learned something about my ideal

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the internet age

I must apologize for the mundane things I talk about here, but I feel it's somewhat important to share about it. I'll save the whimsical philosophical musings for another time.

I just discovered how easy it is to pay your bills online! I paid my credit card bill and my wireless bill online. And both times it was simpler and faster than paying it the normal way (mailing in a check with the payment stub). The only caveat is that you have to give them your bank acct number and stuff like that, but frankly, that's almost public information. anyway who can look at one of your checks can find that information. so i feel pretty safe about giving it out so that i can pay my bills online. it saves on the stamp and plus you know that your payment was received and processed (i checked my checking acct, and the funds have been transferred efficiently.) i highly recommend it for everyone. i still enjoy getting the bill in the mail just to see my charges. but payment is a different matter. this means i dont have to get more checks since i'm running out. literally, no paper was exchanged in the transfer of money. it was truly a paperless electronic transaction, as promised by technologists. well..ok a little bit of a muse...it makes me really think about money and how it's "represented". apparently, it's just some numbers in a computer somewhere. i cant trade all my money for gold or anything like that. a dollar bill is simply a "promise" by the government that the bill can buy a "dollar's worth" of goods/services in this country. what a strange invention. jim taught us all about this.

Farewell to Frasier

My expectations were low. I expected it to be a cheesy, nothing-important-happens ending like Friends. But i was surprised that Frasier has concluded its run with a clever ending. I loved the way the episode led you down one path and then switched it at the end. I'm glad to see Frasier off on his new adventure into the unknown. What's great is that the success or failure of his final decision is left for US to ponder in our limitless imaginations. "wish me luck" is a great way to end. and at the end, i did wish frasier the best of luck. the episode both brought closure to the series, but also left it wide open to our imaginations. bravo. while it's not the best ending, or indeed even an excellent episode of Frasier, it was nevertheless a well-done final episode, especially when compared to the Friends finale last week. i had little sympathy for any of the friends crew as they strolled out of the apt, but i truly felt for Frasier.

Farewell to "Friends" (the tv show)

The last episode of Friends was pretty typical of last episodes. It is more about closure and tying up loose ends instead of comedy. There were a few funny moments, but overall, it's not an ep that I would be dying to watch again. I expected Ross to go to Paris to chase after Rachel, sacrificing his tenured position at the university. And I expected Joey to give some indications that he's moving to California. I thought a better ending would have been in everyone moved on to different things. Rachel and Ross go to Paris. Monica and Chandler go to their new house. Phoebe and Mike go to their house (and make babies). And Joey gets to go to California. But alas, we are left with everything almost the same. If you missed it, then it's not a big deal. It wasn't that exciting. Last episodes rarely are. I expect next week's final Frasier to be boring as well. But I'll probably still watch it. Enterprise has been rather dull lately too. Nothing interesting on television anymore. Last night I caught the "Chuckles Bites the Dust" ep of the Mary Tyler Moore show and it was hilarious. Then after that was an ep of the Bob Newhart show. Two of the finest comedies of all time. They're my favourite shows. If only they were still on or available on DVD. I've already go the first season TMTMS on DVD. They might not release the subsequent season due to lack of sales. boo.

Congratulations

congratulations, pastor steve! you will be missed, but the possibilities of your ministry in richmond, bc are unbounded. i am sooooooooo excited to know that God is using you to your fullest abilities and that He is challenging you to reach out to more people. if anything, the impact that you left (or will leave, rather) here in the hearts of people in san francisco is a testament to the potential of your influence at the canada church. i only hope those who will miss you greatly (including myself, of course) can understand the endless opportunities for growth that you will experience when you go, rather than dwell on losing you as a pastor. let's be happy for steve and support his ministry! (ie: it's ok to be happy)

Save Enterprise

With the future of Enterprise (the tv show) unknown, I feel saddened that the ratings are just not coming in for the series. It's been three years and I think every year it improves by leaps and bounds. The characters become more developed, the stories are more compelling, and the moral dilemmas are as tough as ever (even to rival DS9). I hope it continues for at least another season.

