I went to the japanese new year ceremony at the asian art museum on december 30. I was so intrigued when I read the following: "As in past observances, a 2100-lb., sixteenth-century Japanese bronze bell originally from a temple in Tajima Province in Japan and now part of the museum's permanent collection will be struck 108 times with a large custom-hewn log. According to Japanese custom, this symbolically welcomes the New Year and curbs the 108 bonno (mortal desires) which, according to Buddhist belief, torment humankind. It is hoped that with each reverberation the bad experiences, wrong deeds, and ill luck of the past year will be wiped away. Thus, tolling heralds the start of a joyous, fresh New Year. "


Here are my pictures of the bell. I took these pics with my new canon sx-100 camera.

More bell.

I was going to vote for Hilary until I saw her commercial out here in San Francisco comparing her to Bobby Kennedy. That commercial irked me so much that I voted for Obama.

If I was a democratic party strategist, I would be freaking out because Hilary did not win a hands down victory on Super Tuesday. I dont' think that woman is electable in November. If I had to choose between her and John McCain, I would vote for John McCain. I'm not convinced that Hilary should be president.

It's sad. I should be celebrating that a woman could be president but I am so not!!!

My prediction is if Hilary wins the democratic nomination, she will ask Obama to be her Vice President in hopes that both of them can win the presidency.

But Im still a happy voter because it looks the three San Francisco propositions I voted for and against are winning, and that has never happened ever. So there is room for a voting miracle sometimes.

I am finally getting around to listening to my cds to figure out which songs to put on my ipod. I am listeing to Al Green's 14 greatest hits and I feel like I am turning into my mother because my mama loved Al Green. What a freak! I am putting my mother's music on my ipod. Heck, I already have the Eoors on my ipod, mummy's fave rock band, so why not some Al Green.

I'm listening to the song "Let's stay together" and it's occuring to me that this is a great song to have one when you're trying to seduce someone and I've never used it. I think one could do a totally hot strip tease to this song, dressed up in hooker heels, stockings, garter belt, and a matching bustier type outfit. Acutally I think I saw this scene in a movie only the woman also had a matching mask.

I only want songs on my ipod that I think I want to listen to on the way to work or going home from work, because that is when I mainly use my ipod. And I hate just downloading the whole cd because I only want my personal favourite hits on there and nothing else.

I forgot that this cd has Al Green singing "Take me to the River". It's a great song no matter who is singing it.

A Wall Street analyst said this "The economic news keeps getting worse. Just today, equity markets around the world took their biggest hits since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Three weeks into the New Year, and over $5 trillion has been lost in global stock markets.:

$5 trillion? Where is is this money coming from?

I think in the financial world things are getting really scary out there. Not that the NY Post is the best rag in the world, but check out this story about Wall Street firms starting to hand out the pink slips - Blood on the Street.

I got a dejavu feeling like it was the dotcom crash again when I saw this this headline -
Yahoo expected to cut hundreds of jobs. I see the Yahoo bus on 19th Avenue in the City every morning picking people to take them to Yahoo in Mountain View. I wonder how long before Yahoo cuts that bus service.

And then I saw this article about retired people in Japan - Half of Japan's Elderly Poor Won't Get Pensions, Nikkei Says. I can't believe that this kind of stuff is happening.

And you know people at work act like nothing is going on, like if you don't talk about maybe the recession will go away. The financial markets are in free fall and no one cares. I'm just happy I sold all my stock in the summer of 2007 while the Dow was still in the high 13,000. I missed the 14,200 Dow high, but at least I got out at 13,800 instead of trying to get out now. Half of my assets are in conservative funds. Maybe not the best way to make money, but at least I'm not losing any sleep or money worry about losing money because the markets are dropping little by little every day. I heard one Wall Street analyst say that the next few years should be about presevation of capital and not growth.

They say this is how it happened in the depression of the 1920's. The markets deteriorated slowly and by the time everyone figured it out and trying to get their money out of the banks, it was too late. And I'm like, thank god I bought into that gold fund in 2004. I should have known something was up when by 2006 the price I had paid to get into the fund doubled. That's where the other half of my assets are, in gold. Got rid of all the silver, which kind of bummed me out, only because an opportunity came along to take full advantage of gold's phenomenal growth. One analyst is predicting gold will $2,000 and I'm like I bought gold stock in 2004 when it was $400 an ounce and now it's trading above $1,0000 I believe. Those natural resources stocks I bought also doubled when I cashed myself out of the market.

Such crazy, crazy times ahead financially. Food is so expensive. I don't know how families are makiing it. My dentist told me that in El Salvador the local people are really hurting because Americans have stopped buying up the land and spending money. My dentist said when people with enough disposable income to buy property in South America start cutting back, you know the economy is in a ton of trouble.