'democracy is a jewel that must be polished constantly..."

A piece from TomPaine.com: Now is our time!

Excerpt: "The greatest offense against our society these days is not any one law or a particular assault on our freedoms. Rather, it is the persistent, insidious effort by those who shape our culture to reduce the American citizenry to idiots. From corporate advertisers to political sermonizers, from boards of education to the entertainment programmers, their goal is idiocy.

The quote in the title is from Aung San Suu Kyi, to whom U2 dedicated the song "Walk On." She is an outspoken fighter for democracy in her homeland of Burma, and was honored with a Nobel Prize in in 1991 for her brave efforts.

battle cry!!

stolen from paresh's site --

quizzie

you are the cute but psycho happy bunny. You
adorable, but a little out there. It's alright,
you might not have it all, but there are worse


which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

home in the bay

sorry i didn't get to post this sooner -- i don't really have an internet connection here. i've been back in the bay area since about thursday, and will be here for a little while.

brief (partial) week in review

the past couple of days have been busier than i anticipated, which have helped distract me a little from missing jer. a few of jer's longtime forever friends are visiting here, and i've had a chance to catch up with a few people. thanks to everyone who offered their support.. i'm so grateful to you, and i'll will certainly take you up your offers! bwahaha!

the following is a boring summary of what's been going on here. it's cuz i wouldn't remember otherwise >_<)

monday: michael, sharon, and shaun arrive. dinner at tony's monday night, followed by roger dodger.

tuesday: breakfast at hennessey's with michael, sharon, and shaun. then out with jen wong for a steak sandwich, also at hennessey's. spent the rest of the day at the beach, then jen took me back to their place for dinner with the rest of her apartment. shaun gets pretty badly beat up in a skateboarding accident, and has to go to the hospital. =(

wednesday: sharon and michael take shaun to the hospital again for some x-rays, while i sleep in. finally get a hold of jer after a day and a half of silence (their internet went down). jen and sue visit, and i give sue a tour of the place while jen hits the beach. evening is chill... sharon, michael, shaun, and i watch jay and silent bob strike back, followed by the breakfast club (if you can name the link between those two movies, you get a cookie!), then a south park dvd.

-so tired-
lots on my mind.
maybe i'll write them out tmw...

one thing: about that bikini model link i posted a few days ago. is it about a triumph of artificial over natural? i noticed today watching a little of 'what about bob' that everyone's skin has visible imperfections. you could see bill murray's pores, the mom had some wrinkles, etc etc. maybe i haven't been looking, but i haven't noticed those imperfect skin issues in recent movies of a similar mainstream comedic audience appeal. if there really is a difference, what's the difference? it could be that makeup trends have gone from gaudy, aggressive makeup where the makeup is the focus to 'natural' looks, where the skin is the focus. that is, you have to make your skin look as perfect as possible -- free of redness, visible pores, excessive oiliness or dryness, etc etc. but then, realistically, that's not really that natural either.

and then my mind jumps to video games, in particular, tomb raider, where a movie, a hollywood film production, is made around the hotness of a video game character. a video game character has no pores, just big round boobs and a sexy tendril of hair in the face.

and then there's that woman who is getting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery to look like barbie. why does she want to do that? why would she want to look so completely unnatural?

i wonder what the impact of the lack of detail and yet simultaneous realness of video games and electronic/digitized/mass manufactured renderings and models of humans is on our normal perceptions of beauty, and i wonder what impact it has on how we apply those standards in our everyday evaluations of attractiveness.

it's so curious to me. i've been reading a lot more fashion and style magazines lately, and all the ads are so interesting to look at. like the one for jennifer lopez's fragrance, 'jLo.' if you haven't seen it, it's a picture featuring a naked jlo seen thru a gauzy, filmy sort of curtain. and it looks so doctored. like, her skin is airbrushed to be perfectly dewy, her waist looks teeny tiny, her head doesn't quite fit with the rest of the body, etc etc.

