jack.html is now validated as a HTML 4.01 Transitional document.
I just received my Perspectives final in the mail. I was looking it over, and sorry to say this, but Drew is wrong. There's literally a question that goes like, "the best type of church is one that reaches out to all groups in the same church" for which the correct answer is false. And one of my essay questions was on the same topic, why trying to get all groups in the same church is suboptimal. Got a perfect score on that, and the comment, "Great". So yeah Drew, go take Perspectives, then come talk to me.
I always get constipated when I travel. Dunno why.
I hope Dave someday gets to the day after the wedding in his travelogues. Especially when he "helped" me return the tuxes. His hands are messed up and he can't really carry anything, so his helping consisted of me carrying 4 garment bags, apparently filled with concrete, while he carried nothing. Presence ministry, I guess.
We also dropped stuff off to the Hsus at their hotel. That was funny because I don't think Mrs. Hsu remembered my name. She greeted us with "Hello David. Hello..." and then asked Dave to come to New Jersey. I don't think Mr. Hsu remembered either of our names, but I'm guessing.
My mom wrapped her own gift from me this year. I suck.
Dave Park was right. There's no good Mexican food in California. I'd trade everything for a single Taco Cabana. Marshall knows what I'm talking about.
I haven't been getting enough sleep at home. The reason being, I've had to go to lunches and stuff so I'm forced to get up for them. I've got problems.
I love being in Houston, especially since, as I said, it's so rare now. But it's been feeling more and more different. This is weird, but I'm kind of itching to go back to Palo Alto. Houston feels even less like "home" than it did before. Palo Alto is my "home".
Not sure why that is. Partly I think because my sister's married and doesn't live here anymore. It's a completely different feeling, especially on Christmas. So no more stockings for us, no more wrapped gifts, no tree.
I think it's more than that though. I dunno, I feel like now that I've graduated, and I'm working and whatever, that I'm starting to establish my own home in the Bay Area. That's where I'm most comfortable, it's where I'm independent, and just in that intangible way, that's where home is now, in a way I've never felt when I've come back here before. It's just been a more melancholy vacation for me.
Merry Christmas to whatever losers are reading this page this day. Jesus is the reason for the season.
I'm still lactose intolerant. Darn egg nog.
Is it like this at your church? Whenever the Korean adults have some kind of skit competition, you can count on at least one group having cross-dressing. Strange.
Buca di Beppo has opened two locations in Houston. Everyone here calls it "Buca".
Hate the way Drew ends his entries. Argh. It's like saying, you can disagree - if you disagree with Jesus. Way to keep the debate fair and reasonable. Anger. That's something Hitler would do... twice.
Won't extend this too much further. Disagree with his interpretation of Scripture. Don't think text says Paul happened to minister more to Gentiles just because he happened to go to places where there were more, but that he was specifically sent there for the purpose of reaching Gentiles. Same with Peter - text says he was called to Jews even though text indicates there were others where he was. Can't resolve this - just a disagreement in Scripture interpretation.
Disagree with idea that multi-ethnic alone is best, which is his claim. Think targetting particular segments is collectively best for the Kingdom. Sorry for saying experts think this but it was honestly a big point made in Perspectives, I heard the Urbana thing, and I have honestly not heard experts saying the opposite - that having only multi-ethnic churches is best. And I fully admit this may just be my ignorance.
I think another basic disagreement is that Drew thinks what can be better and I think what I think is better. His arguments center around, what if this happened, this can happen, etc. Mine are more what I think does happen - not what actually happens, just what I think happens. So I refer to Fong's research and whatever. Drew thinks Asians in general can be reached better through multi-ethnic churches. I think this doesn't happen. Hasn't in the past unless the church was majority Asian, and Asians in general hang out with mostly other Asians. So again, a basic disagreement between what he thinks can happen and what I think does happen. So, agree to disagree.
Drew has a much higher standard to meet. I think multi-ethnic churches are great. We should have them. We should have all kinds of churches, trying to reach different groups. I think that's great, and that's best. So all his advantages for the multi-ethnic church, I can also claim. I want multi-ethnic churches. But he has to show more than why it's good, why having it is the only way, such that Asian-American churches all need to be challenged. Implicitly saying, if it's not a multi-ethnic church, it should be challenged and changed. Good things happen at multi-ethnic churches that don't happen in other churches. 100% agree. And so we should not have Asian-American churches? Huh?
What about the fact that good things happen at Asian-American churches that don't happen at multi-ethnic churches? Of course, this gets back to the can/is thing. I think Drew's saying that all the good things that happen at AA churches can happen better at multi-ethnic churches. That those Asian non-Christians that feel comfortable at AA churches can also feel comfortable at multi-ethnic churches. I just disagree about this, so we can't et over it. So there's a logical disconnect to me. Multi-ethnic churches have some advantages over AA churches. So only have ME churches? Huh? Where does that come from? What about the advantages of the AA church? But again, fundamental disagreement.
Uh, no one cares anymore and I've said more than enough to make my point so yeah, that's it from me.
Already mentioned how they print a Bible verse each day in the paper. Another reminder Houston's in the Bible belt: the Compaq center will soon no longer be the home of the Rockets/Comets. It's getting taken over by a church. Lakewood church. Can you imagine that happening in the Bay Area? Jubilee Christian Center at the Oakland Coliseum? Over Jerry Brown's dead body.
Every single person I watched with couldn't stop thinking Agent Smith. We had a field day inserting Matrix lines into the movie (afterwards). Mr. Anderson. It's the smell. A virus. So easily amused.
Take back what I said about Miyake sushi being edible. Stick with the cooked stuff.
I'm 70% sure we saw a member of Destiny's Child at the Rockets game.
It's good to be back in Houston, especially now that trips out here are so rare. Something comforting about the place. It's weird, but I find Southern accents comforting. Yeah, I can't understand it either.
I think what I like is perspective. I wrote about this before. But yeah, stay in the Bay Area too long and you start to think that everyone is like that. Super liberal, on the edge of everything, stuff like that. Houston always reminds me that things are different elsewhere. It's so different here. They print a Bible verse in the editorial page each day. I dunno, it's interesting.
Average price of gas in Houston: 95 cents.
My dad uses Netflix. His queue is 186 movies long.
From Tuesday night's games:
Jarron Collins (Utah Jazz) - 10 minutes, 3 points, 4 personal fouls.
Brevin Knight (Memphis Grizzlies) - 12 minutes, 0 points, 5 personal
fouls.
Go Cardinal!
Eric Mao owns bowling shoes.
Is it racist to say that blacks are, in general, more athletic than whites? Why? I don't buy that at all.
In the last episode of Survivor, the reward challenge winner got to visit a random Kenyan city named Wamba. It looked about the way you'd imagine a small Kenyan city to look - small, dusty, and relatively primitive. The cool thing was, in one of the shots, you saw a sign for a church! Immanuel something or other. 8:30 Sunday school, 10 Worship service. I dunno, I found that encouraging.
I don't know how to pronounce Eli's last name. I never have.
Actually, Rich did pick Rick to the producer of his next album before he died. Which is why he produced the Jesus Record. You don't know the story? Rich's vision was that his records be produced in a really collaborative fashion. So like with Brother's Keeper, there was no single producer - everyone involved took part so the credits list them all (like 7 of them) as the producers.
Bad idea. Just, someone needs to take control or it's chaos, and Brother's Keeper was pretty bad. So for his next record, Rich chose one of the ones involved (Rick) to be the sole producer. Before he died.
Koreans already know this, but there's no 'f' sound in Korean. So they replace it with either a 'p' or a 'h' sound. So like, Fanta soda in Korea is "huanta".
