Beyonce - I Was Here...

Okay... So everybody officially  has to see this video... (And yeah, I know I'm a last carrier)

Yes I'm very emotional, but this video brought tears to my eyes...

We're all gonna die someday... and when I die I want to know I lived my life to the full and did all I could to touch the lives around me and generally make the world a better place...

Download the mp3 format here...
Lyrics after the cut:

Do You Have a Good Name?

This got me thinking today.

Do I have a good name?

So now I'm asking you too... Do you have a good name?

What comes to mind when people think of you? Failed promises, debt, lies? Or Integrity, strong values?

Do people in a relationship have the right to go through each other's phones?

Now trending on my BB: "Wanna know if your girl is cheating? Snatch her phone and run away. If she beats Usain Bolt's record (while trying to get her phone back from you)... GUY, take heart - you're single!"

I have been thinking about this for some time now, and thought to hear what your thoughts are... What do you think?

Do people in a relationship have the right to go through each other's phones (mails, chats, facebook messages, texts, call records)?

The Real Genius of Steve Jobs

Insightful article by Malcolm Gladwell... Excerpts below:


The idea for the iPad came from an engineer at Microsoft, who was married to a friend of the Jobs family, and who invited Jobs to his fiftieth-birthday party. As Jobs tells Isaacson: "This guy badgered me about how Microsoft was going to completely change the world with this tablet PC software and eliminate all notebook computers, and Apple ought to license his Microsoft software. But he was doing the device all wrong. It had a stylus. As soon as you have a stylus, you’re dead. This dinner was like the tenth time he talked to me about it, and I was so sick of it that I came home and said, “Fuck this, let’s show him what a tablet can really be.”

********

In the nineteen-eighties, Jobs reacted the same way when Microsoft came out with Windows. It used the same graphical user interface—icons and mouse—as the Macintosh. Jobs was outraged and summoned Gates from Seattle to Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters. “They met in Jobs’s conference room, where Gates found himself surrounded by ten Apple employees who were eager to watch their boss assail him,” Isaacson writes. “Jobs didn’t disappoint his troops. ‘You’re ripping us off!’ he shouted. ‘I trusted you, and now you’re stealing from us!’ ”

Gates looked back at Jobs calmly. Everyone knew where the windows and the icons came from. “Well, Steve,” Gates responded. “I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.”

********

Read the full article on the New Yorker online here...

Word for Today - Translated

I get these devotionals in my email on a daily basis, and this one really touched me - so I thought to share it here... Read and be blessed:

Translated

Who hath...translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. Colossians 1:13

The Bible says Jesus has 'delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of [God's] dear Son.' The New King James Bible says, 'He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son.' In one version it says we were 'conveyed,' in the other it says we were 'translated.' Both translations are correct; each just gives us a different slant on the truth.

Let's look at each:

The Man named Koye - by Tosin Akingbulu

This is the picture Tosin refers to in this post :)

So, one of the best young writers I know - Tosin Akingbulu - wrote this for me on my birthday yesterday... I'm positively blushing!

"Koye-Ladele Mogbekeloluwa.

I hear his name called and I know it's the sound of greatness. The singsongness of it. But it's not just about the name, it's more about the man that bears it. He speaks wise, walks with confident strides, smiles bright.

I've only known Koye for a short while. Two years, at most. And he only became my friend few months ago. I don't know him well enough. I haven't had much interaction with him. By some folks' standard, I do not qualify to write stuff about him. But then, we get inspired even in the briefness of a comet's flash. The encounter, though brief, lingers long in one's mind. I have been inspired by the man named Koye and I would like to write about it.

Koye loves who he is. Everything about him. There is this photo of himself he uses as a display picture on his Blackberry phone. His hair is uncombed, his exposed teeth probably unbrushed - looks like he just woke up from a nap. But then he loves it. I have thus learned to stop hiding the terrible pictures I took in secondary school, where we carried buckets on our heads and wore oversized pinafores. He has taught me to love who I am, completely, without reserve.

Koye loves intensely. You need to see the way he carries on about his girl. Like she's the only girl in the world. He isn't fearful of the drills of loving a girl, the complications, the conflicts. He has opened up his heart, and exposed, taken a deep plunge into the depths of this phenomenon we call love, where only the brave dare to explore.

Koye loves people. He meets you with a charming smile and steals your heart. You just have to love who he is. High-spirited, a good conversationist, he is a great fellow.

And Koye loves God. I believe so. It's only when you love God that you can love who you are, and love others too. Agape things... He is a love being. He is someone who inspires me. He is a Zion breed. The man named Koye."

Awwww... Don't I just feel so loved right now? Thanks Tosin!!!

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Oya everybody should read and wish me happy birthday o!!!

