Why does bottled water have an expiration date?

I pretty much 100% agree with John's conclusion. But I'll still quibble a little bit about the Scripture he references. First the 1 John passage. If you read that passage in context I think it's pretty clear that it's not talking at all about decision making. Rather, it seems to me it's related to a challenge to love. He's saying, love each other - that's how you know you're living within God's will. Again, nothing about decision making. I think looking at John 14 reinforces this - it's the passage where Jesus leaves us peace not as the world gives. That promise comes after a section where he tells his disciples to love him and obey his commands. I think both passages are saying the same thing - if your life is marked by loving him and obeying his commands, you'll have peace. But it's a stretch I think to say it's talking about making particular decisions. It seems much more to be a life thing.

As for the Philippians verse, I think it's key that it doesn't say that we'll get peace as some indicator. That if we present our requests to God, we will find peace and that peace will indicate which path to take. It just says, present your requests to God, and you'll find peace, period. I think the point is, if you submit your anxieties to God's will, you'll find peace. Again, I think it's a lifestyle thing, not a decision making thing. And this is also reinforced by verse 9 of that chapter where he says if you put what you've learned into practice, you'll find peace. It's a lifestyle thing, not a particular decision making thing.

So yeah, John, I agree with you, I think pretty much it's peace after a decision, not to make a decision. And I still don't think that Scripture talks about peace with decision making - just peace as it relates to lifestyle. But anyway.

The other problem I have is distinguishing between peace and/or being content with complacency. I dunno, maybe you can comment on that.

I once went to this Korean job fair with Dave, dunno if that's the right word, but all these Korean related companies were there. That's where we met that guy from Click2Asia, this super slick guy who annoyed me. Anyway, since then I've randomly checked in on Click2Asia from time to time.

Dude, now it's a Asian singles site. That's a huge turnaround. At the time they were trying to be like the Yahoo of Asian sites or something. Then I think they were some media thing. Now a singles site? Weird.

I think I've said this before but the thing I dislike most about Jesse Jackson - and there's a lot to dislike - is that he pretends to be on the side of minorities, at least implicitly by the name Rainbow Coalition. Please. He's all about African-American issues, and could care less about anything else. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just call it what it is.

So here's my question. American Pastoral has a similar story about how a neighborhood gets more black and the whites leave in the name of safety and the blacks just call it racism. My question is, why is it that it becomes less safe? Is there an objective way to answer this without being racist?

Dunno if you care, but me, Eric and Arthur have been working on a Bhnanzza computer game. Uh, if you don't know the card game you won't care. But anyway, it's at a stage now where it's almost playable. All the game elements are there except finishing a game. The game will just end, but you have no idea. But whatever, we're close.

We played last night the 3 of us and Dave Hong and it was pretty fun. Anyway, I've made UI changes that make it much better. So, yeah, not sure if anyone cares, but the project page is here. Check out the install instructions on how to install. And lemme know if you have questions.

My guess as to why it's a *Miss* America pageant - when they started, they wanted virgins. I dunno, there's still this aspect of "wholesome" beauty and I think as part of that they would have wanted virgins. Not to say that they were all virgins. Who knows. But if you're married, you definitely know. I dunno, that's my guess.

A riddle. The answer's on the web so I suppose if you don't want to even try you can look it up. I'll post the answer in a couple days.

Chicken McNuggets can be purchased in quantities of 6, 9, and 20 pieces. You can buy exactly 15 pieces by purchasing a 6 and a 9, but you can't buy exactly 10 McNuggets. What is the largest number of McNuggets that can NOT be purchased?

If I ever said Craig Kilborn is funnier than Conan O'Brien I repent in dust and ashes. I think I once said I find him funny, but yeah, there's no comparison. Conan was hilarious. Kind of a rough start, and the audience wasn't as into him as I was, but good stuff.

So I saw Autumn Fairy Tale, this Korean drama that John got for me. I'm sorry, but I don't get Korean dramas. This one in particular was creepy - as allegedly with all Korean dramas, this centers on a love triangle, but this particular one involves an incestuous relationship. I dunno, I felt gross the whole time and had to take a shower and say 3 Hail Marys afterwards.

Anyway, it was apparently a 16 episode series that they whittled down to 140 minutes. Which meant two things. One, the story made no sense, because they'd leave these long parts out. If Jieun hadn't already seen it and explained what was going on to me, I would have been totally lost. Two, being condensed, the "crying" parts came about once every 10 minutes. By crying parts I mean the parts where the audience is supposed to cry. You can tell which these are because the actors are crying. Those Korean actors, even the child ones, boy can they cry. But yeah, it did nothing for me. But Jieun was crying, full on sobs, every 10 minutes. It was getting a little ridiculous at the 1:30 point, but yeah, it got to her.

I've mentioned this before but I'm a huge John Bogle fan. I read one of his books on investing and as far as I'm concerned, it's all I need to know. Anyway, he recently made a speech on reversion to the mean that I highly recommend. The financial advice is valuable enough. But again, I'm pretty sure he's Christian, by the small remarks he makes. Let me quote one section:

In a temporal sense, the all-market portfolio is consistent with the spiritual argument about the existence of God put forth by Pascal three centuries ago. If you bet God is, you live a moral life at puny cost of giving up a few temptations. But that's all you lose. If you bet God is not and give in to all your temptations, you're forever damned. Consequences, Pascal concluded, must outweigh possibilities. Similarly in the stock market, if you bet the market is efficient and hold the market portfolio, you'll earn the market's return. But if you bet against it and are wrong, the consequences could be painful. Why would you run the risk of losing, perhaps badly, when the market return, earned by so few over the long-run, is there for the taking?

