Run on the bank!

It's been a very odd 48 hours.

That of course aside from the fact that I've temporarily relocated to Hyderabad, India and all of the associated goings on therein. Since I arrived at the office at 4:30am EST Monday morning I've witnessed the death bailout bill and the ensuing 7% drop in the Dow.

Moreover, here in India there are rumors circulating that the one of the country's largest banks, ICICI, is on the verge of bankruptcy. As such, lines have been snaking from ATM machines since the rumor began circulating yesterday. As I understand it, this is intensified in the Deloitte building as all Deloitte payroll checks for personnel in India are direct deposited into ICICI per a direct depositing agreement between the companies.

On top of that, the ATMs only allow people to withdraw 25,000 rupees a day (about $530). Furthermore, today marks the first day in which year-end raises go into effect in the Indian payroll deposits. As of 9am IST press releases had already hit the Indian CNN news wire attempting to quell the rumors and prevent what could very likely become a fatal run on the bank. Considering the stakes, the scene around the office has somewhat of a Great Depression vibe coupled with an odd sort of fascination.

It's now around an hour from the opening bell on Wall Street (or what's left of it in the aftermath of the investment bank era), and the market could be poised for another fire sale. Despite this, I feel very removed from the econcomic meltdown in the US. Maybe that's because you are naturally more in tune with your surrounding environment, economic or otherwise, than where your interests may lie. Perhaps the old moniker, out of sight out of mind is appropriate?

Then again, the feeling may just be the result of the biriyani for dinner and roti for lunch, neither of which has provided me with enough energy to totally shake the jet lag.

Face... ON!

Finally!! The awesome technology from the movie Face/Off has come to the US! I'm going to spend the rest of my afternoon deciding whose face I want instead of mine... then all I have to do is find the person, get them to sign a release form, inflict them with terrible head trauma that renders them brain dead, induce kidney failure in myself and get a transplant and accompanying medication, suffer severe non-reparable facial burns, fly their lifeless body and my kidney-less horribly burned self to Bringham & Women's Hospital, and BAM!! New face.

How can you not love that? With this technology becoming available to the public, when people threaten to "break your face" you can confidently smile and tell them to go "f*ck themselves" without the slightest hesitation. Because, if they do decide to fulfill their proclamation, you know there's always a new face just a phone call away.

Honestly, is anyone surprised that this technology is a bastard love child of China and France?

Don't be from Long Island

...or you might consider THIS to be one of the greatest movies of all time. According to this chick on my engagement, who I now firmly believe is at least mildly retarded. Seriously.

Since the first of the year I have been on an "audit rotation" which is a diabolical scheme concocted by the CPA board of NY to ensure that everyone who wants to be a licensed CPA suffers at least a few months of agonizing torture working on audit engagements. But hey, it's not like I chose to go into tax consulting specifically to avoid ever having to come near an audit project... oh wait, yeah it is.

The first month I was assigned to 3 small marketing clients all located in Midtown doing "agreed upon procedures" work for the companies' international parent. I was actually pleasantly surprised. The work was not too bad, not horrible hours, good office locations, and most importantly, the people staffed on the engagement (especially the ones directly in charge of me) were not morons. All in all, I enjoyed the engagement. Unfortunately, I can't make any of those claims for my current client.

First of all, the commute is almost an hour and a half each way by subway. Awesome. So even if we get out by 7-7:30 I dont get home until almost 9. And that's on a good night- typically we leave after 8 at the earliest. And it's in the middle of Brooklyn- and not a particularly nice section of Brooklyn mind you. Let's just say there's a reason I don't carry my laptop to and from work everyday. And, confirming my early apprehensions, real auditing is the most mundane, irritating, superficial, boring work on the planet. But all those things are not nearly as problematic as this chick from Long Island.

Don't get the wrong idea though- the Manager and the other Staff on this project are really cool- very smart people. They come to work and get their stuff done and help me when I need it. But this "senior" was almost certainly dropped on her head as an infant. One of her favorite pastimes at work is responding to my requests for information or clarification by agreeing to help and then ignoring me for the next hour. Or promising me to send me something and then neglecting to. She also loves asking about something only to then forget and re-ask about it, followed by a confused and insulted look when I remind her that we already talked about it. When she "reviews" my work, the deepest her comments probe is "do we have this workpaper in the binder?" Well... I'm no audit expert but one easy way to check is to OPEN THE FREAKING BINDER AND LOOK. Then she sends my work to the manager who actually reviews it and sends it back to me, and he and I then communicate going forward to get the work done. Which begs me to ask... what is she getting paid to do again? Oh yeah, I remember: spend the afternoon making personal calls while booking the hours, then make offhanded comments that the other staff and I are over budget. Classy.

