Fun With Words

Have you ever noticed that the word "evil" is in the world "devil"? Pretty neat.

I just checked the etymology of "devil" and it doesn't mentions "evil" being its root, which makes the whole thing even more interesting.

Restaurant Idea

There are hundreds of thousands of restaurants out there. All restaurants follow only one menu style type. This is an Italian restaurant. This is a Chinese restaurant. This is a vegetarian restaurant. When you choose a restaurant it's based on what flavors you desire at that moment and therefore every restaurant is specialized in one area.

One thing that I've never seen is a restaurant which makes many different dishes. You'll never find a place that serves Thai food and BBQ. But why not? Both are good. My idea is to create a restaurant that has 15 items on the menu, each from a different country or region. The goal could be to make a signature (or best) dish from each country or region. And not just make it, but make it really good. (bbq ribs, pad thai, peking duck, tamales, home made pizza, fish cooked Greek style, falafel, Indian curry, a raw dish, some French creamy dish…)

I'm sure the main problem is finding a chef that has a diverse enough background to make it possible. Most chefs specialize in one area, maybe two. When they specialize in two they sometimes make a fusion (like French-American). I mean to keep flavors separate. Perhaps that's another problem. When you have a restaurant that servers food from one region there is a lot of common ingredients, and in this proposed restaurant you would need such a diverse number of ingredient, preparation space, and preparation staff that it wouldn't be financially feasible.

But let's say that it was; would you come?

Perfect Sunset

This was taken from a park that is a two minute walk from my apartment. (click on picture to view large version)

Dream Journal #4

I remember almost nothing from last night's dream except it involved traveling to Iran. What was more memorable was what I experienced before falling asleep. I got in bed around 2am but wasn't able to fall asleep for 10-15 minutes because a bright yellow light blinded my mind when I closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes the light disappeared, and when I closed them again it returned. My normal visions are pleasant, cool hues, curved lined shapes, slowly moving, waves, and shadows. Last night's bright light was a first.

Future Forecast

The Big Bang created the first 4 elements on the periodic table. All other heavy elements were created in the center of exploding stars (novas, super-novas, hyper-novas) by smashing lighter elements together. By the way, the sun's power comes from fusing pairs of hydrogen atoms to make helium. The earth is composed mostly of iron (32.1%), oxygen (30.1%), silicon (15.1%), magnesium (13.9%), sulfur (2.9%), nickel (1.8%), calcium (1.5%), and aluminum (1.4%); with the remaining 1.2% consisting of trace amounts of other elements (percentages from wikipedia).

Humans do not have the ability to create new elements by fusing lighter atoms together and because of this we will eventually run out of our favorites. What will happen when we run out of copper and cadmium? How will we make new electronics? I know everyone is freaking out over the limited supply of oil but we can always figure out new energy sources; what is truly scarce are the raw elements. Now from those percentages above it looks like we are ok with iron, silicon, magnesium, nickel, and aluminum however most of their locations are out of reach for humans. Future wars will be fought over mines.

Solution: we mine our garbage. I don't have the numbers on me but I'm certain that most of the elements used in cans, electronics (especially cell phones), appliances, etc. are not recycled. Don't think of landfills and big mounds of trash, think of them as our precious future raw material reserves.

Dream Journal #3

I wasn't part of this dream. I was watching it from a god's eye view. The scene took place in a car. There were two people in the car, one in the front seat, one in the back. The person in the back went completely nuts and began attacking the person in the front. It was really bloody and grossed me out to the point that when it woke me up I was actually worried I had puked in my bed (I hadn't). Apparently in my dream the scene was a preview of a movie called "The Jackal" (not related to the 90's movie of the same name nor its parent book/movie "The Day of the Jackal"). It was one of the most graphic dreams I've ever had. Hmmm makes me wonder…

::sleep::

I was working at a resort. My job was to walk around the pool area and straiten things up and to get fresh towels. However I was also a secret agent and the resort had a special room where I would go to practices. The room was dark and had a web of lasers and mirrors scattering laser beams all around the room. I entered the laser room from a hole in the middle of the floor by climbing a latter from the room below. The goal was to move around the room with out crossing any of the beams. Some how the laser room was linked to missiles hidden around the resort and if I messed up they would fire. A few times I practiced moving around the room, avoiding the lasers but eventually I crossed one of the beams. I tried to maneuver myself to minimize the impact but it was too late. I ran out of the building down to the pool and watched a small missile fly into the sky.

::wake::

Analysis: Well the first one says I'm pretty fucked up. The second one is another story dealing with my current career struggle. Dreams should be vacations not work!

People First Policy

We have a finite amount of hours per day (duh) and there are many things vying for our attention. In order to prioritize, I use something called the "People First Policy". The PFP states that given the choice between two activities, first weigh the activity that involves people higher than the rest and then reconsider your motivations for what you want. This is important because in the age of electronics we use many fancy distractions to appease our laziness or fear from interacting socially.

This is not to say that some solo activities like reading, writing, or working on a hobby are less important than being social or that socializing is always more rewarding than solo time. What PFP does is force to look at your motivations. When you choose to sit in front of the computer, are you being productive or just being lazy or fearful of the outside world?

Full Disclosure: in general I require more alone time than social time... but my alone time is put to productive use

Buddhism + Christianity

Buddhism says:
Suffering comes from attachment.

Christianity says:
God is love.

As we know:
Love is attachment.

