1/3 Baked Idea Put Back in the Oven

Is it weird to think highly of one of your own ideas? Conceited? I'm not sure but what I do know is that in my previous post I proposed an idea that touched a nerve in my own psyche. The idea was one of my 1/3 baked ideas; essentially to get everyone I went to high school with to allow me to add them as a friend on my new Facebook page. It came to me in a flash and I wrote my thoughts as I was thinking them. Now that I have had a little more time to digest the idea it has me sparked and thinking in a way that I don't remember in recent existence.

I have expanded the goal slightly. Not only would I like to see if I can get everyone from my graduating class as friends on Facebook but I would also like to find out a little bit about each and every person. Things such as did you get married? What age were you when you got married? How many kids do you have? What are their ages? What do you do for a living? Where do you live? Where did you go to college (if you went to college)? Ultimately I would like to get a broad view snapshot of where we have come as a collective group in the 11+ years since high school.

First thought that came to mind: can I do this? Is the goal actually realistic. I would say that it probably is not. There are some that simply would never set up a page on Facebook (or whatever the new medium becomes some time in the future while I am still endeavoring). It is possible that perhaps one or more of my classmates might no longer be alive, though I very sincerely hope that isn't the case.

Second thought that came to mind: what will be gained from this? I am by no means the smartest guy in the world, but what I've learned in my 28 years and counting is that life is too short to do nothing for no reason. Therefore just about everything I do must provide me with something constructive, be it knowledge, personal growth, entertainment. I feel that I will gain some knowledge from this should I prove successful. Learning a little bit about each person will be a unique way to connect to fellow human beings in a way that most don't and wouldn't. I find I will likely learn as much about myself as I would learn from anyone else I will interact with.

I then started to just think about what got me thinking about all of this in the first place. In your life you really have four opportunities to make lasting friendships. The first is school up through high school. For the most part, you grow up going to school with a group of people, sharing common experiences like teachers, cafeteria food, cultural flash points. The second opportunity is in college. College can really define who you become depending on who you spend it with. You hear about lifelong friends from college all the time, even more so than from high school. The coming of age which takes place during college is truly unmatched anywhere else in society. The third opportunity is in your career. You will work with many people for great lengths of time and have great chances to really get to know your coworkers and develop lasting bonds with them. The fourth opportunity is in the context of pursuing an interest or hobby, and I will include church in this. Having such a dominating common interest is a superb catalyst for connecting with people and pursuing relationships with those who share this interest.

I do not attend church or actively pursue a hobby which would let me interact with others who share the same interest. I have worked at a company where I have switched locations several times and never got more than a year or two with any one person. I attended a commuter school where everyone drove to school, attended class, then drove away to study, work or party with his or her own preexisting clique. My only real chance to make lasting friendships ended 11 years ago when we all drove down the hill after graduation. I am saddened to look back and see that I haven't had any connection with anyone I graduated with in 10 years aside from running into someone while at work or when out and about.

Don't get me wrong; what I will do is not an attempt to make friends. I will not pretend to be close friends with everyone I graduated high school with. Many I didn't know at all, other than hearing their names or seeing in the hall occasionally. What I will be is open to any and all possibilities that may arise from this endeavor. If that means I reconnect with past friends in a meaningful way I am open to that. If that means I connect with people I haven't ever really known that would be fantastic. Perhaps people have a very bad recollection of me and who I was and they want nothing to do with me. I would accept that too. I am going into this with a completely blank canvas and will allow the image to develop on its own, with no preconceived notion of what the final product will be.

Ultimately, as I stated above, life is very, very short. We never know how much time we have left or what waits for us when we wake up the next day. What we do know is that every minute gives us the power to make decisions to improve things or let them continue on their current paths. I'm not out to change the world. I'm just out to change my world; to embark on a journey that could take me to the tallest heights or to the lowest depths. I just want to try something new because of how it will make me feel to do it. I would wish that at the very least, everyone I interact with can understand this point of view and will be open to helping me accomplish this undertaking.

Thanks for reading, and big balls!

1/3 Baked Ideas

As you'll see on my links one of my favorite media personalities is ESPN Sports Guy Bill Simmons. On his podcasts he has on a gentleman by the name of Kevin Wildes who is famous for his "half-baked ideas". With all due to respect to Mr. Wildes I am listing a few ideas which are a little short of half-baked. I'll call them 1/3 baked ideas.

First 1/3 baked idea: a new concept in restaurants. We all enjoy a fresh, hot, homemade meal. Shoving forkful after forkful of delicious, steaming food into our mouths is the epitome of a good time for about 95.78% of us. But even better, I would say, is reheating the leftovers the next day. Whether it is pasta with red sauce, pizza, meatloaf or turkey, the food only gets better with a night's refrigeration. Why not extend this comfort food to eating out? I propose that there be a restaurant entirely devoted to serving leftovers. Food is prepared thoroughly one day, refrigerated overnight, and then reheated upon a customer's order. The food is delicious, comforting, the wait times for meals is minimal and naturally would cost a bit less than a freshly made meal. Tell me you wouldn't take a huge plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes leftovers over a large sized combo meal for fast food. I know you would.

