When I was younger I used to lie in bed and think about infinity and eternity and for some reason it really depressed me. One of the things I thought then that sticks with me is just that I'm not sure if I want to live forever. I think at some point down the eternity line, dunno if it's boredom or weariness or whatever, but I kind of think I'd want to stop existing.

That's more a reflection of this world, I guess. I dunno, I'm a pretty happy guy, have very little to complain about, much to be thankful for. But even so, if this world is all there is, I wouldn't want to live forever. I think it would just get old.

I'll write more about the movie later maybe but just a quick question about Lord of the Rings. Why the heck is everyone so white? There was a point in the movie I think they were talking about the different races and I realized, yeah, there are different races, but they're all white. Isn't that strange?

Actually, I know why they're all white. Middle Earth is so freaking dark and overcast, how could anyone ever get a tan?

I have no idea who weddings are for. Like, all the weddings I've gone to, I've taken the approach that it's all about the bride and groom, that whatever they want, that's what they should get. But then, that's not quite true. At our wedding at least, and most of the weddings I've been a part of, there's a huge emphasis on the parents and guests. Like, that's why we had both languages, and it influenced the guest list and all that stuff. But then, my parents weren't exactly acting like it was for them either. Like, my dad did the sermon in English because it's for us, and we speak English.

I dunno, I've thought this since the wedding but yeah, I think weddings work out best when everyone has this attitude - putting someone else's concerns first. The guests, parents and couple all thinking about others. The worst situations I've seen were when someone decides to put their own concerns and feelings first. It messes everything up. But when everyone thinks of others first, things go pretty well.

There's probably a life lesson in there somewhere but I don't want to get too treacly on you or anything.

My advice if you're having a wedding is, have my groomsmen in it. I can't say enough how amazing they were.

I think finding a church and reception site is the #1 priority. There's a lot you can't even do (flowers, photographer, DJ, etc.) until you have the date down.

Some more Houston tidbits, even if no one cares:

• I mentioned that they all love Yao Ming. I forgot to mention that they love even more Moochie Norris. It's insane. He's in all the little videos they play and the commercials. They made a Moochie Norris rubber ducky. He's huge.
• Some men's fitness magazine named Houston the fattest city in the U.S. for the second year in a row. It's well deserved. There's a restaurant here that serves fried Twinkies. Talk about overkill.
• I was in a Korean restaurant the other day and saw two things you won't see in California - a guy decked out in full cowboy regalia, hat, boots and everything, and a sign reminding customers that bringing in concealed firearms to the restaurant is against the law. Apparently reminders are necessary.

I was wondering how Houstonians would react to Yao Ming. I dunno, they loved him in the Bay Area, but they're a little more diverse and accepting there. I don't want to say that Houston is more backwards, but it's more backwards. But anyway, at the game, it was clear that everyone loved him. I was pleasantly surprised. They're nuts about him. It's awesome.

My grandma was unimpressed by him though. High standards, that lady. I guess she's used to Hakeem's fluidity.

No one cares, but now that I've been to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, I think I'm qualified to say that Taste Of Texas is better. Just a more flavorful, juicier steak. RC drenches it in butter, which makes it smell incredible but drowns out some of the natural flavor. ToT optionally does something similar but it's not nearly as bad. Plus the salad bar and stuff push ToT over the top. The 2 hour wait is a bit much though.

So anyway, they've been opening all these Cold Stone Creamerys across the Bay Area. You know the idea, they have this cold stone on which they mix ice cream with fillings. I have no idea which came first, but I think it's a ripoff of Marble Slab in Texas. The thing is, Marble Slab is much better. Some around here say Amy's is even better but I like Marble Slab. Fortunately, they're opening a branch in the Bay Area. Forget Cold Stone. Try Marble Slab - you'll be happy.

Every year my family used to take a picture in front of the tree at Christmas time. I'm not even sure when we started it, and I wasn't really aware of it until a couple years ago I got to see all the pictures and it's kind of cool, seeing the yearly progression of height, hair style and fashion sense. My acne was incredibly bad in high school. Thank God it's cleared up. Incidentally, this break I've been battling a zit in my ear. I've had zits around my ear before, notably one where the lobe attaches to the cheek, but this thing is resolutely in the ear, right next to the canal. How do you pop a zit like that? It ended up popping on its own. I woke up one morning and my ear canal was crusty. Seasons greetings.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. This year my parents didn't get a tree. Just, I'm married now as is my sister, who has a tree at her own house. I guess they didn't much see the point. Which made me sad. The past few Christmases have all been kinda, dunno what the right word is, maybe groundbreaking. Just, they're each marked a significant irrevocable change in our family. I think I wrote before 3 Christmases ago, me and my sister were sitting around the TV late one night, probably watching an infomercial (SN. The Miracle Blade 2 is my current favorite infomercial.) and we realized this was our last Christmas where that would happen and all of a sudden it got really sad.

The past couple years my sister has been married and that was weird because when I was home I was home alone. Very odd feeling, that. Around Christmastime, at least.

And now it's different because my wife is here. Very odd. Makes me feel way more like a guest. And it means I can't screw around anymore and wake up at 4 PM. I think that's the biggest thing. I dunno, all these things to me mark how I'm growing up and I'm not a kid anymore, and I can't act like one. Like, now with Jieun here I have to be sensitive to her and can't just do whatever I want, whenever I want. And the way I interact with my parents is also different, being a couple. I dunno. It's been a gradual thing but getting married has kind of cemented it, this feeling that now I don't come home to Houston for the holidays, but I visit my house.

Seeing other married couples here also, and ones with kids, I dunno, it's just interesting. I think in a lot of ways, it's not that you suddenly grow up and become ready for the next stage, whether that's marriage or parenthood or whatever. But it's more, you take the next step and that forces you to grow up. Obviously there's a certain maturity level one needs to have before taking vows or having a kid and stuff. But yeah, I think a whole lot of the growing happens after the fact. I dunno, just a feeling.

The Christmas Eve service was pretty good this year. Not as reverent as I would have liked but whatever, beggars can't be choosers. No idea what that means.

Anyway, the EM led the service and it's fascinating. I dunno, this is a bold claim but I'm going to say that the church here is the only place I've seen the Korean and English ministries both thrive. I still have my doubts as to whether it can work in general, but yeah, it's going pretty well here and you can see that there are advantages to it. Like the symbiosis makes the youth group stronger. Stuff like that.

Anyway, the pastor was basically saying how Jesus is the reason for the season, the normal stuff. But he's hard core about it. Like, he doesn't get gifts for his three boys. Because it's not about them, it's about Jesus. I think he eschews cards also. I dunno, seems like a convenient philosophy but I think he actually gives gifts to family and friends during Thanksgiving instead. Kinda makes sense. One holiday to appreciate others, one to celebrate Jesus. I dunno, interesting at least.

Two things annoyed me though. One was that worship was way too loud. This is my new #1 pet peeve in worship. Just, I can still worship to bad music. It's harder, but possible. But with loud music, it's impossible. I just can't concentrate. It's like being pounded into worship submission. SN. I once visited this church in LA that was worse. Not only was it loud, but the EM service was separated from the high school service by a flimsy partition, so each of them were competing with the other to be louder. I think my ears were bleeding.

The other thing was, his whole message was basically Jesus alone, and then after the service, during fellowship time, the sound people play music about Santa Claus. I dunno, I just thought it was funny.

I added my dad to jack.html. Someone translates it from Korean and it's not super grammatically correct all the time but you can kind of get the gist. I dunno, if anyone's interested.

I've forgotten how to play.

I distinctly remember when I was a kid, when I'd get together with my friends, we'd just play. Our parents would get together maybe and just leave us alone to play, and we would.

I can't do that at all anymore. When I'm with someone, I need context for us being together if that makes any sense. Like, we can go out for dinner or coffee and talk. Else we have to be doing something together. Playing video games. Card games. Watching a movie. Or doing whatever. Anything that provides context for getting together.

But it wasn't like that when I was a kid. Didn't matter where we were or for what reason, at any moment we could just play together. I dunno, I just kind of wish I could remember how I did that.

Random annoyance - I hate daily stock report headlines. Actually, it's not that I hate it, I just don't buy it at all. Like, "Stocks were down today on warnings from ChaiCo." You're telling me indexes were down because of a single warning from a single company? I dunno, maybe it is, but it's impossible to tell. Or when they say, stocks were lifted today by bargain hunters. Is this really true? How can anyone know the motivations for the people who bought that day?

The stock market is just a big strange complex thing, and the reasons why it, as a whole, moves up and down each day is I think, as a general rule, impossibly complex. You can interpret general long term trends. But daily movement, no one really has any clue why indexes went up or down. So any conjecture is just that - a shot in the dark. It just annoys me that the press acts as if it knows the reasons why the market moved the way it did that day. The vast majority of the time, they have no clue.

The informed opinion of a person who's only taken one econ class in his life, in high school.

There's a reason why my thoughts are so boring nowadays. I'm just finding that I don't have the patience to write out my interesting thoughts. They're there - honest. I start but then get bored and/or distracted so I never finish. The only things that come out are these quick ones, which, since I finished them, must mean I didn't really have a lot to say about, which means they weren't all *that* interesting to me. Not enough to merit a lot of commentary on, at least. I dunno, that's my theory.

Actually, my larger theory is that I'm going insane. I'm only 55% kidding about this. It's not just with writing these things that I have trouble concentrating on, it's with a lot of things - I've been having trouble sustaining thoughts for long periods of time. This is actually happening with my vision also - I feel like my focus is racing and it takes a concerted effort to concentrate on a subject. When I read, sometimes my eyes dance all over the page and after "finishing" it, I find I have no clue what I just supposedly read. I have to purposefully slow down and go word by word. It's like that with everything I look at - if I don't force myself to focus, my eyes are just all over the place.

Kind of scary, huh? I dunno, I'm going insane. But actually, that's not entirely true. Like, when push comes to shove, I can maintain focus on things that I need to, mostly related to work and marriage. I guess it's just with writing then. I just don't have the patience and discipline to write everything I'm thinking anymore. Especially the more (to me) interesting thoughts which take some exposition. So you're just left with the dregs. Sorry.

