Tahoe ski trip

 
January 28-30, 2005 with Alice Leung, Miriam Erlichman and David Erlichman, visiting Northstar at South Lake Tahoe, CA.  This was my first and prolly last time skiing for me.  (Original post/backup link)

U.S. Press is so Politically Comprised

The American Press is so politically comprised that even some small, meaningless stories are politically skewed to put the President in as good of light as possible. At the inauguration, Bush Jr. and his family openly flashed the "Hook 'em horns" gesture several times. Well, that gesture just to happens to be exactly the same as the "Satanic Salute". So, basically, the President of the U.S.A looks like he's saluting the devil.

Simple enough, right? Well, apparently not. The AP put out a story reporting on a supposed Norwegian reaction to the President's gesture. First of all, I did some research and found out that this "Norwegian reaction" is based on an article from a Norwegian tabloid, not a creditable newspaper. Since when is it proper to use a tabloid to gauge an entire country's response?  Suspicious.

So, the AP article says about the "Satanic Salute" interpretation, "That's what it means in the Nordics when you throw up the right hand with the index and pinky fingers raised, a gesture popular among heavy metal groups and their fans in the region." No, that's what it means everywhere in all of modern Western Civilization!

For some reason, the AP felt it is necessary to make the "Satanic Salute" interpretation of Bush's gesture seem like it was unusual and foreign, while trying to make the "Hook 'em horns" interpretation seem normal and common. In fact, the "Hook 'em horns" interpretation is actually the oddball. It's just screwy for the President to be making that gesture at all.

The AP article tries to cover over the fact that the "Satanic Salute" is the most likely interpretation of Bush's gesture, when seen out of context, by coming up with this ridiculous Norwegian angle to the story

If the AP was truly making an unbiased report, they would've simply stated that the gesture was meant to be the “Hook ‘em horns” and not the "Satanic Salute," without all this nonsense about Norway.

Missed Concert and Skiing soon

My g/f and I showed up for my friend Nate’s group 12 Steps To Nothing concert in downtown Campbell last night. Unfortunately, we missed their set. So, we are going to try to catch another show in Feb. We did get to catch the last set with some other another group. I forget their name right now. They had skill and a couple of great songs, but over all they sounded a bit too much like Blink 182. As we all know, Blink 182 sounds a bit too much like Blink 182 to allow room for any imitators. Hehe (ok, if you do know, most of Blink’s songs sound the same.)
My best friend Dave is planning another trip to the mountains for some skiing next weekend. I think my g/f and I will make this next trip. Dave and company had a cabin this last weekend, but with the Chicago play and Nate’s Concert and a few other personal chores and errands, it didn’t work out for us to join them.

Traffic is really starting to pick up hard in Silicon Valley. Is this a sign that thangs are starting to pick up here? That brings mixed feelings. It’s great that the economy is likely to rebound, but it sucks that San Jose still hasn’t figured out that it needs to provide affordable, non-ghetto housing. Letting the housing prices go up like this is just insane. Market forces be damned. This is no way to run a city.
Granted, housing prices did need to come up over the past decade to come in line with higher building costs. Now the housing prices have covered that many times over. There are townhouses now going for 700K. At this rate, they will be a million in a few years. Of course, I could just buy up a bunch older homes in an ok area of town, tear them down and build several million dollar townhomes on their lots for millions of dollars profit. Hmm. Then I keep thinking, what goes up must come down (excluding normal inflation, of course).

I guess I'm not sick...

...but I'm low on energy. I can tell there is an army of virus critters trying to populate in my body, but my body is doing a damn good job at keeping them from gaining ground. However, I do feel less energetic. I'm glad I'm not getting all burdened with symptoms like headaches, running noise and such, but it would be nice to avoid any affects whatsoever.

