Playground Bully

Also for the record, I got kicked off the playground today!

Sometimes, when I go running, I like to stop by the local school's playground. I'm usually good about going when there are no kids around, but today, I mistook the second-recess bell for the end-of-recess bell, and headed into the school grounds too early. Dah! So a teacher or administrative chick came out and was all "EXCUSE ME, CAN I HELP YOU WITH SOMETHING?"

I dunno, can you? Would have been the appropriate elementary school reply. I don't recall what I really said, but she then responded with

"WE DON'T ALLOW PARENTS ON THE PLAYGROUND."

She thought I was a parent? How doubly insulting.

The Sound of Boston

I spent this beeeeeeautiful summery evening figuring out the piano part for Augustana's Boston. I've always liked this song because its sound is so clear and the piano part makes me think of bells- at least in the version that I have (apparently there is an original version out there with a different-sounding intro). So this evening, after an impromptu viewing of La vita e bella (*tear!*), I decided to decode the piano part by ear, and that is how I discovered that this song is chock-full of perfect 4ths and 5ths!...

Okay, so to explain, perfect 4ths and 5ths are types of intervals in music. Intervals in general can be described as having a certain sound quality- sad, happy, gloomy, threathening, jarring, to use normal language. To the human ear, though, perfect 4ths and 5ths (and octaves) have the purest, most consonant sound, and the purity of these particular intervals was recognized even way back when, by Pythagoras. In fact, Pythagoras was so taken by the connection between math and musical intervals that he became convinced that the structure of the universe had to reflect these divine, harmonious ratios in the distances between its planets, sun, and moon. His "Music of the Spheres" model of the universe is simultaneously outrageous and full of incredible forethought, in my opinion, given the whole string theory thing. I'm going to refrain from attributing any sort of divinity to these musical intervals, but it is cool to think that the beauty of Augustana's song can be explained by its containing a bunch of these especially pure-sounding intervals.

The Raging Earth and Scenes from the Homeless

Damn, cyclone, earthquake, tornado...I think our dear planet Earth has finally hit puberty.

Today, I was staring out the window of the passenger side while munching on an apple, when I made eye contact with a homeless man peddling for change. He gave me a smile, as if he could see that I had a heart underneath my cold, bitter exterior. Of course, after that, I could not for a second imagine myself riding away without giving him anything, so I smiled back, reached into my backpack, rolled down the window and handed him a banana.

His thank you came an instant before I handed him the banana, so I couldn't tell if he was mad that it wasn't money. I know it doesn't make sense for homeless people to be ungrateful for whatever free things they can get their hands on, but I also know that human beings in general don't act rationally, and feelings of indignance or ungratefulness arise even when they are least warranted. So as we drove off, I sat there wondering what the worth of a slightly overripe banana was to a homeless man.

Another time I was passing another homeless hotspot, I witnessed a homeless man and woman sharing a kiss on the lips, their ragged bodies separated only by the piece of cardboard they used to solicit money. Love and happiness can be found in the most destitute corners of the world, I thought to myself then.

One More Reason to Believe in Evolution

The duckbill platypus:



This sort of creature could only have come into existence by accident. With the bill and webbed feet of a duck, eyes of a mole, the tail of a beaver, mammalian fur and milk, and reptilian eggs, the duckbill platypus is the closest thing to a chimera that we can get, a veritable patchwork quilt of animal parts. What an odd, odd-looking creature! No wonder researchers chose it for their next genome sequencing project. The sequencing revealed that its genome reflects the patchwork quality of its physical appearance, containing avian, reptilian, and mammalian genomic features.

My Idealism Speaks Out

"Why does applied science bring us so little happiness? The simple answer is that we have not yet learned to make proper use of it. In time of war it has given men the means to poison and mutilate one another. In time of peace it has made our lives hurried and uncertain. It has enslaved us to machines. The chief objective of all technological effort must be concern for mankind. Never forget this when you are pondering over your diagrams and equations!"

-Einstein during an address to Caltech students, from the Peace Pledge Union site.

"I believe America may totally succumb to the fearful militarisation which engulfed Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. There is real danger that political power and the power to influence the minds of people will pass increasingly into the hands of the military, which is used to approaching all political problems from the point of view of military expediency. Because of America's supremacy, the military point of view is forced upon the world."

-Einstein, 1949-ish, around the time the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb.

The Peace Pledge Union link where I found the above quotes is a really interesting article on Einstein, the political activist. I'd always known he was a pacifist, but the extent of his involvement in campaigning for peace surprised me. To the end of his days, it seems he was chasing after two dreams: a grand unification theory and world peace. Which is the more elusive goal? Only time will tell, but it reminds me of one of Einstein's famous sayings: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

If I ever become famous, this is how I'd want to use my influence! Promotion of peace, humanity, international cooperation! I sound like such a hippie. In the more likely event that I don't become famous, I'm gonna busk for charity. Almost got the first song in my guitar repertoire down- Blackbird. Add to that Let It Be, Imagine, and other Beatles songs, and I'll have me a Beatles for Peace program!

See y'all in the streets,

Archimedes

Tea kettle Post

Oh my god, my mom just smelled my breath for alcohol. I seriously get no respect in this house. What have I done to earn such distrust from my parents? Maybe I should start acting like the dick teenager that they take me for. Rant rant rant. Ok I'm done. Thanks for listening.

Party at the Snug

This past weekend, I found myself

1) Sitting in a room with a stark naked girl on the floor in front of me, beating on a djembe positioned between her knees. Don't worry, there were other people in that room. They were all boys, and I was the one blushing.

2) Dancing with a large, sticky electric blue barrel over my head. It was a 1/2-Halloween party, and I lacked a costume. Will you believe me when I say I was 99% sober during the entire party?

3) Sitting in a yard with a gorilla, a rock pile, a dude that looks like Jesus swinging nunchucks, and a Mongol pimp. Oh, I was the Mongol pimp. Imagine an Asian girl donned in an oversized purple fur coat and a hat made of a block of gray foam (leftover from the rock pile costume), and you'll see what I mean.

3) Jamming on a guitar, accompanied by djembes, an xylophone, a tambourine, and said barrel, while wearing said Mongol pimp get-up. We were like hippies in a commune, minus the pot.

4) Dozing on a rooftop.

