Michael Scott

Goodbye Michael Scott and good luck.  Thank you for the memories.  We will miss you. Don't be a stranger.  You were the best boss ever.

Caveat Emptor

Tourists, beware: Proposed law would make it crime to buy knockoff goods - NYPOST.com

Honesty, this just strikes me as bizarre.  I suppose that purchasers will now need to conduct a full due diligence review on each product prior to purchase in order to ensure compliance.  Unfortunately, another case of regulation gone completely amuck.  Granted, I am not in favor of intellectual property infringement.  At least in my opinion, logic dictates that enforcement take place at the active infringer level (e.g., manufacturer or retailer), rather than by means of the consumer.

Inglourious Basterds

"As war rages in Europe, a Nazi-scalping squad of American Soldiers, known to their enemy as 'The Basterds', is on a daring mission to take down the leaders of the Third Reich."

Written in the classic Quentin Tarantino style of Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds does not disappoint.  The film is action packed, full of irony and occasional unexpected insertions, whether graphic or musical.

My conclusion: a bit gory, but incredibly done, and highly recommended.  If you have the stomach for a bit of gratuitous violence, it is a "DO NOT MISS" film.

New British Beer Is Laced With Viagra

A brilliant combination and possibly the ultimate "Beer Goggles".  I only wish that I had thought of it first.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/04/19/new-british-beer-laced-viagra/?test=faces

Poke The Box

I just completed reading Poke The Box by Seth Godin.  And, for you perverts out there (and you know who you are), NO, it is not what you think.

“Poke The Box is a manifesto about producing something that’s scarce, and thus valuable.  It demands that you stop waiting for a road map and start drawing one instead.  You know how to do this, you’ve done it before, but along the way, someone talked you out of it.”

Some people believe that if you say something enough times it will come true.

Written almost as a collection of related, but semi-free-standing blog entries with a casual conversational style, the book implores us to act, to start things and to finish them.  Take chances!  Be innovative!  Create the status quo!  Draw your own road map!  And repeat those statements again and again and again and again and again.

A quick easy read.  I recommend it and hope that some of you will go out there and start something (or at least repeat this post again and again and again and again and again).

George Soros On Change

A Humorous Except From:

Two George Soros Events Aim to Remake the Financial Order and the Media -- So Where's the Reporting? By Dan Gainor, Published April 06, 2011, FoxNews.com

Apparently, megalomaniacs need schedulers.

Just ask George Soros. The left-wing billionaire is helping fund two major conferences that start on the same day, in two different locations just a three hours apart by car. Two liberal events packed into one long weekend. God created the world in six days. Apparently, Soros, who sees himself as “some kind of god,”needs just a long weekend to start remaking today's world in his image.

The emphasis of both conferences is a familiar one to American voters – change. Soros wants to begin changing the global economy in one event. In the other, his flunkies want to “Change the world. Change the media.”

Now that is change you can believe in. Sadly, those who actually report the news must believe in it because they sure as heck aren’t reporting on Soros or either event. And that’s even though staffers or even executives from Reuters, the Financial Times, NPR, PBS, The Washington Post and other major media outlets are speaking at one event or the other.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/04/06/george-soros-events-weekend-aim-remake-financial-order-media-wheres-reporting/#ixzz1IpzdYMtt

Advice From The Doctor

"I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead and some come from behind.
But I've bought a big bat... I'm all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with ME!"

Dr. Seuss

Three Cups of Tea

I just finished reading Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.  A fantastic read about Greg Mortenson's amazing mission to promote peace and fight radical Islam through the establishment of schools, principally schools for girls, and humanitarian public works projects in northern and western Pakistan.  I find Mr. Mortenson to be  an incredible humanitarian.  I highly recommend the book and had a difficult time putting it down once I started.

I just ordered Greg Mortenson's second book, Stones into Schools, about his subsequent efforts to do the same in Afghanistan following the war with the United States.

Below is a link to a list of news articles regarding Greg Mortenson and his efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

www.threecupsoftea.com/media-and-press/articles/

Introduction To The Browniac

I am Robert Steven Brown, a founder and a Managing Director of New World Merchant Partners LLC, a corporate transactional advisory firm.  In the course of my work and my life I come across some interesting people, antecdotes, statements, and stories, which I feel should be expressed to someone or at least anyone who will listen, but which are somehow inappropriate for posting on my work blog (newworldmp.blogspot.com) or other blogs.  I hope that you find these little posts as humorous, interesting, or illuminating as I do.  Please feel free to post comments, whether or not offensive.

See my new profile at www.about.me/rsbrown.