You're probably not familiar with my product, but it does cooccurrence analysis on documents. I don't really feel like explaining, but it involves finding related noun phrases. Anyway, a coworker hooked it up to Google and the results are kind of funny. Here's some of what it found.
Here are some others.
Jieun Park didn't work - too many Jieun Parks on the web. Same with John Yoon. And Eric Mao. Although one term returned for Eric Mao was "Love Triangle." Apparently from this.
So yes, my work is giving me new exciting ways to waste time. I love my job.
So last night I heard this radio interview with Kwame Brown's high school coach. Brown was the high schooler who was picked first in the NBA draft. Anyway, it was pretty interesting. It turns out that he's the second youngest of 8 children. His mom is partially disabled and has been raising them by herself since he was a kid, mostly on disability checks. He's an honors student and could go to college, but is entering the draft for family reasons.
Anyway, the guy asked the coach to describe his character, and the coach said the number one thing that characterizes him is his faith in God. I think the host was a bit startled. Anyway, the coach said some people just will pray or thank God for show or whatever. But he said with Kwame, it's real.
I dunno, I found that all encouraging.
Salon.com had a critic's analysis of Memento today. Pretty interesting. Only read it though if you haven't seen the movie because it discusses in detail.
So some people are saying now in baseball it's more important to have a balanced team than just one or a few superstars. The model for this is Seattle, which of course lost Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez and somehow are far and away in first. Dunno how true it is.
But it seems clear that in basketball, that's not true. I dunno if you agree or not. But, in basketball, you can't win without a superstar, preferably two of them, and just a passable supporting cast. You know, with like Shaq and Kobe, Tim Duncan and David Robinson, MJ and Scottie, Magic and Kareem, etc. ESPN radio was talking about it last night. The only exception I can think of really is the Rockets first championship, where Hakeem was really the only superstar. But yeah, two superstars is more important than strong balance, I think. Who knows.
Anyway, I'm pretty happy about the Rockets' draft. Because they got a potential superstar, and I don't know how they pulled it off.
Honestly, the Rockets' front office is pretty good. Think about all they've been involved with in the past. Their trading Otis Thorpe for Clyde Drexler was brilliant. Somehow they got Charles. Somehow they got Scottie Pippin, who at the time was the most sought after free agent. Somehow they got Stevie Franchise. And now Eddie Griffin. It hasn't all worked, but think of one other team that's been involved in so many good deals. It's pretty impressive.
If you really liked The Abyss, Darlene, you need to buy the DVD. It's ridiculous. It has the theatrical version and the director's cut (which we watched), 30 minutes longer. And the special features are overwhelming. I literally watched it for hours and only partially got through it. It's absurd how much I know about The Abyss. But yeah, you'd like it.
Jason Collins is a Rocket!
Oops. He's been traded. He's a Net.
But Eddie Griffin is a Rocket!
Listen to these two weeks I've had.
Since last Monday, I've watched Miss Congeniality, Jackie Chan: My Stunts, The Abyss, Badlands, Memento, The Pledge, and The Commitments. You might think it's pathetic but I'm proud. I dunno, it's my last chance to watch so many movies. Because once I'm married, I'll be too busy... cleaning.
Anyway, Netflix is making me angry. You know how PacBell/Cingular did so much advertising and expanded so much that all circuits are frequently busy? It's getting like that with Netflix. When a new movie comes out, all available copies are swiped up immediately. I timed it to get Unbreakable, and they put it on our queue, but then removed it, saying there's a "short wait." Anger.
I've got an old person's sensibilities.
I've come to realize that a lot of the younger working people enjoy the excitement of living in the city and frequent travel. Me, I hate the city. I'm happy to visit, but I'm glad I don't live there. I'm definitely a suburbanite. Or as my boss says, I've commited suburbicide. And, I'm thankful as heck that I don't have to travel for my job. I dunno, I guess I'm just weird.
So, not sure if you know this, but they're making an Iron Chef USA show on UPN, with William Shatner as Chairman. There's a website about it here. The only chef I'm familiar with is Iron Chef Asian Roy Yamaguchi - ate at Roy's in San Francisco. It was really good.
Dunno if you remember Archie and Gopher, but they're ftp related programs that people used to use frosh year and stuff. Before the Web got so big. Anyway, Stanford is retiring the use of them. It's the end of an era.
Praise God - housing prices went down in the Valley last month, compared to the year previous.
Addendum - this is only in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. It was still up in San Francisco.
I never once went swimming in Junior High. Actually, scratch that - I went exactly once, and I remember when. Anyway, the reason is, I was really skinny and had no upper body at all, so I never wanted to take off my shirt.
I dunno, I'm not super body conscious, but for most of my childhood I was pretty embarrassed about how skinny I was, and there's something about those feelings that stay with me to this day.
So this happens pretty regularly.
I dunno why I'm like this but sometimes I'll be so sure of something that I'll be really strong and forceful about it. I'm like this with very few people, most notably Jieun. And of course what happens is that I'll end up being wrong, and in light of how forceful I was, spectacularly so.
Jieun most often just lets me have my way and bides her time, and eventually I make a fool of myself. There's probably a Biblical lesson in that somewhere. Anyway, I have no idea why I'm like that. Thank God Jieun's able to put up with it.
I read the DDRFreak forums pretty regularly now. Anyway, it seems to have some sort of automatic language filtering because there was this sentence that said like, "It's either 1 or 2, and I buttume it's 1."
I found that amusing.
I'm hyping up Memento too much. Oh well. Peter Choi thought it was disappointing, and Wong thought it was a mundane story, so maybe that will temper your expectations.
Anyway, after you watch it (and you should), check out the website: www.otnemem.com. It's pretty interesting and adds flavor and twists to your understanding of the movie.
I'd like to talk about it more but don't know where to. Maybe in a couple weeks.
The best movies I've seen in a theater in the past few months have been Moulin Rouge and Memento. Nothing else came close, for me. I highly recommend everyone watch Memento. It's the most interesting, thought-provoking, entertaining movies I've seen in a long long time.
When I was growing up, the majority of my clothes were from Mervyn's and Marshall. My underwear, socks, and other stuff came from Marshall, which was cheaper because it was "slightly irregular". All my pants came from Mervyn's.
Buying pants was a little traumatic for me growing up because I was always a really skinny kid. So like, even when I was older, I had to buy kids' jeans, since those were the only ones that fit. Actually, not kids exactly, but Levi's "Student" 550s. These were like the transition from kid size to adult, and I was there for a long time. It was pretty embarrassing for me having to shop in the kids section in high school. Sometimes when my sister was there I'd make her pretend we were buying them for a younger brother who wasn't there.
I once had a bonding talk with a friend who had a similar experience. Except he was kind of big kid. So, when he was young, he couldn't buy regular kids' pants. He had to get "Husky" sizes.
I don't know, little things like that stick with me.
Also, random, for a few years in elementary school, all I wore was Izod and Levi's. You know Izod, the Polo shirts with the alligator. My closet was filled with it. Utterly random.
I'm 98% positive that Brian doesn't read Mark's page.
Anyway, it's hard for me to relate, because just about all my AI classes were theoretical and academic, so I have no clue what Brian was talking about.
John's clarifying post has left me more confused than ever.
Henry is right, because John actually did recognize that financial decisions and spiritual decisions are linked, something Henry accused him of not doing? I'm somewhat wrong, because I defended John in being justified in his feelings, which, now that he explained things, turns out not to be true? Meta.
Here's a direct quote from John: "I hate it when Christians are selfish with their time. For example, my dad regularly volunteers his time in free clinics for the poor and frequently goes on short term medical missions trips." Or something like that.
Another John quote (100% true): "I'm full. I think I'll have some more rice."
Meta.
Henry is still wrong.
I'll just address one thing. Yes, your point is that financial concerns have spiritual ramifications. That's fine. But John is still valid in his feelings. Financial concerns are only valid in terms of their spiritual ramifications. You say "It's absurd to say you are considering just one of the issues, and that -- therefore -- you are not considering the other." This isn't what John is saying. It's more absurd to say that if you are considering financial considerations you are necessarily considering spiritual considerations. And what John is saying is that to him it feels like he's only considering the financial reasons and not necessarily the spiritual.
