Senseless

To know what beauty is
but unable to see it

To know what music is
but unable to hear it

To know what grace is
but unable to observe it

But
I have seen beauty in her smile
I have heard music in her song
I have observed grace in her step

Destiny has cursed me with time
and tormented me with emotion

She has blessed me with hope
and embraced me with love

I will be in paradise before my afterlife
even though I'm already in heaven.

Stillness

My mind is my true nature
My mind is a part of nature
Nature lies within me
I am a part of Nature
But I am apart from Nature

___________________


My thoughts keep me apart
My thoughts are not a part of me
Chaos lies within my mind
It is a part of Life
But it is apart from Life

___________________


My nature is to be still
Still like the upright tree
Who always remains steadfast
Firm like the roots of the tree
Which exists only to vivify

___________________


Unphased like the full-bosomed Lotus
Who keeps her fully blossomed petals close
All while having the poise to float
Thick-skinned, she flirts with Water
While it is Water, who is misted

___________________


But my thoughts cause a torrent
These whims are wisps of wind
Prostrating the coquettish lotus
Uprooting the upright tree
Causing the stillness to secede

___________________


The grass on the ground
The leaves on the tree
The waves in the water
Never did we notice them
Till they started to shiver

___________________


One after another
But like clockwork, synchronized
In succession, they failed to succeed
The simple task of stillness
That from which they were born

___________________


In stillness, we may be born
But as stillborns, we no longer live
We capitulate the comfort
We repudiate the responsibility
To be discriminatory and no longer stationary

___________________


We still seek the quiet
By trying to quiet the stillness,
The thought that would lead to the sought,
Fruitless in the hunger,
All for naught

___________________


In sleep, it is the loudest
When even Life needs a break
Instead, its Phantasies
Which our body could not accomplish
But which the mind desired

___________________


The tree wants to spread its seed
But the leaf does not wish to fall
The mind has desires
The body exists to fulfill them
But the mind does not wish to think

___________________


The mind is tepid, torpid, and boring
Filled with desire, achieving nothing
But it is Nothing, which is boring
That makes the mind desire something
For which the confounded mind is confiding

___________________


The absence of mind is a fantasy
The absent-minded idly fantasizing
Voluntary and unwillingly,
Involuntary and willingly,
Mind and thought are lovers

___________________


Divine delivers silverly slivered
By webs of lovers' resolve
Cohering to Itself in lustful twine
The sticky silk of Satan
Mind and thought are entwined

___________________


Each impeding thought causes a vibration
Drawing imminence to the impedance
That which is its impending sustenance
The giddy lust and delectation,
Ensuing in guilty disgust and lamentation

___________________


It is natural and primal, primeval and essential
For our survival, it is collective remittance
A symbol of our progressive genesis
Logic, philosophy, mathematics,
Worse yet, orthodoxy

___________________


Intermediaries to illume the lines
Through our perilous minds,
Labyrinths of web to curb espial
Of the evanescent detour
From mind to oblivion

____

cooking corner with chef sumedh

Welcome back to another exciting meal with Chef Sumedh. Today we'll be making Vegeterian Sausage Fettuccini. Mmmm doesn't that sound heavenly ? Oh yes it does!

So the ingredients you'll want to have ready are:

• 7 Morningstar Breakfast Sausage patties
  
• 1 green bellpepper
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 lb of mozarella cheese
• 1 lb of fettuccine pasta
• 2 small cans of french green beans
• garlic salt
• peanut oil (i'm sure olive will work just fine)
• Mushroom & Bellpepper Pasta Sauce (regular tomato pasta sauce will be alright)

Got your ingredients and ready to cook? Fuckin Awesome!

LET'S COOK!

1. Gather your ingredients. (simple enough)
2. Get that pasta cooking! Fill your pot or wok with water but leave about 3 inches remaining.
3. Put your wok of water on the stove on HIGH heat. Keep an eye on it to see when it starts to boil!
4. Let's start to defrost that sausage. Put your 7 sausages in a bowl or plate and microwave it for about 2 minutes.
5. Your water should be boiling by now or at least strongly bubbling. Throw all your pasta in and let it loosen up in the water so all of the pasta will be immersed. Keep on mixing the pasta every 2 minutes.
   
6. While waiting, start to cut your bellpeppers. Take out the seeds and cut them lengthwise into strips. Then break the strips into half the size.
7. Ding! Sausages are done. Since they're defrosted you can now start to rip them into little pieces that are about 1x1 inch. Doesn't need to be exact.
8. Now you can throw all these sausage pieces onto a pan greased with a couple swigs of peanut oil.
9. Mix the sausages around and let them cook real nice.
10. Time to check on that pasta. Take a taste of one those fettuccine pieces and check out that texture. Be sure to chew completely into it to see if its an even texture.
    
