I was waiting for a cross-town train in thelondon underground when it struck methat I've been waiting since birth to find alove that would look and sound like a movieso I changed my plans I rented a camera anda van and then I called you"I need you to pretend that we are in loveagain." and you agreed tooI want so badly to believe that "there is truth,that love is real"and I want life in every word to the extentthat it's absurdI greased the lens and framed the shot usinga friend as my stand-inthe script it called for rain but it was clearthat day so we faked itthe marker snapped and I yelled "quiet onthe set" and then called "action!"and I kissed you in a style clark gable wouldhave admired (i thought it classic)I want so badly to believe that "there is truth,that love is real"and I want life in every word to the extentthat it's absurdi know you're wise beyond your years, butdo you ever get the Feelthat your perfect verse is just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by

how cool is this???

MSNBC.com

‘Aquanauts’ live in a scientific fishbowl
Webcams watch underwater researchers as they study coral reefs
By Adrian Sainz
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:17 p.m. ET Sept 18, 2007

KEY LARGO, Fla. - A nine-day mission that began Monday in the world's only permanent working undersea laboratory is like living in a fishbowl in more ways than one: Anyone with an Internet connection can watch the researchers work and hang out 60 feet (18 meters) below the surface.
Six "aquanauts" studying changes along a coral reef will work, sleep and eat at Aquarius Reef Base, on the Atlantic Ocean floor about nine miles southeast of Key Largo in Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It's the first time students and others will get such an extensive real-time view of the underwater life surrounding the 21-year-old lab.
The team, hoping to raise interest in science and the oceans, is bringing its research to students with undersea classroom sessions and to the public through live Internet video. Feeds are coming from inside and outside Aquarius, and from divers wearing helmets mounted with cameras and audio equipment.
"It would be ideal if all the students we are going to reach on this mission could actually be here, but the truth is most of them will never get that opportunity," said Ellen Prager, chief scientist for Aquarius. "So the best we can do is have them connect and be virtually there."
Researchers will study sponge biology and coral reefs — fertile marine habitats that are threatened around the world by disease, rising ocean temperatures and human factors such as pollution and overfishing.
Bus-sized habitatAquarius is a yellow, 43-foot-long (13-meter-long), 9-foot-diameter (2.75-meter-diameter) tube, roughly the size of a school bus. It lets researchers dive for nine hours a day and return to the habitat without standard scuba diving requirements of surfacing and decompressing.
This is the first time that live classes will be conducted from Aquarius Reef Base. A school in Florida and another in Michigan are getting direct interactive feeds, as are the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and UNC's Institute of Marine Science in Morehead City.
Other classes can follow the team online at Oceanslive.org, which has round-the-clock live video of the mission.
Using a system of cables that stretch out from Aquarius, divers will visit sites they have studied in the past to determine if any long-term change has taken place.
Studying more than coralOn most reefs around the world, the abundance of hard coral has declined, and the cover of soft algae has increased, said Steve Gittings, science coordinator with NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary Program. Algae is a natural part of the ocean ecosystem, but it can respond to human influences such as pollution to create large or unnatural concentrations that can displace corals.
Researchers also want to learn more about two other reef dwellers, sponges and soft corals, because it's not clear whether their abundance has significantly changed, Gittings said. Also of interest are the suspected causes of change in reef ecosystems, which may include a mass die-off of a long-spined sea urchin that ate algae, Gittings said.
"We're seeing dramatic changes literally on reefs around the world with regard to the relationship between all those different components that live on the bottom," Gittings said.
One of those components is sponges, which pump water through their bodies to filter food particles and produce dissolved nitrogen, a fertilizer.
The Aquarius team will investigate any links between changes of reef compositions and organic matter processed by sponges, seeking to discover whether sponges are fertilizing grasses that compete with corals, said researcher Chris Martens of UNC-Chapel Hill.
"Corals have gone through huge changes in terms of being totally dominant in oceans to being lesser," said Martens. "We're asking the question, 'Do sponges help or hurt in that process?'"
20-year-old underwater homeAquarius, owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, operated by the University of North Carolina-Wilmington and used by the Navy and NASA, was built in 1986. It began operating in the U.S. Virgin Islands before being redeployed off Key Largo in 1993.
The facility has bunk beds and showers; a microwave, refrigerator and sink; and the computer and diving equipment needed to research reefs and collect, assemble and relay data.
"It's not claustrophobic, really," said Prager, the chief scientist.
Food, computers and other equipment are sent down using pots that can handle two and a half times normal atmospheric pressure below the ocean's surface.
After the expedition, the aquanauts must decompress for 17 hours or they will get the crippling "bends."
"We don't want to fizz," Martens said.
A surface buoy provides air, power and communications to Aquarius through hoses, cords and cables. On land, a crew monitors the living conditions in the facility.
The aquanauts eat microwaved or reconstituted meals. Food must be sent down via the special pots or it will not stand the pressure.
"A Pringles can can turn into a pretzel," Martens said.
Eating is one of the things about living underwater that takes some adjustment, Prager said.
"Things tend to taste very bland," she said. "There's a lot of hot sauces down there."
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

we are like the streets on
monday mornings
dirty, uncared for, abused

we are like the subway stations during
weekend nights
filthy, smelly, unruly

without hope, we are doomed
without love, we are fallen

(my) room with a view - today's sunrise.

it's september. it's time for a summer-gone-by reflection.

this summer was a challenging one. many words stick out: boundaries, faith, trust, temptations, confusion, prayer.

starting with a family feud during the memorial weekend to resolving that particular one this past weekend, it was a HECK of a summer, 15 weeks of sheer tortures filled with...so many internal conflicts.

i don't think i've been stretched this thinly in some time. yet i am thankful. through the personal challenges, i've been desperate for god. i've been desperate for his guidance. i've been seeking.

and i know that now i'm truly blessed. not all things are resolved: but i do not lose hope, because he is with me.

Psalm 46 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)

Psalm 46
For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. According to Alamoth. A song.

1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.
Selah
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Selah
8 Come and see the works of the LORD, the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire.
10 "Be still, and know that I am God;I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
11 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Selah

Financial Times FT.com

Virtue and virtual reality
By Christopher Caldwell
Published: September 1 2007 03:00

The basic question about virtual reality is whether it is an exciting new world that cool people are "migrating" to or a cheesy mock-up of the world we already know. For the nearly 1,000 members of the "Second Life community" who held their third annual convention in Chicago last weekend, it is getting less virtual every day. There are a lot of three-dimensional graphic interfaces, but Second Life, created by Linden Labs in California, has been the most popular and the most studied. It has 9m members, who create "avatars", or alternative online selves. Avatars interact, form relationships and spend money. They can be equipped with a sex, age, occupation and identity of members' own choosing - although genitalia cost extra. A hard core of enthusiasts use virtual reality to explore a world without geographic (or other) borders.
But there is another way to look at virtual reality: as a vaguely onanistic hobby that serves as a retreat for those who can find no purchase in real life. In an article that appeared in the Jesuit magazine Civiltà Cattolica this summer, Antonio Spadaro urged Catholics to learn about virtual reality and concluded that "the digital world might even be considered, in its way, 'mission territory'". The church's interest in Second Life is not surprising. Since Nicodemus visited Jesus (John 3:1-7), second lives have been the church's stock in trade. What is surprising is how much Fr Spadaro's assessment of the online landscape resembles that of businessmen. Our culture is coming to a consensus on the question of whether virtual reality is something new or a jazzed-up version of something old. It is the latter.
The great service Fr Spadaro's essay performs is to get us to think about the distinction between identities and roles, a distinction that gets blurred in much propaganda about virtual reality. Online avatars are not autonomous. They are not related to their creators the way Mr Hyde is related to Dr Jekyll. They are related to their creators the way Mr Hyde and Dr Jekyll are related to Robert Louis Stevenson.
This is how businessmen understand virtual reality. If avatars were really the free spirits that internet boosters claim they are, then trademarks would lose their value in "alternative" worlds - and they don't. The enterprises that have set up shop in Second Life are varied: IBM, Reuters, Toyota, the pop band Duran Duran, Adidas, Sweden (which has a virtual embassy) and cultural representatives of the Italian foreign ministry. This month, the Liverpool Philharmonic will broadcast (if that is the word) its opening night to 100 Second Lifers. Such innovations, true, could change our physical world. Restaurants will not disappear from your neighbourhood, but bookstores might, if Amazon.com or Waterstone's can figure out how to replicate online the experience of walking through them. But this is familiar territory. Corporate marketers consider avatars mostly as "eyes" that can be drawn in a non-shopping but fantasy-susceptible situation - as in a football stadium, or in front of a TV screen. Virtual reality is a new form of advertising. It is not a new world.
Businesses, of course, may pretend it is a new world and invest in that pretence. Companies generally play along with the culture in which they are advertising. There is no inherent relationship between baseball and Chevrolet trucks, but you will forget that if you watch enough baseball games. Clothiers and car dealers will do something similar if they want to appeal to the "herd of independent minds" (in the critic Harold Rosenberg's phrase) who roam the internet. They will not just invest in snazzy avatars and catchy jingles; they will also mouth all the hoo-hah about the power of imagination to create virtual worlds, and so on.
That hardly exhausts the corporate applications of virtual worlds. Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft have used them as sites for training programmes. Rather than have a number of highly paid trainers on staff it is easier to make a presentation that can be accessed by a hundred branch offices. (One can see the appeal of such efficiencies to the priest-strapped Catholic church.) But this is not a new way of interacting. It is a more efficient system for producing and distributing videos.
Virtual reality may be overrated as an economic phenomenon, but it is an important spiritual one. While not offering anything particularly new, it may still manage to devalue the old, posing dangers to a person's inmost character - his "real" character or, if you prefer, his soul. It does this mostly through what Fr Spadaro calls "the temptation towards the cancellation of experience". More and more of life can be "rewound", undone and treated as an "experiment" that has no moral meaning.
One result is that the gap between a person's (simulated, reversible) imagination and the (serious, irreversible) world widens dangerously. Technology always tends to cause this widening and Fr Spadaro uses Marx's word for it: alienation. But when the object supposedly being manufactured is not pig iron or shoes but identity, the moral dangers are bigger. There are reportedly few children in the world of Second Life avatars and few members of the working class. The virtual world makes it clear that there are identities nobody wants. "Simulation beats reality on the grounds of its broader potential and its lower level of risk," Fr Spadaro writes. "Today people are afraid of naked reality." And because we grow addicted to this illusory control, Fr Spadaro shows, pauses taken from life exhaust more and more of life.
Virtual reality can be an exciting place, but certain real realities of the human condition are inescapable. That remains true no matter who your avatar is or how much you paid for its genitalia.

