I once had a conversation with a friend about a mutual acquaintance where we talked about how when we first met this person, this person ignored us (in different contexts) for quite some time. So, it kind of became an inside joke between us. So one year, when this friend sent me a Christmas card, this friend made a mention of the acquaintance, ha ha, funny.

So, I went to the FiCS Winter Retreat before school started that year, and some of us were sitting around the table talking, including the acquaintance who used to ignore me, and somehow this topic came up. And for some idiotic reason, I decide to mention to the acquaintance how my friend, whom the acquaintance does not really know well, mentioned the acquaintance in a Christmas card to me. And, it's a little bit uncomfortable, and a person who knew about this inside joke (or maybe not, but knew both the friend and the acquaintance) was shooting looks my way saying "stop".

But not only don't I stop, but I decide to prove it by going and getting the said card, which is in my bag. So I did, and it just made everyone uncomfortable, and added crazy amounts of uncomfortability between the friend and the acquaintance, who did not know each other well, for quite some time. I don't know what I was thinking. Seriously, sometimes the lack of judgment I have is astounding. It's terrible.

Another time, we were at All Campus Retreat, and some of us were sitting around a table, and I started talking about this thing a friend of mine did that was in poor taste. The thing is, this friend's significant other was there. And, as I'm talking about it, this friend is I think shooting looks at me to stop, and as usual I don't, I keep it going, keep it going until I've gone too far. And then I realize I've said too much, and think to myself, "oops." I then excuse myself from the table and this friend and significant other proceed to have an hours long conversation because of what I said.

Another time, a bunch of us were hanging out in a lounge in Stern, and I ask this person, just jokingly, why this person doesn't go for a mutual friend. You know, I insinuate all the time, not really seriously. And I keep prodding and ask if this person likes the mutual friend. And the person says, "I can say that I do not at this time like" the person.

And the person is obviously trying to say something, signal to me, but I'm too dumb to pick it up, and I say something like, "Ooh! So that means you might have liked" the mutual friend "sometime in the past?" And I keep pushing it pushing it pushing it, asking more and more about it. And the thing is, this mutual friend's sibling is in the room also. And then suddenly I realize that there is something there, that other people in the room knew but I didn't, and they probably didn't want to talk about it because said sibling was in the room, and when I realize this, I stop talking, and I think to myself, "oops". As always, just when I've carried it too far. And it's quiet for a while.

Then the person and the mutual friend's sibling proceed to talk about it for a long time. Meanwhile, me and another friend are trying to loudly talk to each other, to show that we're not trying to listen in on their conversation and eventually I get too tense that I scurry off to the bathroom. Oops.

It's actually Jm J. Bullock. No i in Jm. Yes, I was a huge Too Close For Comfort fan. Huge.

In related news, I sent out not a single Christmas card this year. I seriously suck.

The ring boy in my sister's wedding is absolutely hilarious. Last year we were playing Trivial Pursuit (me and him were a team) and I got him to get in this ridiculous taunting stance. I started by getting him to point at them. Then to jump around while pointing. Then to turn around, bend over, and wiggle his butt. Then, the critical thing is, I got him to do all three simultaneously. It's freaking hilarious. Anyway, he really likes the pose so he does it often now, and his parents have me to thank.

Anyway, I was sitting with him at the wedding reception, and I told him to, when the bride and groom came around, to keep tinkling his fork on his glass. So he did, and they thought it was hilarious, and then they kissed. And when they did, he was absolutely horrified, and he turned to me and yelled," This is your fault!" Hilarious.

Uh, random.

So, it's clear to me that one of the crucial skills Marshall has used to get "in" with the kids is basketball. But it makes me wonder how people who can't ball are supposed to do it. How do they earn kids' respect? Like, what am I supposed to do? Beat them at a C programming contest? A contest to see who can play "Shout to the Lord" best on piano? Beating them at Bust-A-Move? Trivial Pursuit? I don't know, it would just be a lot harder for someone like me to get "in" with the kids.

I'm looking at this box and it has both English and Korean on it. The English says "Pound Cake". And the Korean is just the phonetic approximation of the English pronunciation.

Korean does that a lot, just copies the English pronunciation. From words like "Coffee Shop" to the positions on a basketball team. What I don't get is how sometmes they choose random words. Like, when you get free stuff at a restaurant, it's called "service". And, a common cheer in Korea is the approximation of "fighting". But there's no f sound in Korean, so it sounds like, "Huiting." It took me a while to figure out they meant "fighting", and then it still doesn't make sense. Another weird thing is they stole the English "supermarket". Well, part of it. But instead of stealing "market", they use the word "super". Random.

Did anyone see this IV pamphlet, the 2000 Year-End Giving Guide? Grace Hsiao is on the front! Random.

I rarely watch Letterman, but somehow I saw both of those times Madonna was on. The first time, dude, it was the most uncomfortable thing I've ever seen in my entire life. I think I wrote about it before. Just, Madonna kept on swearing, and it pissed Dave off, and every time she did, you could tell how angry he was. And then, she kept dogging him, about how he's soft now, how he's sold out. And then she would not let him go to commercial. Seriously, it was so uncomfortable, because it was like they hated each other, it wasn't funny, it wasn't entertaining, it was pure tension. Yikes.

At the end of the show, he only had room for the musical guest, since she took so long (I think it was Counting Crows), and at the very end of the show, all he says is, "I'm sorry" and then the show ends.

I don't know, I came away thinking she's just a punk. I saw the second interview also, and it didn't really change my opinion of her. She was still condescending, to me, and kind of a female dog the whole time, and maybe it was just in light of watching the first interview, but I was tense the whole time. Anyway, it's weird, because Dave just got a totally different impression than I did. Her appearances made me really dislike her. Weird.

Maybe I should explain John's entry. Just, we were talking one day and he was saying how discipleship is the Great Commission. And by "discipleship" he means a particular method of one on one mentoring. And, we're obviously not against it, I was just saying how it's probably not accurate to say that that particular method is the Great Commission. Then you get weird implications. Like that Billy Graham, certainly the greatest public evangelist of our generation, did not at all fulfill the Great Commission. He might have paved the way for others to "disciple". But he himself didn't, so he himself didn't fulfill the Great Commission, which is a bold implication.

So, John was viewing the phrase "make disciples of all men" as meaning a particular method known as "discipleship" and was stunned that we didn't think it was a given. He was also annoyed that I mentioned a Rich Mullins article where he refers to discipleship as a fad.

Anyway, that's what he's talking about. None of us were saying discipleship is bad. On the contrary, we're all for it. I just thought it was overstating things to say that "discipleship" is the Great Commission. That's all.

My dad watched 9 episodes of Rurouni Kenshin today. I didn't ask him to do it - he just got pretty into it. It's a good series.

So, I have this serious problem with nose hair. Just, a couple of them are insanely long. One fell out about a month ago and it was like 1.5 inches. No joke. Anyway, there's been one growing recently that is just so long it either sticks out of my nostril noticeably, or tickles the whole inside. Seriously, it's an annoying problem.

So I cut it today. I was trying not to for symbolic reasons. Just, I don't want to say that I need to trim my nose hairs. But I guess I do. It's pretty sad. But, it feels a lot better now.

In other news, I apparently weigh 140 pounds. That's my lifetime high. Not good.

So, no one's asking for it, but, here's my advice to people going to Urbana. Not advice really. More, what I would do if I could do it over again, or if I were going again. These are the things I did most wrong.

• Get lots of rest. Just, I was tired the entire time, and that detracted from things a lot. I'd make sure I got enough sleep before hand and during. Also, don't drive to Urbana from Houston. Not conducive to rest.
• Don't try to do everything. I don't know, this was what I did, I think, went to everything I could to maximize the opportunities there, but I suffered for it, just in terms of being stretched too thin and in being physically tired. If I went again, I'd do less, go to less things, and maximize my energy on those few things. But that's just me.
• Remember it's a missions conference, and go for missions. I don't know, my take is just that if your mindset is on missions, then Urbana is one of the most incredible resources on earth. Just, a collection of all these different resources in one place. It's pretty amazing. But if your focus isn't on missions, it's a complete waste of your time. That's my claim. Anyway, when I went I was half and half. I think I learned a lot about missions, but part of me viewed it as just a Christian conference, and so I didn't get as much as I could have.

  Now that I think about it, I kind of wish I was going. Just, it's just as valuable, I'd say, probably even more so, after you've gone on a short term trip, just because it clarifies what you're looking for and stuff like that. I don't know, I think people like Ryu2, xacto, georgie, are gonna have a good time because they know what they're looking for. But whatever.

  But yeah, just remember it's a missions conference, and focus on that. That's something I'd do more if I went again.

I don't know, I'm pretty excited for the people going. It's gonna rock.

So I go to church this morning. Among other people, I see Michele Yu. No surprise; that's her church. Then I see Jen Sun. OK, kind of random, but it makes sense, I mean her family just moved here and she doesn't have a church; she must have come with Michele. Then I see Michelle and Christina Cho. OK, random, why they came here instead of their own church, but whatever, maybe they accompanied Jen; it makes sense. Then I see Sunny Chung. I'm sorry, that was just utterly shocking. What the heck is Sunny Chung doing at my home church in Houston??? I did a double take, it was so bizarre. Turns out her parents moved to Houston. But utterly random.

I also found out that Jimmy Wu and Albert from Penn State regularly read this page. I don't know, that's just kind of weird to me. But, whatever, hello.

Jennifer Sun and her family ran into my sister and friends at lunch yesterday. I don't know, it's a small world.

I agree with everything John wrote in his last entry.

So, I still haven't managed to invest in anything. Thank God.

Anyway, the best selling album of 2000 was 'N Sync's No Strings Attached. It sold over 10 million copies. The Backstreet Boys sold "only" 8 million copies of Black and Blue, but combined with the sales of their other albums, they also sold over 10 million copies in 2000.

But neither was the best selling group in 2000. Any guess who it was?

The Beatles. They sold 18 million albums in 2000. Their newest album, 1, a collection of #1 singles, sold 5 million. So even if they hadn't released a new album, they still would have sold more albums than 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys this year. And they broke up 30 years ago. I don't know, that's stunning to me.

So, sorry Bay Area people, but I won't be here when Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon comes out, and I don't think I can wait, so I'm gonna see it in Houston.

I have no idea if anyone in Houston reads this, but, here are the showtimes for this weekend:

River Oaks Theatre (Landmark)
2009 West Gray, Houston, TX 77019, 713-524-2175

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon:
PG-13 - 2 hrs  
  1:30pm, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30, Midnight 

Seriously, Gus loves Clara. Stop being so straight, Gus.

It's weird to see Christian culture in the world. I was on hold with Chase Bank and they were playing this muzak version of Michael W. Smith's song "Show You The Way". I think that's the title. It's on Live The Life, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, I wasn't sure at first, just because it's a relatively obscure song, but I kept listening, and I'm postive it was it. In muzak form. Weird.

Today I was in the Warner Bros. store and playing on the big video screen there was Veggie Tales. That cheeseburger song. Again, I was stunned. Anyway, random.

Whoa. My company got advertising on that bright digital billboard on 101 that a lot of people hate because it slows traffic. Interesting.

Fascinating article on genetics, and how there might not be such a thing as a "gene" as we understand it.

So in John's last entry he talked about this anime series we've been watching, Ruroni Kenshin. He alluded to how it's inspired his Christian walk. Anyway, it is pretty good. I don't know, to me, at least, I find it fascinating. Just a lot of interesting elements to it.

Anyway, it must be hard for John to live with me and Henry since we're so sarcastic. Like, John sees a model of discipleship in Ruroni Kenshin. This is no surprise. John sees a model of discipleship in nearly everything we watch. So when we were watching Ruroni, we were being a little sarcastic. Especially in Episode 12, where the little kid gets a love interest.

"Look at that discipleship, John. Hubba hubba. One on one mentoring indeed. He kissed dating hello."

SN. John is very much like the little kid. Passionate.

Anyway, all kidding aside, seriously, there is a lot of Christian elements in it, I think that was intentional. Like, the main character has a cross-shaped scar on his cheek. I don't know, it's good stuff.

At any rate, the 4th DVD is out! And guess what the title is. Ruroni Kenshin #4: False Prophet. I'm not making that up. That should get John excited.

You know, if Clinton hadn't won in 1992, I think Gore would be president-elect right now. Gore ran for president himself but didn't get the nomination. Had Clinton lost, Bush Sr. would have served another term, and then in 1996, it likely would have been Gore vs. Dole, and Gore would probably have won. But, whatever, I'm just speculating and I'm probably wrong.

Dave writes:

other ceremonies i'm not a big fan of--graduations, baptisms, and bar
mitzvahs to name a few.

Anyway, Dave was totally against that night, can't remember why. But like, he wasn't gonna go, then he said he was gonna go but wasn't gonna dress up at all (everyone wears suits and dresses) and then he ended up wearing a suit like the rest of us. But he was against it the whole time.

At any rate, Grace was telling me recently about that night, and how the whole time he was escorting him and he was being extremely unhelpful. Like she'd try to start a conversation, "So, are you excited about graduation?" And he'd be terse and negative, like, "Not really. I don't get excited about these things." Their whole conversation went like that.

I don't know, for some reason that amused me.

Dave writes:

Oh my gosh, Gus hit 4 home runs. screw home runs, those were grand slams.
the reese's one --that's easily the wittiest thing ever written on the
jbb.

Dave, not only were they not grand slams, most of them weren't funny at all. I cannot believe you found them funny. I'm seriously stunned.

