Author Archives: dpkworldwide

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About dpkworldwide

Native Californian, water rabbit, aries, lover of travel, trains, history, music, wrestling, anime, minimalism, stoicism, objectivism and things Japanese.

Another busy week…

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So another week has gone by without me posting anything here other than my pre-entered, twice-weekly quotes. So let me go back for a very quick recap now that it’s Friday–sheesh…

Starting with last Friday, I had a wonderful Japanese Tea Ceremony lesson in Westhills. This is something that I have wanted to do for a very long time because it fascinates me. Sadly, after giving it some thought and in light of upcoming expenses and events, I won’t be able to give it the commitment necessary so I’m putting it off until 2012.

Last Saturday I spent the day in Anaheim at the So Cal Smackdown wargames convention where I ran two of the strangest Boxer Rebellion/Siege of Peking games I’ve ever seen. It was a lot of fun/work and each side won a game. Through the miracle of eBay Second-Chance Offers, I was able to sell my PS3 to the next highest bidder (the winner flaked) who actually lived in Anaheim and came to pick it up at the convention site in person. On the way home I had a lovely dinner at The North Woods Inn (yummy!). The rest of the holiday weekend I spent recovering from the convention (I’d practically lost my voice), working around the house, Sunday dinner at my sister’s as usual and then Monday doing Audio recording work.

I did receive and watch a new anime Blu-ray disc for a series that I thought was incredible: Night Raid 1931. Set in Shanghai and Manchuria of the 30s, it was a fascinating look at the early Showa period and Japan’s expansion into China ending with the creation of the Manchukuo puppet state. The animation–particularly the backgrounds and settings–was spectacular, the story and characters were all great. This is another of those anime that is so rich in content and “jumping-off points” for further study that it has quickly become one of my favorites (just like Mirage of Blaze did for similar reasons). I can always tell a show connected with me when as soon as I finish it I want to go back and immediately watch it over again! If you’re a fan of historically-based series, then this would be a no-brainer for you to pickup, and it’s gorgeous on Blu-ray with an excellent English dub. This is another review that I really hope to get to very soon; in the meantime, click these links to see the ANN Encyclopedia entry, the entry on Wikipedia and a good review on ANN.

So now I’ve got to get ready for a big meeting today at work, then I’m leaving early for my first cortisone injection in my knee. Hopefully that and some physical therapy will make me feel better and be able to limp along (literally and figuratively) until the end of the year when I hope to have saved up enough money for my surgery.

Today’s Quote: Jobs

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“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we’ve chosen to do with our life. We could be sitting in a monastery somewhere in Japan. We could be out sailing. Some of the [executive team] could be playing golf. They could be running other companies. And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it. And we think it is.”

— Steve Jobs

My Neighbor, Steve Jobs

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This is an absolutely wonderful little blog post apparently from one of Steve’s neighbors in Palo Alto. It gives a lot more quiet insight into a man whose private life seems to have been truly private.

While Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal and CNET continue to drone on about the impact of the Steve Jobs era,  I won’t be pondering the MacBook Air I write on or the iPhone I talk on. I will think of the day I saw him at his son’s high school graduation. There Steve stood, tears streaming down his cheeks, his smile wide and proud, as his son received his diploma and walked on into his own bright future leaving behind a good man and a good father who can be sure of the rightness of this, perhaps his most important legacy of all.

He may have changed the world for the rest of us, but these kinds of experiences are what those closest to him will forever remember with the greatest fondness.

Read the entire article here at Lisen’s “Blog” – An Angle of PrismWork.

Yes, it IS a Ponzi Scheme…

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In today’s National Review Online magazine, Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute clearly explained what I’ve personally felt for years: Social Security is nothing but a Government-backed Ponzi Scheme. Or, I should probably say a Ponzi Scheme enforced at the point of a gun.

Apparently, the political world is going apoplectic over Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry having called a spade a spade on this topic. Since I can’t be bothered to watch everything going on in the disgusting world of politics, I hadn’t heard about it. Now that I have, I actually have some interest in what Mr. Perry has to say.

This paragraph from the article nicely sums up why Social Security is a farce:

Social Security, on the other hand, forces people to invest in it through a mandatory payroll tax. A small portion of that money is used to buy special-issue Treasury bonds that the government will eventually have to repay, but the vast majority of the money you pay in Social Security taxes is not invested in anything. Instead, the money you pay into the system is used to pay benefits to those “early investors” who are retired today. When you retire, you will have to rely on the next generation of workers behind you to pay the taxes that will finance your benefits.

The conclusion is obvious: Perry was absolutely right, and in fact Social Security may even be a bit worse than a Ponzi Scheme since the government can both force new taxpayers to pay more and reduce the benefits paid out. Just because the government does something doesn’t make it legal (or moral, or ethical)…

Besides, if you actually think you will receive something from our soon-to-be-bankrupt country from this program for your retirement, then you must be delirious. Unless worthless politicians actually do something about this problem, everyone from retirees, to current and future taxpayers are all going to be hopelessly screwed (like we aren’t already).

Please go and read the entire article by clicking this link.