Posted 11:10 AM by Blah blah

Please See New Links. Blog into TV Show

I've added many many new links and blogs. Please check them out in my left column, with the asterisks. All worth reading! The Homeless Guy, for example, the blog of Kevin Barbieux, a real-life homeless man in Nashville, Tennessee. He has a part-time job now and has been living in a motel for the last seven weeks. Here's the Salon.com article about Kevin.

Wow! Jeff of The Tin Man is blogging again! He was one of my favorite bloggers before he stopped last year. He's a gay lawyer in the New Jersey/Manhattan area. VERY eloquent and always thought-provoking. I highly recommend reading him! Welcome back, Jeff!

Susannah Breslin writes The Reverse Cowgirl (a sexual position, FYI). She was approached by a guy from MTV to turn her blog into a TV show. Here's her story. Not only that, she just started this audio blog about it.

The world is so vast. Other new blogs/links I like include:

-Anil Dash, technology entrepreneur and writer in New York City.
-Kelly, Singaporean girl and student at UC Berkeley.
-Prof. Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School, national expert on cyber law. He helped the U.S. government in its antitrust case vs. Microsoft.
-John of Sinosplice, the English teacher in Hangzhou, China, recently started this articulate blog in Chinese! Coming from a white guy, I'm impressed.
-Dave Winer, founder of UserLand Software, an alternative to Blogger. He writes one of the oldest continually running blogs on the Net. Involved in the creation of several Internet standards. Also writes Scripting News, a great source for his sharp opinions on the latest in computer technology. Many bigwigs read his blog, including Bill Gates.
-Bazima, biracial girl in Brooklyn, New York. Sex and the City in real life.
-Edie of A Mating Call in the Concrete Jungle, New Yorker who writes in detail only about her dating life.
-Julie of The Julia Project, cooking blog in New York City. Yummy!
-überchick, two blogs by two (Korean?) girls in NYC. Can't you tell I like New Yorkers?
-True Porn Clerk Stories, by Ali Davis. Something's wrong with the domain now. Articulate blog by someone who worked as a real-life video clerk at a porn shop.
-AtomFilms, one of the best places to watch decent quality independent short films on the Net.
-Crime Library, vivid and riveting writing about notorious crimes, past and present. Criminal psychology. Crime fiction. Excellent, but gory sometimes. Beware. This site is never boring.
-65535.net, place to pay for lifetime Unix accounts. I have a lifetime account at Berkeley.
________________
I write essays to get hot babes, a funny sarcastic essay by Alex Ayers. (Check out his graphs in Excel at the bottom.) Correction: he does NOT sign his own guestbook. My mistake, Alex. Sorry.

Posted 9:49 AM by Blah blah

Baby Pizza Delivery. Nicknames for me.

Haven't forgotten what I said. I am still reviewing those two relationship books in detail. In the meantime, please enjoy this:

All About My Vagina, by a girl in B.C., Canada. Detailed and amusing. Yes, I stumbled onto it by accident. No, I was not looking for vaginas.

Someone even translated this page into Chinese!

I sent the link to Christina in the hope of doing my part to promote sex education in China. Ha! She told me recently that she had barely learned anything about sex growing up and could never talk with her parents about it. Singaporeans have the same problem, right Diana? (I used to date a Singaporean girl.) When I was about seven years old, an only child, my mom said once:

"Mon mon, what do you think about having a baby brother?"
"For Christmas? Cool! Ok." I thought it was like getting a pet.

Sure enough, the baby came the following year, though not at Christmas. I thought you just had to order it from a big Italian warehouse. It was some vast baby pizza delivery hotline, where you call them up and say: "Is this Gino's? I'd like a medium-sized Chinese pizza please...uhhh...a potato spud nose, heavy on the cheeks, and hold the diaper rash."

Yes, my family calls me "Mon mon." Ehem. Now you know. Please don't call me that. It feels weird from someone who's not a paternal unit. Here are some acceptable names people call me. Feel free to think of something else that's cute.

- By my grandma: Lemon (she can't pronounce the "R").
- By Mira: Raymong or Raymo
- By my housemate: Raymond the nonsenchang. We don't know what the hell it means.
- Ray-Ray
- Sweetie
- Sunshine (I like this one!)