So spiritual concerns are the only thing that matter. Financial concerns are only relevant in light of their spiritual ramifications. When you only consider financial reasons that's bad, and it's something the Bible speaks against. John felt like he was making a decision solely for financial reasons, not the spiritual ramifications of those decisions or other spiritual concerns. So his feelings are valid.
But Henry is still right about John being wrong.
I dunno, Henry, I think John's valid in his feelings. I dunno if the main conclusion we can draw from the fact that Jesus talks about money more than anything else is that "sound financial decisionmaking is a component of -- not an independent issue of -- God-centered decisionmaking." I'm not going to say that idea is wrong. I agree with it, for the most part. But you're saying that's the point of everything Jesus says about money?
In fact, the point is not exactly but nearly the opposite. You should not love money too much. And your decisions in life should not be based solely on monetary considerations. That's not saying it shouldn't be a part. But the emphasis of Jesus' words is not on what Henry is saying (that it should be a part of the decision) but the opposite (it should not be too much of a factor in the decision).
The only example I can really think of that supports Henry's idea is the parable of the talents, but by most that's understood as being primarily a parable for something else. But regardless, if you look at everything Jesus said, it's clear (at least to me) that Jesus is warning against caring about money too much. He's not warning that you need to make good financial decisions as a part of your decision making process.
If anything, the Bible seems to emphasize things that might seem fiscally irresponsible. Like, the woman who buys the expensive perfume for Jesus. Everyone else thinks it could have been better spent but Jesus praises her. Or the parable of the guy who pays everyone a day's wage even if they came just before the day ended. Or praising a woman who gives all she has to live on. Or encouraging the young man to sell all his possessions. Or when he sends out the disciples the first time telling them not to take any money and just depend on others. Etc.
All these things seem fiscally irresponsible. But the point is, spiritual concerns often trump what seems the fiscally right thing to do. Yeah, financial concerns have spiritual ramifications. That's logical. But, the example in the Bible seems to me that as logical as it might seem, you can't base your decisions solely on financial considerations, even though they have spiritual ramifications, because greater spiritual concerns supercede them.
And that's why John is valid in saying what he did. What concerned him is not that he did something for financial reasons but that it felt to him like he was doing something solely for financial reasons. And that's absolutely a valid, I dare say Biblical, concern.
So yeah, slam me if you want (not just Henry but everyone), but do it based on the Bible, not just on logic. Yeah, financial concerns have spiritual ramifications. But I think from the Bible, it's clear that spiritual concerns supercede what's financially responsible when they conflict, and that making decisions based on financial decisions alone is bad.
That said, Henry is right about one thing: John is wrong.
Uh, Sam, I think you misunderstood. This year, Major League Baseball expanded voting for the All-Star game to other countries. Here's a brief mention of it. As the article mentions, the inclusion of Japan in the voting is likely to favor Ichiro. I'm not saying it's responsible for all his votes, but it's probably a factor in him being the very top vote-getter.
So when he was talking about Japanese voters, he was talking about voters in Japan. And, he's probably somewhat right. All those Japanese voters (5 million, according to this article) sure as heck aren't voting for Chuck Knobloch.
There is almost no trend that I can claim as my own, but I do take full credit for the one emotion word thing. You know. Anger. Rage. I'm 99.44% sure that I started that. In addition to having the first thought page on the web.
I've always thought Berkeley graduations were way more illogical than Stanford graduations. Like, the fact that many graduations take place before finals are over. or that walking has nothing to do with whether you're actually graduating or not. That all of Stanford's are on the same day is somewhat unfortunate, but it makes sense. At least it respects the spirit of what graduation actually is.
Watched Jackie Chan: My Stunts tonight. It was pretty interesting, I thought. It's really hard filming a good fight scene. So much to it. Anyway, it briefly talked about the history of fighting movies and it said how for a long time, it was divided into two genres - weaponless and swordfighting. In the swordfighting movies, they're often supernaturally good at swordplay and have other powers as well. And they showed this super old clip of a movie, and these sword fighters were flying all over the place, and going into trees and stuff. It was a lot like Crouching Tiger, and I thought that was really interesting.
As you may or may not know, CTHD didn't do too well in China, and Western stories have said that it's because it just ignores reality. Like, there were quotes about how the fighting is just totally unreal, and they supposedly didn't like that there.
But when I see how these really old movies were the same way, and when I see how Jet Li and even Jackie Chan sometimes use unreal wire work, I dunno, I don't buy that. I think it was something else. My guess is that they didn't speak Mandarin well. I think in Asia they're used to the sound and video not matching, but they are used to dubbing by native speakers. So the fact that the actors didn't speak Mandarin that well, maybe that was why.
But, this is something I just heard also, dunno if it's true, so who knows.
I went to Gloria Lee's wedding this weekend. And there met... Derfman. Utterly random.
This is the most blatant software piracy site I've ever seen.
If Dave's talking about the cousins I think he is, I remember when they first came to Houston. If memory serves me correctly, we went to an Astros game together. They barely spoke English. If those are the same cousins.
"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope you have." - 1 Peter 3:15
I think this verse is taken out of context a lot. Actually, forget context. I think this verse is just plain misread a lot. People take it as meaning, be ready to give an answer to any question or problem a non-Christian might have. But that's not what it says at all. It says be ready to give a reason for the hope you have. And that's about Christ, not about arcane details. It's about your testimony, not the answers to everything.
I dunno, I posted a Rich Mullins quote about this before, and I agree. Just, pursuing this too much focuses "on a wisdom that is not a virtue but a vanity."
That said, again, I urge you to read Christianity Today. It had an interesting article about some philosophy professor at Notre Dame who they boldly say has conquered some critical arguments against Christianity. One such argument deals with the problem of evil. This professor doesn't necessarily solve the problem of evil, but he shows how it's logically consistent with the basic tenets of Christianity, and that's all that's needed. All you need is to show there is a logically consistent defense, and that proves it's not necessarily logically inconsistent.
Interesting note. His argument (sketched out very roughly) relies heavily on the concept of man's free will. I found that interesting because he's a Calvinist.
Anyway, yeah, read Christianity Today. This month also features the second half of a debate involving Openness Theology, something I've written about a couple times in the past, that's pretty interesting.
I'd wager the single biggest reason Henry's glad he's seen so many classics is now he gets more of the jokes on The Simpsons.
You know what the difference between Henry and me is? Not the difference but a difference.
Henry is more patient. Is that bold? It's true.
I don't know if you've ever asked Henry to explain something to you, or seen him do it to someone else. But he's infinitely patient, it's pretty amazing. He'll step by step explain things to you with incredible completeness, often with visual diagrams and stuff, and not get frustrated or angry. He's done this with me and John multiple times.
Whereas anytime I have to explain something to someone else, it's hard for me not to get frustrated. I dunno why I'm like that.
I think it's related to the fact that Henry is incredibly knowledgeable about a lot of practical things. So, he's used to having to explain things to people about stuff like this because he does it all the time, and he knows more about pretty much any practical subject than you do. Whereas with me my knowledge is limited to the useless so if I have to explain something that someone else might want to know, it's not something I'm used to.
Yeah, I think that's it. Because when I do have to explain stuff in something I've always known a lot about, I don't get frustrated. Like music. I'm extremely patient (I think) when explaining stuff about music because I'm used to knowing more than other people. It doesn't bother me at all.
But maybe I'm wrong.
I talked to my mom today and she told me about the flooding in Houston. Some areas got 32 inches of rain in 12 hours. In comparison, since July 1, 2000, San Jose has received 13.54 inches of rain. My brother in law apparently went out to check his car after and found a fish on top of it.
Something always goes wrong when I lead praise at KCPC. But I think this week tops them all.
