always fascinated by Heroes. As children and as adults, we love to read super hero comics and watch movies about super heroes. The theme of most successful move involves heroes of some sort, doing something out of the ordinary and something heroic. It captures our imagination and sweeps us up into a land of fantasy. Heroes are things of legend. Right?

What if that is not true. What if we all have the capability and the capacity of being a hero. Doing something extra ordinary. Saving people and making a difference in the world. Wouldn’t that be an amazing world to live in? Well guess what. It is the world we live in; and it is possible for every single one of us to be HEROES.

Welcome to the word of Dr. Philip Zimbardo. Dr. Z as he is affectionately called by his students is professor emeritus at Stanford University where he has spent 50 years teaching and studying psychology. Philip Zimbardo is one of the most distinguished living psychologists, having served as President of the American Psychological Association, designed and narrated the award winning 26-part PBS series, Discovering Psychology, and has published more than 50 books and 400 professional and popular articles and chapters, among them, Shyness, The Lucifer Effect, and The Time Paradox. He is best-known to the public for his controversial Stanford Prison Experiment that highlighted the ease with which ordinary intelligent college students could cross the line between good and evil when caught up in the matrix of situational and systemic forces.

He has made it his life time goal to study human behavior; specifically what makes people do “bad” things, and what makes people do good. His latest book the “Lucifer Effect” explores this in detail. In his book he talks about Lucifer (commonly known to all of us as the DEVIL) In fact, Lucifer was god’s FAVORITE angel until he disobeyed god and was banned into HELL. Hows does someone so good. Someone so pure; go from being the very representation of good into being the very representation of evil?

Dr. Z, says that heroes are not born heroes. They do not have special powers. Its their belief and the situation that makes a hero. By studying heroes over time; both the famous heroes of history past and newer everyday heroes from around the world he is convinced that “EVERYONE IS A HERO IS WAITING” Given the right situation we all have it in us to shine and do heroic deeds. Even something like taking some time to teach the elderly and non tech savvy how to use the internet or the computer can make you a hero. You are the person you are helping’s hero. Standing up to domestic abuse can make you a hero.

Dr. Z talks about this at his 2008 TED appearance where he introduced the idea of the Heroic Imagination Project (www.heroicimagination.org) or HIP for short. The Heroic Imagination Project (HIP) will inspires ordinary people to trigger extraordinary social change. HIP is based on the insight that all people have the capacity to act heroically, and that it’s possible to prepare anyone to be a hero when called upon.

I mean what an amazing goal. The more i read about and learn about this project, it just makes me happy. It makes me happy because i truly this that something like this could have an amazing impact on peoples outlook. HIP plans on introducing school based curriculum to educate middle and high school children about heroism. Image, a new generation of children brought up with the knowledge that they can be heroes. That helping others is the correct thing to do. This does not mean to go out and act irrationally, but to know what is right. From what I gather; frameworks and modals are being developed that will allow teachers to analyze heroes of the past and teach the underlying principals the guided that person to do something heroic. Those same principals can be used in everyday life by us, whether its standing up to a school bully, or helping an elderly person cross the road.

It all comes down to DOING THE RIGHT THING.

I wish Dr. Zimbardo and the whole HIP team all the very best in this endeavor and here’s to a better and brighter tomorrow!

Source: www.heroicimagination.org

There used to be a time (not too long ago) were having a day named after you or after a particular purpose actually meant something (eg: Martin Luther King Day, Veterans Day, etc…).These days of meaning seem to have seen their last light of day.

It seems as if every day is some sort of obscure day, or every week is some sort of week or every month is some sort of month.

Its at a point where its starting to get annoying. I mean, seriously. Give a dude a chance. I’m still trying to get leave to celebrate Chinchilla day.

I digress.. back to books. I love them. I love to sit down and have a nice read. You know actually thumb through the pages of a real book instead of scrolling through pages on a monitor.

Books are expensive to keep buying and once you have bought a book, how many times do you really read it? I have a bunch of books and at most i’ve read a book 2 times. Renting is totally the way to go.

