Korean accents can be unfortunate.

I've already mentioned how my dad feels "borld" sometimes when he prays. Anyway, Ellie is at the stage now when she's learning tricks. Wait, that's a terrible way of putting it, makes her sound like a seal or a dog. Ellie's at the stage where she's learning skills (which, by the way, I find absolutely amazing). And one of the skills she's learning is "clap your hands". The problem is, the Korean adult who is reinforcing this particular skill pronounces "clap" like "crap".

So now Ellie knows how to crap her hands.

I think I'm bothered most in life by illogic. Drives me crazy like nothing else. The summer I worked at Great America, they would sometimes switch me from the hot dog booth for variety, and one day I was manning the Chinese food place. So I don't remember the details, but basically the place sold 3 items, let's say it was (it was something else, but you'll catch my point) pork eggrolls, veggie eggrolls, and combo, each of which came with fried rice and fortune cookie, something like that. All the options were the same price.

Here's the thing. The manager instructed us to give out 2 eggrolls for the pork or veggie options. Logic indicates that for the combo, being the same price, we should also give out the same total number of eggrolls, just one of each. But the manager insisted that it the combo consisted of 2 of each, for a total of 4. This made no sense, but he wouldn't budge no matter how much I argued with him. Drove me crazy. Somewhere down the line, some manager had made a mistake and it was being perpetuated without any thought, reason, or logic, and it drove me bonkers. I'm still frustrated by this when I think about it. All about some stupid eggrolls. Or whatever they were.

SN. This suggests you should always get the combo from the Chinese place at Great America, but it's not there anymore. I checked the last time I was there.

Anyway, that's why I'm super stubborn about never leaving eProps. The illogic of it all drives me mad. The question mark next to "Give eProps" says to "reserve a double dose for exceptional posts." But then, by default, it's set at 2 eProps. Makes zero sense. Therefore, I will be stubborn until the day I die about not leaving eProps ever.

Hmm, getting frustrated over eggrolls and eProps. I've got issues.

Geez, Henry, could your introduction be more verbose? Come on man. Brevity is... wit.

Do gays in relationships have the same issues of miscommunication as in straight ones?

The thing for me is that I'm attracted to things in Jieun that make her a woman, different from me. I love her femininity. But these same differences that I love necessarily make us misunderstand each other. That's what differences do. I can't get my head around this. Why's it have to be this way? What I desire (the differences) requires that we have misunderstanding and conflict. If I wasn't attracted to the differences, I'd be gay. If we perfectly understood each other, either she'd be masculine or I'd be feminine, and either way I wouldn't be attracted to her. Such an odd situation.

Anyway, media notes.

I literally can't understand how anyone doesn't love Elliott Smith's XO. It's objectively one of the finest albums ever made. Great musicality, interesting production, and amazing, haunting lyrics. And clearly (and sadly) authentic. The man killed himself by stabbing himself in the chest. The depth of his emotion was clearly profound. It's an incredible, haunting album.

I really dig Maroon 5's Songs About Jane also. First song I heard from them (Harder To Breathe) I hated, but the album is actually sublime.

Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American is more inconsistent. The Middle is one of my favorite songs ever, but the album overall is just OK.

Also realizing that I like Abba much less than I like Roxette and Ace of Base.

And Collateral was a really good movie. It captures the feel of LA. Which is: soulless.

Was there insightful at all? Does anyone even care what I think about music/movies?

Nope.

My Utmost from a few days ago was another super bold entry made me do a double take and is either totally wrong or totally right. An excerpt:

If you become a necessity to someone else’s life, you are out of God’s will.... when you begin to see that person in the middle of a difficult and painful struggle, don’t try to prevent it, but pray that his difficulty will grow even ten times stronger, until no power on earth or in hell could hold him away from Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we try to be amateur providences in someone’s life. We are indeed amateurs, coming in and actually preventing God’s will and saying, "This person should not have to experience this difficulty." Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, our sympathy gets in the way. One day that person will say to us, "You are a thief; you stole my desire to follow Jesus, and because of you I lost sight of Him."

Bold. Essentially saying that our sympathy and compassion can be big hindrances in people depending on Jesus. And that when friends go through struggles, we should pray that their struggles become much worse. Bold. I can pretty much say I've never ever done that.

I dunno, I think I buy it though. We (meaning I) tend to feel that suffering is inherently bad. I don't think it's that. I don't think it's inherently good either. I buy what Chambers says elsewhere, that suffering is necessary, and whether it's bad or good depends completely on our response to it. Won't automatically make you better or worse. But avoiding it is probably anti-Scriptural. Dunno about seeking it either.

I can't believe how pro-evangelical Christianity this week's Newsweek is. The feature article on Jesus concludes that the most logical and likely explanation based on historical evidence is that Jesus actually rose from the dead. Amazing. Also includes an article about that woman who was kidnapped by the guy who shot the judge and others, how she was able to reach out to the guy through principles in Purpose Driven Life. Another article goes out of its way to mention how a fund started for these Iraqi orphans was initiated by an evangelical Christian. All in all, pretty much the most positive picture of Christianity by the mainstream press I've seen in a long time.

My brother in law gave an interesting speech at my niece's first birthday today, about how he's coming to understand the unconditional love of God more now that he's a father. Ellie can do all these awful things, but no matter what she does, he still sees her as cute. And loves her.

That's the message of Easter, I guess. Thanks to Jesus, no matter what we've done and what we do, God looks upon us as good. Good times. Happy Easter.

Food notes.

I'm honestly not that upset about Stanford losing in the first round. We overachieved to even get to that point. We have no one that can penetrate and no one that can shoot. So we're weak both inside and out. We also have poor rebounding, and only 8 scholarship players. Taken in perspective, it's a miracle we won 18 games and got an 8 seed. So yeah, even with the first round loss, I'm fairly proud of the team.