and you know, airbrushing is nothing new, but the extent to which we airbrush now is. kate winslet sued after a magazine 'took few pounds off' photographs of her that appeared in one of their issues. jennifer aniston was also the victim of egregious photoshop manipulation, after a magazine pasted her face onto a photograph of her from a few years earlier and put the photoshopped image on the cover. this was also a big deal because having aniston is one of the most profitable cover models a women's magazine can have, and she had actually denied the magazine permission to do so. kelly clarkson had her ass doctored in the promotional materials for her bomb of a movie (if you look at the website, then compare it with the posters, you'll notice a huge difference). etc etc.

so yea, this isn't just airbrushing anymore. it's digital recomposition. and it's no longer limited to the funny farkisms you find online, but in magazines and advertising that sell a version of reality that really REALLY doesn't exist, except in pieces digital artists used to make the image up in the first place. photographs look like digital renderings, and digital renderings look like photographs. the line is sooo blurred now that it really isn't easy to tell, and that even if we could tell, it's not sure to say we'd care. because that image/photograph is 'HOT' and we like it, whether it's real or not...

so i wonder. i wonder what impact this has on people growing up nowadays. like, that trend with the super low rise pants. first of all, very very few people look good in those pants. britney spears is one (and borderline at that), keira knightly is another, but i think the list ends about there. and yet, i can't tell you how many teenaged and tweenaged girls wearing those damn things this summer. it's an awful look because it teaches girls that they have to flash skin to be sexy (not always true) and is really not flattering in any way shape or form: most of these girls have baby fat, which is cute, but ends up looking gross it's ruched up cuz of the way the pantwaists are worn so tight. couple this with tight tiny midriff baring tops and you get a mini inner tube.

the whole point of low waisted things and midriff baring things is that they elongate the body, creating an illusion of height and length. and yea, they're sexy because they show some skin and create some mystery about what you're *not* showing. and if you're going to show your body, show it in its natural form, not all bunched up in unattractive ways. and plus, the keyword is SOME skin. what kind of message is it to young girls in teaching them they have to walk around practically naked to be 'sexy.'?? cuz what is 'sexy' really isn't that simple.

the whole 'baring everything between your boobs and your crotch' trend seems to be dying down, thankfully. although it's really a shame that teenaged girls don't really have many options to express themselves in fashion. the media sells the image of 'cute girl' (1st album britney) and 'sexy girl' (christina aguilera, on the extreme whorishness side).. only recently has it come out with 'talented girl' (michelle branch, vanessa carlton) and 'skater girl' (avril lavigne). the default style for teenaged girls, tho, it's cute sexy girl (hilary duff). it's just so depressing that the homogenization has come so far...

anyway, the point was that these young girls are so easily influenced by what they see in the media about what to wear and what 'personal style' should be, even if it's really awful, that who knows what these artificial images of how a person should look are having on people too. we humans are like any other species: we learn, we adapt, we gather information about our surroundings through our senses (most notably sight in today's modern world), and we attune ourselves to what we need to out of social necessity. but when the real and unnatural can fool the eye so easily, what happens to our standards and ideas of what really is normal reality?

i could go on about movie special effects and so forth, but i'll refrain from doing so for now. =P

dazed

trying to steady myself in the wake of jer's absence.

on selling out

Something from Dave Eggers, whose work i haven't gotten around to reading, but whose writing here i found rather compelling.

massive power outage

i think the massive power outage in the northeastern US and Canada has taken down my web host for pearlescent.org, so i had to go back to blogger for a little while for me.

but i'm back! woohoo!!

windows open dialog issue solved!

my winamp kept going doing this funny thing where i would go to the open dialog and add a file, but it would sort by file type or last modified instead of sorting by name. it was completely infuriating, but i found a solution here:

This makes me so very happy. =)

amusing email of the day

Email of the day (courtesy of Aaron. sorry this took so long to post!) it's a shame we can't help him anymore.