5) Watching the sun set over the Olympic Mountains while perched on a log on the beach, surrounded by silhouetted figures and flaming bonfires dotting the sands.

6) Dancing in the Tunnel at Golden Gardens, accompanied by 3 djembes, a toy gun, a fellow dancer, and random strangers passing through the tunnel. Golden Gardens is officially my favorite place in the whole city.

I wanna go busking!

Starbucks: Coffeeshop/Chemistry Lab

I'm typing away in a Starbucks right now, and there is a strange scene going on before me. A man sits at the table directly in front of me. He is a middle-aged half-black man with short, curly salt-and-pepper hair and goatee (the kind that circles over the lips and joins to the beard). He is preppily dressed in black trousers, fuzzy gray vest over a checkered button-down shirt. Nice leather shoes and professorish-looking glasses. A small pile of books lie under his seat, next to a heavy-looking black leather briefcase. So far so normal. The strange part is what is sitting on his table: four different types of bottled water, a bottle of green gatorade, an unidentified white bottle, and a cup of coffee.

Thought 1: This is one well-hydrated man.

Thought 2: He must be on the liquid diet.

But then, the next time I looked up, I observed a few new additions to the ensemble on the table: 5 clear, plastic Starbucks cups, each filled with about 1/4 cup of liquid. He then pulled out this tiny vial of red liquid and piped some into each of the cups filled with water or gatorade. As the drops fell in and mixed with the liquids, their color transformed so that now, one cup held a pale blue liquid, another a pale purple, red, and so on. Snatches of the conversation between the man and his companion who just joined him drifted my way, words like "acid", "weight loss", "chlorine".

Hm, it is no longer a mystery, but still, what a strange sight to behold in your average Starbucks coffeeshop.

Carousel

Carousel
Lucinda Roy

For Namba Roy, 1910-1961

I often spin around with you and hear
the fragile music of a carousel;
I feel your black arms round me in a heavy sweep
of closeness, taking me up on notes which fall
like eggs through water.

I am older now
and you have fallen from the garish horse
a long time since, and I am holding on
with thin brown fingers. Do you know
it’s been a quarter century since you
(with your voice like the man who plays God in the movies)
kissed me? I don’t remember your kisses.
I remember you wearing striped pyjamas
and waving to me from the ward - your great hand
scooping a half-circle out of nothing;
how my brother almost choked on a Lifesaver
until a male nurse turned him upside down
and out came the white mint with the hole
that saved him.

I dreamed you died, and when I woke
my mother was by the bed. ‘How will I light
the fire?’ she said. I didn’t know.

It was cold in our house; our breath came out
round as balloons and dissolved till we breathed
again. We learned to accommodate spaces
as you must have learned to accommodate…
but no. Where there is no place to put things,
no place for your bones or your slippers or my words
there cannot be a place for spaces.
It must be fine to know only lack of substance -
the round emptiness in an angel’s trumpet -
and still hear music.

I have the things you made
and she has made us see you in them.
I have the ivory statues and the pictures
telling stories of African ancestors,
a birth, flights into Egypt. In your work
I find the stillness of your eyes and mouth
the stillness which is always at the centre
of the spinning ball we hurl high and long.

I often spin around with you and hear
the fragile music of a carousel.
My horse would gallop forward if I let him
but I prefer the swinging back to where
we were, slow undulations round and back
to identical place. I prefer to see
your black hands with mine on a crimson mane
which will never be swept back by the wind.

Next!

Sometimes I think Seattle is one of the most beautiful cities in the country- when it's sunny. Like it was yesterday! I spent all day yesterday at the ginormous Barnes & Noble in University Village finishing Snow Crash. There is a hilariously awkward sex scene in it between Y.T. and Raven. I mean, I don't think it was intended to be either hilarious or awkward, but damn, it was like reading about the conception of Hagrid the half-giant in Harry Potter.

Today, I will be embarking on my next reading adventure, Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. It's a fitting way to start off my 24th year. My twenties has been a time of self-discovery, and for a "long" time, I thought happiness was the ultimate aim of life. You know, life is short, do what makes you (and not some abstract dude called God) happy, as long as you don't hurt anyone. But now I'm beginning to think that purpose is just as important, if not more, than happiness. Happiness is short-lived. Moments of pleasure survive in your memories, but those memories quickly become like someone else's dreams. Did that really happen to me? I often find myself asking. And was it really only a few months ago? It seems like ages ago, another lifetime. After basking in your memories, you shake your head, waking yourself up to the present, and wonder what's next? Who's left? It's the fate of humankind to have brains built to comprehend time linearly, so no matter how amazing the present moment is, we're constantly asking ourselves, "so what's next?" only days later. Conversely, no matter how shitty the present moment is, we can look on into the future and hope for better times. Overall, it's a blessing to be able to have things over with, because that's what makes our lives dynamic and exciting. We can be filled with anticipation (or dread) precisely because of our inability to view time all at once like a typical dimension of space. But, it is interesting to think that there are other ways to view time, like the block universe theory. Many physicists are convinced that finding the theory of everything will only be possible with a better understanding of time. Trying to understand the true nature of time with the limitations of the human brain is sort of like Helen Keller learning to read and write in Chinese. When you think about it, Helen Keller was quite a lucky girl to be born blind and deaf into an English-speaking society. Imagine trying to learn 10,000 complicated Chinese characters and getting all the tones down, when you don't understand sound or sight.

Boys Are From Mars

I was telling May about how yesterday I was sprawled on my bedroom floor chatting with two male friends about our dream weddings and sharing a communal plate of late-night grubs. Just like a sleepover with my lady friends.

"Guys have dream weddings?" she asked.

"Yeahman!" I responded. "Except for them, it's more like "wooo, I wanna have the wildest craziest party of the century! With a donkey! Eating hash!" Pause. "See what I mean? Different."

"A donkey? Eating hash? So it's not at all like talking with your lady friends."

"No...I guess not."

And so much more that cannot be published on this public blog (Yeah, even I've got limits). God I miss that girl.

Stranger Than Fiction

Bull Shit.

Okay, I'm being unfair. I can sort of see why he'd write such things. I love reading about Arthurian lore- it's magical, grand, adventurous. Plus, I often look back to past blog posts and ask myself: What the hell was I thinking when I wrote that? But I know I had a reason for writing what I did; there was some angle from which it made sense.

