Oct 26, 2005
St. Marks between 1st & A
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Stumble
Oct 25, 2005
I remember reading somewhere not too long ago someone reminiscing about how going on a plane was an event. People would dress up in suits, you felt special. Today, you feel like cattle. Many people today dread flights, and often see it more as a chore rather than a great event to get excited over.
I'm hoping that with the introduction of services such as Eos Air, and Airbus' A380 double-decker plane, as well as MAXjet that air travel will once again be something to be excited about - and become an event that people walk away from, excited for the next opportunity.
Oct 23, 2005
Kalifowitz.
10 letters, 4 sylables, spelled phonetically (aka literal}, and almost always scary the first time one stumbles across it. Hey, that's a good way to describe me and my brother... Interestingly, the name itself is also a good way to describe me and my brother.
For a very long time I've known what "Kalif" (aka Calif) meant: "A leader of an Islamic polity, regarded as a successor of Muhammad and by tradition always male."
This part of the surname can be ascribed to my Mother, who is an Iraqi Jew (she was born in Jerusalem, but her parents were born in Iraq - making them what's known today as Sephardic Jews). Technically though they're Mizrahi Jews - the difference is defined really well by Wikipedia. Whichever one you choose, the connection to the Arab lands and reference to "Arab Jews" is relevant vis-a-vis a "Calif." A minor tid-bit: my mother's maiden name is "Mizrahi" - and now that this is posted here, I'm no longer using that when asked for it by companies thinking it's a clever security question ;-)
Strangely, I've never taken the time to look up what "owitz" means - until this evening.
According to Wikipedia: "...[T]he owitz ending, meaning "son of". Poland, Russian Empire, other Eastern European countries.." This part can be ascribed to my father - not only because we are his sons, but because he is an Ashkenazi Jew - half Polish, half Russian.
Had our surname been invented at the union of my parents, I wouldn't be as curious about it. But it came from my father's father... I wish I could find out how far back it goes...
So there you have it. My brother and I have a surname that perfectly defines our heritage. Now we just need to figure out that whole leadership/successor of Muhammad thing...
My desire to figure this out once and for-all was sparked after reading "Are Jews Smarter" in New York(which I'll comment on later).
From time to time I like to Google my surname... here's an interesting story:
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/sokoly/Sok142.html
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| 11:18 PM |
I came across the biography of Abraham Kalifowitz today while searching for my family background. I found that he was in hiding during part of the war with my mothers family. I was wondering if your father might have any pictures of his ancestors from Sokoly, Poland that you could email me.
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Steven | 1:00 AM |
To sekada405@aol.com... your email address doesn't seem to work - AOL bounced my response back. I will gladly look for the photos though, and will post something here should I find something.
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| 5:59 PM |
Sorry its SEKADA45@aol.com- thanks
Does anyone know if Google or Yahoo offer a service where you can query your email account (that either of them serve) using SMS? The way that I can SMS Google a search term & they'll SMS me back the answers... (or the way I just MMS'd this question to my blog that you are looking at)?
Just now I was trying to dl an email to my phone in order to pull a phone number from it... But b/c of Cingular's crappy service, compounded by the rain, it couldn't connect...
As I write this email it occurs to me that this is a nifty feature they could even add to Google desktop - b/c I was thinking about how it may be potentially difficult for them to have already crawled & indexed my email... And how w/Google desktop - they've already done that!
And at this point, after thinking about this some more (while waiting extraordinarily long for a subway) I'm sure that they scan each email as it comes in, so that's not a problem either.
Either way, being able to SMS either one of those co's w/a query & being able to have my entire pc, server-based email, AND the Internet be searched is def. Something I'd pay for...
And w/all the talk earlier this week (prior to GOOG's release of their 10Q) of how GOOG needs to diversify their income stream b/c something like 94% of rev. comes from advert's... This is an easy one...
Which leads me to another thought (as this train crawls through the tunnel on my way to help out w/ NY Cares Day) - all week long, every would-be pundit (save for Jim Kramer, a genious in his own right) was talking about how GOOG was going to prob not have such stellar #'s b/c they rely too heavly on ad rev. I tend to agree that it's not a sustainable (or prudent, rather) course to be on. All they need is a slight downturn where co's advertise less & they're fucked (at least for that quarter). But GOOG came out w/great numbers and all of a sudden CNBC spends the whole next day talking about one thing & one thing only - how amazing GOOG is, how great being in the ad biz is, how new media is KILLING (not will kill, but has already killed) "old media"... Basically they had maybe one person sobering up everyone to remind us that what was being said not 24 hrs earlier was still true even though GOOG had a great quarter - that GOOG needs to start monetizing their many ventures & diversify their streams of rev. - in order to maintain their high P/E (which, btw was pointed out to be slightly lower than that of YHOO). Note: I love GOOG as a company & love how they don't pander (yet) to "the street". It just never ceaces to amaze me how the media jumps on whatever they perceive to be "hot" & because of how much they talk about smething, they make it an issue, when all they're doing is pushing their own fakakta ideas which usually are heavily flawed b/c they're far from experts. And CNBC takes it yet a step further by bringing on "experts" who get so enthralled by the limelight that they often ceace to be the "source" and quickly become part of the media machine... IMHO b/c CNBC brings the same people on - who get to enjoy a super-extended 15 min of fame... These people become regular "contributors" & don't want to be wrong, want to be invited back, so they say/do/act in whatever outlandish way they think will get them asked back... Thus their motivation changes...
Seeds of Peace Benefit - Please Come!!
Oct 19, 2005
Seeds of Peace invites you to Stand-Up for Peace
The Second Annual Comedy Benefit for Seeds of Peace
WHEN: Thursday, October 27th
8:00pm
WHERE: Gotham Comedy Club
208 West 23rd Street (between 7th -8th)
New York City
Hosted by David Wain (Stella)
Comedians Include:
Caroline Rhea The Caroline Rhea Show
Colin Quinn Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, Saturday Night Live
Susie Essman Curb Your Enthusiasm
Greg Giraldo Comedy Central, Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn
Robert Smigel Triumph Insult Dog, Conan O'Brien, Saturday Night Live
Demetri Martin Conan O'Brien Writer, Perrier Award Winner
Dean Obedeillah Saturday Night Live
Aziz Ansari Premium Blend, ECNY - Best Male Stand Up
Catie Lazarus ECNY - Best Comedy Writer
Tickets:
$30 in advance (click here to purchase online)
$40 at the door if available
Raffle Prizes include tickets to the taping of Conan O'Brien, Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, autographed DVDs, posters and much more!
100% of your proceeds go Seeds of Peace.
Tickets will go fast so please click here to purchase your tickets today!
We hope you can join us and please...forward this invitation so your friends can join us as well!
Questions? Call Nassim Majidi at (212) 573-8040 ext. 32 or email events@seedsofpeace.org.
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