The story goes that Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden up until Eden was convinced by a snake to eat an apple from a tree. She wasn't supposed to, so she and Adam were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. (Well, I'm no expert, so if you really want to learn more about the "first humans", ask someone else.) But it looks like such a thing could happen for robots too.

I've heard that artificial skin that can actually feel is being developed. That's all well and good, but then I was watching the Colbert Report on TV, which is something rare, considering that my dad has not watched either the Colbert Report or the Daily Show for a long time, and because I myself hardly ever watch TV, at least the channels (I do watch anime on DVDs, but that's about it). He was saying that if robots could have skin, then that would mean they could be naked, which would then me they could feel shame, like humans do.

There are some stories out there about things that aren't human but which are similar to humans or want to become humans. For instance, there's Chobits, in which there are Persocoms, which are designed to be like humans but aren't human. And then there's Eureka Seven, which I just finished last week (good anime, by the way, although 50 episodes is a bit longer than I prefer, but it was worth it). Skip to the next paragraph if you haven't watched it and don't want to see a spoiler. Eureka, one of the main characters, isn't human; she's actually a Coralian, made by the Scub Coral, an intelligent life form which is not human.

I wonder if we're ever going to make something that is so close to being human that we can't really tell it apart from a human. Anything is possible. I wonder if that would actually happen in my lifetime. Or if it would happen many years from now. Or maybe never, after all.

Anyhow, when I was watching TV, I was pretty bored. I don't really understand how people can watch a lot of TV. It seems too passive. I hate sitting there doing nothing and then getting annoyed by the commercial breaks. I mean, even at school, I have to keep my hands busy. I often do homework in class, which I don't advise that you do, because sometimes the teacher will actually teach something and then you'll miss something important.

But anyways, TV was such a bore. Maybe I'm not watching the more interesting channels; I kind of left it up to my dad. The only channel that I like a lot is HGTV, mostly because of the interior design shows.

I watched some Friends, and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (which apparently I'm not, since I don't know which Great Lake bordered three specific states. But then I'm not sure if knowledge of facts is necessarily the right way to judge someone's intelligence. People use the word "smart" pretty loosely.) and Don't Forget the Lyrics. When it comes to game shows, I'd prefer to watch Deal or No Deal, but my dad says it might not even be airing anymore. If anyone knows whether it's still going, please let me know.

I have, however, started watching the Korean drama Boys Over Flowers. I don't usually watch dramas, because they tend to be long and cliched (it's quite common to see a rich person fall in love with a poor person in dramas :\ ). But since I recently finished Code Geass and Eureka Seven, I had nothing to watch, so I figured I might as well give Boys Over Flowers a try.

I'm on the second episode now. It's been pretty entertaining actually. I didn't expect much. (The person who said that if you expect nothing, you'll never be disappointed, is quite wise. I tend to keep my expectations low so that I'll only have pleasant surprises...Unless something is really terrible.) That curly-haired guy is such a jerk, but I guess that's what makes it funny. Especially when the protagonist goes and kicks him in the face. I'd like to do something like that. (But then, instead of being cool, it would land me in trouble. C'est la vie...)

Labels: adam, artificial, boys over flowers, chobits, colbert report, drama, entertainment, eureka seven, eve, garden of eden, human, korean, lifespan, original sin, shame, skin, television, time, TV

On the 4th of July, my dad and I left our house and walked over to a nearby building, where we had watched fireworks in the past many years ago. My dad said we would be able to see the fireworks from there, although I was dubious (the fireworks were being shot from a high school off in the distance. I don't even know what that high school looks like, even though it was named after the town I live in). It turned out that we could see them, although the fireworks were partially blocked by such obstacles as trees...But it was still nice to see fireworks. (The benefit of being far from them was that the sound of them wasn't so loud. My childhood fear was the sound of fireworks. They were too loud for me to stand. Even now I still dislike them.)

I later realized that there were fireworks coming from three different places. One was, of course, my town's fireworks. Then there were the fireworks from an amusement park, Great America. And lastly were ones in some other park in the county. All of them were not very close by, but they were still visible. One of the people at the building watching fireworks said, "This must be the best spot in the valley."

There's a lot of different sorts of lights you can see at nighttime.
- City lights
- Stars
- Airplanes
- The Moon (although its light is really from the Sun)
- Fireflies

The last one, fireflies, is something I can't remember whether I've seen. Maybe I haven't gone out at night enough, or I need to go somewhere with water, like the creek near my town.

And as for meteors and comets, I can't remember whether I've seen those either. I probably haven't. August is a season with quite a few meteors, so I'll have to keep my eyes open then to see them. I wonder if there have always been meteors in the sky and I've simply never noticed them. I've always been indoors, distracted by the artificial (but still dazzling) light of a computer screen.

It's good that I'm leaving for my vacation today, then. It'll keep me away from the Internet for a while so I can spend time actually living instead of wasting away slowly. I'll be gone for the next two weeks or so before returning home again.

Labels: 3, artificial, away, comet, computer, fireworks, independence day, lights, meteor, missed, neighborhood, night, spot, vacation

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