Nature, Social Issues, and Me

Witth Love and Sorrow for Your Loss.

2011-04-28T23:29:00.000-07:00

Terrorists are not soldiers, they are criminals who abuse the priviledges of a free society to attack indiscriminately, usually against civillians. When they strike, for whatever reason, they are attacking the logsitics of civilization that allows free movement within it by exploiting the vunerabilities that we all accept to live in societies that are aceptable to us. An attack anywhere within a free society is an attack against us all. Of course we feel sympathy for Morocco. Today it was them, tomorrow it could be you or I. Any loss of life must be prevented at all costs no matter who is involved, especially civilians.
Why are they even attacking in Morocco, what has it done? Is it because Morocco is considered not muslim enough by the Jihadis? People forget that, for all attacks on non-muslims eat up the headlines, the primary victims of Jihadi violence have been muslims.

RIP to all the victims in Morocco.

Back from Spring Break!

2011-04-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven not been able to post lately I just back from my spring break vacation, which was amazing! Will post a blog later all about it. Nevertheless recently publication by the FBI calming they have found aliens made me think, will we ever get to see aliens in our life time?
The likelihood of encountering alien intelligence similar in capability to ours is extremely small. Instead, we'll likely find less intelligent life (probably pond scum) or super-advanced civilizations. Bonus points for if one assumes that intelligent life is not planet bound, but could (and would) propagate itself throughout the universe, therefore becoming the most likely life we find out there. Some have suggested that the dark matter 'halos' surrounding galaxies (including ours) might be evidence of the presence of dyson spheres/matrioshka brains. The same dark matter that apparently accounts for over 80% of the mass of the universe.

What do you think about this?

What happens to consciousness after you die?

2011-04-20T23:14:00.000-07:00

If we take this in a more scientifically approach how would you explain this? I'm studying physiology at the moment and the way I see it is that consciousness only exists because all of the parts of the brain, that allow it to exist, are in working order. Remove a major element and the whole thing goes away. Think about if you ripped apart a water molecule. You know that the hydrogen molecules and oxygen combine together to make the water, but in their base forms they're purely that: base forms. However, if someone gets into a terrible accident when part of his/her brain stuff working they still have concious to some extent. Or is consciousness a complex manifestation of electrical activity in the brain that if the activity ceases, consciousness ceases?
Actually the whole definition of the word conscious is a complex concept that is hard for people to wrap their brains around. That's why it's best not to worry too much about it because you'll probably get a brain aneurysm from thinking to deeply, lol.

Economics at its infant stage

2011-04-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

I studied economics at university. European, so 3 years of economics-related subjects covering micro, macro, mathematics, statistics, these were the foundation, then: organizational theory, business strategy, corporate finance, marketing, management, accounting, business law. to a lesser degree. Economics is interesting, and the way you can apply many of the tools developed are interesting (See freakonomics), but on the macro side you still have some recurring errors due to human behavior not being incorporated thoroughly, there is still a lot of work to do combining micro and macro studies.
And economics is based on assumptions, and for every guy you have saying one thing, you have a guy saying something else, even the established models used by any professional economist who works in financial ministries and banks etc. can be picked apart if you go to the micro level, which makes discussing with austrians frustrating. This is the essential problem of economics. Microeconomics 'truths' are translated to macroeconomic 'theories', and when the reality of the macroeconomic situation doesn't fit, then economists change their assumptions (rational consumer, total accessibility of information and other lies) in order to make the theory work again, while completely and conveniently ignoring the fact that their theories and axioms no longer bear any relation to reality.
That doesn't mean they should actually be disregarded though, most of the time economics is useful in conducting the stewardship of the state, but if you forget that people are at the heart of everything, as a lot of people, especially the fringes, tend to do, transferring economic policy to social policy and have undesirable side effects.It wouldn't be so bad if economists weren't the most powerful social 'scientists' on the planet, and their meritricious work didn't cause real, genuine human misery and suffering. But without any kind of economic studies you might as well be using astronomy. I think it is silly to disregard an entire branch of studies simply because it cannot predict aggregate human behavior as perfectly as we would like it to. There are plenty of areas other than "macroeconomic policymaking" that are part of "economics". I'm not saying economics will ever be physics, it obviously won't, but if you look at any science, it started out with inaccuracies and esoterics, and then trial, error, testing, hypotheses, etc. scientific method from that point of. Economics takes the sociological or politological claims and theories and attempts to build a rigorous framework to test them in. Of course you can't do repeated experiments with no outside influences etc. when dealing with people, which is what makes it so difficult. At least it is trying.