Here's another relationship observation, maybe it's obvious, maybe not. But while persistence on a guy's part can sometimes win a girl over, the reverse is never true. Guys pretty much know right from the beginning whether a possibility exists on their part with a girl. Not that there's necessarily attraction at that point. Just whether there's a possibility. And if there's not, no amount of cajoling, time, prayer, or anything is going to change that. So I think guys being persistent is sometimes unwise. Girls being persistent is always pointless. And that's my claim.

My dad made a bold claim recently. Quotes 1 Cor. 7:4-5 - "The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." Based on that, he argues that "husbands and wives should consider satisfying their partner's sexual desire as a sort of ministry."

Ministry? Bold. But I dunno, how else would you interpret the passage? It's not exactly vague.

I find it shocking that DK reads this page, even occasionally. Utterly shocking.

I find xanga culture amusing. Just, xanga makes it possible to stalk random people and "get to know them" without having any idea who they really are. There was this exchange where people were saying what their xanga usernames were and there were ahs of recognition around the table as people put pages to faces. Something about that is amusing to me.

So one theme this weekend was how the bride was for some period of time not interested in the groom at all despite repeated entreaties on his part. But eventually everything came together and resulted in what Jieun and I consider a wonderful match. There were multiple references to this process, with the words "let that be a lesson to you guys." Persistence pays off.

I have mixed feelings about that, whether that's really something we should be telling guys.

On one hand, it's empirically true that sometimes persistence does pay off, on occasion wonderfully and blessedly so, as in this case. On the other hand, many times - I want to say most times - persistence will not pay off, and result in just frustration on the guy's part and annoyance on the girl's part, so inviting guys to be persistent is an invitation trouble.

The fundamental problem is that guys are clueless. So we'll frequently see signs of compatibility where there are actually none at all. And we will see signs of a positive response on the girl's part where again, there's actually none at all. Guys persisting in this case just bothers girls, and puts them in the awkward position of having to repeatedly and with increasing meanness reject the guys. I dunno, I think I see it a lot.

So yeah, I really believe that the best thing a girl can do for a guy if she's not into him is be completely and harshly blunt. They always worry about being mean, but really, it's meaner in the long run to let a guy persist in his delusion that he has a chance, and guys will delude themselves with anything short of 100% bluntness. Even that is not enough sometimes. Guys are clueless.

Some basketball notes no one cares about.

As I have for years now, I'm picking Stanford to win it all. But honestly, I'm just happy that they made the tournament and got a decent seed, and that they aren't a team like (not to name names, but) Cal or Rutgers.

Also pretty happy about the Rockets. Just beat Dallas, Seattle, Phoenix, Sacramento, and Golden State, 4 of them on the road, to settle into 6th place in the West, a game behind Sactown. That coupled with the Lakers being tied for 9th place makes me happy.

Anyway, it's crazy how much the Rockets have retooled themselves. Only two players on the team from last season's opener are still with the team - Yao Ming and Scott Padgett. Turnover of like 15 players. That's insane.

My company has a websurfing team, whose job is to surf web. If I were on that team, would I have a constant, irresistable urge to program instead of doing my job? I wonder.

I hate popular music nowadays. I've been listening to a little bit of the top 100 songs for the past few years and afterwards I feel like I need to drink a glass of Softsoap, cleanse my soul. Bleah. Why does everything have to be about sex and guns? I read some stat, I think in Harper's Index, saying how of all the songs that appeared in the weekly Top 20 list last year, 50% mentioned weapons. Ridiculous.

The alt-rock's not much better, it's all so whiny. Somebody please find a way to produce authentic music without being profane or self-absorbed. We're living in a musical nadir.

Why I blog.

So Hanah thinks I'm mean on my page. Others have said that the tone of my page has gotten nicer through the years. Both are true. I'm ornery, but I've gotten less so on this page as time has passed. And here's my bold claim - I need to be meaner on my page. Why? Because that's who I am. Sad to say, but true.

I have no idea why other people blog. But why I and some friends started doing it way back when is because we were socially awkward in varying degrees and generally reserved in public. Blogging kind of provided a way for us to express our thoughts in a way we couldn't (or wouldn't) in normal social interaction. I think that's colored the way some of us view blogs in a way that's inaccurate now. Like Dave still thinks blogs are just for socially inept people, the way it was for us, but that's clearly not true anymore. Everyone does it. Some people even think it's "cool".

So the point of my page was and is a way to express what I really think. Not to keep in touch, not to chronicle what's going on, not to be "encouraging." But to say what I really think, because I think I need that. And if what I think is mean, well then I need to be mean.

Not that I don't want to be encouraging. I do. It's just not the main point of this page. And at any rate, I've always believed it's most encouraging when people are honest about how they really are while sincerely seeking after God and his tranforming power. Either of those alone suck, I think. The former by itself is just selfish narcissism, the latter is empty Christianese. I'm all about, show the warts, but show the pursuit for more also. I dunno.

Re: the comments to my last post, JR's comment framed it in terms of colonialism, but that wasn't the intent of my original post, although I can see why one would get that impression. But those who say culture is everything bring up examples that are independent of this. Like Weber compares the relative economic superiority (during his time) of Protestant northern Europe to Catholic southern Europe. Nothing to do with colonies. Zakaria brings up other people (including Lee Kuan Yew) who discuss examples not of people in their own country, but around the world. Chinese, Indians, and Jews do well all across the globe. Can't really explain this phenomena by colonialism (or lack thereof) - these people attribute it to culture.

I'm with Zakaria. It's too strong to say culture is everything. But culture clearly really really matters a whole lot. To argue otherwise requires one to ignore empirical reality. That or attribute things to myriad complex causes in lieu of the obvious simple one. And I think Ockham's razor applies here. Culture isn't everything, but it's a heck of a lot.

SN. Did you know William of Ockham, for whom the razor is named, was a Franciscan priest? And that the application of his razor was theology? This is one thing that annoys me about contemporary liberal education. They're big into contextualizing everything unless it involves religion, in which case it's neatly edited out. In college we read Descartes, learn about Ockham's razor, other things, and they never say how the fundamental point of their writings is theology. I'm not saying you have to believe it, but isn't it more intellectually honest to at least talk about God if that was the main reason they were writing?