Hello,

Thank You

blargh!

here's a half-assed update.

happy belated birthday to dennis p, whose birthday was on saturday. hope you had a good one!

happy belated birthday to ed t, whose birthday was sunday. i must remember to give him a call this week. *ties string around finger*

playing a lot of 'the sims.' it is unbelieveably addicting. have one character who is on the politics track, one character on the science track, and one on the medicine track. sims have thus far burned down three kitchen stoves, one fire having also claimed the life of one of the aforementioed sims (however she was ressurrected by the glory of reverting to a previously saved game). one sim has also experienced an alien abduction, but returned alive and seemingly normal. one of the friends of the sims doesn't have a bathroom in his house (jer forgot to build one for him), so he always uses the bathroom of the couple's house and inevitably clogs it every time. maid service is really handy. one household is now worth about 40k, with each of the two people in the household taking home about 500 each day. and we're working on getting them their next promotions. so this game is really strange in that it's a weird version of real life -- suddenly even the most mundane aspects of life are important, like making sure your sims wash their hands after they use the bathroom. or clean up after themselves after a meal. or get to sleep on time. but somehow, messing with all those mundane little things is really really fun. heh. it's almost like as hard as it is to control things in real life, you can at least sort of control them in the sims lives. or maybe it makes you feel the opposite is possible. cute little sims.

also played a bit of tennis recently. am in jer's office tennis tournament, in both singles and doubles. jer and i lost our doubles match saturday morning (which wasn't so bad, since it was the first time we ever played doubles together) and i lost my match tonight. note to self: since it takes you 40 minutes to get warmed up anyway, you should really play a match BEFORE you play a real match, so you don't drop a set at love cuz you're really not completely there. second note to self: more match play is required, cuz you are really really bad.

eating too much meat etc with jer as he is on atkins diet. *worry worry*

my longtime good friend n.c. is leaving for china for a year sometime this next week for an activity with which he is involved. i'm so proud of him for doing this trip, and i'm honored to be able to continue to count him as one of my good friends, despite how much time has passed. i wish him well.

i will be deprived of jer for about a month, so i will soon have more free time than i will know what to do with. please let me know if you would like to hang out, so i can plan accordingly (norcal and socal folks, i'm talking to both of you!)

pizza hut buffalo wings have only a gram of carbohydrates per wing.

'the sims'-inspired thought: we could really use a maid around our apartment. =P

i'm going to *hella* miss jer. i don't even know what i'm going to do.

xanga is so totally down.

(late update) gray davis got recalled. arnold schwarzenegger is running for CA gov. quoth a friend of a friend: "he would be the governator!!" i still think the recall is stupid. am considering voting for arianna huffington cuz i think she's a cool person, but it's one thing to talk and one thing to govern, and i have serious doubts as to whether she can govern. same for arnold. and cruz bustamante kinda blows, so i don't really want to vote for him either.

more on election ballot: racial privacy initiative, written by our favorite UC regent Ward Connerly, is the little-noticed but uber-important proposition on the october ballot that needs to be voted down. here's a site for your information. i would write more, but i've said enough on this sort of issue.

pres election 2004: howard dean is on the cover of newsweek this week. he's good at galvanizing the public. definitely a plus. still kind of sad gary hart isn't running, but i'm over it. democrats need to come up with a hard hitting unified attack if they want to take out Bush. the man needs to go.

a few more reasons why he needs to go: cutting benefits for America's veterans in spite of his public opining of the importance of honoring America's soldiers. and giving a free-for-all pass to oil companies to do whatever they want in Iraq.

another link off kottke.org: digitally retouching a bikini model's photo. don't believe everything you see in the magazines folks. it's amazing what people can do with photoshop these days.

looking at new cell phone plans... again. any suggestions? we have t-mobile now. having the family plan is cool because jer and i talk all the time. it is not cool in that we don't have nighttime minutes. grrr. there must be a better way! thinking of switching to verizon because sooo many people are on verizon, but i don't like the lack of clarity, and the m2m minutes seem kind of limited. plus i really like the phones sprint offers. mm... samsung... LG... samsung...

btw, the motorola t720 is a CRAPPY phone. my friend went through 2 in about 5 months and is now done with them. the first one broke in about a month, the second one died a few months after that. the color screen is nice, but the battery life is wretched. plus, his phone reception was awful, since he was on AT&T's GSM service, which at this writing continues to be practically nonexistent. he has now switched to a less snazzy phone (one of the motos, i think), and he is much happier.

oh, and i saw phone booth last week. saw the actress i was talking about in a few entries back, Arian Ash. really depressing to see her in her skivvies as a hooker for this movie. still hope her career is what takes off, rather than her clothes.

and that's all i can think of for now. good night!

Holy Galactic Cannibalism!

