Irresistable Distraction

Dude, I am such a sucker for stuffed animals.

At the Barnes cafe, in honor of the upcoming Easter holiday, I guess, there is a display of ducks sitting on the counter. Adorable, plush, buttercup-yellow sitting ducks. And that's not all! They come dressed in an equally adorable sunny yellow raincoat, matching hat and rainboots! And in their left (your right) hand- I mean wing, they carry a bag of peachios, just for you.

I really really want it. But I won't get it. Because material things aren't forever. It will only leave me poorer. But my heart richer. No, poorer! Poorer! Ok...I can already feel the desire for Quackers 'n Cheese waning. Also, I just gave it a name.

Back to philosophy of physics.

I Spy...on the Spanaway Road

Today while taking a walk along 152nd street, a road about 2.5 miles long near my house, I spied the following items of roadkill:

-2 possums
-1 skunk
-1 racoon
-1 unidentifiable mass of pale ivory-colored fur
-1 blackened banana peel

That last one doesn't qualify as roadkill, I guess. But I spied it. One of the possums' head was lying 5 feet away from its body.

What a fun game!

I made it to Paradise!!

I have a confession to make. It's not anything bad, just so weird. Wait, when has weirdness ever stopped me from posting? Right, glad we got that sorted out.

I dreamt that I died and went to heaven, and heaven turned out to be an ocean of sailboats and surfers.

I distinctly remember feeling a great sense of antic-appointment. Actually, what I said was: "That's it? Just more of the same?" Well...I'd like to check out hell before I make a final decision, thanks.

Sarcasm, Irony, Deadpan

There are so many ways to be funny. Then why is it that every time I think of that prisoner in Shawshank picking up a book and reading "Alexander Dumb-ass", I think it's like the funniest thing ever? Even the 100th time around? I guess my humor level is and always will remain at the kindergarten level. To illustrate, here's a joke:

Why did everyone think the ocean was so friendly?

Cuz it was always waving!*

Speaking of funny (yes, a real transition!), I discovered the "Modern Love" section of the Times and ran across this article, so funny and sweet. I think I'll use his tactic if I ever get in a car accident. It seemed to work very well: no police, no exchanging of phone numbers, insurance companies or money- yep, pretty sweet.

*The live version includes a friendly wave with a cheesy smile at the end.

Obama in Seattle

I attended the Obama rally in Seattle on Friday! Unfortunately, I arrived 15 minutes after the doors opened, so I was one of the 3000 people stuck listening outside. Yes, it rained. But it was a fine mist! So me and my mac were ok.

Can you guess what was emphasized in his speech? Besides Hope and Delta: The Green cause of course! Since Seattle is charicaturized by granola, birkenstock-sporting, pro-organic everything, tree-huggers, this Go Green cheer was inevitable. I've never owned a pair of Jesus sandals myself, but not for lack of coveting it. 'Granola' is a term I never heard until a few months ago.

As for the environment thing, I was never into the whole tree-hugging business, and have only recently started caring more about sustaining the planet as well as myself. I have my own reasons for starting to become more conscientious about saving the environment, which is that I've gotten fond of traveling, exploring new places-whether in a city or the wide fields of nowhere- and it would be a shame to let something that makes me happy go to waste.

But if anyone wants a more scientific source of incentive for recycling, here's one: The two- sustaining the planet and yourself- are linked, if we're to believe in the Darwinian concept that our primary purpose is to make sure our genes survive. So if you believe this Darwinian concept to be true, and if you want to fulfill your primary purpose for living- ensuring the survival of your awesome genes-, then you better start recycling and emitting less greenhouse gases! Of course, if this is indeed your incentive for saving the environment, it's also true that no amount of recycling will help your purpose if you don't also commit to the duty of propagating.

Seeing the future President, even from a couple hundred feet away booming into a megaphone for a couple minutes before he headed into the arena, was ultra-exciting! There were tons of young people skipping school and tons of older people taking 3-hour lunch breaks from work in order to come see him speak. People around me were really listening to his words, nodding and cheering when they especially agreed with what he said. It was quite inspiring. And I got to put my newfound stadium whistle talent to action, hurray.

Later, I had this conversation with someone who said she would prefer Clinton over Obama, saying that his ability to inspire masses of people was dangerous because it could lead to a lack of checks and balances if he were to become President (She herself was voting for Huckabee). It's an interesting point, and if it were anyone else up on that stage enthralling 1000s of people young and old, and inspiring them to become engaged in politics and issues, I might give it more creedence. Like, if he had a toothbrush moustache (or any moustache for that matter- you know how I feel about moustaches), spoke with a gutteral h, and had a certain special symbol on his uniform, then I might be worried. Or even if he was squinty-eyed, rosy-cheeked, and spoke in a southern drawl, even then I might consider the idea of over-effective charisma coming into play.

Going off on a slight tangent, while watching the Sopranos recently, I noticed that they (the mob characters, or the writers through the mob characters) kept making the point that the mafia was no different from a business or government. They are both corrupt, and the only difference is that the corruption is acknowledged and accepted by the rest of the Family, whereas in civil society, the government and business leaders have to hide their corruption from their people under smiles and promises. This is totally true! I thought at first. So why do we so hypocritically brand the mafia as the bad guys?

But after a second round of thinking, I decided that openly accepted corruption really is worse than covert corruption, where the people are being lied to. Why? Because the empty 'smiles and promises' I spoke of is merely proof that a checks and balances system exists. (And yes, we need this checks and balances system; just because corruption is inevitable, it doesn't mean we should make it easy for it to exist and spread.) It doesn't feel good to know that our leaders could be being dishonest with us, it might make us feel like fools, but actually, it should make us feel that we have at least some power in our hands because they have to sneak around to try to carry out their dirty deeds. A higher level of dishonesty is an easy price to pay for a lower level of corruption, even though that level of corruption may never reach zero.

Of course, this is all theoretical talk. In reality, the mob is disgustingly corrupt, but equally disgustingly dishonest, and so is the government. Bleh. I'm excited for something new. Right now, at this moment, I'm not worried, I'm inspired!

Happy Year of the Rat!

I love google's logo today- a mama and baby rodents flipping a calendar.

Also, rats are cute only in cartoon form. If those babies were real, I'd have their head on a platter in a jiff. Which is to say, I'd be standing on the highest surface available in the room and screaming my uvula off.

It's the year of the rat, baby! Hey, according to Wikipedia, I would do well in the field of espionage. If I ever tell you I work at a bank, you better think twice about it!

Ode to Another Hero

Ohhhhh Girrrrl! by the Chi-Lites. It was referenced in a Sopranos episode, and now I'm listening to it, and it's putting me in such a gooooood mooooood! Nothing like music to make your days 10 times more uplifting.

King Arthur...he's the kindest, purest soul there ever was created in literature next to Jesus (kidding kidding! I know he was probably a real historical figure blown up to mythical proportions...kinda like King Arthur actually), and it makes me sad to read about his wife and best friend taking advantage of his absolute goodness to satisfy their own happiness. In these times, it's not fashionable to "turn the other cheek" instead of standing up for oneself- it's considered meek, weak, spineless. But Arthur was none of these things. He just didn't stoop to even justifiable feelings of jealousy and vengeance because he loved Lancelot and Guenevere that much. By the end, the three friends are so close they can communicate without words half the time. This is my favorite kind of story- the kind that revolves around a friendship.

Hm, I had no plans to write about anything beyond the Chi-lites, but now I've written another rambling tribute to one of my heroes. King Arthur, Sherlock Holmes...a post about Einstein should be in the works eventually if the pattern persists. Stay tuned!

Words of the Wise

Dude, vomiting is just not as much fun when you're sober.

Heh- I just hyperlinked vomiting to Wikipedia. Hm, it seems they've changed the picture in this entry- they used to show a blond dude upchucking fantastically into a bucket. Actually, this new picture is much funnier.

Ew, gross, it says that vomiting is "the forceful expulsion of the contents of one's stomach through the mouth and sometimes the nose!" The nose???

Late Night Logic aka BEST TV EVER

There I go again, hyping things up, but let's just say, you don't want to have missed this. They call it Super Brawl 2008. Get your wings and pizza and let the clip roll! Or watch the whole episode on nbc.com.

The story behind the brawl takes place in 4 episodes, and it's really like one big logic game. You see, Conan and Colbert both took credit for making Mike Huckabee (it had nothing to do with Huck's Army). Conan's argument was that he made Chuck Norris with his Walker Texas Ranger lever (which is also doubly worth checking out!). Before that Walker was a fool in cowboy boots. Or is it the cowboy boots that made him a fool? Anyway, then Conan came along wielding a giant yellow lever in hand, and suddenly there are all these jokes about Chuck Norris like "Chuck Norris can divide by zero," and "There is no 'ctrl' button on Chuck Norris' computer. Chuck Norris is always in control." And so on. Anyway, we were talking about Huckabee. Chuck Norris started campaigning for Huck, which made Huck big, so the logic here is:

Chuck made Huck.
Conan made Chuck.
Therefore, Conan made Huck.

It's a simple application of the transitive property of Late Night: C made K, & K made H => C made H.

Conan also points out that by merely mentioning Colbert on his show, he made Colbert. So, even if we were to suppose that Colbert made Huck, the logic then goes:

Colbert made Huck.
Conan made Colbert.
Therefore Conan made Huck.

But then John Stewart comes along and shows evidence (a VHS- you know, the thing we used before DVD came along) that he made Conan, and so in fact the complete iron-clad logic goes:

Colbert made Huck.
Conan made Colbert.
Stewart made Conan.
Therefore Stewart made Huck.

