unteins

09:17 pm: I wonder if Martin Luther King Junior is rolling over...
Barack Obama is a tragedy in the Greekest of sense.

I can't help but cringe at the awful irony that on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr. speaking these words:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

that Barack Obama is consolidating his run for President on exactly the opposite. Sure, he can claim African American status (so can I, go ask the Census Bureau, it all depends on my sociopolitcal self-identification). but really, if he didn't look African American would anyone believe him? If he looked like his white mother, would anyone be touting his nomination as the first African American? I highly doubt it.

It really is a rather unpleasant turn of events.

11:18 pm: Design for SoMuchGeek.com
I need to get a design together for SoMuchGeek.com. It has suffered too long with craptastic visual style.

Anyone know anyone who might want to take a crack at this? I have at the very least a 5 lb. sack of potatoes to offer in barter...

That is all.

02:00 am: Konichiwa from Tokyo
Hey I am posting, that doesn't happen too often these days. Who knew having a kid chewed up so much of your free time. Or getting an MBA. Madness I tell you.

Anyway, I am in Tokyo (if you didn't figure that out, you can stop reading now). While in Tokyo I took an iq test at iqleague.com. According to said test I am the second smartest human being in Tokyo. If only I could find the smartest guy and ninja him, then I would be #1. (According to a local the fact that the test was in English may have something to do with my awesome score. I ninja'ed the local for such nonsense).

I went to Tokyo Disney Resort (if you didn't guess that, uhm, you can also stop reading now) which was teh awesome. Much better thank Hong Kong Disneyland (which I went to last week, but it kinda sucked). I lost my hat, totally bummed about that. It was super disguise for foreign travel so no one would know I was American and would mistake me for a Canadian. Enjoy my hat whoever has it now. If I catch you, I will send MANY ninja.

Cruised around, rode rides, bought tons of junk. Now to terrorize the rest of the city. Maybe I will unleash an army of ninja on Tokyo. That would be a pretty good plan, if I had an army of ninja. I will have to settle for threatening to unleash a ninja army. HA! BEWARE!

I shot a ton of pictures while on my trip. I will have to sort and cull them so I can post them. I have pictures of Thai Kickboxing that are pretty cool. I will post those later too. The kickboxing was in Bangkok, not Hong Kong or Tokyo Disney, just to clarify.

That's about all.

Peas!

09:57 pm: If you're going to San Francisco...
We went to San Francisco today to go to WonderCon 2008 today. Rumor had it (and it turned out to be true) that a certain LJer was going to be there, so we wanted to drop by and say hi.

We met smarbaby and uterdic at WonderCon, which was pretty cool. smarbaby's stuff is cuter in person than on the web. She was very nice and painted a cute little monkey (dare I say love monkey? there were hearts involved) for our daughter Maddie who is 6 months old. She now owns more original comic art than I do. uterdic was being a good husband and scaring off all the stalkers, so we didn't stay too long, just in case.

Then we went a few blocks away to a Red Egg and Ginger party for my classmate's child. That was fun, we ate, we chatted and another one of my classmate's gave me a huge compliment....yay me.

I also took a bunch of pictures, which, hopefully I will get posted soonish...as in the next day or two soonish.

Anyway, that's about it. Thanks again to smarbaby for the monkey, I'm sure Maddie will love it, someday.

07:45 pm: Super Awesome Christmas Gifts
My super awesome wife braja got me a Canon 5D for Christmas and I have a super awesome Canon printer waiting back in CA for me (too big to take to NJ).

Anyway, she rocks, the camera rocks, pretty awesome all around.

I was able to replace her engagement ring this year, which was stolen in a robbery last year a little before Thanksgiving. So that is pretty awesome too.

All around, mucho fun. The kiddo has a giant pile of crappola to get back to CA (ok, most of it will be returned in NJ and repurchased in CA, but still).

Life is good.

Happy ChristmaKwanzika or Wintereenmas, you know, or whatever other freaky thing you might celebrate this time of year :)

12:03 am: If only I was updating with better news...
My grandmother died today at about 9:30 pm Pacific Time. She had fallen Thanksgiving Morning at the residential care facility she lived at in Oregon. She broke her leg in several places, initially they thought they might perform surgery, but she had an incident on the way to OR so they put her on observation and Morphine.

She passed away relatively peacefully as I understand. My mom wasn't able to make it there in time to say good bye.

My daughter is being baptised tomorrow morning at 9:30. Weird.

09:11 pm: Pixar Connections
So, I am trying to get an MBA and one of our assignments is to do a culture study of a company (in the San Francisco Bay Area, since we need to do an onsite visit). My team has decided that we'd like to study Pixar, but none of us has any connections to get in the door.