But the qualm I have with this article is the way he views revelations of modern science as stark and demystifying and cold. He clearly has no idea about string theory or relativity, which simultaneously demystify and mystify further, somehow...they are far from cold and unimaginative. Dare I say it? There is more imagination in physics today than in all the Harry Potter books put together, what with scientists waxing poetic about the quantum world, parallel universes, dark energy, different concepts of time.

Writer Muriel Rukeyser once said that "the universe is made up of stories, not of atoms". She was right (in more than one respect since the smallest components are now quarks and leptons, not atoms), but these stories are stories of a truth that is much stranger and more imaginative than any fiction. In my non-humble opinion.

Where is the "Ursa" in Ursa Major?

How is that a bear? It looks more like a muskrat. I must be lacking a penny or two in imagination.

Things you can do to angie-fy your days:

1) Read a book while sitting in the children's section of the bookstore, with one of their teddy bears perched on your knees. Pretend it belongs to you: give it a name, a pat or two on the head, change its position every few pages. Try not to think about the number of kids who lovingly slobbered all over it before MacArthur came to you.

2) Take a ride on the swings at the local playground. Once you get a good, high swing going, stick your legs out and lean your head way back until all you see is blue (or gray) sky. Make sure your hair does not touch the dirt at the lowest point of the swing trajectory.

3) Rock out to Red Hot Chili Peppers funk. All around the World, Californication, Snow, Tell Me Baby,...Do the whole head-nodding thing to the beat. There's this funny part in All around the World where they go "Ding-dang-dong-dong-ding-dang-dong-dongggg-ding-dang-dong" ...does not get any funkier than that man.

4) Blog about nothing. Like Seinfeld!

The Last Lecture

Wow, everyone should watch Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture." A computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, and founder of the Alice Project, he's dying of pancreatic cancer and delivered his very last lecture back in September.

An interesting tidbit is that he was given a teeny tiny role (an appearance- with dialogue!) in J.J. Abrams upcoming Star Trek movie, to be released this May.

Weather in WA: April 19

9:00 am: Snow!

11:30 am: Sun!!

12:30 pm: HAIL!!!

Can't wait to see what comes next. Frogs, like in Magnolia?

Wow, April 19 already! It is 10 days 'til my 24th birthday. Speaking of birthdays, I've consistently missed acknowledging all my friends' birthdays since September-ish. Is this because I've suddenly become forgetful? Or is it because I no longer care about my friends? No, the real reason is because I've stopped logging on to facebook every single day, so now there is no automatic message reminder. Hm...I guess that means that I've always been forgetful or a bad friend, if I need facebook to remind me of their birthdays. Yay, Crangie!

Happy Birthday to everyone for the next 10 years!

There, I think that solves that problem for a while, *dust off hands*.

Hillary the Angel

“You know, I have, ever since I’ve been a little girl, felt the presence of God in my life." ~HRC

Is that why she goes around telling her advisors to fuck off? I knew that was a divinely-inspired message.

"And it has been a gift of grace that has, for me, been incredibly sustaining." ~HRC

I'm sure it helped her through the various trials of her personal and political life. In fact, one could say she was "clinging to religion" in the face of hardships- perhaps not economic ones (scratch that- definitely not economic ones), but hardships nonetheless. So Obama was not wrong when he said people turned to religion as a source of comfort in the face of hardships?

Game No. 1

I just played my first Scrabble game ever! It lasted 3.5 hours. I lost to Sarah ~400 to 350. It got really interesting toward the end, when all seven of my tiles were vowels for the last 3 or 4 rounds.

UUUUU
EEEE
AIIIII
EUUUU

Scrabble is not a game for those who lack patience. I think I took like 20 minutes for one of my turns. Sorry Sarah! It's just that I really wanted to get that 10-point Z in a triplet-letter box. Eventually, I figured out that "letting go" is also a good virtue to have when playing Scrabble.

Invariance Cannot Vary...Right?

I've got this fear of becoming that workaholic parent or spouse, who invests too much time into her job, and not enough into family and friends.

These days, I find myself trying hard to finish my paper, and trying equally as hard not to build up a guilty conscience over spending so little time with family and friends.

The last couple days, however, what with Sarah visiting, I've finally caved in and set aside my paper. Now I'm back from happy hour at the waterfront, saying 'fuck you' to any sense of self-induced guilt or obligation that creeps my way, and determinedly working on this paper once again.

But I had to pause and share with my readers the sort of sentences that get typed by fingers whose veins are flowing with Chardonnay:

"...derive laws of nature from invariance* of invariance", plus countless typos...I'm a shitty typer even when I'm sober.

*That should say "laws of invariance" I think.

Phrase Heard Around the World

I've decided to patent the phrase:

"Powered By AC"

For instance, this blog is not powered by Blogger, it is "Powered by AC" because who's writing it? AC baby! And my car is not powered by gas or DC electricity, it's powered by AC. Cuz who's drivin' it? AC baby! The computer that you're using may be powered by DC, but if I'm using it? Powered by AC.

Uh-kay, you get the point. If you don't, then it's probably because you don't know that A & C are my initials, as well as the ones for a type of electricity.

Thanks for the inspiration, David.

Caught By Surprise

Today, I took my mom to the airport early in the morning, and upon returning, instead of going back to sleep, I decided to start my day. Inevitably, I guess, I found myself nodding off while reading about symmetry and decided to take a "quick" nap. I just woke up 3 hours later, looked out my window, and guess what?

It is SNOWING.

The weather never ceases to amaze me. All the signs of spring in WA are here: The pink flowers finally blossoming forth from the naked trees, and the endless days of either rain or sunny rain. Snow is the last thing one expects here- even during the winter. But it is definitely snowing. Snowflakes are symmetric. So are the laws of nature. Sigh...back to work.

Econ for Dummies

What is a depression? How is it different from a recession? How does a recession or a depression occur? What is so troubling about the whopping number of home foreclosures? What does it all mean? Now I'm going existential...but these are some questions that have been floating around in my head these past couple weeks. Why?

The state of the economy has been making headlines lately, and I have no idea what the big deal is. For instance, a couple posts ago, I mentioned something I heard on NPR: "Now that analysts have finally determined that we are in a recession..." The second half of that sentence was "should we be talking about a depression?" As in, like the Great Depression of the 1930's. The expert that was interviewed for this segment basically said that all the signs were there, so yes, we should be bracing ourselves for the grand economic slam.