The writer is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard

i went to an allergist today. i had to get tested for allergies, because the other day i had a funny episode with eating pineapples.

i'm very sad to report that i can no longer eat RAW: apple, peach, nectarine, pear, cherry, pineapple because as i eat them, my body - i'm allergic to tree pollen - thinks i'm eating tree-pollen products (because those are tree-grown). i'm also allergic to tomato (allergic to grass), melons, zucchini, cucumber, kiwi & banana (allergic to ragweed). my stupid body isn't able to distinguish what's NATURE and what's FRUIT (unless cooked).

i hate vegetables - so i only (basically) ate fruit to supplement my hatred for veggies. now, i have to stick with oranges, watermelon, some other random fruits.

i hate my body. i'm lactose intolerant. i'm now fruit intolerant. why do i even live?!?!!?!?

Missing body parts of famous people
from CNN.COM
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
(Mental Floss) -- Remember that goofy uncle of yours who always tried to impress you by "stealing your nose" or pulling the ol' separating-his-thumb-from-his-hand move? Well, those parlor tricks are nothing compared to the appendage stunts pulled by these 10 famous people.

John Wilkes Booth's neck bones
John Wilkes Booth might have been a successful assassin, but he was a largely ineffectual escape artist.
Just 12 days after murdering President Abraham Lincoln, Booth was shot in the back of the neck and killed. His body was (eventually) buried in an unmarked grave at Baltimore's Green Mount Cemetery.
His third, fourth, and fifth vertebrae, however, were removed during the autopsy so investigators could access the bullet. For a peek at those bits of Booth's spinal column, just check out the display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C.

Einstein's brain
Before he died, über-genius Albert Einstein considered donating his body to science. Unfortunately, he never put his wishes in writing.
When he passed away in 1955, Einstein's family and friends made plans to cremate him, but the pathologist who performed the autopsy, Dr. Thomas Harvey, had a different idea. Instead, he opted to remove the math man's brain and then tell the family about it.
For 30-some years, Harvey had Al's gray matter tucked away in his Wichita home in two Mason jars. Naturally, Einstein's loved ones weren't thrilled when they found out, but they eventually allowed the misappropriated mind to be sliced into 240 sections and disbursed to researchers for examination.
Today, many of the cerebral sections remain in scientific institutions, with the bulk held at Princeton Hospital. As for Einstein's body, that was cremated and scattered in a secret location.

"Stonewall" Jackson's arm
Confederate General Thomas Jackson got his nickname by sitting astride his horse "like a stone wall" while bullets whizzed around him during the Civil War.
But that kind of bravery (or foolhardiness) didn't serve him well. During the Battle of Chancellorsville, Jackson was accidentally shot in the arm by one of his own men.
Said arm had to be amputated, and afterward, it was buried in the nearby Virginia town of Ellwood. Only eight days later, Stonewall was stone-cold dead of pneumonia.
The rest of his body is resting in peace in Lexington, Virginia.

Saint Francis Xavier's hand
Francis Xavier was a saint with a few too many fans.
In the early 16th century, the Spanish missionary was sent to Asia by the king of Portugal to convert as many souls to Christianity as possible. Turns out, he was pretty good at the job.
Francis Xavier became wildly popular, and after his death in 1552, so did his relics. In fact, demand out-fueled supply. Throughout several years and multiple exhumations, his body was whittled away.
Today, half his left hand is in Cochin, India, while the other half is in Malacca, Malaysia. One of his arms resides in Rome, and various other cities lay claim to his internal organs. The leftovers? They went to Goa, India.

Napoleon's bits and pieces
Exiled emperor Napoleon Bonaparte died on May 5, 1821. The following day, doctors conducted an autopsy, which was reportedly witnessed by many people, including a priest named Ange Vignali.
Though the body was said to be largely intact at the time of the undertaking, it seems the priest took home a souvenir. In 1916, Vignali's heirs sold a collection of Napoleonic artifacts, including what they claim to be the emperor's penis.
While no one knows for sure if it really is Napoleon's, uh, manhood, people have paid good money for the penis. Currently, it's in the possession of an American urologist.

Oliver Cromwell's head
Oliver Cromwell, the straight-laced Puritan who usurped the English throne, wasn't exactly a wild man. His head, however, was sometimes the life of the party.
Cromwell died in 1658, but two years later, the reinstated English monarchy exhumed, tried, and hanged his body, then dumped it in an unmarked grave. In addition, as a warning to would-be killers, his head was placed on a pike in Westminster Hall, where it remained for 20 years.
After a subsequent stint in a small museum, it was sold in 1814 to a man named Josiah Henry Wilkinson (perhaps looking to parade it around as an exceptionally gruesome ice-breaker at parties). Such was the ironic afterlife of the Puritan until 1960, when his head was finally laid to rest in a chapel in Cambridge.

before...and after

just got back from 3 glorious days of the hamptons: sag harbor, amagansett, east hampton, southampton, hampton bay, shinnecock bay. it's just so amazing there: nature abundance, stunningly loud nature, so many animals sightings (deers and bunnies - yes, not from the disney animal kingdom either) and unfortunately, that all comes with insects too: moquitos (3 bites), spiders/ants/bugs of every shape & size.

menu for this past weekend:

• Friday lunch: @ Estia's Little Kitchen in Sag Habor: crab cakes
• Friday dinner: 2 lb lobster (from gosmans') and corn, all home-cooked with an excellent french chardonnay :)
• Saturday b'fast: homemade chocolate scone & homemade donut @ the Amagansett Farmer's Market
• Saturday lunch: homemade turkey meatball sandwich :)
• Saturday pre-dinner: a glass of pinot grigio (wasn't good) & complimentary peach martini @ East Hampton Point (SO YUMMY)
• Saturday dinner: homemade sirloin ground beef pattie (charcoal bbq'ed to medium rare) with the works (heeeeaaaaaps of red onion, fresh tomatoes & romaine lettuce), more corn, some fresh strawberries as desserts
• Sunday b'fast: my boss cooked up some organic omelette with egg whites with a bit of salsa & roasted bell peppers (yellow & red only), yummy toasted english muffins with homemade rhubarb marmalade and tea
• Sunday lunch: gorgeous & huge salad of arugula, organic greens, grapes, olives, goat cheese, tomatoes @ Silver's in Southampton.