About tonight's episode. It was a bit boring. Nothing really happened except we find out that Archer has reaffirmed Degra's trust in him. Not much plot advancement. I hope the next episode won't be the predictable meet-hostile-aliens-who-dont-let-enterprise-through-the-nebula-but-enterprise-narrowly-scrapes-through. But next weeks seems to be about meeting the future. Anyway I digress. Why couldn't degra just take Archer and his evidence on his (faster) ship so that the negotiations with the council can happen faster? All the evidence could have easily have been transported by Degra's little ship. I thought Degra destroying the Reptilian ship was a bit unexpected. But it's turning out to be another Damar story. if degra dies, then i'd have to say that it's a rehash of ds9's final season. I found Trip's emotional problems uninteresting and i expected Tpol to cry too, but i guess the moment where she consoles him was nice. and what was the whole plasma fire thing? it seemed like just filler and a chance for reed to get sick. it added to the tension but it seemed like a sign of stretching out an episode. not a good sign. especially when Enterprise, the series, is on the bubble. dont' run out of stories to tell yet!

update

ive been lazy and not updating my blog. partly due to travels, partly due to work, and partly because my computer has been uncooperative. well, i'll update this soon with a real entry...but in the mean time, give me a click.

to your fair city

I'll be in Boston MA for the next week. Beantown, here I come!

chill out

I've gotta chill out. Somedays I totally stress out about making sure things go ok. I guess I want things to turn out how they were planned. Being stressed made me very tired so I didnt get a chance to really appreciate the event. at any rate, i guess next time i oughta just relax a little more and delegate responsibility and trust that others will do it fine (maybe not to my exacting, nitpicky, not-necessarily-higher standards). I have to accept how other people do things.

you get what you deserve

Many lessons of late that remind me that God is merciful, yet somewhat fair. While he did save our sins by sacrificing his son Jesus, he nevertheless gives us little reminders to keep us on track. That is, when we do something that might not be exactly edifying, he is there to give us a little jolt to remind us of our actions. A tiny example is tonight I had a lot of snacks (due to a lack of dinner), now I feel rather sick. I'm not making any sense, am I?

On an unrelated vein, I will be going to Boston! hoorah! wish me luck in the coldness. YHL and Cec, you are the best! thanks in advance. boston is in "new england". that's cool. and there's a harbor, pronounced "hah-buh". those funny bostonians. i probably will walk by john kerry's house. that will be interesting. he had to mortgage it to pay for his presidential campaign.

I am also hooked on the online MUD game "Kings of Chaos". So far, I haven't attacked anyone, but I've built up a pretty sizable defense. I will be out of town for a week, so I need to find someone to spend my gold for me, otherwise, I'll lose it all. who will it be? any volunteers? help me get more soldiers here...it's just a click with no obligation to join the game.

memory leak

Opera is a great browser. I haven't found a browser that is faster, easier to use and smaller than Opera. However, today I experienced a big memory leak. Because of Opera, my swap file was 71% full, which is a lot! I closed all my other apps and I was still using massives amount of physical and virtual memory, but when I closed Opera, it took about 30 seconds for all the I/O to happen and then my swap file dropped down to 28% full and physical memory was only 45% filled, which is small. I think this is a result of the "starting from previous session" option I selected upon startup of Opera. It loaded all the history into memory, and since I had the browser up all day, there was a lot ot load in. This is an exceptional case. Normally, Opera has a much smaller footprint than IE since Opera uses frames instead of a new process for each window in IE.

the house carpenter's daughter

Natalie Merchant has done it once again. Her latest album, The House Carpenter's Daughter, is superb. The melodies of those handpicked ageless folksongs resonate as well today as they did when they were first sung in years past. Themes that run through these songs include social injustice, searching, war, etc. I love it. It's such a refreshing change from the ubiquitous pop music that seem always to talk about lovey-dovey stuff. There's often nothing to learn from pop songs. But these folk songs serve a purpose, they tell a story/lesson and preserve it for future generations. While it is true that sometimes miss merchant's voice occassionally overpowers the melody, her voice embodies the passion that the writers of these songs must have felt as they were putting their feelings to music. some of my favorites on the album include "Owensboro", "Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow", and "Which Side Are You On". ask me to borrow the CD anytime.

