Today's Track : Nirvana - The Man Who Sold The World

The big man in his tiny jersey lost his volleyball game in the finals yesterday. Close match unfortunately we lost the deciding set by a few points. I don’t want to talk much more about the game. I hate losing.
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So I was looking through my bag for some gum and I ran across an old jade pendant that an ex-girlfriend gave me. I don’t really recall what the occasion was or the significance but I know that I didn’t have much use for it back then I don’t have much use for it now. I’m not much of a jewelry person so these types of things end up sitting in some sort of memorabilia box or in this case a secret pocket in my bag. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should hock the damn thing for some gum but that would be mean-spirited and bitter and we all know how much I’m NOT mean-spirited, NOT bitter and definitely NOT sarcastic.

I showed it to a co-worker and she commented on how completely “Asian” it is to own jade, which I can’t say I disagree with. I’ve never seen a non-Asian person or at least a person not affiliated with an Asian person wear jade.

Jade is supposed to bring luck to anyone who wears it. I’ve never worn this pendant so it goes to reason that I’ve probably been ridiculously unlucky. Maybe I should hang this pendant in the back seat of my car – maybe I’ll get lucky there. Then again Sonia is probably reading this blog as we speak and I probably won’t get lucky in the back seat or anywhere else for that matter. I think there’s an unwritten rule that you have to bury/burn/hock things that belong to ex-gf’s when the new gf is clearly established. If you don’t I’m sure the new gf will. It’s sort of how animals mark their territory. If the new gf feels as though her territory is marked by the scent of another woman she starts peeing all over the place. And for some reason or another this turns on old Japanese men

So I don’t know what I’m going to do with this pendant. I have a couple of rings that are sitting in a box somewhere as well. Maybe I can melt them down and combine them with this jade pendant to make a big giant earring. I know there are some Asian thugs out there who are in desperate need of some bling bling. Holla!
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So I read yesterday that they’re doing their first trials of electronic implants in the human brain. Apparently this will eventually allow paralyzed patients and patients with physical disabilities to control a computer. Control of a computer might lead to control of mechanical arms and other devices that would improve their quality of life. Right now they have simple controlled experiments like making a patient move a mouse cursor from a certain position to another position with a single thought. It sounds pretty incredible doesn’t it? The way they’ve managed to do this is by mapping neuron firing patterns in the brain that are associated with these types of thoughts then programming them into the computer chip that is implanted in the brain. The computer chip then communicates with the computer to process the event. They’ve even managed to allow Lou Gehrig patients to send messages to a monitor using simple selecting commands with common English phrases.

It wasn’t too long ago that I read a book called Microserfs that had an idea similar to this without going into any technical details and I had thought to myself how far-fetched that sounded. I just thought the brain was way too complicated for us to ever really see technology developed for it in this lifetime. I’m glad I was wrong.