I'd have been a philosopher

In a conversation quite a while ago I was told that the only true motivation is self motivation. While I agree with the thought that you can't make someone be motivated, I think the person that passed this information on to me missed the point of the author of that quote. While it is true that only ones self can motivate one to accomplish a goal, there are motivating factors that cause that to happen. In using these motivating factors one can give someone else the tools to motivate themselves to do something. So rather than give up trying to get people motivated because, taken as it is written that is what one might do, use the statement as a starting point to draw your own conclusions and theories. I think that what the author of this particular statement meant was poorly worded and it failed in directing readers toward the truth, which is there is no such thing as selfless motivation. This seems to be the truth to me, but sometimes the truth escapes those who choose not to see it.

Facebook Again?!?!

In the past few months, I have come to like facebook. I have used it to check in on a few old friends and to even send a few people messages saying things that I was too young to have realized back in the day. So the real reason that I am posting today is that my Dad has signed up for facebook, as well as hi5 (Asia's facebook), and apparantly all other social networking sites. He is looking for 10 old friends. 10 friends that he hasnt talked to since 1975 when he and his family left everything they had in the world in the hopes of a better life. Just for some perspective, I looked up a friend from college and got about 600 results on facebook. I haven't taken the time to scroll through all of them to find Patrick, but I will after hearing my Dad's story. He gets 417,000 results. So now a few more numbers for you all. over 900,000 Vietnamese "went missing" during the years that we all in the US have learned to be the Vietnam war. Nine hundred friggin thousand. I have an uncle that did not leave the country (and by uncle I mean not my dad's brother, but someone that I would call uncle, related in some way but I am not sure of how). After the US bailed, the army came knocking and told most males over the age of 14 that they got to join up. So my Uncle refused and paid for his decision by having acid poured into his eyes, and apparently he was not the worst off of guys that didn't want to take part in the madness. So my point is, if they are still in Vietnam, they are 51 years old and may not have the ability to go online due to what happened to them or because they are in an underdeveloped nation. If they are able in those departments, what percentage of 51 year olds actually take part in online networking? Pretty much I don't think my dad will ever know what happened to his old friends. He barely remembers their names, but has lots of memories of being kids together, of school math team competitions, of soccer games, of hitching rides to school on tanks. He isn't looking to drop by their houses or to invite them out for a drink, he just wants to see that they grew up and made a life for themselves. I will never ignore or decline a friend request on facebook again. My dad has taught me, through this, that its not what you remember about people or a particular person that matters. What matters is that you should make yourself visible because of the guy that has fond memories of playing soccer. The guy that you didn't really hang out with, but when he closes his eyes and remembers being on that field he can still see you running in front of him at practice. You should join facebook and enter your school and graduation year so that guy can say "geesh, whatever happened to that guy?" and see. So join facebook or myspace or whatever so you can be found and seen and remembered, if only for my dad who is the guy that will never know what happened to any of his classmates. There were 120 kids in his class. He was one of 11 guys. After 5 years of looking, as far as he knows he is the only one left.

I'm Back

Funny that I have to post about buying a new laptop since my last post was about buying laptops... anyway I will be making the occasional appearance once again, on my new laptop.

Inspired by Josh...

So anyone that reads Josh's blog (linked to the right) knows he is a Mac and I am a PC. The most recent article that he posted over on his blog made me think about all of the similar articles and even some of PC's poor attempt at battling the Mac vs. PC commercials. Ok a little background info. A 17in mac book is about 2800 and a comparable Dell notebook will run you about 700. I was thinking what can you get on the PC side of the computer world if you actually compared dollars spent and not just processor power and hard drive size. Lets find out......

1.Dell Laptop 729.00

2.Surround Sound system 410.00

3.50in. Plasma TV 990.00

4.PS3 400.00

5.Wii 250.00

You could wire all of it together and run your laptop through your tv and surround sound system. And you would have just over 20 bucks left over after buying this. OR you might opt to buy THIS RIDICULOUS LAPTOP with twice the processor power as the Mac book pro and have 900 dollars to blow on really neat user friendly programs that will help you edit your bands music or organize your digital photos. You could probably even have Mac OS leopard installed on it and make the Mac-man really annoyed.