Plato would be proud. I'm proud. And notice how Chuck Norris just completely dropped out of the picture.

Sarcastic Blog

Not sure how I ended up at this particular blog, but there I was, and man is it funny! Here is how he described the serious national security dealings of Condoleezza Rice:

Then Condi waves, gets on a plane, gets off a plane, waves, eats lunch with a Middle Eastern dictator. They take a picture sitting at 45 degrees, she gets back on a plane and when she gets back to DC, she says "we had a meaningful discussion."

And so many more of those nuggets of sarcasm!

Harking Back to Graduation

J.K. Rowling is speaking at the Harvard graduation!! Luckyyyyyy...And as that article shows, you can never please everyone. Hey Dumbledore said that too! When Hagrid was down about parents sending him hate owl-mail because he was a giant half-breed. Here's a quote from the article that shows that no matter who it is, the keynote speaker at every college graduation will always be either too serious or not serious enough:

"The word from the college, meanwhile, is that some Harvard students are not exactly thrilled at the news, and disappointed that the university chose someone involved in the production of fairy tales rather a world leader or politician.

'[Faust] thinks this is a game?" one student complained. "It's a damn election year! You can't get someone at all related to that shit?'"

I for one thoroughly enjoyed listening to Jodie Foster at our commencement- including the part where she quoted Eminem and had the crowd follow along. And including the part where our inarticulate school president presented her as successfully transitioning from "precocious child star to adult film artist." I knew that was her in that "interpretive dance" video.

PS: I learned the news about JK Rowling from Pottercast, the official Leaky-Cauldron Harry Potter podcast. They actually got to interview her during one of their podcasts recently!

Promises

One of the reasons Clinton-backers are giving for choosing her over Obama is that no one can say whether or not he will actually fullfill all the promises that he makes. He's a great orator, gets listeners riled up with his promises of change, but will he deliver? Who can know, since he has not had commensurate experience. Whereas Clinton (first name Hillary) was in the White House as Bill's right hand. She's experienced, they say, and if anything, she's a great learner: she learns from her mistakes. So when she makes promises, they somehow have more legitimacy. Because her experiences make her more knowledgeable about what's possible and what's too Kucinich.

Ok, I see. I was wondering why experience would make her more trustworthy, after all an experienced politician could make empty promises as well as the non-experienced politician. But it's not a question of who's more capable of lying, but who is more capable of making promises that are fulfillable.

Sometimes it helps to write things out as if I'm talking to someone.

Anyway, I decided I want King Arthur for president. In "The Once and Future King", Merlyn tells him he's going to come back in a few centuries. Could the Second Coming be now?! Long live King Arthur!

Science and Philosophy

I found this article in this week's Science Times, on the extreme improbability of the Big Bang. Basically it says that the chance that our universe came into existence due to a "giant fart" (as my old Sunday School teacher so disparagingly put it) is much much less likely than the chance of finding bodiless brains floating around in space.

I can't help thinking what a random comparison this is- almost like asking why aren't apples oranges and oranges apples? I also find myself thinking about the nature of probabilities- they are, after just probabilities, only saying what is likely to happen. What actually happens is a different matter (this is where I refrain from making a horrible pun concerning matter, you're welcome). Unless you're a cat in a box- then apparently, you're both dead and alive until someone opens the box and finds out that you're actually dead. Or alive. Yep, makes just about as much sense as a unicorn on a bowling ball.

I also find myself thinking about the divide between philosophy and science that happened a few centuries ago. In the beginning, there was the Word, yes, but also, science and philosophy were one- science was a subcategory of philosophy in Ancient Greece up until the 17th or 18th century. But then science (and other fields) became more and more specialized, and they sort of became at odds with each other with respect to their goals, one driven by metaphysical questions of how we know in general, and the other by empirical questions of what we know specifically through our senses.

These days with the rise of quantum mechanics and also brain research, it seems like the domains of philosophy and science are intersecting again, and this is especially noticeable in this article, where reincarnation is being discussed alongside cosmology. Cosmologists are wondering whether they should consider other universes that may be bubbling forth zillions of light years away when doing their calculations, but that doesn't make sense to me. How can you study something scientifically if you can't see it? See meaning detect, of course. The reassuring thing about science is that you can test your results by trying to manipulate things or create things artificially. You push something, it falls, cause and effect. Of course, philosophers would object saying how do you know for sure that that's the cause, maybe there was in intermediary cause that was the real cause...there's all these objections, but the wonder of science is that we are surrounded by results that come from our manipulations that show that we are onto something, at least. Genetically-enhanced food, cloning, robots controlled by mere thought, the list is endless.

What other field of knowledge has such a list? Someday, would we know enough about this so-called "God" to actually be able to manipulate him? Highly, highly doubt it. But that's a totally different situation, right? He's not supposed to be tangible, therefore rendering him un-manipulatable. Right...totally different situations.

Angie in Dreamland

I dreamt that my dad stabbed in the heart. The psychiatrists would have a field day with this one.

In case you've wondered what it feels like to walk around with a stabbed heart, it's like your throat is closing up, gives you a bit of trouble breathing. And can you believe it, those damn doctors, they put me on the waiting list for surgery!

I hate waiting.

What a Moron

I can't believe this guy is allowed to write for anyone, let alone the Times. Gee, where to start. First off, I think it's ironic that he realized how ugly British women were upon returning to the UK after four years in Philadelphia because a recent survey carried out by Travel & Leisure mag shows Philly to be the least attractive city. Whatever the credibility of this survey is, I think he just said what he said for the sake of humor. It would have been more honest to say that compared to girls in LA, British women are more unkempt. But then again, 90% of the world's population is probably less "kempt" than girls in LA. I am all for taking artistic licenses (see past blog posts for examples), but not if it's done to injure others. They should be taken strictly for the sake of self-effacement, if effacement has anything to do with it.

In fact, he does go on to say that he had just returned from a two-month residence in LA and NY. This nugget of info only serves to weaken the worthiness of his opinion even further. He is clearly comparing British girls to girls from the two most appearance-conscious capitals (okay, not capitals, but why is it that state capitals are usually the least known city in the state, generally set in the middle of nowhere?) in the country. So when he polls his "friends" (I'm sure they're really his friends, after all, who wouldn't want to be friends with a guy who's shallower than a kiddy pool?), of course he's going to find out that they spend hundreds of dollars on beauty every month and go to "bikini boot camp" (???) Personally, I spend probably $20 on appearance a month, and please shoot me if you ever catch sight of me at bikini boot camp. Here's a charming generalization taken from the article:

As with many societal ills, I blame the parents. British mothers do not instruct their daughters the way American mothers do. In the US, beauty treatments appear to be a large part of their growing-up experience. A trip to the beauty salon is a group event for girls, an opportunity for a gossip and a catchup.

Charming and utterly false. I know that there are girls out there who like to turn trips to the loo into a group event, but most mothers I knew did not take a gaggle of girls to the beauty parlor on a regular basis. Tips are given at home, passed from mother to daughter, friend to friend, and sure, some girls like to make a day trip to the spa or salon with their girlfriends every once in a while, but it does not make up a large part of our childhood. When I think of my childhood, I think of playing four-square and chinese jumprope, or reading, not trips to the salon for "gossip" and "catchup". Usually I find myself wishing my hair-stylist would shut up- the few times I actually went to a salon for a haircut. I don't understand why any guy would want a girl who spends an average of $700 on "upkeep" every month! A girl who blows that much dough on appearance is most likely self-involved, spoiled, and shallow. Right. As with the hydrophobic tails of cell membrane lipids, "like likes like". See this is why assholes don't die out. Assholes like other assholes, as long as they spend at least $700 on appearance every month.

Finally, I just hate it in general when guys talk about what a butterface this girl is and how they'd do that girl but they wouldn't do that girl even under threat of de-cockification. Please, man. You talk as if any of those girls would do you in a heartbeat. The author goes on to make some negative and shamefully false generalizations about American girls, just so he doesn't get assassinated by the women of Britain, a sorry call for redemption that was crushed even as it took off on its pedicured feet.

I just read the rest of the article, and as it turns out, he does complain that American girls are actually too involved with their appearance, and that this obsession can appear "unattractive" and "unpleasant". So now, we're too conscious about our looks? I now have cause to hate him more. If ever there was a man that was hard to please and more hypocritical than Father Michael, ex-Roman Catholic priest and child molester, it is this guy.

"Nobody's perfect," he begins his ending paragraph. Well, ass-in-a-box, then why do you demand such supreme perfection from women, British or American? Ass, ass, ass! No wonder he's single- with any luck, and with the release of this article, he'll be single for life. If he's lucky, he'll end up spending the rest of his sad lonely days with his fat manager like that burnt-out rocker on Love, Actually. And what was it that the rocker said during the radio interview scene? Here it is:

"When I was young, I was greedy and foolish, and now I'm left with no one. Wrinkled and alone."

Great movie, by the way. I watched it twice in a row during Christmas- the second time with the commentary on. And by the way, the cast is full of beautiful British women.

