Allen Lew's Thoughts

So I was reading a friend’s Xanga site when I stumbled onto an entry about the relations of men and women. In it, she talks about how she believes men and women can’t be friends (though not altogether seriously). All I have to say is “ha”. I mean come on all of us are friends with some member of the opposite sex, right (if not, talk to me and we can rectify that easily)? Honestly, I can’t believe that’s true. I mean the first friends I ever made were girls. When guys still thought girls had cooties, I befriended them. To this day, I know many a member of the opposite sex of whom I can proudly call my friend and I hope I can keep calling them friends for a long time. I was curious as to how this could not be possible.

Further into the entry, there was like to a website, the Featured Website, called The Ladder Theory Master Page. I took a look at this and laughed, laughed, laughed. It is a humorous page (as it was meant to be) about a model for male-female interactions called Ladder Theory (which is supposedly a real theory which the webmaster explains in a very sarcastic fashion). In it, men have one single ladder where they place every women, attractive or unattractive, they’ve met onto a scale of who they’d be likely to have relations with. Meanwhile, women have two ladders, one for friend ranking and one for relationship ranking. Why is there only one ladder for men and two ladders for women? Apparently, it is, because men think about sex in every single relationship with women (be they attractive or not), where as women like to categorize the two. I don’t know; there are truths in the pages I admit, like male attraction being based mostly on looks. However, I don’t like the idea that I only made friends with girls, just because I wanted to have sex with them. I showed some people the site and asked a few people what they thought:

Funny Quote–mnk17fx (12:42:05 AM): hmm interesting, i was reading my friends xanga, she thinks guys and girls can’t be friends
mnk17fx (12:42:07 AM): yeah right
knightangel007 (12:42:29 AM): she needs to be introduced to me

Funny Quote–chichi8100 (12:48:57 AM): hey women dont go for money and power
chichi8100 (12:49:05 AM): at least not until after graduating

VickyD8183 (12:50:34 PM): omg, this is hilarious
VickyD8183 (12:50:51 PM): kinda accurate though

Check out the site and let me know what you think. It is interesting and I do love how they quote from When Harry Met Sally to explain this ladder theory.

(Did I just write a men’s magazine type entry? Wow, was right.)

I guess I’ll start with reviewing some interesting news over the last few days. (Yeah I’m bored)

-First off, Scott Peterson gets to move his trial over to a new county. Guess where his lawyer wants to go now. When asked, defense attorney Mark Geragos was quoted to say, “My top three choices are: LA, LA, LA.” Gee I wonder why; I mean you don’t suppose just because OJ Simpson was found innocent there has something to do with it do you (sarcasm implied)? I guess even after all these years, the stereotypes about the stupidity of people who live in LA live on. (Read the SF Chronicle’s article)
-“The Governator” Arnold Schwarzenegger has unveiled the new California budget and man is it a hard pill to swallow. I mean so many cuts and raising student fees. It’s funny how me and my old roommates were joking about Arnold being governor. Now who’s joking? (Read the SF Chronicle’s article)
-President Bush is calling for a mission to Mars in the future. I guess he got wowed by all the pretty pictures of the Red Planet. Seriously, as much I would like to see this, I’m not really sure how this can happen right now. Reading this Washington Post editorial, it states that the possible cost of doing this is $400 billion dollars. I love space travel as much as the next guy (okay a lot more than the next guy) and a big project like this can spawn a whole revolution of new technology, like how the moon project launched part of the computer and telecommunication age. However, it’s too much money, especially when there are so many projects to be done on Earth like those wars. You know the one’s in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the waistline. Speaking of being fat…
-Finally, You’ve Got to be Kidding Me. How about a car that can tell you if you’re overweight? Yeah you heard me. Apparently, one man has invented such a device. My question is why? I mean it’s embarrassing enough being told you’re overweight by your loved ones, your coworkers, and that fat guy on the subway (editors note: how did I come up with that one?), but once your car starts tell you’re fat, you’ve got major problems. Find out about it here.

