Tomorrow is the first day of the Chinese New Year, The Year of the Monkey. This is a very interesting article with predictions of what the New Year will bring.

With respect to the hi-tech economy, as represented by the NASDAQ. I have postulated that this industry is mainly represented by metal element. In 2004, the wood element symbolises money to the metal industry. This is positive. But the strong metal underneath will bring more competitors into the industry to erode the money profit. However, the optimistic view is that the later months in the year of the Monkey contains strong water which is the productivity and creativity of metal industry. Therefore I can expect there could be a mini boom in this sector in the last quarter of 2004.

But the night is alive; there are a billion blazing stars above. A challenge? A warning? A promise? We don’t know, but they are so very tempting. And we are notoriously bad at turning temptation away. Haven't you ever looked up at the great dark beyond and felt you were being drawn from where you stood, carried into something greater? Every night the sky is an invitation. Who can look up and see nothing but a roof?

LILEKS (James) The Bleat

Florida, in my head at least, has always been the "bad boy" state of America. Slightly seedy, a little dirty, but hot and sexy as hell. I can't count the number of mystery novels I have read that have been set here. Drug runners, murderers, mafia men hiding in the Keys, it all made a very strong connection in my head.

Maybe that's why I like it, too.

BethanyRambling

Inkwell: Psychological Stew posted an entry about giving money to panhandlers, and it reminded me of something I'd meant to talk about at some point. So I posted a comment:

I feel that when you give money away, even if the person you give it to doesn't deserve it, i.e., if they're panhandling as a career, for instance, it still passes on the good karma to the giver. I passed a young woman begging on my way home New Year's Eve; she was on the wrong side of the street, but I circled the block to give her a couple of dollars. She touched my heart, and whether or not it helped her, it helped me.

I do believe that when you give freely, in good conscience, it doesn't matter if the recipient is worthy or not. And I also believe that someone who needs to be out begging is worse off than me, even if he drives to his "job" in a new car, as some of the panhandlers in our city are said to do. I'd still rather be working inside, at a legitimate job, than sitting on the streetcorner pretending to be destitute. It's all relative.

This is pretty cool. I was trying to decide whether to buy a Science Fiction magazine at Fictionwise, but since they give you only minimal descriptions of the stories included, I went looking for some more information before I invested my money, and found this site, which posts brief reviews of the stories included in the major monthly SF magazines: Best SF Reviews - SF magazines 2003

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