How To Stay Young

Hi guys I'm back! I've been quite busy these past few days but it's nice to know that there are still visitors in the site and my overall rating has not plummeted way down too low hehe! Hope you like this colorful and lively post I received from my e-mail.

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay them.

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down. (keep this in mind if you are one of those grouches!)

3. Keep learning - learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain get idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's!

4. Enjoy simple thing.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath. And if you have a friend who makes you laugh, spend lots and lots of time with HIM/HER.

6. The tears happen - Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person who is with us our entire life is ourself. LIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love - whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health - If it is good, preserve it; if it is unstable, improve it; if it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county, to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.
10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

11. Lastly, send this to all of your friends and you'll be happy.

A Violinist in the Metro

Forwarded e-mail

Do we notice the beauty that life presents us?

A man sat at a metro station in Washington, DC, and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on. In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100 each. This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

On Fear

Dear Friend,

If you are struggling with fears of all sorts like I do and if these fears are hindering you from living a fuller life, here's an inspiring quote from Nadia Comaneci, the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect Olympic 10 score:

"I don't run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet."

Pink Mask is Weak

Maskman Episode 20 Part 1



Maskman Episode 20 Part 2

The Maskman series is back on Youtube. Thanks to some European guys! This is one of my favorite episodes where Momoko (Pink Mask) fights it out to the end with the bitchy underground monster. She is fighting for her principles and her students but her heroic deed will prove fatal for the team. This is the best Momoko episode! Love it!

Life's Ultimate Purpose

Rick Warren

(Note: I want to share with you this incredible short interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren that a good friend of mine forwarded to me. You will enjoy the new insights that Rick has, with his wife now having cancer and him having wealth from his best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life. Read on.)

People ask me, what is the purpose of life?

And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me.

I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.

I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.

Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for...

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:

If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her-It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.

It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.

So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases.

Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.

Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?

Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.

That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.

Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.

Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.

Painful moments, TRUST GOD.

Every moment, THANK GOD.

Screwtape's Strategies and Pornography

(Note: This is addressed most especially to fathers addicted to internet porn. I pray that you will gather enough strength to fight this plague menacing you and your family. Pray much to St. Joseph and seek help with other upright Christian men.)

Alias Screwtape

My Dear Wormwood:

For your careful review, I have outlined below our strategies for destroying faith and family life. Destroy this secret message immediately after reading it. This classified material comes from the lowest regions.

The chief way we attack the family is by neutralizing the protector. Once we neutralize the father, then the children are ours whenever and wherever we want them. And want them we do! Those despicable little ones make my black blood boil. Every time I see one of these wretched children, it reminds me of the Enemy's holiness and love of purity. Our plan is to attack their purity so that they will belong to us for all time. Therefore, we need only to neutralize the guardians of these little monsters - and then we can pollute their miserable souls.

Thankfully, my enemies in the modern era are slow to realize the importance of a father in protecting his family. They play into our hands when they think that a father's protective role ended in the bygone era when he defended the family against wild animals and invading savages. This incredible ignorance is utterly delightful! Little do they know that a father's guardianship of his family is more valuable now than at any time in history. Spiritually, they are sound asleep. For a little while they paid heed to the Enemy's warning to Pope Leo XIII about our plans for the modern era. It even looked like we would be defeated when our enemies enlisted the aid of our arch-opponent Michael. Fortunately, most of our little targets have forgotten about the arch-opponent Michael, and our plans proceed apace.

Towards the end of the century, just when our plans for destroying the faith by destroying the family were nearing completion, the Enemy sent that contemptible "pope for the family." (Pope John Paul II) Decades of work were at risk when for the first time in history a pope (Ugh! I hate that word!) wrote a letter directly to families throughout the world. Amazingly, he seemed to know just how to warn families about our subtle (and not so subtle) plans for destroying the family. When things looked as if our work was about to be undone - the most wonderful thing happened! The families of the world didn't even bother to read the contemptible pope's letter. Oh, how wonderful this was. In our lower realm there was rejoicing for months over the nearly complete apathy concerning this teaching.

Now as we begin this new millennium, we must use technology to bring our master plan to completion by utilizing Internet pornography. Already we have spiritually neutralized millions of the Enemy's men with pornography. Over the next few years we can surely make millions more spiritual midgets, who we can then manipulate at will.

With Internet pornography we can finally bring down the guardians of the Christian family. The fools still don't realize that the technological temptations are waging war against their very souls, bringing to completion an over-a-century long campaign to destroy the faith by destroying the family. Since it is working so exceedingly well, I suggest that we continue to use every technological innovation to pump pornography to Christian fathers. Just think of the wonderful new digital temptations we will soon be sending out over broadband!

Remember, every man addicted to pornography is caught in the snares of what the Enemy calls grave sin. With pornography we have crippled their ability to spiritually protect their families. After they are ensnared in pornography, their families (their marriages and their children) are vulnerable to our attacks. Sure, these men still appear fine on the outside as they go to church, but we know that their hearts have been captured by pornography.

