Hi and welcome to 2005. A New Year’s resolution I’ve made is to update my website and provide Blog entries more regularly. Wish me luck!
I’ve already begun the redesign process for my regular pages, and one of the things I want to leverage is the use of iBlog. I can communicate more effectively and quickly on timely topics plus keep people up-to-date on my comings and goings by being more diligent here. Look forward to new categories and material too.
Hi there–long time no write. I’m only putting this in right now to sing the praises of my new 1 GB iPod shuffle.
Just when I thought there wasn’t anything else I needed from Apple, along came Macworld Expo SFO. Without even seeing Steve Jobs’ keynote address, I immediately placed an order for the stuff he touted. To wit:
Anyway, they just announced PowerBook “speed bumps” today, but I don’t know if I’ll trade up or not. I’m actually seriously eyeing a Mac Mini to connect to my plasma TV as an iTunes and later movie “jukebox”.
Tonight I started my Japanese 1 class—I’m so excited!
Konnichiwa! Watashi no namae wa Kendrick desu…
And so it begins—my foray into learning the most difficult and challenging language of all those I’ve learned so far. I couldn’t believe how many people were there! I was 16th on the waiting list for the class and am lucky to have gotten in. There were about 25 people standing on the side hoping to add—there were still 15 or so sitting on the floor by the end of the night. Pretty wild.
The instructor, Yamaguchi Sensei, seems very dear. She’s also MAYBE 5 feet tall with a very soft voice. Her assistant, Sato-san, is a student from Japan who has been here for a few years. He’s cool, and I’m hoping maybe I can get him to be my senpai…
I just hope to do my best and make this productive. I haven’t been this excited about something in a while, and certainly haven’t tackled anything quite so challenging. It’s gonna be fun!
Here’s another “faith promoting email” I received. Although I have to admit that I didn’t check absolutely every fact for complete accuracy, it is at least broadly correct. This is the kind of struggle that I go through every day when I watch the news, listen to the radio or read about the nasty world of politics. Sometimes I just think that everyone is going through life with their eyes closed, not paying any attention, in the ultimate state of denial. And this is without even attempting to be partisan or not.
At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh) had this to say about “The Fall of The Athenian Republic” some 2,000 years prior.
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”
“The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From Bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recent Presidential election.
Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million
Bush: 143 million
Square miles of land won by:
Gore: 580,000
Bush: 22,427,000
States won by:
Gore: 19
Bush: 29
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore: 13.2
Bush: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: “In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore’s territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare…”
Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the “complacency and apathy” phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation’s population already having reached the “governmental dependency” phase.
Pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake in this Election Year and that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.
There hasn’t been anything new on the Mac front for me in a while.
I guess it’s ’cause I’m still incredibly happy with my changeover to the 12″ PowerBook. I’ve only bought a few knickknacks , really: a BookEndz dock to facilitate hooking everything up when I plug in at home; one of the new AirPort Express hubs that I’m eventually going to get around to hooking up to the stereo; one of the 4th generation, 20GB iPods (I gave my old one to Cyndi as an early birthday present—she was thoroughly delighted).
I am sort of anxiously awaiting the September reveal of the 3rd generation iMac. I’ve been thinking that I really would like to have a “server” again, and it will likely be an iMac. There are several things that I’d like to be able to do that necessitate a constant presence. We’ll see. The biggest obstacle is the lack of FUNDS right now (see my “Anime + Manga” entries for the explanation…). There’s also a possibility of a “shift upgrade”: Eusebio might sell his 12″ PowerBook to a friend provided that I buy the latest 12″ iteration, then give my current one to him. That could work out nicely, but again: NO MONEY. Maybe in a couple of months…
Yes, my new addiction continues virtually unabated. I’ve been trying to buy stuff either through eBay or on sale, so that helps. But the one “otaku” marketing slogan I saw rings true: “ANIME: Crack is cheaper”.
Anyhow, the other night I went to my local Suncoast to use a $45.00 certificate I got in the mail. Believe me—$45.00 doesn’t go too far in this milieu. I ended up buying “Happy Lesson” Volumes 1 & 2, which are REALLY funny! I also Got “Samurai X: The Motion Picture” and Volume 1 of the new “Weiss Kreus (Knight Hunters)” series, which is really quite different—I’m not sure If I like it yet or not. It certainly is intriguing and engaging, though, and I’ve only seen the first episode.
I also managed to pre-order “Azumanga Daioh” Volume 4 which is out at the end of the month—I can’t wait! Now THAT’S a funny anime! It’s so completely random and the characters are so cute and funny and quirky.
Also, I received some eBay purchases in yesterday’s mail: “Angelic Layer” Volumes 3-5. That’s another series that’s surprisingly good. Boy, those little angels sure can fight! I’m really intrigued by the story and the characters are really good. The personal development and depth of Misaki’s character is surprising, and her relationship with Hikaru is really touching in an “alter ego” sort of way. I sure wish Angelic Layer really could exist in our world—it looks like a lot of fun.
Anyway, stay tuned for more. I also vow to write and post actual reviews to the various online sites.
I really liked this story I got in an email today. It sort of sums up my general philosophical beliefs about how society is running (or should I say RUINING) itself these days…
Original Version:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
Moral of the story: Be responsible for yourself!
Modern Version:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
CBS, NBC, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green”
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.
Tom Daschle & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his “fair share.”
Finally, the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act,” retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.
Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.
Moral of the story: Vote
journey, not destination 