"the reason people hate us, as tom friedman puts it, is they wake up one day and realize that some part of what they consider very important to the identity either as an individual or as a culture is suddenly stripped away. and it sucks because there's nothing they can do about it. and they realize that basically the reason is because of globalization."

I 100% agree with this, and I think that's why people hate us. I'm a huge free trade guy. It's not that I'm against so much as America imposing our culture on others (a la Lay's in Holland).

Anyway, isn't that happening in America also? I thought that was a big theme of You've Got Mail (a movie I hated). Neighborhoods losing their sense of identity and flavor as they get invaded by the cookie cutter stores of huge corporations. I think that kind of sucks also, but what can you do? What's the cause of that? It can't be globalization. Consolidation? I dunno. But yeah, I think it's happening on a few levels, not just internationally.

I read some more about it and I think I'm more anti war with Iraq. I disagree with Scott - I think there exist good reasons for war. And I disagree with Dave, I don't think the critical issue is that Iraq is linked with Al Qaeda. I think the issue is that Hussein is a loose cannon, upredictable. He has had chemical and biological weapons before (probably does still) and has used them - his willingness to use such means already distinguishes Iraq from other rogue states. And if he were in fact to obtain nuclear weapons, who knows what would happen. I think that's the point. You would expect a country not to risk certain things, but with him, you never know.

But I disagree with Henry in that non-war people are just non-war. I think there are prudent reasons why war with Iraq right now in particular would be a bad idea. There's no support for it internationally, and we risk a lot pursuing war without that. It may give Arab nations more reason to hate us. I don't buy Tom Campbell's "they already hate us" thing. I don't think hate's a binary proposition. There's levels of hate that makes you dislike, hate that make you protest, and hate that might lead you to something more radical. Risking alienating Arab nations even more in light of a non-immediate threat seems more risky to me than removing that threat.

More troubling to me is that war with Iraq doesn't have support from some critical players even in this nation - notably Colin Powell and reportedly the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That's worrisome to me. Also, as Newsweek was saying, while Hussein is already a loose cannon, who knows what he would do if his back were up against the wall in a war. He might disperse his weapons to Al Qaeda, something which right now is just a remote possibility, because, why not? What would he have to lose?

So my only semi-informed opinion right now is that there are both reasons for and against war with Iraq but the negatives outweigh the positives, and might in fact put our country at greater risk. Just my opinion.

How does this situation change short of an attack on Pearl Harbor? I guess that's my question. And I have no idea.

I'm rooting for Notre Dame now also, and caught some of the Michigan game. Dunno why Willingham feels different than Gruden, who everyone hates. What's the difference? Who knows.

Honestly, I have an easier time being excited about Big-10 football than Pac-10. It's just with football. I'm still of course a huge Stanford football fan first. But in general... I dunno, I was raised watching Ohio State football and it's a part of me. I'm pretty excited about the Buckeyes this season. Especially their running back. OSU has had a lot of great backs and receivers come through. Seems a good team this year.

So yeah, I'd say my loyalties right now go Stanford, then OSU, then Notre Dame, then Big-10, then Pac-10. If anyone cares.

They should have college basketball fantasy pick'em. That would be insane.

A random vignette from my honeymoon.

So in Tahiti, we watched a few World Cup games in our hotel, including the final. And at the end of that game, one (or a few) of the Brazilians were wearing this T-shirt that said like, I love Jesus or I live for Jesus or something like that.

While we were in Vegas, we saw a Tonight Show with a rare appearance by Arethra Franklin. Anyway, she sang "Freeway" and at the end, she went off gospel style about Jesus, how we all need him, he's our freeway (whatever that means), and so forth.

I dunno, both things really encouraged me a lot. I probably have nothing in common culturally with either of those people. But I rightly feel a strong connection and kinship with them. And to me, that's an amazing thing about the gospel. How it makes family members beyond so many barriers. It's a good feeling.

This is in response to Dan Kim, who I doubt reads this but still.

I can't believe I'm so old (or he so young) that I remember (and he doesn't) why laptops are named why they are. Henry could probably explain better. But yeah, they used to have things called "portable computers". They were basically desktop sized boxes with a handle, and a keyboard that pops out to reveal a tiny screen. Ooh, found a picture. Compaq made these, I think that's how they got big. As did Televideo, which our church had.

Anyway, those things were called portable computers, which is why laptops couldn't be called that. And yeah, I'm guessing desktops were already called desktops (vs. portable, back in the day when people still had computers sitting on desks). So, laptop makes sense. And then when they got lighter they called some notebooks, to distinguish again. I can't believe I'm old to remember the nomenclature happening, and that someone else doesn't. Depressing.

Also, sorry, but if they won an Oscar, there's no way you can say they were underappreciated. If you ask me, an underappreciated role was Jason Scott Lee in Dragon. Just the physicality of the part. The way he's stiff in his fighting early on and more fluid later, as per Bruce's philosophy. And his accent. Any time I pull out that accent (pretty often), it gets huge laughs. How he did it, convincingly, and with a straight face... that deserves something.

I had a realization about GreX. So I've visited a few times for random reasons, and I remember one of the first times, something didn't sit right with me about what was being said. There was just all this talk about how this is a church for Silicon Valley and SV is this way and whatever. I thought they were missing something. I mean, I grew up in Silicon Valley, and it's not like they were describing. Their description was like what people thought of SV, not what SV is really like.

So I visited again and talked to another friend who grew up around here and realized something. Again, there was talk about how Silicon Valley is that seems contrary to my experience. What I realized is, for SV transplants, that is how Silicon Valley is. And the church is full of transplants. And not just in the church - SV is full of transplants. And for them, yeah, SV is as it's described. So in a sense, I don't really know SV because I grew up here. At least, it blinded me to something. That this description of SV isn't just an outsider's superficial view. For a lot of people here now, it's their actual experience. Dunno if that makes sense. But yeah, it was an epiphany for me.

