cheerios, ibuprofin, milk tea

day 2 of being sick only makes me wonder what happens if i actually caught the flu this year.

a relatively short day begins with a review for Hong Kong Eatery (check my Yelp), the middle with false news, and the end with a hope for a better day. as i type this, i think "damn, the year's almost over. where am i gonna be on new year's eve, and who do i wanna spend it with?" thoughts in my mind about the weather, the festivities, and most importantly the future. nothing's planned, nor set in stone, even though there's a nagging in the back of my mind that it's already been and being taken care of for decades on.

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in this ho-hum day, i posted a couple of statuses on the facebook. one random update turned out to be either coincidental or providential.

i had posted "if there's one thing neone should do before they die, they shoud definitely confess to killin Biggie or Tupac." after listening to the radio and my itunes. the update is a play on the whole bucket list of recommendations for what people would or should do before they die. these things are as mundane as travelling to Europe, to as wild as wrestling in a tub of jello with swedish swimsuit models. 

but anyways, 5 minutes after i had posted that, on the news feed, another friend posted a link to a youtube clip saying that Tupac's murderer was arrested today. link to one of many posted videos about the coverage is 

it turns out that this was actually a hoax. i looked at the clip to entertain the thought, and during the clip, one can see on the news channel's scrolling bar that the date was may 20, 2010 or something like that. there are also a couple of slip ups regarding the date and time-frame of certain events as well.

regardless, whether or not the clip had been real, (though it would have been great if it were), the focus of thought i have right now upon said clip is the why. bleh, let me start again-word salad. { i would have been happy if the clip were true. it was not. nevertheless, it got me thinking why the clip was made. }

there were many comments on the youtube. among them are the standard spammers, the classiness of cuss words towards certain peoples and "representing your block of LA". in looking for more coherent responses, i had found two. one was that this clip was an attempt to promote the Tupac assassination dvd. the other is that suge knight is responsible.

i don't know of or know about the tupac dvd. i don't know suge knight. i can't say if he is directly or indirectly responsible. all i know, and i say this without implicating anybody, but this was my comment about it, that most murders are usually committed by a close party or had some intimate contact with the deceased. usually killings are not done by strangers to others (this is what i remember from my forensics class)

if either of those responses are true, that could spell out different implications, but again, i'm not sure. what i see in front of me though are that both of those responses are both media-related and media influenced.

the tupac dvd was produced by mill creek entertainment, a business started in the early 2000s and distributes dvds or box sets. i don't know much about the company itself, but i wouldn't be surprised if a company would engage in this in order to profit. after all, when bruce lee died, there were a string of movies released by dozens of studios that sought to capitalize on the fame of that legendary person. these films were labelled as "bruceploitation", a play off the blaxploitation films of the 70s.  

suge knight was the current ceo of death row records. at the time, the whole east coast and west coast hip-hop rivalry was at its peak, with all the big names involved.  during the latter point of Tupac's life, death row records was falling into decline not only due to the rivalry, but also because of internal struggles within the record label, mainly due to the increasingly thug apperance of the organization. prominent artists such as dr. dre, snoop dogg, and warren g had left to record and produce their own records. tupac had also talked about starting his own label, makavelli record, and also signing new talent. one could possible conjecture that suge did this either in retribution for leaving, or because due to his popularity, tupac could have been a major threat financially to death row records. again i don't know.

what i also know is that the responses to blame the media and these media figures are, oddly enough, being reasoned to us and conferred to us by the media. the same outlet that we blame for these behaviors is also our dominant source material in our logic. it's kinda like that catch 22 where you need to have experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience.

the important thing to realize though is that we're being distracted. yes, people can blame the media for X kind of people, or Y type of behavior, but the thing is that, like technology, the media is inherently good. it has started as its base word-medium. given, there have been many changes ever since advances in technology, but essentially, it has always remained as a channel of mediums to convey information. it is the conduit, the wire, the messenger, the container which holds a substance.

it is actually the substance to focus upon. the dominant themes within this whole conversation, elements of greed, power, thuggery and  pride, are transmitted to us through the media and perhaps even driven to us as well. however, these people and parties whom are involved live outside of media too. in fact we all do. what i'm saying is that those issues existed long before media-those problems and shortcomings of people in society. people need to change those attitudes and individuals first before blaming the channel that provides it. it becomes all too easy subvert our brothers and sisters and even our own humanity when there's a readily available and prevalent scapegoat.

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2 more days and phase 1 is complete.