Dream: Queen Reborn

I woke up from a dream this morning that played out like a movie, with close ups, panning, and other camera placement and movements. There was this happy King and his talented, beloved Queen. The Queen died. At a small, private funeral in a dark wooden room at the end of east wing of the royal mansion, the King was knelt before the casket of his dead wife. The casket was to the left of a large window that was letting in a soft light of the noonish sun. Some attendees were dressed in modern clothes of various styles, while others were dressed in 17th, 18th or 19th century clothing. A few people were standing along the back wall, but most everyone was seated in several rows of folding chairs. Suddenly, a headless body, dressed in a beautiful, large golden lace and white dress appears amongst the attendees. She walked toward the grieving King. Close ups of different people showed their amazement in silent disbelief and horror. When the King looked up to see the headless body, he recognized his Queen. In a quick wispy blur, she rushed through the mansion. When she appeared in the Pool Room, she was restored to her living form, but naked. Her dress was splayed across a large dual throne at the far end. She dove into the pool and swam gracefully under water, but without getting wet. She had long golden blonde curly hair and resembled a cross between Rebecca Stamos and Rachel Hunter. The King ran after her to find her in the pool room just as she got out of the pool along the left side. She started to walk toward the throne, then looked back to notice her King. A close up showed her brief smile. She then told him, “Before, I didn’t understand why I needed to come back. Now I do. You are here for everyone else,” subtly gesturing with her eyes to suggest the entire kingdom, “and I…for you.” As she spoke her last word, she quivered knowingly, determinedly and lovingly, holding back a tear. There was a dramatic pause, and I awoke.

And then there is big brother

Recent Pizza Order where the pizza company knows a bit too much about the caller. The funnyscary part is that we aren't all that far away from this scenario from being reality.

Chicago Live!

Next weekend, I'm taking jenny, Miriam and my G/F to see the play Chicago in San Jose. I'm not much for plays, but jenny asked that we take her as her b/d gift, so, we take her to a night full of singing and dancing and such. The last live performance I've gone to was a ballet of Nutcracker a few years ago. I'm not the hugest performing arts fan. Well, actually, I'm neither huge nor a fan. hehe

When I became a Christian

One of the most ridiculous phrases that Christian Fundelmentalists use is "When I became a Christian..." which is usually followed by some overly restated nonsense of something they've supposedly discovered since "becoming a Christian". To start off with, 99% of the people who use that phrase were born Christian. Most of them were prolly had a Christian baptism before they turned 18. In fact, I'd be willing to bet a large portion of them never even once changed from one Christian religion to another. These people use the phrase "When I became a Christian..." to intentionally mislead their audience into thinking they have had a pre-Christian life, so they can seem to have some legitimacy when they try to encourage others to convert to their own particular brand of Christianity. Additionally, as mentioned, "When I became a Christian..." is usually followed by some nonsense. It is nonsense because what they usually state is something universal to all Christian religions. Given the fact that most of these people are born into Christianity, it is unlikely they made any amazing (and by amazing, I mean to say extremely redundant) discoveries about their faith, having been taught the faith from birth. Trust me, when you grow up a Christian, nothing regarding faith is an amazing revelation cuz the faith is learnt at a very early age. In that scenerio, being amazed at some new discovery about one's faith is a bit like being amazed that one can spell a word one uses every day. (Of course, if someone has psychological problems, all bets are off. lol)
That is why for almost all Christian Fundamentalists, using this phrase is an intentional twofold lie.

Travel to the Present with Me

Bad Kitty, I like your intentionally provocative statement to my post of a Good Housekeeping article circa 1955, regardless of your context. I'm assuming your comment is taken from an S&M angle. I thought about addressing S&M tastes when I posted that article, to have some fun with it. However, I decided against it because the nature of the article was not mutual joy and respect for each other roles as tops and bottoms, but actual unhealthy degradation of women (the feminine) in general, which is something I stand firmly against.
However, if I'm misunderstanding you, please enlighten me.

fcsuper link whore

Here are the sites that I know have links to It's Trouble

Painfullycool - Not Me
Strange Cousin Susan
My Two Sen
Just Beneath the Surface
A New York Escorts Confessions
Just Call Me Naughty
Way Too Many Unruly Oranges
The Degenerate Speaks

Please let me know if It's Trouble appears on a blog not mentioned above. I'd like to have a complete a list. (I know of two other blogs where Its Trouble is listed, but they are inactive sites, so I'm not bothering to mention those.) I'd like to have a complete list cuz I'm considering the idea of having a blog roll of my favorite posts each month from blogs that backblog It's Trouble.

