I saw the movie Kinsey this weekend after reading the Roger Ebert review (see link). I was originally going to see Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason, but Kinsey is not playing in as many places, so I went to see it first. It's about the life and work of Dr. Alfred Kinsey, who pioneered research in human sexuality and made sex "normal." Great film, but don't see it if you're squeamish about sex.
I went to a Humanity's Team concert named "Be the Change" yesterday. It was simply amazing. There was a great variety of music and poetry, and all the performers ROCKED. The music just touched me so much and made me so happy to be part of this group of people. I can't wait to get the compilation CD they put together, which is still being made.
Something one of the singers said really got me thinking; that is, every one of us has a song of our own, and what is your song? I've never heard anyone describe self-expression in those terms, but it got me engaged in thinking about what my song is. And, to tell myself the truth, I'm not singing it. In fact, I don't really know what it is. What I do know is that I know what it feels like, because I get this feeling in my chest whenever I think about it, and I know that when I see it I will immediately recognize it.
As some of you may or may not know, I am as of right now pretty frustrated in my work as a self-employed person. Mostly because I still have little confidence in my people skills, and I get scared and talk myself into procrastinating or just not doing anything. However, listening to Conversations with God book 1 these past couple of days in the car has really helped the commute and my mindset. Just today I listened to a passage about monitoring your thoughts. That is, my thoughts, words, and actions create my reality, and what I need to do is have an image of the highest version of the highest vision of myself, and monitor my thoughts to make sure they are always in alignment with that image. Now, I know this already, I just haven't been doing it on a regular basis and instead letting fear take over whenever I'm too scared to talk to someone.
The other thing I am reminded of is that my experience of something is what I say it is, and that "what you resist persists, what you look at disappears." Sure, I am frustrated and wish this being your own boss thing could be easier sometimes, but this frustration and difficulty allows me to really appreciate my success in the future, just as I am proud of myself for having learned how to drive stick even though it was painfully frustrating in the learning stage. If Primerica were easy, I wouldn't value my success as much as I would've otherwise, just as I never really valued my A's in school because they were never that diffcult to get, and even in college they were challenging intellectually but never emotionally.
I also remembered that every new beginning only happens once in a lifetime. Once I pass through this, it will never come again (in this life anyway)! Therefore I give thanks for this time in my life, and for all other moments of frustration, which I love, love, love because they make my successes sweet and ecstatic.
And so it is.
I first thought this movie was kind of cheesy when I first saw a commercial for it, but after I realized it was produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, I just had see it. And I have to say, they didn't disappoint. The plot was suitably sarcastic and provoking, and the songs (all played in the background except one) are just rolling-on-the-floor hilarious. Here's a transcript of the lyrics.
What I really like about Parker and Stone is that they make fun of everybody equally, so no one feels left out and no one can really say which side they're on.
Not Voting and Proud
I'm voting, but I wanted to post this just to be contrary.
This evening I received a call from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yep. I picked up the phone, and after a second his voice on the other side said, "hello, this is governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, urging you to vote no on proposition 72--" And I hung up after that, because it was freaky. I've received recorded calls before, but this was freakier than most.
In case you were wondering where I disappeared off to last week, I went on a 7-day cruise with my mom, my grandma, and my mom's friends from choir. We sailed on a relatively new ship (inaugurated this past spring) with Princess Cruises, and mostly I enjoyed eating and veging out with a book (I gained an extra 5 pounds to show for it). We stopped at three ports in Mexico: Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas. To be honest, these places are tourist traps for the most part. The shopping is kind of crap, unless you wanted to buy jewelry, so I didn't get much in the way of souvenirs. Cabo San Lucas had pretty good water activities, and we went snorkeling there. Four of the seven days were spent on the ship itself, and I did a lot of reading (finished three books), a lot of eating, watched 4 movies (The Terminal, Stepford Wives, Something's Gotta Give, and Spiderman 2 -- only Spiderman 2 was really any good) and various shows. The food was really good, and that's good and bad at the same time. I knew I had to exercise self-control in that regard, but it's hard when you get to order four or five courses every night and everything on the menu looks good. I really appreciate being hungry these days.
So I went to a workshop last weekend called Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women. When my aunt first told me about it, I was pretty skeptical as to what it could teach me. Until I went to the preview seminar and was completely blown away, that is. It was a series of workshops put on by a company called PAX (which stands for Peace, Adoration, and X-tasy), which was started by a woman named Alison Armstrong, who started studying men by observing and listening to them.
Having taken the first in a series of four workshops, my opinion of their work is basically that the information they give you, when practiced, can lead to relationships (with all men) and marriages most women only dream of having. If I said to you, for $1200 (for all four workshops in the series) you can have a marriage that thrives for as long as you both live, peace with unmanageable sons, or partnership instead of competition with co-workers, would you even hesitate paying that? I believe in their work that much. Actually, I don't have to believe it. I see it in the way the workshop leaders treat people and in the stories they tell about their own husbands and others'.
It's really sad how much men-bashing women do in our culture. So much so that they expect the worst when they hear that we women are talking about them. When I was telling some guys at Primerica about this, one guy joked about how they're teaching women to take over the world (I talked about empowering men so that we empower ourselves)and another said, "oh, is it like that Mars vs. Venus thing?". When I was telling a female co-worker at my other job about the workshop, a guy overheard me and said, "men are all jerks, is that it?" I just think it's really sad. Poor guys.
...and nine reasons why Kerry won't be much better.
http://www.reason.com/links/links071304.shtml
I came across this article in this month's Reason Magazine, although this online version has hyperlinks the print version doesn't (obviously). Sometimes I get annoyed with over-hyperlinking because you get distracted with other articles and lose track of what you're reading about in the first place. But they are informative in any case.
I laughed at the description of Kerry as a "sanctimonious statist blowhard."
I've turned into a real swing voter in recent times. Just yesterday I was reading an article in BusinessWeek about Bush's "Ownership Society", which, while not perfect, almost makes me want to vote for him. Almost. And then I read Reason and I learned deeply what it's like to have to choose the lesser of two evils.
To sail is necessary, to live is not.