The front speakers weren't on for the entire set. The amp wasn't turned on. I had turned it off because we were getting all this feedback and other noise stuff earlier when we were setting up. So all the sound was coming from the back auxiliary speakers. For those in the front, all they were hearing was the echo from those speakers.
I can't imagine how it sounded.
My wrists started hurting again a couple weeks ago. I was pretty worried about it. But, I started wearing long sleeve shirts to work again and it disappeared. I know you might think I'm insane. But I'm telling you. The secret to me avoiding repetitive stress injury has been long sleeve shirts.
There used to be a tradition at FiCB, dunno if it's still there. But when people graduated and moved out or whatever, they gave their furniture away. The only caveat would be that when whoever they gave it to moved out, they in turn would also have to give it away and not sell it.
I dunno, I always thought that was a nice tradition.
I highly recommend you read the latest issue of Christianity Today. It just deals with a lot of the issues that have been brought up on the j bulletin b lately. In particular, dating and the Prayer of Jabez.
In fact, the cover story this month was on singleness and dating. It was pretty good because they were way more objective and insightful than I was. Like, everything I thought I had a unique insight on, they brought up. Oh well. That's just my hubris.
I think I like Josh Harris a lot more now, also, by the way. One of the articles was like a survey of dating books. In case you didn't know, there was a response to I Kissed Dating Goodbye that was supposedly almost as popular called I Gave Dating A Chance. But I think CT is right - they're not that different. Both (I think) don't really advocate casual dating, since if there's absolutely no intention of any type of commitment, all that can happen is hurt. Ultimately.
But neither - even Josh Harris - advocate dating/courtship = engagement either. I think they'd say it's OK to date without knowing whether the other is the one. And I think both would say it's OK to break up. If I'm reading things correctly. So, if I'm understanding things right, I don't think I really dislike Josh Harris. It's more the Korean Christian view I dislike.
By the way, the only book the article really slams is Choosing God's Best, and it has almost nothing good to say about it. Primarily because there's no Biblical basis for its position.
Anyway, yeah, read Christianity Today. It's pretty encouraging, I think.
On occasion I talk about how the schools I went to growing up (not high school) were poor and whatever and how I didn't live in a great area. But I have no idea whether that's true or not. I did notice last time they published test scores that my elementary school was like 40% socioeconomically disadvantaged students.
Anyway, I saw these statistics recently that showed the median home price by zip code in the Bay Area. Dude. The area I grew up in (95111) had the lowest median home price ($297,000) in all of Santa Clara County. I couldn't believe that.
I met some friends in San Jose today, and since I was in the area, of course I went to the Golfland on Blossom Hill. It brought back a lot of memories. I remember when Street Fighter II Championship Edition came out, they had like 5 machines in a row at this Golfland. Some pretty good players there. Keystone, which used to be right down the street on Almaden, also had a bunch in a row. I played there more often. This is the Keystone where someone got shot. When I heard about it, I wasn't surprised.
Incidentally, my favorite versions of Street Fighter were Street Fighter II and Street Fighter II Turbo Championship Edition Hyper Fighting. I promise I am not making that second name up.
Anyway, they had this version of Pump It Up, something like International was in the name, and all the instructions and everything were in English. The thing that was cool about it was it had like songs we know. Like Oops I Did It Again and Mambo #5. I played it once, Hard level. I passed Bye Bye Bye pretty easily but failed on Take On Me.
It's a lot more fun dancing to songs you know. It was pretty cool. Too bad it's so far away.
The Mercury today published the major ethnic groups in San Francisco schools:
The church I grew up in was in California. My dad attended Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. Essentially all Korean Baptist churches in California are members of the Southern Baptist Convention, which, as I mentioned before doesn't formally recognize elders. Dunno how it is with other ethnicities. I was desperately trying to find statistics on the web. But all I can find is that the Southern Baptist convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, and they have very healthy numbers in California. (Side note. There are at least 6 Korean Southern Baptist churches in San Jose.) I'd wager (but I can't back it up) that most Baptists in California are Southern Baptists.
You can of course bring up exceptions, but they clearly are exceptions. The links you provide all indicate so. Even saying that there are many new churches in California are doing it indicates #1) it's a minority (not most, just many), and #2) it's a phenomenon limited to new churches. Both things put it in the minority. Because that's what it is.
It's not just limited to Southern Baptists. Here's the American Baptist Association's statement of belief. Note point 19. No elders.
I wish I could post more, because looking for stuff, a frequent comment is how strongly congregational Baptists are.
Anyway, I'm a broken record. But yeah, there's absolutely no reason to believe that an elder-structured church is typical of Baptist churches, even in California, whereas there is significant reason to believe otherwise. Every example you pointed out showed that Baptist churches with elders are a minority and are arguing their point to everyone else. Burleson even calls the idea "alien to traditional Southern Baptist polity".
But yeah, I don't think I can convince you, and it doesn't really matter. Maybe I should have just said this. I grew up in a Baptist church in San Jose. Attended since I was about 5 right up until college. And one of the biggest contrasts I found with the Presbyterian church I've attended for the last 7 years has been church government. That's without question one of the biggest differences. I'll just leave it at that.
You're wrong, Adrian. Piper's point is that Baptists have had elders in the past, and it's not inherently unbaptistic. And he makes a case for his own particular church's structure. It's a particular example in a smaller Baptist denomination. Not at all typical.
What you were saying in your entry is different. You said you've come to know the Baptist way and the Presbyterian way. Because your church is "very Baptist". In saying that, did you mean that it's in line with historical Baptists? Or reconcilable with current Baptist doctrine? Because my impression is that you meant representative of Baptist churches today. If you didn't, then that compare/contrast between Baptist/Presbyterian doesn't really make sense.
And elders, and church structure involving elders, is in no way representative of Baptist churches today. Piper essentially says the same thing in the quote you give, qualifying it as being a recent phenomenon. It may not be inherently against Baptist doctrine, or "unbaptistic". But that's irrelevant. Because you were talking about what was representative of the Baptist church. And the elder structure is not.
This comes from the Southern Baptist Statement of Faith:
A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.
The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.
Matthew 16:15-19; 18:15-20; Acts 2:41-42,47; 5:11-14; 6:3-6; 13:1-3; 14:23,27; 15:1-30; 16:5; 20:28; Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 3:16; 5:4-5; 7:17; 9:13-14; 12; Ephesians 1:22-23; 2:19-22; 3:8-11,21; 5:22-32; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:18; 1 Timothy 2:9-14; 3:1-15; 4:14; Hebrews 11:39-40; 1 Peter 5:1-4; Revelation 2-3; 21:2-3.
Why did I comment? I dunno. I was raised a Southern Baptist, and my dad's a Southern Baptist minister, and you'd be surprised how proud he is to be a Southern Baptist. I'm no expert, but I do know that Southern Baptists take special pride in being locally autonomous and having a congregational approach. If you told a Southern Baptist that the elder structure is "very Baptist", they'd be at least surprised. Some might be angry. And it's probably this attitude that necessitated Piper's paper to justify it to others. I'm not saying the attitude is correct. But it is more representative of "Baptists". And to miss that I think misses something about what being a Baptist (at least a Southern Baptist) is all about.
I'm not trying to slam you, it's just if you're going to compare/contrast Baptists and Presbyterians, you can't present the elder structure as being "very Baptist". That's not really true, and it misses one of the most fundamental differences between the two denominations.
I forgot to mention this.
Last Sunday I gave one of the worst performances of my life. Eugenie asked me to do "special praise". By the way, we should stop calling it that. It's the same thing every single week during offering. In what sense is it special? No clue.
Anyway, I decide to play Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring on guitar, just to change things up a little. I figured I could; I've played this song hundreds of times. I even do a trick where I play this song behind my head. I know this song really well.
And, to make a long story short, I choked. There's one section that brings it back around, and I just couldn't remember it. And it was hellish. Everytime I had to get to that section, I just hoped that somehow my fingers would find their way through it, but they just didn't. It was the worst I've ever played anything publically in my life.