Is anyone else a little scared about tomorrow? I am. But God is in control.

Is that punch or sangria? For some reason, I'll always think of the class of 2001 as underage.

The first season of the Simpsons isn't that bad. Some of the episodes are pretty funny. But yeah, just started going through the second season DVDs and it's a world of difference. Both in terms of animation and story. It has some classics, including "How To Cook For Forty Humans" and "Hi, this is Larry King. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Still not the best season, but yeah, it's pretty good.

Anyway, random Simpsons trivia gleaned from a commentary: every time there's an establishing shot of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, you hear a crow. I never noticed that.

Henry, did you read the Gary Condit story in the last Esquire? I thought it was fascinating. Condit was a great politician. Good at what he did, faithful to his district, and politically integrous. His downfall was his only weakness - sex. And that overshadowed all the good he did. So sad.

The Royal Tannenbaums: 1.5 stars. Maybe one star. I hated it. I read some reviewers and a lot expressed it exactly - I've never seen a movie that was so sure of itself that held me as such a distance. While watching, I never had any doubt that the director knew exactly what he was doing. And at no point did I know what that was, nor did I care. But anyway.

So Darlene, random advice that you probably don't want. But how about considering where you can serve also? I dunno, it's probably obvious so you left it unsaid, but yeah, just a reminder. I dunno, I just think this modern consumer attitude in regards to church in society today is counterproductive to personal growth. Is that bold? I dunno, my claim. So yeah, you could get tK's teaching and Village praise but if that's all you got, I don't think you'd grow at all. You'd stagnate. You gotta serve.

You don't want to take it to John Yoon proportions (serving is everything) but yeah, I think it's important. Again, not that she didn't say it was, just, a reminder.

Jieun doesn't get mad that I'm racist. She gets mad that I use the term "racist". What I actually am, she says, is "prejudiced." As long as I use the right term, all is forgiven.

Random fact about me: I loved junior high. Unequivocably, completely loved it. I look back on junior high with a lot of fondness. I think this is unusual. I think a lot (most?) people see junior high as a time of angst or pain or conflict or whatever. But not me.

I think the reason is, junior high is when I realized that you don't have to be "cool" to be liked, successful, and have a good time. I think in elementary school I was always a little bitter that I wasn't "cool". But that changed in junior high. I'll be honest - a big reason for that was the realization that nerds could have girlfriends. Revolutionary, I tell you.

Actually, maybe the biggest factor was band. I dunno, when I think about it, my experience in jazz band probably changed my life in a lot of ways. But yeah, we were really successful and we had a lot of fun. And in certain ways, things were flipped - like the "cool" people in band somewhat admired me, which was a shocking little surprise. So yeah, we were successful and had fun, and that's when I realized, who needs to be "cool"? And I think I've been rejecting being cool ever since.

So yeah, for me, in contrast to a lot of people, junior high helped solidify my character, not confuse it. Random fact.

So I have this theory. I think that a lot of girls, I'm going to say the majority of girls, like self-confidence in guys. The thing is, and this is just my opinion, but the guys who are most self-confident tend to be jerks. Or at least jerky. Frequently non-Christian. Anyway, this makes a lot of sense to me and explains a lot. In particular, why girls go for jerks all the time. Self confidence.

The thing I hate most about Episodes I and II - and everyone's said this already but I'll say it again - is the cute self referential stuff. Stuff that's unbelievably coincidental; it's just basically throwing a bone to the fanboys. Like the Greedo thing. And the fact that Darth Vader made C3P0. It's just too coincidental, and it makes no sense. But whatever, there are a lot of things I hate about the movies. This just happens to be the thing I hate most.

One of my favorite columns by the Sports Guy. Required reading for those of us that watched all 3 Karate Kid movies. Incidentally, I saw KK3 as part of a double bill with UHF. Not a joke.

Why can't heaven and heavenlies be synonyms? Like humility and humbleness?

Did you know mosquitos kill more people worldwide in 5 minutes than sharks do in a year? And that greater Houston is larger than Israel? And that Korea's largest paper (I believe the Chosen Ilbo) has a larger daily circulation than the Wall Street Journal?

Sources: San Jose Mercury News, www.houston2012.org, 2002 Top 10 Lists of Everything.

Oops, I should have clarified what I meant by the Julia Roberts comment. I meant it's like the Julia Roberts thing, not that it is the Julia Roberts thing. The Julia Roberts thing is, she knows she's attractive (arguable, but whatever, people (not me) find her attractive) so she knows she can get attention. The cute thing is, girls think they can get attention by acting "cute". Does that kind of make sense? JR thinks she can get attention by virtue of being attractive, some girls think they can get attention by acting "cute". And as far as the cute girls go, I think they're wrong.

It's definitely not just an Asian thing, though. At least if Blind Date is any indication.

Here's another pet peeve of mine. It's when people do something blatantly sinful, or maybe not even blatantly, but generally accepting as being sub-optimal, and then they get mad at others for being judgmental of them. Granted, I think having a judgmental heart is among the most dangerous of sins, but geez. It's almost like they're tempting us to be judgmental. And isn't that worse? You know being judgmental is bad. Doesn't the Bible say something about not causing your brother to sin?

It's obviously not always like this. Almost always, people just sin, or not even sin, but just act, because that's what they do. But I'm telling you, there are certain times it feels like someone's tempting you, daring you to be judgmental in the way that they act. And I don't get it.