Gnaeus Pompeius
A friend I met at the retreat last weekend me this woman named Tara-Janelle Walsch, who creates these beautiful and meaningful greeting cards at www.soulebrate.com. The messages on them are ones that are deeply touching and you don't see them everyday. She also happens to be a daughter of Neale Donald Walsch, although she doesn't publicize that fact.
I recently finished reading Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, which is the prequel to The Da Vinci Code. It was a very good suspense thriller, and I think the plot was more interesting and varied than that of Da Vinci Code. It also deals with a mysterious real-life legend type thing, which in this book involves the Illuminati. Like Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons revealed interesting tidbits about significant artwork that were related to the Illuminati, but I didn't find these tidbits nearly as fascinating as the ones relating to Mary Magdalene. It was a great book nonetheless.
As you may or may not know, I went to a retreat this past weekend called Embracing Change, which is affiliated with Conversations with God. It was an amazing experience and absolutely life-changing.
Basically, the retreat taught us to apply the beliefs and principles of CWG in a very real and experiencial way. A lot of it has to do with sharing our baggage in a safe space with other people in the room, the purpose of which is to help us accept the "shadow" parts of ourselves so that we can let them go. What came out of it for me was a sense that we all have the same difficulties and that all we really want is love and acceptance. And I experienced, perhaps for the first time, what unconditional love feels like. It was incredible.
Of course, it didn't hurt that Christian Pankhurst, who started the retreat, is 25 and gorgeous and British, and our other retreat host, Andrew, is gorgeous and Australian. I took pictures with them, but until I get them developed, here's a pic of Christian and Neale Donald Walsch from their website.
This beautiful man also has the warmest hug ever. It felt like he hugged you with his entire body and his heart.
Some side benefits I got out of the retreat:
- I finally got over Steve after eight months.
- I no longer feel any desire to keep playing A Tale in the Desert (which was a huge time sucker).
- I am no longer embarassed about crying in front of people.
- I have a new appreciation for the people who get on my nerves in my life.
- and, of course, getting to know a bunch of wonderful souls.
Resentment is drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.
-- Christian Pankhurst, Embracing Change retreat
So I have written some thoughts I am going to post, but it's not quite organized yet. And I'm not going to bother organizing it during my free time at home because I'm currently hooked on a MMORPG called A Tale in the Desert II. It's an MMORPG without combat, and basically you spend your time learning new skills, gathering raw materials and working with other people to build new technology and projects. It's like Harvest Moon meets Civilization. It started its open beta recently, so it's free to everyone, but they're still working out kinks in the gameplay. If you're going to play, feel free to look me up. My game handle is Mimis.
Here's another quote of the week.
Until you see God in the face of your enemy, you cannot see God at all. For in truth, there is no such thing as an “enemy.” There is only that part of you which is in contrast to another part of you. God doesn’t exist for you if He exists for you only in the things and the people you like. God isn’t real for you if She is experienced by you only in those things with which you agree.
The real master is the one who knows and understands that God exists in, as, and through all things. That God is absent from no one and nothing.
Neale Donald Walsch
Tomorrow’s God
Page 142
Baen Free Library
Indirectly through Slashdot, I found this publisher who has his authors put up their books on the Internet for free, as a marketing strategy. The introductory article tells how it all came about. Pretty neat stuff. I'll have to download some into my PDA when I get a chance.
I don't know why I hadn't thought of this early, but posting a good quotation is a great way to do a post easily when I'm being lazy. These will probably come from my current stash of quotes, books I'm reading, and various CWG sources. Here goes the first quote.
God is the Source of all that is creative. Answers are not creative. As soon as you think you have an answer, you stop creating. Answers kill creation.
The last thing you want is the final answer to anything. A "possible answer," maybe. An "interim answer," perhaps. But a "final answer"? Never.
Ultimately, there is only one question in life. That question is, "Who am I?" It is a question to which you never want a final answer.
Stay with the question. Retain always with the inquiry. For within the inquiry is the power and the motivation and the passion to create. And creation is the glory of God, made manifest over and over again in ever new and never-final ways, through the process called Life itself.
Neale Donald Walsch
Tomorrow’s God
Pages 199-200
I actually did fire up Gabriel Knight 3 again and played it through (on my new laptop; the DVD drive on my desktop has trouble installing anything these days). It wasn't nearly as good as the first time I played it. I think the first time it was the story and the ideas in it that appealed to me so much. Now that I'm familiar with both, the gameplay and dated graphics alone don't do much for me.
I hadn't realized I didn't post anything for an entire month! Well, let's see... in July my birthday came and went. Didn't do anything for it. My aunt and cousins came over from Texas and we all went down to San Diego, where we stayed in a big house on a hill with an ocean view. The weather was perfect, sunny and cool at the same time -- except when we went to Wild Animal Park, which was more inland and therefore hotter. Had lots of good food -- a given in my family -- and gained like 5 pounds (I've since lost some of that though). I'll be going on a 7-day cruise in October, and I'm kind of afraid of the unlimited food there. I know I shouldn't stuff myself silly, but I can't help it sometimes.
I finally got to read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code after waiting on my library's hold list for months (starting out as the 10th person in line). It lived up to the hype for the most part, with brilliant multi-layered riddles grounded in historical evidence that makes you want to look stuff up. The book is centered around the idea of the sacred feminine and the theory that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus, which has been suppressed by the Church but surfaces secretively in art and music. I was utterly fascinated by the analyses of the symbolism in relation to Mary Magdalene in several of Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings (such as this). I've already had some exposure to the Magdalene-as-Holy-Grail theory from playing Gabriel Knight 3 (which based its research on the same book), so I'm fairly familiar with the basics of the book, but not some of the other clues that the author presented, which were very interesting as well. It makes me want to fire up and play GK3 all over again.
One of my favorite parts of the book is a conversation between the main character, Langdon, and his publisher, Faukman, about his book on the Magdalene-Grail theory:
Faukman was still shaking his head. "But with all these books written about it, why isn't this theory more widely known?"
"These books can't possibly compete with centuries of established history, especially when that history is endorsed by the ultimate bestseller of all time."
Faukman's eyes went wide. "Don't tell me Harry Potter is actually about the Holy Grail."
"I was referring to the Bible."
Faukman cringed. "I knew that."
