Fortune cookie wisdom part II

As many of you may know, I love Asian food, and tend to eat it several times per week (if not daily). As such, I come across a lot of fortune cookies. Often, the fortunes are mundane, irrelevant, or just asinine. However, there are some good ones from time to time. I thought I would share some of the decent ones from the last couple months, so here they are in no particular order:

  • Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
  • Only one who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible.
  • No man is free who is not master of himself.
  • You achieve great peace of mind when you talk with an old friend.
  • A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
  • Wealth is the ability of fully experience life.
  • Relish the transitions in your life – they will happen regardless.
  • Always accept yourself the way you are.
  • The secret of staying young is good health… and lying about your age.
  • Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.
  • Real courage is moving forward when the outcome is uncertain.
  • One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
  • At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.
  • You will read this and say “Geez! I could come up with better fortunes than that!”

I like a lot of the simple, yet intricate, philosophical viewpoints contained in some of them. For instance, even though it could be shrugged off as nothing more than a grammatical error, the statement that “At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet,” can be interpreted differently. Instead of a mistake, it could be that humanity really amalgamates through love and the wonder of touch.

Anyway, you may now agree with the last fortune. 😉

Cheers,
Zach

Tag update and CAPTCHA

As a quick tag update, I’ve finished tagging and recategorising about 30% of the former posts. I figured it would be a tedious process (and it is), but it is also fun to read some of the older posts, and reminisce about those times.

Also, I never had all that much of a problem with spam comments when I used s9y, but I’ve been getting several of them per day with WP. I went to leave a test comment on one of my entries (which, by the way, is done by clicking on the little “quote bubble” icon to the right of the post title), and realised that there is no form of spam control at all. I installed the SI CAPTCHA plugin, and it seems to be doing well enough.

Cheers,
Zach

2012 Google Doodle winner – Dylan Hoffman

If you used Google at all today, you undoubtedly noticed the awesome logo featured above the search box. Today’s art was the work of second grader Dylan Hoffman of Caledonia, WI, United States. He was the winner of the 2012 Google Doodle contest, in which there were over 100,000 entrants!

Dylan Hoffman's 2012 Google Doodle artwork

Not only did he earn international fame by being featured on Google’s homepage today (18 May 2012), but he also won the following prizes and honours:

  • $30,000 USD in college scholarships
  • A Google Chromebook
  • $50,000 in technology grants for his school
  • The privilege of having his artwork on the Crayola 64-count box of crayons

I must admit that his drawing is far better than what I could do, and he’s only eight-years-old. He should be quite proud of this achievement, and of his work!

Congratulations, Dylan!

Dylan Hoffman 2012 Google Doodle Winner

Cheers,
Zach

By the way, you can see the full article on Google’s blog post. There you will find all of the runners-up, their submissions, and the great prizes that they won.