AgentQuantum

2011-12-22T01:02:00.000+08:00

R. Daneel Olivaw still spoke quietly, but it seemed to Seldon that there was a subtle change in his voice, as though he spoke more easily now that he was no longer playing a part.

“In twenty thousand years,” said Daneel, “no one has guessed I was a robot when it was not my intention to have him or her know. In part, that was because human beings abandoned robots so long ago that very few remember that they even existed at one time. And in part, it is because I do have the ability to detect and affect human emotion. The detection offers no trouble, but to affect emotion is difficult for me for reasons having to do with my robotic nature-although I can do it when I wish. I have the ability but must deal with my will not to use it. I try never to interfere except when I have no choice but to do so. And when I do interfere, it is rarely that I do more than strengthen, as little as I can, what is already there. If I can achieve my purposes without doing even so much, I avoid it.

“It was not necessary to tamper with Sunmaster Fourteen in order to have him accept you-I call it ‘tampering,’ you notice, because it is not a pleasant thing to do. I did not have to tamper with him because he did owe me for favors rendered and he is an honorable man, despite the peculiarities you found in him. I did interfere the second time, when you had committed sacrilege in his eyes, but it took very little. He was not anxious to hand you over to the Imperial authorities, whom he does not like. I merely strengthened the dislike a trifle and he handed you over to my care, accepting the arguments I offered, which otherwise he might have considered specious.

“Nor did I tamper with you noticeably. You distrusted the Imperials too. Most human beings do these days, which is an important factor in the decay and deterioration of the Empire. What’s more, you were proud of psychohistory as a concept, proud of having thought of it. You would not have minded having it prove to be a practical discipline. That would have further fed your pride.” Seldon frowned and said, “Pardon me, Master Robot, but I am not aware that I am quite such a monster of pride.”

Daneel said mildly, “You are not a monster of pride at all. You are perfectly aware that [it] is neither admirable nor useful to be driven by pride, so you try to subdue that drive, but you might as well disapprove of having yourself powered by your heartbeat. You cannot help either fact. Though you hide your pride from yourself for the sake of your own peace of mind, you cannot hide it from me. It is there, however carefully you mask it over. And I had but to strengthen it a touch and you were at once willing to take measures to hide from Demerzel, measures that a moment before you would have resisted. And you were eager to work at psychohistory with an intensity that a moment before you would have scorned.

“I saw no necessity to touch anything else and so you have reasoned out your robothood. Had I foreseen the possibility of that, I might have stopped it, but my foresight and my abilities are not infinite. Nor am I sorry now that I failed, for your arguments are good ones and it is important that you know who I am and that I use what I am to help you.

“Emotions, my dear Seldon are a powerful engine of human action, far more powerful than human beings themselves realize, and you cannot know how much can be done with the merest touch and how reluctant I am to do it.”

Prelude to Foundation, Isaac Asimov

2011-11-30T19:31:00.000+08:00

You're not a dream,
You're not an angel,
You're a woman,
I'm not a king,
I'm just a man,
Take my hand,
We'll make a space,
In this life that we planned,
And here we'll stay,
Until it's time for you to go.

Yes, we're diff'rent, worlds apart,
We're not the same,
We laughed and played,
At the start, like in a game,
You could have stayed,
Outside my heart,
But in you came,
And here you'll stay,
Until it's time for you to go.

Don't ask why,
Don't ask how,
Don't ask forever,
Love me, love me,
Love me, love me now.

This love of mine,
Had no beginning,
It has no end,
I was an oak,
Now I'm a willow,
Now I can bend,
And tho' I'll never,
In my life see you again,
And still I'll stay,
Until it's time for you to go.

Don't ask why,
Don't ask how,
Don't ask forever,
Love me, love me,
Love me, love me now.

This love of mine,
Had no beginning,
It has no end,
I was an oak,
Now I'm a willow,
And I can bend,
And tho' I'll never,
In my life see you again,
Here I'll stay,
Until it's time for you to go,
Yes I'll stay,
Until it's time for you to go.

2011-09-19T15:07:00.000+08:00

Yesterday,
All my troubles seemed so far away,
Now it looks as though they're here to stay,
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
I'm not half the man I used to be,
There's a shadow hanging over me,
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.

Why she
Had to go I don't know, she wouldn't say.
I said,
Something wrong, now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday,
Love was such an easy game to play,
Now I need a place to hide away,
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Yesterday, yesterday.

2011-08-29T02:49:00.000+08:00

When you're feeling cold and all the city streets are grey
Walking all alone and watching how the children play
Voices in the wind and faces from the past go dancing by
They're asking why

Will you be there for me, everytime I go away
Will you be there for me, thinking of me everyday
Are you my destiny, words I never dared to say
Will you be there for me?

Can you really want me more than for a little while?
What are the stories hiding there behind your smile?
Wishes in a dream and figures in a world that I could share
And everywhere

Will you be there for me
Will there ever come a day when all the world can see
Things were meant to be that way
Will you be there for me?
Can you hear the people say
That you're just
There for me

There for me

2010-02-16T13:19:00.003+08:00

"Emotional contact such as you and I possess is not a very new development. Actually it is implicit in the human brain. Most humans can read emotion in a primitive manner by associating it pragmatically with facial expression, tone of voice and so on. A good many animals possess the faculty to a higher degree; they use the sense of smell to a good extent, and the emotions involved are, of course, less complex.

"Actually, humans are capable of much more, but the faculty of direct emotional contact tended to atrophy with the development of speech a million years back. It has been the great advance of our Second Foundation that this forgotten sense has been restored to at least some of its potentialities.

"But we are not born with its full use. A million years of decay is a formidable obstacle, and we must educate the sense, exercise it as we exercise our muscles. And there you have the main difference. You were born with it.

---

He was the twelfth in the line of chief guardians of the Plan, and his title bore no deeper significance than the fact that at the gatherings of the leaders of the Second Foundation, he spoke first.

His predecessor had beaten the Mule, but the wreckage of that gigantic struggle still littered the path of the Plan-- For twenty-five years, he, and his administration, had been trying to force a Galaxy of stubborn and stupid human beings back to the path --It was a terrible task.

The First Speaker looked up at the opening door. Even while, in the loneliness of the room, he considered his quarter century of effort, which now so slowly and inevitably approached its climax; even while he had been so engaged, his mind had been considering the newcomer with a gentle expectation. A youth, a student, one of those who might take over, eventually.

The young man stood uncertainly at the door, so that the First Speaker had to walk to him and lead him in, with a friendly hand upon the shoulder.

The Student smiled shyly, and the First Speaker responded by saying, "First, I must tell you why you are here."

They faced each other now, across the desk. Neither was speaking in any way that could be recognised as such by any man in the Galaxy who was not himself a member of the Second Foundation.

---

-Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation

2009-12-07T18:28:00.004+08:00

Think of me, think of me fondly
When we've said goodbye
Remember me, once in a while
Please promise me you'll try
When you find that once again you long
To take your heart back and be free
If you ever find a moment
Spare a thought for me

We never said our love was evergreen
Or as unchanging as the sea
But if you can still remember
Stop and think of me

Think of all the things
We've shared and seen
Don't think about the things
Which might have been

Think of me, think of me waking
Silent and resigned
Imagine me trying too hard
To put you from my mind
Recall those days
Look back on all those times
Think of the things we'll never do
There will never be a day
When I won't think of you

Can it be, can it be Christine?
Brava!
Long ago, it seems so long ago
How young and innocent we were
She may not remember me
But I remember her.

2009-10-18T17:07:00.002+08:00

You see it all around you
Good lovin' gone bad
And usually it's too late when you, realize what you had
And my mind goes back to a girl I left some years ago
Who told me
Just hold on loosely, but don't let go
If you cling too tightly
You're gonna lose control
Your baby needs someone to believe in
And a whole lot of space to breathe in

It's so damn easy, when your feelings are such
To overprotect her, to love her too much
And my mind goes back to a girl I left some years ago
Who told me
Just hold on loosely, but don't let go
If you cling too tightly
You're gonna loose control
Your baby needs someone to believe in
And a whole lot of space to breathe in

Don't let her slip away
Sentimental fool
Don't let your heart get in her way
Yeah, yeah, yeah

You see it all around you
Good lovin' gone bad
And usually it's too late when you, realize what you had

Just hold on loosely, but don't let go
If you cling too tightly
You're gonna lose control
Your baby needs someone to believe in
And a whole lot of space to breathe in

2009-10-18T16:57:00.002+08:00

..Daily, fleets of ships in the tens of thousands brought the produce of twenty agricultural worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor....

Its dependence upon the outer worlds for food and, indeed, for all necessities of life, made Trantor increasingly vulnerable to conquest by siege. In the last millennium of the Empire, the monotonously numerous revolts made Emperor after Emperor conscious of this, and Imperial policy became little more than the protection of Trantor's delicate jugular vein....

-Encyclopedia Galactica, Foundation

2009-09-30T00:02:00.002+08:00

"Dr. Seldon, you disturb the peace of the Emperor's realm. None of the quadrillions living now among all the stars of the Galaxy will be living a century from now. Why, then, should we concern ourselves with events of three centuries' distance?"

"I shall not be alive half a decade hence," said Seldon, "and yet it is of overpowering concern to me. Call it idealism. Call it an identification of myself with that mystical generalization to which we refer by the term, 'humanity'."

-Foundation

2009-08-13T21:49:00.002+08:00

It all made sense now. All the nagging doubts and questions could be answered. And somehow, it didn't matter one bit. All that mattered was Dors.

"We can't let this happen."

"It must." Dors's eyes fluttered open and looked at Seldon. "Must. Tried to save you, but missed - vital point - who will protect you now?"

Seldon couldn't see her clearly. There was something wrong with his eyes. "Don't worry about me, Dors. It's you - it's you - "

"No. You, Hari. Tell Manella - Manella - I forgive her now. She did better than I. Explain to Wanda. You and Raych - take care of each other."

"No no no," said Seldon, rocking back and forth. "You can't do this. Hang on, Dors. Please. Please, my love."

Dors's head shook feebly and she smiled even more feebly. "Good-bye, Hari, my love. Remember always - all you did for me."

"I did nothing for you."

"You loved me and your love made me - human."

Her eyes remained open, but Dors had ceased functioning.

-Forward the Foundation

She's gone. ='(

2009-08-05T23:26:00.003+08:00

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Headed to Mac, PC This Fall

Aspyr Media has announced that it's bringing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition to the Mac and PC this fall.

Peter Cohen, Macworld.com

Monday, July 27, 2009 08:10 AM PDT

Aspyr Media has announced that it's bringing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition to the Mac and PC this fall. Pricing and system requirements were not announced.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has already made its rounds on video game consoles (a version was also produced for the iPhone). The game puts you in the role of a "secret apprentice" trained by Darth Vader himself -- you go on a series of missions with the ultimate goal of fostering a rebellion against the Empire. You develop and master Force powers along the way, fighting others with a light saber and a variety of skills you develop over time.
The "Ultimate Sith Edition" of the game features the original title along with three new levels set in iconic Star Wars locales along with new costumes and character models. New locales include the Jedi Temple on the planet Coruscant; a new "Infinites" storyline that reimagines what would have happened if you, as the secret apprentice, had taken Darth Vader's place beside the Emperor; and a trip to the planet Hoth (snowy scene of the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back).

The Ultimate Sith Edition also enables gamers to play as Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Count Dooku, Jango Fett and C-3PO.

I'm pretty sure just about the entire SW gaming community is screaming right now, but i reserve the right to scream as well.

2009-07-26T23:25:00.000+08:00

yaxy2k says:
hi
` alwyn - raffles judo an airman! says:
howdy hi hi
yaxy2k says:
i am sad. can you happify me?
` alwyn - raffles judo an airman! says:
i am sad too!
why are you sad?
yaxy2k says:
in sooth i know not why i am so sad
` alwyn - raffles judo an airman! says:
it wearies me, you say it wearies you; but what stuff 'tis made of, wherefore it is from, i do not know.
OMG
yaxy2k says:
WOAH

2009-07-14T22:42:00.002+08:00

I HAVE FREE MOVIE TICKETS TO HALF BLOOD PRINCE! TWO OF THEM, IN FACT!

No wait, let's check out the fine print.. only available at GV Tiong Bahru.. which is fair enough, given that it's a Moviemax offer (by the way, what about my three email requests for a replacement card after I lost mine more than a year ago? Strange..), and with the time slot fixed on next MONDAY at 7.30pm!!!

Score one for SAFRA, folks. This is what you call having the customers' best interests at heart.

2009-07-09T18:31:00.002+08:00

This is a joke:

Dear Singaporeans,
As most of you agreed that Rachel Kum does not deserve the crown of Miss Singapore Universe 2009!

These pictures posted by her are degrading and does not represent her country in any ways. Her scandals are one after another even before she was crown.

Check out this link:
http://missosology.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11400

The women of singapore are not c---k sucker like Miss Kum portrays.

Let us stand up and speak for what is right for our nation!

We are enough of her nonsense! We want her OUT !

Please show your outmost support for this petition!

With Love,
Fellow Singaporean

----------------------------------------------------
Added by: Vaness_Moven_Allan on July 1, 2009, 4:21:38 pm

You want to know what's "degrading", darling? Your English. Not a cute little birthday cake shaped like a dickie.

2009-06-15T02:23:00.002+08:00

Someday she would lose him, she knew, and she found that the thought afflicted her. It had not seemed it would at the start, when her task had been the simple one of protecting him for the sake of what he knew.

When had it become a matter of personal need? How could there be so personal a need? What was there about the man that caused her to feel uneasy when he was not in her sight, even when she knew he was safe so that the deeply ingrained orders within her were not called into action? His safety was all that she had been ordered to be concerned with. How did the rest intrude itself?

She had spoken of it to Demerzel long before, when the feeling had made itself unmistakable.

He had regarded her gravely and said,"You are complex, Dors, and there are no simple answers. In my life there have been several individuals whose presence made it easier for me to think, pleasanter to make my responses. I have tried to judge the ease of my responses in their presence and the unease of my responses in their final absence to see whether I was the net gainer or loser. In the process, one thing became plain. The pleasantness of their company outweighed the regret of their passing. On the whole, then, it is better to experience what you experience now than not to."

She thought: Hari will someday leave a void, and each day that someday is closer, and I must not think of it.

-Forward the Foundation, Isaac Asimov

2009-05-05T01:03:00.051+08:00

I have decided to come up with my very own Cast list, if ever Asimov's Foundation series are to be made into films! Major AND minor characters included. This is a work in progress. :D

Hari Seldon (Young) - Martin Freeman. The perfect Seldon - exactly as I picture him when I read!
Hari Seldon (Old) - A dolled-up Freeman, or Bill Nighy.
Dors Venabili - Lily Cole. She's perfect in so many ways, it would be a sin not to use her.
Eto Demerzel - Clive Owen
Raindrop Forty-Three - Natalie Portman
Skystrip Two - Armin Mueller-Stahl
Yugo Amaryl (Young) - David Krumholtz (HAHA)
Jenarr Leggen - Christopher Lee
Clowzia - Ellen Page
Jirad Tisalver - Michael J. Fox
Davan - Hugh Laurie
Rashelle - Miranda Richardson
Raych Seldon - Billy Boyd
Emperor Cleon I - Ewan McGregor
Gambol Deen Namarti - Wayne Pygram
Gleb Andorin - Jude Law
Tamwile Elar - Cillian Murphy
Manella Dubanqua - Rachel Nichols!!!
Gennaro Mummery - Robert Hardy
Las Zenow - Michael Gambon
Tryma Acarnio - Aaron Eckhart
Stettin Palver - Shawn Ashmore
Wanda Seldon - Anna Paquin
Bor Alurin - Tom Hanks
Gaal Dornick - Tobey Maguire
Lewis Pirenne - James Spader
Salvor Hardin - Pierce Brosnan
Lord Dorwin - Oliver Platt
Yohan Lee - Alan Rickman
Jord Parma - Victor McGuire
Wienis - Harvey Keitel
Tomaz Sutt - Jason Isaacs
Jorane Sutt - Peter Facinelli
Limmar Ponyets - Al Pacino
Hober Mallow - Zachary Quinto
Ammel Brodrig - Keanu Reeves
Bel Riose - Simon Baker
Bail Channis - Johnny Depp
Bayta - Zooey Deschanel
Toran - Jack Davenport
Ebling Mis - Brent Spiner
The Mule - Mackenzie Crook
The First Speaker - Liam Neeson
The First Speaker (successor) - Ewan Mcgregor
The Student - Hayden Christensen
Poli - Maggie Gyllenhaal
Lady Callia - Charlotte Church

..to be expanded.

2009-04-03T22:48:00.000+08:00

2009-02-28T02:57:00.005+08:00

Symptoms and prevalence

OCD manifests in a variety of forms. Studies have placed the prevalence between one and three percent, although the prevalence of clinically recognized OCD is much lower, suggesting that many individuals with the disorder may not be diagnosed. The fact that many individuals do not seek treatment may be due in part to stigma associated with OCD. Another reason for not seeking treatment is that many sufferers of OCD do not realize that they have the condition.

The typical OCD sufferer performs tasks (or compulsions) to seek relief from obsession-related anxiety. To others, these tasks may appear odd and unnecessary. But for the sufferer, such tasks can feel critically important, and must be performed in particular ways to ward off dire consequences and to stop the stress from building up. Examples of these tasks are repeatedly checking that one's parked car has been locked before leaving it, turning lights on and off a set number of times before exiting a room, repeatedly washing hands at regular intervals throughout the day, touching objects a certain number of times before leaving a room, or walking in a certain routine way. Physical symptoms may include those brought on from anxieties and unwanted thoughts, as well as tics or Parkinson's disease-like symptoms: rigidity, tremor, jerking arm movements, or involuntary movements of the limbs.

Formal diagnosis may be performed by a psychologist, a psychiatrist or psychoanalyst. OCD sufferers are aware that their thoughts and behavior are not rational,but they feel bound to comply with them to fend off feelings of panic or dread. Although everyone may experience unpleasant thoughts at one time or another, these are short-lived and fade away in time. For people with OCD, the thoughts are intrusive and persistent, and can cause them great anxiety and distress.

Performing tasks

Symptoms related to performing tasks may include repeated hand washing or clearing of the throat; specific counting systems or counting of steps; doing repetitive actions—more generally, this can involve an obsession with numbers or types of numbers (e.g., odd numbers). For example, when somebody suffering from OCD leaves the house, they might tap the door knob 9 times and if they don't they will go into distress, panic and even at certain times, they will pass out. These obsessive behaviors can cause individuals to feel psychological distress, because they are very concerned about having "made mistakes" in the number of steps that they have taken, or the number of stairs on a staircase. For some people with OCD, these obsessive counting and re-counting tasks, along with the attendant anxiety and fear, can take hours of each day, which can make it hard for the person to fulfill their work, family, or social roles. In some cases, these behaviors can also cause adverse physical symptoms: people who obsessively wash their hands with antibacterial soap and hot water (to remove germs) can make their skin red and raw with dermatitis.

