Random political entry, prolly boring for most.
So I'm super against Prop 13. I'm not saying I know everything about it, maybe I'm wrong, just that of what I know, I'm against.
So it was this prop that passed in CA in 1978. At that time property tax rates were going crazy and people were being forced to sell their homes. So there was a taxpayer revolt in the form of this prop, which limited property tax rates (in terms of last valuation), limited the amount taxes on a particular property could be raised from year to year, and required a 2/3 vote for certain taxes.
The property tax rate problem was a real one, but this I think was the wrong solution. What happened is that, starved of property tax revenue, the state and local communities had to look to other creative ways of getting money. And other things. In a nutshell, the level of services and other things in CA did terribly. Everything. Notably, our education system went from being one of the best in the country to one of the worst. Prop 13 wasn't the only reason for this, but I think it's fair to say it was a major contributing factor. I dunno, maybe Wong can rebut.
Anyway, the effects of it are rearing their ugly heads even today. One reason CA's budget crisis is so much more severe than other states is because the state's tax revenue is less based on dependable property taxes and more on variable sources like sales taxes, stuff like that. So economic cycles hit CA's budget more acutely. So now we're in an awful situation with a massive shortfall.
It's compounded by the fact that the state budget requires a 2/3 vote to pass. I actually have no idea whether this is related to Prop 13 at all, probably not. But this is bad also. Because of it, you almost always get impasses over the budget. It's ridiculous this year, the budget situation, and how it's at a standstill, but it's nothing new - pretty much every year the budget comes down to the wire before being passed, often going late. It's absolutely ridiculous.
Not to mention how Prop 13 gives communities no incentive to build low cost housing.
So anyway, Prop 13 has been terrible for the state, I think. I'm extremely anti. What gets my goat is that every defense for it essentially centers on, well, it was good for me. I.e. long termers who were able to keep their house. To reflect on 25 years of Prop 13, the Merc has been doing a series of articles on the effects of it. They stop short of making a judgment on whether it was good or bad but it's basically impossible to read about the effects and not be against it. Anyway, after every article, you get letters from people saying, thanks to Prop 13, I kept my house. Therefore, I'm in favor of it.
That kind of selfishness and short-sightedness makes me angry. Congrats on keeping your house. The schools suck, our state government constantly goes through crises, all government services on every level have dropped. But hey, you have your house. Bully for you. I dunno, I'm against. But maybe I'm wrong, Wong prolly knows better.
So here's one thing with affirmative action that bothers me. Actually, not AA itself, just something that pro-AA people sometimes say. Powerful conservative blacks, ones opposed to AA, are often criticized for being against the very policies that they benefitted from.
My question is, is that true? That they benefited from them? How do you know that their qualifications wouldn't have been sufficient in and of themselves, without AA? Like Condi Rice. I dunno, her achievements and qualifications I think are pretty impressive by any standard. Isn't it kind of cynical to assume that she wouldn't have achieved what she did without the benefit of AA? That she had to be helped along?
And that's what bothers me. The implication that any minority who achieved something must have been helped by AA. I'm sure it helped some minorities. But to me, that kind of cheapens the achievements of those minorities who are dope by any standard. To say that they must have needed help. I dunno. That argument that AA must have helped any minority in power, I just don't like that.
Again, it's not "Why you wanna give it", it's "Why you wanna givin it". Hello, sense? Where are you? Adam Duritz, I hate you. cat Henry_Top_Gun_Theme_Song.txt.
Another pet peeve: randomly bolded words and phrases in writing. It just makes it difficult to read. Hunter Thompson does that kinda with his randomly capitalized words but that's a little more bearable.
I love Scattergories. That's just me. The thing is, you'll argue a lot, because everyone has a different criteria. Mine is this - things you would typically find in that category. Not things you would possibly find in that category - that could be anything. So prawns, I'm with. I dunno, I figure you'd typically find prawns at a beach, if you look hard enough. But Legos, no. You won't typically find that in a suitcase. I dunno, if you go the anything possible route, it's too inclusive. Just to me.
My favorite Scattergories answer I heard was for things that are black - linebackers. I'm down with that. Linebackers are typically black. It's a good answer.
So anyway, the word "banal" really confuses me. How do you pronounce it? Ralph Barbieri always says "ba-NAHL". I say "BAY-nell". I looked in a dictionary and it's absurd - basically any pronunciation is acceptable. I'm against that. If anything is acceptable, I'm going to pronounce it "foogy".
David Kennedy wrote this fascinating article in the Merc on Sunday about affirmative action. So you know, AA is without question constitutionally dubious. It goes directly against the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. There's no way around it. I'm not saying AA is bad. I'm just saying it's constitutionally dubious. I think having all teachers be Christian would be great, but that would be unconstitutional.
Anyway, the recent decision was really interesting. Basically, the justification for AA has been we need to bend the 14th Amendment temporarily for a good purpose. Not sure about Bakke but the recent decision confirmed the temporary nature of AA, with O'Connor saying in 25 years, it should no longer be necessary.
Kennedy points out something interesting though. In the past, AA was described as being kinda like reparations for past wrongs, a measure of correction for America's racist past. But in the recent decision, the justification for AA was framed in terms of diversity, that that's a valid consideration.
And that's really interesting. Because by framing it like that, that makes it harder for it to be a temporary thing. Reparations might be temporary in nature, but diversity isn't. As America's demographics change, it will only be a bigger concern. So this shift in justifying AA, moving to diversity, is really interesting. Will AA ever end? We'll see, we'll see.
See, that's my point. It's irrelevant whether I'd like L'Engle now. I dunno, maybe I would. But they're supposed to be children's books, and no child I knew liked A Wrinkle In Time. So I'm against childrens books that adults say are good, but not kids. Not against, just, more eProps for books that children like.
BTW, has anyone read Encyclopedia Brown recently? My sister reads it to her class. I remember them being impossible, that he's some kind of genius. But my sister says it's pretty obvious.
Argh, I explained that reading terribly. Main point - if anyone is valuing the world too much, they should focus not on how useless the world is but on knowing God, and His incredible grace, more.
So we went to lunch today and I/we were singing random 80s TV show theme songs. Good times. Full House took a while to remember but we got that also. Anyway, during lunch this random guy comes up to our table and says how he overheard us singing. In particular, he was really impressed that I knew all the words to the Golden Girls theme (which is ridiculous - that's a gimme). So he was just talking to us and wanting to challenge us, like with the Mary Tyler Moore theme.
Then his wife came, clearly embarrassed, and dragged him away, apologing to us for him bothering our table. I dunno, that just amused me because I saw me and Jieun in them. Me doing random things and her getting embarrassed by it. I love my wife.
Another life changing reading for men's group. I dunno, maybe I mention this group too much but yeah, I think it's been really good for me.
So this particular reading, which was from like the 1800s (SN - did people in older times just have better vocabularies or something? Just, the grammar and language of some of these old things are just difficult and amazing. He rips of words like vituperative and Antinomianism like they're common terms. I dunno, just something I wonder.) had this key insight: it is nearly impossible to remove a desire without replacing it with another desire.
I won't go into his proof of it, but yeah, I found it compelling. Anyway, the implication is this - if the Scriptures command us to not love the world, the wrong thing to do is show how useless and worthless the world is. No matter how convincing that is, if there's nothing to replace that desire, it's nearly impossible for us to give up.
So his argument is, instead of focusing on the worthlessness of the world, we need to focus on why an alternative, God, is far better. Geez, I'm manhandling his stuff. But whatever, it really resonated with me. I dunno, I feel like I've been struggling a lot to give up stuff of this world, like money, status, whatever. I mentioned before how that song Surrender has been really meaningful lately. But I dunno, I think I've been missing the more important part of the equation, why God is so awesome, why it's awesome to want to be with Him all the time. And that's why the giving up part has been so hard. I dunno.
Boring.
I have a lot of respect for good children's writers. Anyone that can really understand the mind of child, that's amazing to me. Like, I mentioned how I reread that book I was into as a kid. I dunno, it's amazing to me. Just, from my perspective now, I'd think the language is too advanced, but obviously I'm wrong. Making the language simple enough for a child to read but not speaking down to them, I dunno, that's amazing to me.
Like when I was a kid, I never really respected those children's authors that adults thought were good, as opposed to kids. My prime example is Madeline L'Engle. I think she's Christian, so maybe this is bad, but yeah, that book she wrote, A Wrinkle In Time, won the Newberry award but I'm sorry, I found it boring to tears and confusing to boot. I dunno if you remember this but the main character defeats the evil enemy by loving it. That makes no sense to a kid. Actually, it still makes no sense to me. If you're loving it to destroy it, how is that love? I dunno, I hated the book as a kid. Again, one of those children's books that adults thought were good, not kids. I dunno, my opinion.
So yeah, I didn't really respect books like that because they didn't understand the mind of a child. I had more respect for like the author of Encyclopedia Brown. Yeah, nothing deep or whatever, but that guy knew how to capture a child's interest. And that's more impressive to me than writing a supposedly great book that kids don't really like.
I've said this before, but the worst dis is when someone is being completely genuine. We were playing ball today and this one guy asks another, "So is there a reason you never go left? Are you not able to or you just don't like it?" 100% sincere. Ouch.
Sometimes I think I'm an idiot. Just, I learn things now that I should have learned a long long time ago. So like, for years now, every time I played basketball, afterwards I'd get a huge headache and be really sore. It was awful.
You know what I realized recently? If I stretch before and after playing, I'm not nearly as sore, especially my back. And if I drink a lot of water, I don't get headaches, or not nearly as bad. I must have been getting dehydrated or something. I dunno, isn't that kind of obvious? But yeah, I went through it for years and never stopped to consider why it might be happening.
Which space program has the worse safety record? The U.S.' or Russia's? Just curious.
So a bird has built a nest in the rafters outside our door. We suspect it's laid eggs there also. I know what the females reading this are saying. "How cute! A little birdie-wirdie built a nestie-westie with wittle eggs." (Could I be more sexist? Yes. Yes I could.)
I hate it. First of all, there's droppings everywhere outside now, not a ton, but enough to be annoying, especially on my shoes. Even worse, every time you approach the nest (which is whenever I'm entering or leaving the apt), the bird freaks out and bolts out of the nest. It seriously freaks you out. I have no clue what to do about it.
I wouldn't worry about it, Henry - I don't expect to get a lot of comments, if any. My theory is, you get what you give. So yeah, if you post stuff like "My party was last Friday and it wuz da BOMB! Mad props to everyone who came." etc. then yeah, you'll get comments to match. But since my posts are boring drivel that interest possibly no one (esp. the Reloaded ones) who the heck will respond? No one. So why even have it? Love of the game.
So here's one thing I think I've "realized" lately, in regards to my vocation. Growing up, I always learned that you won't find fulfillment in your job. I'd say it's a message that was repeated fairly often. And I think I took that to heart. The way it manifested itself later was, I didn't really care what I did. In college, a lot of people were career driven, towards particular goals or whatever. I didn't really care. I just kind of stumbled upon CS and here I am, not even completely sure how I got here. And the reason is, I just didn't care that much. You won't find fulfillment in your job, so why make it a huge priority?
The reason I don't chalk it up to my natural laziness is this. The stuff I do believe to be important, stuff like church and community and serving, I'm fairly proactive about. Since high school, I've always gotten involved quickly and deeply in whatever church I was going to. And fairly aggressive in finding a church. That I'm so proactive with church but not with work I think indicates the value I place in work. Which is, not much.
I dunno, is that so wrong? I'm still trying to figure that part out. But yeah, I'm bouncing back to the other direction again. Work doesn't bring fulfillment, so it doesn't matter *that* much what I do, so I might as well stick with what I'm doing for a while. I dunno.
You know what's kind of been running through my head though. In regards to what I want to do. I kind of want to start a software company that makes stuff that would be useful for Christians, for the church. Not a Christian software company. We'd be for profit and all that. But, focusing on things that might be good for the Kingdom, even if it's not directly geared towards that. You know, like microfinance software, or stuff like that. Use my coding skills for good, not evil. I dunno, just a pipe dream but something I've been thinking.
My Stanford inCircle account kills me. Basically I accepted every invite I got but never invited anyone myself. So the list is kinda random. Er1c Beerb0hm? J0el Truj1ll0? J0seph G9n? I dunno, random.
So another way in which I'm cheap.
I bought an Entertainment Book recently. I dunno, I'm a coupon guy and if you're careful about it there are some good deals. Anyway, one benefit of the book is you can buy movie tickets vouchers online, at $5.50 a pop. That's pretty good, given that AMC Mercado is $9.50 now. There's a shipping charge or something so I get the max number I can (12) at a time.
You can't watch movies in the first couple weeks of release, but that's no big whoop to me. And in California, they never expire. Plus you can still use an AMC MovieWatcher card if you use that for other benefits. And, if you use the card on Wednesday, I think you get a free popcorn with every ticket. So that's my new MO. Buy the discount tix online, go on a Wednesday, get free popcorn, and as you accumulate points, get other nice things as well. Not bad, I think.
Lot's of interesting things in the latest Christianity Today. They include this statistic: 85% of Campus Crusade at Yale is Asian. The Buddhist meditation group is almost exclusively white. I dunno, kinda ironic.
It also had this fascinating discussion about "rights" and religion that made me think a lot. This one guy was saying how a big problem in American society today is that the perceived rights of the individual is exalted and upheld above everything else. Which is a problem as it relates to religion, because a religious movement is inherently communal, and in light of that, it makes no sense for the individual's rights to trump everything. He refers to a case where a church excommunicated an individual, and the individual sued the church. It makes no sense.
I dunno, he points out some other things that I think are true, where we're kind of been influenced by the idea of the primacy of individual rights. Like he mentions how the abortion debate has been shaped in terms of rights. Woman's right to privacy vs. fetus's right to life. And rights is perhaps not the best way to think about things. I dunno, interesting.
There was another section that kind of reminded me how we (I) have been influenced by the idea of the primacy of the individual. It just had these quotes about singing, and they reminded me how singing is a communal activity. That in large part, we sing to identify ourselves as part of a group. I dunno, I think for myself, I too often think about myself when singing. Do I mean it. Am I sincere. Stuff like that. Not about the community. I dunno, it's the influence of this age, I think.
Speaking of right to privacy, Clarence Thomas said something interesting in his dissenting opinion on that anti-sodomy law case. He says that he personally thinks said laws are ridiculous. As a legislator, he would work to repeal them. But as a judge, he cannot vote against them because he does not feel that the right to privacy is in the Constitution. I found that stance fascinating. Is it true? Is it defensible? Because a lot of Court decisions, most notably Roe v Wade, have hinged on the right to privacy. So to say that this principle is not in the Constitution... that's fascinating. And bold.
There's a theory going around that the Merovingian was the first One, and Persephone his partner. Much like Neo and Trinity. There's a few things in the movie to support this, like when Persephone makes the comment that he (the M) used to be different, used to be more like Neo. So he used to be human but somehow became a program.
I personally don't buy it, but I do find that philosophically interesting. Again, to me the man/machine equivalence thing. If we buy that men and machines are equivalent, just that one is biologically based, the other electronically, then there's an interesting implication - that you could theoretically convert between one and the other. Most easily from man to machine, if you could copy the algorithm that is your brain / mind into electronic form.
That gets into a host of interesting issues about personal identity and memory and the soul and all these other things. But yeah, we accept that an algorithm (e.g. Agent Smith) can replicate itself, so why couldn't a human, which is at its core, an algorithm, also replicate itself? Interesting.
The first reading we did for the men's group was the first chapter of Celebration of Discipline. I dunno, I found it extremely powerful. I think I've said this before. Growing up I wasn't into Christian books or theology or whatever. So I've actually read very few Christian books. And I'm actually still pretty naive in regards to theology. I just stuck to the Bible, and probably not as deeply as I should have.
Anyways, so when I read "classic" Christian books now, I think they're more powerful to me because I've had to struggle through the things they address. Like when I read Mere Christianity, it was like a breath of fresh air. Just deep, compelling, and nourishing in light of all the stagnant ideas I'd struggled through in my mind. I dunno if that makes sense, but yeah, the book was more powerful having read it after trying to figure things out on my own rather than having read it early on in my Christian life.
I dunno, I feel the same way with Celebration of Discipline I think. I just find it to be extraordinarily powerful and true, more so given my Christian age I think. Maybe I'm wrong.
Anyway, here's the first paragraph of the book: "Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people." So true.
I dunno, kinda wanna start a jack book discussion centered on this book but that will probably go the way of the Hebrews Bible study. But I dunno, I think it would be good for a lot of us. Although everyone's probably read it already. I dunno.
Fool. The way my comments thing is designed, it doesn't mess up jackchecker. cat Henry_Stock_Picks.txt.
In other news, jack.html is now XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliant.
Mmm, peach season. Good times. I dunno, fruit is a wonderful thing. It tastes good, and it's good for you. How many things in life are like that?
So yeah, I added the comment thing. The ridiculous thing is how long it took for me to get it working correctly. A few hours at least. The ridiculous part is, it takes almost no time to get it up and running, just, the default looks too fancy. Too many colors and funky fonts and whatever. I spent the majority of my time trying to get it to look plainer, as plain as this page. I dunno, ridiculous.
On a random whim I bought this book I talked about a long time ago, The Revenge of the Incredible Dr. Rancid and His Youthful Assistant, Jeffrey. I think I mentioned before it was one of my favorite books as a kid. Anyway, yeah, I still liked it, reading it again. Basically, I related to it a lot. Not all the details, but the heart of it. Being a super skinny kid, not athletic at all. There wasn't a particular bully who picked on me, just the bully of popularity, if that makes any sense. In any case, I could relate to his feelings about bullying.
The thing I related to most though was him feeling that a girl would never like him. I dunno, that was really strong in me, growing up. I think I've said before how that was why in junior high, when a girl did like me, at first I didn't believe it, and it had a huge effect on me. Anyway yeah, the details are pretty different but the book gets to the heart of all my feelings in elementary school, I think. I dunno.
So a "friend" pointed me this site, www.thesquare.com. I dunno, it pissed me off. Just, the whole concept is so elitist and pretentious. It's a website for the "alumni from 25 of the world's most selective colleges and universities." I dunno, maybe I'm irrational, but it made me angry.
So I wonder about Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition. I think (maybe wrong) that they claim to represent all minorities? Not just blacks? And until now, sure, it makes sense that black issues are front and center; they were the largest minority group with the longest history in the U.S. But that can't be the future right? I just wonder what will happen.
I think it's tough to be a racist white nowadays, though, without just being blatantly racist. Like, you can go against affirmative action because you don't like blacks or whatever, but then you'll "help" Asians. And I think the Cupertino thing shows that people don't always like that. I dunno, interesting.
So we've been doing readings for men's group at church and they (two so far) have both changed my life, I think. I dunno. Anyway, here's the second one, by Tcl/tKeller. Changed my life.
So there's this one family we know, and the kids are fascinating to me because they're a boy and girl, fraternal twins. I dunno, I could go on and on about how interesting that is but basically, it eliminates a lot of confounding factors related to age and birth order, so a lot of interesting things come up. Who's more aggressive? Who's more protective? How much is related to gender, how much is just personality? It's all very interesting.
Anyway, I'm starting to understand what they're saying more, without having to have their mom interpret. Like, I'm up to maybe 40% comprehension. I wonder how frustrating that must be for kids. Trying to say something but not having people understand you. Anyway, it's interesting seeing them talk to each other, how they communicate with words I can't understand at all. Cool kids.
I dunno if it's because of my wife or what, but I find I'm a lot more interested in certain racial issues nowadays. Dunno if you read about this, but Latinos are now the largest minority group in the United States. And given immigration and birth rates, their proportional numbers will continue to increase in the future.