So, if any of you have a connection at Pixar and would be willing to help out, leave me a comment with how to get in touch with you to discuss details.

10:52 pm: A Bada$$ among Bada$$eS
Yeah baby, that's what I am talking about. Bring it on and face your doom!

Megatron 40 Allegiance, 68 Power, 52 Aggression, 38 Intelligence

The Decepticons' most legendary leader, you are Megatron! You know what you want and you will take it by force. Negotations and other such foolishness are tools for the weak. Conquest of everything in your path is your birthright, and you intend to take full advantage of it! Weapons: Fusion cannon Transformation: Walther P-38

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on Allegiance You scored higher than 99% on Power You scored higher than 99% on Aggression You scored higher than 99% on Intelligence

Link: The Generation 1 Transformers Test written by Hooper_X on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Clicky clicky!

Tags: life

09:59 am: Blockbuster Online and Reviews
So we signed up for a trial of Blockbuster Online the other day and so far, it has been pretty decent. We've gotten a handful of movies and even managed to watch a few of them. With TV shows on DVD I am even more excited since there a number of series that we never managed to catch on tv and now we can plow through them on DVD. I really like the free in store rental bit too as it helps fill in gaps between movies and all. We haven't decided if we'll keep it forever, but there is a good chance we will.

Anyway, I've also been reading quite a bit these days as well. It is one of my favorite things to do. I'd forgotten how much I missed it. I think I am managing to get through a book every few weeks, so that makes me happy. Of course my reading list is all over the place. One week it is historical fiction, the next it is business and then after that, who knows.

I want to get myself back in the habit of blogging again, so I figured, what better way to do that than to review the things I'm reading and watching. If you would be horribly offended by such things, please let me know and I will set up filters. But I'm too lazy to do that on the off chance someone might get annoyed.

Yes, laziness trumps all things.

Its a hunk a hunk a burnin' blog..

Tags: books, fun and games, life, movies, television

08:35 am: Wow, it's been a while
I think my last post was 6 months ago. I also think that most of the content at the time was Hey look, I'm not dead, at least not yet.

Well, it is almost the same now, though it ought to start getting a bit more interesting.

Anyway, I am back, at least moreso than before and I intend, if I can manage it, to be around a bit more often. Woooo, go me!

Come to the real blog, it's where all the cool kids hang out ;)

Tags: life

01:59 pm: Free Room in Orlando
Hi Everyone,

I have had a 1 bedroom studio at a Disney Resort for tomorrow through a week from tomorrow. It costs about $100 for a mandatory housekeeping fee, but beyond that, you can have it. If you want to take us out to dinner or something, cool, but I'd rather see it used than go to waste.

If you're interested, comment and let me know how to reach you :)

WDW here we come!

PS Comments are screened if you need to leave contact info.

PPS Even though the room is gone we can still get together, if you want, leave a comment.

08:48 pm: Let's Fighting Love...

COMBAT CARDS 2.0

watch unteins fight

view children

view parent

CREATE YOUR CARD

View this post on my blog

Tags: life

07:20 pm: Spiderman and Friends
Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 90% Catwoman 70% Green Lantern 70% Hulk 65% Superman 60% Iron Man 50% The Flash 40% Robin 38% Supergirl 38% Batman 35% Wonder Woman 33%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Who are you?

Tags: comics

08:00 am: Media Spin and the Average Idiot
I want to put a gun up to my head and blow my brai

Stupidity abounds, viva los Ustados Unidos!

Tags: news, politics

12:04 pm: Mark Morford is Still an Idiot
But I will at least give him credit for responding to my email. Here it is in all its depth and glory:

wow jason, quite possibly the most sneeringly childish -- and easily the shallowest -- reading of this column you could've had. "Just because it was written doesn't make it true"? Really? Come now. You'll have to do much better than that if you ever wish for a deep or nuanced discussion with, well, anyone.

thanks for the note

mm

So I sent him another note. I will be doubly impressed if this elicits anymore of a response. It might. Probably won't address anything directly, but hey, who doesn't need another insult or two in their life.

There is no depth to this column, how does one plumb the depth of a puddle.

If we want to discuss childish sneering we could begin with your column. You do not attempt to investigate anything at all about the Gospel of Judas, nor discuss in any detail why it may or may not be of any value, either historically or as a guide to the veracity of The Bible. Why is that? Because that wouldn't support your anti-Christian bias.