He made a public announcement so I think it's OK to say now, so congrats to Eddie and Hanah! I dunno, I've been able to see them interact now for the past few months and that's been cool, because at least to me, seeing them I think it's clear that they mesh well together and things are gonna be great for them. I just think it's right in all the important ways, and that's a good feeling.

I've been thinking more about marriage in general recently though. I think we all realize that as people get older, just to be blunt, they start getting more desperate. I don't think we're at that stage yet, are we? I think for girls it kicks into overdrive the closer they get to 30. But anyway.

At any rate, sometimes when certain older people get married I wonder whether the person they marry is the best match for them, or if they're just desperate. Not that they won't be happy or that it's not good, but whether for example someone they had dated earlier would have been a better match. Is that a weird thing to think about? I can't help it.

It's not all desperation, though. I think as you get more mature you realize more and more how much effort is really involved in making a relationship work. So I dunno, maybe traits you thought made someone impossible before turn out to be more a reflection of your immaturity at that point in life, your inability to put in the requisite work to deal with them. So maybe if you had met later in life, those things that drove you apart before wouldn't have been such a big deal.

But then again, there's a flip side, because the more mature you get the more you realize I think who is and isn't right for you. I dunno, I kinda feel like that's my experience. I think my past has helped me see all the more how right Jieun is for me.

Anyway, yeah, this is a little bad of me I guess but when older people get married (especially when it's people in our parents' generation getting remarried) I occasionally wonder whether they're getting married because they finally met the right one or whether they're getting married because they're old, it's time, and they're willing to settle for what they wouldn't have before.

So I made some of the small group people watch A Charlie Brown Christmas last night. I dunno, I guess it's just me but it really resonates with me. It always has. When I was a kid I once recorded it on audiotape. I can't remember why I did this. I did this also with a Garfield special and a Robotech episode. Random.

But anyway, yeah, resonates with me, how the commercialization of Christmas depresses him and how he needs Linus to remind him of the true spirit of Christmas. Good tidings of great joy and all that. I guess it's been like this for a while but yeah, people seem more concerned with the state of the retail sector, buying gifts for people, all that stuff. I dunno, it's fine and all, just depressing to me.

I guess one thing that did it for me was our church had this little holiday get together. It was fine and everything, we had dessert, got to know a few people better, had a little white-elephant thing. It's just there wasn't anything there dealing with Jesus' birth. I'm not upset at the church or anything. I was just a little sad about it is all, that I'm not even going to get a piece of the real spirit of Christmas at my church before going home. Sign of the times I guess.

Anyway, I was really sad that our small group wasn't going to get to do anything to really celebrate Christmas either, hence a Charlie Brown XMas. I dunno, Linus' speech isn't much, but it's better than nothing.

There's nothing wrong with liking cheesy music. I like cheesy music. I own cheesy music. My point was that, in light of owning Cetera/Collins etc. CDs, to say that This Baby is the cheesiest song ever calls your music judgment into question. But no apology be need made for owning or liking those CDs. OK, maybe some of the Cetera CDs. But yeah, one of the first CDs I bought was MC Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em. There are at least 5 tracks on that CD cheesier than This Baby, starting with Have You Seen Her. Not just worse songs, but cheesier.

As a matter of fact, This Baby isn't even SCC's cheesiest song. That title is held by Got To Be True. His worst song is Maria.

Who cares about Doerksen - Scott Underwood left Vineyard a little while back. Now that's sad.

I frequently make random Christmas purchases. A couple of years ago I bought the Charlie Brown Christmas album. Awesome stuff. I dunno why I haven't bought the DVD yet. My claim is that if you don't like A Charlie Brown Christmas, you're not a Christian. Bold? I dunno, just that part where Linus tells the Luke story... gets me every time. Jieun made fun of me when we were getting a tree because she thought I wanted a Charlie Brown tree. Which is somewhat true. But anyway.

This year I bought a CD of It's A Wonderful Life at Target. SN. I love Target. I'm immature like this but every time I use the shopping cart escalator I still get a little thrill. Anyway, apparently in old days after making a movie the principals would immediately go out and record an audio version for old time radio. So yeah, I picked this up, it's about an hour long. SN - has anyone seen those ads for the "best of old time radio" CD set? Am I the only one who immediately thinks of Andrew Wong every time I see it?

I literally handed you Mercury Falling and said listen to this. With the Michelle Tumes CD I accidentally left it in your room.

I've mentioned this before, right? I went to the Mercury Falling tour in Houston. It was awesome, because the band was so sparse but so full sounding. Just Sting on bass, one electric guitar, one keys, one drums, and occasionally a trombone and sax. OK, I guess that's a lot but seriously, the fullness of the sound they produced was amazing. The weirdest part about the concert was that Jars Of Clay opened. Totally random.

I love it when Henry criticizes Caedmon's Call. Why doesn't he just wear a huge flaming T-shirt that says "I Have No Musical Taste"? I love his comment about the SCC song also: "easily the cheesiest song ever written." Hmm, he must have overlooked his extensive Peter Cetera and Phil Collins CD collection. Again, for emphasis: not Chicago. Peter Cetera. Seriously, there was this one time David Park came over to James Rd. and he was startled to see the number of Collins CDs there. I think he just laughed nervously. If I didn't save him by getting him into Sting, he'd still be living in Cheeseville with his PCsquared, Pet Shop Boys, and Erasure CDs.

That said, I'm not going to defend SCC's Christmas album. It's atrocious. For what it's worth (not much), my favorite Christian Christmas CDs are Amy Grant's 2nd one (not the first or third (3 Christmas albums? Is that really necessary? She's like a CCM Mannheim Steamroller.) one) and Michael W. Smith's 1st one. I've actually never heard his 2nd one but for a clip at the end of a concert and when they played it the whole crowd started laughing. That is the mark of a bad album.

How come Christians don't come up with like Easter albums?

Last week's Newsweek was kind of an ego boost for Stanford. The cover story was on Condi Rice and another big article was on Google. I'm 80% certain that a picture in the Rice story had a guy from my frosh dorm, Phil Hsu. Weird to see.

Henry hit it on the head and I didn't realize it until now. But yeah, I'm a Nicholas Cage fan and upon reflection I see that it's because I've seen various pieces of the Rock about a thousand times. Darn SCBN.

It's interesting being married to a teacher. One thing I've learned - just like kids talk about teachers or whatever, the teachers talk about the kids. Even worse - teachers gossip like there's no tomorrow. I think they're worse than the kids. Does so and so like so and so. Did so and so really do so and so. Very very odd.

So Jieun and I have been watching the Sopranos first season lately. It's a really interesting series. The brilliance of the series is that it somehow gets you to sympathize with a mobster. Even though he does evil things, he deals with real issues so on some strange level, you relate.

Anyway, this one episode was fascinating because it dealt partly with race issues. In this case how he, an pure Italian guy, relates to other white people. I dunno, it was interesting because it was something I could relate to as an Asian American. Like he goes to a barbecue and he has some difficulty because the stuff they talk about, and how they talk, isn't how he used to talking. So it's kind of awkward when he says stuff, as he tries to fit in. I dunno, I just completely relate to that.

I dunno, it's just interesting to realize that the Asian American awkwardness isn't unique, that everyone has it when they move from their social arena to another one. Like, it's a famous story how Joe thought FiCS was a cult when he first came. I guess he was used to American churches. How did Rodney ever get used to it?

I'm in favor of Pete Rose being in the Hall. I dunno, there are lots of reasons. Everyone realizes he probably gambled on baseball. But yeah, you know those rumors that he made a deal with... was it Bart Giamatti? Or Fay Vincent? I think Giamatti, that he accepted a ban that was intended to just be temporary because this thing wasn't going to go away. So he'd do his penance but then be reinstated later (kind of like those rumors regarding Jordan's retirement). Then Bart died. But those are the rumors as to why he accepted a ban. The expectation was that it wouldn't be permanent, and the issue mostly gets put to rest. But who knows, that's just a rumor.

More to the point, I believe that at the time, being banned from baseball didn't mean you were banned from the Hall of Fame. I think that's something the Baseball Writers Association (or whatever the Hall voters are called) instituted that after Pete Rose was banned. Would he have accepted a ban if he knew this would happen? I dunno.

Anyway, whatever, I'm pretty much with majority opinion here, that he should only be reinstated if he admits to gambling on baseball and shows he's been trying to change his life. And who knows if that will ever happen.

There is a difference between him and Shoeless Joe, though. Joe accepted money to throw a series. Yeah, people point to his great stats that series but whatever, breaking it down situationally, he only did well (tried) when it made no difference, like a home run when they're way behind, stuff like that. Pete never bet against his own team. Not that betting for your team is not bad, but whatever, point is he never deliberately tanked for money, unlike Joe.

Whether this is a big difference between Pete and Joe is arguable, but the point is, there is a qualitative difference and this is pretty much the reason I think that most people want to see Pete in the Hall but don't want to see Joe.

I don't understand how Eric can not like Yu-Gi-Oh for being a purely marketing thing and then say Pokemon is pretty good. Isn't that inconsistent? I dunno. You haven't lived until you've heard Dave Park rant about Pokemon. We had a friend once who was into it and made us watch it and Dave just went off. Like, about the main characters, the trainers. They don't "train" at all! They do absolutely nothing to "train!" Aargh!

You know the number of times George W. has said "Osama Bin Laden" in public since July 8th? Zero. Isn't that interesting? Maybe only to me.

It's weird knowing a reporter, kinda cool. Just you get some inside stuff. Like Josh wrote a big long article on Alzheimer's disease last week, and you know I'm obsessed with diseases so I read the whole thing (great article) and only found out afterwards that he had written it.

Anyway, this weekend, Grace Kwak, who I know kind of know second hand, was featured in the business section. How she invests her money. I'm guessing it was the Josh connection. I dunno, I thought it was interesting. And she writes about how she has roommates and shares all expenses to save money. She briefly mentions how she has 3 roommates, used to have 4. Was that 4th one Lorraine?

I remember the Michael Jackson thing. But yeah, I think post 1976 have no clue. We really are a different generation.

When you're riding in your Ford
And you feel a heavy load
Diarrhea, diarrhea

Some people think it's gross
But it's really good on toast
Diarrhea, diarrhea

"Religious structures were made for man, not man for religious structures."

"The Bible never tells us we're to figure out whether we're chosen or not, our theological status before embracing or rejecting the message."

