think it'll be better if i heed bill's advice and get a new laptop as opposed to just upgrading my laptop's RAM; my laptop's old dot com, so even if i add the memory, it might not work. the downside is that i'll have to wait a while, being without a job, and hope they still sell laptops running on xp(or the xp software). should give me incentive to find a part-time job while i'm doing other stuff. i have to up my guitar playing first anyhow; i've barely touched it. i should be getting the looper pedal in about tommorow anyhow; that'll be fun.

i watched "super size me;" thinking about reading "fast food nation." it was good; basic synopsis is the narrator does his own survey by eating at mcdonalds for 30 days straight, 3 meals a day, to test whether its food really is bad for you(this after the whole lawsuits thing). i lol'd when his gf said his energy was down, even during his sex life, and pointed out that she needs to be on top now(lol). but yeah, after watching that movie, i think maybe it wouldn't hurt too much to go running 2-3 more times each week now.

i hate how these days i really feel like doing nothing.

#$%@!#$!!!!!

my new mbox 2 mini won't install on my laptop, not b/c i'm missing anything, but because i don't have enough RAM. minimum needed is 768 according to the box, but during the install, i got some number like 384. i currently have 256 i think, 1 slot is free, and the max i think i can go with each slot is 512. now, do i get another 256, or get a 512?

*sigh* frustrating.

i'll just have to figure this out tomorrow or monday and buy some generic memory.

honestly, who knew having serious fun with music recording was going to take this much of a hassle(with money)

until celtics can win one against the big teams in the nba(and i might debately say it must be a close game near the end), i can't really say they even are considered an elite team yet; they have the potential to be though. but all of their losses have come from one the elite teams in the nba, and not even from the west; all of them have been against an eastern conference team(woot, go pistons and magic!)

---

walk hard: the dewey cox story

---

pink power ranger dancing over an electric guitar'd megaman 2 theme

i hate when ppl talk out loud to themselves when they are trying to think. it's annoying. really, really, annoying. why? well, i start wondering if they lack the brain power and mental ability to think only within their head.

---

going to be fooling around with the mbox for most of tomorrow. i haven't bought the condenser mic stuff, and the looper pedal hasn't arrived yet, so it'll just be a lot of fooling around with the guitar and pro tools software; gonna try installing it on my cpu today and see how it works. i need to level up my guitar skills a lot before i consider writing anything(need to learn how to do sweeps, tapping, eh, there's probably a lot more, but those two stick out on my head). or at least, before anything i churn out can really be considered good on my part.

i've got a lot to think about and do even before i can start taking classes again(next main step to going to pharmacy school i think), but hopefully i'll get a part-time job and volunteer at some hospital while studying for gre's in the meantime(and cross my fingers that some nearby college will let me do a post-bachelor's type thing in order to take the classes i didn't take). the part-time job might be good both for beefing up the resume, and getting some other guitar pedals i'd like, but don't have cash for(ls-2 boss pedal and ge-7 boss pedal would both be great).

i still can't believe registering for the general gres took 140 out of my checking account. yipes. (but then again, when you don't have a job, you start becoming stingy about any large purchase). but it was good to finally do it, b/c then i would've procrastinated my studying even further. now i kinda have forced myself to have to do it(even if i cancel, i only get 50% back, so it's only worthwhile to take it once and do well).

---

i've been sincerely meaning to ask, why is it that most of the friends i know of only seem to want to play and talk about basketball when there's free time? are they that single-minded? or maybe i'm just unique in that regard?

gatorade - dwyane wade: good/bad

DO IT AGAIN! DO IT AGAIN!

tony romo's newest girlfriend is jessica simpson(previous one was supposedly carrie underwood).

-i sense newlyweds 2 occurring.

lions just falling apart. although it mightve had something to do with roy williams.

jessica alba is pregnant apparently; you know you're from the bay area and keep up with hoops when the 1st response outta your mind hearing that is "way to go boom dizzle!"

my attitude with the spurs is... strange. they border on the list of teams that i like in the nba, but don't crack the list. there's both times that i really like them, admire them(i still really like tim duncan, and tony parker), admire their coach, their discipline, etc. but there's a number of things keeping me from fully embracing them, including how spurs fans magically turn a blind eye to bruce bowen's dirty play; look, i'm not trying to say he always plays dirty, or that he's a useless defensive player if he doesn't use his tricks(similar to my attitude with karl malone; malone w/o tricks = still good player; malone w/tricks = deluded HOF player). but he has a track record; like that jump kick against wally; how do you explain that one in the realm of just physical, hard defense? ginobili should not be flopping that much. i'm sure i could go on and on. but then, i see or read somebody comment on the internet about how boring the spurs are, etc, and all i want to do is deride them, asking what they consider winning basketball to be, and that if they had the exact same personal as the spurs on their team, they wouldn't be complaining; i don't buy the fact that certain teams need certain markets(although kobe in la and the vaunted 4 in detroit seems to sometimes support this). most nba franchises would KILL to have the spurs' lineup. it's similar to how people say all this about the patriots, but you know all that talk would've died if the exact same lineup was in the sf niners.

---

got an email today, and good thing i am able to return the mbox 2 mini and get a new one(they're even giving me the labels and stuff to ship at back too, making it free shipping). too bad they won't let me return it for a refund though. but they will get me a replacement, so a completely new mbox as opposed to a refurbished one, while still saving about 35 dollars sounds pretty good. i'll still have to buy all the other gear though; condenser mic, stand, cable, pop filter, etc. it's just that that other bundle offered on musician's friend sounded a lot nicer; i essentially would've been getting 2 monitors on top of the mbox and condenser mic and stand and cable, for just throwing in around 40 dollars more.

point is, i would've avoided this and gotten the bundle in the 1st place if 1)i just looked around a bit more instead of instinctively buying the mbox immediately and 2)looked carefully at the package after opening it instead of opening the factory sealed package, and then realizing the cd wasn't there. i basically need to learn how to evaluate stuff after buying it a lot better.

why is it that everytime i try to buy something expensive over the internet, something complicates the process and i have to consider returning it? such a hassle; first it was the dvd burner, now i just realized the mbox 2 mini i received came with no pro tools software. @#$%^%@!!@#@#!$#%^$^ that also means i have to call musician's friend tomorrow and tell them to cancel the other order i had. such a pain!

anyways, hoping to return it and get this instead.

lol... what is love?

no doubt - oi to the world

(i remember hearing this song a few years back during christmas time. had no idea it was no doubt that performed it. [they sounded too punk in the song for me to consider that no doubt did it])

--

i wonder who's more wooden; al gore, or hilary clinton.

speaking of which, remember when the simpsons poked fun at al gore in one of their episodes?

"mr. gore, somebody just bought one of your books!"

"this calls for a celebration"

(puts record on phonograph)

(melody)...ce-le-brate good times, c'mon!

"i will"

Golden state warriors play like guys out of NBA JAM.

I find this humorous, because I stand by one belief: “NBA JAM ruined my concept of how basketball was supposed to be played as I was growing up; Sega Sports’ NBA 2K for the Dreamcast retaught me how basketball was supposed to be played.” For most of my youth up til the end of high school, I didn’t get basketball. Because I played and still play and watch a lot of video games(consoles, cpus, arcade), NBA JAM gave me a really messed up idea of how basketball was supposed to be; yes I knew that you weren’t allowed to shove people, but I assumed defense didn’t really matter much(although I still justified Michael Jordan as being the best because he was great on defense; good arguments from a kid; go figure), and that to matter to a team, you had to be able to both shoot 3 pointers and dunk(and have good speed). Again, despite the fact that MJ was not known for creating his own 3 pt shot.