And there was another sort-of Harry Potter reference that was very intriguing. The 8th Grand Master of the Priory of Sion (sercret society which kept the secret of the Grail) is listed as Nicolas Flamel, who was in the position from 1398-1418. The time period seems to coincide with the other Nicolas Flamel, who created the philosopher's stone. I'll have to look him up some time.
I recently bought a PDA -- a Dell Axim X30 with wi-fi and bluetooth. I decided upon it after doing much research (reading complaints on Amazon reviews) and visiting Aximsite.com. My Axim is working perfectly so far, with none of the hardware malfunctions some users have experienced. I now have a spiffy calendar/organizer that surfs the net and doubles as an mp3 player.
However, there are downsides to having a spiffy computer-thing -- you want more stuff on it to make it even more spiffy. I bought a Kingston 128mb SD memory card for it before the PDA was even shipped. After I got it, I proceeded to download games, e-books, and application to enhance useability. That's when I found out how much the Windows Mobile OS really sucks. I won't go into detail here, because the list is endless, but suffice it to say that the software CD included with the Axim came with demos of applications that enhance the Windows Mobile interface. If that's not a clue that the interface is lacking, I don't know what is.
And now, my latest quest is to acquire a GPS unit for my PDA, which can be upwards of $100-300. Why? Because I have a thing for navigation systems in cars, and I found out that with a good mapping software and a GPS unit, you can turn a PDA into one. Whee!
It came back to me! That is, the thing that I forgot in the previous post. I'd better get this down before I forget it again.
Basically, I've been watching Dr. Phil a lot and reading his books. He says that the number one desire among humans is for acceptance, and conversely, the number one fear is rejection (hence the reason people fear public speaking over death). Kind of obvious if you think about it. But here's the thing. My "aha" was realizing that this is one evidence of how We Are All One, and how, even though we appear separate, all we want to do is get back together again.
Do you ever one of those "instant revelations" where you all of a sudden understand the way some aspect of life works? You usually wouldn't write it down immediately, thinking you're going to remember it later -- except you don't. Well, one of these happened to me...some time in May. And I wrote the first sentence of this paragraph, thinking I was going to finish it the next day. Except I didn't. And now I don't remember what it is I had a revelation about. *sigh*
Here's an interesting article about Pixar from Wired magazine:
Welcome to Planet Pixar
I like their philosophies, I really do. And based on them I'm not surprised Pixar has been so successful.
As I have returned to my gaming habit, I decided to put up a list of the games I'm currently playing, which I may or may not talk about. Recently I've been delving into free online adventure games (in addition to the free offline adventure games), and I'll post about it some time. But at times like this I wish I had some "normal" webspace so I can put up a permanent list of the games I've found.
And upon further scrutiny of the sidebar, I realized what it was missing -- my links section! Doh! I will remedy that shortly.
So I went to the Renaissance Fair down here in So. Cal. with Marianne last Saturday. See her post for some of the funny things that happened to us. I mostly enjoyed the sexually charged atmostphere and the fact that you can dress in anything remotely related to the Renaissance/fantasy/not-present-day era. It is amusing to me how any guy of any age can hit on you, and the first thing you see is their costume and not the fact that they're greasy old men. And even when you do notice the latter, you're not as creeped out as you would in everyday life.
This is the chicken madras I made the other day with fresh coriander (cilantro) stirred in. I can't figure out how to insert a pic into an existing post, so here it is.
Blogger just keeps getting better and better these days. They've teamed up with a company which created a software for photoblogging through its own instant messenger. I was very excited when I heard that the company (Picasa) hosts your pictures for free and downloaded its photo-messenger immediately. On closer examination however, it's not as flexible as having your own ftp space with no strings attached. The messenger (which plugs Picasa's photo organizer software) posts your picture with a caption as one blog post, and you have to go back and edit it if you want a longer post. You do not get a url for the picture until you actually publish it in a post. So to put a picture in my profile, for example, I had to first post it, get the url off of the post, then delete the post and put the url in my profile. A bit of a hassle, but I guess it's a different sort of cost.
I made chicken madras yesterday using a recipe from Recipes for the Nation's Favourite Food, a British cookbook put out by the BBC (also a TV series). It came out really, really good, nearly restaurant quality (if I do say so myself). My dad didn't even use chilli sauce on it because it was spicy enough, which is kind of a compliment (usually when I cook non-Chinese food he puts that on). It was a relatively simple dish, too. The dish consisted of chicken, diced onions, can of diced tomatoes, shredded coconut, and spices. The garam masala took some doing since I had to find the spices that went into it and mix them together myself (some of them were whole spices which I had to grind up). Luckily I remembered we had a small coffee grinder in the house, so I used that to grind up the spices and the coconut as well. I took a couple of pictures, which will be forthcoming.
One thing slightly pissed me off yesterday. The recipe called for a small handful of fresh coriander to be mixed into the curry, which I thought to leave off since I have never been able to find fresh coriander in supermarkets here. So I went grocery shopping for spices in the Mexican spices section, which had all the spices I needed at a third or a fourth of the price. They do come in plastic bags instead of fancy jars, but they do the trick just fine. Anyway, the packet for coriander seeds had the Spanish name "cilantro" underneath the English, so I was like, huh. Then I went home, did a search, and found that coriander and cilantro are one and the same. Gaaahhh!! Well, it's good because I have access to fresh "coriander", and bad because I didn't know I did :(. Actually, I remember smelling the coriander in a British supermarket and thought it smelled awfully like cilantro, but it didn't occur to me they were the same thing. Reminds me of the time I found out garbanzo beans and chickpeas were the same thing.
Funcom, developer of The Longest Journey, is making a sequel called Dreamfall. The official website just came out at www.dreamfall.com, whichc has some screenshots and character profiles for the three playable characters. The main character is a new girl named Zoe, and April Ryan, the main character from the first game, now looks like a sexy goth chick with short black hair and dark makeup. I can't wait for it to come out!
As you may have noticed, I've changed my blog template to one of the new ones offered by Blogger. Blogger has its own comment system now, too. Unfortunately, that means the comments made previously on Haloscan won't show up anymore. Oh well.
