Sushi, Anyone?

Thanksgiving Weekend

Well what a weekend it was! From Thursday to Saturday I had a meeting with a client from 7am-1pm, then went home and worked on his project. I worked from 12pm-11pm yesterday, and now that my time to relax is over, I'm working as we speak. I feel a bit guilty for taking 10 minutes away from work to write this. Big things are definitely coming. I am going to jumpstart my career in 2 months.

Other than that, Friday was a very interesting day. Araks met my parents for the third time, and all my nieces and nephews, and all my siblings, and my siblings-in-law. That was probably a run-on, but I like the way it sounds. It was great. That's all I'll share because apparently some people have a very bad habit of turning words around and exaggerating.

Back to work, hug your parents today.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today, as we remember the genocide we committed on the Native Americans, and the genocide we commit on the turkeys, let's not forget to be thankful for all we have. I, for one, have the best family anyone could ever ask for. I also have great friends. Few, but great. And finally, I am the luckiest guy in the world to have the greatest girlfriend ever. She is my pride and joy. Happy 2 months and Happy Thanksgiving hun!

I started Thanksgiving off by going to a meeting from 7am to 2pm. Then came home and had Thanksgiving dinner with my parents at 2:30pm. Now, I shall continue working. Take care!

Adaptation

I haven't seen the movie, but I was just browsing IMDB and came upon this quote from the movie:

"Point is, what's so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. There's a certain orchid look exactly like a certain insect so the insect is drawn to this flower, its double, its soul mate, and wants nothing more than to make love to it. And after the insect flies off, spots another soul-mate flower and makes love to it, thus pollinating it. And neither the flower nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking. I mean, how could they know that because of their little dance the world lives? But it does. By simply doing what they're designed to do, something large and magnificent happens. In this sense they show us how to live - how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can't let anything get in your way."

Petals Around The Rose

The name of the game is Petals Around the Rose. The name of the game is important. The computer will roll five dice and ask you to guess the score for the roll. The score will always be zero or an even number:
Petals Around The Rose

And there is an interesting story about Bill Gates and this game:
Bill Gates and The Petals Around The Rose

Solving Traffic

Since I'm not in the best of moods right now, I'll write about something that really pisses me off: traffic. I drive to Irvine in 5 o clock traffic at least once a week, and it really annoys me how there are these people who are driving 20 mph when there are no cars in front of them. The slow drivers, the idiots on the road while on their cell phone (and can't seem to learn to do both), are a major cause of traffic.

Coming from the male species, my natural reaction is to try to find a solution to this problem. With my first belief in market economics in hand, I decided to come up with a solution. Economic wise, there are 2 ways to fix the problem: demand-side and supply-side. A fairly typical supply side solution is to widen the road. Sounds like a good idea at first, but it is only a temporary fix, and also causes more problems than it fixes. By increasing the supply with something like freeways, you encourage my demand. More people will be on that freeway if you add more lanes, since that will become an alternate route to some other congested freeway. The only practical solution is based on demand.

One practical solution is to issue permits to drivers allowing them to use the carpool lane a certain number of times per week. These can then be traded on the open market. If you want more days, buy it from someone who doesn't mind the traffic. Not a complete solution, but at least a start.

Another solution is more public transportation. We need a subway system, or another form of mass transportation, that will stop at more locations. Right now, you need to take a taxi to get to the metro, and then another taxi to get to where you are going after you get off (thanks Araks for the taxi part). How is that practical? More stops, more metros.

There are problems off the freeways too; most notably, in downtown. We should take some advice from Brazil and close off all streets to public access in downtown and replace them with busses. Yes, the only way to get around downtown would be via bus. Think it's a bad idea? It has created the most efficient bus system in the world.