The one summer I was in Korea I had the hardest time understanding this one phrase the kids would say during competitions. Pronounced "hwiting". Eventually I realized they were saying the English word "fighting".
Which is absurd on so many levels. Their cheer is a word they can't pronounce correctly. And even if they could, it makes no sense. Fighting? Huh? Someone explain to me how that happened.
I think I'll rebut Drew later. I'm glad he responded because I think I realized I needed to clarify anyway. But yeah, he basically represents the position that I 100% disagree with. In essence, I think the problem is that it's idealistic to a fault.
But yeah, that will come later. What I would say now though is take Perspectives. Or if you've taken Perspectives, reread your notes. Because I think the conclusions they reach about how to best reach people is similar to what I'm saying in regards to the Asian-American church. And given that it's a conclusion reached by people who are "experts" in the gospel and evangelism, with all its theological and practical implications, based on lifetimes of empirical experience, I think my position is strongly defensible.
And I think there's a reason why the talk was given at Urbana. Did I mention that guy who said everything I wrote about, Ken Fong, was the main Bible teacher at the most recent Urbana, the one that so heavily emphasized racial reconciliation? Point being, it would seem his ideas work with the idea of racial reconciliation. Obviously, I think multi-racial churches are great. But to say there's no place for something like Asian-American churches... I think there are too many experienced and knowledgeable people who say otherwise for that to be true. But I'll be more specific later.
Random. The bassist on that Sting special was Christian McBride. I saw him perform live when he was still in high school, at MusicFest USA, that Jazz Festival I went to when I was in Jr. High. He's gained a lot of weight.
Dave left out a lot of details, but unfortunately, I can't remember them either. One big one was, me and Dave were joking around with the coordinator, and we said something, I can't remember what it was, and then all of a sudden she mentions that her son is taking Chinese language classes. I wish I remember what we were talking about but the implications of the discussion had racist overtones.
I have 4 strong memories of that eating club with Q-Bert.
Random. I had the exact same thought about plastic surgery about a week ago. Literally the same thought. Strange. The reason I think is, dunno if you know this, but I started working out a couple months ago, and I've been pretty good about going. I guess I was just thinking about why I go.
Oh yeah, I was also thinking about it because they were making fun of Jerry Jones on sports talk. Just, after his face lift, people didn't know what to say to him. Like that pink elephant thing. It was just so noticeable people didn't know what to do.
Awesome entry.
I dunno, to me the best entries are the ones where you do share what's closest to your inner heart. Like, John had this entry where he just kind of let go and it was awesome. I dunno, great stuff. But then at the same time, that kind of stuff is almost not what you should be putting on a world accessible web page. I dunno, it's a Catch-22. Not really, but Dave would think so.
I totally forgot about the Roble thing. But yeah, Dave wanted all the Christian frosh to draw into Roble. Reason being, Roble is big enough, and no one wants to live there so we could all get in. If I recall correctly, we dropped that plan when we found out Roble actually drew high because of the singles. I remember after the draw thinking, hey, all the Christians turned out in the same dorm anyway. Serra.
Both unattractive and hooked up.
This is weird, but in a way, Jieun's college experience was what Dave would have done in retrospect. Just, 100% what she wanted to do, and screw preparation. And an emphasis on languages. I remember talking to her during her first year and her schedule was like, CIV, Korean, and Japanese. That's it. I was shocked. Just thinking, uh, don't you want to prepare yourself for something practical? I dunno, I just remember being completely shocked at her schedule, my practical side coming through. But she did what she wanted to do.
And I can't say she was wrong. She got her BA/MA in 4 years and is conversationally quadrilingual, almost pentalingual. Incredible. Seriously, Jieun's skill with language is one of the things that I find most amazing about her. She's more bilingual than the vast majority of the people we know, and she speaks a third language well enough to survive an entire summer in Japan completely by herself. Amazing.
For those of you with an American Express Blue card, there's a crazy deal with Virgin Megastores. When you use your card, everything is 30% off the lowest sticker price. So, for example, a PS2 is $210. They have some CDs at 3 for $26. With the Blue discount, that comes out to $18.20, or a little over $6 a CD. Not bad. And if you spend more than $50, you get a coupon book worth $100.
Dave's post about Tolkien on the JBB got me thinking. Has anyone heard of Joseph Campbell? The Hero With 1000 Faces? He's this famous guy in the study of mythology. His thing is that if you look at the myths of different cultures, there's a lot of stuff in common (hence The Hero...) which is really interesting. Kind of a Jungian common oversoul type thing going on. Incidentally, he was a big influence on George Lucas and Lucas tapped into some of this stuff in making Star Wars. It basically uses the common story of the journey.
Which is why I personally think that whole weirdo Anakin virgin birth theme was in Episode I. Learned from Campbell that the story of a virgin birth is a very common theme in mythology. I think Lucas' intention was to pull another universal mythic theme and use it, as he used other themes in 4-6. The problem is, in the modern West, this particular theme is so associated with Christ that it seems weird.
Anyway, the fact that a virgin birth appears in many myths in many cultures is a reason some deny the virgin birth of Jesus. To them it's another example of a culture (like many other cultures) attaching the common myth of the virgin birth to their hero. Other cultures did it. And Christianity is no different.
I never bought that. At the very least, it's not a logical implication. Meaning, the fact that it's a theme seen elsewhere does not logically imply that it is thus necessarily a myth in Christianity. That's faulty reasoning, and something liberals commonly do in my opinion - take something that's possible and elevate it to certainty. But whatever.
One interesting response that some Christians have had to this is that of course it's a theme that's seen in other places. It's another example of how God wants us to know Him. Parts of His message message can be found in a bunch of places. E.g. creation testifies to everyone. It should be no surprise that there's something in us that makes that theme common. It was meant to be a sign.
And I think Schaeffer said something like this, but a universal truth of humanity is that we need God, not a God, but the God, so we should not be surprised when we find universally that need expressed. We all need God so we should expect to find common themes that show this to be true. I dunno if you buy that (as it applies to virgin birth myths) but I think it's interesting.
More on my not wanting to impede friendships.
What I forgot to say was that if Dave hadn't gone to KCPC, there is absolutely no way I would have been good friends with either Dave or Henry. I'm absolutely positive about this, 100% certain, guaranteed(*). Just, frosh year it was always "Dave and Henry", which is why people got mad at Henry when Dave kept yelling "Chi-Hua" at IV large group. And there's no way I would have intruded upon that.
It's actually amazing that I ever get to be friends with anyone. The truth is, I'm easy to get to know to a certain point, but I keep a certain distance at that point so I'm hard to get to know past that. So yeah, I think I'm both easy and hard to get to know.
I still can't figure out how/when I became friends with John.
* : not a guarantee
The following appeared in Ask Marilyn from Parade and I thought it was relevant to stuff Henry was talking about:
Not if the accomplishment itself was immoral or evil, and Hitler's speaking was certainly both of those, and more. In other words, admiring Hitler for his speaking ability is like admiring Lee Harvey Oswald, killer of John F. Kennedy, for his marksmanship--an odd and odious choice. Has your son never heard the speeches of Winston Churchill or Martin Luther King Jr. or Mario Cuomo? If not, it's time to wise up.
Thanks for clarifying George. You know what? I have absolutely no idea what the heck happened with that discipleship group or small group allocation so yeah, Dave's right, it's no one's fault. Just how it turned out, I guess. Get busy living or get busy dying.
