eSpaz

I had a very powerful and vivid dream last night, and at first I thought it would be foolish to blog about it, but my older and wiser sister with a master's in divinity said it was important that I do. This dream was so powerful, vivid and real that I honestly did not think that I was dreaming. I actually believed that I was there and that everything was really unfolding before my eyes. If I knew I was dreaming, I would have behaved differently, knowing that I could not come to harm. In this case, I was very afraid that I was going to die.

I remember the dream starts out with me getting off the plane in Paris, France. I was on my way to a friend's house in their car away from the airport out of the city. We were waiting at a traffic light and infront of us there were powerlines that were behaving strangely, then began to spark and wreak havoc on a truck. The truck burst into flames and was thrown into the air by an explosion. The powerlines electro-static charge grew even more chaotic until the ground and road was electrified and shards of lightning were shooting at everything. I had thought that this was the end to my life and I had no idea what to do but close my eyes and wait for death to come, just as I did in a life-threatening car accident I found myself in once (head-on collision at 60 miles per hour).

When I opened my eyes I found myself at a gas station, and I had the thought in my mind that I needed to call my friends waiting for me. I made the call and then I noticed that people were screaming and running away from the city. I saw highrises collapsing in the distance, and eventually discovered why they were collapsing. There were these strange cascading walls that seemed to propagate and grow out of the ground with a single purpose to crush anything in their path. They were almost identical to the huge crushing walls in the video game Half-life 2, except that they were lightning fast and moved and behaved as a sentient being. Eventually they came closer to the gas station and I found myself trapped inside a tunnel as I was looking for an escape route. Of course all exits were sealed off and it was dark.

I'm not sure what happened next, but I do know that I managed to get into that car and drive from Paris to Marseille. When I arrived in Marseille, I united with some friends, but not all of them. I remember that they were very gloomy and felt drained of life. I stayed overnight, but the next day we received word that the walls were coming. They had almost completely leveled Paris and had travelled 800 miles south to the outskirts of Marseille. The friends I was expecting to meet up with in Marseille had actually escaped to Toulon prior to the attack, so that was where we were supposed to meet.

The rest of the dream is in pieces, so I will try to communicate the important and most vivid scenes or visions that almost seemed to say something. I remember coming back to that house in Marseille and noticing that it had been crushed and demolished from the strange alien walls. I also remember overlooking Paris after it had been nearly totalled and of the few highrises left standing, the most prominent one had large LCD displays of the stock market, which I thought strangely indicative of something.

I remember also waiting at a train station in the country-side wondering why there were no trains, and I noticed off in the distance that the walls were cascading towards me at high speed ready to crush anything that comes in its path. I gave-in to pressure and ran towards them maniacally (beginning to realize that I was dreaming) and they closed around me, I closed my eyes again (still not 100% certain if I was dreaming) and they did not crush me. Then I heard a voice say something about a right tick whatever that was. It was only what I heard and the voice may have actually said something else. Anyway, I simply said these two words and the walls recoiled some. I found a space between the walls and a structure to an entrance into a men's bathroom. I waited there feeling trapped but somewhat secure. Then the walls collapsed against the entrance and began to crush the walls in. This scared me a lot and I kept saying those pointless words. Then strangely enough these cascading walls recoiled completely out of sight into the distance leaving behind an intact train station.

What does this all mean? it felt very apocalyptic and I did not feel that the dream was for me specifically as much as it was for us, all of us humans as a race. Seriously, if Steven Spielberg could plug a television set into my brain, he would have made another movie out of this. I woke up feeling as if the world was going to end very soon and we needed to prepare for it. I went for a walk and grabbed a coffee from a bakery, then walked home and on my way home I still felt that the world was going to end soon and that the important thing was that we all need to start preparing for it now. I wasn't afraid though, because there's not much you can do if the world threatens to end. I don't even know why the world would end or even if it's true. I do know that the dream was so powerful that it made me think these things.

Many people believe, and for different reasons, that the world will end soon. The Mayan calendar runs out December 21st, 2012. It is at this time that they believe the world will end as the divine powers above cleanse (destroy) the world of all its dirt. Let's not try to prove whether or not the world is going to end, but instead, if it was going to end six years from now, what would you do between now and then? Is there anything you would do? is there a point to doing anything at all? is finding peace of mind the thing to do?