I AM FAT!

just for the record, i did not just EAT and sleep & other personal cares: i actually went to the beaches in Springs, visited a museum, and of course, window shopped. i love the nature life in this very far point of long island: it truly brings peacefulness to isolation and through that, unending appreciation for God's creations (yes, even bugs - as i stepped on them). You can't beat walking in the water for 200-300 yards off of the shore and still be able to see your toes and it only comes up to your thighs and you wave to the ocean & unseen birds & marine life all around you - it doesn't get any better!

this morning's subway ride to work was very eventful. normally i notice nothing because i'm trying to read my new york times, fumble with the damn newspaper's size, etc. etc. but today, i felt serene and centered and didn't need any worldly news to interrupt my "zone."

well, because i wasn't reading anything, i was looking at people. those who know me will find this strange: "seapea actually looked at people??!?!?!?!?!" yes, i did. and this is what i saw in the 10 min subway ride:

• a couple looking at each other, holding hands, obviously very much in love, completely oblivious to crying babies and iPod rocking heads;
• a couple sitting side-by-side completely ignoring others as they had a huge and very loud silent rage that surrounded them, just vibrating with anger
• an old couple holding hands (like grandpa & grandmas).

a true representative of all walks of relationship. i've been in stages 1 & 2, but obviously not in 3 yet. ha ha ha!!! not that this is news to anyone, but i realized that the subway is like a living museum of human behaviors. new york's great!

MSNBC.com
Blacklisted: 4 travel companies people avoid
Spurned and fed up, many travelers start their own ‘no-fly’ lists
By Christopher Elliott
Travel columnist
Updated: 9:37 a.m. ET Aug 20, 2007

You’ve probably heard of the controversial “no-fly” list kept by the government. Maybe you know some who’s on it. Maybe you’re on it.
But that list, which has snared everyone from a Marine serving in Iraq to a four-year-old is a topic for another time.
Today I’m talking about a different kind of “no-fly” list: yours.
’Fess up, you’ve got your own blacklist of airlines, hotels, car rental companies and cruise lines you’d do anything to avoid. I know you do because I run the travel industry’s unofficial complaints department, and I get thousands of e-mails each week from angry passengers. Many of these missives end with, “I’ll never do business with your company again!”
So who’s on the list?

US Airways. Most of the complaints I get are about airline service. Delayed and canceled flights, missing baggage, rude flight attendants … the list goes on. Is there one standout? At the moment, it would have to be US Airways. Check out the Transportation Department’s latest numbers. The Tempe, Ariz., airline, underperforms in virtually every category and is the most complained-about carrier.
But hang on. Just a few months ago, US Airways announced a series of what it called “customer service” initiatives designed to “improve reliability and meet customers’ needs.” That included adding airport staff, hiring new customer service agents and being more flexible with some of its policies, particularly for its best customers.
Will it work? Maybe. There’s also this to consider: The airline industry as a whole isn’t scoring well with its customers, with one or two notable exceptions. Major “legacy” carriers such as Northwest Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines are unlikely to allow US Airways to keep the top spot on the blacklist for very long.

Days Inn. People love to complain about budget hotels, including brands like Days Inn, Econo Lodge and Super 8 Motel. Whenever I get an e-mail about their stay, my first thought is that I’m reading a lost script from the classic TV show “Fawlty Towers.” Then I realize they’re not kidding. It’s difficult to quantify the actual number of complaints about hotels. The federal government doesn’t issue a monthly report card. All I have to go on are my files (which, I admit, is an inexact measure) and what the states — which regulate hotels — have to say.
And Days Inn has kept state governments pretty busy. After 9/11, a Days Inn in New York was penalized for raising room rates by as much as 185 percent in the days following the terrorist attack. And after Hurricane Charlie churned through Florida in 2004, another Days Inn was accused of gouging homeless storm victims. The hotel reportedly paid $70,000 to settle the complaint.
You don’t have to spend a lot of time on sites like Tripadvisor or My3Cents to get an idea of what guests think of many Days Inn hotels. But if you look around, you also see that the hotel chain is hardly alone when it comes to generating complaints. Rich Roberts, a spokesman for Days Inn, says he is unaware of any recent increases in guest gripes, and points out that with 1,862 properties and 150,984 rooms worldwide, his is one of the largest hotel chains in the world, which may account for the volume of letters and calls. “We understand the importance of delivering a positive experience to every guest,” he told me. “Are we perfect? No. But we do our best to avoid repeating mistakes.”

Thrifty. As with the hotel category, there is no monthly report card for rental cars. I can review my own files, which have more than their fair share of Thrifty complaints. I could look at the latest J.D. Power and Associates ratings which give Thrifty a below-average grade, overall.
But it’s the surcharges that put Thrifty over the top, according to the customers I talk with. And we’re not necessarily talking about the little fees here, either. We’re talking big extras and possibly illegal ones, too. Last year, the former owner of a Thrifty location in Billings, Mont., was convicted in a federal court for conspiring with an auto glass business to overcharge for windshield replacements.
I’ve seen this kind of thing before. A few years ago, I was flooded with complaints about Enterprise. Seems the company was aggressively — and some customers said, fraudulently — pursuing damage claims. Eventually, Enterprise backed down, to the relief of its customers. In other words, the lead car in this race changes often. Yesterday it was Enterprise. Today it might be Thrifty. Tomorrow, who knows?

Princess. Picking a cruise line for this list was the biggest challenge. There’s no way to independently verify the number of complaints about cruises. The Federal Maritime Commission doesn’t issue a regular report on the number of grievances it gets in the same way the Transportation Department publishes an airline report card. And even if it did, I’ve found that cruise complaints tend to be among the most frivolous — long laundry lists of nitpicky items that don’t always rise to the level of legitimacy.
It isn’t even that Princess generates more grievances than the others. (I asked Princess spokeswoman Julie Benson, and she said the cruise line hadn’t experienced any recent surge in complaints.) It’s that when passengers do complain, the company’s attitude often seems to be dismissive. And that doesn’t exactly encourage customers to book another sailing on The Love Boat. My colleague Anita Potter documents the company’s apparent indifference in a recent column in which a passenger is wrongfully denied boarding and then ignored when she asks for a refund of her expenses. Princess is remarkably consistent. Even my requests for assistance on behalf of other travelers are usually met with a “we’ll look into it” followed by a long silence. One reader recently referred to its passenger relations department as a fortress. That’s a good way to put it.

Should you avoid these companies, too? In a perfect world, travelers would be able to boycott companies that gave them bad services. In reality, they can’t. You don’t always have a choice in airline, hotel, car rental agency or even cruise line. But that shouldn’t stop you from keeping score.
I’ll be taking a close look at what makes the travel business tick in this column that appears here every Monday.

LIFE IS SO SHORT.
SO, THINK WHAT IS GOOD,
SPEAK WHAT IS KIND,
AND TRY TO LIVE YOUR BEST,
THEN THIS WORLD WILL BE BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL TO YOU

WHEN MONEY IS LOST NOTHING IS LOST.
WHEN HEALTH IS LOST SOMETHING IS LOST.
WHEN CHARACTER IS LOST EVERYTHING IS LOST

LIVE LIKE A CANDLE,
WHICH BURNS ITSELF,
BUT GIVES LIGHT TO OTHERS.

IMPOSE YOUR OWN TERMS UPON LIFE.
IF YOU DON'T YOU WILL HAVE TO ACCEPT THE TERMS OF OTHERS.

LOOK BACKWARDS WITH GRATITUDE,
UPWARDS WITH CONFIDENCE
AND FORWARD WITH HOPE.

WHEN YOU TRULY CARE FOR SOMEONE,
YOU DON'T LOOK FOR FAULTS,
YOU DON'T LOOK FOR ANSWERS,
YOU DON'T LOOK FOR MISTAKES,
INSTEAD YOU FIGHT THE MISTAKES,
YOU ACCEPT THE FAULTS,
AND YOU OVERLOOK THE EXCUSES.

Chinese couple tried to name baby "@"

A Chinese couple tried to name their baby "@", claiming the character used in e-mail addresses echoed their love for the child, an official trying to whip the national language into line said on Thursday.

The unusual name stands out especially in Chinese, which has no alphabet and instead uses tens of thousands of multi-stroke characters to represent words.

"The whole world uses it to write e-mail, and translated into Chinese it means 'love him'," the father explained, according to the deputy chief of the State Language Commission Li Yuming.

While the "@" simple is familiar to Chinese e-mail users, they often use the English word "at" to sound it out -- which with a drawn out "T" sounds something like "ai ta", or "love him", to Mandarin speakers.