Posted 11:35 PM by Blah blah

225 Dollar Poem

I was such a dope today. In a rush, I drove to San Francisco without my wallet.
Parked in the wrong zone without reading the sign carefully.
Couldn't find my car later. Had been TOWED.
Had no money or cards since I had no wallet.
Called my friend for help but found my cell phone battery dying.
His sister works there and she caught up with me after work.
Let me use her BART ticket and took me home.
My friend will take me to SF tomorrow to pick up my car from the tow yard.
Total damage: 225 bucks.
Say hi to moi, the dope du jour.

Stupidity should be cured, says DNA discoverer (New Scientist): "[Nobel Prize-winning biologist James] Watson says that low intelligence is an inherited disorder and that molecular biologists have a duty to devise gene therapies or screening tests to tackle stupidity. 'If you are really stupid, I would call that a disease,' says Watson." Sigh. Too late for me.

Programmer bets IT lobbying org that it can't find job for unemployed friend. Oh I so identify with this. Damn the H-1B visa program.

Posted 7:11 AM by Blah blah

A very eloquent case against Bush's policy on the war on Iraq:

U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation (NY Times):

"The following is the text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Kiesling is a career diplomat who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan.

...It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and selfish bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer."

Posted 10:42 PM by Blah blah

Blogging comes to Harvard (CNET).
Lawyers Who "Blawg" (ABA Journal).

Dave Winer, founder of UserLand Software, received a fellowship at the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School, for him to help promote and organize blogging there.

Harvard Weblogs.
Duke, you and Esther (in Korea) would enjoy checking out the Legal blog webring.

Posted 7:02 PM by Blah blah

audioBLOGGER: Raymond Speaks!

Hey, want to hear my voice? I just tried this new feature Blogger set up, called audioBLOGGER! They give you one free recording. You call a number on the phone and they turn your recording into an MP3 file! I'd love to hear some of you too, especially those I've never talked to on the phone. Hear me:

audblog audio post

Posted 5:39 PM by Blah blah

Don't want to be too serious. Want to laugh? Browse through the stories here at Ananova: News Quirkies. Your life is SOO much better than some people's!

Couple still courting after 30 years:

A Brazilian couple have been dating for 30 years and say they have no plans to live together.

Rodolfo Sibin, 48, and Elizete, 50, from Sao Joao da Boa Vista, have been going out together since 1973.

They live three blocks apart, speak on the phone at least three times a day and go out for dinner every night.

Rodolfo told Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper: "I still have butterflies on my stomach every time I see her. It is a crazy passion I have for her."

Elizete added: "Dating is much better than marrying, we do not have to worry about day-to-day problems. There are less fights and you don't have to put up with things you don't agree with."

They are planning a trip to Europe to celebrate their 30 years dating.

Rodolfo added: "I swear we will get married in December, I just don't know of which year."
_____________________
Other sample stories:
Couple get married before meeting each other: "A Brazilian woman and a Japanese man who 'met' on the Internet have got married without ever meeting each other in the flesh."
German beauty queen seeking peace date with Saddam.
Suicidal man sues manufacturers after rope snaps. It's so Ally McBeal, yo!

Premarital sex becomes test case of China society (Washington Post). "Louis Lin and Mary Ma sued a university in Chongqing, China, after being expelled for having sex before marriage. Greater freedom in China is expanding sexual mores."

Chinese TV Series to Promote Sex Education (People's Daily). "In a move to break the nation's ancient taboo on discussing sex, China has started shooting its first TV series focusing on sex education for young people."

Posted 11:52 AM by Blah blah

Excellent post by Scott Rosenberg, managing editor of Salon.com.

Laurie Garrett and Davos: What do journalists really think?

"James Grimmelmann has posted an extremely lengthy and thoughtful piece on LawMeme about the whole Laurie Garrett e-mail brouhaha. (This is the saga of a well-known Pulitzer-garlanded science journalist who attended the Davos conference this year, sent a bunch of her friends a sizable e-mail describing her experiences, and then became outraged when she discovered that somehow one of those friends had forwarded it beyond her circle, and it wound up all over the Net.)"

