Posted 6:47 PM by Anonymous

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Posted 11:00 AM by Blah blah

From RBJ, a discussion about How Often Do You Think About Sex? I wrote:

Wow, Rasee, you have indeed warped my perception of you! (NOT!) Haha...

The fact that you are a creative writer says something about you and your sexual appreciation. I just think most people who are more artistic (including writers) have a heightened sexual awareness and appreciation. Add the artist's brain (the best sexual organ) to that tingling feeling in your nerve endings, and kapow!

Do I think about sex as much as Johnny (80 times/day? NO WAY!) NO. But of course I do think about it.

Since I'm a Libra and more the intellectual-aesthetic type, I tend to approach a woman's mind first, then her body. Seeing a gorgeous woman I don't know doesn't necessarily cause me to flicker an eyelash. To me it's a bloodless image easily forgotten. They say about Libras that they "can appreciate a beautiful tree as much as a beautiful woman." Welllll, that's PUSHING IT, but you get the point. We can find beauty in a lot more things than the obvious, prepackaged stuff. (No, I don't take astrology very seriously, but I am so much a typical Libra!)

For most women, I ignore how pretty they are at first and try to see if we have a mental connection. Yep---hard to believe, but TRUE.

The way to seduce me first is through my mind. Make me laugh, make me cry, tickle me, teach me something, and heighten my appreciation for life. Then I start to pay more attention to you and start thinking more sexually. But then small details about you may become sexual...it's a fuller appreciation.

For women who are only pretty but can't talk well or have a dull view of life, I get bored and forget them. That's me!

Sometimes I think the most boring woman can be a conventionally pretty one, because she's so used to men eating out of her hand and getting what she wants that she feels no interest in developing her brain, learning to be witty, exploring what's out there, etc.

Posted 9:14 AM by Anonymous

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Posted 11:10 AM by Blah blah

Poetry

Here is something that really TICKLED me and made me smile.

Belle, who is very eloquent and writes poetry regularly, wrote a POEM for me! For me! Haha...no one has ever done that! She wrote:

"As I see you as a very colorful person and very appreciative one at that to everybody, thus making you a nice, comforting, and unselfish friend, here's a very simple poem (tell me if it's silly, lol) for you.

out of the corner of my eye

i see a ray

brilliant sprays, shimmering

it bathes me

a shaft of grandeur, a spiral

of colors, you

are a prism

in the glass of friendship.

That was very sweet of ya, Belle!

I don't write poetry often, but here's what I wrote about my first love:

The Romantic Chemist

SUNSET HAD a bluish hue
Until you came within my view.
Fiery rays that give life worth
Radiate from your pink sweatshirt.

Who is she, in our room---
alert us!---
who looks like
actress Marina Sirtis?

She seems a child
As she spins round
Her long hair sashays
Near the ground.

Yet she is true Woman,
Helen of Greece,
Blessed with special
Inner peace.

When worries overwhelm my heart
You blink your eyes and work to start
Encouraging a confused boy
To catch your wild contagious joy.

Such warmth!---a smile
I still gaze on...
You purse your lips
And breathe "Rayyymon...."

Whene'er I feel the soul of thee
Robins nest in love's own tree
And sing in hearty unison
A song to all I come upon.

Ages fore and methinks hence
Some other boy may have the sense
To lift his brow that books have kissed,
And kiss instead a shy chemist.

Posted 11:03 AM by Blah blah

The old "nice guy" debate, twisted

From RBJ, topic: Are We Raising a Generation of Wimps? I was a little irritated at this guy AL who posted it.

What's wrong with being a nice guy? Plenty, according to a local therapist (Seattle Post-Intelligencer). I agree with some of Glover's points, but generally I think he's a dork. What do YOU think of this article?
____________
Glover surmises that a lot of "Nice Guys" grew up with fathers who were abusive, overcontrolling, alcoholic, distant or just plain absent. Vowing never to be like their fathers, these men overshoot the mark and become ineffectual, emotionally repressed, manipulative and sexually dissatisfied....

Glover steers clients toward an ideal he calls the "integrated male" -- someone with a strong sense of self who acts with integrity, sets clear emotional boundaries and knows how to nurture without caretaking. [What the hell is wrong with guys doing "caretaking"???]...

Take his counsel regarding wifely chitchat, for instance. Glover makes no bones about telling husbands not to listen when their wives run on about "work, family, girlfriends and rude checkout people."

