For those of you looking to get married soon, SmartMoney.com has this article on cutting wedding costs. Might be useful.

Interesting thing is, the article is in a directory called "marriage"... which is a subdirectory of "divorce". Pretty cynical.

Seriously, I think Marshall is better friends with my friends than I am.

Today's episode of Survivor restored my hope in mankind. By the end I was seriously jumping up and down and cheering. The funny thing is, John and Jieun came home later and when they watched it, same thing, they jumped up at the end. Great episode. I don't know, it gets really interesting from here. Really interesting.

So, what does Amber do? She's in a hard place because it's clear that she's totally on the outside. But then, that also puts her in a position of power. What I would do if I was Elisabeth (she is awesome, by the way. When things are stacked against her, she doesn't take it lying down. She always tries, and that's cool to me.) is try to get Amber on their side. Just, convince her, I mean, you have to choose one side or another. The thing is, you clearly can't trust the other side. You might as well join us (Elisabeth). It's also advantageous because Keith and Colby are strong, so you (Amber) will have a better chance than if you join their side. It's altogether reasonable.

But then, Amber kind of has some power. What I would do if I was Amber is convince Colby, Keith and Tina to vote against Nick. Which they would be doing anyway. But then, really align with the other three and vote Colby off. But then, the next tribal council, align with Keith and Tina and vote off Nick. Basically she can play both sides against each other, because she's not bound to any alliance, and there's freedom in that. So, in a weird sense, she kind of is a position of power.

At any rate, things have gotten really interesting. What a great show.

You know you can look up phone numbers on Google now? Try entering this in Google (this is my example because it's safe from stalkers): "Simon Yun CA". It returns "Simon Yun, (650) 234-9803, 350 Sharon Park Dr Apt C6, Menlo Park CA 94025" I'm guessing this is where he lived that one summer. I don't know, that's kind of cool. And scary. I've been spending the last half hour checking out names. In case you care, there's a Danny Chai in Alhambra CA.

Hey, check out this entry: "Masaharu Morimoto, (212) 353-9791, 280 Park Ave S Apt 18m, New York NY 10010". I wonder...

Check this out. Whoa. I'm published!

So I was at work and reading an ESPN chat session and randomly decided to submit a question. I didn't think it would get answered. But, I just checked and it was! The thing is, they listed where the question came from like: dcfly from mycompany.com. Oops. I feel really nervous about having the company's site listed. Hope I don't get in trouble.

Let me quote one of my March 9 entries. Sorry if it's tedious.

I don't know how to say this nicely, but Dick Vitale is on crack. Of course he picks Duke to win it all, since he always picks Duke for everything. But he also picked Maryland over Stanford to win the West, and Arizona to win the Midwest.

I guarantee you that Duke won't win the tournament. Just, they're beatable. Because their rotation is so shallow, if their top guys are off, then they're doomed. I don't know, any team is beatable, but they lost 4 times this year and almost lost to Maryland 2 additional times.

Here's why I disagree with Arizona. I keep saying this, but the only time Arizona has ever exceeded expectation in the tournament was the year they won it all, the year they were 5th in the Pac-10. No matter how much talent they have, they manage to lose early. So, I've learned to never count on Arizona. They always find a way to lose early.

And the Maryland thing. Actually, I kind of agree with him. I'm most scared by far by Maryland in our bracket. Because of the same reason everyone else is - the teams they've beaten. They beat Duke and played them strong in two other games, beat Wake Forest, North Carolina and Virginia. But what all these people (Vitale included) ignore is who's beaten them, and they got beat a lot. I remember Steve Francis' interview on Jim Rome and he was mentioning how his Terrapins were paining him by their losing. So, they have big wins but they have big losses also.

But what really makes me think Dickie V is stoned out of his mind is him naming USC as a sleeper. I'm sorry, but USC just lost to like Washington State? They suck, it's that simple.

So, I watched Sixteen Candles a few days ago. Jieun hates the movie because it's racist. Just, the whole character of Long Duc Dong. Whenever he appears on screen they play this gong sound. That would never fly today.

The thing I've been noticing recently is how much more visible Asians are in the media. Like at the Academy Awards last night, it was like an Asian invasion. Even one of those tall skinny girls they have escort the presenters and winners off the stage was Asian. And then they've been in a bunch of commercials recently that I've seen, not in "Asian" roles but as generic characters. It's just interesting to me. Just, the perception of Asians has come a long way in 17 years from Long Duc Dong to where we are now.

One of the most memorable parts about going to East Asia was meeting missionaries from other places. Like, one time I got to hang out with a bunch of people from Campus Crusade in Korea, doing pretty much the same thing the U.S. Crusade stinters were doing. All the Koreans on our team went out and hung out with them. I don't know, it was just a cool feeling, very global, and it was just like, we're all on the same team, you know? I don't know, it was just cool thinking how they do the same stuff we do around the world.

Like, my cousin was telling me about that once, how she was at some conference for IV staffers from around the world and she was talking with some staff from a country in Africa and how they have pretty much the same concerns, planning large group, small groups, meeting with student leaders, and stuff like that. I don't know, that's just kind of cool.

Another thing that was cool was at the end of the trip, we went touring with another group that included these two people from Romania. Dunno if Andrew remembers this. But you know, Romania is not a particularly "reached" country, I mean, there's still a lot of work to be done there, and one of the women was saying how that's what all of her friends/family said to her. Like, why the heck are you going overseas when there's so much to be done here in Romania?

I'll never forget her response. Her thinking was, all she knew is that Christians are supposed to go. She had the opportunity to go, so she went. They weren't like the most perfect missionaries in the world, but that attitude just fascinated me.

I heard the Say The Words remix by Matt Bronleewe on the radio and I like it. Simon thinks because I hated that Stanford group he had a clip of I hate everything he likes. It's not like that. I just hated that clip because it was unequivocably terrible.

John and I played a little game last week where he tried to guess the top selling hard/softcover books at CBD. See, you can get John to play stupid guessing games; you just need the right material. Anyway, I didn't know most of them. But guess what the #1 selling softcover book at CBD is. Did you guess? It's Joshua Harris. Boy Meets Girl.

I don't know, for no good reason I'm not a big Joshua Harris fan. Maybe it's because Eunice Lee was saying at Leo's wedding how the church he (Joshua Harris) goes to is kind of cultish. Of course, that's something that's been said about nearly any large church you can name.

I was at Best Buy in East Palo Alto the other day, and was waiting in line behind this modestly dressed Latino guy. He paid using a credit card from the Stanford Credit Union. That made me think. I was just wondering, how does he have a Stanford Credit Union card? And I realized that he probably works for Stanford. And that made me sad. I don't know, it's just, we have all these people service us and then we shuttle them off to places like East Palo Alto where we don't have to see them. That just seems sad to me.

Of course, maybe I'm just a racist and he's actually a professor at Stanford who lives in Palo Alto. It just didn't seem like that.

I didn't get last in Simon's ESPN.com pool! Thanks Dave!

I think I find things "absurd" that aren't truly absurd. Like, when we were in St. Louis, on Sunday we attended Leo's church. It's a Chinese church, but the English ministry has a Caucasian pastor. This seems to be a lot more common in Chinese churches than Korean churches, I'm not sure why.

Anyway, having a white pastor at a Chinese church is a little different, but not absurd. What was absurd was their praise time. It wasn't bad, just absurd. The pastor also leads praise. And, he leads from electric guitar. The thing is, he has this 60s style Danelectro, and I'm serious, he plays surf-guitar style. Dunno if you know what I mean by this, but trust me, if you heard it, you'd understand. Surf guitar.

So they played this song "Passion For Jesus", a Vineyard song, surf-guitar style, and I'm sorry, but I was just gone. I mean, they would even have transitions that was pure surf-guitar. And, dunno if you know the song, but, it was a bold interpretation. So yeah, I feel bad but I could not concentrate the whole time.

Saturday night I went to the rodeo. Yes, the rodeo. They were in town, at the San Jose Arena (soon to be the Compaq Center at San Jose). That alone was absurd to me. The first time I go to the rodeo is in San Jose? Weird.

Anyway, there's apparently this strange subculture, even here. That wears hats and drives big trucks. The percentage of trucks in the parking lot was just astounding. And it was sponsored by Dodge, Jack Daniels, and Tony Lama, the last of which is a western wear store or something like that.

Anyway, what made it more absurd (just to me) is the fact that we were sitting in box seats. Box seats at a rodeo? Absurd.

The third absurdity is that they kept playing Will Smith. So, going to the rodeo in San Jose, sitting in box seats, listening to Will Smith. I say it's absurd.

But that's just me.

If you had told me a month ago that Keith Lee and thong would be the primary source of passion and energy in the new (and improved) j bulletin b, I would have referred you to the nearest detox center. Weird.

Don't ever eat Mexican food in St. Louis. Just, they have a while to go. We went to a place, and I thought it was pretty much terrible. The worst part was the "salsa" they served with the chips. It was like spicy ketchup. I guess there's no reason to have good Mexican food in St. Louis, but it was pretty bad.

I don't think Henry will learn to spell 'exaggerate' correctly before he dies. Argh.

I'm in freaking last place in Simon's ESPN pool, and I will likely stay there. I'm a disgrace to modern society.

Last night's Stanford / Cincinnati game reminded me how different the schools' basketball programs are. In no area more than academics. Cincinati's center majors in "General Studies". Uh, yeah. Since Montgomery came to Stanford, the graduation rate of the basketball team has been 100%. The Bearcats' graduation rate was 0 percent in 2000, 33 percent in 1999, 0 percent in 1998, 0 percent in 1997 and 0 percent in 1996, according to NCAA records.

I watched Parenthood last night. I was surprised at how much I liked it. There was some big flaws with it. It was about 20 minutes too long. There was almost no music, which also added to the feeling of a really slow pace. So, I don't know if I could watch it over and over again. But, besides these two things, I actually liked it a lot.