Related conditions

OCD is often confused with the separate condition obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. The two are not the same condition, however. OCD is ego dystonic, meaning that the disorder is incompatible with the sufferer's self-concept. Because disorders that are ego dystonic go against an individual's perception of his/herself, they tend to cause much distress. OCPD, on the other hand, is ego syntonic—marked by the individual's acceptance that the characteristics displayed as a result of this disorder are compatible with his/her self-image. Ego syntonic disorders understandably cause no distress. Persons suffering from OCD are often aware that their behavior is not rational and are unhappy about their obsessions but nevertheless feel compelled by them. Persons with OCPD are not aware of anything abnormal about themselves; they will readily explain why their actions are rational, and it is usually impossible to convince them otherwise. Persons with OCD are ridden with anxiety; persons who suffer from OCPD, by contrast, tend to derive pleasure from their obsessions or compulsions. This is a significant difference between these disorders.

Equally frequently, these rationalizations do not apply to the overall behavior, but to each instance individually; for example, a person compulsively checking their front door may argue that the time taken and stress caused by one more check of the front door is considerably less than the time and stress associated with being robbed, and thus the check is the better option. In practice, after that check, the individual is still not sure, and it is still better in terms of time and stress to do one more check, and this reasoning can continue as long as necessary.

Some OCD sufferers exhibit what is known as overvalued ideas. In such cases, the person with OCD will truly be uncertain whether the fears that cause them to perform their compulsions are irrational or not. After some discussion, it is possible to convince the individual that their fears may be unfounded. It may be more difficult to do ERP therapy on such patients, because they may be, at least initially, unwilling to cooperate. For this reason OCD has often been likened to a disease of pathological doubt, in which the sufferer, while not usually delusional, is often unable to realize fully what sorts of dreaded events are reasonably possible and which are not. There are severe cases when the sufferer has an unshakeable belief within the context of OCD which is difficult to differentiate from psychosis.

OCD is different from behaviors such as gambling addiction and overeating. People with these disorders typically experience at least some pleasure from their activity; OCD sufferers do not actively want to perform their compulsive tasks, and experience no pleasure from doing so. OCD is placed in the anxiety class of mental illness, but like many chronic stress disorders it can lead to clinical depression over time. The constant stress of the condition can cause sufferers to develop a deadening of spirit, a numbing frustration, or sense of hopelessness. OCD's effects on day-to-day life—particularly its substantial consumption of time—can produce difficulties with work, finances and relationships. There is no known cure for OCD as of yet, but there are a number of successful treatment options available.

(cue psychiatric blabber)
(the above line was, by the way, typed and retyped no less than ten times over. rah.)

):

2008-12-22T21:17:00.005+08:00

I'm doing this ridiculously long quiz for Sarah in the hope that I might get a shag.

---

The last person you kissed needs you at 3am. Would you go?
Depends on how badly they need me.

Who was the last person you saw?
*Looks around* My brother.

How many hours did you sleep last night?
7. NS ftw!

Do you miss your past?
Hell yes. Raffles was good stuff. Judo, too, was incredible. As for now.. sigh.

What is wrong with you right now?
I am in NS. :D Hahaha. And and I have too little time to do the things I want. (One is a consequence of the other here. No prizes.)

What are you listening to?
My father inviting people to his RC buffet, and my mum's Korean songs from the next room. Youtube, of course.

Who was last to cook for you?
Fiona Xie, in a two-piece apron.. okay nah, just the Subway dude.. does that count?

(where does one find a two-piece apron, anyway?)

Do you want to see somebody right now?
Yes. The person whose nose is on my wallpaper right now- I mean, the person whose nose IS my wallpaper right now :D

How's your day going so far?
*grunts*

Do you find it in your heart to forgive?
Without a doubt. For the record, however, I use my HEAD, then my heart. To do anything on a purely emotional basis untempered by logic and reason is both blind and dangerous - most unwise, even for forgiveness. Anybody is deserving of forgiveness - yet one must first understand the why of it before one forgives at all, lest he finds himself doing too much forgiving than that which is healthy.

Anything you're looking forward to?
All I want for Christmas is to ORD, to ORD, yes to ORD.. sparing that, 24th April 2010.

Are you waiting for something?
For the above to happen?

Do you want to grow old with someone or be single?
When one can appreciate the true beauty of this universe we inhabit, with its inherent harmony and myriad interrelationships, one soon finds that he will never truly be alone. 'Sides, does it have to be just one someone? :P

What were you doing at 8:00 this morning?
Going to work.

If you were stranded on an island with the person you hated and without food what would you do?
Either rare or medium rare, I can't decide which.

What colour is your comb?
I don't have a personal one, haha. I do use this sweet beetroot-coloured one, however.

What was the last thing you bought?
An oven-roasted chicken breast on hearty Italian footlong sub with lettuce, onions, tomato, and more tomato. Honey mustard.

Where do you keep your money?
With my sugar daddy.

Would you give up a dream for someone you loved?
I'd find a way to have my cake and eat it, too. How could it be a dream, otherwise?

Do you wanna cut your hair?
Nop. I have to, though.

Are you over the age of 25?
Nop.

Do you talk a lot?
Nop.

Could you date someone who has been only your friend for a long time?
Quite possible. I have hot friends.

Are you typically a jealous person?
No.

..well, when it comes to matters of the intellect, perhaps. I want to be smarter ): and NS is not helping ): At all ):

Is there such thing (sic) as perfect relationship?
No. Nothing's perfect, and that's not me being cynical- that's life, and we have to learn to accept it before we can act effectively to make the best of it.

Do you have curly hair?
No. People have a hard time believing I don't use conditioner.

Do you have to work tomorrow?
Yes.

Are you happy with your life?
See above.

Have you laughed so hard, you cried in the past two weeks?
No. I have made my girlfriend laugh till she clutched her belly though, goodness knows why. *gives Sarah a doting look*

Where is the last place you went?
I would have to say the bedroom.

Ever had a boy best friend?
Sort of, although I doubt he thought of himself as one.

Do you regret dating anyone you dated?
Hey, dates are fun!

Who was the last person you talked to on the telephone?
Sarah, I think. Ergo sum.

Are you missing someone?
Yes.

What color shirt are you wearing?
Beige.

Do you talk about your feelings or hide them?
Does talking to myself in my head count?

Ever talk to someone that was drunk?
Yes. Smelt them, too.

Do you trust people easily?
Depends. Everyone's different.. but I would say I'm pretty willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Are you wearing socks?
No.

How many pillows on your bed?
Too many. Mine, and all my siblings'.

Has a boy/girl put their arm around you in the past 5 days?
Yep.

Do you have Facebook?
Duh.

What do you want in your life right now?
To find the strength and motivation to survive NS. And a hot chick. Or two.

What is the last movie you watched?
Yes Man!

Is there someone you know you should hate?
No. Noone deserves it, and noone deserves to hand it out.

Do you like someone as more than a friend right now?
Certainly!

The last song you listened to?
Can't remember. Probably opera. My brother's playing Mariah Carey, though.

What do you hate about your school?
That I don't have one?

Would you move to another country to be with the one you love?
Certainly! There aren't too many countries I wouldn't mind moving to, however.

Are you afraid of falling in love?
No.

If a bear attacked you would you know how to defend yourself?
I would if it was a polar bear and I had a big stick! HA.

Are you younger than your sibling?
No, no and.. no.

Do you like winter?
YES. Cold is good. The air smells fresher, too! Plus, it's a perfect excuse to cuddle and make out.

Last thing you drank?
Some herbal soup my mum made for me.

Do you care if people hate you for no reason?
Certainly! Why should they?

Do you tend to make things complicated?
No. As Einstein said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." It's sad when we grow up in a world that doesn't get that, and when others don't get it when I try to make things simpler than that which they are accustomed to.

Are you taller than your mom?
YESSS hahahaha.

What woke you up this morning?
My mum, as is the norm.

Who were you with at 12 last night ?
My bed. Ah, glorious..

What is your mood right now?
Is there already a term for therearesomanybetterthingsicouldbedoingwithwhatlittletimeihaveinthislifethanservingthewarmachineifonlyiwereagirl,oritalian .. or do I actually have to coin one? Oh right, I looked it up. It's "Fucked Up".

Ever had a near death experience?
Nop.

When will your next kiss be?
I have no idea. Would you like to give me an answer? (:

What is your favorite tv show?
24. As of now it's one of only two TV shows I follow regularly, the other being The Clone Wars. Of course, The Nanny's still as awesome as always.

Do you miss the way things used to be?
Yes.

Have you ever kissed a brown haired blue eyed person?
No. Could I?

Is there anyone you wish would just fall off a cliff?
Well, I did meet this really rude gannet the other day..

Who last messaged you on MSN?
Sawah. (: hhhhhhhhhhhh. (:

Are you tan?
No, I'm ng.

Do you like your hair?
No.

Do you always wear make up?
No.

Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?
Guess which?

If so, who?
No, you are not going to kill her.

Who is your favourite person to be with?
Well technically, she's a rodent.

Do you like the people in your city?
No. Because they're not likeable. In general.

Is there someone on your mind that shouldn't be?
No.

What do you think of people who smoke?
Well, I suppose I'll have to do all my thinking now while they're still around, eh?

Do you prefer warm or cold weather?
Now, it really depends on my mood. How old are you, 14?

What do you currently hear right now?
Korean. As is quickly becoming standard.

What is your best friend doing right now?
Probably waiting for me to finish this tasty pickled quiz. Sorry, I ran out of adjectives, and pickles are tasty.

Do you care what others think of you?
Certainly! Where would one be otherwise?

What was the last thing you laughed really hard about?
Probably something from Yes Man..

What are your plans for the weekend?
I do have this judo competition and coaching seminar going on..

What are you excited about?
Right now, excitement and answering this quiz really aren't hitting it off that well with each other.

Do you think a lot of people think bad things about you?
You mean, naughty things? I know at least one who does.

Are you growing apart from someone close?
Not that I'm aware of. Do remind me if I am, though! I'm terribly preoccupied with helping reinforce the notion that war is an acceptable solution to conflict.

What is your favourite colour/colours?
Green. Unfortunately, in my current situation it doesn't bring forth very pleasant or peaceful images. What desecration! What foul heresy!

Anything sore on your body?
My spirit, that much is plain.

Have you ever thought about getting your belly button pierced?
Now that you've brought my attention to it, yes I have indeed! Have you ever thought about a pink elephant?

Do you think things will change next year now that you're older?
Yes. The year after that, I'll be able to watch R21 movies, too. Toodles!

---

Now, I'm really shagged.

2008-12-17T20:44:00.002+08:00

-Airhead post of the um, month-

I miss the times when Mcdonald's actually had burgers such as the Double Fillet o' Fish and the Big N' Tasty, with all the veggies and a patty that didn't suck. Nowadays I have naught to eat at Macs, and I guess I'll have to stick to BK if I actually do want a decent beefburger.

So much for junk food, though. Meanwhile, Subway's really been working out pretty fine for me, even if they do occasionally forget to discount me for the Daily Value Meals.

-End airhead post-

2008-11-30T22:15:00.000+08:00

"Even though I knew that the Senate was corrupt, the Council was fallible, and Jedi training methods far from perfect, I remained with the Jedi Order for twelve years after Galidraan. Why? Because I still believed that I could accomplish some good as a Jedi. I thought I could bring about some positive changes, right certain wrongs, and do better than maintain the status quo. In short, I was an utter fool."

2008-10-14T22:34:00.006+08:00

Girls, Please Stop Hooking Up With Jerks.

I know you may like them, but we do not. (We=everyone else.) If there is anything that can take the hearts of men more effectively and instantaneously than Aragorn's speech at the Black Gates, it is telling them that chicks dig it. As if the creatures needed any more incentive to make life that much more unpleasant for the rest of us.. So help to clean up our gene/meme pool today by saying NO to jerks, and you may just save a poor soul like me from all the Evazans at Mos Eisley.

You CAN make the difference. (:

2008-09-22T23:59:00.003+08:00

Without Singapore Food Industries, my life in camp would be utterly meaningless.

Now that is the magnitude of how emotionally, intellectually and spiritually unfulfilling i find my vocation to be.

---

"But you're not just a guy, Troy!"

2008-09-16T18:59:00.001+08:00

From http://www.vcarded.com/..

"TBK and I ended up in the Crystal Cave where she frequently made it a point that it was a *RULE* to kiss there. We fulfilled her rule and broke no laws…until we found a strange door off to the side that led into a pitch dark utility room that was completely OFF LIMITS to visitors. In other words, it was the perfect place…"

heeheehee ;)

2008-09-12T18:45:00.002+08:00

The McCain campaign ad over the lipstick row came just after another hugely controversial spot that had accused Obama of favoring explicit sex education for kindergarten-aged children.

Apoplectic Obama aides said the Democrat had supported a Senate measure last year that would have provided funds to teach young children about how to avoid falling prey to pedophiles.

The latest ad shows a clip from Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention last week when she joked that the only difference between an aggressive "hockey mom" like herself and a pitbull dog was "lipstick."

It then pulls Obama's line from Tuesday, delivered at a rally in Lebanon, Virginia, out of context and features a television newscaster decrying "sexism" during the Democratic primary race between Obama and Hillary Clinton.

"Ready to lead? No," a caption concludes next to a photo of Obama. "Ready to smear? Yes."

But Obama aides highlighted the video of McCain, at an event in Iowa last October, describing Clinton's efforts to revive her push for universal healthcare, which failed in the 1990s, as putting "lipstick on a pig."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt_nfzEHGA4

This (in itself a smear advert!) is a pathetic excuse for a "presidential campaign advertisement".

2008-09-12T18:27:00.002+08:00

woohoo! i've just completed the ***** ****** ******* ** ROte MEmOrisation course! :D

2008-09-10T18:51:00.000+08:00

SPORE IS OUT. FINALLY.

..but i have no $$$ :(

2008-08-24T19:18:00.002+08:00

I love haircuts.

It's sort of like a therapeutic head massage, and I love massages.

If only we could have haircuts without any actual removal of hair, I would have a haircut everyday. =D

2008-08-11T23:56:00.004+08:00

Destiny

is not written in the stars
but in the heart-

2008-07-18T23:55:00.001+08:00

You scored 60%

Apollo

Apollo is the god of prophecy, light and truth, and the son of Zeus. He was a gifted musician, master archer and an accomplished athlete. Apollo's responsibilities included protecting young men (his twin sister, the goddess Artemis, protected young women), promoting agriculture and breeding of cattle, and teaching humans the art of healing and medicine. Apollo men may have a youthful quality, which can spell trouble. In early legends, Apollo was known as a stern, even cruel, god -- full of pride, dangerously competitive, with a quick temper. After being punished by Zeus for his bad behavior, however, he changed. Thus, Apollo men are capable of growth. As mature adults, they are characterized as self-aware, balanced, rational and eager to live a harmonious, honest life (evolved Apollo men never lie). They are noble, reasonable and -- usually -- quite handsome. They go for neat, well-kept women who fit into their ordered lives. Falling in love scares Apollo men because it can be so chaotic and unexplainable. Yet they do seek love and are displeased when their love is not returned. If you ever break up with an Apollo man, watch out - their revenge can be harsh. In love, they insist on controlling the relationship, and can also be detached and dispassionate.

wah :O what do you guys think? :D

2008-07-05T21:36:00.002+08:00

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Ancestors - Free family tree templates

XD

2008-07-05T21:32:00.002+08:00

haha okay i did it again! and this is what i got:

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities

seems like i'm destined to be with daryl hannah. sigh.

2008-07-05T21:26:00.003+08:00

okay so i used sims2 to create as pretty a woman as i could, and then i ran it through myheritage, and this is what i got:

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

wtf? none of my favourite celebrities are over there! strange.

okay, i just realised izabella's the goldeneye bond girl! who was damn hot, so that's alright xD

2008-06-24T01:55:00.002+08:00

Good News: I have Mass Effect on PC.
Bad News: My PC's graphics card is too noob for Mass Effect.

haha oh well, i guess there's always spellforce 2, spellforce 2: dragon storm, nwn2, nwn2: mask of the betrayer, baldur's gate 1 and 2 AND their expansions (thanks to miki!), as well as the good old neverwinter nights to tide me through in the meantime eh? :D

on another note, i noticed today at popular that:
rainbow six: raven shield is now selling at $13.90.
commandos 3: destination berlin is now selling at $9.95.

Note to self: never buy games when they are just released!

oh and by the way, ns sucks. especially stay-ins. especially.

2008-06-11T13:12:00.000+08:00

Great News: MASS EFFECT IS NOW OUT ON PC =D

2008-04-24T23:58:00.000+08:00

SEEYA IN TWO WEEKS

2008-04-19T02:12:00.006+08:00

Came across this environmentally-friendly email service from here.

Yourname @ Planetsave - Save precious rain forest and our planet with every email you send out.

I created an account, and now I'm encouraging everybody else to do the same. (: Remember, every email you send using this service will help save 5 square feet of rainforest!

2008-04-18T03:43:00.000+08:00

http://www.funonthenet.in/articles/cars-models.html

hahahahahahahahahahahaha omg x)

2008-04-14T11:17:00.001+08:00

PSC has noted your accomplishments and considered your application in
totality, including the academic and non-academic aspects. After reviewing
your scholarship application thoroughly and in competition with the other
applications received, we regret that we are not able to consider your
application favourably.

mesa gots rejected by psc ):

2008-04-05T02:15:00.000+08:00

New Anti-Evolution Film Stirs Controversy

By Dave Mosher, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 04 April 2008 ET

NEW YORK — A handful of journalists filed into a small theater at the Park Avenue Screening Room here last night to see a preview for "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." The 90-minute documentary-style flick features Ben Stein, a comedian, lawyer, actor and former speechwriter. It is a movie about the so-called debate between supporters of "intelligent design" and Charles Darwin's scientific theory of evolution.

Filmmakers proclaim in press materials that Stein "discovers an elitist scientific establishment that has traded in its skepticism for dogma" during the course of the movie through interviews with scientists and anti-evolution advocates.

Some scientists, however, are outraged about the conduct of the filmmaker during production and screening and the film's effort to tie Darwin's ideas to Hitler. One prominent scientist who is in the movie has since called it shoddy and sinister.

Intelligently designed

Intelligent design, or ID, holds that life on Earth is so complex that evolutionary theory can't explain the complexities, so life must have been designed. Scientists see it as creationism veiled in pseudoscience, an effort with religious backing designed to generate the appearance of controversy among scientists about Darwinian evolution where there is none.

ID has made headlines in recent years in Kansas, Ohio and Michigan as school boards and courts contested its teaching in public schools alongside evolution, which is a scientific theory holding that new species appear via gradual changes in inherited traits and mutations. In 2005, a federal judge barred a Pennsylvania public school district from teaching ID in biology class.

The basic principles of evolution nor ID are clearly explained in the movie.

"Expelled" is smattered with gloomy scenes of the Berlin Wall's construction, the Holocaust and other World War II-era footage, with Stein arguing during the course of it that a handful of academics have been persecuted for their beliefs that run counter to the scientific establishment.

Many of the ID supporters and sympathizers Stein interviews in the movie, however, were let go, not offered tenure or other career incentives because of expired contracts, improper publishing ethics and other conduct unrelated to their religious views, according to university and institution spokespeople who appeared in "Expelled."

Stein claims he "encountered many more [academics] who didn't want to appear on film," because of their fear of being persecuted.

But among the millions of scientists currently working in schools and institutions across the world, thousands of whom are trained evolutionary biologists, the overwhelming consensus is that evolution is a well-supported theory backed by observations in several fields using multiple lines of evidence.

Foul play?

Scientists interviewed in "Expelled," namely evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins of Oxford University and Paul Zachary "PZ" Myers of the University of Minnesota and author of the blog "Pharyngula," have been crying foul since the movie's name was changed last year.

