Richard Chen

This is written to those in Tier 3, Step 1, meaning friends I don’t keep up with but who’re mildly interested. This assumes they’ve had no update on my life from me or, even less likely, by reading my blog for over 1 year. Pretty long time, I’d say!

Very happy working at Scholastic. I’m guarded about who I befriend there as they must have company loyalty and not just wanting to outsource jobs.

Very happy socially. Having tons of fun with my travel, local friends, work friends, new church friends, and some new 2nd degree acquintances. I continue my campaign of giving priority time and scheduling to those in Tier 1 and not much to the rest meaning I’ve ever better friendships with the top 10. Quality over quantity. I don’t do much of those social networking sites (a.k.a. “facebook“) and stopped posting to my Flickr due to lack of comments which signals a lack of viewing. Anyways, as I sort of search for a life partner or any partner, I’m putting my time to more efficient means. Church friends are great and I don’t mind giving to them as they are focused on more eteral goals as I aim to do the same.

Very happy at home, all is well, amazingly. Yes, big change from a year ago.

Very happy travel-wise. I’ve 7 states left and have flown over 66,000 miles in the last 12 months, of which most were with Continental Airlines, my favorite. I’m nearing OnePass Elite Gold Status. For the uninitiated, that means a lot of miles. Specifically, 50,000 in a year.

That’s all! Contact me! I couldn’t make things any easier! And I even reply within 24 hours most of the time. Yep, a rarity now-a-days.

[friend n]’s binging on blind dating for the past many months is sad to a number of us, his/her friends, as s/he’s so desirious of finding someone intimate but meeting no fitting person (which I suppose is better than a liar who uses and leaves him/her), but I shouldn’t judge since I’m as eager and desirious for an intimate partner, even if that questions whether it’s with the primary of becoming a more Godly person or just having someone.

I’m not much better since I’m also overly eager to have someone. My difference, however, is not ignoring friends as I do the search. Sad is the one who goes so extreme in the search to be loved that they forget who already loves them. While I’m nice, I’m also reasoned in my allotting love because there’s always someone else who can use the love more than the person who’s greedily ignoring it.

Just a reality check!

Let me translate for you and my friends

I really really dislike irrespondence and irresponsibility. Actually, I hate it, which is more than merely disliking it.

Yep, I’m in a bad mood lately. I blame the strange Lyme Disease-like illness for most of earlier this week.

I’m thinking that a photo of the latest ice shelf breaking off (ice shelf is a misleading term for how large that land mass is, but we’ll spare the narrow-minded people from having to think too much) is still not enough to convince eternal global climate change skeptics. It’s time to just ignore those who’ve themselves chosen to ignore the growing mass of research. Just because someone is unable to intellectually digest that kind of research doesn’t mean it’s untrue. It just means some people out there are too stupid and lazy. Yeah, I’ve descended to personal insults.

I must be in a controversial, sparring mood because I also just read Let?s Get Rid of Darwinism, the third part in a series celebrating Charles Darwin, which makes me want to scream out to narrow-minded Christians who hate Darwin that Darwin’s theory of evolution and ideas on natural selection are not directly opposed to that Christian God-made-us-4500-years-ago preaching.

Man, my mood stinks

This post is possibly my best one ever. I’d submit the below the magazine The Atlantic Monthly, but haven’t the motivation to make it that long.

Invisible’s the New Visible

Want to be loved? Hide.

On most instant messaging networks, one can set a status of “Invisible” where one is signed on but cannot be viewed as being online by fellow users.

People want to be loved, but without threat. Control outbound and restrict inbound. It’s the natural result of a culture where independence and control are king. It’s all about the self. Witness a few of today’s best advertising slogans:
Sprite: Obey Your Thirst.
Samsung: Digitally Yours.
Sony Playstation: Live in your world, play in ours.
Dell Computer: Purely You.

In the olden days (that being 2001), this sort of control was done by setting a status of “Away” while actually there so most wouldn’t message the hider except very ambitious friends who’d message a person while s/he was “away”. Then came blogging anonymously while telling friends all about your anonymous blog to get views and fame without risking your actual identity.

Now, invisible is the best way to control who messages you by not having anyone message you!

Now that one can hide on instant messaging, what’s next? Hiding while driving? Tinted windows (up to the legal 15% in most states which is already pretty dark given the lack of light sourcing from a car cabin) are already the fad for most tweens with pocket rice rockets. It could be hiding from neighbors. Americans do it quite well already in their McMansions, and happily so. iPods help us to ignore people. It seems this new invisible fad is a necessary step before being invisible to not just friends, family, and anonymous people but to ourselves. What a lovely world.

Sources

1. slogans