So, I'm reading Michael Crichton's latest book, Timeline. It's pretty good so far. But, I like most of Michael Crichton's books. And hate his endings. Let's see, I've read Jurassic Park, Sphere, Disclosure, Rising Sun, Airframe, Congo, and now Timeline. Huh, I guess that isn't that many. And actually, I guess the endings to all of them weren't that bad. It's just that, the ending to Congo was terrible, and the endings to Sphere and Airframe so bad, I think I wrote this before, but I was so angry after reading them I had to punch my pillow.

The endings I liked the most were the books that were least technical: Disclosure and Rising Sun. Yeah, Disclosure had some Virtual Reality stuff, and Rising Sun had some imaging technology stuff, but they were mostly low tech stories, and I think had the best endings. They weren't amazing, just the best of his books, I think.

Am I the only one that liked Disclosure and Rising Sun? Especially the second, I don't know, the point of the entire book was to make us hate Japan, and personally, by the end, I was pretty convinced.

So, I posted to the j bulletin b at 2:18 AM last night, and at 9:26 this morning. Seriously, some days, it's the last thing I do before I sleep, and the first thing I do when I get to work. Again I say: I'm pathetic.

What the heck is an Asian-American issue? I don't know, to be honest, that whole 80-20 thing almost strikes me as being racist. Just the idea that the one thing we need to consider above everything else politically is our ethnicity. That seems to me to unfairly consider the political opinions of Asian-Americans and be an unhealthy overemphasis on race. I guess I don't really know what an "Asian-American" issue is, but I don't know, to me, that's a little racist.

So there are new albums out called "Shout to the Lord: Platinum Collection" and "Shout to the Lord: Kids". This is in addition to "Shout to the Lord" and "Shout to the Lord 2000". They are really milking the popularity of that song for all its worth.

So, Bush named Condoleeza Rice as National Security Advisor. It's interesting, because along with Colin Powell, now Bush has named two African-Americans to high level positions in his cabinet.

What I love about both of them is that it's not a PC thing, you know? Naming minorities for the sake of naming minorities. Rather, they're both eminently qualified for their jobs, and they just happen to be black. I like that a lot. I don't know, I just hope the media recognizes that. Especially with Rice, I mean, anyone who knows anything about her knows she's dope. I'm a big fan.

Speaking of which, I ran into Ruth Elliott at Gospel Books and she's been working for "Condi" for the past few years, and now she's going to Washington with her. That's incredible. I don't know, our friends are becoming powerful. Meanwhile, I'm spending most of my waking hours thinking up Keith slams and Clara raves. Pathetic.

Random. There's an article on CNN.com about the Stanford dean of admissions. Weird.

Press Release from Rocketown Records follows:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OUT OF THE GREY SIGNS EXCLUSIVE RECORDING CONTRACT WITH ROCKETOWN RECORDS

Nashville, TN (December 13, 2000) - Music duo Out of the Grey has signed an exclusive recording contract with Rocketown Records. The husband-and-wife team of Scott and Christine Denté will release their Rocketown debut, and first new studio album in four years, in July 2001. The project will be produced by award-winning producer Monroe Jones (Chris Rice, Third Day, Ginny Owens).

"We are thrilled to welcome Out of the Grey as the newest member of the Rocketown family of artists." says Don Donahue, Rocketown Records president. "Scott and Christine are long-time friends of mine. They encompass everything we are drawn to at Rocketown Records - excellent artists, inspiring writers, and committed parents who are active in their church and community - we are proud to partner with Out of the Grey in their music and ministry."

After recording for nearly a decade, Out of the Grey has quite an impressive history in Christian music. They have recorded five studio albums (with combined sales of more than 600,000 units), garnered nine #1 radio singles, toured extensively with artists such as Steven Curtis Chapman and Margaret Becker, and received countless awards and nominations. Their partnership with Rocketown Records will mark a new chapter in the Out of the Grey story.

Scott Denté says, "It seems that whenever we tell someone we are signing with Rocketown, their first response is 'Out of the Grey at Rocketown...what perfect fit!' We think so too. Having watched from afar for the last few years, we've always been impressed with Rocketown's commitment to music with integrity and their focus on artist-driven ministry. To be invited along is humbling and exciting to us. We can't wait to get started."

Rocketown Records will implement an extensive marketing campaign around the new recording. Highlights of this campaign will include: an exclusive "live" bonus EP available with early editions of the record, promotional tour during street week of the release, a new official website and a full tour in Fall 2001.

Uh, wasn't Storm Shadow a bad guy?

Yeah, about a week ago I put up a bunch of random Roses and Raspberries, just kind of to see if people would notice and put up more, but no one did. Anyway, I arranged it so each list ended well, and then moo goes and ruins it by putting up these not just unfunny but inane roses/raspberries. Yet another reason to hate moo.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, head of the Olympics Committee, made a statement saying like the U.S. is in the frontrunning for the 2012 Olympics. Pretty surprising. But anyway, the Bay Area is making a bid for those Olympics. I was reading about the details, and if it happens, then all the main ceremonies would take place at Stanford stadium. That's dope. A bunch of events would take place at Stanford also. Cal gets pretty much nothing. Basketball. Couple other things.

Anyway, if that happens, that's where we're having the FiCS 17-year reunion. At Stanford Stadium during the opening cermonies.

We've been playing Bust A Move again, and I haven't been winning consistently at all. I don't know, I'm good enough to beat 2 other people, but not good enough to beat 3 other people, so, it's always close and I win a minority of the time. One night John Yoon won 2 out of 3 matches. The thing is, he emplyed a strategy that guaranteed his failure. The only reason he won was that he wasn't good enough to execute his strategy. Thus, his failing strategy wasn't completed, and as it turned out, he won. Anger. But whatever, close games are fun.

I personally thought what the Supreme Court did before was brilliant. Sending the case down back to the Florida Supreme Court. Just, they knew that presenting consensus was the best thing they could do, but there was clearly no consensus on the court. I think most of them believed that what the Florida Supreme Court (hereafter the FSC) did was wrong, but some still believed that the final say should be made by the state, it not being a federal issue.

So, they made this consensus decision to send it back down. I don't know, I read it, and the way I interpreted it was as a way to let the FSC know that they erred, but without having to intervene themselves and make it a federal issue. It was like telling them, reconsider, change your minds, so that we're satisfied and it's resolved on a state level. I don't know, it was just a move that satisfied everyone, those who believed the FSC erred, those who believed it should be a state issue, and everyone, who believed consensus was ideal. A brilliant move.

But then the FSC showed what idiots they are. I'm not joking, I think I have more legal understanding than the majority who made that idiotic decision. Of course the Supreme Court wasn't going to accept it, that was obvious, but they went ahead and did it anyway, virtually ignoring what the Supreme Court said before. I don't know, I read the opinions of the FSC, both the concurring and dissenting opinions, and the most clear arguments to me were those written by the FSC chief justice, who dissented. The majority went out of their way to base everything only on Florida law and not their constitution, but it still wasn't compelling where they're basing their actions on. The point I think the Supreme Court was making earlier to the FSC is that you can't just go and change the rules after the fact - this isn't rooted in the law itself. So don't do that. But the FSC did. Idiots.

So, it doesn't matter how brilliantly you play the game, if your opponents are flaming idiots. For some reason, this reminded me of playing Risk. I play Risk from time to time, and it's really hard to play with people who make stupid moves. Not to be mean, but Joe Kim is one of them. At the ski trip last year, we played, and, not to brag, but I played optimally. But that doesn't matter. Joe, to have played optimally, should have followed my advice. Instead, he followed someone else's stupid advice, and not only did I lose, but of course he lost also. He followed a path that guaranteed his failure, and in the face of such idiotic strategy, there's not much I can do.

So to my surprise, I've found that I like Roger Ebert as a movie critic (watching the show I always liked Siskel much better). The thing is, every so often he writes articles on politics, and he's so blatantly liberal it annoys me. Not him being liberal itself. Everyone has a right to believe what they want so whatever. It's just that he's so overwhelmingly so that it blinds him.

Here's an article he wrote on November 24. I'll just quote the first two paragraphs and the last one:

"Now the end game begins. By Sunday, all ballots that can be counted will be counted.

Al Gore has said he will abide by the final election results as certified by the State of Florida. Will George W. Bush? Or will his team, which attacks the Democrats for 'wanting to keep counting until they win,' try new legal and legislative maneuvers until they win? For Gore, there is an end in sight, one way or the other. For Bush, no end is in sight except a Bush victory....

Gore offers to meet with Bush to cool the air. Bush will not meet. Gore promises to abide by the final Florida decision. Bush will not abide. Which is more presidential?"

Hey Roger, Gore didn't abide by the final election results certified by the state of Florida. Oops: you were wrong. What pissed me off about this article was how blind he was. I'm sure Bush would have done the same thing Gore did were the positions reversed. I'm not saying he's better in this regard. They're both politicians. But Ebert somehow believed that Gore was above it, that somehow he was nobler. I think time has shown that to be false. He fought until he had no more choice. Presidential my butt.

Another thing that made me angry is that Gore, while not supporting those lawsuits that wanted to throw out a bunch of overseas ballots, allowed them to continue. It just made me angry because it was so hypocritical considering his public stance: count every vote. If that's really what he believed, he should have asked the people filing those lawsuits to stop. But he didn't.

Anyway, I'm not saying Bush is any better. They're both politicians, through and through. I watched the speeches last night - Bush is probably a little mentally slow, also. (But he struck me as way more sincere, though less intelligent, than slimy Gore.) I'm just saying, Ebert's articles anger me because it's so partisan it's blind. Like he wrote an article today that says, "The Democrats were on the whole more civil in their public statements."

My goodness. Give me a break. Both sides were dirty and did employed all the rhetoric they could to win. Argh, blindness.

I once wrote a letter to Santa and got a reply. I don't know, that was kind of cool.

One of the dissenting opinions (Stevens?) kept saying how they were wrong in all they did, including taking the case. But since the Court ruled 7-2 that the Florida Supreme Court was wrong in how they ordered the recounts, it seems that they weren't wrong in taking the case.

I don't know, whether they should have taken the case to me doesn't seem to be a matter of whether it belongs in the judicial realm at all, but whether the authority lied with the state courts or the federal courts.

So I'm rereading Marshall's pages. I don't know, it's interesting to see the connections of people. Like, "Dave" at church is Dave Chu. "Aunt Susan" is Susan Cho Van Riesen, the one speaking at Urbana. The "cousin's girlfriend" is Jieun. The cousin getting married is my sister. "Aunt Ann" is Ann Cho (now Kim) who went to Stanford and was in IV our frosh year. And cousin Danny is me.

Go to this page and do a search for "Danny Chai".

Random.

And this one

It's finally over. I'm watching Gore's speech on CNN.com right now.

Dude. Maybe I'm prejudiced, but he seems so incredibly slimy. I seriously can't believe any word he's saying is sincere. Not that Republicans are any better. Certainly not. But watch Gore talk. Slimy.

Anyway, if you're a Republican, enjoy things now, because unless the Republican party changes, I don't think we're gonna have a Republican president for a long time. If Nader hadn't run, there's pretty much no question Gore would have won. There are just a lot more liberals out there.

But, if anyone can change the Republican Party, I think it's George Bush. Just, no one seems to realize why he is so popular in Texas. But he really is, overwhelmingly so. There has to be a reason for that. I think he reaches out to people well. At least in Texas. We'll see what happens.

Am I the only one that was disturbed by Darlene's Keith Lee slams? It's no more disturbing than anything else up there, but everyone already knows that me, Dave, Henry, Andrew, and Gus are deeply disturbed. Who knew Darlene?

So, I mentioned elsewhere how when you're playing piano/keyboard, it's not just playing the right chords that matters, it's how you play the chord, both in terms of note choice and rhythm that makes all the difference. Like, in the recording to "You're the Source", the piano plays a terrible B7 chord on "gone running wild" where the A is the top of the chord.

Maybe people don't understand this, but just take my word for it - that's a terrible way to play that chord. In fact, just choosing B7 instead of B is a poor decision, but if you're going to play it, it would be much better to play, for example, a lower chord, F# A D# with a B in the left hand. Believe me, it sounds a lot better. Anything but the A at the top. Hold me Jesus, I'm shaking like a leaf.

Anyway, all of praise piano is like that - the choice and rhythm in playing a particular chord makes all the difference, and that's hard to teach. I mean, it's easy to say, play a D here, but how do you explain how to play that D chord in different situations when there are no rules?

The way I learned, I think, was by playing a lot of sheet music. Like, buy all the Hosanna and Vineyard songbooks and play them exactly like it's written in the music, not just the chords, but the music. And buy like CCM songbooks and do the same thing. Any popular music, actually. And play it a lot. I just think that doing this builds your intuitions about how to phrase chords and stuff like that. You can't really teach it, I think, but if you play it enough, you'll build intuitions.

Anyway, in high school, I'd play the Hosanna songs exactly like the songbooks, and I learned a whole bunch of CCM on piano. To this day, I can play like nearly any Amy Grant or Michael W. Smith song that was written for piano. And I think that's what built my intuitions as to how to play chords.

So, not that anyone's asking, but if anyone wants to know how to play praise piano, I say buy lots of songbooks, both praise songbooks and pop music songbooks and play the songs a lot.

If you're not reading Marshall's page, hell is a legitimate concern.

Mr. Showbiz gave Dazed and Confused a score of 84. I missed something. That movie was one of the most boring, tedious movies I've seen in my entire life. Ugh.

So, I'm reading the transcripts of the arguments before the Supreme Court, and dude, they are smart people.

Why do so many legal documents talk about being under the laws of the state of Delaware? Why Delaware?

I know most of my Keith Lee slams have sucked, but dude, try doing it yourself. It is really hard.