And since sons usually follow in the father's footsteps, the sins of the fathers will run down through the generations, and we can rest assured that the future generations will belong to us.

A delightful by-product of pornography addiction is that it is so effective in creating turmoil in marriages. Of course, we have been attempting to destroy marriages as a vital part of our overall plan. A husband's pornography addiction has shown a unique ability to undermine trust and intimacy between spouses. The addiction creates turmoil, heartbreak, and bewilderment in the hearts of those detestable Christian wives.

As far as Sundays in church go, there is only one thing to do. Just make sure things stay as they are - nice and quiet. The last thing we need are homilies about specific sins, like pornography. If a damaging homily is somehow preached, make sure you scramble any attempts to organize support groups to assist men unable to free themselves from our work. Just let the poor devils struggle alone - of course we know that they are not alone in their pornography addiction, don't we?

Finally, we must keep up our guard against the Head of THAT family (St. Joseph). Never forget how the Head of THAT family was used by the Enemy to ruin our dear servant Herod's plans to kill the so-called Holy One (Christ). There are centuries-old rumors from the upper regions that the Head of THAT family will be brought into service at a critical time in history. The last thing we want is a repeat of the first century.

It has taken immense effort, but we have managed to thoroughly confuse modern man (and much of the church) about the meaning of true manhood and masculinity. We need impure men, especially fathers, to continue leading the culture towards our regions. We must therefore keep fathers from contact with the Head of THAT family, so that they don't have any effective models of manly purity and righteousness.

Yet we need to be realistic in our strategies. If we cannot keep men away from the Unmentionable One, then at least we can chip away at some of the truth to keep things manageable for us. Keep their beliefs abstract. Men look up to tangible role models. Just be sure they don't discover the Enemy's perfect model for fathers, or our plans will get derailed. We can never hope to lead fathers devoted to that so-called "Just Man" deeper into the depraved delights of pornography.

Yours Diabolically,
Screwtape

(Source: dads.org)

Effects of Pornography

Note: I got this article from the ProLife Philippines website. This is in line with my online campaign against pornography. To all bloggers out there I hope you can also blog about your personal experience in dealing with porn or maybe somebody else's story. This can help raise awareness on the danger of online porn.

Pornography and sadistic violence debases sexuality, corrode human relationships, exploit individuals especially women and young people, undermine marriage and family life, foster antisocial behavior and weaken the moral fiber of society itself.

Pornography and Violence in the Communications Media: A Pastoral Response

Pornography is a cancer that permanently damages the minds and lives of people. No one can consider himself or herself immune to its corrupting effects. Dr. Victor Cline, clinical Psychologist and Professor at the University of Utah, has found "a near universal 4-Factor Syndrome" among users of pornography.

First, Cline says, there is an addicting effect. Everybody is vulnerable to this type of addiction, from the most dangerous sex offenders as well as the normal person. People get hooked on milder pornography and feel like coming back for more and still more, as powerful as drugs.

Dr. James L. McGough of the University of California in his research on memory sounded a warning: "If a person is emotionally, including sexually aroused at the time of experiencing or witnessing something, a chemical called epinephrine is released into the bloodstream. It goes to the brain and looks in a very vivid memory of the experience or event. We all have a library of unwanted images mostly sexual. We may hate them, but the epinephrine has locked them in and we cannot get rid of them, no matter how pious, how religious or how strong a conscience we have. Second, according to Cline, there is an escalation effect. The milder porn is no longer enough to satisfy. So, the user wants more explicit, rougher, more deviant kinds of sexual materials for sexual "highs" or "turn-ons". Third, the porn addict undergoes disensitization. With continued exposure, what at first offends becomes acceptable and then craved no matter how gross or deviant. Repeatedly seeing the obscene and offensive material makes it seem normal, rendering individuals morally numb and personally insensitive to the rights and dignity of others. It can be most confusing especially to children, who may not be able to distinguish readily between fantasy and reality, therefore regard this as acceptable behavior, suitable for imitation.

Leading sexual violence researchers Neil Malamuth, Ed Donnerstein, and Dolf Zillman state agree with Cline and state that in general, "exposure to these materials, whether violent or nonviolent, coercive or non-coercive, experimentally increases male aggressive behavior against women, and decreases both male and female sensitivity to rape and the plight of the rape victim. Both males and females, after viewing this material, judge the female rape victim to be less injured, less worthy, and more responsible for her own plight." In the fourth and final step, Dr. Cline states, "My patients begin to act out what they have been viewing. They turn their fantasies into reality." The sight of obscene pictures stimulates the sexual urge. This leads to another sensation, the desire to release the turbulent emotion, at the start, mostly through masturbation. If a sexual partner is available, he "acts out" what he sees in the porn material with his partner. Other tendencies to act out come in the form of compulsive promiscuity, exhibitionism, group sex, voyeurism, frequenting of massage parlors, child molestation, rape, etc.