Things I've already done before turning that certain age

1. Road-tripped cross-country.
2. Went to a circus.
3. Took a bubble bath.
4. Visited Europe (France, Britain) and Asia (Korea- the southern half).
5. Lived on the east coast (Philly).
6. Visited San Fran.
7. Biked to a castle in France, pitched a tent, and ended up sleeping outside on a bench by the Cher river because the tent was pitched incorrectly and on an ant hill.
8. Ran a half-marathon.
9. Won a spelling bee.
10. Threw up at a (different) spelling bee.
11. Attended Harry Potter Midnight Magic party!
12. Lived during the HP era.
13. Got a degree in an obscure language called Math.
14. Reconnected with a childhood friend:)
15. Worked in a bookstore.
16. Downed a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's in one sitting. (More than once!)
17. Went on a date (More than once!)
18. Acted in a play (Chekov's "The Sneeze").
19. Wrote a tune on the guitar.
20. Hiked up Mt. Rainier.
21. Kept a blog.
22. Went snorkeling in the Bahamas.
23. Kissed an Irishman.
24. Danced in a ballet.
25. Made a nerdy physics joke.
26. Got over my fear of spiders and vegetables.
27. Dove off the high board. (OUCH. Never again.)
28. Inspired someone.
29. Got a tattoo.
30. Stayed up all night watching Alias.
31. Memorized the times table up to 12-sies.
32. Memorized the Lord's prayer. (I was bored. Waiting in the car. Did nothing for my faith.)
33. Read the Elegant Universe.
34. Learned to play Korean jacks.
35. Learned to hula hoop.
36. Fell in love, maybe.
37. Learned how to do the stadium whistle (just yesterday, actually).
38. Learned how to do a headstand.
39. Got hit by a taxi.
40. Visited Mont St. Michel in Normandy- tres joli!
41. Read The Little Prince in French. (I think I understood it too- it was a book about Napoleon, right?)
42. Downed 15 shots of soco&lime and didn't fall off the rooftop.
43. Dressed up as Superglue for Halloween with real bottles of Elmer's glue on my utility belt, an orange cape, and everything.
44. Saw Rent on Broadway and cried...until he came back to life. Then I got angry and threw rotten tomatoes at the Hollywood ending.
45. Acquired a tolerance for sushi, but only in the roll form. I don't do big chunks of raw flesh!
46. Reunioned at Mad4 with my beloved amigos.
47. Made a list of my accomplishments that ended at Rambaldi's magic number.

23 Things to do before I turn that certain age

1 for each of the years that I've lived so far:

1. Write & illustrate a children's book

2. Hot Air Balloon ride.

3. Buy a Victorian-style house in San Fran.

4. Get a PhD

5. See Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty.

6. Perform with my guitar.

7. Fall in love for sure.

8. Fold a 1000 cranes and make a wish. (About halfway there!)

9. Visit South America. Travel to all 7 continents.

10. See the Northern Lights from...somewhere cold.

11. Learn Egyptian.

12. Ride a camel to the Pyramids in Egypt, then use my knowledge of Egyptian to decipher the writings on the tombs.

13. Learn to Tango.

14. Go to a Late Night with Conan taping.

15. Either give birth to or deliver a baby, but not both. And name it Summer if it's a girl.

16. Learn to play chess so well I can win at drunk chess.

17. Go surfing in Hawaii.

18. Go surfing in Costa Rica.

19. Learn to surf.

20. Go to Mars. C'mon NASA, I've only got like 70 years left!

21. Become a neonatal nurse. 

22. Learn to unicycle, then tour with Cirque du Soleil.

23. Pay off all my school loans.

Thought I'd end on a practical note.

Virtual Reality, Fishing, and Taters

Art imitates life, kids play house, and in Second Life, residents buy, sell, trade, and work. Why is it that when given the opportunity to escape reality, we always end up imitating it as best we can? In the virtual reality world of Second Life, the player is given the freedom to create any sort of world he desires and to make anything happen, but despite this ultimate freedom, the game's purpose evolved into the mundane real-world activities of making ordinary objects like clothes and selling or trading them, earning money (in Linden dollars), driving cars, owning land.

If I were to create a virtual reality game, I feel like I would want to create a whole new system of living that does not involve earning money or the business of real estate. But I can see a reason why a virtual imitation of reality would be such a draw: mainly because there are a lot of things in reality that can technically happen or exist, but do not because of lack of resources or talent or looks or personality or luck; which makes these things (that can technically happen or exist) unreal and invaluable. For example, it is mentioned in Wikipedia that artists use SL in order to exhibit their artwork in a Second Louvre. Getting one of your paintings exhibited in the Real Louvre is an event that could technically occur in reality, but for such an event to actually take place, a ton of skill and some luck, among other variables, are required. It is technically possible, but the chance of it actually occurring is so incredibly slim that it is what we call an "honor" for the lucky few, "tunneling" by quantum physicists, and a "flight of fancy" for the rest of us- in other words, it's a real, but not a realistic event. The virtual world allows players to live out their real-worldly dreams of being beautiful and winning car races and running naked in public. Which is testament to the fact that reality is pretty cool, often undervalued; we don't necessarily have to leave the realm of reality in order to experience amazing things. Fantastical events like flying without an apparatus only seem cooler because they cannot happen in reality. If we could fly, but we couldn't walk, walking would seem so much cooler just because it can't happen in reality. (Similarly, square watermelons, though not impossible to grow, seem cooler than round ones just because watermelons are naturally round.) But then again, isn't that like saying murderers only kill because their brains are wired a certain way that makes them more prone to murderous tendencies? Whatever led them to kill, unless it was due to insanity- having no moral judgment- it does not change the fact that they killed, so they should be punished for it. Similarly, the coolness factor of flying shouldn't be devalued just because it stems from the fact that flying lies outside the bounds of physical possibility. It is cool precisely because it is impossible and is a sensational experience.

Not only does SL allow real but not realistic things to "actually" occur, but there are actually some pretty cool non-real ideas explored through SL that stray away from the mundane activities of real life. Wikipedia mentions that artists have explored novel art forms that aren't physically possible in the real world. I guess what I realize is that fantastical re-imaginings of the world and systems of living don't just spring out of nowhere; they have a basis in reality and evolve gradually. We have to start with what we know, and innovations will come about until we look back and ooh and awe over what a spectacle we've created, how different the world seems compared to X numbers of years ago, and how fantastical the present appears to be compared to the past in terms of the kinds of jobs, clothes, buildings, technology, lifestyles, etc. that exist. And anyway, some people relish the game of real estate. Honestly, I am a huge fan of the saying that everything is interesting if looked at from a certain angle. However, there are some subjects whose interesting angle is hidden deeply in a crevice and once fished out, turns out not to be worth the amount of fishing line it took to get it out. Either that or it's never fished out because the angler falls asleep from boredom before it's ever found. Think about that the next time you run into a dozing fisherman. It's not the sun, it's the lack of biting angles!

Speaking of fishing, here's a T-shirt aphorism I spotted at a t-shirt store at Pike Place Market: Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day; teach him how to fish and he'll sit on a boat drinking beer all day.

I had never heard of Second Life before today, when Hyung boo (what I call my cousin's husband) asked if I knew about it. The three of us ended up spending all of dinner talking about it, it's relation to what he and his colleagues are trying to do with cyworld, and it's implications. An interesting point was when I wondered aloud whether our world could someday be taken over by a virtual world. Initially, I arbitrarily defined being "taken over" as spending more than half the day's hours in the virtual world. My cousin, Lira Unni, pointed out that that's pretty much already happened because we spend so much time on the internet. But she happened to think that a take-over was not a huge concern. For instance, when e-books first came out, people expressed concern over the possibility that e-books would eradicate paperbooks, but as is evident, paperbooks are still around and cherished because people naturally want to be able to hold and touch our books. But I pointed out that that desire comes from the generation that grew up with paperbooks- perhaps a few generations down the line, the ability to hold and touch a physical substance-representation of the written word will be of little or no importance. Then, Hyung boo made the really great point that today, 90% of money is not real, and how many people predicted that degree of virtual take-over? They are in the form of investments, something to do with options, stocks...Options was another thing I never heard of until today. "You mean like choices?" I asked naively. Nope, not quite. Good thing Lira Unni was there to translate Hyung boo's explanation of options. Food, I can talk about in Korean. Movies? Virtual reality even? Those too. Options- not so if it means anything other than choices.

The problem with SL seems to be that too many people get tired of it eventually. What would maintain and increase interest in a virtual world where there are really no rules or a point? A few gain a good chunk of profit from it, but the rest, they break even and just do it "for fun". But unlike a game, there is no winner or end, no collection of points. Cyworld people seem to be focused on the idea that a market is the way to go. As one reviewer put it, "Cyworld is money-driven and sickeningly commercial." Kinda harsh, but I think he may have a point: why is it that money is always the chosen incentive? Hyung boo told us that in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (which was the inspiration for SL), pizza delivery is the most sought-after job of young people (or something like that- might have misunderstood his mixture of Korean-English). This is a great example of alternative hierarchies, or alternative values. It alludes to the idea that in a game- even one with no winner or end- there could be other incentives besides monetary ones. Hard to believe in our capitalistic society, but with a wee bit of whimsical thinking, I think we could come up with an alternative. Like potatoes. You can boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew. Actually, they're not that great. And evidently, they're prone to mass wipeout. And anyway, potatoes would then just be another word for money.

Anagram for Kazoo?

You know that dream you get sometimes, where there's a bunch of clowns running around, popping in and out of the floor, and even one sitting on a chair which is sitting on a bicycle which is sitting on a rope that is hanging 50 feet above ground-level?

Here's a secret: that is no dream. It's real! I saw it with my own eyes!

I saw KOOZA!