The two have written on their Web sites and blogs that the original film was called "Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion" based on correspondence with Mark Mathis, the movie's associate producer at Rampant Films. But in late 2007 the movie title was changed to "Expelled" for marketing reasons, the producers reportedly said.

In a press release issued by Premise Media, which has also helped finance "The Passion of the Christ" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" movies, film producer Walt Ruloff claims the makers avoided distorting interviews.

"The incredible thing about 'Expelled' is that we don’t resort to manipulating our interviews for the purpose of achieving the 'shock effect,'" Ruloff said.

But Michael Schermer, editor of "Skeptic Magazine" and an on-screen interview in the movie, said Stein and Mathis asked him the same question a dozen times during his interview for the film to extract an answer they were looking for.

"In frustration I finally said something like 'Do you have any other questions to ask me or do you keep asking me this question in hopes that I'll give a different answer?'" according to a statement by Schermer on richarddawkins.net.

Questionable claims

Dawkins, Myers, Schermer and others are also outraged by the claims in the movie, especially that Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory is partly responsible for Nazism and the Holocaust.

In the film, after Stein is told of this purported connection by several ID supporters, who also tell him that Darwin's ideas of species fitness led to U.S. eugenics programs in the 1920s, Stein stares down a dimly lit statue of Darwin in London's Natural History Museum.

During a March 28 telephone press conference for "Expelled," Myers snuck in on the call and confronted the filmmakers about the issue. "Have you ever heard of a pogrom?" Myers asked. "Those have been going on for centuries." (A pogrom is an organized massacre of helpless people.)

On his Web site, Dawkins wrote that the Darwin-Nazi association is a fallacy.

"The alleged association between Darwinism and Nazism is harped on for what seems like hours, and it is quite simply an outrage," Dawkins said of the series of scenes in the movie. "Hitler was ignorant and bonkers enough for his hideous mind to have imbibed some sort of garbled misunderstanding of Darwin but it is hardly Darwin's fault if he did."

Expelled or uninvited?

During a March 20 screening of "Expelled" at the Mall of America in Minneapolis, which Myers registered to attend via a public Web site with his family, he was asked to leave by security while standing in line.

The security guard said a film producer gave the orders to remove Myers from the theater.

According to various news reports, producers accused Myers of being a "gatecrasher" — someone trying to attend an event uninvited — but he was registered for the event via the open, online registration process. Dawkins, who also registered to attend the screening, saw the documentary without incident along with Myers' family.

"It's an incredible piece of inept public relations to expel somebody ... from a film about expelling people for their opinions," Dawkins said during a videotaped discussion with Myers, "a film in which [Myers is] present, and acknowledged and thanked in the acknowledgements at the end of the film."

The overall mood of the film, as its makers assert, is satirical and sarcastic — and almost always at the cost of the scientists backing evolutionary theory. When Dawkins discusses scientific hypotheses for the seeding of life on Earth from another planet, for example, the film quickly displays black-and-white movie clips of flying saucers and aliens.

Dawkins said in the video on his Web site that he was unimpressed with the artistic direction of "Expelled."

"I'm not a professional filmmaker myself but I've had a lot to do with making documentaries," Dawkins said. "This was a very, very shoddy, poor, inartistic piece of work."

Dawkins also noted that images of guillotines, firing squads and other reactionary film clips that flashed between the words of sources especially garnered his dislike. "It was worse than just artless, it was also quite sinister," he said. "It was a bad film in every way."

"Expelled" opens in theaters nationwide starting on April 18.

2008-04-04T17:21:00.001+08:00

random joke of the day:

I went to see my doctor today. He told me I should stop masturbating.

"But why?" I went, "I love it!

“Because I’m trying to examine you.”

Celebrity Morph by MyHeritage

2008-03-28T00:38:00.001+08:00

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Free family history - Black and white photographs

2008-03-27T21:23:00.004+08:00

Raunch is rebranded as 'confidence'

Many women during spring break seem to believe that their sexuality is their only currency.
Meghan Daum

March 15, 2008

This month, millions of young people will congregate on sunny beaches as far from home as possible in order to relieve themselves from the stresses of academia. Their methods? Around-the-clock binge drinking and lively cultural activities such as near-naked girl-against-girl wrestling matches held in giant vats of pudding.

The Fort Lauderdale version of spring break was originally made famous by the 1960 film "Where the Boys Are," but spring break is now thought to be best experienced in places like Cancun, Mexico, where the drinking age is 18 and tour companies build packages almost exclusively around access to alcohol: $100 procures a wristband that grants admission to clubs offering unlimited free alcohol.

Meanwhile, in news of the "no duh" variety, the American Medical Assn. released figures about sex and alcohol use during rowdy spring break vacations. The poll, which surveyed female college students and graduates aged 17 to 35, found that 74% believed women used drinking "as an excuse for outrageous behavior"; 83% "had friends who drank the majority of nights while on spring break"; and 12% "felt forced or pressured into sex" during spring break.

And no wonder. The Journal of American College Health has reported that women partying at spring break hot spots consume an average of 10 alcoholic drinks per day, and men consume an average of 18. Queasy yet? I know I am. A few years ago, I went to Cancun during spring break to research a magazine article. I was hoping to arrive at some grand psychological and existential reason as to why many of today's college women (who, after all, were presumably pursuing higher education because they wanted to be more than sex objects) seem so happy to let men lick tequila shots off their body parts.

I didn't exactly succeed. But after a week of talking to people in various states of undress and intoxication, I can tell you this much: What's happening on spring break beaches isn't just boys being boys and girls going wild. It's young people, women especially, deciding that the way to measure their readiness for the adult world is not in terms of education or emotional maturity but sexual desirability.

The raunchy contests and general debauchery were something that these women had prepared for, almost as though for a final exam. They'd logged hours at the gym, in tanning booths and at body wax salons. They'd save up money for breast implants and then timed the surgery so they'd be healed by spring break. Some seemed to have practiced drinking, experimenting with different alcohol combinations to see what afforded the fastest buzz with the least amount of calories and dollars spent.

One word I heard again and again, oddly, was "confidence." As they psyched themselves up for wet T-shirt contests or debated whether a given guy was worth flirting with, a lot of women told me that they saw spring break as the proving ground for their attractiveness. "If I can be considered hot here, I'll be hot anywhere," a rather morose woman sitting on a bar stool in a bikini and high heels told me. "I'm here to get confident."

That's sad, but it's not exactly irrational given the context (no one was there, after all, to participate in a chess tournament). But the more women I talked to, the more it became clear that hotness was, for them, the largest factor in the equation of their self-worth. When they talked about what they wanted to do with their lives, they spoke not of jobs or grad school but of looking good, of having the right equipment and experience to ensure a place in the raunch-obsessed pop culture they'd come to see as the real world.

And why not? These days, miniskirts the size of cocktail napkins are considered appropriate mall attire for 14-year-olds. Local newscasters seem to regard see-through shirts as proper on-air attire. And illiteracy appears to have spread to the point at which parents can put a T-shirt on a 2-year-old without noticing that the words "Future Hooters Girl" are printed across the front. With girl power like that, can we really blame these women for seeing their sexuality as their only currency?

Of course, despite the fact that an estimated 170,000 kids are expected to descend on Cancun this season, there are many more who have better things to do than pass out on the beer-stained floor of Congo Bongo. But every March, when the spring drinking statistics get trotted out like so many vodka shots lined up on a bar, I'm reminded of how much they reveal about everyday life. Revelers may tell themselves that whatever happens in Cancun stays in Cancun, but in some ways, the party never ends.

I'm feeling less confident already.

I wanted to do a complete KI-style critical evaluation (read: smashing) of this article, but I realised I have better things to do with my time (such as playing with the nwn toolset, for example), so I'm going to settle with this:

Has raunch ever been a bad thing? No.

Should it be a bad thing? No.

On a beach full of hot guys, hot girls, and lots of partying and socialising, is there anything wrong with sex appeal being viewed as more important than education or emotional maturity? No.

Does this necessarily mean that sex appeal is or should be viewed as the most important component of self worth elsewhere? No.

Does being sexy or attractive enhance a man or woman's self image and make them feel more confident? Yes.

Does this phenomenon have its roots in nature or nurture? Nature.

Is there anything wrong with a man or woman being confident in his or her own sexuality (or raunchiness)? No.

Is there anything wrong with a person regarding emotional maturity as the most important factor of their self-worth? No.

Is there anything wrong with a person regarding education as the most important factor of their self-worth? No.

Is there anything wrong with a person regarding sexuality as the most important factor of their self-worth? No.

Does this mean that the person in question will necessarily view sexuality as their only currency? No.

Now, just a few more questions. The first three concern this paragraph:

I was hoping to arrive at some grand psychological and existential reason as to why many of today's college women (who, after all, were presumably pursuing higher education because they wanted to be more than sex objects) seem so happy to let men lick tequila shots off their body parts.

Is sexuality mutually exclusive with intelligence, education or emotional maturity? No.

Is viewing another person in a sexual manner degrading to that person in any way? No.

Is sexuality, after all, an essential component of the beauty of the human body? Yes.

The last question shall throw into the spotlight the most obvious red herring used by the author to help cast sexuality in a negative light:

Does sexuality and alcoholism have anything to do with each other?

2008-03-26T16:04:00.002+08:00

WATCH ME TURN INTO HOT BABE =D

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Family web page - Free family tree template

Celebrity Morph by MyHeritage

2008-03-26T15:45:00.001+08:00

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Free family tree - Old black and white photos

2008-03-26T14:56:00.000+08:00

Awesomeness on MyHeritage.com! :D

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

holy shit! yao ming!

2008-03-23T12:55:00.001+08:00

What Barack Obama Could Not (and Should Not) Say

Posted March 21, 2008 | 12:59 PM (EST)

Barack Obama delivered a truly brilliant and inspiring speech this week. There were a few things, however, that he did not and could not (and, indeed, should not) say:

He did not say that the mess he is in has as much to do with religion as with racism--and, indeed, religion is the reason why our political discourse in this country is so scandalously stupid. As Christopher Hitchens observed in Slate months ago, one glance at the website of the Trinity United Church of Christ should have convinced anyone that Obama's connection to Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. would be a problem at some point in this campaign. Why couldn't Obama just cut his ties to his church and move on?

Well, among other inexpediencies, this might have put his faith in Jesus in question. After all, Reverend Wright was the man who brought him to the "foot of the cross." Might the Senator from Illinois be unsure whether the Creator of the universe brought forth his only Son from the womb of a Galilean virgin, taught him the carpenter's trade, and then had him crucified for our benefit? Few suspicions could be more damaging in American politics today.

The stultifying effect of religion is everywhere to be seen in the 2008 Presidential campaign. The faith of the candidates has been a constant concern in the Republican contest, of course--where John McCain, lacking the expected aura of born-again bamboozlement, has been struggling to entice some proper religious maniacs to his cause. He now finds himself in the compassionate embrace of Pastor John Hagee, a man who claims to know that a global war will soon precipitate the Rapture and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (problem solved). Prior to McCain's ascendancy, we saw Governor Mitt Romney driven from the field by a Creationist yokel and his sectarian hordes. And this, despite the fact that the governor had been wearing consecrated Mormon underpants all the while, whose powers of protection are as yet unrecognized by Evangelicals.

Like every candidate, Obama must appeal to millions of voters who believe that without religion, most of us would spend our days raping and killing our neighbors and stealing their pornography. Examples of well-behaved and comparatively atheistic societies like Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark--which surpass us in terrestrial virtues like education, health, public generosity, per capita aid to the developing world, and low rates of violent crime and infant mortality--are of no interest to our electorate whatsoever. It is, of course, good to know that people like Reverend Wright occasionally do help the poor, feed the hungry, and care for the sick. But wouldn't it be better to do these things for reasons that are not manifestly delusional? Can we care for one another without believing that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is now listening to our thoughts?

Yes we can.

Happily, Obama did a fine job of distancing himself from Reverend Wright's divisive views on racism in America, along with his fatuous "chickens come home to roost" assessment of our war against Islamic terrorism. But he did not (and should not) acknowledge that the worst parts of Reverend Wright's sermons, as with most sermons, are his appeals to the empty hopes and baseless fears of his parishioners--people who could surely find better ways of advancing their interests in this world, if only they could banish the fiction of a world to come.

Obama did not say that religion's effect on our society, and on the black community especially, has been destructive--and where it has seemed constructive it has generally taken the place of better things. Religion unites, motivates, and consoles beleaguered people not with knowledge, but with superstition and false promises. Surely there is a better way to bring people together in the 21st century. The truth is, despite the toothsomeness of his campaign slogan, we are not yet the people we have been waiting for. And if we don't start talking sense to our children, they won't be the ones we are waiting for either.

Obama was surely wise not to mention that Christianity was, without question, the great enabler of slavery in this country. The Confederate soldiers who eagerly laid down their lives at three times the rate of Union men, for the pleasure of keeping blacks in bondage and using them as farm equipment, did so with the conscious understanding that they were doing the Lord's work. After Reconstruction, religion united Southern whites in their racist hatred and the black community in its squalor--inuring men and women on both sides to injustice far more efficiently than it inspired them to overcome it.

The problem of religious fatalism, ignorance, and false hope, while plain to see in most religious contexts, is now especially obvious in the black community. The popularity of "prosperity gospel" is perhaps the most galling example: where unctuous crooks like T.D. Jakes and Creflo Dollar persuade undereducated and underprivileged men and women to pray for wealth, while tithing what little wealth they have to their corrupt and swollen ministries. Men like Jakes and Dollar, whatever occasional good they may do, are unconscionable predators and curators of human ignorance. Is it too soon to say this in American politics? Yes it is.

Despite all that he does not and cannot say, Obama's candidacy is genuinely thrilling: his heart is clearly in the right place; he is an order of magnitude more intelligent than the current occupant of the Oval Office; and he still stands a decent chance of becoming the next President of the United States. His election in November really would be a triumph of hope.

But Obama's candidacy is also depressing, for it demonstrates that even a person of the greatest candor and eloquence must still claim to believe the unbelievable in order to have a political career in this country. We may be ready for the audacity of hope. Will we ever be ready for the audacity of reason?

Sam Harris is the author "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation." He can be reached at www.samharris.org

2008-03-18T13:16:00.001+08:00

Let the world
Stop turning
Let the sun
Stop burning
Let them tell me love's
Not worth going through
If it all falls apart
I will know
Deep in my heart
The only dream that
Mattered had come true

In this life, I was
Loved by you

2008-03-13T02:51:00.003+08:00

PSC Scholarship Application!

Gifted Indicator
Gifted Indicator: Y

Gifted Year In: 2002

Gifted Year Out: 2003

omgg i was officially in GEP for only 1 yearr?? haha omg damn sad lulz.

anyway, scholarship (and uni) applications are DAMN TROUBLESOME PLZ. oh how i wish i can be a student again, where all you had to do was pon lectures and not do tutorials. sighhh. ><

2008-03-11T17:34:00.002+08:00

I just had to get over my ego, which was screaming "This guy used to sleep with your woman", and I listened to the little voice inside that was whispering, "This guy loves and cares about your woman".

-Ashton Kutcher, on accepting his wife's ex, Bruce Willis, as a friend (from ST Life! today)

that's the way, people! (:

2008-03-06T21:44:00.000+08:00

TOMORROW, TOMORROW, I LOVE YOU, TOMORROW, IT'S ONLY A DAY AWAAAAAAAY =D

2008-02-23T02:24:00.002+08:00

http://thotspeak.blogspot.com/2007/05/whos-afraid-of-gay-man.html

awesomeness in a single line!

2008-02-17T01:31:00.004+08:00

I ATTACK YOU WITH CUTENESS.

2008-02-16T23:50:00.003+08:00

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

you're my dashing handsome and suave cousin remember? ;D

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

they were like, WAH YOUR DASHING, SUAVE AND HANDSOME COUSIN! LOL.

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

hmmmmm where should this go haha (:

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

LATERSEXY COME KILL ME!

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

who's sexy!

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

omg -.-

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

HAHAHAHAAHA

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

she's not sexy!

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

eh wait

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

uh i dunno hahaa

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

okay i let you choose where i should post it

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

1. my blog

2. my tagboard

3. your tagboard

4. a;; of the above

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

*all

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

OMGOOODNESS

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

YOU DONT KNOW MY BLOG

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

HENG AH LOL ;D

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

really ah?

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

YESH! ;D

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

really really?

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

YES YES YES! ;D

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

why don't you check and see XD

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

DID I TELL YOU BEFORE?!

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

NEVER WHAAAAAT

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

WHAT THE HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

& my dashing, suave, handsome cousin please tell me the name! ; sylvia says:

ALWYN NG MAO TONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

yes sylvia koh kia ying? (:

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

OMGOSH

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

HOW DO YOU KNOW MY FULL NAME!

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

WTH WTH WTH!

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

ROARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

ROAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

hahahahaaaa omg omg this is too funny XD

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

THIS IS NOT FUNN

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

FUNNY*

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

HOW DO YOU KNOW MY BLOGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

it is oh it so is hahahaa

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

eh what happened to my dashing suave and handsome-ness? (:

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

hmph.

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

lest you put it on MY blog again!

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

I'M TRYING TO RECALL MY TAGBOARD'S PASSWORD SO I CAN DELETE THAT TAGGGGGGGGGGGG!

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

awww why'd you want to delete that tagggg! hahaha it's so funny omg

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

it is not funny!

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

SEXY WILL KILL ME LIKE WTH.

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

HAHAHAHAHAHA OMG

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

no she will find it damn funny too XD

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

NO NOT FUNNY.

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

omgosh please give me ur blog!

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

why!

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

SOPHIA

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

SAMANTHA

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

SABRINA.

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

WHICH ONE!

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

;ED

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

;D*

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

hahahaha don't worry i'll post all this on my own blog soon enough

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

hahahaa none!

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

oh but her best friend's called sabrina loll

& ALWYN NG I HATE YOU! ROAR! ; sylvia says:

SARAH

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

are you waaaaaaiiiting?

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

oh dear how come you need a name?

& ugh I need a name. ; sylvia says:

NEED A NAME SO GUESS HERS.

& ugh I need a name. ; sylvia says:

SARAH?

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

i'm not sure?

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

omg you've been typing in caps this whole time hahaha

& ugh I need a name. ; sylvia says:

OH YES

& ugh I need a name. ; sylvia says:

ALWYN AND SARAH SITTING ON A TREEEEEEEEE

& ugh I need a name. ; sylvia says:

_ _ _ _ ING!

alwyn - an infinite mastery, is the Force | raffles judo says:

-.-

hahaha i have never seen so many capital letters in my life before omg.

2008-02-15T19:59:00.001+08:00

Valentine's Day, 2008

because i'm lazy. (:

Quote of the Day:
"I love everybody! (:" - sarah, rocksoulbaby.livejournal.com

2008-02-15T01:45:00.001+08:00

P.S. I love you (:

2008-02-06T23:51:00.000+08:00

Things To Do Before April The 25th!

-get a HAT. (haha this is mighty important!)
-get a cameraless phone (aww this is important too (: )
-get back in shape. oh dear hahaha. okay one of these days imma go for training!