birthday

Thanks for remembering my birthday. I hope all your best wishes will turn out well.

teetering a precarious edge...scared

A few days ago, I was with a few friends (happened to be all guys at the time), when one guy decided to tell a joke. He prefaced it by saying that it's kinda "bad" (meaning that it might be offensive...not that corny or unfunny). So he told the joke and the people who heard it laughed and acknowledged to him that it was indeed bad. I didn't find it funny, to say the least. Then others who heard the joke egged him to tell the joke to the rest of the group. He did so and again he told them that it was "kinda bad". The rest of the group laughed a little and said "it's bad but that's a good one..." or something like that. The problem was that the punchline revolved around a racial slur usually directed against black (ie African-American, but black is easier to type) people. No one in the room was Black. But I was offended and appalled that such a joke was even considered to be funny. for the record, I am of Asian descent.

Thinking about the incident, I can't help but to be afraid. Afraid of how people can be so callous about how they refer to and think about people of other races. Firstly, I am afraid of the person who told the joke. While he would probably never use this slur in the presence of a black person (or at any other non-joke telling time) and most likely would treat a black person with perfect dignity and respect, he is ignorant of how offensive this racial slur is to black people. It stereotypes and degrades black people. However the joke teller did understand that it was a slur, for he did lower his voice when he said the term and prefaced his joke with a statement that the joke is "bad". But the scary thing is that knowing that it was offensive to black people did not stop him from telling the joke. There is a precarious edge between lighthearted joke telling and unconscious racism. My joke telling friend was teetering on that edge.

Or perhaps I should be even more scared of the fact that when others heard the joke, they laughed and said that it was a good joke. They have grown so insensitive to the use of such slurs that it has become funny. I just don't understand how such a hateful (whether intentional or unintentional) comment can be humourous. But what I am MOST afraid of is this last possibility. Maybe the people who heard the joke did NOT find it funny, but due to the peer pressure of conformity, said it was a funny joke. It was a group of guys, so maybe with all the testosterone in the room, the guys have a desparate need to conform and appease each other (lest we all get in to species-typical brawl over the pizza). Have people in this world compromised their basic-BASIC principle of equal treatment of all human life for the sake of conformity? These last two possibilities keeps me up at night. I'd like to call conformity a racial slur, but alas, I know how offensive it is. Please lemme know what you think (email, aim, call, etc). Am I blowing this all out of proportion? Is a joke just a joke?

Sharing

Interesting study about why we share things.

Super Sunday

Super Bowl Sunday has been described by many as America's secular holiday. And according to the food network, this weekend is second when it comes to food consumption--only bested by Thanksgiving. All this for a football game. Presidents have used the superbowl for their political campaigns and have even tried to get involved with calling the plays (again, something i learned from watching the food network).

I guess now would be a good time for me to express my views about sports in general. On a fairly superficial level, sports seems a colossal waste of time. While many will disagree, that's the way I feel. You can follow your favourite team through the season and hope that they win the championship. And after they win the championship, yippee! Great. Now what's in it for you? What did you possibly gain from spending your precious time watching and cheering? Are you wiser, richer, smarter because of their victory? I think not. And from this point of view, watching sports is, in my opinion, the country's more potent opiate. It dulls people's sensitivity to the more important problems plaguing this world. yeah, this is a rant if you couldn't tell.

Oh, so you like sports because of the competition? I see. I like competition too. But...when i watch sports, i am not competing. those husky people on the field are competing. where's the competition in it for you and me?

