book me read

congratulate me.
i finally got on my ass and finished a book.
"life of pi" by yann martel.

it took me 6 additional months, but i picked it up again and decided that it was now or never.
i have to say, i loved it from the zoo to the sea..
and then the interview at the end...
but after the floating island, i thought the shores of mexico came rather abruptly...

nevertheless, martel has a way with words...
i don't know whether it was his or pi's,
but the descriptions weren't boring like "green trees" and "blue skies"...
they're alive and visible...
it's as if i didn't read the story, i saw it...

an excerpt... (here pi is at first struggling to come to terms with an athiest teacher, mr. kumar):

"i was more afraid that in a few words thrown out he might destroy something that i loved.
what if his words had the effect of polio on me?
what a terrible disease that must be if it could kill god in a man.
... He became my favorite teacher... ...It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith.
Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them -- and then they leap.
...it is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics.
doubt it useful for awhile.
...but we must move on.
to choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."

365 days...

it's been a year since our wedding..
in some way i'm amazed that we even got this far...
and in another way, i wouldn't be the least bit surprised if we went another 20 or 30 rounds, excuse me, years...

so, how has this experience been??
calming... strangly interesting... daily learning something new..

i thought about this a year ago amidst all the wedding broo-ha-ha and hair pulling commotion...
and i think it still applies to the now...

the wedding was only one day...
it wasn't the wedding that was necessarily important..
it was the after... and still is..

and after the wedding, those petty skirmishes are also just 5 minutes out of a vast 24 hours...
i've found that it's a bit difficult to still be steaming mad for the remaining 23 hours and 55 min....

here is to tomorrow. salut.

contact

what is more likely here,that a message from aliens results in a magical machine… that whisks you away to the center of the galaxy… to go windsurfing with dear old dad and then a split second later returns you home without a single shred of proof?
or
that your experience is the result of being the unwitting star in the farewell performance of one s.r. hadden. a man with the means, the motive to play you and indeed the rest of us as pawns in the biggest, the most elaborate, the most expensive hoax of all time?

dr. arroway, you come to us with no evidence, no record, no artifacts… only a story that, to put it mildly, strains credibility. over half a trillion dollars were spent. dozens of lives were lost. are you really going to sit there and tell us we should just take this all on faith?

please answer the question doctor

ellie: is it possible that it didn’t happen? yes.as a scientist i must concede that. i must volunteer that.

wait a minute, let me get this straight...you admit that you have absolutely no physical evidence to back up your story?

ellie: yes.

you admit that you have very well may have hallucinated this whole thing?

ellie: yes.

you admit that if you were in our position you would respond with exactly the same degree of incredulity and skepticism?

ellie: yes.

then why don't you simply withdraw your testimony and concede that this journey to the center of the galaxy, in fact, never took place?

ellie: because i can't...
i had an experience... i can't prove it. i can't even explain it.
but everything i know as a human being, everything that i am tells me that it was real.
i was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever.
a vision of the universe that tells us undeniably how tiny and insignificant and how rare and precious we all are.
a vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, that we are not, that none of us are alone.
i wish i could share that... i wish that everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe and humility and hope.
that continues to be my wish.

happy b-day

it's r's birthday today...
i didn't get him anything tangible..
i didn't know what to get...

ha ha... this is going to be the first of a long string of birthdays where i hope he will be disappointed to no end..

i'm such a good wife... (insert evil grin)

yay!

eggs

it's very frightening how much i have unknowingly adopted my mother's characteristics...
i swore day in and day out how i would not be like her..
how i wouldn't think like her, eat like her, believe like her, speak like her, clean like her...

but day in and day out i see more of herself in me...

she loves eggs.
boiled, poached, scrambled, over easy, sunny side up, egg salad, deviled, omelet... all of them...
and i confess... to my horror... i too, love them all...

jeebus only knows what's next...

humans are a strange wonder... durable, yet breakable... like plastic

the media is at that stage in the game where they're past the pictures and stories of the displaced unfortunate..
and they've moved on to 'who's to blame'...
what was bush doing in the 24 hours after the hurricane hit...
and where the f**k is cheney in all of this..
do we even have a vice-president?

but it still doesn't change the fact that thousands and thousands of people lost their homes and everything in them...

so much has happened in just these past few years...
it's already been 4 years since 9/11...
massacres before that, wars after that...
fire in a corean subway in 2003... epidemics in afrika...
bombings in the u.k.... hurricane katrina...

i don't know how people do it..
how are we capable of dealing with one tragedy after another..
now, more than ever, the technological advancement of communication opens our eyes and ears to a wider scope of news around the world...
in doing so, we have inadvertently managed to expose ourselves to even more natural disasters and man-made horrors 25 hours a day, 8 days week, 366 days a year...

it's all slightly overwhelming... almost to the point of expelling the contents of one's stomach..
it doesn't quite make me vomit.. but the gagging reflex is there..

but somehow we manage to pick ourselves up, clean up and continue on this journey that is both strangely intoxicating and irresistibly addictive, where absolutely nothing is 110% certain...

humans are truly an odd species..

i luv tv...

i haven't watched every episode... yet (i probably will when it comes out on dvd)..
but i am huked on entourage...

