Last night I went to a orhestra concert at the Kimmel Center. Although I had a little attire crisis, getting there was fine. The concert was breath-taking. They played Beethoven's Fifth Symphony - which was amazing. Afterwards I took the train home with Charlotte. I really would like to live in Philly. Such a nice city.

[Power on a Chip]

Hold on...I gotta fill up my cell phone - I can't believe gas prices are so high!

Huh. I guess Google Map is useful for everything!

Ancient Roman Ruins found using Google Maps

Hey, has anyone tried using Google Moon? Pictures of the moon. Zoom in really close, to the closest setting - its a hoot if you do. Really, trust me.

http://moon.google.com/

Um...this is the "Burton Ronin Espeionage Jacket". Supposedly it has an intergrated digital camera. However, I don't get the connection between this jacket and a "ronin" in Japanese terms. A ronin is a samuri that has lost his master or was kicked out of the order. So, I guess when samuri's are lonely and kicked out of orders, they order this jacket!

So pretend to be a ronin today! And take pictures with your low profile digital camera!

I guess.

[Egg of Recluse...]

I was reading Collision Detection today and saw this post about this contraption that advertises to "shut out the world with the perfect levels of lighting, sound, seating, and privacy you select." I think I would pretty murder almost any select person(s?) to get my grubby little hands on this. Or better yet, get my grubby little body into one of these jauns.

The Friday Fiver

1. Name one thing you've quit: Soccer in 10th grade.

2. Name something you've won: Um...Math award in 8th grade?

3. Describe a subject in school you do poorly in: MATH

4. Have you ever purposely not done your best? Yeah. I didn't do my best in tech ed so that I wasn't expected to participate in building stuff or actually working. And now at the library I don't do my best shelving books or else my boss will expect me to shelve even more books.

5. Do you lead, follow, or get out of the way? It depends on the situation. Sometimes when I need to I lead and sometimes when I need to I step out of the way.

Yesterday I missed the train so I had to drive to Temple. Henry AVE is difficult to navigate but it was a piece of cake compared to the Parkway during rush hour. Luckily, I didn't die. That's why public transportation is stress-free. Or next best thing is to live on campus. Ways to make philadelphia simple.

[Drunk woman dies in cemetery accident]

Apparently, the woman was going to take a piss after being drunk in a cemetary but in a freak accident managed to kill herself in the process. Wow, who knew that pissing in a cemetary at night could be so dangerous to one's health.

The Temple Bell Towers. Too bad it was a kind of cloudy day. Nice picture though. 

From Friday Fiver

Name your favorite....

1. Soothing sound: Solo violin playing a complicated concerto.

2. Comfort food: ICE CREAM

3. Relaxing music: Solo Violin playing a complicated concerto.

4. Gentle voice: a lover's whisper.

5. Calming smell: home.

I like this quote, from OneAday.org. Maybe it connected with that I said earlier about how we should just be ourselves. But there's a difference between being ourselves and being totally transparent. It's good to have fear of things that are worthy of fear and its good to have love for things that are worthy of our love. But, to love something because of fear is empty and fake.

Digressing, I find the lack of Chinese support on public computers distressing. I think part of the problem is that Windows makes it too hard to set up the Asian character support (Hell, I used to have trouble with IME's and sometimes now I still do!). I know that its America and all and "Who the hell wants to read the I Ching online?" deal but I think that if we have support for Arabic pages then we should have support for Asian pages. I would love to be able to reply to my e-mails on public computers so I don't have to lug around my laptop.

Hell, some public computers even have Hebrew! Who wants to read Hebrew...in public!

[I was just kidding, please rememeber this]

Mysterious Skin

Based on the book of the same name, it's a story about two kids. One kid is named Brian Lackey. Brian lost five hours of his life when he was a kid. He couldn't remember anything for those five hours. And so Brian thinks he was abducted my aliens in that span of time. On the other hand, there's Neil McCormick (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who was on a baseball team (in which Brian was also part of) and became the coach's favorite player. And in a strange twist of events partly due to an incident in the two boy's past, Neil and Brian meet each other when both of them are much older only to relive the past.

The movie accurately follows the book so I was glad about that. We can see that on one side Brian Lackey is really homely and naïve while on the other side Neil McCormick is wild and sexy. Both of these opposing personalities (although Brian Lackey is sexy too!) come together and fit perfectly.