Therefore, Buddhism + Christianity:
God = love = attachment = suffering

Which can be reduced to:
God = suffering

I think I just proved that all suffering is God’s fault…


[Update]
This logic requires a few assumptions (thanks Matt):
God exists
Buddhism beliefs are true
Christian beliefs are true
God agrees with both Buddhism and Christianity dogma
Those that love also feel attachment to their loved thing/person

Dream Journal #2

We were having a pool party at my parent's house. The pool wasn't completely clean, it so more similar to the consistency of a lake, with plant life such as water lilies. There were people snorkeling through the grasses and lilies. For some reason I was afraid to get in the water. I walked over to a barn [which doesn't exist in my parent's back yard] to look for a mask and snorkel. It was a traditional barn with big doors and hay on the floor. There was junk piled everywhere. I began going though it and eventually found a mask. I kept moving deeper into the barn looking for a snorkel when I stumped on two people from the party having sex on a mat. We were all startled. I apologized and told them it was cool and to keep going. I left the barn with only a mask. As I closed the door I saw an authority figure (parent? boss? cop?) coming towards the barn. I opened the door and yelled to the lovers that someone was coming. I left the scene and walked back to the pool. Almost every one had gotten out of the pool. Even though I had this enormous fear, I put on my mask and dove into the section with the water lilies. If felt very awkward diving in, like I couldn't get my arms in the correct position.

::jump::

We all had these magnetic necklaces. They were the hard, metal wire kind. They had a few inches taken out making them look like a “C” so you could fit it around your neck [similar to bracelets]. The metal was as thick as a drinking straw and at each end was spherical rare earth magnet. When you put it around your neck the magnets would attract each other, clamping the necklace around your neck. There was a group of us sitting in this room [no one from my real life]. A few people put theirs on but once on the magnets were strong enough you couldn't take it off. We were talking, talking about life, talking about the necklaces, and talking about some of the weird things that had been happening recently. Slowly more and more people decided to try on the necklaces until I was the only one left without an adorned neck. I didn't want to put something on that could never be taken off. And who exactly was giving out the necklaces? I couldn't remember. For some reason I knew it wasn't just us with these necklaces. It was everyone in the world. I was worried they had mind control properties. I began to distrust everyone in the room. To seem like I was part of the new system, I put the necklace around my head, which stretched it enough so the magnetic ends couldn't meet. Later on I looked out a window and saw bizarre space ships in a grassy field. It was then I realized the necklaces were part of an Alien mind control plot. Everyone in the room was chatting pleasantly, completely oblivious to the Alien presence.

::wake::

Analysis: Well for me it's quite obvious. I have been trying to get a job. Although I do not fear the change that will come with a new job (in fact I look forward to it), there is still a lot of uncertainty and that is expressed through my subconscious. As for alien mind control plots against the humans race... shouldn't we all be a little worried about that? And isn't it interesting, in my conscious life I am not paranoid (except for known government spying plots, "Hi NSA") or afraid of jumping into the deep end of life.

Dream Journal #1

I woke at 5am and wrote on a pad of paper the main plot points of the dream I was currently in. When I finally got out of bed I read this...

plane crashed into boat
we put boat in [a very large] pool
stigmata blood everywhere [in the water and on the survivors]
pulled people out of crash
drained pool
talking to Jason [my brother] at night in the rainy backyard
mom covered head and face with foil

Notes to the reader are in [ ]

Smoke On Plane

There have only been a few times in my life when I was truly scared. The earliest I can remember was when I was six and our drug-addict-neighbor's large dog chased me down the street with the intent to eat me. The most recent occurred on one of this past summer's flights…

After a massive summer rain storm caused my dad and I to miss our connecting flight in Geneva, we found ourselves rerouted and flying into Athens (our destination) from Budapest at 3am. I think by that point we had been traveling for 40 some hours needless to say we were both exhausted. The plane was coming close to Athens when the distinct smell of smoke poured through the cabin. Now if there is one odor you don't want to smell on a plane, it's smoke. And though we did not see any smoke, that smell only comes from one thing: fire.

People freaked out. The flight attendances were running up and down the aisle opening up all the overhead compartments looking for smoke and feeling for heat. Agitated passengers started moving around re-opening the overhead compartments, searching through all the carryon bags, and yelling at each other. As we dropped down closer to the airport the smell continued getting stronger but still no visible smoke. I imagined us landing in a ball of fire, dead before we hit the ground. Damn. It was then that the thought of dying came to me, maybe for the first time in my life; all the fear of not existing, the pain and suffering from this kind of death, my family finding out and how they will suffer, all the things I never got to do, who will inherit my enormous CD collection. But unlike the fear of getting mauled by a dog (who was as psycho as his owner), a wave of calmness came over me and I realized how funny life really is. I laughed as I imagined my end, exhausted on a Hungarian Airline commuter flight at 3am after traveling for 40 hours in a large ball of fire only a few minutes from touch down.

I looked over at my dad and said "Hahaha this is a dumb way to die". He smiled back at me and said "Yeah".

By this point we were only moments from landing. I gritted my teeth.

We landed without any problems. Once on the ground people started relaxing. Neither I nor the other passengers couldn't figure out where the smell of smoke came from.

---The Next Day---

While watching the news I discovered that north of Athens there were large forest fires. Of course. The plane flew right through the smoke of the fires. Mystery solved and another story to tell.