critics claim it is "sex in the city" for men..
but it's too much fun to be just for men...
like how gq is, often times, more interesting to read than cosmo..
i never really understood "sex in the city"... i think it was too love-is-in-the-air, women-power, gotta-have-more-shoes, than i cared for...
then again, i never really cared for pink... *shudder*

so, watch it, don't watch it... who the f**k cares...
in the words of ari gold...let's hug it out bitch!!

ugly ugly ugly font

so i stripped the new ipod of all the mp3s... (insert very evil cackle)
threw out all the photos..
proceeded to upload wedding photos and my eccentric taste in music (i.e. everything but metal and country)..
when, to my complete horror, appeared this hideous asian font...

i started off with a b&w ipod...
was very satisfied with it.. and ended up giving it away as a gift...

now i have a 60gb color ipod...
still love it....except for one thing: the asian font.

the b&w ipod from before had a nice asian font.. how could it get worse?
couldn't they use the font from its predecessor? would it be possible to get this changed on the next update?? with my luck, probably not, huh?

but this is bad... this ugly asian font is chicken scratch..
it's literally making my shiny new ipod (dare i say it?) ugly.
i'm not sure i want to look at the screen anymore. *sniffle*

some people may think i'm being anal or unreasonable..
but for $400 (not including tax) i think i should get nice clean font...

secret ipod

the strangest thing happened on the way back from circuit city...
R and i recently invested in a 60gb color ipod...
we positively adore it... but that's not the point to this bizarre story..

the item was completely brand new...
shrink wrapped with little round clear stickers in all the right places...

we turn on the ipod...
and there's 680 mp3s already on there...
along with an extensive album of photos of family and friends...

i didn't know wut to think or say..
the people in these photos are somebody's friends.. somebody's family...
and the songs, carefully chosen one by one and uploaded thru itunes...

i still don't know wut to make of it...
no scratches... no nicks...
it works without problem...

simply bizarre....

musak to mine ears

1. total number of records i own on cd (or vinyl or cassette):

when i was little i had a vinyl record player and my favorite record was 'alvin and the chipmunks'...
it had classics which included, "witchdoctor", "america the beautiful", "supercalifragilisticexpialidious", and several more...
alas, i don't have it anymore...

total number of cd's i own.... last count, i believe it was around 400 cds... something like that..
from the things i've done and consumed, i could have been a (insert choice addiction, for example: video game) junkie...
but for whatever quirky reason, my body refused to become addicted to anything... (perhaps i'm just really that lazy.. which is quite sad if i think about it...)
however~! the one thing i did get obsessed with was cd collecting...

2. total volume of music files on my computer:

10,500 songs... give or take 20 low-bitrate crap...

3. the last record i bought:

a corean album by the group "resurrection" (부활)....
i long for the days when artists were really artists and they wrote their own songs...
and every song on the album was a 4 minute journey of pleasure for the ear to embark on...
(or maybe that was the pot talking...)
instead of these half-assed hacks who are whining about people ripping them off by spreading mp3's...
maybe if they'd really take the effort to produce real music, i'd consider them worth my 12 dollars...
before resurrection's album, the next two most recent cd's i bought were eminem's... how sad is that??...
it's ironic... those artists who i'd really want to spend 12 dollars for a cd, don't even have a record out...

4. the last record listened to / song playing now:

mozart's symphony no 25 in gminor k183, 1st movement
no, i don't use classical music as a sleeping aid... i actually enjoy it...
it actually gets the juices in the brain flowing and motivates me to get off my fat ass to get working...

vivaldi's nulla in mundo pax sincera, popularized from the movie 'shine'... great movie, by the way..

bobby darin's 'beyond the sea'... although i prefer bobby caldwell's version...
it's just one of those songs u cannot help humming and swaying to when it starts up...

have i gone soft, u ask?? are my head banging days over??
nah... they've only diminished in number..
once in awhile i still enjoy obnoxiously loud measures.. lately in the car, where singing is optimum

5. five records that I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me (either singles or albums):

enya - shepard moons album... what happens in l.a. stays there. enough said.

beethoven - symphony no 9 Dm op 125 - 4th movement... the ode to joy movement. if this doesn't move ya, i don't know wut will

dj doc (corean) - any of their hits... they're fun, with the times, and best of all, they're not always politically correct~!!

bobby caldwell's version of 'beyond the sea'... good feelings of hopelessly falling head over heels in love~

al pacino.... i like his monologues..

6. tag five people to do this meme... (i didn't want to limit myself to only people)

jeebus
buddha
lucifer
cherz
al pacino

to know...

there are some people out there..
or perhaps just one close by...

that upon first meeting, a silent connection is made...
no greeting is necessary...
as if u've known each other for a very long time...
and were only waiting for the moment to finally meet...
words of recognition or confirmation are meaningless...

a relationship where telapathy is real...
words are only used when required...
such precious breathe is not wasted on words..

all knowledge is acquired thru action..
nothing is assumed..
a connection where everything is already known...

i've known such a person since birth..
and that very same person knew me from before i was born...
he knows me still to this very day...
he knows me... and i know him... we are truly kindred spirit..

i suppose it's unusual to speak of one's father in this fashion...
but i cannot hide that which is true..

now that i'm married... i think back on my image of that "dream" husband..
and somehow i thought it would be someone who knew me so well that it would truly be,
that our eyes would be the windows to our souls..
and noone else but the both of us would "know"...

maybe someday..