Ok, ok. There are some positive aspects of sports too...I guess. Many people look up to athletes as role models as people who have worked hard and have achieved fame/recognition based on their talents. Many children idolize athletes. And these athletes can definitely reciprocate and present very positive messages to the community ("say no to drugs", "stay in school"). It is somewhat ironic that some (not all, of course) of these idolized athletes have quit school early to join the big leagues and have used controlled substances to improve their performance. What kind of message is that sending to young people who look up to professional athletes? Granted, there are plenty of self-respecting athletes who are excellent role models.

This rant probably stems from the fact that I am not good in sports. I couldn't do a layup in basketball to save my life nor could I get a base hit in baseball. (although baseball is an intriguing sport and has a certain elegance when it's played...unlike american football, which seems unnecessarily complicated) nevertheless, my forte (as it were) is not in sports but in more cerebral activities (yes nerdy activities). sports has a found a place in the very foundations in interpersonal relationships. for example, in the workplace, if a bunch of people wanna go out after work for a quick game of basketball, you would be committing a grave error if you choose not to participate. you will not be considered a "team player". thus, i will have to "like" sports because society says i should because it's normal. i probabaly will forever fail to understand its appeal. someone explain it to me, please.

Edit: I might have been a bit harsh in my analysis of sports. I guess having watched the superbowl, I can not doubt its entertainment value. although i dont think i could watch it a lot.

hope

hope is a very powerful thing. it can fill your day with happiness and optimism. some might call it ignorance. but i rather call it hope. in my case, it was my hope for a job at PARC that keep me happy and optimistic. while i might have been a bit cocky about it, i felt pretty confident that they would want me to join them. when i first found that i wasn't offered the position, i was disappointed. the hope that kept me in the clouds for the past two weeks suddenly was gone, leaving my optimism without it's upward inspiration. nonetheless, soon later that night, i came to realize that it probably wasn't meant to be, so i pressed on with my second choice, which is still great btw. so i'll be working at oracle. the boss seems really nice and is flexible about my start date, which is great. and to top it off, i am excited about visiting UCSD at the end of Feb for interviews. not only do i get to see the school, but i get to meet up with some of my old buddies. things are looking up, despite things lost. i see God planning great things for me in the future. dont know what they are, but he's certainly taken control of things of late. better Him in control than I, eh?

search for a perl

Today, I made an attempt to use my time more wisely. I did some online tutorials and taught myself basic PERL scripting. As a result, I made this form-based webpage. Scripting languages are pretty cool since variables don't need to be strongly typed and the syntax is usually familiar. I guess that's the whole point of scripts anyway. I still have a long way to go with PERL, but I like adding languages to my repertoire.

Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel is an interesting show. Although I would be afraid to admit it since it really is a very nerdy show. You should try it out. One thing that I found kinda sneaky was that one episode I watched, they delayed all the interesting parts until the very end of the show.

The Inferno on MTV. well, i havent seen an episode yet, but i watched the interview show that leads from the gauntlet to the inferno. it was interesting to hear all the casts reactions to what happened. and apparently, all the hookups from previous shows are no longer in play, so that means the cast in this new series can start with all the scandal anew. they themselves said it was much more dramatic than the last series. but that's what makes it so interesting. ah...those devilishly clever folks at MTV make it so compelling for me to watch.

Ok, one of these days, I need to go to the library and go read. television is so distracting. i can literally spend ALL day watching TV and not get sick of it. i can go for days without leaving the house when there's good tv to watch. it's only when i force myself to find other things to do around the house that i get bored. i also need to spend less time on the internet. time is flying, even tho i'm not stressed. go figure.

listless

Are you tired, rundown, listless? Do you poop out at parties? Are you unpopular? Well, I am.

I'm feeling extremely lazy these days. I know it's my break and it sure is relaxing, but i am feeling the guilt of not doing much productive things. I should be working on the email paper but i dont really feel motivated to do that. I want to read all the time, but I just dont have the patience to read. I should be building a new website, but that's not panning out as of yet.