"I don't think men are inclined or even interested to hear about every detail of a woman's day," Glover says. "I'm just encouraging men to listen more selectively so they'll listen more carefully." [What the hell, dude?]

Without blinking, he adds that women may be drawn initially to men who "listen to them for hours and drink coffee with them and never sexualize them." [There's nothing wrong with just being friends at first without thinking sex, dude! That lets women feel more comfortable to be more open!] But in the end, he claims, women "come to despise" them for those very qualities.

His term for such men: "A girlfriend with a penis."
____________
AL said: "more men are becoming more sensitive & soft like women & more women are becoming dominate & assertive like Men! :-/"

I said: There's nothing wrong with that, dude! It's good that we don't force or expect people to act in their conventional male-female roles any more. It's the 21st century, man!

I don't think it's either you're sensitive OR you are dominant and assertive. I think that idea is simplistic and stupid. Depending on the situation and my mood, I can switch between both ways of behaving. I think this is a sign of MATURITY, of expanding the range of your behavior and becoming a more complex person as you grow up.

My theory: as men grow up and become more mature, they start to add some "female" characteristics to their repertoire (talk better, more patient, better at remembering birthdays, etc). As women become more mature, they naturally add "male" characteristics (get more aggressive, don't worry about politeness as much, ask directly for what they want, etc). We should encourage that as a modern society. This is a sign of a WHOLE person, someone comfortable enough with being a GUY he doesn't mind helping with his daughter's slumber party.

If you are confident with your masculinity, you wouldn't worry so much about people calling you a wimp and deliberately trying to act macho just to please some stupid friends who may talk smack about you.

Sometimes it IS the manly thing to act sensitive and soft. Example: when you have a baby! That will make your woman proud of ya.

AL said: "btw- watch out for Taiwanese church gals!
They are tough & mean! one bench presses mo than me & beat me arm wrestling :-[
( I can beat all the guys)!
Jen likes to hit me in the solar plexus & beats me up !:'(
another like to choke ppl! :'( so violent!
the last 2 r small so maybe it's mo a Small person complex! :P"

I said: Are you serious? What kind of neighborhood do you live in, dude?

What kind of guy do you think you are? Nice guy turned bad boy?

Posted 9:44 AM by Blah blah

Whoa, I was really sleepy when I wrote that last entry. What was I SMOKING? Today's entry is scatterbrained, like a David Lynch movie plot. Don't try to connect the dots here. They won't allow it. TGIF everyone! I'm gonna go see Shakespeare's The Tempest with Lorena tonight.

1. I talked to Laura yesterday, an IBM manager whom I went to for career advice. Based on what I told her I like to do, and on my personality, she strongly urged me to get formal training in project management and to learn stuff like contracts, scope, etc. She thought I would be happy in a job in project management, strategic alliances, or business development. People have usually said I have more of a marketing personality because I am outgoing, like to build relationships, can mediate arguments, can negotiate, etc. Hmmm....in the meantime, though, I'm still gonna go all out for technology and see what happens. Kathleen, are you reading this?

2. I finally got off my butt yesterday and started to refurnish my bedroom to make it into a home office. My housemate and I went to Fry's and in 15 minutes, I bought a new desk, office chair, and tall bookshelf. I completely threw away my old dining set, with four chairs and a table, which I've been lugging around for years. Goodbye to that part of my life! Raymond is reborn. Now I gotta assemble everything, and as my housemate says, "It's a mutha!"

3. Christina posted some pix of her officemates, like Jackey. She also took some really cutie pix of herself with Cherry. Hey, baby...wowr..! :D

4. Key, that big Korean flirt in New York City, linked to me from her new site. Her old site. Hey, she uses the same blog software (b2) as Christina! (Kudos to Carlos for working so hard to constantly improve Rice Bowl Journals, which has a new domain name now!) "Masturbation is Key..." hahaha! (it's a joke on RBJ)

5. I took back what I said about Julie in my post on "What Women Want?" She wrote me and explained in more detail what actually happened, and I realized I didn't know what the hell I was talking about. I'm sorry she felt bad enough to leave the RBJ boards and will miss her insightful and funny comments.

6. I added Minnie, a Vietnamese girl near Atlanta at the U. of Georgia, to my reading list. She sounds very thoughtful, passionate, and mature. She even gives relationship advice to guys. Not to mention---she's a tease. Please drop by and say hi! Hey Minnie, I visited Atlanta a while back and got to watch this hockey game between Atlanta and our own San Francisco Spiders. Guess who won?