I'm trying to finish that Fareed Zakaria book and it brings up all these absolutely fascinating issues. Like, how much do you think culture affects the economic success of a society? Some people say culture is everything. Lee Kuan Yew said something to the effect of Singapore is successful because they are Chinese. That Huntington article I read a while back made a bold claim that the economic success of the U.S. can be attributed to the fact that we were led by Protestant English speakers. Had the culture been dominated by Catholic non-English speakers, we would be Quebec or Mexico or South America - significantly less economically successful. I'm not sure if he explicitly says it, but his implication is that there's something about the cultures in which Catholicism has dominated that correlates with laziness. Bold. Maybe racist. But untrue?

Zakaria disagrees, saying that one, culture changes, and two, countries fail/succeed at different times in history, and it's always attributed to culture, which suggests faulty reasoning. When China was not doing well economically, it was attributed to their Confucianist culture which doesn't lend itself well to capitalism. Now it's doing well because of it's hard-working culture. So maybe culture doesn't determine anything.

I dunno, culture fascinates me. As a side note, Huntington words it way more strongly than I would, but I'm slightly with him in being against bilingual education, or at least the kind that perpetuates language differences. I'm all for celebrating ethnic diversity, but at the end of the day we need to all be Americans, whatever that means. It seems like some people want a completely separate America in Spanish, hence the movements to make Spanish an official language and stuff like that. That strikes me as not being good for the country. It's like French-speaking Quebec and how they want to secede from Canada. I dunno.

This whole Latinos becoming the biggest minority group in the U.S. fascinates me also. Like studios and networks want to reach out to them more now. I think they've missed the boat. It's already been done - it's called Telemundo and Univision. I was shocked when I was reading the LA Times a while back and about half of the top rated TV shows for the week were from Spanish speaking stations. That's crazy.

Rambling. Boring.

Watched Clueless again last night. I love that movie. Definitely in my top 15, probably my top 10 movies of all time. I know Minho dislikes it, I think because it does disservice to Jane Austen? Not sure. But yeah, the movie is a brilliant satire of 90s teen culture - that's where the genius is. The Emma plot thing is just secondary. But yeah, so many quote-worthy lines it's insane. Alicia Silverstone's delivery is dead on perfect also. And the cinematography was done by the same guy who did the Matrix movies and Spider-Man 2. Just a great film all around.

I don't know how to take a compliment. Basically, when I am complimented, I either downplay it or flat out contradict it, saying it's not true. I'm not sure why I am this way. One reason though is I don't believe people. I'm not unaware. I see compliments thrown out all the time, even when they're clearly unmerited. Basically, the problem is the people I know are nice and want others to feel good, so they'll compliment them when they do things, even (at times) when it's not merited. Good hearts, but yes, I'm calling them liars.

So yeah, when people compliment me, I have no clue if it's legitimate or if it's that nice, wanting people to feel good thing going on. I'm against this. Probably because fundamentally, I'm not nice. But yeah, I refuse to compliment someone if I don't honestly feel they did a good job. Not a particularly kind mentality. But definitely sincere.

There's a lot of other weirdo stuff going on also that contributes to my complimentphobic nature. Like not knowing how to be gracious to myself, not like attention, other things. Here's the weird thing. My love language is definitely words of praise. That's how I feel loved, without question. I was surprised a while back when I asked my mom what she thought I was. I had just realized this about myself, but she said, words of praise, obviously. Anyway, I'm clearly that.

But at the same time, I can't take, nor do I particularly like, compliments from most people. And that's odd. The main exception to this is Jieun. I pretty much live and die by her approval. And since my love language is words of praise, but I have trouble accepting it from other people, all the burden of me feeling loved falls squarely on Jieun's shoulders. That's a lot; sucks for her. Sorry I'm like this, honey.

Means and ends.

I think I'm gradually learning the relative importance of means and ends in certain areas in life. Or rather, when the means should be the ends, and when they shouldn't. Like, in regards to spiritual life, pretty much everything I'm reading reinforces the idea that the whole point of the Christian walk is the process. How we walk with God, what our relationship is like; all that stuff isn't just a means to a greater goal - it is the goal. I'm not a particularly goal oriented person, but that's still a challenging idea to me. Maybe because the world associates success so much with accomplishment rather than process. I dunno. But yeah, what we accomplish for God is not as important as how we do.

Conversely, my dad wrote something interesting recently related to health. A lot of people are obsessed with health, with long life. Thing is, what's the point of that? Being healthy and living long is meaningless unless we have something to be healthy and live long for. Too many people have made their health an end, rather than a means.

So. I wish this freaking heartburn would go away, but even if it doesn't, no big whoop, because health is only important as it allows us to do God's work, and I don't think it's interfering with me doing God's work.

Yet.

I find it hilarious that Gus still reads this page. What's the appeal? We have virtually nothing in common, especially now that he apparently hates Christians. I'm a straight married Asian engineer. Zero lines of intersection. But whatever.

Nerd entry alert.

It's odd to me how we fall into things by circumstance. When I was young, I kind of wanted to someday be that pianist at Nordstrom. (SN. I used to go to Oakridge Mall nearly every week. I was a mallrat. SSN. The last time I was in a Nordstrom the pianist was playing a jazzy version of The Doors' Light My Fire. Cuckoo.) This is kind of during that time I was in my junior high jazz band. I gave that up pretty much as soon as I went to high school, where we had essentially no developed music program.

Both those things were completely out of my control. I did jazz band just because my junior high happened to have one. Not many schools do. I stopped playing jazz simply because my high school didn't have music. Not many high schools have no music program at all. Both times, to a certain extent, what I did was a product of circumstance.

