busy day today:

First, after church a yummy place, where I appropriately acknowledged that:

then off to some errands, and then walking on 42nd street, stopped by the freight fest @ grand central:

and then to walk by the bryant park skating rink:

then leisurely walking to the concert at the nokia theatre, and to my shock, this is what saw:

but it was fine to get in to see Senses Fail:

and New Found Glory:

a busy day (and sure, i can hardly hear outta my right ear, but oh well!)!

pretty michigan.

more than ever, i think i need to bunker down and start praying for my future. one clear goal in mind is to become a full time piano teacher. i just cannot do it here in nyc.

i've always been lazy about my prayers about my future: mate, direction, work. but it's time that i really get realistic and do H(ASK).

i'm figuring that in a couple of years, my greencard will come through, and by that time, all my credit & school debts will be gone. that'll be timely for me to perhaps move to another metropolitan city where it has a huge 'burb (thereby needing music teachers), perhaps pick up a high-paying assistant job somewhere to start saving, get to know the area, and slowly get adjusted to commuting by car/getting to know a good area for kids, etc. etc.

granted this is all talking outta my fat arse - because i know that i can continue to struggle and wanting this and that...but because of God's Perfect Timing & Planning, this may just be (another) waste of a post/thought/wish.

or perhaps i'm starting to get a grip on the word FOCUS at this old age!!!

suddenly i'm sad to thinking about leaving NYC after 20 years (by that time)...leaving my church and my friends. but alas, 4th chapter of my life, whether in NYC or elsewhere, will start, perhaps sooner than later.

God will provide. Faith.

it's 3:18 AM in the morning and i'm hungry. guess i haven't really had any food since 12:30 PM yesterday.

my stupid wisdom tooth is out. am i going to be wise now?

in korean culture, the wisdom teeth are called "love teeth." i once asked my mommy who told they're called that as "when you have the pains and take them out, you're ready for love." in my naivete, i looked forward to that day.

yesterday i was horrifield and nervous. perhaps two go in hand in hand.

Ten thousand men sleep down with Davy Jones, with stolen treasure they die. The open water chills me to my bones, but it's the only place that I feel alive.

The ocean fog begins to disappear, I sense that terrible depth. The open water is my only fear, but I'll sail as long as I still have breath.

I'm starting to believe the ocean's much like you - cause it gives and it takes away.
Between the devil and the deep blue sea - I stare into the abyss.

The open water is an awful thing, but I'm anxious 'till the anchor rests.

I'm starting to believe the ocean's much like you - cause it gives and it takes away.

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Literate Good Citizen You read to inform or entertain yourself, but you're not nerdy about it. You've read most major classics (in school) and you have a favorite genre or two.
Dedicated Reader
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Book Snob
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

i am truly blessed. I'm not this boy!