I take full credit for creating the jack.html "community". I think a lot of people read each others' pages and there's no way that would have happened if it weren't for me. My crowning achievement I think is Marshall. Thanks to my prodding, a lot of people are reading his page (as they should - it's great), and some e-mail him and stuff.

Anyway, my claim is that few other people, if any, would have been able to pull off forming this "community" (by community I mean people who don't really know each other, don't talk to each other, and can't really call each other friends, but somehow have a strange but meaningful relationship over the web). Seriously. If someone else had done it, it wouldn't have worked. That's my claim.

So, people probably don't understand why we slam Urbana worship team so much. It's just, a bunch of us went to Urbana '96, and I'm sorry, the music was terrible. I mean, it was OK, it's just, this conference was huge, you can get a better team, you know?

The most annoying thing is that they sang a bunch of songs that no one knew and that were terrible that were written by members of the team themselves. I'm talking seriously terrible songs - not particularly inspiring lyrics, terrible instrumentation, and mind-dumbingly poor melodic lines.

Anyway, what annoyed me most was their philosophy of how to put worship sets together. It was very "team" oriented. Meaning, everyone has a say, no one has a final say. It just kind of randomly comes together without a overlying vision that you can only get with a clear leader, and that's terrible. And you could tell. They were only able to pull it off because they had some talented people on the team. But at the worship team seminar, they were advocating that style for everyone. Bad, bad advice.

It's bothered me so much to this day that at that praise conference I went to a while back, I asked Paul "Open the Eyes of my Heart" Baloche about it, and he pretty much said that one person has to be the leader and take charge with it. And I definitely trust Paul "Above All" Baloche more that Urbana "Grow Something New" '96 worship team. So to recap: I was right.

Anyway, I could go on and on about what was bad about that team, like how certain songs made people seriously afraid, but it would take a while, and it's not that important. The thing is, a lot of people liked it a lot. So, really, us making fun of it shows our evil music elitism more than anything else. But I'm sorry, I know music, and I can explain why things were objectively bad.

But if you're going to Urbana, seriously, don't go in with a bad attitude about anything, even the worship team - it will just poison you. I'm not joking, I have friends who should know better who were really blessed by the worship at Urbana, so, the right attitude can change anything. And even though we made fun of it, we all still stole the lyric sheets to all the songs that they told us not to take. Uh, at least I did.

There's another worship team we make fun of also. A few years ago IV had this pretty bad worship team. Featured was this bassist who would play random notes and random rhythms. Utterly random. Like even at the end, when a team would all end together and play a G chord, he would play, a half second later, like an Eb. I only heard them a few times, but, it made an impression.

It's pretty terrible that we make fun of worship teams. But, just explaining things for people who don't understand.

I read more of John's magazine on the toilet and read some good stuff.

There was this one article, and I forget what it was about, but there were some points made in the article that I really liked. It quoted someone, I think maybe Os Guinness, who said that the biggest problem with Christianity today is a general lack of thinking. I'm doing a grave injustice to the quote, but that was the gist.

The point of that quote was that modern Christianity in large part replaces understanding with pure action. And you know, faith isn't just about thinking about things. But, the problem of replacing thought with just action is that it reduces Christianity to formulas, to rules of action, and some might say, to legalism. This is what you do to be Christian. Rather than, this is what you believe.

I totally agree. I don't know, I just think there's a general lack of thought and understanding in modern Christianity. Related to that, I think in a large way, modern Christians have chosen to deliberately not think about certain things in the world, and that's seriously hindering people from being able to believe. Like in regards to science. Like evolution.

There's a movement now called Intelligent Design, which seeks to intelligently explain a rational Creator in light of scientific understanding. Not all of them (any of them, maybe) believe in evolution. I don't think that's the point. The point is, it's good for Christians to think about, instead of just consciously deciding to ignore the issue.

Uh, random comment with no point.

So, Bible study last Friday was good again. The leader brought up an interesting observation. Starting in Matthew 8, Jesus goes through this cycle where he does a few healings/miracles and then talks about discipleship (by discipleship, I mean, being a disciple of Jesus, which is what the texts talk about). It's just interesting how this happens.

And, I don't know, I'm still on my "Matthew makes sense now" kick. Just, to me, it all makes sense considering the 2 points of Matthew. The first few healings show he was prophesized by Isaiah (according to Matthew 8:17). And then Jesus tempers expectations by explaining that following him isn't what they think it is.

Successive miracles give more insight into Jesus - that even nature obeys him, and that there is an appointed time when Jesus will deal with demons. Then in chapter 9 he shows that he has the authority to forgive sins. Then with what he's done, he explains what he's doing, and why he hangs with sinners, and that he's ushered in a new age (the new wineskins thing). Again (to me), it's the two messages of Matthew that makes this order make sense. He gradually reveals who he is, and also how he's different.

Anyway, random comment.

This Christian radio station K-Joy has this catchphrase that they use, "We have a song for every need because there's a need for every song."

Hello? Is this supposed to make any sense? What the heck does it mean? Honestly, is this supposed to be deep or profound or something? Because it's not even sensical. I'm not joking, every time I hear it, I just get angry, because I'm sure the person who came up with it thought they were being cute and or clever, but it makes zero sense.

Or maybe it does make sense, it's just I strongly disagree with it. I can definitely say there's not a "need" for nearly any Point of Grace song they play.

I will never forget the infamous Judy Lee Korea House dinner. The thing is, FiCS didn't always have a dinner at the end of the quarter. Just sometimes.

Jimmy also started the brothers "serving" the sisters (dirty) on Valentine's Day tradition. Frosh year, we cooked Korean food for them. The rice didn't turn out right, so we ended up taking all the rice from the huge rice cookers in Manzanita. Sophomore year we did the Fimo clay all day extravaganza. And of course the dirtiness reached its peak our junior year when that year's frosh (Class of '00) guys recited poetry for the sisters. This "poetry" included these exact words: "Jane, you are the Jane of my jungle." Yeah, that's encouraging, Barnabus.

Anyway, it stuns me that they still call it Operation Hot Cocoa. Paul Lee's legacy lives on.

There was an interesting article in the San Jose Mercury a while back about how the economic boom in Silicon Valley really has just even more separated the haves from the have-nots. This is pretty well known. It's just a particular group of people that are getting rich, getting stock options, whatever. And it's interesting the characteristics that distinguish the haves from the have-nots. One is the possession of stock options. But another surprisingly good measure they used was whether the household had gone to Fry's Electronics in the past year. Interesting.

When I responded to the fics-alum mailing list inquiry, I did two things, hoping people would follow the model:

1. Forwarded instead of responding, so there's no annoying '>' preceeding the lines of text.
2. Placed the names in alphabetical order by last name, so it would be easier to find what you need.

While on the toilet this morning, I read a couple good articles in, of all things, the Christian Research Journal. I make fun of the magazines John subscribes to but they're actually OK.

Anyway, one article was on Harry Potter. As you may or may not know, a lot of Christians are riled up about Harry Potter because it deals with witches. The article called for a little bit of restraint. He made some good points, primarily that the books aren't about witchcraft, it's about fantasy, and he thinks that's OK. As did C.S. Lewis, who wrapped up some of his views of Christianity in fantasy with the Chronicles of Narnia. And J.R.R. Tolkien, author of some of the most famous fantasy novels of all time, was Christian.

The article also pointed out how Christians have overreacted to a lot of things in the past. Like, at one point Christians were against "poetry" (which essentially meant creative fiction) because that constituted lying.

Anyway, his point was, you don't need to overreact. It's probably good to be cautious about it, and right to talk to kids about what's good and not good about it, but it's not absolutely wrong to read it.

The other article was about homosexuality and Christianity. Uh, I probably shouldn't get into this, but, it was a good article.

There was another interesting article also about some group called The Way International, I think. A cult, I'd say. The founder used to preach that women who gave men of God sex received blessings from God, and condoned (nay, advocated) adultery. He also taught that Jesus was not God. In fact, that was the name of a book he wrote. "Jesus Is Not God".

I don't know, I thought that was funny.

I know the j bulletin b is supposed to comment on jack.html pages, and not the reverse, but oh well. I just wanted to comment on some of my recent Keith Lee slams because I didn't think anyone would get it at all. Well, some people would get everything, but some wouldn't get anything.

"For Holloween, Keith distributed machetes, scissors, and needles, and Raisinets with a picture of a rabbit on the box." Uh, not sure if people picked up on it. But, what I'm implying is that Raisinets are actually rabbit droppings.

"Keith breeds huge cultures of bovine spongiform encephalitis because it 'tastes like chicken'." Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis is the dreaded Mad Cow Disease that's striking Europe.

"Keith shot J.R." For you younger readers, this comes from the 80s TV show Dallas which had this season ending cliffhanger called, "Who shot J.R.?" You probably know this, but just in case.

"Keith repeatedly went to see The Sixth Sense in the theaters, and during the opening credits, kept shouting the secret to the movie: 'The boy dies at the end! He's a Christ figure!'" The joke is, I'm giving away the ending to a movie, just not the Sixth Sense.

"Keith heads the powerful Croatian frog-leg cartel. Only he and 3 others know the true circumstances surrounding Roy Fokker's death." According to Harper's, Croatia is the leading importer of U.S. frog legs. I think. Anyway, I'm not making the frog-leg thing up. Roy Fokker is Rick Hunter's mentor in Robotech.

"Late last May, Keith held a huge campus-wide barbecue at Synergy where he roasted whole cows, pigs, and dolphins, deeply offending the residents there." Synergy is the Stanford dorm that only serves vegan/vegetarian food.

"Keith was asked to be a witness when award winning race horse Secretariat was put to sleep. He came - bringing a fork, knife, and Jello mold." Gelatin supposedly contains horse products.

"Keith, in a weak attempt to lower my morale, removed the testicles of my prize-winning fish, yelling, 'In the name of L. Ron Hubbard, I Dianeuter you!'" L. Ron Hubbard started the Scientologists, I think. Anyway, a lot of his views are found in his book "Dianetics".

"Angry at the Nobel Foundation for selecting Kim Dae Jung and Pearl S. Buck, Keith set up his own foundation to award his own prizes: the Lee War Prize, the Lee Torture Prize, and the Lee Press-On Nails Prize." Pearl S. Buck won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1938. Her most famous book is called "The Good Earth". A lot of critics think she's a not very good author, or at least not worthy of the Nobel Prize. Lee Press-On Nails are a common parting gift given to contestants on game shows produced by Merv Griffin Enterprises.

"Keith volunteered to dress up as Santa Claus at local malls this year. Big mistake. As each child sat on his lap, he would whisper to them, 'Sorry kid, your eyes aren't slanty enough. You must have been bad this year. No present for you. Maybe in a couple years. Or not. Tee hee. :9'" Tee hee :9 was a common phrase used by Clara Kim back in the days of the Clarafan / anti-Chai wars.

Random explanation of things people already know. Sorry.

I added some more songs to the music section off of jack.html. Some ones I really like are Centrifuge - You Are My God and the two PDI songs. Especially "Your Redeeming Love". Dude, she's got a great voice. It's awesome. But they're all good.

I also put up both versions of "You Are Holy" that are out there.

In the latest ESPN NBA Power Rankings, the categories are: Title Contenders, Good But... (where the Rockets fall), Not Good Enough, and Just Horrible. The Bulls are at the very bottomw in a category by themselves: A College Team.

I can't say how pleasing this is to me. I don't know, I just hate the Bulls. The same way I hate the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Yankees.

I killed the RSG.

A while ago, Eric Yang wrote this page about the advantages of being single.

I think he made a good point, but there were parts I wasn't sure about. He lists three advantages: "The first is that you have more freedom in the way that you can interact with friends of the opposite sex." That's true, kind of, but there's an interesting flip side to that - sometimes, your relationships with the opposite sex can actually be more free because you are hooked up. I've just seen examples where people become close precisely because they know nothing's going to happen (because one or the other is already hooked up). Otherwise, there can be this tension there. I don't know, I've just seen it happen before.

"Number two, life is simpler if you don't have a significant other. Spats? Breaking up? "Issues"? All gone from your life. Not having a significant other not only gives you more time to do things in general (because you don't have to spend it with your significant other), but it also reduces your stress level as a whole (because you're not worrying about your relationship with your significant other)." Also true. but again, there's a flip side. I don't know, the relationship described here seems to be more unhealthy than good. I think in a good relationship, you're not spending most of your time "worrying" about the relationship, but enjoying it. And that's less stressful than being alone. And I think, eventually, most people don't want more time to do things in general, they eventually just want someone to spend time with.

"And number three is that you can make major decisions in your life without taking other people into account. This is significant in terms of both career and long-term vision for your life.... However, I would like to point out once again that being single makes these decisions really easy, because you don't have to take other people's concerns into account." This one made me think a bit. I don't know, I just think yeah, you don't have to worry about someone now, but you have to worry about someone eventually, you know? If you make a decision that would be very hard on a partner, it's not just that you're hurting a relationship if you're in one now, but you might be affecting possible relationships in the future. Does this make any sense? So like his example is of the female cardiovascular surgeon. If she's not hooked up, I don't know if her decision doesn't have to take anyone else into account - pursuing it might make it harder for her relationships in the future, you know? It's like, your decisions aren't affecting any specific person now, but they might be affecting possible potential people in the future. I don't know, just, I don't think these kinds of decisions are easy. You still have to consider people. The only difference is, you're considering possible people instead of a real person.

I don't know if you buy that, though. And, it's true that if you make decisions while you're single, it's more likely that when (if) you hook up later, your partner will be more amenable to the life decision you made. But I don't know; why would you want to do whatever you wanted alone? I guess thinking about another person is a drag, but it's fun too.