Federal Sentencing Guidelines Struck Down

The Supreme Court came along way to re-establishing the role of the Constitution of the United States of America this week in Federal criminal law. They struck down the mandatory use of the Federal Guidelines for sentencing of criminals because the system used evidence and accusations not tried before a jury, or any court of law for that matter. [Side note: Evidence that was thrown out of court during the criminal trial for being unproven or inadequate was often used in the sentencing phase anyway; which was extremely unconstitutional and undermined the authority of the court.]
There is one problem with the Supreme Court’s decision. The Supreme Court chickened out by determining that the system should be used as a recommendation for sentencing of criminals. This cop-out is due in part to the fact that several of the current members of the U.S. Supreme Court helped draft the unconstitutional system 20 years ago and they are still partial to it. Even with the abolishment of its mandatory nature, the continued use of the Federal Guidelines still undermines the Constitution. However, the overall decision by the Supreme Court is at least a step in the right direction.
I fear that the real lesson to be learned here is going to be lost on the politicians who are now scrambling to patchwork a congressional response to this groundbreaking decision. The real lesson is this, the U.S.A. should have a standard sentencing system for criminals, but that system should not use accusations and evidence that hasn’t been tried before a court, or been thrown out of court. All facets of sentencing should directly derive from facts presented at trial.
My hope for this country is that the Supreme Court will be more centralist and politically neutral at some point, allowing them to make untethered decisions that hold the Constitutional higher than extreme leftist and neo-conservative ideologies.

Problem with being a centralist is that I’ll prolly never be happy with anyone in power. My best hope is that the left and right are equally struggling against other. More equal and intense the struggle, the less likely our Government is going to be used to infringe on the rights of any persons protected by the U.S. Constitution. Right now, we are way out of balance.

Trouble with KFC Popcorn Chicken

The trouble with KFC and their Popcorn Chicken is that KFC doesn't do good quality control across their franchise. I've been to many KFC's over the lifespan of the Popcorn Chicken. Some places make it so tasty that you just can't get enough. Some places make it so yukkie that you a left tossing it out before halfway through. Well, today, in fact, right this minute, I'm eating some tasty Popcorn Chicken. Yum. I love Popcorn Chicken when its done right. Now I wish I had ordered a large. mmm

Life is like Wine?

The amount of details I see in life is directly proportional to how long I've been alive. I appreciate wine now. I didn't give a rat's ass about wine 6 years ago. Life is like wine. Some people call a statement like that pretentious. However, nothing about that statement is pretentious if you understand and experience it.
With wine, I don't constantly seek out a new or deeper understanding of it. I experience it at the various appropriate times in context with meals, trips to Wine Country, gifts from friends, holidays, etc, and I learn about wine from those experiences. The more I partake of wine, the more I taste its complexity, the more I appreciate it and the more relevant it becomes. That pretty much parallels how I learn from my life. The longer I live, the more details I can see, the greater my experience and the better my understanding.

Causativity of Time Travel

Does time exist? Is it an illusion? Some have suggested that time does not exist. It is reasoned that we only experience time because we measure motions that happen to occur sequentially. There is no mathematical proof for this view point. In fact, there is substantial proof that time does exist as a part of the Time-Space Continuum of our tangible Universe.
So, if time exists, why is it only possible to travel forward in time as a certain rate? Why do we have memories of the past, but are unable to remember our future? These are common questions during discussions regarding time travel. We ask these questions because we perceive Time as linear. Maybe this is a false interpretation of our perception? In fact, we don’t experience time as a line with the Past in one direction and the Future in the other. We experience Time at a single point, the Present.

Problems with Linear Time
Time travel into the Past allows two violations of well proven laws and principles. First, it allows for an effect without a cause. For example, you could go back in time and prevent your own birth. However, if you prevented your own birth, how did you exist in order to go back in time? Second, time travel into the past allows for the creation of a perpetual motion machine through time by various means. Of course, such self sustaining system is a violation of the Laws of Thermodynamics.

