Altered tastes?

I was listening to some music today and it got me thinking about my current taste in music. The genre I have been listening to is quite different to what I used to listen to back home. This got me thinking about whether my tastes in music have changed with my experiences in America, or whether I would have always liked this genre if I had given it a try before I got here. After all, the music I am currently listening to is not something I actively sought out, I heard it at parties and stuff and found that I like it. Its not like I don't like the music I used to listen to anymore, its just that I like the new stuff better.

This has got me wondering on whether the type of music a person listens to is a reflection of who the person is, as in something innate (born with a predisposition to one genre) - or is it a reflection of a person's experiences? Will I still like Oasis and Coldplay twenty years from now or would fresher experiences have altered my taste?

The best, the worst, the most memorable...

Its the time of the year again, the time when the list of the best and the worst and the most memorable and what not is released.

On list in particular caught my attention today and that is "The Top Ten Memorable Quotes of 2007", compiled by the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations. No. 1 just cracks me up (though there was nothing funny about the situation):

1. "Don't taser me, bro." - Andrew Meyer, a senior at the University of Florida, while being hauled away by campus police during a speech by Sen. John Kerry.
2. "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and Iraq and everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for us." - Lauren Upton, South Carolina contestant in the Miss Teen USA contest, when asked why one-fifth of Americans cannot find the U.S on a map.
   
   The video is on youtube. Click here to watch.
3. "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country." - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, speaking at Columbia University in New York.
4. "That's some nappy-headed hos there." - radio personality Don Imus, referring to the Rutgers University women's basketball team.
5. "I don't recall." - former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' repeated response to congressional questions about the firing of U.S. attorneys.
6. "There's only three things he (Rudolph Giuliani) mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11." - Sen. Joseph Biden, speaking during a debate for Democratic presidential candidates.
7. "I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating." - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, referring to Vice President Dick Cheney.
8. "(I have) a wide stance when going to the bathroom." - Sen. Larry Craig, explaining why his foot touched the foot of an undercover police officer in an airport men's room.
9. "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man." - Sen. Joseph Biden referring to rival Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.
10. "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." - Former President Jimmy Carter, referring to the Bush administration.

I noticed that there were no Bushisms on this list and I thought "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best; and what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense" should be on the list, but it turns out, this was said in 2006. I guess I can relegate it to the best quotes of the decade, for the sheer irony if nothing else, given that Rumsfeld was gone a couple months later. I guess he decided it was time for Rumsfeld to go.

While on Bushisms, my favorite so far is "I heard somebody say, "now, where is Mandela?" Well, Mandela is dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas".

What would we do without Bushisms? This is a talent....