11. If the pasta is to your liking, turn off the stove and carefully drain the water into the sink. Then rewash the pasta in hot water and strain about 95% of the water.
12. Now put your pasta into another container and make sure to cover it. This way it won't dry out.
13. So your sausages are also done so turn the stove off and leave those aside.
14. Cut up your onions into pieces slightly smaller than your sausage.
15. Take your onions and bellpeppers and throw them onto a pan with some peanut oil.
16. This should start to smell pretty good. Throw in a dash of garlic salt to let those bellpeppers get the onion and the garlic flavors.
17. Once the onions get transparent or start to turn a little brown, the mixture is about done. You can add your sausage to this mix and let all those cook for about 3 min. This time feel free to add more garlic salt. Make sure the sausage doesn't stick to the bottom of your pan.
    
18. Now open your can of french green beans and strain half the liquid. Now throw your beans and pasta sauce into a pot. Make sure the heat is on HIGH until it starts to boil. Then lower the heat to just a simmer.
19. Take your pasta thats just sitting around and throw it into a pot and then add the sauce-beans mixture. Keep on mixing it till the sauce is pretty even through the pasta.
    
20. Now add a good share of mozarella while mixing it. You'll know the cheese is melted when it starts to get stringy.
    
21. This is the best time to add your sausage-onion-bellpepper mix and keep on mixing all that on the stove.
    
22. Garnish with more mozarella and perhaps some basil if you'd like.

Eat with some garlic bread and perhaps some red wine. Garlic bread might be excessive if you put a lot of garlic salt and/or pasta (its really filling!).

Serves about 3?

Who would have thought vegeterian meat could be used in an actual Italian dish?!? All I can say is that this is a pretty healthy meal and fun to make. I would definitely like to try some other vegeterian meats and see how those go with other exotic dishes.

Till next time

innate sexual demons?

I suppose this post is going to be somewhat explicit in nature but trying to tackle some major issues (ethical, political, social, etc.)

If you've been watching the news recently, child pornography is becoming a growing concern as seen by the addresses to Congress and the plight of parents across the country.

First I think its important to understand who the good and bad guys are. On the surface, the good guys are the government and the law enforcement while the bad guys are these pedophiles. The government and the law enforcement are the good guys since they prevent these bad pedophiles from molesting or taking explicit pictures of innocent minors.

So what's the problem? We know who the bad guys are so there shouldn't be any hurdles in going after them right? I really don't think its that simple.

Let's try and understand what society considers indecent in terms of sexuality. That's pretty easy just go and look at a pornographic website.

Exhibitionism: Sex in public. (Public should not be forced nor be exposed to sex in everyday life, especially kids.)

Incest: Sex with family members. (Considered dirty and savage by most. Also results in genetic complications and a reduction of the gene pool.)

Child Pornography: Sex with minors. (Minors don't have the ability to make decisions and should not be taken advantage of until they're "ready" to defend themselves and let alone by sexually mature.)

Homosexuality: Sex with members of the same sex. gay/lesbian (Only recently accepted by society but still looked down upon since it also seems un-Christian or at least un-Catholic.)

So I've started to think about what makes homosexuality right and pedophilism wrong. No I'm not super conservative and completely homophobic nor am I a pedophile or a pedophile supporter but there are some similarities and differences that are worth noting.

I sincerely believe both homosexuality and pedophilism result from strong sexual urges, urges so strong that they cannot be suppressed but rather need to be satisfied. I feel both these urges are just as natural as the other and both are looked down upon just the same. Homosexuality is okay since it usually involved partners, people who are peers and mutually make the decision to engage in sex. Pedophilism is not okay since it involves an adult and a minor. The adult can (legally) make decisions whereas the minor cannot. Since the minor cannot make decisions nor can he/she prevent these sexual actions being taken upon him/her this constitutes rape or molestation. If pictures or video is taken, it constitutes child pornograpy.

I hate to say it but the pedophiles are in a really bad situation since their (sexual) needs are not met by society. Its unfortunate that what they want, they cannot have. Its almost not fair to them to have the natural urge to want something that society deems illegal.

To those who believe homosexuality is okay and pedophilism is not, you need to see which of these two "conditions," one would consider a "disease" or a natural God-sent/natural sexual urge. If you think you can "cure" a pedophile, guess again. Most pedophiles are pedophiles for life.

If humans didn't nurture and take care of their kids till adulthood (at least 16-18), this probably would not be an issue since children would be independent as soon as they were sexually mature. But ass long as a parent is accountable and responsible for their child, the parent would not want any adult to take advantage of their child and end up scarring them for life.

This is still a tough issue that I do not believe is easy as black and white. Definitely leave comments so this entire issue can be brought to the forefront.

cool Mac software

So I'm pretty happy that Camino (web browser for Mac OS that uses Firefox engine) has left its beta stage and its full new version is definitely up to par. The bugs that caused me anguish during my live Yahoo Fantasy NBA Draft have been fixed and the UI is almost exactly as I like it. Unfortunately they dropped the white toolbar background in favor of the new Mac titanium/gray color.

NOTE TO DEVELOPERS: Let the toolbar color be customizable.

Anyhoo everything else with it works quite seamlessly. Their Talkback utility reports errors automatically to their Support site whenever Camino crashes. If you haven't used Camino before, you'll be amazed how well they work Apple's Aqua style to enhance the browsing experience. If you only use Safari, this will definitely blow you away.

On to new software, like Cellulo now then:

Cellulo can be found here.