2008-01-31T20:32:00.000+08:00

okay long article that is both boring and interesting at the same time haha:

Scientists Say Bush Stifles Science and Lets Global Leadership Slip

By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor

posted: 30 January 2008 12:52 pm ET

In his final State of the Union address, President George W. Bush devoted several lines to science and technology topics. He called for research and funding to reduce oil dependency and reverse the growth of greenhouse gases.
"To keep America competitive into the future, we must trust in the skill of our scientists and engineers and empower them to pursue the breakthroughs of tomorrow," Bush said. [Full Text]

But several scientists around the country aren't buying what they see as rhetoric not backed by funding. And they are frustrated by what they view as the White House's morality-based politics that they say ignores scientific evidence, distorts facts and leads to outright censorship of reports and scientists. The White House responded to the criticisms point-by-point.

In email interviews this week with 21 researchers in various fields of study, LiveScience and SPACE.com found widespread criticism for Bush's "retardation of research," as one scientist put it, that threatens to knock the country out of its global leadership role in science and technology.

"Science has been seriously undermined by the censorship and alteration of testimony and news releases," said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "Science and facts are not a factor in decisions, and ideology dominates."

(A Democratic congressional report in December stated: "The Bush administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.")

Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at John Moores University in the UK, holds a more favorable view of the president.

"Bush has been as supportive and as reluctant as one would expect from a very conservative president," Peiser said.

And Peiser disagreed with the perception that America's heydays are over.

"Scientific research and exploration have continued to advance during Bush's presidency," Peiser said. "The United States remains the top country in the world on every aspect of science and research and it is still the most popular destination for international scientists looking for a better career and future."

Broad criticisms

Trenberth's criticisms, however, were echoed by several researchers.

"Science establishes facts but facts can unmask bad policy," said Ken Caldeira, a climate and ecology researcher at Stanford University. "Thus good science has been seen as a threat by the Bush administration."

Alan W. Harris, senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute at La Canada, Calif., accused the White House of "systematic suppression of scientific evidence that does not support administration plans."

Responding to the criticisms, Kristin Scuderi, Director of Communications and Public Affairs at the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, said thousands of scientists routinely conduct their business without controversy or complaint.

"There have been rare instances of inappropriate direction by individuals at the agency level, but these have been dealt with by the agency in each case," Scuderi said. "It is administration policy to rely on science, and such instances reflect errors in judgment made by individuals within agencies."

Harris has little faith that Bush's speech will lead to any increased funding for basic research. "Bush has proposed in his budgets to 'double the support for research,' but this has translated into boosting budgets for research related to defense and security far more than for truly 'basic' research," he said.

Other scientists cautioned about a decline in U.S. science leadership that predates Bush and has worsened under him.

For example, the leadership role in particle physics, the field in which giant accelerators conjure up conditions that prevailed just after the Big Bang, has waned over the past decades, said Pran Nath, particle physicist at Northeastern University in Illinois. "The Bush administration was unable to arrest this decline, leaving Europe and Japan to assume leadership role in this area."

"We are falling behind the rest of the world in science because we are not making a budgetary commitment to it," said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State.

Hot-button issues

On specific hot-button issues, several researchers voiced similar criticisms.

Joshua Hart, a psychologist at Union College in New York, summarized the frustrations of many researchers.

"The administration contributed egregiously to the false impression (among the public) of a scientific 'debate' about the existence and causes of global warming," Hart said. He also called "the retardation of research involving embryonic stem cells" one of the worst things that has happened during this administration, along with "the rolling back of funding of the social sciences."

Scuderi, the White House spokeswoman, disagreed.

"Since 2001 the administration has acknowledged the existence of global warming and the fact that human activities have contributed to it," Scuderi told LiveScience today. "It only takes a quick look at NASA or NOAA websites, for example to see that they reflect the actual state of the science of global warming. Prior to 2007 the basis for administration climate science policy was a report from the National Academy of Sciences. After 2007 the basis for climate policy has been the IPCC reports," referring to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

White House Office of Science & Technology Policy led the U.S. delegation to the IPCC, Scuderi said, "and has supported the IPCC process and endorsed its outcomes."

Hart also cited "the failure to adequately understand – and consequently convey to the public – the fact that the theory of intelligent design is consensually regarded, in the scientific community, as absolute horse**** unworthy of serious consideration ... thereby propagating, again, the illusion that there is substantive scientific debate on the topic (as opposed to the matter being settled, which it is, and unfit for inclusion in our nation’s science classes)."

"Intelligent Design is not regarded as a scientific topic," Scuderi countered. "The President's Science Advisor has been very clear on this point. The notion that the administration 'propagates' anything about intelligent design is absurd."

"A president who does not accept evolution is clearly someone who cannot change their mind in face of overwhelming factual evidence," said Sean Carroll, a professor of molecular biology and genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

One of the best things that happened to science under Bush is "the continued growth of genome sciences, for which the administration deserves no credit, other than staying out of the way," Carroll said.

But Ardeshir B. Damania, a genetic resources analyst at the University of California, Davis, gave the administration high marks for its support of science and technology research.

"In the war on terror the Bush administration has taken action to utilize and fund scientific research to keep the country safe," Damania said. He also credited Bush with supporting stem cell research that "allows scientists to do their research without compromising human life."

In his speech, Bush called the recent discovery of a way to reprogram adult skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells a "landmark achievement." But other scientists worry that while the method does not require destruction of discarded human embryos, it also remains an unproven technology and could be used to further thwart funding for true embryonic stem cell research.

Not just Bush

Suppressing science to suit policy is nothing new, explains Roger Launius, a former NASA historian and chairman of the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

Since the 1970s, Launius said, "some in industry and on the religious right have disliked the use of scientific studies by government officials as justification for actions that they viewed as counterproductive to their best interests." A broad and concerted effort to question scientific findings has affected everything from regulations on harmful chemicals and the control of tobacco to the energy issue, climate change, evolution, embryonic stem cell research, sex education and health care, he said.

"The Bush administration has been at the forefront of this effort in the first part of the 21st century," Launius said. "It represents a coordinated and frightening attack on the scientific consensus."

Launius said this administration "is probably not the worst ever when it comes to a commitment to science and technology, but it probably comes close."

One researcher who wished not to be named said "the further polarization and politicization of science" that has occurred under Bush "has been an outgrowth of partisanship that began during the Clinton administration."

Out there

The president got few high marks from the space-exploration community, either, his pledge in 2004 to return humans to the moon by 2020 seen as withering from lack of active support by the administration.

"NASA was given a vision, but neither the budget nor the political support to make it happen," said Joan Johnson-Freese, chair of the Department of National Security Studies at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. "That has to be addressed by the next administration."

Alan P. Boss, a planet-formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said Bush is supportive of scientific research and exploration superficially, but not in practice.

"Most of the major science priorities in the vision, such as the Mars Sample Return mission and imaging extrasolar Earths, have been drastically reduced, delayed, or eliminated because of the shortage of funds to accomplish all of the worthy tasks in the vision," Boss said.

"The Bush administration has been supportive of the American Competitiveness Initiative," said Craig Wheeler, president of the American Astronomical Society. "That is good, but that support has not been translated into action and budgets."

The ACI would spend tens of billions of dollars over 10 years on research and development, education, and to encourage entrepreneurship. Bush established it two years ago.

"For the past two years the president has requested large increases in basic research funding in the physical sciences," Scuderi said. "Congress has expressed support for the ACI, but under-funded it by half in the first year and provided very little funding for it in the second year."

Wheeler said something had to be done about the lack of vision for NASA after the Columbia tragedy. "The problem is that the administration did not maintain focus on that issue and the result is that NASA has been tasked with far too much with insufficient budget."

Scuderi said one of the vision's features "is that space exploration is 'a journey, not a race' and that it be accomplished 'step by step' in a sustainable way based on available budgets. NASA's budget is substantial, both for space science and for space exploration; its budget has grown steadily on an annual basis since the president announced the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004," she said.

"Currently NASA must fund both the vision and the shuttle program," Scuderi said. "And with the retirement of the Shuttle in 2010 — a pivotal element of the vision — NASA's budget will have significantly more resources available to accomplish the first lunar mission."

Others researchers, however, see the vision for NASA fading at a time when private enterprise aims high.

The vision has "effectively gutted existing programs in favor of much administrative restructuring that seems likely to be undone with a new administration next year," said Margaret C. Turnbull, an astrobiologist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "Therefore I don't expect the vision to develop fully, and meanwhile the other big programs have been delayed or cancelled. Not good. These are uncertain times for space science, and our best hopes for near-term progress may be in privately funded initiatives, like the X-prizes."

Peiser, the social anthropologist, monitors climate change issues and various NASA projects. He credited the current administration with having "a growing recognition of public/private partnerships and private enterprise in space exploration."

The next president

Researchers are hoping for major policy shifts with the next president.

"The coming administration must articulate a broad vision on science in the United States," said Pran Nath, the particle physicist. "The science policy must be long-range. It is not possible to undertake broad initiatives in science on four-year election cycles."

"The next president also has to listen carefully to his or her top science advisors, allowing hard science, and not politics, to inform policy," said Michael Mann, the climate scientist.

Several researchers compared the soaring costs of defense spending with the flat or sinking budgets for science, basic technology research and educational initiatives to spur competitiveness.

Still, there is hope.

"Our computers may be made in China, but most computers and software programs are designed in the U.S.," said Daniel Kruger of the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. "We have to be careful not to rest on our laurels though, lest we slip into a predominantly service economy."

Kruger added: "If we devoted just 10 percent of what it costs to stay in Iraq to improving the USA's educational infrastructure, I think we would rise substantially in those international rankings of educational achievement."

"With luck, the contrast between the lack of leadership in the U.S. and the strong focused programs in Europe and Asia will put the U.S. back in the position where someone here has to think about what they need to do to stay competitive," said Paul Calvert, a materials scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

Caldeira, the Stanford researcher said he "would like to see an administration that is willing to say: The world is round, life evolved on Earth over billions of years, humans are causing our climate to change, we or our children will need to pay later for what we buy on credit today, and consumption on this planet cannot grow exponentially forever without running into environmental constraints."

2008-01-26T16:21:00.000+08:00

Guys are quiet in bed because we are too busy thinking. You heard me right. Thinking. Deep thoughts. You see, it seems to generally the guy’s job, (at least in my experience) to make the girl feel as good as possible and have sweet, sweet orgasms. The girl, on the other hand, is generally content to just lay back and see what I’ve got to offer. Again, I can’t speak for anyone else, this is just in my personal experience.

Not only am I thinking during sex, I am multi-tasking. My neuro-net processor of a brain is pounding algorithms as fast as my penis is pounding vagina.

Just what is going through my head during sex? Like the moon, this is a frontier so far journeyed only by man. But here is a small window of what goes on in my head during sex:

“Alright, time for some action”
“I hope I don’t f*ck up this time”
“Is that the right hole?”
“Oh wait, there it is”
“All right, lets start out slow”

It isn’t long before my thoughts turn into a quiet panic.

BRAIN: “Damn, she just moved.”
BRAIN: “Did I do something right, or did I hurt her”

BRAIN: “She’s making noises!”
BRAIN: “Pain noises or pleasure noises?”
BRAIN: “Let try stepping up the pace a little”

BRAIN: "More noises, I pretty sure that's pleasure now"
BRAIN: "Oh yeah, she's starting to flush, I like that"
BRAIN: "Lets try changing the angle a bit"
.............................
BRAIN: "Nope, didn't like that"

BRAIN: “Damn, what was I doing before?”
BRAIN: “F*ck it, lets try a different position”
WOMAN: “OUCH!”
BRAIN: “Yeah….that one was definitely pain>
WOMAN: “What are you doing?”
BRAIN: “Mayday! Mayday!”
BRAIN: “Decrease Velocity!”
BRAIN: “Open flaps”
BRAIN: “Landing gear engaged”
BRAIN: “Disengage primary thrusters”
BRAIN: “Systems check”
ME: “You alright?”
WOMAN: “Uh….Yeah”
BRAIN: “No system damage”
ME: “Alright, lets try this again”

—five minutes later….computer pretty much takes over—
BRAIN: “Alright, back on track”

BRAIN: “Target in sight, hold position”

BRAIN: “C’mon…….C’mon”

BRAIN: “Hold it……Hold it…..”
COMPUTER: WARNING! WARNING!
COMPUTER: ERR-ERR-ERR
BRAIN: “Oh sh*t”
COMPUTER: SYSTEM OVERLOAD IMMINENT
BRAIN: “Oh sh*t, not yet!”

BRAIN: “Just a little longer”
COMPUTER: DANGER HULL INTEGRITY
COMPUTER: SYSTEM OVERLOAD COMMENCING
BRAIN: “F*CK! I’m not going to make it”
BRAIN: “Pull out and prepare for manual override”
COMPUTER: SYSTEM OVERLOAD __________
BRAIN: “Pull out, pull out”
COMPUTER: AUTO PILOT ENGAGED
BRAIN: “NO! UNENGAGE! UNENGAGE!”
COMPUTER: TARGET LOCKED….TARGET LOCKED
BRAIN: “If I cum now, will it be too soon?”
BRAIN: “If I cum now, will it be too soon?”
BRAIN: “If I cum now, will it be too soon?”
COMPUTER:
COMPUTER:
BRAIN: “Must….hold….on”
COMPUTER:
BRAIN: “can’t…..hold it”
COMPUTER:
BRAIN: “Its out of my control, its in God’s hands now”
COMPUTER: “PRIMARY VALVE: EJACULATING”

COMPUTER: “AUTOMATIC SYSTEM SHUT DOWN: COMMENCING”

WOMAN: “Honey, are you alright?”
ME: Yeah…..my head hurts….”
WOMAN: “Sorry”
ME: No, the other head”
WOMAN: “What?”
ME: Nothing”
ME: Did you cum”
WOMAN: “What, you didn’t notice”
ME: Actually, I was kinda too busy to notice”
WOMAN: “You’re so weird”
ME: You should try being the pilot next time”
WOMAN: “Get off me, I need to pee”

Do you ever find that pre-orgasm expression on a guys face funny?
Ever wonder what he’s feeling”
Its not pain
Its not pleasure
It is deep, hard, seething thought.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

2008-01-23T15:31:00.000+08:00

When Jane initially met Tarzan in the jungle, she was attracted to him, and during her questions about his life, she asked him how he had sex.

"Tarzan not know sex" he replied. Jane explained to him what sex was.

Tarzan said "Oh! … Tarzan, use knot hole in trunk of tree."

Horrified Jane said, "Tarzan you have it all wrong, but I will show you how to do it properly."

She took off her clothing and laid down on the ground. "Here" she said, pointing to her private area, "you must put it in here."

Tarzan removed his loin cloth, showing Jane his considerable manhood, stepped closer to her and kicked her in the crotch!

Jane rolled around in agony for what seemed like an eternity.

Eventually she managed to gasp for air and screamed, " What did you do that?"

Tarzan replied, "Check for squirrel.”

2008-01-12T19:02:00.000+08:00

Sex in Video Game Makes Waves Through Industry
By Evan Moore
CNSNews.com Correspondent
January 11, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - A new, best-selling video game, Mass Effect, made for the Microsoft Xbox 360 console, allows the characters to engage in explicitly graphic sexual intercourse. Some game experts and pro-family analysts say Mass Effect is marketed to young kids and presents a moral danger to them and that the companies making and marketing the game should be prosecuted.

The game is "clearly marketed to minors," Cathy Ruse, a lawyer and senior fellow for legal studies at the Family Research Council, told Cybercast News Service.

"There are cultural implications for feeding porn to kids in this way," and "when you do this, you're teaching them a distorted lesson about human sexuality and human dignity. These are lessons that they will take with them into adulthood and ultimately society," Ruse said.

Mass Effect is made by BioWare Corp., in Alberta, Canada. The game has a strong, plot-driven storyline reminiscent of the Star Wars films or television shows like Babylon 5.

As part of that story, the playable character can become romantically involved with a woman, if playing as the default male character; a man, if playing as a woman; and an alien that looks and talks like a woman, for any play-through. This storyline culminates in a cutscene in which the characters copulate in full digital nudity.

The game is rated "M" for mature, as are many video games, and was banned in Singapore last year, though the decision was later reversed. Mass Effect has sold over 1.6 million copies since its release in November 2007. The game scored "Best RPG" in the 2007 Spike TV Video Game Awards, and it has been nominated for Game of the Year.

Critics blast

Bob Waliszewki, media specialist with Focus on the Family, told Cybercast News Service, "We never shy away from sexuality in the media. It's just a question of how is that sexuality portrayed. One can use the media to portray some very healthy forms of sexuality. And when done wisely with taste and age-appropriateness, it can be done well."

"Unfortunately," he said, "Mass Effect doesn't do that and even goes so far as to allow homosexuality to be on par with heterosexuality and heterosexuality outside of its proper context of marriage."

Ruse said, "I don't know if people are really aware about what's in this game, but [the people who made it] should lose a lot of money, and they should lose consumer confidence, because this is a stupid move."

She noted that "when you expose children, whose brains and personalities are still developing, to degrading and harmful material, you've got to believe that's going to have an effect on the way that they view themselves, others, and the world."

"People try to raise a straw-man argument and say that people from my perspective are saying that everyone who views something is going to go out and become a serial sex killer. Nobody's saying that," Ruse said.

"But, it is profoundly naive to suggest that feeding children graphic sexual material is going to have no effect on their psyche. That's just stupid to think that," she added.

Waliszewki noted that numerous reputable studies from firms like the RAND corporation have emerged over the past four years that show causal links between exposure to sexual images, profanity, smoking, and violence to a higher degree of sexual activity, greater use of profanity, higher smoking rates, as well as higher aggressive tendencies and violent action.

"This is about money," Ruse said. "This isn't about a First Amendment debate. This is about [BioWare] making as much money as it can. It's putting elements in its games which they think will help them sell more games. They don't care about what they're doing to kids."

She concluded, "This is unethical, and they have a duty to be good corporate citizens. There's no First Amendment right to exploit children ... They're making money at the expense of children in America, and they ought to be vilified for that."

The state of the industry

Calls made to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) for comment were not answered by press time. However, a report from the ESA says that the game player population is older and diverse than conventional wisdom would assume.

According to the ESA, the average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years. Also, 38 percent of all game players are women. Women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (31 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (20 percent).

The voice of the video game industry also says that parents are strongly involved when their children buy or rent games. Eighty-six percent of game players under the age of 18 reported that they get their parents' permission when renting or buying games, and 91 percent say their parents are present when they buy games.

Furthermore, the ESA reports that the field of choices available to consumers is very family-friendly. Eighty-five percent of all games sold in 2006 were rated "E" for Everyone, "T" for Teen, or "E10+" for Everyone 10+ by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).

Cybercast News Service also sought comment from BioWare Corp but did not receive a reply.

Preventing exposure to children

"When parental involvement is at a high level," Waliszewki said, the warning labels provided by the ESRB could deter children from being exposed to inappropriate material. But he warned that "in many cases, where parents are less involved and oblivious to the world of entertainment these days, an 'M' rating is almost a badge of endorsement."

"Parents really just need to be involved in [their children's] entire entertainment world," he said. "There's just too much gunk out there for parents to be 'hands-off.' They have to be involved. They have to know ... what their kids are into in today's entertainment."

Ruse noted that "most states have what's called 'Harmful to Minors' laws on the books that say that selling sexual material that a jury would deem 'patently offensive to minors, which lacks literary, artistic, political or scientific value.' ... might be prosecutable."