Please read Laurie's private email. It's a shocker but makes great sense. She wrote about her trip to the Davos conference and what world leaders REALLY think. "Davos is the frigid, snowy Swiss town where the annual World Economic Forum--'Committed to improving the state of the world'--brings together everybody who is anybody (and an abundance of nobodies) in global politics, global business and global do-gooderism. In 18 hours a day we endured a battery of 260 sessions on business, economics, geopolitics and governance, including a whopping 55 sessions on 'values,' to plumb the world's problems."

Excerpt from her private email:

- The global economy is in very very very very bad shape. Last year when WEF met here in New York all I heard was, "Yeah, it's bad, but recovery is right around the corner". This year "recovery" was a word never uttered. Fear was palpable -- fear of enormous fiscal hysteria. The watchwords were "deflation", "long term stagnation" and "collapse of the dollar". All of this is without war.

- If the U.S. unilaterally goes to war, and it is anything short of a quick surgical strike (lasting less than 30 days), the economists were all predicting extreme economic gloom: falling dollar value, rising spot market oil prices, the Fed pushing interest rates down towards zero with resulting increase in national debt, severe trouble in all countries whose currency is guaranteed agains the dollar (which is just about everybody except the EU), a near cessation of all development and humanitarian programs for poor countries. Very few economists or ministers of finance predicted the world getting out of that economic funk for minimally five-10 years, once the downward spiral ensues.

- Not surprisingly, the business community was in no mood to hear about a war in Iraq. Except for diehard American Republicans, a few Brit Tories and some Middle East folks the WEF was in a foul, angry anti-American mood. Last year the WEF was a lovefest for America. This year the mood was so ugly that it reminded me of what it felt like to be an American overseas in the Reagan years. The rich -- whether they are French or Chinese or just about anybody -- are livid about the Iraq crisis primarily because they believe it will sink their financial fortunes....

- The Middle East situation has never been worse. All hope for a settlement between Israel and Palestine seems to have evaporated. The energy should be focused on placing painful financial pressure on all sides in that fight, forcing them to the negotiating table. Otherwise, the ME may well explode. The war in Iraq is at best a distraction from that core issue, at worst may aggravate it. Jordan's Queen Rania spoke of the "desperate search for hope"....

- US unilateralism is seen as arrogant, bullyish. If the U.S. cannot behave in partnership with its allies -- especially the Europeans -- it risks not only political alliance but BUSINESS, as well. Company leaders argued that they would rather not have to deal with US government attitudes about all sorts of multilateral treaties (climate change, intellectual property, rights of children, etc.) -- it's easier to just do business in countries whose governments agree with yours. And it's cheaper, in the long run, because the regulatory envornments match. War against Iraq is seen as just another example of the unilateralism.

- For a minority of the participants there was another layer of AntiAmericanism that focused on moralisms and religion. I often heard delegates complain that the US "opposes the rights of children", because we block all treaties and UN efforts that would support sex education and condom access for children and teens. They spoke of sex education as a "right". Similarly, there was a decidedly mixed feeling about Ashcroft, who addressed the conference. I attended a small lunch with Ashcroft, and observed Ralph Reed and other prominent Christian fundamentalists working the room and bowing their heads before eating. The rest of the world's elite finds this American Christian behavior at least as uncomfortable as it does Moslem or Hindu fundamentalist behavior. They find it awkward every time a US representative refers to "faith-based" programs. It's different from how it makes non-Christian Americans feel -- these folks experience it as downright embarrassing.

She writes a LOT more juicy stuff. Read it. I own her book The Coming Plague, about the new diseases and viruses like Ebola that threaten the world.

I agree with what the world community is saying according to Laurie, including the disgust with religious moralism and the frustration with the Middle East. Besides the heavy cost in loss of life and national reputation for the U.S., I mainly oppose the war on Iraq for economic reasons. Unless Saddam is planning to attack someone, we risk just more world recession and maybe depression if Bush keeps going down the bullying path.

If you want to help express your view AGAINST the war on Iraq, please go to the Virtual March on Washington, guys!

Just wanted to feed you some reality today. Tomorrow it's back to relationships!

Posted 4:09 PM by Blah blah

Why I'm Doing This

Poor Mira is having relationship problems again. Some of you might be wondering about me and my emphasis on relationships recently. It's just that I've seen SO many bad ones up close or been affected by their aftermath that I became super interested in preventing those problems in MY relationships, in MY future family. I am sick of the mind games and amount of tolerance people have for bad relationships. It's really shocking if you think about it. They affect not just you, but your future children and grandchildren. Everything. Think about it. We need to fight back against bad treatment! Of ourselves, and by ourselves of others. It pains me to hear and see all this disrespect and mental anguish people inflict on each other.

