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Apple introduces a whole new way to breath?

It’s the 10th year anniversary of Giant Robot magazine. I remember picking up the first issue of Giant Robot at Tower Records, which was back then one of the few mainstream places one can buy underground zines. The first issue, with the sleeping sumo wrestler on the cover as you see me holding above, was a true zine. Its irreverent pages, filled with esoteric Asian-American cultural references, were photocopied and stapled together by hand. By the fourth issue (the one on the right above), it had acquired a sleek 4-color cover but kept its interior pages rough-looking and in black and white (screened at 60 lpi). Nowadays, the magazine is a glossy, full-color rag but it has somehow stayed true to the spirit of its zine days.

(nytimes article via cheesedip)

 
We were at Banyan Garden on Saturday night after a whole day of doing laundry. Banyan is one fine restaurant that serves Malaysian/Singaporean/Thai food.

 
We missed the controversial Fourth of July parade in Fremont which took place a mere three blocks from where we live. We were in church that morning, then as soon as we got home my wife had to take an online quiz for school.

After last year’s fireworks-deprived Fourth of July, my wife and I wanted to bring the family to some sort of fireworks show this year. We had season passes for Paramount’s Great America so we decided to go there. We found out too late, however, that Great America did an Iraq government handover stunt by scheduling the fireworks show one day early because of security concerns. But instead of fearing eruptions of violence from insurgents, they feared eruptions of violence from gang members. *sigh* So we settled for doing our own fireworks in the nearest city where it is legal to do so, in Union City.

The next day we headed off to Bonfante Gardens in Gilroy. It’s a theme park with amusement rides and unique trees set in beautifully landscaped gardens.
 
 
 
 

More pictures here.

Ben Stein writes in his last column for E! Online:

…We are puny, insignificant creatures.

We are not responsible for the operation of the universe, and what happens to us is not terribly important. God is real, not a fiction, and when we turn over our lives to Him, he takes far better care of us than we could ever do for ourselves.

In a word, we make ourselves sane when we fire ourselves as the directors of the movie of our lives and turn the power over to Him.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human.

I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin–or Martin Mull or Fred Willard–or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life.

And he quotes an excerpt from John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech in January of 1961:

On a very cold and bright day in D.C., he said, “With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth…asking His blessing and His help but knowing that here on Earth, God’s work must surely be our own.”