Li told a news conference on the state of the language that the name was an extreme example of people's increasingly adventurous approach to Chinese, as commercialisation and the Internet break down conventions.

Another couple tried to give their child a name that rendered into English sounds like "King Osrina."

Li did not say if officials accepted the "@" name. But earlier this year the government announced a ban on names using Arabic numerals, foreign languages and symbols that do not belong to Chinese minority languages.

Sixty million Chinese faced the problem that their names use ancient characters so obscure that computers cannot recognise them and even fluent speakers were left scratching their heads, said Li, according to a transcript of the briefing on the government Web site (www.gov.cn).

One of them was the former Premier Zhu Rongji, whose name had a rare "rong" character that gave newspaper editors headaches.

finished an unbelievable book. i seem to be saying THAT A LOT, but it's true. this was truly amazing. it made me feel...awakened. her narrative is so alive and real: it gave me real dreamy palpitations. what a writer. what a book! i actually read it very carefully. i truly felt transported. this is why i love books: they transport you to a scenario you've never imagined.

it's just amazing how many people have the time to do this. okay, i'm just as guilty: i've built my own apt, went to church, even sat in on a law course @ the harvard second life law school, made second life friends but it seems like it was only good for the 1st 6 months: now i still have money in the second life bank and it's just sitting there.

how do they have the time to do this?!?!?!?

okay okay i know how: it's very addictive...just like law & order: SVU...

this weekend was very very packed with action. friday was pretty easy-going actually, didn't do much, just watched lots of law & order: SVU and becoming jane. saturday, i watched the simpsons movie, which was a riot! then on sunday after church, i watched 10 hrs of law & order: SVU on the USA channel. yes, i'm obsessed. am i tired? nah.

i think my roommie might be a genius. or weird.

i gave her one of the long island corns which my boss brought back for me. i told her about it as she was coming out of her room "do you want corn? yeah? okay i'll leave you one."

she has this dreamy look and i don't mean the look one has when one's fallen in love. it's a look that says "it's hazy...and i'm dreaming about some things...and am i really here?"

i don't think she does drugs. i think she's just plain weird.

or...she's a genius.

puerto rico/san juan was very relaxing. i think a 4-day trip is perfect: fly-in, beach, beach, eat, eat, beach some more, eat of course more, and fly-out. how fun. hot as hell but that's the whole point, isn't it?

read an unbelievable book on the beach: W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge. INCREDIBLE. i couldn't put it down. now i really want to go back to paris and travel. wow...this guy can really develop characters! it's not really a beachy-book, but once you get into it, i think you'd just get burned (like i did) and just carrying on reading the book. i give my 2 thumbs up for this! then i started my 2nd non-beachy beach book, James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. i read through about 1/4 of it (it's not a long one) and i had to put it down. i was getting headaches just reading it, trying to follow it. it was like reading via your 2nd language (well, 3rd in my case). ugh....i have no clue how to read this book. i could follow the plot alright, but i wasn't getting anything out of it. it was like studying for an exam, and who wants to do that at my age, especially at a beach!?!?!? i do NOT recommend this book as a beach book.

on another note, today was exciting because i just picked up my harry potter book from the library. VERY excited. so i won't be posting in the next few days as i work, teach, eat dinner with friends, facebooking, squeezing in book reading, no blogging. have a good week!

i've been getting addicted (okay, not geteting, but just am) to law & order: SVU. so much so that i feel like there's a narrative going on in my head everytime i'm walking, doing things or just even thinking. this was my thought-trail on my way to work this morning:

scene: walking out of the 59th Street-Lexington subway station

olivia benson: "our vic was walking to work, without any care in the world"
Elliot Stabler: shakes his head
benson: look, she obviously stopped at 58th & lex, looking at the fruit cart. you can see her foot print in the rain/mud here
stabler: she obviously loves fruit...or was it the person who was selling it that drew her to the stand?
benson: she certainly didn't linger long
stabler: it was raining pretty hard
benson: look over there elliott. this is her new york times. she had the newsprint ink on her fingers
stabler: looks like she only read the arts section and threw out the other ones
benson: well, we know that our vic was in the arts

etc.

i'm going crazy!

L: OMG
did you hear this?
in australia
a couple was trying to name their kid
4Real
C: HAHAAHAH
L: and the country won't allow it
but the thing is
the parents and the kid are ADORABLE
so now he will be registered as REAL
C: HAHAAHAHAH
hey real
L: HEY YOU
C: "is this for real?"
"what is?"
"this package"
"...yes it's a real package"
L: you are out of control
C: "no, this is for real?"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
that can go on and on
HAHAHAAHHA

this week, i was off from work, as the office is undergoing some serious renovation: repainting and recarpeting. it's as if we're moving to another location. it was a good time to throw out many things and of course, to plan new locations for items, etc. fun...

i meant to stop by a beach this week, but somehow the week flew. today finally, i got to go to the robert moses state park beach, which is my favorite in fire island.

it was a relaxing 4 hours, sleeping, listening to music, and of course, - AS USUAL - being burnt alive. it was truly a great SoCal weather!!! water really makes me happy...

am back to NYC for 40 hours (well, by now, 22 hrs). bumped into my roommate in the subway yesterday going home from teaching.

we actually had a normal convo! i found out that she's an only child of an elderly couple (her mom was 21 when she married her hubby of 44 years old - but didn't have my roommate until the mom was in her 40's and now my roommie's dad is in his 80's!!!), no siblings, all the cousins are way way older, so i said, wow, you must be pretty spoiled. and she said actually, that's very true. i am the youngest in my extended family.

she also told me that she hates her birthstate of GA (sorry Boy & Girl's Mommy!), hates driving, so she loves NYC. she loves the apt & the easy commute it provides. she was a part-timer last semester but from fall, she said she'll be doing a full-time, a combined BA/MA track. she even waited with me as i got sushi from the local japinese (that's no misspelling: it's for those combo japanese & chinese restaurants) and chatted. she's definitely a quiet one, but now, i think we're reaching some sort of roommate-ship!!!

greetings from toronto. it's such a beautiful and POLITE and SMILEY city. boy, i have forgotten how nice everyone here is. what's wrong with them!?!?! hahahaha i've been in nyc too long :)

anyway, it's pretty crazy, being with such international cast of crew here, the journalists from abroad always bring me to the latest european way of thinking and other newsy bits. the hotel is nice and everything not TOO coordinated (i mean, it IS the 1st year of the festival) but still, very enjoyable and i believe the guests are enjoying as well.

back to nyc on wed night and then back up here again on friday.

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) <--- that's Canadian for "Have a nice rest of the week!"

yesterday was my 10th year anniversary @ the company where i work at. it was literally the 10th anniversay DAY, as i graduated from my masters on friday before the memorial day in 1997, started work on tuesday right after memorial day.

so my boss & his wife took me out to Daniel and what a treat it was!

throughout the 3 hr dinner, i was floating in champagne, red & white wines, 3 courses that were absolutely delightful and pre- and post-dinner goodies from the resaturant. i really want to get married there now (i know, i know, i should first get a live human male first and then decide what to do, right?).

it was a wonderful night!

saw shrek the 3rd on monday. it was very enjoyable, especially puss :) and so many others, too numerous to mention.

been reading these books by elizabeth aston. very enjoyable!

i hate people who say "i'm trying my best." <--- i know, that's random.

yesterday, i made my 14 y.o. student cry at the piano lesson. it's been awhile since i made a student cry. honestly, it wasn't my fault. he's just very emotional. i've been teaching this kid since he was 5. needless to say, we've developed a special bond and due to that, sometimes he thinks just anything would fly: nuh-uh. whether we're close or not, i'm still his teacher and i made a point of that. a case in point:

boy: "why do i have to repeat it? i already did it"
me: "because that's practicing - AS YOU KNOW. do it again from that line"
boy: "why?"
me: boy, do it again
boy: "i don't wanna do it again. i've already done it"
me: do it again
boy: "WHATEVER"
me: okay, boy, i guess you don't need my guidance. i'm leaving
boy: "what?!?! why??" *starts to cry*
me: why are you crying? obviously, you don't need my teaching. you think i'm putting you through torture for no reason but to spite you. so you don't need my abuse
boy: "no...i'm sorry..."
etc.

so i didn't leave. he said he'd feel worse if i left. after the lesson, it was as if nothing happened. sunny disposition again. all that teenage hormones gone away.

sigh - i can't wait to be a parent..
NOT!!!!!!!!

what the heck....