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I’m sure all of us get them in out inbox. You know chain letters asking us to keep sending messages to help some poor kid or to spread good/bad luck around. I for one am getting tired of these things, as when faced with common sense most of the chain letters can’t do anything to us nor to the sender (except get us mad at them for sending crap). Everything I resent about them is presented in this parody of a chain letter (lj-cut for your convenience). Read on if you want to see (and laugh) all about chain letters.

Chain Letter Types

New Year’s is when people decide to start fresh and come out with certain ways they resolve to improve themselves, though for one reason or another, hardly ever keep to them. So I decided that I would write certain things I’d like to change about myself and maybe not hold myself to this year, but will gradually improve on.

I resolve to
–Get to know myself better: I honestly think I know some people better than they know themselves, yet I am not truly sure I know who I am myself. I know I’m a thinker and an eccentric one at times who can come off as really odd and/or really funny at times, but I’m not sure what else defines me. Plus, I know I’ve been acting in different ways to different people, so really I wonder who got what out of my personality and what do people think of me. More importantly, I’d like to know which aspects of my personality do I feel really are my personality.
–Finally finish one of my creative projects: I’m starting to get really tired of saying “I’ve been meaning to write…” or “I’ve been meaning to make…” this or that. Actually, they are kind of long and I manage to come up with so many different ideas that I can’t put them all down. Alright, I think I’ll try to write some where in between 2-5 stories (in particular, the first in a series of stories inspired by my first year of college) and hopefully produce that student film some how.
–Get out a little more: I spend far too much time indoors and not interacting with people who have intriguing views and ideas. I need to stop doing this soon or else I’ll end up complaining about it more and more. So for sure, I am going to call up people to study and hang out more often.

I swear I had more things to add, but I can’t seem to think of them anymore. I thought this entry would be funnier too, but it’s not. This is a good entry though and I think I’ll leave it at that.

Happy New Year to you all. Let me first say that it has been 4 years since I had this space that is my home in LA and I have failed to throw some kind of New Year’s Eve party. So count on New Year’s Eve 2004 at my place next year. Guaranteed.

It was family time throughout most of the holiday season. It seemed as though every relative I have came over to our house at some point, especially my dad’s side of the family. It was a nice time catching up with them, seeing as though I left a lot of them behind when I went up north to college. Strange how some things change as my mom seems to really like to entertain guests now; probably cause she got a lot of new furniture and stuff over the last year.

The last three days have been spent trying to socialize with my old friends from Lincoln. It again feels like I managed to everyone I ever knew at high school, which was cool. I went to lunch, dinner, and the movie Stuck on You (mildly entertaining I thought) with assorted groups and saw people that I didn’t expect to see again like Matthew. Also, I found out Pedro has moved up to the Bay Area and wanted to see me when I get back there. That’s pretty cool.

So all in all I was reunited with people from the past in the past three days of the past year. Now to await the future.

Interesting Fact-The verb “cleave” is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate. (source: Subprofile)

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Friday, December 19– I went over to my old high school to catch up with the teachers and the people I left behind like science teachers Austin and Paulson, math teachers Martinez and Louie, social studies teachers Zapata and Wong, and English teachers Fletcher, Schauer, and Passler. It was great seeing the place, but it’s strange how things have changed. Since I’ve been gone, there’s been a massive renovation project going on at the school. New paint, new tiles, new a lot of things really. It’s not finished yet, but I’ve been fairly impressed so far. It’s a major improvement over the old.

Saturday, December 20– I decided to hit the Glendale Galleria with my pal Eduardo. Bad idea. 5 days before Christmas means no parking, tons of people, long lines, and nothing but large or extra large sizes left. It was fun trying to find gifts for people, but sad not being able to find good gifts.

Speaking of which, these are the gifts I have received for Christmas so far.
-Foot Makeup from Bed, Bath, and Beyond (I have no idea why I got this)
-The Worst Case Scenario 2004 Survival Calendar (now that I think about it, it is a pretty good conversation piece)
-Chris Webber Sneakers by DADA (make a cool statement on the court, but makes the wrong statement everywhere else)
-CK Colon (I forget which fragrance, but it’s a nice gift)
-Magic: The Gathering Cards (don’t play, but I can pick it up)
-Gamestop Gift Card (new games here I come)
-Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell for PS2 (great gift except I don’t own a PS2)
-A few sweaters (actually a pretty thoughtful gift since I go to a cold Berkeley, though they got me a few red ones)

Lastly, on an odd note, I think it’s funny that www.berkeley.edu has an animation of a snow falling blizzard when it hardly ever snows there.