Someone teach me urinal etiquette. It's almost as bad as long hallway etiquette. I just don't know what to do. Sometimes when I see someone I kind of know at the urinal I go to the stall to avoid it.
But yeah, do you say hi? When? As soon as you come in? When you get to the urinal? Then what do you say for the rest of the time while you're standing next to each other? No clue. And then if you get into a conversation it's equally awkward. What the heck do you talk about? And how do you end it? It has to be long enough to take up peeing time but not too long. Just, it's not like a cube where you can just take as long as you want to talk. You don't hang out in the bathroom and chat all day, or the people in yellow jumpsuits come to take you away.
The worst is when you have a long conversation with a coworker, after which you go to the bathroom and find him there. Do you say "hi" as if you haven't seen each other a while? Do you make an uncomfortable comment like, "We meet again?" Ergh.
Someone needs to write a book on this because I'm clueless.
I don't want to get too much into a pissing match about what was and wasn't Jimmy's fault. Like I wrote, I think he consistently did what he think was best so I don't blame him for any of that. To answer Dave's question about what I wanted him to do, the only thing I faulted him for in my entry was his impossible constraint in regards to small group member distribution. I thought it was wrong at the time and still do.
In general though, I think Dave misinterprets Jimmy and FiCS's past, as I've written before. I want to emphasize that this is just my opinion, my view versus Dave's, and the truth is likely neither. But yeah, the biggest misperception I think is that Dave frequently sees things as being "things happen, and then Jimmy dealt with that best he could." In my eyes, Jimmy created those situations.
Dave thought: FiCS grew too big too fast - not Jimmy's fault. I thought: FiCS got so big precisely because of Jimmy.
Dave thought: Jimmy's solution to the situation of FiCS getting too big too fast was getting our class to serve early (which wasn't necessarily the best idea). I thought: Jimmy got us to serve early before FiCS got big. Every single one of us (including Jane, Karine) were placed in committees before our sophomore year began - the rest were made soph reps. And that definitely was not a good idea.
Dave thinks: Jimmy was given a specific responsibility (frosh ministry) and did everything to the best of his ability. I think: It's not that Jimmy was given a responsibility, it's that he took it, as he did the previous two years. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. But it's not like that's the way it had to be or that it was best. Someone else could have done frosh ministry. We could have had some training/support for our class, both that year and the year before. Lots of things could have happened. But whatever, that's not saying it would have been better. I'm just saying that Jimmy made it that way, it's not something that happened to him.
Again, I'm not slamming Jimmy. I'm just saying that it's not like stuff happened and so Jimmy reacted to rectify/remedy. Jimmy created those situations. I don't think I'm overstating it. A huge part of everything that happened in FiCS those first few years was because of Jimmy.
And that includes both good and bad. If, in retrospect, something that Jimmy did turned out to be suboptimal, he also deserves the lion's share of credit for everything good that did happen. Without question. So if FiCS was a very special place for George, he should directly address a note of thanks to Jimmy for that. All of us should.
I need to thank him for meeting my wife. Uh, but maybe I should steer clear of those treacherous waters.
I dislike it when Dave says I'm first tier intelligence. Just because I'm smarter than him doesn't make me first tier. We just have different criteria of what first-tier is. But in my mind, the fact that I can make a distinction between first-tier and where I am indicates that there is a difference.
He's right about one thing, though, and I hate to admit it. But I've never had to work hard in my life. And unfortunately, I never have worked hard in my life. Some people have to, so they do. Some don't have to, but still do (e.g. Eric Yang). I never have.
I realized this because this weekend a few days I slept until 1 and 2 PM. Because I need sleep - I'm just like that. And I was thinking why I wasn't sleep deprived before. And I realized it's because I've never deprived myself of sleep for long periods of time ever.
You know, in college I slacked my way through like a lot of people (or maybe not a lot). But even in high school, like I remember Henry once saying how he worked hard in high school and was really busy. But I never worked hard. Never had to really stay up late. Always got enough sleep. This is partly because I did almost no extracurricular activities, but that's related. So yeah, I've never been really deprived of sleep because I've never really had to work hard.
I dunno, that makes me think a lot about my kids and stuff. Like, how do I challenge them and make them self-motivated in a way I never was? I think Henry and Dave both have thought about this. But yeah, all my self-motivation is pseudo-motivation - not long lasting and incomplete. That's my biggest problem.
I actually saw the first hour of the Sting A&E thing. I watched at Jieun's best friend's place while everyone else fell asleep. But I thought it was interesting. Had to stop though because it was showing Sat. night from 12-3 AM.
The first 52 episodes of Rurouni Kenshin are out on DVD. I have them all. I believe Beverly has all the episodes from the first two seasons in Real media.
Remind me never to drive to/from L.A. on Thanksgiving again. It took 8 hours to get down, and 8 hours 45 minutes to get back up. Each time with just a single bathroom break - no meals. That's absurd.
I saw The Muppet Movie again a couple days ago. If you haven't heard, this movie was important in my life because I started crying at the end when they sang The Rainbow Connection. Big deal because I never cried growing up. Meaning, between the ages of around 9 and 21. Never cried. At youth group retreats we'd have intense prayer sessions where the pastor is yelling at us to pray louder and people all around were crying. Not me, even if I was crying inside, if that makes any sense.
There was also one experience where I should have cried, back when I played soccer. I was dribbling the ball upfield, and there was just one defender left to beat. And as I approached, I saw him cock his leg in preparation to kick. And he started his kick, but at the very last second, I passed the ball left to a teammate. But the momentum of his leg was such that he couldn't stop the kick and it continued until his cleat went straight to my groin. Of course, I immediately crumpled in agony. Women can't understand this. They think, "how painful". Men reading this are themselves twisting in physical pain. It hurt so much the pain went up to my kidneys. That, my friend, is pain.
The worst part was a couple days later when I was peeing and scabs came out. But I didn't cry.
Point is, there were a lot of situations where I could have, should have cried, but for whatever reason, didn't. I almost never cried. In fact it was so rare between when I was 9 and 21 that I can distinctly remember the 3 times that I did cry. One was talking to my mom sometime in high school. One was watching the Tony Campolo Urbana video at FiCS sophomore year. And the other was watching the Muppet Movie.
I know I wrote about this before but the way it happened was, I was flipping the channels on a lazy Saturday afternoon and just happened to come upon it. So I watched it disinterestedly because I had nothing better to do. I wasn't really into it the whole time. But then at the very end, inexplicably, when the Muppets all start singing the Rainbow Connection, I find myself tearing up. It was utterly bizarre because, like I said, I never cried. So it was utterly random.
Anyway, I watched it again and I have no clue why the heck that happened. The end isn't moving at all. At all. The last half of the movie is actually kind of slow. So I have no idea what the heck was wrong with me.
Anyway, ever since summer of 1996, a pretty fateful summer, I cry all the time now. Blubber like a baby. I'm a wuss like that.
You can look up words in books of the Bible using SmarterChild on AIM. Pretty cool.
The great thing about "Mr. Poophead" is that it requires no explanation: everyone knows who you're talking about. Refer to "Mr. Poophead" and the listener immediately knows, "Ah! He's that weird squawking guy who you see with Lorraine." The only downside is that it makes Lorraine "Mrs. Poophead". But whatever, she freely chose to marry Henry - sorry - Mr. Poophead, so she must live with the consequences.
Amy Grant's third Christmas album came out last year you fool. Actually, it was 2 years ago.
Mannheim Steamroller has (at least) 7 Christmas albums.
I am strongly in favor of referring to Henry as "Mr. Poophead" from now on.
Her intending meaning was, fat, bald and/or gay.