I'm recalling these wrong but that's the gist of a couple things our pastor has said in the past few weeks that have stuck with me.

I dunno if you know this about me, but from time to time I buy lottery tickets. I don't expect to ever win; if you know anything about the lottery and odds and who buys it and stuff you know it's essentially a tax on the stupid. But I dunno, I thought the people who said that were missing the point. Because more than buying a chance to win money, people who buy tickets are buying hope. And hope is vital in life. So even if you don't win, in some sense it's still worth it, because it's provided just a little measure of hope. I dunno if that makes sense, but it's what I thought.

I think my thinking changed though. I dunno, I just realized that the fact that I'm buying hope is the very thing that's wrong with it. Just that putting your hope anywhere else besides Christ is a sin. Maybe you disagree, but yeah, that's how I feel about it now. I'm still cool with buying lottery tickets for entertainment, but not for hope. Maybe this makes sense to no one, but it has to do with my heart.

I was just thinking this recently because I dunno, I think more and more these days I'm putting my hope in money and it scares me. I think before working I didn't intend to be a programmer for a very long time. Not because I didn't like it, but because there are other things I wanted to do maybe more. But now that I'm in, geez, it's hard to get out. Just, you want to be a good steward of your money, and that involves thinking about the future. But the more you think about your financial future the more money you want for it to be stable and secure.

I still don't think I'm financially greedy or ambitious. I don't want to be rich. I just want to be comfortable. But I think that's just as bad. I dunno, it just goes back to the heart thing, where I'm putting my primary trust, and I find nowadays I'm putting more and more trust in my financial future. There's nothing wrong with making a lot of money, or a little. It's all a heart thing. I'm just kind of disturbed at where my heart is going.

I've said this a million times but I don't think my family is like other Asian families at all. For one thing, on both sides of the family, I have relatives in the generation above my parents who married Caucasians. Maybe that's why my family is a little (just a little) less Korean than others, I dunno.

We went to one of these relatives for Thanksgiving dinner. My family always used to go there growing up, and again, I think that's kind of different from other Asians because we always had a traditional American Thanksgiving, because the mom is fully American. The first time I brought Jieun I think she was kind of shocked, like, where's the rice?

Anyway, this year we had a kind of interesting conversation. I just started realizing how much pain there is in the older generations. At least in my family. They just went through a lot and suffered all these things that remains with them. Like my parents, I dunno, I think they're fairly well adjusted and at peace with their lives and whatever. But there are still huge parts of their lives, like fundamental things about their childhood that they just never ever talk about. It's kind of bizarre. I dunno, there must just be a huge amount of pain there.

There was also an elderly woman there, Caucasian, who was telling stories about the suffering in her life as well. Like, she was talking about what her family had to do during the World War. The first one (she was old). During her lifetime, there was a lot of suffering in America also.

I dunno, just made me realize again how fortunate our generation has been. Most of us haven't really experienced suffering like past generations have. And I dunno, I think that's kind of screwed us up. Just, some of the things we struggle with are so relatively inconsequential and ridiculous. That's overstating it, but yeah, maybe it's just myself, I feel like I'm somewhat lacking because my life has been so comfortable.

Pretty boring couple of posts, wow.

Mark Madsen shot two successive airballs last night. Ouch. The bad thing is, they were free throws.

It's weird to me how people that there are people who only know me and Jieun as a married couple. And that they only know Jieun as Jieun Chai. Just odd. It's also weird to me how all of Eddie's friends from UIUC know him post jaw-surgery, so they don't really know what he looked like before. The power of context is just very interesting to me.

Like, I was thinking about this the other day, but it's weird. I think of my sister's friends, even ones who are older than her, as being younger than me. But I think of Jieun's friends, who are my sister's age, as peers. There's just this context thing working there. It makes me wonder how people who have met me and Jieun post marriage view us.

Are you still planning to do your 10 year FiCS reunion, Dave? I dunno, it seems like they have it already every year in LA. So maybe it's redundant to do a 10 year thing. I dunno. Personally, I'd just like a class of 1998 reunion. Wouldn't it be awesome just to have us, Eddie, Leo, Ben, Linnea, Ohms, and the rest all in the same room at one time? I dunno if that will ever happen, but it would be nice.

I'll be honest, it's lame, but it's a small source of pride to me that Jieun and I were the first FiCS wedding. A trivial piffling thing, but still, how many people can say something like that? Were Henry and Lorraine the first Testimony wedding? Maybe they were. But whatever, it's cool in a lame, non-cool way.

The next thing is the first FiCS baby. Who will it be? We'll see. I was just thinking about this because the 10 year reunion, if anything like that happens, might involve babies. And what will that be like? What are the social ramifications of that? I wanna see little Bens and Linneas there; that will be awesome. Can you imagine how socially adept and intelligent their kids will be? Wow.

I can't believe they still make Transformers. I was looking around at KB Toy Stores and they have these new generation old ones, like new versions of classics like Optimus Prime and Megatron. I dunno, it made me angry. Like the new Optimus is just a travesty to the memory of noble and good Prime. The truck form barely looks like a truck, which was part of the charm of the original. And his head and body parts just look weird and organic.

Megatron is even worse. He's not a gun, he's one of those weirdo 5 different transforming position thingys. And again, they have this weird organic look thing going on, he even has like dragon heads or something, so none of the positions looks right. It's just a toy nightmare. Seriously, it looks like the beast from Revelation, with like multiple heads sticking out at random places and stuff like that. That's the new Megatron. A travesty.

So this door-to-door salesman just came by our place. And I respond to him the way I do all door-to-doors and telemarketers and whoever - sorry, we're not interested. And then he did something that just pissed me off. As he was walking away, he says out loud, "I can't believe you, judging me by the color of my skin." (He was black.)

That just enraged me. Because I say I'm not interested right off the bat now I'm a racist? What a punk. I can safely say that my annoyance at salesman crosses all racial, cultural, religious and any other boundaries - I hate them all. But reject this guy and I'm a racist. I dunno, I'm still steamed about it. I hate people like that. If you believe that the world's out to get you, it will.

Those books had hi-tech cool stuff also. Disclosure had the whole VR thing. If you remember he ran into someone in the VR file system. Rising Sun had a bunch of imaging technology in it. Centered around USC, basically how pictures can be manipulated now and how they unmanipulated it. Can't really remember Airframe, just all that plane info I guess.

Incidentally, these 3 books aren't like most of his books that have terrible endings. Disclosure and Rising Sun had decent endings. Airframe essentially didn't have an ending; totally awkward. The movies sucked though.

Oh yeah, about Girl, Interrupted - at the very beginning of the movie, Winona Ryder asks in a voiceover if you've ever stolen something when you have the cash. Weird.

So you know how in casual conversation you're supposed to avoid two topics: politics and religion. And there's a number of other hot-button topics you try to avoid because it brings out passion and fury in the people discussing it which isn't amenable to friendly conversation.

Anyway, for no particular reason some of us at the potluck decided to do the opposite, and just talk about controversial topics. So we touched upon stuff like the death penalty, stem cell research, homosexuality: nature or nurture, women at Augusta, war in Iraq, spent a while talking about abortion, and other stuff. I dunno, in a way it was funny, deliberately talking about controversial topics that I normally avoid, one after the other. But the topics themselves are so serious that in another sense it wasn't funny at all. Interesting conversation for sure.

I dunno where I stand on the Augusta thing but there were a couple columns that came out recently that said something similar that I found interesting. One my King Kaufman on Salon.com. The other came out earlier this week by Anna Quindlen, the liberal last page writer on Newsweek. (Newsweek alternates weekly between a conservative and liberal voice on the last page; George F. Will is the conservative voice.)

What they said though was this - it's subtly racist to say that Tiger Woods has some obligation to speak out forcefully on this issue because he's black. It seems to suggest that blacks in power have "to pay an additional toll for position in the white world" as Quindlen puts it. Just, expectations are placed on him that aren't placed on white men. Who faulted Arnold Palmer in the past for not being a stronger voice? Anyway yeah, it's an interesting point.

Geez, Girl, Interrupted was a depressing movie. A lot like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. I dunno, just thinking about the nature of sanity is depressing.

I'm probably being paranoid but I think I'm losing my memory. Just, you know when you have the meaning of a word in your head but can't quite recall the exact word you're looking for? That tip of the tongue syndrome? It just seems like that's been occurring with increasing frequency. It just scares me.

Do a Google search on "corn subsidies" and my page comes up 7th. Do a search on "corn syrup subsidies" (in any order) and my page comes up first. I dunno, that's just bizarre to me.

Some people from our company spent a couple hours volunteering at Second Harvest this morning. I dunno, it was pretty fun. My high school had a community service requirement to graduate so I did a little then, of course nothing like Gloria Lee or anything, and I pretty much did nothing in college, just the occasional random thing like today.

Anyway, it was the first time I'd done something in the corporate context, and it was kind of funny to me. I guess people volunteer the way the work, because it was intense. People were just super serious, actually running around to do the work, focused on intensity and efficiency. Nothing like high school. We were packing boxes and at one point someone asked, "So who are the end-users of these boxes?" I dunno, it was just a funny way to ask that question. I love being a nerdy engineer.

So I randomly came across some random FiCS worship team newsletter and another page. It's pretty interesting. But yeah, schedules? Records? Set lists? Organization? Preparation? Stuff I always wanted to do but never did? I dunno, pretty cool. I was encouraged at least. It sucks sometimes when people always say how things used to be better in the old days so I think it's worth mentioning when things are better now than they were before. In terms of organization and stuff at least, it looks like things are much better than they ever were during my tenure.

It's amazing how much I'm motivated by guilt. I dunno if it's a cultural thing or what, but when I think about it, I'd say the majority of everything I do is motivated by guilt. I know that sounds crazy but I think it's true.

And I think they're something screwed up with that, especially as it regards to my spiritual life. I dunno, I was just thinking this because I was assigned to look at some verses this week and they all dealt with forgiveness of sin. I think there's a place for guilt. You know, guilt makes everyone uncomfortable, and whereas the world tries to justify itself so it doesn't feel guilty about anything, I think the promise and hope of Christianity is that our guilt and shame can be taken away as our sins are forgiven. I dunno, these verses just encouraged me. Especially, I think, because freedom from guilt and shame is far from my normal experience.