Why is dark matter so cool??

gobble gobble!!

a few recent pictures

since this page is looking a little bare, here are a few more pictures from the recent weeks...

michael, sharon, connie, jer, and the great big GMC van.

sharon next to the memorial set up on third street and arizona in santa monica, where the farmer's market incident took place.

mother and son in front of big thunder mountain at disneyland.

jer and me riding on the disneyland train.

congrats, brian!!

so my friend brian has now joined the legions of the working youth, with his fancy new job and his fancy new place.

to celebrate, here's a pic of him from a couple of weeks ago, when he was first introduced to the glory of the henessey's steak sandwich.

reprimanded

i have just been reprimanded by aaron, of the workaholic sleeping hours, for my unusual sleeping hours.

happy birthday!!

... to jer's mom connie. =) yay!!

So THAT'S who that is!!

okay, so one of my rather well-liked shows as i was growing up was this little thing called 'welcome, freshmen' on nickelodeon. anyway, around the time the show was kind of going off the air, a song by blues traveler called 'runaround' featured in its video one of the stars of the show as dorothy (it was a wizard of oz sort of theme in case you haven't seen it). i never knew what that girl's name was, and i always wondered where she went cuz i always thought she was kind of cool. but my accomplishment today (cue fanfare) is that i finally found out who she is!!

her name is arian (waring) ash. she's actually still getting work, apparently, having done tigerland and phone booth (both with colin farrell) not too long ago.

i'm so happy i figured out what the show she was on was called. and i'm so glad i now know who the heck she is!!

hey, you take your small joys when you get them. =)

return of the coffee mug

i left my ucla library mug at the bank a couple of months ago, when i went in to get a picture taken for my photocard. i had written the mug off as a lost cause, but what do i get back in the mail wednesday but my mug, with a friendly letter informing me i can always take care of my banking needs at the Westwood branch of Bank of America.

the good: i got my mug back!! yay!!
the bad: it doesn't look like they washed the mug. >_<
the ugly: knowing bofa, they probably attached some hidden surcharge to returning the mug.

hmm.. i think the mug issue is still a 'lost cause.' plus, how the heck did they figure out it was me?? yikes!!!!

more ranting before i forget

the prozzak cd i ordered on eBay arrived in my mailbox today. yay!! it is so bad ass. the cd cover features simon and milo in a holographic super bad-asssed mofo form. 'www.i'llnevergetoveryou' indeed!!

pirates of the carribean was disappointing. too little johnny depp, too much orlando bloom and keira knightley. orlando bloom is hot as legolas, but i don't dig him in his natural brunette form. keira knightley is also hot, but i couldn't get past the perpetual 'fuck me' pout she displays in every scene of the movie. plus the last scene of the movie was pretty stupid. i will add, however, that any movie that manages to cast johnny depp, geoffrey rush, and the guy from the inifiniti ads in one film gets a few extra bonus points. they weren't bad in their roles, either.

jer and i took his mom to disneyland on thursday. really fun -- stayed at the park from about 9 to midnight. the fritters in the french quarter don't really compare to the ones you get in new orleans, although they're not bad. the fireworks show was spectacular. pirates of the carribean (the ride) still carries as much wonder and fun as it did years ago. big thunder mountain is still loads of fun. went on the matterhorn and splash mountain for the first time ever and had a blast. and i've never spun so fast in the teacup ride before. =) pictures are forthcoming.

oh yeah!! and finding nemo is my new favorite movie. i thought it would be good, but i had no idea... every character was spot on interesting, the animation was lush and gorgeous, the script was funny and inspired... i was totally blown away.

(look forward to an onslaught of aspiring marine biologists at universities in about 10 or so years... hehe)

i am soooooo getting that on dvd when it comes out. hot damn!!

that is all.

belated update from last weekend

there's a lot of things i have to update here, especially from last weekend, but for now here's a brief rundown:

michael and sharon, two of jer's best friends from forever, came down from rocklin to visit us last weekend. they are freaking awesome, and we had a terrific time. sharon, michael, come down and see us again soon!! :D :D

there are dolphins in our beach!!

boogie boarding is harder than it looks.

more to come later. =)

links for the day

some oldies but goodies.

http://www.blockdeath.com

http://www.platinumgrit.com/poke.html