I happened to catch the beginning of 20 The Countdown Magazine today. It's a radio show that counts down the most popular song in Christian music as compiled by CCM magazine. Anyway, the host says in the beginning how last week Avalon and Point of Grace battled for the top spot. I nearly had a coronary.
Iron Chef USA. Not a winner. A sinner.
I hate the term "falling in love". I'm sure I've written about this before. Just, it makes it sound like love is this passive thing, something that just happens to you that you have no control over. I absolutely disagree with it. Somewhere down the line, even though it's highly emotional, I believe you make a choice to love. And that goes for falling "out" of love also. Somewhere, that's a choice you make. Not something that just happens to you.
The worst phrase I ever heard was someone "loving" someone but not being "in love" with them. Give me a freaking break.
Maybe I can't criticize Korean worship spiritually, but I sure as heck can criticize it musically. I listened to a couple Korean worship recordings where they do this random thing, repeating a line in a song. I'm not talking CFC style (no idea if this is true - once heard I think a CFC tape that Kevin Lee had, maybe it was OIL, something like that, but they were singing "I Just Want To Be Where You Are" by Don Moen, the whitest worship leader ever (he has about as much soul as Al Gore on a good day), and it lasted about 20 minutes. They sang the "Oh my God..." part about 100 times and every time it started again, I screamed. I was saying the words, but not with the meaning they intended) where they repeat sections of a song over and over. I'm talking a single line.
What I think I heard was a Korean recording of Hillsongs' Power Of Your Love. And they repeated (not positive) the line that goes "Will be stripped away". So it goes like:
I'm a big fan of being clear where you're going during praise. If you're going to repeat, or not repeat, or whatever, the worship leader/team can give clues where it's going by what is said, the volume, the chords played, etc. Just, the less time the people are confused or unsure, the better; the more they can concentrate and whatever, and that's a good thing.
With the random line repeat technique, everyone is totally confused. It's so unpredictable, you're always like, do I go on? Do I repeat the line I just sang? Who knows? And even when you enter a repeated section, there's no comfort, because who knows how many times you're going to repeat it? You have no way of knowing. At least at OIL you know you're going to repeat it exactly 100 times. Totally confusing.
I slammed about 20 different things in a single post. Yikes.
I think Steve Francis kind of looks like my cousin Peter.
Random fact. My extended family is a little unusual in that people on both sides of the family married Caucasians. My mom's aunt married a Caucasian and my dad's uncle married a Caucasian. Random fact - each one of those couples had at least one child that attended Stanford. It's pretty amazing, but I have 6 relatives that went to Stanford - 3 of my dad's cousins, and 3 of my mom's cousins. I'm the only one from my generation so far.
Anyway, we always went to my dad's uncle's place for Thanksgiving. And here's the thing - I always called him Uncle (although he's really my dad's uncle), but her by her first name. I have no idea why that was. But on the other side of the family I always called him "Grandpa _____". I dunno, it's just weird.
Adrian led a great study on work about a month ago. Anyway, I'm convinced more than ever that there's absolutely no Biblical basis for the idea that we should do whatever we want to do. I challenge you to find me anything that supports that idea. The closest thing I think (maybe I'm wrong) is where it says it's a blessing to find joy in your work. But that's very different from saying you should do what you want. Whereas there is (I believe) significant evidence to the contrary.
I dunno. There's something screwed up with our generation. Newsweek kind of talked about it last week with a different angle, but our generation is living a life of luxury. We've never really faced want or need or tragedy or hardship. It's just a life of luxury, and all the hallmarks of our generation, the extreme irony and irreverance, constant search for satisfaction, and the absurd emphasis on entertainment are luxuries.
I dunno. Sometimes we want to spend long periods of our lives doing absolutely nothing. It's one thing if we have no choice. But like, we want to do nothing, to not work and just entertain ourselves. How is this kind of mentality compatible at all with being Christian?
John Piper had this great sermon that I can't seem to find where he was basically ridiculing those people who retire early and spend all their time on meaningless pursuits, represented by collecting shells. What the heck are they gonna say when they die? "Uh, I collected all these shells for you, God." Absurd.
But that's exactly us, I think. Not collecting shells, but other equally meaningless things (e.g. me trying to watch every Jackie Chan movie. I doubt there's many Kingdom points there). It's OK to want entertainment, but when we want that to be the majority of what we do, if not all that we do, there's something seriously screwed up, I think. I dunno, our generation is seriously messed up. That's my opinion.
Get all the Star Wars trailers here. It gets tons of traffic and never goes down so I think it's OK. 3rd trailer - much better than the first 2, but I dunno, I'm worried about the guy's acting. I guess we'll see.
Does anyone else remember that brief period a few years ago when Duke sucked? They didn't even make it into the tournament and Coach Krzyzewski was relegated to doing TV commentary for I believe CBS. I distinctly remember thinking to myself - "his time is over." Boy was I wrong.
I'm fairly certain my coworker saw me picking my nose. Busted.
Henry, Dave was talking about "Mexiacan" food. There's a difference.
Am I the only one that was shocked by the cover of In Style magazine a couple months back? It was all over the bookstores and grocery stores and wherever. It had a picture of Kate Hudson completely naked, strategically blocking her hibbidy jibbidies. I guess more than shocked I thought it made no sense. The latest "in" style is nudity? Confusing.
Anyway, Esquire is different from Maxim et al, and I kind of drew a distinction, albeit subtle, between them. It is well written, but I stopped reading Henry's Esquires after reading this extremely disturbing story in it. It was about a guy who has children with his dog. Most of the litter are majority dog, and these go on to form a popular singing group. One, however, is majority man, a tiny little man-dog creature. I am 100% not making this up. The man-dog goes on to have children with a woman in an iron lung, who gives birth to puppies. It was, in a word, disturbing. But well-written.
Which will happen first: 1) Dave finishes his travelogues 2) Man walks on Mars. Right now I'd say their odds are about even.
Finally saw the original Planet Of The Apes last night. Absolutely loved it. Henry will hate it because it's "slow", cerebral and it shows its age in certain ways. But I liked it.
I'm actually one of the few people that liked the remake OK. But all the reasons I liked the remake I found were better in the original, all these interesting issues like science and faith and racism and what it means to have a soul and other fascinating things. One fascinating thing about the movie is that it brings up issues that it doesn't pretend to answer. Like an ape asks, "What is it that separates simians from all other animals?" And he doesn't answer the question.
Which is an interesting question philosophically. I dunno, from what I read, a lot of philosophers historically have believed that spoken language is this defining characteristic. Was it Descartes? Someone believed that spoken language was the only proof that someone had a soul, and it had fascinating implications for deaf / mute people. And, it's also interesting from an AI standpoint, because it's a fully functional criterion. But anyway.
It's interesting nowadays because of those experiments nowadays where they teach simians sign language. I dunno, at least for me, the implications are a little disturbing and I'm not sure what to make of it. Especially if one is not religious, it's weird to think about. Dunno if this stuff was happening when they made the movie, but yeah, it's a very interesting issue.
And one thing the movie touched on that the remake developed much more was how the thing that separated humans from simians (since it wasn't intelligence) was ingenuity. Absolutely fascinating, I think. The movie was full of interesting issues like this. I dunno, for me personally, I thought it was brilliant. In light of it, the remake seems terrible. All the issues that were interesting became heavy-handed and confusing. My opinion. And Estella Warren isn't even that attractive.