The second worst I remember was at this random recital we had at church of all places. It was for some organization. I knew this Chopin I think it was a Polonaise, a pretty famous one very well. But I was also working on this Rachmaninoff Prelude (I think it's a prelude) that, while I didn't know it as well, it just sounded way more impressive. So I decided to go for it.
Mistake. I don't know if other people feel this way, but sometimes I can practice a song forever, have it memorized, but still not really "know" it. Uh, I think this is just a problem for slackers like me who never practiced enough but still had to play in stupid recitals.
Anyway, before a recital, what I do is rehearse in my head. And, if I really "know" the song, when I'm rehearsing, I know exactly where my fingers should go at every point in the song. But sometimes I don't "know" it, and I find out that I get through the song because of muscle memory. Just, when you do it enough your fingers kind of remember where to go. But I don't really "know" the song.
And do or die time, when I find out whether it's muscle memory or really knowing it, is when I'm rehearsing before the recital. I guess I could do the same thing earlier, but yeah, I never practiced as much as a should have. I'd say in high school, a lot of the time the only practice I got was at the lesson. It was that bad.
At any rate, if I didn't know the song, it all depended on muscle memory, and I just hoped I'd get through it when I actually did it. On this particular occasion, with the Rachmaninoff, I didn't. I started derailing somewhere through and kept trying to stumble through but I couldn't regain my bearings so I just suddenly stopped altogether and started all over.
Which was stressful, because there was still no guarantee I wouldn't do the exact same thing and then I had no idea what I would do. Just stop midsong, get up, bow, and take a seat, I figured. I was stressed out like mad I remember. Fortunately, I stumbled through the song and finished, although it wasn't great at all. But yeah, that was a bad performance moment, deciding to play a song publicly that I just was not ready for.
And this past Sunday was worse than that.
"The structure and style is very Baptist...local church control by elders..."
Uh, this isn't Baptist at all. Baptists heartily reject this form of church structure. They're very into autonomy, and favor a more congregational approach. That's why Baptist churches don't even have elders. They're more congregational. And the power and influence of deacons in the Baptist church tends to be less than in other denominations. In word, if not in deed.
I'm trying to figure out my list of favorite movies, after Slim asked me what they were. I'm not really sure. I'm pretty sure of my top 3: Shawshank Redemption, Pleasantville, and It's A Wonderful Life. After that it's a jumble. The Matrix is up there. So is Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. As is Airplane and Singing in the Rain. The Sixth Sense is actually pretty high on the list. As is (yeah yeah I don't care what you think) Titanic. Also the Rock.
So I realized there are two things that put a movie on my all time favorite list. One is when I can watch a movie over and over again and never get tired of it. There are few movies that are like that for me. The other is when the movie has a strong message that's important to me.
There are a lot of movies that are one but not the other. Like, I can watch Dragon endlessly. Love that movie. But it doesn't really have a strong message or anything. I mean, there is a message that I like (Asian men can get white women) but it's not important to me. Same with the Rock, or Singing in the Rain.
Conversely, there are movies with strong messages that I like a lot, movies like The Mission, that I'm not sure if I could watch it endlessly. The movies at the very top of my list are those that are both.
So, I think this is my preliminary list.
We saw On The Ropes, this documentary about a trio of boxers, and I recommend it. I thought it was fascinating and engaging.
Paul Lee liked the dating entry. Whoa.
John and I kind of agree on the dating thing but kind of not. I think the main difference is this: I think there needs to be a way for guys and girls to be intentional about getting to know each other that doesn't require engagement, and that this should be encouraged. In other words, I support dating. I think John would deny this. If guys and girls want to get to know each other, they should just let that happen in the context or community or whatever. No intentionality about it. If there is intentionality, it should lead toward marriage. This is, I think, essentially what courtship is and what I'm against.
I've been surprised at how many people have mentioned how they agree about this. Where are the critics? Come on, slam me, that's what I wanted.
So here's the thing about many L.A. Koreans that bothers me, I realized. It's not the fact that they think L.A. is the best place for everything. I can live with that. What bothers me is that so many of them are completely unable to live anywhere else. They can only be in L.A.
It's not like that with other places. Like, my friends from Houston have dispersed all over the place and have been able to function wherever they were. It's like that for other places also. But people from L.A., so many of them have to be in L.A. They just can't really function away from there and for some reason that strikes me as being strange. I think it's that they're so steeped in the subculture, why they can't function.
I realized this when going to a wedding a couple weeks ago. I asked which hotel they had reserved for out of town guests. And I found out they hadn't reserved any. They didn't need to. Almost all of the wedding attendees, family, friends, and the rest, lived in L.A. No one leaves the place, and I thought that was bizarre.
I'm not a particularly well traveled man, but I'm grateful at least for the experience I've had with my family living in Houston. It just gives you perspective and I think makes you more able to deal with different life circumstances.
I watched Moulin Rouge this weekend. I actually liked it a lot. I'm still thinking about it. Don't think it's everyone's cup of tea, but it's exactly me - over the top, sappy, and steeped in pop culture. Seriously, that's exactly me. It was also very original and a well crafted movie.
Have you ever read Roger Ebert's review of The Mummy? It's pretty funny. And curiously enough, I kind of agree. Now I want to see Anaconda and Congo.
In light of last year's trip, I found this pretty interesting.
Can you tell how much I websurf?
Dunno why, but I found this fascinating. I found it while researching beverages. Don't ask why. But it's interesting. How many people remember Koala Springs? Clearly Canadian? New York Seltzer? What the heck happened to them?
Interesting - I found a a bulletin board postcommenting on that very article.
So on Monday I went shopping at Fairfield Shopping Center. SN. I never go shopping. I think I can count on one hand the items of clothing in my room that I've bought by myself. My mom and sister buy nearly all my clothes.
Anyway, they recently expanded Fairfield (used to be Valley Fair) so I wanted to check it out.
It was pretty enlightening. I don't really keep up with fashion or anything, but I found out what the "in" style is nowadays: ugly. I'm not joking. Just, everything has these ugly patterns and colors. I don't know what people are thinking. So Dave, it looks like America has caught on to your style.
The depressing thing was, my waist has significantly expanded. For almost all of college, I wore either a 28 inch waist, or 29 if I wanted to go baggy. I could fit into a 27, though, if they made that. But on Monday, I was trying on pants, and 30s were snug. I've gone all the way up to a 31. That's depressing.
The Mercury today had an article on Ron Siegel, who famously beat Iron Chef French Hiroyuki Sakai in Battle Lobster, one of the best battles I've seen. It's about how his Iron Chef experience influenced his cooking. Pretty interesting. Who wants to go to Masa's?
I'm not sure who sent me this article but it's interesting.
We watched Vertical Limit last night. It was predictably mindless, but I for one (maybe the only one) was entertained.
Here's Roger Ebert's review of it. It's funny how people react to movies. Henry thought the helicopter sequence was lame; Ebert called it "effective". To each his own.
Ebert has fast become one of my favorite movie critics. My all time least favorite critic is Paul Tatara of CNN.com. Anyway, I remember Ebert was once writing about being a film critic and he pointed out something insightful. He was giving advice to an upcoming critic and he said the most important thing to do is write. Write about everything, all the time, and hone your craft.
The insight (maybe it's not an insight) is that being a movie critic has less to do with being a good critic and more to do with being a good writer. And that's who my favorite critics are - the good writers, regardless of whether I agree with them or not.
Speaking of comics, Salon had this article today about a book dealing with the history of comics. He hits some things on the head - the genius of Stan Lee was how he created antiheroes who suffered from internal conflict.
By the way, have you ever read the Action Comic that featured the first appearance of Superman? It's interesting. The innovation of Superman was that it was the first superhero. It's just one of a few stories in the comic, and I'm assuming the others were typical of comics at the time - they were stories of normal people, e.g. like a Western with cowboys and stuff. So Superman sticks out.
What I also found interesting is that in the original Action Comics, Superman can't fly. He can only jump real high. Hence the "able to leap tall building with a single bound" thing. There are other differences as well that were interesting.
Interesting. Everything is interesting to me.
