Tarek Fahmy: Cultural Critic

Jef Bridges won an Academy Award for Best Actor last night (3.7.2010). After being previously nominated a total of 4 times, his fifth nomination netted him the much coveted golden statuette. Whether this was trully his best role or not, Mr. Bridges deserves this award. His longevity, smart career choices, and effective yet subdued acting style has garnered him a much respected reputation in Hollywood.

As a big time fan of Mr. Bridges, I congratulate him from the bottom of my heart and I wish him continued success.

Jeff Bridges

Facebook’s interface heavily utilizes icons. These icons are graphical shortcuts for navigational purposes. Instead of only using text links, Facebook depends on navigational pictographs to make the end-user’s experience easier and more user-friendly.

Facebook utilizes literal icons, the images literally describe the intended behavior. For example, the ‘Gifts’ icon is literally a gift and the ‘mobile phone’ icon is literally a mobile phone. The most important thing here is consistency across the board. All of these navigational icons have to be consistent site wide concerning their color, location, size, and font (where applicable). Aesthetically, the icons are a bit cartoony and the colors are pastel like. They are consistent, coherent, and well rendered.

Facebook also uses a family of similar icons. Since it’s a social networking site, the ‘Friends’ icon has many different variations and functions. There is ‘add a friend,’ ‘Suggest friends for him,’ and the regular ‘friend’ icon/link. They are all structurally similar with a little graphical spin off that suggest their differing function.

The end-user does not consciously think of these icons. They become second hand and in order for them to seep into the end-users psyche they must be consistent, communicative, and easy to understand.

I am big on fish. Tonight I went to the local Chinese market and bought the freshest whole fish that the fish monger suggested. It’s called Croaker fish and it’s a cheap salt water bottom feeder.

As a side I planned to cook for the first time Taiwanese bean thread noodles with veggies. The following PICS narrate in detail this latest kitchen adventure.

Conan O'brien

Conan O’Brien’s popularity was based on one important ingredient; he wasn’t a run of the mill host. He was ‘different,’ goofy, and original and his time slot during his impressive ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ run had a lot do with that.

The show started at 12:37AM and appealed to a segment of the population that was still awake (and stoned), expected weirdness, originality, and shock value (college kids, out of work folks, ‘weirdos’, and creatives).

After his move to replace the Doritoes guy (Leno), his time slot went back almost an hour. His show now started at 11:34 instead and with that comes a whole different market and a whole different sensibility. His main audience drastically changed. He had to adapt his schtick to Middle America in a sense and, to me, he lost that seeming ‘anti-Carson-Doritoes Guy’ image. As a result, his show became stale and Andy Richter’s presence (the Ed McMahon formula) did not really help at all!

O’brien was no longer Conan the ‘anti-host’ (Ala anti-hero). Self effacing and depracating humor no longer played a major role in his monologues. It did back in the day consistently as I recall. So did his complaints about his low budget etc. That was what appealed to me originally and NBC as well.

As a result of the ratings failure NBC decided to try to capture some of that ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ magic and move the show to a 12:05 slot. Too late NBC. That did not work and this marriage with O’brien was doomed to fail from the start. My 2 cents.

Since June of 2009 I have made a concerted effort to change my lifestyle. I quit smoking cigarettes and started to change my diet. Simply put, I stopped eating processed food like Gyro, hot dogs, cold cuts (Sopressata, sausage) pizza, etc. I started to eat natural unprocessed lean proteins like fish (wide variety) and chicken, white meat only. I also increased my vegetable intake and made sure to eat veggies during breakfast (in my eggs), during lunch (on my tuna fish or turkey sandwich), and during dinner with a huge delicious salad.

I also cut egg yolks. For me it made sense since my cholesterol was high and I needed to cut my fat intake. The egg yolk is filled with goodness and also filled with fat and cholesterol. If you are in shape and your cholesterol is low go ahead and eat them. For me, eating one egg yolk with 3 whites for breakfast has done me wonders.

My meals also increased from 2-3 a a day to 4-6 small ones a day. It feals like I am always eating but never stuff my face sort of speak. The majority of my meals do not exceed 350-400 calories. My dinner is double that easily.

Finally, I am more physically active. I go to the gym consistently and play sports at every opportunity. I led a ‘processed’ life for 17+ years and had to make a change. I hope this could help you as well. I’ve shed close to 40 pounds and feel more energetic and more creative then ever.

Good luck and happy new year.