And I put a lot of blame on the Korean church. I dunno, maybe that's too harsh. But yeah, I resonated a lot with Dave's criticism of CFC (that's right, I'm not afraid of Google. Covenant Fellowship Church. Pastor Min. Nintendo Goonies II. Gel Electrophoresis) and their overemphasis on confession of sin. Like he said, there's a place for that, but geez, isn't the Christian life supposed to be about freedom from and victory over sin? I dunno if Korean churches want that. I think they want us to feel guilty. They're just like our parents, equating guilt with motivation. And I dunno how right that is. Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I feel like the reason I don't feel more freedom from my past sins is because Korean churches won't let me forget them.

Should I pull a George-esque be arrogant to the arrogant type thing? I will.

Actually, I'm not saying they'll learn in time or whatever, it's just a personal preference. I didn't really like the atmosphere of the Sixth Man Club like the last 4 years. Actually, that's not true - I liked the atmosphere. I mean, how can you begrudge someone for being a Stanford fan and going to the game? As a fellow Stanford fan, that doesn't make any sense. It's just, it was too easy.

I liked the feeling at the games my freshman year. I'm not saying the fans were any more hardcore; it's just that it was harder then. Does anyone remember this time? Student tickets to men's basketball games were free. I think the women's team drew more than the men's. The Sixth Men were the only students who paid, to get a shirt and sit in the middle. But it wasn't about getting good seats, or getting seats at all. Any student could just walk up at game time and show a student ID and get in. It had more of a love of the game feel to it.

And I dunno, it was just fun, the love of the game feeling. I'll never forget the Arizona game that year. I think Eddie remembers also. But yeah, Damon Stoudamire went crazy on us, dropping 45 points. He single-handedly beat us - it was insane. And I was especially bitter because then, like now, Arizona brought their own little cheering section who was rubbing it in. And their cheerleaders were way better looking than ours. (Just like now. Am I the only one that cringes when they show the Dollies on TV? Not to be too mean, I mean consider the source, but yeah, they're closer to Bubble Sort than Quicksort if you catch my drift.) But yeah, still a lot of fun, and it was free! I dunno, the people who were there were there for the love of the game and that was a cool feeling.

I dunno, I'm a Stanford fan so I want them to always do well and I want lots of people to be fans and I like what's happened with the student fan base in the past few years and what's happening now. It's just there's a special nostalgia in my heart for the love of the game feeling freshman year. Dunno if it was better. It was just kinda cool.

Anyway, how did "the love of the game" get big? By big I mean about 4 people using it. I think it was Dave started saying it playing Bust A Move. I'm going to say I popularized using it for other things but I might be blatantly lying. I can't remember.

Wow, Yao Ming had 30 points and 16 rebounds tonight. Time to hop on the Yao Ming express.

So I recently added Casey Jacobsen to jack.html. Kind of absurd, but in a way not. I dunno, he's a lot like the rest of us. Recently left Stanford. Trying to get used to post-college life. Plays DDR.

The only difference is he happens to play for an NBA team.

Is it too late for Michael Jackson? I dunno, I just wonder if he stopped getting plastic surgery, getting his skin lightened, and just let his body be the way it was for a few years, if he could return back to normal, or if he's just gone past the point of no return. But geez, he is one scary looking individual. It's really sad.

I saw Charles Kim and John Chi on TV today. At Blockbuster. Jieun and I were there checking out some movies and the TV was set to some sports report (Fox Sports?) and they had the post Stanford/Xavier game wrap. (We won! Woo hoo!) And hanging around behind some reporter is Charles and John. I dunno, just weird to see.

Blockbuster had "Jackie Chan Presents Gen Y Cops". I think I'll get that next time. And did you know they made a sequel to Left Behind? And that Kirk Cameron is in it also? I don't know what's sadder, the fact that they made a sequel to a terrible movie or the state of Kirk Cameron's career. Can't he and Tony Danza get together and do something? Work something out?

Incidentally, there seem to be no Asians in the cast of the movie. I guess Asians aren't Left Behind!

I hate facing people in the restroom after a dump. Whether they just took a crapper or myself, it's just awkward for me. So, if I'm on the toilet and someone is say using the urinal, I'll finish and wipe and whatever and just wait there until they're done, have washed their hands, and left the restroom. Then I'll flush and come out of the stall. Everything's cool then, if someone comes in at that point. The key is just that they not know whether I've used the urinal or the toilet. I have no idea why I feel that way. Maybe because that's when I'm most vulnerable? Or fear of potential stains or smell? I dunno, for whatever reason, that's how I am.

And it goes both ways - I don't want to see someone else coming out of the toilet either. So when I'm using the urinal when someone's in a stall, I try and go really quick so I can finish and leave before they have a chance to emerge. Or, if I hear them finishing up, I'll just stand there at the urinal until they leave.

The hardest thing is when someone is in the other stall taking a dump. I either have to wait them out or finish real quick and try and wash my hands and leave before they finish. The timing can just be tricky. Sometimes when they finish while I'm washing my hands I'll turn slightly toward the door while drying so I don't see them.

Ridiculous? Probably. But yeah, I find bathroom conversation uncomfortable in general - post dump conversation is just too much for me. I dunno how girls do it, since all they have is stalls. I also find it fascinating that women can make run-time decisions whether to go #1 or #2. And adjust on the spot. I dunno, if a guy having decided to go #1 decides mid-stream to also go #2, that's disastrous.

Have you ever had an itch you just couldn't scratch? I'm not talking about anything metaphoric, just a physical itch. I dunno, maybe it only happens to me, but it's like a nerve connection gets screwed up or something. But I feel an itch, and try to scratch it in the region it seems to be coming from but I can't find it - it's not there. So I try scratching random areas - my head, my butt - still no relief. My coworkers must think I'm insane because I'm furiously scratching my entire body head to toe and still can't find the stupid itch. Argh!!

Dave, you know a missionary's kid. Brent Becker's parents were missionaries; he was born in Korea, I think. I dunno, it's kind of interesting talking to him about it.

I went to Portugal on missions once in high school and it was really interesting seeing the missionary family there. One interesting thing to me was that his kids were essentially Portuguese. Their first language was pretty much Portuguese and their English wasn't all that great. I heard some time later that the family came back to the U.S. and the kids hated it - they just wanted to get back to Portugal. I don't know how common that is, but I just thought it was interesting.

I think that's something our parents didn't think enough about when they came to the U.S. I dunno, it just feels like they came here for greater opportunities but believed they could keep their kids purely Korean. I think this has been one of the biggest motivations of the Korean church. But that's just naive - if you raise your kids in another country, they're going to be of that country, to varying degrees. When our parents complain how we're not Korean, like how we want to marry non-Koreans or can't speak the language or whatever else, they can trace that to their decision to come to this country. So don't complain too much.

I dunno, maybe this almost never happens with missionaries' kids, just, like I said, it's what I saw with the one missionary family I saw. It was just something I had never thought about before, that an American missionary's kids might not be American.

Henry's 100% right - I'm too lazy to eat. That's the secret to my svelte figure. Also, I never drink soda. That's just a lot of empty calories. And almost never eat junk food. I dunno, that's just how my mom raised me.

Anyway, yeah, sometimes, I'll just skip or postpone meals because it's too much of a hassle. I didn't realize how much I do this until I got married. Jieun, when she doesn't eat a meal, is pretty much incapacitated. So yeah, I wasn't respecting her, because me, like eating my first meal at 3 PM is no problem. Just being too lazy to get or make something. At times I've done this with Jieun and she's suffered. But yeah, didn't realize how much I do that until now.

Yeah, there's hip hop praise out there. I think Hosanna had some CDs like Urban Praise and Praise In The House, something like that. And there are some other more obscure things out there.

I'll be honest, I don't think I really understand what praise and worship is for. Like, why does it need to musically reach out to the younger generation? Is it supposed to be for evangelism? Maybe it is, I don't know. We all agree it's supposed to be God focused, declaring His worth and all that. But what does that mean, musically? What are the implications? Honestly, no clue. I just know for myself, I like listening to certain types of music, but not all of them would make me feel worshipful. So like Ska praise or Swing praise or Techno praise doesn't do it for me. I don't even understand why we need to have these things because I'm not sure what praise and worship is exactly for.

I think Daniel (of the Bible) was narcoleptic. My claim. Just, whenever something intense happens, he falls down and falls asleep. Lots of people in the Bible fall down when they encounter the divine. But none fall asleep. I dunno, just a random theory.

I realized something weird - I don't think I've ever prayed for something material. I mean ever in my life. Like for money, or things, or anything like that. Mostly because I've never been in a situation where I really needed anything. And I dunno, I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand I guess it's like a testimony to how God's provided so much in my life so that I've never been in need. But then, something about that feels wrong also, that I've never been in a situation where I've had to trust in God to provide for something material. Because shouldn't the Christian life involve some sort of trust and faith like that? I'm just a little torn.

I guess my goal nowadays is to be like Paul said, to learn to be content whether in plenty or in want. Not easy. I know plenty of people who are uncomfortable in want. But I think I know a few people who are uncomfortable and discontent in plenty. If God blessed them in that way, they wouldn't know what to do. I dunno. I think it's wrong to pursue either riches or poverty for its own sake, you know? Just, it should never be the primary consideration one way or another. So yeah, given where I am now I think we're learning to be content in plenty. I just pray that we prepare ourselves so that we're still content when/if we come to a place of want.

What I don't like about pageants nowadays is that it's just disingenuous. It's still in large part a beauty contest but they add these other elements to legitimize it as being less objectifying and superficial than that. Please. Newsflash - the swimsuit portion isn't about judging poise and confidence. It's about judging the way the women look in tight skimpy things. Just be honest about what it is, is all I'm saying. Yeah, I know this year some law student won. But whatever, all I know is there's still a swimsuit competition, and there's a reason for that.

I just think the disingenuity is worse than objectifying. I don't see what the big deal is about objectifying. It's unfortunate I guess but everyone does it all the time. Like making judgments on people based on their height. Or other random things. People get rewarded based on their looks all the time. Models get rewarded with magazine covers based almost solely on their looks. People aren't outraged about it - they're happy. They want to see good looking people on magazines. Especially women. So what's the big deal with a beauty pageant that does the same? That's life.