The implications of this are fascinating to me. Traditionally in America race issues have centered on black and white. Will the focus now turn to Latino issues? Doesn't that make more sense, if they're the largest group? There's always a lot of talk about there not being enough blacks represented on TV and in the movies. Don't Latinos have a greater, more legitimate complaint? After all, they're the largest minority group in the U.S. SN. I wonder if Latinos have a problem with Reloaded. They're like the only group not represented. Tons of blacks. Fair number of Asians. Were there any Latinos? I dunno, maybe I just missed it.
It's complex, though. Like, Jieun pointed out that there are tons of Latinos on TV. It's just, they're on stations like Telemundo and Univision. Maybe there's not a lot of Latino-Americans on TV, but there are lots of Latinos on TV.
Which gets to another issue. So the Merc had this fascinating article yesterday on the demographics of Cupertino. In 1970, Cupertino was like 80 something percent white, 6.7% Asian. In 2000, it's 48% white, 46% Asian. The interesting thing is, unlike Asians in a lot of places, they've been politically active. The Mayor is Asian. Stuff like that. And the Asian influence cannot be overstated. Like, the plans to save Vallco shopping center hinge around turning it into an Asian mall. That's how key the Asian population is.
So what's interesting about Cupertino is that the cultures aren't blending or anything. They're like developing parallel systems. So whites and Asians have their own clubs, boy scout troops, city events, stuff like that. Like, Octoberfest is all white. New Years festival, all Asian. I just thought that was sad.
Also interesting, politically, instead of being split along party lines, the city council and other groups are split along racial lines. White and Asian. That's also sad to me. What's the solution? No clue.
The great irony is that Jieun gets bored when I talk about race. My guess is it's mostly my ignorance that bothers her. Like, we have disagreements about what "racism" is. So at a wedding we went to we talk to Jelin's hubby, the Asian American Studies PhD about it, and he basically completely sides with Jieun, which is hardly shocking. But yeah, I'm just a lowly CS guy so what can I do.
So if you keep up with the bargain circles you know that mail in rebates are growing in popularity. Newsweek had this facinating article about this strange psychological phenomenon that happens with them. People are more inclined to buy products with rebates. But then after they actually buy them, tons of people don't send the rebates in. The explanation they give is that people use different metrics in the store and at home. In the store, they consider the rebate when looking at the product price. Makes them buy it. At home, they weigh the value of the rebate against the hassle of having to send it in. And they decide it's not with the trouble. Interesting phenomenon.
Here's another weird thing. People are more inclined to buy a $35 product with a $5 rebate than a similar product that costs $30. The psychological explanation is, people see the higher priced item (before rebate) as being of higher quality, so if the net price is the same, they'll choose the perceived higher quality item.
So it's a win-win for sellers. Have a mail-in rebate, and consumers are more likely to buy your product than the similarly (net) priced competition. And tons of people don't even bother sending in the rebate. Win-win. Sucks for us consumers though.
Woo hoo! I finally found a transcript of the FMV sequences in Enter the Matrix online. In English. It's absolutely fascinating. A little pretentious though (references to Kierkegaard, Nietsche, Augustine, William James). I dunno, lots of interesting things said, worth a read. Maybe I'll comment later? No clue.
Whoops. Sorry, John.
I don't get LA Koreatown culture. So I've been there a few times and it's odd. You'll be at a place, and the waiter speaks fluent English, the people I'm with speak fluent English, but they insist on speaking Korean to each other. Why? Just seems strange to me.
I have a question about law, kinda of a philosophical one. What's the purpose of laws? It's to protect everyone's rights I suppose, right? So that people don't screw each other. My question is, do you think it's right to have laws against things where people can only hurt themselves?
I'm not talking about stuff like drug use. That affects other people. Like drunk driving does. It has an impact. But more stuff like, wearing a helmet when riding a motorcycle. Why legislate against that? Not wearing a helmet doesn't make one more prone to crash, hurt others. The only person it can hurt is the person not wearing it. And it's an utterly stupid thing to do, not wear one. But should we legislate against stupidity?
Personally, I say no. If people are going to stupid, not wear a helmet, maybe even seat belts, I say go on ahead. It's only their own lives they're playing with. But we might as well give them that freedom, no? I dunno.
Here's a little secret, not really a secret, about me. I'm not very good at video games. I guess relatively, against people who never play, I'm OK, but against anyone who's decent, I'm not very good.
In high school I used to play Dr. Mario with a friend all the time and he regularly kicked my butt. Frosh year, me and Eddie played tons of Texris. It's this Tetris clone, but it allows you to set the dimensions of the board. Awesome. So we'd play these super tall, narrow boards, either 4 or 5 units wide. Absurd, but fun. I always play the extreme versions of things. That's why I like fy_iceworld in Counterstrike.
But anyway, Eddie regularly beat me. It was maddening. Brian Ma kicked my butt in Puyo Puyo. Senior year, I got an N64 and Eddie would regularly beat me in Madden 64. That was frustrating - he'd do the exact same thing every single time. Play as the Broncos. Run the same sweep play with Terrell Davis. Unstoppable. If I defended against it, he'd call an audible and throw to Shannon Sharpe (is that right? The tight end that year). It was unstoppable. Argh.
So yeah, I dunno if I give off the impression that I'm a good gamer or whatever, but I'm really not. I dunno, not sure if people realize that.
I think the vibe I give off to people when Jieun's away is that of complete helplessness. I'm kind of basing this on the questions people ask me. A frequent one is, "Are you eating?" Yes, I know how to feed myself. I am able to dress myself in the morning also, even in Jieun's absence. I dunno, it's funny.
But it's really not that far off the mark. Actually, Jieun asks me the same thing on the phone, whether I'm eating, so it must be a valid concern. I dunno, it's weird. When Jieun's around, I'm pretty diligent about doing household things, cleaning up, stuff like that. But when she's gone, zero motivation. Like, the bag I took to LA is sitting right next to the front door. Everything's still inside except the toiletries. It's very odd.
OK, I'm whining too much about Jieun not being here. New topic: kids.
Kids utterly fascinate me. I just have no idea what's going through their minds. I was with two sets of kids today and it's just fascinating to me. This one kid does something interesting - he'll sometimes close his eyes while he's doing whatever he's doing, whether it's walking or eating or whatever. Just an odd thing to do. His parents have a theory that he's giving himself a new experience (by walking blind), or heightening an experience (when he's savoring what he's eating). Interesting.
I was watching these other kids and it was hilarious. They like to run forward on the carpet with their heads on the ground. Utterly random. Every time they did it I just died, it looks so absurd. What on earth are they doing? Why? No clue. They also liked to play this music and dance like crazy.
I dunno, there was something about the way they acted that was... not sure the word to use... inspiring? Just the purity of all they did. No pretense at all. Completely savoring something by closing their eyes. Dancing with total joy. I dunno, it's all just so real and so pure. For me, I'm extremely self conscious, and never more so than when I'm dancing. On those rare occasions when I dance, I directly face Jieun and move away from the crowd so it's just me and her. I dunno, I can't get over the self-consciousness.
Not to get too spiritual (John wakes up, prolly makes a bad forced joke) but yeah, the Bible actually talks a lot about dancing. Dancing with joy because of what the Lord has done. I hope I'm able to do that some day. Not because dancing is good. I dunno, I just want to be like the kids, that the joy of God is so real in me that I "dance", with no pretense, no self-consciousness, just honest, pure "dancing". I dunno, that kind of purity in action is inspiring to me.
OK, one last thing about the kids that I found awkward. So they're old enough to talk, kind of, and I like talking to them. I tend towards the absurd, of course. "You like Finding Nemo? You like fish? Do you like to eat fish? Have you seen Finding and Eating Nemo?" "Would you consider yourself a Calvinist or an Arminian?" I dunno, just amusing myself. I figure they largely don't understand me anyway, so why not.
So in the middle of one of our "convos" this kid gets really quiet and face turns red. Mom tells me they're taking a poop. I dunno, that was just awkward for me. What do you say to someone while they're pooping? How's it going? I dunno, it's just a little odd to me, that they're old enough to talk to you but still defecate right there with people all around. Not really awkward, I mean, they're kids, but a little.
I dunno, kids are great. Dave-eque entry.
Neo's first convo with Smith is actually really interesting. Smith talks about purpose, blah blah blah. But then he says, what he wants from Neo is what Neo took from him. Purpose. I wish I had a transcript of this, might be remembering it wrong. But the implication is, Smith at the moment doesn't have purpose, and that's what drives him crazy. It's not that his purpose is to kill Neo. He wants to do that (or does he?) to get purpose back. But how will killing Neo give him purpose again? Interesting.
Geez, I'm putting a lot of stock in the 3rd movie to answer all these questions. The reason I think it's possible is because the 2nd movie addressed a lot of questions people had about the 1st well. Like the time era problem. Or the, if the Oracle is so smart, why is she still in the Matrix problem. That's the basis of my hope in the 3rd movie. We'll see I guess. It might suck.
So apparently Lorraine can't believe I'm still talking about Reloaded.
Reloaded note. Spoilers.
There's a lot of interesting little touches in the movie. The Merovingian's restaurant is called Le Vrai (Truth?) and the wine he offers Neo is called "in vino veritas". Something like that. There's also a really interesting shot when they're walking through the restaurant. Neo looks at someone being led out, and this weird music plays. Interesting.
Anyway, apparently the live action scenes in the Enter The Matrix video game are interesting, possibly insightful. Unfortunately, I can't find out exactly what they say. I did find a transcript of a convo between Niobe and the Oracle. It's pretty interesting. The fact that the Oracle and Niobe have met before. In the movie, not everyone believes in the Oracle. Kind of explains why Niobe volunteers to find the Nebuchadnezzar.
Also, the Oracle says of Neo, "he touched the source and separated his mind from his body. Now he lies trapped in a place between your world and ours." What does that mean? Interesting. Goes on to say that Trinity can free him.
She also mentions again some possible hostility between her and the Merovingian. Also interesting. That's how they explain the actress change (since Gloria Foster died during filming) I guess.
Im still looking for the entire ETM transcript but I can only find it in French. Babelfish is rough at best and won't do the whole page. Anyone speak French and want to help me out? Translate the page for me?
So, I'm generally not an anti the crowd type of guy. Like Dave and Henry are. You know, if the crowd likes it, they're inclined to not like it. Which is just another way of being led by the crowd. But anyway. Yeah, I just like what I like, people be darned. Sometimes people don't generally like it (Reloaded, it seems like). Sometimes people do (Titanic. At least at first. But even though everyone's turned on it, I'm still there).
But whatever, I'm becoming elitist with Coldplay. Is anyone in the world not "influenced" by them now? I dunno, irrational rage on my part. I think what it is this review of a Coldplay concert I read in the Merc by Brad Kava, in which he just tore them to bits. I was mildly pro before, but I dunno, it was just a compelling review, revealing how Coldplay is beautiful, lush, and ultimately empty.
I dunno, I'm being too harsh. I like hollow music though, is the thing. Like John Mayer. A lot of pop. And I'm still mildly pro Coldplay. So I have no clue what I'm saying.
The loneliest part of your spouse being away for a long time is sleeping at night, I think. The bed just feels so big and so empty. I know some people grew up sleeping on queens alone - I have no idea how they did that. It's lonely. I've been sleeping on Jieun's side of the bed to try and maximally soak up her aura in her absence but yeah, it's pretty lonely going at night.
Random Matrix note. But the number 101 comes up a lot. It's Neo's apt number in the first. Floor of the Merovingian in the 2nd. And the number of the highway of the huge car scene. What does it mean? No clue.
I liked that it was on the 101, I'm a loser like that. And I think there's a shot with Morpheus on a truck where it shows a sign indicating the Marsh and Whipple exits coming up. If I recall correctly. I know where that is! Woo hoo!
As a side note, I watched Independence Day in Houston. If you recall, they nuke Houston in that movie, and when mentioning Houston, they do a quick establishing shot of a Houston highway. The thing is, the entire audience laughed because it showed a highway sign that didn't look close to any highway sign in Houston. Random.
This is probably old news for everyone, but apparently you can get Animal Style fries at In 'N Out. Not just burgers. Weird.
2 questions.
One, do the Psalms rhyme? In the original Hebrew I mean. I'm just curious.
Second question is for cults. The small, unpopular ones. My question is, at what point do you just throw up your hands and say, I give up? You know, cults think they have an exclusive hold on the truth. You would think though, that if they were true, they'd be a bit more popular. Not that there's a direct relationship between level of truth and popularity. It's just, if it's true, you'd think there'd be a minimum level of popularity, just based on the inherent power of truth.
I'm asking because I randomly came across the web page of some group called the New Church. From the web page: "The New Church (Church of the New Jerusalem) is based on the Bible, and on the teachings of the 18th Century Scientist and Theologian, Emanuel Swedenborg." I browsed through this and other pages and the humor possibilities are endless. Starting with the name "Swedenborg". One of the things that attest to his greatness is that he was an accomplished lens grinder. I dunno, just lots of material to work with.
Anyway yeah, they believe that Swedenborg ushered in a new understanding of Christianity, which would renew the whole church, hence the name New Church. The thing is, it's been 250 years and the group is still less than 50,000 people. Is that renewal? Is that revolutionizing Christianity? I dunno, maybe it's growing but it just seems kind of sad to me, their claims versus reality. So I wonder. When do you just give up? Can a cult do that? Collectively say, you know what? We were supposed to change the world, but you know, it doesn't look like it's working out, so we give up? I dunno.
Here's Henry's fundamental flaw, I think. His problem is, it's far easier to annoy him than it is for him to annoy other people. Like Dave says, trying to annoy Henry is like breathing. I myself have annoyed Henry far more than he's annoyed me, and I wasn't even trying.
The other thing is this: the things that annoy me tend to annoy him also, usually more so, so he can't do those things - it's against his nature. Like, out of tune instruments annoy me. They destroy Henry. So he can't really annoy me that way. It comes out forced, and that's more bemusing than annoying.
So my claim is, if Henry really wants to be annoying, he has to lighten up. Not let things bother him so much. It will open up a world of possibilities for him, without being forced.
John's forced humor is annoying though.
Another Reloaded thought. So I have a theory as to why people didn't like the movie. Or at least partly. So with most (interesting) movies, the first time you see it, you're first struck by the story, and on repeated viewings, the ideas behind it.
I think Reloaded kind of works in reverse. The ideas and philosophy are so front and center that it makes the biggest impression on first viewing. (Jieun describes Reloaded as being fight scene, philosophical jargon, fight scene, philosophical jargon, ad infinitum. She hated the movie.) But then, if you watch it again, you see how much of an interesting story it is. At least for me.
That's why I think people have problems with it. Most people want / need a straightforward story and don't like to be challenged. They need a good story first, ideas (if at all) second. I think Reloaded has both in spades. But because the ideas are so front and center and the story so loaded, I think the ideas make the strongest initial impression, the story less so. And that's why people (Americans) don't like it. I dunno, just a theory.
One more Reloaded note. At least for now.
So the Merovingian says something that struck me, that I didn't notice before. (SN - I think the mother of the Matrix isn't the Oracle. Just the way the Architect says, "Please!" when Neo says it is. I dunno, a feeling.) He says that there is no control, I've said before how I love this scene. But he goes on to say that power, therefore, is in knowing why. And he chastizes Neo for coming to him without even knowing why.
I jive with that. The Oracle earlier says how Neo needs to understand why he does what he does. Merovingian then says that there is power in knowing why. I dunno, it struck me. It's very Os Guinness The Call esque. Just, when we know that we're called, or why we're doing what we're doing, a host of powerful things comes with that.
It struck me because I think that's what I'm lacking in life right now. I dunno, I feel vaguely dissatisfied with what I'm doing, and it's largely because I don't know the why. It's not like I was forced into it. I freely chose to do what I do. But what's missing is a larger understanding of why I'm doing what I'm doing. And because of that, I'm lacking the power that comes from knowing the why. The Call. I dunno, just a thought that went through my mind.
I just saw Reloaded again. On IMAX. (See Morpheus being a pompous arse on an 8 storey tall screen!)
Dude, I loved it. I'm trying to figure out whether it's just because it was the second time watching it, whether it's because of all the thinking I did about it since the last time, whether it was the Animatrix, or whether it's because of IMAX. I think it's primarily the first and second things.
I dunno, it's an amazing movie, I think. At the end I wanted to stand up and applaud. Almost every problem I had with the movie, I didn't have the second time. Like, I had no problem with the pacing at all. Even the rave scene, didn't annoy me, I think it's kind of interesting, actually, what it means.
And the stuff I liked, I still liked, maybe even more. All the interesting philosophical / religious ideas. The fight scenes - incredible. And the story is actually really really interesting. The dialogue is actually well crafted, I think. Every line is meaningful, interesting and rich. I dunno, I found the story fascinating.
As for the IMAX part, I thought it was pretty awesome. I sneaked into a normal showing after it was done, just to see the picture contrast, and it's noticeable - the detail is amazing on IMAX. Like, you can really see the poor quality of Laurence Fishburne's skin. And the sense of size with the Nebuchadnezzar and Zion is much more pronounced. The sound was also better. That said, I dunno if the IMAX thing made it a fundamentally different experience, or if it's a must see. I'm glad I saw it that way though. The picture quality is pretty amazing.
Anyway yeah, I forgot what rating I gave it but it was even better for me the 2nd time. I'm bumping it up to 4.75. I would give it 5 (I liked it that much) except the Bane character is still confusing to me and Morpheus still really annoyed me. Although, even that was less annoying than the first time. His speech in Zion is more bearable the 2nd time I think. But his isn't that worth dying for speech at the end... argh. For the love of God, someone give him a wedgie.
The tough part about not having a cell phone isn't that itself. I mean, we all survived without cell phones for years. No big whoop. What's hard is that now we live in a cell phone culture. Meaning, the culture's changed so where you didn't need one before, you need one now. It's being in that cell phone culture that makes not having one hard, and as one of the last holdouts, I'm not sure if other people understand.
Like before, if you had to meet someone, you'd make very specific plans about when and where you'd meet. Nowadays, people just kinda make vague plans and say to call when you get near. Cell phone culture. And that sucks for me, because if the plans don't go perfectly smoothly, I'm screwed. I have to wander around in hopes of finding them or find a pay phone (some of which are 50¢ now - an outrage). And both have happened to me enough times. Where I've had to walk around and yell. Or pay the exorbitant pay phone fees. (Or rely on highway Call Boxes which are broken - which is another story.)
Anyway, I'm thinking I need to give up the war and get one. It's just, it's becoming a cell phone culture. And where I could survive before, it's getting harder now. We'll see we'll see.
SN. My mom doesn't dislike the phrase "hanging out". It just amuses her because she has no idea what that means.
So I had an interesting conversation this weekend with a germaphobe. I'm wondering how commonplace this attitude is. So, our convo centered on double dipping. You know, a lot of people object to double dipping. Dipping a chip, taking a bite, then dipping that same chip in the dip again. You know, spreading germs and all.
So this person objects to something I sometimes do. And that is, I dip a chip, bite, and then turn the chip around so I dip from the unbitten end. So I'm never dipping a part that was bit, and I never dip a chip more than twice, just once per end. This person's against that. His reasoning being, the germs could crawl from the bitten end to the other end, which you're then sticking in the dip. So if someone does that, he won't use the dip.
I dunno, that seems insane to me, but maybe other people feel the same way? No clue.
Here's the odd thing. He once dropped a scone in a Starbucks parking lot. All he did was pick it up, brush it off, and then eat it. Why is the flip double dip method bad but the parking lot ok? Because the parking lot is "dry". I dunno, seemed inconsistent to me. So we were trying to bring up scenarios. What if someone flip double dips, "contaminating" the dip, and then someone drops the dip on the parking lot? The germs could crawl across the chip, why couldn't they crawl across the parking lot? Can they fly?