Posted 2:24 PM by Blah blah

Interview with John Gottman

How's your relationship? Quizzes from John Gottman.

Recent interview with Prof. Gottman in the Seattle Weekly:

A lot of love in the lovemaking: Avoiding chaos, relationshipwise.
BY MARK D. FEFER

PROFESSOR John Gottman is the doctor of love, at least love of the conventional sort--he's an internationally known researcher on what makes marriage last and what makes it fall apart. In his work at the University of Washington, he has managed to apply strict scientific rigor to what seems like the most subjective of areas, and he's popularized his findings in a string of best-selling books (The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is the most recent).

At his "love lab" near the UW, Dr. Gottman videotapes married couples as they go about a lazy day "at home" and monitors physiological signs like heart rate and blood pressure as they discuss areas of conflict. By toting up the "positive" and "negative" interactions, checking "repair attempts" during fights, watching for incidents of contemptuous behavior, etc., Gottman is able to predict the ultimate fate of the pair with over 90 percent accuracy, he says.

However, as a single guy, I wanted to know how I can keep from getting into a bad marriage in the first place. Wouldn't that save us all a lot of trouble? Warm and affable, the professor met me at the Grateful Bread bakery near his home to discuss the issue.

Seattle Weekly: You study a lot of couples that are on the rocks. And you talk about the four behaviors that foretell divorce--criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling. But I'm sure that, at one time, most of these couples were in love and gushing about each other. How can I know if my current relationship is going to end up like that?

Dr. Gottman: People used to think, "Well, you're in love, you're blissed out, you're not going to be doing a lot of real nasty shit, not going to be contemptuous toward your partner, not going to be disrespectful." Not true. If you keep going back and looking at relationships earlier and earlier, to the newlywed phase, the same variability [in behavior] exists for couples there as for later on. Even in the dating relationship--researchers have looked--the same signs are predictive. If you've been going together for six months, you can take a look at what's going on and decide if you want to be in that relationship or not.

So how do I make that decision? How can I know if a relationship is right or not?

First, what is the quality of the friendship? Are you guys really friends? In other words, is it easy to talk? Like, before you know it, four hours have gone by. It's really a lot like same-sex friendship. It's about being interested in one another, remembering stuff that's important to one another, being affectionate and respectful, and it's about noticing when your friend needs something from you.

Then there's the quality of sex, romance, and passion. Do you feel special to this person? Do you feel attractive? Are you really attracted and turned on by them? Is there a lot of love in the lovemaking? Does it feel passionate?

But everybody feels this stuff at first, don't they?

That's the surprising thing: People get married and they don't really like each other, and they're not having good sex together, and they don't feel like their partner's really that interested in them . . . they get married anyway! They're not taking a hard look at their relationship.

OK, but so what if it's really passionate at first--isn't that going to fade?

The common belief that passion and good sex start early and then fade is totally wrong--totally wrong. Passion can grow over time in a relationship if people pay attention to it. [In our studies of long-term couples] the thing that came out among those who had a great sex life was friendship--"We've remained really close friends, we're really buddies, we try to understand and help each other."

What about fighting? From what you've written, it seems like fighting in itself isn't bad, right?

Right. Conflict does exist in the very beginnings of romantic relationships; it comes out. [But] what's the balance in terms of destructive vs. constructive? Constructive conflict is about accepting influence from your partner, compromising. Destructive conflict is about insulting, being domineering, being defensive, denying any responsibility, withdrawing. Those predict a bad end to the relationship.

How do you get through a time when you're feeling distant, or you're not so sure about the relationship, or you're arguing a lot? Can you repair effectively? It's kind of a sense of confidence. You develop a feeling that you can weather any storm--not that you like the storms. Conflict is inevitable, but coping with it is a way of building the friendship.

Should I feel wildly in love, swept off my feet?

You'd be surprised what a small percentage of relationships have had that. Psychologists have called it "limerance," that stage. You're mostly just projecting on your partner what you wish would be there. And when we started interviewing newlyweds about it, couples who had experienced it didn't necessarily have better relationships. It didn't seem necessary or sufficient, except that it is so pleasant to go through. It's very good if you can build from there.