From today's CNN.COM:

Dad dumps preschooler in box for unwanted newborns

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- A Japanese drop box for unwanted babies triggered a wave of nationwide soul searching Wednesday, a day after it was discovered a preschooler -- and not an infant -- had been dumped there by his father on its first day of operation.

Nationally circulated newspapers warned that the anonymous drop-off, known as "Stork's Cradle," is open for abuse and could traumatize youngsters. They also condemned the father, saying his action could spur copycats.

The drop-off was opened last Thursday by the Catholic-run Jikei Hospital in the southern city of Kumamoto to discourage abortions and the abandonment of children in unsafe public places. The same day, a boy believed to be 3 was found inside.

The boy, who was in good health, reportedly said he was dropped off by his father, who was seen holding the youngster's hand as they approached the hospital. They apparently rode Japan's bullet train to Kumamoto, but it was unclear where they lived.

"I came with Daddy," the boy was quoted as saying by the Mainichi newspaper.

The find triggered a wave of outrage among political leaders on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saying "Anonymously throwing out a child is unacceptable." He urged parents to consult social workers for help if raising children gets too tough.

Local media reported that the boy was able to identify himself by name. But it was unclear whether the father had been identified.

The hospital has refused to comment on the case, citing privacy concerns, but said there were age limits on its drop-off service.

Police have decided no crime was committed in the current case because the child was left in a situation in which it was not exposed to immediate harm, Kyodo News reported Wednesday.

"We must rethink the meaning of the baby drop-off," the conservative Sankei newspaper said in an editorial. "Unlike a baby, a toddler may suffer from trauma."

"This little boy must be experiencing great loneliness. We urge his mother or father to come forward," the newspaper said, calling his abandonment "unforgivable."

The Yomiuri newspaper said it was too early to judge the baby-drop, but said that it must be used for its original purpose of receiving newborns, not young children. Parents should also be encouraged to seek outside help before dumping their offspring.

The Mainichi said the misuse of the box could inspire copycats.

A small hatch on the side of the hospital has been set up to allow people to drop off babies into an incubator 24 hours a day.

The drop box was created after a series of high-profile cases in which newborn babies were left behind in parks and supermarkets, triggering a public outcry and government warnings against abandoning babies.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/05/16/baby.drop.ap/index.html

as if i don't have enough to pay things off, this morning i went to the post office get a money order of $165 payable to the Town of Sullivan Court, NY. yes, that's for a speeding ticket. how can the fine be $110 and then "surcharge" of $55??? ridiculous...i guess *I* was ridiculous in speeding...WAH!!!!

it's good to be back home. 3 days in costa rica was very relaxing, contrary to my pre-trip jitters. thank you all for your prayers. it was fun being with the in-laws of my sis-in-law and my own family to celebrate my nephew liam's 1st birthday. what a big deal! it felt like the entire city of san jose celebrated his b-day.

and guess what: there was a KOREAN RESTAURANT in san jose. isn't that unbelievable? koreans are asian jews - we just went everywhere, i guess!

last night, i saw a great sony classics film that'll be coming out at the end of june called VITUS at the tribeca film festival. wow...check it out.

that nor'easter was a BIG BAD NEWS FOR ME. no, it's not that i don't have good raingear: it's because of this:

i went off by amtrak to rochester on that saturday to attend my friend's baby shower. saturday in rochester, while nothing going on, was a blissfully peaceful day. i tinkered with their new steinway grand and it was good. sunday was the baby shower AND the storm hit (NYC, that is, not rochester). my jetblue flight was (OF COURSE) cancelled and i ended up renting an SUV to drive down. my coworker was out on vacation on monday and that meant only my boss would be alone in the office on monday.

so i started to drive in rochester, which was fine...then within 1 hour of driving on I-90, i got pulled over.

have you ever been pulled over? it's like COPS show LIVE - you feel like a criminal and there are sirens and lights & tapping on the windows with their flashlights saying "ma'am, license & registration please."

that's what happened. i had no idea why i was pulled over, so i was very (already) prickly and not at all nice. i was very impatient to get this LONG DRIVE out of the way. this was our convo with the state police:

"do you know why i pulled you over?"
"no. why?"
"you were going 90 on a 65 mph road"
"WHAT? no way."
"didn't you see the speedometer?"
"it's so dark out here, i can't see anything."
"you couldn't see anything? where are you going?"
"there was a storm in NYC so my flight got cancelled so i've rented a car and going down"
"do you have the license & registration?"
"i have a license but no registration. i have a car rental agreement"
"i'll be right back"

10 minutes goes by and i'm getting more antsy & prickly. like...I WANNA GET OUTTA HERE AND START DRIVING AND GO HOME!!!

"okay ma'am, here's the summon."
"...what do you mean, a summon?"
"it's a speeding summon and you have two choices: either plead guilty and pay the fine or plead not guilty & show up at the court listed below."
"how much is the fine?"
"it depends on the judge who reads your summon."
"...."
"have a nice day, ma'am"

that was it. and i got a print-out of a 2 pager that said i was speeding at 80 mph. at least he reduced it!

then later i found out that speeding is REALLY BAD, not because i get a ticket but because it affects your insurance - which i don't really have to worry about, since I don't own a car.

that was the beginning of my bad luck: it started to snow, like there was no tomorrow. not just snow, but SIDEWAYS and it was sticking. I barely made to Albany in 4 hours (should've been 3 hours from Rochester), checked into a Marriott there, which of course, they charged me an arm & a leg, and slept fitfully for 4 hours. Got up at 4 AM, started off again, but it was STILL snowing in Albany, and then started to hailing & sleeting. It was as if the Mother Nature was telling me "DO NOT GO TO NYC!"

on NY state Thruway, i drove from Albany to NYC in 7 hours. YES SEVEN HOURS. It should've been a 3 hour drive on a normal day, so i thought maybe 5 hours. No 7, because twice, I was crawling like with other cars, because this stupid TOLL WAY was FLOODED!!! good thing i had an SUV. and yes, it was STILL POURING.

by the time i got to my apartment, i was majorly fatigued & hungry AND it was already 11 AM on Monday morning. Needless to say, I've already communicated with my boss who told me to take it easy and come in when possible.

i was in the office at 12:30 PM, after showering & lunching.

that was the end.

OR SO I THOUGHT.

this past friday, i got a call from my storage: in the entire building, 4 storage units have been affected by the nor'easter and 1 of them is mine. please come & check if anything's ruined.

i go in and 75% stuff are WET. my keyboard is there, all wrapped in bubble wrap and miraculously, it's not wet. but all my spring & summer jackets & blazers are COMPLETELY wet. i am told to go home & get camera, take pictures and file a phone claim. i go home & get camera. i do the claim. then it's time to move everything to a new unit. which i do. then all the boxes are wet. so i have to come back, as the storage is closing soon. this weekend, the weather was gorgeous on saturday. i did not see much of it. i was inside, moving things around, throwing out things, etc. i ended up taking all my jackets, about 20 of them, to the cleaners, threw out 3 due to the rust water marks on the white jackets. it was pathetic.

the good news is that i have insurance. the other 3 ruined units DID NOT.

so. there's some sun on my nor'eastered life, after all.

i can't believe what the world is coming to. this VT shooting. kids who can just go & buy guns. it's insane.

then i read this.

it's nuts. i'm korean and to hear this kind of a reaction is just crazy. i don't particularly think koreans are "targeted" right now, but then i'm not a guy. men usually get more crap from others.

if the dude indeed wrote an islamic extremist thingy on his body/suicide note (that read ismail ax or somethin'), then i guess asians will now also be targeted at airport screenings and will take longer for trips.

oh well.

yesterday, i was talking to my mom and it was a very good in-depth talk, kind of like mother-to-daughter thing over marriages, relationships, etc. kind of talks i always wish i had during college years but instead we only fought over nothings.

during college, i had really bad manic depression and i was seeing a shrink who wouldn't given into my plea of giving me prozac. he was really a wonderful person, who listened to my crazyness (i guess that's what they're suppose to do) and saw me over the 6 years i was in school. i think i really grew to listen to my own self, etc. with him. he was really a special human being.

yesterday, while talking to my mom, i saw his face for a sec - i think because i used to vent to him about what a horrible mother she was, etc. HA HA! anyway, so i called his # - and sure enough, same #! so i said HELLO BLAH BLAH BLAH!

just now, he called me back! i too have the same number since 10 years ago (yes, i'm one of those consistent people) and he was SOOO HAPPY TO HEAR MY VOICE!!!! and he sounded exactly the same. of course, he can't tell me ANYTHING about himself as usual, except that his office moved to another location and he asked me all kinds of things - he remembered! it was so touching. he really was a good person. because i saw him for free @ school, when summers came, i couldn't afford to see him (as school was officially over, therefore didn't cover his fees), he asked me how much i can pay him to see him. at that time, i thought he was being very mean, when he knew that i had NOTHING to spend money on anything but school dorms etc. and he then gently asked "because i need to see you during summer, may i suggest something? please tell me if this is too much. how does $5 for the hour session sound?" i cried, needless to say, because of his generosity. and yes, i did work everything out. i was basically crazy because of my music, my family having gone bankrupt, etc. (plus i'm sure the hormones didn't help either.)

this made me very happy today! (i know, it's pretty random)

Your Score Summary

Overall, you scored as follows:

62% scored higher (more nerdy),
2% scored the same, and
36% scored lower (less nerdy).