Damn, Armageddon's coming, so why do I feel so indifferent? Maybe it's because I don't own a house yet. Or maybe it's because the guy on NPR was over-exaggerating. Or maybe it's because I still don't understand what a depression or a recession is or how it all works. Like how does a troubled housing market signal a recession and a possible depression?

It was not until I read this Times article today that I finally began to understand what it all meant. Also the message in this article was quite the opposite of the NPR dude. It painted a much rosier picture of our economic situation, and basically made the case that the possibility of a repeat of the Great Depression is close to nil because the government is plugging the leaks before they turn into craters- unlike during the '30s- and they've been putting up such "safety nets" as Social Security and unemployment benefits since the post-Great Depression era, having learned their lesson.

So breathe easy folks! (Not that you were going to go out and buy that big-screen or Honda anyway, right?) According to the article, the sign of a true depression is when banks start failing en masse just when unemployment levels are booming. That is when we should all join the Great Bank Run, just as Jane and Michael did in Mary Poppins. And FYI:

Recession: A significant decline in economic activity, lasting a few months;

Depression: A much more significant decline in economic activity, lasting much longer.

To be honest, I'm a bit suspicious of the overly-positive message of the Times article. I mean, the government is plugging the leaks, but the fact that there are leaks- serious ones like the near-bankruptcy of major Wall Street securities firm Bear Stearns- should not be taken too lightly. The reality of the situation is probably somewhere between it and the NPR dude.

Made in Taiwan

“I was biologically conceived in Taiwan, although I was born in Hong Kong, so technically I was made in Taiwan."

~Taiwan's new president Ma Ying-jeou

Made in Taiwan? I thought that phrase only applied to clothing and toys. Well, at least we can be assured that President-elect Ma does not contain a high-risk percentage of lead.

Also, today I found out that I'm an enantiomorph! In other words, Sarah and I are "non-superimposable mirror-images" of each other, like a pair of hands. Of course this was truer before Sarah got side bangs, so if I want to stay a true enantiomorph, I'd have to get side bangs that go the other way.

Archimedes, Evolved (Somehow)

If you ever observe an owl watching its prey, you'll notice that its neck is extremely flexible. While eying its prey, it will turn its head 180 degrees upside down or even 360 degrees around like a corkscrew- all without moving its body. I was told that this is because owls can't move their eyes- they have to move their whole head if they want to keep their prey in sight. Dunno how true that is, I mean what kind of animal survives Darwinian selection if they can't even move their eyes?

Winter Soldier Hearings

Winter Soldier: US Vets, Active-Duty Soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan Testify About the Horrors of War

Hearing that the war in Iraq was a mistake and a disaster from people like me is one thing- hearing it from actual US vets gives it a little more weight. I was made aware of Democracy Now's broadcast of the Winter Soldier hearings by a friend, and thought I'd spread the word on this here blog thing.

Something I heard on NPR this morning: "Now that analysts have finally determined that we are in a recession (drip, drip, drip)..." (That was the dripping sarcasm that accompanied the statement.)

ARRRRRRRRRGH

This is a noise that I have uttered countless times since coming to live at home. Sometimes there are more G's and less R's, sometimes there are more A's and even more R's. But it is always the same basic noise indicating extreme, intense, head-banging-on-a-brick-wall frustration.

Once again, I feel the sudden urge to escape to Costa Rica with my dog. And once again, I realize I don't have a dog. Dogdammitall.

Wangbuggershittinarseheadinahole.

The Science of Trees

It occurred to me that the best way to learn to draw is to observe the things you want to draw. I once recently tried to draw a tree for one of my fanciful drawings, and it looked like a kindergartener had drawn it. So I started studying trees whenever I went on a walk or, yes, sometimes while I drove (would not recommend it), and today I drew a tree that looked like a 15-year-old might have drawn it! That's an improvement of 10 years after only a few days of observation! Since it is nearing spring and the flowers are blooming, I drew one of those with pink blossoms that you see lining a lot of sidewalks and driveways these days.

Trees can be classified into 4 different types: Trees with branches that:

a) have a positive slope
b) have zero slope
c) have a negative slope, or
d) start out with a fairly large positive slope but almost immediately level off like a log graph.

Sometimes, the ones with positive slopes have branches that slope way downward- this is due to the heaviness of the leaves I think, especially in evergreen (pine?) trees, making them look like they're having a bad hair day. The tree can have either a single or multiple main branches coming from the main node (this is where I start wishing I could draw on my blog). Main branches then have mini-branches bifulcating from them at varying points with the same type of sloping, and then those mini-branches also have mini^2-branches bifulcating from them at varying points (with the same type of sloping), and on and on. Trees are actually quite fractal!*

This fractal-ness of trees got me thinking about neurons and how much they looked like trees- with their branches, nodes, and bifulcations- and this in turn made me think that maybe it's true that the universe is a giant Russian nesting doll: microcosm within microcosm within microcosm of the same basic pattern. I don't think there is anything mystical about this idea. What works for a tree works for a brain, and what works for planets works for atoms, why not. And anyway, we always like to describe new phenomena through analogy to what we already know, so that when we first saw neurons, we explained their appearance by saying they looked like the branches of trees. In fact, I think the only way we can learn new things is through metaphor, or mapping from the known to the unknown through analogy. To see what I mean, try explaining a concept to someone who just doesn't get it. You'll find that comprehension will dawn once you start using the phrase "It's like..." or "It's kinda like when..." a lot. The best teachers make use of (good) analogies. This is where I bow down to the Analogy Queen and confess that I don't really hate analogies- quite the opposite actually:) Now I'm branching...point being,

There is a forest inside your head!

*Fractals are created by taking a pattern and repeating it over and over again in smaller and smaller sizes, so that if you focus on any smaller part of the resulting picture, its pattern looks exactly like the pattern of the resulting picture except at a smaller scale.

Crusading for Mutants

Yesterday morning, while I was swishing my Scope in front of the mirror, I had this thought: Humans are slowing down evolution. Think about it, a baby is born with three arms, and what do we do? We cut off the extra arm! Imagine how useful a third arm could be- you could be a world class pianist, you could shoot a basketball while blocking your opponent with your third elbow, you could rub your tummy, pat your head, and wipe your ass all at the same time!