In-case you didn't notice from my hinting in the Math Groupie post, I'm the one who brought tMatch from wishful thinking to actual existence.

tMatch will find people who think like you do based on how alike your blogs are. Could tMatch be a replacement for LavaLife? Yahoo Personals? Clubing? it very-well could be!

tMatch isn't finished, it has a rich future with plenty of room for growth. We are already dreaming up plans to make tMatch even smarter, but we need your help. If tMatch is to grow, tblog.com needs to grow. So tell all your friends to sign-up for a blog at tblog.com and give it a try.

You might be curious how tMatch actually works, under the hood. I am sorry, but these details are top-secret. Fewer than two people actually know the intricate technical details of tMatch. This way there's little chance that the secret will get away on us. I won't even tell you how it was written, what programming language.

Presently, and at this time, tMatch is busy computing all of your matches. There's a ton of blogs to compute matches for, so it will be a couple hours before it is all finished.

Happy blogging!

Alone in his basement, Drake trembles and sobs tears of surrender and helplessness.  It's taken him almost three years to come to this point of utter contrition.  He had been completely unaware that for the past three years he had thought that his life was fine, sufficient, and enough.  He lied to himself habitually contending that nothing scared him, that he likes to be left alone and that there's nothing wrong with taking things easy.  He had thought all this until suddenly something triggered a memory or a thought or a super-repressed nostalgic feeling he had thought was forgotten from dreadful college days.  Then as if in clear etched lettering across his mind were the words, "You are racing towards a cliff and you are asleep at the wheel; if you don't wake up soon and change course, all will be lost".

Drake has a social and culture crisis on his hands, and has just realized that he is beginning to loose touch with people because of his behaviour and how he treated himself over the past three years.   

Time for some context; Drake had the most trying social, affluential and influential tests all in the same summer three years ago.  He had gone from crush after crush to infatuation after infatuation with pretty girls at college.  Because he had no sense of dress or style they could quickly reject him because he dressed like trash.  Having an alcoholic B.P.D. woman for a mother explains why he never did well with the girls.  He actually kept track of all the girls at college who rejected him and used it to torture and beat himself up emotionally.  Then came the three trying tests that all-but snapped Drake like a twig.  He had fallen completely in-love with an Audrey Hepburn look-a-like named Heidi, and she was flattered by his attention.  Then Heidi broke-up with her long-time nearly three-year boyfriend and ran into the arms of anyone who would catch her.  Drake was only too eager to step-up to the plate.  Drake decided to take her out on a casual date, it went well, better than he expected; he had high hopes for a relationship with Heidi. 

As summer passed, the first and most critical blow to Drake's ego happened; his confidence and faith in himself to build personal wealth was shattered.  Drake had become involved in an Internet venture that proved scandalous.  Many people lost thousands of dollars and Drake was held liable for all of it.  Drake had to cope with threats from many of his customers; he braced for small-claims court cases knowing he could be financially ruined; he wasn't thinking at all about the invested money he had lost thus far.  Drake was now convinced that he was a loser because that's what he loved to tell himself; he told himself that he was incapable of building any kind of personal wealth for himself let alone a family.  All this was on his mind as well as Heidi.  This first trial took Drake's sense of affluential power and shattered it.

Drake needed a job and fast, so he accepted the first thing that came up giving it little thought.  He decided to be a sort of camp counsellor for young kids.  One morning involved a horde of youngsters chasing and screaming after Drake trying to pin him under the water sprinkler because the director promised a can of pop to the first one to do so; it was refreshing and Drake feeled alive again, for just a moment, even though he was soaked.  This job eventually became the second trying test of the summer that he was completely unprepared for.  One of the kids broke into the playhouse and vandalized the lock.  The next day Drake didn't let him come along on any activities because he had did so.  This enraged his mother and she eventually screamed at Drake over this.  Drake finally became passionately defensive for the first time that year and this only made the woman more angry.  Drake told himself that he was no good with kids and had no idea what he was doing.  One day he took the kids paintballing and had been unaware that some drivers had already gone home for the day and some kids came very close to being stranded at the paintball grounds.  This lack of organization nearly cost Drake his job, and also incited even more anger in more mothers.  By now Drake knew that people, and mothers in particular, were outraged at him.  The rest of the summer Drake had to watch his back.  He eventually told himself that he was completely irresponsible and incompetent at rearing children.  This second trial took Drake's confidence in himself to be a responsible and positive influence--and burried it.