What can I say? It was surreal. My favorite part was the Wheel of Death, where two clowns balanced on giant wheels that spun on either end of the apparatus, both inside and outside of the wheel, jump roping on it, or just jumping up and hanging suspended in the air for seconds above the spinning wheel. The contortionists looked like live theatrical versions of Dali's paintings, and the unicycling duo made me think that maybe legs aren't so absolutely necessary after all. One can do a lot on wheels, even with just one. Although it would be kind of hard to stay still for long on a wheel. Standing still would be replaced by "wavering". Makes me think of those weird wheeled horse creatures from the His Dark Materials trilogy.

I think one reason why I have such a fascination with the circus is because it realizes the absolutely astounding potentials of what human beings can accomplish. Physically, at least. Who would believe that people can jump rope on a thin wire or touch their ass to their head, dancing their feet around the head like a spider? And I've heard of acrobats who can do double back tucks from one galloping horse to another blind-folded! These days, a few are even trying to fly.

Hey! I actually did one thing from my list of "Things to do before I turn..." list! Next: Hot air balloon? Let me see if I can actually dig up this list, actually...

Happy Feet

Yesterday, I was actually whimpering by the end of the day because of my horrible high hells- I mean heels. When I took them off to survey the damage done after a full day of walking around the mountainous streets of San Francisco, I noted visible indents above my ankles and scratch marks (it looked like a vicious cat had attacked them), along with heel burns and sore arches.

When your feet are in so much pain, every second spent standing feels like an eternity, and the last thing you want to do is take a trip to Safeway and spend a half hour trying to decide which deli-meat you want to buy for tomorrow's breakfast. IT'S ALL THE SAME! You feel like screaming. PIG'S SHOULDER, PIG'S SNOUT, PIG'S WING, ANY ANATOMICAL STRUCTURE WILL DO, FOR WILBUR'S SAKE! Luckily, there was the variety pack. And now, I am very near declaring myself a vegetarian. I cannot believe we eat noses, god that is so disgusting.

Needless to say, today, I went back to Payless and traded in the awful heels from hell for black, cushy, flat sneakers. It was the happiest moment of my life, past, present, or future. My enthusiasm for life grew exponentially, I felt like I could walk a 100 miles, jump to the moon, anything. Moral of the story: Happy feet make for a happy person, folks.

Warning: Not to be read by those who quease easy

Being on a plane with a clogged and dripping sinus is the pits. My hearing was reduced to 45% of it's capacity until I woke up today from a 15 hour sleep and discovered that I wouldn't have to learn sign language after all. My imagination tends to run away when I'm sick. To illustrate, freshman year in college, I fell really really ill and lay in bed wondering (skeptically, but still wondering!) if I had mad cow...I came to the conclusion that it would affect those around me more than me since I would be mad and wouldn't give a damn what was happening to me, and so really, I needn't worry except for my parents. As an explanatory note, that semester, we were reading "Deadly Feasts" in Ponzy's class, which is a book about mad cow and the human version, CJD, and prions. Very interesting book, but it could drive you a bit insane with hypochondriatic worries.

Anyway, a couple nights before my departure back to the West, I woke up in the middle of the night and yelled out: "Whatthefuck! The whole left side of my face is WET!!" A condition which evidently begs an explanation. It turned out, I had been sleeping on my left side, and so all the mucus clogged up my left nostril and started overflowing out all over the left side of my face. I kind of assumed I had woken up before it started dripping onto the pillow, but I could've been wrong. Might want to check that out Sarah. Before I wrote about this incident, I considered using an alias because it's pretty disgusting and not lady-like at all. It's not even man-like, come to think of it. It's just...animalistic. But how lame and obvious would it be to write "Jane did this", and "Jane did that" and "Jane snotted all over her face". It could have come across as bad fiction. Better to be up-front in this case, I thought.

The only thing I can think of right now that is more disgusting than snotting all over one's face is roaches. Even the word is disgusting, and I can't believe I'm desecrating my site with such obscenities as...you-know-what.

My PA vacay was splendoriferous. It started out in leafy Pittsburgh with the best Thanksgiving dinner yet. I used to think it was part of the Thanksgiving tradition to feel incredibly antic-apointed by the feast, which always looked and smelled so good until you actually got around to tasting it, but since college, it's only been getting better and better, and this year was no exception.

I met a lot of nice and/or interesting people, which was mostly fun, with the only bad part being that each initial meeting inevitably followed up with the question "So what do you do?" This question was easy to answer when I was in school ("I do magic tricks, memorize the digits of pi, and do headstands to increase blood-flow to my head"), but when you're in the middle of acquiring a job and moving to a different state, and your not quite sure what your heading into really, it becomes a big pain in the arse to answer, especially around 15 people on their way to be doctors.

Other than that, Pittsburgh was a good time, and I was so impressed by the Jesster's amazing domestic skills, which she somehow manages to cultivate alongside her intense med-school studies. As a thank-you for hosting us, Sarah and I painted her a beautiful Van-Gogh like jungle scene that we thought would complement Eric and his friend's abstract explosion of color very nicely. I'm sure both canvases are hanging over the black velvet massage chair this very moment, creating a relaxed, feng shui environment.

A mini-roadtrip took us to the east, where I got to see Philly again (including the rampant crime and racism!) and go to Pietro's- twice! In one week!- and do the Old City dance and a cheesey-go-round at Di Bruno's; I got to read at the Rittenhouse Barnes and see the Square all lit up, cross Broad Street, and of course the people! It was good to be with Sarah again. I found out what she'd been doing since I last saw her a month or two ago- watching the food network and television in general with a religious fervor worthy of the Inquisition. Now I'm home, and my mom is doing the same thing with the Korean channel. The momentary time of silence I had this morning while sitting at the kitchen table drinking hot cinnamon tea with a spoonful of honey and staring out the window at the falling snow was absolutely golden.

On another note, I randomly stumbled upon this page on Joseph Campbell. Well, I say 'randomly', but actually I can trace out the exact path I took to get there: I was at the Rittenhouse Barnes reading the latest issue of Zoetrope: All-story (a quarterly literary publication founded by Francis Ford Coppola). This latest issue was half-dedicated to his latest film, Youth Without Youth, which he says explores ideas of consciousness, time, dreaming and languages. Sounds like my kind of film. Anyway, there was this really fascinating article written by a former love interest of his, a mythologist named Wendy Doniger. Unfortunately, it's not online, but here is a Time article spotlighting the movie that mentions her. Remembering this article, I decided to google 'mythologist' to find out what they do exactly, and came across this page on Joseph Campbell. Wow, to think I reduced this whole paragraph to one word: 'randomly'. I can't wait to read more about this "master story-teller" as well as his famed "Hero of a 1000 Faces", once I have time. He seems to be the Brian Greene of mythology- being an innovator in his field, as well as popularizing it for non-academics, as well as having appeared in a PBS broadcast series version of his book "The Power of Myth".

Exploring Berkeley

I just spent two hours at a store called: Games of Berkeley. It was the origami section that drew me. Did you know, an ordinary square sheet of paper can be transformed into a unicorn? Or an Arab riding a horse? Or Jesus praying at the rocks? I spent about half of the two hours trying to convince myself I didn't need to buy an origami book, then I spent the other half trying to figure out how to make a duck and a penguin. Hmmm, yes, I see now why I must travel alone.

Before I discovered the game store, I sat at a large table at Tully's (which has free wi-fi, cheers!) and listened to the woman sitting at the same table crying. Not loudly, just sniffles. A bouquet of tacky, bright orange, red, and purple flowers lay on the table in front of her. A long while later, a man entered and came to her. "I'm so sorry, I did the stupidest thing!" he said, "I got on the wrong BART train!" They left Tully's together.

Kindred Blog-Spirit

Check out this fun blog called Cocktail Party Physics. I guess it wasn't so strange that I considered dressing up as Schrodinger's cat for Halloween. (Charming maybe!) In the post "Get your physics phreak on", she writes about the premiere of the new show, "The Big Bang Theory", specifically about how one character dressed up as The Doppler Effect for a Halloween party! Hoohoohooboy, that's so funny! And then she goes on to list some other creative punny physics costumes like Schrodinger's Cat ("...demonstrate your collapsing wave function"). I love how she writes after this suggestion, "If your looking for something a little less mainstream..." Indeed, Schrody's Cat has become the E=mc^2 of quantum theory.

Happyredpigs! I like your idea of a mini-roadtrip from Pittsburgh to Philly! Will do my best to haul ass out there (and I've got a little surprise news, too! Let's just say...I've acquired a new skill, and it's slightly more useful than the one where I can wiggle my ear and burp the alphabet. Wait, I can't even do that latter one, sadly.)

AUGH!

Look what I found!

Block Game

This game does a great job of illustrating how a single event occurring at one point in space can drastically affect an event at another point, even though the two seem utterly unrelated due to their distance. As drastic as making the impossible possible. Sounds fuzzy, but you'll see what I mean if you play the game, especially level 21.

--"Master, last week I spoke to a boy I know. He insists the world is round because his patron told him so. Stupid, yes, for any donkey can see with their own eyes that the world is flat. But is the boy mad to believe what his patron told him? Would you call every person who believes an impossible thing 'mad'?"

--"Fabrizio, if one sees what isn't there to see, madness is the only possible explanation. So, yes, if your friend insists the world is round, alas, he is mad."

And so it goes, 'round and 'round like a merry-go-round. The above quote is taken from a children's book, Midnight Magic, a medieval mystery taking place a year before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, where reason and empiricism are pitted again magic and vengeful Shakespearean ghosts. The former pair win out this particular battle, but as suggested by the above quote, even their world is fated to be turned upside down- or spherical- in the coming months, though not by magic. The relationship between Magnus the magician and his servant Fabrizio is so reminiscent of the one between Merlin and the owl Archimedes (hoot hoot!) in The Sword in the Stone, that I wouldn't be surprised if the author, Ava, actually had them in mind when he sketched out his own two characters. Even the quote above reminds me a lot of the one to the side of this homepage.