Posted 11:41 PM by Blah blah

Dear Readers,
We of Tiger Cafe are doing a customer survey. Basically, we want to know what it is that will increase your urge to leave comments.

Should Raymond move to shorter and simpler entries (a la Reader's Digest)? Or should he keep doing what he's doing, which is to write until he feels he has made a substantial point or given a good sketch of whatever he's talking about? He wants to know. His exhausted fingers on the verge of arthritis wanna know. His housemate, who complains that Raymond spends too much time on this blog, wants to know.

SHORT, SIMPLE, and SCANDALOUS vs. LONG, INTELLECTUAL, and a GOOD CURE for INSOMNIA?
Please vote.

If you didn't know, Tiger Cafe is actually the work of a crack team of ghostwriters (we mean "crack team," not team on "crack") hired from various places like: a Harvard frat house, the 5th grade detention ward of John Muir Elementary School, the prison debating society at San Quentin, and the shower room at an undisclosed San Francisco bath house. Raymond's face is not that of one man's. It's actually a composite of the faces of a bunch of 50-year-old Hong Kong singers' faces, smooshed together on Adobe Photoshop with all of their beards digitally removed. Saved us from having to pay for a model---our budget is tight. You'll understand.

Here are a few suggestions our Writers have made for increasing both hits and readers' comments for this site. Tell us what you think:
1. Post a great many naked pictures of Raymond doing something sensual like licking a corn tortilla. Remember, pictures of Raymond's body are copyrighted by Tiger Cafe Inc. and are non-transferrable. They are also Photoshop composites of those 50-year-old singers' bodies mentioned before.
2. Post a great many pictures of BABIES BABIES BABIES. Make up a lot of births in the blogging world. Take unmarried bloggers, stick random baby pics next to their names, and ask everyone to send them a gift and celebrate the strange concidence of so many closely spaced pregnancies with us. Mention twins and triplets for good measure. Oh...by the way...make the babies naked too.

So SHORT vs. LONG? Cast your ballot now! Four more years! What would bring you lurkers out of hiding?
Sincerely,
The (very very sleepy) Management

Posted 3:42 PM by Blah blah

Hey guys, try using my new TAGBOARD on the left. It lets you leave short messages and talk with others too! It's a tiny message board.
____________
What a concept! Feeding off rejection. Calling all unpublished writers: For a fee, Penguin Putnam will tell you how bad your manuscript is. (Salon.com)

More on those guilty pleasures: TV dating shows. Thy tight buns are like a red, red rose (Salon.com):

"I found myself rereading my favorite chapter in medieval scholar Georges Duby's fascinating book...Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages.

What I found was startling. The medieval practice of courtly love and the contemporary dating show format evinced shocking similarities. Both were pragmatic, schematic, erotic and vicariously titillating. Both seemed to follow rules and codes established by people far richer and more powerful than the young lovers. Maybe the comparison is a little far-fetched, but all other avenues, like my patience, have been exhausted. Then again, maybe I'm on to something big....Romance as competitive spectator sport." Think BlindDateBlog too, guys.

Posted 11:00 AM by Blah blah

What Do Women Want?
How to Show Them How to Ask for What They Want?

On Rice Bowl Journals, I added this to the topic What Do Women Want? Do YOU have anything you want to add or say?

Al Sug, you say you are engaged but still clueless about what women want? How did that happen?

Here are some of the main things women keep saying they need but are not getting:

1. Someone who truly listens to and tries to understand them. Someone who resonates with and responds to what they say.

2. Someone who is reliable and there for them. True friendship and companionship. A feeling of security and trust. A place of refuge from the cruel world where they can be totally open and vulnerable.

3. Emotional support. A cheerleader for whatever they are passionate about, even if you secretly think it's silly.

4. Someone who makes them feel special, appreciated, and unique in the world. Someone who likes how they look when they first wake up, with no makeup and tousled hair.

5. Someone who's physically compatible, in all meanings of the phrase.

By the way, I don't think this list is just for women. All men want this too! Also:
6. Someone to make them feel all woman (and feel more feminine). For men, vice versa (feel more masculine).

Al Sug, why don't you show your fiancée this discussion and let HER tell you what she wants and needs?
_________
It's easy to know what they want. To develop the capacity to DO it for them, time after time, is MUCH harder.