There was an article in Newsweek recently about the trials and travails of opening a new restaurant. It featured this place in New York called Town. Anyway, the New York Times gives it a good review, and the article mentions that the owner gets a congratulatory call... from Bobby Flay. For some reason, that made me angry.
I had lunch with some relatives the other day and somehow Henry's name came up and Alex was like, "Henry. He's the guy that made that Thirsty CD." I may be misrepresenting it a bit, but the impression I got is that they saw Thirsty as being Henry's brainchild. I was going to mention David Byron but I thought it would annoy Henry more if I didn't. So I didn't.
So I became aware of this frightening web page that lists my social web network at Stanford. It's pretty scary.
But pretty interesting also. Kind of funny. Like, I guess it does some type of text analysis to show what me and people I link / link to me have in common. So like, me and Jieun have in common:
Whoa. Here's the page that shows who I have most in common with. #1 (with a bullet): Keith Leonard Lee. Bold.
So I found out what happened to JT The Brick (it was in the Mercury this morning). Apparently, the network he was on, Sports Fan Radio Network, folded. But he just got a gig with Fox Sports Radio, and he'll be on 4-8 PM PST after Tony Bruno and Jim Rome. He won't be on the Bay Area for now, though.
Just saw Gorgeous, the latest Jackie Chan film. Plot wise, it's utterly incomprehensible. But there were a couple of boxing fight scenes that were incredible.
It seems to me Jackie Chan has lost a step. Just, in his fight scenes, he seems slower. Of course, it might be just that they're not speeding up the film anymore. But it's not just that. In the fight scenes involving more than one person, it just looks choreographed. It's always been choreographed, but in Gorgeous it looked more so. But yeah, the two one on one boxing scenes that were pretty amazing.
Anyway, some random info, I guess just for Henry and John: Gorgeous started out as just a Jackie Chan produced film. He wasn't going to be in it, and there were no fight scenes in the original script. So it was just going to be a plot driven romantic comedy. Stunning. But, there were 20 minutes cut in the American release, and apparently the Hong Kong version is more coherent.
Other interesting tidbits - Shu Qi says in the making of featurette how hard it is to make movies, so she asks us not to buy pirated VCDs.
Oops.
Also, Jackie says he likes Gorgeous more than Rush Hour. He also says something interesting, how important editing is in the fight scenes, and in fact, to be good, the fighters actually need to be aware of how it's being shot, what the next shot is, etc. He says how anyone can punch and kick, but very few action stars are aware of how to edit fight scenes, even in Hollywood.
He's right, I think. I dunno, I just like the way Jackie Chan's fight scenes are filmed in his Hong Kong movies way more than the way they film his fight scenes in his American movies. I'm not quite sure what it is, but yeah, it's better.
If anyone cares.
I saw What Women Want this weekend. It was fairly good, not great. The basic premise was interesting, though. What's interesting to me is that in my opinion, it's a movie for guys (I think), but only a woman could make it. Dunno if you agree. What's also interesting to me is how there would never be a movie about the reverse. What Men Want. My theory is that it's because women don't really care what men want, and men don't care if women don't know. Whereas, women desperately want men to know what they want, and because of this, it's a big issue for men to figure out what women want. Anyway, think about it. What Men Want. It could never happen.
Also interesting was the fact that the actress that played Mel Gibson's daughter is the girl that played Chrissy on Growing Pains. Whoa.
I regularly read the Iron Chef newsgroup. Apparently, my animosity towards that annoying kid in the New York Battle is shared by many people. As you may or may not know, there's going to be a rematch between Morimoto and Flay airing in June. There are quite a few people hoping that the secret ingredient will be Tommy.
I should have mentioned this earlier, but U.S. News and World Report's cover story last week was on boarding schools. The usual suspects were featured, including Andover and Lawrenceville. Others I had heard of; a lot that I haven't. But it was interesting, if you can get a copy of it.
Don't ask me why, but I've been researching Japanese foods for the past half hour. It started because I was interested in how they make soy sauce. No idea why. It's funny - the ones that brew it, like Kikkoman and Yamasa just totally look down on those that don't. Their language is so condescending it's funny.
Anyway, you know ebi is a boiled and vinegared prawn. Amaebi is eaten raw - at Miyake and other places, they also serve the fried heads with it. But anyway, there's another version called odori which is eaten raw while it is still alive.
I want.
Have you ever wondered how a MiniDisc works? I'm reading about it and it's fascinating.
So Perspectives ended last night.
I highly recommend everyone to take Perspectives. I recommend even more highly that you take it for certificate or higher, or at least do the readings. Seriously, the readings were incredible. The speakers were OK - they varied widely in quality, but most of them were just OK or good. But the readings - incredible.
What I liked most about Perspectives I think was just that they knew what they were talking/writing about. A lot of the time I hear about missions from people who honestly don't know that much about it. They can say stuff like what missions should be like, but who knows if that holds in real life. Whereas, with everyone in Perspectives, they've lived everything, they have a lifetime of experience, they know what works and what doesn't, how missions actually is in real life and how it should be, and everything the Bible has to say about it. So yeah, you know they know what they're talking about.
Anyway, in a lot of ways I learned that how we need to do missions isn't the way many people think. The biggest impact it's made in the most recent weeks is that I'm convinced more than ever about the idea of the Asian American church. Hopefully I'll have time to write about that sometime.
No one cares, but oh well.
JT the Brick isn't even on the New Ticket 1050 anymore; hasn't been for a couple weeks. But check out his web site. It looks like he doesn't even have a show anymore. What the heck happened?
This is essentially just for John. According to Keith, we've only seen Rurouni Kenshin at 25% of his potential. This all changes with Volume 7 of the series, which supposedly releases today, at which point he goes to 30% of his potential, and supposedly at Episode 50 (that would be like Volume 12) it gets incredible, at which point Keith estimates he's at 80% of his potential. 100% happens at around episode 80+.
Honestly, I'm thinking of taking down my page because basically all my thoughts suck now. Not that I ever had anything interesting to say, but it's even more so now.
Anyway, I came across a Rich Mullins quote I had on an old page that's kind of relevant to things that have been on my mind recently. Here it is.
"Take, for example, wisdom. Wisdom has at its source the 'fear of the Lord' - the highest regard and reverence for Him. The tendency among many of us, though, is to confuse wisdom with omniscience and to think ourselves wise in proportion to how much stuff we know. God calls us to be wise and provides us with Christ. We pressure ourselves to be all-knowing and fret over where Cain got his wife and how the earth can be as young as the scriptures claim when geologists say that it takes millions of years more than that to produce a barrel of oil. We tend to suspect that wisdom lies in the ability to answer imponderables rather than in Christ. And we sometimes end in self-contempt and even abandonment of our faith, not because our faith is false, but because we focused on a wisdom that is not a virtue but a vanity."
I think it's important to cultivate hobbies. I'm not sure why. Balance? Sanity? I dunno. But I think it's a good thing.
My mom's hobby when I was growing up was flower arranging. She was pretty good at it, and pretty into it. She did it for church a lot, and she'd every so often go to classes and seminars on Saturdays and buy books. Sometimes I'd go with her to get the flowers at this place called Romaggi in downtown San Jose. It's a weird place, just a huge warehouse with tons of flowers.
But it was always strange to me because if you know my mom, she's the most functional person in the world. I just always thought it was interesting that she was into something so artsy. But, I think it made her peaceful and she enjoyed it. I just think it's cool to find something that makes you happy that you don't have to do, I guess.
So the reason I stopped posting on the j bulletin b for a while was because a friend of mine challenged me about it. He was just disturbed by the trash talking and slamming that was going on, and thought it was wrong. And, I disagreed with him about it, but then he reminded me how I have this tendency to say/write things that go over the edge that I regret later. I guess I thought about it, and yeah, he's right - I have written things that I've regretted later. It's not good.
So I took a timeout and I dunno, maybe it will be boring, but I'm going to try to avoid the negative posts from now on. I dunno if I won't slam at all, and I'll definitely disagree in posts, but I just want to eliminate the wanton negativeness I've had. Maybe it will make everything boring, but we'll see.