Imagine if the same thing was done to dinosaurs eons ago. What is this flappy wing thing- you call that an arm? The mother dino would say, and she'd abandon her mutant winged child for dead, and we wouldn't have birds! And in some (human) cultures, twins were considered to be of the devil, and so the mother would abandon them in the forest- what would this world be without twins??? I'm a freak of nature, and damn proud of it!

Mutants rule!

Haha!

"In America, we don't speak French, we speak Freedom!"

Panera Proselytizer

Ohmygod, I'm being preached at! Dear God, please give me the strength to withstand this sore attempt at conversion!

Your favorite heathen,

Angie

Don't Make This Mistake!

Femmes musulmanes does not mean "female bodybuilders"!

It follows that Je n'aime pas les femmes musulmanes does not mean "I don't like female bodybuilders."

In my defense, musulmanes looks so much like "muscleman", I think it's just ridiculous that it doesn't mean that at all. But then again, it also looks like "Muslim", which is what it actually means. Fiiiiiiine, you win.

Didn't I say to expect gibberish from onforthhence?

What Do All the Following Have in Common?

Garage Empty
King Arthur
Infinity Hubbard
Please Cope
Helen Troy
Satan/Lucifer
Ima Pigg
Ima Nut
Ima Hooker
Mary Christmas
Rasp Berry
Ogre
Medusa
Leper Priest
Lotta Beers
Good Bye
Every deadly sin except for Gluttony

Answer: Bad Baby Names

“I can’t tell you,” Mr. Sherrod said, “how often I’ve heard guys who wanted their kid to be able to say truthfully, ‘Danger is my middle name.’ But their wives absolutely refused.” ~ quote from the above article.

The Importance of Peek-a-boo!

A while ago, I read that elephants can recognize themselves in the mirror- a big deal because it's a sign of self-awareness and thus of higher, more complex cognitive development. It makes you wonder what the elephant involved in the experiment was thinking when it suddenly recognized that the elephant staring back at it was actually itself.

Of course, it is hard to know because as mentioned in the article, humans typically reach self-recognition at 18 months, and who remembers anything that happened when they were 18 months old. After last night's reflection though, I think I have a smidgen of an idea of what Happy the elephant experienced in front of that elephantine mirror.

Maybe schizophrenic patients missed that crucial moment in their babyhood, of developing a solid self-awareness. They clearly didn't play enough peek-a-boo.

Babies 4 Peek-a-boo!

Reflections

I just thought of something weird:

If you're reflecting in front of a mirror, you're reflecting your reflection reflecting. Ouch my head. And then once you reflect on that, you're reflecting on you reflecting your reflection reflecting. And what is your reflection reflecting on? GAH!

I've finally succeeded in devising a method of driving myself insane. Expect gibberish from forthhenceon.

*Edit: And ho hum, no the previous entries were not gibberish, thank you very much!

Suspect Company

There's a guy in Forza right now that looks almost exactly like Big Puss from the Sopranos- eek!

Sometimes I wonder what kind of people I am occupying the same room with at any given time- mafia members, KGB spies, you just never know who could be drinking coffee at the table next to you!

And now, before wasting any more time, I shall go back to reading about time.

The Forza Guy's God

I've been frequenting a Forza coffeeshop in Lakewood lately, and this morning I had the best conversation with The World's Friendliest Barista. I walked in this morning, and was greeted with the usual friendly Tamil-accented "Hello, how are you!" He asked if my brother was not coming in today, and I told him "no, he's got church", so that's how we ended up talking a little bit about our own beliefs.

Then I told him about a really funny yo mama joke that I saw on a friend's gchat status (Your mom goes to college) to see if he thought it was funny*, only in his culture, they don't have yo mama jokes, so that kinda failed, jokewise. Instead he went back to the whole God thing (possibly I was the only one who left it in the first place):

"When people look for God,", he said, "they try this god and that god, they go to temple, church, read the Koran, the Bible,...they going down every route looking for God. But when you are trying to find your mom, you don't go to this woman and that woman asking "Are you my mom?". You know who she is, and you just go straight to her and say, "This is my mom". In this world, the first person you know is your mom. It's your mom who tells you who your dad is and then who is your brother and sister, and what is a tree."

"So what you're saying is everything you know you can trace back to your mom as the original source."

"Yes, yes! I don't know about God, I only believe my mom."

"That's the best thing I've ever heard! All truth leads to mom!"

See why I like this Forza guy? I can't say I agree with his mom-centric philosophy. As I told him, parents are generally wiser than their kids due to experience, but they're not necessarily always right. The world changes, you know? But still it's not every day that you hear of a guy who looks to his mother as his god-figure. What a lucky woman, I thought. And what a lucky woman his wife is too.

As I listened to his "Are you my mom? Are you my mom?" speech, I was hilariously reminded of that kid's book where the bird hatches from an abandoned egg and goes around asking "Are you my mother? Are you my mother?" to a dog, a cow, a plane, and everything that moves basically. In the natural world, the instinct for animals- well birds anyway- is to accept the first thing they see moving as their mother. The sensory stimulus is stamped into their brain as soon as they hatch, and you can read here about how the makers of Winged Migration took advantage of this natural "imprinting" to succeed in strapping cameras to the ducks' heads for filming.

*This morning, I related this joke to James, and I was surprised at his lukewarm response.

"I don't get it. Why is that funny?"

And well, you know what happens when you try to explain a joke...

Folks, is it not funny?

Kidding Korner: Taking Sides

Why did Sarah and Angie never lose a game?

Because they were born t'win!

I heart Google

Ok, I came back pretty quickly just to say how much I love Google books! I'm not sure if Google library is the same thing, but dude, free books either way! A lot of them have pages missing, but if the book is out of copyright, you can download the entire book! For now, I've only been skimming books I've found through general web searches, but soon, when I have more time, I'm going to read my first entire free book online- and it'll be a moment to celebrate.

For now, let me just say, thank god it's 2008! (I realize the hypocrisy of my statements- just a few days ago, I was dissing Qwest and threatening to run away from 2008's society with my dog. But hey, you diss some, you praise some.)

Some improvements I would love to see in Google books, though, are:

-ability to highlight: When reading online, I like to highlight as I go along because it helps me to read faster and to focus, but on these digital scans, we can't highlight with our mouse, nor can we use the Find tool to highlight key words and phrases; the only time words are highlighted is when the book is found through a keyword search...unless I'm missing something

-hm, I don't really have a second suggestion. Google books is just that great!

