What a great movie.
I want to be a transformer...
That will be so cool..
K'Naan America feat. Mos Def
7 years ago
Jul 26, 2007
Jul 21, 2007
Will Gina get married by the end of the year?
Gina: hello... ah I forgot to tell you I'm getting married
me: errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr who with? how? when? Pina?? ( thinking oh... great eventually somebody to relieve her pressure on me).
Gina:somebody I met, you don't know him
me: who? when?
Gina: by the end of the year
me: come on tell me more, I book holidays... oh that's so wonderful
Gina: well it's not true, but at the last wedding I went, the bride threw the bouquet and I caught it... and as the old say goes when that happens you get married by the end of the year. Oh I felt so sorry for all those tall beautiful girls waiting to get it and little me secured the price...
We shall see folks... if that happens you are all invited
me: errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr who with? how? when? Pina?? ( thinking oh... great eventually somebody to relieve her pressure on me).
Gina:somebody I met, you don't know him
me: who? when?
Gina: by the end of the year
me: come on tell me more, I book holidays... oh that's so wonderful
Gina: well it's not true, but at the last wedding I went, the bride threw the bouquet and I caught it... and as the old say goes when that happens you get married by the end of the year. Oh I felt so sorry for all those tall beautiful girls waiting to get it and little me secured the price...
We shall see folks... if that happens you are all invited
Jul 19, 2007
How can this ad stop you smoking
Sorry couldn't find the english version.. still.. why does she look so much cooler with the cigarette.
Jul 18, 2007
Ops!
Hi,
Thanks very much I have it now
Just to let you know, there was a picture within it towards the end of the cv of an
Asian Man shaking hands with a smaller Man FYI
Regards
This was the headhunter replying to me sending a copy of my cv. Asian Man shaking hands with a smaller man... happens to be the picture of the post below...
Ops.. really no sure how did that end up in my cv...
Thanks very much I have it now
Just to let you know, there was a picture within it towards the end of the cv of an
Asian Man shaking hands with a smaller Man FYI
Regards
This was the headhunter replying to me sending a copy of my cv. Asian Man shaking hands with a smaller man... happens to be the picture of the post below...
Ops.. really no sure how did that end up in my cv...
Jul 17, 2007
Pink grapefruit increase chance of cancer by 30%
What's next my Kellogs' K?
I love pink grapefruit....
For ages it was supposed to be good for you and now....
article
Eating grapefruit every day could raise the risk of developing breast cancer by almost a third, US scientists say.
I love pink grapefruit....
For ages it was supposed to be good for you and now....
article
Eating grapefruit every day could raise the risk of developing breast cancer by almost a third, US scientists say.
Jul 16, 2007
Jul 13, 2007
Kings of Leon for posh people
So...
I'm about to embark in this experience..... I will do a la sales as pod would say.
A groupie/bankers/rotters invited me to what seemed a nice concert as she had a spare ticket for kings of leon ( KOL) as she called them..
Oh well... I said yes.. why not.. as I'm in the latest cycle of neverending depression and survivor to 7 hours of midyear review writing ( as I asked albeo's and lady v's help I was very confident it would have taken something like 2 seconds.. control c control v... no... I discovered it needed to be divided in sessions and also the beginning of the year one was wrong and bollox... ) anyway...
It's nice to have friends that can transform sentences like this place is shit and you are a bunch of fucking idiots into my biggest concern is the relationship between teams.. ( i think this is a skill, a magic art which I'll never be able to learn..)
And God .... what a decision.... between finally, at last, eventually ( apparently these words have attitude.. well me too so what??)
oh well back to the concert.. which too late I discovered is not a concert but a posh party organised by them. Sic!
First venue was supposed to be something described as 1920s venue where elegance and dressing up is a must.. And no... after rolling in the mud in Glasto I'm not going to a rock concert in a frock and high heels ( fuck that... i have principles)
Venue changed....I think for the worst ... heart of poshland... kings road darling.. ( now... even rock band lost their morale.. ) the place advertises itself as somewhere where the house wine is Laurent Perrier rose' ( what happened to Red Stripe?)
I will be wearing jeans if I get refused entrance... I shall join my nice friends in cosier venue..
