Breaking and Entering

Have you ever done something criminal without intent?

Like, many people have left a store with something in their pocket they forgot to take out at check out. Something like that.

Did you go back and pay for it or return it? I mean, what are you supposed to do? You don't want to admit you stole something inadvertantly. They're going to give you a dirty look. They might even remember your face next time you're at the store!

You don't want to get blacklisted for a 25 cent packet of Juice Fruits. No!

Like what if you REALLY want to steal one day. Then you're screwed because they're always watching you. 'Oh, my god, Tasha. It's that guy who "accidentally" stole a packet of gum. We better keep a close eye on him."

I bring all of this up because I actually have unintentionally broken and entered a house in the past.

What happened was few of my friends and I were delivering a piano to an house where the owners had gone on a vacation and left the driver the key. The driver knew the homeowners personally and had been shown inside the house. And you have to understand, my involvement was very peripheral. I was just there to give a hand to move the piano.

The driver parks in the driveway at the house where we're supposed to drop off the piano. Two guys and I grab the piano from the back of the truck while the driver goes ahead of us to get the door. We rush to the piano to the front door when the driver guy says, "guys, the key isn't opening the door."

"What do you mean?"

"The key isn't working."

"Let me see that," I go working on the key. Jiggling and wiggling the key. And it doesn't work, "It's the wrong key. Try the other doors."

We go around and try to open all kinds of doors here and there. And none of the doors work. @#$@#!

And here's what happens. You know, one of my biggest strengths is also my worst! I don't like to take "no" for an answer. I mean, what are we going to do with the piano? Return it?

No! The piano is going into the damn house if it means I have to break and enter!

I rose to the occasion. I was meeting my life's challenges head on. I put on my McGuyver hat.

I pulled out a credit card. I shimmied the card in the space between the door and its frame. And in 10 seconds, I opened the door.

Yeah, I was THAT good. Like some spy. The guys were in awe, "you are the man, dog!"

More than anything, we were just glad that we didn't have to drive back to the place where we picked up the piano.

So we pick up the piano and run into the house. It couldn't have been three steps into the house when the driver guy says, "guys, something's not right."

"What is it this time?"

"I don't recognize the inside."

At this point, I have a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. The guy runs out of the house and looks at the house. And the thought enters my mind when from outside I hear, "@#$%, guys1 We're in the wrong @#$%^&* house! Get the @#$% out!"

"Oh, @#$%!" We grabbed that piano and loaded it onto the truck. Then we peel out of the driveway when our driver guy says.. "ah, we were supposed to go to that house," pointing to the next house down the road. We drive 50 feet down the road and onto the driveway, praying to God that the neighborhood Big Brother watch group has taken a day off.

Sure enough the key opens front door at the new house. We dropped the piano to where it was supposed to go and flew out there like bat out of hell.

And that's my story of accidentally breaking and entering into a stranger's house.

Political Implication of Benjamin Button the Movie

Brad Pitt Facial Transformation (Ed Ulbrich. TED Talks: How Benjamin Button got his face)

When I watched "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," I thought that they did a remarkable job with to make Brad Pitt look old. So imagine my surprise when I learned this morning via TED podcast that the old Brad faces were actually computer generated. What they did was a remarkable feat. Phosphorus marker was used to map out a basic set of human facial expressions (in this case, of Brad Pitt) which was then superimposed on an older facial model.

Besides the obvious entertainment applications, this holds a great political implication. Any head of a political state can now be recreated on the computer with his/her willing consent. For instance, this may be something that aging dictators (i.e. KIS of N. Korea) might want as a backup plan to keep the masses at bay. Osama bin Laden may have uses for this.

Granted, this is not possible in the immediate future. The technology is still in its infancy and is too expensive when compared to a body double. You'd need banks of computer to store and process. This may become an application for a routine public service announcement within ten years. There will be a need for public policy and law against the use of this technology for the purpose of deception, broadcast impersonation, identity presumption, etc.

Though this is no news, we do live in a brave new world.