I wrote about a cool new startup called Rentalic a little while ago. Well this is perfect. People with a whole bunch of books can list their entire library out on Rentalic and rent them out to other users.

To visit Rentlic go to www.rentalic.com

We need a national rent your books out day!

i’m betting that a lot of the people out there right now, criticizing Phelps has also smoked some marijuana at some point in their life.

its part of growing up. let the kid experience life and grow up. he seems to have a solid grounding and just because he smoked pot once does not mean he is a pot head. it just means he is finding his way as all kids do, and that means learning things for themselves.

please don’t get me wrong, i am in no way saying that what he did was right. all i’m saying is that by putting all this pressure on him your paving the way to failure. its the same reason that most kid star actors end up as washed up druggies. its because of all the pressure put on them. lay off.. and let the kid grow up as a regular person.

don’t you have better things to report on? you as the media are reporting on this story because you say he is a role model and on the moral issue and the message he is giving out to his fans. what about your[collective media] moral issues? i mean after all all your doing is creating a story out of nothing to fatten your wallets. i find that quite hypocritical.

so what have a learn from all this?

1. the police here love to browse the latest CD’s at the music store. every hour or so two police officers passing by will pop in and spend about 15 minutes or so browsing though the shelves and then leave without purchasing anything. they also like checking out the latest gadgets at Dixons (an electronics store) right next door.

2. Michael Jackson is very much alive in this part of the world. i’ve listened to the store play a marathon of his hits at least 3 times over with a speckling of some rap songs here and there. took me down memory lane as well. you do not realize just how many songs jackson has. more so, how many of them are number one hits. enough hits to play for hours it seems. quite an accomplishment for any artist.

3. it’s quite common to see 5 year old girls wearing purple velvet dresses with fancy pea coats walking around with their mums who are equally peacocked out themselves.

4. the word “Gentleman” is still pretty much part of the English vocabulary and is very much used in everyday chatter here. eg: talking on the walkie talkie “Can you hold the gate a few more minutes? I just passed another gentleman heading over to catch his flight” (Said with a thick british accent)

5. the Audi a8 is one sexy beast of a car.

6. there are as many airport staff talking in Hindi as there as talking in English.

7. i’ve hardly seen any obese people the whole time i’ve been here.

8. kids wearing those jeans that look like they are going to fall off at any moment actually look fitted for some reason. (they still look like they are going to fall off at any moment)

9. the older gents are much more adventurous with their mustaches. i saw some that were just plain CRAZY…

10. i have yet to see an overweight air hostess walk pass me.

well i guess i should say that its no longer an underlying tone. the following news video shows the open ignorance of some Americans which is a direct representation of the current state of literacy and general knowledge that alot of Americans in the south are known for, as well as a glimpse into how racism still plays a very big part in America. the land of the free.

the whole video is pretty sad and funny at the same time, but there were some highlights to this that stood out more than others. we actually learnt facts that no one knew before this

* Obama is actually a DUCK.

* Palin, (who could not keep her own daughter from screwing around and getting knocked up) is filled with the holy spirit and will bring honesty and integrity to the white house. this actually reminds me of a quote from Confucius

“It is not possible for one to teach others who cannot teach his own family.”

* Obama and his wife could be anti white.

* Obama is friends with a known terrorist. wait… didn’t president bush charter a plane to fly some laden’s out of America right after 9-11, because they were close family friends of his???

you may be wondering what the hell am i going on about? flushing after you take a leak. so here’s the deal. we share our building with another company and i don’t know if its someone from my office or from the one we share the building with but SOMEONE never flushes. they use the urinal and then just leave. wtf!!! it totally pisses me off every time i go and have to see this.

now that i have got this off my chest i feel a little better. well not really it still annoys the crap out of me and really pisses me off (no pun intended)

ARGHHHH!

the video auto plays so i have put it after the jump

Amazing Drumming Phenom – The funniest movie is here. Find it