Here's what a friend said, and I'm inclined to agree. It's not that there are dealbreakers that keep you from liking someone. It's more, you don't like someone, and therefore there are dealbreakers. If that makes any sense. Just, the way things happen is, you start liking someone and because of that, you're willing to overlook the potential "dealbreakers". It's not that you become willing to overlook them and thencefore like them.

But then again, that's just my own experience. Everyone's different.

Another conversation I had with a couple friends. It's in regards to girls that act "cute". By "cute" I mean acting really girly. Or more accurately, like a little girl. I think it's kind of like the Julia Roberts thing, just, the mindset that by acting "cute" they can get attention.

So a female friend of mine was bemoaning the fact that guys fall for this stuff. That they love it when girls act like little girls. Here's a newsflash - they don't. Or at least, my guy friends don't. A friend of mine put it this way - a very very select few can get away with it. But the rest that act that way are just annoying. I'd put it more strongly - it's always annoying. I dunno, maybe a few guys fall for it, but I don't think for long. If you act like a little girl, you'll get treated like a little girl.

So yeah, the cute thing - annoying.

Is it possible to be consistently inconsistent? Meta.

I was also tepid on Shallow Hal. I just thought it was kind of boring. My dad loved it though. The interesting thing is the things that Dave thought interesting, I thought banal. The whole Mauricio character, the tired insecure male stereotype. I hated when he says to look at his poop. That's interesting? Could it be any more trite?

I also dislike when Hollywood overdoes the downtrodden thing. Every single person in the film who's unattractive in real life is attractive on the inside (except Mauricio). They're all kind and good and successful and full of life and giving and selfless and etc. Please. Some people who are ugly on the outside are ugly on the inside also. Why do they all have to be superexemplary people? And why are all superexemplary people ugly?

It plays it both ways in both directions - saying ignore the outside while making fun of fat people, but also using outward beauty to show what's supposedly on the inside. Yeah, I guess there's no other way to do it, but I dunno.

Whatever, in the end, it was OK. I just thought it was slow. Plus I hate Gwyneth Paltrow.

If you ask me, and maybe I'm stating the obvious, but I think the whole point of Proverbs 31 is that beauty is secondary - it's character that matters. So to me, it's just as sinful to reject someone solely for their "beauty" as to pursue someone solely for the same reason. Either way, it's just focusing on physical attributes. And that's the sin.

You know why I say Jieun's beautiful all the time? And I'm 70% serious about this reason. Someone in the Bible when it talks about marriage it says something about how men are supposed to present their wives as beautiful brides. Something like that. And you know, that's talking about something spiritual. But I don't understand the spiritual part. But I dunno, I think there's something to that. I think it's somewhat important for husbands to let their wives know that they think they're beautiful. Not make them vain, but just let them know. I dunno, just my opinion.

Anyway, I realized something recently. I mean, I've always realized it but I get friendly reminders. I think Jieun's the only person in the world that can handle who I am. I'm not saying this to be humble. It's true. But yeah, anyone else, I don't think they could stand me. So I'm pretty lucky.

So we were wondering recently why so many streets in Sunnyvale have women's names. Mary, Maude, Mathilda, Evelyn, etc. We developed a theory. So as you may or may not know, one of the early settlers of the area was this guy named Martin Murphy (hence Murphy St in "downtown" Sunnyvale). I read this at the Sunnyvale main post office. So our theory was that Evelyn was his wife, and Mary, Maude, and Mathilda were his daughters.

After a little web research it turns out that Mary and Mathilda were his twin granddaughters. So we were close. But no clue who Maude and Evelyn were. Or Lawrence.

Also interesting - Murphy bought his land from the Castros of Mountain View, hence Castro St. Interesting, no?

I'm convinced that the housing market in Silicon Valley is going to cool down. Maybe it's wishful thinking. But here's why.

• Supposedly, downturns in the stock market are historically followed after some time by downturns in the housing market
• A Bay Area study said there's a disconnect between housing prices and rent prices - they don't correlate. Either housing prices are going to come down, or rent prices are going to go up. I'm betting on the first.
• The Mercury was saying how a lot of people have been defaulting on their home loans. They keep their houses by refinancing, something like that, that's based on their equity in the home. But this is all sustained by rising housing prices. Which seems to me like a bubble situation.

I had a vivid dream last night in which I watched Star Wars Episode III. 1 star. Totally slow until the last half hour, and even then there wasn't much light saber work. And it left a ton of stuff unresolved between the end and Episode IV.

Newsweek had this article on blogs and they noted how they general fall into three categories. Interestingly, I have all three. There are list pages (like jack.html), short entry pages (like short thoughts) and long pseudo-philosophical ones (like mymind). I dunno, I just thought that was interesting.

I often wonder if my friends would still be my friends if they knew the extent of my sins in the past. Or the extent of my sins now.

So Joe says he's been using jackcheck like crazy to find out about the road trip. I dunno if I have time to do the recaps. I'm counting on Dave to do it. But anyway.

I think it's a measure of the type of man John is that the things we make fun of him for are actually high compliments. We make fun of him for being overly serving. And for only being interested in spiritual things. I dunno, those are pretty awesome things to be ridiculed for.

So on the trip, maybe it's just me that felt this way, but John seemed slightly out of it, or not fully into everything we were doing. Just not as excited about things. Plus he sprained his neck or something. The funny thing is, when we got to talking about church and spiritual things, he got incredibly animated and excited. His whole posture changed and he got super chatty. I dunno, it was funny to me. That's John for you. The only thing you can make fun of him for is for being holy.

That and his body odor. So, according to third party sources, when John was at James Rd., our room smelled terrible. After he moved out and Eric moved into the room, it didn't smell nearly as bad. You do the math.

Me and Jieun had a dining experience last night so unreal, that you won't believe me when I tell you about it. I dunno, maybe it's boring, but whatever, it was unreal.

