Thursday, March 26, 2009

All the Lonely People...with informercials

In the English language there are no adjectives that sufficiently describe the brilliance of the Beatles, particularly the lyrical geniuses of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. "Eleanor Rigby" is a masterpiece. In very few words and a simple, haunting chorus, Paul (yes, I think it was he who directly penned that one) captured the epitome of loneliness . a desolate old lady scrounging for leftover rice from a wedding at a church compared with a priest at the same church sitting up at night contemplating the futility of his life.

The Coffeewallahs recent post, http://coffeewallah.blogspot.com/2009/03/troublesome-offspring.html , talked about late night infomercials. Coffeewallah was wondering out loud who actually bought these things.

It brought to mind a story someone shared with me. this was someone who was facilitating a program I was attending in my previous, corporate life. The gentleman was a Brit and he was quite an engaging and personable guy.

Over quite a few beers, discussion got to those infomercials. He confessed that his mum had passed away only a few months before. Their dad had died decades before and the two only sons lived quite far away from their mum. Visits were in often and sadly their mum had passed away alone. The brothers made their way to her house f

Her garage was filled with dozens upon dozens of boxes. They were shipping boxes, containing kitchen gadgets, self-help cds and myriad of items all sold in these infomercials. The boxes had never been opened. They also discovered another surprise - she had racked up an enormous credit card debt.

The brothers figured that she consoled her lonely nights by watching infomercials and 'interacting' with the persons on them by , well, ordering their stuff.

I guess this old lady was her own "Eleanor Rigby".

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Steven Weathers - vlogger from Shanghai

I'd like to introduce Steven Weathers to my blogging friends. Steven is this amazing University Professor, actor and amateur director of his own documentaries who has been sending steady streams of fascinating videos, tweets and pics about Chinese architecture, food, lifestyle and culture.




Following Steven on Twitter alone is like experiencing life in Shanghai firsthand. His candid, down-to-earth encounters with all strata of Chinese society is utterly captivating. This amazing to me particularly as someone who's grandfather came from this ancient place.

Did I mention his birthday is the day after mine? We both did have a chuckle about that.

Steven's warmth and outgoing personality endears him to everyone he meets on his journeys in China as well as in the Twitterverse. I encourage you to join him on his adventures.

Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/sdweathers
twitter: http://www.twitter.com/sdweathers
pics: http://twitpic.com/1rvsr

Giving you some "current"

Some random "currents" going on with the Coffeedude

Current reading
Marie Antoinette - The Journey by Antonia Fraser

Current activities with Kids
Exploring the Indiana Jones movies and Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban (novel)

Current viewing
Indiana Jones movies

Current positives
The Coffeedudette and I are expecting Coffeebaby#3!
My current job is so frickin awesome

Current concerns
The Coffeedudette and I are expecting Coffeebaby#3!
Price of oil!

Current peeves
Fellow Trinis truly not understanding the gravity and reach of the global financial crisis

Current food and drink
Second Cup ground Rawandan Medium Roast
anything a pregnant woman can eat also..

Current addictions
Coffee and Twitter (likely to stay like this for quite some time)

Current Twitter addictions (dont be scared folks (stalker!)..the tweets these guys 'n gals send out are just informative, provocative and compelling. This is just some as I follow about 400 people)
@sdweathers - awesome American Teacher and actor in shanghai
@cricketmad - nuff said
@piscesinpurple - our favourite 'naturalized' Grenadian
@blahblohblog - our favourite 'natural' Grenadian
@sanman_ish - best source for local and caribbean music
@toflo - hard hitting Canadian party girl
@tacarigua - transplanted trini living in Toronto. This guy and I would have given lots of trouble together if we grew up knowing each other.
@jimmychung - the energizer bunny of twitter. Inspirational and motivational. He and I appers to have lots of "logistics"in common - married, young kids, ambitious, looking for a house!
@klconover - quiet, fascinating texan artist and her dog charlie
@trinigourmet - food, food and food

Current daily internet required reading (not blogs)
Trinidad Express Newspaper www.trinidadexpress.com
Trinidad Guardian Newspaper www.guardian.co.tt
Wired Magazine www.wired.com
Conde Nast Porfolio Magazine www.portfolio.com
New York Times www.nytimes.com
Daily oil price www.oil-price.net (gotta get off my lazy butt and RSS this into my blog)
Major Spoilers new comics being released (www.majorspoilers.com)

Current artists listening to whilst in transit
Coldplay
Queen
3-Canal

Current Blogs Im reading religously
See my blog roll but I must also add the slacker (http://slackerschronicles.blogspot.com/) and @trinigirlblue (http://trinigirlblue.blogspot.com/) to that. b.t.w slacker, good fortunes on your fiction writing. Let us know how we can support you on this.