The last message was: see you there at 10.30 I got confirmation by the MAN himself (i'm about to vomit!)
But I need to try... let's see.. I just hope I'm not going to argue with every single individual in the place..
Off I go.. laters darling...
I'm about to embark in this experience..... I will do a la sales as pod would say.
A groupie/bankers/rotters invited me to what seemed a nice concert as she had a spare ticket for kings of leon ( KOL) as she called them..
Oh well... I said yes.. why not.. as I'm in the latest cycle of neverending depression and survivor to 7 hours of midyear review writing ( as I asked albeo's and lady v's help I was very confident it would have taken something like 2 seconds.. control c control v... no... I discovered it needed to be divided in sessions and also the beginning of the year one was wrong and bollox... ) anyway...
It's nice to have friends that can transform sentences like this place is shit and you are a bunch of fucking idiots into my biggest concern is the relationship between teams.. ( i think this is a skill, a magic art which I'll never be able to learn..)
And God .... what a decision.... between finally, at last, eventually ( apparently these words have attitude.. well me too so what??)
oh well back to the concert.. which too late I discovered is not a concert but a posh party organised by them. Sic!
First venue was supposed to be something described as 1920s venue where elegance and dressing up is a must.. And no... after rolling in the mud in Glasto I'm not going to a rock concert in a frock and high heels ( fuck that... i have principles)
Venue changed....I think for the worst ... heart of poshland... kings road darling.. ( now... even rock band lost their morale.. ) the place advertises itself as somewhere where the house wine is Laurent Perrier rose' ( what happened to Red Stripe?)
I will be wearing jeans if I get refused entrance... I shall join my nice friends in cosier venue..
The last message was: see you there at 10.30 I got confirmation by the MAN himself (i'm about to vomit!)
But I need to try... let's see.. I just hope I'm not going to argue with every single individual in the place..
Off I go.. laters darling...
Jul 5, 2007
Will Iran run out of oil and become Us' best pal?
Well.... I think a serious post is due.
Dr. Woody Brock, in a recent paper on oil prices wrote that Iran would not have net oil to export in 2014.
How could a country with the third (or second, depending on which source you quote) largest oil reserves in the world not be churning out ever more black gold? The answer, as it almost always is for such problems, turns out to be governmental and not economic in nature.
Lately it seems to be all about governments or about general ignorance in the world. Many people that make decisions don't actually have the knowledge. There is this massive misconception in the world that who you know is more important that what you know. It clearly works, but sometimes we run into situations that need the world to be saved by systemic risk. Either somebody takes command or the entire system collapses, as it was the case in 1998 with LTCM and Greenspan. Genius failed because the world is wrong, corrupt and only believes in the power of money. It is the case now with subprime, but as everybody is involved in order to keep the system afloot you need cooperation. This is another discussion, too long for a blog entry and on every paper ( would people just say the truth, these event wouldn't happen).
I leave the subprime for now and go back to oil.
Oil provides more than 70% of the revenues of the government of Iran. The rise in oil prices has been a bonanza for the regime, allowing them to subsidize all sorts of welfare programs at home and mischief abroad. And one of the chief subsidies is gasoline prices.
Gasoline costs about $.34 cents a gallon in Iran, or 9 cents a liter. You can fill up your Honda Civic for $4.49. In the US it costs almost $40 (The price has risen since the chart below was made). In neighboring Turkey it costs almost $95. Look at the two charts below from the recent Foreign Policy Magazine. Notice that Iran is spending 38% of its national budget (almost 15% of GDP!) on gasoline subsidies!
Chart two:
And this situation is likely to get worse. Let's look at a rather remarkable study done for the National Academy of Sciences by Roger Stern of Johns Hopkins University late last year. click here for full paper
"A more probable scenario is that, absent some change in Irani policy ...exports declining to zero by 2014-2015. Energy subsidies, hostility to foreign investment, and inefficiencies of its state-planned economy underlie Iran's problem, which has no relation to 'peak oil.' "
Iran earns about $50 billion a year in oil exports. The decline is estimated at 10-12% annually. In less than five years, exports could be halved and then disappear by 2015, predicted Stern.