Basically we had the best sushi we've ever had. That's no understatement. It was almost beyond belief. But the experience was utterly bizarre.

So this place is just a guy and his wife, and they generally don't serve new customers. Sounds weird, but that's how it is - if you want to eat there, you have to come with someone who's been there before. The sign on the door always says closed, and there are no hours of operation listed. Along with a sign that says they reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. If you're a regular, it's always open; if you're not, it's always closed.

Anyway, I read about this place on the Net and wanted to try it but wasn't sure if we could get in. But we went anyway. The sign said closed, but there were people inside. So I made Jieun ask if they were closed. I do this a lot, because Jieun is attractive, and people are more receptive to her. I've just found this to be empirically true.

So there are tables there, but they're all empty - everyone's sitting at the bar. And when Jieun comes in to ask when they're open, everyone stops eating and stares at her. And the guy gives some strange answer like, it depends on who it is. And he asks if we've been there before, and if someone told us to come there, and that it's very expensive. He basically wants to kick us out. But with Jieun's charm and whatever, and our assurances that we can pay for it, we manage to get seated.

So, I dunno if you've seen the soup Nazi episode on Seinfeld, but it was exactly like that. We spent the entire meal in fear, just wanting to stay on his good side. Extremely stressful. There's no menu there, and no prices listed. You just tell him some preferences and he chooses what to serve you. Again, you're afraid to ask for anything, lest you get on his bad side.

But the food - incredible. Everyone else there (except one couple) was Japanese or Japanese-American. And they all seemed to be friends or something, like members of a cult. I dunno, it all added up to me being totally excited about just being there, managing to get in. Anyway, the people there wouldn't stop talking about how good the sushi is. This one Japanese guy was saying how it's one of the best places on the West Coast. He said there are some comparable places, one in LA and one in San Diego. And that it's better than almost anywhere in Tokyo, and he proceeded to name the handful of places in Tokyo that are better.

It sounds crazy, but it was that good. Totally hard core place - no salad or soup or anything like that, just incredible sushi. And in the end, he just charges you what he feels like. And it's insanely expensive. But I dunno, it was the best sushi I've had.

So Jieun thought as soon as we got there that based on his accent he was Korean, not Japanese. Despite the fact that he was only speaking English and Japanese, even to his wife. But I didn't want her to ask. Because you know, if you ask a Japanese person if they're Korean, that can be insulting. And I'm telling you, the whole time we were just in fear, not wanting to get on his bad side. It was exactly the soup Nazi. So I didn't want Jieun to ask.

But at the end of the meal she managed to make some small talk and asked him where his hometown was from, and she was right - he was Korean. He and his wife. I dunno, that was kind of interesting. We didn't bust out Korean there, didn't want to embarrass him in front of his Japanese guests or anything, but yeah. I later found some Web page in Japanese about the place and Jieun said it referred to him as being Korean so I guess it's not a secret. Just interesting.

Anyway, I'm torn. If we want to go again I feel like we have to go soon so he remember us. Everyone there was a regular - he only has regulars - and some come once a week. The thing is, it's insanely expensive. Insanely so. But if we don't go again somewhat soon, we might not ever be able to get in again. And again, it's the best sushi I've ever had in my life. So yeah, dilemma.

Anyway, I can't tell you what the name of the place was or where it is. If you tried to go and it got back that we told you about it, he might not let us in again. And I can't risk that. Sorry. But anyway, yeah, the most bizarre dining experience I've ever had.

Watched Signs with Jieun and Leo: 1.5 stars. Actually, the New York Times review pointed out some things I missed... I think I'll upgrade to 2 stars. But yeah, I dunno, it's feeling like the directors of 2 of my favorite movies, Shyamalan and Darabont, are turning out to be one shot wonders. But I'm still holding out hope.

There's a great deal at Blockbuster right now if you don't have Netflix. They give you 10 rentals, no more than 1 per week, and to be used by like 2003 or something, for $25, and they throw in the Lord of the Rings DVD for free. That's incredible. 10 rentals alone are normally like $40, and the movie I'm sure you can't find for less than $15. It's a pretty good deal.

I had a big revelation recently. Actually, two revelations. One, I realized that flakes don't realize they're flakes. It's something I just now understand. But yeah, I have a few friends, and they're good friends and everything, but when they say they're going to do something, you know there's just a 50/50 chance that it's actually going to happen. Whatever, they're good people and all, but they're flakes.

What I didn't realize until recently was that they have no idea that they're flakes at all. It's shocking, but yeah, no clue that they're consistently flaky.

Here's the bigger revelation I had: I'm one of them. I'm a flake. And even after seeing that flakes don't know they're flakes, it took me a while to realize that I am myself. Now that I know, that's gonna change. I dunno, I just hope I can become someone whose word is solid. But yeah, life-changing revelation. It was Sixth Sense-esque.

There was a challenge brought up in small group a while ago that was pretty humbling. Basically it was saying that if you're thinking about being a missionary, you should consider how well you're evangelizing here. Because if you're not doing it well here, how likely is it that you're gonna do it well in a strange place in a different language? I dunno, maybe you disagree, but it's something to think about. Like I said, pretty humbling for me.

John's last entry was interesting to me because it had these subtly conflicting ideas. Not fundamentally conflicting, but just in a subtle way. On the one hand, he bemoans how Korea is becoming less innocent. And how he likes how Korea was a few years ago, more innocent, and - though not explicitly - more Christian. He doesn't just say it was more moral. He says it was better for him spiritually.