Of course, at the rate of growth in California, none of these are long-term solutions. The problem isn't too many cars and not enough highway lanes, it is inefficient driving. People are tired after work and, for some reason, don't want to get home any faster. We need to improve GPS so that it is accurate within 2 feet. What will happen is that the GPS systems will guide the vehicles on the macro level. Safe driving, avoiding other cars, staying within the lanes, etc will be the job of the individual cars. Cars need to be able to detect the lines and reflectors on the highways and keep the car centered. New cruise-control systems already prevent your vehicle from getting within a certain number of feet of the car in front of you. We need to improve these systems so that vehicles will travel at 100mph safely on the freeways. It isn't impossible, and it doesn't require rebuilding all the freeways to include sensors to guide cars (which would cost billions). GPS is there, it can be improved. Let's spend some money on this and fix this problem!

The Strange News

Mother Charged After Baby's Arms Severed
With a calm, dispassionate voice and a hymn playing in the background, Dena Schlosser confessed to the unthinkable, telling a 911 operator she'd cut off the arms of her baby girl.

Wow! How could anyone DO that, especially to an 11-month old child? There are some very disturbed people in this world. Child Protective Services had done an investigation on her, but closed the case saying she was fit and stable to be a mother. Apparently not. So many children suffer because we don't have enough people checking on these kinds of parents. Child Protective Services in all states are understaffed and short of cash, and innocent children are suffering as a result of this. Can't we spend less money on making weapons and spend a little more on saving the future generation?

McDonald's CEO Resigns for Health Reasons
Charlie Bell abruptly resigned to focus on battling the colon cancer doctors detected two weeks after he became the fast food giant's chief.

Well isn't that ironic? I believe the CEO who died before him was due to health reasons too. Lesson learned: don't eat at, or work at, McDonald's.

The Duck

A big-city California lawyer went duck hunting in rural Texas. He shot a bird, but it fell into a field on the other side of a fence. As the lawyer climbed over the fence, an elderly farmer drove up on his tractor and asked what he was doing. The litigator responded, "I shot a duck and it fell in this field, and now I'm going to retrieve it."

The old farmer replied. "This is my property, and you are not coming over here."

The indignant lawyer said, "I am one of the best trial attorneys In the U.S., and if you don't let me get that duck, I'll sue you and take everything you own."

The old farmer smiled and said, "Apparently, you don't know how we do things in Texas. We settle small disagreements like this with the Texas Three-Kick Rule."

The lawyer asked, "What is the Texas three-Kick Rule?"

The Farmer replied. "Well, first I kick you three times and then you kick me three times, and so on, back and forth, until someone gives up."

The attorney quickly thought about the proposed contest and decided that he could easily take the old codger. He agreed to abide by the local custom.

The old farmer slowly climbed down from the tractor and walked up to the city feller. His first kick planted the toe of his heavy work boot into the lawyer's groin and dropped him to his knees. His second kick nearly wiped the man's nose off his face. The barrister was flat on his belly when the farmer's third kick to a kidney nearly caused him to give up.

The lawyer summoned every bit of his will and managed to get to his feet and said, "Okay, you old coot, now it's my turn."

The farmer smiled and said, "Naw, I give up. You can have the duck."

More Quiz Results

I decided to take the astrology quiz on all the signs to see how I compare:
60% Aries
47% Taurus
65% Gemini
33% Cancer
40% Leo
80% Virgo
60% Libra
100% Scorpio
47% Sagittarius
67% Capricorn
67% Aquarius
73% Pisces

Yup, that's it. Just wanted to post that for future reference for myself.

A Lesson About Sperm Whales

The Sperm Whale is the largest of the toothed whales and is the largest toothed animal in the world. The whale was named after the milky-white substance spermaceti found in its head and originally mistaken for sperm.

Sperm Whales have 20-26 pairs of cone-shaped teeth in their lower jaw. Each tooth can weigh as much as one kilogram. The reason for the existence of the teeth is not known with certainty. The current scientific consensus is that the teeth may be used for aggression between males of the same species.

