What's the deal with Sushi?

Is it just me or does anyone else feel there's a bit of The Emperor's New Clothes going on with regards to everyone's enthusiasm with Sushi these days?

I tried it a couple of times, the latter being lunchtime today. I really don't see what the big deal's about. It tastes of nothing, unless you dip it in the sauce and then it tastes of sauce. Sounds like fries (or chips for my British readers) to me. I just don't get it. I wonder if it's just me or if anyone else is spectacularly unaffected by this.

Think outside of "Think outside the box"

Have you noticed how popular the expression "Think outside the box" has become?

It strikes me as amusing and ironic that the phrase which originated as an expression advocating lateral thought and creativity has itself become another glib cliché, falling victim to narrow thinking and half-baked slogans. It's one of the most over-used expressions of our time! We need to think outside the box of "think outside the box!" Maybe a good alternative might be:

"Ponder outside the planet."

or

"Hypothesize outside the hyperbola."

maybe

"Consider outside the cliché."

Add your own suggestions to the comments section under this post! Let's see what we can come up with when we think outside the... no, wait... when we employ some lateral thought!

(Of course, don't feel bound to the "x outside the y." formula here. This is all about being different, after all!)

If you were a REAL Christian you would...

You know, sometimes I get certain forwards in my inbox that really tick me off. They usually originate from some Christian or other who's trying to gain support for some hot topic such as prayer in schools, abortion or whatever. The prevailing theme in these messages is always the same, though. It's the sting at the end of the message that says something like:

"Jesus wasn't ashamed to hang on the cross naked for you, funny how you're too ashamed to forward this message on to your friends."

The latest one I received today ended with this:

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they WILL think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in!

In other words, "If you really were a good Christian you would forward this on. By deleting it, you're admitting to being a pathetic person."

This kind of thing angers me so much because Jesus was NOTHING like this yet people who profess to be his followers resort to these kind of tactics to spread their message. It's funny how children of God can sound like the accuser of the brethren sometimes.

I think people need more teaching about emotional manipulation and the fact that it's NOT a good way to get your point across. Jesus NEVER resorted to telling people they were pathetic to get them to do anything. He didn't make people feel worse about themselves. If someone was genuinely doing their best, he was (and still is) the very definition of compassion and grace. The only people who he gave a hard time were those who were so confident in their own righteousness that they didn't see a need for him in their lives.

If Jesus could inspire a group of twelve people to spread a message to the world, risking their lives and dying for it in the process without manipulation then why do we feel we need to manipulate to get more signatures on a petition? Isn't the kingdom of God better than this? The God who parted the Red Sea, fed thousands from a few loaves of bread, raised the dead and forgave our sins is more than capable of speaking to the recipient of an e-mail without us beating them to a pulp in the process.

Some of the examples of Christian behaviour I see through e-mail make me sad. I don't approve of these tactics and I don't see any evidence in the bible that God's character is like this either.

سلام

I finally got round to doing the first lesson from my Beginner's Dari book.

It is mostly about the letter Alef which looks like (ا or آ). The 2nd version has a mad on top which looks a bit like a Greek tilde. (~) If a word starts with the regular kind of Alef (ا) then it's a short 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o' or 'u' sound. If it's an Alef mad, though, (آ) then it's a long 'a' sound. When an Alef occurs elsewhere in a word, it's always the long version. The mad is not written in these cases, though.

Another weird thing is that when an Alef is preceded by a Laam (ل) , they form a bizarre shape called a laam aleflaa. It looks like this: لا

So, the title of this post (سلام) is "salaam" which is a greeting in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. I believe that literally it means peace although it's often used as a "hey, wassup" kinda deal as well.

Sweet Norah - so relaxing

I just bought Norah Jones' recent album, Feels Like Home, last week.

It's really nice stuff. It's hard to remain stressed and up-tight while listening to this album. Perfect for these Monday mornings when you can't quite get your brain in gear again after the weekend. (No mind-altering activities implied by that remark.) The only thing I'm finding difficult to come to terms with is that a couple of the songs are a but too much like Country Music for my liking. That said, if there was someone who was to change my opinion of Country, Norah just might be it.

I'm not dead.

In case anyone was wondering, I'm still here. Just so you know.

It's true, though. I've not written in my blog for a while and I should really figure out something interesting to write about.

I did find it quite amusing in the news today that Kevin Spacey reported that he had been mugged when in fact someone had just tricked him into handing over his phone.

Am I Seattle? Probably not.

Take the quiz: "Which American City Are You?"


Seattle

Your dark exterior masks a caffeine driven activism. You'll take up a cause and you'll get ugly to advance it.

I'm not too impressed with quiz. There were 6 questions. The overall breakdown of my score was:

New York (You scored 0)
Las Vegas (You scored 0)
Cleveland (You scored 0)
Washington DC (You scored 0)
San Francisco (You scored 1)
Seattle (You scored 2)
Los Angeles (You scored 1)
Memphis (You scored 1)
Boston (You scored 1)
Orlando (You scored 0)

In other words, I'm a bit of everything but I had two answers in the Seattle category rather than one.

Also, the spelling was pretty amusing. There are words like karyoke and stoopor in there.

So, in conclusion, the quiz is crap. It was a waste of my time. Thanks to dru for the distraction.

See The Ken, see the world...

After much tinkering with CSS, I've now got my photo in my blog. It was taken at my birthday party on March 27th by my buddy Tim Jeong. (no link yet, I'm afraid) This is the original colour of the image due to a sneaky use of natural light.

I put the image as a background in the left column rather than using an <img> tag. Ideally, I want the left column to be fixed at the width of the image and have only the main section re-size. As it stands just now, the dividing line between the columns is based on a percentage so when you re-size the window the left column changes size.

Muscles...aagh....

It's been 2 days since my last visit to Joe Rockhead's and my arms are getting worse rather than better. Man, I feel like such a wuss. I reckon I'd have a hard time picking up a wet towel just now.

On a more positive note, I'm noticing some increased definition in my arms and upper body. It's weird to feel part of my arm that's solid yet not bone. It's about time - I certainly need it! I just need to learn to climb with my legs more so that my arms last longer. I only hope they feel better tomorrow rather than worse.

Is this made by the guys who did Homestar Runner?

THORAX CORPORATION LLC,,.

Man, this website is bizarre. I reckon it's the guys who made Homestar Runner that have made it. Mainly because on today's April Fool Homestar Runner front page, the title says

www.homestarrunner.com is coming soon!
This domain is reserved through thoraxcorp.com

Also, on the Thorax Corporation page, there are references to "peasant children in the thatched roof cottages" (Trogdor reference perhaps?) There is a use of the word wedpages on the produkts page as well. That could be a reference to Homestar's page which was a secret link off one cartoon.

If you believe...Google put a man on the moon (man on the mooon)

I was looking at the Google April Fool's article about there being a job vacancy on the moon. I especially liked their explanation on why you would need to use a different programming language:

"The rules of coding will literally be stood on their head at the Copernicus Center, as the absence of gravity plays havoc with the normal ordering of data. Search results lacking in substance may rise to positions of prominence while those possessed of a desirable gravitas may become negatively buoyant. Simple computing exercises, such as building a list inverter become problematic when "up" or "down" are not clearly defined, and subroutines are disrupted when values increment six times faster than in Earth gravity."

Yes, values increment six times faster indeed! How amusing!