I dunno, I think extreme germaphobia is too much.
Nothing I like about the movie has anything to do with freedom, but I think you see that now.
It's not that change is necessarily good. It's just that change is reality. The choice is either to deal with that reality or pretend it doesn't exist, that we can will it away. In my opinion, the church in the past has done the latter too often, which hurts both the church's impression of Christianity and Christianity itself. My opinion. But yeah, it's not that change is always good. It's that we need to recognize that it's real in order to deal with it effectively.
I will say though that I think Christianity may be changing. I dunno. I'm basing this all off of how it's dealt with AIDS. You know, in the past, I think the church might have tried to ignore it, or written it off as a gay man's disease. But today, the church really is at the forefront of American society in raising awareness and dealing with AIDS issues, especially in regards to Africa. It's mainstream America that has lagged on this issue. I dunno, I find how Christians have taken the lead on this encouraging.
As for freedom, that's there in the movie also. It's not a message I jive with, I might even disagree with it, but it's there. But even with that, I dunno, I don't think they say freedom is always good. The movie shows that with "freedom", there comes violence, envy, all these negative things. Like there's this scene where Don Knotts gets pissed at Tobey Maguire for introducing all these problems to Pleasantville, where he shows him the shot of him eating the apple. So yeah, there's negative aspects to freedom shown in the movie. It's complex. The last shot kind of sums it up. Joan Allen has gotten into this strange precarious situation with another man, and now what is she gonna do with her husband? No clue. It's completely vague. And it attests I think to freedom not always being good, but complex.
The point the movie makes about this, which again, I'm not sure how I feel about, is that freedom does not always lead to only good, but life is far more interesting with it than without it. So that it's worth taking the bad that comes because of the good that comes also. But I do think it dealt with negative parts of fredom, not just blaming those who don't want it, but understanding that freedom itself leads to these things. But I dunno.
I'm usually loathe to quote AIM convos, but this was too good to pass up.
ericmao: i was thinking about the lake monster problem again
So I played Cities and Knights of Catan this weekend for the first time. Someone, I'm going to say Albert and/or Arthur, said once you go Cities and Knights, you can't go back to original Settlers.
I dunno, I'm undecided on it. It's wayyy more complex. We were only able to play once, but it seemed like luck plays more of a part than in normal Settlers. Am I wrong? I dunno, it's just a lot harder to gang up on the leader, which is a great part of Settlers. Maybe I have to play more. I'm just trying to figure out whether it's worth buying or not.
So I was driving up from LA today and saw something kinda cool. I dunno, I wish I had Scott's command of language because my description won't do justice to it. But basically, there was a big fire by 152 near the big reservoir. It was incredible. From far away, all you see is hills for miles and miles smoking. It must have burned west to east, because I saw the active fire first. Flames and stuff. Then past that, miles of blackened earth, still smoldering. Some red splotches here and there, I'm guessing fire retardant. I dunno, it was just surreal, driving through miles of smoke, scorched land all around you.
Another repeated story.
So I actually like driving long distances. Sometimes, when I'm in the mood. Another thing about me is that I like to push myself. In certain things. So like, I once drove solo from Houston to Stanford. Anyway, a good first day's driving is to Fort Stockton. Push yourself, and you can get to El Paso.
I wanted to really push myself, so when I came out, the first day I reached Lordsburg, NM. That's more than 900 miles from Houston, and I had left Houston at 11 AM after having breakfast with my parents. I dunno, it was pretty insane.
Anyway, I would have went further except I think I was going insane. At one point I was listening to music and started feeling euphoric. Just, really really happy, and happy about the fact that I was happy. About 30 minutes later, I started feeling extremely depressed. Like, I was ready to turn right back around to Houston and drop out of grad school. Just extremely depressed. And this all in the span of about an hour. I dunno, I think I was going crazy.
Is there a point to this? Not really. I just think about that trip whenever I do the LA drive. Because on the second day of that journey, I went from Lordsburg to Stanford (1000 miles) and I distinctly remember thinking how easy the LA to Bay Area stretch was. Relatively, it was nothing.
I can't believe I drove 2000 miles in 2 days. That's insane.
There was this irony that came out as I talked with those doctor wives. Actually, Is it an irony? I dunno, more ironic than anything in that Alanis song for sure.
Anyway yeah, all doctors know that the earlier you have kids, the better. After a certain age, the risk of complications rises rapidly. So yeah, earlier, the better. Thing is, for many of them, because they're doctors, they're forced to have kids later. Which they're kinda sad about. But what can you do.
I dunno, goes along with my friend saying how her doctor dad always tells his patients, watch what you eat, don't work so much, your health always comes first. While he works like crazy, no matter how he feels, and goes to medical conferences where they serve mad decadent food. It's almost like being a doctor precludes one from doing what you know is best for your health. Which is interesting.
This is a direct quote from Eric Mao. No ellipses necessary. And he will back me up on this:
"I agree that your solution [to the lake monster problem] is the most elegant. I don't know what Dave is smoking. It made me angry."
I've actually never gotten annoyed at either Henry or Dave, I think. Just pissed. It's binary like that. Either I'm fine, or pissed, nothing in between. With them at least.
Should I say what annoys me though? Two things come to mind.
One, I get annoyed when people have to give input on *everything*, even if they have no clue what they're talking about. When they have no clue, they'll just say something to say something, even if it's blatantly wrong. Annoys me. Why is it that important to pretend that you know everything? No clue.
Two, I get annoyed when people question everything you say. It's like playing Devil's Advocate to the extreme. We all know people like this, right? No matter what you say, they'll question it, just because. Like, here's an example a friend gave me. He was saying how he was in the dining hall, and was saying how the food was good today. And this guy, a typical counter-everything person, was questioning that. It's not *that* good. So friend says something like, well, at least this beef is good. Guy questions that. So finally, friend settles for, well, at least to him, he likes the food. And the guy questions even that! How he even *feels* about it! Argh!
Anyway, yeah, people who question everything, annoys me. It's related to the CS majors that annoy Dave I think. Who like question professors about whether long ago proved theorems are true. Hello.
That said, I've been thinking recently whether it's wrong to get annoyed like that. I dunno, I'm just thinking. I've been thinking about rage a lot recently. And I think rage is wrong. It's natural, sure, but for Christians, I don't think we should treat it as acceptable. I dunno, am I wrong?
I dunno, I'm still thinking about what my pastor said. Scripture never talks about personal rights. That's very powerful to me. Never talks about defending yourself or retaliating when someone attacks or offends you. It says the opposite. Turn the other cheek. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. So yeah, rage, defending yourself, retaliation, that's all natural, but it's clearly anti-Biblical. And as Christians, I wonder if we err by taking these things as acceptable. In particular, I wonder if I'm making a mistake when I get unabashedly and fully annoyed. I dunno, mulling it over.
I love how Karen thinks I have Asperger's. I dunno, it amuses me.
Anyway, yeah, I used to worry about that but I don't anymore. Just, this cluelessness is only with females. Seriously. And it's not just me, it's the entire male race that has this problem. Yes, I'm saying males and females are different races.
I wrote about that before in regards to Blind Date. I love that show. Good trashy sinful fun. Anyway, yeah, most of the time the guys are clueless. That's just how guys are with girls I realized. And I'm no better. There was this one great show where this guy was acting all cool and hard and he was just being a punk and annoying the girl and he didn't realize. Until finally she just says, "So should I kick your a** now or later?" And he was kind of surprised that she took it that way. I dunno, good times.
Anyway, my opinion, but I think women need to know that men are clueless. Don't expect us to get all your subtle hints or whatever. That's basically the theme of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. We'll get better at it, whatever, but we'll never understand it, unless we're gay. Which is why gay men and women get along so well, I think. I dunno.
One of the greatest moments of my life was this one Testimony concert. They had sung a song or done a skit or something, and were about to sing another song. Audience was settling down. Henry was cued, ready to start. And I yell, "Chi-Hua!"
The reason it was great was because, in full view of everyone, audience silent, Henry delayed the song so he could turn to me and glare. Then he turned back and started the song. I dunno, a great moment in my life.
I've realized even more that I have no idea how to talk to women. I mean, I can talk with them fine whatever, it's just, I think I frequently end up offending them or something like that because I can't pick up on the subtle clues they give off. Jieun is always telling me that. Didn't you pick up on her doing so and so? Nope. Not at all. Completely clueless. That's me.
Anyway, yeah, I think I've offended a lot of women because of my cluelessness. It's a wonder anyone ever talks to me at all.
Newsweek had a pretty interesting cover story a few months ago on the rise of women professionals, and the switching of traditional gender roles in families and stuff like that. I dunno, made me think. I've asked a few professional women about things like this and it's interesting. They still want a man "higher" than them if that makes sense. More powerful, making more money, or whatever. Even though they're professional women.
I dunno, to me that's unsustainable. Something's gotta give, right? Either how ambitious women want to be or what they need in a husband. So the super professional women that want both - I dunno, I think ultimately that's unrealistic. Maybe I'm wrong.
So anyway, some weddings I go to have been doctors marrying doctors, and when that happens, like half the people there are doctors. It's madness. (Uh, this has nothing to do with Dave's rants, btw. Don't get mad at me, just him. Chi-Hua.) So anyway, I've been asking the same question to female doctors at my table - what do they want to do in terms of family?
It's really tough. The surgeons basically just have to hold that part of their life off for many years. It's just a professional reality. The others want families, just aren't sure how or when it's going to work. I dunno, it's tough being a female doctor. I don't envy the choices they need to make at all.
As an aside, have I ever mentioned that I'm super in favor of interracial marriages? I just find them really encouraging. As long as they're both Christian. I dunno, just, that's one of the best ways to deal with racism and prejudice, I think, by rendering race categories irrelevant. At this one wedding, 3 members of the bridal party, all Asian, were married to white guys. I dunno, that doesn't bother me anymore, I'm happy for it. Random.
So here's another random habit I have.
So you go grocery shopping, you bring home plastic bags, right? I refuse to throw any of them away. But I also refuse to bring them back to those recycling bins they have for the bags outside certain grocery stores. No idea why.
I insist that they be used for some practical purpose. For example, taking out the recycling in our house. Plastic bottles and whatnot. Or lining the bathroom garbage recepticles. Or taking out "dry" garbage. Something like that.
The thing is, you bring home a lot of plastic bags. So like, it's a battle for me. I have to be vigilant or the pile of plastic bags just grows endlessly. That's actually what happened the few first months of marriage. We accumulated enough plastic bags to fill a large garbage bag. So I declared war, and I'm maniacal about using these stupid plastic bags, emptying the recycling constantly, frequently changing the bathroom bins, etc. And after months of work, we're down to being almost even again.
Is that not ridiculous? Why not just use what I need and bring the rest back to the recycling thing at Albertson's? No clue. But that's what I do.
Incidentally, I use paper grocery bags also. Put old newspapers in there and when it's full, take that out to recycling. As if anyone cares.
I wonder if the guy who made Settlers of Catan is Christian. Because he has a nearly identical game called Settlers of Canaan that takes place in Biblical times, with e.g. priests instead of soldiers. Weird.
Isn't it fascinating that you can't tickle yourself? Just what is tickling, exactly? It's weird.
2 thoughts went through my mind last nigth during Bible study of Philippians 3.
One, I love a phrase Paul uses to describe the circumcision cult. "Their god is their stomach." Great phrase. I dunno, it's the Merovingian again. I'm beating this into the ground, but whatever. Outside of Christ, you have no control, you're under the power of your urges. I dunno. It's a great phrase though.
The other thing is I love how Paul starts chapter 3: "Finally...". As if he's going to end. And then he proceeds to continue with half of the letter. Classic.
It just reminded me of that one FiCS meeting sophomore year, listening to the most longwinded British speaker ever. Just went on an on. After some hours, he finally says, "Let's pray". Which normally signals the end of the talk. And then he goes on for half an hour praying. We eventually turn it off - I never hear him finish. He might still be praying for all I know.
This actually happened yesterday: Coco Crisp started in center field, moving Milton Bradley to left. I love baseball.
Interesting. Andreww's page doesn't work in Mozilla. I'd been wondering why his front page for months was a broken image link. Makes sense now.
Also, now I understand why he appreciated Anthony Zerbe's presence in Reloaded. They have the same birthday.
Also, I love the phrase "Fred Dryer-esque". I'm assuming that's a compliment. It is in my world.
Let me be more precise. Not saying the solution is elegant, but the explanation, if that makes any sense. Sure, if it was an algorithm problem, whatever, different criteria. Stuff like efficiency matters. But it's just a puzzle, asking if it's possible. So the main question is, what is the key to the problem.
On those terms, I think an elegant explanation is one that identifies the key concepts and crucial insights of a problem clearly and cleanly. That's it.
Even on the robustness scale, I fail to see how Mark's solution qualifies as elegant. It's a very particular solution. It doesn't capture all solutions to this problem. Doesn't capure my solution. Doesn't capture Dr. Jung's solution. It's a single, particular solution. So how is it robust?
I actually think you're still failing to see the critical insight to the problem, why the monster being 4 times faster matters, how that relates to π, and why no other (integral) value is possible for this problem. But whatever, you'll figure that out soon enough, I guess. Have fun with Excel.
All right, I'm going to post a solution to the puzzle now. It's not the shortest path solution, it's just the easiest solution in the sense that pretty much anyone can understand why it works. I'm not a fan of overcomplicating things. Anyway, spoilers.
This is just how I envisioned things, in terms of orbits. Say the radius of the lake is R. Then say you travel in an orbit around the center of the lake at a distance of R/4 from the center, going as fast as you can. The monster can travel 4 times as fast as you, and it's traveling in an orbit 4 times as long as you, so its orbit will be perfectly synchronized with yours. Does that make sense? You'll both be at the same angle relative to the center, just on different circles.
Note that if you follow an orbit with a radius greater than R/4, the monster doesn't have to travel as fast as it can to match your orbit (which minimizes the distance between it and you). But, if you follow an orbit with a radius less than R/4, the monster can't keep up. Makes sense, right? If at R/4, you're both synchronized with you both moving at max speed, if you take a smaller orbit, you must be "faster" along your circle than the monster is.
So what you do is, swim out towards the monster to a point just *barely* less than R/4 from the center. Then start swimming in a circle around the center. The monster will try to follow you along the edge of the lake. But as explained above, you'll be "faster" than the monster, so the angle between you and the monster relative to the center of the lake will gradually increase.
Keep doing this until the angle between you and the monster is 180 degrees. When you get to this point, you make a dash for the point on the shore directly opposite the monster. The distance you need to travel to reach that point is just a tad over 3/4 R (The radius of the lake minus the radius of the orbit you're on). The distance the monster needs to travel is π R (a semicircle around the shore from where it is now). Assuming you chose a good "tad" (less than 0.14 R / 4), you can then beat the monster to the spot you chooose, since the monster is only 4 times as fast as you, and the distance you need to go is less than 4 times the distance the monster needs to go.
The key to this puzzle I think is realizing that you're "faster" than the monster rotationally within a circle of radius R/4 so you can get a head start of that distance on the monster. Conversely, you're "slower" rotationally outside radius R/4, so moving in anything but a straight line towards the shore outside this point is useless - the monster will gain on you.
I dunno, I think this is the simplest solution, only takes basic math, doesn't make the problem more complex than it needs to be. It's the one Joe arrived at, pretty much, when he told me. Dave says the explanation is bad because it's unique to the parameters of the problem, but if you understand the key to the puzzle, you see that there can be no other parameters. If the monster is only 2 times as fast as you, it's trivial - just make a dash for the shore opposite the monster. If it's 5 times as fast as you, the problem is impossible. But I guess you can think about that.
I worked in a cancer lab for a couple summers, back when I was deluded into thinking I was premed. It was actually pretty interesting stuff. The lab I worked in right before college dealt with these new ideas about controlling tumors. Tumors are cells gone wrong so they rapidly grow. The thing is, to grow, they need a greater blood supply, so they need to grow new blood vessels. The idea was, you prevent the development of new blood vessels in these tumors, and by doing that you starve their growth.
The lab I was in studied a particular class of drugs that did these called retinoids, if I remember correctly. Anyway, it was all interesting stuff, but all kind of cutting edge, years away from practical use, I think.
So I was really happy a while back when I read some news articles about recent medical research where this type of treatment is being used successfully. It was exactly the type of research the lab I was in was doing, and it was being used clinically with promising results. I dunno, that just made me happy, that the general stuff we were studying now looks promising practically.
I know practically nothing about medicine, just 2 summers in lab. But at least for those 2 summers, medical research isn't like Dave describes medicine to be. It's not like they randomly try things and see if it works without any understanding of how it does. I mean, some research does this. But I wouldn't say that's representative of medicine as a whole. Of course, since I know nothing about medicine, this might be all out of me arse.
But yeah, that summer, what it was was research based on ideas based on understandings of how things worked in the body. Tumors grow this way. So how about trying this thing to control it? Focused research based on good understanding. I dunno, I found that encouraging.
Is that molecular biology or research on the "human body"? No clue. Dunno what the difference is really.
Also, dunno if you read that Newsweek feature on alternative medicine a few months back. But yeah, traditional western medicine seems to be embracing alternative medicine more and more. I'm sure there's still significant opposition. But more and more, it's happening.
I cannot believe Dave finds Mark's answer the most elegant. Ugh. Joe's solution as he said it to me is pretty similar to how I did it and my math PhD friend (he's actually a doctor now!) agrees that conceptually it's the most clean. If you can't solve it without using just simple concepts, I think it's clunky. But that's just me.
I love how people write about how long it took them to solve it. Who cares about whether you're quicker or slower than other people? Geez.
I'm down to 108 in Minesweeper, by the way. I dunno, if I'm gonna be a hypocrite, just go all out I say.
It's fascinating who's tried to work on the puzzle. Joe, Eric, Dave, sure. But Darlene? Interesting.
Another note about that wedding with the slide show in the ceremony - it featured the Caedmon's Call song Lead of Love.
I dunno, me and Adrian joke about this, but yeah, I think it's time to call a moratorium on using this song in slide shows. I'd say 90% of all slide shows I've seen in the past 4 years have used this song. Weddings, fellowship end of year things, whatever. This song is always there. And it's a good song and all, but I dunno, maybe it's time to move on.
Hmm, was it in my slide show? Probably. When in Rome.
Animatrix is pretty interesting. The Program is the most interesting idea wise by far. I dunno, guess I'll wait for people to watch it before discussing.
Brainteaser for you nerds out there.
Say you're in the exact center of a lake that is a perfect circle. Your goal is to get to the shore. The problem is, there is a monster guarding the shore, who is able to move all along the circumference of the lake. He is able to move 4 times as fast as you can, and it is a smart monster - at any point in time it will move along the circumference in such a way as to minimize the distance between itself and you. If you can make it to any spot on the shore before the monster, even if it's just a split second, you're safe. Question is, is this possible, and if so, how?
Obviously, it is possible, or I wouldn't be asking, so how do you do it? You can't just go straight in the opposite direction from where the monster is. If the radius of the lake is R, distance from monster's starting point to opposite side along the circumference is Rπ, which, since the monster travels 4 times as fast as you, it can reach before you will. So what can you do?
Prolly only Eric and Dave care, if them, but yeah, I'll post a solution in a few days I guess. I actually figured this out, which I'm proud of. I dunno, maybe it's not that hard. But yeah.
So I went to one of the most bold weddings I've ever been to this weekend and I feel like writing about it.
First of all, it was one of those big Chinese weddings. Where everyone is Chinese, I'm virtually the only Korean person there. SN. I'm not denying that Koreans are racist. But I can't think of a wedding I've been to where the entire wedding party was Korean. I probably have, I just can't think of one. Whereas, I've been to at least a couple now where they're all Chinese.