Enter senior year in high school when I only took 5 classes, was able to leave school at noon(I still have fond memories of senior year in high school because of how much freedom I had, despite not really doing anything) actually had time to watch games and etc, etc, etc(1st game i watched was knicks vs bucks; went to overtime; shooting match between sprewell and ray allen; good overall game, and really glad i watched; favorite eastern conference playoff game i watched, and still one of my faves was nets at celtics, when celtics pulled that come-from-behind victory, because in the 4th, they stopped shooting 3s and started just taking it to the hole). I was starting to understand and appreciate how this game was played.

Then of course there was the transition period during college, when I really began to appreciate team play, defense(without stuffing the stats), and rebounding. Oh yeah, also to appreciate how a person can contribute to a team despite not adding anything to the stats(Tayshaun Prince made me start to realize this more than anybody else).

So the end-all is that I come out of undergrad college, having actually gained knowledge of what makes a good basketball team and team play, can appreciate all sorts of basketball team styles, etc, etc, etc. And then the Warriors have to enter the playoffs, breaking their drought, oust the Mavs, become the most fun-oriented basketball team in the league, and do it all by playing... like characters in NBA JAM. Y’kno; once you cross the half-court line, just run to the 3-pt line and chuck it(and who cares about big man play; who cares about shot blocking and rebounding). in other words, if i were just rooting for the hometown team, the past 7-8 years i spent learning about the game went to waste. (sigh)

--

Hopefully I’ll get all the musical gear I ordered before this year ends and are able to start flexing my artistic musical creativity again. It has been a while; I think a wrote a lot of songs before, but forgot how they played, what they sounded like, etc. I only recorded one song, and sound-wise it was like crap(I passed the mp3 on to a couple of people, i think Bob was one of the few that got it). Well, shouldn’t be a problem this time around(I think). It won’t be like a studio, but I’m at least hoping there’s no weird stuff, like having to adjust for those popping noises when i sing too strongly, or the stupid humming sound that occurs when you record from a sound card. Writing a song = good(but everybody with a guitar does that). Writing + recording a song = better.

But yeah, if I had no restraint, I'd probably spend money like it grew on trees. There's tons of stuff I would like to get(not just musical stuff), but can't right now; I just have to limit it to these musical tools I would like to get, and then wait for a job or something else. Basically, I have this long list of things on my laptop at home that I would (key words)eventually like to own. I'm just hoping the stuff i would like to get is still on the market maybe 5-6 years down the road, when i actually earn a decent amount of money.

--

I wonder if anybody from church is celebrating Festivus.

--

My fingers ish numb. I wonder if sleeveless leather gloves help this case at all.

--

I managed to reserve and get both animated Marvel films from the library: Iron Man, and Dr. Strange. Ooo! They should do an animated Marvel film on War Machine.

--

christian conspiracies can be pretty fun to look at. there's a ton of them. whether or not they are true(of course, only useful looking at them to see whether they are valid, have valid arguments, and hence can deduce whether the world has pulled another blindfold over our eyes). here's one to contemplate; christmas in its origins was not a christian holiday. i'm not saying that the birth of christ never existed. i'm saying that christmas started out as a pagan holiday, and somehow the day of christ's birth somehow got attached to it(which could explain the trees(trees were a sign of fertility i think?)). i don't have the e-book that i got this from in front of me at the moment, but it's something to think about. then there's the arguments some make that santa claus is really satan(not in the sense that santa is satan incarnate, but is sorta an antichrist in masquerading as christ), like how santa is an anagram for satan, the songs sung about him are really stealing praises from god(ie, the kjv has the Lord saying "Ho ho" in one of the prophets, that he comes from the north, etc), etc. well, not like you should believe everything the popular media tells you anyways.

i find it strange how many people hold their phones in their left hand, despite them not being left-handed.

time crisis 4 for ps3 + guncon is $50 on amazon gold.

harold and kumar 2 trailer

(it's an r-rated trailer btw)

i lol'd too HORD when i saw the trailer. i saw the 1st movie btw, and thought it was awesome. 2nd one looks even better.

especially when kumar dressed up with a turban and uncut beard.

roflmao...

china's total disregard for copyrights FTW...

i think i LOL'd too HORD when it was opened...

(there's other vg ripoffs on page 2 of the forum posted by fatherbrain)

man, i wanted warriors to win, but i am just so amazed at dwight howard this nba season, that i don't feel as bad about it. rediculous. 20+ boards, 7 blocks? dude seems to abuse small ball lineups for breakfast. i'm just surprised he didn't do it to the lakers.

(you wouldn't happen to know any good orlando magic fansites, do you? i've peeped frequently "golden state of mind" for the warriors, "need for sheed" for the pistons, but i should really link on a magic site; dwight's not going anywhere soon.)

---

patriots still unbeaten. abeit, very closely.

i actually really wished the redskins could've won on sunday. would've done their deceased player a lot of honor.

---

am always fascinated by the voice actors in anime/cartoons, for the sole reason that they tend to never sound like themselves in real life. that's not so much the case in non-animated movies etc.

peyton manning on united way, on snl

tay zonday got tay zonpaid

some flash videos:

the art of housewifery

fight for your life

this one's short, but pure awesome

sonic: nazo unleashed:

ep 1

ep 2

ep 3

i am mildly concerned after pastor dan told me on sunday after congratulating me on playing the drumkit so well that when i started playing, all the youth girls started looking at me instead of the screen, commenting to me "hey, worship God."

...

maybe i should play worse then?

yay i'm 24! (*tick*... *tick*... *tick*... *tick*...)

didn't do much today:

-woke up
-watched more "ghost in the shell" anime
-went out to deposit my last check
-came back to watch more g.i.t.s. anime
-went out w/mom to eat at "great buffet."
-blah blah rode shotgun with mom while she did some errands, came back home w/2 donuts
-typical stuff i do at home at night

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commando, regular edition was 3.99 at fry's on wednesday when i went out of boredom.

---

i really should practice lead guitar soon.

---

dwight howard just too nasty; too bad they didn't win.

---

al harrington locking up yao ming(with some help). love teh lockdown d.

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my hair is getting too long

dwight howard seems to always play well against the supersonics. i still have the nba.com video from last season of him going 8 for 8 against the sonics.

y'kno that old adidas commercial on a street hoop where kg keeps getting to the rim and dunking on scrubs and nobodies no matter how many people they send at him, until duncan comes out to defend him? that's kinda like yesterday, except it was dwight howard instead of kg. and no tim duncan came out. beastage.

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warriors still showing they rock harder than their norcal rivals; love it.

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i don't expect much tomorrow. maybe a baker's dozen donuts, a new watch, and hopefully out-bidding other ppl on ebay to get a new mbox 2 mini for way less than it originally cost when new. would be nice if the capcom arcade hits package i ordered for the pc came in tomorrow, but that's pushing it. maybe a strong sense of direction would be nice.

---

this is what i don't like about modern-day society sometimes; they expect you to know exactly what you're going to do by the time you get out of high school.

---

wow... american football in japan

---

i didn't know the nintendo wii had a joystick for it, let alone the hori, japanese type. and for what, just for 1 fighting game right now, guilty gear? pro smash players don't even use the joystick; they'd rather use a pad with analog stick and pressure-sensitive triggers.

happy 23rd to jeremy lee and grace lin! (not that they read my journal frequently anymore...)

all about november 28th

---

i just watched the macross and ghost in the shell movies this week. both were... fairly good.

i think i saw a man in drag at the library...

but i'm just not too sure.

not that (s?)he's physically attractive, i'm just... unsure.

and i don't want to ask "excuse me, are you... a man?"

maybe this is the type of thing jerm fears.

lol... wanna watch a vf player beat up 100 scrubs in one sitting?

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4

---

for me, the past 2-3 weeks, seems like nothing and everything has changed. i don't feel like writing everything down. everything, and i mean literally everything was both good and bad these past weeks.