Posted via email from Bloodscope Economics

pizzeria regina, milk tea, aloe drink, cough syrup

it's good to be back on the blogosphere again.

day 1 of being sick is no fun. woke up and had that bad feeling in my throat, which i thought it was because i swallowed my pillow again. it was about 11 am when i got a phone call asking if i was available for lunch. deciding that the outside world, as cold as it were, was more fruitful than lying in bed aching and depressed. went out, met them up, had a nice catching up, and then hung around the area to meet up another friend. got bored, so decided to play some games instead at the prudential food court. after that last "crucial game", i was happy in knowing that i still play it pretty good.

came back to base, and was bored the rest of the night. played some more games, took care of emails, chatted with folks and stuck around to see the sunrise again for the 10th time this month. really needing to go to sleep at a status quo time.

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the lunch was good because i don't usually get to talk with said friend or catch up all too often. usually it's on the gchat where communication begins and ends, so it was a refreshing change of pace. also at the same time, i was looking for information as to see how philadelphia was doing. am planning a trip back there in february to relax, catch up, and maybe be an idiot tourist for the first time in a long while.

what was interesting though was something that popped up during our conversation. we started talking about ministries and how the current state of affairs for our own were going. this one idea that was mentioned, titles as it were, got me thinking.

titles scare us, or rather provoke us to respond, usually in a negative or defensive manner. within the context of our conversation, it refers to us being leaders or head participants in our respective ministries. within the church, it comes up more commonly as our roles within the church, whether we are serving or not, and to what capacity.

most, if not all, times when positions and responsibilities are given, there enters the power struggle, or rather the possibility of pride (and incidentally prejudice-no pun intended). no one intended to lord over their positions among others, unless they only took the job for that title (doctor, professor, officer, president, etc.)

however when those differences occur, there inevitably is a whiplash. how many of us look down upon authority figures of any type, whether corporate ceos to officers of the law or within our own lives, maybe parents or elders? is it because we dislike their behaviors? perhaps we fundamentally despise an authority that looks over us. perhaps we fear that they may threaten our ways of life because we cannot keep them in check...

titles are receiving all too much emphasis in today's world. everyone's looking to become something greater in their occupations. who doesn't want to be senior vp, or regional manager, or knighted even? it doesn't have to be as extreme as in the caste system, but people love having those prefixes and suffixes. after all, no one wants to hand someone a one word business card.

yet at the same time, we hold people with titles in great disdain, even more so when those titles start to overcrowd and simply become superfluous words, devoid of meaning and necessity. we can look at the lead corporate finance officer of a large company as simply "Fred".

as they say though, there's something that's in a name. our Christmas service-Christ was given 3 titles: Savior, Jesus, and Lord.

the other thought that tied into the subject of titles is our response. whenever there is a leading or dominant authority within a group of people, there is always a minority who will be self-spurred to respond. they are the different ones, who could be good or bad, valid or heretical in their thought. this group of individuals may not have even communicated with one another at all, but with the introduction of a power structure, these people have mobilized, now becoming allies to each other and seen as the rebels to the authority. it is within the development and unfolding of events whether or not the change they want to see becomes the majority rule, and again if the cycle restarts when they or another body comes to rule. 

confused i am as to how life operates. 

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realized that fear only exists if you're afraid to lose something.

Posted via email from Bloodscope Economics

Ode to Winter

you send chills down my spine-my response is modesty.
you're coming soon, bringing a change of light.
your presence is unmistakable-you are unique in time.
others look forward to your arrival, but to me, you're just cold.
i know you mean well-you were made for a purpose which i'll never understand, but we're not ready for you.
you're great-you make children smile, but you leave others feeling isolated and alone.
hope by this time next year i'm ok with you.
life wouldn't be the same if you were gone.

Posted via email from Bloodscope Economics

Marshmallow Pebbles (which is a crappy cereal and I regret having tried it)

This is going to be a short post since I've implicitly learned that anything "controversial or thought-provoking" I write about while looking for a job may keep me from getting hired. It's a shame really, but everyone has their own agenda, whether good or bad. If you've been around me long enough, you'll learn two things: I think very unconventionally, often to the point of counter-culturalism, and that appearances can be deceiving. Also this is a short post since I'm still really pissed off from the dinner tonight at Stockyard. (Read my review on Yelp to find out why.)

So tonight after dinner, we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts to chill. We were talking about all types of issues, which was cool, running the gamut from marriages and businesses, the economy to job outlooks, and how often people socialize with each other. What we ended up coming together about though were various Youtube videos that became popular memes on the internet. You know which ones I'm talking about-some of the more recent ones: 2 Girls, 1 Cup, Double Rainbow, the Best Cry, and rampant use of autotune. Most of these spectacles picked up steam for their shock value, derisiveness, and outlandishness and many have been viewed by millions as well. A friend commented that even CNN had covered stories about these memes. From that comment, I started thinking...