To sum it all up, its a freakin awesome video player. Its got all the up-to-date codecs and is just an extension sorta thing for QuickTime so its not another software program you're using. Adding subtitles is sooooo easy. Just drag-and-drop. So go ahead and download foreign flicks with no subtitles and then go here and just find the movie you want subtitles for, download the subtitles, and then drag-and-drop the subtitles into your Cellulo workspace. Its just that simple. Also, Cellulo has all the nice Mac Aqua design that we (?) adore.

Cellulo is all about metadata which is basically tags for all your different media files. I really don't think Cellulo can replace iTunes (for music stuff) right now but it can definitely replace your QuickTime (if you even use it anymore), Windows Media Player, and/or VLC.

I am gonna be taking Cellulo's music capabilities for a test run right now and see where it goes. From the looks of it right now, the Cellulo engine (or whatever) is not able to handle importing my entire iTunes library (30+gb) all at once.

Leave comments, suggestions, or concerns about Cellulo or Camino if interested. I don't develop it but I do like to figure it out.

rant on religion

So tonight I had the pleasure of being invited to participate in a discussion on spirituality, representing the Hindu religious denomination. The first portion of this spiritual presentaiton was by 2 psychologists on wellness. The second portion consisted of about 8 panelists from Catholicism, Asian-American Christian Fellowship, the Duhai religion and student org, Muslim Student Association, and the Hindu Student Council.

Each of these faiths introduced their religions, such as main tenets, and then went on to talk about how their religion addressed the issue of spirituality. I found much of the spiritual material to be common across all the faiths. I guess this is where the similarities end and the differences start to appear.

The biggest issue was that the Duhai, Hindu, and perhaps some of the others led to the same God. Much to my dismay, the Catholic representative reffered to his God as the Christian God. I guess this difference leads me to my rant.

Can we take pride in our religions?
And merely by speaking about them, are we advertising them?
Do we want people to join our religion more than we want them to find happiness or more than we want them to find God?

It almost sickens me to find elitism in some religions. My main pet peeve is the recruitment process or the need for people to convert to their religion. Some people might be okay with others being of a different religon but deeply they find their own way is not necessarily just right but more right.

Everyone agrees that politics gave many religions, specifically Christianity and Islam, a bad rap. Think of all the fundamentalist movements of yesterday and today. Regardless, it is still accepted that religion can and will be a cause for more war and more terror due to differences in creed rather than faith.

I guess I want to be the individual to ask the reason/need for so many religions. Well to those who believe in God, God is of divine importance (obviously). To almost thank him for our existence, we must worship him by prayer and praising him. (Sorry about not capitalizing the him's)

As long as we can't explain everything and there's something left to the unknown, there will always the supernatural. I have a feeling as long as we retain the classification of human there will always be something fundamentally unknown (like for instance how we got here in the first place). Since this supernatural force or dark matter is all around us and conceptually quite powerful (since we can't understand it or control it), we might as well praise it then piss it off.

So I'm assuming people all around the world separated by all the geographical boundaries, ultimately came to this conclusion that they should worship God. Each of these groups had their own language, culture, heritage, and traditions. Thus the word God is going to be different in every language and due to the limitations of language, God and fundamental tenets of the religion will vary. Since this variance is already there since the beginning, time will change these tenets (even creeds) even more.

I believe it is man's modern need to categorize everything that creates these differences in religion despite the fact that they all lead to God. The beauty of all this and religion is that it starts off divergently (from the same God) but has the ability and tendency to be convergent. Unfortunately, we're stuck in the middle, right after the divergence and right before the convergence. This is why we have to deal with the differences. Should we even have to deal with them?

I still can't get the idea out of my head that religions practically advertise. Christians still try to actively convert people of other faiths. I guess it is inherently okay if you think about it; they are trying to save non-Christians from going to hell. Its more of peer pressure or rather societal pressure. They often give incentives and other forms of corruption exist for conversion. In India, Islam was forced onto many but I guess I should accept it with all of military history.

On to another subject, Hinduism, possibly other religions as well, defined as a way of life. If someone grew up in a secluded village in India and lived their life well, would they be Hindu? What if they prayed and never heard the term Hinduism, would they be Hindu? What if they hadn't read any of the scriptures, would they be Hindu? What if they read everything, did everything, but did not believe in a fundamental creed (e.g. Jesus as the savior, Muhammad as the prophet), would they still be of that faith? Only God could judge these sorts of things and decided whether they are to join Him or to come back to Earth/go to hell.

Hmm I'll add more things as I remember them....

whoeth be thy muse?

I tried to extract emotion from your soul,
armed with excuses of inflated rhetoric
but you discerned my motive from my farce,
steering clear of overt confessions.

I failed to realize that which
I always took for granted.
It was that grace threaded with that quotient
that made it that “you.”

It seems my actions are forever fruitless
and the only one to blame is myself.

Perhaps, I could have reaped those fantasies
that kept me up at night.
Instead, I'd rather dream those reveries
that let me sleep so soundly.

All that remains is a mild expression
of vigor for temerity on my face.

Maybe its this sleep-laden emotion
I wish to see in you,
So that we may color the skies
in colors we’ve never seen.