---

but my nephew mikey was really cool to hang around with(i think i'll need another year before i can get how to hang around ally). and is it just me, or do michelle and phil give more leeway towards punishing ally than they do mikey? anyways, at first i felt really awkward around them, not knowing how to act, what to say, but by sunday when they were about to leave, i pretty much got a gist of what i was supposed to do or say. i'm fairly sure mikey likes me based on the fact that i'm not trying to act cute with him(as adults tend to do around kids). y'kno, the "fuzzy-wuzzy" type talk, especially when women do it... ugh. maybe it's cause i hated it when i was a kid(are you insulting my intelligence? please don't talk to me that way), so i don't want to do the same to others. i just tried to talk simple and slower with mikey, and for the most part, he got it. not really saying i miss them quite yet, but it was fun. oh yeah; mikey's a lefty too. i regret not taking pictures or video with my digital camera, but then again, if i kept snapping them, they probably wouldn't have liked it.

---

niners weren't supposed to win on sunday. i still believe that. that being said, i was impressed with the big defensive plays the niners made in the 2nd quarter. michael lewis impressed me.

---

street fighter 2 v anime series sometimes makes dragon ball z dubs look good in comparison.

hmm, haven't updated much recently. a lot the stuff is big news.

-getting a job was REALLY, REALLY, nice. on part because it was so long looking for a job, and i didn't even need to go into an interview to get this one. the experience will definitely help out in future job searches. but the excitement kinda ground out really quickly. work is really tiring, and i feel like i'm operating 3 steps slower than everybody else, that i can't learn quickly enough. i bet i've worked more overtime than anybody else at church. schedule:

mon-fri: 7:00 am - 5:30/6:30 pm (have to get at 6:00 am, have to go to sleep by 11:00 pm)
sat: 6:00 am - 2:30 pm (yes that's right, i have to get up even earlier on saturday)

-i sound materialistic, but it really is true that one of the things that's keeping me going at work(most of work my mind's on autopilot until i run into a problem, then i fret) is thinking of what i'm going to do with the money i get. a digitech jamman pedal would be GREAT; loops galore. and then i would love to get something like a mbox 2 from digidesign or audio buddy from m-audio so i can start writing and recording songs again on my cpu. it's not like i'm gonna splurge and buy everything immediately after getting my paycheck and basically burn all the money at once, but i think you get the idea; it's like i'm already formulating when i'm gonna get what. oh yeah; not too quite keen on getting an electronic drumset yet; i'm gonna wait a few and let the money build up for that one; get back to me on that one in about a year. but those two; a good sound card to record, and the looper pedal are huge. after that, i think i'll sit back and let the money accumulate before i think of what else i should get. (some more efx pedals would be good, or an arcade joystick)

-i got the alterbridge: blackbird cd. i've been listening to the album nonstop. it's that good, and that much better than their 1st cd. the 1st cd, myles kennedy was kinda just brought on board at the last moment, and so he wasn't allowed to put his stamp on the music; it was just mark tremonti's songwriting and everybody backing him up. but this 2nd cd. wow. it's real good. i love 70%+ of the songs. what's even better is that you can get it for 9.99 at best buy, even though it's a new cd.

-last note, but really kewl; phil's gonna be tearing it up at turkey bowl this year. that's right, you read right; he'll be back on wednesday. i get to finally see michael and allison.

i'm glad i watched the patriots-colts game live. great, great, great, game. colts dominated nearly the entire game on both ends, with their pressure defense and addai. didn't matter when it came down to crunch time; tom brady continued to impress me when he had to step up. and then it seemed that when he did, the rest of the team fed on his energy and played way better to get the win.

shaun rogers... remember that name

that has the be the play of this nfl week. maybe of the entire season. it's like watching "the fridge" play for the lions. and the stiff arm was just icing on the cake. we were having a blast watching that highlight.

alter bridge's new cd sounds really really good; hoping to get it sometime in the near future.

^(#$(*$#@@@#$?#$?$%%$%*(#%*($!!!!!!!!!!

i can't believe cbs is going to show a meaningless texans at raiders game over patriots at colts.

heck, i wouldn't even care if was a niners game(dead serious about this one; unless if the niners had like a playoffs-or-bust type game). how can you can not show a potential afc championship playoff game, especially given how hot new england is doing this year, and how both teams remain undefeated? i never get the thinking pattern of that douche who's running sports broadcast games in california. like how a few weeks back californians couldn't watch the patriots-cowboys game because they had to show some oakland game in place of it.

reminded me a time during college during the '04-'05 nba season that they either showed the spurs playing at the pistons, or phoenix at memphis on abc. they were showing the spurs-pistons game in the majority of the US, but guess what was one of the few states that got shafted? yeap; i was pretty annoyed. it wasn't even like phoenix or memphis was related in some way to california, they mustve just decided for some random reason that cali wouldn't appreciate this game, despite it being a potential finals matchup.

---

btw, i really like the theme music of the nfl on cbs way more than on fox; the orchestral music in concert with the drumset makes it sound so dramatic, so cool. btw, it was made by e.s. posthumus, the same guy who did "pompeii." it's actually on imeem.com btw. just do a search.

vids galore post.

ninja parade goes unnoticed again? "believe it!"

michael moore sends a mariachi band to a kkk rally

i pity da foo who doesn't like this commercial

you no hungry for girl!

kenny rogers' jackass

last one...

watch this... then this

heheheheh...

perhaps the most pointless sports article i've ever read

hmmmm....

Bear: Only WHO can prevent forest fires?

Bart: *Presses "You"*

Bear: I'm sorry, that's incorrect. You pressed "you" referring to me. The correct answer is you.

how long's it been since i've ridden an earthquake?

free taco @ taco bell today 2 pm - 5 pm

gogogogogo...

kickin it old skool indeed...

roflcopter... ronald mcdonald in parachute pants...

did i mention how disgusting the patriots are? patriots and colts are going to be one hell of a game next week. seeing how the schedule is, i might forgo bball/tennis/fball and watch it.

---

maybe it's just my imagination, but message boards on espn.com regarding baseball, in comparison to football and basketball, look REALLY MILD.

---

words of wisdom from message board on espn.com concerning kobe, esp his 2nd point:

"pygarthecat

And the whole situation with Kobe complaining about the Lakers not helping him is ridiculous too......they cant afford anybody because of how much they pay him......and if they did have money for free agents, its not like the last two summers were loaded with great free agent talent.

Does anybody paying attention to this situation still not understand why Kobe gets labeled as "Not a Team Guy"? The label doesnt come from how he acts on the floor, its how he acts off the floor........"

"The Red Sox can have their Nation. The Yankees have the universe."
-- Hank Steinbrenner, New York Yankees senior vice president

Maybe Steinbrenner meant it in the context of the fans alone and not the organization, but this quote came out terribly arrogant. I was angry when i read about it, but realized that maybe the espn.com author took it out of context, like maybe it was something steinbrenner said during the late 90s. So I quoted it on Google.com, and tried to look up when it was quoted. It was probably either yesterday or today. Way to come across as classy. In other words, it doesn't matter if you have a small fanbase but continue to win championships; we have all the fans in the world.

I can't imagine any upper head in any NBA team that would say something like this about the Spurs.

owned

now this is an interesting soccer mom

this made my day... might even make my week; i was dying with laughter...

ny times: fearing crime, japanese wear the hiding place

slideshow of how it works

i can think of numerous metal gear solid 4/ transformers/ inspector gadget/ naruto/ wonder twins/ mighty morphin power rangers puns i could throw out here, the srk.com message board where i found this news already threw most of them out.

this just proves japanese are ninjas to the core

i told you so...

simply put, lakers should've tried to keep shaq at the end of the 04 finals, and recently, they should've tried to completely go young by trading kobe away.

notice how now even a lot of the laker fans on the espn.com message boards are beginning to become fed up with kobe.