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:

Not nerdy, but definitely not hip.

worse movie (DVD) of the year 2007 goes to: Copying Beethoven. yikes, it wasn't even worth the DVD time. everything was fictionalized, terribly made. i'm usually a sucker for music-themed movies (NOT musicals, mind you) but this was just too...FUNNY!

also, read a book by Barbara Taylor Bradford. i don't understand how she's a bestseller. she's the worst writer i've ever read! and believe you me, i've read a ton of stuff from trash to trasher. i have a newly found respect for danielle steel after reading BTB. yuck.

on friday @ sg, we listened to this after the mini-seder and cried my eyes out! she was so admirable. as for the japanese...

omg, i just heard about my old cat, hey you. well, his new name is Boris. so apparently Hakan, the new owner (well, not new since i dropped him off in 2003!!!!!) has a chair for him in the dining table. so whenever they eat, hey you/boris jumps on HIS chair, puts his chin on the table and watches everyone eat.

i knew that cat was born a dog!!! i miss him!!!!!! awwwwwwww

i almost fell for this on april 1!

this is an amazing book. i must've lost half of the body water, crying my eyes out. i highly recommend it!!!

lost my blackberry on sat night AND i got sick: a double whammy. unable to reach people, except to actually get up from the bed and turn on the computer - what a concept! i called every single taxi & limo lost precincts in the 5 boroughs, nada. probably too early. wah! it's not that it's the device i lost i'm worried about: it's all the data in there: people's info (personal ones too like people's b-days, nicknames, fav presents, etc.), datebook, all my passwords, etc.

WHY DIDN"T I LOCK THE DEVICE?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

t-mobile said nobody has used it since sat night. which is good.

on another note, i went to see this on that fateful (for blackberry at least) night and he was amazing. the play was NOT GOOD.

back home now. never appreciated my lil' twin-sized loft bed as last night. so happy to sleep in a clean sheet. it's like going into a hotel (whenever i depart for a trip, i always changed sheets, etc. so that when i arrive, i'll have clean sheets to hit me with!).

europe was great. loved being in zurich. it's a doable city. possibly to live there too. but as i've written before, i really got sick of trying to speak german, listening to german, etc. german for 8 days. although at the end of the 8th day, i actually had no problem communicating with people at groceries, drug stores, etc. crazy right?

london was just too expensive. that's all i can come back with: $$$$. it's exactly double the american dollar now and it's just not the right time to travel to europe, period. dollar is falling falling and it's not even good to go to asia. perhaps travel to africa?

what i come back with is that i have newly found love for artist egon schiele. he died at age 28, was pretty amazing. i've seen his entire collection, being in zurich, basel and vienna. what an artist. saw all the works of klimt, including the kiss. unbelievable.

i am very fortunate to have seen all these precious art works (not to mention amazing works of old masters, filled with christ-themed works. just left me speechless.

i'm dying for some korean food right now. and yes, chinese food too. loved wiener schnitzel, but sick of being in smoke-filled places!!!

reporting from vienna:

finally have a moment of time to sit down and check emails and such.

i started off in zurich on the 15th and it's been non-stop since then. weather was perfect and i was once again the road runner from new york: zipping around zurich and then 3 days later, in basel, then a day later in vienna. tomorrow i'm heading out to london and in a way, i look forward to hearing english spoken again. i think i'm getting a bit tired of so many museum hoppings. i've visited at least 25 museums since the 15th and today's onlz the 20th!!!!

okay it's been beautiful until i got to vienna and then it's snowing, i'm freezing. more details on each cities later. i've written a quite a bit of journal.

off to more meat...

gotta get crackin'!

You know the Bible 82%!

 

Wow! You are truly a student of the Bible! Some of the questions were difficult, but they didn't slow you down! You know the books, the characters, the events . . . Very impressive!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

from today's NY Times:

March 3, 2007
Beliefs
Books on Atheism Are Raising Hackles in Unlikely Places
By PETER STEINFELS
Hey, guys, can’t you give atheism a chance?
Yes, it is true that “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins has been on The New York Times best-seller list for 22 weeks and that “Letter to a Christian Nation” by Sam Harris can be found in virtually every airport bookstore, even in Texas.
So why is the new wave of books on atheism getting such a drubbing? The criticism is not primarily, it should be pointed out, from the pious, which would hardly be noteworthy, but from avowed atheists as well as scientists and philosophers writing in publications like The New Republic and The New York Review of Books, not known as cells in the vast God-fearing conspiracy.
The mother of these reviews was published last October in The London Review of Books, when Terry Eagleton, better known as a Marxist literary scholar than as a defender of faith, took on “The God Delusion.”
“Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds,” Mr. Eagleton wrote, “and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.” That was only the first sentence.
James Wood’s review of “Letter to a Christian Nation” in the Dec. 18, 2006, issue of The New Republic began, “I have not believed in God since I was fifteen.” Mr. Wood, a formidable writer who keeps picking the scab of religion in his criticism and fiction, confessed that his “inner atheist” appreciated the “hygienic function” of Mr. Harris’s and Mr. Dawkins’s ridiculing of religion and enjoyed “the ‘naughtiness’ of this disrespect, even if a little of it goes a long way.”
But, he continued, “there is a limit to how many times one can stub one’s toe on the thick idiocy of some mullah or pastor” or be told that “Leviticus and Deuteronomy are full of really nasty things.”
H. Allen Orr is an evolutionary biologist who once called Mr. Dawkins a “professional atheist.” But now, Mr. Orr wrote in the Jan. 11 issue of The New York Review of Books, “I’m forced, after reading his new book, to conclude that he’s actually more of an amateur.”
It seems that these critics hold several odd ideas, the first being that anyone attacking theology should actually know some.
“The most disappointing feature of ‘The God Delusion,’ ” Mr. Orr wrote, “is Dawkins’s failure to engage religious thought in any serious way. You will find no serious examination of Christian or Jewish theology” and “no attempt to follow philosophical debates about the nature of religious propositions.”
Mr. Eagleton surmised that if “card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins” were asked “to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Africa, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could.” He continued, “When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster.”
Naturally, critics so fussy as to imagine that serious thought about religion exists, making esoteric references to Aquinas and Wittgenstein, inevitably gripe about Mr. Harris’s and Mr. Dawkins’s equation of religion with fundamentalism and of all faith with unquestioning faith.
“Not even the dim-witted clerics who knocked me about at grammar school thought that,” Mr. Eagleton wrote.
In The New Republic last October, Thomas Nagel, a philosopher who calls himself “as much an outsider to religion” as Mr. Dawkins, was much more patient. Extracting a theoretical kernel of argument from the thumb-your-nose-at-religion chaff, Mr. Nagel nonetheless had to point out that what was meant by God was not, as Mr. Dawkins’s argument seemed to assume, “a complex physical inhabitant of the natural world.” (Mr. Eagleton had less politely characterized the Dawkins understanding of God “as some kind of chap, however supersized.”)
Nor was belief in God, Mr. Wood explained two months later, analogous to belief in a Celestial Teapot, the comic example Mr. Dawkins borrowed from Bertrand Russell.
If this insistence on theology beyond the level of Pat Robertson and biblical literalism was not enough, several reviews went on to carp about double standards.
Mr. Orr, for example, noted the contrast between Mr. Dawkins’s skepticism toward traditional proofs for God’s existence and Mr. Dawkins’s confidence that his own “Ultimate Boeing 747” proof demonstrated scientifically that God’s existence was highly improbable.
Mr. Eagleton compared Mr. Dawkins’s volubility about religion’s vast wrongs with his silence “on the horrors that science and technology have wreaked on humanity” and the good that religion has produced.
“In a book of almost 400 pages, he can scarcely bring himself to concede that a single human benefit has flowed from religious faith, a view which is as a priori improbable as it is empirically false,” Mr. Eagleton wrote. “The countless millions who have devoted their lives selflessly to the service of others in the name of Christ or Buddha or Allah are wiped from human history — and this by a self-appointed crusader against bigotry.”
In Mr. Orr’s view, “No decent person can fail to be repulsed by the sins committed in the name of religion,” but atheism has to be held to the same standard: “Dawkins has a difficult time facing up to the dual fact that (1) the 20th century was an experiment in secularism; and (2) the result was secular evil, an evil that, if anything, was more spectacularly virulent than that which came before.”
Finally, these critics stubbornly rejected the idea that rational meant scientific. “The fear of religion leads too many scientifically minded atheists to cling to a defensive, world-flattening reductionism,” Mr. Nagel wrote.
“We have more than one form of understanding,” he continued. “The great achievements of physical science do not make it capable of encompassing everything, from mathematics to ethics to the experiences of a living animal. We have no reason to dismiss moral reasoning, introspection or conceptual analysis as ways of discovering the truth just because they are not physics.”
So what is the beleaguered atheist to do? One possibility: take pride in the fact that this astringent criticism comes from people and places that honor the honest skeptic’s commitment to full-throated questioning.