But, Eric's main point is well made. I like what Rich Mullins said once. About marriage. Something like, to those people who weren't strong enough to be single, God gave to marriage. And to those people who weren't strong enough to be married, God gave to singlehood. I guess the point is, whatever situation we're in, we should take advantage of it, and not be wanting something else.

So there are two types of people in life: those that prefer the toilet paper to face outwards and those that prefer it to face inwards. I'm solidly an outwards person, meaning, I like the free end of the roll to face me. It's just easier to access that way. One thing I've learned this year is that John is an inwards person. I've never talked to him about it, but I've never understood the inwards philosophy. It's just so much harder to access your toilet paper - I don't get it. I've always wondered how many people are outwards vs. inwards, and why anyone would prefer that the free end of the toilet paper face the wall.

Here's the Supreme Court decision in regards to the extension of the deadline for manual recounts in Florida by the Florida Supreme Court.

It's pretty dope. I've never read a Supreme Court decision before, but I don't know, it's kind of cool. When they refer to the Florida Supreme Court, they use a lowercase "court". But when they refer to themselves, they use the uppercase "Court". Very cool. The coolest part, I think, is the very end, where it says, It is so ordered. Whoa. Power. That's a phrase I want to use just once in my life.

Now, I'm just a caveman, and I don't understand law, but this totally fascinates me. I read some stuff in the Mercury over the weekend, and it noted that an idea came up (not presented by Bush's lawyers) during oral arguments before the Supreme Court, that Scalia and others seemed to hold onto that centered on Article II, whatever that means. But it's something in the U.S. Constitution that talks about (Andrew can correct me) the state legislatures' rights to select Presidential electors. Thus, the Florida Supreme Court, by effectively changing the terms of laws enacted before the election, were in violation of this.

According to the Mercury, this argument troubled some observers because (and again, I'm just a caveman, this world frightens me, so I might not be understanding) this Article (II) is one that didn't trust the people to select a president, and thus gave power to the state legislatures. In times since, the legislatures' decisions have been based on the democratic vote, but by focusing on Article II, it's emphasizing the power of the state legislature to choose electors over the people's right to vote for them. In the extreme (according to the Mercury, and with my limited legal understanding), it's saying that people don't have the right or power to elect a president.

Anyway, like I keep saying, I don't fully understand it, but whatever, it's fascinating to me.

Eric Yang informs me that my Keith Lee slam was inaccurate because you can't culture the mad cow disease thing because it's a prion. But you see, that's what makes the whole post funny. Of course it's a prion. That's why it's absurd.

Anyway, the Survivor book is great. It's interesting because the crew totally got into it, became a part of it. When Gretchen was voted off, they were devastated, and they realized it was becoming something they didn't like. Something mean and devious and manipulative. It wasn't noble anymore, and that really affected them.

Another interesting thing is that, as you would expect, the crew gossiped about the castaways during down time, the castaways would also gossip about the crew. They'd overhear things and they knew stuff about the crew, and that's just fascinating.

They also plotted against TV, by staging fake conversations and stuff so that the crews wouldn't know what's going on.

I don't know, I love Survivor. There's just so much there about human interaction and politics and strategy and conscience and everything that I find it endlessly fascinating. I can't wait for Survivor II. January, baby! Woo hoo!

This entry will only be interesting if you watched Survivor.

So, I'm still reading the Survivor book and it's seriously fascinating. It's interesting because the author (the producer of the show) doesn't just recount events. In fact he leaves out a lot. He spends more time doing analysis, talking about motives and feelings and stuff like that. It's likely speculative, since he can't really know, but it's fascinating regardless.

Anyway, it's given me a lot of insight. First of all, I hate Sue. In her first two tribal councils, she went in telling people that she would form an alliance with them, and then when it came time to vote, she backstabbed them and changed her vote (with Sonja and Stacey). She's just evil - it angers me.

Another interesting thing is that Dirk really was kicked off because he was a Christian. Or so outspoken about it. But, it's really interesting what the producer has to say about it. He says the reason people didn't like it is because it made them feel worse in comparison. Here's the passage:

Dirk's demise was probably a few Tribal Councils off. But it was sure to come, for he was beginning to annoy Tagi. The reason was his Christianity. There seems to be something threatening about a devout person of any faith to non-believers. It's as though a mirror is being held up to their faults. They feel judged. Whenever an individual closer to life's ideal state comes in contact with those drifting further away - a physically fit person in a room of smokers, a mentally balanced person speaking with someone fragmented and dysfunctional - that person is quietly scorned as a reminder of imperfection. Thus the universal dislike for those seeking a higher plane. Mankind, by it's very nature, is an imperfect animal. It's easier to revel in imperfection and mock those taking the bold step towards improvement than to actually attempt the step.

The book doesn't really slam Dirk as being a stupid Christian, by the way. He pretty much comes across as sincere and devout, even if people don't agree. When he got kicked off (and he knew it was coming) he left his Bible behind, so his teammates could find it and read it. Interesting thing is, a couple days after he left, they did find it. And Rich read from it for like an hour, as Rudy and Sean listened nearby. Fascinating.

He has other fascinating analyses as well. Like the difference between Tagi (Rich's tribe, which was evil and formed alliances early) and Pagong (the more youth dominated tribe). His analysis of Pagong is really interesting.

... they [Pagong] were a fragmented assemblage of individuals. Gretchen had the depth that came from raising two children, but she was growing less verbal with every passing day because her age and outspokenness made her vulnerable. The others had all come to Pulau Tiga with almost cold-blooded expectations of winning. While the Tagi were bonding and working as a family unit, Pagong circled one another warily. They made a great show of unity at Reward Challenges and Tribal Challenges, and they hiked occasionally to one of the mud volcanoes to slather each other with therapeutic mud. But they were pretenders.... No one person annoyed Pagong. Rather, all of Pagong annoyed Pagong.

That might have been englightening if the tribe displayed some genuine emotion like rage or hatred. But they liked to pretend they were a happy-go-lucky clan, even though their camp consisted of just a lean-to and latrine, they'd caught only one small fish after dozens of attempts, and everyone was slowly starving....

Even salt and pepper sounded otherworldly. Their rice diet was tasteless and unchanging. Dinner hour conversation invariably included a sentence beginning with, "Wow, if only I had something to spice this up..."

Yet they were so caught up in pretending to be happy that they were unable to drop their disingenuousness long enough to actually earn their coveted spices. The next day's Reward Challenge... asked each team to prepare a distress signal on their beach. The winning team would be the one with the most distressful signal, the kind of signal that would leave no doubt they were stranged on a deserted island and needed to be rescued....

Tagi, the family unit, carved a large "SOS" into the beach. An arrow made of driftwood and sea shells bobbed offshore, pointing to their location. They also planned to light a signal fire, use a piece of metal to reflect sunlight onto the plane, make a large arrow on the sand, and even don their yellow rain jackets and lie on the ground in a circle. Their heads would be in the middle of the circle, with their bodies extending outward like the rays of the sun. To enhance the effect, they would move their arms and legs in unison, creating the sand equivalent of snow angels.

Pagong built a happy face.

Richard had a dream. He was on the Sand Spit with a man. Things were white hot, with lots of wrestling on the powdery earth. The tide lapped against their tawny bodies. The dream was vivid, with dialogue and in Technicolor. Sweat. Friction.

But it was pitch black when Richard woke up in the Tagi hooch, staring up at the nipa leaves lining the ceiling's interior. His four tribe members breathed silently. Their bodies were pressed close on the Phillipine mahogany floorboards. With a sigh, he realized the fantasy wasn't real.

He willed himself back to sleep, but couldn't wait for morning. In the morning he would share the dream with Sean. For Sean had been the other man in the dream.

The new crush posed a dilemma for Richard. His artfully crafted alliance did not include the bright young neurosurgeon with the shaved chest, nipple ring, and careful stubble. Since it was almost certain Tagi would succumb to the Pagong juggernaut at the coming Immunity Challenge, Tagi would have to vote someone off. WIth Richard, Sue, Kelly, and Rudy all firmly ensconced in the alliance, that someone could only be Sean.

But he was so cute.

Whoa, Colleen from Survivor has her own commercial!

I had a plethora of weird dreams last night. Here's the weirdest thing. In the middle, I dreamt I woke up and wrote down my dream because it was so weird. But that must have been a dream, since I didn't find anything this morning that I wrote.

Anyway, one of the dreams I had is a common one - that I totally blew off a class and now was going to fail it. I dreamt that I hadn't actually graduated, that I needed to take a couple more classes and I hadn't attended a single one and now it was finals time.

Wait, it's weirder than that. First I dreamt it was junior high. I distinctly remember this. It was the end of the semester for junior high and I had no idea what was going on. I have this dream a lot. Sometimes, I don't even know which classroom to go to, or even how to find out which classroom to go to. And it always takes place at my junior high. Caroline Davis Intermediate.

After this dream, I had the dream where I woke up and wrote about the first dream. But that was a dream. Then I had another dream - distinct from the last one, where I dreamt I had not finished college. It was just about finals time, and I had blown off the entire course and just now showed up. And I'm freaked out and I'm wondering if I can pull off passing the course somehow at the last second. I've had this dream before also. And it's actually happened in real life once.

SN. My parents told me they still have these types of dreams also. And they've been out of school for like 30 years.

Anyway, I show up and Elaine Kim of worship team is in the class. And I ask her, "were there any midterms?" And she says, "Yeah, 2 of them." And I think, oh no, I'm screwed. And then I realize the professor is my coworker. And now I'm all embarrassed because he'll realize that I haven't attended any of the classes or done any of the work, and I have to work with him every day. And I'm trying to hide and avoid eye contact.

Can't remember the rest. Except I ended up in a bathroom and I was amazed that the graffiti was from like the 80s but was still there. This part of the dream was one of those dreams where I pee forever and still no relief. After a few minutes, it's weird, but I realized, "Oh, this is one of those perpetual peeing dreams. Now, I think I'll wake up and relieve myself." And I did. I woke up in real life and went to the bathroom and that was that.

Weird.

Awesome.

I started reading the Survivor book and dude, it's really entertaining. I totally forgot how much I loved that show. Anyway, it's interesting. One interesting thing is how the host, Jeff Probst, really is a part of it, and succumbs to the schemings of the characters along with everyone else. It's fascinating.

I noticed that some girls, whenever they take a picture, hold their faces at a specific angle towards the camera, even if it's opposite the position their body is in. I don't know, I just think it's fascinating that they want their face in the right angle. Many girls do this, but I don't think any guys do this. One of those things.

"i'm putting it in my top ten movies of all time, that's how good it was."

According to his 10 favorite movies page, that puts it squarely among his top 17 favorite movies.

That page, by the way, is one of my favorite pages Dave has written. Because there are so many errors in it. The header of the page is misspelled! "My favorite moveis."

SN. I liked Beauty and the Beast, but as I've written before, I've always found these types of movies hypocritical. And, it's present in Dave's analysis of the movie as well. It's like, one message is, it's not the outside that counts, it's the inside. But then they make the heroine hot. So what's the take home message? Everyone feels ugly. So it's about hope that someone hot will see our inner beauty and go for us. That's so flamingly hypocritical. Like, here's a phrase Dave uses: "But, what I like about this movie, as I've said before, is that it gives hope to us ugly, non social people. I mean, the thing is, Bell, come on, she's a total hottie."

That's exactly it. That's why I hate movies like that - some hot chick/stud sees the "inner beauty" of someone else. I say be consistent and give us two hideously ugly people. But that movie would bomb, because that's really not the message people want. We want everyone else to see our inner beauty, but we're not always willing to do the same. That's why you always need one hot person - that's what people really want. They want someone hot, and want someone hot to see their inner beauty.

Anyway, I'm not saying I'm not like that. I'm just saying I don't like movies that pretend to have this noble message but really, if you think about it, send a hypocritical message.

I saw Akira with Phil Sung and Jieun (for a class - Japanese Literature in Translation) and I think they both hated it. At least Jieun did. In fact, that's probably why she's turned off to anime. I think Dave hated it also. I actually can't think of a single person that liked it, except myself.

I played Bust A Move again this weekend, and it was great. Because I dominate in that game. There's only one person I've met who's better than me, and that's Chinsan. But he is far and away better - we played like dozens of times and I don't think I beat him a single time. He's that good. Incredible.

But besides him I'm pretty good. The great thing about the game is this four player mode. You might not be familiar with the game, but you want to make bubbles pop, and if you do it right, you can hurt your enemy. The great thing about the 4 player mode is that you can choose which enemy to hurt. This is great because it equalizes things a lot. Like, I was far and away the best player there, but I didn't win a single time, because the other three players focused their attacks on me, and it's just too overwhelming that way.

But still, I was in every game, and it was close. For me, the most fun is when every player really wants to win. Then, as they should, they all focus on me in the beginning. But you can't do that forever, because then someone else will win - you need to start attacking the person in the lead, and you need me to help. So then the strategy shifts. And what happens is I get back in the game. That's what happened. Like I said, I didn't ever win, but every single game was competitive among all four players, and to me, that's the most fun. Well, the most fun is when I win, but this is a close second.

Anyway, when I used to play with Henry and Dave, in case you didn't know, they can get pretty competitive about certain things. Near the end of our Bust A Move days, they'd consistently focus their attacks on me, even if someone else was on the verge of winning, and I was way way behind, so that they'd lose. It's an idiotic strategy because it dooms you to failure, but if I just lost, they jointly claimed victory. It pissed me off. But only because I'm super competitive also. But anyway, for me, that's not fun, when people don't base their strategy on themselves winning.