Females give birth once every four to six years and the gestation period is at least 12 months and possibly as long as 18 months. Nursing takes place for two to three years. In males puberty lasts for about ten years between the ages of about 10 and 20. Males continue to grow into their 30s and 40s and only reach their full size when about 50 years old. Sperm Whales live for up to 80 years.

Sperm Whales are the deepest-diving mammals in the world. They are believed to be able to dive up to 3000 metres in depth and 2 hours in duration to the ocean floor. Between dives the Sperm Whale will come up to the surface for breath and remain more or less still for eight to ten minutes before diving again.

In January of 2004, a dead Sperm Whale, 17 metres long and weighing 50 tons, had washed up on a local beach in Tainan City, Taiwan. On being transported to a university in the city, gas pressure from decomposition built up inside the body, causing an explosion. Nobody was hurt, but blood and entrails were spread over several cars and surrounding pedestrians.

Homophobia Still Rampant

"Camouflage was in and cross-dressing was out at a rural East Texas school district after a Christian legal group complained a long-standing school tradition of reversing social roles for a day would promote homosexuality." (Yahoo News)

How incredibly stupid is that? Homosexuality isn't an airborne disease that we must defend against. A boy isn't going to say "Oh my God! I'm turned on by other men now that I've worn these clothes at school!" Of course, it was a Christian group that got involved. Hey! How about we gather all these extreme Christians and all other over-zealous religious freaks and send them to their heaven. That will at least fix the traffic on the freeways and prevent stupid lawsuits and legal actions.

In other news, Reuters reports that Bill Gates gets 4 million emails a day, most of which is spam. I guess none of us have much room to complain.

I received an email titled "FW: Andy Rooney's Tips for Telemarketers (GREAT IDEAS)." I love the ideas, so I'll summarize here (thanks Fred for the email):
1) Instead of hanging up on telemarketers, tell them to "hold on, please" and leave the phone off the hook. They will eventually give up and hang up on you, but that will waste a lot of their time.
2) When you receive junk mail that includes a "prepaid" or "no postage necessary" envelope, put some of the trash they gave you back in the envelope and send it off. They will end up paying twice for the junk they sent you, and they will have to waste time going through those envelopes.

I like it, and you know I'll do it (along with blacking out "In God We Trust" from my dollar bills).

Scorpio!

I got this from Violet's blog. I'm 100% Scorpio baby!

You are 100% Scorpio

How much do you match your zodiac sign?

Observations at the Gym

Kmart is buying Sears in a surprise $11 billion deal that will create the nation's third largest retailer. Now I know many of you don't see that as special, but I certainly do. Kmart went into bankruptcy and came out of it in 2003 with few people thinking it could survive. It scaled back operations, selling non-profitable stores to Home Depot. They did an amazing job coming this far in such a short amount of time. Props.

I haven't written here for almost a week (gasp!) because I've been so busy. Certainly not the same Arthur as last year. Many wonderful things are happening, as well as some not-so-good things (such as losing touch with many friends and relatives). Such is life.

Well I've been going to the gym for about a month now. It is definitely helping my stress level. The gym is such an odd place to be though. Two groups of people dominate the workout area. The first group is the obese people who look like they were forced to come. They sit on a machine, do a strenuous 5 reps at 5 pounds, then sit there like zombies for 10 minutes. Do they know that they will never look as fit as they want if they don't push themselves? And they always have this tired, horrified expression on their face that seems like they just did 10 laps in an Olympic pool. The second group of people are the overly buff men who spend 4 hours a day at the gym. They should bring tents, it will make their life much easier. Thriving on protein shakes and creatine, these people aren't trying to get stronger, they're trying to compete with balloons. I have urges to take a needle with me and taunt them until they leave. They make these horrific sounds when lifting weights, as if it's me that's forcing them to lift 500 lbs with no form and no real workout.

"Intelligent Design"

"With a vote last month, the school board in a rural south-central Pennsylvania community is believed to have become the first in the nation to mandate the teaching of 'intelligent design,' which holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by an unspecified higher power."