Cindy replied: think raymond's got the perfect answer. and he's speaking from a man's perspective too! see, there *are* guys who get it. :)
_________
Aw, THANK YOU, Cindy!

It's not hard (I think) to know what women want. A more useful topic for men is

How to DO What Women Want? and how to do it reliably in a way that satisfies them?

or

How to Help Women Ask for What They Want in a Way That Men Can Understand?

Now THAT'S tough. For instance, women sometimes expect us to read their minds and say something vague like: "Why do you never help around the house?" And you say: "Well I did this and this already. And you never asked me to help with [insert chore here.]" And they say: "Well duh, you should have known. Do I have to show you EVERYTHING?"

How do we persuade or teach women how to make their needs known clearly, just when they need them, and not keep quiet and build up resentment until it suddenly explodes?

Posted 9:59 AM by Blah blah

Sunday, I finally put in some time to do this exterior detail on my car. After a wax, rub with clay, and polish, my car is an incredibly shiny red now. It gleams like a toothpaste commercial---fantastic what you can do for only 80 bucks. A footnote: some idiot hit my car between Saturday and Sunday, when it was parked. I found this bent-in rear left fender and no one 'fessing up to it. Luckily, it was mostly bent in one place, with little scratching. I reached into the trunk and popped the fender out with my hand, and now it almost looks untouched.

Sally came over Sunday to try the jacuzzi. Hadn't seen her for a while, and she was making all these excuses about not being able to stand the cold water of the pool. I should have splashed her, but I didn't. If I've been in the jacuzzi a few minutes, it feels plenty warm to swim in mildly cold water for a while---trust me. This time I only got in 20 laps and had to go. We caught up over dinner. This Friday, Lorena and I will go see Shakespeare's The Tempest. I haven't seen Shakespeare since at least a year ago in Cupertino Memorial Park, and I understand that this is NOT a play in which everybody dies. All compelling reasons to go.

Saturday I will be hosting two more tapings of our political TV show, Straight Talk. For the first show I'll interview this woman Fran about social security. For the second, I'll talk to my friend Dr. Lisa about the laser tattoo clinic for street kids where she helps out on the side.

Speaking of soul searching and new directions for me, Christine in Taipei recently laid out her life history (and resume) and says she now FINALLY knows what she wants to do with her life: "I am very ready to settle down and commit to where I am today -- to my life here in Taipei (or wherever it is I may find myself...), to my friends, and to my relationships. That is what I want in my life." What the hell? You are as vague as a politician, Christine! (I met her in person last December.) Mona, very unique, is like a Philippine cousin of Christine's.

[Christine replied to me (HAHA):

VAGUE!?

Dood it took me 4 hours to write that!

I'm ready to commit to the "here and now" and
no longer wish to keep thinking about tomorrow,
moving back to U.S., thinking my friends here
aren't as "real" as my friends in the U.S.,
dating haphazardly without responsibility
and attracting THOSE kinds of men, etc.

How much more clear can it be???

Gasp!]

The company she is starting, Oriented, has been launching all of these publicity parties in Asia and recently had one in Palo Alto.

Remember this: The 9 secrets to becoming a millionaire.

I will focus on building up our business at home. That's my plan for the next month. No school. No more thinking or sensitivity or mush. It's ENTJ time.

Posted 5:02 AM by Blah blah

a Boy's view

Poor Rasee is having love problems now and feeling that pang in her heartstrings that comes from deleting a person from her life. Please send her your support.

Rasee, I am SO sorry about Bubbles and the Boy. You wrote one of the saddest and most touching entries I have ever read. You are too kind to pretend not to be deeply hurt, to not ask for the Boy for yourself. I cannot say anything to comfort you but cliches. All I can say is, you are too kind. And you mustn't deny yourself like that next time. Having the Boy ask your friend out for coffee does not mean he would not respond to your advances over time. I guess for you, coffee is almost like adultery. But it might not mean that much to all Boys. In pursuing a boy, victory is not always to the swiftest girl. It's like the Tortoise and the Hare. A boy may change his mind; he may wait to see what his feelings are with time.

I was once such a Boy myself. I had gotten to know two sisters at the same time. Both liked me, and I liked them. From a Boy's view, victory can be to the more compatible and devoted girl, not just to the faster or prettier or louder one. You don't need to give up so soon.