i've been reading francine rivers' books lately. finished redeeming love, the prince (about jonathan & david) and now on to unshaken, which is about ruth. i cannot put these books down!!!! so much fun to read and somehow, very overwhelming (i feel like crying every other page. what's wrong with me?!?!). i highly recommend them to you! i have 10 books to go, all waiting for me, courtesy of the new york public library :)

this is very exciting:

'Star Trek' release date set
LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter) -- Captain's log: December 25, 2008.
Paramount Pictures has set a Christmas Day 2008 release date for the 11th "Star Trek" feature, to be filmed by "Mission: Impossible III" director J.J. Abrams. Shooting will begin in the fall, Paramount said Tuesday.
The screenplay, from "M:I 3" scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, is said to follow James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock during their Starfleet Academy years and into their first space mission.
The previous film in the series, the 2002 box office bomb, "Star Trek: Nemesis," was directed by Stuart Baird, and starred Patrick Stewart.

this director (for titanic) is the most ridiculous man ever!

from today's cnn.com:

Archaeologists, scholars dispute Jesus documentary
Story Highlights• Documentary claims to have found bones of Jesus' family• Film suggests Jesus may have had son• Archaeologists, religious scholars skeptical• Oscar-winner James Cameron directed film
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Archaeologists and clergymen in the Holy Land derided claims in a new documentary produced by the Oscar-winning director James Cameron that contradict major Christian tenets.
"The Lost Tomb of Christ," which the Discovery Channel will run on March 4, argues that 10 ancient ossuaries -- small caskets used to store bones -- discovered in a suburb of Jerusalem in 1980 may have contained the bones of Jesus and his family, according to a press release issued by the Discovery Channel.
One of the caskets even bears the title, "Judah, son of Jesus," hinting that Jesus may have had a son. And the very fact that Jesus had an ossuary would contradict the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven. (Watch why it could be any Mary, Jesus and Joseph in those boxes)
Most Christians believe Jesus' body spent three days at the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City. The burial site identified in Cameron's documentary is in a southern Jerusalem neighborhood nowhere near the church.
In 1996, when the BBC aired a short documentary on the same subject, archaeologists challenged the claims. Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards but makes for profitable television.
"They just want to get money for it," Kloner said.
The claims have raised the ire of Christian leaders in the Holy Land.
"The historical, religious and archaeological evidence show that the place where Christ was buried is the Church of the Resurrection," said Attallah Hana, a Greek Orthodox clergyman in Jerusalem. The documentary, he said, "contradicts the religious principles and the historic and spiritual principles that we hold tightly to."
Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem who was interviewed in the documentary, said the film's hypothesis holds little weight.
"I don't think that Christians are going to buy into this," Pfann said. "But skeptics, in general, would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear."
"How possible is it?" Pfann said. "On a scale of one through 10 -- 10 being completely possible -- it's probably a one, maybe a one and a half."
Pfann is even unsure that the name "Jesus" on the caskets was read correctly. He thinks it's more likely the name "Hanun."
Kloner also said the filmmakers' assertions are false.
"It was an ordinary middle-class Jerusalem burial cave," Kloner said. "The names on the caskets are the most common names found among Jews at the time."
Archaeologists also balk at the filmmaker's claim that the James Ossuary -- the center of a famous antiquities fraud in Israel -- might have originated from the same cave. In 2005, Israel charged five suspects with forgery in connection with the infamous bone box.
"I don't think the James Ossuary came from the same cave," said Dan Bahat, an archaeologist at Bar-Ilan University. "If it were found there, the man who made the forgery would have taken something better. He would have taken Jesus."
Although the documentary makers claim to have found the tomb of Jesus, the British Broadcasting Corporation beat them to the punch by 11 years.
Osnat Goaz, a spokeswoman for the Israeli government agency responsible for archaeology, declined to comment before the documentary was aired.

Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02/26/jesus.sburial.ap/index.html

a lot has happened this past weekend. this is the weekend update time with seapea:

1. eczema update

so i went to my acu and did cupping. omg. i thought i was gonna die. the actual process of cupping isn't painful at all but he literally bled me from my fingers, my toes, behind my knees (!!!!) and on my back and all this black blood came out (strangely enough, no blood came out from my right hand. he said only the leftside, which affects the heart, came out black - ew). laying there with face down, i really thought he was cutting me but later when i got up, i saw that it was tiny lil' holes and didn't even hurt when i push on 'em. i guess when you're vulnerable, things hurt more? anyway, purple, yellow & black things came outta my back in the cupping cup. how gross, i know, but all i can say is that i feel a lot better.so for the next 2 weeks i have to:

- put on camocare smoothing cream whenever it itches
- drink strong chamomile & chrysanthemum tea whenever possible to "flush out" for the skin
- avoid all white starch: white rice, white pasta, etc.
- avoid all fried food; all oily food, unless it's with olive oil
- needless to say, no diary (since i'm lactose intolerant anyway)
- no shellfish (i'm allergic to shrimp, but he said no shellfish, period)
- drink aloe juice throughout the day

wah! but it's already working - i'm not crazy itchy anymore! i'm slathering things on but now i know chamomile is good for your skin. otherwise, why would i drink this "flower"?!?!!

2. roommate update:

we've established some kinda "truth" - if you can call it that. the other night, i wanted to watch 'the departed' (which i had from netflix) and she had just gotten home, so i asked if she wanted to watch with. she mumbled yes. then we watched it together. last night, i was starting to watch the Oscars and she asked "can i watch it too?" (duh - what does she think i am - tv nazi?) so she joined me in watching that boring telecast.

so i guess overall a good weekend!