Also, this Tuesday, the whole Science Times section was devoted to the topic of Snoozing. Besides the regular articles, they had sleep quotes running down the sidelines of the pages, sources ranging from an ancient Buddhist to English poets and playwrights to present-day physicists. One of these physicists was quoted as saying that he had a colleague who dreamt that he was an elementary particle. How...I...What I...yeah, I'm speechless. I read about them and make jokes about them, but to actually have dreamt about being one...he must be one quarky dude. I wonder if biologists dream about being DNA or proteins. A Day in the Life of a Nucleotide. The Adventures of Alph, the Elementary Particle. I think I'll pitch these ideas to Chronicle Books.

Speaking of grammar, to whom it concerns, I sort of take issue with the fact that the very British, very colloquial term "cadge" is included in the GRE verbal section. Isn't this an American test to get into American schools? As if we didn't have enough of a British invasion already. Fine! I'll learn it! But I'll learn it grudgingly! And maybe I wasn't speaking of grammar, but I was thinking about it (dreamed? dreamt? They both sound wrong to me), so I figured that was enough merit a transition.

Opening Night For Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Cate Blanchett does a painfully amazing job at showing us that being a queen is not a position to be envied and not only because of the heavy getup she has to wear. I believe one of her dresses were actually winged. As if to conjure up a semiotic image of a queen bee? Who knows. Winged dresses, ugly red ramen-noodle hair wigs, and layers of Casper powder on my face? Thanks, I'll pass. What? But she got to kiss Clive Owen, you say? Well, she could have done much more than just kiss him if she hadn't been queen. Like explore other territories. North Carolina, Virginia, Conjugia*...But virgin mother to her people that she is, she has to remain in her palace and protect and fight for her people instead.

Clive Owen is given the most beautiful lines to go along with his beautiful self. No joke: the first time he came on screen, a more than audible sigh swept through the theater audience. I swear there were a few guys that joined in too! Owen plays the explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, who was the one who settled the colony of Roanoke in North Carolina, the one that mysteriously disappeared with not a sole soul nor body left as evidence that a colony ever existed.

The Armada battle scene contained many individual artistic shots, but was overall an antisappointing montage sequence, choppy and not nearly as grand and majestic as we all expected it to be. It came off as perfunctory, the necessary battle sequence preceded by the necessary rallying speech, both of which fell flat compared to parallel scenes from Gladiator, LOTR, etc. Google spellcheck tells me "antisappointing" is not a word. Spellcheck be damned!

*This is a reference to a really funny joke made in the movie, which I won't tell just in case anyone goes to see the movie.

Also, I pulled a major crangie-ism today. Like MAJOR. It's practically unpublishable. There was a Mennonite involved. Sigh. I am incorrigible. Suddenly, I'm feeling punny.

Why do cars sleep?

Because they're tired!

Why do bicycles sleep?

Bicycles don't sleep.

Why is it that dogs bark, birds fly, and children who get their feet wet must take their medicine?

Because Mary Poppins said so.

Collision

"Enervate" means to weaken vitality, not strengthen it? But this is absurd! In Harry Potter, the spell to re-awaken someone who's been knocked unconscious is enervate, so that word must mean to strengthen vitality! This is madness. It's utterly counter-intuitive! Either the wizarding world mislabeled their spell, or ETS and the Concise Oxford contain typos. I must write a letter to the latter pair disabusing them of their fanciful notions about the word...

There is this word, weltzschmertz, which means the feeling you get when your ideal world and the real world collide. Yep, I can feel it right now, weltzschmertz generated by a potterverse-reality collision. I wonder if we'll get a second moon out of this collision. According to a GRE reading-comprehension passage, the moon might have been a result of Earth's collision with another celestial heavy-weight.

On another note, I finally picked up a book by Noam Chomsky ("What We Say Goes"), and I should restrain myself from saying so after only having read 3/4 of 1 of his books, but no: he is brilliant. Admittedly, I have a tendency to idolize and idealize those I admire to an extent somewhere beyond what's called for. Still, the amount of knowledge contained in the man's brain is outrageous. A skillful debater includes examples and facts and figures in his arguments, and he seems to have a bottomless pit of them in every topic people throw his way. Which, albeit is usually related to politics or linguistics.

It's interesting to note how pro-Palestine he appears to be in the book. No, maybe I stated that incorrectly: I don't know if he's pro-Palestine, but he's completely against what he sees as US-Israel criminal activity/schoolhouse bullying. I don't know a lot of people who take the anti-Zionism stance, and when I asked a Jewish friend once, whether he supported the State of Israel, he replied "What do you mean? Of course I do!" Like, duh, what kind of answer was I looking for? I don't know,...with what little knowledge I have of the situation, it seems wrong to kick out hundreds of thousands of people from their homes just like that.

Also, Chomsky scares me the way he talks about nuclear warfare and the end of our species. But then he goes on to say later that Iran's not going to shoot nuclear missiles unless they want to commit mass suicide, in other words: not likely. Inconsistency there, but maybe I'm missing an element. A word or two about 9/11 conspiracies, the futility of name-calling in politics (and why it may actually help the one being verbally abused), and many other issues, written in the form of a dialogue between him and a journalist. The point of the book, as you can guess, is that the U.S. is an outlaw state, fully acknowledged, whatever we say goes, no matter how hypocritical or criminal. I just remembered one thing that the journalist mentioned in the book that cracked me up: Bush accused Iran of "meddling" in Iraq. No irony intended. What a riot.

A note about this other book I'm reading at the same time "Rich Dad, Poor Dad": Something about the methods to striking it rich that are described in the book strikes a bad chord with me. His methods seem sound and reasonable, and at first I was a most enthusiastic reader, thinking about buying mutual funds and all, but as I kept reading, I started to feel like something was wrong with some of his methods.

It took me a while to pinpoint the cause of my unease, but when he started raving about corporations, it hit me: it's exploitation. He's bragging about dooping people and ripping them off, and how you can make so much money by playing with corporations. How you can avoid taxes by spending as much of your asset-generated money as possible on fancy cars and dinners and vacations to Bali before taxes. And I really dislike the way he makes "hard-working professionals" and in particular, his own father ("poor dad") out to be idiots. It's awful. This is a major problem with our society, that there are people like him who think as long as your technically sticking to the rules- paying close attention to the wording so you can make loopholes- then what you're doing is perfectly okay, morally, and your winnings are justly obtained. He has good points, like the importance of differentiating between assets and liabilities, and everything he says makes sense, but is it enough to be technically true?

Oh, and today, I found myself flossing at the bookstore. I happened to have a little tooth-shaped container of dental floss in my backpack, and after eating an apple and a nectarine, I really, really needed to floss. I suppose I could've gone to the bathroom and done it in private. At any rate, Jess, I wish you were there to see it. It was a defining moment in my tooth-care career.

More Mom & Dad Tales

Tonight, my dad expounded on the controversial topic of modern day Korean pop stars versus the classical Korean singer-performers of his generation, and doled out valuable counsel in between shots of Bek Se Ju, a tasty Korean rice wine that tastes like ginseng tea. He is a very wise man for someone who made so many mistakes in his lifetime- or I guess, because of the mistakes. He is also a fun person to drink with.

The other night, my mom and I stopped by at a Chevron. Filling the tank took no time, so afterward, I sat in the car waiting as my mom carried on with her newest obsession: wiping down the car with her dollar-store glass cleaner every chance she gets. Spray spray spray. Wipe wipe. Spray spray spray. Wipe wipe.

Suddenly, about 30 feet to our right, this dude sprints to the car parked there and starts kicking the hell out of the car door, while the girl inside yells and curses her brains out. I'm sitting in the car in severe shock and thinking somewhere in the folds of my gray matter that I should dial 911, but I seem to have lost the ability to move to look for my phone, so I just stare stupidly. I think the Hamburger Helper hand, or even the Paper Clip from Word would have been more helpful than me.

Luckily, the girl herself brings out her cell and starts dialing 911, mute curses still streaming out of her mouth a mile a minute (her window was rolled up so I couldn't hear what she was saying, but her eyes and arm gestures said it all). Then, I guessed that the dude had taken enough of his anger out on the car because he ran away, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

But then, 30 seconds later, dude sprints back to the car, this time with a sledgehammer-type weapon in his hand and starts wacking the window with it! Bam bam bam! Pieces of glass start flying everywhere, and I'm thinking oh shit, phone phone phone oh shit! But then I realize it's the head of the weapon that's breaking into bits and flying everywhere, not the window. The guy I guess realizes the same thing, so after he wacks the shit out of the car window, he runs away again. For good this time.

Finally able to tear my eyes away from this scene, I look for my mom and realize that she's still cleaning the car window with her dollar-store imitation windex. Spray spray spray. Wipe wipe. Spray spray spray. Wipe wipe.

Hoo hoo hoo lord! Every time I think of that night I burst out laughing as I picture my mom, this little Asian lady calmly wiping away at the stains on her car window while a full blown act of violence is taking place 30 feet behind her.

Musings and Tips

Smoke from a chimney: it's filthy, it pollutes the air and our lungs, it smears the sky black, it's not natural at all, but for some reason, it's pretty,...romantic,...the perfect touch to a sunrise over the city scape.

The best way to occupy your time during a layover at the airport:

If you have >= 3.5 hours, take the train to the city and take a whirlwind tour.