Then summer passed and during this time and he told himself that Heidi would reject him soon, because he had never before come this close to a relationship with someone this amazing to him.  The summer involved another date with friends and fireworks, and a very romantic dinner on the beachfront.  Perhaps it was the romantic dinner that lit a fuse to the bomb.  Heidi was also a very troubled girl, having talked about suicide, having raging tempers, and a lot of self-centered drama.  But Drake was actually attracted by the drama of this beauty queen.  The two were sitting on the beach in lawn chairs looking out at the moon, the stars, the ocean, and he decided to make an advance by putting his arm around her; he wanted to warm things up, especially since talking about depression is generally considered cold.  Heidi recoiled and then said she was tired and wanted to go home.  The day after, Drake called Heidi and she told him she was not interested in him.  Drake was deeply hurt, but he got over it quickly because he already knew this was going to happen (he told himself it would).  He accused her (in his mind) of leading him on, taking no responsibility for the outcome.  After two tragedies this summer, Drake was investing all his hope into this, a relationship with lovely Heidi, but it had been put on ice, not completely hopeless yet, but it was cold.

School started and Heidi grew more and more cold towards Drake to the point of utter neglect and indifference.  Drake remembered something very clear in his own mind that early fall, he had seen Heidi standing infront of the sunlight and saw her dark silhouette, he said "I can't see you, you're so dark infront of that sunlight", and she said "You don't need to see me".  Something cracked inside Drake and he always remembered that moment.  Later her car broke down and he went down to offer his help, but she made him feel completely useless and helpless because she didn't want his help or attention.  Drake knew that he wasn't wanted, and this confused him more than hurt him.  Then a week later Heidi was seen holding hands with a new boyfriend Chad.  Eventually this couple held-back nothing for each other.  They were visibly passionate toward each other and everyone on campus thought that they were two teenagers in-love for the first time.  Drake felt tortured and torn apart inside, and he told himself that Heidi and Chad went out of their way to rub it in.  Drake didn't know where to turn to, he tried reconnecting with old crushes / infatuations, but they gave him a very similar cold shoulder that Heidi did.  Drake had succumbed to the third and most trying crisis of the summer, he had lost all faith in his ability to love and to be loved.

A friend came to Drake urging him to do some soul-searching.  Drake went into isolation and had been that way ever since.  He grew incredibly numb inside and it was as if he was in a choma, yet awake enough to go to work, eat meals, and talk to people in passing.  He went through one relationship quickly and when they broke-up (because he was petrified at the thought of relating or talking to her parents), he felt nothing while she sobbed for the first time in two years.

Some time passed and Drake finally saw some financial success.  He had been promoted at his job and then decided to visit Europe, and still had a healthy bank account balance.  Although, while travelling through Europe Drake felt asleep, unconnected to the world and the people.  Looking back he would say he felt like a zombie.  He stayed at a hostel in Rome and felt unable to relate to anyone there, including the people he did feel comfortable talking to.  Eventually he was deeply afraid of being rejected by them although he would tell himself they didn't matter to him.  Drake returned from Europe and began playing an MMO RPG game.  Eventually he spent up to fourteen hours a day completely sucked into this game.  In this game he felt accepted because he knew how to play the game well and help other players get what they wanted.  Drake was popular and appreciated in the game.  Until one day some months later Drake felt something remind him of his past, days from college, a feeling of being on the outside looking in.  He told himself he was only popular and appreciated when he was a helpful player in the game, that he was allowing himself to be used; Drake had told himself that he "had it together" at least as much as the next person playing the game.  Then he went to a couple parties in the MMO game environment and realized that people were having fun, being human, just like in college.  He pretended to feel accepted and belonged, but eventually realized he had no idea about these things.  In the past three years Drake had spent almost every weekend alone and by himself in isolation and fear.  Seeing these people dance reminded him that he was missing out on something big.

Drake left the game for a month.  During that month he got a lot of work done, some of the most successful work he had done, and pleased his employer greatly.  This made him feel good again, and gave him a false sense of acceptance and belonging.  Drake returned to the game and after only three days he felt the same thing that prompted him to leave the game in the first place.  His guild had thrown an anniversary party and the cycle in Drake's mind repeated itself.  Drake was in tears stricken in fear because he knew he was asleep at the wheel and didn't know how to wake-up.  Worse, he was afraid he would physically wake-up tomorrow feeling better as if everything was ok again, totally complacent doomed to continue the insanity.  How could he wake himself up and make a course change in his life to turn things around? he didn't know how, he was too afraid to try, he was afraid he would fail.  He was completely incapable and unable to help himself, so that's when he cried out to God begging for an end to his complacency; he was afraid he would fail, so he begged God to hold his hand when he would face his greatest fears, and in this case that would be relating and connecting to people in our world.