*Edit: I just thought of- discovered- another suggestion: get rid of the viewing limits! Aw, dude, I had no idea! No take backs? Oh well, luckily, there are such things as "previous editions". Also, I just discovered the "search in this book" box. Wow, just look at that learning curve!

**Update: So Google library is the same thing as its book search thing. You search through the library through the book search. Duh Angie. Ok, also, I discovered that there are 4 types of viewing availability: full view (can read/download entire book), limited preview (just as I tragically discovered, the previews are lush but limited), snippet view (something to do with keywords, I didn't really read the explanation), and no preview.

GUESS WHAT???

I think I've found my calling! When I grow up, I want to be...

a Classic.!

You know, a Classic, as in...really famous piece of artwork in a museum? Think Mona Lisa! Venus de Milo! Um...shoot I'm so uncultured. But you get the point.

How long does one have to wait to become a classic? Maybe I can be a Modern Classic!

I'll have to pick out a favorite pose. Should I be sitting or standing? Kneeling? Maybe I should pick an action pose, like the Thinker! I could be...I could be The Sneezer! (Should I be in the "Ahh" phase, or the "-chooo!" phase?) My, but this is so exciting! Suddenly, I feel so full of purpose.

Gotta go.

-The Sneezer

One of us has GOT to go!

I think the phone service people at Qwest should all walk off a bridge like the idiot lemmings that they are. In fact, include Comcast, and any other phone, cable, internet service provider, and credit card companies on that bridge. Whenever I have to deal with them, I can't shake the feeling that they're stealing my money. And yet, I can't live in 2008 without internet or a phone. What is a person to do?! I know- I'll move to Costa Rica and live in a hut by the beach with my dog and my books. What more could a person need, really? I need to go dog-shopping...

Spotting Omar and Bessie

Last night, I saw Omar Sharif in Monsieur Ibrahim. Omar Sharif seems to pop up in the most random places, but it's always a nice surprise. The last time I saw him was in the IMAX show at the Philadelphia King Tut exhibit, where he was the narrator telling the history of the King Tut discovery to his fake niece as if it were a nice bedtime story. Random!

The movie was very good, and I wouldn't mind watching it a few more times in order to listen to M. Ibrahim's sage life aphorisms. It's about the Koran and about an old man's need to leave his legacy, which he does by spoiling a 16 year old boy with goods, both of the tangible and the intangible sort. They end up going on a roadtrip to Turkey. Roadtrips are something every human being should do at least once in their lifetime. In the end, the boy, grown up now, becomes the owner of M. Ibrahim's convenience store. A boy walks in and steals stuff, just as he did so many years ago, and so he too gets the opportunity to take M. Ibrahim's place and pass on the knowledge of the Koran.

Aaron said he thought the ending was too contrived, though he loved the movie, and I agreed with him. Later though, under the influence of the bubbly no doubt, I realized that it- the ending that was really a return to the beginning- might be yet another parallel to the Islam faith; Muslims believe that the nature of life is cyclic. It doesn't make the ending any less contrived, but at least I understand why the director might have ended it that way. One of my favorite parts was when the boy Momo gave the prostitute his teddy bear.

Also, I took a mini-mini roadtrip to Olympia with the people I met through the French club (who are turning out to be so so awesome!) and had the best weekend ever in the middle of nowhere. As we were nearing our destination, we spotted a real, live brown & white cow hangin' out on the side of the road.

"Cow!" cried out Tom excitedly. Only, when a Frenchman says it, "cow" sounds a lot like "car". And cars, frankly, are not that interesting or uncommon, despite the fact that we were in Olympia. So Aaron and I were like "Uh, calm down Frenchman, it's just a car. They must have those in France too, dude."

So that's how we nearly missed our first cow-on-the-road sighting, but luckily, we saw it in time, and then Aaron and I were the ones yelling "cow!" and pointing and gawking at it like stupid city folk. Seeing cows on the roadside is somehow that much more exciting than seeing them grazing on the grass. Seriously though, it was like, we could have reached out of our window and touched it!

A Decade's Difference

Yesterday, I found myself hanging out with some people in their 30's. We had just met, so I didn't know much about them yet, but as I got to know them, I began to think about how different 30 year olds were from 20 year olds. When we're in our 20's, we are, generally speaking, full of aspirations and dreams like getting a doctorate, traveling to 5 countries, taking up painting, or writing a book. We are either waiting to find the right time or inspiration for reaching these goals, or in the process of reaching these goals, but we haven't reached them yet.

But as I lounged in the living room and listened to the idle chat of a couple 30 year olds, I thought about the two or three other 30 year olds I knew, and realized that these people have actually accomplished what they set out to do in their 20's. They sit nonchalantly, shy or boisterous, experienced for better or for worse, but they sit on all these accomplishments that make their older age a non-issue. When I think of turning 30, it freaks me out because it sounds so old. But these people who have actually reached their 30's don't seem to freak out about the passage of youth because they've done what they set out to do, they've got things to show, things to talk about- concrete things, not just insubstantial hopes and dreams. They appear dignified in my eyes, and make me look forward to that part of being 30.

Frog & Possum

Today, a possum sneezed on me.

I couldn't decide which was more newsworthy: the fact that I got sneezed on by a possum, or that I saw a possum, and it was alive! Until today, I thought possums only came in the form of dead-on-the-roadside. Well, a single counterexample put that notion to rest, and there shattered my worldview. I think I was happier not knowing the truth. As the saying goes, ignorance...paves the road to Rome.

"Oh, don't worry," said the guy with the live possum on his shoulder, "Possums don't carry germs, they're totally clean." Oh, well thank god! That's exactly what I was thinking of when the possum sprayed its marsupial mucus all over my scarf and pea coat, thanks for the reassurance old man! Of course, all I said out loud was "Thank God!" We must be civil, yes we must!

Ribbit, ribbit!* Hmmm...why was there a frog in the Google logo today? It was jumping out from where the l usually was, and because I couldn't think of any amphibian-heralding holidays off the top of my head, I did a quick google search and discovered it was in celebration of the leap day. Clever!