Next time, please don't automatically put yourself down and say you "knew" the Boy was going to go for someone else, ok? You have some very amazing qualities, and any Boy on your radio frequency can see that and will know your value.

Cindy is also in lovepain now too. Send her some encouragement!

Posted 4:07 PM by Blah blah

Bookmarks for myself. The Mercury News had a great column in Perspective about this and what this says about the decline of the classics and arts.

San Jose Symphony performs final concert. My city is now the largest city in America without a symphony orchestra. It's very sad.
____________
Be creative -- or die (Salon.com):

"A new study says cities must attract the new 'creative class' with hip neighborhoods, an arts scene and a gay-friendly atmosphere -- or they'll go the way of Detroit....

What that means for cities is that instead of 'underwriting big-box retailers, subsidizing downtown malls, recruiting call centers, and squandering precious taxpayer dollars on extravagant stadium complexes,' the leadership should instead develop an environment attractive to the creative class by cultivating the arts, music, night life and quaint historic districts -- in short, develop places that are fun and interesting rather than corporate and mall-like. It's advice that city and regional leaders can take or leave, but Florida contends that his focus groups and indices -- reporting the important factors needed for economic growth in the creative age, from concentrations of bohemians to patents to a lively gay community -- are more accurately predicting the success and failure of metropolitan areas.

By Florida's estimation, the top cities when it comes to attracting the creative class are San Francisco at No. 1, followed by Austin, Boston and San Diego, with New York coming in at No. 9. Decaying industrial centers like Detroit, Buffalo and Grand Rapids, and Southern cities like Memphis, Tenn., and Norfolk, Va., bring up the rear. However, the book isn't an ode to the survivors of the new economy or a utopian vision of the future. Some of the widening rifts between the creative and other classes are somewhat troubling, forecasting growing economic and regional differences. In the end, Florida writes, this will be another challenge the new creative class must face....

Gays are the canaries of the creative economy. Where gays are will be a community -- a city or a region -- that has the underlying preconditions that attract the creative class of people. Gays tend to gravitate toward the types of places that will be attractive to many members of the creative class. That said, a high score on the gay index, for example, New Orleans or Miami, does not translate into being a creative center, unless you couple that with technology assets. It's not that gays predict high-tech growth, it's that gays signal an environment that would attract creative-class people from a variety of backgrounds....

So in order to understand what moves creative people, you have to first understand that, of course we want money, we're not going to live dirt poor. But in a post-scarcity, post-materialist society, we find ways to feed ourselves. Some of us are even waiters and waitresses and do our creative things secondhand. And, this is the best example, some of us are software programmers, bored shitless at our work, so we do open-source software at our desks, while IBM or Hewlett-Packard are paying us. That's the way we get our intrinsic jollies. I do the work that I have to do to feed myself, but then I write books like The Creative Class. So you do the work that motivates you somehow.

Creative people are highly intrinsically motivated. Therefore in order to understand their location choices or their workplace choices or their lifestyle choices, we have to understand that they are choosing things based on intrinsic motivations....

They created a lifestyle mentality, where Pittsburgh and Detroit were still trapped in that Protestant-ethic/bohemian-ethic split, where people were saying, 'You can't have fun!' or 'What do you mean play in a rock band? Cut your hair and go to work, son. That's what's important.' Well, Austin was saying, 'No, no, no, you're a creative. You want to play in a rock band at night and do semiconductor work in the day? C'mon! And if you want to come in at 10 the next morning and you're a little hung over or you're smoking dope, that's cool.' I went to the Continental Club -- I was invited by Austin's leading political officials -- and we went to see Toni Price the singer-songwriter, and there were hippies smoking dope right there on the back porch.

The point is, this sense of having fun, being yourself, expressing yourself fully, is valued. But as long as people continue to try to prop up the downtowns, throwing money, burning money, by building stadiums and convention centers, it's not going to happen. [This describes MY city to a T.] Cities have become cities of ideas and cities of consumption. They are no longer cities of production, and people in Detroit and Pittsburgh keep thinking, 'We're going to have a headquarters, we're going to have the stadium, mom and dad are going to come from the suburbs and take little Johnny to the game, we're going to have retail.' That's just not what drives a city now. What drives a city we know increasingly are good places to live, great neighborhoods, great cafes, night life, places to have fun. Austin saw this from day one."

Israeli Device Detects Cell Phones Acting as Bugs