The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.
-Psalm 103:8-14 

I have no problem with Jeremy Lin, but what I do have a problem with, and what I've seen Asians do over and over again, is to latch on to Asian players with any small amount of success in professional sports. These players seem to suddenly become a "Great Yellow Hope" for some inexplicable reason, in order to somehow demonstrate the superiority of the Asians. There seems to be a weird sort of Asian inferiority complex (not just in sports but I'm just going to stick to sports for this post), and these Asian sports figures seem to become "evidence" for what all Asians have known all along: "We're just as good, if not better, than white people."

The biggest problem I have with this line of thought is that people become "Jeremy Lin fans" instead of NY Knicks fans. They become fans of the individual player, within the contexts of a team sport. It doesn't matter what team these players play for, and it doesn't matter how that team does. All that matters is how this one player does. And that makes me sick. Stop it with this whole "x is representing the whole country of y" nonsense. He is representing the team that he plays for. Stop it. Who cares what ethnicity somebody is, where they grew up, what color they are. All that matters is the team. Root for your team, and wish bodily harm against everybody else. No matter their race.

If you are a "fan" of a team you have no business being a fan of because of one player, stop it.

The two main changes Google is making is that they are now combining 60+ privacy policies across their different products into one easier to understand all encompassing privacy policy, and that they are now going to combine information from one Google product into another. Now a lot of people have taken this to mean that Google is now going to track your activity across their products to get a clear picture about who you are and who your friends are and where you live and the fact that you failed math in the 3rd grade. And they're probably right.

Here's the thing, Google isn't collecting any more data than they used to. They already keep a history of your searches, the Youtube videos you've watched, your friends, and whole bunch more depending on which Google products you use. Of course Google is going to use your information from one product in another. It's just unrealistic to have any expectations that Google keeps their Gmail, Youtube, Voice, and Calendar data seperate from each other. It would be crazy to think that they didn't already cross the streams. In fact, it would be a shame if Google didn't use the information they already have about me to make their products more relevant to the user.

What I don't quite understand how this change suddenly makes Google "evil." They are collecting the same amount of data in the past, and it is just as easy as ever to manage the data they've collected. A quick trip to Google Dashboard will let you see how much and more specifically, what data they have about you all in an easy to understand list. You can see and change what kind of personalized ads you are getting from google in your ad preferences. The Data Liberation Front easily lets you take your data with you if you want to close your Google account and go somewhere else. And they have a whole bunch of other tools to let you manage your privacy. None of that has changed. I can guarantee you, that every other web service out there collects the same sort of information, but they are not nearly as transparent about it as Google is.

When it comes down to it, people need to remember that what you put on the internet will stay there forever. The only sure way to make ensure your privacy online is to stay off the internet, because it's a reasonable assumption that anything you put on the internet can and will be traced back to you. That's not to say that there isn't a right to privacy, but you need to have measured and reasonable expectations when it comes to the internet (remember, if it isn't immediately clear what a company or a service is selling, you probably are the product being sold). Or, read the all the privacy policies and choose not to use web services that have policies you don't quite agree with. But really, who's going to do that.

And he's confronting me now to get to know him again. To reacquaint myself with him, and to remember what it means to be in a relationship with him. To love him, and more importantly, to let myself be loved by him.

Hello again, old friend. I've missed you.

In a word, I'm bored.

And I'm sick and tired of this place I've found myself in. A place of comfort and distractions. A place where I have millions of things to do to distract myself. But even amidst the distractions, I've found myself more bored than ever.

I open my browser, and look at a few sites to see that there hasn't been anything new on any of the sites I regularly read, and then close the browser. And then I sit there for a few minutes, and then I open my browser again and go back to the same sites. Because there is nothing else to do. And I find myself doing this more often than I'd care to admit.

But there is always something I could be doing. Here I am, sitting in this perfect storm of boredom, and yet I'm not praying, I'm not reading the bible, I'm not doing anything. And I could. I think to myself, "I should."

But I don't.

I let the time slip by, doing nothing. Keeping myself busy. It's like a hamster wheel. I spend all day running and running but in the end, there was nothing done.

And I think of the last time I found my life exciting. A time where life was interesting. And I realize, that it all stemmed form a place of prayer. And I look back on that time with a sort of longing, like it's something I can't have now in my current situation.

Why can't I have that now? I'm sick of the excuses, the justifications. The distractions. I want what I had then, but more than that, I want Jesus.

I want Jesus.

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
-Ecclesiastes 1:2

I think I've lost my capacity to be happy. Or maybe, it's the other way around. Maybe I've found my inability to be happy outside of God.

The problem isn't with my circumstances, but it's with my heart.

I don't have anything meaningful to say.

Time isn't a straight line. It's all bumpy wumpy. There's loads of boring stuff like Sundays and Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons. But now and then there are Saturdays. Big temporal tipping points where anything's possible. The Tardis can't resist them. Like a moth to a flame.
- The Doctor

Sometimes I wish I had a time machine. I'm not really all that interested in going back and changing my past (other than punching 17 year old me and telling me to man up, but that's a whole 'nother story) or going to the future and buying an almanac really (do they even still make almanacs now?). I just want to skip the boring stuff. The mundane day to day and get to the interesting parts.

The idea of patience is something I feel like God's been teaching me for the longest time. Which is kind of funny. I recently came across Genesis 29, where Jacob works for 7 years for the right to marry Rachael, only to end up being cheated and having to work another 7 years. 14 years. I can barely do a month without wondering what's next. And while I admit where I am in my life right now is far from terrible, I can't imagine staying here for the next 14 years. That's such a long time.

And yet, Jacob was faithful in his service to Laban for 14 years. And then for another 6 years (Gen 31:41). Faithful every day, in the mundane day to day. God, help me to stay faithful. To not grow weary of doing good. To trust in you. Help me, because there is no way I can do 20 years of anything without your help.