I dunno, I read this fascinating book review recently (pretty sad, huh? I don't read books anymore, just book reviews) about beauty, maybe it was about aestheticism. Aestheticism is actually fascinating if you learn about it. But anyway. The interesting thing about the book is that it pointed out how beauty is valued in so many different things, maybe everything. Like the stuff above. But even in science. Scientists see and value beauty in the natural world, it's a common thing. And people value beauty even in things as abstract as math. It's just called something different, like when a proof or algorithm is praised for being "elegant". Many times, this is strictly an aesthetic value judgment, which is essentially what beauty is. Not sure if you agree but I thought it was insightful, that we value beauty in just about everything.

And it's in Christianity also. I dunno, there are just songs out there about how Jesus is beautiful and the beauty of the Lord. Not sure how theologically correct that is but it's there. We value beauty. I just think it's interesting to recognize that.

Yay! The program me and Eric were working on found a solution to the sliding block puzzle! It's actually kind of fascinating. Anyway, let me know if you want it.

I love how Andy has jack.html listed as a "resource". I dunno, that's just funny to me.

Why is having a pageant based solely on looks or beauty bad?

Someone explain to me the difference between the Miss USA and Miss America pageants. And the Miss World and Miss Universe pageants. Totally confusing.

I was in Fry's the other day and wasted a few hours reading a book about Saturday Night Live. Absolutely fascinating. Everyone hates Chevy Chase. Everyone loved Conan O'Brien. Tom Hanks is a really hardworking host. Jan Hooks hated Victoria Jackson. She didn't get the girly voice thing and was alienated by the fact that she's Christian. Everyone hated Nora Dunn. Mike Myers and Dana Carvey had conflicts during the Wayne's World movie. There were some interesting parts about why Chris Elliot and Janeane Garofolo were such failures on the show also. Interesting book.

So we all know that a ridiculous percentage of Americans are overweight and obese. You know what I think is a big contributing factor? Mall food. Seriously, malls are evil - the smells are so overwhelming and tempting and the food so bad for you. All these people eating fatty mall food, munching on a cookie, pretzel, or cinnamon roll for dessert and washing it down with a Mochalatta Chill. It's no wonder everyone's fat. OK, maybe it's not a huge contributing factor but I do think mall food is terrible for you. I mean, I know it's not easy being overweight, but it's hard to have compassion when someone's wolfing down their Pecan Cinnabon with extra frosting.

So in Sunnyvale there are tons of these Chaat places. On one stretch of El Camino, there like 7 Chaat places, about 3 Chaat Houses, I think. Anyway, I pass them all the time, and they have all these signs like "Mouth watering Chaat". I dunno, it's totally intriguing. What the heck is it? My guess was, some kind of Indian drink. The way Asian folks have bubble tea. So you know, I wanted to try the hip new drink.

It's not a drink at all. It's just like Indian snack food, and not particularly mouth watering. I dunno, maybe it's because I had eaten already and was coming into the restaurant expecting some cool refreshing drink but yeah, it didn't seem very appetizing and the menus weren't particularly friendly either. Has anyone tried it? Maybe I'll go again someday.

This post is pretty nerdy, so be forewarned. It prolly won't even make sense unless you took CS 121 or CS 221 and even then, prolly not interesting.

So I've been trying to find a solution for that sliding block puzzle programmatically. Basically doing some brute force search programs. And it's not as trivial as it seems. I estimated that it has a really low branching factor so it wouldn't be that hard, but no, it's significant enough to be difficult.

So anyway, the first thing I tried was just a depth first search. The problem is, you get into these loops that the search never gets out of. I had already put in a check to make sure it doesn't try to do an immediate backtrack step (more block 1 up then try to move it back) but that wasn't enough, there seemed to be simple loops.

So the next thing I did was track all visited states. It's tricky because you only want to reject a state if you've seen it before and if you've gotten there in less moves. So I started with a vector of states, each state contains the board state and vector of moves so far. On each new examined state, I'd iterate through and check if there was a match and if so, whether it got there in less moves.

But this iterating to compare turned out to be way too slow. I tried using a hash table with the board state but it started using too much memory. I also tried using a greedy search and A* search - not too successful, because there's no good heuristic (I was using the Manhattan distance of the 'A' piece - a terrible heuristic for this puzzle). The A* search was essentially a breadth first search which was using too much memory. So in the end I decided to go with a greedy search. But still needed to deal with tracking already visited states.

So I changed the way I tracked states - it's a 6x5 puzzle, and there are 14 pieces, so I made a board position be represented by 5 base 15 numbers (1 for the space). That way I could use a hash table to quickly look up whether a table position's been seen before, with the value being how many moves it took to get there.

Eric then made some suggestions - he pointed out that some of the pieces are identical, so in tracking a board position, I don't need to have 15 possible values, just 7. So I switched to representing the board with 6 base 8 numbers (base 8 for quick calculation and each number representing 5 positions so it fits into a short int to use less memory).

It was still going pretty slow. Probably would take days to finish. I examined one of the states the problem was the search was considering pretty dumb routes first. Like moves two pieces one way, then moves another piece, then moves those first two pieces back, and keeps going back and forth with the little pieces. So it takes tons of moves to get to a position you could get to in just a few.

So I thought maybe I would use a breadth first search, so it would get to these easy positions quicker so eliminate them from further searches. But even with redundant state checking and all this stuff, it still takes up too much memory. It was getting to 2.5 GB virtual memory size and page swapping to death. Wasn't working.

So it's back to greedy search on an overnight run. I'll let you know if it finds a solution. And if you have suggestions on how to improve the program, let me know.

Wow, that was boring. I'm guessing zero people read the whole thing. Maybe Eric. But yeah, if you made it, you get a special prize.

I read all of your stuff Dave, and it's only partly boring. Mostly not, though. I dunno. Anyway, just to clarify, you stole short thoughts from Wong. I think you said as much when you started it, not sure, but I think that's how it went.

It seems like all these people work like crazy, crazy hours, crazy schedules. Why? I dunno, I just wonder if it's worth it.

I had a fascinating conversation recently with a guy from church, he's a Chemistry postdoc at Stanford. Anyway, the schedule for these people are just insane. Like, they frown upon taking even a single day off during the week. At any rate, when he went in there he made clear what he's willing to work, including no work on Sundays. His take was that he'll work like crazy in the time he's there to make up for it. His advisor was of course dubious about it but he just said, wait and see how it goes, and if after some time it's not working, we'll re-evaluate things. And it seems to be going OK.

Anyway, the interesting thing he said is that although it's like that now he fully realizes that when he looks for a professorship wherever he goes they'll expect a young guy like him to work crazy hours. So he and his wife are spending the next few years not just preparing research wise but spiritually, to know that the professor road is the one to take. Just, if you don't know you're in God's will, that path is so hard you'll never make it. But if you do know you're in God's will, there's no hardship you can't withstand. I dunno, it was just interesting to hear.

I think I said something during the convo like how does any Christian ever end up being a professor then. And he said something like, that it's hard is in part confirmation for them that it's God's will, just, it's so hard that if they make it they'll know it was God working. I dunno, it was just an interesting conversation. And it pretty much confirmed I don't ever want to be a professor.

Did you see Cuttino Mobley's alley-oop to Steve Francis tonight? A point guard that can finish an oop. That's ridiculous. Stevie is awesome. This is the Rockets' year.

Have you seen some of the themed board games they have nowadays? Like, everyone has seen all those versions of Monopoly. But there are some interesting other ones out there. Like Lord Of The Rings Risk (great idea), Simpsons Clue (cool idea), and Star Wars Life (absurd). There's actually a whole bunch of Lord Of The Rings and Simpsons themed games, the most absurd of which I think is Rubik's Homer's Head.

Anyway, I was at Target the other day and they have all these Cranium expansion and related sets. Quite frankly it enraged me. Who likes this game? I'm serious, it's about the easiest game ever made. It's on the order of Chutes and Ladders in terms of challenge. Are there that many stupid people out there? Then who the heck buys Trivial Pursuit? Especially the most recent versions. Those questions are impossible.

I got pretty into Push Push when Leo was in town - his phone has it too. I can't remember how far I got but I got pretty far - what was it, Leo? Can't remember. Leo says I did better than Kevin though. SN. It seems like any of my friends, if they come to town, spend quality time with Kevin Lee. Totally random. Who is this social butterfly?

I think I've mentioned before how Californians and Texans have different ideas of what the word "barbecue" means. In California, if you use an outdoor grill, it's a barbecue. You can have a barbecue that involves just hamburgers. I myself didn't know any better until I went to Texas, and there it means something much more specific. I think I read an article on barbecuing there where they made fun of how Californians think of barbecue.

Anyway, I think, and I'm not sure about this, but Northern Californians and Southern Californians have different notions of "camping". I dunno, I went camping a lot when I was a kid and it meant something fairly specific. Somewhere with a lot of trees. Places you can hike. Rangers. Wildlife. Preferably bear warnings. Campfires. You know, stuff like that.

But I once went camping with some SoCal people and it was bizarre - we went to a beach. No trees. No rangers, I think. Way too close to civilization - we went to a movie one night. I dunno, it was just a different concept of camping. But why would you go to a beach to camp? I dunno, that just makes no sense to me.

Question. How come a black gospel song like "This train is bound for glory" is OK but a song like "Hop on the bus" is not? I dunno, I just hear a lot more criticism of the 2nd song but is there any real difference?

Be honest with me - am I boring? So certain people find me boring and I dunno why but it drives me crazy. I'd rather be weird than boring. Hmm. Maybe that's why I do certain things? I have to think about that. But yeah, some people just think I'm boring and there's nothing I can do about that. I think I'd rather they hate me than find me boring. Is that bold? I dunno, it's just something that drives me crazy.

I've said this before, but I love the Britney Spears song "Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman". I just find the lyrics poignant. I dunno how true this is but I feel like it must be so hard for females in this world. Like I was looking at that Time pictorial with all these girls in this awkward stage of wanting to be women but still being girls. I dunno, this culture is tough on females. It must be hard.