It's not just that. Like with programming. I didn't go into college intending to be a programmer. It just kind of happened, probably in large part because the school I went to had a strong Computer Science department. If I went somewhere else, maybe I'd be a sociologist now. Who knows. At any rate, my vocation was determined in part just kind of by outside influences.

Something about that slightly offends me, that I'm the product of chance environmental factors. I want to believe that there's a core "me" and that I should assert my "me" in what I do, environment be darned. I am "me" and I do "this". But apparently, that's not what life is like, so maybe I'm just being naive.

That said, I still kind of want to be a Nordstrom pianist someday, if not soon, maybe when I retire. And after I've gone through Misty, Moon River, and all those standards, you know I'm busting out California Love. Muzak style.

You know what I love. New beginnings. A fresh new start. The feeling of wide open possibilities. That's why I loved the quarter system. Three times a year, no matter how poorly you did the previous quarter, you get a brand new beginning. I think that's why I love bookstores so much also. All these brand new books that offer something completely new. It's also why I have such a hard time finishing books, I think.

Thing is, post school, you get precious few new beginnings. Marriage, job, church, whatever; with providence, you won't have too many new beginnings with them. And it's a good thing to be stable. But is there a way to have the new beginning feeling also? In the midst of duty and stability? No clue.

Henry has 4 Peter Cetera albums on his iPod. Four! Keep that in mind the next time he makes some claim about certain music being bad and good.

I just walked by Mark McGrath and Sugar Ray in the hallway. That doesn't happen everyday.

Heartburn is still pwning my life. I'm at my wit's end. Calgon take me away.

As you may or may not know, my niece is like the cutest baby ever. I actually had a dream last week where I was dying of cancer (hmm... probably related to the heartburn) and the most important thing I wanted to do before I died was make sure Ellie remembered me. So I took a bunch of videos and pictures saying stuff like "I am your uncle." Random.

Anyway, I've said this before, but I'm sad because I know when we have kids, I know they're going to be nothing like that. Not interactive, not happy. They're going to be dour, detached observers. And of course I'll love them. But they're not going to measure up to the social standard of Ellie.

I've been having severe heartburn for the past week, and it's seriously affecting my life. Hurts a lot; it's all I can think about. I have no clue what to do about it. I actually tried doing a daylong fast (a health fast, not a spiritual one) and it's just as bad today as it was before. What can I do? Aaah! Pray for me!

So we went snowboarding this past weekend. Lee is pretty much the most encouraging snowboarding patner in the history of the universe. He cheered me every single freaking time I made a successful transition from heel edge to toe edge. Every freaking time. Kind of got ridiculous after a while, but yeah.

It's my third time snowboarding and I suck, and my entire body is sore to boot. There are 2 reasons why I'm bad at it.

One is just a fundamental flaw with me in general. And that is, I'm not athletic at all. This is none of that false humility crap either, I am honestly and objectively just not athletic. I'd put myself in the bottom 5% of the general population, maybe lower. As a kid, I was not strong, not fast, and not flexible. Deadly combo. One of those boys who during the presidential fitness tests had to do the chin hang like the girls do instead of the chinups.

So anyway, anything that involves athleticism I have to work 4 times as hard as a normal person would. Like with lifting. I can lift a decent (not a lot) amount now, but it took me 4 times the effort it would have a normal person to get to this point. It's like that with everything I do. So with snowboarding, I plan to get better at it, but given the nature of the body God's given me, it will take me 4 times the effort.

The other reason is, so I've said this countless times, but I'm a super skinny guy. Less so now, but look at old pictures and you can see it. Anyway, I still have super skinny ankles and feet. And this is just a suspicion, but I think because I've that, I've never had ski boots or iceskates that totally fit. No matter how tight I make them, my feet still kind of shift around a bit. And that also makes it harder.

I wanna go again though, in a few weeks. Anyone up for a day trip?

Not that you're wondering or care, but I have never self-referred to my thoughts page as a "blog". The reason at first was because when me and my friends starting doing this, back in the Netscape days, there was no term for what we were doing, so we just called them "thought pages". SN. It's weird who this page addresses. The audience of this page for the longest time consisted of people who already knew about these being thought pages, and it's kind of odd how I'm adjusting things. Guess it's just a reflection of life moving on.

Anyway yeah, we called it thought pages, and then Dave started doing shorter thought snippets, which we all called short thoughts. And that's what I've called it to this day.

For some reason, I've been stubborn about not calling it a blog, and upon reflection, I have no idea why. I think on some level I felt like since this existed before the term did, I resented that I needed to conform to someone else's term, if that makes any sense at all. Probably not. But there's a similar effect going on with why I have never used "fix" for FiCS. I was there in the beginning, and we didn't call it "fix", so I will not conform and use a term I didn't have a say in. Makes no sense.

So married couples get into these... conversations... about how the other is spending "too much time" doing whatever activity. Here's my bold claim about it. When the activity is something the other spouse doesn't understand or just can't get into, it doesn't matter how little they do it, even that little bit will annoy the other and be considered "too much time" to a certain extent.

I'm basing this somewhat on observations of my parents over the break. My mom doesn't like how my dad watches TV / movies on his day off. She thinks it's a waste of time and would rather he not do it. He's wasting too much time doing it. You have to understand how absurd this is. My dad works 6 (more like 6.5) days a week, gets up at 4:00 every day for prayer (our last night in Houston we barely got back from playing Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit before he got up), comes home at 8 or 9, pretty much is constantly doing church stuff the whole time with no sleep at all. He spending his lone free hours doing something relaxing "wasting time"? Absurd.

When it comes down to it, she just doesn't enjoy movies or TV, so no matter how little my dad watches, it will annoy her and she'll think he's spending too much time doing it. I think I have this tendency also. I hate Friends, so even when Jieun watched for just like 30 minutes, I used to get annoyed. I think I'm getting more grace-filled about this though, right honey? I dunno, something I'm working on. Grace is a good thing.

Whoa, Shanming reads my page. How random. Anyway, here's a joke from his page that I should find depressing and kind of do but can't help being amused by. Relevant to the history of theology stuff I've been reading.