If you have<= 3.5 hours, go to the nearest newsstand and catch up on the latest events. Pick up at least 1 local paper, the Wall Street (where on the left hand column of the front page, they give convenient bullet point summaries of the goings-on in the world), the NYT, and USA Today (read the Life section to catch up on pop culture- movies and such). Don't buy them, for Chrissake, just stand there for 45 minutes or so reading. I used to do that with the NYT at Wawa every morning before work, after purchasing my daily jug of Wawa diet iced green tea.

Pre-E-Ticket Days of Yore

Does anyone remember how we booked flights before the advent of e-tickets? Because I sure didn't. This question randomly popped into my mind as I dazedly traversed the Columbus Airport (due to a long long red-eye flight, I am presently existing in a state of extreme zombieness). I vaguely remembered that we had to bring the ticket to the airport on the day of travel, but that's all I remember of those pre-historic days. The only way I could think of was that we called in to book tickets. But that was crazy, I thought. That would clog up phone lines. Or something. It just sounds crazy, calling in to book tickets.

But, as I discovered through a quick online search, that is exactly what we used to do before the advent of electronic tickets! I can't believe it! How quaint were our ways! Amazing...

Also, I was reaching for a paper towel in the bathroom- it was one of those sensored ones that just zoom right out when you reach for it. Next to me stood a little blonde girl on a chair as her mom helped her wash her hands.

"Kid, we didn't have those when I was a kid," I said to her, gesturing to the sensored paper towel ejector. Man the things that can change in just a couple decades.

Umma-ism

Here is another hilarious umma-ism (umma=mom in Korean):

"You should eat a little something before we go out to dinner."

And:

Umma: Who's this?

Me: Leonardo DiCaprio.

Umma: Lehnodacabbri?

Me: Lee-uhn

Umma: Lee-uhn

Me: -ar

Umma: -ar

Me: doh

Umma: doh

Me: Leonardo

Umma: Leonardo. Leonardo.

Me: Dicaprio. Di-

Umma: What there's more?! Sick!

Instructions for drawing a picture of Angie's dream house

1. Take a crayon.

2. Draw a fancy treehouse.
a) Winding staircase entrance.
b) Skylights.
c) Fireplace.

3. Add a swing set.

4. Color in a sparkling lake.

5. Add a canoe.

Sarah and I took a day trip to Poulsbo to visit a friend who lives and works on an organic farm there. She took us out canoeing off Bainbridge Island, and it was the most wonderful adventure. There's nothing like the feeling of being so close to the water, just like the ducks. References were made, or images swam in my head, of Life of Pi, Tom Hanks and Wilson, canoeing in Sarah Finseth's backyard pond (and getting lost), Ariel and Prince Eric, the Row row row your boat nursery rhyme, the whaleship Essex (and regrettably, those math story problems that go: "If you're swimming against the current at x mph, with the speed of the current being y mph...")...as we paddled through the harbor, winding through the ferries and bobbing alongside the ducks, with the pink-gold Seattle skyline behind us and the blue sky above us. The moments are rare, when my ideal world aligns with the real one, but when it does...whew! It's marvelous! I felt inexplicably content, as well as slightly sweaty under that life-vest.

Regression

After a marvelous day spent in downtown Seattle, Sarah and I are back home watching Cinderella. Sup sup! Trap trap! Cat cat! Gus Gus! Apparently, mice speak doublespeak too.

Oh my god, I just noticed foreshadowing! There's a scene where Cinderella climbs the stairs to take breakfast to her ugly stepsisters, and she loses a shoe- just like when she runs away from the ball later! I knew we should've watched this in English class.

The most popular version of Cinderella was written by Frenchman Charles Perrault, hence the French surnames announced at the ball. According to the wikipedia entry, "One can argue that this is one of the greatest stories in the history of story-telling times." I suppose anything can be argued in this day and age.

Mood Ring

I'm irritated from trying to understand mangled English while being congested, fatigued, and constantly cold. Bleh. But I am also still slightly caffeinated by the doubly spectacular Bourne Ultimatum. So I think I can get through the rest of this editing process without blowing a fuse. Only a nose maybe.

Home=Free Food+Extravant Doting

I've only been home for 3 hours, and my mom's already trying to stuff me like a turkey until I wind up a statistic (one of the 60% of overweight Americans).

Mom: Angie, taste this!

Me: Ok!...Mmm, it's delicious!

Mom: Want to have some with rice?

Me: Tomorrow, mom. I'm not hungry right now.

10 minutes later...(repeat above dialogue).

15 minutes later...(repeat above dialogue, yet again).

10 minutes later...(you know the deal).

Mom: Tomorrow, tomorrow, it's always tomorrow. I thought your name was Angie, not Annie!

Me: Mom, that's cuz you keep asking me the same question over and over again. I'm not going to answer the same question 3 different ways!

Alas, reason fails in the ears of a mother who misses coddling her younguns. Also, yet again, I embellished the dialogue with the "Angie, not Annie" bit.

Double the Pleasure, Double the Fun, and Double the Clothes

One of the terrific benefits of having a twin sister is that we can borrow from each other's wardrobe, so really it's like having twice the wardrobe. Most of the time, thought, I'm the one who borrows from Sarah's wardrobe, so I dunno...should I be insulted by that? Whatever, so not only can we borrow from each other's wardrobe, but sometimes I get clothes for free once Sarah gets tired of something, so sometimes I get to actually come to own one of her cool outfits.

But usually it takes at least 6 months for her to tire of an article of clothing, so it takes patience, this acquiring of sister's clothing thing. But I tease her about it all in good fun all the while. Take the following incident, for instance:

Two weeks ago, Sarah bought a beautiful blue summer dress at H&M patterned with a lighter blue heart-star-flower petal pattern and a poofy skirt part (sorry, I don't know the technical term for that). One week after the purchase, she wore it, and it looked gorgeous on her.

"Oh my god, Sarah I love it!" I gushed all girly-like. "I can't wait till you get tired of it so I can have it!"

"Oh, har har," she laughed rather sarcastically. "Is that how you look at all my clothes, you vulture?"

"Yeah, isn't it a great system?"

Today, two weeks after the Purchase, I'm lounging on the bed while Sarah packs in a flurry. Going through her mountainous clothes pile, she holds up the beautiful blue summer dress she bought two weeks ago at H&M, and said "Ann, do you want this?"

It was something beyond my wildest dreams. Two weeks, not even a month before she decided it wasn't "her"! I couldn't believe my luck. But all the same, I really couldn't believe she was giving up on it so soon.

"Are you sure, Sarah? But it's so pretty, how can you be tired of it already?"

"Really, you think so? Maybe I sh-"

"No no no, actually you're right, it's not so great! I'll take it!"

We both rolled on the bed laughing hysterically.

Hoo hoo, oh man, how lucky am I to have a twin sister with decent taste in clothes? Oh, and I'd like to note that she did not actually call me a vulture. But I thought it would have been funny if she did, so I took some liberty with the dialogue. Sue me silly!

On another note (G#), I have a four hour layover in Atlanta, GA tomorrow, yall!! God I love airports- as I was trying to tell someone earlier, but couldn't think of the right words, it's the hub of transition! And it's a great place to catch up on reading since there's not much else to do, so for that, I've got...Dun dun dun: Quantum Mechanics Demystified! I don't usually like the dummies/idiots/demystified books, but I figure it's better to know the dummy version than no version at all, right? Don't worry, I've got some good ole Sherlock Holmes adventures if I get too boggled down in whosits and whatsits and other weird physics.

Mysteries and Why I Love Sherlock Holmes

If anyone is looking for a quick, worthwhile read, might I recommend "The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin? It's considered a children's book, but it's not "written for children" at all; rather, as the introduction says, it's written for the adult in every child. It's a great mystery, not predictable, yet written so that the reader can try a little sleuthing herself, really interesting characters, quirky, witty, touching, and not depressing (yay!). And for all you chess-lovers out there, it reads like a good game of chess. Although maybe I shouldn't advertise it like that since I don't really play chess, so how would I know. Reminiscent of "Clue" or the card game Mafia.

I'm sort of on a mystery book kick, I guess, because I'm rereading the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. I've forgotten how awesome he is, and Watson too. Their mystery adventures are interesting enough, but my affinity for the stories is more due to character attachment, and I am sure that if I had been alive in the UK when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Holmes, I would've been one of the 20,000 plus Brits who appeared in the streets in black, mourning this fictional character's death. It's so crazy how we can get so attached to imaginary folk.

What is it about his character that I like so much? Someone once told me about Nietzsche and his "amor fati", or "love one's fate" attitude toward life, and I see a bit of it in Holmes. His matter-of-fact acceptance of somber aspects of life and mankind, often with humor and maybe some well-justified arrogance, which I can hardly believe I'm writing because I used to think that there was no such thing as arrogance that can be justified. Maybe it's not justified, but I can definitely sympathize with him whenever he unravels the entire mystery himself and all the credit is given to one of the bumbling idiots of Scotland Yard who look on the genius Holmes as some eccentric, too theory-oriented, promising perhaps... "Life is dreary", he'd say so baldly, but it's not a fact that he ever sludges over, wondering why why why. He'll ponder over it from afar, like a curiosity, then throw himself into another mystery with passion and energy, or if there isn't one available presently, he'll take a pinch of snuff and scrape on his violin all through the night. Not that I endorse hard drugs, but well Watson got him to quit that eventually, didn't he? One minute he's filling Watson in on the latest develops of a case, and the next, he's insisting that the most important thing at the moment is lunch and miracle plays. And vice versa, one minute he's observing Londoners under the gaslights heading home from work, and philosophizing about the immortal spark that burns within each of them, and the next, he's hunting the grounds with his magnifying glass for cigar ashes and bootprints. He's terrifically adept at shifting gears and does so without concern for transitions or proper timing or other such restraining nonsense. His attitude of acceptance of all things is no better illustrated than in the scene where he and Doc Watson are chasing Jonathan Small and Tonga, who shoots a poisonous dart tip at them just as they shoot him down with their arms. Later they discover that the fatal dart had whizzed right between them, so they had been mere inches from death. Holmes merely smiles at it and shrugs "in his easygoing fashion", while Watson feels sick thinking of how close he came to death that night.