However, she also noted that these laws are "very likely not enforced." Rather than new laws, "we need state and local prosecutors with spines and backbones to prosecute some of these companies that are violating the law" in order to prevent children from being exposed to indecent material, she said.

i am astounded. NOBODY PROSECUTES BIOWARE, GOD OF ALL GAME-MAKERS. all you mean conservative narrow-minded folks go away please so the world can be a better place. the game is rated Mature for a reason, and if parents let their little kids get away with buying and playing it, then that's their problem, not Bioware's. honestly, by their line of reasoning, does this mean that we should be excluding sex from film and drama as well? even those that have been clearly rated as intended for mature audiences only, as Bioware has done with its game?

We never shy away from sexuality in the media. It's just a question of how is that sexuality portrayed. One can use the media to portray some very healthy forms of sexuality.

as much as i hate to say it, FOTF is right about this one. as long as the sex is not portrayed in a violent or otherwise unsafe context, what's wrong with showing it to the public, even to "minors"? since when has sex, in itself, ever been a bad thing?

Mass Effect doesn't do that and even goes so far as to allow homosexuality to be on par with heterosexuality and heterosexuality outside of its proper context of marriage.

...this, however, is plain ignorance and religious bigotry speaking; i have nothing else to say. grow up, people.

2008-01-01T01:18:00.000+08:00

on another note, life has never been this great. (:

2008-01-01T00:37:00.001+08:00

happy new year everyone!

all the best for 2008 (: and of course, for 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012.. (and no sabby, the world is NOT going to end. =P )

a new year ahead that isn't going to begin with *gasp* school! :O

aww hahaha i don't really know what to say about that.. it's like both refreshing yet nostalgic at the same time, don't you think? i guess not long from now i'm gonna be missing school quite terribly haha. the lessons. the friends! the canteen food. the ri canteen food, too. the windy tables. the fooling around (: the muggings till late at night. the way the school looks late at night too, which by the way, is lovely. and the campus, down to the very last damned brick. already i'm thinking back to the wonderful times i had during jc1 orientation, and wondering where all the time's gone to haha. and not to forget, the judokas! what would my life have been without the lot of you, seriously. and of course, the trainings. haha trainings trainings trainings. to the team of 2008, train hard, train smart, and be the best that you can be. (:

and i remember what my cousin told me during chinese new year 2006, when he told me to treasure my time in rjc, because it's all gonna be over before i know it. i guess his words are really hitting home now, now that all that has really come to pass. but though it's true that we've all now officially graduated from the halls of rjc.. i guess our journey together never really ends, does it? once a rafflesian, always a rafflesian. (:

be that as it may, the fact remains that.. two years have indeed passed. two years older i am, two years wiser, two years stronger.. and two years closer to leaving the protection of the education system for good and stepping out into a world that is so much larger, stranger.. and colder? i guess i'm really thankful i've got friends and family by my side, then.. even as i depart the safe, warm sheltered beaches i have always known to venture out into the vast, uncharted expanse of life - a whole new ocean of possibility where i can hopefully, make a mark for myself in years to come.

but what's to worry, where's the hurry? we'll all make it there in good time. (:

2007-12-18T13:06:00.000+08:00

aha! my christmas wishlist is now up. okay so it's basically what's left of my wishlist haha. here goes:

Books:
Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov
The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov
Nemesis by Isaac Asimov
Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force

Books - Science:
Remote Viewing: The Science and Theory of Nonphysical Perception by Courtney Brown
The Conscious Universe by Dean Radin
Entangled Minds by Dean Radin
Elements of Pantheism by Paul Harrison
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume
The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose
The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch
Matter and Consciousness by Paul Churchland
Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett
Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Life of the Cosmos by Lee Smolin
Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan
The Sacred Balance by David Suzuki

Games:
Empire at War by LucasArts
Empire at War: Forces of Corruption by LucasArts
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer by Obsidian Entertainment
Dragon Age by Bioware (unreleased)

2007-12-13T12:47:00.000+08:00

okay okay prom night pics are up!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2YbNmbdoxdC&notag=1

i was originally uploading them to flickr when i realised flickr had a monthy upload limit which was not enough for me to upload all my photos haha so yeah decided to use shutterfly instead. not all the pics are from my cam though! some are from huang's and miki's and chun's and xavier's and hongjia's and kleong's and cherie's and ruth's... and of course sarah's (:

okay toodles!

2007-12-13T12:43:00.000+08:00

The Truth About Open Marriage

Couples who practice ''polyamory'' say it's good for their relationships. Some therapists disagree.

By Kathleen Doheny
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Jenny Block often invites her best friend, Jemma, to join her, her husband, and their 8-year-old daughter for dinner. "We might order Chinese and then play Scrabble after dinner," Block says.

It all sounds very Middle America, until you know the rest of the story. Although Block and her husband, Christopher (not his real name), have been married for nearly 11 years, Jemma (not her real name) is Block's other love. They regularly go out on "dates," although Block's daughter knows only that Jemma is a family friend. And Block and her husband go out regularly, too. Block is intimate with both of them.

For several years, Block has had an open marriage. "We're not freaks," she tells WebMD. She simply couldn't get everything she needed -- sexually, physically, or emotionally -- from just her husband. So Block, who says she is bisexual, broached the topic of open marriage with her husband.

Christopher agreed to the arrangement. He isn't pursuing another relationship himself at this time, although he knows he is free to. "All that's going on here is feeling open to loving other people," says Block, 37, whose book, Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage, is due out in June 2008. Limiting love, she says, doesn't seem normal to her.

The term "open marriage," coined by the late George and Nena O'Neill in their 1972 book of the same name, has been expanded as more couples choose to follow the concept without getting married. Another term to describe one type of open relationship is polyamory -- literally, "multiple loves."

Those who practice open relationships or polyamory often say they are "hardwired" this way and that laying the ground rules for multiple relationships spares everyone hurt and disappointment. Not everyone agrees, with some therapists calling the polyamorous model a recipe for hurt, disappointment, jealousy, and breakups. On one point all agree: a "poly" relationship isn't going to work unless all partners are in favor of the arrangement.

How Common Is Open Marriage?

The number of adults with open relationships -- be they formal marriages or more informal arrangements -- is small. Probably about 4% to 9% of U.S. adults have some sort of open arrangement, estimates Franklin Veaux, 41, an Atlanta-based computer programmer and web site developer who also runs a polyamory web site.

Others, including Steve Brody, PhD, a psychologist based in Cambria, Calif., put the number much lower. "It's got to be less than 1%," he says. He has counseled thousands of couples in the past 30 years and has encountered very few instances of open relationships among his patients.

The Back Story

When the O'Neills, trained as anthropologists, wrote their book, Open Marriage: A New Life Style for Couples, they weren't just talking about the freedom to explore sexual relationships outside the marriage, although that idea got the most attention.

They also suggested that marriage partners be free to have their own separate friendships and that they trade domestic chores, for instance -- novel ideas back then, at least to some.

Now, the term polyamory or "poly" is viewed as the hipper term, with numerous web sites offering chat rooms, bulletin boards, and personal ads. One even posts a glossary of poly terms, explaining that relationships can be triads (three people), vees (in which one person has two lovers who aren't involved with each other), quads (four), extended networks, and other arrangements.

What's the Appeal of Open Marriage?

Freedom of choice is a big draw, says Cherie, a 34-year-old technology consultant who is traveling around the country and telecommuting with her partner, Chris, also 34 and in the same business. Chris and Cherie asked that only their first names be used in this article.

Before the road trip, Cherie had three boyfriends at once. Right now, she and Chris are monogamous, she says, but they plan to pursue other relationships again.

"Over the years," she tells WebMD, "I have been involved with a very wide variety of relationships and configurations, from triads, vees, quads, and extended networks. At one time, I even co-purchased a house with three other partners."

Her partner, Chris, says that his heart is "wired" for multiple relationships. Those classic love triangle movies, he tells WebMD, were always frustrating to him. "Why should the hero or heroine have to choose between two partners?" he asks. "Why not have both?"

While variety in sex is a big part of multiple romances, polyamorists say it's not the whole story. And polyamory is definitely different from swinging, says Block. "Swinger lifestyles are very sex oriented," she says. For her, having multiple relationships not only helps her fulfill her sex drive, but other needs as well. Her female partner, she says, is also her best friend and gives her a lot of emotional support.

When she goes to a romantic comedy with Jemma, for instance, Block says there's no eye rolling, as there usually is when she goes with Christopher.

Franklin Veaux, an ex-partner of Cherie, says he, too, is hardwired to be a polyamorist. "Why does the princess or the prince who lives in a castle have to choose?" he asks. "There is enough room for everyone." He keeps in touch with Cherie through instant messaging, although they are not romantically linked right now.

"Every partner adds something to my life," he says. "All of these things make me a better person." The big attraction, he says, is emotional intimacy. "Everybody adds value to my life."

Marriage and Relationship Experts Talk

Those who pursue an "open" or polyamorous relationship are obviously not conventional types, says William Doherty, PhD, director of the marriage and family therapy program at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul. "There are always some people who want to push the limits of their experiences -- their joy, their ecstasy in life," he says. They feel convention and tradition inhibit them.

Those who pursue multiple relationships simultaneously, Doherty says, say they are capable of many loves and passion and that "artificial cultural constraints" tell them they should restrict their love and passion to just one person.

Polyamorists, to their credit, are often open about it, Doherty says. "There is a kind of idealism around these folks," he says. "They want to be completely open and honest about it."

Louanne Cole Weston, PhD, MFT, a Fair Oaks, Calif., marriage and family therapist and WebMD's sex and relationships expert, agrees that the concept of open relationships has evolved to become more idealistic. "In the '70s, there was the playing loose around the edges idea," she says. "Poly is trying to come across as thoughtful and considerate."

An obvious benefit, Weston says, is that sexual monotony seldom sets in. Polys are not apt to be bored in other areas of life, either. "You always have Plan B," she says.

Some say they learn something about relationship skills from their other partner or partners, something that can be applied with the primary partner, she says.

The Drawbacks of Open Marriage

Scheduling can be a hassle, polyamorists say. "When I'm actively exploring multiple relationships, balancing my time and energy is usually the most difficult part,'' says Cherie." It can also be particularly draining if more than one of my partners has a crisis in their lives that they ask my assistance with, such as supporting them through a career change, family illness, problems in other relationships, or other challenging times." But if the other person has multiple partners, she says, they also have the benefit of getting multiple sources of help.

Handling the "fear response" in partners can be an issue, says Chris. He sometimes has had to assure partners that his interest in others does not mean his interest in them has changed or waned.

"I've also had my own feelings of envy and jealousy," he says, "particularly when I feel that a partner is giving more time and energy to another than they are to me."

"Where it becomes threatening is when [partners] think love implies exclusivity," says Veaux. "It's the starvation model of love. That is, if you love two, each gets half of the love. That's not true. Every single person is absolutely unique. Because of that, it means my partners can never be replaced."

Things can also get dicey when a partner considered "secondary" wants to become a primary, Veaux says.

Sometimes Veaux invites most of his partners -- and their partners -- to go out socially. Recently, he and such a group went to a science fiction convention together.

Ground rules are essential before starting a poly relationship, Veaux and others say. Some Internet poly sites offer sample contracts for multiple relationships.

"You have to figure out what the rules are," Weston says. "Otherwise so much could be hurtful."

But Steve and Cathy Brody think it's next to impossible to lay ground rules. "It's like laying ground rules for an earthquake," says Steve Brody, who with Cathy Brody wrote Renew Your Marriage at Midlife. They question how people can predict their feelings with so many people involved. "You can set up guidelines in a rational and intellectual way, but you can't anticipate the depth of the emotional reaction you are going to have," Steve Brody says.

Even so, Cathy Brody says one rule is crucial: "If one [partner] wants to stop [the arrangement], they both do."

The increased risk of getting a sexually transmitted disease is another obvious drawback. Veaux says he is careful about monitoring his sexual health. "I get a general physical once a year, and I'm screened for STDs. Whenever my partnership status changes I am screened again." He asks his partners to do the same. He asks for written proof that his partners are infection-free and provides it to them as well.

Polyamorists say the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. "The best part is that I feel like I am being true to myself," says Chris. "I always felt I was living a lie when I was trying to fit into a monogamous mold."

2007-12-09T12:03:00.000+08:00

Woohoo! =D

LAST:

1. Person(s) you hung out with?
- Sarah

2. Person you rode in a car with?
- The judokas! After farewell i think.

3. Person you went to the movies with?
- Sarah

4. Person you went to the mall with?
- Sarah

5. Last person that made you laugh?
- Uh can't remember haha i laugh at lots of things.

6. Person you cried about?
- Umm.. Sarah? Uh dunno la haha.

7. Person you texted?
- Sarah

8. Commented?
- Sarah

9. Hugged?
- Sarah =O Oh dear haha.

10. Do you like anyone?
- I like everybody =D Well, almost. Darn.

C H O O S E O N E

1. Sun or moon?
- Err both! Depends on my mood haha. Wait choose one? Rats. Okay sun then because the sun is bright and powerful and stuff. =D

2. Winter or Fall?
- Both! ...Okay okay umm. Okay i don't know haha i haven't really experienced fall before.

3. Left or right?
- If this is about being leftist or rightist, then LEFT.

4. 10 acquaintances or two best friends?
- Two best friends. (:

5. Sunny or rainy?
- Both! Okay fine sunny. Wait but sunny days are hot. Okay rainy then. Sunny's actually kind of boring because you get it in Singapore like 365 days a year. Okay except for today hoho.

6. Vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream?
- Both! Okay vanilla haha, if i'm in my usual phlegmatic mood. If i'm high and stuff then i'll go with chocolate. =D

A B O U T Y O U

1. What time is it?
- 12:25H

2. Where do you wanna live?
- Umm a house! A nice small house somewhere away from the city where it's unpolluted will be perfect. =D

3. How many kids do you want?
- Two, a girl and a guy. In that order.

4. What will you name them?
- Ashla and Jacen, in that order. (:

5. When do you want to get married?
- Anytime i find a great woman whom i'm ready to spend the rest of my life with (:

6. How many kinds of cereal are in your cabinet?
- Who cares!

7. Do you cook?
- No.

8. Current mood?
- Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh dunno haha. I guess i'm happily lazy. (:

9. Have you kissed someone recently?
- Mmhmm.

10. Been hugged?
- Mmhmm.

11. Felt stupid?
- Many times. (:

13. Missed someone?
- Mayyybee. (:

14. Danced crazy?
- Uh no HAHA.

15. Cried?
- Have i ever cried? What the fuck?

16. Lied?
- Uh sometimes haha.

R A N D O M. Q U E S T I O N S.

1. Have you ever been searched by the cops?
- No. I'd like to get searched by a hot female cop though =D

2. Had a dog?
- Nope. Don't really intend to. Kids will be more than enough.

3. When was the last time you went sledDing?
- Never.

4. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone?
- There are.. lots of people i'd like to sleep with, hoho.

5. Do you believe in ghosts?
- Hmm.. i'm not really sure, you know. I do believe, however, that there is sufficient evidence in the field to warrant a serious scientific investigation of such phenomena.

---------------------------------------

1. What is more difficult for you, looking into someone's eyes when you are telling someone how you feel, or looking into someone's eyes when they are telling you how they feel?
- Neither, i do both all the time. Unless it's over msn lol.

2. Think of the last time you were really angry. Why were you angry?
- Really as in in bold? It was the end of last year haha.

3. You are on a flight from Honolulu to Chicago non-stop with your family. There is a fire in the back of the plane. You have enough time to make one phone call. Who would you call?
- The fire department! I hope they have ladders that reach that high.

4. You are at the doctor's office and he has just informed you that you are going to die
(1) What would you do instantly?
- ...What? Hm okay i'd just try to find out what the hell is wrong with me, how it happened, and if there's really absolutely nothing i can do about it.

(2) What do you do with your remaining days?
- I'd probably shut myself off somewhere, meditate, and hope for either 1. a miracle, or 2. enlightenment. Haha okay unless i've already achieved all i want to achieve in my life and have attained intellectual, emotional and spiritual fulfilment - in that case i'd probably just meet up with a few friends, talk, reminisce, whatever, before i happily become one with the Force. =D

(3) Would you be afraid?
- Probably. I'd have to get over it, though.

5. You can have one of the following two things: trust/love. Which do you choose?
- (These two are not mutually exclusive!) Hmm. Okay here's how it goes. You can have trust without love, but you cannot have TRUE love without trust! Therefore, Love. I win. =D

6. You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late even once more, you are fired. Do you save the dog?
- Save the dog, damnit. If my boss is as kind and considerate as any good boss should be, he'll understand. If not, then i'm better off not working under him anyway.

7. You are unfaithful to your spouse/significant other. Do you tell him/her? Why or Why not?
- Yes. She has a right to know, and we're going to have to talk about where our relationship is heading now that I'm having an affair. Besides, i hope she digs it and they become really good friends. =D

8. Your best friend confesses that he/she has feelings for you more than just friendship. He/she is falling in love with you. What do you do/say?
- Since she's my best friend, I'd probably be ready to reciprocate her feelings anyway. (:

9. Think of the last person who you know that died.
- An incredibly stupid way to end off any quiz.

2007-12-05T19:23:00.000+08:00

EVERYONE PROM PICTURES PLEASE PICTURES PLEASE =D

haha i'll upload mine soon i think (:

but i'll still want yours cozz.. my eyes are damn small in the pics on my cam zz flash too bright haha.

and i miss prom!
and i miss school.
and imma miss all of you ):

okay toodles!

2007-11-30T21:15:00.000+08:00

ENCHANTED IS LOVEE *SMILE SMILE SMILE SMILE* =D

2007-10-20T19:08:00.001+08:00

J.K. Rowling outs Hogwarts character

By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer 1 hour, 1 minute ago

NEW YORK - Harry Potter fans, the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay. J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall.

After reading briefly from the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," she took questions from audience members.

She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love."

"Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said of Dumbledore's feelings, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down."

Dumbledore's love, she observed, was his "great tragedy."

"Oh, my god," Rowling concluded with a laugh, "the fan fiction."

Potter readers on fan sites and elsewhere on the Internet have speculated on the sexuality of Dumbledore, noting that he has no close relationship with women and a mysterious, troubled past. And explicit scenes with Dumbledore already have appeared in fan fiction.

Rowling told the audience that while working on the planned sixth Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," she spotted a reference in the script to a girl who once was of interest to Dumbledore. A note was duly passed to director David Yates, revealing the truth about her character.

Rowling, finishing a brief "Open Book Tour" of the United States, her first tour here since 2000, also said that she regarded her Potter books as a "prolonged argument for tolerance" and urged her fans to "question authority."

Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.

2007-10-20T00:35:00.000+08:00

Why Monks Are So Darn Happy

By Meredith F. Small, LiveScience's Human Nature Columnist

posted: 19 October 2007 09:47 am ET

The Dalai Lama was in town the other day. That's Ithaca, New York, a small town in the middle of nowhere.

His Holiness comes to Ithaca—it’s his second visit— because we have a Tibetan Buddhist monastery on one of the main streets downtown. It's an unassuming old house painted red and orange and decorated with a string of colorful prayer flags.

The citizens of Ithaca are also used to seeing monks in saffron robes walking around downtown. You notice these guys not so much because of the striking robes and shaved heads, but by their smiling, laughing faces.

And the Dalai Lama seems to be the happiest monk of all.