I was just thinking, maybe some of you are parents of teenagers. You could buy them a Mac or the 729 dollar Dell and THIS Mercedes from Craig's list. You would still have 71 dollars left for gas money too.

Going Pro

No no it is not Tyler that I am talking about, although his mother has done a fine job teaching him how to hit a baseball. This is about my uncle Allie. *misty wavy flashback* Nah that's just stupid. Anyway, when I was a kid my uncles always brought us places. Mostly to arcades, but a bunch of other places too. My uncle Allie has been a bowling enthusiast for, well as long as I can remember. He was unable to make it to Tyler's birthday party because he had a "bowling thing". Well that bowling thing was the city championship. He won it. It paid like 1500 dollars, not bad for 3 strings. So as the city champ he goes to the state championship. Should he win there he has an invite to bowl in the PBA. I hope he can pull it off because he really deserves it.
Another going pro story for you all today. My brother lives in friggin' Omaha. But the story is not about moving to Nebraska when you are in a rut. He drives across the Iowa border and hits the casinos when he has time and a few bucks to spare. It started out once a month or so. And he won often. Then he started going on Tuesday nights. He won most weeks, 5 of 6 or something silly like that. Last week he went on Tuesday night like usual, he won about $500. Then he went Thursday night and won $2000. He was kind enough to snap a shot of the slot machine and pixmsg it to me. So he was out with his girlfriend on Saturday and they hit the casino after dinner, $225. I told him that if he wasn't winning so much I might think he had a gambling problem. At work last night (Tuesday) he sent me another pixmsg......"Just won $1200" Are you kidding me? Who is that lucky? My brother that's who, because while he was waiting for the paperwork and to get paid, he hit for another $4000. So my question is at what point do you quit your day job and go pro? Also, is there such a thing as a professional slot machiner? I think he should have his business cards changed to T.C. Nguyen Professional Slot Machiner no matter what.

On Spelling and Grammar

So I have my email do an automatic spell check, not that my spelling is terrible, but because my typing is sub par. Anyway, I was wondering why there isn't an option to ignore something permanently? I mean EVERY time I send an email I have to "ignore" the fact that I mis-spell the word Tan at the end of my emails. For some reason I always want to spell it Tuan. Curious I know. But today I was annoyed at the spell check function. It claimed that I was incorrect with my spelling of the word "grey". I think I will get some support here, but if you think I am not correct I will just let you know now that you would be mistaken. Anyway, it made me think of all of the other words that I spell the correct way, but am corrected by the computer or smarty people. Light is the only correct spelling of the word. It is light yogurt, light salad dressing, and light (as in "Turn on the light I can't see a thing."). The word "lite" is a marketing gimmick that has only served to dumb down the population. Proof of this is how mis-spelling words for convenience or just for the sake of being different has taken over the internets and text message world. i dnt thnk n e 1 wnts 2 hv 2 reed stf lyk dis. Imagine the first book written in speed type. I mean it will save on printing costs and time, so u no itll hapn. And then where do we go? Stop teaching spelling and grammar in school? Or teach the fakey language as an alternative to actual language much like "intelligent design" is making it's way into actual science class? Either way, spell check needs to recognise Tuan as the correct spelling of my name, grey as the correct spelling of grey, and stop accepting lite as correct for anything.

This is how we do it

Today like most of the past week, Tyler had some trouble sleeping. He woke up 10 minutes into his nap, and proceeded to call for me. Normally I would just go up tuck him back in and tell him to have a good nap. But today he started crying and asked me to come up and snuggle him so he could sleep. "My teeth hurt,come snuggle me so I can sleep." My theory is he won't ask me to comfort him when he is hurt or sad forever, so I may as well take advantage of the time I have. Best part of my long day....... falling to sleep at noon on a Monday with my favorite kid (I can only say that for a few more months) curled up at my side.