On an unrelated note, for the first time, I am really motivated to go out and buy a music CD. Kazaa doesn't seem to be delivering the booty (ie: the loot of piracy) I want so I wanna go out and buy a CD. The CD is Natalie Merchant's "The House Carpenter's Daughter". I really enjoy Natalie's singing and this CD is less mainstream/pop and more of an harkening to the folk songs of yesteryear. And after downloading all her songs via piracy, I feel somewhat obligated to actually buy one of her CD's. Mind you, I did go to one of her concerts and had to pay around $50 for the ticket so I think I've paid my dues for all my piracy. At any rate, there are a bunch of things I wanna buy, but with no income right now and the possibility of a less-than-stellar contracted salary, I dont think I can really afford to splurge--not even for a $12 CD.

gung hay fat choy

Officially it's the new lunar year and that means chinese people celebrate with great feasts, parades, and festivals. for me, it usually means dinner at grandma's house. i think new year's eve is when you eat only vegetarian stuff and new year's day is when you get to eat the good food again. but this year, things are a little different. parents are out of town on business, which means the whole family is not getting together for the mega feast. that's ok.

happy birthday, JPM. why am i not invited to the BDP this year? oh and i still have your ski goggles and gloves. sorry for keeping them so long.

Talked

I gave a talk at PARC today and I guess it went as could be expected from me. I was a bit nervous but since the people asked questions, it kinda disarmed the situation (a good thing). so that ball's in their court and i'm waiting to get back to them on that. I was really nervous about it and it took me a while to prep for the talk. I was dilly-dallying a lot when making the slides. I need to be more effecient next time.

[rant]i was watched part of a show on MTV that talked about how to hook up with people in clubs or bars. it was entertaining but it really demonstrates how superficial the whole hooking up thing is. wear nice clothes, buy girls drinks, "passionate" kissing with many people during the night, etc. it's a shame that people spend their time pursuing such superficial, temporary things. there are people who are watching that are taking notes furiously so they can "get it" the next time they go the clubs. oh dont get me wrong, i'm sure there are some clubs out that don't have all this hooking up business going on but rather the people go there to dance and have fun. nothing against clubs, per se. it's the just sleazy activities that go on in some clubs. well the people who enjoy such activities will find it abundantly at the clubs. good for them. me? i'll be at home watching intoxicating television. [/rant]

[rant] I'm beginning to realize what a bad influence MTV is on me. But I can't stop watching. The new season of Real world is entertaining. But it is true that the original concept of the real world show is totally destroyed. The first season, I'm told, actually featured "real" people--not these gorgeous eye candies on more recent seasons of the show. Real people means real world situations. The Real World, while entertaining, is nothing but a fabrication of overly dramatic, good-looking people. ie: they're all so fake. like people who have boyfriends/girlfriends right before they went on the show. they claim that they want to keep their relationship going, but we (and they) all know that they're on the show to hook up with other cast members. that's the whole point on going on the show. it's not for the "fame" or the "experience". it's to hook up and you and i know it. whatever it takes gets those kiddies to tune in, eh, MTV execs? [/rant]

intoxicating tv

I finished all my grad school applications and i took a day "off" to watch a lot of television and to work on re-skinning this blog. nice, aint it? well, i've been watching too much television. it's just so enjoyable to watch television. with star trek TNG, people's court, friends, seinfeld, three's company and stuff on all day, what else can i ask for? heh. well i wanna spend more time reading and doing other productive stuff.

i need to work on a presentation for PARC. i didn't feel like i presented myself well at this week's interview. i didn't talk enough. talking is important for research since you need to be able to verbalize and be spontaneous about new ideas. i hope i will be able to make a cohesive presentation for tuesday. i'm not sure what i can talk about for 30-45 mins. i really do wanna work there, but i don't think it'll be an easy job. it'll be great great experience but it might be tough. and the $$$ prolly won't be that great, but hey, experience is worth more than money at this point of my life.

im gonna get Bridgestone Potenza RE950 tires for the car from costco. i know they're not super high performance tires, but they are good tires for the camry. while making some turns on the moist asphalt, i am experiencing some wheelspin. i'll remember to rotate the tires more often so they'll wear more evenly this way.