What else should I be on the watch for?

There's something called "negative sentiment override." You tend to be walking around with a chip on your shoulder, hypervigilant for put-downs, for ways your partner is saying, "I don't really love you, you're not that special to me." And if you're in that state, it's bad, particularly if you're a male, because that's something that is going to be very difficult to change. And it's really just a question of perception. Two women may be identical in how angry they get, but the one guy is saying, "Boy, she's really stressed right now, but it's OK; I get that way myself sometimes." The other guy's saying, "Nobody talks to me like that; fuck this, who needs this crap." What determines the perception, we've discovered, is friendship. If you feel like your partner respects you, is interested in you, turns toward you, then you're in positive sentiment override.

Why are we so bad at this? More than half of all marriages end in divorce. Are we just choosing badly? Are we just bad at being married like we're bad drivers?

There are lots of ways to destroy things, and usually only a few ways to really maintain things and keep them working. Things fall apart--this is the entropy idea. Chaos is the more likely event. It really takes a lot of energy to maintain a system that's working well.

Gottman’s Marriage Tips 101:

Since 1973, Dr. John Gottman has studied what he calls the "masters and disasters" of marriage. Ordinary people from the general public took part in long-term studies, and Dr. Gottman learned what makes marriages fail, what makes them succeed, and what can make marriages a source of great meaning. By examining partners’ heart rates, facial expressions, and how they talk about their relationship to each other and to other people, Dr. Gottman is able to predict with more than 90% accuracy which couples will make it, and which will not. What advice does Dr. Gottman have to offer? Below are some of his top suggestions for how to keep your marriage strong.

- Seek help early. The average couple waits six years before seeking help for marital problems (and keep in mind, half of all marriages that end do so in the first seven years). This means the average couple lives with unhappiness for far too long.
- Edit yourself. Couples who avoid saying every angry thought when discussing touchy topics are consistently the happiest.
- Soften your "start up." Arguments first "start up" because a spouse sometimes escalates the conflict from the get-go by making a critical or contemptuous remark in a confrontational tone.
- Accept influence. A marriage succeeds to the extent that the husband can accept influence from his wife. If a woman says, "Do you have to work Thursday night? My mother is coming that weekend, and I need your help getting ready," and her husband replies, "My plans are set, and I'm not changing them," this a guy is in a shaky marriage. A husband's ability to be persuaded by his wife (rather than vice-versa) is so crucial because, research shows, women are already well practiced at accepting influence from men, and a true partnership only occurs when a husband is able to do so as well.
- Have high standards. Happy couples have high standards for each other even as newlyweds. The most successful couples are those who, even as newlyweds, refused to accept hurtful behavior from one another. The lower the level of tolerance for bad behavior in the beginning of a relationship, the happier the couple is down the road.
- Learn to repair and exit the argument. Successful couples know how to exit an argument. Happy couples know how to repair the situation before an argument gets completely out of control. Successful repair attempts include: changing the topic to something completely unrelated; using humor; stroking your partner with a caring remark ("I understand that this is hard for you"); making it clear you're on common ground ("This is our problem"); backing down (in marriage, as in the martial art Aikido, you have to yield to win; and, in general, offering signs of appreciation for your partner and his or her feelings along the way ("I really appreciate and want to thank you for.…"). If an argument gets too heated, take a 20-minute break, and agree to approach the topic again when you are both calm.
- Focus on the bright side. In a happy marriage, couples make at least five times as many positive statements to and about each other and their relationship ("We laugh a lot") as opposed negative ones (“We never have fun”). A good marriage must have a rich climate of positivity. Make deposits to your emotional bank account.

Published research articles by Gottman.

Posted 8:07 PM by Blah blah

[Saddam] Hussein Interview Is a Coup for CBS and [Dan] Rather: First Time Iraqi Leader Talks to a U.S. Journalist in 13 Years (Washington Post). Wow. Good job Dan Rather!

John Gottman: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

Bought a 2nd relationship book recently. I highly highly recommend it! The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by John Gottman. He's a psychology professor at the U. of Washington.

Gottman rejects some of the typical things marriage counselors tell you, like it's better for couples to vent about their problems, that validating your partner's ideas in an argument is necessarily helpful, and so on.

