This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it. This is for that time she interrupted the best killing spree you’d ever orchestrated in GTA3 to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing “serious” between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that.

The nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, the nice guys don’t seem to get laid as often as they should. And I wish I could logically explain this trend, but I can’t. From what I have observed on campus and what I have learned from talking to friends at other schools and in the workplace, the only conclusion I can form is that many girls are just illogical, manipulative bitches. Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!” or the most frustrating of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks. Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all the nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs your patience in the department store, your holding open of doors, your party escorting services, your propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things you tolerate, for all the situations where you are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you. You do have credibility in this society, and your well deserved vindication is coming.

- Fu-zu Jen, SEAS/WH, 2003

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Gentleman/Chauvinist

Thanks Vambi for the link to this article. Made my day…

It’s nearly 430am in the morning and I am still awake.

Anywho, I had an urge to write about a discussion I heard a couple of days ago. Why is it that we chase money? Why do we think we’re entitled to being rich materially? What makes us think that in this world, the intangible idea are worth so much more than the physical produce.

I work with computers. I’ll probably get a job which deals with computers in some way or another. Yet I look at this screen and I wonder to myself what makes these 1’s and 0’s in any quantity the same as the grains of rice I ate for dinner. What makes these programs that I make and use worth more than the roof over my head? What makes the touch screen worth more than a month of work by a doctor healing people?

Simplistically, these intangible ideas are just that… Intangible. Farming machines, biological research and exchange of ideas help us grow more food. Engineers and Architects build better, stronger and more space efficient buildings than I ever could with Computer Aided Design tools. A touch screen allows a doctor to diagnose illnesses or even control a robotic arm to a higher degree of precision. So in a way, I could help them do tangible good in my own intangible way.

Yet, the most valuable asset today is the so-called New Media. Advertising, marketing and content on a medium that is virtually limitless. My question to you is. For what? Twitter is just a message board. Facebook is a (Addictive) time sink/dorm bulletin board. Blogs are dairies and scrap books that we use to sate our narcissistic indulgences. But for what?

Creative outlets are great. I would die without them. But why are we putting several billion dollars into an escapist venture when it could be used to build a school or pay for food that people so desperately need? Have we stuck our heads so high in Maslow’s heirarchy that we think we are entitled to nice big houses, fancy cars and our only concern is getting the money to support this life?

I hope that I have a rich life. A life rich in experiences, rich in relationships, rich in knowledge… That, my dear Minty, is what my dream is.

Einstein wrote this quiz last century. He said that 98% of the people in the world cannot solve the quiz.

* There are 5 houses in 5 different colors
* In each house lives a person with a different nationality
* These 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet
* No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same drink.

Here’s the question: Who owns the fish?

1. The Brit lives in a red house
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets
3. The Dane drinks tea
4. The green house is on the left of the white house
5. The green house owner drinks coffee
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
8. The man living in the house right in the middle drinks milk
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house
10. The man who smokes Blend lives next door to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next door to the man who smokes Dunhill
12. The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer
13. The German smokes Prince
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house
15. The man who smokes Blend has a neighbor who drinks water

With these 15 clues the problem is solvable.

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Because I need to study for my quiz tmr and I want to remember to do this when I have the time =P mean while… Happy solving!

… In the end, you figure out that you will never know everything, you will never do everything, you will never find everything or see everything.

But you will know enough, you will do enough, you will find enough and you will see enough. Why? Because we were never meant to do it all, we were meant to do our own little part in this world.

Marraige: “Not for anything else - wealth, fame or power. But for life.” - Remi

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Being a player is a gift. A large part is being able to understand how you make people feel.

Buying the girl a drink, getting her to feel attracted to you, making her feel comfortable and then teasing her with a wildside. You let her know without saying a word that you’re fun, you don’t give a fuck and all you wanna do is get fucked. So you beckon and she follows you home.

An equally large part is not caring how people feel.. Because these are not people, they are conquests.

The rest of it is pretty much confidence, money and experience.

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There are those who understand the game, but they choose not to play it. Remi’s thoughts reflect such a person… A man with character and chilvary. Why would you have to play when it could all be real?

On a side note:

I’ve always loved to bring up the question of EQ and IQ playing equal parts in our interactions with people. Players are people who have a high enough EQ to dance in the chaos of human relations, getting their way with charm and leverage. But if you just take a second to think about what you are doing and how you’ll feel if someone did it to you.. I’m pretty sure you’ll get along just fine.