For the same reason I liked Pleasantville, actually. The two movies have essentially the same message (to me). Which can be summed up in the following exchange (I guess you shouldn't read it if you plan to watch the movie):

[Gil has been complaining about his complicated life; Grandma wanders into the room.]
Grandma: You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.
Gil Buckman: Oh?
Grandma: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!
(A long pause. The delivery here is great because you just think she's senile.)
Gil Buckman: What a great story.
Grandma: I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.

But yeah, once I realized it wasn't a comedy I enjoyed the movie a great deal. I liked it a lot. Were it 20 minutes shorter and with better music, I would have loved it.

Expected reaction by Keith: Watch Dazed and Confused. Anger.

Can you train people to really listen to music? I don't know. But one thing I realize is that a lot of people just hear music but don't really listen to it, so they have no idea that certain things happen. There have been times in the past when I suggest something to worship team and they all think it's cool. But I'm not doing anything special. I'm just a good listener.

Here are two praise songs that people mess up all the time. And, they're both wrong for similar reasons. The first is on Lord of Everyman, the Vineyard song. You know, there's this intro, da-da-da-da-da on the piano, and like a bass response. Anyway, the first time you play it, the chords are roughly A-E-A-E-A-E-f#m-E. Then you hold that last E for roughly two measures before you start singing.

So here's the thing I think few people realize. On the recording, the second time around, they play that riff and response one additional time. Also, more crucially, they start singing the second time on the f#m so that the E chord is played on "rise" in "arise". I don't know, it doesn't seem critical, but it is. Just, the long pause on the E the first time is OK with the intro to the song, but a little awkward in the middle.

Another thing that drives me crazy, and only me I guess, is Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble. So you know, after the first verse, having sung "Jesus Christ the risen one", the drums, electric, and bass come in with a strong chord, everyone cheers, etc. Uh, I think you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, that's supposed to be strong. That's good.

The thing is after this, when you finish the verses (Christ the saving one, and wach away our brokennness), you shouldn't have this strong chord anymore. It shuld be subtler, much softer, not the huge drum smash and electric as with the first time. I feel pretty strongly about this. Anyway, listen to the Delirious version. After the first verse, they rightly have the drum and electric smash. It's like an introduction.

But after every verse following, the drums and electric are way more subtle, if they play at all. Listen to it. But like every worship team has their drummer do the same smash after every verse. Boring. That detracts from the effectiveness of the first time and doesn't make the song flow as well. There should just be one smash, which serves as like an intro. It's the song saying, "I'm here, and I'm energetic!" But you don't need to do multiple introductions. Like I said, it makes it too repetitive.

Anyway, yeah, the Delirious version is the perfect version. I've analyzed it endlessly, and they just have an incredible grasp on musical nuance and energy, so that's to be modeled after. Like, Passion's version is just lifeless. They're problem isn't that they do that smash everytime, but that's it's always in the in-between dynamic wise between all-out and subtle, so it's just awkward and wrong. Also, they sing it in C. Another wrong thing.

That's another thing I've analyzed forever. The song must be sung in D. I'm absolutely a hard-liner on this. Listen to the Delirious recording and then listen the Passion recording and notice how much more sterile the Passion version sounds. It must be in D. When I read like, "we're gonna do 'Did You Feel' in C, with energy!" I don't know, I just think that's impossible; you're cutting off a big source of the energy.

I think people lower it because it's too high to sing. But, guys can sing it if they yell loud enough. And if they don't reach it, that's OK. And, girls aren't supposed to be singing that high anyway - every girl should be singing an octave lower. I've written about this before, so I won't get into it. But yeah, it works is what I'm saying. In D.

Anyway, everything is all about little touches that don't seem like a big deal, but they add up in a way I can't really explain.

Dude, what the heck is my problem? I'm such a praise Nazi. Seriously, you should call me Adolf Underwood or something. Geez.

I grew up in San Jose, off of Monterey Road. Anyway, a long long time ago there was an amusement park right by my house. I found this website dedicated to its memory. Uh, random. Only long time nor-calers will remember this.

Keith writes: "traffic was very well done. now i need to watch 'dazed and confused'."

Rage.

Was there some kind of privacy law passed recently? I've been getting all this mail from my credit cards about privacy and sharing information, and opting out of that.

Entries like this one are why I love Marshall's page.

Got some more wedding pictures from my sister. The rest are in my pics section but just wanted to show a few funny ones here.

Check out Marshall's reaction to the kiss:

Here's the garter throw. Check out my expression, I'm in the white shirt left of center:

And now the bouquet. Check out Jieun's expression (second from left):

The disparity between the Western and Eastern conferences in the NBA is ridiculous. Milwaukee leads the Central division at 39-25, second best record in the East. That would be good enough for 7th place in the West. Ridiculous.

Believe it or not, I like being anonymous. And I just assume that people don't know me. So I was pretty startled one Sunday when we were greeting each other and Charles Kim knew my name. I don't know, I had just never talked to him before so it surprised me.

Uh, random. I was also reading Rich Shin's webpage, someone whom I have never ever talked to, and looking at his pages of random facts. I'm a serious loser. Just, I know so many random facts that I know which of his random facts are wrong. I don't know, that's kind of pathetic, I think.

You have to watch this. Uh, warning, though. It's extremely offensive in tone and language.

Those wacky Japanese.

Read this chat transcript with Jeff from Survivor. It's pretty interesting.

Keith writes: "and then i see joe kwan and young lee playing cards with a bunch of girls."

Excellent. As Flint might say, "Yo, Joe!"

I just want to say the amount of effort Henry expends in slamming people, most recently Mark, is absurd.

And yet, admirable.

Yet another reason why the cell church structure is superior. Seriously, the program based structure is absurd. When you're small, everyone has to work like dogs to make it work, which makes no sense since the church is small. That's because it's dominated by the program mindset. It has nothing to do with scale.

Then it reaches a certain size and past that point, the vast majority of the people are just attenders, not participators. Also not good. So there's this small window of size for which the program based mentality "works". And that doesn't make sense to me.

The kids at KCPC elementary continue to crack me up. Anyway, Sarah mentioned this on her page but like Jannie asked a question and told them to raise their hands, and one kid after raising his hand is like, "Do I stand alone?" It was utterly random.

Then she asked them to name a particular prophet. They guessed like Jonah, and Moses. And she says, those are good guesses; I'm thinking a very important prophet with his own book. And one kid goes, "Oh! Habakkuk!" It was the delivery that slayed me. An important prophet with his own book. It must be Habakkuk. Hilarious.

To record, fool. A "pure audiophile" wouldn't record on MiniDisc, but would prefer DAT. I should have clarified. What I was saying is that Mark is wrong. He claimed himself to be a pure audiophile and then gave all this technical mumbo jumbo. My point is that he's no pure audiophile, especially if he's using MiniDisc to record.

Yeah, I know I simplified it, but you get my point. There are a lot of audiophiles who do insist that records are better and the essential reason is because it's analog. Analog is obviously not always better than digital, but you get my point. That being, Mark is wrong. Dunno how you can argue with that.

There's another food obsession I have. Eggs Benedict. I won't get it all the time, but I like it a lot. The best Eggs Benedict I've had was actually one that used crab instead of Canadian Bacon and sourdough bread instead of English Muffin. At one of those places on Fisherman's Wharf.

Foxtrot yesterday featured Jason Fox saying repeatedly "All Your Base Are Belong To Us."

Balee strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn't like any covers or sampling at all. Just based on his reactions to Shaggy's Angel and M.C. Hammer's U Can't Touch This.

The speaker this week at Perspectives was amazing; the second half was a theological tour de force. I'd say it pretty radically changed my understanding of key parts of Scripture. I'll write about it if I have time.

The speaker at KCPC was good also. I realized one thing I like in a speaker. Goofy-ness. Just, it keeps them real and honest to me. And it reminds me of myself.

So, the guy who took over J.T.'s noon-3 PM spot on the New Ticket 1050 is Greg Papa. I would be more upset except Papa is by far my most favorite sports play-by-play man. He made me want to listen to Warriors games on the radio. That's pretty amazing.

Anyway, he had an interview with Jason Giambi and Giambi came across as an incredibly nice, warm, intelligent individual. I was very impressed. I don't know, guys like him and Mark McGwire give me hope.

I had a great Creme Brulee on Sunday at Carpaccio in Menlo Park. Like I said, I like it slightly sweeter, and theirs was quite good. I can't remember how good the one was I had at Brennan's in Houston, but it was comparable. Brennan's might have the edge though - it came with incredibly tasty fruit and was served in a large shallow dish. Jieun (who remembers how I've felt better than I do) says I liked the one at Casanova in Carmel a lot also but I don't remember it.

I remember the worst one I had. It was at California Cafe by the Shopping Center. Absolutely terrible.

A pure audiophile? A pure audiophile sure as heck would not be using a MiniDisc, since that uses lossy compression. More likely a DAT. And a pure audiophile would listen to mostly records, recognizing that our ears are analog, which is why records sound better. Present-day CDs are especially harsh on high frequencies. For the record, this bothers me. There's a particular frequency that just drives me crazy, it's like a cross between a high-hat and a triangle, and it just bothers me to no end but I've pointed it out to people and it doesn't bother them. It's present a lot in Matt Redman's recording of Let Everything That Has Breath. I'm not saying I have great ears. But this frequency bothers me.

I don't know how to say this nicely, but Dick Vitale is on crack. Of course he picks Duke to win it all, since he always picks Duke for everything. But he also picked Maryland over Stanford to win the West, and Arizona to win the Midwest.

I guarantee you that Duke won't win the tournament. Just, they're beatable. Because their rotation is so shallow, if their top guys are off, then they're doomed. I don't know, any team is beatable, but they lost 4 times this year and almost lost to Maryland 2 additional times.

Here's why I disagree with Arizona. I keep saying this, but the only time Arizona has ever exceeded expectation in the tournament was the year they won it all, the year they were 5th in the Pac-10. No matter how much talent they have, they manage to lose early. So, I've learned to never count on Arizona. They always find a way to lose early.