So yeah, bold wedding. First of all, they had the slide show during the ceremony. Bold, right? I dunno, I thought so.
The praise was also bold. You know, lots of weddings nowadays of our generation Christians have praise. I did. I'm down with that. But some of the praise times have been bold lately. Like the one in TX, they chose the songs Wonderful Cross and Here I Am To Worship. I thought that was bold. Just, the first, and somewhat the second, are kind of morbid topics. It's about the death of our Lord on the cross. Great songs, just, bold for a wedding you know? I dunno, maybe that's just me.
Anyway yeah, this wedding, they sang, among other songs, Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble. (In A, btw, not that anyone cares.) I dunno, I think that's a bold song for a wedding. Maybe that's just me.
Here's the boldest part - the bride and groom led praise *themselves*. So during the ceremony, right after the Scripture reading, they move from the center of the stage to the left, groom picks up a guitar, bride picks up a mic, and they lead worship. Absolutely bold. I was going crazy. I dunno, just never seen anything like that before. Cool stuffs.
I guess that's really the only bold thing but it was plenty bold for me.
Another question. Why is it that they sell the broadcast rights to the Olympics in one massive package? My question is more, why don't they do it so they sell individual events instead? So ABC could buy gymnastics and NBC could buy swimming. I just think that would be cool. You'd get more coverage of more sports, instead of just watching the same big events all the time.
It opens up a can of worms, but I think those could be handled. I dunno, it would just be cooler I think and get more people into the Olympics.
Well the draw of Tatu isn't that they can sing, it's that they're lesbians. Although rumor has it that it's just an act.
Random, but the more I think about The Contender, that movie, the more depressed I get. This isn't really a spoiler, but the whole premise of the movie is that a politician's personal life is just that - personal, and thus no one else should care about it.
I cannot think of a more anti-Christian idea. No, that's overbold. But it is antithetical to Christianity. Which says it's not exactly what you do that matters so much as your character. Pharisees cared about apprearances, Jesus cared about the inside.
I dunno, the modern world makes me sad sometimes. The attitude is, who cares if people are evil, if they're good at what they do. DC freaking re-elected Marion Barry after he got caught smoking crack. Insane. I dunno, the Bible is the exact opposite. Everytime it discusses who should lead, be it the leaders Moses appoints to judge or deacons or elders or pastors, character is key. Even when the job is just distributing food.
I think that's sad. To me, Bill Clinton is the ultimate symbol of this political and maybe social era. If the cultural attitude is that character doesn't matter, just how good you are at what you're supposed to do, you will raise up people who are good at what they do with no moral character. I'm just against that.
Some comic companies used to come out with swimsuit issues also. Not sure if they still do. Which to me is kind of redundant. What's the difference between e.g. Wonder Woman's costume and a swimsuit? Doesn't she get cold? I dunno.
So I actually think (this is obvious) that the alliance not being able to find WMD in Iraq is a big deal. Not that I doubt they're there. Just, if not, why did Saddam keep acting like he had something to hide? But the longer they don't find them, the more they lose face internationally. The whole pretext for the war was WMD. Tough situation.
More on JFK. Spoilers. Ha.
I'm with Ockham's razor also, which is why I believe there was a conspiracy. To me, that's a more simple explanation than the LHO single shooter theory. From the path of the bullet to the wounds to the "police" on the grassy knoll to the people dying within 3 years to the way JFK jerks. The simplest explanation is a conspiracy. The single shooter theory depends on massive coincidence and improbability. I dunno, my claim.
I dunno, you just have to see the video of his head snapping backwards. I saw those links Dave posted, eh. The melons, yeah, some of the melon goes forwards, but parts go backwards also. With JFK, everything goes backwards. His head, his body, and parts of his skull and brain, which is what Jackie climbs back to retrieve. I dunno, just doesn't make sense. The standard explanation is possible sure. Just doesn't seem likely. Karate chop to the neck. Come on.
But yeah, just one of those things we won't know until we go to heaven. Has anyone else thought this before? I once had like a long list of things I wanted to know that I was gonna ask God in heaven. As if I would still care about them after I died. But yeah.
Jeff Sung says I should include a comment thing or survey thing on my page so people can respond. I've actually wanted to do that but I'm too lazy to figure out how. Oh well.
Jeff's take: "I would like to vote on Jamba Juice being a drink (until they put meat in it, at which point it will be a meal.)" Interesting.
BTW, the rehearsal dinner in Dallas was at the Texas Land and Cattle steak house. And it was fantastic, probably the best rehearsal dinner I've had food wise. I dunno, Asians all do the Chinese thing, me included, and whatever. But yeah, the meat and seasoning was incredible, and the apple cobbler with Blue Bell ice cream was divine. Big fan.
I can't believe I waited months to find out there's a lack of fires in Russia. Rage.
Reloaded spoilers.
I'm going to say a lot of people didn't like the dessert scene, maybe the whole Merovingian scene in general. I respect that. But I totally disagree. I've already said why I think it's very important and deep. The machine human equivalence and pleasure thing. And what it says about free will. But to extend on that, I think there's Christian truth in that scene.
I jive with part of his message. Control is an illusion. At times, maybe most or all of the time, you are driven by desires and urges. When those take over, you rationalize your behavior, but you are decidedly out of control.
To me, that's part of the gospel. I dunno, the sense I get sometimes from non-Christians is that they're resistant because they don't want to submit. They want to be able to do whatever they want. Be in control. Scripture tells us that this is an illusion. Apart from Christ, you can't do good. You are impelled to sin. Kind of related to when Paul says, what he wants to do he doesn't, what he doesn't want to do, he does. Apart from Christ, you might think you're in control, but you're decidedly not. You *must* sin.
I dunno, I was just thinking this as someone was mentioning last night about how in Christ we don't have to sin any more. That's the difference. I remember what I read once that really impacted me, how the gospel is weird, because when you read about it in the NT they always say they preach repentance. How is repentance good news? Isn't that odd? It sounds like bad news. And the answer is, it's good news because it means you don't have to be who you are. You don't have to sin anymore. That's good news.
So yeah, to me, the dessert scene is very meaningful, both for the movie and for life. But that's just me.
Question. Do you consider Jamba Juice a drink or a meal? My wife thinks of it as a drink. So she gets it with a sandwich or something. I'm in the meal camp. Just, do you remember when they had the slogan "Drink Your Next Meal"? Maybe this was in the Juice Club days. At any rate, to me it's a meal. An unsatisfying meal, but a meal nonetheless.
So I didn't actually ask Dave to write road trip wrapups, just if he was gonna do it. No clue why. I've actually done writeups for RT I-III, but he does better writeups in general, so.
Not that anyone asked, but I actually felt somewhat unsatisfied with RTIII. I may have mentioned this in the writeups. But to me, it just felt kind of abbreviated and rushed. I'm not sure why. But for me, RTIV was great. Which I don't understand, because it was more abbreviated (less time total) and rushed (less time in each city) than RTIII. Maybe part of it was I just needed a break from work? Not sure.
So yeah, I would rank the trips, from best to worst, I, II and IV (tied), then III. Not that anyone cares.
Is there a reason we write "03" for the year but not "03" for like the day? Is it just force of habit since we've been writing 2 numbers for the year for so long? Why couldn't we just write one number? 6/3/3? And why on earth does America go month-day-year instead of day-month-year? Or year-month-day?
Am I the only one really excited about the Israel-Palestine talks? I dunno, it just seems like they're making real progress. Sharon seems to have changed his stance considerably. Looks like the U.S. isn't antagonizing Palestine. I'm just very hopeful, because stuff is happening that hasn't happened before.
Of course there's still time for things to get screwed up like it has in the past. What I can't believe though is there are talks that Sharon's concessions could spark a civil war in Israel and assassination attempts. I dunno, that's ridiculous to me. It's clear (I think) that the U.S. will not accept a super hardline stance from Israel now, and without U.S. support, Israel cannot exist. So what are these idiots thinking?
I dunno, I just hope it all works out, that would be awesome. Next step, hope Kim Jong Il dies. Nothing bloody or anything, I dunno, maybe just a heart attack from all the rich food he eats.
I think I use the words interesting and fascinating too much. But I dunno, I find lots of things interesting. I'm sure it's boring to everyone else though. But that's the beauty of the web. You get bored, you can just click back whenever you want. I certainly do with some sites.
So another thing I find interesting: how much Asianness Asians need. Especially regarding churches. I dunno, just interesting to me. I met up with some friends this weekend who are looking for churches and we were talking a bit. Some people need a Korean church. That astounds me. I dunno, I would be OK with a Korean church, but to *need* it... wow. Others need an Asian church. Other people don't care.
I guess the person that fascinates me the most is Andrew. Just, he feels slighty uncomfortable at Asian churches. Makes sense, he's never really attended one. Thing is, he needs a big Asian influence in general. Really into Chinatowns, not a super Texas fan because of the subdued Asian influence. Isn't that a fascinating combination? I dunno. With most people I'd say it's the opposite. We're cool with whatever for work, school, life in general. But when it comes to church, we end up with fellow Asians. Just seems to happen that way. But Andrew's the reverse. Interesting.
So Reloading isn't holding up too well. Had a huge opening, but successive weeks has dropped percentage-wise considerably. Guess audiences aren't connecting with the film, or mixed word of mouth or something.
Here's the interesting thing. This is only true in America. Apparently worldwide, or in particular Europe, Reloaded is holding up really well in successive weeks. I dunno, that's interesting to me. Are European audiences connecting with the movie more than American ones? And if so, why?
I actually have a theory. So this is my current take on Reloaded: it's an art film. And that affects how it should be viewed. I was having a debate with someone on this. Who was saying it's too popular to be an art film. I disagree. I dunno, I'm with you if you're talking about a cult film. Because that designation by definition deals with popularity and stuff. Being outside the mainstream. But being an art film doesn't have to do with popularity, but the intent of the filmmakers in the construction of the movie. I dunno, just my take, maybe I'm wrong. It's kind of hard to defend my position because I'm not entirely sure what an art film is. But I stand by it.
Anyway, I think it's an art film, and in a lot of ways, it's intentionally challenging. Stuff like the rave scene. It's clearly intentional. Not an editing mistake - they wanted it to go on and on. Does it work? I dunno, you can debate that. But I think there were artistic, meaningful reasons they made the scene that way. If you don't like it, you can't say it was sloppy. It's more that it was misguided. But I dunno, I think, like an art film, lots of elements intentionally challenging.
So my theory is that Europeans are more patient and willing to accept film that's challenging, both in form and theme, than American audiences. No clue if this is true. It's just, I dunno, the European movies I've seen tend to be more like that. Even the mainstreamish ones like Run Lola Run. I dunno, my theory.
So if a black Brazilian comes to the U.S., is it proper to call him African-American? Does that really make sense? Isn't Brazilian-American more accurate? I dunno, the "African-American" thing is confusing to me because it's about color, not about culture. I'm going to say the term is more demeaning to culture because it says all there is to identity is the color of your skin. Is that not demeaning? So even if your cultural history is say Brazilian, how you look makes you an African-American? I dunno, I would think so.
So I'm in favor of just "black", just like there's "white". Whites can be Italian-American, Polish-American, whatever. Or some have been here so long and are so mixed they're just white Americans. Similarly, Blacks can be Brazilian-Americans, Dominican-Americans, Nigerian-Americans and whatever. Or just black Americans. I dunno, that to me just seems more respectful of the many cultures that black people come from than just using African-American for anyone who looks black.
Not sure what the implications are for Asians then though. Hmm.
Do computers really make a big difference in education? I guess I have no idea how they're used. All I remember is that it was a big freaking deal when we got computers in our classroom in elementary school. But as I recall, all we did was trick our teacher so we could play Oregon Trail all the time. Maybe learning how to make do by hunting squirrel meat is educational. But I dunno.
This weekend I'm going to my 3rd wedding in 3 weeks. Exhausting. Dallas, LA and Bay Area.
I dunno, I haven't reached the Dave jaded point yet though. I still find them special. What I have noticed though is that the more involved I am with it the more special it feels. I guess that kind of makes sense. Although, maybe I'm more involved because I'm closer and that's why they feel more special? I dunno.
Reno or Los Angeles. Fool.
Too bad this wasn't around when Keith was in school.
Has everyone seen that weirdo thing I do where I stand behind a couple holding hands and give the thumbs up? I realized something recently. I think I have a 100% success rate as far as these pictures go. Meaning, any couple with whom I've taken that picture has gotten engaged/married. Not a single one has broken up. I have pics with Jae and Lisa, Charles and Jiyeon, Henry and Lorraine, Leo and Nicci, Eddie and Hanah, I think Albert and Tina. I dunno, there are plenty of other friends that have dated and broken up but for some reason I never took the pic with them. 100% success rate. Random.
I've been hanging out just a tad more with some high school friends recently and it's been kind of interesting to me. It's weird because I had lost touch with them for a long while. My family moved to TX right before my senior year of high school, so during college on vacations, when all my HS friends came back to the Bay Area, I'd be away at TX. So we just lost touch.
Anyway, I'm not sure why, but when we get together I spend a long time thinking about how I'm acting. I dunno, I just think I'm different from how I was in high school. The main thing I think is that I'm more socially competent. And I've been wondering how that happened.
I think I developed socially a lot in college and I think the primary reason why is because there were a lot of people like me. I dunno if that makes sense. But like, high school was tough in certain ways, just, not very many people like me. It was primarily white, rich, and Catholic. I was none of those things. So I had my friends, but whatever, I only connected with a small subset.
In college, I was still awkward with most people, but numbers wise, there were tons more people I connected with. Biggest thing is that there were more Asians, and more Christians, er, evangeical Protestants around. I think that's what it was. More people I could connect with meant more social development. It grew from there I think.
The other thing I think I learned in college was how to play this game. I've mentioned this before. But it's something I'm conscious of and I picked it up from KCPC. What it is is basically you act like you're friends or close to people when you really aren't. It's just kind of a social lubricant. Coming into college I wasn't like this at all. Like there's this semi-famous story, I had met Eddie early on in my frosh dorm, and like, maybe the end of the first day of orientation we ran into each other walking to a dorm meeting and he was all "What's up dude!" and buddy buddy like he was my friend and I remember thinking, who is this guy? He's not my friend. Ouch, huh? He was just being friendly. But I dunno, that's how I was.
But now, yeah, I think I know how to play that game. I dunno if game is even the right word. It might just be friendliness. But yeah, I'm better at it.
Geesh, another boring entry. They just keep on coming.
You know what I mean by xanga-esque entries. I dunno. Just, I'm not a huge fan of laundry list thought pages. Meaning, you just check through what you did that day or whatever. I mean, that's fine and all. Just, to me, what's more interesting is what people think about things. That's just me though, and I guess everyone has different preferences.
So like, some people just write what happened, like "I went to my friend's daughter's birthday party. Then I went home." Whatever, that's fine. But to me, it's more interesting if, at least once in a while, you mix in what you think about it, you know? Like, "I went to my friend's daughter's birthday party and it really made me think. I realized that I missed my true calling in life: clowning/ventriloquism." I dunno, something, once in a while. That's just my take.
Recent discovery that has changed my life: Starbucks has a short size. Did you know that? It's just not listed on the menu. The shortest size they list is "Tall" but they do in fact have a "Short". A Seattle native educated me on this, guess Simon was too busy to share. Changed my life.
I kind of regret not visiting the tower in San Antonio. You know, it's a Freudian thing or something, but so many cities have towers and whatever. And I/we have been to a lot of them during our road trips. First one I visited Sears Tower. Second we saw Space Needle. Third, CN Tower. This year some of us (not I) saw this random tower in Dallas. Did you even know Dallas had a tower? I dunno, whatever. So by the time we got to San Antonio we were towered out, especially for a tower we've never heard of before.
It turns out the San Antonio tower is a pretty big deal. It's the 2nd tallest freestanding (no idea what that means) tower in the United States. After the Stratosphere. I've been to the Stratosphere, with Marshall. Been to the tallest tower in the world, CN Tower. Been to the tallest building in the US, Sears Tower (no idea why it's called a tower but is a building. Very confused). So it would have been nice to add to the collection with the 2nd tallest tower in the US. Taller than the Space Needle, it turns out. Oh well.
We did get to see, although we didn't go up, the Transco Tower in Houston, however. Next to the water wall. It's the tallest non-downtown building in the world.
Geesh, I'm really sticking in there with these boring entries. Oh well.
I think my favorite moment, maybe random, but it was having Mexican food on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Just, the food was decent, it was cheap, the atmosphere was nice, a warm pleasant night by the water, and conversation with good friends. I dunno, just a good time.
As for Settlers, I'm still figuring the game out, I think. I won for the very first time out of maybe 15 games in my life. I think the ideal strategy at any point is for everyone to gang up on who's winning. That gives everyone the best chance. I dunno.
Anyway, I believe there was a conspiracy in regards to JFK's assassination. Definitely didn't happen the way the Warren commission says. I dunno, just my opinion. Just looking at the tape, it defies common sense. But who knows.
Last thing. Someone explain to me what a tower is. Is a tower just any tall structure? Or is there something distinctive about it? I kind of think a tower needs to be kind of thin with the majority of the "stuff" at the top. Dunno if that makes sense. But like Hoover Tower, it's fairly bare except at the top. CN Tower in Toronto, same thing, it's mostly narrow with all the stuff at the top. But then, what makes it the Sears Tower? And why is it just an Empire State Building? No clue.
So I've come to believe that openness itself isn't a good thing. I dunno, I think my pastor believes something similar, that you shouldn't always say everything, even to the people closest to you. Anyway, I've read some non-Christian thought pages that are incredibly open and I find it depressing. No, depressing is the wrong word. Enlightening. Just that openness isn't necessarily good. It makes everything seem OK, and I'm not down with that.
I dunno, I think about guilt a lot. And I think guilt is good in a sense. It indicates what's wrong. But mostly it's bad, it's stifling. The Christian solution to guilt is Jesus, grace and forgiveness. The world's response to guilt I think is saying that nothing is wrong, so there's nothing to be guitly about. So anything goes, everything's OK, and they're more and more open about things because that helps foster the feeling that's it's OK. I dunno, I don't think that's good.
Random.
It's like Keith and Slim's dream come true. A study saying video games may sharpen your mind.
I wonder how many people on jack.html went to schools on that list. Here's what I can think of off hand.
Was it too much information? I dunno, I just thought we were correcting some misunderstandings.
I won't say who it was but one of us made the bold claim that the primary form of birth control practiced by the spouses in his church was complete abstinence. And I'm sorry, but I'm saying there's approximately 0% chance of that being true.
What I've realized being married is that Christians are a lot more open about sex than you might think. It's just, they don't talk about it much with nonmarried folk, so you don't realize it before the fact. But yeah, everyone's pretty open about it, which is interesting.
As for softball, progress. No more strikeouts. Still not making the best contact, but it is progress.
My fielding, however, is a travesty. I was playing 3rd and every at bat praying that it wouldn't come to me. It's not good to be afraid of the ball. Gotta work on that.
Whoa. Feel like I just fought a war. I've been having allergy problems all week but yesterday was insane. Mad post nasal drip, headaches and sore throat. I think it was actually a flu. I woke up this morning with sore muscles, phlegm had coagulated and was a slight yellow color. So I think I got over a flu. It's a great feeling being over it though. Yesterday I just wanted to die, but today, while still not great, I feel like I'm getting better. That's a great feeling.
Xanga-esque entry.
Spoilers, maybe.