From NY Times:
February 21, 2007
Gathering Once a Month for a Voyage to Narnia
By LILY KOPPEL
On a recent Friday night, 30 fans of the writer C. S. Lewis sat in folding chairs under a vaulted ceiling surrounded by gilt-framed oil paintings of Episcopal priests. Like Lucy Pevensie, the youngest of the four children in Lewis’s book “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” who opens a wardrobe to discover the icy land of Narnia, the members of the New York C. S. Lewis Society immerse themselves in the writer’s fantastical realm.
Members of the group, which calls itself the oldest society in the world for the appreciation of Lewis’s works, gather on the second Friday of every month in the parish hall of the Church of the Ascension at 12 West 11th Street in Greenwich Village.
Among those at the latest meeting were Margaret Goodman, 70, an opera singer and actress who wore a small golden lion pin, and Christopher Mitchell, the director of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College in Illinois, which has the world’s largest holding of papers and books by Lewis.
The society’s secretary, Clara Sarrocco, 60, traces her obsession to when she was 16, attending a Catholic high school in Queens, where she lives. “One of my teachers came in and mentioned a book written from one demon to another demon,” she said of Lewis’s “Screwtape Letters.” “Real diabolical-sounding.”
When she was in her 20s, Ms. Sarrocco clipped an advertisement for the society from a magazine. “I stuck it in my mirror,” she said. “Every time I looked in the mirror, I kept on saying, ‘I have to go there.’ I was a little intimidated.”
But her curiosity won out. Since the early 1970s, Ms. Sarrocco has been part of the society, which has about 500 subscribers to its twice-a-month bulletin from across the country and abroad, including Japan, Germany, Russia and England.
Lewis, who was born in Ireland in 1898, was a leading figure on the English faculty at Oxford University and was part of a literary group there known as the Inklings, which included J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of the “Lord of the Rings” books.
The Lewis society’s longest active members are a married couple, Alexandra and James Como. He is a Lewis scholar and the chairman of the Department of Performing and Fine Arts at York College in Jamaica, Queens, part of the City University of New York.
The Comos were at the first meeting of the society, held on Nov. 4, 1969, at the Staten Island home of Jack Boies, a professor of English literature at Wagner College on Staten Island, and his wife, Elaine. At the second meeting, as recorded in the minutes, “a very handsome watercolor map of Narnia and adjacent places, done by Professor Boies, was handed around and admired.”
“I remember the ride over,” Ms. Como said of the first meeting. “It was winter, going over the Verrazano Bridge, which the fog had completely covered up. We felt suspended.”
Mr. Como, referring to the somewhat Narnia-like atmosphere surrounding the first meeting, added, “Staten Island is very purgatorial.”
Ms. Como reached into her purse and pulled out a pocket pack of tissues decorated with the logo of the 2005 film “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” “I was in Lima, Peru, where I’m from,” she said, “and saw this and thought, ‘Oh my God, Narnia.’ ”
Her husband added: “Lewis said there is no such thing as coincidence. I call it the Holy Spirit.”
At the Church of the Ascension, among the gray-haired members in turtlenecks and cardigans, one could see the occasional teenager, a poet or someone from what Ms. Como called the “Lord of the Rings” crowd. In almost 40 years, the only times meetings have been canceled were because of a snowstorm or after 9/11.
In addition to his fantasy writings, Lewis’s work also included apologetics. And that element was present at the meeting. One man in an orange sweater wore a dark wooden crucifix dangling from a leather cord. Another man, Lewis Macala, 56, a medical researcher at Yale who was new to the group, introduced himself as “an atheist until I read Lewis.”
William McClaine, a portly man wearing red suspenders and thick glasses, opened the meeting. Peter Depaula, 54, a magician from Brooklyn, followed with a traditional excerpt from Lewis’s writings. Next was a lecture by a guest speaker, Edwin Woodruff Tait, 32, an assistant professor of Bible and religion at Huntington University in Indiana.
Dr. Woodruff Tait focused on a revolution described in “Prince Caspian,” another of the seven books in the Narnia series, in which the evil King Miraz cut down the land’s talking trees, and its enchanted creatures — centaurs, dryads, fauns, naiads, unicorns and talking animals — were killed or went into hiding.
In Narnia, creativity was promoted over technology, explained Dr. Woodruff Tait, and there was an implied distrust of modern life. “Lewis’s vision was not that we all are equal, but that we are all different in our natural attitudes and natural creativity,” he said. “Narnia is not about a hierarchy of power, but each kind of creature joyfully living out their natural attitudes.”
He pointed out that the only legislation in Narnia was to prevent people’s lives from being interfered with. “Moles dig because that’s what they love to do; dwarfs smith metal because that’s what they love to do,” he said. “In Lewis there is a love of the ordinary processes of life, a love of eating. The children are always having tea and biscuits.”
Dr. Woodruff Tait concluded with a reference to Aslan, the Jesus figure depicted as a lion in the Narnia books. “Long live the true king,” he said. Tea and cake were waiting.

okay, i was about to post a picture of eczema'ed back, but after looking at google images, i decided i cannot shock people that way. ha ha!

i haven't been sleeping well for the last couple of weeks, due to my back (skin, not bone or muscular). here's some background (not that you asked):

• i have mild eczema (skin allergies)
• i used to use topical steroids
• my back (skin) got addicted to the ointment
• i've used it for about 5 years
• my family doc AND my acupuncturist both said to get off the ointment, because my back (skin) has already become thinned and will even crack/break in the future with even a bit of sunlight (not to mention exposure to skin cancer, etc.)
• that was about 3 weeks ago
• 1st week was "okay"
• 2nd week was hell
• now it's 3rd week and i'm about to cry
• i'm going back to my acupuncturist this saturday to try cupping
• i've gone through about 4 brands of moisturizers for my back (but doesn't absorb - it's like applying lotion/cream to plastic/glass surface - just slides down)
• i go to bed all moisturized, wake up 1-2 hrs later, scratching

ARGH!!!
please pray for me!!!!

in the ancient times, i bet i would be cast off the society by now for always scratching...

what the...

Cheque mate! Korean bank sends singles on blind date
Tue Feb 20, 2007 8:25 AM ET

SEOUL (Reuters) - A top South Korean bank is sending a group of its single female employees on a blind date trip to North Korea, hoping that romance will make them happy at the office, an official said Tuesday.

Hana Bank is trying to fix up 20 of its employees between the ages of 29 and 33 with 20 single South Korean men selected by a top matchmaking agency in the country, an official said.

"This trip will offer them a chance to easily meet men," said Yang Jae-hyeok in charge of the bank's division offering life services for employees.

"As our bank tries to help our employees balance their work and personal lives, we are putting more effort into improving their personal life," Yang said.

Hana Bank will pay half the fare for its employees for the two-day trip this weekend to a mountain resort in North Korea run by an affiliate of the South's Hyundai Group, which more than a million South Koreans have already visited.

Hana, a main unit of the country's No. 4 banking group Hana Financial Group, two years ago set up what it calls a "full life service" for its employees that includes subsidizing employees who enroll with matchmaking services.

It plans to offer more subsidized blind date trips for its single employees, Yang said.

it was another exhaustive weekend in beantown with my nephew. so cute!! yet so taxing!!! i really don't think i can be a mother AND a wife. maybe either/OR. (okay, so sue me, cuz nobody asked me to BE either/OR!)

o..m..g...i just spent 10 hrs babysitting. sure, my bro & sis-in-law were in and out but they basically had to do their errands today so i babysat - feeding him b'fast, lunch, and dinner. also, playtimes (basically you're "on" 24/7). he only napped 2 hrs (apparently that's a record!). i just bathed him while he was screaming, getting him into PJs, omg, i'm so tired. my back hurts, i'm half drenched. omg...

i don't think i can be a mother. i'm already tired and want to go to bed!

this week went by fast. first, i was in toronto (unfortunately no pictures - no time!!! just work work work) then now i'm in boston for the long holiday weekend.

and does this post look any different than the others? it should BECAUSE....i'm using MICROSOFT VISTA and omg it is SO COOL!!!!! i want vista now...i love new technology - i want to have them right away (except for any apple stuff...i think steve jobs is like one of the anti-christ figures; the other one is al gore, with his strategy...).

THIS IS SO COOL!!! i highly recommend yall trying it!!!

i took this test and this is what i got... is this bad?!?!? this makes me sound like jerry falwell...

You scored as Fundamentalist. You are a fundamentalist. You take the Bible as the foundation of your faith and read it very literally, and it shapes your worldview. Non-fundamentalist Christians have watered-down the Gospel in your view, and academic study of the Bible stops us from 'taking God at his word.' Science is opposed to faith, as it contradicts basic biblical truths. Fundamentalist 64% Neo orthodox 61% Reformed Evangelical 61% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 57% Emergent/Postmodern 57% Classical Liberal 46% Roman Catholic 36% Charismatic/Pentecostal 32% Modern Liberal 25% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

all my greencard-tracked physical exam's done. now i know that i don't have any syphilis, HIV, etc. etc. Got a negative on the TB test and got a Tetanus shot. YUCK.

is this TMI? ha ha!

going to toronto on monday for the first time in about 13 years. wow, how strange. i'm actually going for work, believe it or not. and i'm making sure to see my precious friend lindsay. i haven't seen her for around 13 years also. i'm wondering what that's gonna be like.

it's also bringing up old memories of my first few years in canada, as the korean-immigrant: the days of carrying dictionaries, blurs of middle school (except having a crush on one steven logan, and thinking how cool my homeroom teacher mr. schneider was). i also wonder what happened to one nicholas brown, who was the first boy ever to call me at home, got me in trouble (at age 16! life was unfair) and would totally ambush me at school by jumping outta from nowhere to smother me with hugs & kisses on the cheeks. i was so shocked - this kind of a behavior was not normal to me! AND he was younger than me by 2 years. what the heck. this went on for like a year. i wonder what happened to him.

today's passage to reflect on:

A righteous man may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all

Psalm 34:19

restaurant week is now over. this was the busiest restaurant hoppin' time i've never had. started with a big ol' juicy steak @ smith & wollensky, tasteful and yummy @ telepan, fancy but kind of predictable meal @ arabelle, yummy but predictable @ le colonial and the grand finale of all, unbelievable meal @ megu. i highly recommend taking advantage of restaurant week 2x a year!