And then on the other hand, he doesn't like the "Southern Baptist Bible Belt influence" in Dallas. How it turns people off. I dunno, did it ever occur to him that the "moral" environment he liked so much in Korea might have turned some people off when they saw the hypocrisy there? But of course, I'm speaking out of my butt; I know nothing about Korea. I just think it's interesting that he wants society to be more Christian, but doesn't like it in places where Christianity is a dominant culture, where the hypocrisy is more evident.

And I do think what John wants is a more Christian society, not just a more moral one. Because of the way he says Korea was a good spiritual environment. And, I dunno, there are places like China that are superficially innocent and kind of fit John's moral thing. But in reality, it just masks a shocking amorality.

I'm not even sure what I'm saying anymore. I guess it's just, you can't have both. If you want society to be more Christian, when it becomes cultural you get more visible hypocrisy. And a society that's more "moral", without Christian influence, is I think a worse thing.

It turns out that neither my mother nor father have ever cussed in any language in their lives either. Interesting.

Believe it or not, I'm not that against getting rid of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Just, it wasn't originally in the pledge, it was added about 50 years ago. So it's not a critical, original part of it. And, I dunno, I just feel like if we're pressuring places like India to be more open of religion, we need to practice what we preach. Granted, we're light years more open than them, it's just, I dunno, I feel like we should be treat minority religions (and I guess even atheism) here as we would want Christianity treated in other places. Because I strongly believe that given open and equal access, Christianity will succeed on weight of truth.

The face of Teach For America: Marshall Cho.

Golfer K.J. Choi is a member of my dad's church in Houston.

A friend of mine has a 1/2 year old baby and we went to visit him. Anyway, they had made a scrapbook and it includes newspaper clippings from the day he was born. I was looking at one and it had a report of how Stanford beat Oregon in men's basketball. And there it was, preserved for posterity in his scrapbook. That made me happy.

I don't see how you can get the point of Pleasantville and find it repetitive. The whole point is that society's fear of all these different types of things is rooted in the same cause. A fear of change; a desire to keep things "pleasant". How else do you make that point? But whatever, I'm tired of defending the movie. I like it, but no one else has to.

One of these days I'm going to actually figure out the exact ranking of my top 10 movies. I think there might be 7 movies in my top 5; 15 in my top 10. I think top 5 right now is Shawshank, It's a Wonderful Life, Pleasantville, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, and the Matrix. Titanic is probably #6. Not that anyone cares.

My dad led a revival in San Jose last week. Ohms saw his picture on some poster at a Korean restaurant. Random. Anyway, the theme of it was happiness. One thing he said was, Christians are supposed to be happy. This is clear from Scripture. And, we spend so much time thinking and arguing about commands that are unclear or vague in Scripture. Which isn't bad. But why not spend more time on commands that are clear? And be happy?

It reminded me of a discussion we once had in small group. The idea came up that joy and happiness are two different things. And that Christians are supposed to be joyful always, but that doesn't mean being happy always.

I'm not sure I agree with that. I dunno, it kinda sounds nice, but I'm not entirely certain that's an idea in the Bible. Is it? I think I tried looking up a little there and it seemed to me there were verses that commanded us to be happy in the Lord, not just joyful. And in any case, I'm not sure if I found anything from the Bible that said you can be joyful without being happy.

So yeah, I might be wrong about this, since I haven't looked into it too much. But my current belief is that yeah, you can be happy without being joyful. But I don't think you can be joyful without being happy. I dunno, my claim.

Let me write about this argument me, John, and Henry once had. Wong was there, maybe he can give some insight into it because I can't completely remember it. We had just finished watching Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. Talk about an innocent movie. The main character (bride) gets pregnant and it's an absolutely stunning development because there's no indication at all that they've come close to any activity that's necessary for procreation. Seriously, it's not even clear they've shared the same bed. But somehow, that happens.

I think it's related but yeah, John started talking about how he loves that time when everything was so innocent and there was less sin. Something like that. Which I think got Henry enraged. It doesn't take much to get Henry enraged. Especially where John's involved. Anyway, he objected to the idea that there was less sin in those days.

He was just saying how there may have been less public sin, but there was more private sin. And whatever, that's fine. But then he (Henry) takes it further, and says that there was more total sin in those days. I dunno if he was doing it to be annoying, but this enraged me. Not the claim, because whatever, it's debatable. But he was saying it in such a way that it was obvious logically that there was more total sin in those days as compared to now.

Argh, I don't want to get into it again, it's making me angry. But yeah, I was right. Can't remember what side it was, but I do know that Wong, the impartial third party, was more compelled towards my side. Mostly because Henry didn't justify himself at all. But anyway, yeah, that's an argument we once had, just writing about it because John kinda brought it up.

A pretty big fan of Pleasantville? You gave it 2.5 stars, maybe 3.

Saw Minority Report: 4.1 stars. I thought it was well made and somewhat thought provoking, but I kind of disagreed with the thoughts it provoked. And actually, the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. But it was still really good.

So in Tahiti, both of the places we stayed at showed movies in English on the TVs at night so we watched a few. Certain movies were as good or better on reviewing (Bridget Jones's Diary, Moulin Rouge). Meet The Parents was still funny but a little too much. I know Eddie and Hanah thought it was terrible. I think it's pretty funny but dunno if I could watch again. SN. You know when he's in the market buying champagne and DeNiro is outside with a shady character - Day By Day from Godspell is playing in the store. That's why he says the lyrics in the prayer. I dunno, I didn't notice that before.

Anyway, AI didn't stand up to repeating viewings at all. Saw it a couple more times. I'm still completely confused by the ending, and the parts I thought interesting were a lot less deep the second time around. And the movie is just completely depressing. I'm downgrading it - 1.5 stars. And I still think Teddy is absolutely confusing - he muddles all the possible philosophical points.

So yeah, Minority Report was way better than AI.