Anyway, when I look at Britney Spears maybe it's just me but I feel incredibly sorry for her. I don't think she has any idea who she is. Like you remember when she was first starting out there was all this talk about how despite being so young she presents herself so sexually but talks of herself virginally. And she would say then how it's just a stage thing, not reality. I dunno, I think at least in the beginning, it was true. I don't think she had any idea what she was doing, she just did what they told her to do. But no real understanding of what she was doing at all. And even now, I don't think she has any idea who she is. I have no basis for this, but yeah, that's what I see when I look at her. I just think the song is so true for her, but I don't even know if she really knows that.

I say this because whenever she performs the song, like the way she performs a lot of songs, she does it in this sexy way. And that's like counter to the message of that song. But in a deep way, it kind of makes it more true, you know? I dunno. But yeah, the recording is better than any live version because the producer wisely held back her sultry singing tendencies.

SN. That's another beef I have with certain worship CDs out there. Just, the singers sometimes sing in a way that doesn't feel worshipful. It's just odd. A friend of mine once did this, singing this Christian song in public in a way that sounded like she was seducing someone. Yike, uncomfortable. At least she didn't go into the audience.

Can I be honest? Strapless wedding dresses make me a little bit nervous. It's just a little too much skin for me. Just, the white dress is supposed to symbolize purity, but when I see someone wearing a strapless at the altar I can't help but think, this woman is half naked in front of hundreds of people, all her friends and family, and God. Yikes.

But I know I'm the only one that feels this way. Just, there was a period I went to like 5 weddings in a row where all the brides wore strapless dresses. I realized this because for the life of me I can't remember what the wedding dresses looked like at pretty much any wedding I've been to. Only Jieun's, and even then just because we have all these pictures. But yeah, my sister's, no clue. But I do remember if they wore a strapless because of that uncomfortable feeling I have, and even then, couldn't tell you any more details.

Random data point. I can't remember where I read this, it was like a year and a half ago, but there was some interview with Jars of Clay that was really interesting. Part of it dealt with how their record label was pressuring them somewhat to release a worship album, a trendy thing to do. And they were against it. I'm not sure I completely buy their reasons for not doing it, it was something like, if we release a worship record, what does that make the rest of our albums? They're all intended to be God glorifying, so to make a explicit worship album implies the others weren't, something like that. Whatever.

But the point is, there was some pressure from the record label to make a "worship" album. I don't know if I doubt the motives of the artists but I do doubt the motives of the labels and the industry. They see worship as being profitable. Even the press releases for the MWS/3rd Day tour do this. Talk about how many copies MWS' worship album sold. I dunno, worship is a business. And that's kind of sad to me. And like all Christian enterprises, they're going to run this into the ground (if they haven't already). You know, with like Shout To The Lord Kids, Praise Exercise, etc. Just wait for MWS' Pilates Worship. Or City On A Hill's Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus Worship.

Ack, just did some searching and you know what, it's already way overdone. They're cross pollinating with other overdone themes. Behold: Left Behind Worship, The Prayer Of Jabez Worship. Left Behind Worship??? Wouldn't that be the most depressing worship album ever? And isn't the name kind of ridiculous? Come on, Christians. This isn't Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Let's show a little restraint. I dunno, if I ever record a worship CD I'm using only Gregorian chants or stuff like that. Keeping it real.

SN. Have you ever been to a Catholic mass? You have to check out their hymnals or songbooks or whatever they use. I dunno, their songs are just weird musically, I think. The weird thing is that like, they'll have songs that are straight from the Bible and the melodies are like literally a single note so the music is just a series of Gs on a staff. So the people sing like "Blessed be the Lord from this time forth and forevermore", every syllable a G. The ridiculous thing is, the music will list copyright info, like "Words and music copyright 1974 John Doe". Is that really necessary? Absurd.

So I've been downloading random videos lately. Like I got the Super Bowl Shuffle video. It's as bad as I remember. I dunno if it's cultural or genetic or whatever, but I'm sorry, black people just have more soul than white people. Basically the rappers are all black except for Jim McMahon and this other white guy. Every single black guy is decent and has some rhythm; some are pretty good with the limited material. But Jim and that other guy - painful. And don't get me started with the dancing.

I also downloaded a classic SNL sketch, a parody on those Folger's Crystals commercials where they secretly replace restaurant coffee with FC and show the reaction on a hidden camera. It's the one with Chris Farley where when they tell him, he slowly goes berserk, upturning tables and causing mass chaos. Hilarious. I dunno, people seem to love Will Ferrell but for my money, our jr. high / high school era I think was the best. Chris Farley, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Victoria Jackson, Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Kevin Nealon. I dunno, I loved it. I've some of those other seasons though, like the Randy Quaid season and Chris Elliot season. Yikes. Very bad times.

Read this column from Newsweek. It's George F. Will talking about the coming AIDS epidemic in Eurasia, and how that might be a bigger destabilizing threat than terrorism. The numbers he quotes are scary. Assuming a mild epidemic, 43 million people will die of AIDS in India, China, and Russia by 2025. That's compared to 25 million who have died of AIDS in the world so far. It's really scary.

"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius." - Arthur Conan Doyle

That quote perfectly expresses my tier philosophy. Great quote.

Anyway, I found that quote on the page of some UCLA math professor. Check out his bio if you want to feel particularly underachieving. The guy was born in '75. Participated in the International Math Olympiad at ages 11-13. Finished Master's by 17, PhD in Math at Princeton by 21. Whoa. And he's into anime.

Anyway, a friend sent me to his diversions page. There are a bunch of puzzles there. Particularly hard is a sliding block puzzle. In case you're bored or something. There's a link there also to AI and classic games which is pretty interesting. This AI Scrabble program is apparently the best in the world and has revolutionized Scrabble strategy by showing that defense is insignificant. That's actually really interesting.

Apparently the Bay Area has problems with mercury levels in the water. I don't think Almaden people like Eric and Val are surprised. You know there's tons of mercury in the area. There's an old abandoned mercury (quicksilver) mine by Eric's house. And it's the reason why it's called the San Jose Mercury News. Random factoids of the day.

The thing is, should you be profiting from worship? One thing to pay for costs, but profit? But then again, by that logic, should Vineyard be selling their CDs for profit? Hmm. I dunno, it's just confusing.

Hmm, found the web page for the tour. They're not coming to CA, so I won't be able to go and judge everyone around me. They will be in Peoria IL, though. And Dallas.

Anyway, check out the tour news page. Mostly fine but the section talking about Chevrolet is super sketchy. Here's an excerpt:

We are excited about Chevrolet's partnership and strongly believe their investment in this tour will provide a very strong return. We'll be releasing more details on the activities that will target music and book buyers via direct marketing promotional campaigns designed to drive qualified consumers to test drive Chevrolet products. Meanwhile Chevrolet is helping us reach as many people as possible about what we believe to be the Christian music event of the year.

"Sponsoring the Come Together and Worship Tour provides Chevrolet and local Chevy dealers an opportunity to reach our target consumers, particularly families, in association with an entertaining event that delivers a positive, uplifting message," stated Steve Betz, Regional Division Marketing Manager for Chevrolet. "This is a ground-breaking marketing effort for Chevrolet. With Contemporary Christian Music growing exponentially compared to every other genre of music for the past two years, Chevrolet recognizes the marketing potential with this tour and the benefits of partnering with the most popular and successful musical artists in their industry."

I'm sorry, but I hate liberals. Don't get me wrong, I'm no party-line Republican. Maybe it's just that I'm surrounded by liberals. I bet if I was in Texas I'd be whining about the conservatives around me. But whatever, I'm here.

The thing that bothers me is the subtle elitist attitude they have. Not sure if elitist is the right word. But in their minds everyone is a Democrat. It's obvious. They can't understand how anyone could possibly vote Republican. And there's a subtle implication there that those people are idiots or evil.

I dunno, just have some healthy respect for the opposing view is all I'm saying. If you can't even see how someone would vote the opposite way then you're missing something. And if a lot of people vote that way (looks like that's what's happening) and you still can't even understand the opposing view, then you're really missing something. You're the one who's out of touch. I dunno. I think every conservative should spend time in California and every liberal should spend time in Texas, just for balance, to at least recognize the other side. And everyone should spend time in Korea. But no one should wear T-shirts worn down enough to reveal nipples.

Random Eric slam.

Jieun's got me watching 24 and it's pretty good. The first episode was all right but the second episode was great. I don't watch a lot of TV nowadays so dunno how it is relative to everything else but yeah, I was entertained. Jieun loved it because the series started out in Korea and it wasn't fully subtitled so it was like you were in on a secret. Kinda like with those old episodes of MASH. But anyway.

There's this interesting debate going on in Christian music circles involving some Michael W. Smith / Third Day tour being sponsored by Chevrolet. I think the problem is that it's being advertised as a night of worship.

Steve Camp posted an open letter on his website. I don't agree with all of it but I think he makes at least a couple valid points. One, not sure how right it is to charge for a time of worship. Seems odd. If it's a concert, fine, but if you're going to call it a time of worship, I dunno. Second, dunno how right it is to have a corporate sponsor for a worship time. Again, the problem I guess is with calling it a time of worship instead of a concert. Worship should be free and spiritual, not tied to profit and marketing. I think.

Anyway, a question he asks that I think is worth asking is whether worship has been turned into entertainment. So that people don't naturally have a problem with treating a worship night as a concert or vice versa. I dunno, I think the line's blurry and it's weird. I've heard a couple Chris Tomlin worship recordings and it's weird - he'll play an intro and people start cheering wildly. What are they cheering for? God? Jesus? Based on the intro? I dunno, it seems to me like they're cheering for the song, and that's a weird concerty thing to do. It's just confusing is all.

Whoa, weird. That semi-obscure "You Are Holy" song we sang at KCPC - the one where the guys and girls split, "I will sing to and worship the king who is worthy / He is Lord of Lords He is king of kings he is mighty God lord of everything" - is on the new Michael W. Smith Worship CD. His version is terrible. I dunno, I'm kind of sad about that. Just, it was kind of "cool" to know because it's an awesome song but obscure.

Have you ever read "High Fidelity"? A good read, anyone who reads this page would love it. Anyway, it's about these record store employees and they're complete music snobs. There's this great passage where one of them discusses this song and another asks, "The (so and so) version?" and the other is peeved because he doesn't know that version. I'm not doing this book justice. But yeah, the point is, they're devoted to this arcane music knowledge and it makes them feel superior, where in truth they're complete losers.