You sneeringly accuse the writers of The Bible of being homophobic and misogynistic, or possibly you mean to accuse The Bible itself of possessing those traits. Either way, neither is factually true. Just because one is opposed to homosexual behavior doesn't mean one is irrationally afraid of it. To claim The Bible holds hatred towards women is not supported by the text. You may be able to pick out passages that claim to do so, but as a whole, this simply isn't reality.

Furthermore, you are using the Gospel of Judas to prove a point which cannot be proven using the text. The Gospel of Judas is, as you correctly mentioned, a Gnostic text. As such, it has as much applicability as saying that the Koran contradicts The Bible, therefore the Bible is a bunch of garbage. Now, you certainly could extend the arena to say that since no world religions agree 100% that therefore they are all wrong. I would suspect that you probably believe this, but you do briefly touch on the New Age concept of making a God of oneself "that is, to seek God within"

You point to Bart Ehrman's books, but without providing the context necessary to question the questioner. From reading the descriptions of his books on Amazon (as I haven't had the time to read the books himself in the last 3 hours or so) it is clear that he either doesn't understand or doesn't believe that The New Testament is a written record of what the Ancient Church believed true about Christ. It is not the book from which the church derived its beliefs.

When the New Testament was being shaped the Christians of the time compared what the books said about Christ to what they knew about Christ. They didn't decide who Christ was from the writings but rather decided if the writings reflected who he was. As such, they discarded that which was not truthful. The Gospel of Judas is as relevant to the truth of Christ as a KKK propaganda piece would be relevant to the nature African Americans.

You may despise organized religion, feel free, but don't misrepresent what those religions teach and don't use already discredited writings to claim that the accepted writings are all lies.

Jason Goldsmith
San Jose

Others have also commented on this piece with similar information and sentiment. Some have been a little more generous and have written it off as a really poorly done satire, but I doubt it. I think he drank the purple Kool-Aid (tm) and there's little hope he'll take a critical eye to the column he's written. That'd be too much like being intellectual, instead of just trying to sound that way.

View this post on my blog

Tags: life

09:20 am: Mark Morford is an Idiot
Mark Morford wrote an article titled The Bible's All Wrong, Again .

I couldn't help but send him an email response (there is no online commenting, gee, I wonder why?)

The Bible's All Wrong, Again

But not as wrong as you are.

I am sure my comments will never see the light of day (other than on my own blog) but it needs to be said.

You sir, are an idiot of the worst order. To sneer at Christians with your "I know better than you do" attitude is a profound exercise in hubris.

Claiming that The Bible is all wrong because of the "Gospel of Judas" would be like claiming that SFGate is all wrong because of something written in this email, or the Weekly World News. Or, it would be like saying The Bible is all wrong because some wanna be intellectual at SF Gate wrote an article saying it was so.

Just because it is written down somewhere by some person doesn't make it true. Just because it was believed by a group of people does not make it true. Or maybe David Koresh really was the reincarnation of Christ. He did write down and preach and record that this was the case. He had a group of people who believed it.

Or maybe the Easter Bunny is real, because hey, there are stories written about it and kids believe in it. Or, since I am writing this down, you are a moron, because it has now been written and I assure you there are plenty of people who will believe it.

If you're going to attack something, at least do it from a reasonably justifiable stand point. It is obvious that you dislike (though I would suspect you more likely hate) Christianity and all that it stands for, but why not just come out and say it. In your opinion, and that's all it is, it is false. Well, great, bully for you. But don't try to pretend that some random ancient document proves anything about the validity or invalidity of The Bible.

Jason Goldsmith
San Jose

I highly doubt I will get any response, but when someone is this much of a screaming idiot, something needs be said. If you happen to see this reprinted on SF Gate, let me know. As a side note, one of the nicknames for the local newpaper he is also published in is The San Francisco Comical. Needless to say, the paper, and the content therein should not be taken too seriously.

Comment on this at my blog.

Tags: life

09:40 pm: High Speed Compact Flash
More babbling about photography equipment. You know you just love this stuff.

Clicky clicky, come and see the good stuff.

Tags: photography, tech

09:19 pm: Canon 5D for me? I doubt it...
I had an interesting proposition involving a Canon 5D come up today. Come check out the details and chime in.

Come and give me some advice

Tags: life, photography, tech, work

07:47 pm: HDRI Light Probes and Canon Lenses
I need some help with some photography related things, if you can lend a hand.

Come give me your thoughts!

Tags: 3d, photography

11:12 pm: We're proud parents . . . of a puppy!
We have a puppy, you know you want to know all about it.....squeeee....so cute....clicky clicky!

Clicky clicky for the cuteness!

Tags: family, life, photography