And the Maryland thing. Actually, I kind of agree with him. I'm most scared by far by Maryland in our bracket. Because of the same reason everyone else is - the teams they've beaten. They beat Duke and played them strong in two other games, beat Wake Forest, North Carolina and Virginia. But what all these people (Vitale included) ignore is who's beaten them, and they got beat a lot. I remember Steve Francis' interview on Jim Rome and he was mentioning how his Terrapins were paining him by their losing. So, they have big wins but they have big losses also.

Dude, the analysis on ESPN's site is incredible. Anyway, I think we have a decent shot, because their center is prone to foul trouble, and we've got the Collins brothers. That difference could be huge. They're a short team, and that could really work to our advantage.

But what really makes me think Dickie V is stoned out of his mind is him naming USC as a sleeper. I'm sorry, but USC just lost to like Washington State? They suck, it's that simple. Also, Vitale named Steve Lavin his Pac-10 coach of the year. Uh, no.

But yeah, what do I know.

One thing that is encouraging to me is our win against UCLA and the game against Arizona. Both those games, the opposing teams were mostly on. And, we still played well, UCLA we beat, and 'zona was close, but I think with Justin Davis we would have won. Meaning, we're a better team. Another realy encouraging thing was seeing us being able to handle UCLA's press. It sometimes forced a Collins to dribble the ball upcourt, but, we found a system that worked, so I'm not worried about that anymore.

I'm pretty excited.

Read this. Depressing. Another great Christian witness. Thank God for Survivor and Rodger.

The speaker at last week's Perspectives said something absolutely fascinating. It was on history and she was saying how if we don't learn from history we're doomed to repeat it. Well, one of the things she talks about is the Student Volunteer Movement, something that raised up missionaries in numbers never seen before or since. It was pretty amazing, actually.

Anyway, what happened is, it kind of died off. Partly because it became too top heavy, too many leaders. But another reason she says is because it lost focus. It moved from being a strictly overseas missions thing to a more general focus, and that killed it.

And, she said, she worries that Urbana is becoming much the same way. She loves Urbana, but she was concerned how this year the focus was less and less on overseas missions. There was much talk about the campus and racial reconcilation and all that, but there was only one main speaker who really talked about overseas missions, and it was brief. And that really concerned her.

I buy that. I don't know how right she is, since I wasn't there, but I could see even in '96 how not everyone was there for a missions conference, and the conference wasn't all about missions. I think the more they move away from that, the sooner it's going to die. Of course, I don't know anything.

Our apartment is so hooked on Survivor it's hilarious. Last night I rushed home so I could set up the VCR and everything frantically. Jieun rushed over to watch. And then I heard Henry and Lorraine coming and opened the door for them, and saw them frantically rushing up the steps so they wouldn't miss anything. And John couldn't wait to watch Survivor last night either. But yeah, it's a great show.

I wrote earlier how there's a guy in the XFL whose jersey reads "He Hate Me". This has actually become a big deal and people who write about the XFL invariably mention this.

Anyway, one SF sports writer was saying how Ryan Leaf is a short step away from the XFL. And he wrote, when he gets there, maybe his jersey could read "He Intercept Me". I thought it was witty.

I don't know about you, but I am extremely glad that I commented on all the Keith Lee slams. Seriously, I thought it was a waste of time back then, but it was worth it.

I hope you sold your tech stocks a while ago because it's a bloodbath out there.

Reuters reported that Cisco plans to cut 5% of its workers. I don't know, that's shocking to me, given what Cisco was planning before. How quickly things change.

Someone mentioned this while we were in East Asia, but it worried them the whole one-child only policy. Just, they're raising a nation of only children, and who knows what kind of effect that will have? I don't know, just, the only children I know have very unique perspectives, it's just a little bit different. Like, they have very particular needs and are very content by themselves. But yeah, it's interesting.

So anyway, I hate the term "falling in love" because it makes it sound like it's something that happens to you, or something unavoidable, as opposed to something you actually do. People don't buy this, but my belief is that there's a difference between being attracted to someone and liking someone. Attraction, whatever, you can't totally control, but liking someone is totally under your control. Don't ask me where the line is. But I absolutely think it's there.

So, to me, when you like someone, you've somewhere made a decision, be it fully conscious or through your actions or whatever, to act on your attraction. Acting doesn't mean pursuing a relationship. It just means acknowledging the attraction and deciding to let it be something. I absolutely don't believe that you have no choice when it comes to liking someone. Even if you don't believe it's a conscious decision to move from attraction to like, you can still change your interaction at the point when it's still attraction and not like so that it doesn't reach that point. Some people don't buy what I say because they feel like they've tried to avoid people in the past and it's only made them like them more. But, I think the problem is, they waited too long, past the point of liking them. And avoiding someone isn't always the best way. At any rate, you have to do it before attraction becomes like.

Anyway, yeah, that's what I think. Attraction, whatever, but if you like someone, it's because you want to on some level. It's not just something that happens to you, it's within your control, so you have to accept responsiblity for that. And even more so with "love", which is why I hate the term "falling in love". Anyway, with like divorce, if someone "falls in love" with someone else, they can't claim it's something that just happened. They wanted it to happen, so take responsibility for it.

But yeah, everyone's against me on this.

My dad sent me this mass e-mail saying his e-mail address changed. Among the people on the list were cell-church evangelist Ralph Neighbour. Awesome.

Thursday was one of the worst TV days of my life. I watched the evil tribe win on Survivor, and then Stanford lose to Arizona. At least Houston came back to beat the Clippers.

Frosh year there was an active Muslim guy in my dorm who I talked to on occasion. And he got angry at the way I pronounced "Muslim". It sounded like "Muh-zlim". And he was pretty angry about it, so ever since then I've been really careful to pronounce it like "Moo-slim". That's probably still not completely accurate pronunciation, but yeah, it's amazing to me, how this one incident changed my behavior forever.

ESPN.com NBA GameCast is awesome. Anyway, the Rockets played Atlanta tonight. Just ended. They were down 29-19 after 1, 59-39 at the half, and come back to win 104-98. Awesome game.

Whatever. The more people saying why Mark is wrong the merrier.

But now I'm angry at Eric. The question was about how it's legal in C and then he busts out C++. Anger.

This is how you're wrong, Mark. Freaking read the FAQ. The critical reason why it works is because of, as it says, "the pointer definition of array subscripting." Commutativity of pointer arithmetic is of course relevant, but it's by no means the primary reason why it works. Misunderstanding this, you made up something about how 5 is type cast to a char * (which by the way is illegal in ANSI C and will not compile) and how "abcdef" is type cast to int (not sure if it's illegal but there's a strong possibility it is). These are just details, but the point is, you got the details wrong because you fundamentally misunderstood the primary reason why it worked. And that is, because of the pointer definition of array subscripting. That's the essence. The FAQ says it. Eric Mao got it. You didn't. Hence, your reasoning is totally wrong.

Commutativity stems from that, it's not the "reason". It's a side effect of the actual reason, which you didn't mention at all. So, that's why your reasoning is totally wrong. This should be clear.

Uh, for the non-nerds out there, this is about why 5["abcdef"] works in C. The reason is (any other explanation is not the reason), array subscripting is immediately translated into pointer arithmetic. So if you have something like iarray[5], that's immediately translated into something like *(iarray+5). K&R explicitly say so in their C book.

That's why that expression works, because of the way C treats array subscripting. To say anything else misunderstands array subscripting and doesn't explain why it works.

I have a new cheap food love. The $0.99 Junior Bacon Cheeseburger at Wnedy's. It's a junior burger, but it's actually pretty big, bigger than normal burgers at other places. It's great.

Eric Mao actually figured out that C thing, I mean, he understood why it should be what it should be based on C knowledge. Mark also kind of got it, but his reasoning is totally wrong, so no bonus points for him.

So here's a thing about me and rhythm. I'm always anticipatory, and not reactionary. I don't know if that makes sense. But like, my sense of rhythm is all based on anticipation, so I think I'm always slightly ahead of the beat. I don't think I speed up, I'm just slightly ahead. My junior high jazz band leader actually used to say this, but he said it was a good thing.

But, I can't help but anticipate. That's my biggest weakness with DDR and related games. I anticipate and I am often just ahead of the beat, and for the life of me I can't fix this. This came to a head when I played the electric guitar DDR-like game at Golfland. You know, I'm a pretty good guitarist, but I was stinking it up at that game. Like, clearing one level was just really hard, and always because I'd anticipate instead of just reacting to it, if that makes sense. It angered me so much I just changed a whole bunch of money and kept playing it repeatedly. Argh, just thinking about it makes me angry. Seriously, I was about to break those guitars in half.

Anyway, it's the same reason why I can't beat Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson's Punchout. Beating him is all about just reacting, not anticipating, but for the life of me I cannot make myself do that. I always anticipate, and he always knocks me down. I must have tried a hundred times. Can't do it. Just, my rhythm is all anticipatory.

Speaking of rhythm. I think worship team should invest in buying metronomes for everyone to practice with. Because this past Sunday, every single rhythm element was off. Drums, bass, and tambourine. Not only were they off from each other, but when they played fills they would be off from themselves. But yeah, it's no one's fault. You can't hear anyone up there. But practicing with metronomes would go a long way, I think. Paul Baloche recommends every instrumentalist practice with one, and I think it's a good idea. At least, I'm getting one.

Anyway yeah, a lot of people think they're "on" rhythmically when they're not and you can't realize that until you practice with something regular, which is why that freaking guitar game angered me. But I will conquer it. Even if it costs me the use of my eyebrows.

When Eric thinks about "cheating" he thinks about the times he let other people copy his homework. Hmm.

When I was a TA, we actually pursued Honor Code violations pretty seriously. It was actually fascinating seeing the process.

Anyway, a funny thing about some people who copy is that they clearly have no idea what they're doing, so when they change details to mask them copying it, they change the wrong things, or do it in the wrong way. Amusing.

Another interesting thing - you'd be surprised how easy it is to find out when people have cheated. Even when the class is hundreds of people big, when you're grading it, you notice. So, don't do it.

The kids in KCPC elementary are hilarious. This past week they were asked to do something nice for someone and one girl reported that she made breakfast for her parents. Which is pretty impressive, because she's like in first grade. Then she says that she made them cereal. I don't know, that killed me.

