Monday, July 13, 2009

Words heard over and over again in the radio land

As I have mentioned several times, my window to the outside is the NPR and I listen to it whenever possible. During the week, I listen to the following - Morning Edition while getting ready for the office, All Things Considered while driving back home, Fresh Air and The Story whenever I can. Over the past two weeks, I realised something really interesting and would like to share it with you.
There were some major events along with the usual suspects in the news. Even NPR seems to be obsessed these days with these events - after all its public radio that reflects the taste and mood of the public. I made a list of 10 words and phrases that I heard over and over again in the past two weeks. Twitter came in first ahead of Michael Jackson and California. I heard it in many different contexts - an entire snippet on the word itself, and over and over again in other serious and light hearted conversations. MJ came in second. He is as popular being dead, as being alive. People just can't get enough of the pop star. The Uighur uprising got a good share of coverage. Now they need a charismatic leader like the Dalai Lama to continue their cause. This was followed by California - 7th largest economy in the world issuing IOU's!! GM was mentioned as well; it came out of bankruptcy in just 38 days. Of course, the other usual suspects were the Middle Eastern countries, Afghanistan, North Korea, Obama, US congress and the economy. Roger Federer and Sampras concluded the list with the former making tennis history by winning his 15th grand slam event.
Here is the complete list of the words and phrases:

1) Twitter
2) Michael Jackson
3) Uighur minority
4) California
4) GM
5) Stimulus money
7) Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan
8) Obama
9) US congress
10) Federer and Sampras

Wednesday, July 08, 2009


I have to share this with you people. Honda Insight is the hybrid counterpart to Toyota's Prius. The whole concept of moving onto Hybrid is to conserve fuel and reduce impact of burning fossil fuel on the environment. There are so many initiatives taken by government and the auto industry to promote the use of hybrid. For example: On top of the savings you get from consuming less fossil fuel, you also get additional tax benefits for owning a hybrid - courtesy the US government. The picture to the left makes a mock of all these efforts. Its an advertisement for the Insight which is carried by an airplane or a glider(not seen in the picture). Burn unnecessary fuel to promote something that uses less fuel! Sometimes I don't get the marketing folks - Hello/Heaveno...What the hell (or heavens) were you thinking?
The picture was taken over Chicago downtown skies on July 3rd, 2009.

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