---

patriots are disgusting. colts are actually somewhat of an underdog this season though. all this talk about the cowboys and patriots are sweeping them under the radar, but they're doing really well.

i'm really liking the bucs this year.

---

reading "the spirit catches you and you fall down" currently. the stubbornness of man is something disgusting. it's a beautiful thing if you are completely right and don't clamp down on others with it, absolutely ugly if you are wrong.

---

sf4 better be in arcades; i don't want to have to buy a console to play it(yet)

---

what the hell am i supposed to be learning? what the hell am i supposed to be doing?

omgoodness, capcom is really serious about it this time around...

thought i'd never live to see the day...

official site

i predict the 1st revision will have some seriously broken balance issues... then maybe about the 3rd revision, it'll be playable, but still not be perfect.

---

"bein bon tze"

them poor italian kids had to watch this for an x-men cartoon intro

beer pong

wooww... (jaw drops)

lol...

HEADSHOT!

that's making me want to play counter-strike again.

your car is on fire!

OMGoodness, i hope i never have to be a chinese factory worker EVAR

---

aaand, some flash videos:

super mario bros Z episode 6
alvin earthworm's work keeps getting better and better...

madness: dues ex machina(made by proxicide, the same guy who made the mk vs sf series)
pretty good; looks a lot like madness interactive

---

i managed to find both street fighter alpha the movie and street fighter alpha generations at the library, didn't find street fighter the movie at all. it's all good; this is gonna keep me busy some.

you'd never guess what i found in the videos section of the library:

a-team season 1 dvd. mr. t FTW.

i figure between that and the robotech movie i also checked out should be plenty entertained at home for the next 2 weeks or so.

only way they could've topped it would be if they put street fighter: the movie there too. (maybe i should see if i can reserve it)

---

oh yeah; transformers the movie comes out on dvd the 16th.

north korean programming:

1

2

asian commercials are weird

lol; why justice league task force was such a bad fighting game

jimmy kimmel: on leave britney alone

chris crocker - wikipedia

---

y'kno, everytime i see somebody like that either really gay or girly, i honestly don't know whether to laugh or gag out of pure disgust. i am serious.

chew on this scripture:

1st Corinthians 6:9-10
"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

simple test to determine whether or not you are more left-brain or right-brain dominant

hint: right-handed people are supposed to use their left brain more, left-handed people are supposed to use their right brain more.

at first i only saw it counter-clockwise, but after refocusing, now i only see it clockwise, and can't change my perception of it.

rush - yyz
dragonforce - through the fire and the flames
(i like both songs; incidently, both are featured songs on various guitar hero games)

dragonforce interview(herman li is cool)

another herman li video; how to make vg sounds on an electric guitar

espn 2: so you want to be a pro vg player
-article's of course mainly aimed towards fps players

technoviking

horray for college football spirit

phoenix wright with geese howard voiceovers

pep-si-maaaaaaan!

new diet pepsi max commercial featuring tony romo(cracked me up 2 weeks ago when i saw it as the seahawks played the niners)

it's the waiting that kills you. the feeling of helplessness, and being unable to do anything else but just wait and hope for deliverance.

lol... remember mr. robinson's neighborhood?

part 1
part 2
part 3

dennis rodman: beyond the glory

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5

i must be really childish to laugh at today's "pearls before swine" comic.

this cracked me up yesterday

and this

if i were still playing counter-strike 1.6, you'd bet that 1st picture would be made into a paintspray.

i must say, cowboys and patriots look absolutely disgusting this season. don't be surprised if this is the super bowl matchup for this postseason. as for which one is the champ? whoever wins the last game; john madden DID say on david letterman that "so if you win every last game, you're probably the super bowl champ."

so yesterday i was kinda bored, and started looking up various pages about electric violins. first, i started by looking at google checkout: various electric violins

so it's not that surprising that the prices are similar to electric guitars; the really good ones topping at around 2K, and then more commonplace, economical ones around 500. what kinda shocked me was that fender made one too(apparently electrical musical instruments with budget over price priority always have the name fender written over them), and the one they made, the black one, looked very similar to the electric violin the musician on the worship team at university covenant church in davis used.

so i decided to visit wikipedia to see if there was anything else i could learn. wikipedia - electric violin

apparently, they're not used as much in classical music. they're designed for more popular music, but only a few bands use them, let alone rock bands. one of the ones i remember even before writing up this article was the punk rock band yellowcard.

yellowcard's myspace page i would take a listen at their song, "ocean avenue;" it was the hit song they had that got played all the time on the radio a while back.

and i was lucky enough to find a copy of that album at the library for checkout.

although, i have reservations for electric violins in rock music if you intend to play them rock style, and here's why; they don't stand out enough; they sound too similar to the average electric guitar. electric guitars in rock music already use an overdrive pedal, or have an amp with that setting, which gives the guitars the ability to have long sustain with each note played, on top of this fuzzy sound. but when a violin is played, strings are not being plucked, but being pushed and pulled with a bow, which essentially gives out this long-etched shreeky sound already found on the electric guitar; now the sustain with an electric guitar fades slightly near the end of each note due to the guitar being played with either strumming or plucking(usually; let's ignore all the funky stuff eddie van halen does which nobody else does anymore), whereas an electric violin, the so-called sustain remains all the way, but in a lot of cases, those differences are really subtle and hard to do something with.

bass guitar stands out from electric guitar though they're essentially the same notes, because it is played with no distortion, with thicker strings, and with fingers, not picks, giving short, fat, dull sounds. drums are drums. vocals are vocals. but that electric violin seems to hit a gray area to me. so imo, the only way you can really make an electric violin stand out(which is the original reason you have different instruments, or even 2 guitarists, so each instrument or playstyle makes each member sound unique), is to play ochestra style; like try getting an echo pedal to help make the violin sound like a bunch of strings together, or something like that(ever listen to metallica playing with a symphony before? something like that). i'm not saying electric violins can't work in rock(my musical tastes repeatedly turn a blind eye to country, because like jeremy camp once said, "i can't stand the twang"). but if you're not thinking this through, it can essentially sound like another electric guitar.

fyi, i wondered whether it'd be cool for a bassist to also carry a bow, so that in some songs, the bass can be played like a cello. it was a cool thought, until i realized i forgot that cellos and bass violins have the strings arranged in a circular motion, otherwise it'd be impossible to play each string with a bow individually.

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for some reason though, i seem to have this utter fascination with a couple of asian musical instruments, like the koto, i think it was called. it's like a sitar you play with long fingernails, or something like that. sometimes i wonder how much one of those must cost, and how hard it might be to learn how to play one of those, because like i said, i love how they sound in stuff like old japanese music. seriously, if i actually earned a lot of money and had no restraint, i'd probably end up burning a lot of it, almost all of it on all these musical instruments and pedals, and ways to hook them up to my laptop to record some songs. i think people who never learned how to play numerous musical instruments and have a creative mind don't realize how much fun it is to just sit in front of a cpu that can record sound and fool around with all types of stuff(instruments, vocals, pedals, software) trying to make a recorded song.

family guy on the emmys

"john madden" on david letterman

enjoy your craiglist's posting's "laugh of the day" folks

love how the last part he admits he's allergic to cats.

THE pen bill was talking about

wait for the price to go down... wait for it...

and it seems a lot better than your average writing tablet too. i see it benefitting not just businessmen, but artists as well(speaking of which, i always wanted to learn about drawing manga and how to put it on a cpu, but that requires some technology and stuff, and that's beyond me at the moment).

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bowler, the washington huskies' qb, is so smexy. scrambling qbs are fun to watch(go jeff garcia). elude tackles, run left, then throw with your right arm to the right? too good, if he just didn't cross the scrimmage line before doing so.