What was fun was when we discovered time trial mode, in which there's no attacks, it's just a matter of who can clear the screen first. I think I've told this story before. But like I said, I'm pretty good, so I was dominating, and it made Dave and Henry so angry that Dave started taking off his clothes and Henry started foaming at the mouth - no exaggeration.

That was fun.

I'll say it again: everyone needs to read Marshall's web page.

Here's a picture of my sister and brother in law, leaving the reception:

Am I the only one that likes the new Backstreet Boys song? Shape of my Heart? I don't know, I just find myself humming it at work. Pretty scary. But it's kind of catchy.

A friend of mine made an interesting comment to me about something he read. Worship is higher than missions. A lot of people tend to feel like missions is the highest, best thing. But really, the purpose of missions is to bring people to worship God. Worship really is the highest calling.

I don't know, it's just interesting to me.

I had a thought.

There was this article I read somewhere saying how peoples' big hopes for voice recognition is now being tempered. The biggest problem with sound is that it's inherently serial (serial, as opposed to parallel - you have to go through things in order, one at a time). So it will never replace like, computer monitors which can display lots of information at one time.

The thing people hate most about menu driven phone help lines is that it takes forever to navigate through it, because of that serial problem. It might serve a useful purpose, like getting you to the right place, but it sucks for the caller.

In this case, stuff like on-line menu based help is much preferable, because you can scan it a lot quicker and more quickly get to what you need. But what people hate about on-line help is that if you can't find it through the menus, you just can't find it. You're limited to what's there, and you can't really ask about something else. So in this case, phone help lines are better.

Well the web is all about fusion of media, so why not fuse these things? Why not make like voice interaction seamless through the web, so that a person looking for help can quickly navigate through online menus so he/she is pointed to the right place, and then be able to talk to the right person? It's the best of both worlds - you're quickly directed to the right place, and you get to talk with a real person.

I don't know, I just think it would revolutionize customer service, and would make people a lot happier if they could do this. Maybe they already are. If not, Eric, you have until Friday.

I'm trying to start up that music part of my web page again. There's a link to it off jack.html - let me know if you want access.

I liked The Mummy. The acting was terrible, but the effects were pretty impressive.

Uh, I meant they made $600 a year.

We had an altogether splendid meal at Roy's in San Francisco last night. Really, every dish was very well made and tasteful without being overpowering. I was pretty impressed.

It would have been perfect were it not for our annoying racist waiter. He kept being condescending to us, and treating us like we were in high school. At one point he asked us if we wanted juice or soda. Uh, you don't ask that kind of question at a fine restaurant. It bothered me, but it angered Jieun something awful.

Boys Don't Cry. I could sum up the movie as slow and extremely disturbing. Not a good combo.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. And remembered to give thanks.

I had dinner at my great-uncle's house. His life is really interesting because he came to America when he was 16, in like 1953. Anyway, he told a great story about when he was attending UT Austin in 1955. The first time he got on a bus, he didn't know where to sit. All the whites were sitting in the front, and all the blacks were sitting in the back. His first instinct was to sit in the middle. But then that would indicate that he's inferior to whites, and superior to blacks. Anyway, it's an interesting dilemma.

I also met a woman, and there were a couple teachers there so they talked about education. The topic got around to salaries. Anyway, her husband was a teacher, and when he got his first job near Davis, his weekly salary (this is either before or during WWII) was $600. When they found out he was married, they increased it to $800. I don't know, that was just weird to hear.

The other night I was at this Japanese restaurant and they were showing Japanese TV. Anyway, while we were there, the Japanese version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was on. It was fascinating - it's nearly identical to the U.S. version. Exact same studio set up, exact same music, the host looked like Regis Philbin, and kind of dressed the same way also. Just bizarre.

Anyway, while we were watching, I guess someone made it to the last question, and seriously, they extended the drama forever, like for 15 minutes. It was insane. He ended up getting it right, and then the screen kept flashing "Smallionaire." I don't know what the heck that is supposed to mean. But anyway, it was fascinating.

There was another time I was watching Japanese TV at home and this show came on and the guy was wearing the most disturbing outfit I have ever seen. It was a body suit that only covered half of his body - vertically. So an entire half of his body was exposed. I'm talking the full butt cheek, everything. He must have shaved his pubes, because there was no hair there, and he had creatively tucked his sausage and potatoes into the other (covered) side but it was absolutely repulsive.

The worst part was he kept doing like aerobic exercises, jiggling all the exposed parts. The horror.

I'm serious, those Japanese have some deep problems.

The creator of ping is dead.

So, no one even reads them, but, I've reached a new stage in my RSG posts and Keith Lee slams. Just, I'm trying to experiment more with different types of things. It's a part of growing as a poster/slammer.

Anyway, in light of my experimental mood, I kind of want to try making serious RSG posts. Is that even possible? Does the random nature of the RSG preclude any type of serious story? Would it just be boring? I don't know. But I kind of want to see what a serious RSG story would look like.

U-571 was in my opinion a really good movie. Henry hated it, but whatever. It would have been a great movie if the music weren't so bad. Argh. I could have made a better soundtrack using the Casio with keys that light up when you play them that I use at church.

So I saw two DVDs this weekend, Mission Impossible 2 and The Music Man. I actually enjoyed MI2 a lot better the second time, which is odd. Maybe because I saw it with Jieun? I don't know. But it was just more entertaining.

I liked the Music Man, even though the lead guy was annoying. I don't know, the movie's just interesting to me because it has really interesting cadence in the songs, interesting lyrics, and is a really interesting slice of American life in the early 20th century. Stuff like how they all get excited about the Wells Fargo wagon. Stuff like that. Very interesting.

There was a particularly interesting line the girl sings like "I want to find a man who cares more about me than he does about himself, and more about us than he does about me." Just an interesting line.

Also, random, but Ron Howard is in it, and so is the voice of Scuttle (the seagull? I think that's his name) in The Little Mermaid.

Anyway, something I realized about old musicals. I just think they're a lot more subtle than movies nowadays. Like, in a lot of them, like things just happen that to me just seems to come out of nowhere. Like, in My Fair Lady, the end is just weird to me. Like, do they like each other for real? It's a little weird. And like, with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, when she gets pregnant, it's just like what? When did that happen? Anyway, with the Music Man, I don't understand why she falls for him and why. I mean, they kind of explain it, but when it happens and how she realizes it, it's just very subtle.

Uh, no one watches musicals anymore and no one cares. Oh well.

There was an article in the Mercury yesterday about the school reunion craze in Korea, like that ILoveSchool website that matches up long lost friends. Pretty interesting.

The interesting thing was the angle it took - that its popularity in Korea is unique, because school ties are so important there. Like, how in government, they often give positions to old school friends. I don't know, it amazes me how my parents keep in touch with their high school and college friends. My mom recently went on a reunion trip to the Grand Canyon with her college classmates. It's been like 31 years. Anyway, they apparently all shared their lives and cried together and all that. I don't know, it's very weird.

And when I was younger, we would every once in a while go to some get together with my dad's classmates, either high school or college. He went to the best high school (Kyunggi? I forget the name) and best college (Seoul National) and apparently people who went to both are part of this powerful clique. But yeah, at any rate, it amazes me how they keep in touch.

The article was kind of funny also. Some people are obsessed, like they have reunions every day. And there was this one story of how it ruined a guy's life, like his girlfriend refound her first love through the site or something. Anyway, interesting article.

As you may or may not know, Apple's new OS is built on the FreeBSD Unix OS. So there are some interesting parts to it. Like, the terminal program is a tcsh shell. And it includes emacs and perl. And many GNU tools like tar, gzip and such. Weird.

From the Onion:

Recount Reveals Nader Defeated

TALLAHASSEE, FL-- A third recount by Florida election officials has "definitively determined" that Green Party candidate Ralph Nader was defeated in the state. "There was a very significant 25,603-vote discrepancy between the first two counts, with Nader losing by respective margins of 2,812,339 and 2,837,942, so we decided to conduct a hand recount," Florida Attorney General Jim Smith said. "We now know that Nader lost by precisely 2,821,278 votes." It is not yet known whether Nader lost to Gore or Bush.

• NBC News Reverses Earlier Report of Gore's Death
• Serbia Deploys Peacekeeping Forces To U.S.
• Bush Executes 253 New Mexico Democrats - Retakes State's Five Electoral Votes
• Clinton Declares Self President For Life

Umm, Dave, I don't think Paul was at the Last Supper.

"i have a new term for introverts--we aren't shy, we are just efficient with our words. I think henry said something to that effect--that women tend to just spout the most useless things when they talk. it's just, we are efficient--when we talk, we get to the point. we tell you what we think you think will be useful to the conversation."

This makes zero sense. The women Henry was talking about are pretty much introverted. So being "efficient with words" is clearly not the criteria for introvertedness.

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail in regards to the entry below, which I pretty much agree with. I hope it's OK that I'm posting it, but here it is (edited):

What I think is the sad thing is that a lot of Christians "rally against" a bunch of social issues, not just pop culture.

They fail to understand the issues, and yet mobilize people against those issues which they do not understand. I've seen this happen at a church where the pastor was preaching against gays and he claimed the "gay agenda" was "to make everyone gay."

i couldn't believe it. i actually said something to the pastor and he was taken aback that i didn't just accept what he said as doctrine. i knew a handful of gays and lesbians. they surely weren't trying to make everyone gay.

the same thing happens in the abortion debate. what saddens me is that some christians unilaterally determine that pro-life is clearly *the* solution and the *correct* solution to the social problem. yet i think as evidenced by what females have to say, most of the time, males just don't fully grasp the issue.

it seems that the church is often motivated by fear. instead of seeking to understand "the other side", it mobilizes against "the other side" out of fear.

I don't know, I'm just of the opinion that a lot of these major complicated issues are just that - complicated, and it's just not easy to know what's best.

Something happened at church this Sunday that made me angry. Well actually, it more made me sad. The director of the children's ministry passed out copies of this article from some Christian talking about how Harry Potter is evil. And it had all these examples and quotes, and asked us to pray.

The thing is, all the quotes and examples were from a single article from a website, a copy of which was attached and handed out. And the website was The Onion.

Maybe you don't know it, but that site is probably the most well known satirical site on the web. Like, one of this week's articles talks about how Mozambique is out of toilet paper. It's utterly absurd.

And the Potter article in question was clearly satire. Just so way over the top. I thought it was funny. Like, it talked about how children were forming black magic clubs with names like "Potterites to Destroy Jesus" and stuff like that. And absurd quotes from Rowling saying like, "Why are parents getting mad at me for introducing their children to Satanism? They should be thanking me." Stuff like that. Obviously satire.

I guess not so obvious. It just makes me sad that Christians are so hypersensitive and touchy that they can't even recognize when something is a joke. It really disturbed me. This article in question was distributed by the children's ministry director's relative's pastor. The article is a joke! Can't you see that?

And we wonder why Christians get a bad rep. Anyway, my claim is that Christians should just not talk about pop culture unless they have any clue what they're talking about. Leave the criticism and commentary for those Christians who are steeped in pop culture, who know what it's about. Otherwise you'll risk sounding stupid.

Do you remember Russ Francis? He was a tight end with the 49ers I believe in the 80s. Anyway, he ran for Congress in Hawaii. Random.

I'm nearly positive now that John Bogle is a Christian. I came across a great article by him (actually a speech) called Business as a Calling. Dude, it's great. I'm not kidding - everyone that's working needs to read this article.

So as you may or may not know, I have a new hero. His name is John Bogle, and he's well respected in financial circles. He founded the Vanguard group of mututal funds.

Anyway, he has a lot of intelligent things to say, which I totally buy. You can read some of his speeches and articles here.

I think he's a Christian also, but I'm not sure. It's just, he uses Bible quotes and stuff a lot, and speaks of the Lord. I'm not sure, though.

By the way, I read a great article in Christianity Today about investing. It was just a page long, but a good reminder. That everything we have is from God, it's been entrusted to us for us to take good care of it. But this should affect how we view investing God's money. We shouldn't not invest it. The guy who got just one talent was rebuked for not even putting it in the bank at interest. But, what it says, and what I buy, is that if we really believe it's God's to begin with, we shouldn't be speculative with it either. The point in speculation is not the responsible allocation of resources, but being risky to strike it rich. And that's not what we should be doing with God's money.

I don't know. Just for me, it was a good reminder. Even though I have, even now, not had the money to invest ever. I don't think it's wrong to speculate a tiny amount for the fun value. But I don't think we should be speculating huge amounts. Not with God's money. And it's all God's money.

So what I'm saying is, index funds. I'm a big fan.

I freaking talk about Dewey/Truman at least daily. At least.

I saw something really interesting with the election results. Has everyone seen the colored U.S. map where it shows which candidate won which state? Like, in terms of size, Bush won most of the country, and won the most states. It's just, there are small pockets of areas Gore won and that was enough to give him the popular vote. But it's really striking how it looks.

The more interesting thing to me was seeing a California state map, showing which candidate won each county. It looked exactly the same. There are huge regions colored for Bush, and then these population pockets where Gore won. It was interesting for me because Gore won California handily. I just assumed he won pretty much the whole state. But the trends in California look exactly like the national trends. Interesting.

The influence of Korean newspapers in America is also shocking. Just, a lot of Korean parents I know, the newscasts, the media can say whatever they want and they'll ignore it. But if the Korean newspaper says something, they take it as gospel. Weird.

Joe Montana, the greatest quarterback who ever lived, was on J.T. the Brick today. J.T. used the phrase "pumped up" about the interview about 30 times. It was pretty dope. It's clear that Joe was one of the most intelligent quarterbacks ever also.