But, if it wasn't bad enough having to communicate with her for work purposes she interjects casual conversation with little diddies that only serve to further confirm my diagnosis as mildly retarded. Here's one of the more interesting exclamations she has uttered recently: "oh my god, I forgot I had a car!" .....'what?' you ask. Exactly. She rear-ended an AMBULANCE (which in and of itself should tell you something) so then her car went into the shop... only she forgot it was there. When the mechanics finally called her to come pick up her car she had temporarily forgotten she had one. Nice. These types of things occur on a daily basis, I'm just too lazy to write them down for posting.

This morning, we were all sitting around the conference room table when totally out of the blue she blurted out "I think April Fools Day is one of the best movies of all time." We sat stunned. First of all, I had never even heard of it but I immediately knew one thing: it didn't sound good. A quick check on IMDB confirmed my fears as the first thing that jumped out at me was that the number 1 plot keyword was "castration." The second thing I noticed was the tagline: "Last one out's... a goner." Wow. I stand totally corrected. How can you not love a movie about castrations with a tagline like that. My brain hurts just from considering that idea.

I'm not sure if it's something in the water out on Long Island (chemical waste?), but this woman has some serious head issues. This is not an isolated phenomenon either- I've noticed this lucid absentmindedness in a strikingly high percentage of the women I've met from Long Island. Not all of course, but enough to warrant serious concerns. Perhaps even more concern than over the fact that Hollywood is making movies for widespread distribution with the number one plot point being castration.

I Love Dicks!

...Fila Brazillia's Dicks that is.

Last night I was going through my ipod at work to recommend some music to a coworker when I came across this wonderful album that I had completely forgotten about. I first heard some of the tracks from this release at SomaFM a few years back.

I went to Amazon to try and import the album but they were out of stock and the average price was quoted at $35. Hmm... time to check my favorite download sites at the time: limewire, nope. bearshare, nada. Isohunt, zilch. Even the legal venues like itunes or napster had nary a single. I thought hope was lost and thus abandoned my search.

About two years ago I found out about Oink. Man I loved that site. They had all kinds of music- in beautifully high quality mp3 (192k and up only) and all the way up to .flac quality lossless files. Organized by album with ripping logs attached, these were the torrents of dreams. Plus users were required to seed to maintain a share ratio to stay at the site. Oink has since been disbanded (much to my deep sadness- and for totally bogus reasons but I won't get into that- I will say though, that I never snatched any new or pre-release date albums) but I digress..

It was here that I found Dicks. And I fell in love, with Dicks. It may not be the best electronica album of all time, but it's certainly one of my favorites by far and is, sadly, their last studio album to date. I would say that of the album's 22 tracks, 17 of them are truly ingenious, well-mixed, and incredibly fun to listen to. The other 5 are great too, it's just that the majority of the tracks are, well spectacular.

If you like electronica, or even if you don't, check this album out. They've finally got it on itunes now so you can just buy the tracks, but they're a bit short so I would try and find either the whole album for sale or for pirate. Sidearms & Parsnips to you sir.

Quarter of a Century

As of today I am officially over the hill. Well, over the hill of exciting birthdays at least. When I turned 21 that was by far and away the best birthday ever. Although I had been drinking for years, it was nice to finally be able to stroll right into a bar and order a drink with the full confidence of a man begging to be asked for his ID. Not to mention that as the RA, I had a blowout party on the 4th Floor of Grimes where I made PJ for all of my residents who then played PJ pong in the hallway until 3am. Classic.

Turning 22 was almost as exciting as 21 because it was my senior year in college and it was important for us to maximize our time at the bars considering graduation was only a few precious months away. Unfortunately for me, I had a Financial Accounting I exam on the morning of my birthday. Fortunately for me, I prepared for it ahead of time and spent the remainder of the day eating at Suttons and roaming Franklin St. A year older but still only 365 days removed from 21.

My 23rd birthday came with a little less fanfare than 21 or 22 as I was now in Grad School but was still a spectacular weekend of eating, drinking and UNC basketball with good friends. Since it was to be my last year in Chapel Hill, I tried to spend a good deal of time that week and the following half of the semester enjoying all of my favorite bars I had come to know since turning 21. Only now, at 23, I had to go on a diet to counteract the effects of my birthday and our forthcoming Spring Break trip to Vegas. Still though, a great birthday.