His lecture at Cornell University last week started with a big laugh and was all about happiness.

What's with these guys? Why are they so happy?

The answer is, of course, that the monks have worked very hard to become happy, peaceful people. They spend hours a day meditating and quieting the mind, and they also work hard to maintain a philosophy of compassion for all human beings.

Question is, why does it take so much work to become a compassionate, peaceful, happy person? Why aren't we all wearing saffron robes and laughing?

Evolutionary biologists would answer that the monks have to work hard because they are up against the darker side of human nature.

Humans, like all animals, are essentially selfish beings. Natural selection favors those who behave in ways that pass on genes, and that means we are usually out for ourselves. Sure, we often cooperate with others, but only when it suits some personal gain. It isn’t pretty, but it's part of who we are.

On the other hand, His Holiness maintains that we are also naturally armed with compassion for others, and this is true. Humans express both sympathy and empathy, emotions that often move us to help those in need, even strangers.

But it's also human nature to forget very quickly some disaster, grief or bad experience felt by someone else, and that's why we need to be reminded by someone who is a master at compassion.

Finding mental peace is also so difficult for humans because our minds evolved to be ever on alert, ready to puzzle-solve, always thinking. It goes against human nature to turn that mental machine off, although we'd all like to sometimes.

And that's why people are drawn to the Dalai Lama and why it is such a gift that monks roam my town. They are reminders that even if we have certain natural tendencies, it doesn’t mean we have to respond only to those tendencies.

We could, in fact, have a better human nature if we just worked at it.

Meredith F. Small is an anthropologist at Cornell University. She is also the author of "Our Babies, Ourselves; How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent" (link) and "The Culture of Our Discontent; Beyond the Medical Model of Mental Illness" (link).

2007-10-16T20:42:00.000+08:00

Living a Long, Happy Life
Fill life with happy feelings and live to a hundred. If you express positive emotions in early adulthood, you may live a longer life.

By:Richard Lovett

If you want to live a long, rich life, one of the best things you can do is to fill that life with happy feelings.

Such a sentiment is, of course, easier said than done. And that's why it's a topic psychologists are tackling with zeal, many spurred by a landmark study of elderly nuns. That report, by Deborah Danner, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky, found that nuns who'd expressed the most positive emotions in early adulthood—using words like "thankful" and "joy" in diary entries—lived about ten years longer than those who'd shown the fewest good feelings.

Barbara Fredrickson, a University of Michigan psychologist, is consumed with teasing out the causes of happy people's longer lives. Building on her studies of hostility and heart disease, Fredrickson believes a piece of the puzzle is how individuals cope with stress: Does a person deal with trouble head-on, or shy away?

An intriguing finding came from her research on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. A few months before the attacks, Fredrickson had studied a group of students to determine how quickly they bounced back from stress. Within two weeks of the attacks, she contacted them to see how they had fared during the crisis.

Not surprisingly, she discovered that the more resilient students had fewer signs of depression. But what she did not anticipate was that they had shown emotional growth in the months since they'd first been tested, and were now more optimistic and more satisfied with life than before. In rebounding from the crisis, they had counted their blessings, embraced love and friendship, and watched the news attentively but without fear.

Fredrickson believes that these people had harnessed the "undo" effect of positive emotions. In prior experiments, she and Michele Tugade, of Boston College, subjected students to a stressor by telling them they had only a few minutes to prepare a speech that would be critiqued by experts. Under such circumstances, almost everyone sees changes in "cardiovascular reactivity"—the cardiac equivalent of nervousness.

But when the stress was removed by telling the students they wouldn't actually have to give their speeches, people who viewed the test with amusement, interest and excitement saw their quick pulses "undone" more quickly than those who were angry about being fooled. This is important because high cardiac reactivity has been linked to heart disease.

Fredrickson also found that it is possible to speed the recovery of emotionally negative people by coaching them to view the experiment as a challenge, rather than a threat, and asking them to think of themselves as people who are capable of meeting that challenge.

One way to encourage such a change in mind-set is by therapy. "Therapists have an arsenal of tools to eliminate negative behaviors," she says. "The same methods could be used to train people to find more positive meaning and to build skills so that they are automatically optimistic."

Many people may also be able to adjust their attitudes on their own. For example, Fredrickson says, if she has to walk across campus, she could view that negatively—as a waste of time—or positively, as a chance to enjoy the outdoors, people-watch and get a bit of exercise. What's important, she believes, is not just pushing negative thoughts out of mind but reorienting to the positive.

2007-10-08T21:32:00.000+08:00

"It was my observation that on your last visit, you were angry with me. You believed that I had deliberately harmed your apprentice-- which was accurate-- though your anger was moderated somewhat when I explained my motivations."

"That's true," Luke admitted.

"Now my question is, was your anger dark? Was it an evil passion that possessed you, such that the dark side might have taken you as a consequence?"

Luke chose his thoughts carefully. "It could have been. If I had used that anger to strike out at you, or harm you, particularly through the Force, then it would have been a dark passion."

"Young Master, it is my contention that the anger you experienced was natural and useful. I caused deliberate harm-- pain and anguish and suffering, over a period of weeks-- to a young man for whom you had accepted responsibility and for whom you felt a measure of love. Naturally you felt anger. Naturally you wanted to break my thin little neck. It is absolutely natural, when you discover that a person has inflicted deliberate pain on a helpless victim, to feel angry with that person. It is equally as natural an emotion as to feel compassion for the victim."

Vergere fell silent, and Luke let the silence build.

After a moment, Vergere bobbed her head. "Very well, young Master. You are correct when you said that if you had entered my cell and struck out at me with the Force, that such an action would have been dark. But you didn't. Instead your anger prompted you to speak to me and find out the reasons for my actions. To that extent, your anger was not only natural but useful. It led to understanding on both our parts."

She paused. "I'm about to ask a rhetorical question. You need not answer."

"Thank you for the warning."

"My rhetorical question is: why wasn't your anger dark? And my answer is: because you understood it. You understood the cause of the emotion, and therefore it did not seize control over you."

Luke thought for a moment. "It is your contention, then," he said, "that to understand an emotion is to prevent its being dark."

"Unreasoning passion is the province of darkness," Vergere said. "But an understood emotion is not unreasoning. That is why the route to mastery is through self-knowledge." Her tilted eyes widened. "It's not possible to suppress all emotion, nor is it desirable. An emotionless person is no more than a machine. But to understand the origin and nature of one's feelings, that is possible."

"When Darth Vader and the Emperor held me prisoner," Luke said, "they kept urging me to surrender to my anger."

"Your anger was a natural response to your captivity, and they wished to make use of it. They wished to fan your anger into a burning rage that would allow the darkness to enter. But any unreasoning passion would do. When anger becomes rage, fear becomes terror, love becomes obsession, self-esteem becomes vainglory, then a natural and useful emotion becomes an unreasoning compulsion and the darkness is."

"I let the dark side take me," Luke said. "I cut off my father's hand."

"Ahhh." Vergere nodded. "Now I understand much."

"When my rage took control, I felt invincible. I felt complete. I felt free."

Vergere nodded again. "When you are in the grip of an irresistible compulsion, it is then that you feel most like yourself. But in reality it was you who were passive then. You let the feeling control you."

-The above has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than the CAMBRIDGE GENERAL CERTIFICATE OF EDUCATION "A" LEVEL EXAMINATIONS. (or more specifically, my lack of discipline with regards to it.)

I SHALL HAVE TO GET MY GEAR IN ORDER. SOON. NO, NOW. WAKE UP, ALWYN. RISE TO THE OCCASION! SEIZE THE DAY! CARPE DIEM! HOORAH!

2007-09-27T23:19:00.000+08:00

OMG THIS IS SO FUNNY.

Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature

Why most suicide bombers are Muslim, beautiful people have more daughters, humans are naturally polygamous, sexual harassment isn't sexist, and blonds are more attractive.
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By:Alan S. Miller Ph.D., Satoshi Kanazawa Ph.D.

Human nature is one of those things that everybody talks about but no one can define precisely. Every time we fall in love, fight with our spouse, get upset about the influx of immigrants into our country, or go to church, we are, in part, behaving as a human animal with our own unique evolved nature—human nature.

This means two things. First, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are produced not only by our individual experiences and environment in our own lifetime but also by what happened to our ancestors millions of years ago. Second, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are shared, to a large extent, by all men or women, despite seemingly large cultural differences.

Human behavior is a product both of our innate human nature and of our individual experience and environment. In this article, however, we emphasize biological influences on human behavior, because most social scientists explain human behavior as if evolution stops at the neck and as if our behavior is a product almost entirely of environment and socialization. In contrast, evolutionary psychologists see human nature as a collection of psychological adaptations that often operate beneath conscious thinking to solve problems of survival and reproduction by predisposing us to think or feel in certain ways. Our preference for sweets and fats is an evolved psychological mechanism. We do not consciously choose to like sweets and fats; they just taste good to us.

The implications of some of the ideas in this article may seem immoral, contrary to our ideals, or offensive. We state them because they are true, supported by documented scientific evidence. Like it or not, human nature is simply not politically correct.

Adapted from Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, by Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa, to be published by Perigee in September 2007.

1. Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them)

Long before TV—in 15th- and 16th- century Italy, and possibly two millennia ago—women were dying their hair blond. A recent study shows that in Iran, where exposure to Western media and culture is limited, women are actually more concerned with their body image, and want to lose more weight, than their American counterparts. It is difficult to ascribe the preferences and desires of women in 15th-century Italy and 21st-century Iran to socialization by media.

Women's desire to look like Barbie—young with small waist, large breasts, long blond hair, and blue eyes—is a direct, realistic, and sensible response to the desire of men to mate with women who look like her. There is evolutionary logic behind each of these features.

Men prefer young women in part because they tend to be healthier than older women. One accurate indicator of health is physical attractiveness; another is hair. Healthy women have lustrous, shiny hair, whereas the hair of sickly people loses its luster. Because hair grows slowly, shoulder-length hair reveals several years of a woman's health status.

Men also have a universal preference for women with a low waist-to-hip ratio. They are healthier and more fertile than other women; they have an easier time conceiving a child and do so at earlier ages because they have larger amounts of essential reproductive hormones. Thus men are unconsciously seeking healthier and more fertile women when they seek women with small waists.

Until very recently, it was a mystery to evolutionary psychology why men prefer women with large breasts, since the size of a woman's breasts has no relationship to her ability to lactate. But Harvard anthropologist Frank Marlowe contends that larger, and hence heavier, breasts sag more conspicuously with age than do smaller breasts. Thus they make it easier for men to judge a woman's age (and her reproductive value) by sight—suggesting why men find women with large breasts more attractive.

Alternatively, men may prefer women with large breasts for the same reason they prefer women with small waists. A new study of Polish women shows that women with large breasts and tight waists have the greatest fecundity, indicated by their levels of two reproductive hormones (estradiol and progesterone).

Blond hair is unique in that it changes dramatically with age. Typically, young girls with light blond hair become women with brown hair. Thus, men who prefer to mate with blond women are unconsciously attempting to mate with younger (and hence, on average, healthier and more fecund) women. It is no coincidence that blond hair evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, probably as an alternative means for women to advertise their youth, as their bodies were concealed under heavy clothing.

Women with blue eyes should not be any different from those with green or brown eyes. Yet preference for blue eyes seems both universal and undeniable—in males as well as females. One explanation is that the human pupil dilates when an individual is exposed to something that she likes. For instance, the pupils of women and infants (but not men) spontaneously dilate when they see babies. Pupil dilation is an honest indicator of interest and attraction. And the size of the pupil is easiest to determine in blue eyes. Blue-eyed people are considered attractive as potential mates because it is easiest to determine whether they are interested in us or not.

The irony is that none of the above is true any longer. Through face-lifts, wigs, liposuction, surgical breast augmentation, hair dye, and color contact lenses, any woman, regardless of age, can have many of the key features that define ideal female beauty. And men fall for them. Men can cognitively understand that many blond women with firm, large breasts are not actually 15 years old, but they still find them attractive because their evolved psychological mechanisms are fooled by modern inventions that did not exist in the ancestral environment.
2. Humans are naturally polygamous

The history of western civilization aside, humans are naturally polygamous. Polyandry (a marriage of one woman to many men) is very rare, but polygyny (the marriage of one man to many women) is widely practiced in human societies, even though Judeo-Christian traditions hold that monogamy is the only natural form of marriage. We know that humans have been polygynous throughout most of history because men are taller than women.

Among primate and nonprimate species, the degree of polygyny highly correlates with the degree to which males of a species are larger than females. The more polygynous the species, the greater the size disparity between the sexes. Typically, human males are 10 percent taller and 20 percent heavier than females. This suggests that, throughout history, humans have been mildly polygynous.

Relative to monogamy, polygyny creates greater fitness variance (the distance between the "winners" and the "losers" in the reproductive game) among males than among females because it allows a few males to monopolize all the females in the group. The greater fitness variance among males creates greater pressure for men to compete with each other for mates. Only big and tall males can win mating opportunities. Among pair-bonding species like humans, in which males and females stay together to raise their children, females also prefer to mate with big and tall males because they can provide better physical protection against predators and other males.

In societies where rich men are much richer than poor men, women (and their children) are better off sharing the few wealthy men; one-half, one-quarter, or even one-tenth of a wealthy man is still better than an entire poor man. As George Bernard Shaw puts it, "The maternal instinct leads a woman to prefer a tenth share in a first-rate man to the exclusive possession of a third-rate one." Despite the fact that humans are naturally polygynous, most industrial societies are monogamous because men tend to be more or less equal in their resources compared with their ancestors in medieval times. (Inequality tends to increase as society advances in complexity from hunter-gatherer to advanced agrarian societies. Industrialization tends to decrease the level of inequality.)
3. Most women benefit from polygyny, while most men benefit from monogamy

When there is resource inequality among men—the case in every human society—most women benefit from polygyny: women can share a wealthy man. Under monogamy, they are stuck with marrying a poorer man.

The only exceptions are extremely desirable women. Under monogamy, they can monopolize the wealthiest men; under polygyny, they must share the men with other, less desirable women. However, the situation is exactly opposite for men. Monogamy guarantees that every man can find a wife. True, less desirable men can marry only less desirable women, but that's much better than not marrying anyone at all.

Men in monogamous societies imagine they would be better off under polygyny. What they don't realize is that, for most men who are not extremely desirable, polygyny means no wife at all, or, if they are lucky, a wife who is much less desirable than one they could get under monogamy.
4. Most suicide bombers are Muslim

According to the Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, a comprehensive history of this troubling yet topical phenomenon, while suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, when religion is involved, it is always Muslim. Why is this? Why is Islam the only religion that motivates its followers to commit suicide missions?

The surprising answer from the evolutionary psychological perspective is that Muslim suicide bombing may have nothing to do with Islam or the Koran (except for two lines in it). It may have nothing to do with the religion, politics, the culture, the race, the ethnicity, the language, or the region. As with everything else from this perspective, it may have a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.

What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all.

So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region.

However, polygyny itself is not a sufficient cause of suicide bombing. Societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are much more polygynous than the Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa. And they do have very high levels of violence. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a long history of continuous civil wars—but not suicide bombings.

The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. The prospect of exclusive access to virgins may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy virtually guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser.

It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.
5. Having sons reduces the likelihood of divorce

Sociologists and demographers have discovered that couples who have at least one son face significantly less risk of divorce than couples who have only daughters. Why is this?

Since a man's mate value is largely determined by his wealth, status, and power—whereas a woman's is largely determined by her youth and physical attractiveness—the father has to make sure that his son will inherit his wealth, status, and power, regardless of how much or how little of these resources he has. In contrast, there is relatively little that a father (or mother) can do to keep a daughter youthful or make her more physically attractive.

The continued presence of (and investment by) the father is therefore important for the son, but not as crucial for the daughter. The presence of sons thus deters divorce and departure of the father from the family more than the presence of daughters, and this effect tends to be stronger among wealthy families.
6. Beautiful people have more daughters

It is commonly believed that whether parents conceive a boy or a girl is up to random chance. Close, but not quite; it is largely up to chance. The normal sex ratio at birth is 105 boys for every 100 girls. But the sex ratio varies slightly in different circumstances and for different families. There are factors that subtly influence the sex of an offspring.

One of the most celebrated principles in evolutionary biology, the Trivers-Willard hypothesis, states that wealthy parents of high status have more sons, while poor parents of low status have more daughters. This is because children generally inherit the wealth and social status of their parents. Throughout history, sons from wealthy families who would themselves become wealthy could expect to have a large number of wives, mistresses and concubines, and produce dozens or hundreds of children, whereas their equally wealthy sisters can have only so many children. So natural selection designs parents to have biased sex ratio at birth depending upon their economic circumstances—more boys if they are wealthy, more girls if they are poor. (The biological mechanism by which this occurs is not yet understood.)

This hypothesis has been documented around the globe. American presidents, vice presidents, and cabinet secretaries have more sons than daughters. Poor Mukogodo herders in East Africa have more daughters than sons. Church parish records from the 17th and 18th centuries show that wealthy landowners in Leezen, Germany, had more sons than daughters, while farm laborers and tradesmen without property had more daughters than sons. In a survey of respondents from 46 nations, wealthy individuals are more likely to indicate a preference for sons if they could only have one child, whereas less wealthy individuals are more likely to indicate a preference for daughters.

The generalized Trivers-Willard hypothesis goes beyond a family's wealth and status: If parents have any traits that they can pass on to their children and that are better for sons than for daughters, then they will have more boys. Conversely, if parents have any traits that they can pass on to their children and that are better for daughters, they will have more girls.

Physical attractiveness, while a universally positive quality, contributes even more to women's reproductive success than to men's. The generalized hypothesis would therefore predict that physically attractive parents should have more daughters than sons. Once again, this is the case. Americans who are rated "very attractive" have a 56 percent chance of having a daughter for their first child, compared with 48 percent for everyone else.
7. What Bill Gates and Paul McCartney have in common with criminals

For nearly a quarter of a century, criminologists have known about the "age-crime curve." In every society at all historical times, the tendency to commit crimes and other risk-taking behavior rapidly increases in early adolescence, peaks in late adolescence and early adulthood, rapidly decreases throughout the 20s and 30s, and levels off in middle age.

This curve is not limited to crime. The same age profile characterizes every quantifiable human behavior that is public (i.e., perceived by many potential mates) and costly (i.e., not affordable by all sexual competitors). The relationship between age and productivity among male jazz musicians, male painters, male writers, and male scientists—which might be called the "age-genius curve"—is essentially the same as the age-crime curve. Their productivity—the expressions of their genius—quickly peaks in early adulthood, and then equally quickly declines throughout adulthood. The age-genius curve among their female counterparts is much less pronounced; it does not peak or vary as much as a function of age.

Paul McCartney has not written a hit song in years, and now spends much of his time painting. Bill Gates is now a respectable businessman and philanthropist, and is no longer a computer whiz kid. J.D. Salinger now lives as a total recluse and has not published anything in more than three decades. Orson Welles was a mere 26 when he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane.

A single theory can explain the productivity of both creative geniuses and criminals over the life course: Both crime and genius are expressions of young men's competitive desires, whose ultimate function in the ancestral environment would have been to increase reproductive success.

In the physical competition for mates, those who are competitive may act violently toward their male rivals. Men who are less inclined toward crime and violence may express their competitiveness through their creative activities.