Name the dish, please.

2011-04-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry i haven't posed stuff in the last couple of the days. It was midterms week and many of you know how stressful it can get it. The good thing is that my spring break vacation begins now, and I would not be going to school until April 26th. Yesterday my girlfriend stopped by my house and brought me some amazing dish!
I'm trying to figure out what this stuff was my girlfriend brought home and she said she order it from a local mideastern restaurant but can not recall it's name.
It had lentils and chick peas and what looked like chopped up spaghetti pieces in this spicy red sauce. This was soooo good, the sauce had a sweet taste, but definitely spicy undertone.
A friend of hers had made it but she didn't catch what it was called. Any ideas?
It might be Koshari.

Egypt Last Summer

2011-04-12T21:34:00.000-07:00

On myt last trip to Egypt last summer i went scuaba diving in two wonderful places. If you are looking for a great and cheap scuba wonder, Egypt is the place to go (Once the whole conflict gets better).One of the my favorite places for scuba diving in Egypt is Sharm El-Sheikh and Dahab. I did my advanced open water in Dahab last year as well and it was awesome, great little town and the only place in Egypt I have any interest in returning besides Sharm El-Sheikh.

Amazing waters, however the people there were not so great. Pretty much everyone is only interested in getting money from you. This includes the Tourist Police. If anyone tries to "give" you something, don't take it, because they'll want something in exchange (don't have anything? Money will do then). Don't take up anyone's offer of taking your photo/having your photo taken with them, unless you're prepared to pay them. If anyone wants to show you anything - a tourist attraction, their shop, whatever, "for their pleasure", they want you to buy something or pay them. If pretty much anyone says anything to you on the street, they most likely want your money. You don't have to completely ignore them, but don't stop walking either.

I don't know how bad El-Sheikh is, but I got hounded by these people literally everywhere I went in Egypt. Although other travellers I met hadn't had any trouble at all. They usually don't want much, mind, but when you get it several times a day every day for weeks on end you do run out of patience. But don't be too stingy, remember, alot of these people make like 2 dollars a day.

Also, don't use taxis which don't have meters in them. Even if you agree a price before getting in, it'll change. If you do want to buy anything and the price isn't marked, haggle - you shouldn't be paying more than 25-50% of what they claim the price is. Just act indecisive and go to leave, the price drops instantly.

If you want to try Shisha, go visit Omar: Master of Shisha in Dahab. Best shisha in the world bar none. Any pipe you get given in a touristy area in a bar/restaurant will be horrible. Speaking of restaurants, many are BYOB in Egypt, even those that serve alcohol, and it's half the price in the shops.

All in all Egypt is so freaking great, lots to see one of the best scuba spots I have ever seen however you just have to know how to work your way around the people trying to take your money. I grantee you, that you will leave Egypt a little more streetwise.

A.I.

2011-04-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

Suppose someday humanity creates an AI which is superior to our own minds. This AI in turn is used to create a even better AI, one that we wouldn't be able to build without the superior capabilities from the first AI. Assume these AIs are being created with safeguards to ensure that they can't do any harm to humans. This other AI, we then use to create another even better AI, and so on, dozens of times. After a few iterations, man won't even comprehend how the latest AI works, but it is so powerful it can run our societies in an optimal way, and that's what happens, when man replaces their administrators with the Machine. This AI is so superior that man can't hope to outwit it, everything that you do was already taken into consideration by the AI to make its decisions. Mankind is absolutely under its control, but the safeguards are still in place, so it is guaranteed that they won't harm humanity in any way.

My question is, are you okay with it?

By the way, this is the plot of a short story called 'The Inevitable Conflict' by Isaac Asimov.