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! Don't do it!"

"Why shouldn't I?" he said.

"Well, there's so much to live for!"

"Like what?"

"Well... are you religious?" He said yes. I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?"

"Christian."

"Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?"

"Protestant."

"Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"

"Baptist"

"Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"

"Baptist Church of God!"

"Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?"

"Reformed Baptist Church of God!"

"Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?"

He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!"

I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off.

(Emo Philips)

I 100% agree with Vanderpool. 100%. For the life of me, I cannot understand women who supposedly want their men to be leaders but then subvert that and make it difficult or impossible for their men to do that by belittling them or overcriticizing them, especially in front of others. I don't understand that at all, and every time I see it, it just makes me cringe. It should come as no surprise or disappointment when these women's husbands fail to be leaders. They're virtually asking for it.

But yeah, I do think this is a cultural curse that can be broken. I see a lot of progress in our generation. And like I thank my lucky stars pretty much on a daily basis that Jieun is not like that at all, she's pretty much the most supportive wife a man could ask for, and there's zero hyperbole in that statement.

And for myself I pray for the grace to overcome the negative stereotypes of the Korean male. Because God knows we men have plenty of our own cultural curses to deal with. But you reap what you sow.

Another moody music night. I've become a fan of Elliott Smith. Waltz #1 is an amazing song. So much raw emotion. It feels like the song is crying. Amazing. Totally depressing though. Like a lot of his songs, I guess.

When we were dating, Jieun and I used to go out for sushi all the time. After we got married and fiscal reality sunk in, we stopped going, and I forgot how much I enjoy it. We had good sushi a few weeks back for the first time in months and with each bite I felt like I was coming alive. It was amazing. A part of me had died and I didn't realize it.

I think a part of me has died musically also. There was a time when music made me feel totally alive. Dunno if you know who Reed Arvin is, he used to produce for Rich Mullins and now is some bigshot author, but his first book was a story about a Christian artist who gets chewed up by the Christian music industry, when all he really wants to do is play and feel the joy that comes from that. I totally resonated with that, and I'm not sure how many people can relate. But some of my favorite times in college were being in a room by myself playing piano, just the pure joy of playing. I used to do it fairly often. After college I'd play on Jieun's roommate's keyboard. But it made me feel alive.

I've lost that feeling, and I didn't even realize it until recently. I've been developing a bit musically in certain areas and I've started to feel the stirrings of that alive feeling I used to have. But it's just stirrings, and that makes me sad, because it means a part of me has died. I think I need to buy a keyboard or something, to feel that life again. I dunno.

I was feeling down so Friday night I stayed up late listening to the second half of the Garden State soundtrack on repeat. Something about feeling down makes me want to listen to moody music and feel downer. No clue why.

By Saturday afternoon I was getting tired of it so I spent a significant amount of time listening to Roxette's greatest hits, some of which seriously stretch the definition of "hit". But I'll be darned if I didn't feel significantly better. "Hold on tight, you know she's a little bit dangerous / She's got what it takes to make ends meet, the eyes of a lover that hit like heat / You know she's a little bit dangerous." Like most Swedish pop lyrics, no clue what that means. But it feels good.

Jieun was flipping through channels and The American President came on, where I saw this soliloquy from Michael J. Fox:

People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.

While in college this one Crusade guy briefly tried to start up this initiative among the Christian males to be greater leaders in Christian females' lives. From what I hear he was also a big proponent of creative dating in Crusade. I used to think that was dirty. But now I think I'm down with that. Maybe Christian guys need to be more assertive with women, because the alternative (non-Christian guys being assertive with them) is worse. Women want leadership.

Alternatively, I could be completely wrong about this. Wouldn't be the first time. Won't be the last.

Ooh, there was another quote from the movie that, although written by Sorkin, could be leveled squarely at many liberal writers today: "How do you have patience for people who claim they love America, but clearly can't stand Americans?" Serious. Stop with the Red States are so dumb and backwards thing. If you can't have love, at least have some class.

We're at lunch and I ask people whether they think Stanford people are weird. A pause, and someone says, "I don't think Eddie's weird." That pretty much answers my question. Sad.

Stanford Basketball Watch. Yes, I know no one cares. I don't care that no one cares.

Now has 4 votes in the latest AP poll, ties them for 34th. Picks up 2 votes in the coaches poll, good for 38th. ESPN's Bracketology now has them projected as an 8th seed. Progress, my friends.

Sadly, after two straight losses, the Rockets are now in 9th place in the West, a half game behind the Fakers and Minnesota.

Few things in life intimidate me as much as the toothpaste aisle at the supermarket. Tartar control, cavity protection, whitening, baking soda, peroxide, mouthwash... aaah! Can I just get "toothpaste"? Does such a thing exist anymore?

Actually, the yogurt aisle is getting pretty hairy now also. Whole milk yogurt, nonfat, lowfat, smoothie, custard style, mousse, drinkable, healthy heart. What the heck is heathy heart yogurt? Even among "normal yogurt" they have like a trillion flavors. What happened to the days of normal fruit flavors?

I think this evening a kid from church accidentally called our phone. When I answered, all I heard was background noise and a parent saying "<kid's name>, don't wipe your food on daddy's clothes." The joys of parenthood. Can't wait.

Did you realize the letters in "Britney Spears" can be rearranged to spell "Presbyterians"? I have no idea what the implications of that are. But whatever it is, I'm frightened.

I've come to realize in the last few years that I can't change people. This is a big thing for me. I kind of have a savior complex. When I see someone with a problem, my natural inclination is to fix it, fix them. But I see now that I can't change people. Nor is that really the point, I think.

I can only change me. I can hope someone else will change, but depending on that is doomed. All I can do is control what's in my own sphere, my own behavior. So if I ever want situations to change, the only thing I can do is change myself.