And kids regularly will raise their hands to get called on, and then when they are called on, they say, "I forgot." I dunno, hilarious. And this happens a lot.

I'm a serious loser. I recently learned how malloc works. And it was seriously exciting. Also learned about how a bunch of the standard C libraries are implemented, and it's really cool to me. Ugh. I feel like Eric Mao.

Random. The following is valid in C:

5["abcdef"]

Not only did Marshall meet Chris Min, but he had dinner with her and Tina Park.

One thing I'm absolutely certain of in my life is that I'm better friends with certain people because I didn't go to the same school as them. I don't know if this makes any sense. But, for example, like Albert Shim and Lisa Tahk. I'm positive I would not have been friends with them had I gone to Berkeley. There's just no way I would have fit in to the FiCB culture. I would have been one of those weirdo fringe people who weren't in the "in". But, because I went to Stanford, we became good friends. Anyway, I'm pretty glad I went where I went and ended up where I ended up because I think it was ideal. Yes, ideal.

Here's another thing about me. Like, somehow I got this reputation for being known, or for knowing people, and I have zero idea how that happened because seriously, I make no effort to do stuff like that, know a lot of people or whatever. Anyway, in my mind, it's not that important that I be friends with random people. I mean, courteous and whatever, but not friends. Dunno if this makes sense.

But I think what I mean is, I don't know why Dave (that is, Dave Hong) hypes up the "triumvirate" so much. Like, why the heck do I need to be friends with Chris Min or Scott Kim? I mean, I like them and I honestly wouldn't mind talking to them, but why the heck do I need to be friends with them? It would just be random at this point in time, and I don't know, I'm just not into that. I mean, if our paths cross or whatever, that's fine. I don't know, maybe I'm just strange.

I think Chris would have been friends with Val. I don't really know Chris, but that's my guess.

Dude, Henry, did you read the page of Presidential Slogans that Dave linked to? One of Abraham Lincoln's slogans was "Don't swap horses in the middle of a stream." A while ago we watched Wag The Dog and this was the slogan they used, and it seemed totally random. But it came from history! Didn't know that.

I especially liked taking over Eric's earnest Raspberries. I got the idea because his was like a progression. Like, he started with getting your windshield splattered, then running out of wiper fluid, then because of that, driving half blind. So, obviously, just extend that a little bit further. I don't know, I just thought it was funny.

Anyway, yeah, I knew Tippecanoe and Tyler too (doesn't everyone? Honestly?). But, I think it was not in reference to Tyler but some other Presidential candidate. He was a general(?) who won at Tippecanoe and his vice-presidential candidate was Tyler. Thus the slogan. But I'm not sure and have no idea who it was. I want to say Harrison but again, no idea. And yeah, I laughed.

The problem with Survivor 2 is that it started out so well. That's not really a problem. But with Survivor 1, it started out a little slow (is my impression) and got better and better. With this one, it started out incredibly, I think, so, it's hard to sustain that. Last week wasn't that good, and this week, while very good, wasn't as incredible as some past shows.

The problem with this week's show is that the most interesting part of every show is seeing which tribe has to kick a member off and then the drama that's associated with it, and this week didn't have that. But yeah, it was still a good show. And last time, the best episodes were right around this time, just before and after the merger. So, I'm pretty excited. Honestly, anything can happen. Especially if the evil team gets it together. If they can somehow take out a member of the holy tribe, that will be great, because their evil will inevitably cause them to break apart, and then it's a free for all.

Here's what I don't get. All of our parents like The King And I. How come the racism doesn't bother them? And I don't know if you remember this Japanese movie called Shall We Dance, it was kind of trendy a couple years ago, but yeah, it's about this dancing instructor and she says how she got hooked on dance because of The King And I, when they dance to the song Shall We Dance, hence the name of the movie. Again, it's an Asian liking The King And I. So, I don't get it.

Did everyone see Kelvin Cato's missed dunk last night? It was hilarious. Check it out here.

Two things happened in sports yesterday. One, Kobe Bryant came back, and scored 38 points, but the Lakers lost. Two, Mark Mcgwire signed a contract extension without an agent, for less than he could have gotten.

I don't know, both things make me happy. I'm sorry, but Kobe makes me angry with his ball-hogging personal glory seeking ways. It just makes me happy that when Shaq is out with injury, the Lakers struggle, but when Kobe is out, the Lakers do well, other people step up, they win. I hope it makes him realize something.

And Mcgwire is just a good guy. I don't know, he realizes that after a certain point, money doesn't mean anything anymore, and he says that the bottom line is that he's happy where he is. That, and thinking about the team, is just a refreshing attitude in sports.

Here is an interesting article on Intelligent Design.

Uh, I meant Hey Jude, not Yesterday. The song with the "na na" chorus at the end.

I'm watching this concert video right now and it's pretty dope. It's called Music for Montserrat, and it's some benefit for whatever. The thing that's cool is that it's a seriously all star lineup, like Elton John, Sting, Phil Collins, some guy from Dire Straits, Jimmy Buffett, and Paul McCartney. And some people I don't care about. Actually, that's not the cool part. The cool part is when they play together.

Like, Paul McCartney ends the concert, and he sings Yesterday on piano, with Elton John on the other piano, Phil Collins on drums, the Dire Straits guy and Eric Clapton on electric guitar, and Sting, Jimmy Buffett et al. on background vocals. And then they trade off the leads, Paul, then Elton, then Sting. I don't know, that's absolutely dope to me. I would have paid a couple thousand bucks to be there seeing them and with thousands of people singing "na na" in unison. Incredible.

They actually close with another song, some uptempo blues song called "Kansas City" and Sting picks up a bass and Carl Perkins, some random white guy who wrote Blue Suede Shoes and other Elvis songs, picks up an electric. And then they trade licks and stuff like that. I don't know, that's just awesome to me.

Why am I writing this? No idea. Just, there's a joy in hearing well-performed music, when the performers and the audience connect, and that's a cool feeling. Music is a wonderful thing. And it's a cool feeling when you feel so passionately about something that it just brings you pure joy. Anyway, I think I'm gonna buy the DVD - the last three tracks alone make it worth it.

So, we were watching The King and I this weekend and I forgot how absolutely freaking racist it is. Like, argh, they just think that anyone who looks "racial" is good enough. So the people playing the Thais include East Asians, Caucasians, Hispanics, and Indians. And like, the accent is so freaking racist. And then the basic idea - that this white woman, by being "true" to herself, saves this backwards society. Anger.

I wish a movie would come out that portrays the truth. That truth being that Asian males are legitimate (in fact ideal) symbols of masculinity.

The speaker at church yesterday was phenomenal. It was Biblically sound, intellectually stimulating, challenging, and well delivered. All in all, an incredible sermon. I was extremely blessed. I'll write about what he said later.

But I was deeply disturbed, because afterwards I was talking to someone who essentially said that it was OK. And because (s)he listens to Tim Keller sermon tapes so it's hard to compare to that.

Seriously, that deeply disturbed me. If something is causing you to not recognize when something is not just good, but very good, in your own church, and you're not challenged by that, I say there's something wrong. It can't be that listening to those tapes is wrong. That doesn't seem logical, that doing something good can be bad. So it must be the heart.

I don't know, I just thought that excuse was lame. I mean, I regularly read John Piper's sermons and they are frequently incredible, but I can still recognize an excellent sermon when I see one, even if it's "less good". I don't know, to not be deeply convicted or challenged by a good sermon just because it doesn't "compare" to something else is again, very disturbing to me. And in fact, this particular attitude is one that Ralph Neighbor specifically mentions as being a problem in the modern church.

So yeah, I was disturbed.

And as usual, I'm a total hypocrite. Because I certainly have musical standards, which, if not met, interfere with my ability to "worship". Even with sermons I'm like that. Argh.

But I think I'm getting better. A few times now someone has thought I was more bothered by the praise at KCPC than I actually was. Sometimes I wasn't bothered at all. If you can call that progress.

We watched Bring It On last night. It was more amusing than not. A solid 3 out of 5 stars. But there were some witty lines. "Cheerleaders are dancers who have gone retarded." "Think of what you ate today. Now divide that in half. It's called a diet." "You should tell you butt before it blows up so big it makes its own website."

Anyway, an amusing thing is that the main character's name is Torrance. There's another character named Whitney. Appropriately, she's Asian. My guess is it's not a coincidence.

Random fact - the Asian girl is also in Clueless. According to imdb.

Our apartment is sinking.

If you look at our patio area, there are cracks all over. And there's a long crack on the wall in the living room right by the light switch. Also, on many of the windows that face a certain direction (facing Wilkie), they don't fit right. On one side, there's a space at the bottom, and on the other side, there's a space at the top. It's like that on the kitchen window, my bedroom window, and our bathroom window. It's what it would look like if one side had sunk lower than the other.

Also, the gate to our place, ever since we've moved there, after a while it doesn't fit right. The gate sticks out too far so it like digs into the wood on the other side. And this gate is in the same orientation as said windows.

Anyway, it's just a theory, but yeah, I think our place is sinking.

When it comes to DDR, I'm just judgmental. Like, if someone is not as good as me, then I look down on them because I'm better. But when I see someone better than me, I look down on them because they're losers who practice playing DDR.

But the one thing I dislike above all other things are people who don't look like they're having a good time while doing it. I've never understood that.

Ugh. I don't know what Simon's talking about. That song is terrible.

Here's an interesting interview with Bono.

There was an interesting article in the Merc over the weekend saying how technological advances are reducing the power of the Fed. So nowadays, you buy your whatever and it's instantly tracked. The stores can instantly order more or stop warehouse orders, and warehouses can similarly instantly increase or decrease factory orders. It's become incredibly efficient, and will only become more so.

But what happens is that this causes almost immediate price and production fluctuations, and it happens too fast for the effects of the Fed rates to influence. That's what Greenspan has been saying recently.

So I don't know, that kind of worries me, if the Fed is unable to influence things to the same extent that it has. Last month there were signs of simultaneous recession and inflation, and I don't know enough to understand it, but it makes me think.