American food.

2011-04-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

I've always wondered, what foods do Americans eat that other countries think is weird? I think PBJs would be weird for Asian countries, and I've heard that cinnamon is offensive to foreigners at first because it is so pungent. My neighbor is half German now living in America and he positively says that for many Europeans, peanut butter is considered gross. He also stated that the Chicago Dog has simply to many things going on at once atleast for a regular German. Give him a bun, bratwurst and some Mustard and he's good lol.Also Germany has hardly any spicy ethnic foods like Mexican even our Chinese fastfood is missing stuff like Kampao chicken.
A guy in my English class was telling me that he had my cousin visiting a few years ago and while she liked vinegar-based Carolina-style, she was disgusted by sweet-tasting barbecue. She called it 'meat candy.' Other family back in her home are also weirded out by bacon and eggs for breakfast. When it came to bread she said that American bread is wretchedly soft and sweet. "All normal super market bread tastes very sweet, it has a distinct flavour that isn't just a normal bread flavour. Even a loaf of plain white or wheat bread has a tasty sweetness and some other flavour I can't pinpoint. But yeah, doesn't taste like 'bread'. Of course if I go to the bakery and buy some sourdough or something then yeah that's fine and familiar." Her cousin concluded really hated the "Chicago-style" pizza. It just did not look like a pizza to her and isn't very appetizing. But for the most part, she did not find anything weird about American food. Some of it even looks pretty good. She was most intersted in wanting to try some Southern country-fried steak and grits." All in all Chicago got a bad rep. for something, not me though i love Chicago's gastronomy lol. What are some stories you have heard about American food compare to other countries?

Frank O'Hara

2011-04-05T22:35:00.000-07:00

I'm doing some research on Frank O'Hara so I just thought I'd share a poem or two with you. If you like them (or O'Hara) we can have an O'Hara general discussion. My favorites include 'In Memory of My Feelings', 'A Step Away From Them', 'The Day Lady Died' and others. I'm going to post some different ones that have recently made me smile. Picture is the book thatI'm currently reading, The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara.

Song

I am stuck in traffic in a taxicab
which is typical
and not just of modern life

mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves
must lovers of Eros end up with Venus
muss es sein? es muss nicht sein, I tell you

how I hate disease, it's like worrying
that comes true
and it simply must not be able to happen

in a world where you are possible
my love
nothing can go wrong for us, tell me

Poem

The eager note on my door said “Call me,
call when you get in!” so I quickly threw
a few tangerines into my overnight bag,
straightened my eyelids and shoulders, and

headed straight for the door. It was autumn
by the time I got around the corner, oh all
unwilling to be either pertinent or bemused, but
the leaves were brighter than grass on the sidewalk!

Funny, I thought, that the lights are on this late
and the hall door open; still up at this hour, a
champion jai-alai player like himself? Oh fie!
for shame! What a host, so zealous! And he was

there in the hall, flat on a sheet of blood that
ran down the stairs. I did appreciate it. There are few
hosts who so thoroughly prepare to greet a guest
only casually invited, and that several months ago.

A Small Look on Art

2011-04-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

I once read an essay that its main idea was that with the advent of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills culture has been ruined, because the great art and literature was born out of depression, and without depression there is no great culture. I cannot recall the name of that say essay right now, but if any of you know it please do tell.
It is true that anti-depressants make you stop being depressed. They don't remove your capacity to think and feel as a human being though. They're prescribed too much and too often, I find that a truth easily swallowed.
The other thrust of the argument I dislike is that creativity or genius comes from depression. I think if anything my favorite works were always the ones which to me depicted the heights of many or all of the emotions we as humans experience. To say that great culture comes from depressed artists is an insincere look at art, and it denies the necessity of emotional intelligence for development of mature works. I hate it when people try to place restrictions on artists. Oh, to write you have to be depressed. Artists have to be poor. Musicians have to smoke pot or be addicted to heroin. You have to be an alcoholic, you have to see someone die. These are all meaningless, people should just stop trying to define an artist by how he is or acts in everyday life.

Law Schoo? Not so Fast!