The cost of competition, however, rises dramatically when a man has children, when his energies and resources are put to better use protecting and investing in them. The birth of the first child usually occurs several years after puberty because men need some time to accumulate sufficient resources and attain sufficient status to attract their first mate. There is therefore a gap of several years between the rapid rise in the benefits of competition and similarly rapid rise in its costs. Productivity rapidly declines in late adulthood as the costs of competition rise and cancel its benefits.

These calculations have been performed by natural and sexual selection, so to speak, which then equips male brains with a psychological mechanism to incline them to be increasingly competitive immediately after puberty and make them less competitive right after the birth of their first child. Men simply do not feel like acting violently, stealing, or conducting additional scientific experiments, or they just want to settle down after the birth of their child but they do not know exactly why.

The similarity between Bill Gates, Paul McCartney, and criminals—in fact, among all men throughout evolutionary history—points to an important concept in evolutionary biology: female choice.

Women often say no to men. Men have had to conquer foreign lands, win battles and wars, compose symphonies, author books, write sonnets, paint cathedral ceilings, make scientific discoveries, play in rock bands, and write new computer software in order to impress women so that they will agree to have sex with them. Men have built (and destroyed) civilization in order to impress women, so that they might say yes.
8. The midlife crisis is a myth—sort of

Many believe that men go through a midlife crisis when they are in middle age. Not quite. Many middle-aged men do go through midlife crises, but it's not because they are middle-aged. It's because their wives are. From the evolutionary psychological perspective, a man's midlife crisis is precipitated by his wife's imminent menopause and end of her reproductive career, and thus his renewed need to attract younger women. Accordingly, a 50-year-old man married to a 25-year-old woman would not go through a midlife crisis, while a 25-year-old man married to a 50-year-old woman would, just like a more typical 50-year-old man married to a 50-year-old woman. It's not his midlife that matters; it's hers. When he buys a shiny-red sports car, he's not trying to regain his youth; he's trying to attract young women to replace his menopausal wife by trumpeting his flash and cash.
9. It's natural for politicians to risk everything for an affair (but only if they're male)

On the morning of January 21, 1998, as Americans woke up to the stunning allegation that President Bill Clinton had had an affair with a 24-year-old White House intern, Darwinian historian Laura L. Betzig thought, "I told you so." Betzig points out that while powerful men throughout Western history have married monogamously (only one legal wife at a time), they have always mated polygynously (they had lovers, concubines, and female slaves). With their wives, they produced legitimate heirs; with the others, they produced bastards. Genes make no distinction between the two categories of children.

As a result, powerful men of high status throughout human history attained very high reproductive success, leaving a large number of offspring (legitimate and otherwise), while countless poor men died mateless and childless. Moulay Ismail the Bloodthirsty, the last Sharifian emperor of Morocco, stands out quantitatively, having left more offspring—1,042—than anyone else on record, but he was by no means qualitatively different from other powerful men, like Bill Clinton.

The question many asked in 1998—"Why on earth would the most powerful man in the world jeopardize his job for an affair with a young woman?"—is, from a Darwinian perspective, a silly one. Betzig's answer would be: "Why not?" Men strive to attain political power, consciously or unconsciously, in order to have reproductive access to a larger number of women. Reproductive access to women is the goal, political office but one means. To ask why the President of the United States would have a sexual encounter with a young woman is like asking why someone who worked very hard to earn a large sum of money would then spend it.

What distinguishes Bill Clinton is not that he had extramarital affairs while in office—others have, more will; it would be a Darwinian puzzle if they did not—what distinguishes him is the fact that he got caught.
10. Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist

An unfortunate consequence of the ever-growing number of women joining the labor force and working side by side with men is the increasing number of sexual harassment cases. Why must sexual harassment be a necessary consequence of the sexual integration of the workplace?

Psychologist Kingsley R. Browne identifies two types of sexual harassment cases: the quid pro quo ("You must sleep with me if you want to keep your job or be promoted") and the "hostile environment" (the workplace is deemed too sexualized for workers to feel safe and comfortable). While feminists and social scientists tend to explain sexual harassment in terms of "patriarchy" and other ideologies, Browne locates the ultimate cause of both types of sexual harassment in sex differences in mating strategies.

Studies demonstrate unequivocally that men are far more interested in short-term casual sex than women. In one now-classic study, 75 percent of undergraduate men approached by an attractive female stranger agreed to have sex with her; none of the women approached by an attractive male stranger did. Many men who would not date the stranger nonetheless agreed to have sex with her.

The quid pro quo types of harassment are manifestations of men's greater desire for short-term casual sex and their willingness to use any available means to achieve that goal. Feminists often claim that sexual harassment is "not about sex but about power;" Browne contends it is both—men using power to get sex. "To say that it is only about power makes no more sense than saying that bank robbery is only about guns, not about money."

Sexual harassment cases of the hostile-environment variety result from sex differences in what men and women perceive as "overly sexual" or "hostile" behavior. Many women legitimately complain that they have been subjected to abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment by their male coworkers. Browne points out that long before women entered the labor force, men subjected each other to such abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment.

Abuse, intimidation, and degradation are all part of men's repertoire of tactics employed in competitive situations. In other words, men are not treating women differently from men—the definition of discrimination, under which sexual harassment legally falls—but the opposite: Men harass women precisely because they are not discriminating between men and women.

2007-09-23T00:56:00.000+08:00

JANUARY:
Stubborn and hard-hearted. Ambitious and serious. Loves to teach and be taught. Always looking at people's flaws and weaknesses. Likes to criticize. Hardworking and productive. Smart, neat and organized. Sensitive and has deep thoughts. Knows how to make others happy. Quiet unless excited or tensed. Rather reserved. Highly attentive. Resistant to illnesses but prone to colds. Romantic but has difficulties expressing love. Loves children. Loyal. Has great social abilities yet easily jealous. Very stubborn and money cautious.

Number of traits: 28
Number of hits: 14
Hit rate: 50%

FEBRUARY:
Abstract thoughts. Loves reality and abstract. Intelligent and clever. Changing personality. Attractive. Sexy. Temperamental. Quiet, shy and humble. Honest and loyal. Determined to reach goals. Loves freedom. Rebellious when restricted. Loves aggressiveness. Too sensitive and easily hurt. Gets angry really easily but does not show it. Dislikes unnecessary things. Loves making friends but rarely shows it. Daring and stubborn. Ambitious. Realizes dreams and hopes. Sharp. Loves entertainment and leisure. Romantic on the inside not outside. Superstitious and ludicrous. Spendthrift. Tries to learn to show emotions.

Number of traits: 35
Number of hits: 21
Hit rate: 60%

MARCH:
Attractive personality. Sexy. Affectionate. Shy and reserved. Secretive. Naturally honest, generous and sympathetic. Loves peace and serenity. Sensitive to others. Loves to serve others. Easily angered. Trustworthy. Appreciative and returns kindness. Observant and assesses others. Revengeful. Loves to dream and fantasize. Loves travelling. Loves attention. Hasty decisions in choosing partners. Loves home decors. Musically talented. Loves special things. Moody.

Number of traits: 27
Number of hits: 17
Hit rate: 63.0%

APRIL:
Active and dynamic. Decisive and hasty but tends to regret. Attractive and affectionate to oneself. Strong mentality. Loves attention. Diplomatic. Consoling, friendly and solves people's problems. Brave and fearless. Adventurous. Loving and caring. Suave and generous. Emotional. Aggressive. Hasty. Good memory. Moving. Motivates oneself and others. Sickness usually of the head and chest. Sexy in a way that only their lover can see.

Number of traits: 29
Number of hits: 16
Hit rate: 55.2%

MAY:
Stubborn and hard-hearted. Strong-willed and highly motivated. Sharp thoughts. Easily angered. Attracts others and loves attention. Deep feelings. Beautiful physically and mentally. Firm Standpoint. Needs no motivation. Easily consoled. Systematic (left brain). Loves to dream. Strong clairvoyance. Understanding. Sickness usually in the ear and neck. Good imagination. Good physical. Weak breathing. Loves literature and the arts. Loves traveling. Dislike being at home. Restless. Not having many children. Hardworking. High spirited. Spendthrift.

Number of traits: 31
Number of hits: 17
Hit rate: 54.8%

JUNE:
Thinks far with vision. Easily influenced by kindness. Polite and soft-spoken. Having ideas. Sensitive. Active mind. Hesitating, tends to delay. Choosy and always wants the best. Temperamental. Funny and humorous. Loves to joke. Good debating skills. Talkative. Daydreamer. Friendly. Knows how to make friends. Able to show character. Easily hurt. Prone to getting colds. Loves to dress up. Easily bored. Fussy. Seldom shows emotions. Takes time to recover when hurt. Brand conscious. Executive. Stubborn.

Number of traits: 30
Number of hits: 20
Hit rate: 66.7%

JULY:
Fun to be with. Secretive. Difficult to fathom and to be understood. Quiet unless excited or tensed. Takes pride in oneself. Has reputation. Easily consoled. Honest. Concerned about people's feelings. Tactful. Friendly. Approachable. Emotional temperamental and unpredictable. Moody and easily hurt. Witty and sparkly. Not revengeful. Forgiving but never forgets. Dislikes nonsensical and unnecessary things. Guides others physically and mentally. Sensitive and forms impressions carefully. Caring and loving. Treats others equally. Strong sense of sympathy. Wary and sharp. Judges people through observations. Hardworking. No difficulties in studying. Loves to be alone. Always broods about the past and the old friends. Likes to be quiet. Homely person. Waits for friends. Never looks for friends. Not aggressive unless provoked. Prone to having stomach and dieting problems. Loves to be loved. Easily hurt but takes long to recover.

Number of traits: 45
Number of hits: 32
Hit rate: 71.1%

AUGUST:
Loves to joke. Attractive. Suave and caring. Brave and fearless. Firm and has leadership qualities. Knows how to console others. Too generous and egoistic. Takes high pride in oneself. Thirsty for praises. Extraordinary spirit. Easily angered. Angry when provoked. Easily jealous. Observant. Careful and cautious. Thinks quickly. Independent thoughts. Loves to lead and to be led. Loves to dream. Talented in the arts, music and defense. Sensitive but not petty. Poor resistance against illnesses. Learns to relax. Hasty and trusty. Romantic. Loving and caring. Loves to make friends.

Number of traits: 38
Number of hits: 26
Hit rate: 68.4%

SEPTEMBER:
Suave and compromising. Careful, cautious and organized. Likes to point out people's mistakes. Likes to criticize. Stubborn. Quiet but able to talk well. Calm and cool. Kind and sympathetic. Concerned and detailed. Loyal but not always honest. Does work well. Very confident. Sensitive. Good memory. Clever and knowledgeable. Loves to look for information. Must control oneself when criticizing. Able to motivate oneself. Understanding. Fun to be around. Secretive. Loves leisure and traveling. Hardly shows emotions. Tends to bottle up feelings. Very choosy, especially in relationships. Systematic.

Number of traits: 36
Number of hits: 23
Hit rate: 63.9%

OCTOBER:
Loves to chat. Loves those who loves them. Loves to take things at the center. Inner and physical beauty. Lies but doesn't pretend. Gets angry often. Treats friends importantly. Always making friends. Easily hurt but recovers easily. Daydreamer. Opinionated. Does not care of what others think. Emotional. Decisive. Strong clairvoyance. Loves to travel, the arts and literature. Touchy and easily jealous. Concerned. Loves outdoors. Just and fair. Spendthrift. Easily influenced. Easily loses confidence. Loves children.

Number of traits: 30
Number of hits: 17
Hit rate: 56.7%

NOVEMBER:
Has a lot of ideas. Difficult to fathom. Thinks forward. Unique and brilliant. Extraordinary ideas. Sharp thinking. Fine and strong clairvoyance. Can become good doctors. Dynamic in personality. Secretive. Inquisitive. Knows how to dig secrets. Always thinking. Less talkative but amiable. Brave and generous. Patient. Stubborn and hard-hearted. If there is a will, there is a way. Determined. Never give up. Hardly becomes angry unless provoked. Loves to be alone. Thinks differently from others. Sharp-minded. Motivates oneself. Does not appreciate praises. High-spirited. Well-built and tough. Deep love and emotions. Romantic. Uncertain in relationships. Homely. Hardworking. High abilities. Trustworthy. Honest and keeps secrets. Not able to control emotions. Unpredictable.

Number of traits: 44
Number of hits: 32
Hit rate: 72.7%

DECEMBER:
Loyal and generous. Sexy. Patriotic. Active in games and interactions. Impatient and hasty. Ambitious. Influential in organizations. Fun to be with. Loves to socialize. Loves praises. Loves attention. Loves to be loved. Honest and trustworthy. Not pretending. Short tempered. Changing personality. Not egotistic. Take high pride in oneself. Hates restrictions. Loves to joke. Good sense of humor. Logical.

Number of traits: 26
Number of hits: 12
Hit rate: 46.2%

Hm let's see..

Out of TWELVE months,
SIX contain "Stubborn",
SIX contain "Attractive" or "Beautiful"
SIX contain "Honest" or "Doesn't pretend",
SIX contain one word or another for "Caring",
SEVEN contain "Temperamental", "Emotional" or "Moody",
SEVEN contain "Quiet", "Reserved", "Less talkative" or "Soft-spoken",
EIGHT contain "Sensitive" or "Easily hurt",
EIGHT contain one word or another for "Friendly",
NINE contain "Angry", "Easily angered", "Short tempered", "Not aggressive unless provoked" or "Aggressive when provoked".

Raw Statistics:
Mean Hit Rate: 60.725%
Variance in Hit Rate: 64.105

Excluding August,
Mean Hit Rate: 60.027%
Variance in Hit Rate: 64.578

Let the null hypothesis be the statement that the difference between 68.4% and 60.027% is solely due to chance.

Let the alternative hypothesis be that 68.4% is significantly larger than the mean value of 60.027%.

In order for the alternative hypothesis to be accepted, the probability that the hit rate can be larger than or equal to 68.4% while under a normal distribution of mean 60.027 and variance 64.578 must be too small for us to accept that it could have occurred solely due to chance. Let us evaluate that at the 5% significance level.. nah, let's be a little nicer and evaluate it at the 10% significance level.

So, let X be the random variable representing the Hit Rate.
Under the null hypothesis, X follows a normal distribution with mean 60.027 and variance 64.578.

Then, the probability that X is larger than or equal to 68.4 is 0.149, i.e. there is a (whooping!) 14.9% chance that the Hit Rate will be larger than or equal to 68.4% if we assume the null hypothesis to be true.

Evaluating it at the 5% significance level, there is, unfortunately (or fortunately!), insufficient evidence for us to reject the null hypothesis. Hoho (:

So! Once again the day is saved, thanks to the powerpu-... uh, Statistics hahahah.

On a related note, the test provided above does indeed seem to be a variation of a very common "psychic" trick known as "cold reading". Here, let me rip some stuff of wikipedia for you all to see.

Other cold reading techniques

The most comprehensive book on how to perform Cold Reading techniques is The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading by British illusionist Ian Rowland. In this book he discusses over twenty different techniques including The Rainbow Ruse, Fine Flattery and Barnum Statements.

Shotgunning

"Shotgunning" is a commonly-used cold reading technique, allegedly used by purported television psychics and spiritual mediums: Edgar Cayce, Sylvia Browne, James Van Praagh, Colin Fry and John Edward in particular have all been accused by skeptics of using shotgunning techniques in their stage and television shows. The psychic or reader quickly offers a huge quantity of very general information, often to an entire audience (some of which is very likely to be correct, near correct or at the very least, provocative or evocative to someone present), observes their subjects' reactions (especially their body language), and then narrows the scope, acknowledging particular people or concepts and refining the original statements according to those reactions to promote an emotional response.

This technique is named after a shotgun, as it fires a spray of small projectiles in the hope that one or more of the shots will strike the target. A majority of people in a room will, at some point for example, have lost an older relative or known at least one person with a common name like "Mike" or "John".

Shotgunning might include a series of vague statements such as:

* "I see a heart problem with a father-figure in your family, a father, a grandfather, an uncle, a cousin... I'm definitively seeing chest pain here for a father-figure in your family."
* "I see a woman that isn't a blood relative. Someone around when you were growing up, an aunt, a friend of your mother, a step-mother with blackness in the chest, lung cancer, heart disease, breast cancer..."
* "I sense an older male figure in your life, who wants you to know whilst you may have had disagreements in your life, he still loved you."

The Forer effect/Barnum statements

"Barnum statements" named after P.T. Barnum, the American showman, may also be used. These statements seem personal, yet apply to many people. And while seemingly specific, such statements are often open-ended or give the reader the maximum amount of "wriggle room" in a reading. They are designed to elicit identifying responses from people. The statements can then be developed into longer and more sophisticated paragraphs and seem to reveal great amounts of detail about a person. The effect relies in part on the eagerness of people to fill in details and make connections between what is said and some aspect of their own lives (often searching their entire life's history to find some connection, or reinterpreting the statement in any number of different possible ways so as to make it apply to themselves). A talented and charismatic reader can sometimes even bully a subject into admitting a connection, demanding over and over that they acknowledge a particular statement as having some relevance and maintaining that they just aren't thinking hard enough, or are repressing some important memory.

Statements of this type might include:

* "I sense that you are sometimes insecure, especially with people you don't know very well."
* "You have a box of old unsorted photographs in your house."
* "You had an accident when you were a child involving water."
* "You're having problems with a friend or relative."
* "Your father passed on due to problems in his chest or abdomen."

If the subject is old enough, his or her father is quite likely to be dead, and this statement would easily apply to a number of conditions such as heart disease, pneumonia, diabetes, most forms of cancer, and in fact to a great majority of causes of death.

The rainbow ruse

The rainbow ruse is a crafted statement which simultaneously awards the subject with a specific personality trait, as well as the opposite of that trait. With such a phrase, a cold reader can "cover all possibilities" and appear to have made an accurate deduction in the mind of the subject, despite the fact that a rainbow ruse statement is vague and contradictory. This technique is used since personality traits are not quantifiable, and also because nearly everybody has experienced both sides of a particular emotion at some time in their lives.

Statements of this type might include:

* "Most of the time you are positive and cheerful, but there has been a time in the past where you were very upset."
* "You are a very kind and considerate person, but when somebody does something to break your trust, you feel deep-seated anger."
* "I would say that you are mostly shy and quiet, but when the mood strikes you, you can easily become the center of attention."

A cold reader can choose from a variety of personality traits, think of its opposite, and then bind the two together in a phrase, vaguely linked by factors such as mood, time, or potential.

2007-09-06T19:35:00.001+08:00

Luciano Pavarotti dead at 71

By Gilles Castonguay

MODENA, Italy (Reuters) - Legendary Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who brought opera to the masses with his powerful voice and jovial personality, died on Thursday of pancreatic cancer, aged 71.

Although his health had been failing for a year, the death of the bearded tenor, known as "Big Luciano" because of his 127 kg (280 lb) bulk, saddened everyone from impresarios and critics of to fans who could barely afford tickets.

"There were tenors, and then there was Pavarotti," said Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli.

While past opera greats often locked themselves in a gilded, elitist world, television viewers around the world heard Pavarotti sing with pop stars such as Sting and Bono in his "Pavarotti and Friends" benefits for the needy.

"He was one of those rare artists who affected the lives of people across the globe, in all walks of life," London's Royal Opera House at Covent Garden said in a statement.