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uc davis' football team getting whomped on both ends by san jose st. this is madness! madness? THIS... IS... SPAR... TA(kicks Gunrock into a pit)

trying to figure out how to finally get my new cd burner to work through all the error messages just to get one measly data cd burned is making me feel like pulling my hair out... it was so much easier when i was at uc davis: bring a usb drive and blank cd to school, and in about 15 minutes(maybe even i daresay, 10 minutes; those cpus were fast) on a lab computer i would be done with it. this better not be God's sadistic way of telling me i would've been better off buying an external hard drive with memory in the 200+ gb range.

the article on espn.com about john kitna's faith is very good.

october 22nd is international caps lock day.
december 5th is international ninja day.

of course, september 19th was international talk like a pirate day.

remember when the lakers' best player was nick van exel? you think when all is said is done, that nba fans might look back and say, "remember when the lakers' best player was kobe bryant?" in the same vein?

fyi, all the possible trade scenariors, and how the lakers are mentioned in every one of them, or somebody has to pop up with a scenario on espn.com with a "how bout this trade", makes me sick. i really dislike it when sports fans only like a particular sport because of their favorite team, usually hometown, doing well. or rumors that could mean their team does well. *sigh* people liking a sport because of the spirit of the sport, compared to a particular player or team, is a rarity; when will the foolish mortals learn. then again, basketball isn't my entire life; lefties tend to be more multi-faceted. (i half-wish andrew bynum would blow up, so that if the lakers have the ability to make another strong showing in the playoffs, i can ask them, weren't you clamoring to trade away kwame brown and andrew bynum a few weeks ago? then mumble in their vicinity *figures; laker fans are fickle*)

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almost done reading davinci code; it's been fun. i think i can understand why somebody who's not sound in how the kjv bible was made, or know the real deal about roman catholicism could be thrown for a loop. but i think if you know those two, your faith shouldn't be swayed at all. too bad ignorance + biased knowledge = haterade.

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watched "four brothers." good movie.

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because i talked about it last night(man, now i want to shoot the food):

gauntlet 2 on pc(abandonware)

best way to run old school dos games is to use dosbox

easiest way to use dos box(after installing of course) is to create a folder in the c drive called "games." unzip gauntlet 2 into a folder in there. then startup dosbox and type in "mount c c:/games" and it should make the c://games folder behave like a c drive now. should be easy from there if you played on the old computers.

"green warrior needs food badly"

"green warrior is about to die"

world's most expensive dessert?

goo goo dolls - here is gone

they showed a special "family guy" this sunday, with a star wars theme. nope, didn't watch it. but vids are creeping up all over youtube. like this one

found this on espn.com:

marsy1089 (9/19/2007 at 11:36 PM)
"Coaches like Sloan would always have good records but not win championships because of their unwillingness to adjust to their personnel. Their opinion would always be as long so you work hard then you can adjust to their system, the thing is that's not always true.

AK47, I see a lot of similarities with Manu. You need to let them do their stuff to fully utilize them and that is an adjustment Popovich made because he is a championship type of coach unlike Sloan. So instead of making Manu fit with Duncan and Parker, he made Manu his sixth man so that he can maximize the Duncan-Parker combo and then bamboozle enemies with Manu's wild offense off the bench.

This is actualy something Sloan can easily do. Utilize Boozer and Williams to their max and use AK47 as your spark off the bench. That would make them insanely tough. But nooooooo that can't be! Each and every Jazz must use Sloan's formula! If you can't adjust screw you. That's why the Jazz would never win the championship as long as Sloan is the coach. Consistent playoff, yes. But winning the NBA Finals, doubtful."

AAAAAARRRRRRRRR...

arr, me bay area matees! i hear tis about kirilenko walking the plank with da jazz! come on board, andre! perhaps baron, stephen and andre could journey further in search of nba booty! arrr!

hahahahahaha (read the description)

wonder what all the michael vick haters are going to say when they see this cnn article

a case of loli makes cnn(no, it's not anime-related)

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12 stones came out with a new album in august; i kinda like their song "lie to me". alter bridge is coming out with one in the next month(finally!). but i think i'll wait til i hear more of both albums before buying them. besides i'm thinking about that velvet revolver cd and the daughtry album before i even think of these two. speaking of which, i should really start repicking up the electric guitar soon. those speed drills aren't going to magically jump onto my left fingers.

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107.7 FM the bone recently had a couple of interviews with the 49ers Joe Nedney and Jeff Ulbrich in the morning. check em out here LOL at Joe Nedney's advice to rookie kickers.

fyi, 107.7 FM likes broadcasting short stand-up comedian snippets every 3:10 PM and 4:10 PM every weekday. some of them are pretty funny.

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the truth is not hidden, and yet you have to search for it. interesting.

thought this might be interesting to fobby south bay area people

i love the comments that people on espn.com are making regarding lebron just having lasik surgery... my favorite mustve been this one:

"this just in; carmelo anthony just took a dump"

hmmm, long time since i've done a youtube vids galore type post...

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clint eastwood on the simpsons

otaku fight

darko milicic packing some hot fire

why can't mcdonald's make commercials like this anymore!

you've never seen a vf tournament played like this before

sugar ray - answer the phone

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edit: well, if playing it makes you feel like yours is bigger...

i'll make this post quick because i've only got 5 more minutes on my cpu terminal, and you can't really do anything productive with 5 minutes left. nor can i really spam up this entry with video links either.

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i'm hoping down the road the sf49ers org will be shown to be validated in taking alex smith over waiting a year longer to get matt leinart. though he isn't a scrambling qb, alex can run a little better than matt(although, isn't matt leinart lefty? aren't lefty's more prone to scrambling?), and that ability i think helped sf eek out a win yesterday(plus, it's always fun watching white guys run amok on a football field). overall, good close competitive football game, it was fun for me watching that comeback win. it was not fun FOR MY MOM, but also, for that exact reason, fun for me jabbing her on why she doesn't like it. i must be more sadistic than sarcastic.

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i'm thinking bob may get a kick outta this video

speaking of sci-fi stuff, i think robot chicken also made fun of final fantasy a while back. if you liked that spoof they did with the emperor on the phone, you might like this one. basically, cloud's working at a mcdonald's and sephiroth is his boss. (comedy ensues) but i'm too lazy to link to it at the moment. i still think robot chicken's crowning jewel may be their "kill bunny" spoof on "kill bill," but i've watched it so many times it's not funny anymore. 1st time i watched it i was balling so hard though. "rick shaw" was pretty funny too though.

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checked out "davinci code" the book, just to get an idea of what others have been talking about. i'll comment later, something on why christians sometimes counter with "it's a work of fiction," but why we should take it as a serious affront. (if i remember and feel like it)

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i wanted to post up a video of darko going nuts after that international game; saw it, but didn't remember to copy and paste the link; will have to wait. where's that fire in the nba?

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robotech(macross in japan) is gonna be out in theaters really soon. phil was HUGE into robotech. i might just watch it. but i don't know a lot about robotech(at least i watched tranformers:rid when i was in high school). except that the recent dvd movie of it has mark hamill as the main voice actor(he seems to do a lotta roles in american cartoons), and that it garnered a lot of awards.

