Life's Too Easy

sorry, the alarm clock never went off so i've been asleep for that last five months and never got around to writing anything. but that doesn't mean that life never happened. in fact too much of life has happened.

i was very lucky this holiday and received the nook (ebook reader) as a gift. well i haven't received it yet because it was back ordered due to its popularity but if there's something that makes you wait two months to get because it's sold out, it must be good. i thought of all the cool things i can do with this new toy. like read. and reading. and read some more. then the actuality of why i was so excited for this thing set in. i was excited because i didn't like carrying books in my bag, i felt that books took up valuable space and if you travelled as much as i did, you realize that space in a bag is worth more than the cologne weighing more than 3.4 ounces you snuck by the airport security. so to me, this new toy was going to revolutionize my travelling habit. it was going to be a gamechanger. where in reality it just said i was too lazy to carry a book. am i going to read more? i've probably finished a total of three books in the last three years, shit, i've probably finished three magazines in the last year. i have trouble finishing someones 140 character tweet.

while i was asleep for the last few months, we've seen the demise of jay leno and his "fail-proof" primetime show. in fact the amount of time it took you to read about him in this blog was just about the same amount of time his show lasted.

kudos to conan who stood his ground and refused to take a back seat to jay and move the time of his show. sure, conan isn't doing too well in that slot but let him dig himself out, don't penalize him for someone elses failures. and being successful in the late night game is few and far between, there are less than a handful that can do it and the late night graveyard of hosts spans the who's who of society. remember when carson daly was on trl and was fighting away all the hotties who wanted him, then last call with carson and now he can't even get a stripper to give him a free lap dance.

and now on a serious note. the world is buzzing about the tragic earthquake in haiti. i don't want to sit here and preach and pontificate about it but i'm amazed how society has turned into a central casting call when called upon. within hours every blog, tweet, facebook status and any soapbox someone could stand upon was flooded with well wishes. but the important thing wasn't the sympathy that was shared but the call to action that people did. most of us remember a time when we had to write a check, put a stamp on it and send our donation in and wonder if it got to where it was supposed to and supported what we intended it to support. now. just text a word to a short code and your phone bill will be billed. amazing.

as of this minute more than $3 million has been raised and the US was the first country to respond, perhaps learning from the disastrous katrina response or just having sincere compassion? either way, a call to arms was raised and we acted. this outpouring doesn't make me proud to be an american but proud to be a human being. over the next few weeks we'll hear more horror stories, see more traumatic photos and read about the tales that are happening, we'll probably have a few celebrity induced commercials and even a charity concert, those are standard fares in times like this. but i hope the speed to act is not an anomaly.

now on a not so serious topic...

nba basketball player for the washington wizards, gilbert arenas, was suspended by the league for having a gun in the locker room and allegedly pulling it out on a teammate.

this is the same player that years ago would play online poker in the locker room at halftime of games. the same one that signed a contract that still owes him in excess of $50 million, the same one nicknamed hibachi. then after this incident, he still has the balls to make a gun slinging gesture?

gilbert, you possess a god given talent to be able to put a ball into the basket, you are college educated and are in the top percentile of income earners in the country and somehow pulling out a gun at your place of employment as a joke is deemed okay? sometimes when we achieve a level of status in life the superman complex sets in. tiger can win any golf tournament he enters so he challenges himself by cheating on his wife with endless amounts of women, michael jordan used to gamble millions in vegas, so gilbert brings a gun to work. it's easy for the peanut gallery to say that if that were us we'd do this or that. but the reality is that it isn't us. the reality is that we worry about our next paycheck, we worry about our friends and family, we worry about saving for a rainy day and what we can afford and can't afford, we worry about traffic and worry about getting a dinner reservation. we wait in lines to get into clubs and no one asks us for autographs. we worry that on any given day our work day may end up with a visit from human resources with a few empty boxes. that worrying prevents us from thinking in a non-rational sense. would i give up a few limbs to be a talented athlete, of course but if that comes with sacrificing my ability to rationalize right from wrong, i'm quite alright with worrying if i'll see human resources in my office tomorrow.

that's a lot to be asleep and miss, i never really got into the tiger woods situation, new years resolution, kanye, avatar, glee or american idol.

i guess i'll take a nap and see what happens.