The best segment from the entire two weeks of the conventions:

Here’s what I imagine happened a little while back:

bq.. _McCain Advisor #1_: Look we all know we are right on the policies, but we are doing a shitty job selling it to the Americans.

_McCain Advisor #2_: I know, but what can we do? Obama’s just a better salesman.

_McCain Advisor #1_: Well let’s change it up. Forget selling them on our position, we just need their vote. Once we’re in office, they’ll see that our position was right. We need someone that we can use to get limelight back on us. We need a VP that America can love.

_McCain Advisor #2_: Who do you got in mind?

_McCain Advisor #1_: Sarah Palin.

p. So lets get something straight. McCain’s camp truly believes they are the best people to run the country (I’d be scared if they didn’t), but they just weren’t convincing enough Americans. So the smartest guys in the room got together and came up with a new plan.

And in comes Palin. She’s the celebrity that the Republicans can use to battle against Obama. By throwing a VP candidate that no one was expecting or had really heard of, it threw all the media attention back to the Republicans. While Obama remains the darling of mainstream media, Palin has become the enigma. Everyone wants to find out more about her history, her views, her policies, everything. The Republicans are holding back interviews for as long as they can, and turning every statement about lipstick into a gender issue. They have to keep the focus on Palin and away from Obama. She needs to headline every news show.

Then while no one’s really looking at McCain, they start to deploy the next step – dilute Obama’s message. Slowly but surely McCain’s camp is taking Obama’s core message as their own. Now, McCain will become the agent of change and Obama will be “more of the same”. If both candidates are about change then the Republicans hope to make that point moot.

We’ve got less than 2 months to the election, so Republicans have to do their best to dilute the issues and keep the media on Palin. The debates will make it harder, but as long as they dangle interviews with Palin over the mainstream media frenzy they are in a good position. With the election around the corner, the Republicans have decided to do whatever it takes to win the White House. But who’s to say the Democrats don’t have something up their sleeves?

In the recent years, I’ve had trouble understanding why VCs are throwing their money away in foolish startups. I see some startups, with no real business model, getting more and more dollars for less and less results.

Take 5 minutes to read, “Plan B”:http://blogs.openforum.com/2008/09/09/plan-b-for-fund-raising/ by Guy. But then again, if you can fool some VC to invest in a useless product, why not stick with Plan A?

So the first homemade pizza came out a B-, but I can easily turn it around after remembering one thing; don’t overload a thin crust pizza with toppings.

Here’s a shot of the pizza:

And now the entire meal, including the homemade bread:

A recent find, I’m liking her music more with every song I hear. You can “listen to and buy her album” at the Amazon MP3 store.

Melanie was kind enough to tell me that this year was my best birthday ever. Had she not told me, I would’ve gone on ignorant of this fact.

I do have to say this year definitely ranks high though. Here’s a quick recap:

* Friday
** Bicycle ride with Melanie along the lakeshore
** Dinner with all at Thalia
** Back to Taruna’s for s’mores!
* Saturday
** Took most of the day to myself
** Evening out with the gang
* Sunday
** All day at Muneera and Kelly’s bbq with gang. (note: Kelly was an executive chef, so the quantity and quality of food at the bbq is unmatched! They made me a portobello sandwich with arugula on ciabatta bread with a blue cheese dressing…droool.)
* Monday
** Afternoon with Melanie to bid her farewell
** Dinner at Jayshree’s

Whew. Now you see what I mean.