All these events passed through Drake's mind as he trembled out of control and cried.  He had felt alive again, had received a blessed wake-up call, but now he was afraid he would fall asleep again and become complacent.  He knew he had very scary tasks ahead of him involving hard work, blood, and tears.  He didn't want to do it, any of it, but he could finally accept that he was wrong and that he was lacking something very crucial in his life.  He didn't know how to get that thing he was missing, but he trusted wholy in God's desire for him to find it and God's will for him to find it.

Drake is grasping for answers, a young man with a brilliant mind that made a lot of senseless stupid choices in his life, disconnected from the world and people he wants to love but have not the tools to do so.  Drake realizes all this, has hit rock-bottom, and is ready to climb again.  Now it's time for you, the reader, to tell Drake from the bottom of your heart what he needs to hear.  Place a comment, and thank you for taking time to read his story.

Dating in western society is broken, and why is it broken? because most everyone is sick in the head.  Oh you've probably heard that before, but not like this!  I mean that a girl will date the wrong guy because they're both sick in the head.  Look, maybe I'm being a little bit harsh, but think about a few things:

Western society is all about the freedom to choose whatever you want.  You can choose everything and anything, and we take this for granted.

• You choose your profession from a vast selection
• You choose your food from a selection of menus
• You choose your clothes from many stores
• You choose what to say to people
• You choose to live at home or move out
• You choose from so many men or women at a club

We choose basically everything and anything we want based on what we want and what we can get.  This is the culture of our western society and it's also why many parts of the world hate our guts, allow me to explain.  There is a process for how we choose.  As you read over the list below, first imagine you are going grocery shopping.  Then go over the list again imagining that you are looking for a guy or girl (depending on your preference):

1. We spend time picking over goods like they are on display at a buffet
2. We pick up one of them and examine it for a brief moment, then put it down again
3. We notice fruit with a bruise on it and sneer at it and quickly move on
4. We find something we like
5. We take it home and play with it awhile
6. Sometimes we'll consume it and excrete it later, or just throw it away because it got boring

So now you know what our culture is like.  We like to treat people like used goods, like objects to be played with, and we like it that way.  But it doesn't work, because you may feel something prick inside you when I ask you how life is with that guy or that girl who makes you feel like a somebody and who you're willing to pour your life out for.

I recently asked a twenty-one year-old girl from China if she liked dating guys and she said: "sorry, i am not canadian, can' understand what's date guys?".  Obviously she had no idea what dating was.  I still don't buy it, because I like to think the rest of the world thinks just like I do.   A Sihk and a Muslim religious leader once pointed out that we people in North America treat our partners and love interests like a commodity, something that should be sold and marketed.  Granted I think marketing has a little to do with dating, but I also think we went too far with it and have quite frankly stopped loving each other because we really don't see each other as human beings anymore!

We like to think pre-arranged marriages are a bad and unholy thing for, well, stupid people.  But the fact is that divorce rates among these cultures are rock-bottom and it's been that way with them for thousands of years!  The Sihk and Muslim people are very family-oriented and value pre-arranged marriage.  Although I do find one thing very wierd: did you know that a Sihk man is allowed to divorce his wife if she talks too much?

You might sneer at the way other cultures do things, or maybe you're from another culture living among Westerners?  Among Greeks you can't date each other without dating the family, that's cool! no need to go out clubbing because you two can dance at home with momma, pappa, grandma, your aunt; sure takes the pressure off!  Seriously though, we need to involve our families in our intimate relationships just a tad more.

So why do we treat people like objects anyway?  Here's my theory:  For years we have fed capitalism with our appetite to buy new and cool shiny things.  We've let that new car smell get addictive and we've ignored those "good old-fashioned values" (for lack of better words).  We've all adopted this way of life. 