Dave, I saw an ad for a group that's pushing for the 2012 Olympics being in the Bay Area. So, someone is trying to make it happen.

I typed it shortsighted in the beginning but switched to misspelling it to shortsided at the end. Weird.

End of a long week. I think I earned my money this week. I don't deserve it, but I earned it, if that makes any sense.

The Florida ballot:

Just saw Little Mermaid 2. The story was pretty bad. Every plot element was totally random and arbitrary. But, whatever. I appreciated the Asian mer-man. Talk about PC.

The best part of the DVD however, were the bonus features. It had a trivia game that was actually amusing. And a little science lesson about sea creatures. Also, a classic Disney cartoon (a Silly Symphony) called Merbabies or something like that. I didn't get it. I think people were entertained by different things in the past.

Praise God. Out of the Grey got a recording contract with Rocketown Records, Michael W. Smith's record company. They'll start recording in December. Praise God.

Jieun's profile is nothing like her, though. Nothing at all.

Whoa. Henry's profile is exactly him. That's amazing. Notices small details. Quite critical. Precise in things that interest him, but restless. That's completely accurate. Doesn't like when people are messing around or producing sloppy work.That's so true. Very analytical. Definitely. I love the first label on his serious and conservative section: No Fool. That sums up Henry pretty well, I'd say.

That home thing is also true. The lack of taste thing, also true. I don't know, I think it's pretty amazing.

I came across another personality test that was the most accurate I've seen. I'm not saying it's totally accurate, just the most accurate one. Which doesn't really make sense, because it has the least reason to be accurate. Anyway, it can be found here.

Here's my profile.

Personalized Romantic Profiles

	VITALITY AND SELF Versatile and unpredictable
Sensitivity	Daniel is basically an emotional and intuitive person. He doesn't put rigid boundaries between himself and other people, meaning that he is flexible and adaptable. If he chooses, he can easily empathize, be friendly, understanding and compassionate. However, this sensitivity also means that he needs to protect himself. Therefore he may close his eyes to his immediate surroundings and go into a world of his own imagination. When he does that he becomes absent-minded and withdrawn.
Self-sacrifice	As a result of his sensitivity he tends to sacrifice himself for the person he loves. This also applies to things he believes in: career, family or "a cause". His sensitivity also allows him to understand complex issues intuitively and to look at the big picture. This means he's likely to become an expert in his chosen field.
Creative	Daniel is at his best when focusing on creative tasks, especially when they serve some higher purpose or benefit society. He needs color and dreams to propel him onwards.
Alone time	Due to his imagination and his tendency to sacrifice his own needs, he tends to lose focus and direction. To avoid this he needs time alone, at least once in a while, to meditate, think deeply and focus on what's important and what's not.
No confrontations	Generally speaking, Daniel is unpredictable. He doesn't like hurting people or confronting unpleasant issues head-on. He tends to deal with negative matters in a roundabout manner.
Time and quiet	How to approach him: The best way to connect with him is to be soft-spoken and to listen carefully. The key is to be relatively calm and observant and have time and quiet to get close. This might mean going on a journey, taking long walks, going to the movies or having intimate evenings at home with music and candlelight.
Chameleon	Keep in mind that Daniel tends to adapt to the environment of his choice and to behave accordingly. When by himself or somewhere else, he may behave differently or change his mind about things. Ideally his partner should be flexible around him and show tolerance for his unpredictable behavior. If he is not unpredictable, he is likely sacrificing a part of his personality for you or someone he cares for.
Own world	If you start living together, expect him to withdraw into his own world, at least once in a while. He needs space to recharge his batteries. (Sun in Pisces)

	Sensitive and secretive
Control	>Daniel's emotions are powerful and sensitive, meaning that he can easily tune into undercurrents and see through superficialities. Consequently he can't bear to have people around him all the time and needs to control his surroundings as a means of protecting his feelings.
Wary	His sensitivity to what's "behind the facade", means that he can be somewhat of a cynic and is often wary of people, especially those who are superficial or dishonest.
Don't pry!	Ideally, his home should be a place of privacy, as he doesn't like to have his affairs pried into. He dislikes being told what to do. He also dislikes showing his emotions or baring his soul. Secrecy is what he likes.
Caution!	How to approach him: Proceed with caution, as he is hard to approach emotionally. Expect to take some time to get to know him. If suggesting a place for your first date, have it someplace private, where the two of you can be alone and talk undisturbed.
Alone time	If a relationship forms, beware of smothering him. He needs to be left alone once in a while to focus his emotions and rid himself of external influences. (Moon in Scorpio)

	Creative and sensitive
Romantic fantasy	Daniel is a sensitive and imaginative lover. He is capable of being very romantic, but is also unpredictable. Fantasy and imagination are an important part of his love life, meaning that he needs color and mystery to stimulate his feelings. These might include music, flowers, poetry, games, candlelight and so forth.
Helpful or absent	He is flexible in his relations with others and capable of a great deal of empathy. He does not put barriers between himself and other people and is usually tolerant, compassionate and helpful. On the other hand, he can easily slip into his own world and become absent-minded and unaware of his surroundings.
Love the world	Daniel dislikes mundane relationships and prefers not to focus emotionally on just one person. This does not mean that he needs to have many lovers, only that part of him needs to "love the world" and focus on altruism.
Altruism or art	To be happy he should ideally be involved in altruistic social activities, or channel his emotions and talents into artistic projects or interests.
Touch his soul	How to approach him: If you want his attention you should try to stimulate his imagination and sense of wonder. Mystery turns him on. For your first date you might suggest a concert, a moonlit walk or a secluded and enchanted place where you can focus on each other and talk intimately. To bond with him, you need to touch his soul. He's the kind of guy who is moved by stories of hardship, gallantry or grand artistic visions. He is thrilled by ideas of setting off with his soul mate on a crusade to save the world. Though he may never formulate this consciously, the fact remains that music, creativity and imagination move him deeply. (Venus in Pisces)

The drama of the election continues. It's great. Anyway, Dave, you're an idiot. People will remember this, just like people remember Truman and Dewey. Just because you don't because you're an ignoramus doesn't mean the country will. This is a big deal.

I love irony.

Shortly before the election, the Gore camp issued some statement or whatever saying why, in the case of a candidate winning the electoral college while not winning the popular vote, it is Constitutionally valid and should be supported and not contested blah blah blah. This was back in the days when most thought Bush would win the popular vote but that Gore could win the electoral college.

Now it turns out Gore won the popular vote but Bush (probably) the electoral college. Because of that statement, they can't really complain about it too much. Such irony. I love it.

I wrote before how I'm one of the few people to have gotten an A+, C, and NP at Stanford. In fact, I know of only one other person who's done that.

Jieun.

Reason #1,532,940 why we're meant to be together.

I've never been to a Screw Your Sib dance.

A couple of months ago I bought these shoes that were the best purchase I've ever made. They're these Timberlands, and the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. They're really quite remarkable.

Anyway, I had been deciding between those and this other cheaper pair, and I'm really glad I bought them. I'm still on my, it's OK to pay for quality kick. It's just, these shoes feel so much better, I wear them more, and Timberlands have lasted longer for me in the past. Why trade that for saving a few bucks?

So, I'm a big fan of the electoral college system. It just makes things a lot of fun.

7 PM. I've been reloading CNN.com for about 2 hours now and it's been giving me a heart attack, especially in the last 10 minutes. Absolutely insane. Honestly, I don't care that much, but it's seriously exciting. The drama with Florida just swung things dramatically. It's crazy. And fun.

My girlfriend is stunning.

Apparently, that cloning Jesus project is fake. Thank God.

Gore just won Illinois and Florida. Hmm.

I don't care if someone rips off my idea, as long as they cite the source. Like, I used to call my page (or do I still?) like, the stolen web page because so many elements of it were just ripped off from other places. Like, the design of the front page came from the old Out of the Grey fan site. The highlight of my day was a ripoff of one of Kathy Yung's friends, whose page I linked until it was gone. The intro, with spelling mistakes (e.g. antedotes) come straight from that page, and the color scheme and formatting are exactly the same.

The Danny Chai FAQ is ripped off from Ohms' web page. There's still a link to it there. In fact, it doesn't make sense without it.

My most favorite stealing thing is I stole this moving gif from a guy named Dave and put it on web site as the intro, even though at the very end, it says, "Welcome to my world... Dave". I didn't even care that it made no sense. I just amuse myself.

Anyway, it doesn't bother me that Elaine stole my page, it's just weird, because why not just call it a quote page? Or something like that? But she calls it a bold claims page. Weird.

I really don't understand the purpose of putting the alumni in the FiCS directory. It's just totally weird to me.

Sammy went through the trouble to title her random thoughts page "Untitled Document." Instead of just leaving it untitled, she actually titled it as such. Weird.

For a long while, Rhapsody in Blue was my favorite piece of music. So to this day, it makes me angry when people hear it and call it the American Airlines song (or whatever airline uses it). Anger.

By the way, do you remember the old American Airlines jingle? "We're American Airlines, something special in the air." In elementary school, me and my friends used to sing "We're Iranian Airlines, no one else is in the air."

So it's the most fun when you kind of help out with the wedding, but aren't a part of all the details. Ugh. It also helps to have less than a million people at the wedding.

Two things were said to me over and over this weekend. The first, said about a hundred times, was, "So, when are you getting married?

The second thing everyone said was, "I really like Jieun." I'm serious, all my friends like Jieun better than they like me. Which, if you know me and you know Jieun, isn't that surprising.

Henry, I wasn't talking about myself, you freaking idiot.

Already, it's pretty lonely being the only kid at home. Weird feeling.

I realized it's important not to surround yourself with people who see you all the same way. Especially if people think very well of you. Just, if that's all you're surrounded by, you'll have a skewed view of yourself. If everyone treats you like royalty, you'll act like a king. I don't know, I just think it's good to know people who think of you in different ways. It's good for perspective.

If you're ever in Memorial City Mall in Houston, get a smoothie from the little stand in the food court, in front of Cinnabon. The strawberry-banana is quite possibly the best smoothie ever made.

Saw the Rockets game on TV tonight. Norris' hair is just bold. Also, did you know Hakeem is setting a record for number of seasons played? The man is old.

I also watched the Warriors season opener against Phoenix, which they won in the last few seconds, and when they did, seriously, the team, and the entire arena, went wild. It was like they won a playoff game. Talk about low expectations.

I think the weather here is still in the 80s. Houston got awarded the 2004 Super Bowl - fortunately, it's indoors (but still a grass field). Anyway, there are billboards around here advertising the group trying to get the 2012 Summer Olympics to Houston.

Umm, Houston is the smoggiest and one of the hottest cities in the U.S. Seriously, all the athletes will just pass out if it's in the summer. The only time the weather would be reasonable is in February or November. I'm not joking.

Wedding's coming up soon. I'm pretty excited. Mostly about the amalgamation of people that will be here. Just, all these worlds colliding, many of whom are represented on jack.html. Like the relatives (Marshall, Peter et al.), San Jose people (e.g. Esther), Houston people (e.g. Sam, Becky, Sean). It's just a hoot. I don't know, weddings are a lot of fun. As long as you're not involved with the planning.

This wedding though has a serious problem with scale. 800 people expected. For the rehearsal dinner alone (at Dave and Buster's) they made a reservation for 105 people. That's insane.

At any rate, at my wedding, there's going to be a jack.html table, and everyone there is getting special food.

I've written about this before, but it's fascinating to me how life is a big cycle. In particular, how people speak to the very young and the very old in the exact same way.

I tried Nads for the first time today. Or rather, Jieun tried it. It works pretty well. I'm impressed.

Day one of my trip to Houston for my sister's wedding. I just got here and already there's a lot on my mind. But, I guess I'll write about that later. Just dude, Houston is always hot. Just like Jieun.

Scary.

There's a guy running for local office around here who goes by the name of Starchild. His occupation, according to the San Jose Mercury News, is "erotic massage artist."

There was one time in Serra, senior year, I was talking to Chrissy Oyster, who a few of you may know. She was in IV, and I think in Mary Niu's drawgroup that year, but I'm not sure. Nice girl.

Anyway, she's from Austin, and I was telling her about this coffee shop my sister had taken me to in Austin, called Mozart's. I'm like, "Have you heard of it?" And she's like, "Yeah. My dad owns it."

Weird.

Why is it that you never see really tall old people? You see really tall young or middle aged people. You see lots of short old people. How come no really tall old people?

No, it's not ironic that the championship teams of the past always get the lucky breaks. One team has to win the championship. So they win all their games. In the course of winning all their games, they get some lucky breaks. That's why they win all their games.

What I'm saying is that, every team has lucky breaks go for and against them. It's just that the championship teams, of which there must always be one, have all the lucky breaks go for them in the course of a season. The ones that don't get the breaks don't become champions. You remember the lucky breaks because they're champions. That's all.

In other words, every team has breaks go either for them or against them. It's not that championship teams make the breaks go for them. It's that because the breaks went for them, they became champions. I hope this is obvious to everyone. A champion doesn't make lucky breaks happen. It's because all the lucky breaks happen that they become champions. You can't think of it in the reverse. Uh, to repeat it three times.

So, it's not at all ironic that champions always get the lucky breaks. It is, in fact, to be expected logically.

At any rate, no one cares about college football. It's all about college basketball, baby.

The Oregon Ducks are extremely lucky.

Am I the only one excited by the upcoming election? It's just the first election I can remember that's actually been close, where the result hasn't been a foregone conclusion. It's just exciting to me.

I accompanied Jieun to Ann Taylor yesterday. I was kind of stunned. I didn't even realize that this store existed, and it turns out it's huge. Two floors, just big. I don't know, it just surprises me how I'm totally naive about girl things.