Second 1/3 baked idea: getting every single person I graduated high school with as a friend of Facebook. The idea is to reach out to a few people that I knew well in high school and connect with them. Hopefully each one is connected with someone I didn't know and can get them added, then that person is connected to others and so on. I can also search for others on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. Hopefully they will enjoy the appeal of the project and will agree to go along with it. This could be difficult because some will not be on these sites and I will have to try to get others to get them online. I could even have to switch everyone over to a different type of site later on if this takes a while. I could always chronicle this to put together something at the end. The possibilities are endless.

Third 1/3 baked idea (that sounded weird to say it): I will begin to attempt to lose some weight, tone up and get healthier. I will also chronicle the journey in great detail. List what I eat, document my workout regimen and also generally describe my emotions and preparation for what I am doing. I believe this would work best as a real time chronicle. I don't think I have what it takes to create a website but perhaps a blog dedicated to this purpose alone which would be updated daily. I've got to believe that while reading it every day would prove tiresome, to check in from time to time to see how I am doing would be interesting. I also believe that regardless of what the outcome would be, it would be fascinating to see the final result and look back to see what the reasons behind the success or failure would be. This would also make a good compilation after the fact.

These are my three current 1/3 baked ideas. I would definitely pursue all of these at some point in my life, if not right now. After reading this please give me your feedback on what you think of these ideas and the odds that any of them would be interesting and would work on any type of commercial level. Ask your friends to read this too. I'd be interested to hear a variety of opinions on the subject.

Hai Majide

I'm back. I know the world wasn't exactly waiting in anticipation but here I am. What a few weeks it has been. There were two reasons I was away. The first is that the past two weekends have been Father's Day and my 4 year anniversary. Needless to say not much writing was getting done during those weekends. We had good times and I enjoyed them very much. We have all taken to ABC Wednesday nights watching Wipeout and I Survived a Japanese Game Show. I have been looking for a line to sign off all of my blog posts with and I have found them. It will be one or the other. You'll see what I mean below.

The second reason I was away was due to my increased attention to sports. I love sports; so much so that when one of my favorite teams is close to winning a championship it consumes me. I read every article, watch every game, live and die by every play. Being a fan of the teams I am has been very rewarding this decade. The Lakers have made six trips to the NBA finals, winning four times, the latest being perhaps the most satisfying. My Cal State Fullerton Titans baseball team made it to the College World Series this year, as they have 6 times this decade, winning the NCAA championship in 2004. The Ducks have made two trips to the Stanley Cup finals this decade and were able to lift Lord Stanley's Cup in 2007. The Anaheim Angels won their first world series in 2002 and have been consistent playoff contenders since. USC football has won two championships this decade and played in the BCS championship game in 2006. Even in some lower tier sports such as Major League Soccer my team, the LA Galaxy have won the MLS Cup twice, in 2002 and 2005, as well as making it to the final game in 2001. UCLA basketball has not won a title this decade but made it to 3 straight Final Four appearances from 2006-2008.

These are all teams I have followed since I was 12 or 13 years old (1993-1994 for those of you scoring at home) with the exception of the LA Galaxy who only started play in 1996. To have all of these teams having so much success this decade it makes it very easy for me to enjoy the sports even more. I never have to worry about a disappointing loss or end to the season because I know that another one of my teams will be playing at a high level and competing for a championship very soon. I would argue that the Southern California area has seen one of the greatest runs in championships by a broad range of teams in history. I have been privileged to be a part of that and can only hope that further success ensues. I am back to writing until another one of my teams is tantalizingly close to a championship. I have to go now. The United States men's national team is gearing up for their Confederation's Cup final in South Africa.

Thanks for reading and big balls.

Let the Weak Fall (Capitalistically Speaking)

"Because that's the way it is!" We've all heard these words from our parents at some point in our lives. We usually roll our eyes and ignore the advice only to find ourselves dispensing it in our roles as parents later on in life. Why do we seem to hold on to such a notion when time after time we try to talk ourselves into believing that it is no longer relevant? Fear. We are afraid of any type of real change that might affect the level of comfort in our day to day lives.

As innovative and entrepreneurial as we are as a country, we have some deep rooted issues as it relates to change and new paradigms in our lives. Every time there is a new technology most people are slow to embrace it, focusing on all the negatives without realizing how important and positive the change will be. When radio came along with its new form of entertainment, some folks thought of it as a tool of the devil. In actuality it brought the country together during World War II and helped steel the nation's resolve through President Roosevelt's famed fireside chats. When television came along it was thought that radio would be obsolete and television would be a negative influence, but yet we still listen to it almost every day. TV has transformed our lives in ways too numerous to list here but we can't imagine our lives without it. And don't even get me started about the internet, which many have still not yet embraced.