I've made the jump. I used to only get pure black or green pearl milk tea. But I started getting the fruity ones a while back and now I can't go back. I had this strawberry one in old town Pasadena recently and it was awesome. But the fruity ones at Verde have been disappointing - the tapioca balls freeze. Yech.

So we went to Dave and Eunice's thing this weekend. I had a nice talk with Dave's dad. SN. Have I wrote about this before? My dad, Dave's dad, and Pastor Harold's dad kind of grew up together in Korea. They supposedly walked to school together or something like that. Small world, huh? Anyway, yeah, Dave's dad was this super popular jock type. Really good at ice hockey, supposedly. So they were all surprised when it turned out his son (Dave) wasn't great at sports. Uh, this is all hearsay, though. Dunno how true it is; maybe it's all made up.

Anyway, he made a comment that was interesting. Actually, it's not that interesting itself. He just said how he liked all of Dave's Stanford friends because they were all so nice. And as we were hanging out that night I kept thinking, he's right: they are nice. Not like IV ultra-polite nice, just good. Good people. And you know, that's kind of special.

I dunno, I think FiCS was a kind of special thing. It was just a bunch of good people and I think that's kinda rare. Or maybe not. I just realized how much I enjoyed hanging out with everyone. Good people. Good times.

I won't defend my great-aunt too much, just, that's what Dave thinks of her, so what can I say. But I love her.

I will say this. She may be... direct, but when it comes down to it, she really cares about people and will do everything for them. I dunno, I just think about when my mom got sick how much she did for her. But anyway, yeah, at heart I think she cares about people. And I dunno, if it weren't for her I don't know how plugged into the extended family my family would be.

In contrast, some people can be the most polite and socially considerate people in the world, but at heart, they don't really care for people. I dunno, I look at myself and I think I tend towards the latter, and I think that's worse.

Jieun's best friend thinks I'm autistic. The disturbing thing was how matter of factly she said it. Yikes. Maybe I am. I'm not joking. You know what it kind of is though - Stanford ruined me. I had wide and varied group of friends growing up. None of them particularly geeky; I was by far the biggest geek. But you know, we were all good friends.

But then I went to Stanford and I dunno, it's like I cultivated my social interactions for a very particular type. And you know, it's something I'm comfortable with, but I think it ruined me, because now, that's how I normally interact socially, if that makes sense. In a way that's geared towards a more intellectual, more introspective group. It's terrible.

So yeah, I gotta start hanging out with more non-Stanford people and get normal again, if that's possible.

I was right. I dunno if I wrote it here, but I did ask people a while ago if orange juice makes them pee more. They all looked like I was crazy. But I'm telling you, it makes me pee a lot. Especially Jamba Juice. Anyway, did a little research, and I was right - Vitamin C has a diuretic effect. I dunno, my body's really sensitive to stuff like that - vitamin C and caffeine. Kills my bladder.

Here's a coupon for a free Starbucks Frappucino. I think you can use it as much as you want, but it expires tomorrow.

So, I'm not the best conversationalist, but I can be pretty OK. I realized one advantage I have. I'm interested in almost everything. So I can have knowledgeable conversations about many things.

I was at dinner the other day and I talked to someone about Warcraft III. I've never played it but I know enough about it to talk a little bit. Talked to another guy who rooms with the moderator of DDRFreak.com. Which of course I frequent, so we talked a while about that. Incidentally, the site treats him well, financially. But anyway. And then I talked with a guy who works for the Merc, which I read religiously, so I was asking questions about specific columnists and stuff like that. I dunno, I had something to say about all these things.

What I worry is that I'll become this guy who knows about a lot of things but isn't good at anything useful. I think I read a story about this in Esquire a while ago, some brilliant guy who does nothing but ride a motorcycle. What I've been worrying recently is that my breadth of knowledge is preventing a depth of knowledge. Like, Eric has a depth of knowledge with computer language that's formidable. But does he know what Canadian Football Team drafted Raghib "The Rocket" Ismail? And the owner's name? Can he recite the Gummi Bears theme song?

I can. But it's useless. I dunno, I'm thinking of maybe limiting what I read so I don't know so much, so maybe I'll be better able to know certain things in depth. But I don't know if that's the real reason I have trouble remembering programming minutiae forever the way Eric does.

So we attended the married couples group at church for the first time this past Sunday. Highly educational.

One of the women there said something extremely interesting. So a common complaint of the wives is that their husbands don't do these little things. Give them receipts, pick up their socks, different random stuff like that. Anyway, this one woman was thinking about why these little things are so important to the women and her feeling was, when women get married, it totally changes around their lives. Like they change their name. More than that, they all of a sudden have to serve and take care of this totally other family and be this helper and all these things. Whereas men's lives don't change that much. (I don't know if that was fair, but I'd probably agree that women's lives change a lot more than men's.)

Anyway, her feeling was that because they have to go through this big life change, that's why the little things that the husbands do mean so much. It's like, it's the least they can do, and if they don't do it, that's just one more thing they have to deal with. So those little things matter to them.

I dunno if that's a universal sentiment among wives but it was her experience and I found it fascinating. I dunno, marriage is interesting.

No one knows what Dave's talking about, even more than usual. He's referring to the slide show. As you know, my idea was to have sections, each one introduced with a movie clip. That's why some of the sections were kind of awkward - like the Stanford part existed pretty much just so we could use the American President clip ("It doesn't take a Harvard degree..." "I went to Stanford you blowhole!"). In retrospect, we should have combined the baby pics with the separate Jieun and Danny pics. And had less movement and more time per pic on the last section. But whatever.