The boy who is allergic to (almost) every food
Tylor Savage, 12, beginning to expand his diet now thanks to treatments
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
Updated: 10:10 a.m. ET Oct 11, 2007
Twelve-year-old Tylor Savage doesn’t have to ask what’s for dinner. It’s chicken or tuna with carrots and potatoes and maybe some grapes or an apple — the only foods to which he is not allergic.
“I’m a little bored with the same food,” Tylor told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer during a visit to New York on Thursday with his father and sister.
But the British boy is not complaining. When Lauer asked him if he wishes he could eat all the wonderful things he sees other kids wolfing down, he said, “Not really, because I know it will make me ill.”
“Ill” is a mild descriptive for what Tylor went through for most of his life. He was 4 years old the first time he got violently sick after eating. By the time he was 6, the diarrhea and vomiting were getting worse, but his doctors could find nothing wrong with him, putting his digestive problems down to stomach viruses.
“It was horrible,” his 15-year-old sister, Elycia, said.
“It broke my heart,” added his father, David Savage, who made the trip to New York with Tylor and Elycia. Tylor’s mother, Lynne, remained at home in England with the family’s third child.
By the time he was 10, Tylor’s situation was desperate. He was passing out, going into convulsions and passing blood from both ends of his digestive tract. His weight was down to less than 50 pounds, his growth stunted, his body little more than skin and bones.
His mystified doctors took out his appendix, thinking that might be the problem, but he showed no improvement.
Last September, specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, where he’d been undergoing tests since April 2006, realized that what Tylor had wasn’t a stomach virus but an extremely rare condition called eosinophilic enteropathy.
The disorder causes his intestines to produce too many white blood cells that act as an immune system and attack food passing through the gut.
Doctors found that he was allergic to nearly everything he ate, including wheat, gluten, dairy products, eggs and soy products.
On the mendThey took him off all food, feeding him a liquid formula through a gastric tube inserted through his nose. They then introduced him to one food at a time, making sure he could tolerate it before adding another. Recently, tuna joined chicken as a protein source.
Although Tylor could eat again, he still needs to be fed vitamins and minerals in liquid form. The tube through his nose was causing painful sores where it rubbed against his nose, so in May it was replaced by a port in his stomach. Every night, Tylor plugs a tube connected to a bag of formula into his stomach.
Since getting the stomach tube and finding solid foods he can eat without getting sick, Tylor is thriving. Last year, he was so sick, he attended just 10 days of school. This year, he’s missed only one day.
“I’ve got more energy now,” he told Lauer. He plays soccer and bowls and can roughhouse with other kids. “It’s not like I used to be.”
His sister, meanwhile, has been organizing events — she bungee-jumped earlier this year — to raise funds to help others with Tylor’s condition.
He said that his diet will expand. “There’s a lot of things I am allowed but haven’t been introduced to yet,” he said.
The plane flight to New York, he said, was too long, but he said he’s enjoying the city. Lauer asked if there was anything in particular he wanted to do.
“I want to go to a Nintendo event,” he said. “I’ve got some games I need to play.”
© 2007 MSNBC Interactive

Using the Joy of Cooking's Recipe for the Lightning Cake, Here is the recipe for the Pocari Sweat Cake - the World's First!!!!

1. Have all ingredients at room tempearture
   
2. Preheat oven to 350F


3. Grease and flour one 8" (2" deep) aluminum pan (the best)


4. Whisk together thoroughly:
   1 cup all-purpose flour
   1 teaspoon baking powder
   1/4 teaspoon salt


5. In a large bowl, beat until creamy, about 30 seconds:
   8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter


6. Gradually add and beat on high speed until lightened in color and texture, 3 to 5 minutes:
   1 cup of POCARI SWEAT (this in lieu of 1 cup of sugar)


7. Beat in 1 at a time:
   3 large eggs


8. Beat in:
   1 teaspoon grated lemon zest (COMPLETELY OPTIONAL)
   2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice


9. Stir in the flour mixture just until smooth. Scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly.


10. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes.
    

Let cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes.I'd recommend some kind of not-too-sugary frosting to decorate the top as it's a bit ugly to just have it as is. Filled with electrolytes, this is GOOD STUFF!!

um...i don't think so!!!!!!!

peanuts

made a REALL YUMMY meatloaf with friends. Here's the recipe (thanks Martha!), BUT!!!!

instead of putting in extra ketchup, dry mustard & brown sugar for dressing, i accidentally put it in the meat mix - but you know what, it was damn good! (i omitted the extra ketchup & dry mustard, but i did put in brown sugar into the meat - which made me question Martha's sanity at the time of mixing but oh well...it was actually MY sanity that i had to question, but...)

good luck!

next recipe coming...a real secret!!!! will post it on Sunday, October 14th.

7:17 AM on Wednesday on 6th avenue. FOGGY.

it's the "new year" for me as of today. do i feel any different? not really. is there anything different going on? not really. yes, i'm the same old boring seapea.

however, i must add that in the recent weeks, days, i've been feeling so so blessed. i feel myself growing again in christ, expanding (physically, i'm trying not to), being stretched. i am thankful. i am happy. i am joyous.

emotionally, i'm up and down, but not as destructively as before, but with new awareness of where i am in god's plan, being the apple of HIS eyes.

i've been exceptionally blessed this year with those who have befriended me: who's been constantly guiding me, challenging me, feeding me (figuratively & cerebrally).

so yes, in that way, this is indeed a whole new year.