After treating people like objects for so long, we feel empty inside and try to escape or cover it up with other addictions.  If any of you have recovered from an addiction, you know just how damaging it is.  While you're addicted, nothing else matters except what you're addicted to, and you eventually feel hopeless inside, everything loses meaning and purpose.  Then you hit rock-bottom and you hate yourself and find yourself groping for anything that feels good or gives you some permanent solid meaning.  Here are my top ten most common and popular addictions for young people in western culture in order to escape the meaningless emptiness inside her that drives her bleepin mad:

1. Sex
2. Drugs
3. Rock 'n Roll (ok just kidding)
4. Music (not kidding, any music, doesn't matter what kind, it can be used as an escape)
5. Alcoholism
6. Television
7. Chocolate
8. Eating
9. Video games (MMO's in particular)
10. Fantasy escapism

Enjoying these things is not addiction! using them to escape something is!  Pick your addiction from the list above.  Now is it something you can't get enough of? something that one night you over did it with and made you feel slimy or painful?  Something that used to feel so warm and now feels so cold?  Something you run to even when you're not sure you want to?  Makes you feel trapped, stuck, and leaving you confused about what is right and what is wrong?

We tend to find reasons not to date someone.  How often do we find reasons to date someone?  Ok, so we're always seeing the worst in other people; it's because we're stuck looking at the worst in ourselves.  It's so true isn't it? She looks at that cat-calling scrub and considers him a despicable cock-roach because she can't accept herself, her own limitations, her own uniqueness, she doubts that she's loveable.  And he can't stop cat-calling at her because he's addicted to sex so that he can ignore the questions: "Who am I? where am I going? and most importantly, does anyone else care about this or care about me?". 

Here's how we respond to an object, replace the word object with guy or girl depending on your preference and you might be surprised:

• I don't need to be open and honest with an object
• An object's feelings don't matter to me because it really has no feelings
• I can throw away an object if I want to
• If I throw away an object, it will never bother me again
• Objects are meant to please me
• If an object has anything wrong with it, I don't want it, it has to be perfect

It's proven fact, by historical record (that nobody reads about it seems), if all you care about is what you can get, you will never find happiness and you will always feel lonely and useless.  "You get out what you put in", some people call it Karma, others call it the golden rule, call it whatever you like. 

Don't beat yourself up over all this, it's not entirely anybody's fault, we just one day woke up thinking it was cool to have a new toy to play with every month.  But it is our responsibility to do something about it.  So the question is, what are we gonna do about it?

This is a new blog post.  There is nothing in it, because I can't think of anything to blog about.  After typing for an hour and erasing everything a few times over in utter frustration, I've decided it's just not my night, and I should probably just walk away.

Question for anyone bored looking for something to brag about; what's your favorite drink?

With the continued spotlight on terrorism and, in particular, the Al-Qaeda, I predict increased Muslim persecution in the United States and in Europe.  The recent rioting in France does nothing to abase this rising problem especially since many rioters used their Islamic background to help perpetuate the rioting.  Many religious individuals would like to see the global persecution of Christians come to pass first, but I believe that Muslims are in danger first.

Most North Americans do not understand the distinction between the Al-Qaeda and Islam.  The Al-Qaeda say they want to rid Islamic countries of western influence and this satisfies what is known as Jihad or Holy War.  But even Muhammad implies in the Qur’an (The Muslim Holy text) that a holy war does not necessarily equate to physical violence.  The Al-Qaeda may have some arguments to make against that claim.  Only ten verses out of forty-one verses in the Qur’an refer to the "Jihad" as a fight, therefore the definition is not black and white.  Most North Americans do understand the link between terrorism and religious fanaticism, and without careful distinction the consequences could be deplorable.

Fear has a way of making people act stupid, and Osama's recent threats to attack the "Heart" of America again were intended to breed fear just as the attacks in London and Madrid were intended.  If we are not mindful of how we respond as a community, we will fail to separate Al-Qaeda extremism from Islam and thusly from Arab people.  If you doubt this, then ask yourself if you can look at an Arab individual without the slightest fear of terrorism.  If you can, then congratulations, you are not driven by the fear that Osama is trying to weave into our culture.  If you are an Arab, how concerned are you about this distinction?

My reason for writing this post is my concern about Western culture's disdain for organized religion and spirituality (yes, spirituality and organized religion do go hand-in-hand) especially with the black spots in history.  The media loves to show us the imposters and frauds of religion because faithful followers are boring and backwards to pop. culture.  But pop. culture is no slice of pie either.  What will happen when fear of terrorism manipulates an individual to rise activist against Muslims?  What if the United States initiates a fear-driven "Terrorist Witch-hunt"? when history repeats itself with racism against Arabs?  These are my concerns. 

Most of the people rioting in France were below the poverty-line and originally from the Arab countries Algeria, Tunesia and Morrocco.  They were poor because they were denied decent jobs and good housing.  Having recently returned from Marseille, I saw the most daunting and ugly housing edifices inhabited by North African immigrants, not the kind of living conditions for a human being.  There is definitely a racial problem there, and it may have been inadvertently linked to Islam.