Of course, you can go to a dozen web sites, mostly Iranian, which demonstrate that Iranian production will be double (or pick a number) by that time. The problem is, they all assume rather large sums of investment in the Iranian oil fields. Two projects which are "counted on" to be producing oil in 2008 have yet to be funded or started, as negotiations have broken down. Iran seems incapable of getting a deal actually done with a willing partner.
Part of this is a caused by the Iranian constitution, which does not allow for foreign ownership of oil reserves or fields. Instead, they try to negotiate to pay for investing in oil production. Called a buyback, any investment in an oil field is turned into sovereign Iranian government debt with a return of 15-17%. This is a very unpopular program at home, coming under much criticism from local government officials. Any deal that gets close to getting done comes under attack from lawmakers as being too good for foreign investors, so nothing is getting done.
Why not just fund the development themselves? They could, but the mullahs have elected to spend the money now rather than make investments which will not produce revenues for 4-6 years or more. They are investing around half the money needed just to maintain production, around $3 billion a year.
Let's look at a quote from Mohammed Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian, Iran's deputy oil minister for international affairs: "If the government does not control the consumption of oil products in Iran ... and at the same time, if the projects for increasing the capacity of the oil and protection of the oil wells will not happen, within 10 years, there will not be any oil for export." That's from their guy, not a Western academic.
Iran produced over 6 billion barrels of oil before the revolution in 1979, they now produce around 4 billion barrels a year. They are currently producing about 5% below their quota, which shows they are at their limits under current capacity. And production at their old fields is waning. The world recovery rate is about 35% from oil fields. Iran's is an abnormally low 24-27%. Normally, you pump natural gas back into an aging field (called reinjection) in order to get higher yields. Iran has enormous reserves of natural gas. Seems like there should be a solution.
However, if the National Iranian Oil Company (NOIC) sells it natural gas outside of Iran, it turns a profit. If it sells it in the country, then it can only get the lower, dramatically subsidized price. Guess which it chooses. Even so, internal natural gas demand is growing by 9% a year.
Not surprisingly, at 34 cents a gallon gasoline demand is rising 10% a year. This week, the government moved to ration supplies to about 22 gallons a month, which does not go far in the large cars preferred by younger Iranians. There have been riots, with people chanting "Death to Ahmadinejad." They take their right to plenty of cheap gas seriously. There is also widespread smuggling. Ten barrels of gasoline (easily hauled in a pickup) taken into Turkey yields about $3,000 in profit in a country with about that much GDP per person.
"Our survey suggests that Iran's petroleum sector is unlikely to attract investment sufficient to maintain oil exports. Maintaining exports would require foreign investment to increase when it appears to be declining. Other factors contributing to export decline are also intensifying. Demand growth for subsidized petroleum compounds from an ever-larger base. Growth rates for gasoline (11-12%), gas (9%), and electric power (7-8%) are especially problematic. Oil recovery rates have declined, and, with no remedy in sight for the gas reinjection shortage, this decline may accelerate.
"Depletion rates have increased, and, if investment does not increase, depletion will accelerate. If the regime actually proceeds with LNG exports, oil export decline will accelerate for lack of reinjection gas. In summary, the regime has been incapable of maximizing profit, minimizing cost, or constraining explosive demand for subsidized petroleum products. These failures have very substantial economic consequences.
"Despite mismanagement, the Islamic Republic's real oil revenues are nearly their highest ever as rising price compensates for stagnant energy production and declining oil exports. Despite high price, however, population growth has resulted in a 44% decline of real oil revenue per capita since the 1980 price peak. Moreover, virtually all revenue growth has been applied to pet projects, loss-making industries, etc. If price were to decline, political power sustained by the quadrupling of government spending since 1999 may not be sustainable. Yet we found no evidence that Iran plans fiscal retrenchment or any scheme to sustain oil investment.
"Rather, the government promises 'to put oil revenues on every table,' as if monopoly rents were not already the entree. Backing this promise is a welfare state built on the Soviet model widely understood as a formula for long-run economic suicide. This includes the 5-year plans, misallocation of resources, loss-making state enterprises, subsidized consumption, corruption, and oil export dependence that doomed the Soviet experiment. Therefore, the regime's ability to contend with the export decline we project seems limited."