**** 1 ****

I clearly remember my birthday in 2001. My joy turned to sadness as I pondered – innocently – why terrorists had chosen my birthday to wreak havoc on the United States. It was inconceivable to my young mind that I could celebrate life while others mourned loved ones – so I put away all thoughts of my birthday, and cried long and hard for people I did not even know.

On that day, eleven years ago – I suddenly knew what I wanted to do with my life was make the world a better place. Since that day, my thinking has been influenced – largely – by a strong sense of empathy. Michael Jackson could not have said it any better: Heal the world, make it a better place.

I look back today and know that I have come a long way since then – but the ‘what’ I happened upon that day has stayed constant over the years. While I now understand that this world will by nature tend towards evil, I believe strongly that there is yet a lot of good that can be done.

**** 2 ****

It's my Birthday Tomorrow!!!

Yaaaaay!!!

So it is my birthday tomorrow!!!

*dancing and shaking bombom*

We know what tomorrow holds...

Someone dropped a comment on an earlier post asking for the full words to this song, so I thought to provide it here... I can't find a link to download it, or I would add that too... Read, and be blessed! :)


Very much within me
Is the presence of the Lord
I can face anything
That ever comes my way
My light is bright and clear
I'm living by His Word
I know I can not fail

Tomorrow holds for me
Better things I know
(His) light is shinning on my path
I will rise and shine
(For) I have got the Light
Jesus is my light.

Ramblings on my Birthday

It is my birthday in another four days...and I thought to share the article I wrote for my birthday last year... Alert: every sentence is worth your time!

"It would be easy for my facebook friends who finished from Ife and were fellowship executive members to understand the thoughts that run through my mind as I write this.

There is this cornucopia of emotions that fills me to the brim and threatens to spill over, but I understand all this as being part of a 'transitional process' - one that has the capacity to launch me on a path to further greatness in God if 'optimized'.

Will Michelle Obama's Speech Change History?

If Barack Obama is re-elected on November 6, he will owe more to his first lady than any president ever to win a second term.

On Tuesday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, Michelle Obama gave one of the finest speeches ever delivered at a national political convention. More important, it could have more impact on the immediate future of the country than her husband's celebrated 2004 keynote.


Her speech tied the Obamas' personal stories directly to the lives of millions of voters struggling not to be the first generation of Americans unable to offer hope of greater opportunities to their children than they had, thus drawing a contrast with Mitt Romney as an unnamed but unmistakable caricature of privilege without shading her talk with negativity or animosity.

In fact the overall emotion, and there was far more real as opposed to rhetorical emotion than any speech at this level in memory, was a feeling rarely conveyed in our political language today -- love...


Read the full article here.

Boko-Haram destroys MTN and Airtel Masts

I read only today that Boko-Haram destroyed MTN and Airtel Masts in some parts of the North.

I'm struggling to understand the thinking behind these actions... Would someone please explain? Any one?

Word for the Week: As we go to work...

This morning, I read the most amazing passage of scripture during my devotion. I am a big fan of 'Our Daily Bread', as I grew up on a diet of the Word that revolved round them - and I have recently subscribed to receive daily devotionals by email.

If you have been to a Nigerian Civil Service office before, you can identify with the following scene:

It is 11am on a Monday. Members of staff are gathered in clusters, discussing the events of the past weekend - weddings, burials, football games. Others are eating from coolers, and yet others are reading newspapers. People from the public who need their services are outside in the reception, looking very frustrated - because you have to beg this breed of employees to do their own job!

The Bible says in Ephesians 6: 6, 7: not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart...with good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men

It turns out that God is interested in the quality of our service, whether it is work we're doing in the church, in a Bank, or in the Civil Service.

In words taken from the devotional: "no matter who signs your paycheck, you are really working for God."

Have a wonderful week people!

Mitt Romney's insensitive statement on Black people and Slavery

Er, did Mitt Romney really say this:

"I understand how difficult it can be for an African-American in today’s society. In fact, I can relate to black people very well indeed. My ancestors once owned slaves, and it is in my lineage to work closely with the black community. However, just because they were freed over a century ago doesn’t mean they can now be freeloaders. They need to be told to work hard, and the incentives just aren’t there for them anymore. When I’m president I plan to work closely with the black community to bring a sense of pride and work ethic back into view for them."

Source: Daily Post

If he did, then someone needs to shut his mouth for him.

Insights about Nollywood Movies, Funny...

Discovered the following insights about Nollywood movies somewhere online... Thought to share...


1. An actress can wear the same hair-do for more than a year, even in flashbacks.
2. In every romance movie, someone must die...
3. It is possible to hit a person without actually touching them!
4. Anyone who gets hit by a car dies immediately.
5. Poisoned food always tastes better.