2011-04-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

Before my older brother moved to Canada he simply left me with just one advice, "Law school...don't do it!"
At first I thought he was joking or quoting something but after some experience with some law professors, my brother may be actually right.

First, people should think pretty hard about the reasons why they are going to law school before anything. It's a huge investment (100,000$), it's soul-crushing work and the field of law is going through a revolution of sorts right now - the days of high status/high paying jobs are gone. The job market for new lawyers is quite horrible, as there's a number of new grads since everyone went back to school during the recession. Oh, and all the jobs dried up in 2008 and probably aren't coming back.

That being said, if you have a passion for something and you want to change the world (this is me), give it a shot. The work itself is fun if you like debate and argument (if only there wasn't 10 metric of it to do!), and there's still an aura of status about the job that drops panties to the floor (or boxers I suppose - more female lawyers than male nowadays). If are computer 15hrs+ p/day-autistic kind of person and can't talk to people, it's going to be really hard. If you're in it for the money, create a business instead. If you have connections from your rich family/corporate buddies you plan to exploit then hey - let me send you my resume! All in All law school is not what it used to be and people should really consider the reasons why they would even think about giving it a chance.

True Ambition

2011-03-30T23:51:00.000-07:00

If I do really well in my career, I one day hope to having savings in excess of five million dollars. That means that if you took twenty of me, you'd be able to cover Larry Ellison's annual salary. If he saved that salary for twenty years, he'd have the net worth of Ted Turner. On the other hand, it would take more than twenty Ted Turners to buy a Bill Gates.

On the other hand, with five million dollars I'd be able to conservatively spend about a thousand dollars a day for the rest of my life without really worrying about working down the base.

If I only look upwards, I will always be miserable.

It's the same with smarts, really. My adviser is pretty hot shit in our field and he talks pretty reverently of a few people whose contributions have been even more important. And whenever I get a chance to talk to those guys, they're always going on about how much they wish they could do really hard math... the kind that wins Wolf prizes.

It's always endless if you look upwards. The next level always seems unapproachable and if you do get there, there's always another level to go.It's good to have ambition, but its critical to have a sense of scale.

Besides, twenty years from now when you get a call from a hospital about my love ones dying, none of this will matter at all.

What is it that makes people (try) to be monogamous?

2011-03-29T22:34:00.000-07:00

Tonight I went to class and we were discussing the psychology of human pairing and relationships. Now I accept the fact that pairing is, from an evolutionary point of view, a necessity. However, the Evolutionary Psych point of view leaves itself open to criticisms, such as in the case of homosexuality, infertility, birth defects (specifically of the reproductive organs and the brain), and most importantly, of why there is such a desire to become paired. I've read many studies and seen many statistics on depression, anxiety, and suicide, and one of the leading causes seem to be this phenomena of human bonding; whether it be an individual in a relationship, or lack thereof. This seems counter-intuitive to evolution as this behavior, while beneficial to procreation, may also be detrimental to the individual(s) involved. Likewise, it still doesn't explain why there is (pardon the Freudian term) such a drive for humans to WANT to have relationships. Keep in mind, that procreation can and does happen outside of relationships (i.e. single parent families, etc.) As a I mentioned before homosexuality really complicates things even more. Individuals in relationships, especially long-term ones, consistently rate their happiness higher. I don't see a contradiction there: relationships increase the odds and survivability of offspring, so we're designed to want to be in them. Homosexuality may not be adaptive, or it may. Looking into kin selection, which makes sense in this context. Or it could be something else entirely. Homosexuality exists throughout the animal kingdom, so it may serve the same purpose in humans, or not; human sexuality is complicated.

Got a New Rescued Dog

2011-03-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

Has anyone here ever had a rescued dog before? yesterday, my sister got a terrier from friends of hers, and while not necessarily a rescued dog, he's a bit underfed and has been picked on by other dogs. when we introduced him to out rottweiler today, she actually was nice to him, surprisingly enough, and we're introducing him to my malibu tomorrow. my question is, how long does it take for a rescue dog to learn to trust someone? while my sis has made friends with him fast, he gets the shakes whenever i start coming towards him, and will even back up while i'm petting him. do i just let the trust grow over time, or look up a dog book online about "making a dog learn to love" or something like that? i think it might have something to do with my build, as i'm 6'2.