Stern concludes that Iran may need nuclear power as their energy supply is dwindling. I find this conclusion rather preposterous, since if they wanted more energy, all they would have to do is allow foreign investment or invest more of their own money in their own fields. If the developed world will simply apply firm sanctions, Iran will have to reconsider its nuclear program, as their ability to finance mischief will erode as the mullahs divert their resources to domestic needs in order to maintain their dwindling popularity.
The cost of their current policies cannot be lost on the youth and educated people of the country. There is almost 14% unemployment among college graduates. Iran looks to me like Russia did in 1988. They were in the process of self-destruction, although few recognized it at the time. Iran is a matter of time.
Dr. Woody Brock, in a recent paper on oil prices wrote that Iran would not have net oil to export in 2014.
How could a country with the third (or second, depending on which source you quote) largest oil reserves in the world not be churning out ever more black gold? The answer, as it almost always is for such problems, turns out to be governmental and not economic in nature.
Lately it seems to be all about governments or about general ignorance in the world. Many people that make decisions don't actually have the knowledge. There is this massive misconception in the world that who you know is more important that what you know. It clearly works, but sometimes we run into situations that need the world to be saved by systemic risk. Either somebody takes command or the entire system collapses, as it was the case in 1998 with LTCM and Greenspan. Genius failed because the world is wrong, corrupt and only believes in the power of money. It is the case now with subprime, but as everybody is involved in order to keep the system afloot you need cooperation. This is another discussion, too long for a blog entry and on every paper ( would people just say the truth, these event wouldn't happen).
I leave the subprime for now and go back to oil.
Oil provides more than 70% of the revenues of the government of Iran. The rise in oil prices has been a bonanza for the regime, allowing them to subsidize all sorts of welfare programs at home and mischief abroad. And one of the chief subsidies is gasoline prices.
Gasoline costs about $.34 cents a gallon in Iran, or 9 cents a liter. You can fill up your Honda Civic for $4.49. In the US it costs almost $40 (The price has risen since the chart below was made). In neighboring Turkey it costs almost $95. Look at the two charts below from the recent Foreign Policy Magazine. Notice that Iran is spending 38% of its national budget (almost 15% of GDP!) on gasoline subsidies!
Chart two:
And this situation is likely to get worse. Let's look at a rather remarkable study done for the National Academy of Sciences by Roger Stern of Johns Hopkins University late last year. click here for full paper
"A more probable scenario is that, absent some change in Irani policy ...exports declining to zero by 2014-2015. Energy subsidies, hostility to foreign investment, and inefficiencies of its state-planned economy underlie Iran's problem, which has no relation to 'peak oil.' "
Iran earns about $50 billion a year in oil exports. The decline is estimated at 10-12% annually. In less than five years, exports could be halved and then disappear by 2015, predicted Stern.
Of course, you can go to a dozen web sites, mostly Iranian, which demonstrate that Iranian production will be double (or pick a number) by that time. The problem is, they all assume rather large sums of investment in the Iranian oil fields. Two projects which are "counted on" to be producing oil in 2008 have yet to be funded or started, as negotiations have broken down. Iran seems incapable of getting a deal actually done with a willing partner.
Part of this is a caused by the Iranian constitution, which does not allow for foreign ownership of oil reserves or fields. Instead, they try to negotiate to pay for investing in oil production. Called a buyback, any investment in an oil field is turned into sovereign Iranian government debt with a return of 15-17%. This is a very unpopular program at home, coming under much criticism from local government officials. Any deal that gets close to getting done comes under attack from lawmakers as being too good for foreign investors, so nothing is getting done.
Why not just fund the development themselves? They could, but the mullahs have elected to spend the money now rather than make investments which will not produce revenues for 4-6 years or more. They are investing around half the money needed just to maintain production, around $3 billion a year.
Let's look at a quote from Mohammed Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian, Iran's deputy oil minister for international affairs: "If the government does not control the consumption of oil products in Iran ... and at the same time, if the projects for increasing the capacity of the oil and protection of the oil wells will not happen, within 10 years, there will not be any oil for export." That's from their guy, not a Western academic.