My opinion is that people don't recognize the full implications if the Matrix movieswere true. I dunno, to me philosophy is just a game. You set up certain "rules", or premises, and then you figure out what the implications are of those. It's a game because you question things that are very likely impossible. Like saying, if teleportation were possible, does that mean it's the same person or a different one? It's a ridiculous question, because teleportation is quite possibly impossible. But you play the game to figure out what it might mean to be a person.
Why am I mentioning this? Oh yeah, because hun's response to something I said bothered me. I really believe that if you take the premises of the Matrix, the natural conclusion is that humans and machine programs are fundamentally equivalent. Humans happen to have organic hosts, but that's the only difference; both of us can be reduced to algorithms. Hun's response was machines don't have souls so they're not on the same ontological level. And of course that's true, but that's irrelevant, it's stepping outside the game. But I think he realized that.
So another thing I loved about Reloaded - it goes with this idea. Throughout the movie there are various characters whom you're not sure are human or machine, or at least the line between them get blurred. I like that - it's philosophically "right", I think, and brings up interesting ideas and questions.
So the machines aren't united. Makes sense. No reason why they should be, any more than humans are. Machines need purpose. Also an interesting idea. It all moves towards the idea that machines and humans are equivalent. Both algorithms. I think it's interesting, and I think that's where the movies are leading to.
Incidentally, that's why I reject the machines are trying to learn about and become humans thing. It might be true, who knows. I just think the thrust of the movies are more of equivalence, and if that's true, there's no real reason for one to learn from the other.
So I loved the Merovingian. Seriously, I just thought he was so interesting. To me, he says/demonstrates 2 things. Again, men and machines are equivalent. So why shouldn't there be machine programs that seek pleasure and power? I like that idea. For the same reason, I like that he's married/dating/whatever. Why not? Why shouldn't machine programs both feel pleasure and desire it? It's an interesting idea that makes sense.
The other thing the Merovingian hits home is that there is no free will, which he pretty much explicitly says. Everything is cause and effect. Even our thinking that we have will. And like the Oracle, the interesting, maybe Calvinist idea that the point is to understand why we do things.
And interestingly he ties it together. I dunno, what I feel like is people intuitively reject the idea that machines could have desire or pleasure. So in a sense, desire is one thing that marks us as human. But again, in the Matrix world, there's no philosophical reason why they shouldn't, and the Merovingian shows they do.
What I find interesting about what the Merovingian says is the idea that desire actually brings us closer to or shows that we aren't really free. Once desire or drive or whatever you want to call it kicks in, we're compelled to do certain things. And at that point it doesn't matter why we do what we're doing, we just do it.
Hmm, I think I'm stretching things. I'll come back. I dunno, I just found the Merovingian interesting because he challenges intuitive ideas we might have. That machines wouldn't feel pleasure, but humans do. And that sentient machine programs (since they're just algorithms) don't have free will (they're deterministic) but humans do. Merovingian points to humans and machines being equivalent. So, yes, machines can feel pleasure. Also, in a way, desire or drive is something that shows that humans aren't fully in control, that we're at least sometimes compelled to do things for reasons we don't fully understand, and in that way we're like deterministic algorithms.
I dunno, those are interesting ideas to me.
Spoilers.
Personally, I hope it doesn't end up being a matrix in a matrix. And I don't think it will. But if it is, I wouldn't be *that* upset. Because philosophically, it's justifiable. There was an essay on this, not sure if on the website, but yeah, the essayist was saying how the "real world" Neo escapes to in the Matrix is philosophically lacking because the criteria used for saying it's real is the exact same as within the Matrix. The stuff Morpheus tells Neo, what is real, blah blah blah, to explain how the matrix can be true, that's all they have in the "real" world also. So there's no philosophical justification for believing the "real" world is real and the matrix isn't.
So matrix in a matrix is philosophically reasonable, if that's the point they want to make. I don't think they will though.
Another Reloaded point, why I think it's kinda Calvinist.
So one point I think the movie makes that I really like is that just because you feel like you have free will doesn't mean that you actually do. I think the movie keeps pounding the point that everyone has a purpose and function, and they end up doing it whether they realize it or not. A lot of the machine programs clearly and explicitly realize their purpose and how they're fulfilling it. The humans, especially Neo, reject fate and whatever, but they still end up doing what's predicted. So it doesn't matter whether you think you're free or not, you're not really.
I like that because it's not an absurd idea. In fact, if you're a Calvinist, it's what you believe, roughly. At the very least in regards to certain decisions (accepting Christ), possibly for others. If you think about it, it's kind of absurd to reject free will. Because we're clearly free, we make decisions every single moment. And we choose to accept or reject Christ. We don't wait for something to happen, we make that decision.
What Calvinism posits is that even though we clearly feel free, we really aren't. That's a bold idea when you think about it. That your experience says nothing about what is actually true. And Reloaded plays with that idea a lot which I really liked. There's a lot of discussion about whether people are free or not in the movie and I think it's the same reason as with Calvinism. It boldly says we aren't even though we feel we are.
Anyway, yeah, I find the Architect scene fascinating. What do all those screens mean? I thought at the time they represented all of Neo's possible responses. Which is interesting. Maybe that means that the future isn't fixed, but there are possibilities with probabilities. Some things might be certain, other things just probabilistic. That's a very interesting idea to me. The Architect uses language as such, in regards to I think Zion, saying if left unchecked it leads to an increasing probability of disaster. Probability of events, not certainty. Interesting.
I read somewhere people were positing the screens represent realities in a way, like a quantum machine. Similar ideas to the stuff in Timeline kinda, if you read that. I dunno, that's another interesting idea.
I've actually been to a Phil Keaggy concert, back when he did that CD with Scott Dente and Wes King. The device he uses is called a JamMan.
Keaggy does sound like McCartney. There was this one Dove awards show years ago where he and this guy named Phil Driscoll presented, and they switched off singing a bit of With A Little Help With My Friends. It was funny because Driscoll sounds like Joe Cocker. So when they sang it sounded like the Sgt. Pepper version (wait, didn't Ringo sing that song? Well whatever, it was still funny) mixed with the Joe Cocker Wonder Years version.
If it's any consolation, Keaggy is considered to be one of the best guitarists period, not just in CCM. Ads for his CDs run in mainstream mags like Guitar World and stuff. He's fairly well respected.
Spoilers. I dunno, you probably shouldn't read this page at all for a few days if you haven't seen Reloaded.
I 100% agree that the plot of the action scenes in Matrix 1 were much better, if that makes any sense. I dunno, Matrix 1 was a near perfect movie. The reason I think I connected with Reloaded's fight scenes was again, the Jackie Chan fan in me. In JC's movies much of the time plot has no meaning. So you're left to consider the fight scenes on their own terms. And on this level, Reloaded's fights worked for me.
But plotwise, yeah, kinda lacking. Some of the fight scenes were pretty superfluous. Like a lot of the scenes in the movie, I guess.
Another Reloaded note. Spoilers.
Like I said before, I don't think the movie presented everything with crystal clarity. But I don't think these problems were overwhelming either. When I think about it, there were only 2 things that were kind of unclear to me when watching the movie. One, the architect scene, but even with that I understood the choice Neo was making while watching. I dunno. The other thing unclear to me was the very end, who that guy was on the other table with Neo. I'm still confused about that one.
But yeah, the other questions I had weren't about "what did I see" but "what does that mean." And I liked that, because, in my opinion, they were valid, interesting questions. That's the better way to do it. The worst thing would have been if everything were elucidated in an obvious way. Which is pretty much Episodes I and II in a nutshell where nothing is subtle and everything is obvious.
So yeah, for me, the vast majority of the questions I had were "good" questions, and only a couple of them the what happened variety. But I understand other people felt differently and that's fine.
Spoilers again.
So another reason I liked Reloaded is that they extended things thematically in, to me, interesting ways. I'm a broken record, but yeah, I'm not saying why you should like the movie, I'm just saying why I did. So not convincing, just explaining.
Like, Dave said this already, but the central question of the first, "What is the Matrix?" is extended even further in Reloaded. In ways that are consistent with the first, but interesting. Like, we know things from the first movie but questions naturally arise. Like, why is there a One. The time problem (maybe). I dunno, I was talking with some people who hadn't seen Reloaded yet and I thought it was interesting that problems they had with the matrix as presented in the first movie were dealt with in the second. So yeah, these new ideas don't cheat, and they introduce interesting things. You're still wondering what the matrix is, in deeper ways I think.
I also liked how the second movie moved forward philosophically. You know, the first was a lot about illusion vs. reality, stuff like that. Which is cool, but would have been kinda boring and repetitive, I think, if they kept that as a central theme.
But they don't, they move on to fascinating questions of free will and purpose. And again, these are natural questions that arise from the first movie, that people have brought up. So they extend ideas that should be extended.
Anyway, to me, if the Matrix was a philosophical movie, I feel like Reloaded was a religious movie. Maybe that's a stretch, but it's not really. Matrix asks what questions. What is the matrix. What is reality. Reloaded asks, I think, why questions, more questions of purpose, why do we exist, stuff like that, that's almost religious in nature.
Then you have all the religious jargon and imagery. Zion. The counselor leading them in prayer. People bringing offerings to the One. I dunno. Honestly, I felt like Morpheus' speech and the whole rave things was kinda existential, or at least, that's the only way I can make sense of it. They recognize the absurd, that there's a strong chance they may all die soon. So why live? Why fight? Morpheus' answer: We are (still) here. I dunno, that's existentialism, right? Recognizing the absurdity of existence but given that existence, celebrating that. I dunno, I know very little about existentialism so maybe I'm way off here but that's what I felt it was about. It was saying, we do exist, so we will defiantly celebrate that existence.
Anyway, a lot of the movie I thought could have been Calvinist. Not just the denial of free will. But ideas like, everyone had and fulfills a purpose, whether they recognize it or not. I dunno, couldn't that be Calvinist? Or when the Oracle says, "You've already made the choice. Now you have to understand it." I dunno, to me that's Calvinism. Things are predetermined. Point is just to understand why it is, and where you fit in it.
Anyway, yeah, the movie could have easily rested on what was already done in the Matrix, but they didn't do that, they extended ideas in logical but interesting ways and I really jived with that.
We have different criteria for cd I guess, and that's fine. I would call Episodes I-II bad cd, not no cd, but whatever, at the end of the day it's the same thing, just different definitions. Reloaded made me care though. That's just me.
Haven't I explained my rating system before? Whatever, it's my system so I can do whatever I want. It's a 4 star system but there's a 1 star bonus for being deep or having a message that sticks with me or whatever. So like, Singin' In The Rain is a 4 star movie to me, a perfectly entertaining movie. Shawshank is a 5 star movie, perfectly entertaining but also with a message that sticks to me.
More Reloaded spoilers.
So one response. It's been said that there's no character development in Reloaded. My question is, are you on crack? How do you define cd? Is it something happening to the character? Or learning more about the character? By either measure, Reloaded had lots of it.
That's another thing I liked about Reloaded. It introduced complexity to the characters in a good way. It didn't cheat, meaning, there weren't things that you find about the characters that come completely out of left field and make no sense in light of what you knew before. You can see how they really do make sense in light what you already know. But at the same time, the stuff you learn isn't so obvious that it should just be left unsaid, like most of the stuff in Star Wars episode II.
Like Morpheus. In Matrix you think he must be a huge leader and that he represents all the free people. In Reloaded you see he's not that big a guy, in fact he's seen in Zion as more of a fringe element. (Which makes sense given the freaking pompous way he speaks.) Interesting. There's doubt and speculation about him. Even from within at the end.
Trinity - you learn interesting things about what it's like to love Neo. Like, sometimes she has to let go of what she wants because of who he is. Like going into the Matrix (initially). Or sometimes she can't be with him because the people need him. Or she needs to give him up somewhat to busty Italian women. I think that's interesting. Her love is complicated and it requires some sacrifice.
Oracle. You learn she's not a human, which makes the stuff in the first Matrix make a lot more sense. Learn she might actually be a part of the system. Or not. In any case, her character goes through a lot of development even though she's barely on the screen.
Agent Smith. Gets unplugged from the system. One of my favorite ideas of the movie, that the machines aren't necessarily united. I dunno, Agent Smith becomes a really interesting character. He brings up all these questions about purpose, how you need purpose to exist. Interesting heady stuff.
Neo. Interesting developments with him also, how he has more connection to the machines. How being the One has practical burdens in addition to its benefits. And the whole stuff with the Oracle and the Architect, stuff that says about Neo.
And yeah, the Matrix is a character also and that goes through development in the movie. And the new characters, I think at least some of them added some interesting ideas, especially the Merovingian. Anyway, yeah, it's impossible to convince someone to like the movie, either they liked it or they didn't. So the characters, either you cared or you didn't. But for those who cared, I just think the movie had a lot to offer in terms of development. It's interesting stuff.
Dunno if I should start with responses to stuff or just go on my own. I'll do the second I guess. So yeah, this entry may or may not have spoilers.
So, reason #1 I loved the Matrix: the fighting scenes. I dunno, that's the Jackie Chan fan in me. I love good fighting / action sequences, kung fu ones in particular.
Anyway, no one's said anything really about the fighting scenes, or at least nothing good, and whatever, that's their opinion, but as for me, I loved it all. Maybe they had too many? Too much of a good thing? Or maybe even though they're good the impact pales in light of the first movie since the first was so groundbreaking? Maybe like for Dave the other stuff was getting in the way? I'm not sure.
But I dunno, every single fight sequence I thought was incredible. Incredibly well choreographed and well shot. It was almost poetic. I realized from watching Jackie Chan's bio film that filming a good fight scene is really difficult. You need good choreography, good people doing it, good shots, and good editing. And they all go together, like, you need to choreograph the scenes in light of how it's going to be edited.
I have not liked the staging of a single fight scene in Jackie Chan's U.S. productions. Not his pseudo ones like Accidental Spy, but stuff like Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon. Just, Brett Ratner and whoever don't know how to shoot and edit his fight scenes well. Whatever, they're OK, but they don't have the impact of the Hong Kong ones.
Reloaded got all of it right for me. Incredible choreography, and filmed in a way that showed it well. Like I loved that sequence with the Merovingian's henchmen, the one that's in the trailer. That one slow mo part is beauty - no wasted movement, no one just standing around, everyone's moving, doing something incredible, it makes sense, and it's beautiful. That's a great fight scene.
Or the one against the many Agent Smiths. Again, no one's just standing around, constant movement, wonderfully timed and executed. I guess the virtual camerawork got the most attention, but it's coupled with seriously amazing choreography.
Or the fight with the Seraph. Just a simple one on one fight with little touches in there. Seriously, that's a great fight scene. I dunno, I guess I'm alone on this, or maybe it's that I like fight scenes so much, but every single fight scene brought a huge smile to my face. I thought it was really well done.
I also liked how they pulled a Bruce Lee in Enter The Dragon thing and had Neo use different weapons. The pole, the swords. Again, something I appreciated.
So yeah, I like fight scenes, and Reloaded had more and better ones than maybe any movie ever made so I loved that part. But again, I feel like I'm alone on this. I'd like to know what Wong thought. But whatever, regardless, I loved it. My claim is, if you just concentrated on the fight sequences, you'd see how amazing they were. I dunno.
Loved Matrix Revolutions. Between 4 and 4.5 stars. Anyway, no spoiler here, but if you haven't seen it already stay until the end of the credits. They show a trailer for the 3rd movie. You probably know that already but yeah.
Actually, no, gonna say a little bit, so, maybe you should skip the rest if you haven't seen. I was gonna post to jbb instead but the thread is so boring. I could only get through Dave's first and Henry's outline post. Anyway, yeah, spoilers follow, maybe.
Should I just start with things I didn't like about the movie? I dunno, there were a lot of things wrong with it that I recognize. Still loved it. But a lot was in spite of, not because. Pretty much agree with what Scott said. I rewatched the first Matrix last night and I realized it's a really tight movie. Every scene really moves the movie along. Reloaded there feels like a lot of fat. Like the whole dance/sex scene. I dunno, you could say it represents like religious euphoria or whatever but it was just odd. Lots of scenes like that.
Agree with Henry kinda also, that they didn't elucidate critical points too well. Not that they need to explain everything, it's just how it was done was odd at bits.
I was kind of uncomfortable the first 30 mins. You know what it was. For some reason, I was picking up a Star Trek vibe. That's not a good thing. I dunno, the first movie is a bit cheesy on repeated viewings but the first part of Reloaded felt Star Trek hokey. Fine for ST. Not for Matrix. I dunno, I guess I just went with it after a while. Part of it was the music I think.
Another thing - Laurence Fishburne totally oversays his lines in the first movie. That's one of the things that amuses Jieun. The pairing of someone who not exactly overacts but overrecites his lines with someone who can't act. Good times. But yeah, in Reloaded does he not take it to another level? How do people stand listening to Morpheus? I would just have this irrepressible urge to give him a wedgie. Lighten up, dude. Talk like a human being.
But yeah, there was so much good about the movie I still give it 4 stars. I thought it was absolutely fascinating.
X-2. I liked it better than the original. 3 stars.
So question for the comic nerds out there, maybe only xacto can answer. But was that very last shot a reference to the Phoenix saga? Seemed like it, no? Kinda subtle, so hard to tell.
I've been kind of depressed lately, not really, but relatively sad as far as I go. You know what I think part of it is. It depresses me when I hang out with Christians and it feels like I'm hanging out with non-Christians. I dunno how to explain it except like that.
I was part of this exchange recently in a group of Christians, where people were gonna hang out, and one guy suggested we go somewhere and play games and the other looked at him like he was crazy, or at least really square. I dunno, that just made me sad. Like, why do we need to go out and drink or club to have a good time? Again, I'm 100% fine with drinking, I drink, but I don't understand the drinking culture, or rather, why it's necessary for Christians to have fun. I dunno, just that we were in a Christian context but playing games was seen as being square, that made me sad.
I dunno, I don't mean to be judgmental here, the feeling was pure sadness, not anger or self-righteousness or whatever. It just makes me sad when Christians clearly put their primary focus on the world when it comes to life priority, time, happiness and stuff like that and then wonder why they're struggling spiritually. It's not like a big profound secret why that happens. It's fairly obvious. I dunno, just makes me sad.
I think this experience is still an exception though. I dunno. I'm big on the Christians are different than non-Christians thing. I believe it's true, and in my experience it's true, so those few times when I don't feel it get to me. But yeah, it's not like we have to sit around singing Kumbayah and sharing our feelings or whatever. Just, to me, there's a qualitatively different feeling when hanging out with Christians vs. non-Christians, and it doesn't matter if we're playing basketball or video games or whatever. It just feels different.
But I dunno, I can see how things change I guess. I just hope at the FiCS 10 year reunion that Dave is planning that it will feel Christian.
One thing I do know that the movie kind of pointed out. I think a lot of our parents generation think that doing well academically and getting into a good college is the solution to everything. So like they said, their parents gave them a free pass because they did the things they're supposed to. I dunno, even my parents were like that kinda. They didn't want me to get *too* involved with church lest it affect my academics. Honestly, and maybe this is bold, but I think they wouldn't have minded if I just went to Sunday service and spent the rest of the time studying. It's not just that academics is the highest priority. I think they felt if academics is right, then everything else will fall into place.
So yeah, I think that's one area in which our generation might be wiser somewhat. Knowing that academics is neither necessary nor sufficient in kids being "good". In the important ways at least.
So you know there are lots of blacks in Latin American countries. There are quite a few in Major League Baseball. My question is, when they come to the U.S., do they see themselves primarily as black or as Latino? I guess I'm wondering which is the stronger influence on identity, race or culture. Or is it inaccurate to say there's a Latino culture? Maybe I'm being insensitive.
My question also is how Americans view their primary identity as. And I'm guessing it's based more on skin color than culture. Maybe I'm wrong.