Check out the letter to the Editor from the Daily Cal. It's worth reading because it has a letter from Andrew Hyun, aka illogical drewski of the j bulletin b, and a letter from one Takeshi Kaga.

By the way, try going to www.stanforddaily.org. It goes to the Daily Cal web site. That's evil.

I think sometimes about how involved Christians should be in politics. I used to think there should be some sort of Christian political party. Independent of Republican or Democrat. Some people (e.g. James Dobson) essentially want to make one of the parties the Christian party.

I read a really good article though, I think from Christianity Today. They were just saying how this is a really bad idea. Because politics is all about compromise. To get anything done in politics, you have to compromise. And that's totally against Christianity, and faith in general. If you insist on never compromising, you'll be politically powerless. But if you do compromise, it's a compromise against the faith, which should never be compromised.

So I don't know how much you can mix faith into politics. It's just complicated.

Today was the last day for J.T. the Brick's noon show on the Ticket 1050. They're switching to someone that will focus on local sports.

I take 100% credit for people getting into Survivor and Iron Chef. Our whole apartment is super into Survivor, and it's all because of me. I just happened to watch it at home during the summer and that's when I got hooked, and I got everyone else hooked. Anyway, it's more fun to watch Survivor with me, John, and Henry, that's my claim. Just because we get so into it. It makes it more interesting for other people. We were watching it last night with some people and I think they found it more interesting because they were watching with us. But yeah, I take full credit.

I also take credit for the Iron Chef thing. Just, James Rd. et al being into it. Yeah, other people had seen it, but we wouldn't have gotten into it if it weren't for me asking Andrew for the tapes. So, thanks Andrew, and thanks me.

Don't read this if you haven't watched this week's Survivor but plan to. If you haven't seen it, I have a tape with all the episodes, so, we can watch it.

Last night's episode of Survivor was one of the best hours of television I have seen in my entire life. I know, I'm hyperbolizing, but seriously, it was incredibly entertaining. From the total turnaround of power to the drama of the vote to the viewer discretion warning, absolutely incredible.

So, I doubt that Connie reads this page, but if you do, you have reason to watch the show again. Three big reasons, I think. Rodger, Elisabeth, and Colby. Rodger earned by undying affection last week - he just seems like such a good nice guy, a great witness, and the drama with him and last week's challenge was just great. And Elisabeth shows herself more and more to be a really nice girl also. I don't know, their relationship almost made me cry. It's the fact that there's this pure sweetness in the midst of all this evil and conniving. It's moving.

Anyway, Colby has shown himself to be much more intelligent than we could have imagined. Even when Jerri was trying to work him, he showed that he knew what was up. And especially this week. Oh my goodness. He must have engineered the fight back, and it was absolutely brilliant. Because, he rightly recognized that Jerri's stupid plan was idiotic - it eliminated a strong member of the tribe. You can't do that.

The whole time, Jerri's been eliminating people whom she perceived to be long term threats. But in the meantime, she's been sacrificing the short term - winning the immunity challenges. And as it turns out, these short term effects have a huge effect on the long term - winning the immunity challenges gives you the best odds in preserving yourself, and you need your team to survive in numbers to survive the merger. So, in a nutshell, Jerri is both evil and stupid.

Anyway, Colby, in one fell swoop, toppled Jerri's power, eliminated the weakest member of the tribe, thus maximizing their tribes chances for survival, and became the most powerful member of the tribe. It was an absolutely brilliant move.

Anyway, everyone who watches the show needs to read the Salon episode guides. They are awesome. You can find them here. I highly, highly recommend them.

So, Henry makes fun of my musical tastes from time to time, but honestly, I've introduced him to a lot of good music. Like Michelle Tumes' first album, Amy Grant's Breath of Heaven, and Khool Praise's Awesome In Power / Jesus You Are Lord. I don't really have a point in saying this, just saying it.

Is it OK to say you religiously don't do something? That just sounds weird to me.

So, I'm not criticizing this or saying it's wrong at all, but I don't understand people who go to Viennese Ball year after year. Again, I think it's fine and good, just, I don't understand it myself. Is it still a lot of fun? I don't know, to me it seems to drop it from "magical" or "special" status to just "a fun thing to do" if you go too many times. Wouldn't you rather just go once or twice and remember it as a special event, than just something you did every year?

I don't know, I think it's just me though. Like, I was kind of hesitant to go to Viennese the second time. But it turned out to be great - the first time was magical because it was exciting and new and I had a great date, and the second time was just a ton of fun because we had reached a level of complete comfortability with each other, so we weren't worried about how we danced or looked or anything, but just had purely a fun time.

But yeah, I'm just into keeping things special by not doing it too much, but I know most people aren't like me. But is it even fun to go every year? Doesn't it lose some of the magic? But yeah, maybe it's just me.

Henry wrote:

We all know that both Danny and I are tremendously lucky to have our respective fiancees

So this guy from work is an extreme swinger. I mean, extreme. Like, he'll go all over the world for all night swing events. Not competitions. They just swing all night and sleep in random peoples' places and stuff like that. It's kind of crazy, but kind of cool to hear someone who's passionate about something just for the love of it.

Anyway, I thought there are no places to swing anymore but he sometimes goes 6 nights a week, in various places throughout the city (note - none of these places is the Metronome. Apparently, the Metronome sucks). The interesting thing is, the one night that's generally free is Friday night.

The reason being, real swingers tend to not drink much because it "affects their spin". And of course, places make a lot of money from alcohol, so on Friday nights they prefer to have people who will drink.

I don't know, something interesting I learned.

Yeah, how inspirational to see Christians stealing music.

Here's a short list of people that have called me a fool:

• Dave
• Hitler

So, I find my own web page incredibly boring. When I read over my past thoughts or whatever, just compared to everyone else's, I find it excruciatingly boring. I don't understand why anyone reads it. And yet, people do.

So, I waver back and forth between whether my style of humor is funny to other people. I was reminded of our trip to East Asia - one of our teammates was Ekene, and I started the trend (during a bowling game in which they played Ricky Martin's La Copa De Vida repeaedly. Also, in East Asia, they don't aerosol spray the shoes, but they make you wear these netted socks, it's like pantyhose on your feet. That's more sanitary? I don't get it.) of calling her Ekene the Destroyer.

The reason being, it's absolutely absurd. If you don't know her, she's like one of the most gentle people you'll ever meet. But, the absurdity caught on and I guess people thought it was funny.

But then like, I don't know, I think my roses and raspberries are hilarious, but Eric Mao finds nary a one funny. What do you think? Check it out here. It's pretty obvious which ones are mine and Dave's.

The Falun Gong Show. Come on, that's witty.

Between 1987 and 1999, the number of children with autism in California increased by 273 percent. In 1999, it rose 19 percent. Last year, it rose 15.8 percent.

Something is going on, and it's not leveling off, and that just scares the heck out of me.

So maybe people elsewhere are insulated from it so they don't see it, but I personally know 5 people that have been laid off in the past couple months in the Bay Area. So yeah, it's a big deal, what's going on.

So, I'm still formulating in my mind the ideal Spinach salad. Two things I'm certain of is goat cheese and caramelized red onions.

The best salad dressing I had in my entire life was at this event Henry had to lead worship for. I'm not sure if I mentioned it, or if Henry would agree, but it was amazing salad dressing. I actually asked the workers there as they were cleaning up about it, because you know, sometimes they just buy it and maybe I could too. But they said they asked the kitchen and that it was a house recipe.

So, as you may or may not know, one of my obsessions is the Caramel Apple Cider at Starbucks.

SN. When I like something I frequently get obsessed with it. Like Survivor, spinach salads, stuff like that. My dad says that he's the same way - he gets obsessive about things, like Tetris and Minesweeper. Anyway, he doesn't want me to drink ever because obsessive, addicted behavior is in our blood. But anyway.

It angers me though that the CAC costs so much. So, I was going to try to figure out how to make it at home. I bought some packets of instant cider and the closest thing I could find to caramel, just caramel ice cream topping. But then I forgot about it.

But the other day, I ordered one and I noticed what they use for cider. It's just ordinary Treetop brand. I can't remember the exact product, but I was stunned that they just use Treetop juice/cider. So, I got obsessed with finding out exactly how they do it.

The thing is, they also add some Torani syrup. You know, those Italian flavored syrups they have. But I didn't know which one. So I went to Piazza's to see what they have and found a caramel flavored syrup. So I was going to try that, but decided I'd order another CAC just to do more research.

So, I found out the syrup they use is Cinnamon flavored Torani. But this time they didn't show the apple cider container. In fact, it was just that one random time that I've ever seen the container. But, I know it's Treetop. I also know they use Cinnamon Torani syrup. The caramel they add is from an unmarked squeeze bottle, but I think the ice cream topping will be close. So I almost have the exact ingredients for Starbucks' CAC. I'm going to do some tests - I'll keep you posted.

What a loser I am. I'm actually thinking of buying an espresso machine just to make the CAC just like Starbucks. I think that's how they prepare the cider - running hot steam through it. I'll need to do more research. But yeah, I'm a loser.

Someone explain to me the difference between the criminal and civil courts. I don't even know if that's the right label. But like with O.J. Simpson and now Mark Chmura, there's discussion of a civil suit, which is separate from their criminal trials. What's the point of having both courts? It just seems like they're going through the same trial twice. So yeah, I don't get it - explain it to me.

I pretty much agree with Dave. Not all his examples are valid, but yeah, it's a stretch I think to say that Israel would be the first country to give back land that they didn't "have" to, in the absence of war.

I don't know, that comment actually gives me the impression like there's this Israeli arrogance, like they are being "bigger" than any country ever has in their peace talks that isn't wholly justified. I would even say that this kind of unjustified pride hinders the peace talks. But what do I know. Nothing.

But, I think what Darlene is relaying is correct also, the sentiment that Paletinians don't really want peace. So why bother giving up anything - they'll want more and won't be satisfied. Because peace isn't really what they want.

I don't know - it seems a lot to me like in 1938, when Neville Chamberlain essentially gave up the Sudetenland to Hitler for the sake of peace. It was a policy of appeasement, but it was totally wrong - Hitler wouldn't be satisfied by just that. My feeling is that it's similar - Palestinians won't be satisfied with any compromise. And so, I don't know, it just sucks.