I wish sometimes that certain praise songs would be more popular than they are. In particular, my favorite song, "All That I Need". Just for me, there's no other song that expresses how I feel as well. It's always meaningful when I sing it. Anyway, here are the lyrics:
All that I am All that I'll ever be I give to you Lord, make me more like thee
All that I am All that I'll ever be I give to you Lord, make me more like thee Make me more like thee
Oh Lord, I love you I love your ways For you are strong and I am weak I lay my life down at your feet For you are all that I need
Just as I am I come to you oh Lord And this is all I am Unless you make me more Make me more like thee
Oh Lord, I love you I love your ways For you are strong and I am weak I lay my life down at your feet For you are all that I need
Don't get the spinach salad at Left Bank. It's terrible.
I remember the randomest sports things. So, the Jazz lost their first round series to the Mavericks after leading 2-0. That's only happened a handful of times; never before had it happened twice to the same team. Does anyone remember the first time it happened to the Jazz?
I do. It was against Golden State, back when Sleepy Floyd and Joe Barry Carroll were there and George Karl was there. Those two were traded for Ralph Sampson after that season. Incidentally, does anyone else remember when George Karl was coach of the Albany Patroons in the CBA and that the Patroons were the best team?
I'm also surprised no one commented on the retirement of Napolean Kaufman, a running back on the Raiders. He's still good, he has a contract, but he walked away from it so he could dedicate more time to doing ministry. I thought that was incredibly encouraging, because it's so obviously sincere. He basically left millions of dollars on the table to do what he really wanted, and that's encouraging to me.
I found another random guy linking to my page. No clue why he's reading my page. But if you check out his page he has long thoughts and short thoughts.
I'm assuming he's a friend of Jimmy Wu from Houston, who as it turns out also links to my page. The funny thing about Jimmy's page is his thoughts page. He directly rips off my javascript thing. I don't mind at all since I regularly rip off others, but it's just funny that he stole the thing that seems to annoy everyone except for female Korean nationals.
I've been trying to figure out where to go for Korean food now that the default Stanford place, Korea House, is closed. For tofu, I think my favorite place is Myung Dong Tofu Cabin just north of Lawrence on El Camino. It's overtaken Tofu House, which used to be phenomenal, but I heard they changed owners a while ago and the quality has kind of slipped. Myung Dong I like better, the only caveat being that the quality of their meat isn't good, especially the pork.
For BBQ, right now I think I like Han Sung (I think that's what it's called) on El Camino south of Lawrence in the Moonlite Center. They use the hot wood chips (like at Brother's? Can't remember) and the meat is pretty good. That and Palace Buffet is where I like to go.
On another food note, they started selling pearl milk drinks at New Tung Kee (at least the one on San Antonio). I tried the Taro drink, and it was surprisingly good. I liked the pearls there better than the pearls at Verde.
They were down on Elisabeth and Rodger, or at least as down as you can be on people that likable. Examples: consistently making fun of Elisabeth's name spelling (calling her Elisabeth-with-an-s), making fun of her emotional nature, making fun of her when she cries on camera calling her mom her hero, comparing Rodger's sacrifice to Terminator 2, making fun of the name "outback daddy", etc. They like them, just because they're likable people. But even so, they made fun of them, because they were just too cynical. And that's what I didn't like about Salon.com.
Back to Jackie Chan. I'm not sure why I like his movies so much but I do. It's pretty weird.
Anyway, a funny thing with his movies is that they get released in different ways so the naming is all screwy. For example, Operation Condor was actually a sequel to a movie called Armour of God. But it was released in the U.S. before the prequel. So the prequel's name in the U.S. is Operation Condor 2: The Armour of Gods. But the sequel's name I think in Hong Kong is called Armour of God II: Operation Condor. That's confusing.
There are other confusing things also. Like, Supercop I think was actually the third movie in the Police Story series. But then there's a sequel to this, which is called in some places Supercop 2. But in other places it's called Police Story 4, or, absurdly, Police Story 3 Part 2. Even more confusing - I think some places call this movie Police Story 5. Because there's a later movie, called First Strike, which is called in some places Police Story 4.
Anyway, it's confusing and it makes it hard to figure out which movie is which, and what I have and haven't seen. Because I want to see them all.
They have Pump It Up and Police 911 now at Sunnyvale Golfland. Pump It Up is that Korean DDR like game where the buttons are diagonal and there's a middle button. My first impression is that everything felt like it was far apart, because diagonal is a lot farther. You have to jump a lot. Also, they didn't do any favors by having all the instructions and everything in Korean. Among the songs I saw were songs by H.O.T., Dj Doc, and Taiji Boys.
Police 911 is that shooting game that Keith was talking about, like Time Crisis, except you have to physically duck and stuff. I liked it a lot. Played it a couple of times and nearly peed in my pants. It's pretty fun.
I thought Scott grew up in Maryland and went to college in Boston. Doesn't it strike you as strange that he's a Philadelphia fan? Random.
I went to the Oakland A's - Toronto game last night at the Net. It was actually a really good game. Mulder pitched a 3 hit shutout, and Tejada hit 2 home runs - A's win 6-0. They say it was the A's best victory this season, performance wise. They played pretty well.
So, I went to an A's game late last season, and there were a lot more people there then, it was interesting. Both times were on Dollar wednesdays (dollar tickets, dollar hot dogs). But those weirdo drum guys in left were there both times.
Here's the absurd thing. I sat in box seats again. Again, courtesy of Jieun's school. I don't know, I have to enjoy this because I don't think it's ever going to happen again. So I've now sat in box seats at the Coliseum (thanks to Jieun), Pac Bell Park (Jieun again), the Coliseum Arena (is that what it's called?) for a Warriors/Rockets game (thanks to Kevbo), and the San Jose Arena (thanks to Young Lee). I think that's absurd. All I need is to get into the box at the 'Stick and my Bay Area tour is complete.
In terms of just the box itself, I liked the ones at the Coliseum and Arena (Oakland) the best. The Arena even has it's own bathroom. The thing is, the one at the Coliseum feels way to separated from the action. Like, if you close the glass door, you're completely enclosed from the field, and that doesn't feel right. In terms of being part of the action, Pac Bell is much better. I honestly can't remember what the San Jose Arena was like, but I think it was middle of the road in all respects.
Absurd.
Greg Papa is now my favorite sports talk show host. I hate to say it, because he replaced JT the Brick, but I don't know, I really like listening to him. If you can believe it, listening to JT now, he just sounds like the same tired routine. I never thought I'd say that. But yeah.
The clincher (well not really) was today he talked about Survivor with the SF Chronicle's entertainment critic. Good stuff.
Speaking of which, Elisabeth's chat transcript is up. Her favorite book of the Bible is Corinthians. She didn't say which one.
I saw Project A 2 last night. I thought it was pretty good - not the best (or enough) action scenes, but it had the best plot of any Jackie Chan movie I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot. Here's a list:
I like the input, but I really think you can't fully understand the feeling until you've left school, finished your preparation phase. Just, that's when you have to translate theory into reality, and you find it's not that easy. The problem is, the goal of making the world a better place often seems just an ancillary one when applied to my actual job, and I keep returning to the same thought - if that's really the primary and sole purpose, then I should quit my job and do something else. But that doesn't seem quite right. So there has to be some other kind of answer. At least for me.
Nerdy UNIX things I found on a CS1U handout (if you type the top line at a UNIX prompt, you'll get the given response, though not consistently on all UNIXes):
And who thought computers didn’t understand english?
> If I had a ( for every $ the Congress spent, what would I have?
Too many ('s.
> \(-
(-: Command not found.
> man: why did you get a divorce?
man:: Too many arguments.
> "How would you rate Quayle's incompetence?
Unmatched ".
> got a light?
No match.
> mkdir matter; cat >matter
matter: cannot create
I'm full on into Ichiro mania. Here's a good article from ESPN magazine.
Heck, I'm into Deion mania also. Looks like I'm into baseball again.