At any rate, it was hilarious, because there's this section of seats in the middle that was kind of like the island of the lost - there were spouses, boyfriends, and sons all sitting there.

This section was near the shoe section, and I watched various girls try on shoes. I don't know, but for me, when I try on shoes, I just look at it, see if it's comfortable, and then buy it (or not). But these girls, they have to try it on, look at it from various angles on their feet, it's crazy. I just don't understand what they're looking at. It's weird.

Also, everyone listen to Hear My Prayer on a good pair of headphones. It's hauntingly beautiful.

They also do something cool - I'm sure it's commonly done, just it's clearly heard on this recording in a way that's cool. The put the piano in the stereo field at it is physically, so like the low notes (what you would play with your left hand) come more from the left speaker, and the high notes (the right hand part) come more from the right speaker, and the midnotes kind of meld in the middle. So the effect is as if you were listening from in the piano. I don't know, that's just kind of cool.

These Sony headphones continue to change my life. Listen to Better Is One Day, the Matt Redman song, the Matt Redman version, on headphones. There's so much more going in there than I realized. It's really quite interesting.

First the use of the cowbell - interesting. It's also interesting how in the first verse, it's just a very subtle keyboard playing the chord background. No bass foundation, no guitar, just a subtle keyboard. In the second verse, this fretless bass plays a very interesting part, not the bass note of the chord, but playing around the melody. Very interesting.

And, I never realized the background singers singing "ooh" on the "My heart and flesh cry out" part.

When they get to the instrumental section with the piano playing, there's actually a lot of interesting things going on. Like there are these weird chimish sounds, and there are two keyboard sounds echoing the piano part - a normal stringy synth sound, which is probably part of the piano, meaning, they're using like a piano and strings voice, but also this weird high pitched sound that kind of sounds like a sound you'd hear on a carousel. It's really high pitched and weird. And then the fretless bass plays this dope riff in the middle when the piano stops. And then before the electric comes in, there's a weird vocal out of the left speaker that continues throughout the rest of the song, saying all this weird stuff.

And then after that, they really combine a lot of sound. Lots of different electric guitar sounds, different vocals doing different things, just interesting stuff.

Umm, sorry, big digression.

I watched the Graduate last night. I liked it. But I don't think it's one of the greatest movies of all time, as many do.

Reading some reviews on the web, I think some of the themes of the movie have dated. But overall, I liked it.

Andrew talks about "the weird part" of his dream after he's described the kayaking course of the dwarf Olympics.

He reminded me of a dream I had a couple nights ago. I was getting a haircut from Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit, and he was having problems, especially with the red hair dye.

I've started listening to my dad's sermon tapes again. They're interesting. First of all because I think Stan is translating now, and I can't help but be amused by the way he talks.

There were some interesting things said, though, good reminders. One, that when we fight against being sinful, we're not fighting against ourselves, but against the sin in us. Paul says this in Romans 7 or 8. That's an interesting point.

Another thing good he said was that it is impossible to be good and have victory over sin without the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, you're either a lawkeeper or a lawbreaker, both of which ignores grace. Also that Romans 8 is all about the Holy Spirit - in Romans 1-7, the Holy Spirit is mentioned like 5 times, and from 9 to the end, it's mentioned like 9 times. But in Romans 8, it's mentioned like 21 times. That's interesting to know.

Some people think I'm hard to get to know. I don't know why this is. For the most part, what you see is what I am. I think my oldest friends recognize this about me.

I think I'm going to start commenting on the movies I see.

Anyway, I saw the Legend of Drunken Master this past weekend. I liked it a lot. It's pretty much Jackie Chan's best movie. Just these incredible acrobatic fight scenes. It's a great movie. I've seen it about 5 times now.

The interesting thing was, this release was Westernized. Like, they dubbed it into English, and changed the music and everything. It kind of made me angry, to be honest. Because, the composer was some white guy and he included all this Asian sounding music, that just emphasized the exotic feel. I don't know, I'm just not into it when Asians are only seen as exotic or something to be laughed at, and part of the redubbed version gave me that feel.

I get especially annoyed when white people give their impressions of Asian culture. Like when white composers make "Asian" music. It just bothers me. Or Mulan. I heard in China, they didn't like Mulan at all. It didn't look Asian. So, they tried to make it Asian, but it was like the white impression of what Asian is, and that's off. I don't know, that annoys me, but maybe it's just me.

But I'm digressing. I've only seen the movie on VCD and a tape copy of the laserdisc, but it really looked incredible on the big screen. Just, so much cleaner than what I've seen. It looked really great.

Anyway, I can't get over how the music gave it such a different feel. I'm really hoping they'll release it on DVD and include both versions. It would be interesting to see.

I also saw High Fidelity. It was OK. What I did like was John Cusack's speech at the end. A really great speech.

Scott Scruggs' picture was on the front page of yesterday's Peninsula section in the San Jose Mercury News.

Here's a friend of mine's car. This is what happens when you fall asleep at the wheel.

Whatever. It wasn't explicit but it sure as heck was implicit, to anyone who even remotely knows you.

Umm, I guess Henry disagrees with me that even a wrong vision is better than no vision at all. I really mean this, though. You can rag on misguided visionaries all you want, but in my view, that's far better than someone going through his life just doing things for the sake of doing things or without having a vision as to why he's doing it. You do that, and eventually, you'll become weary, cynical and jaded. Even more than the vision of the day e-mailer man. That's my claim. Bad visions are bad, but that's not an excuse for not having any vision at all. That's far worse.

I also love how Henry is essentially saying "I'm the implementer, and as such, I'm far better than visionaries. I have more humility, perseverance, and work harder." Not that I fully disagree with his point. I just get a kick out of when people say they are humble, or that they have a "servant's", behind the scenes heart. Because they're really implying that they are better than those people that aren't.

Also, I guess Mark thought I was talking about him with my visionary rant. Umm, don't be so sensitive, it had absolutely nothing to do with you. I don't think it was relevant to what you said at all. For future reference, you can tell when I'm slamming Mark when I start my entries with something like, "Mark, you're so wrong it hurts my lungs." I'm not vague about it.

Yeah, I thought Mark's retelling of the Rich Mullins story was wrong also, but I wasn't sure where I heard the version so I didn't say anything.

I spent one summer in Korea, at KAIST University in Taejon. Anyway, I couldn't stand the cafeteria food, and we couldn't afford to eat at restaurants all the time, so we found this place on campus that sold stuff like Ja Jang Myun and Ramen. So, for many many meals, I would eat either Ja Jang Myun or Ramen.

After a couple of weeks, I'm not joking, my gums started bleeding. I think the lack of nutrition was giving me scurvy.

Uh, random story.

I love Mark's recent thoughts. He basically starts with "I am a humble servant leader, much like Rich Mullins, not one who seeks glory for himself. Also, every missionary has the same personality type as me. OK, maybe not all of them. Just the best ones. And the famous ones. Also, my freshman small group was the best in the history of mankind."

Come on, Mark. That kind of hubris belongs on me and Henry's sinful pages, not yours.

Also, the only people who thought the 94-95 Donner party was "cool" were a few members of the Donner party. If instead you meant, people thought they were strange and IV staff disliked them to the point of gossiping about them, then yeah, you're right.

I have a bad habit of very frequently saying exactly what I'm thinking. Some people, like Eric Yang, have said that it's a good thing because I'm not fake. But, as Henry knows, it's often bad. Anyway, I think sometimes it makes me rude, and sometimes it makes people think I'm very strange, and that's something I have to work on. It happened a couple times this weekend.

Anyone who takes the spark personality test seriously needs to get their head examined. It's totally lame.

Except as a social experiment. To see how people are connected. What I did is took it, then gradually added more people who appeared as friends of friends to my own list (but only people I at least vaguely knew). That way I get this long list of friends of friends, and it's fascinating to see who knows who, and the people you get. Like, a friend of mine from high school came up. Who the heck does he know? I don't know, I just think it's fascinating.

Sometimes, you eat something that tastes so good, you search everywhere to find it again. Like, my mom once had an incredible French Onion soup in New York, so for a long while, she would always get a French Onion soup, when we ate out, hoping to find another good one.

I once had a really good Creme Brulee at Brennan's in Houston. It was served really well, in a large shallow dish with lots of fresh fruit. So, I very often get Creme Brulee. I also in high school had this incredible goat cheese pizza at the Chez Panisse Cafe. And I've always wanted to find another great goat cheese pizza, but I have yet to.

My sister is freaking getting married. I think it's starting to hit me now. That is crazy. My little sister.

I found this article from Smart Money to be very good.

I don't see how the Dave Chu bashing can be seen as anything but hilarious. My favorites are Henry's original moisterizer post, Dave's textbooks in the freezer post, the "pray" "gay" post, and my absolute favorite is the Hitler post. Oh my goodness, I nearly died when I read that. Pure hilarity.

Roger Ebert gave Drunken Master 2 (getting release in America as The Legend of the Drunken Master) 3 1/2 stars.

Competition is good. There are some new sites that are similar to Napster and Priceline that you should check out if you're into stealing and flying cheap, respectively. They are Audio Galaxy and Hotwire.

I'm a big fan of something Rich Mullins once said. Something like, the "spiritual" is in making your bed. The "spiritual" is in giving a waitress a large tip because she's had a bad day. His point I think was, the "spiritual" isn't about thinking all these meta-thoughts. But the "spiritual" is wrapped up in the physical world. I don't know if this makes any sense. But I think he was saying that being spiritual doesn't mean your thoughts lose touch with the physical world, or that they're meta thoughts. But being spiritual means being a part of the physical world. It's not about thinking, it's about doing, even particular small things.

So I'm a big fan of this. I think he's on to something. I think there's a reason why Jesus wraps up a big spiritual thing such as Communion into a physical act of eating and drinking. I don't think being super spiritual means you're always thinking about theology or meta-thoughts. I think being spiritual means stuff like, you are kind to children, you don't react to rudeness with rudeness. I think the spiritual is wrapped up in the physical.

Umm, I don't know if that made any sense. Sorry Allie.

I'm pleased by the progress we're making on our Netflix queue. At least this week.

So, I saw American in Paris last night. I want to be Gene Kelly. It's just unfair that one person can be such a good dancer, singer, and good looking.

Anyway, like Singing in the Rain, it has this long painful dance sequence that has nothing to do with the story and is slightly psychedelic. What was the appeal of these things? I don't get it.

I'm a big believer in taking joy in the simple pleasures in life. Anyway, last Saturday me and Jieun had breakfast at McDonald's. As you may or may not know, the Sausage McMuffin with Egg breakfast combo is one of my favorite meals in the entire world. It just brings me great joy.

I think it's wrapped up in a memory, is why I like it so much. Sometimes on Saturdays back in elementary school I played soccer and after the match my mom would take me to McDonald's and I'd always get the Sausage McMuffin and Egg meal. So, it reminds me of happy times.

To me, a lot of the commentary on the RSG is as funny as the stories themselves, just because it's so absurd. We use words like, oh this post was a very "important" one, the way an art critic might say how a particular piece is very "important." Absurd.

Anyway, Eric disagrees with me because he has no taste, but I'm sorry, some of those RSG stories were freaking hilarious. I reread them and they slay me.

Wow, Isaiah 53 is an amazing chapter. It seems to explain the full concept of redemption.

Am I Hot Or Not? Pretty amusing.

I am thankful to God that I've stayed out of the stock market thus far. It's a bloodbath out there. Whoa.

Come on people, keep up with the Bible in one year. If I can do it, seriously, anyone can. I'm 5 days behind, but, praise God it hasn't been worse than that. Maybe we should talk about it more, so that it might inspire people.

Did you know Mark was Barnabus' cousin? I guess I never fully realized that.

The wages of sin is surely death. I don't know, I say if people really want to sin, let them. It's just, it will have consequences, and not just in the afterlife. It's their loss.

Maybe it's just me, but it depresses me when ministries try to do the same thing independently. When we were in East Asia, we saw on TV the local station interviewing a group from the United States that was very clearly a Christian group, the way they were talking about wanting to share lives and stuff like that. They didn't say anything explicitly Christian but it was pretty clear.

Anyway, we had spent some time training ourselves on safety and being discreet, knowing that not doing so could not only hinder our efforts, but those of other Christians. We in fact experienced this in another city that one of the other teams were at - they were directly told by the East Asian officials there not to engage in activity that apparently other groups had been doing there, not too discretely. So not being discreet could really hinder the work of all Christians in an area.

Anyway, we saw this group on TV, and were they being discreet? Maybe. Probably? Who knows? But it was just a little sad to me that we were working on the same team, but knew nothing about the others, and didn't know if we were hindering each others' efforts. We were trying to do the same thing in the same place, but weren't coordinated and could actually have been hurting each other.

Anyway, I was just thinking this because I came across these two ministries that seem to be trying to do essentially the same thing. I don't know, maybe it's good. It just seems like if they could be coordinated, it would be so much better, you know?

I don't know about you, but Song of Solomon increases my respect for Solomon. Stud.

So, my cousin Marshall met Dave Chu in New York, and Dave knew all about him because he'd been reading his entries. Then Marshall met James and his, who he already knew about because of the j bulletin b.

I don't know, the power of jack.html and its affiliate stations is weird.

Isaiah is a freaking long book.

I was looking at some of Dave's old web page, and on his undergraduate list of favorite things, read his entry on the Vineyard Cafe albums. He uses the phrase "passion and energy"! I don't know, that's prophetic, or something.