Living with Keith and Eric has introduced me to a level of harder-core gaming than I have ever seen. It's astounding. I remember one night I was up pretty late, and Keith was playing a game (Dark Age of Camelot). I had to get up early for worship team, and he was playing the game. Went to church, had lunch, did errands, came back, and he was playing the game. I'm sorry, that's insane. And it's not an isolated incident.
This past Saturday was also funny. I come back from church and the apartment is completely dark, Eric and Keith sitting at their computers. It's clear that no one's eaten, probably haven't showered, too busy playing their respective games. It's hard core. I dunno. Keith and Slim are so hard core and it plunges so far down the scale of respectability past pathetic that it comes back up around to a level of admirability. There's something noble about being that devoted to something.
Anyway, for some strange reason it's kind of interesting to watch Keith/Slim play Camelot, although it's exactly the same thing every time: fight a random creature, sit down. Repeat. I haven't seen anything more exciting than this.
One thing that was cool was that there was an area where the creatures seemed to be based on Speaker for the Dead. They had piggies and tree creatures. That was kind of cool, in a loser sort of way.
One last observation - most of the people that play these games online according to Keith are in their 30s. Keith was chatting with one such guy last night and asked him if he was married. His response: "Not anymore". Pretty shocking.
There's an ad in Christianity Today for some Christian journalism conference you can go to and get 3 credits for, something like that. Anyway, among the featured guests is... Skip Bayless. Weird.
The second Attack Of The Clones teaser is way better than the first, but they're both pretty uninteresting.
I've been reading another columnist on ESPN.com recently - Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy. It's pretty good. I really liked this one. A friend likes this one a lot. Anyway, he's pretty funny, if you're interested.
Dad's Root Beer hard candy. Definitely a winner.
I was looking at my high school's web page and found out it was founded in 1851. Not as old as those east coast schools, but still pretty old, considering California became a state in 1850.
Anyway, Wong, did you know that Ming Tsai went to Andover?
I think I've seen 3 movies with Sammo Hung, and if I recall correctly, his names in those movies have been "Teapot", "Fatty", and "Fats".
More like 30 lectures.
I wrote in my list of Jackie Chan movies I have seen about Fantasy Mission Force, and how completely random and bad it is. Anyway, the comments about the movie on imdb.com. It's hilarious. I forgot to mention that James Bond and Rocky are in the plot. Ridiculous.
I was in Houston the summer the Rockets won their first championship and it was a huge deal because it was the first championship won by a team from Houston in any major professional sport. It was pretty sad for the 4th largest city in the U.S. Anyway, the night they won people went crazy - all along Richmond and I think Westheimer it was packed with people driving around giving random strangers high fives and hugs. The city went crazy, and it was hard not to get caught up in it.
In stark contrast to the Bay Area. I dunno, I guess the 49ers spoiled us, but I was always happy when they won, but never like feeling my life was fulfilled like those Houstonians. At any rate, any city's fans are better than those in L.A., who are basically looking for any reason to start looting and rioting.
I like one thing Skip Bayless wrote about the game last night: "Justice has prevailed." True.
I hate to admit it, because it seems petty and unholy, but I was really affected by the World Series also. (And Stanford's last 2 football games.) After Game 4 I was in a really bad mood, and then Game 5... I was so disgusted that I couldn't even read or hear about it. Any time sports talk got on the subject it brought up these disgusted feelings so I had to turn it off. I was so happy after Games 6 and 7 that I nearly cried. I'm not joking.
And none of this is because I'm a Diamondbacks fan. Don't like them at all. It's that I hate the Yankees that much. Pretty insane. But I got pretty emotional about it.
Anyway, one of my favorite moments from after the game was when Schilling gave Kim a big hug. It's amazing to me how much Kim is still in the minds of a lot of people. On Jim Rome this morning he was mentioned a lot. Also in a bunch of articles. Like this one from ESPN.com, and it's the biggest thing Rob Neyer (my favorite baseball columnist) is happy about in his latest column.
I had the strangest dream last night. I was at the church on the day of my wedding. I was in my tux and Jieun was in her dress but everyone else was in casual clothes. And it was complete chaos. I had no idea what was going on. The ceremony started with some lady singing a song. She sang opera style a song about those "Da** Canadiens" (that was the title printed in the program).
At this point I realized that none of the groomsmen were there. Nor was my dad, who was supposed to do the ceremony. So while she's singing, I run to the back of the church and find my dad in a room. And at that point I realize that we've never rehearsed the ceremony so I start to go over things with him. Chaos. Later the groomsmen come and they're in jeans and t-shirts. Even more chaos ensues.
I don't know what that means but it was pretty frightening.
I was listening to Jim Rome this morning and it was interesting - the overwhelming response was feeling sorry for Byung Hyun Kim. Even the Yankees fans said how they were happy but felt really bad for him. There were very few exceptions to this. A common worry was that it would be another Donnie Moore situation. Donnie Moore's this guy who gave up a one strike away from the World Series home run - he never got over it and eventually committed suicide. Not a good story. Bob Brenly's a punk.
I think I'm the most introverted person I know.
Not that I don't like people or always want to be by myself. I've just heard that an extrovert is someone who gets energy from being with people, and an introvert is someone who gets energy from being alone. Something like that.
And based on that definition, I'm extremely introverted. Maybe more than anyone else I know, I need my alone time, doing my own thing, every day. If I don't get that hour or so of being able to do my own thing without being bothered by people (they can be around, just not bothering me) I get really annoyed and cranky. And drained. But give me that time and I'm good to go with people indefinitely. Is this weird? I dunno, that's how I am. I think it's weird because it seems like a lot of people I know want to hang out with people all the time, and many others are cool with hanging out with people at any time. I'm just not like that - there's something wrong with me.
I feel pretty lucky though, because my roommates the past few years have all been really good about giving me that down time, whether they did it intentionally or not. And here's the weird thing. Dave kind of made mention of it, but I've been lucky enough that for the past few years I've always had people to comfortably and enjoyably hang out with at home. Such that I'm still staying up all the time. I dunno, it's just kind of weird, given how introverted I am, that I'm in that situation, but it's really fortunate, I think.
So yeah, it's been pretty ideal. I get my down time, but I can hang out with people if I want. So my life is pretty simple and boring. It's just work, Jieun's place, or home, and not much else. But I'm really happy with that. I'm very grateful for the roommates I've had. They've been ideal.
There are exceptions to my down time needs. I can think of two. One is Jieun. Being with her counts as down time. I have no idea why, it just is. Second is Thursday night Bohnanza with Eric and Arthur. Even if I've had no time to do anything, that time rejuvenates me. Random.
I try to talk as little about work as possible, but I thought this was interesting. Our priorities in supporting platforms, which is driven entirely by customer demand, is Windows NT, Linux, and then Solaris. Apparently many of our customers are moving to Linux from Solaris, because it has better performance and is cheaper (the hardware significantly so - there's no comparison). I thought that was really interesting. Time to sell Sun stock?
On a related topic, Salon.com has an interesting article on how the motion picture industries' special effects companies are all moving to Linux. Shrek was produced using Linux! Interesting.
Is this morbid? Almost every morning before I go to work, I check CNN.com to see if anything bad has happened. It's a scary world.
A topic came up in Bible study last week that I'm still thinking about. The point was, sometimes, God puts things in our lives that are hard for the purpose of chastening us. In particular, with work, sometimes it's supposed to be hard, not always fun, but in persisting God chastens and refines us and we're blessed for it.
What came up was that this is somewhat at odds with some of the thinking about work nowadays. That thinking being that we should do what makes us happy or fulfills us somehow. I dunno. I'm thinking maybe people who only do what's fun for them might be missing out on some of God's blessings, because they're avoiding this chastening. It's something I've been thinking about a lot.