I am not a bias Muslim, in fact I am a Christian, and although I would receive scorn from my peers for an article like this, that's nothing new to me.  History still has a habit of repeating itself.  Is this post my personal peace-offering to Muslim believers because of the historic Crusades? perhaps.

Yeah that's right, I got my ass punted back over the great pond back to Canada. So what happened? well let me give you the abridged version of my next (wouldbe first) book: "How to visit 3 world-cities via 2 planes in 1 night":

I was on my way to Vancouver International Airport to start a contract with a non-profit (and controversial) company in England. I had a really bad gut feeling about it, and honestly since August. I made it on the plane, watched a couple movies, still felt like the plane was going to crash. Finally arrived in England, Heathrow, around noon.

The immigration officer queried me indepth about what I had come to England to do. They did not like to hear that I was employed by Arab World Ministries as an I.T. consultant (I suppose the words "Arab" and "Ministries" have suddenly become taboo in the wake of 9/11 and the recent London bombings. Anything sounding too eastern or religious is sudden cause for paranoia). Next thing I know I'm being told to wait while they talk about me in the back. I thought about making a run for it, but then noticed the guard and the firearm he had strapped around his shoulder. That thing looked so big nasty and heavy that the next grade-up would be a mounted gun turret. I decided that would be plan 'Z'.

All my luggage was searched infront of me, including my socks and underwear.  I happened to have old homework from college in my bags. The guy searching my luggage flipped through it with his latex gloves and asked:

"What's this? can you explain this to me?"

I replied and said, "Yeah sure, it's a volley-ball move called 'pancake', you throw your body towards the floor and at the last moment bump the ball." I'm serious, they were paranoid beyond all sense. <sarcasm>My notebook could explode at any minute!</sarcasm>

I was then escorted to a room with other detainees from various countries and backgrounds. I noticed something extremely peculiar about the other people detained. None of them were white, other than me. The one guy from Somalia said he was detained in Holand for 30 days. The other poor fellow from Mexico (originally from Africa) said they wouldn't tell him why he was detained. One poor fellow had been sleeping across three chairs for the past ten hours in his semi-casual suit.

Eventually I was pulled into a stone interview room with no windows, one table, and two chairs bolted to the floor. After a rumble with the immigration officer and a great deal of restraint on my part they informed me I was to be escorted out of the country onto the next plane back to Canada (which could have been destined for anywhere from Toronto to the North Pole).

Fortunately I was on a plane to Toronto. My sister lived in the Greater Toronto Area so I was lucky, but she was asleep and I couldn't get ahold of her from the pay-phone. So I chatted all night long with some other random people waiting overnight at the Toronto domestic terminal building. I managed to get ahold of my sister and I was on my way the next morning; Ontario is great, it really is, but I'm supposed to be in England.

The entire time I felt like a prisoner being hauled away in an armored vehicle, detained in a place with stale food dispensers, and being subject to the passive aggression of immigration officials and policies. Worse, I believe the world should know what I felt in the atmosphere there at Heathrow. In the wake of the London bombings, I sensed only racial paranoia evidenced by the color and background of those detained; including myself.

What's a math groupie? I'm saying that it's someone who sucks just a little bit at math so that it doesn't bore him/her, but s/he's still capable of doing it. That's me, and I've been looking for creative ways to apply my favourite MATH 221 (Linear Algebra) stuff to my job designing, innovating, and building software that nobody else has attempted before.

Linear Algebra is what makes Halflife 2 so popular. Bad idea for one guy to make a video game (it takes an army, lots of money, and at least one full year). My most gratifying application of Linear Algebra has been with XYZ's latest and greatest invention concieved by yours truly that I can't talk about yet because it's top secret right now, can't even tell you who XYZ is.

This is so cool, I'm actually writing my very first blog! and it's not just fooling around! I mean I actually dig this stuff now. Who woulda thought that it would be so gratifying to see my web log on the world-wide web so that everyone in the world could look at it? and see that it's stylish with these nifty templates.

You might think that sounds like a newbie; well maybe I am a newbie when it comes to actually using the stuff I help to create for the Internet. I've been a software engineer with web development for over a decade, but honestly I don't think I've ever really made a solid casual use of any of it until now!

All these years making stuff, never even touching it. What say you?! (before I get cerebral on my next post)