And again, I know nothing, but I thought the issue was more historical than religious. You know, Palestinians just want to have the whole land because they feel they have a historical claim to it. As does Israel. But I guess Israel's claim is based on religion. Anyway, they both feel like they have a claim to the land, so no one will really leave, so it just sucks.

Don't ever slam Darlene or James Han. Whoa.

I believe by the transitive property, Keith Lee worships Scott Kim.

We were in Keith's room last night, and there is only one framed picture in the entire room.

Guess who it was a picture of.

Dave Hong. No joke.

Seriously, I'm just an idiot. I was drinking a Martinelli's apple juice, you know, the ones in a glass bottle shaped kind of like an apple. And inexplicably, I tilt it all the way up in the air, and promptly spill apple juice all over myself. What was I thinking? I don't understand myself sometimes.

So, ever since Henry joined Netflix, we've watched 96 movies. That is a lot of movies.

Am I a loser? Anyway, I love C. The programming language. Love. I don't know, I just find it fascinating. I feel like I'm getting to the point now where I really know a lot about C, and that's a cool feeling.

I can't remember who said it, but someone was asked about a truth that will stand forever. And he said, "This too will pass." Everything will fade away.

So maybe I'm the only one that thinks this but my goal is to just die before the U.S. goes down. I mean, the Roman Republic/Empire lasted for centuries. The U.S. is pretty strong and it's only been 224 years, so I say I have a good shot.

Am I the only one concerned that the world is going to end? I don't know, I don't understand Revelation that well, but stuff is supposed to happen in the Middle East in the end times. So this whole Sharon thing scares me. And like, I read this article that mentioned Megiddo, a supposed site of Armageddon, and it just reminded me of this.

I don't know, I just think sometimes about the world ending soon. Which has serious implications for my retirement savings plans.

I got an e-mail from Stanford saying the core campus shouldn't be affected by the rolling blackouts because Stanford has its own power plant. Whoa.

Christianity Today is a great magazine. That article I mentioned that was on Ned Flanders turned out to be the cover story this month. There's also a review of U2's latest album. I don't know, I just find it encouraging to know that there are many intelligent, reasonable Christians out there.

Seriously, Marshall just lives in a totally different world than me. Like, he deals with these crises involving kids who have no fathers. The biggest thing I had to deal with today was choosing Tato Skins over Sun Chips. I don't know, it's humbling.

So, if you listen to Rodger on Survivor's accent, he sounds exactly like Ed Norton in Primal Fear. It's amazing. He's from Kentucky, and Norton's character in Primal Fear I believe was also supposed to be from Kentucky.

Anyway, this makes me respect Norton more, because he got that Kentucky accent down. He didn't just go with a generic Southern accent. That's impressive.

I think Freddie Prinze Jr. looks like Albert Shim.

This article on archaeology in Israel and the Bible is fascinating.

I watched Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure last night. There was a scene where Pee Wee Herman is in Texas, and he's on the pay phone with someone, and he proves he's in Texas by singing out loud, "The stars at night are big and bright" and everyone around responds by clapping and singing "Deep in the heart of Texas".

The funny thing about this scene is that it's a pretty accurate portrayal of Texans. The amount of state pride Texans have is just bizarre. Like that guy on Survivor. His luxury item was a huge Texas flag. How absurd. And here's a direct quote: "Every morning when I wake up I'm thankful for two things. I'm thankful that I'm alive and I'm thankful that I'm a Texan."

Anyway, try doing that in Texas some time. I bet you'll get a response.

I don't think anyone reads this page anymore. Oh well.

Don't ever call me. I'm terrible on the phone. Either talk to me in person or via electronic means. But yeah, I'm only able to talk to Jieun and my family on the phone comfortably for a long period of time.

The speaker at Perspectives last night said that 50% of Korean missionaries don't last more than 4 years. He didn't say why, but he alluded to later the fact that many missionaries don't have enough preparation and training in cross-cultural sensitivity.

So my claim is that 2nd generation Asian Americans have an advantage in missions in that we're already culturally sensitive, just because of the situation in which we were raised. We're already aware of cultural differences. I just think we're a lot more sensitive to things like that than other people.

Supochai. I rather like that.

Has anyone even read the Married Couples group page off the KCPC web page? It's almost like a history book. The upcoming events are for the Fall of 1997. Pastor David Yi is listed as a member!

So, I'm pretty much a Clinton-hater. You know, there are supposedly a number of people in Congress who just flat out hate Bill Clinton. I'm like one of those people.

What bothered me about the whole Monica Lewinsky thing is that a bunch of people kept saying, yeah so he cheated on his wife. Lots of people have done that. Give him a break. In other words, that it was all about sex.

That's not what it was about at all, at least to me. It was the fact that he lied about it under oath - he perjured himself. That's what made it relevant to the impeachment hearings. Not the sex. The perjury. And, he was political to the very end, just a slimy man. To finish the whole investigation, they settled it by having Clinton admit that he was less than honest under oath. Because he certainly was. But, I read his statement and it was just dishonest and slimy to the bitter end.

Personally, I think he deserved to be impeached. He freaking lied under oath. It is, of course, understandable, even if it's wrong. But, the President of the United States has to be held to a higher standard. In particular, in regards to the law. His express job is to uphold the law, so he of all people needs to hold the law in high regard. And he clearly didn't, and that's what angered me most.

But he was clearly (to me) just a slimy character regardless. Anyway, this was just confirmed with the last thing he did before leaving office. He granted a grip of presidential pardons. To people including his brother and this guy who had contributed to his political funds in the past.

That's just wrong. I mean, why the heck does Roger Clinton deserve a presidential pardon? And that other guy, I mean, everyone finds that slimy. Like Newsweek, and this editorial in the Mercury. That's what gave me the greatest joy. The writer was like, I supported Clinton in everything he did, and this last act just lets me down. Yeah, it's bitter of me, but I feel like it gives everyone a chance to see what a character he truly is. And that's slimy.

Not to mention the way the Clintons accepted furniture from donors to furnish their new houses. Maybe not technically illegal. But super sketchy. That's the Clinton legacy.

The audience award winner for best feature at the Slamdance movie festival is a film called American Chai.

Theseus and the Minotaur

I don't see how Dave can get mad at Koreans for calling notebooks notes. This is a man who writes about "smilie" faces.

So there's this Contemporary Korean music concert happening in San Francisco. The thing is, it features a Japanese composer, a white composer, and Phil Collins. I kid you not. I don't know, that angered me.

Have you ever had the feeling like you hear/see something and you know it sounds familiar but have no idea what it reminds you of? We watched Born On The Fourth Of July the other day and there's this one musical theme that sounds so familiar. And it was driving me crazy. Henry posited that it was from The Rock.

And then suddenly, I realized what it was. It sounds exactly like the music from Terminator 2. I don't know, after I realized that I felt so good. Because honestly, I think I'm going senile. I struggle to find the word on the tip of my tongue like constantly. I'm a little worried.

Speaking of Born on the Fourth of July, seriously, the Vietnam War just sucked. And you want to ask, what were the Presidents thinking? But it's weird, it lasted for so long, several Presidents of both parties, and they all believed that war was necessary. It's easy to say they were wrong now. But could they have known then?

I just get confused because it's hard to tell what lessons to learn from history. You think that after WWI and how after led to WW2 that the lesson to be learned is that you can't be a total isolationist. At least, that's what I thought. You can't just avoid those problems, or they'll come back up eventually.

But then, with Vietnam, it seems like that was the lesson from history they believed. That you can't isolate yourself, and what happens in the world will make a difference, so the line had to be drawn there. But then, retrospect shows that was wrong in Vietnam. So the lesson there is what? It's not right to involve the country in every conflict? That's like the opposite lesson.

I guess the answer is just that every situation is complex and there are no easy answers. But like, they always say that if you don't know your history you're bound to repeat it. So say there's a way somewhere in the world with world wide political ramifications. And it's not clear how difficult it would be to win that war. What's the right thing to do? No clue.

Uh, random.

So, if you can't tell, I have a couple of food obsessions that I've developed. One is spinach salad. If I go to a restaurant and they have a spinach salad, I'd say there's an 85% chance that I'll get it.

The other is Creme Brulee. If a dessert menu has this, I'd say there's a 75% chance I'll get it, depending on what Jieun wants. I have no idea why I like these two things.

Dave and his stupid Tiger Woods is the Antichrist.

When have democracies fought? I'm not saying it can't happen, just why hasn't it?

Here's my claim. Democracy isn't just about politics, it's about economy, is my feeling. Capitalism, to varying degrees, is linked to "democratic" nations. I think "wars" in the coming years will be increasingly economic wars rather than military wars. Especially if it's between two democracies.

But, I don't even know what I'm talking about, so I'm 77% sure I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure Henry will slam me for this.

Last year I heard a talk given by one Professor Kanade of Carnegie Mellon. He's a pretty well known figure in the field of computer vision. And I'd say CMU is the best U.S. university in the field of computer vision.

Anyway, he mentioned a bunch of projects he was working on, but one was really intriguing. The idea is, you have a bunch of cameras all over an area, and you use computers to map this information together, so what you have is the ability to view the scene from any angle. Not just the ones that the camera covers. Computers can extrapolate other "virtual" angles based on the information in other cameras. It's essentially the same thing they did in the Matrix, in those scenes where the camera smoothly moves around the secene, except the demos I saw from CMU didn't have a line of cameras but a dome of cameras, so you can view it from any position.

A fascinating idea Kanade brought up was the use of this type of technique at sporting events. If you have enough cameras, you can view the action from literally any angle. You can even view it from a virtual angle where you're on the court / field. That is incredible.

So, watching the post game at the Super Bowl, they used this type of technique! Like, they'd show a play and then move the viewing angle as it unfolds. And you can tell there's computer extrapolation involved - the image is kind of blocky, stuff like that. And the movement wasn't totally smooth, but it was still kind of cool. And I immediately thought about that Kanade talk.