So view this book as the more scientific alternative to Susan Page's book. I love it! Gottman actually set up this apartment at the university that he calls the Seattle Love Lab. He wired it with cameras, microphones, etc. and invited couples to spend weekends there and be taped and studied from 9 am to 9 pm each day. No bedroom recordings. He tried his best to more scientifically see what patterns he could find in happy couples' behavior vs. disastrous couples'. His group studied several THOUSAND volunteer couples.

He says he can predict divorce.

Gottman says:

I am now able to predict whether a couple will stay happily together or lose their way. I can make this prediction after listening to the couple interact in our Love Lab for as little as five minutes!...[In] 91 percent of the cases...time has proven me right. These predictions are not based on my intuition or preconceived notions of what marriage "should" be, but on the data I've accumulated over years of study.

I've skimmed this book, and trust me, it makes a GREAT deal of sense! After Susan Page's book, I will profile Gottman's. Again, I appreciate all feedback from you.

Posted 9:14 AM by Blah blah

You must read this juicy juicy dating story which happened last Friday night to Edie, the woman who blogs solely about her dating life in New York City. Hope she finds him again!

Susan Page: How to Make Your Relationship Thrive (Part 1)

Raymond turns Oprah again. I just bought this book, The 8 Essential Traits of Couples Who Thrive, by Susan Page. I don't often buy relationship books, but her first few chapters made a lot of sense, so I decided to really study this book. The next few days, I'm gonna skin, gut, and digest this book for you. Right here!

Susan's bio. From this page of her site:

"Q: Susan, what makes your books so different from other books about relationships?

A: Two qualities distinguish my work:

First, most information about relationships is written by psychologists who spend their time with dysfunctional, unhappy couples or singles. I studied happy couples to see if I could find qualities or behavior that they all have in common. I uncovered a gold mine. These are qualities you won’t read about in other books, because troubled couples don’t have them, yet they are qualities we can all learn!

Second, my books do not emphasize communication skills but focus instead on loving actions and gentle experiments that can transform your relationship more quickly and with less effort."

What makes Tiger Cafe unique is I go deeper than most blogs. I assume you have a brain and a longer attention span. But I always try to keep it fun and interesting. I just ask today that you write me feedback on what YOU think about Susan's ideas. Many of you come here daily but never write me. I don't know who you are. Let's have a two-way dialogue for this book. Maybe I'll ask permission to post something you said. Then we all can learn from each others' stories. Fair? Ok, let's go!
_____________________
How do we make our relationships last? And not just last, but be fun, vibrant, and evolving? Most of us want this. I do. How do we deal with the biggest problem of most relationships: the dreaded "changing my partner"? Susan says we need to stop trying to change our partners and start changing ourselves and our approach to them.

So going into Susan's book, I hope we can find a way to be creative about relationships. To find the win-win solution. To kill nagging and all of those psycho-childhood feelings from our equation.

The 8 Essential Traits of Couples Who Thrive:

Table of Contents

Trait 1: Desire, Belief, and Commitment
Trait 2: Goodwill
Trait 3: Clear Values Part A: Time
Trait 3: Clear Values Part B: Aliveness
Trait 4: Boundaries
Trait 5: Perspective
Trait 6: Relationship-Enhancing Communication
Trait 7: Intimacy
Trait 8: Pleasure Part A: Sex
Trait 8: Pleasure Part B: Passion
Creating a Thriving Marriage in a Troubled World

Stay tuned! And please write me (I won't nag).

Posted 3:41 PM by Blah blah

From Science Blog:

- Study: People Can Be Led to Believe They Experienced the Improbable (UC Irvine): "During a recent study of memory recall and the use of suggestive interviewing, a cognitive psychologist successfully planted false memories in volunteers of several study groups -- memories that included such unlikely events as kissing frogs, shaking hands with Bugs Bunny at Disneyland, and witnessing a demonic possession. Her success at planting these memories challenge the argument that suggestive interviewing may reliably prompt real memories instead of planting false ones."

- Nation's brightest increasingly shun science (U. of Washington): "America's top college graduates increasingly reject careers in science and engineering, researchers have found, raising concerns about America's technological future. Faced with the prospect of low-paid apprenticeships and training lasting a decade or more – and constricted job opportunities even after that – more of the brightest young Americans are instead pursuing the quicker and surer payoffs offered by business and certain professions, according to the Washington study. 'With the notable exception of biological sciences, many of the top U.S. students with potential to become scientists are turning toward other career paths,' said one of the study's co-authors."