We should never just think that something needs to stay around just because it has existed for a long time. As we have seen throughout history, nothing is meant to last forever and we should not expect it to. The newspapers have been spiraling toward bankruptcy for many years now and will continue to do so unless major changes are made by the newspapers to gain more readers and more revenue. For a great discussion of how this can be done I refer you to Dallas Maverick's owner Mark Cuban's blog. In the event that this does not happen is there a real reason to keep the newspapers going? Maybe not.

President Obama entertained the idea of some sort of a bailout package to keep the Washington Post, New York Times and other papers running because it would be in the best interest of the country. I don't know anybody who reads these papers and we seem to get along fine in our lives. Why are these select sources of information placed above all others? I honestly don't know. We supposedly live in a capitalist society where you put out a good product and you reap the rewards. Put out a product people don't like and you'll find yourself out of business. Between TV and the internet very few people are getting much information from newspapers.

Circulation is down for newspapers for many reasons. The proliferation of the internet is certainly a reason but so is the editorial slants of the paper. Newspapers, whether leaning right or left, tend to only give one perspective on an issue and fail to give consumers the balance of information that they crave. The papers force readers to see the world as they see it rather than as it really is. Locally in Los Angeles, local radio hosts John and Ken held two rallies to protest all the proposed tax hikes in California. The LA Times was nowhere to be seen. 300 kids walk out of school to protest potential teacher layoffs and the LA Times covers the story from all angles. The reason is because the LA Times editorially wants more taxes to increase government spending so to cover the opposing side would hurt their cause. The LA Times would also love to keep every teacher employed even if it means higher taxes for local residents. The protest served the purpose of advancing the Times' agenda so they made sure every reader knew all about it and portrayed it in a positive light. I will have more on this whole story later but this editorial reporting on news stories is leading to the demise of the newspapers.

I don't want to have more money taken out of my paycheck to prop up a failing newspaper I don't read. It's simply not the American way and it is a shame that as soon as the economy starts to slide and things are looking the least bit bleak, we are willing to throw away the principles we have been operating under for decades. The government should not be in the business of spending our tax dollars on keeping failing businesses alive. We have operated for 250 years in this country on the premise that if you run a successful business you will succeed and if you don't, you won't. When the incentive not to fail is gone, all that will be left are failing businesses and less compelling competition as up and coming smart businesses are pushed out by the giants being subsidized by the federal government. Newspapers should be no exception to any other capitalistic enterprises. If they can't attract readers and make enough money to stay afloat, they should go. Just my editorial opinion.

OK. So torture is the new buzzword, especially amongst every internet wannabe with a voice like yours truly. Does this mean that I have to jump on the bandwagon and throw my two cents in? You know me so well. There are a couple points we have to consider when talking about torture. The first is to define what torture is. Second is to discuss whether it has a place in our society in the year 2009.

One definition of torture is that it is "the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty." What would fall under this category? Certainly pulling fingernails would qualify. Running electrical current through a prisoner's genitals probably would also qualify (except for a few weirdos out there; you know who you are). Waterboarding? Probably not. It is psychologically taxing on the individual being waterboarded but does not seem to actually cause excruciating pain.

Another definition is "extreme anguish of body or mind; agony." More acts would fall under this category. Certainly extreme sleep deprivation would anguish the body and mind. Would it cause agony? Maybe, maybe not. I think the better tact would be to stick with something that almost everyone would agree on. Focus on the common sense question of whether you would be afraid of an impending form of "torture". Would most everyone be terrified if they were told that they would have their fingernails pulled off one by one? Certainly. Would the same reaction be caused by the threat of sleep deprivation or waterboarding? Probably not. Therefore, in my humble opinion, various painful physical tortures would qualify as genuine torture while sleep deprivation and waterboarding would not.

Now that we've determined what is torture, do we have a place for it in our modern society? That depends on a few factors. Does torture work? Certainly it does sometimes. We have harshly interrogated prisoners and obtained important information that has led to the potential saving of many American lives. A recent and notable example is that the "mastermind" of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, gave crucial information that led to the thwarting of a plot against the city of Los Angeles. One of the techniques used was waterboarding. I shudder to think about how many people could have died had interrogators refused to use this method of getting information.

As Adam Carolla has recently said, torture must work to some degree because if it didn't, it would no longer be around. It has been used for thousands of years because it does work. Name something else that has been around for so long and doesn't work. It is true that sometimes it doesn't work, and unfortunately in such a situation it can inflict useless pain on the subject. Is this worth it in the name of protecting Americans? As they say in Washington, yes and no.