Anyway, when I watched the credits, I found out that the virtual camera stuff was done by CMU! So, it must have been Kanade behind all that. I just thought it was kind of cool to be on the "in" about that technology, like how it works and who's behind it.

So, who watched Survivor? What did you think? I was pretty stoked about it. I don't know, especially in light of these other lame "reality" shows, you see how brilliant Survivor is.

Two of the people brought as their luxury items, a huge Texas flag, and a Bible. That's excellent TV.

That series Dave's talking about, the twins switched at birth I think Esther, Ohms and Jieun are watching. Apparently it makes them cry like little babies.

Yeah, the average/nothing posts are pretty impossible. I didn't really intend to continue it. I just thought the concept was funny. Just, how absurd. It's pretty much exhausted now though.

Anyway, it's impossible to explain my j bulletin b humor to people who don't read it. I tried. I mean, how do you explain to someone why you're trying to attribute nothingness to a person? Out of context it makes no sense. Even in context, it makes no sense.

So, it's cool to see Stanford ascend to the ranks of the elite men's basketball teams. I'm reading ESPN articles and they consistently refer to Stanford as being elite. One sentence read how something is what separates teams like "Duke, Stanford, and Kansas" from other teams. Could you imagine reading something like that 6 years ago?

That's the coolest thing. We've seen the rise to power. We were there and went to games back in the days when games were free for students. We remember not making the tournament. We remember watching Dion Cross and thinking he's better than Brevin. And we saw it all happen. I don't know, I think that's cool.

My mom sent me some vitamins. Here's what it says on the back.

"Ocuvite is the #1 recommended vitamin-mineral supplement brand of eye-care professionals. Choose Ocuvite Extra today!"

Eye-care professionals???

So, a friend mentioned that he starting reading the j bulletin b and that me and my friends are "weird." Is that an understatement.

I don't know, I think my humor is witty. Applying the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to Eddie. Come on, that's wit.

CNN had an article about a Harvard researcher who stopped light.

I don't know, there are all these scientific results that are coming out now that are just weird. Stopping light? Bizarre.

Do you know what the official currencies of Ecuador and El Salvador are?

The U.S. Dollar. I'm not making this up. Guatemala is going to make the dollar its legal currency in May. Weird.

Someone informed me that Mary Niu's homepage is no longer valid. Since this person doesn't know Mary, at all, I jokingly called him a stalker. He replied, "Call me Mark Wang."

He doesn't know Mark, either. That amused me.

So, someone sent out this e-mail that annoyed me, I'm not even sure why. It just claimed that Lawry's in L.A. had the best prime rib ever. I guess it annoyed me because it was typical L.A. centeredness that is in fact wrong. I've eaten at Lawry's. It was good. But I can think of at least two other places with better prime rib that I've had, and I haven't even been to that many places. And of course, these places aren't in L.A.

California has good food, but when it comes to meat, Texas is much better. I'm not saying it's the best anywhere. I'm just saying Texas knows meat much better than California.

Apparently Michael W. Smith sang at a prayer service that George W. Bush attended, and he played Above All. That's cool.

Seriously, people have no passion and energy. I've posted about 100 interesting things and nearly no one has responded. I don't know, I'm pretty sad about it.

I love how John just blatantly lies in his last entry. Just, he says how he tries to put the newspaper in order. Uh, OK John. I think you've done that about 2 times.

Anyway, the thing is, I don't need for other people to put the paper in order. That doesn't bother me at all. It's just I need to do it; I don't know why.

Because I'm a loser, I'm going through old j bulletin b links. Anyway, dude, that hostile takeover of the Deep Blue Sea board was one of the great moments in history. Hilarious.

Anyway, one guy had a funny comment. Dave had challenged someone to come up with two possible plots for a sequel. And one guy says, how about they forget to kill one of the original sharks, which comes to land and ends up killing a sarcastic @$%! named DorkeyDave. I thought it was witty.

Nursery Photos

Watched Reality Bites last night. I liked it. I found a few things interesting. Like, Winona Ryder is really attractive in this movie. I've seen her in other movies, like Heathers, Little Women, and the Age of Innocence (I think she's in that) and never got that impression before. Another thing is, Ben Stiller directed the movie! I was surprised. Another cool thing was, it takes place in Houston, and there were these little touches I liked. Like, they had a Mattress Mac commercial. You probably don't know who he is, but he's the guy who owns Gallery Furniture in Houston. They hosted the first galleryfurniture.com Bowl (absurd) in Houston this year.

Anyway, the weird thing is, I own the Reality Bites soundtrack and have for a while, but never saw the movie. So, it was a little weird being familiar with the soundtrack while watching the movie. I don't know if this makes sense. But, I had the same experience with the Mission. I had the soundtrack first (an excellent soundtrack, by the way) before I saw the movie, so it was kind of weird seeing how they used the music I was familiar with.

So, I watched a couple episodes of Iron Chef last night. The first episode was pretty good - peach battle. The uncomfortable thing is, I don't know, those Japanese are just weird. But the guest chef was going through some personal problems. Like, his wife took his kids and left him soon before he appeared on the show. The thing is, they mentioned this prominently in the intro, and Fukui-san kept talking about it during the show. In fact, he read a totally personal letter from the chef's wife during the competition. I don't know, that's just weird. Revealing someone's personal problems in detail on national TV.

The second episode was one we had seen before, with no theme ingredient, just a theme - girls festival. Anyway, they talk about girls and chastity, and Fukui-san says how chastity isn't what it used to be. Then he proceeds to ask one of the guests, a 17 year old actress, "How about you? Do you know the meaning of chastity?" Argh, so tense. She didn't know what to say, she's like, "uh... yes?" Yikes.

Anyway, the next battle on the tape is squid. I'm pretty excited.

Jesse Jackson admitted he recently fathered a child out of wedlock.

I don't know, I'm really not a big fan of Jesse Jackson at all. Mostly because he seems more interested in publicity than in solutions. There was this one time he debated Dinesh D'Souza, who's this super conservative think-tank type of guy, and Jackson just got worked. Because D'Souza, even if you disagreed with him, had facts and statistics to back up his claims. But Jackson was just interested in the sound bite. The impression one gets is that Jackson just likes to make speeches. He doesn't think arguments through, nor can he logically back them up. It's about publicity, not solutions.

And then this hypocrisy. What bothers me most is that his Rainbow Coalition's web page features a prominent picture of Jackson's face next to the words, "January 15-20, 2001 -- A Week of Moral Outrage," a protest tied to the inauguration of Bush as president, according to CNN.

I'm all about grace, but I'm all against hypocrisy.

I think I said before how Caedmon's Call's newest album sucks. I still don't think it's a great album, nowhere near as good as their last one, but there are jewels in there that I didn't realize. In particular, Prove Me Wrong. It's in every way, just an interesting song. Here's the lyrics:

Anyway, they take some definite chances on their album, and honestly, a lot of them just don't work. But, at least they try to stretch themselves. That's more than most bands can say. But yeah, I really dig that one song. Musically, the way they put it together also, is just fascinating. And lyrically, I don't know, I just like it. I like songs that deal honestly with doctrines like predestination.

So, my dad's church passed 1000 in weekly worship attendance recently. He baptized 11 people last month. Why the heck can't something like that happen around here?

Guess the dictator/TV sitcom character. Pretty amazing. I tried Chrissy and Felipe from Three's Company, Henry Rush from Too Close for Comfort, Napolean, Suharto, Karen from Step By Step, and the boyfriend from Out Of This World. The only one it didn't get was the neighbor from Small Wonder. It said it was the neighbor from Valerie. But come to think of it, they're like the same character.

I drove by Korea House today and there's a sign saying the place is open for lease. So it looks like Korea House, which really was a Stanford tradition, is no more.

Russell Crowe describes Gladiator as "opening with a massive battle scene before moving on to a series of massive battle scenes which set the stage for a massive battle scene resulting in a final battle scene which I would describe as massive."

Henry, I know drugs are plentiful in Thailand but abstain. What the heck are you talking about? When did I ever say Miyake sushi was good?

But now that you mention it, it is good.

So I bought U2's last album a while back and I haven't been able to get into it. Just, I don't like Beautiful Day the first track, and that got in the way quite a bit. I have to confess it's growing on me a bit, but I still don't think it's a great song. I also didn't particularly like Stuck In a Moment... the second track. I actually think it's a good song, I just don't like the way Bono sings it.

But, I'm trying to listen to it more. Elevation is a great song. They should have made that the first single. It seriously rocks.

You know a meal at Todai is free on your birthday?

Another good food deal is the lunch/student special at Fresh Taste Mandarin Kitchen near Stanford. An entree, rice, egg roll, and soup for like six bucks. That's an excellent volume/cost ratio.

Two magazine articles of note: Newsweek last week had a brief article on DDR and similar games (including the maraca game). And Christianity Today in next month's issue will have an article on Ned Flanders. No joke.

So, two coaches that I have been fond of have been fired for what I think are similar reasons. One just happened, John Cooper from Ohio State. The other was some years ago, when George Seifert was fired from the San Francisco 49ers. Yeah, I know, Seifert quit, he wasn't fired, but anyone who knows the background story knows he was pretty much pushed out.

Anyway, Seifert was fired because he could not beat the Green Bay Packers, and John Cooper was fired because he could not beat Michigan. Of course, these are just superficial reasons; they point to a bigger problem, that being they couldn't make their teams rise to a challenge, and it happened to be that Michigan and Green Bay happened to be those challenges year after year.

At any rate, Ohio State wants to talk to Tyrone Willingham. Whoa. We'll see what happens.

So, one thing I enjoy a lot is food. It's kind of weird, for a skinny guy that doesn't eat a lot, but whatever, I enjoy good food a lot. The thing about me is that I either go really cheap or really expensive. So I always get the fast food cheapo deals. Like in high school on Fridays we'd often go to Burger King and I often got 2 $0.99 Whoppers and water. At McDonald's I usually get one McChicken, one McDouble, both $0.99, and a water. At JaBo, I get 2 of the following 3: Chicken Sandwich, Jumbo Jack, or Breakfast Jack with sausage instead of ham. All $0.99. Although sometimes I splurge with a Sourdough Jack. Greg Chong introduced me to Carl's Jr.'s spicy chicken sandwich, which is about $1.29, and is the best deal on a spicy chicken sandwich.