I liked this movie a lot.

I guess it just says to me, "Stay true to who you are" because I see that Neil is who he is. Neither Wendy or Eric can change him. Neil is evil, heartless, and a great guy. No one will be able to change that. Brian is funny, dorky. But when things fall into place, everyone wins and we have the here and now to prove who we really are.

In other news, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will veto the same-sex marriage bill that passed in the House and Senate in California. Pretty sad too since my friends and I were so hopeful that now both coasts will allow same sex marriages. But I guess not this time. But next time, of course.

[Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Will Veto Same-Sex Marriage Bill]

"We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote," Thompson, said. "Out of respect for the will of the people, the governor will veto (the bill)."

Bullshit. Sigh.

Today is the beginning of the school year for my brothers. Don't you remember the freshness of that morning? Enjoy while you still can. Yet, I have no right to say: I'm still in school. But one day I shall join the MAN's world.

--REGULAR BLOGGING TECHNIQUE (BLOGGING 1.0)--

So, yesterday I got into a heated debate on the worthiness of America on the world stage. I had it with this guy when I announced that I was from Pennsylvania. He immediately started to say how I was so arrogant because of this and I expected everyone to know that I was from the United States. Of course Pennsylvania is from the United States and everyone should know that. Of course I didn't really think that and I told him that if anyone didn't know then they should ask me. It doesn't hurt to ask.

Then we got into a debate on 9.11 and how the United States is just after Iraq for their oil. Saddam Hussein was just a little player in our quest/greed for oil. Or course. And how Americans are so arrogant that we don't bother to learn other people's languages. I was just like, "Dude, learning English probably helped you. It is only the second most spoken language in the world. And it would benefit you to learn it. What would I gain by learning Dutch?"

I know that sounds arrogant, playing directly into his hands, but really its the truth. I can't stand when foreigners just try to bash America when the only person they have listened to is Michael Moore. Michael Moore is an extremist and if a person is dumb enough to listen to Moore 100% then that person is not fit to talk to. Really. To form an opinion you should really look at both sides, at many sources before you have the right to say anything at all.

I have hope that there lies somewhere, a nice foreigner that is intelligent enough to not hate America and every single American because the actions of Bush or the reports of Michael Moore.

there are other ways to help those ppl, not only war, thousands of iraqi's died for nothing because of you, if you want to help, do it right, even during sadam the situation was better than now

In other oil-related business...

[U.N. Panel to Release Report of Oil-for-Food]

I just got done watching Lan Yu (滥宇). A short summary is about this rich Beijing businessman who "buys" a boy for a night and falls in love with that boy. Afterwards, their relationship consists of the boy (Lan Yu) coming to the business man (Han Dong) and being with him. Han Dong usually repays with money or clothes or other expensive gifts. Like a car.

Anyway, I thought the movie was okay. It jumped around a lot. And I didn't like that. And I didn't like the ending. Not one bit.

It shows how progressive China is becoming, gradually. I don't want people to read this and say something like, "Progressive my ass. You don't know what you're talking about." I know I don't know what I'm talking about. But I can compare what it was and what it is now. In fact, China just opened a class dealing with homosexuality.

[China offers "gay course" for students]

Indeed.

So, I've been reading this book that I discovered from the Library, "We've Got Blog: how weblogs are changing our future" It's really interesting. It mainly show the culture and the counter culture of weblogging and the evolution of it. It only started with a few weblogs back in the day. But as the expansion of sites such as Blogger.com, weblogging become more and more popular because it was more and more accessible. Coupled with the fact that more people have Internet access, the explosion of the weblog community isn't such a shock.

I got acquainted with the "veterns" of the weblogging community. Who to go to, who to read, and who to revere. Now, I have bookmarked sites such as CamWorld, Robot Wisdom, Powazek, Megnut.com, Peterme.com, and Kottke.org. Someday I wish to save up enough money to purchase my own domain name so I can have a cool blog too. Maybe I'll use my Temple site. Or something.

I think the difference between Xanga and other bloggers is that Xanga is for the little kids who update with posts like, "I am so bored" or "My boyfriend left me!". Not really saying anything with a thousand words. And they're very boring. Who wants to know about your day? I want to know about yourself and what you think!

Although I just started on the road to reading good weblogs, I hope I will be able to publish a respectable weblog nonetheless.