The Facebook Commandments
How to deal with unwanted friend requests, the ethics of de-friending, and other social networking etiquette predicaments.

By Reihan SalamPosted Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007, at 11:06 AM ET

Last week, I launched the Great Facebook Purge of 2007. In one fell swoop, I whittled down a list of 274 "friends" to a more manageable … um, 258. Even weeding out this tiny amount of people was difficult and unpleasant. Almost every subtraction made me wince. While my intention had been to de-friend every hanger-on and casual acquaintance, I just couldn't do it. All I could stomach is eliminating everyone I've literally never met in my life. I still have three "friends" I know only via e-mail, though given that we're firmly in the Digital Age, I figure this is acceptable.
Chances are you've faced a similar dilemma. At around 40 million members, from high schoolers to middle managers to old folks, Facebook is now one of the most popular Web tools. Facebook makes it easier to keep in touch with old friends, track your acquaintances' every minuscule movement, and learn that all of your "cool" pals love Grandma's Boy more than life itself. There is a downside to the site's sudden rise to ubiquity. If you've been on Facebook for more than a week, you've probably gotten a friend request from someone you don't know, someone you hate, or someone you don't want snooping around your profile. Before promiscuous friending turns into a full-blown crisis, it's about time we came up with some basic guidelines for social networking etiquette.
What should you do when someone you don't like or don't know sends you a friend request?
Most of you will hold your nose and accept the request. But why? This is like allowing a corsair-wielding pirate to board your vessel without a fight. Once you've accepted too many faux friends, Facebook becomes a real slog. One of the site's great strengths is that it allows you to manage privacy settings: Do you want everyone you went to college with to see your photos, or only actual friends? That ability to customize is great, but once you've accepted someone as a friend, policing these subtle gradations can be a drag.
There's also an information overload problem. When your friends update their profiles, the new info filters out to you via the News Feed, a constantly updated digest of seemingly mundane facts that can, over time, give you a neat, evolving portrait of your friends' outer lives. (And, of course, your updates also filter out, so anyone who cares will eventually discover, say, your affinity for Grandma's Boy.) The further your online social graph veers from your real social life, the less useful your News Feed becomes. Soon you'll find that most of the headlines are about people you barely know. And who wants that?
So, back to that unwanted friend request. Assuming there will be no social fallout, just ignore it. They probably won't notice, particularly if we're dealing with a promiscuous friender. (You know, the kind of person who thinks, "I need to break 700 friends so I can rid myself of my crippling sense of shame." Trust me, it won't work.) And if you fear a backlash, just say,
Um, hey, this is really awkward, but I actually only accept friend requests from other Muslims. Allah commands it. Sorry, man.
I find this works pretty well. If you are very fetching, it's possible that your would-be friend is—let's be frank—cyber-stalking you. This behavior is so pervasive as to be almost unremarkable, but that doesn't make it right. Ignore the request or, if you must, apply a privacy setting that will keep prying eyes at bay.
What about work colleagues whom you don't want in your personal business?
There is no easy answer to this. Basically, you're screwed. If you work for a huge company and the person is totally random, you're fine: Ignore. If it's your boss, well, how gutsy are you? Any boss with a sense of decency will not friend you. If you accept the request, slap a limited information block on her. Keep in mind that any boss clueless enough to friend you will be clueless enough not to understand that you've applied these restrictions.
Is it OK to de-friend someone?
Say you've been too generous with your friending policy, and a gaggle of strangers is now hogging your News Feed. You too can launch a Great Facebook Purge. The beauty of this is that no headline or notification pops up in your ex-friend's inbox announcing, "You've suffered a humiliating rejection at the hands of _________." It's all very stealthy, thus making it the perfect way to deal with promiscuous frienders.