I can't wait for KCPC to move to their new building, whenever it gets built. It's amazing how much KCPC has changed, and stunning to think how like so many people there now have no idea what it was like, and like, the whole culture now is different, you know? Like to some, KCPC is the church they go to when they oversleep. But dude, Sunday worship used to be at 9. Worship team met at 7:45. Sometimes at 7:15 - no joke. So the KCPC culture used to be really early church, a nap, and then afternoon basketball. But that's all changed.
You know, now that I think about it, another part of the culture that's changed is that everything seems to be more accomodating now. I dunno if that makes sense. But yeah, my sense is before, KCPC was kind of more demanding of you. For example, the 9 AM service that required you to get up really early on Sunday. Other things also. But yeah, it was demanding in a way that's not as strong now. There are positives and negatives to both, but I think maybe the demanding culture challenged people in a way that made them grow. Like people got used to things being demanding and it cultivated an attitude of sacrifice that's not as strong now.
But you know what? I'm pulling this out of my butt.
I don't think we on KCPC worship team realize how bad we are. Jieun was saying how this past Sunday was like a train wreck. Just, people playing wrong chords all over the place, no one knowing where we're going in the song, the rhythm section completely off - it was apparently horrible. The thing is, it's like we feel like we can get away with it or something. But we really can't. Uh, I was going to write more specific stuff but maybe I shouldn't. But yeah, we need to do something. First thing being, recognize that we're bad and that winging it doesn't cut it.
"Let the plain thing be the main thing."
I dunno, maybe you heard that before, but it's the first time I heard it. It was during small group; we were talking about a passage where certain details were confusing, but the main point was clear. At any rate, I buy that a lot. I dunno, I'm just a big fan of keeping things simple, and recently it's been just those simple things that have impacted me.
So at worship team devotional on Saturday, one of the members led, and it wasn't at all complicated or anything like that - we just read a few passages and talked a little about it. That's it. But, I dunno, I was convicted. The first passage we read was the Mary and Martha passage, where Martha is all caught up in things she had to do, and complains when Mary doesn't help.
Just, while we were reading it, it suddenly struck me - I am Martha. Read my last mymind. It's completely a Martha attitude. I stand by everything I wrote - I still think one of the biggest problems at church is that there aren't enough true servants anymore. But the point of the Martha story I think isn't that whatever Martha was doing was wrong, but that you can't let it distract you from what's most important. And, I've been letting all these things in regards to service, and how no one does it, distract me from what's important, and upon reflection, I see how it's been affecting my Sundays.
So yeah, it was a short and simple, something I've read countless times, but it impacted me. It was reinforced by the children's service pastor said briefly on Sunday, how Jesus is our rest. I don't think I need overly complex expositions or whatever - it's the simple reminders that seem to impact me most nowadays. Let the plain thing be the main thing.
I was talking last night about what the worst movie ever made was. This stemmed from Yellow, easily one of the worst movies made, but perhaps not the very worst. One friend said Johnny Mnemonic. Mostly because of Keanu's acting. Another friend said Highlander 2. For lots of reasons, like the acting, and especially because every plot point is completely arbitrary and random. We was pretty vehement about it.
I don't know, I still think the Big Brawl is the worst movie I've seen. It's Jackie Chan's first American movie, made in like the mid 80s or something. There's a reason why there was such a long time between that and his next American release - it's absolutely horrible. Terrible acting, utterly random plot. Here's an example of the absurdity. Every Asian in the movie speaks flawless English. And then there's Jackie, who plays their son and brother, speaking this terrible broken English. What the heck happened to you, Jackie? How were you raised?
Seriously, it was a really bad movie. I'm standing by it. The worst movie I've ever seen.
I totally agree, Sam. And that's why I'm convinced that the future is in the Asian American church. I'll have to write about that sometime.
Here's the thing though. I remember there was a discussion on fics-chat (I think) where people were talking about if there was a war between Korea and the U.S., who they would fight for. And it was shocking (to me) how many people said they'd fight for Korea. I don't know, I guess it's because of how my dad raised me, but he's like, you live in America, you be loyal to America, so I thought it was obvious. But obvious or not, no matter how ridiculous it might seem, there are more than a few Asians out there who, if push came to shove, would be more loyal to their "home" country than the U.S.
There's been a rule change in table tennis, if you care. Sets are now played first to 11, not 21, win by 2 as before, and now matches are best of 5 or 7. It's also now illegal to hide the ball with any part of your body after presenting the ball for service. If you care.
Dave can't understand it, but I'm one of those people who like V-8. I'd drink it more often, but a friend of mine pointed out how much sodium it has. It contains 38% of the sodium you should get in a day. That's a lot.
And yet, I eat Slim Jims everyday. I make zero sense.
I grew up in South San Jose, off of Monterey Highway, near Capitol. So, a lot of times when we drove home from somewhere we'd pass the Capitol Drive-in, where they'd have a flea market on Saturdays. Side note. I think in L.A., and only in L.A., they call these things "swap meets". As far as I know, everywhere else they call it "flea markets". But I might be wrong about this.
At any rate, we'd often pass by and see the movies playing. Uh, there's no point to this at all. Just, I always thought it was kind of cool, to see the movies up there.
I liked John's April 17th entry a lot. Anyway, regarding having someone who knows about every aspect of your life. Brennan Manning wrote something interesting about this in The Ragamuffin Gospel. He was just saying how one of the reasons for a midlife crisis is that you realize that no one fully understands you, and no one ever will. Not sure if that's what John is talking about, but I think it's similar. At any rate, I thought there was wisdom in that. It would be nice if there was someone who understood every part of you, but in the end, no one will fully understand you, and to realize that and accept it I think brings some measure of peace.
"I sound like a transvestite when I talk."
A transvestite is someone who dresses like the opposite sex. What the heck does that have to do with your voice? Heck, I sound like a transvestite when I talk.
I have no idea who from worship team reads this, if anyone, but listen to Centrifuge's Like Nobody Else from the website. I totally dig this song! I've been listening to it for about an hour straight. The lyrics are slightly inane and it's repetitive, but it's infused with such an infectious joy that it makes me happy. It's like that early Beatles vibe when all their songs were steeped in joy. A simple, inane, fun song. I dig.
Check out the review remarks on the Yellow home page. Here's a taste from the LA Times: "The experience of watching Chris Chan Lee's YELLOW is akin to seeing 'AMERICAN GRAFFITI' for the first time. Exceedingly well-drawn and likable young people. YELLOW packs a terrific punch, a knockout feature. There's no doubt YELLOW marks the debut of a most promising talent who combines youthful zest and energy with a mature perspective."
There are other rave reviews like that. I really want to watch the movie they saw. Because I sure as heck didn't see it last night.
The speaker at Pespectives last night was very good, among the best there has been. It was fascinating to me because her delivery was terrible, but her words amazing.
The best part of it of course is that she was basically advocating cell groups. I'm not kidding. Hop on the bus. God's on the move.
Anyway, she said a couple very interesting things. Here's one insight she had. You know, in our Western culture we typically think in an individualist mindset and that that mindset is right.
Side note. I remember when I was in East Asia being a little annoyed at the Westerners when they kept talking about how the people there were "brainwashed" and such. You know, into believing in Communism and atheism and stuff like that. I don't know, to me, that's a little arrogant - we're just as "brainwashed" into believing things in America. Like the idea that fierce individualism is to be valued above almost anything else. It's a typically American idea, but I don't think it's right. I think it leads to a lot of problems in society and makes a lot of people lonely, much more so than in other group oriented societies, which take better care of each other and have a connectedness. Why is such strong individualism necessarily good? I honestly think it's bad. But we've been "brainwashed" into thinking it's good, so much so that we just take it for granted. Uh, digression.
Anyway, she pointed out that our Western mindset, which we often take for granted, can hinder our understanding of the Bible. So like she talks about when Paul's in jail, the doors open, and the guard's about to kill himself because he thinks everyone's escaped. But Paul tells him they're all there. So the jailer asks what he must do to be saved.
