February 13, 2010

  • Love vs. Respect

    I have come to the conclusion that for a lasting relationship, respect is much more important than love. By respect, I mean admiration: if you don’t admire some part of your partner, what are you there for?

    The thing about love, it feels good, makes you happy, you want to be with the person, but at some point, you aren’t going to feel that way. You’re going to be annoyed, and so is she, and it’s miserable. What is going to keep you with that person? If love was all you had, nothing, because it probably won’t come back. If you respect her on the other hand, you will stay with her because you know she’s got something worth staying for.

    Furthermore, even if you don’t love the person, if you respect him, then there’s a good chance after a while you will start to love the him. Our bodies were made to feel attractive to each other, after all, it’s biology.

    On the other hand, if you get stuck in a relationship with someone you love but don’t respect, pretty soon you the love will die and you will start to feel hate towards the person because you are stuck with them.

    If you want to be with someone, make sure you respect them. Otherwise the happiness won’t last. That is my love philosophy entry for today.

February 9, 2010

  • Superbowl Analysis

    My Assessment of the superbowl:

    It marks the start of a new era in football, where pre-game preparation is essential. The Saints won (congrats to them) because of their excellent preparation, not because they are better athletes in every way.

    To see how deep their preparation was, think about the onside kick: they spent a week planning and preparing for that. Preparing for a single play that lasted 10 seconds, and after which could never be used again. They analyzed carefully the Colts’ method of standing and reacting to a kickoff, and they figured out the best way to do it in order to maximize the chances of success.

    They analyzed the plays of the Colts carefully. Remember the interception Peyton Manning threw? That is the kind of interception you can make when you study your opponent’s playbook. When the ball was thrown, the receiver was open, and normally it would have been a good throw, but the defender (Tracy Porter) saw the play perfectly and got to where the ball would be instead of needing to make sure the receiver wasn’t going to take off in the opposite direction.

    This is the future of football. Teams that win the superbowl will not only have superb athleticism (like Peyton Manning and the Colts) they will also have intense pre-game preparation.

January 29, 2010

  • All Together Now

    Read a quote today I really liked, here it is:

    “My people,” writes Princeton philosophy professor Kwame Anthony Appiah, “made the Great Wall of China, the Chrysler Building, the Sistine Chapel: these things were made by creatures like me, through the exercise of skill and imagination.” By “my people” Mr. Appiah means that biggest and most catholic of tribes, “human beings.”

    We are all one.

January 22, 2010

  • Cooking for Me

    I used to want a wife who was beautiful, nice, kind, funny, and who would cook excellently for me at every meal. Now I have changed, and would be quite happy to have a wife that takes turns cooking, I cook one meal, she cooks one. Of course the other stuff still applies, beautiful, nice, funny, all that.

January 15, 2010

  • One of the hardest realities to deal with in life…

    ….is the fact that essentially everyone you will meet does not care much about you, except as you relate to or otherwise improve their life.

    Personally, I think the greatest part of religion is that it teaches us to not be so self centered and to care about other people. Any religion that doesn’t do this is failing in a serious way.

January 14, 2010

  • Sleep a lot

    Why Sleep is Good.

    A recent study talks about avoiding sleep during the week and then bingeing during the weekend. It says that you feel better sometimes, but that your cognitive abilities will actually be 10 times worse than normal. Your lack of sleep builds up over the long term and basically, makes you stupider.

    I kind of think my coworkers who are dependent on coffee to wake up in the morning are all victims to bad sleeping habits, and would probably be a lot smarter, healthier and happier if they got enough sleep every night.

January 7, 2010

  • You never fail until you give up

    Abraham Lincoln lost eight elections before he became president, and yet he kept trying.

    You are capable of anything. If anything has become clear in the last 20 years or so of brain research, it is that the human mind of each of us is an amazing organ, full of massive potential that none of us has used anywhere near completely. One woman, for example, learned how to remember everything that happened to her. If you asked her, “what did you watch on TV on December 29th, 1992″ she could tell you. She works hard at it, and in my opinion not really worth the effort, but it shows what is possible if you keep trying. Anything!

December 20, 2009

  • Real Live Music


    I saw Chanticleer today. It is always a good thing to hear live music, it is so much more rich than any speakers will give you. And the ambience in the cathedral where they performed was excellent. That is an all-men group, by the way, even though they have sopranos.

    Anyway, I’m just saying, if you get the chance to hear live music, you should. :)


    They look kind of dorky, but what they do, they do very well. Perhaps no singing group has been quite like them ever.

November 20, 2009

  • Training in the Ways of the Force

    n1031194625_1767311_594

    At on time I was training with my brothers in the way of the force. It was a short-lived attempt: after my brother lost his arm, we decided sometimes it’s better to just move boxes around the traditional way. But, here is a picture from that era in days of yore.

October 31, 2009

  • Piano Energy Giver

    I went to visit my parents for a couple days. On the last day, my dad was feeling sick, and so he laid down in bed. It was kind of funny he piled all the pillows all around him and he had so many he was sitting down instead of laying down.

    Then somehow I got the idea that if I played a certain song on the piano, it would give him energy. Then I thought, “nah, I’ll just be quiet and let him sleep.” But I couldn’t shake the idea, so I did. And sure enough, I didn’t get through half the song before he had jumped up full of energy and was doing things. Which was great.

    So if you get the idea that you should do something good for someone, do it. Don’t worry about your doubts.