But what if your so-called friend scans through their friend list and notices that you've gone missing? First off, anyone who is policing their Facebook account this rigorously is morbidly obsessed and thus best kept at arm's length. If she confronts you about it, the best strategy is to plead ignorance: Perhaps the site's massive growth has led to some unexpected technical difficulties? Re-friend, then wait at least six months before trying another de-friending.
How do you decide whether it's OK to friend someone?
After all, it's always better to be the rejecter rather than the rejectee. I will now contradict myself: Friending strangers is permissible. If you are going to approach a stranger, don't do it out of the blue. Never, ever send a random friend request without undergoing some preliminaries, such as trading a few wry observations. The beauty of this "Facebook foreplay," to use an unfortunate analogy, is that you can always refuse to respond.
Had I not sent just such a random missive many moons ago, I never would have met Reyhan Harmanci. This was way back in 2003, when Friendster was all the rage. I noticed that she was friends with about a dozen of my friends and that she was my homonym. For those of us with obscure, highly foreign, or otherwise odd names, this is no joke. I also sensed that we occupied similar spaces in the social pecking order: small, ethnic, and extremely lovable, not unlike pandas. Despite never having met in person, I felt compelled to drop her a line. After a few back-and-forth messages, we quickly formed the "Re_han Club" and became bosom friends. While I was writing the piece, Reyhan—no longer a stranger—sent me a Facebook friend request, which I enthusiastically accepted.
How long should you wait to send a friend request to someone you've just met?
Say you chat someone up at a dinner party. You have a brief but intense conversation about the mostly unseen Kevin Costner thriller Mr. Brooks that leads you to believe she'd be a good person to have in your cyber-circle. Perhaps you trade business cards or e-mail addresses. While you never quite make it to comparing tattoos, bobbing for apples, or other intimacies limited to close friendships, you sense that friendship could indeed blossom at some future date. Why not send a very meek and humble friend request?
Hey, this is _________. We met briefly at __________. This is a little presumptuous, but your awe-inspiring Sudoku skills compel me to ask: Do you think we can be cyber-friends?
This is a little like asking someone out on a first date, but way less threatening. The same logic applies: Send the message soon (within a day or two) after your initial meeting, so the object of your friend-crush has some idea who the heck you are. Keep in mind that your would-be friend has every right to ignore you. You were bending her ear about Mr. Brooks, after all.
What's the right number of Facebook friends?
It all depends on context. Noted anthropologist Robin Dunbar found that the mean clique—a group of primary social partners—consists of around 12 people. Average maximum network size—a group of real friends plus friends of friends—is around 150. I don't know about you, but most of my primary clique isn't on Facebook. My social graph and my social life overlap, but not nearly as much as they would if all of my close friends were on Facebook.
That's why college students find Facebook so addictive. An undergrad who doesn't have a Facebook profile is regarded as a Luddite, the social equivalent of leading a survivalist lifestyle complete with flintlock rifle and bandana. In this case, Facebook works as it should. Even if you have 700 friends, the site susses out your real bosom buddies—they post on your wall, they trade messages with you, and they pop up on your News Feed way more often.
While college kids can get away with huge numbers of friends, the geezers among us should be a little more selective. And by "geezers," I mean everyone born before Ronald Reagan's first inauguration. A group of 150 Facebook friends, right around Dunbar's maximum network size, will let you feel comfortable about broadcasting your status, whether it's "Reihan Salam is triumphantly pumping his fists" or "Reihan Salam is slowly dying of dengue fever."
Of course, even after the Great Facebook Purge of 2007 I still have 258 friends. In theory, a huge number of friends means you're really, really popular. In reality, the omnidirectionally friendly typically strike us as untrustworthy and maybe even a little lame. What can I say—I am a very friendly fellow. Adjust your privacy settings accordingly.

Reihan Salam is a writer in Washington.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2174439/

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