Paul and Silas' response is interesting. They say, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household." Not just him. Him and his household. I don't know, it's an interesting perspective - we in the West just assume that individual decision making is right and maybe have trouble understanding group oriented cultures that make collective decisions for Christ. Like, it's hard for me to even comprehend how a group can all together make a decision like that, I'm so in the individual mindset. But the Bible has examples like that. This isn't the only one - there are several examples where it talks about a whole household believing.
I don't know, I'm not saying that someone believing can save someone else. But I do think the process by which it happens in the Bible might be more group oriented than we acknowledge in the individualist U.S. It was an interesting Perspective.
Another interesting thing she said was how, well, her fundamental point was that we care too much about growing and not enough about reproducing. Part of that is that we place too much emphasis on learning and not enough on obeying. We teach from the cradle to the grave in our churches. You're respected because of what you know - leaders become leaders based on what they know. But, in her opinion, there should be a lot more emphasis on obeying.
In fact, she lists some reasons why the church's overemphasis on learning over obeying is actually bad (she quotes someone, forgot his name). I forgot what they were exactly. But it included the fact that it heaps judgment on people - they are expected to obey what they know but are taught to learn more over obeying. It also teaches them that learning is more important than obeying. Other things I can't remember but that I found compelling.
And incidentally, this is another idea of the cell church. Less emphasis on just studying the Bible, and more emphasis on doing the Bible. Hop on the bus.
Short thought indeed.
Last night we saw one of the worst movies ever made. It's called Yellow. It was written, directed, and produced by this Korean-American and it's about a group of Korean Americans. It was horrible. There was no coherent plot to speak of, the dialogue was atrocious, and the acting was perhaps the worst acting I've ever seen, including church retreat skits. It was that bad. Henry also was angered by the camera work and lighting and all that technical stuff. He was so furious at the movie in general that I had to keep sharp objects out of his hand - I was afraid he'd do something crazy. I'm not kidding about this. He was that angry. It was that bad.
But it was still better than Dazed and Confused.
Ever since I found the office stash, Slim Jims has become a significant part of my diet. Disturbing. I don't know much about nutrition, but a product whose second ingredient is "mechanically separated chicken" can't be good for you.
Thank God for the Ab Wheel. And mirrors.
My cousin got me an autograph from Steve Blake, a guard on the Maryland team that beat Stanford in the tournament this year. How thoughtful.
So we played Pictionary on Sunday at Cafe Excelente, where we made up our own words. What is it about guys that makes us competitive so we put in all these impossible words? My words were stuff like "Kentucky Fried Movie", "xenon", and "Moldova". Stuff that's impossible to draw. I wasn't alone. Kenny put in stuff like "Whitey Ford" and random presidents. I don't know, I was amused.
But yeah, certain guys always do things like this, so there's certain games where you can't have people make up their own words. The bowl game, that's OK, because you can get people to sound things off. But, I dunno if it works for Pictionary.
I remember the most absurd game I ever played. It was at Stanford, in Roble basement, I think after the Big Game, our class at KCPC got together to play games. And, we did the same thing, everyone wrote down the things, but then we played charades. It was absurd. You just can't do that, because you'll get people like me writing things like Chester A. Arthur. How do you act that? Impossible. And there were phrases like "Sacramento is da bomb." In charades. Absurd.
I found Dave Lee's review of Pleasantville. Dave is the holier brother of Paul.
One of the highlights of last night's episode was when they showed Colby's mom - with a Texas flag displayed prominently behind her. What an absurd family. Hilarious.
I'm with Adrian. Who are these idiots against free trade? I don't get it.
Just got back from the U2 concert. It was pretty awesome, but whatever. What I wanted to mention is that it was weird - Bono was saying all this weird Christian stuff. Like in "One", he sings, "Have you come here to find Jesus..." and he extends Jesus, and instead of singing the regular line, I could have sworn he said "because I have". Adrian says he's been singing "because I did". Whatever it was, it was interesting.
And then, throughout that song he was saying all these weird stuff that sounded Christian, but I couldn't quite make it out. And then, at the end of the concert, they ended with "Walk On", and he says, "Thanks to San Jose. Thanks to Oakland. Thanks to San Francisco." And then he says, "Thanks to The Almighty." And he says it again. "Thanks to The Almighty." And then he sings "Hallelujah" about 6 times and then ends. I don't know, it was kind of cool.
Compile's almost done. Time to go home and watch Survivor. I'm pretty excited.
Actually, I asked Phil Yu how he found my page. Get this. Yeah, he knows Minho, Tina, and Cy. But the person who introduced him to my page was Derfman. Dunno if you remember this wacko, but he was a prominent member of the AC/DC and is also someone I have never met. Weirdo.
Actually, that's not true. I'm paranoid with everyone about whether they're bored or not.
I realized that I'm a really boring person. I'm not joking. I think what it is is that I have a personality such that people find me either really interesting or really boring. But yeah, I was with someone recently and I think I was literally boring them to death.
It's interesting to me, but I was watching some people and there's two types of people to me. With some of them, I'm hypersensitive about whether they're comfortable or bored or whatever, and it makes me a little bit edgy the whole time I'm with them. But then with other people, it's like I'm completely confident that they'll be fine with whatever I do so I do whatever. It's weird how different I can be.
There was a recent children's service where we were talking about gifts. Like, what the best gift we could receive would be. Some answers: "Playstation 2." "Love." "Ultimate power over the universe."
Anyway, they moved to talking about gifts that God has already given us. The first three responses: "Friends." "Family." "Lungs." Lungs??? I'm telling you, the kids are hilarious.
More and more people have mentioned how they think that me and Jieun look alike. That's pretty weird.
re: Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble in D. I was right.
So one thing I've noticed about children's ministry is how so much of things is beyond the teachers' control. You just want kids to have friends at church, but what I've seen is that the kids with the most friends are church are those whose parents are the most involved with the church, and similarly so for the kids whose parents are not that involved. I mean, this is obvious, I guess, but it's almost completely dependent on their parents' involvement in the church. So like, some kids come every week, and they have friends at school, they're well adjusted and whatever, but, their parents aren't very involved, and it's hard for them to be friends with the other kids who see each other more often since their parents are involved. It's just sad to me because there's so little a teacher can do. How well the kids will get along at church is almost entirely dependent on their parents.
I think it all changes with youth group, but yeah, I see that in the children's ministry and it makes me sad.
Interesting episode. Dude, it's amazing to me how consistently totally wrong I am. Both things - consistently, and completely. So, yeah, anything I say will definitely not happen.
The vote was fascinating because Colby clearly had no idea what was going on. I guess they finally realized how big of a threat he is, and organized against him. So, before, all of us were thinking how Elisabeth and Rodger need to recruit Amber. Wonder of wonders, they managed to recruit Keith and Tina instead. That's pretty amazing.
So, my new order of removal is Colby, Keith, Tina, and then Rodger will win the million dollars. But I guarantee that I will be wrong. Wait a sec, if I'm always wrong, and then I guarantee that I'll be wrong, does that mean I'll be right? Meta.
This article is absolutely fascinating. It's about how Koreans are envied by some Japanese. Very interesting read.
Weird. I was randomly doing a Google search on Palace Buffet, and came across this page which turns out to be this Korean Christian band. One of the guys mentioned Palace Buffet as being one of his favorite places to eat.
Their music by the way is interesting. Not too bad, although to me it sounded like video game music.
Anyway, the weird thing is I'm stalking Scott Kim's page and I notice a link at the bottom, and it's to the same band! This all happened like in the span of half an hour. I don't know, I thought it was weird.
Is anyone else disturbed by the top picture on Keith's web page? I don't know, something about seeing two men wearing light pastel colors dancing together.
I randomly decided to read the CS 193I handouts this quarter and came across a link to this article on latency that I found very very good.
You don't have to use the URL tag in the ubb, though. If you type the full http path, it will link it automatically.
I'm thinking of taking Karate lessons. Anyone want to join me?
Time's cover story this week is about how Jerusalem might have appeared to Jesus when he entered it on Palm Sunday.