And Watson I like just as much because, among other reasons, he mirrors my admiration for his sleuth friend. Watson is who I am, and Sherlock Holmes is who I wish I could be.

Two Windows

S: Can you check the weather report?

A: Sure gimme a sec. (Firefox window pops up). It's raining.

We stare at the sunshine streaming through the living room window.

S: Well, better take an umbrella with me.

A: Stupid dysfunctional weather report add-on.

Morning Dialogue II: Ha, Hee, and Hoo

Angie: My stomach feels funny. It's telling knock-knock jokes. (Stifled giggling proceeds)

Sarah: (No response).

Angie: Isn't that funny? (Stifled giggling crescendos)

Sarah: Hrrrrrr.

Angie: Hahahaha! That was the best fake laugh ever! You sounded like you were retarded! Heeheehee! Oh man...*gasp*...can't breathe!...hooo...

Sarah: Pause...Oh I get it. Hey that's pretty funny! Hahaha!

Angie: Oh my god, you are retarded!

I give Sarah credit; she just improved my joke like 10-fold.

Morning Dialogue

Angie: I wonder what it's like to be raised by wolves.

Sarah: Huh?

Angie: I've been reading about feral children.

Sarah: Why is it that I never know what your talking about?

Heroes

I have a new hobby of keeping track each day of the number of encounters I have with nice people. This activity serves to uphold one of my two general views of humanity: In the best of lights, I see us as well-intentioned seekers of happiness with the ability to do astonishing things for creatures of such an insignificant physical stature, and where "crazy" means "colorful"; in the worst of lights, I see us as creatures to be pitied, and "crazy" just means you belong in the loony bin. I don't like to dwell on the latter view for purely selfish reasons- because it brings me down-, hence the new hobby.

Today's tally: 3 encounters with Seriously Nice people! Among them were the Garage Sale lady and the cashier at Jay's Deli. I was still raving about them when we reached Bruce's place to watch Heroes.

Heroes, is a great show not least because its characters are so all-encompassing and complex. I absolutely love the dynamic between Invisible Man and Peter Petrelli, where the former is the epitome of the jaded old hermit, and the latter is the hopeful humanist, the Little Engine That Couldn't But Kept On Chugging out of shear faith. Now, now he's just awesome. Oh man, is he awesome.

Another great thing about Heroes is that it totally plays into our fantasies that there's something out there bigger, cooler, more majestic than the daily 9 to 5 grind at a paper factory. One of my favorite quotes I heard today was when HRG (Horn-Rimmed Guy?) was interviewing for a job at the paper company:

Interviewer: So, how do you feel about paper?

HRG: Wildly enthusiastic.

At least, that's what I heard. Apparently, though, he had said "mildly", not "wildly". Personally, I like my version better. Anyway, we watched 7 episodes in a row before calling it a night. 6 more amazing hours to go!

Also, I haven't changed the look of this blog since I started it nearly 2.5 years ago, so I thought it was time for a change- just some minor ones, inspired by a fellow blogger.

The Dangers of Analogies, Exposed

First off, apologies to the Analogy Queen for the title of this post, but it was too good to pass up!

Next of all, I confess, I adore Karaoke Night at McGillan's. Nothing is more fun than bearing witness to a night of alcohol-fueled singing powered by a combination of 10% skill, 80% passion (and of course, the requisite 10% alcohol).

And without further ado, on to the crux of this post:

While at McGillan's tonight, I was talking to someone about "Tiny Dancer", about its part in the Almost Famous bus scene, and we realized after a while that we were talking about two different songs. I wasn't sure which one he had in mind. Neither was he for that matter. So I said I'd have to go look it up on the web when I got home. He replied with something about "innertubes".

Why was he suddenly talking about innertubing? I thought. Aloud of course. That's when I learned about Alaskan Senator Stevens' infamous intertubes speech (which was made last summer). The Jon Stewart references to it are particularly hilarious, so I'll quote them here, but read about the speech before you read the jokes!

Citations on The Daily Show

Stevens's speech was also ridiculed on seven episodes of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart which featured clips of Stevens's speech, illustrated first by Stevens's photo and later by photos of Gabby Hayes and of Grampa Simpson. In the first instance, on July 12, 2006, Stewart compared him to "a crazy old man in an airport bar at 3:00 am", then going on to answer his question, "Why?" with, "Maybe it's because you don't seem to know jack shit about computers or the Internet — but that's okay — you're just the guy in charge of regulating it."

Stevens's "series of tubes" were again referenced in a July 24, 2006 interview with John McCain, where Stewart asked, "You know, privately, can you pull Senator Stevens aside and go, 'It's not really literally tubes'?", to which McCain replied, "I wouldn't want to disillusion him."^[14]

On August 8, 2006, The Daily Show again referenced Stevens's quote in regard to BP's troubles with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Correspondent Rob Corddry started to explain the trouble with the pipeline, then turned it over to a recording of Ted Stevens saying, "It's not a big truck. It's, it's a series of tubes!"

On October 2, 2006, correspondent John Oliver remarked, "Everyone knows that Congresspeople are assigned to committees based on their greatest weakness! Why else would Senator Ted Stevens, a man more comfortable in the horse and buggy era, wind up in charge of regulating the Internet... which, he believes, is a series of tubes... a series of tubes through which other Congressmen can reach in and fondle sixteen-year-old boys?" (referring to the Mark Foley scandal.)

On December 18, 2006, host Jon Stewart, in an interview with then Presidential candidate Tom Vilsack, referenced the quote while plugging Vilsack's website, stating "Is that one of them Internets? ... Go visit him on the series of tubes."

On January 23, 2007 when talking about presidential candidates using the Internet as a campaign tool in the 2008 election, Stewart said "The candidates are now turning to the interwebs, a series of tubes..."

By March 2007, Stewart's tube references had become shorter, but possibly more frequent, e.g., "intertubes," or "tubular interwebs."

I am le tired!

Here's why: I woke up in the morning today.

The past couple weeks, my schedule has consisted of: Wake up at noon. Translate. Shower. Eat. Translate. Develop Chronic Ass Pain (CAP) from sitting all day translating. Eat. Translate. See the sun rise. Sleep. And repeat.

I nearly forgot what morning looked like. Turns out, it's pretty much like the rest of the day, except slightly cooler and the sun's in a different position. No birds chirping or delicious aroma of bacon and eggs and johnnycakes wafting in from the kitchen (which happens to be in the living room in our case, which in turn happens to be where we've been sleeping since the bedroom has no air conditioning).

Anyway, so no birds, but I woke up at 9 AM and ran to the Irish memorial to say hi to my Irish friends, the McGillans and the O'Briens and the rest. I always rest in the shade created by the giant sculpture of the boat docking with all the emaciated Irish immigrants gazing at the land ahead in awe, speechless, as if they can't believe what they're seeing.

Of course, what they are really seeing is a small patch of grass, a couple of trees, and a bench with a homeless man snoozing on it. But they don't need to know that. Well, would it really crush them to know that? They've been on a diseased boat for months, tossing and swaying with the waves. I'm sure they'll get a kick out of anything that's solid and not blue. Anyway...they're not real. Sometimes I forget that.

Weather, Spelling, and Great Stories...A Threadless Post

Tomorrow is supposed to be BLAZING hot, near 100 degrees (Fahrenheit)!

By the way, it was the height of my spelling career when I got the spelling of "Fahrenheit" down pat. So I guess the height of my spelling career is placed somewhere between my junior and senior year in college. The world of spelling is an exciting one indeed.

Anyway, so I just got this idea while chatting with a friend, but I think it would be quite interesting and appropriate if we all went around tomorrow telling people, "You're on fire!" With feeling!

Speaking of fire, there are some really great stories in the Bible. The one about King David and his usurping son Adonius reads rather like an Arthurian legend, doesn't it?

Incident at the Park

A friend of mine (not of yours, mind you!) has this posted under his "About me" section in facebook:

I am from Kenya and UK. My left eye is shaped slightly differently to my right eye. My resting pulse is 58. Oh, I like brewed ice tea. yeaah.

I spend around 5 minutes each morning gazing at myself in the mirror.

I was one of 3 people on my team who could hit the ball.

It makes me laugh every time I read it (that's twice so far- maybe not a great sample size). I told him I might print it out and tape it to my mirror so that I could gaze at THAT every morning for 5 minutes. I think I actually might do it.

I had a convo with a BAC (Born-Again Christian) at the park today. BAC mentioned that the Holy Spirit had spoken to him while he was serving his 17 years in prison. I was in two minds about this: On the one hand, if this God/religion thing is what it takes to keep you from crime, than geez, by all means, believe it! On the other hand, now you've got it in your head that other people need saving too. Is it OK to perpetuate ignorance and talltales as a method of eradicating crime? As we were sitting there talking about religion and God (separate things?) I was reminded of the beginning scene of "Master and Margarita", where these two guys were arguing about whether God and Satan existed, and Satan was standing there going, "This is most interesting: they are arguing about whether or not I exist." Hehe.

