Unemployment is the state in which a person is without work, available to work, and is seeking work.  I am currently at the unemployment state.  In between studying and searching for work, I found some time to write random articles and submitted it to associated content.  Out of my many articles so far, all were rejected but one! While it may not be a literary masterpiece or an exposition of the most useful of information, it still got published!  The articles is a list of ten of the best Chinese restaurants in the greater Los Angeles County.  Here it is:  Article.  Read it to get some ideas of where to eat the next time you’re out!  Hopefully I’ll have more articles soon.

It has been a while since my last blog.  Many things have happened.  I changed to a new job. I was rejected by graduate schools.  Our fellowship group had an amazing road trip.  Lovers get married. My Pastor is leaving church.  People’s beloved passed away.  I lost my job.  Life happens, all in the short span of 5 months.

July has just arrived.  I am searching for a job and studying for upcoming standardized testing.  The last time I have not had any type of job was in 2001.  I really wonder what God has in store for me.  This is the point in my life where I say, “God, I have no idea what you’re trying to do right now, but yet I will trust and praise you because you have the best plan in mind for me.  Whatever comes out of this, one day I will look back and marvel at your glorious power.  That is what God does for me on a daily basis.  What have I done for Him lately? I wonder. 

REACh youth summer camp was this past weekend.  I am refreshed and rejuvenated! Spending four days with God and His people will do that.   Just experiencing the fire of the Holy Spirit moving throughout leaves me exhausted.  I have not seen that fire in five years.  Maybe six.  It’s not just the worship, it’s not just the message that made my heart burn again.  What made it burn more than anything was I saw again how we as Christians, myself included, often harbors a hardened and selfish heart, yet at the same time we can turn around praise God fervently.  Often times, we truly do not know what we are doing and can only hope the Lord forgives us in His wonderful mercy.  But as Christians, should we be so ignorant as to not realize when we are not showing love?  When Christians look at a person and simply chooses not to care, there is a problem.  When a Christian sees a person walking toward himself and simply chooses to ignore that person, not even a smile, there is a problem.  When Christians choose to exclude the weak, the unpopular, the annoying, the unwanted, there is a problem.  Yes, many are still young, but one is never too young to love others.  Shockingly, Jesus, our God, our king, the one we sing so hard to, LOVED others!  He always chose to INCLUDE; He cared for the weak, the unpopular, the unwanted.  The mere sight of the unsaved broke His heart and brought Him to tears.  My heart for others has always been one of the weakest point of my Christian walk.  With God’s help, I have grown immensely in this area, but one can never have to much love.  I found something beautiful in the song Hosanna.  It describes a person beautiful maturation and growth as a believer.

“Heal my heart and make it clean.
Open up my eyes to the things unseen.
Show me how to love like you have loved me.
Break my heart for what breaks yours.
Everything I have for the kingdom’s cause
As I walk from earth into eternity.” 

As we become a Christian and accept the Christ into our lives and the Holy Spirit into our hearts, God heals us and begins to purify us.  As we become cleansed and draws closer to God, we gain a special spiritual discernment; we begin to understand what others cannot understand, we begin to have faith in seeing what cannot be seen with our eyes.  As we grow in understanding and as we begin to see God, we develop a love for others as a response to God’s love to us.  Having this love in our hearts, our hearts break when we see the oppress, the meek, the injustice, the sinful state of the world; much like how God’s heart breaks when He sees these things.  What do we do with this heavy burden on our hearts? Well, we think back to the one who healed us and think how great it would be for others to have this love.  As we realize the need for God in others lives, we will begin to devote everything we have to further God’s Kingdom; we would give it all to support His cause.  That my dear brothers and sisters is how we should, nay how we MUST walk from this Earth into eternity.  Hosanna means please save or save now.  Indeed, Lord please save us now from our selfish selves.  Give us that love that you have loved us with so that our heart breaks hard for what breaks your heart.  AMEN!

The page editor on WordPress is quite frustrating.  It decides to add extraneous phantom codes whenever it feels like.  It also decides that my formating is wrong and adjusts them automatically.  Thanks WordPress!

What do these two men have in common?  They are both Christians.  Interestingly, both men’s Christianity were in the public eyes these past couple of weeks.  Dwight Howard became a first time dad while Stephen Baldwin’s (his website is totally gangstar by the way) team lost a challenge in Celebrity Apprentice.  

 So why are these things significant?  Dwight Howard entered the NBA carrying a giant I <3 Jesus logo on his back.  He was the number one draft pick and now a bonna-fide superstar and/or “absolute beast” as some would like to say.  Different from many other superstars, Howard was vocal about his faith and his devotion to Jesus.  So imagine the shock of the media when Balla-for Christ announced that he and his girlfriend had a child out of wedlock.  His Christianity came under scrutiny.

 Stephen Baldwin, movie actor, was completing a task with his teammates during celebrity apprentice.  A situation arose where they obtained information in a devious manner from the opposing team.  The dilemma of cheating and lying arose.   Stephen was caught in the midst of  the entire turmoil.  His Christianity came under scrutiny. 

 For both men, the questions, “Hey I thought you were a Christian?” was raised; the word hyprocrite was thrown around.  The conclusion, “. . . and that is why I will never be a Christian” was reached. 