Problems with Time Travel regardless of the nature of Time
Another problem with Time Travel to the Past is that the entire Universe is relative. Any action from one frame of reference is only applicable to that frame of reference. If an object could go back in time, that object would only be travelling within its own frame of reference. The Universe around the object wouldn’t change. Even worse, if you had a time machine that allowed time travel within one’s own frame of reference and you tried to make a person go back in their own Time, that person wouldn't get younger in the human sense, but only in the quantum sense. In other words, if the person went into your time machine at the age of 50, they would re-appear still a 50 year old afterwards. Only the person's atoms would've grown younger, not the person themself. This is because the placement of that person’s atoms in space (i.e., within a facial skin winkle) is irrelevant to the atoms’ place in Time (a facial skin winkle is still a winkle regardless of the quantum date of the atoms that make up the winkle).
Even without this little problem, in a relative Universe, the only way to travel back into the Universe’s Past is to make the entire Universe travel back in time, while only you stay in the present. Such a feat would require more energy than what currently exists in the Universe.

This brings me back to the idea that Time is not a line, but a single point. We only experience the Present because only the Present exists. Of course, that means we can’t travel to the Past or Future because neither exists.
Just as with Space, Time can have length (linear), height (planar) and breath (cubic). Maybe Time just doesn’t possess those properties in our own Universe?

We got to meet some interesting critters on our recent visit to the Monterey Bay Aquariam. We came across this little guy, who was making it quite clear that this was his world.

Thanks to Jennifer

This new format for my blog is almost complete. The main page has been for a while now, but Jennifer hasn't had the time to do the code to make it PDA friendly until recently. Yah...now I can look at my site on my Treo again. :)

Amy Brown 2005 Calendar

For anyone interested, I have an Amy Brown 2005 Fairy Realm Wall Calendar for sale on eBay. I don't normally like to overtly promote like this. It's just that this item seems to be extremely hot right now, so I'm just spreading the word. ;) The auction closes around 1:00pm on Sunday, Jan 8th.

Holiday Vacation

My friend Dave and I headed up to his mother's place in Clear Lake on Tuesday and come back on Wednesday. His mom is a great cook who loves to make sure guests are well fed. :) On the 3 hour drive up, we bullshitted about politics. On the 3 hour drive back, we bullshitted about time travel. A future blog entry will expound our insights in this area, so watch out. Hehe

My g/f and I meet up early on Thursday and headed down for a little vacation in Monterey. We had a great time down there. On Thursday, we did a little shopping and then had an early dinner at this one restaurant with a nice atmosphere. We ended up at Bluefin to play pool for a while. We then headed back to the hotel to rested up for the long day to follow (New Years Eve).
We got up a little too late on Friday to go for breakfast, so we headed down to Cannery Row for a great lunch at Fishhopper. The weather on Friday was supposed to be cloudy and rainy. It was actually only partly cloudy during the day, and rainy in the early morning and night. The drive along 17 Mile Drive turned out to be nearly perfect. It was sunny, cool and beautiful. At this one beach, we came across this small group of squirrels that walk right up to you, stand on their hind legs and politely wait for food. At Cypress Point, we saw a beach full of harbor seals. At the Lone Cypress, we watched sea otters and migrating gray whales, along with a gorgeous backdrop. It was a very relaxing day. Friday evening, we meet up with Dave and his girlfriend for dinner. We all had a plan to head down to downtown Monterey for this thang called First Night (a New Years Eve celebration), but instead we ended back at the Bluefin for drinks, more pool and other games. They had the MTV New Years count down on the TVs to bring in the New Year. We all had a good time that wasn't crazy or wild. (darn! ;) )
On Saturday, we all headed down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It's changed a lot since I've last been there. If you haven't been there in 5 years or so, I'd actually recommend checking it out again. After that, we had another delicious lunch at the Fishhopper. We all headed back home around 3:30 or so. That evening, my g/f and I had dinner with her family.
I spent Sunday lounging around my place watching movies. For dinner, my g/f brought over a bake-it-yourself pizza which I duly cooked incorrectly. LOL I'm not as hopeless in the kitchen as that statement makes me sound.

Xmas was good to me

I spent Xmas with my g/f’s family. We had a leisurely day, dining in at a couple of fine Chinese rest’rants in San Francisco for lunch and dinner. I got some good gifts too! In fact, some of them (from various family and friends) were so good, I’m going to hafta compensate for upcoming birthdays and anniversaries. Oops. lol