Myanmar Cyclone and Chinese Earthquake

Last month I calculated my net worth to be $32,746. Right now with the improvement in global stock markets that would probably be around $33,000 or $34,000 if I'm lucky. I have given about $350 to charity so far this year.

Giving to charity for me is a difficult thing and I have mixed feelings about it. I would love to be able to give more of both my time and money but I do realize that at this stage in my life I need to save up.

The charity I would most like to give to is the World Food Programme since I consider starvation to be the worst pain that could be inflicted on a human. However, WPF is a non-Australian organization and as a result there is complexity of whether my donation is tax deductable. To get around this, I donate instead to Unicef Australia. I hate to be superficial but I really don't like Unicef Australia's website. In my opinion, the humanitarian organizations that operate in Australia that have nice-looking websites are Care Australia and Oxfam Australia.

Hopefully in the future I might get an opportunity to actually volunteer my time to worthy causes. This may not be a waste of time since I will be able to put such an experience on my resume.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

It's been a long time coming, but Indiana Jones 4, better known as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will come out very soon. As a result, the TVs have been playing the original Indiana Jones movies.

Today I watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Many fans say this is the poorest of the third Indiana movies. That may be, but all three in the trilogy as so great that it's difficult to say that Temple of Doom is a bad movie.

Temple of Doom is a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana escaped from Shanghai and arrives in an Indian village where he discovers an underground cult that has stolen sacred rocks. This underground cult engages in ritual torture and child slavery. The movie is definitely violent while also being a family movie. I remember watching this movie as a child and being extremely scared with the infamous heart ripping scene.

Another problem I had with this movie is the annoying woman who is a dumb blonde stereotype.

Tom Cruise Release His Own Website

Whenever I do a search for Tom Cruise on the search engine I only ever read sites that criticize the star.

I read on the news today at that Tom now has his own site. The Official Tom Cruise Website contains lots of moving images. Unfortunately at the moment the sound on my computer is not working, so all the videos that played downloaded for nothing. Another issue I have with the website is that it seems to freeze up often. I have to wait usually for a minute or two before the site unfreezes. I suspect it does this because of all the videos it is loading up.

The website also contains far too many close-up poses of the star, especially ones taken when he has too much facial hair. This is especially evident in the gallery section where I was hoping to see pictures of his wife Katie Holmes and child Suri.

Tom Cruise has received plenty of criticism for trying to spread Scientology, his religion, to others.

I have read about Scientology and in spite of what Scientology the organization is alleged to have done, Scientology the religion itself seems very helpful. For example, Scientology's Study Technology, a way of learning, seems to have the potential to help many students struggling at school.

The next big movie Tom is making, one I am looking forward to seeing, is Valkyrie, a World War II movie.

Am I a Tom Cruise fan? I don't consider myself a celebrity worshipper. However, Tom cruise is an interesting character because as a child he was labeled dyslectic and was told he could not learn or even memorize, which is an essential skills for actors. With everyone holding him back he still managed to become the highest paid actor today.

Babies Found in Freezer

It seems as if a lot of psychotic things are happening in Austria and Germany. Children are being locked in dungeons, men are meeting each other for cannibalism, and now I have just read about some children who went into the freezer and found some frozen babies inside.

It seems as if nothing crazy happens in Australia. Perhaps it's because the population is not large enough.

The Most Hated Family in America

I have just watched The Most Hated Family in America on TV. It was a very interesting documentary about the Westboro Baptist Church, a group of Christians who believe that God hates homosexuals and that God hates America and wants to kill American soldiers in Iraq because America supports homosexuals. These people by far the strangest people I have ever seen, and their message is very provocative, much more so than religions like Scientology. The ADL describes Westboro Baptist Church as a racist and anti-Semite cult.

What was striking is just how nice and friendly many of the girls and children seem. At the end when the teenage girl tells us how she tries to spread the Word of God but only received hatred and abuse from others, she seemed to be sad. The guy doing the documentary, Louis Theroux, was trying to suggest to her that spreading hateful messages to others makes others hateful back to them and that it is her fault for being hateful to others. But in a way I admire these people because they truly are being true to themselves rather than just conforming to what other people expect. When Louis keeps asking the women whether they want to get married, have boyfriends, date, and so on, he is trying to persuade them to conform to the culture of mainstream society.

Jeepers Creepers II (2003)

I watched Jeepers Creepers II on TV last night. The film is about a group of students on a bus heading home from a sports game. While heading home, the tire on their bus blows up. They realize the tire didn't blow up for no reason, that someone sabotaged the bus. The monster in this movie then attacks them.

I've watched the first Jeepers Creepers. I think the sequel is better than the original. Some moments in the sequel are rather scary. The monster, a cross between Freddy Kreuger and Alien, is innovative.

Some of the characters are very annoying. Most of the students are homophobic. The girl who keeps telling everyone that the monster will eventually kill them all is annoying. The bus driver is also annoying. The reason why these two characters are annoying is because I just can't imagine anyone acting the way they acted.

One of the good points of this movie is that you don't know who the lead character is and it's difficult to predict who will die next.

To conclude, Jeepers Creepers II is a fairly good movie. It's a reasonable and clean horror movie for the whole family.

Charity as Punishment

So far in 2008 I have given about $200 to charity. The way I give to charity is slightly unusual. I force myself to give to charity if I have sinned. When I use the word "sin" I am not talking about religion. Rather, I sin when my actions do not reflect my intentions or my ideals about how I should be. I will not be specific about my ideals about what I should do, but let's just say it's similar to this: I should exercise X hours per week, study Y hours per week, invest Z dollars per fortnight, and so on. I use a spreadsheet to record the quantity with which I am doing all these things and if I am deficient, I punish myself by giving to charity using my credit card. I hate losing money, so this drives me to become ideal.

When I give money to my parents, I do not count this as charity because really I am compensating them for my living expenses, e.g. water, electricity, and food.

Figuring out how much I am donating with Kiva loans was also difficult because the money I give will eventually come back to me since it is a loan. I decided to count as a donation the interest that I lost. I assume that I can earn 8 per cent on investments, and since Kiva gives no interest then I lose 8 per cent.