Yes, I have more fuel for my British/Indian food cravings, and all without leaving town -- that's right, I got them at the Ralphs closest to my house while shopping for Mother's Day groceries this evening. I didn't know they were there either -- just sorta wandered around and ran into them. Ever since I saw hummus on sale at the salad section in Ralphs, I had a feeling Indian food was going to catch on sooner or later, just as Mediterranean food has (the two are pretty prominent in British supermarkets already). And I was right. Woohoo! Granted, the curry sauces are given names like "Creamy Coconut Curry" instead of "Korma" and "Hot Curry Paste" instead of "Madras Curry Paste" (at least I hope it's madras), but hey, I'm not complaining (too much). I didn't get the korma because I had it recently with the other jar I got from Taiwan. Truth be told, I got sick of Patak's Tikka Masala and Balti while in England. They really don't taste good after you've had it several times, and they're not as good as real Indian curry to begin with. The paste I got will come in handy when I make chicken madras from my British cookbook (hence my hoping that it's madras paste I got).
As for chocolate, I spotted them while browsing the candy section and squeezing a bag of marshmellows (they were above the marshmellows). I was a happy camper during Easter because they carried Cadbury eggs, but this is even better. Apparently Hershey's decided they might make some money selling Cadbury outside of Easter (they've got the rights to distribute Cadbury chocolate in the U.S.). Aside from the almond one I got, there were also Dairymilk and Fruit n' Nut. No hazelnut ones, but like I said, I'm not complaining (much). Ralphs is expensive as hell, but I love them for carrying good stuff.
I mentioned googling for a (English) baked beans recipe in the last post. Well, I did find one. It's pretty complicated but definitely doable, since I have most of the spices required. I'm not surprised that in my short search I haven't found a British site that carried a baked beans recipe -- aside from more time and effort, you'd definitely spend more money making baked beans yourself than buying a 20- or 30-pence can of beans from the store. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I ate them all time while in Brighton. Beans on toast is one of the cheapest and easiest meals around, considering how cheap their bread is, too. I liked to get the higher-end bread with a crispy, golden crust -- for under a pound. Compare that to a loaf of nice bread here for what, $3.00? Dude, we're getting gypped (gipped?) somehow.
I came across this French girl's food blog while looking for a baked beans recipe, and she inspired me to blog about my own cooking experiences (There was a link to Alton Brown's blog/site. Will check it out later). Wish I had a digital camera so I can take pictures of my food, but I guess that'll have to wait until my brother moves home for the summer. Last Saturday I had Marianne over for dinner (as hinted two posts ago) because I had a jar of Tesco korma sauce that had to be used. There are two stories in there -- I got the korma (a mild coconutty curry, if you didn't know) from Taiwan, where a Tesco had opened near my grandmother's place. Since it's a British chain, the supermarket carried Tesco brand food, like curries, pasta, baked beans, digestives, dried soup, etc -- many of which Chinese people do not eat (much of the store carries Chinese groceries, of course). As a Chinese person who misses British food, I was like "THANK YOU GOD!!" On the other hand, I was really torn because I also wanted to eat a lot of Taiwanese food, which you either can't find or can't find it made correctly in the U.S. (Boba tea made properly tasted SO much better.) So I ended up getting a jar of curry, some packets of instant custard, and a few Kinder Buenos, not as much as I otherwise would've bought (my low supply of Taiwanese currency and the weight of jars and such had to do with it too). And then, the night I got home, my dad opened my curry, thinking it was peanut butter. I was like, Oh, my precious curry! Now I have to eat it instead of watch it sit on my beside table. (Well, actually it was more like, dude, can you READ?) It wasn't very funny at the time, but that was why I had to use it up when I did.
Anyway, that curry was probably the easiest part of the whole meal. Cut some chicken, cook it in the pot, dump in the curry and cook some more. I made naan to go with it because I had time on my hands (found the recipe on allrecipes.com). I also made some curried spinach thing that tasted more spinach than curry. I think I'm most proud of the basmati bread, which was my own recipe inspired by online recipes, a basmati rice editorial on Amazon, and personal eating experience. I made it pilau-style by frying the rice with oil, butter, and spices (cumin seeds, whole cloves, and a bay leaf), then I dumped everything in the rice cooker and let it do its thing. It smelled better than I ever thought rice could smell and came out nice and fluffy too. I made apple crumble for dessert; it didn't look like it was supposed to but tasted okay. I made some of my instant custard to go with it, which tastes better made with milk than with water (understandably). I was going to make custard from scratch, too, if more people showed up. Oh well, some other time then.
I did a little baking between then and now. First some bisquits that didn't seem to rise enough and tasted doughy. Then on Wednesday I made French bread dinner rolls (recipe curtesy of allrecipes.com) for roommate dinner on Thursday, which turned out pretty well if a little deflated (from the rolls having to rise in the oven then waiting outside while I preheated it). I also ordered a kitchen scale, which will make it easier (i.e. possible) to make food from British/Taiwanese recipes. Yay.
I had been waiting to sign up for Gmail ever since I heard about it earlier this month. I didn't really care what features it had, mostly I wanted to pick an email address that I really wanted (like one with my name in it), rather than one I had to think up because your previous ten choices were already taken. I went to the Gmail site, but you couldn't just register as it was still in beta stage.
Then I logged in to Blogger today, and what did I see? An offer to help test Gmail! Woo! Thank you Blogger. So I got a new email address (just my name. Kinda boring, but I didn't have any real neat ideas), and I have to say I was pretty impressed with Gmail's features. I'd heard about the 1 gig space and the 10 mb attachments, which I didn't particularly care about since my SBC/Yahoo DSL account gives me 75 megs in Yahoo, which is way more than I need. But what really impressed me were these two features: email conversations and labeling system. Email conversations group together the back-and-forth replies in one topic so that everything you and another person is under one "thread" instead of scattered all over. Kind of like an online forum thread. I remember one time wishing that email did this, so it was a pleasant surprise. The labeling system is a different way of organizing your mail. Instead of dropping messages into different folders, you group them by labels, and each message can have more than one label. [added later: When you delete a label, the messages with that label don't get deleted. Yahoo, on the other hand, requires folders to be emptied before deletion.] I guess the usefulness of this feature depends on how you sort your own mail, but all in all I like their innovations. Good job, Google.
