Greetings on the Christmas Eve from Portland, OR. Hope everyone is having a nice break. Wherever you are, the weather you're getting must be better than here. It's cold and it's raining and a hard-driving northern wind is moaning and rattling the windows like we are being attacked by a gang of feeble zombies.

A positive development is that I have discovered a untapped desire to cook. The past few days my family has had the dubious pleasure of eating every meal cooked by me. The experience has proven to be so shocking that afterwards they walk around in a daze. Mother has been extremely encouraging, lavishing outlandish praise to my dishes, while Father has remained as neutral as Switzerland, offering mostly monosyllabic grunts that are up for interpretation. A big thanks to Dave for the great cook book he has given me.

I saw Lord of the Ring 3 as well, had a very good time. But in the end, I was beginning to suffer from epic-fatigue. Everything in this series is so . . . . majestic. When characters travel, they must take the most scenic route, always accompnaied by full-hearted swells of orchestra. When characters speak, it is always with a unrelenting portentousness as if behind their every syllable the fate of Middle Earth hangs in balance.("Pass me the salt, or else Rohan is doomed!") Every blade of grass in this movie is ever so conscious of being in a Very Important Movie, that you can tell they are hamming it up! I guess all of these goes with the territory of epic fantasy.

btw, current issue of New Yorker has a very interesting article about the influences of Wagner's Ring Cycle opera on the Lord of Ring. Verdict: despite Tolkein's protest to the contrary, it appears the Ring Cycle is a major inspiration for Lord of Ring.

I received my enrollment for my health insurance stuff after enrolling at work. Signing up for it was completely electronic though my employers web site, so I typed all my information. Now that I think of it, I don't think I even needed to type it in as enrollment was linked to my employee record in the database. In any case, it was all electronic. But yet, I receive my material today and notice something strange. While they got my address and last name right, they had my first name wrong. My membership card say "Guy Chang."

I'm insulted. I mean, if they were going to mess up a perfectly good name like "George," the least they could have done was at least give me some dignity. I wouldn't have minded if they made the mistake of calling me "Georgio," "Greg," "Gerald," or even "Cosmo" or "Geraldo."... wait, I take that last one back. Any other name would have at least given me some identity. But as it is now, I'm a "Guy." You know, the same referent for people you don't know but need a proper noun so that you can direct your message like "How's it going, Guy?" or "Nice shot, Guy." It would have been better to be named John Doe as no one ever says, "He's just some John Doe from the streets" or "Fuck you, John Doe!" Well, I guess I should be grateful they didn't give me the name of "Man Chang." Now that would have been bad, man.

(and to add insult to injury, I had this same insurance company when I was a child through my teenage years, so you'd think they might have looked at my Social Security number while they were at it to see if there were duplicates in the system. In the past, I was a "Sexy", "Handsome," "Smart," and even a "Nerd," "Geek," and "Dork," But I was NEVER a "Guy.")

Why do movie-goers feel the obligation to fucking clap? Like most people, I went and saw LotR #3 yesterday. It was a matinee showing, but was a pretty jammed pack theater. I can at least tolerate clapping at the beginning and ending of a movie, but there are just some pricks who think that they're the only fucking people in the building and forget that there are other people in the audience who aren't very enthusiastic about listening to flesh slapping flesh. Fucking simians. Unlike previous movie experiences, what really irked me this time was that there seemed to be some fucking person sitting to the back of me who would always try to initiate a clapping in the audience. There were almost half a dozen scenes at the end of LotR (after the ring is thrown into the volcano...but you already knew that so no spoiler tag needed) where this fucking guy thinks that the movie is over and claps just ONCE. I don't know if you've ever noticed how clapping arises in an audience, but it's usually one of two ways. One is that it's obvious, i.e. the end of a play/musical where it's obligatory. The second way that claps arise is during the times when people don't know if it's appropriate to clap or not. In this situation, there is an initiator and followers. Followers are the ones who have their hands apart, almost ready to clap but look around to see if anyone else is clapping before they start. Most people are followers. Then there's the Initiator who also wants to clap, but only claps ONCE at a medium volume thinking that "if it's not an appropriate time to clap, maybe people won't hear me. If it is appropriate [the Followers] will respond to my clapping." And just like the blind leading the blind, the Initiator claps, the Followers reenforce and noise slowly builds up. From there, there are the other people who had not planned on clapping, but upon hearing "everyone else" doing it, they start doing it too. If you ever observe a crowd, this is how standing ovations happen to.

Anyway, my little discourse into social behavior describes the situation at the theater I was at, except that the Initiator in my case was either doing it on purpose, or really wanted the movie to be over, or just a dumbass. Everyone else who clapped was just a dumbass.

I liked the movie though; definitely a contender for an Oscar.

All right, somebody shoot me if I see another news story about holiaday shopping. Enough scenes of zombie families wandering around malls, enough of the phrase "consumer confidence" and enough cool gadgets for the fat pig who has everything. Can't they find something more interesting.

Need some stocking stuffer? Look no further. Here is a excellent holiaday gift idea. It is world's largest book, available on Amazon! For a paltry sum of $10,000!

Now if only I can find a Texas sized coffee table to put it.

Back home from school at last. A Happy Holiday season to all! I did get a chance to read about the guy's bathroom experience, it was a good juxtaposition with the Gastrointestinal system I'd been studying in school.

Yep, that link is kaput, oh well. It was about a guy's unfortunate experience in a restaurant bathroom, the most side-splitting thing I've read in a while. In general, you're bored and need a good laugh, The Best of Craiglist never disappoint. It's a compilation of hilarious and weird messages posted on a general purpose bulletin board called Craiglist.

Anyone seen The Last Samurai? Opinions?

A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is leaning against the headboard smoking a cigarette with a satisfied smile on its face. The egg, looking a bit pissed off, grabs the sheet and rolls over and says "Well, I guess we finally answered THAT question!"

need a laugh? Try this. If you don't soil yourself, guarantee your money back.

Type "miserable failure" into google and see what you get.

I'll be the person this month to post:

Very Funny! (real video, 10 megs)

Please do not share it with everyone as I'll be killed for bandwidth usage, so be reasonable.