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checked out "christmas story" at the library. "you'll shoot your eye out!" never really finished it.

though the probability of it is slim, i'd wish the basketball team that usa sends to china next year would be this year's exact lineup, nobody changed. that's how much i liked this exact team.

problem is, they're most likely going to replace 3-5 people. if tayshaun shot better the few times he did, he might've been a lock, but because he didn't, shane battier's probably going to replace him(stupid coach k liking blue devil alumns). chris bosh and dwyane wade are also going to be back, so replace two more people(mike miller has the highest chance of going, and expect maybe one of the backup point guards in chauncey billups/deron williams to go; too bad; liked both). and tyson chandler MIGHT go too.

basically, there were about 5-7 people on this team that i really liked; in no particular order:

tayshaun prince
chauncey billups
dwight howard
tyson chandler
amare stoudamire
michael redd

there's a very good chance about half of those people will not be coming back.

anyways, i'm actually rocking this team's photo on my desktop as my current wallpaper(there were a couple other wallpapers i wanted to try, but this felt like the one i wanted to go with for the moment). you can find it here on fiba 2007 america's official website. notice how only tayshaun and carmelo are the ones not smiling. cause only they be gangsta.

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hmm, it's been a while since i've linked to some youtube videos huh.

not really feeling up to linking to too many. but... recently only the biggest fighting game championship series went down in the us. here's two videos of interest.

this was one of the biggest highlights for the marvel vs capcom 2 finals. (justin wong's a beast)

nki's combo video, showcased
(edit: fixed the broken link)

i'd link to majestro's awesome guile combo video, but it's not on youtube, because it's too large; i'll link to the video if i feel like it some other day.

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those of you who keep tabs on the tennis circuit: keep an eye out for donald young. he's 18, he's lefty, he's black(if you point out that james blake is only half-black, donald young might actually be the 1st black man to ever play tennis professionally recently), and he impressed me last weekend when i watched him play vs lopez in the us open; if he advanced, he would've faced off against roger federer.

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watched this week on dvd:

the gods must be crazy 2
paycheck
shaun of the dead
harold and kumar go to white castle

no, tayshaun got injured! no wonder i didn't see him play yesterday!

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bill walton as a basketball commentator is why you watch the games he's commentating with friends; so you talk more, and drone out his voice. you could also mute, run on a treadmill, or play some musical instrument during the games he's commentating. dude's so biased, and doesn't even hide it. and he talks about crap not even related to basketball.

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anybody else see the picture on the front page of espn.com of the black kid surrounded by the adults holding up "punish dog offenders" signs and stuff like that, and the kid's holding up a sign saying "everybody makes mistakes?" cute and sad all in the same sentence.

(i'm about to vent; half of my statements may have no sound argument; that's how i roll when i'm pissed)

i half-don't even care that much about the results of the michael vick case anymore just thinking of all the animal right activists who have nothing else to do but suddenly bash on michael vick because he's a celebrity, so now their voice can be heard; hey, let's give him the maximum penalty just to set an example, nevermind having the punishment fit the crime! and i think animal rights activists are really skewed in what they do. you know dog and cat killers only get noticed because those animals are kept as pets and considered cute. ever think about how chickens are killed for meat? or what about ants? the ants that kids light up by putting magnifying glasses over during the summers when they have no school? should we ignore these because they're not cute? or significant? they have "rights" too you know. spiders anybody? mouses? squirrels on our roofs? i could go on and on. or what about abortion? you sicken me society with your double standards.

this is why you can't always take wikipedia seriously

SKELETOR!

niners and bears today.

bishop(don't know his first name) had a really sick tackle, or should i say, shoulder ram when the panthers played the packers this week. do NOT run sideways into a zone d, or you will get it, lol. got a couple of OOoOoOooo's outta me. if you saw the replay, you'd probably agree.

i learned today that tayshaun prince was not cut from team usa; kevin durant was though(i imagine that might make the superstar-loving crowds a bit angry).

and need4sheed.com also linked to a youtube video of tayshaun prince being interviewed on team usa.

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stephen pastis is awesome for ripping into rex morgan m.d. and comics similar to that this sunday. i still get a wide grin thinking about that strip.

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i guess it might be a while before all the stuff needed to be done on the rental home is done.

lol...

i think bob should just that comic's main page link on his main blog page, well, just because.

so now, instead of "the lebrons," we should talk about "the bobs."

"...and stop looking at my squishee!"

lol...

kids can say some pretty cute things sometimes.

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i found jedi knight: mysteries of the sith at the cupertino library; always wanted to play/buy the game, but since it was included as a special add-on when jedi knight was officially sold in stores, you could only get it then, not seperately. now, they still sell jedi knight: dark forces 2, and jedi knight 2, but they no longer sell MotS; you need to get it via EBay. so that'll be taking up a bit of my time during late afternoons and early nights these days.

and although i am pretty sure it won't work, i just checked out ea nba live 06 just to see if it could run at all on my laptop; i'm guessing it won't.

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simpsonize me

upload a photo, get it "simpsonized." sounds kinda cool; prob going to try a photo or two of mine later.

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lightning rods wrapped with athletic tape don't slip out of my hands. tried it yesterday. the bad news? the adhesive starts slowly coming off on my hands, making it feel all sticky. i'd still take this over having my hands get so slippery that i don't get a good grip on the sticks at all though.

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that peruvian earthquake sucks...

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i don't feel like doing anything productive today; mom took me to "super buffet" while the car was getting an oil change, and so i don't feel like doing anything productive. i'm at the library as i'm writing this, but i know the minute i go home, if i touch the bed, the itis is prob going to kick in.

my goodness...

i wish i had a 500+ ft water/slip n' slide hybrid in my backyard...

buncha short thoughts:

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i forgot to mention two more musicians last night who are left-handed; both are bassists:

duff mckagan(velvet revolver, guns n roses), paul mccartney(the beatles)

-both are interesting; duff mckagan, though left-handed, plays a right-handed-style bass guitar. paul plays a variety of instruments left-handed.

i actually stumbled upon the fact that duff mckagan was left-handed, but played a right-handed bass guitar yesterday when i was browsing wikipedia on info on the various members of velvet revolver(3/5ths of the members are former guns and roses members; slash, duff, and the drummer, and the lead singer is scott weiland formerly of stp).

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joe satriani was on 107.7 fm last week. that's right; the one and only. dj'd a few sessions too, had people call in for q and a's. he's a great guy.

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don't get why my ring fingernails and sometimes the pinky fingernails as well seem to grow so much faster than my other nails. frustrating; it'll feel like i just cut them too.

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correction: meant "gripmaster," not "fingergrip."

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my lightning rod drumsticks are now wrapped in athletic tape(john tang wrapped all his drumsticks, lightning rods and 7A's in tennis grips). i figured it's a good move; maybe the reason why i got so nervous playing drums past 2 weeks, but not at retreat, was because the rubber grips aren't fun to play with when your palms get sweaty. and atheletic tape doesn't feel like the rubber tennis grips, feels like rough cotton, so i figured it might be a good move(plus, the packaging advises that you can use it to wrap hockey sticks, so why not); we'll see how it pans out this sunday. my only thing is that athletic tape sometimes gets that weird black streaks like with duct tape or masking tape, so it may make the drumsticks look bad if removed.

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started looking up pen spinning again. reason being i found out drumsticks are a lot easier to spin than pens. sounds like cheating, but most pen spinners modify their pens anyhow to be longer. right now i can only do a combination of 2 different moves. i can do maybe 3 different types of moves. i was only able to learn 1 basic move during freshman year in college.

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i half-realized during retreat that i CAN sing while i'm playing drums. but only when i was playing a set where i came in the middle, but was singing up to that point. then suddenly i was like "dude i'm still singing" and then stopped singing on fear of messing up, lol. should've just kept at it and seen if i could continue through the whole song.

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niners looked fairly good yesterday on tv.

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warriors FINALLY get rid of adonal foyle. guess i can't use "golden state of mind's" webpin where "adonal 08 is IN THE GAME" no more. the minute i learn what new team he's going to(hopefully it's either the magic or the celtics), i'm gonna be rocking that new wallpaper on my desktop for giggles(my haruhi suzumiya wallpaper was starting to get a bit old anyhow).

preseason nfl game today: niners against the broncos, 5 pm on cbs. get yo football fix on, yo!