"Through his countless broadcasts, recordings and concerts, he introduced the extraordinary power of opera to people who perhaps would never have encountered opera and classical singing. In doing so, he enriched their lives. That will be his legacy."

Vienna's opera house flew a black flag to mourn "a human being who had an extraordinary impact through his art and who gave endlessly to his audience," director Ioan Holender said.

Already famous in the opera world, he leapt to superstardom when he and two other tenor greats, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras, sang at Rome's Caracalla Baths during the 1990 soccer World Cup in Italy.

"It's a great loss. He was without doubt one of the most important tenors of all time. He was a wonderful man, a charismatic person. And a good poker player," Carreras told the Swedish newspaper Expressen.

Sales of opera albums shot up after the concert. The aria "Nessun Dorma" from Puccini's Turandot, which has the famous line "At dawn I will be victorious," became as much a feature of soccer fever as the usual stadium chants.

ROOTS IN THE PROVINCES

Pavarotti's father was a baker who liked to sing, and his mother worked in a cigar factory. The people of Modena, a provincial town in northeast Italy, mourned a man who remained attached to his hometown even as a superstar.

Venusta Nascetti, a 71-year-old who used to serve Pavarotti coffee in a local bar when he was a teenager, remembered him as being "full of joy, he had a happy spirit."

"He always loved us just like we loved him," the frail old woman, wearing dark glasses to hide her emotion, told reporters outside Pavarotti's house, where she had paid her respects.

The funeral will take place in Modena on Saturday.

Pavarotti's big break came thanks to another Italian opera great, Giuseppe di Stefano, who dropped out of a performance of "La Boheme" at Covent Garden in 1963. The house had lined up "this large young man" as a stand-in -- and a star was born.

In 1972 he famously hit nine high C's in a row in "Daughter of the Regiment" at New York's Metropolitan Opera, which he referred to as "my home."

His last public singing performance was at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turin in February 2006.

FINAL ACT

Pavarotti had surgery in New York for pancreatic cancer in July last year, then retreated to his villa in Modena. He had to cancel plans for a reappearance in public a few months later.

Pavarotti received two more weeks' treatment in hospital in Modena last month, and went home on August 25. He spent his final hours at home with family and friends nearby, his manager Terri Robson said, adding:

"He remained optimistic and confident that he would overcome the disease and had been determined to return to the stage to complete his Worldwide Farewell Tour."

Robson said that until just weeks before his death, Pavarotti devoted several hours a day to teaching pupils at his summer villa in Pesaro, on Italy's Adriatic Coast. Pavarotti opened an academy for young singers in Modena two years ago.

"He was also planning to complete a recording of sacred songs and unveil the next phase of the Pavarotti International Voice Competition," the statement said.

Although Pavarotti began singing in a church choir aged nine, his passion was soccer and he wanted to turn professional.

His mother convinced him to be a teacher, which he did for two years until realizing his vocation and starting singing lessons.

In 2003, Pavarotti married Nicoletta Mantovani, an assistant 34 years his junior and younger than his three daughters, after an acrimonious divorce from Adua, his wife of 37 years.

As Nicoletta was bearing twins, the pregnancy ran into complications and their son Riccardo was stillborn. Their surviving daughter Alice is now 4 years old.

(Additional reporting by Silvia Aloisi, Philip Pullella, Stephen Brown and Phil Stewart, Jeremy Lovell in London)

2007-09-06T18:58:00.000+08:00

World mourns Italian tenor Pavarotti

By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer

ROME - Friends and admirers of Luciano Pavarotti joined in a chorus of grief as the world paid homage to the thrilling voice and exuberant personality of the great Italian tenor who died Thursday.

Amid an outpouring of tributes, the Vienna State Opera raised a black flag in mourning and his northern Italian hometown of Modena, where he died at age 71 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, said it would name the city's theater after its native son.

Newscasts and Web sites across the globe, from Israel to the U.S. to Europe, led with news of his death. Radio stations aired his unmistakable recordings in tribute to his memory.

"The whole world will be listening today to his voice on every radio and television station. And that will continue. And that is his legacy. He will never stop," said conductor Zubin Mehta, who directed Pavarotti in Rome and Los Angeles for his "Three Tenors" concerts with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras.

"I always admired the God-given glory of his voice — that unmistakable special timbre from the bottom up to the very top of the tenor range," Domingo said in a statement from Los Angeles. "They threw away the mold when they made Luciano. He will always be remembered as a truly unique performer in the annals of classical music."

Carreras told reporters in Karlstad, Sweden, that "there is no doubt that he has been one of the most important tenors of all times."

"I remember that last time I was visiting him in his town in Modena, at his home, he was preparing some special bread and tomato for me together with prosciutto. He was entertaining also in the gastronomic aspect that he liked very much," Carreras said. "We have to remember him as the great artist that he was, the man with such a wonderful charismatic personality, very good friend and a great poker player."

Mirella Freni, an opera great and one of Pavarotti's close childhood friends, told The Associated Press: "The world has lost a great tenor, but I've lost a great friend, a brother. We grew up together, studied singing and God blessed us with great careers. I've lost a brother."

For fans and colleagues, the beauty of Pavarotti's voice and his charismatic performances made him the ideal interpreter of the Italian lyric repertory, especially in the 1960s and '70s when he first achieved stardom.

"It was incredible to stand next to it and sing along with it," soprano Joan Sutherland said of Pavarotti's voice at the time.

A 14-week tour of Australia with Sutherland and her husband, conductor Richard Bonynge, gave Pavarotti the recognition he needed to launch his career. He also credited Sutherland with teaching him how to breathe correctly.

"My husband ... and I had great joy working with him. The quality of the sound was so different. You knew immediately it was Luciano singing," Sutherland told BBC radio.

Soprano Renee Fleming, preparing for a performance in Matsumoto, Japan, remembered singing with Pavarotti during a telecast at Lincoln Center.

"He had the most perfect technique in the history of recorded music," she said in an e-mail to the AP. "He also captured the hearts of the larger public in a way which rivaled only Enrico Caruso in the 20th century."

But Pavarotti's voice was just the beginning. He was credited with bringing opera to millions through his showmanship and his outdoor concerts.

"He brought arts performance to people who don't go to opera house. None of the classical singers have had the ability and courage to do that," said Hong Kong tenor Warren Mok.

The Royal Opera House in London said in a statement that Pavarotti was "one of those rare artists who affected the lives of people across the globe in all walks of life.

"Through his countless broadcasts, recordings and concerts he introduced the extraordinary power of opera to people who perhaps would never have encountered opera and classical singing, in doing so he enriched their lives."

2007-09-02T01:50:00.002+08:00

kay now that i've regained temporary control of my blog imma make a few clarifications:

1. Okay killing trolls. You got it.
2. NationStates is not a black hole! I just spend an inordinate amount of time refreshing the page and staring at the screen.
3. I really don't wish to know what my weight is right now. (hopes really hard that it's still 75kg)
4. uh.. yeah, whatever haha.
5. cookies are full of buttery sugary milky fatty... goodness? oh noo ):
6. I'm not going to waste my first measly paycheck on a dog! Haha. First I need a house. And food. And clothes. And stuff to put in my house. And zomg SHARAPOVA LOST.
7. It's okay, everybody knows I'm a man. (:
8. Hell yeah. I hear there are hot female news anchors in France. xD
9. lol.

..

10. ...wait. My template? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

2007-09-02T01:21:00.000+08:00

(A happy post instead of the emo one you've all been staring at for over a month!)

Dear readers, I have seen the light and I have found my purpose.

I hereby promise to:

1. try to waste time constructively from now on. I could, for example, kill trolls instead of surfing Wiki.

2. extricate myself from the Black Hole that is Jennifer Government.

3. weigh myself every morning. (Purely out of curiosity.)

4. use less electricity. PEOPLE, SAVE MOTHER EARTH.

5. eat cookies when I'm hungry. Cookies are full of goodness.

6. buy a dog with my first (measly) paycheck and name him Chewbacca.

7. set the abovementioned dog on anyone who calls me a girl. (:

8. save money so I can buy a plane ticket (one-way's even better) to France. Sarah should know why.

9. keep my blog password a secret.

(Yes, it's coming!)

10. think about studying for Prelims.

If you've gotten this far, you ought to realise by now that this is not Alwyn HAHA.

I'm going to hijack his template now! Goodnight

and if you really want to know, my name's in this entry (and therefore either Jennifer or Chewbacca -smirk).

2007-07-22T21:37:00.000+08:00

How does it feel like to have something so dear to you fall before your very eyes?

To have something everyone was counting on,
something everyone trusted,
something nobody imagined would fall,
something which indeed had never fallen before,
fall so ingloriously, and with such silent, sickening finality?

And yet to have failed
not to the opponents we thought we were fighting,
not even to the opponents we actually fought,
but to the opponents inside ourselves,
the ones against whom we didn't even care to put up a fight?

"The only dark you need fear, Jacen Solo, is the one in your own heart."

Two days ago, 20072007, a date which will live in infamy.
We found out how it felt.

We did not play to our best.
They did.
And in the words of Robert Frost,
"That has made all the difference."

And now I know exactly how Obi-wan must have felt, in seeing his dear apprentice fall.
How the rest of the Jedi Council must have felt as well, in seeing their exalted Chosen One fall.
How the Americans must have felt at Pearl Harbor,
How the English must have felt at the close of the British-American War,
How Napoleon Bonaparte must have felt, at Waterloo.

And to have fallen not against the forces without, but against the forces within.

Moral of the story?
Sometimes, life can really kick you in the nuts. Even when you think you've done all you can to prepare yourself against such a contingency. And there's not a thing you can do about it, once it's done. You pick yourself up, rub your sore nuts, and learn to take better care of something so important to you.

So, where do we go from here?

Where did Obi-wan go from here?

He picked up the pieces (consisting of Anakin's lightsaber and his own bruised ego), retreated to Tatooine, and spent the next few decades studying for the A Levels.

And then, when the time was right,
he found himself a new apprentice,
someone younger and fitter to carry on the torch of ages past,
to reclaim the legacy that for so long had evaded their grasp.

A new champion, to restore balance to the Force.

A New Hope.

Auspicium Melioris Aevi.

2007-07-21T13:08:00.000+08:00

i love my team.

we may not be unstoppable like we thought we were, as we found out yesterday (painfully), but still, they mean the world to me.

so thank you, for all these years.

our journey does not end here.

- B Boys and A Girls, splendid performance yesterday. well done, we're all very proud of you. keep it up, and next year raffles judo will rise to the occasion once again. (:

2007-07-19T21:06:00.001+08:00

lol who the heck is this guy plz.

in other matters, let's go raffles.
this year, we can definitely do it.
quote mitchell: "eh end it la!" (LOL)

may the force be with us all!

2007-07-18T18:41:00.000+08:00

So the last official training for me as a Raffles judoka has come and gone.

it really strikes me how close i'm drawing to the end of the year, now.. and the end of my journey as a Raffles student =\

so now i'm gonna make a list of all the people i consider to be my enemies alright:

..to everyone else, here's sending my love, and all the best for the a levels (and friday)! jiayou!

2007-07-14T17:03:00.000+08:00

I Am A: Chaotic Good Elf Mage Ranger

Alignment:
Chaotic Good characters are independent types with a strong belief in the value of goodness. They have little use for governments and other forces of order, and will generally do their own things, without heed to such groups.

Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.

Primary Class:
Mages harness the magical energies for their own use. Spells, spell books, and long hours in the library are their loves. While often not physically strong, their mental talents can make up for this.

Secondary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.

Find out What D&D Character You Are, courtesy of Zinious Software corporation

Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?

koped from sarah! well, the second one at least.

on a sidenote, Statistics is the reason why i'm beginning to really dislike Math.

2007-07-12T16:15:00.000+08:00

Quoted from Simon Birch, the British artist who created that video of him beheading a pig in the name of art (and who subsequently got flamed not once, twice, but three times in the ST Forum):

"Get over it. If you had a broad mind and saw the world of art, and saw what else is going on, you will see that this is nothing.

Pigs are things that people eat. They're not panda bears.

What's annoying is that this is the least interesting of the whole exhibition. The exhibition outside of this is complex, fascinating and amazing, and like nothing ever seen in Singapore. And for the focus to be shifted onto this silly little thing, it's a bit frustrating.

There are way more important things that we should be writing letters to the press about, the war in Iraq, for example. These are things that are really newsworthy. Killing a little piggy? No. Put the bacon sandwich down and then come talk to me."

MY SENTIMENTS EXACTLY. Way to go, Mr Birch! Same goes for the artist we learned about during KI class who put goldfish in a blender and invited audience members to come press the button. For goodness' sake, it's just a goddamned domesticated creature. I EAT about one fish per day: what difference does it make if i press a button and kill another one in the name of art? who are we to judge that the killing of animals in the name of art should be any less permissible than the killing of animals in the name of food.. just because the former is presented to you in so upfront a manner that it might put you off eating your mcdonald's sandwich? hell, it's not like we're killing people, or burning fossil fuels in the name of art..

or killing human beings just because society deems them to be beyond any hope of redemption. (and we wonder, why is it so that these people grew up to become murderers in the first place?)

The sheer hypocrisy of some. It makes me sick even more than that seconds-long video possibly could have.

NB: The beheading scene was shot in a pig farm (item: a pig farm is a place where pigs are reared to be killed for food) in Hong Kong under the supervision of an experienced farmer. Birch's meat-eating friends (Birch himself is vegetarian) barbecued the pig afterwards and ate it.

2007-06-10T01:32:00.000+08:00

Create your own Friend Test here

Create your own Friend Test here

2007-05-06T12:04:00.000+08:00

i'm going on a quiz rampage!!

2007-04-24T22:49:00.000+08:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

2007-04-12T21:57:00.000+08:00

zomg lookie here! a post! a real one!

okay yesterday i wento watch phantom of the opera with my dad at esplanade.

and it was damn good!

zomg like seriously.

i really liked it i wanto watch again but with seats closer to the front haha. cos i was sitting at the foyer stalls so close to the back poor me with my fantastic eyesight couldn't see their faces >< and so the phantom's face.. didn't look that scary to me haha. and.. one thing i was looking out for, the chandelier crash.. not that dramatic after all lol. but everything was still damn good! the singing especially, since where i sat i couldn't see much of the physical acting haha. especially the phantom zomg. he like, owns josh groban haha. with his deep beautiful and passionate voice. and christine was damn good also! and so was... MONSIEUR ANDRE! HAHA. seriously, i thought that guy could sing! better than the guy who played raoul, at any rate. and the guy who playeed firmin. and the guy who played.. oh nevermind. oh and carlotta and piangi.. not bad also la. aiya but prima donna and don juan.. so they have to be what haha. zomg if only i could sing half as nice as brad little.. i'd be over the moon (:

but it's okay! cos i bought brad little's AUTOGRAPHED album! which is now residing in cherie's computer haha. and and i want to watch again.

You alone can make my song take flight
Help me make the music of the night

2007-03-27T22:58:00.000+08:00

'Cause it's my night
No stress, no fights
I'm leavin' it all behind
No tears, no time to cry
Just making the most of life.

once again, in yet another rut. ><
need to pick myself back up. and FAST.
letssee..

next monday - h3 phy test (gone case) and jarrod lee philo circle presentation (fvck it la)
15 april age group competition
catch up on all my work - math, physics, che... everything la.
survive release of ct results please please
start work on IS zomggg
and mug hard! (this is DIFFERENT from catching up LOL)
get back on form for judo - mentally and physically. been neglecting it alot. too much.
and many others, probably ><

on a sidenote, i want to go chorale concert and phantom of the opera who wants to go watch with me? =D

2007-03-19T22:46:00.000+08:00

omg jedi code plz.

2007-02-27T22:50:00.001+08:00

HE'S HEREEEEE, THE PHAAAAANTOOMMM OF THE OPERRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

2007-02-27T22:14:00.000+08:00

i want to live in a final fantasy world.

(sans the evil taking over the world villians, of course)

(okay maybe they could pop in once in a while if i do get bored, but that's besides the point.)

at least i get to save every now and then.

and pleasant music echoing in my ears all the time!

2007-02-26T22:15:00.000+08:00

i shall hermitify myself in order to force myself to mug and hopefully salvage my common test results ><

2007-02-14T23:41:00.001+08:00

go away, world.

2007-02-14T23:24:00.001+08:00

THANKS EVERYBODY :D

2007-02-10T17:14:00.000+08:00

Nearly six years ago, in a nationally televised boxing match aboard the former aircraft carrier U.S.S. Intrepid, 26-year-old Beethavean Scottland was knocked out by opponent George Jones’s right-left combination to his chin after 10 rounds of fighting. One week later, he died as a result of the blow to his head.

Though fatal fights don’t occur often in boxing, physicians and officials need better, more objective methods for judging when a fight could become deadly, neurosurgeon Vincent Miele of West Virginia University said. To arrive at such a method, Miele made a statistical comparison of the number of punches thrown in fatal and non-fatal professional fights.

He found that fatal fights had far more punches thrown than “average” matches, but not as many as “classic,” more competitive non-fatal matches.

“This approach could provide sufficient data to stop matches that might result in fatalities,” Miele said.

A dangerous sport

Boxing has some of the same injury risks as other sports, but because the main target areas of punches are the chest and head, boxers are at high risk for brain injuries.

“Any time you get hit in the head, there’s brain damage,” Miele told LiveScience.

In terms of acute injury, or damage sustained by one punch or in one match, boxing is actually one of the safer sports, Miele said. But it is one of most dangerous in terms of chronic injury, or injuries accumulated over the boxer’s career, he added.

“You’re not supposed to get punched in the head every day for five years,” Miele said.

He knows of boxers who are only 30 years old, but are unable to speak because “they’ve taken too many punches,” he said.

The two main causes of death from boxing injuries are the subdural hematoma, a rupturing of the veins between the brain and the skull, and cerebral edema, a buildup of water in the brain. A subdural hematoma that put Scottland in a coma ultimately led to his death.

-Livescience.com

people, remind me never to take up boxing. ever. not even to try it out! the brain is everyone's most important body part. seriously!

2007-01-26T22:20:00.000+08:00

my mom saw an rj couple out at tp just now and wants to call up winston hodge to complain cos she thinks they should be at home studying.

what the fuck?

2007-01-19T23:52:00.000+08:00

i had nothing interesting to post about, then i found something interesting to post about.

--<<{[o]}>>-- says:
you noe, as i learnt from civil engineering, metal is good protection for buildings because it is malleable and can convert KE to internal energy ^^
--<<{[o]}>>-- says:
or, stone cannot kill water
alwyn. - an infinite mastery, is the Force says:
...............................................................................................................
alwyn. - an infinite mastery, is the Force says:
what did you tell me that for?

^^

cool right!

--<<{[o]}>>-- says:
was bored
alwyn. - an infinite mastery, is the Force says:
so why isnt water good protection for buildings?
--<<{[o]}>>-- says:
it is hard to contain it
--<<{[o]}>>-- says:
water will actually be perfect
--<<{[o]}>>-- says:
because drag force is very powerful
--<<{[o]}>>-- says:
depending on the speed of the projectile it intercepts, the drag force can actually be greater than the normal force of concrete
--<<{[o]}>>-- says:
but then again, if you have enough concrete, you can pretty much stop every bullet too

omg much ph34r for xinyang plz. he aer imba lolz.

2007-01-11T01:45:00.000+08:00

ooh... ahh... hohoho! a little cheesy, though. xP