My current struggle

2011-03-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

I come from a family of engineers and business managers. From birth I was raised to study the sciences and find practical solutions to problems, to think logically. I excelled at math and science in high school and got into a good technical college.
However i realized about two years ago, I dont want to be an engineer or a mathematician or a scientist. Dont get me wrong I love the sciences but I love them for different reasons than my family does. My family loves the power of what science can do. I however love the stories and history of science. I love reading about the great men and woman who created and discovered amazing things and I love retelling them to other people. Hell I just love history and literature. I get no greater joy than reading about amazing events and understanding how and why the world is the way it is today. I also love literature and story writing and reading.

Im currently an economics major (its as close as I could get to the social sciences with my family still supporting me cause its math based.) But when i brought up the idea of majoring in the Arts they all thought I was joking and didnt even take me seriously. Why would you waste your time doing that, they said. Im so confused, I would love to be a college history professor and help my students understand the world through very different prospective, but i dont know how my family would react and theres just so much pressure.

Fishing: Catch and Release.

2011-03-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

I love fishing. It's so relaxing, it brings me closer to nature and brings out the primitive in me. Not only that but it's the only thing I've really done as a hobby with both, mom and dad lol I'm from southern California but I have a lot of family in Canada, and my family visits a lake in Canada for a few weeks every summer, so we fish quite a lot there.. 99% of the time we practiced catch and release. No one in my family really likes fish (my dad will eat it maybe 2 times a year), so there is no reason to keep them. But if a fish got injured in the process, we'd keep it and my dad would clean it and give it to a friend/relative to eat, so at least it didn't go to waste.

The million dollar question: Is catch and release really okay?Does the fish really die from it? Doesn't it cause them unnecessary pain?

I've seen fish take a lot of damage. Once I was out fishing with my parents on the lake in Canada, and my mom managed to hook some stray fishing line. We always pull in all the line/lures we can find because we like to keep the area beautiful, so my dad started dragging it in. On the other end was a 1 1/2lb-2lb small mouth with large Rapala hooked in it's mouth and all down it's side. It was so sad, there was no fight left in the poor thing and we didn't know there was a fish attached to the line until it got right near the boat. My dad got out his pliers and unhooked the Rapala from the fish's mouth and side, and then slowly started reintroducing it to the water. It took like 5 minutes, but eventually the fish seemed to recover. My dad held onto it in the water for a few more minutes until it shook free and dove. At the end of that summer I caught the same Rapala, messed up gill in the same spot! This time the fished looked refreshed and lively! That's the only fish I seriously injured that summer and I caught a lot of fish. It's stressful I'm sure and you have to handle them with care, but it's very rare to watch a fish go belly up after releasing it.
As far as it causing pain, from my observation I would say the pain involved is fairly minor, if there is pain at all. Either that or fish are really bad ass and tough as hell. Catch and release is perfectly fine. Pain depends on where the fish got hooked. The real issue is when it swallows the hook or it goes to far into their mouths and you have to cause more damage to remove it. If I ever get a fish that is going to get something torn on the inside I put the fish down because it won't survive. Keep in mind one of the most important things with catch and release is to release the fish as quickly as possible. Life expectancy and recovery decreases DRAMATICALLY after about 30 seconds out of the water. more than 2 minutes out of water is pretty much a death sentence. I honestly think the pain is minimal, most game fish eat things that can fight back with sharp pointy bits. The bigger concern is being stressed and exhausted by prolonged toying with them while they are being reeled in. Hope this helps and have a great weekend!

Some thought on religion.