We are in a unique position in the world. We are capable of inflicting far more pain than we would absorb. This is an argument in favor of torture. We will be able to torture more than we will be tortured and the information we gain much of the time will be valuable. On the other hand, our powerful position puts us in a position of having to set a good example for the world. The negative feelings toward the U.S. will only increase if we are acting as the bad guy. We need to be very selective in what we do and how often we do it. A little isolationism can be healthy but the world is small and we do need to at least have other countries willing to work with us a little from time to time.

So here is how I see it. Sleep deprivation and waterboarding cause no long-term physical damage and can garner helpful information for interrogators. War is hell. Sometimes you need to pull out all the stops in order to get crucial information that could save lives and shorten conflicts. Last I checked my last name isn't Machiavelli, but sometimes the ends really do justify the means. I don't think a person being honest with himself would argue that it would be better to have let countless people die in Los Angeles rather than waterboard a scumbag on principle. We do need to be harsh sometimes to get what we need. Peeling off fingernails is a big no-no but waterboarding and sleep deprivation are winners. That's where I would draw the line. Sometimes you just need to be the bad guy. Call me shallow, but I care about the lives of innocent Americans just a little more than scumbag terrorists. I'll take my chances in the court of world opinion.

Now What?

Our world is based on ideas. If someone has a great new idea to improve the human existence it is accepted in time and put into motion. You can have a good life just implementing the ideas of others, but to have a truly revolutionary idea, you will become rich and leave a legacy that will outlast your physical form. We are always in need of an influx of new ideas. Some of them are good and some of them are, well, not so good. One question: since when did it become acceptable to do nothing except shoot down ideas without offering any new ones?

In the realm of politics there is no greater currency than good ideas. Unfortunately, due to many reasons which I will not get into here, good ideas are on short supply. We should be very happy to receive new ideas and should be looking for reasons to accept them and implement them. Instead, we are constantly looking for reasons to deny them without offering a new theory. When it comes to cutting government, universal health care, national defense, things clearly need a newly defined direction. Which direction I will leave up to you, but nonetheless, we need new ideas. The problem is everyone is so afraid of getting behind something that could end up failing that as soon as one problem is found with an idea the whole thing is scrapped without the dissenting voice presenting a new idea. Nobody is there to step in and come up with the "better" solution to take the place of the "potentially ineffective" solution.

Can we all wrap our heads around the idea that there is pretty much nothing that is totally right or totally wrong. There is a lot of gray area in this world and most great ideas involve some of said area. Microsoft has had many problems with Windows but yet it has helped advance human civilization to areas one couldn't imagine 30 years ago. If someone had said to Bill Gates that since there were problems with his software he should just ignore it and focus on something else we would be in a far different world. Why must we simply ignore an idea once it has been brought forth? Isn't there room to modify an idea, and reintroduce it as better? Maybe even do that a few times until the idea is fully ready to be implemented? Nature has done this with evolution. Why not with ideas?

If we are ever going to get anywhere in making this world more livable for ourselves we need to recognize that there is plenty of room to improve things, sometimes even after the fact. An idea need not be a perfect one without faults to be effective. Progress in small increments is still progress, and we should embrace any opportunity to move forward. How about we demand that politicians grow a pair and do something for us instead of worrying about their reelection? Wait, there might be some politicians who disagree with that so forget it; not a good idea.

Lost Again

And now a few words about the TV show LOST:

First, since Faraday died in his present but his mom's past, does that mean that in her present she instantly has the memory of killing Daniel as a young woman as well as memories of raising him? Desmond had a memory of Faraday talking to him at the hatch from his past that suddenly came to him when Faraday was time skipping. Desmond had this new memory at the exact time in his present as Faraday's present frame of reference as though they were both running concurrently. This is my precedent for believing this. Either way, kinda weird.

Second, supposing the O6 are able to stop things from happening the way they originally did, what effect would that have exactly? I figure it this way. Supposing they were able to travel back to a time shortly before flight 815 they would still have memories of all that happened right, since it is happening to them all in their present time? They just would be able to live their lives after getting off in Los Angeles like they would have had 815 not crashed.

I'm also wondering about Charlotte. Supposing she leaves the island and it turns out that 815 doesn't crash, she would have no reason to visit the island post crash and thus would not be caught up in the time skipping. But she did die in her present, so would that mean that in late 2004, wherever she is in the world, she would die at that same time since she couldn't live after a point in which she would have died? Or do the rules change because she was time skipping? And would this apply to everyone who has died on the island after the crash of 815?

My head is swimming a bit so I'm hoping I can make sense of it. If you're into LOST I recommend Lostpedia.com or The Lost Diary for great info and ideas about where LOST is heading. If you're not into LOST you've saved yourself 15 hours per week of viewing, reading, thinking, dreaming and otherwise pondering. Congratulations either way!