I’ve been tagged, so here goes….

Four Jobs I Have Had
- English Teacher/Tutor
- Interpreter
- Narrator
- Web Designer

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over
(Note: I rarely watch movies more than once.)
- Julius Caesar
- Hamlet
- Henry V
- Princess Bride

Four Books I Could Read Over and Over
Is that first answer cheating? :p
- The Bible
- Shakespeare’s Complete Works
- Holidays in Hell by P. J. O’Rourke
- The City of God by Augustine

Four Places I Have Lived
IL, OH, and ID add up to less than 3 years.
- Chicago, IL
- New Philadelphia, OH
- Tokyo, Japan
- Moscow, ID

Four TV Shows I Watch
Whom you watch with is about as important as what you watch.
- X-Files, with Papa
- Dark Angel, with Ben
- Alias, with Mama
- Lost, with Mama and Berek

Four Places I Have Been On Vacation
- Northern Japan
- Blue Ridge Mountains
- Koh Samui, Thailand
- Hong Kong

Four Websites I Visit Daily
- Gmail
- Wired
- Amazon
- Wikipedia

Four Favorite Foods
- Chinese food (especially yam cha)
- Japanese food
- Indian curry
- Thai food

Four Places I’d Like To Be Right Now
Places are nothing without people.
- with Ben
- with Chris, Tim, Matt, Josh
- with Erika
- with Sarah

Four Bloggers I’m Tagging
Because you guys are my dearies.
- Christian Homeschooler in Japan
- Tankard of Tea
- The Bloggy
- Twirling Life

She has a blog, she has a blog, she has a blog! Oh, my goodness, how exciting! I didn’t expect to find this tonight. *hugs self*

For those of you who don’t know, she’s written three books and she’s on my buy-all-books-by-this-author list.

Reddish bronze highlights reflected off his hair in the candlelight. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps … whatever, whatever.

The salad arrived and, smiling, he motioned for her to start, so she slowly raised her fork and then stopped suddenly, eyes transfixed on her plate as the salad moved, and through the lettuce and onions and olives and tomatoes, out walked a frog in slow motion, one leg at a time, till it reached the middle of the table right between them and looked straight at her with a twinkle in its eye, opening its mouth for a croak, long and loud, which was cut short as its neck-bubble burst, its back split open, and a black scorpion walked out from inside the frog.

She looked up at him from the pulsing frog’s heart and saw his hair and his eye-whites had turned to blackest black, the warm friendly lips widening to a mocking leer. She was hungry, the emptiness growing inside, all-consuming, threatening to swallow her up, but she knew there would be no filling of it, because the scorpion began clicking its way towards her and across the table he started to stand, so she closed her eyes and waited, without surprise, remembering she had believed it would not happen but had known all along that it would, so she waited, sinking, soaring, flying, falling.

Each of us is full of too many wheels, screws and valves to permit us to judge one another on a first impression or by two or three external signs. - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904), Russian author, playwright. Ivanov in Ivanov, act 3, sc. 6.

First thing in the morning, stumble out of bed and check for new mail or IMs. Last thing at night, check again and stumble into bed. Why? It’s a part of life, like breathing.

No matter what security measures one takes, there is no such thing as a completely secure computer. Even if you custom install everything, check every cookie, look through all the preferences for all your software, something always slips through.

As much as processes can be automated, to be sure everything is OK, things need to be done manually, checking all the cookies, task manager processes, CPU activity and memory, ingoing and outgoing traffic, installed programs, a quick run-through of all the preferences for regularly used programs, updating browser extensions (if you use Firefox, like any decent person would, hehe), backing up online content offline, and offline content online. And when things get really bad, then you go through RegEdit, bit by bit, deleting suspicious entries.

It’s a confusing pain for people who don’t know what they’re doing. But for some, not only is it a habit, done without thinking, it’s an enjoyable routine. The more often you do it, the better you become at it, the more quickly you do it, and the easier it becomes, till it’s pure habit, like breathing. If only Bible reading and memorization and chanting and thanksgiving and praise could be as done as habitually and joyfully….

We need motions to go through automatically, daily rhythms: breathe, smile, read the Word, kneel, pray, chant, sing, speak, hug, kiss, eat, drink, sleep. Weekly rhythms, starting with communion, worship, feasting, fellowship, prayer. And then, we need someone else, someone who knows us inside out, and knows how to clean out our registries when needed. Mine is in the States and I’ll be seeing him soon!

Cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

If you can raed tihs psas it on!

Tihs was form my csiuon Jntoahan….

Epagomenic, nabocklish, nudiustertian, and more.

I am overjoyed to announce that one of my favourite people in the world who swore never to blog now not only has his own blog but his own domain! Go visit Christopher’s site!

http://www.chriskou.com/

OK. It’s final final: I’m not going to Thailand. A certain friend of mine had a slip of the mind and payment for something crucial to modern travel was forgotten (it rhymes with tane plickets) … so I got my nails done instead and bought tickets to Seattle.

My Dinner With Google: I Typed ‘tofu oranges cauliflower,’ And My Computer Concocted a Meal