Anyway, what Dave's talking about is the intro to the last section "Danny and Jieun - Together". As you might recall, we used some clip from Braveheart. That's actually kind of an inside thing between me and Jieun - we sometimes say to each other "I love you. Always have." in a bad Scottish accent. But the original vision for the last section was to have, after the title card, 3 clips in rapid succession:

1. Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music singing "The hills are alive"
2. Gene Kelly in Singin' In The Rain singing "Gotta dance!"
3. Aerial shot of Tim Robbins in Shawshank lifting his hands in the rain

But yeah, it's like, is Julie Andrews Jieun? Jieun's a singing nun? Danny's a dancer? Huh? And who got freed from prison? Kind of confusing. But yeah, that was my original vision, just three quick scenes of emotional exuberance. But it didn't work.

I'll get to writing about the wedding / honeymoon eventually but FYI Dave and Mark essentially spent a week straight working on the slide show. It was insane. And I didn't make it easier for them. Dave's right - Henry's way is generally the best way. In this case, choose your photos before scanning them in. Figuring out what photos you want and then scanning them in (as opposed to scanning everything then figuring it out) I'd say makes the process 3x as fast. At least. Also, I think 10 minutes is pretty much the limit as far as slideshows go. We worked hard to get it to something like 12 minutes but yeah, when it played it still felt too long. But anyway.

It's a shame you only (usually) get married once because you learn so much things about how to plan weddings better. But oh well. Anyway, yeah, thanks Mark and Dave.

Did everyone "get" the slideshow, by the way? I know Jieun's coworker appreciated the "Son of a Preacher Man" thing. Actually, I guess that's the only thing to get. Oh and also, the juxtaposition of "You Are So Beautiful" with Jieun's ugly glasses pics. Dunno if that got through. Oh well.

I don't think it's necessarily being good at athletics that girls are attracted to. It's being good, or great, at something. I remember talking to a friend once and she was saying how what she liked about her boyfriend being athletic is how when they played sports he was always quarterback, the leader, stuff like that. I dunno, my claim is that what women like is when a man is great at something, like among the best. It can be athletics, but it can be something else. Just something.

It's like from the Tao of Steve. Be excellent in her presence. Dunno if you've seen this movie but I highly recommend it. It's pretty interesting. I dunno, I'd like to talk about it but I don't know if people have seen it.

Here's a pet peeve of mine. It's when people are angry at the duplicity and greed of corporate CEO types because they blame them for wiping out their stock portfolios. This was in the Merc this weekend, interviews with people about how they've dealt with the downturn. This one woman was saying how the stocks she had been counting on for retirement were now worthless and she was angry at the greed of those CEOs. And she notes she'll diversify more in the future.

I'm not saying what those corporate types did wasn't wrong but geez, the hypocrisy. Every major stock index is down, but the people who were really wiped out are those who invested in high flyer stocks. In other words, they were being greedy, trying to get rich quick instead of properly diversifying. And when it bites them back they blame the greed of the corporate types. Please. You get what you pay for.

Speaking of economics, stuff I know nothing about, I dunno about Dave's production vs. consumer thing. Again, I don't know anything, but I get weekly economic reports from Vanguard and it looks to me (superficially) that consumer spending isn't down like everything else. But yeah, I don't know anything about this.

I'll tell you what I'm worried about. Consumer debt. I know this economy is founded on credit but the level of consumer debt in this country is ridiculous, and I don't see how it's sustainable. It's troublesome to me.

The next crash isn't gonna be Cisco. It's gonna be housing. My claim. I dunno, it might be related to the consumer debt thing.

"he reminded me exactly of henry, but without the churlishness."

What's left?

Too easy, I know. But, the love of the game.

Speaking of which, my favorite part of Keith's web page is where he writes "Besides reading, I like to cook. Especially homestyle Italian and French." He likes to cook so much that in the year I lived with him, he cooked exactly 0 times. I'm not even certain he used the microwave. That's not a joke. The others and I were talking the other day and trying to remember when/if he microwaved something.

So by cooking homestyle Italian, I think he means opening the front door for the delivery boy from Pizza Chicago, which is a 3 minute walk away. I love Keith.

Speaking of which, Henry's mentioned on the imdb. That's dope.

I think I ranted before on how I'm 100% against farm subsidies. This Dave Barry column on this is one of his least funny because it's 100% true. I'm angry.

Interesting article on slaves, women, and homosexuality.

Here's another great article by Andy Crouch on culture. He's a surprisingly good columnist, for a zombie.

I've thought a lot about the Joe Kwan conundrum, and to me at least, it's obvious why he's not hooked up. He's just too much of a nice guy. Seriously, does anyone think of Joe as dirty at all? Has he ever pursued anyone? Maybe he has, but you haven't heard about it, which is the point.

My theory is this - dirty guys hook up earlier (and more) but nice guys get married earlier. The people who get married first are those who are a little dirty but a little nice. That's my working theory.

It turns out that Tahiti is very close to the Marquesas, where they had the last Survivor. Anyway, a highlight of the trip was finding this one restaurant that served Fafaru, the disgusting dish that served as the eating challenge last season. When I ordered it, the waiter tried to dissuade me, saying, "You don't want that." But I persisted.

They brought it out tightly wrapped in plastic wrap so the smell wouldn't escape. Anyway, it smells strongly of a combination between sewage and fart. And it tastes like it smells. I could barely get a tiny piece down. It was a highlight of the trip.

"You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklinke as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion empty of all perception, an astonishing farce of misperception. And yet what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people, which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes on instead a significance that is ludicrous, so ill-equipped are we all to envision one another's interior workings and invisible aims? Is everyone to go off and lock the door and sit secluded like the lonely writers do, in a soundproof cell, summoning people out of words and then proposing that these word people are closer to the real thing than the real people that we mangle with our ignorance every day? The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that - well, lucky you."