America, revisited.

America, I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America, sixty thousand IOU's. November 19, 2008.
I can't stand my own mind.
America, when will we end the human war?
I'm sick of you jacking off to warmongering videos on YouTube.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't rewrite this poem till I'm in my right mind.

America, when will you be a Bodhisattva?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you feed the hungry?
When will you be worthy of your million dead poets?
America, why are your libraries full of empty chairs?
America, when will you send your meds to Africa?

I'm sick of your insane demands.

When can I go on eBay and buy what I need with my good looks?
America, after all it is you and I who are perfect - not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Your starving, hysterical, naked poets are dead of bloody cirrhosis.

It's sinister.

Are you being sinister? Or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to a point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.

America, stop pushing I know what I'm doing.

America, the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't watched the news for months,
Everyday the old yell "terrorists!"
while the young kill each other.
America, I feel sentimental about the nine-to-five workers.
They cry every night wondering if life should be so pointless.
I stare at the moon, blue and poignant.
Everything is made from corn.

Damn it.

America, I used to be a Sunday school teacher and I'm very sorry.
Now I repent with the green, green tea every chance I get.
When I go to Chinatown I eat hot noodle soup and walk down the K-alley to the city light.

My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Tolstoy.
My parents think I'm perfectly crazy; and I won't say the Lord's Prayer anymore.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.

America, I still haven't told you what you did to Little Robert after he came over from Iraq.

Hey, I'm addressing you!

Are you going to let our emotional life be run by easyspeak Armani boys?

I'm obsessed by the tube.
I watch it when I don't want to be human.
It stares back like a mirror image of my self.
I even take it to go on my iPhone in the morning.
It's always telling me about patriotism.
Politicians are serious. Reverends are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
Everybody is talking about terrorism.

It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a Chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.

My national resources consist of two bags of green tea, millions of mis-educated emo kids,
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1 gigabytes an hour and twentyfivethousand nursing homes.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the 46 millions of uninsured,
who go to chiropractor for medical problems
acupuncturist for chiropractic problems,
and emergency room for pain pills.

I have abolished the orphanages of India, Haiti is the next to go.
My ambition is to be the President despite the fact that my eyes are slanty.

America, you are a free country. Aren't you?
America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like MLK.
My lines are as vivid as his dreams.

America, I will short all my verses against your burning stocks.
America, your CEOs jump from scrapers.

America, free Llasa; free Tibet
America, save the Invisible Children
America, creativity and the blue sky must not die.
America, I am the Guantanamo animals.

America, when I was thirteen, my family moved to New York.
I only knew three words of English, "Yes", "No", and "Thank you."
Children can be mean.
They spat at me for being a ching-chang-chong.

Still the sun shone brightly then and the fog wasn't as thick
You have no idea what a good thing blowjob was back in 1993.
Your president smoked cigars instead of coke.
Mother Teresa was still alive.

Everybody must have been a terrorist.
America, you don't really want to go to war.
America, it's them bad Terrorists.
Them Terrorists them Terrorists and them Muslims. And them Terrorists.
The Islam wants to eat us alive. The Islam is power mad.
Inshallah wants to take our children from our Jesus H. Christ.

China wants to grab Africa. Her needs oil reserves.

Her wants our auto plants in Detroit. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes wetbacks learn Ingles and Mandarin.
Him with two billion little slanty eyes like mine.

Hah!

Her make us work in Wal-Mart twenty-four hours a day. Halp!

America, this is quite serious.
America, this is the impression I get from the TV.
America, is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or replace desperate someone's desperate job
I'm unpunctual and narcoleptic anyway.

America, I'm sleeping hungry on the bare floor tonight.

- Credits to Allen Ginsberg

This is a tribute to Allen Ginsberg. He addressed America regarding the anti-communism hysteria in a sarcastic yet non-condescending undertone. I have been contemplating this poem for a while now. I draw a parallel of our era.

In life, one must measure growth in all forms of one's personal wealth.