Garden State

I like this movie. There is something about movies where nothing happens in any of the scenes, but in the end they all add up to something of great consequence. It seems that most movies I like have some profound statement about life, all told through scenes of nothingness...... I just connect with them. So if you have the chance, watch Garden State. But be prepared, it moves like The Station Agent. See it through to the end, and remember, it is the sum of the parts.

Facebook and the faceybookiness of it

Facebook. As legend has it, it's legendary ability to assist in e-social networking is the stuffs that legends are made of. And that my friends is just what I have found to be true.

Recently I broke my ban on Facebook and signed up for an account. I was talked into it when someone whom I know very well informed me that a friend had written about how they had recently been introduced to MarioKart on the wii. As I have also found myself addicted to the MarioKart, I needed to sign up for Facebook to look for other acquaintences with similar racing issues.

Day One: Sign up for Facebook, request my wife as a friend.
Day Two: Get bombarded with email (30ish) regarding friend request things
Get annoyed that my email was getting junked up
Day Three: Spent 2 minutes trying to find people that I know who play MarioKart
Tried to start a "Group" for MarioKart but found that there isn't a way
to restrict EVERYONE in the Facebook "community" from joining
Left a message for someone that I haven't talked to in five years.

I still haven't found anyone from my previous non e-life that plays MarioKart. There is not a way to search by geographic location or by interests. All I have found is that it automatically cross refrences your "friends" list with those of your e-friend's friends lists to "connect" you to other people you might find interesting. To sum up that "neat-o" function..... useless. Facebook first impression you ask? It is like the childhood game telephone. You know where you whisper in the ear of the person next to you and it goes down the line and the last person says something histerically funny that is not what the original person said. Yeah like that. So far it is useless, and if I tell a non-Facebook user that it is useless and they tell someone else, by the time it gets to the last person not on Facebook they say "IT'S SO AWESOME!"

We will see in the coming weeks if I find any use for an e-life, or time for it as being a parent of a little kid (turns 2 today) leaves little time for computing (aka wasting time on Facebook)

Money Does Not A Good Parent Make

I saw this the other night and haven't stopped thinking of it since. I often find myself leaving the TV on HGTV as the programming does not necessarily require you to give your undivided attention to it to understand what is going on. The other night there was a new show on called........... Property something or other...... or Realestate whatchamahoozie.... not important. The show is in reality format, and follows the life and work of Tatiana. She opened her own "Property Shop". She is a mother and a wife and a business owner. Good for her. Anyway, near the end of the episode, she was shown on the phone really late one night trying to make a deal. Then the next day on the phone trying to figure out why the deal didn't go through. Then in her office talking to an apprentice / protege about how to spend your time with clients. And as the show was ending it showed her getting in her car talking about being late for her son's birthday party. She walked in late to a place like Joker's where her son was celebrating his birthday with friends and family. And finally as the credits were rolling she was shown getting back in her car (son not in tow) talking about there being a master plan and that it wouldn't always be like that. She said that she did have a plan and that "it is not schlepping crappy properties" for the rest of her life. Okay. So the plan is to leave your children with a feeling of abandonment for their childhood. And then when they are off at college, or out in the working world, or have children of their own, they feel what? Oh Mom has time for me now, I should drop my stuff to spend time with her? Unlikely. I mean she is teaching them that her job is more important than they are. Having more free time when the kids are grown may not necessarily be the same. I bet that show "My Sweet Sixteen" on MTV shows parties thrown by wealthy parents trying to make up for the 15 previous birthdays that they couldn't attend or were late to. The kids on that show are generally the type that act as though someone owes them something........ maybe someone does. I am not knocking having a career, or having to work. I know stuff has to be paid for, I know sacrifices have to be made. What I am saying is that all of that time spent on a deal that didn't go through was not worth being late for her son's birthday. Even if she "saved the deal" and the business made all the cash, is that worth being late for your own kids birthday? I don't think it would be. Someday I will be able to look at my kids and say "This is why I chose to do things the way I did them..." and be proud of the example I set.
So needless to say, I will not watch "Property Shop" as doing so will only go to validate the example she is setting for her children.