The Old Young Hillary

Here's an interesting article on Hillary Clinton. It's interesting to note that there is a common set of questions, thoughts, and experiences that every individual- from me to you to Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton- go through in life. It's comforting on the one hand because maybe that is what life is about- each individual getting a chance to search within and around themselves for answers and meaning before passing away into oblivion (or whatever).

On the other hand, one look at the present (perhaps the Pres-id-ent) Hillary Clinton has me hoping that that is where our similarities end. See what politics has done to her. Already, in the letter, I could sense a load of negativity and anger- although I guess it's not fair to judge from the excerpts in the article. And life hasn't exactly been kind to her what with her being cheated on in front of the whole world. It's frightening to see what can happen to a person who used to have the same thoughts and questions and desires as you.

I was just thinking: Harry had the same thoughts about Voldemort. Ooh, Harry Potter parallels, how illuminating!

The Connery Effect

I just saw my first Indiana Jones movie- The Last Crusade. (Yes, that is the 3rd installment of the franchise.) Two thumbs up for its hilarious antics, great, comical action sequence from the very beginning, good one-liners, and of course, for the multiple demonstrations of the Connery Effect. For instance:

"Did I ever tell you to do your homework, go to bed, wash behind your ears? I gave you privacy! I taught you...SHELF-RELIANCE!"

Hehe. Kinda takes away from the heat of the moment when all your S's come out sounding like SH's.

The Limited Power of Analogies

Analogies can only take your argument so far. Actually, what I want to say is, analogies don't further argument, they merely serve to convey ideas. In other words, analogies contribute nothing to the truth value of a statement or an idea; they can only aid in the understanding of it. For instance, I found the following excerpt from an article in the Times about abstinence:

“You have to look at why sex was created,” Eric Love, the director of the East Texas Abstinence Program, which runs Virginity Rules, said one day, the sounds of Christian contemporary music humming faintly in his Longview office. “Sex was designed to bond two people together.”

To make the point, Mr. Love grabbed a tape dispenser and snapped off two fresh pieces. He slapped them to his filing cabinet and the floor; they trapped dirt, lint, a small metal bolt. “Now when it comes time for them to get married, the marriage pulls apart so easily,” he said, trying to unite the grimy strips. “Why? Because they gave the stickiness away.”

Great analogy, by all means, Mr. Love. Not perfect, but I see what he's trying to say. But I just hope people don't accept his view as the "correct" view solely based on the quality of his analogy. Like some kinds of tape don't ever lose their stickiness, Mr. Love, hehe.

The set of analogies that can be made is a lot bigger than the set of analogies that should be made.

The Importance of Proofreading and Chicken Tales

Yesterday, I was translating a portion of the book talking about the basis of Halakha (Jewish religious law). The story told was about how one year, the eve of "Paque" fell on the Sabbath, and so they had to figure out whether "Paque" took precedence over the Sabbath.

Today, after a good night's sleep, I realized that I translated "Paque" as Easter instead of Passover. Which doesn't sound like a big deal, really until you realize that Jews definitely don't celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Sometimes you forget that Easter wasn't originally a day for celebrating bunnies and going on Easter egg hunts.

Little fact about eggs: The largest chicken egg was over 12 inches around the long axis, and 9 around the short. That poor chicken. There are some other interesting facts about chickens on this page. Here is a particularly funny chicken story:

[UPI, Cairo, Egypt, 31 Aug. 1995] - Six people drowned Monday while trying to rescue a chicken that had fallen into a well in southern Egypt. An 18 year old farmer was the first to descend into the 60-foot well. He drowned, apparently after an undercurrent in the water pulled him down, police said. His sister and two brothers, none of whom could swim well, went in one by one to help him, but also drowned. Two elderly farmers then came to help, but they apparently were pulled by the same undercurrent. The bodies of the six were later pulled out of the well in the village of Nazlat Imara, 240 miles south of Cairo. The chicken was also pulled out. It survived.

I think the article forgot to mention that the chicken laid gold eggs.

Listening To...

Current music favorites:

1. Aventura- great music to cook to!

2. Amelie soundtrack- puts me in another country, another century; listen for:
(a) bicycle wheel at the end of "La Dispute"
(b) the tinkly musical box music that sneaks in about 2 minutes into "Soir de fete"- it took me forever to find which song that was in! The transition is absolutely seamless! It's my favorite part of the whole soundtrack.

3. Pink Floyd (just...great; Comfortably Numb, Coming back to life, Another Brick in the Wall. Listen to that guitar wail!)

4. Arcade Fire- good indie rock; Crown of Love is my favorite; Neighborhood 1 and 4, Intervention...I love the Canadian radio host's voice at the end: "If that doesn't git yeh man, if that doesn't git yeh somewhere spaycial!...Whhhhwww...feel sorry for yeh"

Dreams

There's an interesting article on dreams in this week's Science Times. I've always been fascinated by this subject because for one, it's an interesting phenomenon in itself (is it really just evolutionary spandrel or did it evolve of its own accord? What are it's (dis)advantages? How does it happen? Well, definitely, in order to know more about dreaming, we have to know more about consciousness and memory), and also because I have a better ability than most to recall my dreams, and/or I have more vivid dreams in general, and so I guess I dwell on them more (Even though Dumbledore says "it does not do to dwell on dreams." Of course, he was talking about a different sort of dreaming...).

Upon waking up after a vivid dream, I almost always try to figure out why I dreamed about this happening, and why this person popped up in my dream because it's my firm belief that there's a logical explanation for each event/person involved, at least in my case. I don't not believe in prophetic dreams (especially after hearing Jin's stories), but I know I'm no psychic, nor am I magically connected to a certain Dark Wizard, and I definitely don't believe in all that Freudian nonsense about daughters wanting their fathers and whatnot.

What I've learned from analyzing my own dreams is that the basic process is: my mind takes a kernel of reality (whether it is a particularly intense emotion, eg: desire or guilt, or a person that I thought of in passing the day before- the kernel is almost always taken from the reality of the day before- and promptly forgot about) and projects it into a full-blown movie using characters/events/places/feelings from my past experiences and thoughts, that I suppose get all jumbled up in my brain as it relaxes into sleep-mode. It's like a kernel of reality getting tossed into a box of old photos, my memory file, and shaken up like a Wendy's salad. Of course, this describes the process of only one kind of dream. I have others that stay more in the current, like when I used to work at the bookstore full-time, once, I dreamed that I came down the escalator with a pile of books in my arms to find three of my co-workers at the info-desk trying to juggle pencils on their noses. Wait, was that a dream? Hm...

So, anyway, in this sense, dreams are like myths; they are "truth-bearing tales," always containing a kernel of truth dressed up in nonsense from your jumbled memory.

Some observations about my dreams:

Whenever I make a big move, I constantly dream about the people I leave behind for at least the first couple weeks. Also, childhood friends crop up in my dreams more often than usual. This time around, I haven't even moved yet (about 2 months to go), but those dreams have already begun.

Eating a lot of food right before falling asleep gives me ultra-vivid, action-packed dreams. Garfield had it right: "No more pizza after midnight!" (But the cause can't be a surplus of glucose in the brain because the food hasn't been processed yet...something about your digestive system being seriously active? I dunno...)

Some people are more prone to flying dreams than others. I'm in the latter category.

In high school, I experimented with this deep-breathing technique right before falling asleep, and all my dreams were extremely serene and happy. Like I would dream about stretching on a sandy beach, blue skies, ocean, gulls in the distance, the works.

A lot of aspects about dreams and dreaming (like, why I dream about the people I left behind) is pretty easily explained- elementary, my dear Watson- but on the whole, the phenomenon is still shrouded in mystery because it delves into the field of consciousness and memory, which we really don't know much about yet, though that's slowly changing.

Sympathy for Raskolnikov

Have you ever felt so angry at someone that you just want to strangle them? Like, really, physically beat the shit out of them? I don't remember much about the book "Crime & Punishment," which I read in high school English class, which was (scarily enough) years ago, but I do remember feeling more than a bit sympathetic for the main character.

With that said, something that I don't understand- and maybe it's not fair to say this, but here goes: one thing I don't understand is when black people are racist. Of all people, I think they should understand what it's like to be treated as inferiors just because of the way they look. Right?? But even as I was wondering about this illogism (what? It's a word in French!), I realized that that's exactly the problem- a black person who treats Muslims and Asians like shit, calling them damn foreigners, saying "I hate it when they come in speaking 'their language' (when they are clearly speaking English), yelling "go back to fucking Korea", or acting as if we can't operate a simple computerized sandwich ordering machine when it's clear that it's the machine that is broken, not the orderer's brain, a person like that, no matter their color, is clearly not a rational being. One might even call them crazy, or fucked in the head, and there are certainly enough of those kinds of people here in Philly, so I guess it makes sense that we have so many of these incidents...

Point being, racism, bigotry, bias, whatever, is inherently unreasonable, and although this point is not meant to help victims of that sort of injustice feel much better, at least now we know it's because they're not as smart as us. But then again, does "more rational" mean "smarter"? I can see now why education is so important for society, and this is a point reiterated over and over and over again (I guess that's why they call it a "theme") in the book, "Three Cups of Tea": educated minds incite rational behavior. It may not be a cure to the world's peace problems, but a person who is taught to think logically from a young age is less likely to believe baseless statements like "All Muslims are terrorists" or "Americans are the devil incarnate" or "Iraq is the axis of ev..." for some reason, I just lost the desire to finish this sentence.