TU Cent Thoughts, 11-4-05

Sunday's verse: "As iron sharpeneth iron, so must a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friends."-Proverbs 27:17
This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. For my new readers, I will tell you that either I will sharpen you and you will sharpen me. I truly believe that I know very little, but I must share what little I know with others. If we all pull together all knowledge, then we can do some good in the world. So let's continue to sharpen each other, shall we?

Quote of the Day: "Hey, they don't teach you how to hold babies in medical school." -GrrshhNguyen

Link of the Day: Outpost Nine. This has already been linked a lot in the blogging world, but this is an insanely funny blog about an English high school teacher in Japan through an exchange program. The thing is the English teacher is an African American gamer, so if you understand the gaming culture you will laugh your socks off. Those crazy Japanese!
----------------------------------
Speaking of the Japanese, they totally dominate Magic nowadays. Thank you Magic Online for giving dedicated Japanese players the tool they needed to catch up and surpass lazy Americans. Not to mention their culture. If you take a look at the interviews, their top players actually want to help out the next generation. Every generation looks to improve the talent of the next. Japanese Magic isn't afraid to try unorthodox ideas. American Magic is currently plagued by "G/W suxors, I'd never play it...unless the Japanese were playing it."

This is part of the reason why I want to be a judge...the complete snottiness of scrubs who think they know what they're talking about when they talk Magic. And I am part of the problem.
----------------------------------
Today is an almost meaningless day for me in fantasy football. I have the best team according to breakdown and power rankings, but I can't improve on a second place finish in my division due to losing the head to head with the division leader. However, I can take pride in personally eliminating someone from the postseason in this last regular season week for my league. Also, I am only thirteen points behind the overall pts leader in the league so if I do well today I can claim the overall pts total.
----------------------------------
In poker, I like the words "all in" too much. Never, ever take me to Vegas. Because I try to be super cool and bet a lot of money on double zero on the roulette table. I actually did that one at my high school graduation's casino night, to the sadness of all my old friends.
----------------------------------
Despite the fact that I play the piano, I have little knowledge of pop music. I guess I just never spent the effort to find music that I liked. So, um, I need you fine people to enlighten me. What exactly is the difference between pop music and indie pop music? Furthermore, which is better?

TU Cent Thoughts, part the deux, 12-4-05

I once said that I had a powerful eidetic memory. How powerful? Well, yesterday in my haste to leave the house to drive an hour to my sister's apartment, I forgot my cell phone at my house. I figured this out when I went to my coat pocket to call my sis to tell her I was on the way. My mind instanty flashed to taking the phone out of my coat pocket to put it in the charger.

Thank you absentmindedness.

I was already fifteen minutes out, which is like one fourth of the trip. I really didn't need my phone per se, though it would be inconvenient if my friends tried to call me to tell me the score of the Tulsa game. Meh. Then I remembered I was supposed to call lucky Andy that night to tell him I was coming to visit, and more importantly ask for directions. I tried to IM him, but then my sister's Internet inconveniently crashed. Crap. I was running out of options and patience.

Wait...didn't anime Mike ask for lucky Andy's number a few days ago. Maybe, if I just close my eyes...

It came to me in a flash. I knew the number. I called it and lucky Andy picked up. He didn't recognize my sister's number but he recognized my voice. Boo yah.

Thank you eidetic memory.
---------------------------------------
Fantasy football wise, I scored 98 points without Shaun Alexander. Bye bye, hapless opponent!
---------------------------------------
I'm right, and you're wrong. I need control. So yeah, I'm not melancholy, sanguine, or phlegmatic. I am an obsessive-compulsive choleric.
( Temperament meme )

---------------------------------------
Random Jameson said indie pop music was independently recorded pop music. Not indie as in Indian pop, but indie as in independtly recorded. And so it all makes sense now.
---------------------------------------
Do you prefer to cook or to eat? I am an eating guy myself, though this means I also like to cook somewhat. But not as much as I like to eat.

Name dropping

So, when I go to friend people, one of the things I do is check out mutual friends. Most of the time there are only two or three, but sometimes there's like ten and then I know that it's a pretty good chance that this is a person who can help me in my quest of improving my style and writing. I always check out the journal of a random person who comments on one of my comments. Now this usually happens on the Ferrett-sensei's journal, so then I have to introduce myself by going "Hi, dropped in through theferrett".

Rarely will anyone instantly friend me back as part of their LJ etiquette. That's good practice as it helps trim one's reading list down. So most people take some time to look through a few of my posts and my lengthy user info/bio. If they're very curious they'll spend time reading my best story, the confident pessimist story. Then quite a few of them will wait around for a few of my posts before making their decision to join me on my quest.

Many of them wonder how they could ever help me on my quest. You'd be surprised by what I can use for inspiration.

The most fascinating people are those are impressed by the fact that I am a friend of Ferrett-sensei. How did you do that? Well, first I had to brown nose my rodent sensei a little. Then I wrote the best story of my life. It wasn't so much about my writing ability, I'm afraid.

Also, people read me because I am part of the elusive Silent Majority, the swing vote in any given election. I'm a moderate Republican, a Christian who doubts the tenets of his own faith. I'm given to bouts of deep introspection. I believe funny, charming, stupid, and bigoted have all been used to seriously describe me on here.

I can't please everyone, I suppose.