At any rate, I still think this whole thinking that we should do what makes us happy and finding fulfillment in a job and the whole free agent rapid turnover mentality that people have is a luxury. I don't think it's something that any generation before us, Christian or not, dealt with - they worked because they had to. And I think that's more how it's supposed to be. Just my opinion.
It's not me that's cussing. I've mentioned this countless times, but I've only sworn once in my life, in 5th or 6th grade, saying "son of a..." Never utterred a 4 letter word in my life.
Unlike Keith his frosh year on Urban Immersion who swore constantly. "Pass the **** mashed potatoes, please." "Here you go, Keith." "**** thanks."
I think Stanford has a shot at the Fiesta Bowl, but our chances at playing for a national championship I think are slim to none.
The problem is the strength of schedule in the BCS rankings. Right now Stanford has the #1 rated schedule in the country, based on our opponents win-loss and their opponents win-loss, which is why we're ranked so high. The problem is, after Washington, none of our remaining opponents have a winning record, so we can only go down. But a lot of the other teams in the top 10 are back-heavy in their schedule so they'll go up (if they win). So yeah, our only hope is for everyone to beat up on each other. In particular, we need to beat Washington and then Washington needs to beat Miami.
But I'm still hoping.
Fascinating article on Job from the Straight Dope, where the head guy is clearly an atheist. It doesn't show in this article, written by a staff member.
One of the things I'm grateful for regarding my Catholic education was the exposure to academic and scholarly views on Scripture. Just, I was introduced to a bunch of ideas like the different authors of the Old Testament (Yahwist, Elohist, Priestly writer, Deuteronomist... are there more? Is this right? Can't remember) and how everything was put together. Ideas on the different authors of Isaiah (which the article briefly alludes to) and other stuff. I don't know, it's just interesting to me and I think it's something most evangelicals don't know anything about.
The San Jose Mercury News each Sunday has this section called Perspectives which I like a lot. It's just a bunch of editorials about current events, including quotes, cartoons, and a snippet of Harper's Index. Anyway, on Page 2 they always have an article from other news sources, an example of what different views from around the world.
Anyway, a couple Sundays ago the snippet was from ChristianityToday.com. I dunno, I just found that encouraging.
By the way, because of Darlene's advice, I don't soap my whole body every time I shower. Just once a week. The rest of the time I just soap my face, under my arms, and the hibbidy jibbidy area.
I don't care about your stupid abstract shampoo theory. I just know it works. Pantene (and now Finesse) shampoo plus conditioner leaves my hair feeling clean and conditioned. I don't care too much about my hair so saving time is more important.
I found an explanation on how shampoo plus conditioner works from someone called the Makeup Diva. Call it Clara Hong. There's another one here, a transcript of a conversation with a Pantene customer service person on a questionable humor site.
Also found out that a bunch of shampoo brands are all owned by Proctor and Gamble. Head and Shoulders, Pantene, Pert Plus, Vidal Sassoon. Also found out there are people on the web who care way too much about grooming.
But while we're on the subject, I do remember the chemistry of cleaning agents. If I recall correctly, generally soaps don't remove chemicals, just dirt and oil. They do this by forming micelles around dirt and oil which allow them to be rinsed out.
Conditioners don't have to bond to oil, but to hair. It's a completely different chemical attraction, unless you're using some kind of new shampoo that pulls out hair as well as oil (which would actually explain a lot). I guess if you didn't take much chemistry and retained little of even that, such that your chemical knowledge is limited to "adds, strips" it doesn't make sense. But it should.
And while I'm at it, your knuckles smell.
Have I mentioned that I love Out of the Grey's songs Waiting and Out Of The Ordinary on their new album? Amazing music, in my opinion. Waiting is just infectiously catchy. And the chorus to Out Of The Ordinary is incredibly beautiful. If Scott didn't sing the verses, it would be perfect.
This simulation arcade game craze has got to stop. I'm down with most of them, especially the sports ones like boxing and the music ones like Keyboard/Drum Mania. Even fishing, I can understand. But walking the dog?
This is going to sound weird, but I resent the fact that I need to do certain things every day. Like eating. Sometimes eating is just a hassle and a chore. And the thing about eating is, if you eat, and even if you do absolutely nothing, in a few hours, you need to eat again. What a waste of time. I love food, but sometimes the fact that I need to eat daily annoys me.
I also resent the fact that I need to shower. Just, showering for me isn't fun like it is for other people. It's a chore. At any rate, I take quick showers. The key is, I always use 2-in-1 shampoo plus conditioner.
Side note. I was listening to Scott Underwood once and he always says these things during worship, just talking, stuff like, "You are the new wine! Give us another drink! We're so thirsty and empty God!" Just cool stuff like that I could never come up with on my own except with deliberate planning. Other stuff like "You're the Balm of Gilead". Just, a lot of cool worship talk.
So I was thinking what metaphors I could use in worship. And as usual, I thought about what would be most absurd. Anyway, the shampoo metaphor could be pretty cool. "Yes, God! You are the shampoo! Rise and lather out the dandruff of my sin! Repeat if necessary! You're like Pert Plus but better! Pert Plus is 2 in 1 but you're 3 in 1!" Of course, all done in an English accent and accompanied by lathering motions.
Uh, pretty sacriligious.
Anyway, yeah, using 2-in-1 shampoos saves so much time it's incredible. It makes your showers lightning quick. So far I've tried Pert Plus, Head and Shoulders, Aussie brand, Pantene, and Finesse. My favorite for a long time (since frosh year) has been Pantene, but I'm using Finesse right now and it's pretty good. Stay away from Pert Plus. It doesn't condition at all.
Ate at Korea House last night. It's very different - the layout is much more open, so more tables and more people. Also much more well lit. Also, the menus and stuff now say "Korean House".
The meat was a little disappointing - not as good as I remember it. But people don't really go to KH for the meat anyway, but the side dishes. And as before, the side dishes were numerous and pretty good.
I really like Dave's travelogues. I guess it's just me.
Do you know what snafu is an acronym for?
Our apartment has 2 large TVs, 2 DVD players, 2 Playstation 2s, 2 Playstations, and I think 3 computers. But we only have 1 VCR. And no stereos. I dunno, I think that's weird.
Finally caught up on the last two weeks of Survivor.
I love this show. I dunno, I just think it's the most interesting, unpredictable thing on TV and it absolutely fascinates me.
So what I find interesting right now is that one tribe seems to be stonger, but the other tribe is more unified. That doesn't really make sense at all.
Anyway, I absolutely hate Samburu. They're just all a bunch of punks. Let me start with Linda, the strangest woman in the world. She keeps going on about the gods and goddesses in Africa and all this spiritual weirdo mumbo jumbo. A complete nut.
But not only that, I just don't like her. Like, she said at tribal council how they're supposed to be a team, but the young'ens only made necklaces for the youngest 4. Where's her necklace, she asks.
How completely hypocritical. She, along with the other 3 old people, were the ones who schemed from the very beginning to completely alienate the younger members of the tribe. They weren't even shy about it. They were in fact pretty rude about it. And she's the one that's complaining about not being a team? What a flaming hypocrite. Argh, anger.
Speaking of which, the older 4 were complete idiots. It's a good idea to form alliances, but a really bad idea to alienate people - that's the very last thing you want to do. You want to form consensus, not division. Last time, the first votes of each tribe were pretty much unanimous, and that's the way it should be. But instead of reaching out, they alienated people, causing a backlash which ultimately bit them in the butt. I'm glad it happened, because they were such punks. They deserve to get picked off.