I just finished making naan bread for the first time, and it was a success! Woo! Okay, it doesn't quite taste like real naan, but it has got chewy bready goodness. You'd better make it here this Saturday, Marianne, or I'm eating all of it.
Today I went and handed in my admissions application at Rio Hondo College. I'm taking Accounting 101 this summer -- as a result of reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad and its sequels. I'm too lazy to really sit down and write about the whys of it, but in short, Robert Kiyosaki inspired me to become financially literate, and taking this class will be the first step. I also turned in a volunteer application at my local Boys and Girls Club today, for a number of reasons. One, I wanted to help with a charity's fundraising to practice my sales skills. Two, it'll help me practice dealing with kids for when I have my own (not that I expect to any time soon, but I will eventually). And three, it beats sitting home and waiting for the Department of Insurance to tell me when I can pick a test date for my license. I have to admit, this move was also inspired by the Rich Dad books. Kiyosaki himself started out as a shy person who was a really bad salesman. He told this story several times throughout his books, but only in the last one I read did he say how he overcame that obstacle -- by doing fundraising phone calls for charity (and doing sales pitches at a much faster rate). I started out looking for any charity near me (Red Cross was the other close one), but chose the Boys and Girls Club because of the other challenge -- dealing with kids (if you didn't know this yet, I'm not real good with the kind that talks back). I say it's a challenge, but it's not like I'm nervous about it. Mostly I wonder about the right things to say and do when I have to resolve a conflict or something like that. Watching Dr. Phil has really been a lot of help, both in this regard and in general. I've watched him enough now that I can diagnose some problems in relationships around me (including my own), and that's pretty cool.
I know I haven't blogged in a while -- not that I don't have stuff to say, I've just been lazy (and jetlagged). I went to Taiwan for a week for my grandmother's funeral, and switching back and forth between two disparate cultures is incredibly taxing. The 14-hour plane ride didn't help, either. The first few days I was like, "god, I'm lonely and I don't want to be here away from my life." And then we settled in and my mom's friends took us sightseeing and eating lots of good food. Then we came back and I was like, "god, I'm lonely and I don't want to go back to real life." Well, I guess it's good I don't have school or a 9-to-5 j.o.b. to have to plunge back into.
Tomorrow's God, the newest installment in the Conversations with God series, was released this month, and I got my copy earlier than expected. As the seventh book in the series, I didn't know how much of it would really be new information. After all, the previous books already laid the groundwork for the philosophy. However, I wasn't disappointed; many of the themes in Tomorrow's God does repeat what went on in previous books -- but only because we keep asking the same questions. Instead of repeating what was said before, this installment expanded on the previous concepts and explained them in new ways that increased my understanding of it. For example, the first and foremost principle in CWG is that We Are All One. In Tomorrow's God, this principle is extended into the idea of serving Life first. In any situation which involves choice, if we serve Life first, we will always end up serving the greatest good as well as ourselves, because we are part of Life (which is synonymous with the words God, Love, Freedom, and Change). A good analogy of this would be having the hand feed the mouth. The hand doesn't directly benefit from putting food in the mouth, but that food feeds the stomach, which in turn feeds the hand, because they do not exist separately on their own.
Tomorrow's God also proposed solutions to some of America's (and the world's) problems. Like education for example, which currently teaches kids copy their parents' thinking -- and their mistakes. I know my kids aren't going near public schools or even my Catholic high school (which, to be honest, I loved at the time, but today it would've driven me nuts). I'll have to take a closer look at Waldorf schools.
Yesterday I went to Blockbuster's to rent Under the Tuscan Sun, which is actually a really good story about self-reliance and loving yourself before finding someone else to love. While I was there I was really tempted to rent Max Payne 2 as well, but the problem was that it would take away my reading time and working time (since I designate my own work hours) without contributing (much) to my ongoing education. So I decided, then and there, that I am giving up videogames until I start making $5000 a month (this might be confusing to those who don't know or don't understand what it is I'm doing. I will explain more about my job when I get around to it). Of course, I haven't played much videogames for about a month now, so it's not like I've had to suddenly cut down on it. However, this will prevent me from playing when I do want to.
I have added a "current readings" list to the left hand column. It's list of books I'm reading currently (because I'm always reading something or other), as well as a hint as to what I might be talking about (or are already talking about) in upcoming entries. In fact, I've already got several new topics in mind, I just have to get them sorted into a coherent manner.
If you've seen Bowling for Columbine or read Conversations with God, you know how the local news, cop shows, and other violent programs feed into the culture of fear in America. Well, here's one more reason why too much news is bad for you. I'm currently reading this book called Your First Year in Network Marketing by Mark and Rene Yarnell, and there's a chapter on how to avoid depression and be optimistic about the future. This is an interesting anecdote:
We are convinced that the old adage originally aimed at computers can also be applied to people: "Garbage in, garbage out." Because of our backgrounds in theology, both of us have participated in extensive counseling. Often we found that depression was the result of the garbage people allowed into their brains. One man, who showed up for marital counseling explained how he'd lost the fire in his relationship. In fact, his whole life was becoming increasingly more depressing. As is so often the case, as Mark recalls the incident, a brief evaluation of this man's daily activities told the tale.
"Philip was a forty-year-old computer analyst for a major technology firm who explained his days as nothing out of the ordinary. 'I get up each morning and sit at the breakfast table reading the newspaper. Because I'm in a car pool, I either pick up my two friends, or they me, for the forty-five minute commute.’
“I stopped him with a leading question: ‘Once you’re in the car, what do you talk about?’ I wondered for an important reason.
‘Oh, you know, the usual small talk,’ he replied. ‘But we really only spend a few minutes talking; then we flip on the radio because one news station gives traffic reports every ten minutes which helps us strategize our commute. If there’s a serious traffic problem ahead, we avoid it. And besides, during that time, those who aren’t driving normally have business files to examine.’
“It was just as I expected. Philip then proceeded to detail his mundane day. He and his co-workers had permission to listen to the radio at work. ‘That breaks some of the monotony,’ Philip explained. When he got home from work, he first read the paper while sipping a glass of wine. He had dinner with his two kids and wife, during which they discussed their days. He spent less than two hours with any paperwork he brought home; then he and his wife curled up in bed in time to see and A&E program entitled Law and Order followed by the 10:00 news. He again emphasized that he led a reasonably good life, but nothing extraordinary.