True wealth is an abundance of values. Ownership of values is universal, permanent and inalienable. The worth of these values does not change with time and becomes part of the person him/herself. It cannot be lost. By this definition, money is a poor measure of wealth. A person can experience great wealth as a hedge fund manager or a penniless sage. However, a wiser soul understands early in the course of life that there is a general negative correlation between material growth and personal wealth. One may possess much material wealth, but such things easily tax the mind and body. One is often tempted to throw away everything to take ownership of the self and everything else. For some, this is an absolutely necessary step. For others, this is an excuse to escape fear.

We should spend our energy and time in generation of valuable products. These are things which sustain our bodies, mature our minds, and lift our spirits. Most values and valuable products are universal to plants, animals, and people. Some examples of this include water, knowledge, experience, kinship, sunlight, the Nature, land, and the Self.

Knowledge is free. Once obtained, it cannot be taken away with threat - empty or otherwise. It can be freely shared as any true form of wealth is always experienced.

Wisdom, also, is free. Though seemingly hard to find at times, its only prerequisites are openness and proper discernment. Wisdom and experience nourish the generations of human beings whether they are rich or poor.

The right to express the opinions formed from knowledge and wisdom is a great treasure to humanity. Though we do not like to hear propaganda , true scientific process requires empiric observation of both true and false knowledge. Silence is only a fool's gold. Just expression of wisdom is much more valuable and precious. However, like all forms of wealth, one must not waste right speech on people to whom these values are lost. Values pass like wild fire when speech is free.

Time is our principle form of currency. Everyone is given 24 hours a day, yet some achieve more wealth than others. Those who do more with less do more with less because they understand well the value of time. The five stages of grieving are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Life is a long process involving these five processes in regards to death. If somehow one accepts death as the natural outcome of their life - as it is - one can finally appreciate time. Therefore, acceptance of one's death is the prerequisite for achieving great wealth.

Emphasis:

Acceptance of death allows appreciation of time.

Appreciation leads to proper expenditure of time.

Proper expenditure is wealth.

Example: Men and women of true wealth have accepted their death long before death accepted them.

Though the world is full of suffering, most relationships and interpersonal encounters are positive. It is through the meeting of people one learns values regarding human relationships.

Families are the building block of all relationship. These are people to whom we are born and with whom we will die. They help us form our fundamental values whether by good or by evil.

Friends form a natural extension from your family. They provide us with traditions of their ancestors with which to test the truths of our childhood values. True, lifelong friends are ones who forever hone our values by their love and gentleness.

Teachers are like bridges which connect islands of isolated values to a greater body of knowledge. By their instructions, we learn not subjects but a way to grasp the world and taste its fruits.

Ultimately, it's the strangers who teach us the most about values. Values we learn from our families, friends, and teachers are bound to be homogeneous and true only from a local perspective. Strangers present us with values different from our own. Through their eyes, we understand the partial failure of our current values in the universality test. Incorporating a strange custom, religion or tradition, one understands his ancestry and relationships in a new perspective with new insights. The more strangers we meet, the wiser and wealthier we become

Meeting of strangers cannot happen if one does not travel in the true sense of word.

One cannot travel if one does not appreciate the luxury of time.

Again, appreciation of time comes with acceptance of one's mortality.

Traveling not only provides opportunity to inherit foreign values but also teaches us values which are extrinsic from human relations.

When I was lonely, I appreciated the value of my loved ones.

When I was lost, I appreciated the value of my Self.

When I was thirsty, I appreciated the value of water.

When I was hungry, I appreciated the value of food.

When I was dirty, I appreciated hygiene.

When food and water was scarce, I appreciated the value of land, water, and the Sun.

Thirst forcing appreciation of true values, we purify ourselves from the former idea of wealth based on monetary currency which only serve to enslave us with false material security destined to betray us sooner or later. Rather than draining our energy and time into a drab, nine-to-five void, we find a good human balance to nurture all aspects of our lives all the while remaining in the creative force necessary to create material valuable which promote health in people, relationships, plants, animals, and planet.