There was this letter written to the sports section in the Merc months ago that just made me angry. It was written by an African-American man who was furious that the Merc would say that Tiger Woods is anything but black. (I think it was in reference to some story that pointed out that Woods is only 1/4 black and mostly Asian.) That just struck me as being extremely hypocritical. If minorities want that society treat them based on what's inside and not the color of their skin, how can you simultaneously claim Tiger Woods solely on the color of his skin and not who he actually is? I dunno, that just bothered me.
One thing though is, we have different ideas on the activities we want our kids to do. What I realized is that we want our kids to be raised like we were, and I guess we'll see how that plays out. Like, you know, music was a big part of my life, and I want it to be a big part of my kids'. I want them to take piano lessons and also learn some other ensemble instrument. So they learn both about soloing and working in a group. They can do the soccer thing like I did, whatever, but sports in general not a big deal.
Sports is a big deal to Jieun. She's big on them playing little league, the most boring of youth sports for parents to watch. SN. When I was like 6 my mom apparently registered me in a flag football league or something like that with a friend. I have no recollection of it. She says I would spend the entire time looking up at the sky while balls thrown to me bounced off my torso. I would rather watch that than little league.
I dunno, I like the soccer thing because it's almost all lower body. You sprain an ankle or get a charlie horse, no big whoop, doesn't affect piano playing. But start using your hands and it gets dangerous. I dunno.
Anyway yeah, I realized neither of views is really more right than the other's, it's just what we're used to. I guess a lot of marriage things are like that and it's worked out OK so far. We'll see how it goes with kids.
Ben Hur thinks something similar, that when parents really love each other children don't turn out screwed up. We were talking about BLT and this came up. Kind of similar to the unconditional love thing.
As for me, I don't buy it. Mostly on the strength of a few counter-examples. SN, didn't one of the Sunny Hills Killers go to church or something? Not sure. I think this mentions one of their families as being Christian but who knows. Anyway.
So you could argue that in these counter-example families, the parents didn't *really* love each other or they didn't *really* give unconditional love. But I dunno, I don't see how that can be. So it either makes the theory untestable or does the reverse interpretation thing, a la Jesus must have felt peace at Gethsemene. The theory must be true so the parents must not have loved in the right way. I dunno.
At any rate, by any reasonable standard I can think of, the parents were loving, both to each other and unconditionally to their children. Yet the children kind of came out "screwed up". So even if their theories are true, it's useless for me, because whatever standard I might have for parents loving each other and their children is empirically not sufficient and I'm back where I started - I have to do something different from them but I'm not exactly sure what that is.
Assuming (for the sake of argument) that I'm not screwed up, and comparing to my counter-examples, I can come up with only 2 things different, both of which are really 1 thing, the grace of God. One is prayer. I dunno, I don't think my dad was a fantastic parent but one great thing he did was pray for us all the time since we were kids. I honestly think that's saved me from many things. The other thing was having my grandma around to raise us. In retrospect I think both me and my sister would say that's one of the best things that happened to us.
Honestly though, I think about it but I don't worry too much because I think Jieun will be a fantastic mom.
So I e-mailed Bev saying it might drive her crazy, and then telling her about my friend who got the 90 on Minesweeper. She responded with something interesting. Why should it drive her crazy? She doesn't need to be the best at Minesweeper.
It was a very female response in that it was completely reasonable. Makes sense. Why should that drive anyone crazy? What does him getting that score have anything really to do with her or me? Makes absolute sense.
Unfortunately, I'm not female. Argh, 90. I'm down to 111 but 90 is a full 19% better than I've *ever* done. That just boggles my mind.
Anyway, if you're feeling loserish check out this page. Real time videos of incredible Minesweeper games. The 43 is ridiculous. I've analyzed it kind of in slow mo and he's basically twice as smart as me, but at a speed 5 times as fast as me. Incredible. I have no idea how much time he must have spent getting that good and achieving those scores. What a big fat loser. It goes without saying that I'm jealous.
We were talking about Vineyard albums recently, in particular where this one song came from. It was thought (incorrectly, as I found out later) that it came from this album "Thirsty", which was thought to be the followup to "Hungry". Naturally this made us wonder what could be next. The best we could come up with: "Itchy". Wouldn't that be hilarious? "UK Vineyard: Itchy". They could even work in the Balm Of Gilead in there somewhere. I dunno.
Another BLT note, kinda. Maybe tangentially at best.
I didn't think the movie was about rebellion. I think it was primarily about boredom and ennui. But whatever, that's not the crucial point. The reason I think it's interesting is because I don't think it's an anomaly. I mean, the violence and the extent to which they went sure it's an anomaly. But what I mean is, there's something in Asian-American youth culture nowadays with flirting with danger and being cool that I wonder about.
Like Dave has said this many times but look at pictures of our generation as teenagers / college students and you see a bunch of dorky nerds. Look at pictures of Asians kids/students today and they're all "cool". I just find that odd. And there's something that goes along with the "cool" thing. Yeah, murders are the anomoly. But like, people in LA could tell you about the gangs and whatever in K-Town. Kevbo could tell you about people at his high school who broke in to the offices to steal exams pretty much just for the thrill. There was actually a case when we were in high school about this Korean guy who shot and killed a friend by accident, also from Kev's school I think. Jieun's ex and several other friends she had went to jail. Stuff like that.
I dunno, it seems to have something to with a critical mass of Asians I think. In places like LA and Lynbrook. It's actually happening in Houston now also. Once you get that mass, you get a "cool" Asian culture. And once you get that, you get a host of problems. Not murder, but problems nonetheless.
The way it comes together for me is this. I've realized that the things I value, like good education, whatever, other Asians value also. So I've pretty much conceded that wherever I end up, there are going to be a lot of Asians there. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong. But like, when I see Asians taking over places like Redeemer and every good school in the Bay Area and Houston, that's just the feeling I get.
So they're going to have to face that "cool" Asian culture. How are they going to deal with it? Are they going to fully embrace it? Will they resist the negative aspects of it? I dunno, it's something I just wonder about now that kids are something we actually talk about.
And I don't know what the solution is. I can only come up with 2 things, both of which I've mentioned before. One, friendships are key, so I want to make sure my kids are friends with kids of friends who I think will be decent parents, instilling decent values. So like, it's fairly important for me that my kids play with the Hsu kids, assuming Lorraine's gonna raise them. They'll hopefully have decent values. But yeah, that's something you can't really control that much.
The other thing is Jesus. But I dunno, even with that, there are tons of churches I know in the Bay Area and Houston where the youth group kids just turned out all screwed up. So what do you do about that? I dunno, it's just something I think about.
Is this even related to BLT at all? No clue.
SN. I've said this before. But I don't believe a basic conceit of the Matrix, Blade Runner, other robot movies. That being: something that's conscious automatically has a will to survive. Don't buy it. They're clearly not co-dependent. Things have a will to survive and propagate without being conscious, e.g. bacteria or whatever. So why must something conscious necessarily want to survive? I dunno, I don't think it's necessary. It would be an interesting movie, I think. Blade Runner touched on it but I dunno, I thought the movie was boring.
This comic killed me. It's so true. I dunno how universal it is but I think it's fairly universal. Sometimes women ask questions to which there is no right answer. Or more accurately, the right answer has nothing to do with the question being asked. So it's just a process of training via trial and error. One of the women at church calls it Am I Fat 101.
Anyway, I'm getting better at it. Learning that sometimes, you're not supposed to answer what you think. So yeah, comic killed me.
Come on, the Statue of Liberty, was that really necessary? Ridiculous. Entertaining though. Great season.
I absolutely agree with this. Rob was the best part of Survivor this season by far and what made it so entertaining. Even Jeff Probst (who was a *terrible* live interviewer) called him the smartest Survivor ever (to not win). We need more Robs.
I'm seriously torn. Watching it on the first day is always awesome because everyone's so hyped and into it. The thing is, the first time I see it, I want good seats. Given work constraints and stuff I don't think I can have both. I'm leaning towards good seats though.
But yeah, I'm on a Matrix info embargo also. It's hard. Every publication in the world has stuff on it now. Almost read (I think) a spoiler in the Merc this morning. The Time article is supposedly full of spoilers. Just a few days left.
I was in Borders today and randomly decided to skim through a G.I. Joe comic. Good times. They had Cover Girl, Flint, Spirit and Snake-Eyes. The thing is, I'm not sure because I was just skimming, but they made it seem like Snake-Eyes was this blond white guy.
No. There are only a handful of things I know for certain. I think therefore I am. For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten son. And Snake-Eyes is Asian. I don't care what this comic book has to say about it. He's Asian. I know.
Why do all girls seem to like John Cusack? Is it that he's good looking? That he's sensitive? I dunno, I think it's weird. But personally I'm happy with it. Because to me he's about brains, not brawn. And I'm all in favor of that.
You know, I feel like I need to qualify myself when I whine about feeling unsatisfied and whatever. It's not that I'm unhappy. It's that I feel unfulfilled. There's a big difference to me. I dunno, I've said this countless times, but I think if I weren't a Christian I would have killed myself. I'm not even joking about this. I've spent time thinking about what the best way to go would be.
But I am Christian, and I know for myself at least there's a huge difference between how my life is with Christ and how it would be without Christ. I do have an underlying fundamental hope and joy. And that's a big deal to me. I think I'm at a place now where the struggles I go through aren't about being unhappy but about wanting to serve God more. Is that bold? I dunno, it's what I think. So I've got the joy. I just want to live out what I believe more.
I dunno, I feel like it warrants mentioning because I firmly believe that there is a fundamental difference between Christians and non-Christians and I don't want my meanderings to give the idea that I'm as hopeless or unsatisfied as a non-Christian. It's a fundamentally different thing. I dunno.
I'm a hypocrite. I rail against the anti-war people who are really anti-Bush. And then I blatantly say how I hate Clinton. Well no, maybe that's not hypocrisy. At least I'm upfront about what it is I'm against.
I'm wondering though if I'm too harsh with my personal life thing. I was reading Christianity Today and some guy was mentioning how those qualities that the church tends to be most harsh and judgmental about, personal moral failures, are the same ones Jesus seemed to reach out to the most. The prostitutes, the adulteress woman at the well, the corrupt tax collectors, etc. I dunno, there's a difference between how we treat people before and after having Christ but still, I wonder if my attitude is too harsh. Hmm.
Should I give a status report on my research? You know, the claim that Scripture says more about being generous than about being frugal or whatever. At this point I think I'm wrong. It's actually pretty interesting. Luke has by far the most to say about money of the Gospels, and most of it warns against it. John has the least to say about money. It's really interesting. But yeah, still working through the epistles so we'll see we'll see.
Adrian recently subscribed me to Rolling Stone and it's actually a really interesting magazine. They had a recent issue on American Icons with a bunch of guest writers on various topics. Like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. on the American flag, Martin Scorsese on the leading man. Anyway, they also had Marilyn Manson, Courtney Love and a guy from Blink-182 write essays. Love's was predictably scattered and confusing. But the other 2 were pretty good. Manson's in particular was quite cogent and well written. The Blink-182 guy got off the best line though. "I can name the newscaster on The Simpsons but I can't name my own congressman. And that's what makes America great."
There's actually another reason why I'm against a national MLK Jr. day. It's fairly well known that he had a somewhat sordid personal life. In Intro to Christian Ethics the prof left it at him having affairs but yeah, he wasn't exactly squeaky clean when it came to his personal life.
And call me a dinosaur, but that matters to me, personal integrity. It's why I respect George Bush and despise Bill Clinton. Even though Clinton was a far better, perhaps brilliant politician. Bush just a middling one. In terms of their personal life, Bush was a great guy. And we all know about Clinton. And even though no one these days seems to care about stuff like that (personal life is private, doesn't matter, yadda yadda yadda. The basic premise of the movie The Contender with which I completely disagreed) I still do. So yeah, I'm a dinosaur like that.
I don't want to honor a guy who constantly cheated on his wife, possibly abused women and plagiarized a bunch of stuff. That's just me.
But yeah, no one's perfect. God knows I've got skeletons in my closet. But I'm not proud of it. It's for those very reasons I don't think I'm a great or even particularly good man. All I can really say is that I try to minimize my hypocrisy.
This has gone around before but this game testing the logical consistency of your beliefs about God made me angry. First of all the way they set up the questions to maximize potential conflict and then limit the response to a simple yes/no in cases where an explanation is necessary.
More than that though is the implication behind it. That beliefs about God tend to be rationally inconsistent and are therefore suspect. I wholeheartedly agree that Christianity at least is full of conundrums, paradoxes and confusing ideas. The thing is, and I've said this countless times, but life is also full of the same conundrums, paradoxes, and confusion, even when God is not a part of the equation.
I'm no philosophical expert by any means. But take any intro to philosophy course and you'll likely study a bunch of "problems". The mind-body problem. Problems of personal identity. Etc. And they're rightly named - they're problems because they don't sit right with our understanding of how the world is, or are inconsistent with our other beliefs. And this is all assuming there is no God.
What bothers me is the idea that belief in God needs to be held to a higher standard of logical consistency than life. I agree that it might not be possible to "prove" God on purely logical terms. But that site seems to argue that beliefs in God must be completely rationally consistent, when the truth is general philosophy about life, God removed, doesn't hold to this standard. So why isn't there a game called Battleground Life?
I dunno, that's just my opinion about it.
I remember the first times I saw $1 gas and $2 gas. First time I saw $1 gas was when I was a kid, we were visiting LA and somewhere in LA proper, I'm going to say near Beverly Hills, the gas was $1 and it shocked me. Back in those days prices in LA were higher than in the Bay Area.
First time I saw $2 gas was in Chicago summer 2000 when they had that crazy price spiking. That was madness.
I disagree with hun. It has nothing to do with trophies. Asian guys (the ones who like white girls) like white girls because in Western society, white girls are presented as the epitome of beauty. That's not my idea; I think Spike Lee plays with that in Jungle Fever with black guys / white girls.
I'm kind of surprised Henry never found a white girl attractive. I dunno, I'm just the result of my environment growing up. There weren't that many Asians in my classes. What can you do.
Anyway, read this page on interracial marriage statistics among Asians. The second page is more interesting, dealing with Asian Americans raised in America. Since I'm Korean, the Korean stats interest me most: 54.3% of KA husbands are married to other Koreans, 34.8% to whites, 8.3% to other Asians. Is that not fascinating? 34.8% doesn't sound like exceptions to me. I dunno, weird.
For KA women, only 20% are married to other Koreans. 25% are married to other Asians, and 50% are married to whites. I actually don't understand how the statistics match up but whatever. I find that fascinating.
You know why I'm really into Theory of Knowledge / Epistemology. I've beeng thinking stuff like this my whole life. So when I first started reading stuff like that in college, I was stunned that other people thought about the same things. In a strange way I found that encouraging.
Like one thing I thought about was, what if other people experienced colors differently than we did? Like, their experience of the world's colors was the way we see photo negatives, for example. Kind of reversed. Or some other scheme, totally different. But since that's all they knew, it was normal to them. And we agreed about what purple is based on conditioning, even though our *experience* of purple is totally different. Does this make any sense? Anyway, yeah, I thought about stuff like this since elementary school.
Which is why I was so happy when I read What Is It Like To Be A Bat? by Thomas Nagel. It's the same essential idea. You can know everything (or at least, a lot) about an experience. The physical response, the neurons that fire, the chemical reactions. But you still know nothing about what the experience is like. Like, we know that bats have sonar, and how it works. But we have no clue what that experience could be like. And it's true. And it refreshed me that other people had thought stuff like this before, that it's legitimate.
Anyway, another thing I used to think often, from a fairly young age (like late elementary school) was, just what if this life isn't real. What if we're just brains in a vat (or beings in the Matrix if you want). The one who runs the vat/Matrix is God. And he's not malevalent. Just, this "life" is a test. Nothing in it is real. But it's a test to see if we'll choose the right answer. Then when we die we'll suddenly wake up and get treated according to the choices we made in our life test.
I guess that's not so different from Christianity. But yeah, when I was younger, and probably lingering today, I was somewhat driven to find the right answer, just in case this scenario was true. So I took World Religions in high school, stuff like that. I dunno, even now, I think part of me still sees life as a test, not necessarily in the Christian sense. But anyway.
No point to this entry, just rambling.
You know the iceberg the Titanic hit. Was it salty? Can icebergs be salty? Or are they somehow freshwater, even though they're in a salty ocean?
I've been playing poker periodically with some high school friends and it's gotten me into it. We just play for fun (pennies), but the poker world is fascinating. Recently I've been watching the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel and it's totally absorbing to me. Once you start to understand the game you see the full gamut of human psychology. You see who's patient, the mavericks, when people get desperate. It's a little psychological war on a table.
I have this coworker who actually plays poker at those card clubs regularly and he was saying how you can witness the full range of human emotion at a table in the course of a few hours. Extreme joy, complete devastation, rage, depression, jealousy, fear. The only emotion you don't see is love. Which is telling I guess. I dunno, I find it fascinating but I could never get into it. Gambling's just too evil. But for no stakes among friends, I dunno, it's pretty fun.
Is it wrong to want someone to die? I dunno, the more I read about North Korea the sadder I get, and the easiest solution I think is just if Kim would die. Not that he should be killed. I dunno, I wish the Lord would take him. Let all the rich foods and alcohol he enjoys take its course with a massive heart attack or something. I dunno.
I just don't understand how someone can be so disconnected to the suffering of his people. You've all read this right? Stuff like how he placed a huge order for luxury cars, the total cost of which was a sizeable percentage of aid NK was receiving for their starving people. That's just mad. That's just evil. I dunno, it just makes me really angry.
So I got a 118 on Minesweeper over the weekend. But it means absolutely nothing.
Did I ever mention why I got into Minesweeper again? I was talking with Bev Yang and she said how her best score was in the 120s. That got me intrigued. I checked my score and it was 144, and I thought I could do better than that. I'm kind of secretly competitive that way. I dunno how to explain it. I never get angry about competition. Never swear on the court or get heated or whatever. But with certain things, I'll just be quietly driven about it.
So I got down to a 123. Then Bev got down to 111. I could not believe it. Saturday afternoon, I was suppposed to meet some people for basketball but I started playing Minesweeper instead. I finally got down to 118 so I left it at that and went to play.
When I got there I was telling a friend how I was mentally frazzled because I'd just played Minesweeper for an hour. You know, clicking and thinking like mad. My brain was still racing. Then he drops a bomb on me. His current best time is 94. That's insane. I was literally in shock. Even crazier - after talking to me he's inspired to play again and that night he gets a 90.
You don't understand how demoralizing that is. It's not just a better score, it's orders of magnitude better. I haven't even come close to approaching that, ever. I've lost all confidence. I've even questioned myself whether it's worth trying anymore, whether I even have the capability. You know how I feel like. I feel like those opponents of Kenshin who after learning how awesome he is, have to talk to themselves before facing him. "Can I do it? Is it possible?" And I don't know.
The other thing is, Jieun thinks I'm a loser. She'll walk into the room while I'm playing, say "loser" and then leave. I dunno, I guess it's something I need to let go.
I don't get who women find attractive. Han? He was memorable for being the least memorable character in the movie. I dunno, I find that utterly random. But whatever. Sometimes when we watch movies I ask Jieun which men she thinks are good looking because it's completely a crapshoot. I'd never be able to predict in advance.
Maybe this is unfair, but it makes me a little angry that girls like Han. There's nothing good about him. The best that can be said is that he's controlled. Big whoop. He's condescending, abuses others, smokes entirely too much, and whatever. That's attractive? I dunno, guys are stupid because they're so swayed by looks, but looks are neutral in regards to character. Girls are actually attracted to bad character, and I've never understood that.
Uh, except for any females that might read this page.