bad trip

I just watched MTV's Bad Trip and it's an interesting show. There is one thing that I don't quite get about the show. It's a show about parents spying on their kid when they are out partying in cancun or vegas. The kid is fooled into thinking that MTV is following them around for some spring break show or something, but all the while, the parents are watching their every move. The show ends by the parents confronting their kids with their "disappointing" behavior. The kid is embarrassed and the parents learn something new. Here's what I don't get: The kid is being filmed all the time. Is he so stupid that he thinks Mom and Dad will never see the video eventually? After all, the spring break show is shown on MTV all the time. Won't mom and dad like to see what their son was up to while they were on television? Why is the kid so embarrassed when mom and dad see their scandalous behavior? Maybe they are stupid. If you wanna have a "fun" time without the 'rents knowing, then you should be smart enough to not have CAMERAS follow you around. I've watched two episodes so far. Both were virtually the same and rather anticlimatic since the parents weren't that upset. The only interesting thing is how they transform the parents to look like someone else so that they can spy on the kid. And it's also interesting to see what all that partying is all about. To me, it doesn;t seem that fun. Go figure.

dreams

Last night I wasa reading about dreams here (it was really really interesting, i suggest you follow the link). It talked about all the different kinds dreams, lucid dreaming, nightmares, what's happening in the brain when we sleep, etc. I read all about this right before I went to sleep. In the article, it talked about how you can control your dreams if you can somehow remember that you're dreaming. Well, I thought nothing of it. But last night I actually remembered my dreams. I can recall three. Warning...you're about to enter my psyche.

dream 1:
(First some background from real life, in my apartment I put some slightly used but clean plastic wrap in a pot on the stove since I had no where else to store it. The heat was not on under the pot. I was thinking earlier in the day that it might dangerous if I forgot it was in and turned on the stove. ok, on to the dream...) I dreamt that I caused a fire at my church. It was a cloudy day and we were all outside because there was a fire. And the preschool children were evacuated and by the time my dream started, the parents already came and picked them up. So far, the description is not that interesting. So I went inside to see what was up. When I went in, the first thing I asked about was whether all the children were safe and taken home. They were. Then Rev Clifford Wong came up and started to talk to me in that nice but slightly patronizing way that he does. (dont ask me why he was at the sunset church, it's a dream) he told me the fire started in the microwave and the damage was minimal. Then he asked me, "what kinds of pots do you think are the best?" i said, "i dunno...circulon...the kind I use at my apartment?" he smirked. he asked me, "where do you normally store plastic wrap?" i thought to myself "oh no!", and quietly murmured, " not in a pot, probably" he nodded. i said, "but you're not supposed to put a metal pot inside the microwave!" again, he nodded and smiled. and i still thought it was my fault for leaving the plastic wrap inside the pot. anyway, i went into the kitchen and the corner where the microwave was, it was burned and singed. i was filled with anxiety since i caused the fire!

dream 2: visiting grandma
It's not uncommon for my family to go to visit my grandma to just check up on her and spend some time with her since she's lonely. anyway, in my dream, we were walking down the street (presumably from the car) to her house and we saw her at door going inside. the normal greetings were exchanged and my other grandma (who lives across the street) happened to be walking there too and so we all went inside. the scene changes to the bottom of the staircase inside the house when my grandma comes down the stairs with a cup of soup. she was heading right towards me and i reached out to take it, but no, she walked right past me and gave it to my other grandma. i felt sad because i was used on my grandma always offering things for me to eat and stuff like that.

dream 3: stuck on 280
(update: this is written on 1/15/03, so details have since faded) i was on 280 and got into a fender bender rendering my car incapacitated. And we (and the other drivers) were stuck on the freeway right before the serramonte exit. we were off on the side of the road and it was raining. the only way to get help was to get out of the car, walk backwards on the freeway, up a dangerous offramp to a gas station or something. i remember i didn't wanna do it. but i had no choice, so i got out and started walking. that's the dream.