So I was browsing the Miss America website and I'm sorry, but they were by and large both unattractive and unintelligent. Here's a sample scholastic ambition: To obtain a bachelor's degree. Come on, this is the freaking Miss America pangeant, not the Miss Molson Beer pageant.

A laser lawn mower with mobile Internet access and CD player. Absurd.

The only sports teams I've been a fan of since birth are the Ohio State Buckeyes, the Cincinnati Reds, and the San Francisco 49ers, because my dad was a fan of each. Because my dad wasn't into basketball or anything else, I wasn't really either.

I remember though one day I decided I wanted to be a sports fan. But I didn't know who to root for. So, I opened up the paper, and decided to root for whoever was in first place at the time. I still remember who it was. In basketball, the Atlanta Hawks, in hockey the Philadelphia Flyers, in golf Fuzzy Zoeller, in auto racing Bill Elliot, and in horse racing, Russell Baze. I don't know, I'm a weirdo. I have no idea why I'm writing this.

I'm sorry, but if you don't like Marshall's thought page, you're either a fool or a heathen. Or both.

I was a little bit depressed on Saturday. I went to the revival, and for various reasons, I couldn't play with the worship team, so I sat in the pews.

Dude, it sounded terrible. I realized that how it sounds on stage, and even how it sounds from the mixer, is nothing like how it sounds from the pews. Seriously, it just sounded absolutely horrendous. I cannot express how bad it was. I was shocked.

So, no matter how good I think the praise sounds from stage, it likely sounds terrible, and that depressed me. We seriously have to get the new building built. There's nothing you can do it that cathedral. It just sounds terrible in there. It's a lost cause.

I went to this ministry dinner thing last night that was surprisingly encouraging to me. Just, the pastor was very eloquent and well spoken. The only thing was, when he began his talk, he made these hand motions that looked exactly like C-3P0. I could not get that image out of my head.

Also, one guy who prayed ended with "In Jesus name, and for his sake, Amen."

That is a dope way to end a prayer.

So if you have the City on a Hill CD, listen to the first track on a good pair of headphones. The complexity is just stunning. I have to write about it. Here's a breakdown:

• Intro: just strings and two female voices, one from Sixpence None the Richer, and one from Caedmon's Call
• Verse: an acoustic guitar starts playing out of the right speaker. After two measures, another, softer acoustic guitar, playing capo'd up joins from the left speaker, along with percussion. Then the male vocal (from Third Day) joins in. Then strings come in. Then a french horn comes in as the strings drop out. So throughout the first verse, the instrumentation keeps changing over a repetitive melodic line. Pretty cool.
• Chorus (part 1): same acoustic guitars and percussion (which keep playing the whole song), while the horn is gone, this electric guitar starts playing a riff out of the left speaker, and the strings come in again, and female Caedmon's Call singer sings harmonies on "holy".
• Chorus (part 2): The electric and strings die out, and the male Caedmon's Call voice comes in, double tracked. What that means is, they record the same guy singing the same line twice, and play it together - it gives it a kind of fuller sound. Then the horn leads in and strings follow.
• Verse: orchestra dies, and bass and drums come in. Meanwhile, an electric guitar starts playing a riff on the left speaker, same sound as before. As he sings, an oboe starts playing as the electric riff dies, and then the strings and horns join it. Meanwhile, a double tracked Caedmon's Call female voice is singing harmony. Complex.
• Chorus part 1: Here it gets crazy. Two electric guitars start playing different riffs, but with the same sound, one out of each speaker. And the strings also play. Meanwhile, Third Day male vocal with Caedmon's Call female harmony. So the instruments playing here are percussion, drums, bass, two acoustics, two electrics, strings, and two vocals. All playing distinct things.
• Chorus part 2: As Caedmon's Call male comes in like first time in the Chorus, the electrics die out, replaced by a new electric coming from the center of the sonic space, playing a less trebley, more echoey distorted sound. Also, the strings die, and the horns come in. And female Caedmon's Call sings a response line to male vocal line.
• Bridge: The two old electrics come back in, the new one goes out, and like before, each is playing out of each speaker. No orchestra in this section. All three vocals are singing. And then a new guitar, not like the old new guitar we heard before, less distortion and more chorus, starts playing in the middle of the sonic scape as we move to
• Solo: New guitar starts playing a solo, while strings play. Soft at first, deeper toward the end. The two riffing electrics have dropped out. But this weird slide guitar plays intermittently from the right speaker, and Caedmon's Call female sings intermittent lines.
• Chorus part 1, extended: Again, Third Day male and Caedmon's Call female sing. The new guitars are all out, the two riffing electrics are back, and the strings continue to play. At the end, all instruments drop out except strings, and just Third Day male sings. This is the coolest part. While he sings, the Caedmon's Call female sings the first line to the hymn "Holy, holy holy," that line being "Holy holy holy Lord God Almighty". This matches with the chorus, which incorporates, "You are holy." Very very dope effect. The background vocals are constantly changing in the song, and it's really cool.

  As they continue, and she starts singing a normal harmony, the original two acoustic guitars and percussion come in as in the beginning (stereo separated), strings still playing.

• Chorus part 2: Caedmon's Call male comes in again, so all three are singing. With him come the drums, bass, and two riffing electric guitars just as before. When they repeat the chorus, the solo electric guitar, with the chorus, starts playing from the center of the sonic space. Meanwhile, they add new background vocal riffs.
• Post: percussion starts alone. Then strings play, while oboe plays "Holy holy holy, Lord God Almighty." It builds up, and the song ends.

I bought these Sony MDR-7506 headphones to help me concentrate at work, and they've revolutionized my life. Seriously, I pick up on things in the music that I never noticed before. They're really great. I highly encourage everyone to get just one good pair of headphones to last you for your life. It makes a world of difference.

Umm, how are you supposed to provide Kerberos authentication with your leland password if you don't have a leland account?

So, I'm not even logging into the Stanford machines anymore. Again, it's the end of an era. So if you want to message me, you're going to have to AIM me. Not that anyone zwrites me. So, I guess this is relevant to only Eric.

How the heck are you supposed to find people on AIM anyway?

I found out a friend Jimmy Wu has this online Madlibs thing. I tried it, and here are the results:

One soggy weekend night at Duke, Janet Reno decided that she would catch before taking the speaker cable over to west campus. She saw a bunch of spicy people and she obnoxiously burned after them. After meeting Siddhartha Gautama at a party, the two of them started to spell. By dusk in the morning they were still fingering and she decided it was time to go back to east campus. However when she got there she reverently realized that she had left her jaguars in Dodi Al Fayed's toupee. Frantically she lindied to Madison Square Garden, and there she found her Rubik's Cubes, right where she had left them. What a relief! She was licked so she lay down on the jock strap and went to sleep.

I didn't say it was funny.

I had a dream about Calcium last night. Not the stuff in your bones (the ion). The metal. Weird.

By the way, I think my dad has a gift of physical healing.

So, my political leanings are neither strictly Republican nor strictly Democrat. However, in this particular election, regardless of the candidate, I think it's important to vote Republican. The big reason for me is the high likelihood of some Supreme Court justices retiring. As you know, the president appoints Supreme Court justices, and they serve for life, or until they want to retire. If one of more retire, then the makeup of the court can change a lot.

The court is pretty balanced right now, with 4 liberals and 4 conservatives. 1 justice tends to be the swing vote - a lot of decisions go 5-4. Anyway, some of the decisions just astound me. I won't go into specifics, but there was a recent decision that was so close that I couldn't believe was so close, and that scares me. It involved pretty much Christians' right to believe and assemble.

Anyway, just something to keep in mind.

The reason the singers had no idea what was going on, and were slow to follow, and kept looking right was because one of the monitors wasn't working. It was seriously like singing into a vacuum - couldn't hear a thing. So, the singers couldn't start singing until one or two lines into whatever was going on.

Unity means harmony, not unison.

Am I the only one that does this? When I fart, I spread my butt cheeks (I sit down on one and kind of lift my hip) to minimize the sound.

I'm sorry, but last night's attempt at fics-chat madness was seriously weak. Maybe Dave can elaborate, but I feel like I need to teach these people what you need for good fics-chat madness.

• A critical mass of people. There was not last night.
• At least a little bit of wit.
• Most critically, value add. Volume is good, but you need to have a little bit of value in each post. Add random references. If you recall, the John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt - that's my name too reference got a lot of mileage from different people last time. Stuff like that. But you can't just post nonsensical stuff and expect people to hop on the bus. You need substance, value. If that doesn't work, you have to play the bawdy angle.

I hate leading.

I take back what I said about loving the spinach salad at Pasta? I still like it, but it's far from ideal. I had it tonight and the onions weren't very good, nor were the walnuts. The dressing was basically oil - it could have used a bit more flavor, and the spinach was a little more bitter than I would have liked. A nice salad, but not a great salad. For the life of me, I can't remember where I had that great spinach salad I was talking about.

So, in case you haven't noticed, I moved everything off of my Stanford account, so if you're linking there, it's no longer current. I don't know, it's kind of sad. The end of an era, you know? And a long era it was. 6 freaking years.

I'm glad I'm a CS major. FTP didn't work (long story) but I still managed to move everything to where I want it and change file permissions and all that in less than an hour.

You know what? Programming's kind of fun.

"so, since getting a tv, i've watched a lot of movies. a lot. well, not that many, but a lot come on."

What?

So as you know, it's a crazy sports week in the Bay Area. Both the A's and Giants are in the playoffs (down with New Yawk, baby), the Sharks start playing this week, and the Niners and Raiders are playing on Sunday, something that hasn't happened in the regular season in years. It's pretty exciting, especially if you listen to sports talk radio.

Anyway, JT the Brick is understandably going crazy. And he's a Yankees fan, so, he was pretty pissed off tonight. I was listening to the evening show, and dude, I was scared. I'm not joking. He's talking about the A's / Yankees game, and all of a sudden he just starts yelling at Joe Torre at the top of his lungs for using Knobloch as DH. It sounded like he was about to cry, he was yelling so loud. That's some serious passion.

Anyway, get excited Bay Area. I hope it's another A's / Giants world series. And I hope there's another earthquake so housing prices become more reasonable. Hope no one gets hurt, though.

My favorite salad is a spinach salad with balsamic vinaigrette, goat cheese, caramelized onions, and walnuts. Pretty much exactly like they make it at Pasta?. It's also nice to have some kind of fruit in it, like mandarin oranges, or Ohms once made a similar salad with strawberries. Good stuff.

I'm forever grateful to the Stanford Dining Service for introducing me to two things: sesame soy salad dressing, and buttermilk bread.

In California, "barbecue" means anything you put on a grill. So, people have a "barbecue" and have like hamburgers. In Texas, barbecue means something quite different. It means smoked meats, slathered in tangy barbecue sauce. Good stuff. There's a reason why good barbecue restaurants around here all say they're "Texas-style". You gotta try it.

The new front page of the FiCS web site is bizarre. FiCS centers around archery, baseball, gymnastics, Christ, boxing, and volleyball???

I'm one of the few people you'll meet to have gotten an A+, C, and NP (meaning F) at Stanford.

OK, well just do a rudimentary overview like you did for me that one night in Rains. Just explain what stock prices are meant to represent. Even that would be really helpful.

"Instead, risk/reward refers to the market-demanded reward that should be attainable at a given risk." I understand that, I think. I just think that "tech stocks" don't offer the potential return demanded by the risk involved. Tech stocks were overvalued, so with these, the market wasn't efficient. (I'm just throwing around terms I don't fully understand to rile up Henry.)

I'm fiddling with some online mortgage calculators, and I figured out that if I manage to save $100,000, the banks will lend me enough money to buy a shack in Silicon Valley!

I've got my fingers crossed.

Over the weekend, we watched a Britney Spears DVD. Highly enlightening. She uses the phrase "really cool" about once every 30 seconds. It's insane.

At any rate, it inspired John to learn how to dance, and that's a good thing.

I liked Sammy's recent thoughts. Some counter thoughts:

It's just a wild guess, but my guess is Eric.

Dude, Mark, stop being a stalker.

So, I'm very much in favor of distributing responsibility. Both to give other people a chance to serve, and also to avoid leader burnout. Both of these things are problems in traditional church structure, I think. Like, I'm against leaders of small groups necessarily having to be the teacher as well. Why should this be? Why is a good leader a good teacher? And why is a good teacher a good leader? They're disjoint, though not exclusively so, sets of people. Making the leader be the teacher is bad for people who have one gift but not the other. It either forces them to do something they can't, or doesn't allow people who can do one to do anything.

Anyway, that model is OK in college I guess where the mindset is decidedly short term, but, the problems are magnified outside of a college ministry context, I think. Burnout is a serious problem.

Umm, that was a big sidetrack. The reason I'm saying this is because I'm in favor of having people help worship team. IV used to (stil does? I don't know) I think have this system where people outside of worship team helped them move equipment before and after meetings and stuff.

I'm a big fan of this idea for FiCS/KCPC. You know, setting up and cleaning up sucks. It builds humility, and that's good, but it also totally separates (in a large way) worship team, and that's bad. So, distribute responsibility. Have people volunteer to help out, rotate them so they're not always unable to do whatever before/after service, and train them so they know what to do. I'm not saying worship team should do nothing. It's just, set up and cleanup time has been taking forever recently. I think with enough informed people, it could take 10 minutes.

I'm all in favor of worship team cleaning up - it's a good exercise in service. But, not at the expense of separating them from the very people they're supposed to be leading into worship. And, because of the unique sitautions of FiCS and at church, that's what ends up happening with setup and cleanup. And that's not right.

So I'm in favor of equipment committee. Seriously, the separation is just wrong. Someone make it happen.

God loves Kurt Warner. Wow.