A while ago Eric calls me and says there are some boxes at his place and he's wondering if they're mine. Keith had moved out and before he had gone they assumed it was his stuff but he said it wasn't. So they couldn't figure out whose it was and wanted to know if it was mine. So I go, look in one of the boxes, and on top there are a bunch of letters addressed to... Arthur Kim. They couldn't figure out whose boxes they were? These people went to college? I dunno, that killed me. Random slam.
So a Survivor post. Nonsensical, because people who have seen it will already know it and those who haven't won't care. Oh well.
I loved last week's show's challenge. What they did was ask each one to fill out a questionnaire. Almost high school slam book esque, as Rob pointed out. Who do you have a crush on. Who's the craziest. Who would not be able to survive on an island on their own. Stuff like that.
The challenge was, they had to guess which of them came up as the most popular answer to the questions. The reason why it was fascinating was because they had to honestly assess what other people thought. You couldn't be modest or whatever, you had to be honest. Immunity was at stake. So some interesting things came up.
Like, Jenna was just absolutely shocked when she was the most popular answer to who uses their looks to manipulate others or something like that and who would not be able to survive on their own. You could see it in her face - she was crushed. And it's somewhat shocking that she was. I mean, as a 3rd party viewer you can see that both of those things are true. But apparently she had this delusional view of herself and it crushed her when that came face to face with reality, what people actually thought. Fascinating.
Fascinating because I wonder how delusional I am. Or other people. About how people view us and others. I dunno, it would be semi interesting to do a survey like that with people we know. And then more than the most popular answers themselves, it would be fascinating to see what people *think* are the most popular answers. Don't you think that would say something? I dunno.
I guess I just wonder how delusional our self-perception is. It's interesting to me.
The other great thing about the challenge was Matt. Unanimous pick for most insane. Even he picked himself. The other awesome question was who do you have a crush on. Most people picked Heidi as the most popular answer. Heidi picked Jenna. Matt picked himself. How utterly delusional. Most people can't stand the guy. At the very least creeped out by him. And he thinks most people like him. Hilarious.
It's true you know. The anti-war protesters are less anti-war and more anti-Bush. I dunno, that's the impression I get. You don't hear the concern for the Iraqi people now like they had for Kosovo, etc. when Clinton was president. You almost get the sense they *want* the people to be worse off to make some point. I dunno, it just makes me sad.
Course we'll see how reconstruction goes. I hope they follow the Hank Azaria thesis. Happiness is just a Flaming Moe away.
Just downloaded DeadAIM. It's pretty useful, just for one feature - tabbing. That way you just have a single window open with tabs for each person, like with Mozilla. Awesome.
Just got Mozilla 1.3 also. Dude, this thing is awesome. You can do search as you type by typing '/', works like cntl-s in emacs. That is awesome. Cntl-Shift-F goes straight to the search engine page of your choice. Tabbed windows. Auto image sizing so oversize pics are resized to fit your window for pages like Sammy's. I dunno, it's pretty dope.
You know what I find an interesting phenomena. Whether sports fans cheer or boo someone who left the team. Like Dusty Baker just came back to SF with the Cubs and he got a standing ovation. But if I recall correctly, Jeff Kent got booed. I remember Scottie Pippen got booed pretty hardcore by Houston fans when he came back with Portland. But Hakeem got nothing but cheers. I dunno, interesting to me.
I was impressed by Stacey Pressman's column on ESPN.com. She had previously written an interesting column on how guys don't really want girls to know sports, but to tolerate them liking sports. I think there's some truth in that.
Anyway, her recent column I like because she makes a reference to the spray gun in Contra, how satisfying that was. I totally related. It was by far the best gun in Contra. Maybe Laser next, then that F gun then machine gun.
So I just got my free Ben and Jerry's cone with a coworker. Dude. There were people there who would get a cone, then immediately go back to the end of the line for another. They'd be eating their cones while in line for the next one. And it wasn't just like one or two people. Quite a few were doing this. That's hardcore. I was both repulsed and impressed.
And they were all Asian. We are so cheap.
I was talking with someone and was telling them how I'm confrontation averse. I really am, by the way. It's insane. Anyway, they were somewhat surprised, because they thought I liked it when people are straight with me. And that's true. I appreciate it when people are honest and blunt with me, even if it's bad. Assuming we're decent enough friends. And yet I'm confrontation averse. You know, usually people can dish it but not take it. I think I can take it but not dish it. At least with certain things. Odd.
I always love areaism. Is that the right way to put it? When people not from/in an area are softer than where you're from/in. My favorite example is Dave's when doing gardening at KCPC. "These weeds are nothing like the weeds in LA." Absurd.
I'd do it with Houston with the heat and humidity except you know what? I hate the heat and humidity in Houston. It sucks. Why would I want to brag about it? I'll take my balmy Midterranean Bay Area weather thank you very much.
Usually balmy, at least. What the heck is up with this weather? It's been raining all April. The Sierra got more snow this month than the past 4 months combined. I know, cry me a river. It's just unusual in this area is all. When I was growing up, about 50% of the time the rainy season ended by my birthday in mid-March. I remember this because it would affect where my birthday party would be. You know, Golfland vs. Chuck E. Cheese considerations. Anyway.
I liked Junior High a lot. I think the biggest thing that came out of junior high, for me, was the realization that a girl could like me. That sounds fairly ridiculous I guess. But I dunno, I've had insecurity / paranoia issues my entire life. I have no idea why. Part of it I know was because I was so skinny, unathletic and nerdy growing up. Didn't think girls could like me. Wasn't sure guys would want to be friends. Definitely wasn't cool enough. Left a lasting mark. So yeah, any time something happened in my life to challenge my insecurity for me it was like a step of personal growth. Anyway, when I first realized a girl could like me it was completely shocking. So much so that I didn't believe it for a long time.
I dunno, I've said this before but the guilt part of Christianity comes too easy for me. I think what impacts me the most, leaves the longest impression is knowing that I'm loved. I think that's why that skit with Love That Will Not Let Me Go remains with me to this day - it was like one of the first times that message really got through to me. Wow, I'm loved. Me. For an insecure person like myself, that's the sweetest message in the world.
I don't think they're saying any act should be granted privacy. I think they're saying homosexuality should be granted privacy because it's not wrong. And that the laws banning such are antiquated and irrelevant. Do you remember that one case? Was it Texas? Basically this couple (an interracial couple to boot) challenged a state law against sodomy and the police came in their home and arrested them. The law had not really been enforced and was just on the books but they decided to directly challenge that. Not because they think any private and consensual is OK. But because this particular consensual act is.
You can have you own opinions or whatever. Just clarifying the stand as I understand it. Not arguing government cannot draw lines in regards to private acts. The uproar is that he thinks the line should put homosexuality, incest, and bestiality on the same side. Again, I might be wrong on this but I'm basing it loosely on what they were saying in regards to that one case in the South.
Identity: 3.5 stars. Pretty entertaining. I dunno, feels like all the movies I've seen lately are 3.5ers. Identity, BLT, About A Boy, 8 Mile. Weird. But yeah, that's what I'd give them. I came away after watching each one feeling satisfied.
You have no idea how difficult it is to beat 120 in Minesweeper. Basically you have to be lightning fast, not pause at all, and be lucky. It's insane.
I really liked About A Boy. 3.5 stars. Maybe 4. No, 3.5. I liked it better than High Fidelity (the movie). Guess I'll read the book. Jieun cried.
I don't get pretzels. What's appealing about them? It's just salty bread, and not even good bread at that. I don't understand how that pretzel chain at malls stays in business. Doughnuts I understand. Cookies, I get. Pretzels? Who the heck likes pretzels?
I love it when actors make stupid remarks in public and then get called out for it. Like when Alec Baldwin said he'd move out of the country if Bush got elected. Oops. Newsweek recently called out Janeane Garofolo who said she would publicly apologize if anyone in Iraq welcomed U.S. troops. Oops.
So yesterday I got a 123 in Minesweeper, Expert level. Totally exhausting, but worth it. I guess I'll try Spider Solitaire next.
Interesting interview with Fareed Zakaria in Salon.
I've said this before, right? I don't believe in "pure" democracy. I believe in a democratic republic. We're moving more and more away from that to democracy by the masses. I like the phrase used in the article: tyranny of the majority. That's what we're getting to.
Happy Easter, everyone.
Easter reminds me of one of my favorite prayers. That John prayed off the cuff one day. That Jesus rose from the dead and triumphed over sin, so now we can live victories lives over sin. I'm going to say that when I pray in public, 20% of the time I work that in there. Victorious lives over sin.
Since Easter is about life I think it's appropriate to give thanks for life. Sometimes I take it for granted. For some reason I was randomly thinking about my mom recently. I distinctly remember how a few years ago my prayer was that she would live long enough to know my eventual wife. I don't know why that was so important to me but it was. And here we are now, years later. I'm married, my mom is fine. And I've taken it for granted. I shouldn't.
So this Easter, I'm thankful for life, physical and spiritual, both my own and the people I love. Thanks God!
So we played softball today and I'm awful. My first at bat, I struck out. Slow pitch softball. 3 pitches. 3 swings. 3 misses. Humiliating. Next at bat wasn't much better. I hit a dribbler that traveled about 2 feet total. I was by far the worst person out there. Jieun is a way better softball player than I.
So someone was once saying to me how they don't understand why I proclaim my sports suckiness, like getting blocked by a girl in basketball. I dunno, just with sports, I have absolutely no pride. I know I suck, so it's no problem for me. My goal generally in sports is to not be a liability. Dunno how much I can help, but I can at least try to not hurt. So like in basketball, my goals are to play better defense and limit turnovers. I get more upset at myself about playing bad defense than missing shots. Just, try not to be a liability. Of course, my laziness in life extends to sports so my natural tendency is to be lazy on defense. And offense. But yeah, it's a goal.
But I'm determined to keep playing. I dunno, I think I said this before but I was convicted a while back that I can't just do only the things I'm good at. So I've got to keep chugging away at sports I stink at, work at it. I dunno, for me it has spiritual significance. We'll see we'll see.
Besides, sports is such a guy bonding activity. What else am I gonna do, shop?
Couple restaurant reports. As if anyone cares.
Don't go to Za Zang, that noodle/pizza place I mentioned. For a couple months at least. It had perhaps the worst service of any restaurant I've ever been to in my life. There's 2 servers for 20 tables and they disappear for long periods of time. When you come, no one greets you. Eventually you get seated. Where you get ignored for half an hour. Nothing to do but stare at the unbused dishes at other long ago deserted tables. After your order you'll wait an hour more. It's insane.
The Jja Jjang Myun was actually pretty good, but it's not worth the wait. Nothing is. No clue how the pizza was. Wait a couple months, maybe the service will settle. And maybe the places in SF and Oakland are better. No clue.
Also tried the new Pho Quyen on El Camino between Wolfe and Lawrence. We wanted to try their Vietnamese sandwiches. Right now it's an incredible deal. $1.95 each, plus if you buy 2 you get 1 free. Unfortunately, the sandwiches aren't that great. The ones at Cam Hung on Reed are better. And these aren't as good as those places in Milpitas and East San Jose. But whatever.
I don't know how I missed it before but the Matrix web site contains a section on Philosophical essays on the Matrix. Looks interesting at first glance. Some broad philosophical issues dealt with.
I only read Artificial Ethics, as it seemed to be relevant to some stuff I've been thinking about lately. Pretty interesting. The first part is on the moral status of programs. Good, but vaguely unsatisfying. She's with me that consciousness is the criteria for moral rights. But she ends with saying that both man and machine have an incomplete appreciation for moral rights in The Matrix, stopping short of the full implications this has on man's actions.
The second section is also pretty interesting. If our actions don't have any effect in the real world, how morally responsible are we for them? Fascinating. No one but Adrian will care at this point but I'm against her conclusions here. She seems to make morality binary. It's either moral or immoral. Why can't there be grades? So that if your decisions in thought have one moral reckoning and their effect on the real world another? So if you consciously will something bad in a dream it's somewhat immoral, and if you do so in real life it's more immoral? I dunno, might take some thought to defend that more thoroughly.
How accessible is this stuff? This particular essayist makes a casual reference to the Gettier problem (albeit in the footnotes) which is relatively obscure, no? I dunno, it's weird that this stuff is on the public site. But pretty cool.
Saw this random ad in the paper advertising some event honoring George Zimmer. From the web page: "On Saturday, June 7, 2003, George Zimmer, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of the Men's Wearhouse, will receive the coveted Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology." Coveted. That kills me.
What kills me more: Leonard Nimoy is coming as a special guest. Utterly random. An evening with George Zimmer and Leonard Nimoy. That's illogical, captain. I guarantee it.
How often do you give offering? As opposed to 10% tithes. I think I used to do it way more often at KCPC in the old days. The envelopes just helped you remember, with the tithe envelopes, thanksgiving envelopes, and whatever. I remember me and Paul once gave food offerings. Random.
But yeah, honestly, I don't think I've given an offering to church in years.
Last week one of the Newsweek finance writers, the female one, wrote how she believed the war was primarily about oil. That's the second reference I've heard in a week now where a reasonably intelligent person (the Cal prof being the first), i.e. not one of your idiot protestors, says that. Still no clue whether it's true but I find that interesting.
Another war note. So the Mercury News is pretty much unabashedly liberal, based on the editorial page. Which is why I was surprised with a recent editorial where they assessed the claims George W. made about Iraq and how the war would be months ago. Their analysis: he was right on almost everything, save 2 points. I can't recall those points exactly, I think one had to do with WMD, which haven't been conclusively found yet I think, and the other having to do with postwar Iraq which can't be evaluated yet. But it gave him credit for being right on many things which I thought was an amazingly balanced view. I give the Merc "eProps".
Interesting article on upcoming talks with North Korea. What's interesting is China's involvement. Also the idea that the war on Iraq affected North Korea and China's mindset. Hmm.
You know, I really like 8 Mile. Even if the love interest character made no sense whatsoever. I dunno, it was just entertaining. 3.5 stars. I find freestyle fascinating. Ever since Eddie made me watch all the Jin tha MC clips from 106 and Park on Holla-Front.com. It's just kinda cool.
Argh, I can't believe how much Henry's analytical skills have deteriorated. I was gonna comment on his last slam on Dave, when he went on and on about what was obvious (Saddam is evil) and glossed over Dave's crucial point (not *all* Iraqis would prefer U.S. invasion to Saddam's rule. Many of course. Most probably. Not all. That's empirically true, right? When you see stuff like suicide bombers even now when the outcome has pretty much been settled.).
Anyway, dunno how you can read a post and miss the whole point. Making money is of course *not* the point. That should be clear from what I said. It was essentially a team building exercise, part of missions training. I guess I shouldn't have called it a fund raiser, fine, maybe that was what confused Henry. But yes, that was beside the point and we all knew that. That's why when I say it was successful being profitable is at the very end of the list.
So yes, in light of what it was, of course it was profitable. It more than covered costs. Actually, it was the most profitable carwash I'd been a part of, which was surprising, because it was a "free" car wash. So the point was missions training. We all recognized that. In the process, we took in more than we spent to do it. That's profitable.
Henry's right about carwashes and bake sales not being effective. What I want to know though is what is a good fundraiser. Why the working at McDonald's thing is a valid baseline I don't get. Because while it's true, it's practically infeasible. You can't get 20 people from church to work at McDonald's for 4 hours on a Saturday. So yes, the church would raise more funds that way but the church can't do that. So what should the church do?
I'm still into direct deposit of tithes, by the way. I think I'm gonna raise it with our pastors tonight.
Joy Luck Club. Yellow. The Wedding Banquet.
I went on missions between junior and senior year of high school and during training we had a car wash fund raising thing. It was the best organized car wash I've ever been a part of. It was basically a drive thru wash with people. So the people stayed in their cars and creeped forward to each section. At the front of the line people passed out a little flyer saying what the organization was about. Then rinsers. Then soapers. Then more rinsers. Then dryers with chamois. At the back of the line they could give donations, no obligation.
It was great because it was successful on every level. It build a spirit of teamwork, cameraderie and servanthood. The people who came felt good about it because it was free, no obligation. And enough people donated that it was profitable. Victories all around.
What I remember most about that day was the last car to come in. Not a car really. A semi. That was absolutely filthy. Took forever to clean, and the guy didn't donate anything. But still, a victory.
Random thought about the Matrix. Actually something that came up in a seminar I took senior year.
Personally I don't believe that machines can have consciousness but let's just assume, like the movie and most watchers of the movie assume, that they can. So Agent Smith for example is a conscious being. Not a human being, but a conscious being nonetheless.
People realize that he's just software right? He may or may not have a machine host in the real world but it's not strictly necessary. The thing that's conscious is purely software. Likewise, those machines that attack the ship at the end of the movie may or may not be conscious. But if they are, it's determined by software. The thing that is conscious is software.
I find that idea fascinating. That software can be conscious. Because software is just an algorithm. And an algorithm can be written down, not just as bits and code, but on paper. So let's say you did that. Say you wrote the algorithm for Agent Smith in a big book. Then, is that book conscious?
Most would say no. Hard to argue that a book is conscious and deserves the rights of a being. But what's the real difference between the book and Agent Smith? The only fundamental thing is that Agent Smith is not just an algorithm, but an algorithm in execution - a running program. But then, is that to say if you were to run the algorithm in the book with pen and paper, like we do with algorithms in CS 161, then the algorithm is conscious? That it's fully thinking, just like Agent Smith and you and me? Isn't that utterly bizarre? But if you really buy into pop "AI", it's almost an inescapable conclusion.
That's what Roger Penrose, this mathematician/philosopher guy asks, and it doesn't have an easy answer. As for me, I think consciousness has something to do with the soul. Lots of things can "think". Animals think. Machines "think". Sargon 2000 thinks. Doesn't mean they're conscious. You need a soul for that. But no one secular buys the idea of a soul. And that's why I think you get these philosophical conundrums.
But I dunno, for a long time, with the behaviorists and stuff people (essentially) rejected the notion of consciousness and few people do that anymore so maybe the idea of the soul will come back into vogue. Maybe Adrian will lead the charge.
Zakaria's latest column in Newsweek seems to be adapted from that book you mentioned, Dave. Pretty interesting.
One thing I love about him is that he goes around saying how everyone's wrong. He frequently does the "it's been said that so and so. But in reality, the opposite is true." Does it all the time in his columns. Good stuff.
I also like this line from his column. He's talking about how the U.S. must broadly include others in rebuilding Iraq. "Naturally, those who supported the military intervention should be given special attention. But a place can be found even for those who didn't (with the possible exception of Mr. Chirac's government. Even multilateralism has its limits)." Nice.
You know one cool thing about now that Zakaria talked about months ago. I feel something now with Iraq that I could not feel before: hope. Before there was this resigned hopelessness when you thought about the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular. But now, with the talk of nation building and whatnot, there's a real sense of hope, that things can be different there. I'm not sure if that alone legitimizes the war, and we still have plenty of time to screw things up, but that there's hope now where there wasn't before is not insignificant to me.
Some random guy sent me the last verse to the Chargertron commercial. Made my day. So now I can relate the commercial in its entirety:
Rev the meter till it's red (ch ch ch)
Launch on the tracker
Switch on, Chargertron
Now it's an attacker (ch ch ch ch ch)
Switch on Chargertron
Always changing, rearranging...
He's surprising!
He's disguising!
Chargertron
Darn right I'm a Nazi. And you're next on my list. No clue what that means.
Let me be precise. My beef against the Counting Crows version is twofold. One, they change the meaning of what I consider to be a relatively thought provoking song to something lame. From the dangers of modernity to missing your girlfriend? I dunno, I guess it's debatable whether a cover band should understand the meaning of a song they cover but to change. I just think it sucks that they turn something marginally profound to something lame.