I completely identify with the sentiment to leave science. Or at least research. I originally wanted to be a scientist. But the reality of working in science changed that. And maybe for engineering as well, nowadays.

- Self-control comes in limited quantities, must be replenished

Kid's Love Letter

Ernie pointed us to these funny episodes in the blog world:

From the LiveJournal Drama Files, a place where LiveJournal users post their favorite twisted Net drama from LJ, we have this...

Jonathan's love letter.

Awwwww....so adorable!

Posted 11:53 AM by Blah blah

Hollyblog: Are movie bloggers part of weblogging's natural evolution, or just a sign that another cool Net thing has been co-opted? (Salon.com) Oh wow! The girl who's writing this movie blog mentioned, a record of the making of the film I Love Your Work, is one of our Bay Area bloggers: Helen Jane! She participated in Ernie's Blind Date Blog and was MY favorite from there. She's very cool. Helen Jane actually gets PAID to write this movie blog. She got the offer last year.

Another thing: this movie is being produced by Josh, head of an indie film company called Cyan Pictures (also a blog). Josh is a 23/24 year old wunderkind from Yale who also was a player in Blind Date Blog. Ah, I see how Helen Jane got the job!

The Pianist Wins Best Film & Best Director in Both Britain AND France!

The Pianist Wins at British Film Awards (AP)!

The Pianist, Roman Polanski's searing film about a young Polish musician's fight for survival during the Holocaust, won best film Sunday at the British Academy Film Awards. Polanski also took best director....

Polanski, the Paris-born Polish director, was a mighty presence at the ceremony even in his absence. The film's American star, Adrien Brody, accepted the best director prize on Polanski's behalf, saying he was "brilliant filmmaker ... (who) over time has had an enormous amount of loss in his life."

A child of the Holocaust, Polanski, 69, later suffered the murder of first wife Sharon Tate in 1969.

"I appreciate you, Roman," Brody said, "and you deserve this."

The Pianist also won seven Cesar awards in France, including best film and best director, on Saturday. [The film also won Best Actor for Adrien Brody.]

Didn't I tell you it was the best movie of 2002? *Blows knuckles* Next mountain to climb: The Oscars!

What makes the win for Roman Polanski even more laden with soap opera meaning is that Polanski is in exile from the United States. He fled to Paris in 1978 after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13 year old girl, which is a felony. If he ever sets foot back in the U.S., any policeman could arrest him for sentencing in Los Angeles. Sad that a great director like him has had this Sword of Damocles hanging over his head for 25 years. The Pianist was my first Polanski film, and I adored it. I think people should view his work completely separate from his personal life. The victim, "Samantha Geimer...dropped a civil suit filed against Polanski in 1990. Geimer told the Times of London in 1997 that she believed the filmmaker should be pardoned."

Polanski Victim Speaks Out on His Behalf (AP)

So The Pianist incorporates not only Wladyslaw Spzilman's drama, but Polanski's personal struggle with his demons as well. Watch it or suffer the wrath of Raymond.
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ARRRGH! I am really fed up with Blogspot recently. I can't get my archives page to publish properly for the last two weeks, and sometimes it goes to a error page when I try to reach my archives. For two weeks I have no archives, and then I tried changing the setting from weekly to monthly. After setting MONTHLY archives, I finally got my WEEKLY archives back. Are any of you having the same problems? C'mon Evan, give us some news on what's going on, at least.

Posted 6:08 PM by Blah blah

Roller Hockey

Six weeks ago, I couldn't even brake. Now, my rollerblading has improved enough that we starting playing hockey yesterday! We practiced manuvering the puck down the rink smoothly, pivoting around it at the ends, passing to another guy, and shooting for the goal.

Saw my first testosterone-laden roller hockey game tonight, at Rollin' Ice. Patrick, my blading teacher, invited me to watch his "gray team" play a "yellow team." Four players plus a goalie play on each side at any time. (If a team fouls, the referee makes them play with only three players for a while.) Play is blindingly fast, aggressive, and dramatic. Guys, usually tall, sprint at full speed on wheels down a white tile-covered rink. They joust with their sticks for the slippery puck. *BOOM BOOM* go the clear plastic walls as the pair slam into them again and again. Players do quick fakes, bouncing the puck off of their skates to distract their opponents' eyes. They rocket towards the edge of the rink with an opponent hot on their tail, then flip direction and chop the puck back. They dribble their pucks like we toss salad.