My initial thought was about the state of entertainment right now, especially with so-called reality shows that are more often staged than spontaneous. Youtube is the perfect example-everyone wants a piece of the action by creating a skit, speech, or an act that's going to capture people's attention. Is this life imitating art where folks integrate these memes into the daily grind, or art imitating life where subject matter is created from others' recycled ideas? I can see another purpose for Youtube now. Like a comment on Facebook statuses, some people like having a soapbox to stand on. It feels good, and it's a part of human nature to be noticed, to have praises showered upon oneself, to be regarded as important to the masses. Perhaps some entertainment needs to be concocted and planned out, but more often than not, it is the natural ebb and flow of life that's going to provide the fun times. The elements of life that are unexpected and can't be controlled: it is those that we cherish and long for the most. Anyone can be an internet star by doing something silly, but at the end of the night, you're only a blink of the eye in society's timeline-easily forgotten and ridiculed.

The following thought came afterward, that the internet has fallen from its original purpose. I remember the day where I first logged onto America Online with those CDs that people use as coasters now, cause they were spammed in people's mailboxes. The first site I went onto was Nintendo.com, where I looked for the latest cheat codes for video games I had. Now I use the internet for a whole laundry list of tasks but mostly it's for information. Google can be a time-saver, but Wikipedia can be a time waster. A lot of people use it for different purposes too, noted by e-commerce and personal communication. (Wasn't the original purpose of internet military related?) Anyways, the internet is integrated by people in order to bolster their own lifestyles while expanding into new frontiers. That famous quote where someone says the internet is a series of tubes? Perhaps they weren't that far off: those pneumatic tubes are there for transporting an item from one location to another. This is what were doing now.

I have relatively little insight for the future direction of this world, and certainly much less for the artificial one created on the internet. Many moral and ethical issues also come into play especially for the nature of the internet in how connected this network is and how quickly information is disseminated as well. It is not my job to police people or wage wars against organizations (at least without bigger weapons, both mental and financial). Rather it is to understand how and why these elements are here and figure out how to fix them, or at the very least temper their effects. Why? Above all, the internet is a tool, created by people for people. If we knew how to work well with people, then much of the problems created by the internet affecting people on the internet would be gone. Maybe they'd be done away with in real lives too. 

Posted via email from Bloodscope Economics

Hot Dogs, Gatorade and Orange Cranberry Muffin

I think it's been a while since I did some reflection in culture. The last time I talked about life being so-so different was from the trip to Canada, and even so, I don't think it'd be that much of a change (except for the whole Frenchiness). Anyways, I was coming back from Somerville to pick up an old Nintendo 64, the rain started to come down. It wasn't so much of the water or the weather, but it was the little obligations that come along with it. For me, it was the crappy umbrella I borrowed, the very porous backpack I wore, and the thirst that wasn't quenched. Plus when the train came into Sullivan Square station, it unloaded a wave of dripping for anyone unprepared. All I wanted to do until I reached New England Medical Center was veg out in my mind, but I knew I had to be alert for tonight. Even as I'm writing this entry, I fell behind in some work and instead decided to cradle myself in reading, which was probably not the appropriate action.

During the last couple of stations, an individual came along with a man, who was standing on my left. This individual who reeked of alcohol became very vocal for this man on account of no one was giving up their seats. He also proceeded into a mini-diatribe about the disappearance of courtesy and that "the men, both young and old, should have got up" (A woman had done so, and also there was an empty seat as well). On the right side, another woman was asking another man to give up a seat, for he was occupying two of them. He refused, and the woman responded with a bit more hostility. Again, the man refused, and the woman gave up asking. From these coincidental yet related events that happened in the same area and time, I opt to reflect upon things pertaining to the realms of manners and individual interests.

Perhaps chivalry is dead as they say, but I believe courtesy still exists. I cannot speak on behalf of the individual, but he did have a point of folks needing to be a bit more courteous to others, especially the elderly and encumbered. His presentation of his thoughts, ironically enough, could have been seen as self-righteous, which may have been a contributing factor as to why no one responded positively. The man who was also with the individual also did not seem as he desired a seat, nor in the very least wanted to trouble anyone for a seat, as witnessed in his speech. Personally, I think that everyone else was much more interested in being comfortable sitting down, not giving heed to this individual's words, considering it was bad weather. People's own self-interests are at hand, which also played a part in the other episode of "please give up your seat." The other man who was refusing a seat to the other woman-both people come into the wrong: the man for not giving up one of his seats, and the woman for cursing at the man.

