Japanese shows have the best pranks.  This one was hilarious although I would be mortified if it happened to me.  Luckily, I won't be visiting a bathhouse anytime soon.  I don't feel so bad for the guys sitting on the armchair without a towel.  Ewww!  Watch this one to see what I mean...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNeLGOFIjcI

If anyone wants to hear more about the housing crisis and how it started, go to this link and check out "the giant pool of money" broadcast.  It's pretty fascinating how greedy wall street coupled with high risk homeowners caused such a huge global crisis.  Sorry there's no video; it's a radio show.

http://thisamericanlife.org


We're beginning to see what happens when the rest of the world tries to emulate the U.S.  With China and India buying more cars and eating and shopping like us, the demand for oil, wheat, milk has soared and so have their prices.  It's not sustainable.  Rice prices have doubled and now even more people in 3rd world countries are struggling to survive.  We live in a very disposable market with electronics obsolete in months and plastic goods everywhere.  I think I heard that we produce a trillion plastic bags a year.  It's gotta go somewhere.  We're very good at making things convenient for us but it's not very convenient to the environment.  The short term lifecycle of our products are starting to catch up to us and it's only going to get exponentially worse as these developing countries with their huge populations continue this trend.  $200 a barrel here we come.  Tune up those bikes!

What's going on with kids and allergies?  When I was growing up, I don't recall allergies being such a huge issue.  It wasn't a problem to bring snacks to school or soccer game.  Now there's banned lists of substances that kids can't eat.  I read that it's not genetic because this problem has become such a wide spread problem so quickly.  One theory is that we keep our houses too clean and that our kids need exposure to allergens to develop a normal immune system.  It must be disheartening to people in medicine and science because we've developed all these theories and products on keeping our houses clean and sterile for our kids and now something is out of whack and they have no idea.  It just points to the limits of our own knowledge and the  complexity of our world.  We shift our environment in one direction based on what we believe is best but then an unforeseen reaction occurs.  We're good at controlled experiments with one variable but the world is multifactorial and for all our science, we're still in the dark. 

God has given us a world that has equilibrium and is very complex.  It reminds me that I should tread with caution when it comes believing that our science and knowledge will solve all of our problems.  Our knowledge is limited but our God isn't.  With all these global problems and issues, God still reigns and is behind the scenes orchestrating every single detail.  There is much hope in that fact.  Can I get an Amen with that? 

Happy New Year!  It's been a while since I've blogged but it looks like no one else has besides Artbeat on this webring.  Everyone's facebooking, including my wife, but I don't understand all this "superpoking" and superhero power stuff and since I fear what I don't understand, I refuse to join.  Besides, it seems like it's just a popularity contest and I was never that popular.  Will we never outgrow high school?

I received Joel's book as a gift from my sister's mother-in-law.  I've heard a couple of his sermons on tv and he seems like a nice guy.  Then I heard that he has a jet and that his wife is now preaching.  What's up with televangelists and jets?  I heard on Larry King that Paula White has one too.  Flying coach is a pain and now they make you pay for food, so I can sympathize with them.  They didn't give us one scrap of food on our 9 hr flight to Hawaii.  Seungni's arm was starting to look pretty good.  But I think jets are a pretty good indication that something fishy may be going on.  I'm probably just a prude but in my mind there's a discrepancy with a preacher owning a bmw or a jet.  Not that there's anything wrong with things but like in proverbs there's a danger with poverty or having extreme wealth and it doesn't seem very wise. 

Anyways, I'm debating if I should read this book or not.  I'm a bit curious about the 7 keys to improving my life.  Then perhaps I won't turn into a curmudgeon like superbub.