2011-03-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

I personally cannot believe in anything with 100% confidence to be true based on "faith", the closest I get to this is a belief that my memories are true, and even this I would say is somewhere under 100%, which is why I cringe whenever I hear someone say I am 100% confident in the existence of a none prove-able being of unlimited power who is male and the only one of his kind and has been so since all eternal and therefore his gender is in the end pointless other than a representation of male supremacy. Aside from the the whole religion concept is totally wrong. I think the word "religion" gets misapplied a lot. In fact I'd go so far as to say that the mainstream understanding of the term is part of a recent cultural move to demean certain types of beliefs as being bad and grouping them all under the name of "religion", in other words the common definition is wrong as it is based on psychological defense mechanisms. perhaps religion is more scientific than anyt other field out there. The "religion" in question being scientism, whose wikipedia def. doesn't go far enough to explain all the intellectual errors inherent within.
What is your point of view on religion?
Are you religious? , If so why? if not why?
If you are unsure which side do you lean towards? if neither think about it.

Bored of Present Literature

2011-03-17T23:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry i haven't post int two days, my academic studies have hold me back from my social life this entire week. I wrote a total of 17 pages just this week alone which was very frustrating. A friend of mind is so sick of literature that he has lost faith in literature on it. He realize that everyone writes about the same thing. Stories are written in melancholy fashion for the sake of being so, and do not actually use their melancholy as a vehicle to speak of something greater beyond the confinements of their bad narratives.

I'm going to try to paraphrase everything he said "The New Yorker is publishing garbage. The Paris Review is publishing garbage. The 'Best American Stories of this Shitty Year' are selecting shit, and have had shitty writers write the introductions for their shit (I think one of the recent copies had an introduction by Alice Sebold, who wrote (The Lovely Bones, which was shit). These are supposed to be the crème of the crop when considerate of short literature—but they’re giving me shit. To top it off, I was in Barnes and Noble today, and walking past a small kiosk dedicated to David Mitchell’s fifth novel, I saw only praise for what was undoubtedly David Mitchell’s only shit novel (because dun’g’m’wrong, his previous four books aren’t shit, they’re THE shit – but The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Shit was shit). What do I do? I’m falling into the majority of people who don’t read because “Hyuck, reading is boring.” Yes. Yes, reading IS boring, because everything being published today is shit. And I’m running out of classics. I’ve even turned to reading poetry (John Clare is pretty dope, but still)."

Please excuse language, but he sure makes some good points. Any ideas to address his issue is welcome

Mormons

2011-03-15T21:40:00.000-07:00

Some would say that people are repulsed by the “weirdness” of Mormon beliefs, but how many Americans have ever even heard any of these beliefs? No, the one thing that everyone knows about Mormons–and it’s the only thing that matters–is that they’re serious. They actually believe “that stuff”. When they say “God bless you”, they’re actually asking an omnipotent Being to do something, and that freaks people out. “These guys are nuts! We’ve gotta keep them far from power,” thinks “moderate” America.

Catholics used to be a despised group, because Catholics, you know, actually believed “that stuff”. Then came Vatican II, when they gave society at large that wink and nudge that means “we’re not serious”. Now, instead of anti-Catholicism, in America we have anti-clericalism, because the public still can’t shake the suspicion that the Catholic clergy, at least, are serious. Would that it were true!

Collective Uncouncious

2011-03-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

This is a must watch short documentary on the great Carl Jung regarding human identity. Its just around 20 minutes long but is very informative and to the point. The main thing I want to point out is Jung's most famous theory "the collective unconscious." Jung argugues that we as humans share a history that no matter where we are from we share common ideas and behavior patterns through the collective unconscious. These commons ideas are past down through history, religion and culture; it is this collective unconscious that leads human beings around the world to adobt similar behaviour patterns without even realizing it.

Free Verse

2011-03-12T13:33:00.000-08:00

My dad just got back from a 3rd world country and he says "people are just happy to be alive and walking around and loving life, really happy people, but extremely poor and living in terrible conditions. Then I come back to America, and see people bitching about their job, their life, ect."

So.. I just felt like writing something.. I've never really written a poem (more like a free verse) before but this is just some stuff that's been on my mind lately. Hope you enjoy.