“At the end of forty-five minutes of reflective listening, I recommended that Philip go six months without reading one newspaper, watching one television show about crime or newscasts of any kind, and no radio news at all. Six months without news! Following two more counseling sessions in which routine marriage counseling techniques were employed, Philip and Nancy never returned. We bumped into them two years later at a conference and both beamed. Their marriage had taken a positive turn and Philip thanked me profusely. He made a point of mentioning that he really didn’t know for certain what changed, but something had surely improved his life. ‘By the way,’ he said as he turned to walk away, ‘except for the weekend edition of USA Today, I don’t mess with the news anymore. Not that that has helped a great deal.’”
Wrong, Phil. The entire marriage turn-around could probably be traced right back to the elimination of those meaningless newscasts. If you are troubled by depression, read this next sentence three times: “No More News!” If Martians land anywhere in the world, you’ll hear about it within fifteen minutes from someone in your circle of friends. If a princess dies, you’ll hear about it even if you’re on a boat in the Caribbean. We did.
And it goes on, but you get the idea. The last paragraph is quite true. I've actively avoided watching the news for a year and a half now, and it's really quite difficult to miss anything important that happens. (The night the US troops broke into Baghdad, I was at a home-hostel in Canterbury, and our hostess made us watch the news in her living room.) The way I see it, information is like mind-food. Just as what you eat affects your body's health, what you read/watch/hear affects your mind's health.
I clicked on this blog called Tomato Family on the Blogger homepage because of its strange name. It's in a different language, but the dude whose picture is at the top is way HOT. I'm sure Marianne will appreciate it, if nothing else.
The newest book in the Conversations with God series, Tomorrow's God, comes out today! I ordered an authographed copy though, so it'll take a few weeks to get here. In the meantime, I went to the library and checked out books on life insurance, network marketing, money management (stuff I need to know for my job), Life Strategies by Dr. Phil, Book of Dreams by Sylvia Browne, and some romance novels. For some reason I always go overboard when I'm at the library. I'm just compelled to read a bit of everything.
Yesterday afternoon I went to my first Humanity's Team meeting down in Long Beach. Humanity's Team was started by Neale Donald Walsch, based on the teachings in his book The New Revelations, and their mission, in summary, is to increase spiritual awareness in the world by being an example. I'd been planning on going once I have reliable transportation, but somebody was one step ahead of me. Basically, I got some emails on Sunday from them, and after poking around I saw that they were having a meeting that same day at the Unitarian church in Long Beach (which I've been to once before). I was interested but figured I couldn't go because Mom was at church all day, and I still can't drive my Dad's stick confidently. Then out of the blue this guy IM'd me on Yahoo to ask if I wanted to go, so I told him my problem. Since there no one else at the group was from my area, he offered to come up here from Newport Beach and then drive me down to Long Beach. Goddess bless him.
At the meeting we discussed mostly businessy things having to do with upcoming events and starting a new Humanity's Team center, but it was great just to meet people of like minds and have a hand in the beginning of wonderful new things. On the way there Keith asked me if I would be interested in starting a study group in my area, and my heart said yes, that is what I want (actually, it was more like, "why didn't I think of this earlier??). So I've decided to have a space ready for my study group this Sunday. Even if nobody else is there, it will be a time set aside for me and God, and it will be good.
As you may or may not know, I've been taking a life/health insurance prelicensing class all week. Yes, 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. I had a wonderful teacher, a funny lady who made sarcastic comments about insurance policies and laws. I swear it was her who made the subject actually mildly interesting. In fact, I was so interested that I went around asking to read my family members' insurance policies. Sure, part of my job will be to explain insurance contracts to clients, but it's kind of like figuring out puzzles, reading those contracts.
A side bonus of taking this class was that I ran across a British restaurant called Brit's Fish and Chips. I passed by it while walking from the office where my class took place to Pasadena City College. The sign outside said "best fish and chips outside Liverpool," and, having been to Liverpool (tho not having had fish and chips there), I hoped, rather than believed, it would be authentic. The following Friday I went back there, taking Marianne with me as she lives close by (it turned out that her fav Italian restaurant is next door). We ordered fish and chips and a Cornish pastie, and THEY WERE GOOD. As in, I-could've-been-in-England GOOD. The fried fish was made of whole pieces of fish filet dipped in beer batter rather than fish patties US restaurants usually serve. That, if nothing else, was very impressive. I also had a glass of Blackthorn cider, which I last had in Brighton, for nostalgia's sake. They ran out of apple pie, but we had treacle pudding with custard. Mmm....custard. So if you're looking for good, authentic British food, I heartily recommend this place (on Colorado half a block east of PCC). Next time, I'm having bangers and mash.
Today's insurance class was definitely better than yesterday's. We learned about different types of life insurances policies and the components of an insurance contract. WOOHOOO!!!!!! No, really. I was way more engaged than I was yesterday when we dealt mostly with definitions and words like "principal" and "consideration" which had meanings no normal person uses. I even participated more in class than I ever did in my English classes. I wonder what that means...
And...tomorrow I drive my dad's manual Nissan Sentra to class. Considering how many times I stalled the car tonight...wish me luck. And expect a post about learning to drive stick, too.
Apparently the academic study of gaming is finally becoming mainstream. I say it's about time. This article linked from Games Slashdot talks about critical study of gaming that is cropping up around universities. I would so have studied this if USC had offered it a few years ago. Somebody named the study of games "ludology," which part of me hopes doesn't catch on because it sounds so damned silly.
www.ludology.org
www.ludonauts.com/
From Games Slashdot today: "Square Enix has officially announced the first U.S.-based Final Fantasy Concert. Entitled 'Dear Friends', it will take place in Los Angeles at the Walt Disney Concert Hall this May 10th, and will feature melodies from the entire series composed and arranged by Nobuo Uematsu." According to the announcement on Square Enix's page, the concert will kick off its presence at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) and will be performed by the L.A. Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. I am so going to be there!!