Anyway, I'm exactly like that but far worse - I'm a praise music snob. I remember one great moment in my life when I was leading one week and told the team in practice how I wanted to sing "You Are My All In All" but like the original, not the Bob Fitts version. And Kris, no slouch when it comes to praise knowledge, goes, "what original version?" I still hold on to that.

Anyway, yeah, that song's on there so not obscure anymore, which is good. Too bad people will be copying MWS's horrid version. Ooh, I just found out I think it's on a WOW worship CD also. Oh well. But yeah, both of those versions suck. Ooh, I found another version by "Young Life". It's pretty good - the best fast version I've heard. What a loser I am.

Also, Dave's favorite song "Here I Am To Worship" ("altogether... I'll never know how much is cost...") is on MWS' CD.

Some songs I'm digging lately: Holy (on the Vineyard UK CD of the same name) and Enough (one of the Passion CDs? Not sure - it's Chris Tomlin). I think I'm more impacted by songs that remind me that God is all I need - and all I could want. I'm too easily distracted. I guess it's sort of related to a testimony I shared once. But yeah, those songs mean a lot to me. I like You Are My Treasure for the same reason. But anyway.

Here's the chorus to Enough:

All of You is more than enough for
All of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You is more than enough

Awesome - it's all falling into place. Sad that Notre Dame lost but whatever, with the other unbeatens losing, Ohio State is that close to getting into the national championship game. Just need V. Tech to beat Miami and for OSU not to choke to Michigan again. I'm pretty excited.

Another googlism, for jack.html:

• jack.html is over
• jack.html is full of differnet people
• jack.html is really where i feel more comfortable saying whatever i want to say
• jack.html is not part of darkim
• jack.html is becoming rather powerful
• jack.html is now validated as a html 4
• jack.html is really dying or something because i check the updates on my list
• jack.html is written by someone who clearly has far to much time on his hands

Leo just introduced me to Googlism, which I guess takes Google queries and extracts facts from it. It's pretty funny. Like here are the googlisms for "Danny Chai":

• danny chai is a little boy from the lonely state of texas
• danny chai is a happy person and can find fulfillment in the person that he is
• danny chai is can find out
• danny chai is an interesting person
• danny chai is one of those few folks who maintains his webpage regularly
• danny chai is a stalker
• danny chai is the man at stalking
• danny chai is an interesting guy
• danny chai is a better basketball player than i am

• dave hong is probably a comic geinus
• dave hong is a dork
• dave hong is out of the picture for this year
• dave hong is saying with the jack
• dave hong is actually there and he's dancing
• dave hong is one of my closer friends from stanford
• dave hong is *not*
• dave hong is to frappuccino's as jimmy ahn is to tang

• henry hsu is a master of mr
• henry hsu is one of those guys who didn't
• henry hsu is perhaps the most loved person on campus

• john yoon is kind of goofy when he plays basketball
• john yoon is cool
• john yoon is trained in laser vision correction
• john yoon is awesome
• john yoon is so good at this
• john yoon is
• john yoon is at my apartment today

• eric mao is co
• eric mao is amazing
• eric mao is pretty good
• eric mao is the only guy on my mind
• eric mao is mentioned in the most recent newsletter sent to stanford cs grads
• eric mao is one of the most kind and thoughtful person that i know
• eric mao is korean

A difficult sliding block puzzle

Andy, we got trick or treaters for the first time also! They pulled the classic "Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat." Good times. We asked if we had to give them a treat. Their response: "No, if you chose trick we were supposed to TP your door." Delightful.

Anyway, I love being an engineer because we're all so socially awkward. Just, we're generally awkward to begin with, then add the cutural stuff in there, with people being from China, Taiwan, Korea, Russia, India, etc. I dunno, I just find it hilarious. So we had this contest at work so some of us dressed up. Anyway, with the engineers, you have the few normal ones who are fine, some who get so into character it's a little unsettling, and the rest of us being our same shy, introverted, quiet selves, except wearing ridiculous outfits. I dunno, it's just funny to me.

Another interesting thing to me is how kids are a big equalizer at work. Meaning, I dunno, all these distinctions disappear when the kids come. Doesn't matter if their parents are senior execs or the randomest scrubs at work; if their kids are the right age, they play together, and as parents, everyone's on the same level. I dunno, maybe there's something hopeful and inspiring about that. But yeah, it's interesting.

Short post about a disgusting habit I have. Just so you know what I'm really like.

I pick my nose frequently. OK, so everyone (sans Eunice Chu) picks their nose. But what I also do more frequently is pick the outside of my nose. I dunno how to explain it. I guess it's that stuff that Biore gets out. If you rub, scratch, and squeeze the right way, you can get it out yourself. But it's a lot of work. So I do it all the time. And like I said, it's disgusting.

Anyway, I do it at work a lot. Just, my cube is positioned so I have a good degree of privacy. I have this little mirror ball thingy that attaches to the corner of my monitor so I can see who's behind me (entering my cube) but I'm not always aware. I'm pretty sure I've been busted before. Not sure if they saw me in the act, but I'd have done it for a while so I'd turn around with a nose as red as Rudolph. Busted. I was just reminded of this because I think I got busted today. I was working pretty hard at it then all of a sudden someone behind me clears their throat. Busted. But that's the risk you take when you insist on doing disgusting things in public.

Pretty rank huh? You don't know the half of it. I'm seriously a vile human being. One more disgusting habit I have. After I wipe, I smell it. I have no idea why. It's disgusting and I hate the way it smells. But it's something I do. I can't explain it.

Side note. My crap started smelling worse when I got to Stanford. I'm not sure why. My theory was because I wasn't eating any white rice. But no clue how true that is. Another thing I've wondered was, so they say the reason why different races smell "different" (read: worse) than others is because of diet. But then, at college, I dunno, we were all eating the same dorm food but I know for a fact some of the people I knew smelled much worse under the same conditions than others. I dunno, just something I thought about.

Anyway, I have no idea why I talk about disgusting habits and bathroom behavior so much either, but I guess I do. Here's an exact quote from Linnea: "Every time I use the bathroom I think of you." I guess it's nice to be remembered for something.

I think I used to be funnier than I am. Natural Selection Man. That's inspired.

Great article on Tyrone Willingham.

Quick responses to Dave: Not a huge fan of Rushmore. 2.5 stars. One of those movies I just didn't "get". But I know quite a few people who loved it.

If I was against a college football playoff in the past (can't remember), I'm not at all anymore. Hugely in favor of a playoff. This BCS thing is ridiculous. The only time it works is when it's obvious (like there are only 2 undefeated teams, and even then it's iffy). But that's not the point of the BCS system - it's to decide things when things aren't obvious, and it clearly doesn't do that.

I'm especially angry because it looks like Ohio State's going to be shafted this year. They beat a Top 25 team last week and they go down in the AP poll from #4 to #6. Bizarre. I'm not sure they're the best team in the nation, but they won't even get a chance to compete. It's like Tommy says in Titanic: "Give us a chance!"

So I was actually rooting for the Angels in the beginning of the Series (hate the Giants), but going down to SoCal this weekend changed me. The reason is this: there are no real Angels fans. I dunno, I guess there are a handful, but the vast majority of them jumped on the bandwagon in the past few months/weeks/days. And a good number of them were upfront about it, how they're Angels fans *now*. But still, most of them were acting like they were hardcore Angels fans forever. One newscaster was saying how this is the moment Angels fans have been waiting for all their lives. Please. All that pretending turned me off. I dunno, I suppose the Marlins in '97 and the Diamondbacks last year is worse but still.

Here's another thing about LA fans that turns me off: they like everyone. Typical bandwagon mentality. I dunno, is it like that in other places? I know up here, you're generally either a Giants fan or an A's fan. There are those posers that wear the half Giants / half A's hats but most people revile them. With the 49ers and Raiders, you're definitely one or the other. But in LA, you have tons of people who are both Dodgers and Angels fans. Huh? Or Lakers and Clippers fans. What the... I dunno, whatever, free country and all, but that's just not me.

SN - flying down there were a fair number of Giants fans on the plane, and the pilot was apparently an Angels "fan". Which was kind of amusing as he'd make comments like, "Angels fans are now free to move about the cabin. Giants fans are not." But anyway, there was this one guy, I overheard him saying that he lives in Atlanta but grew up in SF and was a hardcore Giants fan. He owns season tickets, and goes to a few series each year. He had also been to every World Series game this year. I dunno, that's hard core.

The fanmail I get invariably falls into two categories: probably gay men, and people asking about spiritual things. Most recently someone's commented on the counter-missionary Jews thing and someone else asked whether Berkland is a cult.

Henry could probably say better but it's been interesting to me attending weddings now, after getting married. I think the coolest thing is the sermons - it's like an opportunity to reflect on my own marriage. Are we doing that? Is that how we are? Before it was all just theoretical but now it's real and I dunno, a good reminder is kind of cool.

Miramax has been releasing a bunch of Jackie Chan films on DVD, I believe through its Dimension branch. Accidental Spy even listed the Weinstein brothers as producers. At any rate, I hate the American Miramax versions. Three reasons I can think of, that came to mind while watching AS.

• The music. I'm fairly certain they redo the music, and it's terrible. It borders on farcical. I dunno, it just totally changes the mood of the movie - Jackie is comical, but it's not a comedy. There's a difference. You don't want to be using that Saturday morning cartoon like stuff. Ruins the feel.
• The editing. Actually, this might be a good thing. But the American releases are all significantly shorter than the Hong Kong versions. I say this might be good because Jackie's movies can get slow at times. But still, I hate the feeling I'm missing something. And with AS especially, I think they cut out fairly important plot elements. At least, that would explain a lot.
• The dubbing. I hate it. And they don't provide the original language track. The worst part is, Jackie dubs his own English parts. Totally disorienting. Everyone else speaking normally, and then the main character speaking this broken English. It got so bad during AS that I had to turn on the subtitles, just to figure out what Jackie was supposed to be saying.

I had an interesting conversation the other night. It made me ask myself, what's my biggest flaw? And more interestingly, what do others think is my biggest flaw? In my own mind, my biggest flaw is obvious and severe - my selfishness. But what would other people say? I dunno, it's an interesting question to me. Feel free to tell me what you think.

