what is la dolce vita

If you look it up, it can be loosely translated to your white yacht sitting calmly in the pristine Carribean blue sea on a hot sunny day with girls topping up your tan on your six-packs.

Or this.

170. Sparkle

Life is an occasion, and sometimes you gotta do more than just turn up...sometimes you've got to rise to it...

169. Take-off!

It starts now. Strange that no matter how jaded or cynical one can get, counting down to the New Year never loses its kick. In fact, age has increased the absurb appeal of the whole thing.

Bring it!

Autumn in London

Lotsa people can't wait for spring and summer, most people love christmas and the snowy winter.

Hmm but i've always enjoyed autumn, to that i've endured horror gasps and sarcastic ridicule (you know who you are). I have my autumn reasons which there'd be no discussion here.

Best things in life are free. Enjoy the pics.

168. Hols and What Not

Happy holidays folks. Stick around for the after party.

Job vs Calling

This is a excerpt of a reply from Michael Lewis to a write-in.

Job vs. Calling

The distinction is artificial but worth drawing. A job will never satisfy you all by itself, but it will afford you security and the chance to pursue an exciting and fulfilling life outside of your work. A calling is an activity you find so compelling that you wind up organizing your entire self around it -- often to the detriment of your life outside of it.

There’s no shame in either. Each has costs and benefits. There is no reason to make a fetish of your career. There are activities other than work in which to find meaning and pleasure and even a sense of self-importance -- you just need to learn how to look.

Reading between the lines of your letter I sense that some of your anxiety is caused by your desire for the benefits of each -- job and calling -- without the costs. Perhaps that is what led you to Wall Street in the first place, and why your mind now turns to Hollywood.

Doing Well

What Wall Street did so well, for so long, was to give people jobs that they could pass off to themselves as well as others as callings. Such was their exalted social and financial status: Wall Street jobs made people feel special without actually having to be special. You never really had to explain why you were doing it -- even if you should have.

But really, the same rule that applies to properly functioning financial markets applies to other markets: There’s a direct relationship between risk and reward. A fantastically rewarding career usually requires you to take fantastic risks. To get your seat at the table on Wall Street you may have passed through a fine filter, but you took no real risk. You were just being paid, briefly, as if you had.

So which is it: job or calling? You can answer the question directly, or allow time to answer it for you. Either way, I think you’d be happier if you stopped thinking of what the world had to offer you, and started thinking a bit more about what you had to offer the world. Real excitement isn’t just in whatever you happen to be doing, but in what you bring to it.

In the end, you have to look for it not on the outside, but on the inside. In my experience, if you find it, the other stuff will take care of itself.

(Michael Lewis, author of “Liar’s Poker,” “Moneyball,” and “The Blind Side,” is a columnist for Bloomberg News. The opinions he expresses are his own.)

167. Things That Matter

To you. And to me. Let's talk about it. The hour grows late, the storyteller is getting long in the tooth. The days are passing us by.

If at first, there is a feeling of trepidation, fret not, for you are in good stead. For we've been through this before. The uncertainty, it swirls before us, like pale moon shadows upon leaveless trees in autumn.

What is it that keeps us from making it so? Taking that one leap of faith that we've always dreamt of, but have always been afraid to take?

There has always been a voice in our heads, a voice of singular purpose and beauty, before doubt and cynicism had eroded its poetry and purity. It gets dimmer as the days go by, being ignored more often than not. Till at last, it shall remain forever silent, save for a few fleeting glimpses in our dreams. You know those moments. When you are reminded of your childhood, and it invokes in you a deep sense of longing for a memory that has faded away.

This voice has always been true, like the voice of clear waters (as Tolkien would put it). And if it is not heeded, if it is cast aside, if it is denigrated...you do so at your own peril. For, before you know it, it will be lost, as our youth is lost as we chase after another man's fortune.

What is it that really matters to you? Are you closer to reaching your dreams? Or have you clouded and confused your dreams with material longing? Have you reached that measure of comfort and solace from your daily routine? Have you lost that unforgettable fire that is kindled in our hearts the first day we look upon the stars in awe and wonder? Does it still burn, or are they but dying embers?

Only you can answer these questions. For the heart does not lie, no matter what the head says.

166. The PAD, the Big 3, Chelsea and Other Muppets

Damn you PAD. You bunch of elitist, self-serving sonobitches. You spit on the faces of other Thais (particularly the poor ones from Isaan, nevermind the fact that most from Isaan are lemming like Thaksin loyalists). You claim to serve the King, but your only master is your own pockets. But that's not your worst crime. That has to be reserved for storming the bloody airport and ruining a potentially wonderful trip to Bangkok by yours truly.

Damn you, Big 3 auto-makers of the States. You fly in on your private jets in your fancy suits with cup in hand asking the government to bail out your shitty companies that got screwed up 'cos of your mismanagement. It's because of scum like you that the economy is in its present situation. You lot should be anally raped and flayed, with vinegar poured all over your body and made to crawl on broken glass. You greedy little pricks, makes me sick just to write about you.

Damn you Chelsea. For losing to Liverpool, and worse, Arsenal at home. Damn you for causing me to be ridiculed by Drew, Alf, Melv and other Arse/Manure/Scouse-worshipping muppets of the world. There's no way I can ever live this down. Ever.

Muppets. Wipe them out. All of them.