I admit that I'm not the best journaler in the world. I have trouble keeping a daily routine in something that's not a necessity, though to be honest I haven't really pushed myself to do so. I do have pen-and-paper journal at the moment, and I jot down something in it every once in a while when something important happens and I suddenly remember to. Even then my entries are rather short and don't usually contain all my thoughts on a subject/event. This is mostly because a) I write slow and b) I journal at night when I'm already tired. So my paper journaling tends to be sporatic at best. I think I'd started journaling in Word once, but for some reason I just keep forgetting to return to it. Too lazy to open up Word, maybe. However, since I've started watching Oprah recently, I went poking around on her website and discovered an online journal section. It offers about four or five different types of journals (e.g. daily, gratitude, health, create-your-own, etc), the purpose of which is to provide direction and helps you reflect on different parts of your life. It's already working pretty well for me because a) I type way faster than I write, b) I put a link to it on my Mozilla toolbar and it's the most natural thing to go there while I'm online, and c) the guidelines give me something to write even when I don't think I have something to write about. AND it's searchable. Yay! Thank you, Oprah.
I suppose some people might be worrying about the privacy issues of journaling online. No, the journal section is not on a secure site and any hacker with a little diligence might be able to hack it. But...what for? Sure, the stuff I write isn't something I'd let other people read, mostly because it's where I work out my thought processes and feelings. If someone I know were to read it (since I don't know why someone I don't know would even bother or care), I wouldn't be that embarassed about it either because it's nothing I wouldn't tell people if they had asked. As Dr. Phil said (I think it was him), "People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing."
So I finished Fellowship of the Rings today, and it was...okay. There was a bit of trudging through here and there, but not too bad. The movie didn't do a bad job of following the storyline, all things considered, though the book did fill in some of the plot holes for me (like why Gimli didn't know all the dwarves in Moria died). And I must say, while there are some discrepancies between the book and movie voices of certain characters (i.e. the way they talk, words they use, etc), which are understandable aftereffects of adapting book to film, the characters of Sam and Gollum are just SPOT ON. I had no trouble placing the movie voices into the book characters at all, whereas I did with other characters. This probably has more to do with the way the dialogue is adapted than with the strength of the actors though.
I just looked up John Rhys-Davies on IMDB. I KNEW I've heard that name somewhere. He played Professor Arturo on Sliders and Leonardo Da Vinci in a few episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. I loved his portrayal of both characters, but I didn't recognize him the entire time I watched the trilogy. Probably because he's normally twice as tall.
Since I have a lot of free time these days, I've started watching TV again, mostly specific shows like Dr. Phil, Oprah, CSI, Gilmore Girls, and Pokemon. Even then, I still get residual crap through commercials for the local news and Entertainment Tonight and other shows about people I don't care about. I'm sure you've all heard about the Janet Jackson "exposure" (whether you'd like to or not), and it even made it onto today's Megatokyo. I apologize for bringing it up yet again, but I'd just like to say that if it's a publicity issue, then it could be resolved by NOT banging the topic over people's heads over and over again (hello? who's giving them publicity?). If it's a breast issue, well, I hate to break it to them, but half the world's population has breasts. Get over it.
Since my return from England in July, more than a few of my tastes have changed. My brother has had a subscription to Nintendo Power since we were both in grade school, but when I picked up a copy of it after coming home, I found that I no longer respond to its Disneyfied tone and its low expectation for all things Nintendo. The age difference between its target audience and mine had become painfully obvious, and their high scores for well-known mediocre games (like Enter the Matrix) proved their reviews untrustworthy. Having been introduced to UK magazines like Edge and GamesTM, the typical game news/reviews seem self-satisfied and unvarying. True, there is a time and place for straightforward news and reviews, but I think we could use more of the game criticism featured in these magazines as well as the US-based insert credit.
When I say these sources are more "intellectual," I mean that they scrutinize the game industry as well as individual games and provide not only overviews but also layered analyses. Edge (and GamesTM, who copied Edge) does this using editorials as well as a strict scoring scale -- a 5 out of 10 means average -- that highly favors originality. Liam does accuse Edge of being "ever so slightly pretentious," and I can't say I disagree. That's perhaps why I liked GamesTM's tone better, but I've only read one or two issues and have nothing else to say except that it's kind of like Edge. I don't know about the quality of Edge's stuff these days though, since my friend whose best friend who knows people who work there said that there were some controversy over an insensitive editorial as well as something involving Edge being paid to score a game better than it deserved, and half the staff ended up quitting. There's no magazine in the US quite like Edge and GamesTM, but my brother's friend Joe who also went to USC pointed me to insert credit, which has good writing and thought-provoking features like this one. It's an interesting site you can spend hours reading if you're so inclined. My one minor complaint is that the site is poorly organized (everything under one category is listed chronologically) so as to be unfriendly to newcomers. That and some of their articles could be a bit less verbose.
I hate being sick. That's what I've been doing the last four days or so. Walking around made me dizzy and weak, but lying down made my head hurt from being pressed against the pillow (not kidding). So I slept and sat on the couch and played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance when I felt a little better. I feel almost normal now except for a hacking cough that keeps waking me up at night. Conversations with God says that every experience you call into your life serves some purpose, so I wondered about the purpose of this one, as I always wonder what possible purpose a little fever or cold could serve. Okay, I can see that if you're stressed or making yourself too busy, getting sick would be your body's way of slowing you down and saying, "hey, enough of this." However, as I'm out of school with no car and no job, neither of those apply to me (and never really did, except when I had to write that term paper in high school). In any case, I've come to the conclusion that:
1) Once again, I take simple joy in feeling healthy and normal, as I'm reminded every time I get sick.
2) My mother does a lot more for the rest of my family does for her, myself included (she took care of me when she wasn't working).
3) I need to shift my focus from what I don't have (job, relationship, etc) to what I do have, right here, right now. I was worried about the slowness of my job search; I felt frustrated because I couldn't see my friends or go anywhere since I can't drive my dad's new manual Nissan (he's in Taiwan at the moment and can't teach me). But one day I was sitting on my bed and staring (because lying down gave me a headache and focusing too long on a book or my GBA made me nauseous) when I realized that this situation I am in now is perfect for bonding with my mother. With my dad and brother gone temporarily, we have some peace in the house and time together with none of the frustrations those two bring. She'll be working for most of tomorrow, but I can also help make this house (esp. my room) a bit more livable by cleaning things up, bathing my dog and taking him for a walk. Anyway, I won't bore you with the details. I think I've been getting clues that this is what I'm supposed to be doing, but I didn't make a conscious connection until that moment. It was a feeling of "I get it now," like something clicking into place, and by extention, I felt that the job thing and everything else will come when the time comes. Well, neato, and I guess tomorrow's cleaning day.