Now what kind of bullshit is that? The whole idea of "intelligent design" is fundamentally flawed. "The universe is too complex to have happened by chance." First and foremost, complex according to whom? What do we have to compare against to say, "yes, the universe is complex while X is not." Second of all, the universe was a one shot deal. Boom! A bang, and here we are. Maybe this sort of thing has occurred billions of times and a few times out of those many, life was created. We can't look around and say "WOW things are so well put together compared to the other universes!"

Obviously, one of the most common questions against evolution is, "where did it all start? The speck of mass that resulted in the big bang had to come from somewhere!" Of course, when you make the same argument against God, the common response is, "God has always existed." Real solid argument, real solid.

I have no problem with people believing in God, but don't try to rationalize it. Faith requires blind trust. Is that a bad thing? That's for you to decide. It's not the right belief for me. I need logic behind my beliefs. I need to be able to support them to myself. If you want to believe in God, go for it, but realize that you are giving up the ability to argue your belief with logic.

And if any of you Bible-crazed maniacs wants to argue with me, that's what the comments section is for. Don't forget, attack the topic, not the person.

Here's a well written, easy-to-read article (surprising, it's on Rotten.com, but no bad pictures or anything):
Creationism

On that note, all the articles on Religion on rotten.com are well written. Read them when you have a chance.

PS: Please don't argue that these articles have no merit because of the site they are on. I can find you the same exact literature on Harvard websites from professors (just not as easy-to-read, since they have to prove their PhD means something).

AHHH!

I hate people with really annoying random fake laughs or when people start talking to someone who is on the phone. Do they realize how incredibly rude that is? THEY'RE TALKING TO SOMEONE ELSE!

Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat Dies

Enough said. Biggest news item this year. This will change the Middle East. For better or worse, we shall see.

More Resume Highlights

Interviews are done, and I have decided on a candidate. She seems like she is fit for the job. Here is a snippet from a resume that I obviously rejected:

"I have strong math skills, I am able to make correct change when operating a cash register. I am able to talk to different people from different countries with different ethnic backgrounds."

Also, please don't use slang: "Helped Customers with their purchases and rang up purchases."

Use the same tense throughout your resume. Don't say "Greet customers when they walk in" then turn around and say "helping with inventory" and top it off with "Filed paperwork."

Even if you did the same exact tasks for different jobs, don't ever write the words "Same description." Find a way to restate the job with synonyms at least.

Oh and "To find a job that is fun" is not the best objective and not the greatest way to start your resume.

Tweak your resume for each employer. It's worth the effort. At the very least, and as I've said before, match the objective to the title of the job ad.

Ok, back to work.

Pearl Harbor

I was searching online for a map of Pearl Harbor (for no particular reason) and came upon a website saying Pearl Harbor was a conspiracy. Is it true? I don't know. But, after reading it, it's likely. What's scary is that it mirrors 9/11 so damn much. I guess Bush isn't very creative.The difference is the people rallied behind the president and supported the war. Although, in retrospect, it was just like 9/11. We attacked Japan really quickly, then moved on to Germany. I haven't fully read up on Pearl Harbor to made any sort of judgement, but I just wanted to post the link so you guys can have a chance to take a look at it yourselves:
Pearl Harbor: Mother of All Conspiracies
(if it doesn't work, try this Google Cache page)

No Longer A Teen

I have officially hung up my "teenager" hat. 20 doesn't feel much different from 19, which, in turn, didn't feel much different from 18. One more year until any and all age restrictions are done with (not to mention Vegas without having to worry as much). So what did the Chaparyan do to celebrate this momentous occasion? That's for him to know and you to hire a private investigator to find out.

Now I am sifting through resumes trying to decide who else to call in. Let me give you some resume advice. Make sure the Objective section matches exactly with what the employer is looking for. Don't write a preferred salary. Either it is going to be lower than that they had in mind and therefore will pay you your rate, or it will be higher than what they can afford and won't even call you in for an interview. Don't write stupid things like "got along with others" under achievements for college. Oh and show up for the interview. If you change your mind, call them and let them know you aren't coming. Be nice, don't want waste people's time [edit: thank you anonymous for the correction]!

