On my lunch hour I decided to watch the new reality tv show I taped last night, "Boarding House: North Shore". It's from the guy who created the "Survivor" show, and it's about 7 professional surfers living in a house on the North Shore of Oahu and competing in this famous tournament called the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing.

Wow, watching it made me feel like I was back in high school again when I used to dream about dating surfer boys and wore barely there bikinis.

All the guys in the series are so cute, but I think I have like a genetic weakness for surfer boys because I was born in Hawaii. The women are all young and blonde and can surf too.

But what I like most about the show is the surf scenes! Oh my god, they are so killer! I love watching surfers surf. I spent most of my life watching surfers surf, and it reminds me so much of home and growing up.

I love the way the guys talk too. They all sound like guys I went to high school with or guys I met when I spend that one summer down in San Diego. Guys don't like that up here, or if they do I'm not meeting them.

I did go on a blind date with a surfer once, and I probably only went out with him because he said he surfed. He wasn't really my type, and I was so disappointed because I thought he would be like the surfer guys I knew in high school.

I thought he'd be tall, tanned, have that valley boy voice like he could be in the Jetsons cartoon or something, and have this great body and looked like he worked out. Instead, he was short, not tanned and didn't even look he lifted weights or went outdoors in the sun or anything. It was such a bummer!

I'm sure the guy did surf at some point in his life, but like not in the last five years of me meeting him.

Even if he was true surfer guy, dating him would probably be an un-fun as it was high school. Surfer guys live for surf. Surf comes before anything else in their life. Say for instance you'd had this date planned for months in advance. If killer waves were breaking, surfer guy would dump you to go surfing.

One thing that the surf show got right, which was very surprising, is they have a christian surfer from Florida. There's a whole segment of the surfer population that are born again christians, and that group has been around since I was in high school.

You'd only this fact if you follow the surfing scene or have been around it for a long time. The producers must have done their homework.

From CBS Market Watch, another article on the chinese yuan and its effects on the US dollar and the global economy, The yuan heard round the world.

Art Imitates Life - Maybe...

This is interesting. A friend from screenwriting class sent me the following email.

"I’ve been thinking of you and your script as the Giants this season have had several personal scenarios similar to the one you have in your script: Barry bonds’ dad suffering from cancer; barry not hitting well because distracted by dad’s illness and dad not giving him hitting advice. Spooky close to your premise!"

I think my screenwriting friend was referring to the following article from SFGate.com, Re-living glory days Following famous dads offers perks, pressures.

Here's what the article said about Mr. Bonds.

"Barry Bonds, the most famous second-generation sports star in the Bay Area, declined to be interviewed for this story, saying after 18 years of baseball he's talked on this subject enough. But his father's influence on his baseball career is well-known.

Even as he battles cancer, Bobby Bonds has made two trips to Pac Bell Park this season to offer his son counsel and a few hitting tips. On the night following his dad's second trip, Barry Bonds broke out of a month-long hitting slump to homer twice against the Chicago Cubs on April 30."

This is so trippy to me, because one of the early criticisms of my screenplay was that a star baseball player's father would never give better advice than a hitting coach. When I heard that, I was like, why not? The father birthed the son, has seen the kid play from childhood on, and probably knows the star baseball player better than any hitting coach ever will.

So now I'm like relieved, because it's nice to know that my fictional story isn't that far off from what happens in real life.

I've always thought that real life is so much stranger than fiction. I mean who would've thought that we'd watching on TV, the LAPD chasing OJ and his friend on the freeway. If you were put that in a story, the critics would have a field day.

And what about 9/11? If a fiction writer were to write a story about jetliners crashing into the World Trade Centers, and then the buildings falling down, again the critics would have just laughed and said "NO EFFING WAY!". And yet it happened, didn't it?

Tonight was the last night of my kerygma bible study class, and all I really learned is that the bible requires more intense study. I think it would be fun to be a biblical scholar or at least know the bible backwards and forwards.

The Bible is referenced so much in western literature, in plays, on tv, even in the metaphysical arts like tarot readings.

We had to write a 150 words or less statement on what the bible is about. I spent two hours trying to write my statement up, and it kind of felt like I was writing a statement of faith.

I wrote about four different versions and ended up with a fifth one that I sort of like, sort of don't like, but decided to keep because I had other bible homework to do. My statement ended up being a bit longer than 150 words, but here it is.

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Through stories, songs and letters, the Bible shows and teaches us as individuals and a community how to be in a relationship with God as expressed in the trinity of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Bible also shows us how to be in relationship with other people, the larger community and the world, through the teachings and examples of Jesus Christ

I’ve used the Bible as a handbook, a manual, and a roadmap to deepen my relationship with God. No matter where I am in my faith experience and journey, I’ve always been able to find someone in the bible to relate to.

For me, the two most important ideas that the Bible expresses are 1) “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (NRSV, John 3:16), and 2) “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you;” (NRSV, Matthew 7:12)
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I really like the idea of the bible as a handbook, a manual and a roadmap in how to be be in a relationship with the trinity of God the father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, for an individual and a community.

I think the last part is my statement of faith or at least what I think is bible's most important teachings. I probably should have added a third idea of Jesus teaching "to love God", but I didn't think about that part. If I had to write it up again, I would add "to love god" as the third idea, if I could find a biblical text I liked that expresses this idea.