Not that the younger ones are much better. They're a bunch of lazy bums. I dunno, that age split was really interesting to me, because there's truth to it. The older ones are hard working and industrious, the young ones are totally lazy. The guy voted off said something about how he's worried about that generation. I actually think there's truth to that. Our generation is pretty much totally lazy, just being raised in a time of relative luxury and privilege. I dunno, I think it's true.
Keith's TV gets cable.
Henry once told me to buy the Sony MDR 7506 headphones and they were one of the best investments I've ever made. Everyone needs to get one pair of good headphones. Listening to music with them is just a completely different experience. You hear all these subtleties and nuances that are amazing.
This was reinforced to me recently a couple times. I've been listening to Out of the Grey's latest album at work on my headphones, and the whole album's excellent; in particular I super dig this song called Waiting. It's great in every way. Lyrically interesting also - here's the first lines of the first verse and chorus:
I'm not waiting for a signal
Or waiting for a sign
Other song is this praise song called I See The Lord. We listened to it at worship team a few weeks back through the youth group system and it was pretty good. But listening to it on headphones, you hear all these different nuances in how they're singing and playing, it's a different experience. It just lets you see what they're doing dynamically that makes the song energetic. Totally different.
I don't think I'm an A/V snob, like, I watch movies now using the TV speakers and it doesn't bother me. But I do highly recommend getting just one good pair of headphones - it makes a big difference.
Don't want to steal Dave's fire with the concert but yeah, me and Jieun had a great time. I always feel unsatisfied with Out of the Grey concerts because there's so much more I want to hear, but I guess that's the mark of a good concert - leaves you wanting more. But it was dope. Maybe I'll write more after Dave does.
One thing that really humbled me - Twila Paris was an incredible pianist. Way better than me. And of course, she sings about a googol times better than I do. So basically, this person is far better than me musically in every way.
What I really liked was when she was playing her dope piano parts and leading everyone in singing some of her worship songs like You Have Been Good and He Is Exalted. Another impressive thing - she had amazing range. Like, I'm pretty sure she was hitting E's on He Is Exalted and it didn't sound terrible, which is remarkable for a woman. I dunno, I just think it's cool to hear things that everyone knows straight from the source. She wrote the songs, you know? And there she was, playing and singing and leading it. Dope.
The most amazing thing about how incredibly musical Twila Paris is that she's 80 years old. Just kidding. But she does look a lot older than I thought she was.
They should have turned up Scott's guitar though. It was too quiet on just about every song.
The photographer thought we were pot smokers. I blame Andrew.
The people I had the longest conversations with at the reception were Nate Nutter, Sal Sanchez, and Chris Min. How random.
I'm the one that was confused by "team". "Team"? Were we all getting married? Confusing.
I'm with Dave - I think there's a strong inverse correlation between how cool you are and how much time you spend on the Internet. I'm a regular reader of the ba.food newsgroup and it's ridiculous. There's been this argument that's lasted for weeks now with proponents on each side issuing passionate, emotional prose defending their position. The argument? Whether burritos should contain rice or not. Absurd.
So yeah, I'm telling you, if you spend a lot of time on the net (like me) you're necessarily a loser.
Comments.
Dave you idiot, the reason I think I need to get to sleep earlier is because I'm more productive when I do. Of course, I'm writing this at 4 AM.
Frosh year Dave would fall asleep every single week in service, without fail. The thing was, it was very visible - you'd have the typical head nodding. I played a little game with myself to see how long he could last before nodding off. Average - 7 minutes into the sermon. That's my claim.
Here's something I don't quite understand. Some people, who were taught Korean growing up, they say they're grateful for the experience of truly knowing the Korean culture. But then, in their lives, they pretty much reject the Korean culture. Meaning, they get angry at the way Korea/Koreans are, they don't want to be a part of a Korean church, other stuff like that. More so than say, people like me who wasn't immersed in the language. If that experience was such a good thing, why the backlash?
My theory is this, and it's just a theory. But I think there's sometimes more bitterness and backlash because them being forced to learn Korean was at odds with the rest of their childhood experience. So it heightened the dissonance between their parents ways and their own, if that makes any sense.
Anyway, sadly, I'm with Dave on this one. You can't force things or it will just make children bitter and backlash against their parents or it simply won't work.
The reason Dave couldn't see me was because I was hiding behind the overhead screen. This is going to sound terrible but the reason I do this is, when we're playing badly instinctively I need to hide and the screen provides safe cover. The worse we play, the more I move behind the screen so less and less people can see me. It's a bad habit but I think less distracting for the congregation than seeing bewildered looks of confusion up there.
Me and Jieun had dinner with Henry and Lorraine Tuesday night.
The Onion had an amusing article about a gas station attendant who gave 109 9/10 percent.
I still think it's strange that Orson Welles was Unicron.
Filipinos eat sticky rice but don't use chopsticks.
Keith's worship of Dave is some of the funniest stuffs I've ever seen. It's absolutely ridiculous. I think the obvious phrase that Dave said that Keith thought was so amazing was that "these next few years are really important." Pretty deep.
Anyway, one of the funniest times last week was when Keith was talking to Cathy, one of Dave's friends from high school. Keith was explaining to her how sensitive Dave was and every time he'd say something she would double over in laughter. It was hilarious. A direct quote of Cathy: "I don't know where you're living but it's not reality. You've been watching too much anime."
Anyway, I was talking to Chris, a friend of Dave and Cathy from high school, at the wedding and relating Cathy and Keith's conversation. The funny thing was, I didn't get to finish, because as soon as I said how Keith told Cathy that Dave was so sensitive, Chris doubled over in laughter.
Funny stuffs. It was tight.
I learned in Philosophy that there's a complete turnover in the cells of the body every 7 years or so. Meaning, the physical stuff you're made of is completely different from what it was made of 7 years ago. Cells died and new cells took their place. There are some interesting implications of this philosophically, especially if you're a physicalist, as to what it means to be a person.
Anyway, when Jieun was talking with Dave I was advising her to pretty much ignore everything he's saying, because his ideas are like that - he has a complete turnover every six months or so. I'm talking extreme, manic changes in opinion. Don't take my word for it - read his web page.
So we were trying to imagine how his kids are going to turn out. I can imagine talking to his kids when they're grown and asking them what their childhood was like. They'd probably say something like, "It was really weird. For six months all we did was speak Korean. Then all of a sudden, we weren't allowed to speak Korean at all. We'd speak Korean like we had the past six months and dad would reprimand us and ask why we were speaking Korean and then spank us. Another six months we only spoke Swahili. Then another six months we were only allowed to communicate through mime. It was very odd."
Hey Andrew, there's one benefit we don't share in as groomsmen, if you catch my drift.
Musicforce.com, the online music branch of CBD, has some pretty good deals now on some CDs that I thought I'd share.
Just so you know, Matthew asked for me if I could take a picture with her.
Not sure about teaching my kids Korean, but I am sure that someone needs to teach Dave English. Guh.
The first words Lt. Tay said to me in 3 years were: "Hey punk."
Leo told me about this: on AIM, add SmarterChild to your buddy list, and then send him an IM message "home" (no quotes). It's pretty interesting. You can get news, stock quotes, weather, movie times, dictionary/encyclopedia entries, answers to easy math calculations, and other random stuff. You can check out the privacy policy at www.smarterchild.com.
Anyway, it looks like it's hooked up to some form of Eliza also or something like that because you can carry out some conversations with it. Do a Google search on SmarterChild and you'll find some bbs's that have transcripts of conversations with it. It's pretty amusing. And a great idea.