Scientific research. Now there's a topic that pisses me off. Most of these studies are financed by companies, which means they start the research with the goal of proving their hypothesis correct. Even if there is no corporate or political backing (in the very few cases where that is true) the people conducting the research want to prove their hypothesis correct. It isn't human to be unbiased towards something you are spending night and day to discover. Any person will do their best to find evidence proving their cause, and turning a blind eye to everything else.

Ok, back to work.



Aurora Borealis by Ketil Monsen

The Big 2 0

Now that I'm turning 20, I went through amazon.com and created a wish list of what I want:
Arthur's Wish List

I'm going to buy some of these things for myself (and surprise myself?) in a couple of weeks. Janaa Arthur is 20 and he still likes toys!

Hovik!

November 3, 2004 8pm: Hovik was born. The 4th of the little ones, he is my first nephew. Weighing 7 pounds, 6 ouches ounces [edit: thank you Marina] and measuring 19 1/4 inches, he's adorable. I get to spoil another one! Yes!! Thank you to all the people who called or left an IM congratulating me. What good friends I have. EEK!

Election 2004

Well looks like another 4 years of darkness. Although Ohio, the deciding state, is still considered "too close to call" by CNN, Kerry has already called Bush and conceded. Voter turnout was higher than it has ever for any presidential election in the history of the United States. Although I am very saddened by the re-election of Bush, I am very happy that citizens got out and actually voted.

For California, Proposition 66 did not pass. It would have rolled back aspects of California's Three-Strikes Law by including only violent and serious felonies. I think it should have passed. It would have saved millions by freeing up our prisons of people who stole candy from a store 3 times and are not in prison for life. Proposition 71 passed, allowing $3 billion to be funneled to stem cell research. That's a big victory.

In every state that had a measure to ban same-sex marriage (Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Utah) the measure passed. Doesn't look like gays will be allowed to be married for quite some time. One interesting measure was Alaska's Measure 2, which "[w]ould legalize the cultivation, use and sale of marijuana for persons 21 and older; the state and local government would regulate marijuana like alcohol and tobacco; doctors would be able to prescribe drugs to all patients, including children." Sadly, it lost to a 57% No vote.

I shall still hope for a miracle...

Death and Taxes

Due to excessive quantities of caffeine coupled with sleep deprivation, i am going to give my stance on the inefficiencies of government. One of the biggest problems with the system is that there is too much "red tape" to cut through. Therefore, it takes an excessively long time to pass any form of litigation. Documents must be duplicated and mailed out to different parties, and an audit trail must be kept throughout the process. Senators and congressmen (and women) never actually read the bills being passed, relying instead on the advice of their assistants who analyze and dissect the hard-to-digest bills with language that came straight out of the 17th century. The California Constitution consists of 39 articles with thousands of amendments and legislative reports. The federal laws are even more complex, requiring roughly 3 PhDs and 92 cups of coffee to comprehend the basics.

It is nearly impossible to do a tax return, sales tax return, use tax, payroll tax, or any other form that ends in “x” without the help of a team of CPAs. It’s ridiculous. It’s wrong. No president has ever cared because they aren’t the ones who deal with it. They certainly don’t do their own tax returns. While I’m on the subject, the complicated tax returns also make it very hard for the government to effectively audit. As Herman Wouk said, “Income taxes are the most imaginative fiction written today.”

Privacy advocates: start sharpening your pitchforks and prepare for what I’m about to say. I think bank account information should be made available to the government. Any deposit will be considered income unless valid proof is attached stating otherwise (loan, etc…). We should also be able to deduct some expenses in much the same way businesses do. Why can a company deduct car payments while an individual must pay the same income tax regardless of how many car payments they are making? They’re paying sales tax already, so what is with the fanatic double, sometimes triple, tax levy? Damn them all to Canada!