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i suppose most of the people wouldn't really care, but today is international left hander's day. occurs every august 13th. yes, i found out this year. yes, i waited until today to post this. yes, i debated emailing everybody in the mountain view cg, given how there's maybe 5 left-handed people in that group(which is a lot of left-handed people showing up on one night), but declined, thinking it not really christianity-related.

official website

here's some famous people(off the top of my head) who are left-handed:

rock guitarists:
jimi hendrix(jimi hendrix), kurt kobain(nirvana)
-both played left-handed style, but jimi was really unique in that he actually played a right-handed electric guitar, but restrung the strings so that it was EBGDAE(in reverse), and then turned it upside down and picked it with his left hand. oh yeah; jimi hendrix played his guitar with his teeth as an exhibition. both were able to kickstart new life into the rock genre. both died tragic deaths. jimi hendrix's introductory riff to the song "voodoo child" is still amazing to me to this very day, and people almost call "smells like teen spirit" THE anthem to the 90s alternative rock scene.

drummers:
ringo starr(beatles)
-ringo had the unique attribute of being left-handed, but playing on a right-hand oriented drumset. he also started the whole matchstick grip type of holding drumsticks; before him, most people just played with the traditional grip.

bible:
ehud. only dude in the entire bible who was mentioned by name to be left-handed. managed to kill an overweight king by stabbing a small sword into his stomach. one in line of the judges in the book of Judges appointed by the Lord to save the Israelites in a time of turmoil.

nfl football players:
steve young, michael vick
-both are scrambling qb's(yes, white scrambling qbs do exist, although i still can only think of steve young fitting the bill), both phenomenal talent. interestingly enough, michael vick seems to be going the way of the dumps, and of course, we know how steve young went; toyota... i mean rings. look up "catch 2" and niners fans of the early 90s will understand.

nba:
phil jackson
(yes i could've named numerous other people, including two of the greatest centers to play the game, or my favorite player in the nba as of right now; i know that; i decided to settle upon the zenmeister because I didn't know he was left-handed until recently; i'm sure many don't either)
-2nd biggest winner on the grand stage aka nba finals(red is still 1st). people still say he's not as good as he's cracked up to be because he kinda got to choose the talent he wanted to coach(i say this to some degree as well), but hey, coaching isn't always just about x's and o's; sometimes your ability to decide the right play, or get your players to play the way you want to at the right time is key too. known for coaching two phemomenal duos in kobe-shaq, and jordan-pippen. also had some weird-ass rituals in his coaching due to his fondness of 60s counterculture and love of eastern religions.

former world leaders:
napoleon, joan of arc
-frenchies would be proud.

if you're still interested in more left-handed people

3 more of note:

matt groening is left-handed; according to the website, so is bart simpson.

it's kinda hard in cartoons and anime for you to tell if somebody's left-handed unless if they just say it. with that, here's one more:
if you watch japanese anime, tsukasa and kagami of "lucky star" are both left-handed. i know this, just cause, well, they actually say it.

oh great, got another letter implying that i've been selected for jury duty.

and this time, i'm not in college. i don't think having a job would've made a difference though. you have to go for jury duty regardless of having a job or not.

time restraints aside, i'm actually kinda looking forward to this. i'm just hoping the case doesn't take too long.

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i wanted to post this up, but never got around to; in the hoop magazine of july/august 2007, here's a hilarious quote from stephen jackson:

"it's probably full. here's who's in it: mcdonald's, dominos, burger king, it was subway-but he pushed them out for cinnabon-and krispy kreme. ... maybe if dwyane wade opens a restaurant, he may have a chance."
-stephen jackson, explaining why dwyane wade can't get into charles barkley's fave five

i feel like crap everytime i come home in the evening, despite the fact that i don't ever really do anything in the daytime. maybe that's why it's been a while since i've posted anything long. i guess i should really think about them biotech temp agencies real soon.

i just wanted to point out one trivial thing i noticed during retreat:

some car cracked me up, because it was a license plate that said "native texan." which was all good... except it was on a yellow SCION.

there was some other trivial thing i wanted to say, but it was kinda lost on me as i was writing. no worries.

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so retreat was good, i wanted to elaborate more, but the cold hard truth is this:

so hard to "take and apply" and do it every single moment, every single day. but if you don't, the message is lost, the salt, its flavor. the pearls? cast unto the swine.

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"fingergrip" is awesome. i just recently picked it up again and toyed with it last night as i was watching some cartoons(not a bad idea at all; should try doing this more often). i'm thinking about getting the light tension version(blue; phil gave me the red one). i'm not practicing on the lead guitar just yet, but this is still very good for exercising those fingers. and building those calluses.

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i'll post about them electric guitars(fender vg, etc) sometime up coming.

fyi, something else i thought about regarding kg being traded:

turns out paul pierce out of all the franchise players on crappy teams in the nba remained loyal to his team the longest(something that i always liked, since i've always wanted paul pierce to remain a celtic).

i guess you can argue kg endured the longest. but still, when you consider ai going to denver last season, and then kg moving in the offseason...

and i think at the moment, kobe doesn't really count. he's only endured 3 years of badness recently, and you already hear him wavering, according to rumors.

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so at the moment, i would LOVE to see all my favorite eastern conference teams in the semifinals next season: let's say, chicago against detroit(team play vs team play) and boston vs orlando(big ticket/allen vs MU-FA-SAH/lewis). and then the winner of each matches up to rep the east. (cavs and heat can go to hell)

oh big yay, kevin garnett's in boston now! (i bet tim ang's pretty happy himself) i'll most def be looking forward to that pierce-garnett combo. plus, you add the fact that both players have gone through much; expect them to make some noise next season, just because they know the clock's ticking. oh yea; forgot; it was an allen-pierce-garnett trio. this is going to be interesting.

(and i esp bet most boston natives are ridiculously happy that basketball is suddenly relevant again)

that now means i have one more eastern conference team that i used to like, but now will like a lot more.

edit:

i bet there's a lotta ppl in lakerland real disappointed by the news. not do they not get garnett, but he's going to their formal rivals. and that could mean that kobe might want to get out of la even more, IF he's thinking about it. bet you gonna see lakers go after j'o real hard now?

oh yea; guess that kills the point of this site.

scientists discover gene for left-handedness

does this mean i'm going to go crazy? or that 5 people in my cg total will go crazy when they are old? (sarcasm)

reminded me of a joke some girl told to me in high school:

-richard, are you a maniac in a cage?
~no.
-we're all loose! we're all loose!

rip bill walsh...

College Saga

still cracks me up. the song they sing while mark leung's sliding around on the ground is gold.

(makes me wonder if the dudes of my class at msm have seen this one, esp eugene and david)

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fyi, the fender vg would be one of the coolest guitars i've currently seen around if not for a couple of things:

1)more tunings need to be available, and/or amp settings
2)battery life could be a bit longer or ac/dc would be nice
3)price is way, way too high(at that price i'm wishing it was a les paul or gibson or something like that; $1000+ for a fender?!?)

if you've seen it you'll know what i'm talking about; very unique electric guitar; expect more to come that improve upon the idea. and if you don't, and don't feel compelled to search for yourself, wait for it, because i'll post up some links later in the week or so, and describe it. (as well as describe another electric guitar's design that cracks me up)

---

some dude was playing 16th notes on the bass drum at guitar center yesterday when i went.

my hands still ache from playing the conga.

---

edit1:

i had my first phone interview. usually the job interviews are in person right? totally unprepared on this one, as i expected the employer at the end of the conversation to set up a time for me to come in. he didn't ask a lot of questions, just explained shortly what it was, and asked me some stuff. i'm still hoping that it goes through. being able to work on the stanford university campus would be real nice. with microarrays too.

overheard my mom yesterday talking on the phone to possibly john tang's mom(or it could've been karen chiu's mom; my mom's close friends with both), and actually started talking about me playing drums...