Oh well. Hope you had some happy holidays.

Funny Quote–Lewis: So did anybody see South Park last week?
Me: I did. Man was that funny… haha.
Lewis: Haha
After ten seconds of two of us laughing by ourselves…
Zinnia: See this is why you guys can’t date girls.

Help people with breast cancer by just clicking your mouse

Okay I just realized it’s kind of an annoying habit to write about things that happened to me last week or about things I found in the news in the last few weeks. Well, I’ll try to avoid it, but I don’t usually like short entries and I like using this journal as keeping notes on what happened before for myself anyways.

Let’s see. There were finals during the two weeks before, but in between that time on Saturday, December 13, there was a little Christmas get-together with me and a few friends. It was nice and quiet over at frat house, where we (roll call: Shoshana, Joey, Elaine, David, Jessica, Kyle) all met up, talked, and played some pool and foosball. The big event of the night though was David’s (aka Lucky or Flipper) engagement to Jessica who he had met in the summer and it looks like they’ll moving in together next semester as well.. Congrats are in order, but I wonder how they’re parents have reacted to the news.

After all the madness of finals was over, Joey, Elaine, Patrick Gallagher, Brandon and I went to see Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King over at Emeryville on Wednesday, December 16. There were some problems as parking was a nightmare and we overpaid for the tickets, but the movie was just so good that it made it all worth while for me. The movie seemed to fly by faster than the previous movies and I must say that I found it superior to the previous installments, making this definitely a must see.

The day after I headed for home in LA. Interestingly enough I ran into Shoshana along the way and found out we were on the same flight. That was surprising. Even more surprising was seeing Julie, one of Joey’s friends, at baggage claim in Burbank. We had no idea we were on the same flight, but go figure. Gee what a small world we live in.

Alright, I think I’ve blabbed long enough about last week. I’ll finish up later.

Hot Tip-(New journal feature) If you’re a Cal student or alumni and planning to go to Tahoe anytime, Berkeley sponsors a lodge with comparable rates. Check out http://callodge.rtbg.biz/index.htm for more info. (Thanks go to Imad for this tip).

Let me know if this is a good column writing style, with the You’ve Got to be Kidding Me and It’s About Time subheadings.

It’s About Time the NFL started to loosen up on a few rules it’s put in place. Now, I can understand fining players for excessive taunting like Joe Horn and the cell phone or Chad Johnson’s “Please don’t fine me” sign, but you fined Jon Kitna for wearing a baseball cap with a cross on it. As James Brown put it, “that’s just being asinine.” Not only this, but how about letting up on a few broadcasting rules. Like when a game is over, how about letting the networks show the game live? It makes the league more fun to watch the great come from behind wins of the game and it is silly for the viewer to have to miss the highlights as they happen, especially the play I address in the next topic.

You’ve Got to be Kidding Me-Talk about heartbreaking, as the New Orleans Saints needed a touchdown and an extra point to tie the game down in Jacksonville today, and with less than a minute to go, they needed a miracle one at that. Well with less than a minute, Aaron Brooks passed to Donte Stallworth who lateraled to Michael Lewis, who gave it Deuce McAllister, who then lateraled to Jerome Pathone for the touchdown to make the score 19-20, with what looked like a miracle play similar to The Play in the 1982 Cal-Stanford Big Game. All the Saints needed was an extra point which was supposed to be automatic, but instead it was missed by kicker John Carney and the score remained 19-20, as the Saints lost the game and their chance to make the playoffs. Now that’s just sad. Here’s the ESPN recap.

The year is coming to an end. There are some who like to use it as time to look back. Some like to look forward. There is nothing that says you can’t do both though. In this entry, I’m gonna talk about things I’d like to see happen in the next year, while looking back to last year as reasons/causes for these new events, trends, and ideas to come up. I probably shouldn’t have posted this so late, since nobody will read it now, but oh well.