Don't look now, but the Houston Rockets are now in 6th place in the West, a half game over the Fakers. And Stanford basketball has won 4 in a row. Picked up 3 votes in the latest AP poll, and ESPN's Bracketology has us projected as a 12 seed. Things are looking up.

Am I the only one that thinks that Barbara Bush (the twin) kind of looks like the woman from Lost?

Bobby brings up an interesting point. Some criticize people who accept orthodox views willy nilly without truly examining them. This is legitimate. Furthermore, we should approach everything with humility, never thinking that we have a complete grasp of the truth, since even what is seen as orthodox has changed through the years. Also true.

My question is (which I've asked many times before), how come people don't apply these same standards to science? The same modern society that embraces pluralism seems to treat science as an ultimate truth. But while what's considered orthodox in Christianity has changed a bit through the years, what's considered scientific truth has changed relatively drastically.

We see it all the time in like medicine. For years, they say hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women is good. Now they say whoops, it's actually bad. The exact opposite. Everyone says sun exposure is bad for you. Now some doctors think there's a national Vitamin-D deficiency problem because people don't get enough sun. I'm not making this up.

More fundamentally, looking at something like the concept of gravity, Aristotle has a theory of gravity. It's completely replaced with Newton's theories of gravity. Which are completely replaced by Einstein's theories. Each scientific theory that came before was shown to be completely wrong, thoroughly replaced. That's the nature of scientific progress. The big breakthroughs are revolutionary, not incremental. They replace and invalidate old theories, instead of building on them.

That being the case, why does society blindly trust in the current scientific theories while questioning orthodoxy? Shouldn't society approach science with at least as much hesitation and humility as it would religious orthodoxy? I dunno, I just firmly believe that modern society is wholly logically inconsistent, and most people haven't thought about things enough to realize this. But that's just my opinion.

You know what phrase I hate more and more the older I get? "Keeping it real." I hate it because people say it as if there's something good about it, when the vast majority of the time, it's just a front for pure selfishness. Only rarely does someone who's "keeping it real" have problems being too influenced by other people. Usually, when someone says this, they're really saying, I care most about myself, so I'm just going to be however I want and screw what anyone else thinks. Selfishness and pride. Wholly anti-Scriptural. There's nothing noble about it.

Not to mention, like I've said countless times before, keeping it "real" should refer to what you believe you can/should be. What you aspire to, what you think your potential is. But most people refer to it as they are now. No desire to be transformed (by God or otherwise) into something better. Just giving in to their most base nature. So "keeping it real" means being too lazy to let God make them better than they are. That's why that phrase, 85% of the time, pisses me off. Way to be proud, selfish, and lazy.

Nice grace-filled entry.

I think I'm getting dumber. No, not think, I know I'm getting dumber. Anyway, to combat that, I've been trying to read more significant books. Started with The Prince by Macchiavelli. Interesting, somewhat disturbing, and, in my opinion, fairly irrelevant to modern life.

Recently I started reading A History Of Christian Theology: An Introduction, by William Placher. Definitely not an evangelical Christian book, but it's utterly fascinating.

He brings up one really interesting point about orthodoxy. You mention orthodoxy nowadays and people generally react negatively, conjuring images of close-minded, intolerant bigots. With the current fad of pluralism, people popularly bemoan how the Christian church silenced competing ideas outside the mainstream. Like the DaVinci Code is big on how the Gnostics were unfairly alienated by the Christian church. The general idea is, a plurality of ideas is good, orthodoxy is bad.

The interesting point the book makes is, far from being a bad thing, orthodoxy is necessary for any idea (religious and otherwise) to survive. Unless one makes the effort to define what is and what isn't orthodox, the idea will cease to exist. Like, say some random group of people decide that in basketball, instead of dribbling the ball, they can kick the ball. And instead of having a hoop, they'll have a big soccer goal. If no effort is made to say, no that's not basketball, and define what basketball really is, and everyone starts playing "basketball" their own way, then what is basketball? By failing to draw boundaries and define common rules, "basketball" ceases to exist as a useful concept.

So pluralists don't seem to realize is that unless Christianity defined what it was, it would have ceased to exist as anything real (or maybe that's their point). And defining something necessarily involves excluding competing ideas. It's simply a logical necessity and can't possibly be considered bad. We can argue about what the definitions are, but the existence of lines is a logical requirement of basically every concept in life, so criticizing "orthodoxy", which seeks to define those lines, is logically ridiculous.

Zero people care.

I don't get these female teen idols nowadays. Like Ashlee Simpson, Lindsay Lohan and Hillary Duff. What happened to the days when teen idols were actually attractive? Where'd they go? Where?

Of course, when I was young and first saw the video to Ice, Ice, Baby, I thought Vanilla Ice was pretty cool. I guess every generation has to go through its delusional stage.

The Mercury News had two articles on Bay Area housing yesterday. The first, on the front page, talked about housng prices. The median price of houses sold in Santa Clara County in 2004 was up 15 percent from 2003. In the business section, there's an article on residential rents. The average apartment rent dropped in the 4th quarter in Santa Clara County. It had risen the previous quarter, but that was the first increase in 3.5 years. The average is now $1283. The peak value was $1955 during the first quarter of 2001.

I'm a broken record, but there's a bubble. I don't know much about econ, but this makes no sense. How can housing prices keep going up and rents keep going down? That completely violates the principles of supply and demand, unless supply and demand for buying and renting have disassociated themselves, in which case there's a speculative mentality at work. Bubble.

But I might be completely wrong about this. Which is fine, because I have a backup plan: Houston. Why not? It's cheap to live there, I have friends and family there, and a good church to go to. A coworker of JR and mine bought a place there for ridiculously little (it was a price that literally does not exist in the Bay Area) and is happy in Houston. If I'm wrong about things here, that's where I'm headed.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish" - Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)

As you may or may now know, I've kind of been haphazardly growing out my hair. Semi-inspired by my trip to Korea last summer. I've been kind of enthused recently about how long it's gotten, but I did need a trim so I went for a cut. The problem is, I didn't know exactly what I wanted it to look like; I had no vision. So I just told them to take an inch off the sides, and leave the back long.