Iran produced over 6 billion barrels of oil before the revolution in 1979, they now produce around 4 billion barrels a year. They are currently producing about 5% below their quota, which shows they are at their limits under current capacity. And production at their old fields is waning. The world recovery rate is about 35% from oil fields. Iran's is an abnormally low 24-27%. Normally, you pump natural gas back into an aging field (called reinjection) in order to get higher yields. Iran has enormous reserves of natural gas. Seems like there should be a solution.
However, if the National Iranian Oil Company (NOIC) sells it natural gas outside of Iran, it turns a profit. If it sells it in the country, then it can only get the lower, dramatically subsidized price. Guess which it chooses. Even so, internal natural gas demand is growing by 9% a year.
Not surprisingly, at 34 cents a gallon gasoline demand is rising 10% a year. This week, the government moved to ration supplies to about 22 gallons a month, which does not go far in the large cars preferred by younger Iranians. There have been riots, with people chanting "Death to Ahmadinejad." They take their right to plenty of cheap gas seriously. There is also widespread smuggling. Ten barrels of gasoline (easily hauled in a pickup) taken into Turkey yields about $3,000 in profit in a country with about that much GDP per person.
"Our survey suggests that Iran's petroleum sector is unlikely to attract investment sufficient to maintain oil exports. Maintaining exports would require foreign investment to increase when it appears to be declining. Other factors contributing to export decline are also intensifying. Demand growth for subsidized petroleum compounds from an ever-larger base. Growth rates for gasoline (11-12%), gas (9%), and electric power (7-8%) are especially problematic. Oil recovery rates have declined, and, with no remedy in sight for the gas reinjection shortage, this decline may accelerate.
"Depletion rates have increased, and, if investment does not increase, depletion will accelerate. If the regime actually proceeds with LNG exports, oil export decline will accelerate for lack of reinjection gas. In summary, the regime has been incapable of maximizing profit, minimizing cost, or constraining explosive demand for subsidized petroleum products. These failures have very substantial economic consequences.
"Despite mismanagement, the Islamic Republic's real oil revenues are nearly their highest ever as rising price compensates for stagnant energy production and declining oil exports. Despite high price, however, population growth has resulted in a 44% decline of real oil revenue per capita since the 1980 price peak. Moreover, virtually all revenue growth has been applied to pet projects, loss-making industries, etc. If price were to decline, political power sustained by the quadrupling of government spending since 1999 may not be sustainable. Yet we found no evidence that Iran plans fiscal retrenchment or any scheme to sustain oil investment.
"Rather, the government promises 'to put oil revenues on every table,' as if monopoly rents were not already the entree. Backing this promise is a welfare state built on the Soviet model widely understood as a formula for long-run economic suicide. This includes the 5-year plans, misallocation of resources, loss-making state enterprises, subsidized consumption, corruption, and oil export dependence that doomed the Soviet experiment. Therefore, the regime's ability to contend with the export decline we project seems limited."
Stern concludes that Iran may need nuclear power as their energy supply is dwindling. I find this conclusion rather preposterous, since if they wanted more energy, all they would have to do is allow foreign investment or invest more of their own money in their own fields. If the developed world will simply apply firm sanctions, Iran will have to reconsider its nuclear program, as their ability to finance mischief will erode as the mullahs divert their resources to domestic needs in order to maintain their dwindling popularity.
The cost of their current policies cannot be lost on the youth and educated people of the country. There is almost 14% unemployment among college graduates. Iran looks to me like Russia did in 1988. They were in the process of self-destruction, although few recognized it at the time. Iran is a matter of time.
Jul 4, 2007
Then it was the joint b'day party
The birthday babies...how angelic they look!
THE INVITEES....
This is for the book cover. Saint V protege' of wine drinkers and gin lovers
RRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Don D
What a birthday present for H.
Then... it all went out of hand
Wined... just by dancing next to Lady V
The rest is not for public display....
Jul 3, 2007
Back into the normality of the office
I turn around to see my colleague with a flashy ipod stuck up his nostrils...
Apparently a gizmo purchased by his wife to relieve hayfever... Oh well
And... Sunday soon arrived
And walked we did.. A LOT too, especially today.