I think I get way more angry when a friend of mine is wronged than when I'm wronged myself. I get blind with rage.
I bought a terrible album recently. It's called Poplife, by Lifesavers, and it's a semi-legendary album in the alternative Christian music community, released in 1991. I heard it a long time ago and thought I liked it, so when I found it in the bargain bin at Berean, I got it.
It's truly terrible. Bad, messy music and lyrics. Here's one song:
Skate
Skate skate skate skate skate skate skate
My skateboard is no crime
There's hungry children cryin'
There's politicians lyin'
The crime I see Mr. Police
Is this world don't know where to go when it dies
What the heck does that mean? Anyway, the music is worse than the lyrics. The worst thing is, I can't get this song out of my head. Argh. Anyway, maybe I'll warm up to the album, but for the most part, my impression of 80s and 90s alternative Christian music is that it was really alternative. Meaning, bad.
Wow. Randomly found this article, published in 1998, about religious terrorism.
The words "thug," "zealot" and "assassin" all come from ancient terror cults - Hindu, Jewish and Muslim, respectively - that believed they were doing the work of God.
Excerpts from Jonathan Alter in Newsweek:
"Critics of the war on terrorism don't seem to understand: someone is trying to kill them.... none but a fool would say, as the novelist Alice Walker did in The Village Voice, that 'the only punishment that works is love.'We've tried turning the other cheek. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing we held our fire and treated the attack as a law-enforcemnet matter. The terrorists stuck again anyway.
"America Firsters grasped this point after Pearl Harbor and the isolationists ran off to enlist. So why can't Blame America Firsters grasp it now? Al Qaeda was planning its attack at exactly the time the United States was offering a Mideast peace deal favorable to the Palestinians. Nothing from us would have satisfied the fanatics, and nothing ever will."
Apparently Korea House has reopened. I'll drive by to check later today.
This comes from a Howard Fineman story in Newsweek:
"With almost audible sighs of relief, some top people who worked for Al Gore privately tell me they are glad (relieved) that George Bush - not Bill Clinton's veep - is in the White House now. The reasons are complex. First, it's fair to say that Bush's performance since Black Tuesday has impressed Democrats. Strategists also have realized that Bush has far more political room to maneuver at home than Gore would have had. With his reasonably good ties to the pro-military wing of his party, the president has been able to both talk tough and take his time. His coalition-building and noose-tightening has impressed the Democrats, too."
Weird. Here's the article.
More on Sorabol: I did a Google search and found out there's one at the Great Mall in Milpitas, as well as the Newpark Mall in Newark (I think) and the Los Cerritos shopping center somewhere in SoCal. Dunno if they're related.
Don't ask me how, but I came across this fascinating article on Microsoft and 3D Graphics. I'm sorry, but the more you learn about Microsoft, the more you can't help but dislike them. I'm curious to know what the status of OpenGL is now. Keith?
Dunno if I ever talked about one of my visions: Korean food court restaurants. You have your Panda Express, your random Japanese places, Mexican, Italian, even Mongolian BBQ, all bastardized for mass consumption. I just thought we needed a Korean one.
There actually is one! The food court at Stonestown Galleria has this place called Sorabol, which serves Korean food. It's pretty bad, but it's a start.
I got my teeth cleaned today. By a high school classmate. He's got a dental practice in South San Jose. I dunno, that made me feel old. We're getting to the age now when our peers are professionals. Soon I'll know where to go for legal advice, medical advice, and all other sorts of stuff. It's strange.
Anyway, they have all kinds of neat toys now. Like, he used this weirdo ultrasonic thing to clean my teeth. And he used this laser thing that's supposedly super accurate to probe for cavities. It's apparently way better than the old method of just pressing the hook, which only catches cavities when they're sufficiently large and near the surface.
I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm a part of the Out of the Grey mailing list. I highly encourage everyone to join some type of list like this. I dunno, there are just so many bad things on the web. Like, every group you have, bulletin boards, newsgroups, what have you, they always degrade to arguments and name calling and cynicism. But this mailing list, every post is just sincere and encouraging. Every once in a while people will share prayer requests and other things like that. And everyone supports it and likes and whatever. Just, with so much that hard and cynical in the net, it's nice to have something like this. It always encourages me.
Why does everyone from Cal spell "segue" wrong?
I recently started watching Robotech again - they're releasing the series on DVD. The whole Macross part is out now.
Dude, it's incredible. I forgot how good it was, but I love it. I think it's brilliant. What amazes me is how progressive it was. You may or may not know but the Macross series was the first to feature transforming robots. But what makes it incredible is the story. Even the transforming part makes more sense than other series - it gives a military advantage, and that kind of makes sci-fi sense.
But anyway, yeah, it was so progressive. Like, the characters were all different ethnicities, female characters are very strong, there's interracial relationships, there's a transvestite character, people die, it says all this stuff about race and love and music and all these wonderful things. Everyone needs to watch Robotech.
Do gays and lesbians believe in evolution? I'm just curious because, and I'm making absolutely no judgment calls here, but it seems to me that those two ideas are contradictory.
Everyone knows that evolution is about survival of the fittest. And by "fittest" we mean fittest to reproduce, those with a reproductive advantage. According to evolution, that's all that matters.
And the stance as I understand it of gays and lesbians nowadays is that their sexual orientation is genetic or in any case beyond their control.
But how do you reconcile those ideas? Given that evolution has occurred for millions of years, you would think that homosexuality would be one of the first genetic traits to disappear, since it's a fatal trait in reproduction. There's no way that trait can be passed on, and it seems to me that evolution would predict it to disappear. Bisexuality I can understand, but not homosexuality.
So yeah, again, no judgment calls, but I just don't understand how those ideas work together. I'm sure there's a way out of it, just, I don't know it and it's something I've wondered for a while. I guess ever since Bio 33.
I got an e-mail yesterday asking me if I wanted to join the Whitney High School Alumni Association.
Something funny happened in the worship set a couple weeks ago. We were singing the classic song "In His Time". The lyrics:
In His Time
In His time
In His time
He makes all things beautiful in His time
Lord please show me every day
As You're teaching me Your way
That You do just what you say
In Your time
In Your time
In Your time
You make all things beautiful in Your time
Lord my life to You I bring
May each song I have to sing
Be to You a lovely thing
In Your time
I think you all know it. Anyway, we were singing it, and at the end the leader repeated the last part. The thing is, he started with the wrong line: "May each song I have to sing" while singing the notes that belong to "Lord my life to You I bring". The thing is, you can't tell right away that anything is wrong, and it kind of fits. Try it out in your mind. But then you finish "Be to you a lovely thing" and then you realize musically it's not done but you've run out of words. So the entire congregation and worship team just kind of had to mumble out something as they finished the song. Maybe it's just me, but it was really amusing. Just, all of a sudden you realize, uh oh, we're out of words; some people repeated "Be to You...", some literally mumbled; I dunno, it was funny.
Jieun likes to laugh at my hypocrisy.
The other day we were driving and we were at a red light. Anyway, some light changed going perpendicular, and while our light didn't change, the guy in the lane next to us got confused and started to go, stopping abruptly a split second later when he realized the light was still red. So I point him out to Jieun and say what an idiot he is.
About 5 seconds later at the same intersection, I have no idea what happened, but I just got confused or something and I just crossed the intersection while the light was still red. Jieun was like, what the heck are you doing? And I didn't know - no clue why I went. The irony killed her and she couldn't stop laughing about it.
I guess the lesson is don't judge lest you be judged. That or I'm more of an idiot than I think.