My second beef: you're right not to argue that the CC version makes sense. Even though that's exactly what you do - argue that it could make sense. But *any* analysis falls apart when you get to the end of their version. "I don't wanna give it / Why you wanna give it / Why you wanna givin it all away / Hey, hey, hey / Now you wanna give it / I should wanna give it / Now you wanna givin it all away" Seriously, those lyrics defy any rational explanation in the context of the song. What, are the CC Dadaists or something? It's just bizarre. And whatever, nonsensical lyrics are perfectly valid. I just don't like it because it's a cover of a poetic lyric turned into something completely irrational.
So maybe thong can explain it.
Ouch.
Saw Better Luck Tomorrow over the weekend. Terrific movie. Well crafted, reasonably well acted. Thank God there's a good Asian-American movie now to take the place of Yellow. SN. Two actors in Yellow are also in BLT.
I dunno, there's more I want to say but I'll wait until more people have seen it I guess. There were a lot of interesting ideas in the movie though, I thought. I came out though thinking, this world needs Jesus. Geez, I'm turning into my dad. When we watched movies together, I'm going to say 80% of the time, he'd come out saying that. This world needs Jesus.
Argh, I can't believe someone *likes* the lyric "took my girlfriend away". It's a change to the lyric that makes no sense in relation to the song. So here are the original lyrics to Big Yellow Taxi. It's all about the march of modern society and what we're losing in the process. So the line about a big yellow taxi taking away her old man is very meaningful, very symbolic. It's the freaking title of the song. And it fits with the song. Modern progress, losing something old.
So do you see why the Counting Crows version makes no sense? Took my girlfriend away? Huh? Girlfriend? How old is this chick? How does she represent the past? I dunno, they just changed the title line in a way that makes no sense to me. Argh.
I'm fine with people saying they appreciated someone leading worship though. Just, worship isn't just praise. It's more than a song right? And a worship service isn't just the praise time, every part is worship, from the sermon to prayer to offering to whatever. And the focus of all of these things should be God. But to say it's wrong to show appreciation to the servants who make it happen seems overly harsh.
I just think rejecting appreciation is maybe overly judgmental. It's not particularly gracious, and not particularly loving to the people you're supposedly serving.
I'm not down with the cheering for praise songs thing though. You know, when they start an intro to a praise song and people start cheering. Actually, it's more I just don't understand it. But I do blame groups like Third Day for it. Maybe Sonicflood? Maybe Delirious? I dunno. Just, they made a big effort to make their concerts more worshipful, which is commendable. But I think it and stuff like it has had the unfortunate side effect of making worship more concert like, which might be fine, it's just confusing.
This is bold, but I think someone has replaced Scott Underwood as my favorite worship guy. I'm pretty into Chris Tomlin nowadays. The lyrics to some of his songs are pretty good, some are theological rich I think. I've already written about You Are My Treasure. Enough is also a great great song. Actually, I dunno if that can overtake Underwood. But it's good stuff. Oh, and there's an outside chance I might meet Underwood. Remote, but possible. Dunno how I'll be able to talk to him. "It's nice to meet you. Let's pray for no broken strings." We'll see, if it even happens.
And I'm still really blessed by Surrender. That's like my life anthem right now. I feel like I need to footnote every phrase with commentary and application to my life. I dunno.
So Jubilee has been running these ads in the paper for their Good Friday and Easter service. It's bold. Guests include Smokey Robinson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Dunno whether that's encouraging or discouraging.
I'm also reading Fast Food Nation and maybe someone who's read it can answer this question. I'm about halfway through but I find it curious how he continually brings up evangelical Christianity. When he talks about the birth of fast food in Orange County he brings up Robert Schuller and Crystal Cathedral. When he moves to Colorado Springs he mentions Focus On The Family.
My question is, what's his point with that? He never makes it explicit why he's talking about that in a book about fast food so their presence is curious. The subtext though seems to be that he's someone blaming evangelical Christianity for the fast food culture. Or saying they're somewhat similar. Is there any validity to this? I dunno, it's just odd I thought.
I've actually come to think that understanding worship lyrics is overrated. Not the act itself but the mindset. It puts the focus on us instead of on God. And that's not right. When Scripture talks about how the rocks would cry out, I don't think that's talking about intellectual assent. It's all about the worthiness of God.
Of course ideally we understand what we're singing and we should strive for that. But I think if we make it an entirely intellectual exercise we miss something. Our understanding is relevant in how it gives glory to God, but it's not the point.
I've said this before but one of the most influential sermons I heard was when this pastor talked about visiting some synagogue and the people there would constantly fidget around and push others to do the same, as a sort of physical reminder that they must worship God with everything, including their bodies. I just thought that was really really interesting.
Random post.
Another thing. I'm not that big on multi-ethnic churches. I'm not against it, I'm just not big into it being an explicit goal.
We had this meeting some time back talking about what we can do to make the church grow and this one guy said something that really blessed me. Just, he's a relatively new believer and he said something to the effect that he wasn't certain why church growth should be a goal. The more important things were that people grow and that people get saved. Growth in numbers then is almost like a side effect, not the goal.
I dunno, it was just a good reminder I thought. It's kind of like what Charlie Peacock calls having a Kingdom perspective. So I'm not entirely certain what the point of being multi-ethnic is. If it helps people grow and helps bring people to Christ, I'm 100% for it. But if it's to make people feel better about themselves or be symbolic or something, I dunno, I'm against it. I think that lacks Kingdom perspective; not every church is supposed to be a perfect representation of every single aspect of the Kingdom, I think.
Whoa, preachy couple of posts. Where did that come from.
One more thing. I think I've said this before. But I sometimes hear (including from myself) how we don't want to send our kids to schools or churches that are overly Asian. I've thought about it though and I think there's about no chance of that happening. I'm telling you, Asians are taking over. In 20 years, most of the best schools and many of the good churches will have lots of Asians there. That's my claim. The problem is that we are Asian, and we have Asian values. So the things we value other Asians value also, so they'll flock to the same places.
I'm basing this on the good schools in the Bay Area and in Houston, visiting Redeemer, and the churches around here like Abundant Life, PBC, and whatever. It's not an exception, it's a trend. So yeah, if you want a good school or church, get used to there being Asians there. That's my claim.
There is a restaurant in Cupertino (maybe San Jose), on Stevens Creek, called Za Zang. Their main menu items are jja jjang myun (hence the name) and... pizza. Totally random. I dunno, I'm excited.
Dave is right, the Perfect Strangers theme song is awesome. All the elements he mentioned. My favorite part is the very end. The whole song keeps building, building, peaking with "my life and my dreams" but then all of a sudden they take everything down on "nothing's gonna stop me now." How they do that without it being harshly abrupt is amazing. Somehow they pull it off. To me, that's musical brilliance.
So I made a claim recently that the Bible says more about being generous than being frugal. Well I've been inspired to not just take that for granted but actually see if it's true. Anyway, I'm still working through the Gospels but it's been a little surprising. I'd say so far, it's about even, in terms of the number of passages on each, which is kind of interesting. We'll see what happens as we get to the epistles. I'll keep you posted.
Praise God. Chuck Colson in Christianity Today comments on the absurdity of PETA. I 100% agree. When you raise the moral status of animals to an extreme, you degrade the dignity of human life.
I think Dasani is just filtered water also. Our work switched to Dasani from Calistoga and I hate it.
The first time I was tipped off to Aquafina not being the greatest water was in Houston. You know, most bottled water at the time advertised how they came from the purest mountain springs. Even Coors advertises using pure Rocky Mountain spring water. Anyway, I was reading the Aquafina label and it said, "Water source: Houston Municipal Water". Something like that. Dunno if you know about Houston but it's not exactly the most environmentally oriented place in the world. I think it's the smoggiest city in the country now. Great place to get your water.
Bill Maher actually said something halfway intelligent in Newsweek. I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day. He was criticizing war protestors because he didn't see how their actions were going to sway the undecided.
That's hitting the nail on the head. The proper point of debates or protests or whatever is not to change the minds of your opponents but to influence the undecided. I think I learned that in debate. Anyway, that should shape how you debate, protest or whatever.
That's why I think with a lot of protestors (not all), their primary objective isn't changing things at all. I think they just want to hear the sound of their voice. Make their voice heard. Which is different from changing the world. It's self oriented. And whatever, knock yourself out, everyone has a right to say whatever they want, that's what makes America great. But they're not about making a difference.
The alternative is that they're stupid, and they actually think that the types of tactics that have been used, inconveniencing tons of people just trying to do their jobs, will actually sway those who are undecided.
This Sports Guy column on Mike Tyson is surprisingly beautiful. Very nice read.
Newsweek gave an interesting reason why at least some of the Iraqi people haven't been enthusiastic about the U.S. "liberating" them. They cheered in 1991, expecting Saddam to fall, but then he remained in power and thoroughly punished those who had cheered the U.S. So now they're wary of supporting the U.S. now, unsure if they'll do the same thing. Not totally founded but you can see where they're coming from.
Fareed Zakaria also gave another interesting reason actually. He noted that even the Russians fought for Stalin. Saddam is terrible but there's something maybe humiliating about being invaded by foreigners. I dunno, it was an interesting point.
Casey Jacobsen's latest entry is kind of cool. Just talks about hanging out with Mark Madsen and Stanford pride. I don't think there's Ducks pride in the NBA. I don't think Jason Kidd is hanging out at Sharif's place. Stanford, baby.
I've said this many times before, but I still can't figure out if my childhood friends and I have similar interests because we were friends growing up, or if we were friends growing up because we had similar interests. I think I'm leaning towards the second.
In Social Psych there was this study where they looked at social groups and how friendships formed. You know what the #1 factor was? In people becoming friends. Proximity. More than personality stuffs or background or whatever. Not that these weren't factors. Just, proximity played a greater role.
So I think about that sometimes, like what that means for friendships and relationships now. Does it mean that we can be friends with everyone? Or most people? Or what does it mean when we just don't click with someone. Is that legitimate or lazy? I guess my question is why childhood is so different from now. Then, we became friends with people pretty much just because they were the ones around. Nowadays we seem to seek people we "click" with. How real is "clicking"? Is it just that we were malleable as kids but aren't anymore?
I dunno, the prospect of raising a child scares me. Just, it's a relatively short time of their life but it influences them forever. And so much of it is beyond our control, like the friends they have. I dunno, prayer I guess.
I recently learned something that changed my life. You know at Safeway (I started going back to Safeway again. It's a function of 2 things. One, it's more accessible from where we are. But 2, Albertson's got rid of their policy of having deals for everyone, no card needed. Now they have cards like Safeway Club, presumably for stalking purposes. The thing is, you need the card, you can't just key in your phone number like at Safeway. For some irrational reason, this angers me to no end.) when they have Safeway Club specials like 2 OJs for $4. I always just assumed the price is only good if you buy 2.
It turns out it's the same price even if you buy 1, $2 a piece. That 2 for language is just marketing to fool shmucks like me. That discovery changed my life. Not really a huge change, just now I sometimes get 1 not 2. But it's still a change.
Speaking of which, I love AAA. I'm well familiar with their roadside service stuff. I've probably had to use it a dozen times. SN. I honesty believe that car trouble is one of the things God uses to keep me grounded. Not the only thing, just part of the package. Anyway yeah, they have that, plus free maps which is awesome.
Anyway, we've recently had to do all this DMV (SN - in Texas it's the DPS, Department of Public Safety. Isn't that a random name? I dunno, I always thought it was odd.) work and you can do it at the local AAA office. It's insane how much of a timesaver that is. Going to AAA instead of the DMV. I dunno, it made me happy.
I'm sorry but the NCAA tournament is just a crapshoot. There's no principled way to win, it's essentially luck. Syracuse? That's just totally random.
I realized that I'll never do well in pools because I hold grudges and play favorites. Like there's no way I would have picked Syracuse because in my mind, when I think Syracuse, I still think of the time they were a #2 seed (like this year) and lost to Richmond. The Richmond Spiders. Do people remember this? Doing a search I find it was from freaking 1991. But it's still vivid in my mind. They've done better in tournaments since but it doesn't matter, I can only remember that year.
It's also hard for me to pick Arizona because for so many years they consistently underachieved. Doesn't matter that they won the tourny that one year. I can only remember their terrible losses.
I've got to let go of my emotions. Maybe there's a life principle in that. Maybe not. We'll see we'll see.
You know what song I kind of like. Picture. The one with Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. Something the sadness of the lyrics just gets to me. I dunno.
That article Grace posted is actually pretty interesting. Not sure about his assertion that the war is for oil. Maybe he's right, but he doesn't substantiate it at all so it's impossible to say.
The other stuff though I think is spot on (what do I know though). That is, the components to the new world order that's going on. Especially his blunt pronouncement that NATO and the UN Security Council as we know it are over. That is 100% correct, I think. And it's interesting to see what's going to take its place.
Someone explain something to me. Can Garfield talk? To Jon, I mean. When I was growing up, I just assumed he's not able to communicate, it's just in his head. But then the other day I read Garfield for the first time in maybe a decade (no idea why) and it made it seem like Jon knows what Garfield is "saying". Which is very odd. Especially since Garfield uses thought balloons. What, is Jon some sort of pet psychic?
I think Lt. Tay misunderstood me on the JBB. I'm not depressed about the war. Whatever, I have the Pleasantville/stoicism attitude towards life. Life just happens and the right response as Christians is just to deal with it, not avoid it or despair. So yeah, it's not the war.
It's how they were treating each other on the forum. I dunno, I was convicted by a Bible study we did a few weeks ago. Just, the Scripture says repeatedly that Christians must/will love each other, and that this will be a sign to the world. I dunno, it was just convicting. The passage we looked at didn't say they should love each other but that they would, which is pretty bold.
So when Christians treat each other with condenscension and bombast, like in the forum, and even worse, delight in it, I dunno, it just depressed me. Not the war. But how Christians were treating each other while talking about the war. Yeah, I know maybe I do that with my friends, slam them and stuff. I'd argue it's different though, because when we slam each other it's joking and in the context of friendship. Neither of those things were true on that thread.
I dunno, I'm obviously not perfect with that but at this point I'd rather work on it than delight in it is all.
Another basketball note: I had my shot blocked by Hanah today.
Capital City!
I take full credit for Henry using an underscore on Dave_Wrong.txt.
So Adrian's setting up this random 3 on 3 basketball tournament. Anyway, I tell him I kind of want to play with Eric. And he says that's cool. And then he tells me, in complete earnestness and sincerity, that if we play together we might want to pick up someone really good as our 3rd player, for balance.
Ouch. That's the ultimate dis, I think. No joking, no sarcasm, no trash talking. He just thinks so little of my skills that he offers honest, concerned advice. Again I say: ouch.
So I went to the tail end of this event called The Call San Francisco on Saturday. (Don't bother looking at the website, there's like no content there. Which I later found out is probably intentional. Just, they make a point to not advertise the speakers and worship leaders who are going to be there, but just emphasize that it's a day of prayer and praise. Which is kind of interesting.)
Anyway, Jieun's friend was involved with it so we got to see the stuff behind the scenes and everything. Including the video trailer. You know, like you see at sports events, with all the monitors and stuff showing all the camera views, where the producer coordinates everything going on. Apparently you can rent these things for $40,000 a week or something. Anyway, it was the coolest thing I've seen in my entire life. The technology in that room was insane. And the amount of work it takes to run the video even for something as relatively simple as this, I dunno, it was crazy.
I killed the JBB Iraq thread! Woo hoo! I think that qualifies as being a peacemaker. I'm a child of God!
Dunno if you remember Dave talking about the first time he won Dynomite on Yahoo! Games. SN. Yahoo! is really sticking in there with that exclamation point. Wow. Anyway, he was saying how that achievement was kind of sad. And he's right. Here's what's sadder: I was jealous. Not really, of course, but just a little. I didn't even realize it could be done at the time.
Anyway, to be more pathetic, today I achieved my second goal: I cycled through the game twice. Almost three times. Cleared 42 rounds and got a ranking of King Of The Lizards. Pretty sad huh? And it took forever. By the end I just wanted to die. Totally exhausting. Hadn't felt that way since I beat Nokia Snake.
Anyway, nothing special happens when you cycle through, even the second time. I would have taken anything. Even an Apple IIe type beep would have been enough. But nothing.
What a loser I am.
I don't know who I am.
Jieun tells me that when I interact with my family that I'm not "myself". Which is odd to me. I don't feel like I'm not being myself with them. If anything, since they know me so well, I feel like I'm more myself. But whatever that is, apparently it's different from how I am when I'm just with Jieun. But I know I'm myself with Jieun.
What I think is, I don't know what "myself" is. I think I'm being equally natural with my family or just with Jieun. It just happens that the different contexts brings out different parts of me I guess. But I'm not sure if any of these parts are more or less true to who I really am. They're all me.
So I have no idea what it means to be myself. Just, myself changes a lot given the context, and it's not that I'm being fake, it's just that context does really affect how I act I guess. Even how I think. I don't think my self is so malleable and elusive that there's nothing there, that it's a complete byproduct of environmental stimuli. But it's clear to me that me being real doesn't always look the same. So when people say, "just be yourself" I'm not sure what that means.
Maybe I'm just insane.
I don't think I like Rumsfeld very much. If for nothing else, the fact that he has no sense of diplomacy whatsoever. I'd say that's fairly obvious. And in this era when there's just a single superpower, diplomacy is vital, I think.
So I just had dinner at Wolfe Cafe in Cupertino Village. And whatever, they're playing the muzak version of random songs, like at many Chinese restaurants. Including Yesterday Once More, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Yesterday, etc. Normal stuff.
So the last song we hear is a muzak version of This Is The Day. You know, the old school praise song. "This is the day, this is the day, that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made..." Is that not utterly random? I'm actually going to share the arrangement:
Casio sax plays one time through
Repeat song with Casio sax
Modulate up one key with Casio flute
Modulate up *another* key with Casio flute. Bold!
Back to Casio sax another time through
Back to Casio flute another time through
Casio sax repeats the last part
Is that not the most random thing ever? I dunno, I was utterly fascinated. And what I want to know most is, how did this random place get a hold of John Yoon's CDs?
That reminds me. Last weekend I was listening to I think it was Calvary Chapel's radio station while driving around LA. It's pretty good! They mix praise music with teaching, and some of the praise music was pretty hip, I was surprised. I'd definitely listen to it regularly if I lived in SoCal.
I've been thinking a lot about being frugal lately. It's just come up in a few conversations. And I was reading Acts 5 where those two people die after holding back money for themselves. So here's my current claim. I haven't done an in depth study on this but I'm going to say that the Bible says more about being generous towards others than it does about being frugal.
The reason that matters to me is this. I dunno, I'd say I'm a relatively frugal guy. I'm all about the 99¢ fast food deals for lunch. I clip Sunday newspaper coupons. I dunno, I'm just hard core like that. The thing is, I find that when I get too into this mindset, I start getting stingy towards others. And that's not right.
In contrast, there's people like Henry and Keith, aka 1st and 2nd Kings of James Rd. Frugal isn't the first word you'd use to describe them. Car covers. Sony XGA TVs. The thing is, I'd say they're two of the most generous people I know. Yeah, you might say it's easy to be generous when you're rich. I disagree. I know plenty of rich stingy people. And plenty of generous non-rich people. The point is, given the choice between being frugal and stingy or lavish and generous, I'm going to say the latter is more Biblical. Which is challenging to me.
Of course, the ideal is to be personally frugal but generous towards others. And the worst is to be personally lavish but stingy towards others. Hmm, I think I have tendencies towards the latter. Yikes. Things are changing though. We'll see we'll see.
I guess it's pretty obvious that the S&P strategy doesn't work for the NCAA tournament. Ouch.