Spock Was A Buddhist

I realize that the creators of Star Trek didn't intend for Spock to be a Buddhist (at least not openly), but I think Spock display some Buddhist virtues:

• Spock is concerned for the welfare of others over himself.
• Spock, like all Vulcans, is concerned with training and disciplining the mind.  The mind is the foremost thing to overcome.
• Spock opposed irrational (i.e. "illogical") thinking.

An admirable character, I think.

Make Sure You Can Spot The Difference

It's important to know true religious leaders from fake ones:



Watch out for religious "leaders" in high-top sneakers and incredibly foul language.

Just Because I Like This Song

This is Brown Eyed Girls' Abracadabra, the performance version:



The main music video is a bit too racy for this blog, and was banned on Korean TV from what I heard. You can find it easily on Youtube and decide for yourself. In any case, the song and dance are pretty awesome. If you see PSY's video "Gentleman", you can see the same dance used. Ga-in from BEG also makes an appearance in that video. :)

Brown Eyed Girls new album, yay

I finally got the latest album, Black Box, from Brown Eyed Girls:

The album has both "Kill Bill" and "Recipe".  The inside photo book is nice too and has a lot of glossy photos of the ladies. You can see some of them on the Nega Network photo album too if curious.

The album itself has a lot of good hits. I've been enjoying it since yesterday.  I like the opening song, among others, and I'm thankful that unlike some other KPop albums I've bought in the past, it's not just a couple hit songs at the beginning or end, and a lot of other flat, boring ones.  BEG know how to make good songs.  :)

Definitely a nice addition to my small, but growing BEG album collection.

Enjoying Victoria B.C., Gangnam Style

This weekend, my wife, daughter and I enjoyed a small trip to Victoria B.C. in Canada:



Victoria is the capitol of British Columbia, though smaller in size than the city of Vancouver, and a bit more old-fashioned. It's a great city of visit though for a few nights:



It's relatively small, so you can walk around and see most of it, has a lot of history, but also great food, scenery, etc.



We spent most of the time in and around the city of Victoria, enjoying breakfast at Murchie's which was awesome, seeing the wonderful Butchart Gardens:

:

...and so on. It was a great weekend, my thanks to wonderful people in Victoria who made it possible. :)

P.S. Speaking of Gangnam Style, we did go to a certain Korean restaurant in downtown Victoria, but it was pretty disappointing. I won't mention it by name. Suffice to say we haven't yet found a good, legitimate Korean restaurant in either Victoria or Vancouver yet. Suggestions appreciated. On the other hand, fish and chips in Victoria were fantastic.

Basics of Buddhism

Something I remembered from the Diamond Sutra recently:

All conditioned phenomena
Are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow
Like the dew, or like lightning
You should discern them like this

Translation by Professor Charles Muller. The term "conditioned phenomena" means all things that come into existence: people, thoughts, feelings, trends, planets, etc. Because it comes into existence, it will also fade. All good things must come to an end.

Learning Klingon for Fun and For Profit

Hi all, Thanks to a little credit I got recently on Amazon I decided to buy a little gift for myself. I purchased a used copy of the famous Klingon Dictionary.

I used to own this book as a teenager, maybe 20-25 years ago when I was a young, die-hard “Trekkie” (Star Trek fan). However, one time I remember bringing it to school one day and getting ridiculed by my schoolmates and after that I was so embarrassed I never brought it to school again. Eventually I lost that book, or sold it, I can’t recall. But times have changed a lot. What was considered fringe and nerdy is now mainstream and popular. A lonely nerd like myself now works a respectable job and has started a family. So, recently I’ve been getting in touch with the nerdy side that I suppressed for so many years out of shame. It felt really good to buy this book again.

Also, I am a bibliophile so I like to buy used books anyway. This copy was definitely worn and the pages browned, but I’ll give it a good home. :-)

But what about learning Klingon? Having learned Japanese, a little Korean, a little Latin, Mandarin and such, I am fascinated with languages in general. What makes Klingon so interesting is that it was made with great attention and care by Marc Okrand, a professional linguist. So it’s not just a few words and phrases thrown in a few TV episodes, but it represents a fascinating language and expression of Klingon culture. It’s not a very practical language, but it is interesting.

Unlike a real language though, there are little or no resources available by native speakers so learning it is more of a hobby. Still, it would be fun to show up at a Star Trek convention one day and strike up a little Klingon conversation like this scene from Star Trek VI:

 
Time will tell. :-)

bortaS bIr jablu’DI’reH QaQqu’ nay’