I come home and Jieun stares at me and says, "You have a mullet." She repeated the word mullet about 10 times that evening. So I was forced to get it recut the next day. But yeah, for about 20 hours, I had a mullet. Good times.

The lesson of the story is, as with many things in life, it's important to have vision, direction as to where you're going. Otherwise, you put your fate in someone else's hands and chaos may ensue.

I couldn't tell the two actors in Shiri apart either. I got confused by Chow Yun Fat and another actor in Crouching Tiger also. All those Asians look the same to me.

I once met this Korean student who was saying how he had trouble looking Caucasians in the eye. Not blacks, just Caucasians. Reason being, he felt like he was looking at an animal, because of their eye colors. I thought that was fascinating.

Do animal species have differing eye colors also, like humans do?

You know, Lost is a fantastic series. Brings up a lot of interesting ideas. I was shocked a couple episodes back when they presented a non-negative portrayal of faith and prayer. Good quote also. "It's a fine line between faith and denial. It's better on my side." I also like the tension between living on the beach where it's unsafe but one can keep look out for help, or living in the caves where it's safe but have resigned to living on the island. Interesting issues that are highly relevant to Christians about how much to orient one's life to a future whose arrival time is unknown, and how much to resign one's self to living in the present world.

The seemingly Christian answer is that we should completely live for heaven, as if tomorrow would never come, but that's unrealistic. The Apostles took collections for the poor in anticipation that they will need to be taken care of tomorrow. It's a balance. Anyway.

I've mentioned before how Oswald Chambers says about the boldest stuff ever. It's either incredibly deep or heretical, there's no middle ground. That's how bold it is. Anyway, Pastor Jun quoted one such insanely bold statement in Sunday's sermon (actually from tomorrow's My Utmost entry):

Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ. The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for Him. It is easier to serve than to pour out our lives completely for Him. The goal of the call of God is His satisfaction, not simply that we should do something for Him. We are not sent to do battle for God, but to be used by God in His battles. Are we more devoted to service than we are to Jesus Christ Himself?

Bold bold bold. Is that really true? The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for him? Then John is totally screwed. I dunno, it's something I'm still chewing over. One of my prayer requests in small group was more opportunities to serve, so it's interesting timing.

We went to a wine tasting event on Saturday in Napa, featuring a bunch of wineries from Sonoma county. It was fun, but honestly, kind of wasted on me. My wine palate isn't refined enough for me to appreciate it. I can vaguely tell what's good and bad, but if I were to guess what was way expensive and what was cheap, I'd be totally off. And you know, I don't really care about it enough to spend the money it would take to develop good wine taste. It's just not worth it to me.

In many ways, good taste is not a blessing but a curse. It forces one to spend more time, energy, and resources to get the same satisfaction as someone with poor taste. Plus it makes you snobby. I kind of wish I could be satisfied by cheapo Miyake sushi but I just can't, and that's kind of too bad. So as long as I can be satisfied by Two Buck Chuck, I'll take it.

I dunno if it's my Asian church background or what, but I think I often fall into the fallacy that since the Bible says the Christian life necessarily involves hardship, that doing something hard is necessarily Christian. I guess I've been thinking about this in relation to serving. In some part of my mind, service is only real if it's hard. And I'm not totally sure how true that is.

So like, I came to the realization that I enjoy putting away equipment after church. Seriously, it's like no burden for me at all, something I don't mind doing. But just because it's not hard can't mean it's not service, right? Is it only service if it's not easy for me to do? Like, I'm not particularly fond of doing hosty type things, like making and serving tea, cleaning up, all that stuff. Jieun is the opposite, loves playing host, isn't particularly enthused about cleaning up equipment. It's kind of nice that we're complementary in that way.

So yeah, I don't know if being a servant involves just serving in ways that you enjoy doing or are good at as much as possible, or if it necessarily requires you to things you might not like. I'm inclined to think the second is at least a part of it, because there will always be things that have to be done that no one likes doing. But is that just a masochistic view of the Christian life? I dunno. I guess the most important thing is just that we serve period. Anyway, something random (and boring) that's been on my mind.

There's another effect at play related to why it's easier for Jieun to get along with my friends than me with hers. I've written about this before, but I have this weirdo complex where I don't like the feeling of intruding on relationships. So if I meet a friend (B) of a friend (A), in my mind B will always be classified as a friend of A, so it will take me a long time if it ever even happens to become friends with B, because I don't to intrude on A's relationship with B. This intrusion thing is a really big deal to me.

So I'll pretty much never be good friends with Jieun's friends, just more friends of friends. And that's OK.

Is this bad? With things like tsunami relief, I kind of prefer giving to non-Christian organizations. Just, and maybe this isn't as accurate anymore, but was a time lots of Christian organizations got poor ratings in terms of how much money given was actually used in direct relief, as opposed to overhead and other costs. I stick with the Red Cross, because they always get high marks and have for a while. Plus my company matches all donations to Red Cross. Seems the best place to give.

SN. In the latest Newsweek, the Red Cross got an A for how effectively they use funds for relief (91% of money given is spent on program services). World Emergency Relief, a Christian group, got an F (31%-56%). Sad.

SSN. 157,000 dead people in the tsunamis is a lot. And stuff like this happens more frequently than I realized. Did you know 138,000 people died in a tsunami in Bangladesh in 1991? 242,000 people died in an earthquake in Tangshan, China in 1976. And between 1995 and 1998, 3.5 million people died due to famine and floods in North Korea. 3.5 million! That's insane.

I hate the rebate system enough already, but it makes me angrier that sometimes when things go wrong you are required to go through their customer "service". I spend 35 minutes on the phone with a rep and it was absolutely absurd. They were clearly not in the country. The phone connection was horrible and it took like 10 repeatings to get across even simple things like the spelling of my name. Forget explaining things like wireless-G router. Then their computer was so slow after each piece of information it took a couple minutes of waiting for them to be able to continue. Absurd. And in the end the status didn't change at all! Argh!!!!!