As a Christian, we strive to be all that we can be; we strive to be a good example; we strive to spread the good word.  Often times we succeed.  But as humans, we err.  We need to be better, but we fail.  The pain of letting down the person who gave their all to save you.  We fail to live up to the standard that Christ has set before us.  A moral standard that not only Christ holds us to, but the unbelieving world as well.  The world study every moves of these Christians, and are ready to point out their failure to attain sainthood.  “Ah ha! I knew they were hypocrites!” shouts the world triumphantly everytime a Christian falls. 

While facts indicate that Christians reflect the qualities of Christ and of God, the truth remains that we are not God and we end up flat on our faces from time to time.  If a person is a nonbeliever, they should be careful not to be so rash and foolish as to base their disbelieve in God on human frailty and folly.  Born again Christians do not become perfect beings the moment they are converted.  Change takes time and work.  Character is built from hardships and failures.  Reaching a conclusion solely on the behaviors of a fallen human race is unwise, especially if those conclusions can have eternal consequences.  Our lives are our own and we need to make our choices wisely.  

My wife just beat me in a game of one on one.  I was trying.  Semi-trying, but no excuse.  The game ended 5 – 4.  It has been a while since I’ve played basketball.  I’ve discovered a park with lighted baskeetball courts recently and I am determined to play nightly.  I began last night, so far so good.  My wife joins me on my nightly trek it’s faaantastic.  

The court is beautiful.  The only negative is that there are stoners and potheads of various ages that appear to congregate in the parking lot and dark areas of the park setting their clocks to 4:20.  There are also an occasional old man walking his dog, but I don’t mind him so much.  I am very tempted to call the cops and nark on the smokies though.     

I watched Transformers with some friends after bible study today.   I enjoyed the movie immensely except for the part where I cannot tell one robot from the other.  I grew up with Transformers, so it’s nice to see that the new generation got a chance to see Optimus Prime. 

We watched the whole movie on an HD-DVD on HD-TV.  The colors from the HD-TV was more brilliant than real life, so brilliant that my eyes watered and tired out within half an hour.  I don’t think human eyes are meant for HD-TV.  Give me the old CRT anyday.    

 

25th’s of the months are always special.  After work, I enjoyed a sushi dinner with Gail at our favorite SoCal sushi place, Minato’s.  <— I just wrote a review for it singing it’s praises because some jerk on there complained about “imitation crab”.  If you want real crab in your california roll, go to Japan, fool.

 Afterwards, I showed my beloved my newly discovered park.  We watched a moonrise together there.  Unfortunately, our romance was spoiled by some loud hoodlum teenagers preparing to skateboard and probably some 4:20 fun on the opposite side of the park.  The moonrise was beautiful nonetheless.  My very first.

Do you watch TVB? I do!  They were not always this way, but since the late 90’s TVB dramas are silly, repetitive, and predictable, yet I cannot stop watching.  The shows brings me closer to the land I left so many years ago, a land that I have not seen or experienced since 1993.  

After watching all of these TVB dramas, I have figured ten necessary elements for a successful TVB drama: 

1.  The Career:  Whether modern or old style, the show must revolve around some sort of career, the most popular being lawyers, doctors, policemen.  Other careers can include insurance sales, architecture, firefighting, and shopowner.  Everyone must be shown working at their work at some point.  If the person has no career or not at work, they must be rich and live in a mansion. 

2.  The Ringtone:  For modern shows, everyone on the show must have the same 7-note Sony Ericsson default ringtone for their cellphones.  Ringtones that plays the theme song of the show is also acceptable.   

3.  The family strive: One plot line must always be some sort of problem with someones family causing strive and angst and misunderstanding for one of the main characters.  Popular family problems includes dads that gamble too much, spoiled brats, evil aunt, evil uncles are also acceptable.

4.  The love line: One of the main plots in the show must be about someone’s romantic relationship.  The romantic relationships must develope from two people who hate each otherr, but through some convinent incident falls in love with each other.  People can also  be together from onset of the show.  No matter how they get together, some sort of problem must arise to create angst and strive and misunderstanding in the relationship.  No matter how good the relationship is, there has to be love obstacles at some point in the show.

5. The Passover: The most powerful love obstacle.  The guy realizes he loves the girl and the girl is thinking about the guy.  However, the guy because he is so involved in thinking and running toward the girls office fail to realize the girl just walked by him; the girl all the same glanced at a fluffy flying cloud while the guy walked by her.  Thus, love opportunities are missed.  Oh the pain and sadness and angst!

6.  The Piggyback:  Someone must give someone else a piggyback ride at some point in the show to foster good relations.

 7.  The unexperienced actors:  Miss Hong Kong winners and wannabe singers make the best cast.

8.  The flashbacks:      Plot holes can be explained by sepia colored flashbacks where everyone looks the same except with slightly blacker and longer hair

9. The flashforwards:  Because the show must be wrapped up in half an episode, the characters can flashforward one to five to ten years in order to make sure everyone is having a happy ending and the bad guys got what they deserved

10.  The opening:  The opening montage must include all the important plotlines and surprises including but not limited to who kisses, who gets together, who gets married, who gets dumped, who kills who, who has a funeral etc. etc.  The more spoilers included the better.

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 There you have it! All the keys to a successful TVB drama.  Striking writers in need of a job, submit your scripts to TVB now!!!

I have decided to create an alternative blog that parallels Mojo23.  This blog provides a chronicle of my everyday life and whatever insight I gain from said life.  Let’s leave the introductions at that.

I bit my lip last Thursday/Friday and developed several canker sores on my lower lip.  They are quite dehabilitating.  Anyone have any good advice?