In other animal news, I visited Pike Place market (where I saw the live possum) and bought a statuette of a baby elephant with the fattest cheeks ever. Fat cheeks are so cute! It sounds like a frivolous purchase, but actually, if people didn't make frivolous purchases every once in a while, no one would sell anything and there would be no economy. So I was just doing my duty and making my frivolous purchase of the year. The cool thing about these statues is, they're made out of the volcanic ash of Mt. St. Helens, a mountain in WA that erupted 28 years ago. Ashes to ashes!

*That's supposed to be a transition. Think of a frog leaping out onto the next page. New page, new topic.

Spacetime's 5 Steps to Becoming Voluptuous

Do you ever wonder how spacetime became so seductively curvaceous? I've squashed the argument found on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy into 5 bullet points:

• By definition, inertial trajectories are the straight lines (geodesics) of spacetime
• By the Equivalence Principle of General Relativity, free-falling trajectories are indistinguishable from inertial trajectories
  
• By the General Covariance of General Relativity, free-falling trajectories ought to be identified as the inertial trajectories- and thus the geodesics- of spacetime
• Free-falling trajectories show relative accelerations- a defining feature of curved geometry.
• Thus, spacetime is curved.

QED

Now, that scant, skeletal version of the argument ought to be fleshed out if anyone really wants to understand it, but sometimes it's easier to memorize now, understand later. Also, I'm a huge fan of bullet-pointing when the logic behind the words is not so clear.

If I were to strip the argument down even further, it would look something like:

• geodesic
• inertial trajectory = geodesic
• freefalling trajectory = inertial trajectory = geodesic
• => freefalling trajectory (accelerates) = geodesic (curved)

Wow, that's pretty meaningless.

A third way of putting it would be:

Inertials used to be in, but now freefall is the new inertial, and freefall prefers curves. Thus, space is curved.

McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out

Anyone else think this Times article was gonna be about a certain anatomical structure of Mrs. McCain? When I saw this title, I was like, what's the matter, we can't have presidents born from their mom's vagina anymore? Jesus, what a title. They really should refrain from putting 'canal' and 'birth' so close together in a sentence. My brain does funny things with such quasi-juxtapositions.

I Was the Block!

One of my friends most recent blog entry was about how she thinks she might be boring her readers with the stuff she's been writing lately. I made the following empathic (at first, I put "empathetic") comment:

I think about this too when I feel the blog urge. Should I or shouldn't I tell my readers about the 2.5-hour walk I took today in Spanaway (bumblefuck), during which the most interesting thing I saw was a garage band? I thought it was interesting. But would they? What a quandary...

For me, there are boring blog entries, and there are boring blog entries by friends, which are not boring. Sometimes I find interesting blogs, but I usually stop reading them eventually unless they are really good because I don't really care about the person behind the blog. For example, if they wrote about how they got into a grad school, I would feel no elation for them. But if a friend-blogger wrote that she got into grad school, I'd be thinking 'Woo! yeah! sweet!" and feel happy for her.

So about that Walk: I went out thinking I was going to be out for only an hour and a half, in order to drop off a dvd at the nearest grocery store (yeah, that shows you just how rustic an area we live in), but on the way back, I decided to take a little detour, and ...you know that block game I might have mentioned a while back, where you have to push a block around a maze and try to drop it into a hole?

I was the block!

And whoever was pushing me was really really stupid and had no sense of direction. Okay, I suppose it had less to do with sense of direction than the dead end after dead end and "not a through street" streets and "no outlet" lets that I encountered. Whew, good thing it didn't start raining. In fact it was so sunny that there was a good number of people out washing their cars or doing yard work. Hehe, I faked a British accent when I asked one of them if there was a way out that way (there wasn't of course).

Later, after I found out who won Best Make-Up Artist, I went to see Persepolis with some people I met at the French club meeting. And BOY was it lovely! The drawings and animation I mean, not the torture and war and loss of basic human/women's rights. I definitely want to get the dvd for this one, as well as read the graphic novel the film was based on.

A political story on the surface, I would say it's as much a love story and coming-of-age story. Despite the harsh nature of the political one, there were a lot of funny moments as well as quite a few sad ones that moved me in a way that Reading Lolita in Tehran never did (this sentence would read totally differently if that book title was not capitalized). It's not a matter of one story being sadder or funnier or better written than the other; rather it's a testament to the power of images over words. Or maybe my imagination just sucks.

At any rate, Persepolis (the film) captured in a few second-long images the sadness of separation, or the desolation of being homeless. What I love about animation is how it can make even the act of hitting a homeless man seem funny. Which sounds terrible, but it's true! In animated form, I guess, we sort of forget the live, 3-D consequences of hitting someone in the face with a bag, or repeatedly smashing a box of mashed potatoes over someone's head. Satrapi, the author of Persepolis, made a brilliant move in choosing to tell her "growing up in Iran" story visually.

So goes the story, but it was the artwork that I loved the most. It was done mostly in black and white, & speaking as one who doesn't know much about animation, it was inky and swirly with spongey areas showing light. There were falling jasmine petals, butterflies fluttering away like an Escher Metamorphosis, flying cars, sea waves drawn as curly-cues, even an (possibly unintentional) homage to Edward Munch's The Scream.

Sunshine, Nails, and Funny Greek Tales

Ah! Western WA is being blessed with the most amazing weather! At least during the day. Thank you* Apollo!

In honor of the presence of sunshine, I trimmed my nails outside, on our front steps. It's actually quite liberating because when you do it inside over a newspaper, you inevitably let fly some nail shards outside the perimeter of the newspaper; if you do it over the toilet, you're haunted by the possibility that you could accidentally drop the clipper into the toilet, plus the same problem as with the newspaper. Solution: clip your biodegradable nails outside!

*Greek word for 'thank you': Efcharisto!

Also, if you ever have the urge to read a Greek tale, something short and amusing, read Daphnis and Chloe by Longus. It's a tale of young love blooming between a shepherd and goatherd. It's a tale that shows what you might have done if you didn't have friends, family, books, film, the internet, or other media to tell you how to deal with the onset of love and lust, or even what it was, these "stirrings".

Beatles Magic

Just got back from a magical night with the Tacoma French Club. Speaking in French and meeting new people was great, but what made it magical was that there happened to be some really talented musicians at the meet-up, plus musical instruments, and so the night ended with an impromptu concert for an audience of three. Unless we count doing the hat-&-cane dance to The Entertainer as being part of the band- then it would be an audience of two. So it's three. They closed with a piano-sax-bongos (we decided to leave the didgereedoo out) rendition of the Beatles "Hey Jude". Any evening that ends with a Beatles sing-along is a magical evening in my book.