(A random thought comes into my mind that ties into this entry. Perhaps it is our own wanting to assert power, especially to beings whom we see as weak or inferior that both individuals acted like they did. The individual bolstered by liquid courage ended up yelling at a lady and her child, both who were in conservative Islamic garb, and the man did not give the seat to the woman. There seems to be a surge of self-seeking up in this piece.)

At any rate, I come back to base looking for an answer to the death I feel in my heart, especially with the summer ending. Why does it feel that all I'm good at is burning bridges? Instead of expanding upon a network of associates, I actually am closing them down and shutting them out. Maybe this is my own individualism expressing itself...could this be the reason I feel so crushed? Fading away from society versus the willingness to isolate from it...

 

Posted via email from Bloodscope Economics

And we're back!....

...not only from Canada but to the blogosphere.

It was good that I got to take time off from all the mundane activity of looking for work and confusing reads over the internet. The country air, atmosphere and different culture, combined with stepping away from the internet and radio allowed my head to clear up. The long car rides across the borders gave me time to really appreciate and meditate the time I was given.

I guess the first thought that came to mind was the example of parenthood. Details came in before, during, and after the trip concerning how my father parents his kids. It's funny really, because it's like watching life unravel in real time, even if it's as silly as telling kids to keep it quiet or dealing with disputes. Watching him take care of all of us-it was certainly pleasant and comforting, even if that experience came a lot later than it probably should have.

Relating to that thought is the remedying of that feeling of a second family. Whether or not legality comes into play, it's tough to ignore blood. Home is what you make of it though, and even if it's so far away, knowing that you've a place there-you can't really ask for more.

Aside from spending half the time in a moving cage with five other people, we actually got to tour some cool places. Unfortunately I don't remember most of them, because most of them were in French. Also I had went on a frenzy for true Canadian franchise items, such as Chez Ashton, Tim Hortons, and poutine, which didn't have the beef gravy I was looking for.

Regardless of that, Canada in those parts isn't really much different from the States. Without getting into a big rant, I think it's partially due to all the global corporations trying to replicate the same experience across the world. A McDonalds looks and feels like a Mickie D's here. Clothing stores still have that elitist feel, and everywhere you can find tacky tourist items along with "hip rebellious slogans and graphics". However the case, folks still like fast food, clothing, entertainment, etc. We have those tastes embedded in us: the culture may be different but life finds its way all the same.

Nevertheless, the vacation is over and I'm back on the grind. Looking for work is indeed a full-time job. Luckily I'm my own boss for now, and it's been a relaxing time, but I dread this feeling once again...nothing is ever settled in this world.

Posted via email from Bloodscope Economics

pizza slice: Completed Crisis Intervention and Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes

I can't explain it, but on a certain day this week, one that was filled with coincidence and perfect timing, I was left with a sense of appreciation and unfortunately dread. The happenings through the day, albeit menial, proved once again why I need to keep refining and living my life for the better, even if it looks like I'm merely being a goofball.

Life has its ups and downs, and mine is no different. My ups come from the emotional and physical highs I get when learning something new, reading a new story, or hanging out with friends. Likewise, the downs are related to those things. In particular, the stagnation of any of those categories leads me to retreat into myself, because when the potential for growth is there but never accomplished, it feels like a waste-the fishing trip without the fish, the job without the paycheck.

On that same day of coincidence, a friend brought to my attention what I usually do in my current stage of life. It's a question I get all the time from folks who honestly don't know too much about me and what I do during this wonderful time of unemployment. The way it was framed though..."Beside church, what else do you do?"...it got to me. Maybe the question was asked because this friend wanted to know more about me, or simply was not aware of my life outside.  I thought about it and realized that I've fallen much into the middle ground of mediocrity?

What does this mean? Of the few things I typically do in my week, there is no extra oomph. Many of my interests I've conceded to not get better at, not joining an organization, leadership team, or even an informal support group. It may be because I don't want to become a snob; it may be because I don't know where these places are or how to get to them. I believe the real issue is actually the non-committed feeling. Not enough of my efforts come into having something that lasts-the contentment of day to day surprises and events seems satisfactory, however little or mundane they could be. As I run through my past, the only thing that even fits the definition of consistency, of dedication and fervor, is the time I spend in the church. I'm not sure what that means at this point, and I'm starting to question my intentions again for being there so much for so long.

Maybe today is my wake-up call. Maybe this is God's way of saying that I need to find something, and stick with it, but not only float along. This is the time to educate, to dedicate, perspire and inspire. Maybe that is my longing-something that is going to last.

Posted via email from Bloodscope Economics