speed bumps

It's funny how when riding a bicycle, speed bumps change from slow-down indicators to go-as-fast-as-you-can-and-see-how-much-air-you-can-get indicators.

absolute truth

We know that the morals and personal beliefs we live by, despite how deeply and strongly we believe in them, are shaped by our experiences. This is clearly evident by the vast diversity of human beliefs. Now if we believe that there is an absolute truth, one that exists independent of our experiences, we must ask these questions:

1. How do we justify claiming our personal beliefs as absolute truths and the rest of the world's personal beliefs as illusions?

2. Is it really important that our personal beliefs closely resemble the absolute truth?

3. If so, how do we go about replacing our personal beliefs with absolute truth?

I am willing to admit that I don't know any of the answers.

book dedications

Once again I have decided not to publish the post the blog I just wrote, because I am wrong and I know it.

now I am over here

Sometimes, at the end of a long, eventful day, such as today, I think to myself that I have plenty of interesting things to blog about. But then, a half hour later, I find myself looking at a long rambling of unimportant, unrelated events, wondering to myself if anyone would even want to know about the weird mural at the airport or the curry chicken pizza. Maybe a better time to write an interesting blog is when absolutely nothing interesting is or has been going on, not a day like today, when things actually happened.

MGS 4

Gamespot giving Grand Theft Auto IV a perfect 10 did not make me happy, but Gamespot giving Metal Gear Solid 4 a perfect 10 did make me happy. Thank you Gamespot for making me happy! Thank you Hideo Kojima for making MGS 4 and for being so cool! No thank you Daniel's wallet for not being able to afford $400 consoles and $60 games...

hands-free driving

Starting on July 1, drivers in California (where I reside for now) may only talk on a cell phone while driving if they are over the age of 18 and are using a hands-free device. I just hope this doesn't segue into a law that requires hands-free devices for eating while driving too.

Anyway, someone's making money on this deal.

Some people (I'm not sure if I include myself yet) might call this taxing the poor.

"don't burn your bridges" or "burn the ships"?

Catchy wise old sayings are problematic. There's some strange property about them that their "apparent trueness" has more to do with their catchiness than with the actual truth of the matter.
It's almost as if the fact that it rhymes or sounds consonant has some bearing on the truth of its content, even though everyone knows that it doesn't at all. It's hard to live by the advice that people give these days, especially when it comes in these forms, and especially when there's a just-as-catchy counter saying. Both the sayings "burn the ships" and "don't burn your bridges" have equally compelling rings to them, along with equally compelling historical background, yet they argue the exact opposite points. the sayings, "absence make the heart grow fonder" and "out of sight, out of mind" work a lot in the same way, each sounding equally compelling and yet contradicted by the other.