But I like nice food also. I don't know why I'm like that.

My favorite sushi is salmon. Simple, but delicious. The best sushi I've had was at Higashi West on Emerson (mega-expensive) and Toshi's Sushiya in Menlo Park (very expensive). A lot of people hype up Fuki Sushi, and it always wins the award for best sushi in the Palo Alto Weekly's annual best awards, but I don't get it. To me, it's just overpriced and only fair. I'd rather go to Miyake than Fuki.

Speaking of which, I don't know how much work they did to gather so many creepy waiters in a single restaurant, but I'm sure it wasn't easy. Good job, Miyake.

Sam Hu just showed me the latest toy he bought. Robo-Pong. I am not making that name up. It's kind of like a portable ping pong batting cage. Sam is hard core.

I tried what Dave said and I still can't read the cover to Taiji's new album. I can read the track listings now, but the title is just random lines.

Here's another fascinating article from Salon.com. I disagree with the author's remedies, but I totally agree with his main point: nowadays, we're being bombarded with information, but information does not equal knowledge. We're so bombarded, in fact, that we don't have the time, and some don't have the ability, to integrate this information usefully.

Even worse, this information bombardmend makes us constantly desiring entertainment, so much so that we don't have time to consider deeper philosophical issues. You may not buy it, but I think that's totally true.

Here's a fascinating article on why Java is bad. For computer geeks.

I was listening to the Stanford-Duke men's basketball game on the radio, and at halftime they interviewed Condoleeza Rice. Anyway, at the end of the interview, the guy called her the "National security advisor-elect". Is that right? It just sounded weird.

I was also watching the Raiders-Dolphins game today, and dude. When they showed shots of the crowd, seriously, they all look like thugs. I was afraid.

I stayed up late finishing Memories of a Geisha. Dude. I don't know, for some reason it just captivated me and broke my heart. I guess I'm just a sentimental kind of guy. But utterly fascinating to me.

I had one of the best spinach salads of my life yesterday. It was at this place Maya's in the city. It's like upscale Mexican food - pretty good, actually. Anyway, the salad was served warm, with bacon bits, shitake mushrooms, caramelized red onions, and a sweet vinaigrette. The coolest part for me, though, was the goat cheese. It was served on top battered and fried like a little croquette. I don't know, I had never seen that before and I liked it. Good salad.

Another salad I rather enjoyed was this one I had at Roy's, also in the city. All the ingredients were diced, and it included tuna sashimi, avocado, fresh mozzarella, and tomato. Other stuff too, but that's what I remember. Anyway, it just tasted really fresh, and very interesting, and quite delicious. I liked it.

So I met someone from Korea the other day and I asked her about the new Taiji album. Like I said, I his second and third albums. The second is very kind of light hip hop. And it was apparently very popular. But I like the third one better. Just, it kind of takes chances relative to Korean music. And I appreciated that. But I asked my cousin what she thought of it and she didn't like it as much; the impression I got was that it wasn't that popular in Korea, and I believe it. All the music I heard while I was there sounded exactly the same. Dance pop. Everything.

So with this new album, I don't know, I was shocked at how non-Korean music is sounded. Like I said, it's very heavy, like extremely so, and I don't know, I just thought Koreans in general wouldn't dig that. But this girl apprently knew the album and said she liked it, so, maybe there is hope for Korean music tastes. But I doubt it.

This girl by the way got an MBA from Harvard and apparently knows the cousin I was talking about that's getting his PhD in Economics from there. I thought that was a nice way to tie in two previous short thoughts.

Stanford beat Arizona in Tucson this morning. I think we have a chance to go undefeated this season. Who's going to beat us? We can beat Arizona. UCLA? No way. USC? No way. I don't know unexpected things happen, but, I think we have a chance.

So Dave got me a Taiji album for Christmas. I think. I can't read it - there's all these weirdo characters on it. Anyway, it sounds like Limp Bizkit or Korn or something. It's kind of weird, and very very hard. Whoa.

Anyway, Taiji is fascinating. I have II, which is like 80s pop-rap, then with III he moved to like stadium rock (to my ears). And now he's into a hardcore rap-rock phase. It's interesting.

A funny thing about the album is he can't pronounce "youth" or "truth". It sounds like "We are de youse" something something "truce". It's pretty funny. But yeah, I can't get over how hard this album is.

I love goat cheese. Preferably slightly warm, and especially in a spinach salad. I hate feta cheese.

He speaks 3 languages. Korean, English, and a little Chinese (he grew up partly in Hong Kong) and he currently is a PhD student in Economics at Harvard. I don't know, my family is freaking amazing.

I once spent a summer in Portugal, and they told me that the Japanese word for thank you is derived from Portuguese, way back when Portugal used to trade with Japan. Arigato from Obrigado. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, was there no word for thank you in Japanese before this? Weird.

The sequel to Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, is out. And Orson Scott Card is appearing at the Barnes and Noble on Stevens Creek and San Tomas on Friday afternoon.

Anyway, the reason I say Korean adapts too much English is because that's what my Korean cousin was telling me when I was in Korea. He just thought it was overdone, and he's the one who gave me the example of the positions on a basketball team. North Koreans have their own Korean words for the positions, but in South Korea they use bastardized English, and my cousin didn't understand why they did that so much, not just with basketball, but with everything.

Probably no one cares, but Ron Siegel, the guy from Charles Nob Hill in San Francisco who appeared on Iron Chef, is leaving and going to Masa's, another restaurant in the city. He starts on February 1.

I had 2 DDR experiences during vacation. The first was in Houston. We went to the only DDR machine in Houston as far as I know (it's at Tinseltown).

SN. There's a version of DDR in America called Dance Dance Revolution USA. I've seen it at Sunnyvale Golfland and that's the machine in Houston. Anyway, there are several differences between this and the Japanese version. First of all, there are a ton of songs you can choose from. The selection screen looks like All Songs mode. And there are a bunch of songs I haven't seen before. Also, you don't have to do any codes to change the skill level - you can choose it at the selection screen.

Most significantly, I think the rating is easier. I don't know, it seems like they dumbed it down and made it easier for Americans. Those arrogant Japanese.

Anyway, there were a bunch of high school kids camped out there with cups full of quarters, so my sister and her friend (who were the ones who wanted to play) were too intimidated to. They were serious losers, doing the fancy moves on easy songs with their loser girlfriends admiring them.

At any rate, I just wanted to play so I worked my way in and played with one of them. At any rate, I did pretty well. I did one of the level 6 ones, one of the Paranoia mixes and got an A! The high schoolers actually applauded me. I don't know, I felt pretty good about myself. But like I said, I think they grade it easier on the USA version.

Except that midway through the last song, the level 6, I was physically dying. I was just praying that it would end soon. Afterwards, I was so out of breath and my legs hurt so much I couldn't stand for like 15 minutes. It was pretty pathetic.

Anyway, I played again in Long Beach a couple days ago (DDR 3rd Remix) and it was humiliating. I just sucked. I played with this little Filipino kid who kept his hands in his pockets the whole time and I kept getting E's. It was terrible. I was pretty humbled.

I've seen a bunch of other games also. There's this DJ game that I've seen all over the place that's pretty insane. I also played this electric guitar game at Sunnyvale Golfland. It's similar to DDR - you hold this guitar and press buttons and strum as you see the patterns come up on the screen. But, it was pissing me off because I kept failing. Anger.

I also saw a drumming game, with the full drum set, at Jillians in Houston. (Jillians is like a competitor to Dave and Busters. Exact same type of place.)

Argh Dave is such a fool. You're telling me that Korean doesn't use Englishisms more than other languages? Do you really want me to go into that? Of course inventions and whatever, adapt the word. But for everyday items also? Korean alone does it with that much frequency. If you really want to compare, bring it on, idiot.

Esperanto. Argh.

Wrong again, Dave. I received scant few Christmas cards (not writing any for several years and keeping in contact with no one will do that), but the majority of them were from men, not women.

I'm reading this book, Memories of a Geisha. It's pretty well known; Spielberg is supposedly making a movie from it. Anyway, it's absolutely fascinating. Just, a totally different world, and it's helped me understand certain elements of Iron Chef better, like when that one chef brought a couple geisha, and what the heck Ursula the fortune teller does.

Speaking of which, the Food Network had a 24 hour Iron Chef marathon on New Year's Day. Ohms recorded 8 hours of it for me. I'm pretty excited - I haven't seen IC in a while.

I'm just saying I don't think the multiverse notion of the universe is an established one in modern physics, so we don't need to worry.

And even if it were, there were a ton of problems with it that came to my mind, at least. Their explanation for the slit experiment is that the photons interact with photons in different universes. Fine. But then they make the huge jump from this to having infinite universes in which every possibility of reality occurs? Huh? I'm sure there's a better explanation of that leap, but someone has to explain it to me. In other words, accepting the multiverse explanaion of the slit experiment doesn't logically entail infinite universes where every possibility is played out. it just means there are universes in which photons behaved in different ways.

But, yeah, I don't know. But from what I've read, the multiverse view isn't the sole accepted theory. I don't even know how widespread it is. And, because of that logical leap I don't get, I can't think about how God fits into it all.

In the past 3 days I've seen both Janet Ahn and Eli Tsou. Yes, both.

Yeah, but Korean seems to take it to another level. Just, before America came along, there were no words in Korean for slipper? Sweater? Pound cake? Service? Coffee shop? Television? Radio? Apartment? Just, Korean seems to use English words way more than other langauges, but since I don't know any languages really, I'm making this up.

Susan Van Riesen's dad is my mom's dad's youngest brother. So she is technically my mom's cousin, but since we're closer in age, and it's kind of confusing to explain, I just call her my cousin. But Marshall calls her Aunt Susan.

She went to Occidental College and was IV staff there for many years. Her husband Alex went to Stanford. Yeah, she tells great stories.