Pastor Eugene said this once about Hillsongs songs and I think he's 100% correct - about 70% of them make no sense at all. Lyrically, that is. They're not like cohesive songs, they're like best-of songs, just a bunch of catchy individual phrases put together but with no coherent meaning.

Have you checked out Google catalogs? Pretty awesome.

So it finally feels like I'm getting settled with marriage. I'm not exactly sure what that means. I guess part of it is now when I come home and say "Honey I'm home", I mean it in all seriousness, not tongue in cheek.

Anyway, I think there are two things about us that are somewhat unique. One is that we resolve conflicts fairly well. We certainly don't fight less than other couples, I think. But we're pretty good at resolving things and I think that's one of our strengths.

The other thing is that we never get tired of each other. Even when we're fighting, I'd rather be there with her, fighting, than somewhere else. I need a fair amount of down time, but my down time includes her being around. I dunno, that's just how it is. And I guess that's why marriage has been pretty fun, because we're around each other all the time. It's been interesting.

For no particular reason I've been doing a little research on counter missionary Jews. These are Jews who are basically against missionary Christians, in particular the Jews for Jesus movement. It's really quite fascinating. Their objections seem to involve intellectual issues but a lot of it centers around cultural things; the feeling seems to be that Jews for Jesus etc. are trying to assimilate Jews and that when that happens they lose their Jewishness.

Anyway, one thing these sites have shown me is that anti-Semitism is a real part in the history of the church, and it's really sad. Like, one site said at the Council of Nicea, there were hundreds of bishops from around the world - not one was of Jewish heritage. Is that true? How did it go from the church leaders like Peter, James, etc. all being Jewish to a few hundred years later, none being Jewish? And then from there moving to blatant anti-Semitism in the church? It's a sad legacy, and I can see how Jews would be bitter and resistant to Christianity.

I think I've written this before, but the music that impacts me the most always has a hint of melancholy to it. I'm not sure why that is. I like the upbeat stuff, but the stuff that hits me most deeply - it's gotta be melancholy.

I was reading about Kurt Cobain in Newsweek and it seems like it's somewhat universal, that a lot of times, the music that impacts people the most is borne out of pain. I think it's because suffering is the universal human experience, and people like to know they're not alone. The worst advice you can give someone who's depressed, I think, and something I've said too much in the past, is "don't be depressed". It's probably better to say, "you're not alone". And that's what the best music makes me feel.

"The best way to waste your life is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch. Look for the details. Report. Don't participate."

Uh oh.

I spent a few hours on Sunday learning some new songs on the guitar. The Internet, and in particular, Kazaa (Lite), is awesome. You can download songs, the videos for them so you can catch glimpses of how they play, and then find the tab somewhere on the Web. Good stuff. Anyway, the songs I learned to play:

• Dire Straits - Money For Nothing (just the intro)
• The B52s - Love Shack
• John Mayer - No Such Thing
• Metallica - Enter Sandman
• Jimmy Eat World - The Middle

As I think I mentioned elsewhere, I've been learning to play the recorder also. Just on a whim after seeing it cheap in a music store. That's also fun. The Titanic theme is annoying, but it sounds authentic. Also been playing the solo from Rich Mullins' Boy Like Me, Man Like You, the Forrest Gump theme and trying random songs like John Tesh's NBA on NBC theme and Kansas' Carry On My Wayward Son.

In case anyone cares, it's a lot harder I think playing recorder than clarinet or sax. You don't have keys to reach places for you so the fingerings can be funky. And the hardest part for me is, there's no reed to help regulate the air pressure so tone and vibrato are a lot more challenging. I have a vision for recorder-led worship. We'll see how it goes.

The harmonica solo in U2's Desire is among the worst solos ever committed to media. Embarrassing. The only worse solo I can think of was the lead singer of Fine Young Cannibal's piano solo when they appeared on SNL a decade ago.

I've recently discovered a couple Mexican restaurants near my house that are pretty authentic and good. Authentic meaning they serve stuff like lengua (tongue), cabeza (head), and sesos (brains). Good meaning it tastes better than Fresh Taste and especially Una Mas, although I like those places all right.

The thing that's confusing is, they're right next door to each other and they both have signs saying how good they are. One says, the city's best burritos. The other says the best burritos in the South Bay. Is that logically possible? Confusing. For what it's worth, I think I like the best in the South Bay one better. Plus it's cheap - $3.50 for a tasty, large burrito.

For what it's worth, my favorite burrito is this place on Old Middlefield, I think called La Costena. The only thing is, it gave me fairly severe diarrhea. That's a little too authentic for me.

I just met my cousin Joshua. I think I learned a little bit about God tonight. Pretty cryptic huh? Sucks for you.

Hey Marshall, his Korean name is Jung-hyun. Thought you might like that.

Made some progress on the Untitled manual, including some screenshots. Not that anyone in the world cares.

100% disagree with baseball being the most strategic sport. Was it Yogi Berra that said this? You won't see any trick plays in baseball. And Rob Neyer said as much in a recent chat, saying the hard part of managing is the human relations stuff - the in-game stuff isn't really that difficult. There is strategy, but nowhere near that of, for example, football (which I think is hands down the most strategic game). I dunno, my opinion.

I learned recently about Efficient Market Theory. Absolutely fascinating. I dunno, do people know what it is? Do people buy it or not?

I was at Trader Joe's, and they sell Ezekiel 4:9 Bread. Random.

Oops, should have included the passage. "Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side."

This passage is utterly bizarre, by the way. At one point God relents and lets him use cow dung for fuel to cook as opposed to human dung. Who's hungry?

I've never thought of the majority as being the arbiter of taste. I think people conceive of having taste as being more refined than the general population - to have the same preferences as the masses is, while not quite tasteless, at least unrefined.

I realized this weekend why I like watching in order, football most, then basketball, then baseball. I think it's because in any given game, the better team is most likely to win in football, then basketball, then baseball.

Like in baseball, a very very good team will win 100 of their 162 regular season games. That's just a 62% winning percentage. Bob Costas noted in Fair Ball how this comes out to just over 4 games of a 7 game series. His argument being extra playoff series (with a wildcard) are bad, because even the best teams win just over 4 of every 7 games. And there's so much variability that the best team will often not win. I'm not explaining it well; hope it makes sense. But I never bought that argument. If you extend that logic, then there should be no playoffs at all, because any 7 game series will be unpredictable. You should just have a regular season and that's it. But regardless, his point is correct. Baseball's just too variable over a series and more so for a given game. Who feels like Minnesota is a better team than Oakland? The better team doesn't win that much more often.

In basketball, a really good team will win say 60 games (only the Kings won this many last season). That's a 73% winning percentage. Which is much better than baseball. And in football, a good team will win 14 games, an 88% winning percentage. I just feel like in football, the "better" team (not the favorite, the better) will win a given game much more often than in other sports. And I like that. I just feel like the results of every game should reflect who is actually the better team, not just how things happened to come together that game, and the results are most consistent with football.

At least until the past 5 years. Nowadays with parity and everything, anything can happen. It's not that the better team doesn't win I think, it's just that the distance between good and mediocre got a lot smaller. But I dunno, just my opinion.

There is a place in Fremont called Raffles Singaporean Restaurant. La.

So, one thing I think maybe I've learned in marriage is that attention is absolutely huge for women. It covers over a multitude of shortcomings. And even if you do a bunch of other things, if you don't pay attention to them, it's not enough. I dunno, it's just weird for me because a lot of times I value more being left alone. It's just interesting.

The more I think about it the more I'm against war with Iraq. I think my primary concern now is that it sets a dangerous precedent. Zakaria drew this distinction in one of his old articles, how the U.S. isn't just pursuing a preemptive war, it's pursuing something like a preventive war. And I think that's a dangerous precedent. Just, what's to prevent other countries from doing the same thing? What's the criteria for when it's OK? India and Pakistan both resumed missile testing or something recently. They could both perceive the other as being subject to a preventive war since the other has nuclear weapons. I don't know, it's just a scary precedent, one I'm not sure we should start.

Newsweek had a poll in some article on U.S. Muslims saying how a good majority of them believe the U.S. to be immoral and corrupt. The implication being that with this attitude they're candidates for radicalism. Uh, I dunno, I think the U.S. is immoral and corrupt. I bet if you surveyed evangelical Christians you'd get similar responses as with Muslims. I dunno, I just thought it was a lame survey question in light of the article.

We've always known that Asians don't smell as bad when we sweat; now I've found confirmation.

I've long believed that one of the reasons America isn't more "spiritual" or whatever is because we've so distanced ourselves from death. We do whatever we can to stay as young as we can and shuffle off the dying to the side so we don't to think about it. And we don't. And I've been convinced that if people thought about death more, they'd be more religious.

But then I started thinking, what about doctors? People who are surrounded by death, who see it frequently. Are they more religious? I dunno, I have no data but my guess is no, as a group they aren't particularly more religious than any other group. And that throws my whole theory into whack. Maybe I'm wrong about the death thing.

I dunno, I have a theory though. That doctors to some degree have a feeling of invincibility. I dunno, I have a dentist friend who feels that way. And a friend was once saying how doctors advise their patients to eat right and take care of themselves and not work too much - their health always comes first. And of course these doctors work way too much, never take time off, and go to conferences where they eat the worst food. It's an invincibility complex. I dunno, that's my theory.

In the end though it's a complete mystery why certain groups are more Christian than others. Like, why is Korea more Christian than Japan? Why does it seem like so many more musicians are Christian than actors? What's the difference? I dunno, it's a complete mystery to me.

"the premise is something like charlie's angels for tv"

Uh Dave, Charlie's Angels was a TV show.

I remember when doing BunnyWorld for CS 108 near the end of the project I started messing around with Mac's speech generator. It's this machine voice that reads text you specify. I spent like hours getting it to say absurd phrases like "I want to lick Eli." Amusing only to me. Anyway, I was happy to find a couple of tracks using the same thing on TobyMac's Momentum. Good stuff.

You know one of the realizations I've had working is that alcohol isn't just important in non-Christian dating; it's important in every single social activity we have. We need to have alcohol there; no idea why. And the interesting thing is, the U.S. is actually relatively tame with this. We have coworkers from Europe and Asia and all over and where they're from, alcohol is even more important than it is here.