We got into a discussion last night about whether it's easier for the husband to get along with the wife's friends or vice versa. In the end, I think it's so dependent on the particular personalities of the spouses and their specific friends that one can't make any sort of general statement about it at all. It's entirely situation dependent.

Therefore, I offer this general rule of thumb: it's much easier for the wife to get along with the husband's friends. I mean come on, let's be honest. The reason is this. The majority of men want one thing: to be left alone. And how hard is that? Whereas women want conversation, validation, keeping in touch, all these things that quite frankly I don't do for any of my guy friends.

I do get along with Jieun's friends - they're all good people. I get along with their husbands/S.O.s more though. Just again, easier. Jieun's married friends came to stay with us a while back and the women spent all this time talking about feelings and issues. The men spent a significant amount of time talking about video games. Oftentimes, we men just play video games and our conversation consists almost exclusively of sound effects. Shallow, superficial, easy.

I dunno, just my opinion, and totally skewed by my personal experience of Jieun's social competence and my ineptness. Maybe actually men and women just have different standards of easy to get along with. For men, it's related to effort. For women, it's related to friendliness? So we view who is easier to get along with in different terms? I dunno. What do I know about relationships. Essentially nothing.

Oh, while I by and large really like Jieun's friends, there is one situation that is really tough for me, and that's when Jieun and her friends all start talking about Friends. I was once caught in that situation - we were even playing the Friends Trivia Game. Isn't that one of Dante's circles of hell?

So apparently tons of people find my last post hilarious, that someone like me listens to rap period much less has a fave rap song. Which is largely ironic, because you know I'm OG.

Seriously though, I dunno, I like listening to diverse music, I think it makes one a better musician in general, and I appreciate lots of genres. I'm not a huge hiphop fan but I appreciate good stuffs, and I respect Dre a lot as a producer. I just like good music period, no matter what kind it is.

Why I Am Against The Death Penalty

SN, I personally don't think the death penalty is counter to Scripture. So my objections to it are largely more pratical than theological.

First of all, I'm against it practically because of its documented high rate of error. In Illinois, since 1970 when they reinstituted the death penalty, 12 people have been put to death, and 13 have been freed from death row on the grounds of being wrongfully convicted. That's insane. And of course the thing about the death penalty is that it's irrevocable. Given the rate of error, having the death penalty is ridiculous. This alone is reason enough to be practically against the death penalty.

Understanding that there will always be errors, one could still support the death penalty if the rate of error were low enough and it served a useful societal purpose. But as it is, the death penalty is largely a symbolic act. That is, the only difference to society between life in prison without parole and death is symbolic, not practical.

It's not a deterrent - the majority of studies show that states with the death penalty have no lower rate of violent crime than those without. It also doesn't save money. Due to the litigation costs, studies show that applying the death penalty actually costs more than life without parole. And this isn't going to change - the Supreme Court has kept increasing the procedural hurdles to the death penalty in order to make it conform to the Constitutional requirements of due process. So it's likely never going to get cheaper.

It doesn't deter crime, it doesn't save money, it makes society no safer than putting people away for life without parole (save the extreme corner case of escaping from prison which realistically never happens anymore), so there's no practical benefit of it. It's just a symbol. A symbol that has an unacceptable rate of error, arbitrary rules of application, and as is widely reported, is unevenly applied to different races for the exact same crimes. If it served a practical purpose that would be one thing. If it were fairly and uniformly applied with clear criteria that would also be something. Neither of those are true. So I am against the death penalty.

My 3 favorite writers purely in terms of writing ability, not on subject matter, on jack.html, in no particular order: sugarshock, Scott, and Wong. Unfortunately, Wong and Scott are both insane. Why God bestows so much talent on the crazy is beyond me.

SN. California Love is my favorite rap song of all time. By far. Second is Mo' Money Mo' Problems.

I'm at a quandary about what to do with Alias. I like watching shows in a big burst, like a whole season over the course of 3 weeks, instead of waiting for a new show each week. Especially with shows like Alias, which ends on a cliffhanger virtually every episode. I've been doing this with every season of Alias so far, first 2 seasons of 24, first season of Apprentice, every season of Sopranos. So I'm thinking of waiting until the entire season of Alias is over before watching any of it, then I can watch them all in a week. But I dunno if I can wait that long. And apparently, they're showing a new episode each week this season, no waits or repeats. We'll see.

I'm bored with my page. I've said this countless times, but it always surprises me that people read this, it's so terribly boring. But whatever.

So my sister lives in this brand new house in a new gated development. Tons of Asians there. Asians love the new houses. White people seem to value the character of old neighborhoods more. I'm basing this opinion pretty much exclusively on my sister's neighborhood and the community of Los Gatos.

Anyway, there's this interesting issue going on there with the elementary schools. The neighborhood is obviously very affluent, but they bus in kids from a trailer park to the local schools. There's a predictable movement among the rich folks to get rid of the trailer park kids from their schools,for various reasons, a minor one being property value.

I'm completely trivializing the issue but this makes me angry. One great irony is that some of our church members are involved, and our church helps serve those very people in the trailer parks through a community organization it's involved with. We have no problem serving them but we wouldn't actually want them in our schools.

I have to confess though that my thinking is clouded on this issue, because *I* was a bused kid. Half of our elementary school was bused, and my sister and I didn't realize until fairly recently that it was our half that was the "disadvantaged" one. A somewhat shocking realization. We weren't poor by any means, quite the contrary, but apparently it was a reflection of our neighborhood.

So when I hear about things like this where people don't want kids bused in, I feel personally offended. Maybe irrationally, but still. Every time our junior high had a sports meet or our jazz band went to some competition we were painfully aware of the advantages they had in terms of facilities, uniforms, etc. and it pissed me off. And I guess it still kind of does.

Boring.