Pornography proclaims men's control over women, primarily for sexual satisfaction. It reduces women to the level of useful object for men's pleasure and use. Thus, sexual activity is considered as a continuing frenzied search for personal gratification rather than as an expression of enduring love in marriage, therefore undermining a healthy and wholesome family life.

100 Things To Do Before You Die

I should have made it 100 Things To Do This New Year but I doubt if any of us can do the following tasks before 2009 comes to a close, so just relax and browse through this list of to-do things. You can make your own version though. I got this on the internet (I changed some of them), but personally I'm listing down things I want to accomplish this year. Have fun!


1. Attend at least one major sporting event: the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the U.S. Open.
2. Throw a huge party and invite every one of your friends.
3. Swim with a dolphin.
4. Skydive.
5. Have your portrait painted.
6. Learn to speak a foreign language and make sure you use it.
7. Go snorkeling.
8. Watch the launch of the space shuttle.
9. Spend a whole day eating junk food without feeling guilty.
10. Be an extra in a film.
11. Tell someone the story of your life, sparing no details.
12. Go on a cruise with your loved one.
13. Ride a train going to the province.
14. Learn to rollerblade.
15. Own a room with a view.
16. Brew your own beer.
17. Learn how to take a compliment.
18. Buy a round-the-world air ticket and a rucksack, and run away.
19. Grow a beard and leave it for at least a month.
20. Give your mother a dozen red roses and tell her you love her.
21. Join a local TV game show and donate some of your winnings to charity.
22. Put your name down to be a passenger on the first tourist shuttle to the moon.
23. Send a message in a bottle.
24. Ride a camel into the desert.
25. Get to know your neighbors.
26. Plant a tree.
27. Learn not to say yes when you really mean no.
28. Write a fan letter to your all-time favorite hero or heroine.
29. Visit the Senate and the House of Representatives to see how Congress really works.
30. Learn to ballroom dance properly.
31. Eat jellied eels from a stall in London.
32. Be the boss.
33. Fall deeply in love -- helplessly and unconditionally.
34. Ride the Trans-Siberian Express across Asia.
35. Sit on a jury.
36. Write the novel you know you have inside you.
37. Go to Walden Pond and read Thoreau while drifting in a canoe.
38. Stay out all night dancing and go to work the next day without having gone home (just once).
39. Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
40. Be someone's mentor.
41. Shower in a waterfall.
42. Ask for a raise.
43. Learn to play a musical instrument with some degree of skill.
44. Teach someone illiterate to read.
45. Visit the Great Wall of China.
46. Spend a night in a haunted house -- by yourself.
47. Write down your personal mission statement, follow it, and revise it from time to time.
48. See a lunar eclipse.
49. Spend New Year's in an exotic location.
50. Get passionate about a cause and spend time helping it, instead of just thinking about it.
51. Experience weightlessness.
52. Sing a great song in front of an audience.
53. Ask someone you've only just met to go on a date.
54. Drive across your country from coast to coast.
55. Make a complete and utter fool of yourself.
56. Wet yourself in the rain.
57. Write your will.
58. Sleep under the stars.
59. Take a ride on the highest roller coaster in the country.
60. Learn how to complain effectively -- and do it!
61. Go wild in Rio during Carnival.
62. Spend a whole day reading a great novel.
63. Forgive your parents.
64. Learn to juggle with three balls.
65. Drive a 10-wheeler truck.
66. Find a job you love.
67. Spend Christmas on the beach drinking pina coladas.
68. Overcome your fear of failure.
69. Raft through the Grand Canyon.
70. Donate money and put your name on something: a college scholarship, a bench in the park.
71. Buy your own house and then spend time making it into exactly what you want.
72. Grow a garden.
73. Spend three months getting your body into optimum shape.
74. Drive a convertible with the top down and music blaring.
75. Accept yourself for who you are.
76. Learn to use a microphone and give a speech in public.
77. Scuba dive off Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
78. Go up in a hot-air balloon.
79. Get a front row seat of your favorite concert artist.
80. Kiss someone you've just met on a blind date.
81. Be able to handle: your tax forms, Jehovah's Witnesses, your banker, telephone solicitors.
82. Give to a charity -- anonymously.
83. Send a poor but deserving kid to school.
84. Let someone feed you peeled, seedless grapes.
85. Kiss the Blarney stone and develop the gift of gab.
86. Fart inside an elevator.
87. Take pictures of tourist spots and make a photoalbum of it.
88. Go deep sea fishing and eat your catch.
89. Create your own web site.
90. Visit the Holy Land.
91. Make yourself spend a half-day at a concentration camp and swear never to forget.
92. Run to the top of the Statue of Liberty.
93. Create your Family Tree.
94. Learn archery.
95. Have your favorite pizza delivered to your house and give the pizza delivery man twice the amount of what you ordered.
96. Make your own cookbook recipe.
97. Learn to bartend.
98. Run a marathon.
99. Look into your child's eyes, see yourself, and smile.
100. Reflect on your greatest weakness, and realize how it is your greatest strength.

Suggestions are welcome.