Can I tell you how much I love that song? When Karen started banging it out on the piano, I threw myself back onto the couch, said, "I love this song!", and sighed with pleasure. Whenever I hear this song, I think of those late nights freshman year at Hill House, when Sarah and I stayed up until sunrise...being college students. That was the year I discovered music (coincidentally, the same year we discovered Kazaa).

Click here for a video clip of a heartrending 1950's classic love song by Jacques Brel. Called Ne Me Quitte Pas (Don't Leave Me). While watching, I couldn't help thinking how simian his face looked, and how full of despair his ne me quitte pas's were. If it were a prettier face singing the same words, would it be so affecting? If it were Justin Timberlake or I dunno, John Mayer singing,

Let me be
the shadow of your shadow
the shadow of your hand
the shadow of your dog,

would it be as pitiful, or just silly?

Vent

Sometimes, I feel like Michael Corleone:

"Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in!"

Or like Hermione Granger:

"I'm not an owl!" (Oh, but aren't I?)

Or like Alan Shore:

"Puddles do not ask for why not. it is cheese, breath, and wind. It is cheese." (He's afflicted with Word Salad.)

Better go runnin' tomorrow, get those endorphins kicking. Good stuff, endorphins.

Night y'all, hoot hoot,

Archimedes

I Should Have Studied at Tully's Today

Horrible, absolutely horrid! They're playing the most godawful song at Barnes right now. I can't even begin to describe it...just to give you an idea, there's this part that sounds like a turkey gobbling, and another like an angry cat, and then a blood-curdling scream.

Why in god's name are they playing this at a bookstore? WHY?!

Cuttlefish (not a fish)

I knew cuttlefish tasted good, but I wasn't aware of the cool things they can do while they are still alive! In this article, cuttlefish are called "camouflage masters". The strange thing is, a huge part of their brain is dedicated to the visual faculty that makes them such amazing camouflagers, but cuttlefish are colorblind, having only a single pigment in their eyes (we have a three). Which means, I guess, that they have no idea what their brain & skin are up to?

Cuttlefish Facts & Comments:

Fact: They've got blue-green blood.
Comment: Because their blood-carrier is copper, not iron like ours.

Fact: They've got THREE hearts (one for pumping blood to each of their gills, and a third for the rest of their body)
Comment: I wonder which heart you have to destroy in order to kill a cuttlefish? If you destroy one of the gill hearts, will it just have a lame gill and still be alive and functioning? If you destroy the third heart, will the other two gill hearts take over, kind of like what our left eye would do if our right eye stopped working?

Fact: They only live 1-2 years (So basically they hatch -> have babies -> die)
Comment: Gee, how blessedly simple are the lives of cuttlefish

I was just going to say that someone ought to come out with a chameleon superhero: awkward nerd teen accidently gets injected with cuttlefish hormones instead of half-dead flu virus, nerd teen becomes less awkward and more heroic with the coolest disguise ever. But I just looked it up, and apparently The Chameleon, aka Dmitri Anatoly Smerdyakov Kravinoff (I love Russian names. Anginovna Chunginovsky. Doesn't that sound so cool?!!!) actually does exist. Of course, he has an identity problem. Because of his lack of identity, he made a really good spy for the Soviets and ran around in disguises that he kept in his "multi-pocket disguise vest". Hm, decidedly not as cool as the cuttlefish hormones, but I like the espionage thing.

5th Post of the Day!

After every tutoring session, we have to fill out a survey answering the following questions: What topics did you cover? How did it go? What can be improved?

My answer for the last one: 2nd fundamental theorem of calc; it was going well until her grandma fell down the stairs...she had to go.

Fourth Post of the Day

I'm drawn to transcendentalism/idealism because...

• rather than saying the divine is some sort of separate entity that is superior to us all, it urges each individual to find "an original relation to the universe", saying that anyone can experience revelation, but in different ways; Emerson finds his through solitude in nature and writing- and it's that phrase "solitude in nature" that resonated with me; &
• it doesn't denounce materialism (science, senses), but says what our senses tell us is incomplete; there is more out there than what we can physically experience; this has been my claim, too, for a while, but I always went on to say that our sensory (sensual?) knowledge is the most sure-fire way to knowing reality

I'm wary of Emerson because...

• his emphasis on the individual's "intuition" is more than vaguely reminiscent of Stephen Colbert's "truthiness": truth felt viscerally, in the gut, specifically in the cilia that line the large intestine

He gives human beings too much credit- we're not that great.

The Philosophy of Where's Waldo

While reading about transcendentalism and Where's Waldo (a lethal combination), a totally bullshit idea just occurred to me, and as a future student of philosophy, I thought it my duty to share this bullshit idea with you all. Sorry, I didn't mean that- or maybe I did- or not. I don't know.

Anyway, the idea is that Waldo of the picture book series was actually inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was the leader of the transcendentalist movement of the early-mid 19th century. Just as transcendentalism's key notion is that the divine is present everywhere in nature, so is Waldo everywhere and everywhen on every page, from beaches & deep sea dives to the Stone Age, Ancient Rome,...he could be standing right next to you in that innocuous looking red-&-white striped tee. Hello, Waldo.

Someday, I will purchase a 'round-the-world ticket and travel the globe in Waldo attire the whole time. I'll take pictures and make my own version of the book.

CPAWW: "Ice Cream Makes Your Boobs Pop Out"

That is what's going on in that picture right? Little man in brown shorts surprises woman with an ice cream in the back, woman's bikini top pops off? This whole picture is just a wild orgy on the beach if you ask me.

Thanks to the organization of Concerned Parents Against Where's Waldo, the book (or books) made it to #88 in the list of Most Banned Books of 1990-2000. Along with the likes of Toni Morrison, Stephen King, Lord of the Flies and...A Wrinkle in Time? It must be the whole tesselation thing- we simply cannot teach our children that the shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line. No, the Concerned Parents simply won't stand for such non-Euclidean hearsay.

There's another stuffed duck sitting, this time, on the display of chocolates. God help me.

James Joyce Meets Harry Potter

How did James Joyce get rid of the boggart?

He waved his wand and cried "Ridiculyss-es"!

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.