Valuable products create wealth for the producer and consumer. Such things are appreciated for intrinsic value rather than the satisfaction of ownership. A bowl of rice is cherished for what it is. An expensive jewelry, not so. As such, one's daily function in a society should serve to enrich one's life as well as those who use his service. An ideal work brings inspiration and excitement on the way to work, provides the bare necessities of valuable products for one's own consumption, and produces goods and services which is in line with creating wealth for all. For example, a farmer enjoys his work, his works provides him with food and shelter, his land produces that which is healthy for everyone including himself.

The greatest inheritance is a wealth based on knowledge and wisdom. Proper knowledge enables children to self-nurture. Wise children discern wealth and the course of life which allows them to maximize their individual talents and creativity. Combined, these two values grow children to the fullest in Life. Such children do not repeat the mistakes of our fathers.

Then we inherit the greatest wealth to Life. Leaving the planet cleaner with gentle, kind, and loving children.

Ten things I learned on my hitchhiking trip (or alternatively the Ten Commandments of Hitchhiking)

1. There is always more than one person going your way.
2. People want to help
3. Time is your greatest currency.
4. Smile.
5. Don't walk at night.
6. Don't walk on highway.
7. Don't try to hitch from a police officer.
8. Don't carry anything of monetary value except for one item.
9. Carry a CB radio.
10. Never settle for a ride which stops at Exit 24 on NC I40.

Fresh asphalt, black burning tar

Walking free,

free as road debris, road kill

Locusts hop midst the wild crop

Great white clouds stroll down its own blue highway of a sky

Neither caring nor knowing where it goes

following the directions of the great smells.

Boycotting airlines and various forms of capitalism,

if only for a weekend,

Carrying all necessities on my sweaty back

Extra luxurious amenities to soothe the lonely soul

a bag of peanuts and a box of menthols

Proving a point which no one seems to care

to the point of looking obviously avoiding a fare

I scream down the lonely highway

"Jack, you cirrhotic, adventurous ghost of the past!

Share you wealth rambunctiousness,

lest all other static elements propel us quickly into

the deathpit of our corporate overloads!"

The plants, crawlies, and the birds share

the lone planetary, platonic mind cares

Grand solitude in the wild highway

waiting for a strange hitch

pick me up

drop me off

in another place and same time

to continue this journey

hoping never to be late

ending too soon

dragging me into the drab civilization

of my own daily routine

of death-making ritual

of my spirit, soul, and Holy Ghost.

        

It's old news that I've been using a convoluted "Skype/Gizmo/GrandCentral" ménage-à-trois system to replace my cursed cellphone experience. There were many things I liked about the cellphone-less way of life:

• Save $60 every month
• Save $$$ on the cellphone every couple of years
• Save myself from constant need to be on everyone else's time
• Save $60 every month
• Save time from fidgeting with gadgets.

The downside to not having a cellphone did not go unappreciated however.

• Miscommunications were hard to rectify if I was not around my computer
• Need for internet
• Cumbersome logic of having to use Skype for calling out and GrandCentral/Gizmo to take calls in.

Well, today I discovered that I can drop Skype's monthly 3 dollar unlimited call service for GrandCentral's somewhat unadvertised unlimited call feature. It seems that I can make phone calls by pressing the "Call" button on GrandCentral's web portal and it will automatically make a call for me and connect that call to my Gizmo account. This means that though I'm making a call to someone else, it is technically a free VoIP call-in as far as Gizmo is concerned. Ergo, absolutely free calls within US via GrandCentral/Gizmo.

Additional benefit to this approach to calling out is my GrandCentral caller ID actually shows up on the people receiving the call. SkypeOut did not allow me to have a caller ID without first having a cellphone (which defeats my purpose of using SkypeOut).

AT&T, it's been great. Thanks for all you've done for me over the years. Though your new 3G iPhone be enticing, we are no longer just taking time apart. We are through. You should go find somebody else who will treat you better with their fat bank account and a new BMW.