Year 24 rolled in with a more considerable feeling of impending doom as I could by then almost feel the cold deathly grip of 25 bearing down on me. I was in NY now, but of course, I was working and was actually in Sarasota, FL during the week of my birthday. When I returned to NY, I was surprised with dinner/drinks at my favorite downtown bar: Ryan's. When I went to the bathroom they tried to further surprise me with a Junior's cheesecake, but couldn't get all of the candles lit before I returned. I probably should have taken that as a bad omen.

Today I am 25... and despite a great weekend which was highlighted by awesome nachos at Baby Bo's and karaoke with unlimited beer and sake until 3 am... this year's milestone is a far cry from previous years. If all goes well I plan to spend this evening in my apartment drinking scotch alone in the dark. Well, that was the original plan as Barb is going to a Spice Girls concert. Thankfully Jon is in town and is supposed to take me out for dinner. Still, a nearly middle aged man singing karaoke and going out for a nice dinner after work...

That's a far cry from the glory days of hallway PJ pong. Oh how the mighty have fallen. What's the plan for, 30, 40, dare I say... 50? Musical wheelchairs and a morning enema? No thank you, I'll take an order of cyanide please. I think I'm going to start boycotting my birthday. Just ignore it and campaign for no festivities whatsoever and pretend it's not even happening...

But then again, that would require me to forgo cake... FREE cake... mmm... cake. Ok, I'm back in. Can't wait for next year.

DC, LIC, and Croxley

Well, back to it. It's been a while since my last post- although that picture still retains its hilarious effects. Things have been busy at work (as usual), and I've basically been living at the Westin in DC. Well, technically the client is in McClean, VA which has all the downside of DC (i.e. the traffic) but none of the benefits.

The good news is I'm platinum at Starwood Hotels three times over and I've got Gold status with Delta. At this point my job essentially consists of flying around and racking up points. Actually, 2 weeks from now will mark my 8 month anniversary of spending every week at this client. Needless to say I'm really looking forward to something new- and maybe a month or 2 in NY.

One of the main sources of my desire for some downtime in the city is that I have finally moved out of my tiny apartment in Chinatown and into a brand new building in Long Island City. At my age I have already risen to the lofty status enjoyed by George and Weezy with that deluxe apartment in the sky... and unfortunately I now have the irritating song in my head to accompany it. But, the living space is more generous, amenities are much nicer, and it's tricked out with all of the modern conveniences of the 20th century- ice maker, disposal, dishwasher, washing machine, a dryer, and dare I say, Venetian blinds.

However, my two favorite parts of the apartment are the gym and the balcony off the bedroom that faces a glorious view of midtown Manhattan with the Empire State Building as the centerpiece. On warm summer afternoons you'll find me there with drink in hand or lounging by the rooftop pool. Yes, there's a pool.

Last weekend (the second weekend I've spent in the apartment), a colleague and friend from the DC project came up to visit and we ventured out to Ave B and 3rd Street to dine at a phenomenal establishment called Croxley Ales. The standard night to go is Wednesdays when they have 10 cent wings- which for Manhattan is truly absurd. In addition to delicious (and cheap) wings and Irish dishes, Croxly has a substantial assortment of foreign beers as well as some intriguing (and delicious) beer cocktails, i.e. the Black Velvet (champagne & Guinness).

My compatriot, who is a wing aficionado in his own right, was quite pleased with the selection and we thoroughly enjoyed polishing off our 1 liter mugs of Oktoberfest beer. Other than buying a new couch and dominating bowling on my newly acquired Wii (heh) the weekend was relaxing and largely uneventful. In any event, in the coming weeks I will try and do a better job of "blogging" than I did of avoiding a hangover on Sunday.

Criminal profiling gone wrong

Just as a general rule, if you are going to put a criminal profile sketch on your air for someone such as a thief, murderer, or rapist, it would be a good idea to first make sure the suspect in question does not look remarkably similar to your news anchor.

I actually cannot write any more sarcastic comments about this because I'm literally laughing too hard at this picture to think of any. I think I'll just let the picture speak for itself: First of all, hahahaha. Wow. Second of all, his expression is priceless. Thanks to Paradis who sent me this picture. By far the funniest I've seen in quite a while.



I can only imagine how funny it would have been to have seen this broadcast live. I'm still laughing about this.