...after a long day of playing Final Fantasy X-2, chatting with friends on AIM, and going through adventure-gaming websites, and an idea occurred to me as I pondered about making my own adventure game: why not make a Harry Potter adventure? Okay, so it's not really original, but what irks me about the official Harry Potter games published by Electronic Arts is that a) they are painfully mediocre and b) they utilize only a tiny fraction of the possible gameplay elements offered by the Harry Potter universe. In fact, when I took Intro to Interactive Multimedia back in freshman year, for the movie/book-to-game assignment I chose to do a Harry Potter adventure game. This was before the first movie and game came out, and although my design was not entirely groundbreaking (in fact, I had recently played GK 3 and had that on my mind), it would've made a far better game than the crap that came out of EA (I am mostly talking about the first game, not having played the second [slightly improved] one). What I want to do now is make an intelligent game worthy of the Potter name, albeit a small one. However, knowing me, this may never become a finished product. We'll see what happens.
To keep going on this topic, I'd have to introduce a phenomenon I recently discovered: independent freeware adventures. That is, a community of adventure-game fans are developing their own games, since PC adventures are few and far between these days. They use one of a few freely distributed adventure game engines for this purpose, and more info on these engines can be found on Adventure Gamers: Underground. These games are by and large 2D point-and-click adventures, so don't expect any groundbreaking gameplay here. However, they do contain strong narratives and fun inventory-based puzzles and also provide creative outlets for writers and artists. Later I shall do another entry on the best of these adventures I've played so far.
So this is what I'm thinking. I'm going to make a small game, since my graphics skills aren't that strong, and I'd rather work on fewer images and do them well. The story is not going to be Harry's story, nor will the plot follow any of the books'. I want to use either Hermione, Ron, (on second thought, they do enter the main stories quite heavily) or one of the minor Griffindor characters (a Neville Longbottom game!), and make him or her the main character. This allows me to make a smaller story that runs parallel to and occasionally intersect one of the books' plot. Now I have to figure where to get the background music from. Among other things.
...of many entries about gaming, one part of the eclectic hobbies in which I spend my free time (which is all the time at the moment. HAH! Well, maybe just a small hah.). Adventure Gamers just did a new feature on Gabriel Knight, an adventure game series published by Sierra. I happen to own all three games in the series and lament the fact that there likely wouldn't be a fourth. The series is notable for its deep, engaging storytelling that revolves around a historical mystery or legend (Voodoo [who do?], werewolves, and the descendents of Jesus). The third game, Gabriel Knight: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned, was the first I played, and it made the biggest impact on me. It had a strong story and smooth gameplay, but what got me the most was the character interactions between Gabriel, Grace, and Mosely. Although only Gabriel's name is in the title, Grace is the other playable character and becomes controllable every other "chapter." She was also a playable character in the second game, though to be honest I only played the first few hours of it because of the crashes and bugs (one of which rendered my saved game unloadable, which really sucked). The third game, however, was perfect in my eyes. Despite some flaws, the emotions the game evoked in me was none I've experienced before or after. The dialogue, characterization, and excellent voice-acting combined to give the emotional intensity normally seen in novels or films. Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit, but that's what it felt like my first time playing through it.
Some notable voice-actors include: Tim Curry as Gabriel (in game 1 and 3), Charity James as Grace (also in Monkey Island 4 as Elaine Threepwood), Rene Auberjonois and John de Lancie (for you Trekkers out there) as minor characters, Jennifer Hale (Ms. Keane in PowerPuff Girls), and Mark Hamill as Mosely in the first game. A number of these voices can also be found in Knights of the Old Republic, oddly enough (ah, the wonders of IMDB). So in conclusion, if you're dying to hear Tim Curry talk in a southern accent, GK 1 and 3 are a must. Those of you who know me (and don't live on the other side of the globe. Or in another state.), I still have the games in my room somewhere (emphasis on "somewhere") if you'd like to give them a shot.
My blog is now searchable via the Google code at the bottom of the main page. All two posts of it. Yay!
Why are you looking at me like that? It's called forward-thinking.
I think that having seeing all three LOTR movies, and especially the extended versions of the first two before the third, I got back into the feel for high fantasy. Don't get me wrong, Tolkien's writing is still slow--but a good kind of slow. Like sipping tea. There is a real love of language in his writing, which I can certainly understand, and the slow building and layering of atmosphere is best savoured and mulled over. Although I do attribute my patience for this slowness, especially at the beginning of Fellowship, to knowing and caring about the characters. Compared to Fellowship (and from what I've heard, The Silmarillion), The Hobbit is quite easy to get into and not bogged down by references to obscure names and places. After a "leisurely" start, it does pickup as Bilbo gets himself into more and more danger, and to my delighted surprise I could hardly put it down. I'm about a third of the way through Fellowship now, and I can say it's much less boring the second time around (I tried to read it while in England, and stopped after 160 pages). The Hobbit is definitely a helpful read if a new reader wants to give a shit about the places and names mentioned in the first few chapters, as well as references to Bilbo's adventure. I do understand why I gave up the first time (it's STILL quite slow), but I'm glad I came back to it.
I suppose it's fitting that I started this at the beginning of the new year. This is just a place for thoughts that pop up from the various stimuli in my newly school-free life, now that I actually have the time to write them instead of working on my next who-gives-a-shit paper. (No more papers! Woohoo! It's worth shouting out more than once.) So I will slightly organize my thoughts and have them live here from now on, otherwise they'd probably end up in Steve's Inbox and whoever else will listen. I'm currently sitting at home, playing Final Fantasy X-2 and going through thousands of job listings to find some place to give me money that wouldn't also drive me nuts. Oh, and I'm reading Lord of the Rings for the first time. More on that later. I do have to say, though, 2003 was a wonderful year for me, what with spending half of it in England, having the last semester of college, and including two wonderful guys in my life. 2004 has a lot to live up to, but I'm sure I'll find ways to make it worthwhile.
