music stuff

And the man in the back said "EVERYONE ATTACK!" and it turned into a ballroom blitz:



I want to taste you but your lips are venomous POISONNN...you're POISONN running through my VEINS!!!

Alice Cooper - Poison!

Not if you were the last Economist on earth

The following is an imagined conversation between William Buiter and Dan Ariely (look up Buiter's latest article on Financial Times for background)

To be sung to the tune of "Not if you were the last junkie on earth" by The Dandy Warhols

I never thought you’d be a traditionalist
Because rationality is so passe.
But today,
If you think that I don’t know
About loss aversion and
Reference dependence,
You’re insane, or your
A fool who hasn’t paid attention
To a word that I say.

In a way, I can’t
Help but feel responsible.
After all, this is what
My experiments say.

But I never thought you’d be a rationalist
Because preferences are so passe
Now a-day.
You never thought you’d randomize
Just be cooler in an obvious way.
I could say, shouldn’t you have run
A couple time-series and decided
That you would rather have it any day.

In a way
I can’t help but feel responsible,
I always knew that you were running around
With your Markov chain

But I never thought you’d be an economist
Because demand and supply is so passe hey.

It's funny how sometimes when you recall something from years ago, it's almost like that person was someone else, although it was you.

The first time I heard Nothing Else Matters, it was back in 11th standard. It's funny to think of the kind of life I had then, and what I have now; what had been gained and lost and all that.

Although, to be honest, life now is - almost - as perfect as it could be (not quite perfect but close) it's always easy to feel nostalgic about the past. Even if life's been strictly increasing in terms of "happiness" or whatever, since then.

Maybe we are all a collection of once dead people, and reading/writing/listening is a way of getting them back to life. It is at times like these I wish I was in Delhi, but that might make me sad, because the Delhi I recall is gone now. If only we could combine the best of everything in life in one great year, would you want that?

Look at what we've done to the innocent and young

Try this out:

(1) Wear a colourful shirt/top.

(2) Walk on a crowded street and look at the colours of the shirts/tops of other people.

(3) Tell a friend who is walking with you the colour of the shirt/top of the nearest person.

(4) Now, think of the colour of your shirt/top.

(5) Repeat step 3 immediately.

Let me know how it goes. If you're like me, you'll blurt out your shirts' colour.

There's a behavioural economics lesson in this.

morning song

Some songs are nice in the morning and some at night. This one is great at 7.19 am on a thursday morning.

काफ़ी कूल हैं!

मेक्स यू वांट तो गेट आउट ऑफ़ दा हाउस।

Asleep at the wheel (but who are you judging?)

I've mentioned Suicidal Tendencies before, and this particular song is maybe the best I've heard from the era that is unfortunately termed "Hair Metal".

Some people I've met say Suicidal is a "ska-punk" not a "metal" band. Well who cares? This sounds good to me! Frankly, I've not really heard any other band sound quite as...accomplished as this one. It's too bad they never hit the big time; with lyrics like this:

Confused understanding, with a slip for the hold
Squeeze past the pressure, you're asleep at the wheel

I mean, look at the structure of that! "With a slip for the hold" is the sort of turn of phrase that should be written down and set in stone. Instead it only sells 20,000 copies. Imperfect market, you bet!

Well, anyway, if I start going on about what's wrong with the business of music it'd never stop. And also, I'd like to talk about this band a bit.

It appears that Metallica's current bass player is from this band. Hmm. I wonder if that has anything to do with the better-than-poo songs off of Metallica's latest album. From where I'm coming from, that's a real compliment. I can't think of enough dirty words to heap on the nonsense that that band heaped on an unsuspecting public post the Black Album. And would you believe it, our state of rock music is such that this is the reason Metallica go on to win a grammy.

Woo hoo, off track again. Maybe my brain follows non-linearities. I read about this theory once about how human beings are unable to comprehend exponential distributions/series because our brains evolved in the plains of Africa, which calls - for some reason - for linear decision making. I'm not really sure how one defines a term like "linear decision making", but I'm going to assume it means that we can comprehend that 2+2 = 4 but e raised to the power of 2 draws the equivalent of "eh?".

In this respect, therefore, I am the next step of mankind. I am the missing link of the future!

You must really, really, listen to the chord sequence at 2:00 minutes into the song; which combines with about 3 vocal harmonies and a bass line that's so groovy it's out of sight. If an acid trip met up with Syd Barett era Pink Floyd, grew up a bit, quit moaning about how awful life is, and like that guy in The Fall (the book, not the movie) started to talk back to society instead of hiding behind a wall, this is what it would sound like.

Actually, this sounds better. That spoken word intro full of nonsense lays down the whole feel of the track which is equal parts trippy, bitter and sweet. Kind of like a tequila shot mixed with acid. I've never taken acid so I could be accused of not knowing what I'm talking about.

Well, that never stopped me before.

But, more seriously, criminally underrated band folks! Nirvana is the most important band of the 90s? Well this just proves that the generation I'm growing up with is fairly screwed up. After all, every generation deserves the art it gets. Or make that, every generation deserves the art it buys. What a bunch of people make of the art that is available is after all up to them. Judging by what has happened, I cannot help but conclude we're pretty much a wasteful generation (art-wise).

So, who are you judging? After all I thought you were different. A blank stare and a whisper, was it too much of a good thing? All you had was a slip for a hold.

Watermelon man!

cool song, cool video, cool fruit

"Watermelon Man"

and something called "Heavy Metal Dark Doom Jazz". Love the drums! This is kind of a strange hybrid but I like it.