–Enough with the sequels: Let’s see. We had 2 Fast 2 Furious, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, American Wedding, Bad Boys II, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde, Spy Kids 3D, The Jungle Book 2, Shanghai Knights, Scary Movie 3,, X2: Xmen United, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and two Matrix Sequels with the final Lord of the Rings movie on its way (though I wouldn’t necessarily call that a sequel, more like a chapter). That’s 16 sequels, far too many to come out in one year and for far too many movies that shouldn’t have had sequels (I mean did we really need 2 Fast 2 Furious). Oh and of course we had 1 prequel as well, Dumb and Dumberer. Now granted I saw a bunch of these sequels and liked them, but original ideas will get me to the theaters a lot faster. Now, I haven’t looked at the new releases for next year yet, but I do know Spiderman 2 will be out next year, along with the third Harry Potter movie, Barbershop 2, and The Whole Ten Yards. So, the trend continues on into 2004 and I’ll be grimacing at the prospect of more sequels.

–The Olympic Games: They are still the pinnacle of human athletic achievement and still full of great moments to remember. The real spotlight, though, will be on not the athletes, but on the site itself, Athens. For months, there have been several worries about the city’s readiness for the big event. Nevertheless, it will be great to see that NBC will have something in their summer TV lineup besides terrible reality shows like For Love or Money or For Love or Money 2. *shutters*

–Internet Community Features: Friendster.com has proven that people are looking to get connected to other people, whether it be old friends or just trying to find new ones. Soon enough, we’ll see more copycats spring up like tribe.net and others. It is not just these sites looking to connect people that will spring up, but old mainstays like AOL and Yahoo will attempt to connect people further, with there own personal services. I’d like to see some other mainstays take cracks at this and not just the portal sites. For example, more shopping sites should have a feature like Amazon friends, where you email discounts to your friends. Even Amazon could expand it’s Amazon friends lists with links to a messenger program or something. Just feeling the need to connect more people to each other.

–A Space Shuttle Flight: One year after the disaster that befell Columbia, it is time to put that behind and move onto to further space exploration. It’ll be an emotional victory for NASA to get the shuttle flying again so soon.

–The Lakers: Bill Walton said at the beginning of the season “it would be a disappointment if they lost one game.” Well, this Laker team with its four future hall of famers has already lost five games, but they look so good now that those might be the only loses they’ll have. In fact, many analysts say that the Lakers have only begun to play up to their full potential. Now that’s a scary thought for the rest of the league.

Well that’s all for now. There are plenty more cheers and jeers to relate, but for now this will do. Happy Holidays.

Two seconds of time isn’t even enough to type an entire word sometimes, but it is enough time to buy a can of food for the hungry, save a section of rainforest, and even time to help pay for a mammogram. Basically, some charitable people have decided to create Internet sites where all you have to do is click on a button and you can donate some money to helping out any of those causes. Take a look at these web sites, with charitable goals in the month of December.

The Hunger Site-This site is looking to donate 6 million cups of food to the hungry by January 1st and one click will give about 1.1 cups of food. According to their graphic, they’re at 3.5 million, so they’re at a decent pace. Help them go a little closer.

The Rainforest Site-An affiliate of The Hunger Site, they have the lofty goal of trying to save 75 million square feet of rainforest by New Year’s. So far, they have raised enough to save 45 million and every click saves 22.8 feet, so get clicking.

The Breast Cancer Site-Every click is worth double from now until New Years.

Also check out the affiliates, The Animal Rescue Site and The Child Health Site.

Finally there’s Campbell’s Tackling Hunger Site-Basically select your favorite NFL team, and Campbell’s will donate a can of food on their behalf. They are looking to gather 5 million cans and have so far collected 4 million. They are so close, so go now.

Cool Program–Simbrowser: Internet Explorer is a decent Internet browser, but it is a bit rudimentary and doesn’t have too many features. Slimbrowser is basically Internet Explorer with some new toys, including tabbed browsing (instead of opening up a bunch of windows), popup killer, form filler, auto logins, group surfing (bookmarks that open up multiple pages instead of one), and more. So if you want a more feature laden browser, try this out.