We're all part of a man made world.
Man made economy,
Man made reality pulled over our eyes,
Man's routine life
What's that they tell me, oh yes..
'The Real World'
What is the real world?
A 9-5 repetive life they tell me,
Sitting in that metal box, inching your way to work
That, is the 'Real World'
If someone attempts to step out, to be different,
They are told and forced back into this so called reality.
However, what is reality?
Reality is the state of things as they actually exist,
rather than as they may appear or may be thought to be.
Why do we still blind ourselves from reality then?
Important things in life should not be money, greed, nor jobs.
Live the real reality, with your own standards,
not your mothers,
nor fathers,
not even grandparents,
don't live by society's standards of reality.
Live by Your Own.

Oceans

2011-03-11T00:28:00.000-08:00

8.9 tsunami hits japan. my heart goes to all affected by it. i will later post a whole blog about it. but first i would love to share some videos on how crazy the ocean can be! the ocean is so unpredictable and fisherman know this more than anyone out there. they really experience another view of life that many people will never see. the aw and respect they have toward the waters is just amazing.

Rogue Wave caught by Deadliest Catch

Even big boats get tossed around

Why Nature? Because It's Bad Ass.

A little on Nature

2011-03-08T22:31:00.000-08:00

Thousands of sardies found dead just a few blocks from my house. The theroy is that some how a tide wave pushed all those fishes to a really compacted areas in which water levels were low and kill the fish due to the lack of oxygen on the low levels of waters. I just could not believe this, I actually when down there and by God was it true. Thousands of sardines floating dead not only on the superficial lever but on deep levels as well. It was really sad seeing the poor fishes flapping around. They fish were making this "shhzzzz" noise as if they were being fried on a pan.

By a conisidence we were discussing, The Perfect Storm, a novel based on a true story in which a fishing boat sinks on the Great Banks of the Atlantic Ocean due to a massive storm. From these expirences I just can help but wonder how vulnerble I am to nature. The human race consider itself to be well advance and most of them think they have conquer nature. In reality nature can crush us like a bug. Everything can kill us. I live in California and we are for sure due for the "big one." In the Midwest you have tornadoes, and on the East people are always concern of hurricanes. Hawaii is cursed with tsunamis. Nature is alive.Animals are Nature. Humans are animals. So humans are nature. Lets stop thinking as if we are superior to nature because we are not, and we won't realize this until something tragic happens to us. In fact we will never dominate nature, because we simply are a part of nature.

KENKO MAYO

2011-03-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

I went to a international food shop today and had to get this since i've heard it's amazing. I plan to add it to various rice dishes, but I was wondering if anyone has some delicious dish recipe for a big family. What do you love to put your kenko/kewpie mayo on? Kewpie is Superfantastic! But I have found it's greatest power is with my younger siblings when they do not want to eat something. As it is sweeter than American Mayo it tends to add [pop] to the mystery cheese on a cheese sandwich, or mixed in with an ancient grated cheese on penne pasta instead of butter. I have found it useful as a base for a vegetable dip for those cursed vegetables as well. But never try to add it to a big recipe or known anyone who uses it that actually has some experience with this sauce. I always make this recipe and its always good no matter what!

Yakisoba fried noodles

-1 chukasoba pack, cook, strain and run under cold water
-fry 3" ginger, half an onion, 2 carrots and mushrooms
-fry meat of choice
-add noodles
-add yakisoba sauce and keep on med.
-add more yakisoba sauce, kenko mayo and mustard.

back to civilization

2011-03-04T23:41:00.000-08:00

I just got back from my camping trip at santee lakes, which is just a couple miles from san diego. I for the pas 3 days i was withdrawn from any sort of technology and it was so amazing. I felt free and learned a lot about my self and the people around me. I felt the primitive person inside of me! I felt the tranquility once get when they being to realize that we are just part of nature. no computer no phone no television and so much fun. makes me question whether technology really makes our life better. these types of questions wouldnt come at a better time; as i keep reading carl jung, jung himself blames technology for our detachment from our true individuality. no phone no television no computer made notice the little things that i usually ignore. i was actually communicating and express myself in a better way to those around me. technology most of the time isolates us and prevents a lot of confrontations that makes us human. my mission after my trip from london is to go camping but this time with little to no food. its amazing how much nature could teach of about our self if we give it a chance. have a great weekend. cheers!