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That was a long over due post.

just to keep it all inside..

shadows will help you try to hide…

oh… and yes… what i meant to say was….

Sometimes it good to just sit in solitude and think about the things in life that matter the most to you. The still black marble of this little pond reminds me of the impenetrable veil I’ve pulled over my soul. Some where along the line I realise that speaking the truth doesn’t constitute baring your soul.

T once said that people are like onions, many layered and complicated beyond belief. Even when you think you have them figured out and read like a book you find out that they can be a totally different person overnight.

I have different masks I wear with different people, subtle, often unnoticable changes that I am very conscious of. Does that make me fake?

Yet at the same time, my friends can readily guess what I would do given a situation where the decision depends on character. Does this make me
Predictable?

I live in a very grey life. The black and white margins blend seemlessly and sometimes this makes it hard to make decisions. How envy those who live their lives in black and white. Yet I wouldn’t change what makes me Christopher.

I do how one day to meet someone who loves me for me. Not because I fulfil some checklist or I’m the last male on the planet(sans zombie apocalypse, I’ll do my part to save humanity), but because she loves me simply and purely. That she simply loves who I am.

So here’s a toast to a friend of mine who has yet to find the girl of his dreams. We certainly have hope still my friend. Don’t doubt urself because if she can’t love you for who you are then she’s not the one.

I made the mistake of trying to be good, to do the right thing and find forgiveness in my heart both times. Once I wound up being infected by the darkness, trying to convey that message.

Ironically in the immediate aftermath of the second ex I spoke to my first ex and it was her words : these things happen to you because you are weak - which made me realise how these people think.

How blind they are to the people around them. It takes infinitely more strength to live for someone else than to live for yourself; to inconvenience yourself for their benefit; to back down when you are right and they are wrong.

I realised then that the solution is neither forgiveness, nor hatred, nor hoping for karmic retribution in the future, nor being assimilated and turning user in return.

The solution is moving on and away, forgetting the past. Re-minisce, no more.

-Bad apples, Reminisce

There in lies the failure of all men. We are so short sighted to the true treasures that lie waiting for us in finding a true relationship.

I’d really love to write more but it has to wait. >< damn exams.

Ironic.

A University professor at a well known institution of higher learning challenged his students with this question. “Did God create everything that exists?”

A student bravely replied, “Yes he did!”

“God created everything?” The professor asked.

“Yes sir, he certainly did,” the student replied.

The professor answered, “If God created everything; then God created evil. And, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then we can assume God is evil.”

The student became quiet and did not answer the professor’s hypothetical definition. The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, “May I ask you a question, professor?”

“Of course”, replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, “Professor, does cold exist?”

“What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?”

The other students snickered at the young man’s question.

The young man replied, “In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 F) is the total absence of heat; and all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat.”

The student continued, “Professor, does darkness exist?”

The professor responded, “Of course it does.”

The student replied, “Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton’s prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color.

You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn’t this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present.”

Finally the young man asked the professor, “Sir, does evil exist?”

Now uncertain, the professor responded, “Of course, as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily examples of man’s Inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.

To this the student replied, “Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart. It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no light.”

The professor sat down.

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Though I know some people have linked this story to Albert Einstein, I’m pretty sure it isn’t true. Nonetheless I still feel it’s a story worth sharing that we can take a moment to mull over as we live our busy lives. Evil as the absence of God. Hmm…

I am one who believes in free will, God gave Adam and Eve all the gifts they could want and he also gave them free will. Even after they disobeyed him and ate from the tree. He did not destroy them and restart anew with beings completely obedient to Him, he punished them but allowed them to retain their free will.

I drift in and out of people’s lives. I work, I observe and I react. Once there is no need for me, I drift once again. I think it’s much past that time… it is time for me to leave. As much as I want to stay.

Help me sleep tonight.

The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight
Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time
I am here still waiting though i still have my doubts
I am damaged at best, like you’ve already figured out

The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone
I may have lost my way now, haven’t forgotten my way home

Broken - Lifehouse
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I’d like to make a video to those lyrics.

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Every song has it’s place. Strangely when I hear “Just so you know” it brings back memories of the most passionate time in my life. Yet, that is all that it is. A memory that is bitter sweet.