We went to explore Trash city.. very surreal, as if from a different decade, but all here within the Glasto walls. Amazing how different people live it and experience it differently.. Probably this is why everybody loves it so much
The beautiful the amazing the unique Dame Shirley Bassey
And as she said.... Diamonds are forever.. Arctic Monkeys can't sing better than me.
Wearing her 50k Mcqueen dress she made our day... and lady V.. no it wasn't a Cavalli darling..
THE GO-TEAM
Lively, beautiful and hilarious.. Heidi thought that M lied to us and instead of going home was on stage singing for a band.. Oh well.. we all lost it sooner or later...
Cleaning a muddy pound to purchase the nth bottle of wine..
New friends made on the way!
and walking and walking, searching for a toilet and getting stuck in the mud we reached the superb Kaiser Chiefs.. By then it was little Heidi and me dancing away.
Unfortunately teletransport has not been invented yet, and despite our desire to end the night with Carl Cox, our energies were gone, the rain was falling hard and resting was long due.. hence we just rested our sore limbs for a bit and met the others to finish the night to the nearby Silent Disco... What an amazing thing.. You can dance and sing away while music is pumped through wifi earphones. Marvellous.. It will be brilliant to open one in London or anywhere and allow people to take their Ipod in... It will be the solution to world peace
We went to explore Trash city.. very surreal, as if from a different decade, but all here within the Glasto walls. Amazing how different people live it and experience it differently.. Probably this is why everybody loves it so much
The beautiful the amazing the unique Dame Shirley Bassey
And as she said.... Diamonds are forever.. Arctic Monkeys can't sing better than me.
Wearing her 50k Mcqueen dress she made our day... and lady V.. no it wasn't a Cavalli darling..
THE GO-TEAM
Lively, beautiful and hilarious.. Heidi thought that M lied to us and instead of going home was on stage singing for a band.. Oh well.. we all lost it sooner or later...
Cleaning a muddy pound to purchase the nth bottle of wine..
New friends made on the way!
and walking and walking, searching for a toilet and getting stuck in the mud we reached the superb Kaiser Chiefs.. By then it was little Heidi and me dancing away.
Unfortunately teletransport has not been invented yet, and despite our desire to end the night with Carl Cox, our energies were gone, the rain was falling hard and resting was long due.. hence we just rested our sore limbs for a bit and met the others to finish the night to the nearby Silent Disco... What an amazing thing.. You can dance and sing away while music is pumped through wifi earphones. Marvellous.. It will be brilliant to open one in London or anywhere and allow people to take their Ipod in... It will be the solution to world peace
Jul 1, 2007
The killers
Fireworks...
If it wasn't mad enough, my concert neighbour decided to lit a flare and light was raining on me.. I honestly thought I was going to catch fire
Glasto continued
Make a wish: We shall enjoy Glasto, so we did.
Same afternoon- Friday- Vision starts getting blurred and we are preparing for the majestic Rufus, after a stop by at Bloc Party
Albeo joined us from Marta's concert ( Rufus' sister), rang us to say lift the tiara, lift the tiara... and look at the joy when he spotted us through the crowd.
The show began and we lost ourselves in bliss.
brrrrrrrilllllllliant
The day continued with Arcade Fire ( probably the best concert of all) where nobody could stop my crazy dancing and splashing of mud everywhere!
Then it was Bjork turn joined on stage by Toumani Diabate'
Masks on and we'r ready to get lost in vagueness... where Heidi and I danced away till the early hours of the morning ( I created another dancing monster)
Same afternoon- Friday- Vision starts getting blurred and we are preparing for the majestic Rufus, after a stop by at Bloc Party
Albeo joined us from Marta's concert ( Rufus' sister), rang us to say lift the tiara, lift the tiara... and look at the joy when he spotted us through the crowd.
The show began and we lost ourselves in bliss.
brrrrrrrilllllllliant
The day continued with Arcade Fire ( probably the best concert of all) where nobody could stop my crazy dancing and splashing of mud everywhere!
Then it was Bjork turn joined on stage by Toumani Diabate'
Masks on and we'r ready to get lost in vagueness... where Heidi and I danced away till the early hours of the morning ( I created another dancing monster)
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