The Official USA Hockey InLine Playing Rules.

Each half of the San Jose game was 22 minutes. Only 22 you ask? Five minutes of play seems like a hour, based on the amount of *BOOM*s, clashes, reversals, HURRAHs, and goals. The game is so exhausting that players stay on the rink for periods of up to two minutes before rotating out. I didn't see any deliberate violence. Just once during the game, guys from the next rink started a short fight, which I missed.

The game starts badly for Patrick's side. He is #10 and plays defense at first. During the first 10 minutes, the yellow team already whops in three to four goals by the valiant goalie. I talk to this 40-50-ish guy next to me, also watching. His intense son, #88 on the yellow team, is their lead scorer, socking in three goals.

"How did your son get started? He watched you play?" I say.

"Actually, I got hooked by watching HIM play," says the dad. "I was taking him to league practices five years ago, when out walks this fat, balding, sweating guy. I thought, if HE can play, then dammit I can too! Now I LOVE it." Father and son play and love both ice and roller hockey. Says you can use a lot of the same tricks from ice hockey in roller hockey. With your sharp blades, doing a slashing stop is easier with ice hockey.

"Your son is fantastic!" I say.

"He just needs to watch his temper. He has an anger management problem. I try to make sure he makes it through a game without a fight."

Just when I start to feel sorry for the gray team, they score. Exhausted teammates raise their sticks with a whoop and rub the scorer on the head with their fat gloves. But most of the action in the first half happens on the gray team's side of the rink. The yellow team passes more smoothly, and I see at least 10-20 battles around the gray team's poor goalie. Several times they attack him from maybe three meters away, shooting right at his groin. He makes several brave saves. Then BUZZ goes the clock. First half score: 4-3, yellow team leads.

After a two minute intermission, they switch sides and start again. Patrick plays more offense this time. And his team scores! He ends up battling #88 several times, trying every trick in the book to trap the puck. His teammates fail to receive his passes effectively, missing his lead several times. Now the action balances more to the yellow team's half of the rink. I am pumped, standing up the whole game. I rush from one end to the other, my face glued to the plastic. The gray team has a shorter Asian guy, a very aggressive forward. Once, he ducks around several yellow players with no help from his teammates, charging the goal. When they whack the puck back, he rushes and steals it. BUZZ! Game is over, won by the yellow team, 8-6. The gray team put up a valiant fight, but the yellow team passed and worked together better.

Hockey is faster than soccer, with more drama, and a feast for your eyes. I think I'm getting hooked!
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Yesterday I produced and directed my last two episodes of our political TV talk show. The first show was about domestic violence. We talked about a nonprofit organization here called WATCH, which helps battered women and provides temporary housing (Homesafe) for them. My friend M volunteers for them and she introduced me to Homesafe last year. I took the 10 hours of training and volunteered for some time as well, taking care of and tutoring kids whose moms were going to counseling. Kids are fun, but these kids may have been emotionally or physically abused and required extra care. Anyway, when thinking of whom to bring on our next show, I decided to give them some publicity, since I really support what they do.

For the 2nd show, we had guests from Health Care for All-Californians, a political group that is fighting to get single payer health insurance passed in the state legislature. The bill is sponsored by state Senator Sheila Kuehl and is called Senate Bill 921, the Health Care for All Californians Act.

I've been producing this show for over a year and a half I think. The staff of the TV station were really cool, offering to help me with any questions I may have about TV production in the future.
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From Ida:

"One of Aesop's fables tells the decidedly kinky tale of the North Wind and the Sun, who were arguing over which was more powerful. To end the debate, they decided to see who could strip the wayfaring man walking below them of his clothes the fastest. The North Wind blew with all its might, but the man just pulled his jacket tighter. Then the sun shone its genial rays warmly on the man and he ended up getting butt naked and hopping in a nearby stream to cool off.

The moral of the story? Be the sun."
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Coming up: The 8 Essential Traits of Couples Who Thrive, by Susan Page. Raymond turns Oprah again.