(...i think it's a good idea for him; maybe it'll improve his hand-eye-leg coordination...)

(...no, i don't want to get him a set; i don't want the neighbors to sue us, and i don't want to go deaf...)

reedit: added comparisons for 6 through 8

the july/august issue of hoop magazine lists the most unstoppable duos currently in the nba as:

1) tony parker/tim duncan(compared them to bob cousy/bill russell)
2) steve nash/amare stoudamire(compared them to john stockton/karl malone)
3) chauncey billups/rip hamilton(compared them to isaiah thomas/joe dumars)
4) josh howard/dirk nowitski(compared them to larry bird/kevin mchale)
5) dwyane wade/shaq(compared them to magic johnson/kareem abdul jabbar)
6) allen iverson/carmelo anthony(walt frazier/earl monroe)
7) tracy macgrady/yao ming(julius erving/moses malone)
8) deron williams/carlos boozer(gary payton/shawn kemp)

i still don't remember the exact order of everything past number 4, but i'm fairly sure that's the order.

of course, they listed the most unstoppable duo of all time as john stockton and karl malone.

---

how do you cure boredom without throwing money at the problem?

new details on pat tillman's death

---

i was going to list a bunch of links to cnn.com, but then decided against it. there's just too many. i will say this. for some reason, the latest news today, almost entirely, is just really screwed up. they're all really small news reports, but still weird. go and check it out for yourself; included stories such as:

-2 news helicopters collide filming a high speed chase
-nasa allowing drunk astronauts to fly space shuttle
-something about hilary clinton and cleavage
-$28K taken from collection plates(gj roman catholics and new jersey!)
-public school halting muslim prayer time
-aquafina admits their water is tap water
-nicole richie sentenced to 90 days in jail(what is up with women in the spotlight these days? lindsey lohan? britney spears? are they trying to outdo each other?)

news articles on cnn:

couple loses 580 pounds combined

1 south korean hostage killed; 22 remain

strangely enough, both articles are slightly tied to Christianity.

---

beyonce meets stairs

some "best of" conan o'brian

lol... they say prostitution is a victim-less crime...

more conan

lol at jennifer garner... and mother teresa trashing the room...

ok, it's been a long time since i've said something spiritual on this website. part of that is because i don't have internet at home(legally), so all the profound thinking is done AWAY from the saratoga library cpu. and that means a lot of text written.

but there was something short that i thought to myself about this sunday. and that was, why was it so much easier to convince nonbelievers back then? standing in front of a crowd and preaching the word seemed to work so well in the book of The Acts of the Apostles. so why doesn't it work today?

and then i thought about 2nd Timothy 2:13, which stated:

"But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived."

in other words, there's more layers to crack. all that so-called knowledge of this world has "puffeth up" this generation.

those of you who liked fresh prince might love this video

rock on, alfonso. this is way too hilarious.

don't they call it "the worm" now though?

c'mon tayshaun, i know you can lock down kobe... LOL.

---

anyways, i seriously can't wait for the nfl season to start.

david sirlin puts his book "playing to win" online for free(at the moment)

good, good, stuff...

transformers rocked, and i am glad i saw it in theaters at the cupertino square with brian. i don't usually go out to watch movies in theaters unless i think it's really worth it.

---

my right arm got so tense yesterday after practicing the drums. too many upbeat songs + too much emphasis upon the right hand for fills = X_X

maybe i should learn to also lead with my left arm like ringo starr. or play 1/4 notes now more often.

pearl jam - alive

good grudge rock... i like this live sound better than the same song on their "ten" album. the solo's not the same though, which is a shame. my bro could play the lead guitar part of that entire song easily.

i must say, this must be the funniest thread i've read in srk.com for a long, long, time.

hehehehehe

this game's too funny.

playing the drums feels a lot like playing the rhythm guitar; your right wrist is the hand counting the tempo, hence the wrist getting tired. only difference is, there is no upstroke, so you can only count with the downstroke. so in analogy to the rhythm guitar, you feel like you're playing punk music, ykno, power chords, palm muted downstrokes all the time.

---

concerning comics, i find i've been reading a lot more "get fuzzy" lately, hence the new link on the side. and i've added tmnt to the mix as well.

i never understood why i used to like "garfield" so much as a kid; come to think of it it's not really funny. i loved how "pearls before swine" gave like a sharp dig at garfield in one of the comic books(think it was nighthogs), where rat threatens the author by saying if his demands aren't met, he's going to read more and more lines from garfield. cracked me up.

one more entry for today.

fighting game players are an odd bunch, especially the tourney types, but the low down is that they're a LOT different from the japanese anime types. one of the big differences is that the former actually DON'T cosplay. often. yes, i know, you're shocked. but it's true.

but i came across this on the srk.com boards yesterday and i'd thought i'd share it. i downloaded the original file, but here's a youtube video of the same thing:
guy shows up to small japanese sfa2 tournament wearing a spiderman costume

anyways, i don't read japanese, so here's what a dedicated guy named "nohoho" on the boards translated(try reading it as you're watching):

"Mikado
3rd Zero 2 Tourney
2007.8
Nazo no Otoko [Mystery Man] Appears!!!

Mystery Man Signing Up for the Tournament

MM: What should I do here?

Staff: Please write your name and your character selection.
MM: Well, my name would be awkward...
Staff: You can use a nickname instead of your real name.
MM: Ah, is that right, I got it.

Mystery Man running recon on the players.

0:33 - Mystery Man checks his next opponent.

MM: When am I up?
Staff: Umm, you're over here.
MM: (Kita, the 2nd place finisher from last time, huh...)
MM: (No problemo.)

0:50 At last, Mystery Man's first match.

MM: (I'm using my sweet Sakura-chan.)

1:31 - (I got the throw! Lucky!)

2:03 - Gotcha!

2:09 - Mystery Man safely makes it past the 1st round.

2:12 (That's what I'm talking about. No sweat.)
Staff: Could I get a word?
MM: I'm taking the next one, too.

2:25 Mystery Man checks his next opponent.
MM: (Who's my next opponent?)
MM: Gak, the winner from last time, Ojiki*, huh?
[* - AKA Komoda Blanka!]
MM: Can't this bracket be changed?
Staff: Ha? (What's with this dude?)
Staff: No way.

2:39
MM: (Piece of shit refused my handshake.)
(No way I'm losing.)
2:45[can't read this one]

3:23 - That's weird.
I didn't do that -- stupid joystick.

3:36 - Ack!

4:09 - What? That's cheap!
F**************K!

4:14 - Mystery Man Loses
MM: What's up with this **** game?
MM: Quit filming me!

MM: [uh]
MM: God dammit!

MM: Oops! My precious glove!

Having not learned his lesson, the Mystery Man -- true identity unknown -- may surface again..."

[strangely enough, while street fighter alpha 2(street fighter zero 2 in japan) is one of the better street fighter games in terms of gameplay, it's not played a lot compared to other fighting games in japan. it's a lot like mvc2; an american game.]

i told a couple of the others, like norman, sarah and justin about this on sunday

bathing in ramen soup can't be good for your body. i mean, people bathe in weird stuff all the time(why do i keep thinking somebody's bathed in chocolate pudding in their home bathtub before?), but the high sodium content of the broth is akin to swimming in the ocean(like getting shriveled up?). except now you're also getting marinated with soy sauce and beef broth. and miso. they might as well throw in some eggs, romaine lettuce, carrots, garnish with chopped green onions and make it a meal. and chopped seaweed.

mmm... cannibalistic ramen... (starts drooling like homer, glazed eyes, tongue out side, spasming).

so if they do this for a jacuzzi, where's the vid of the guy lap swimming in a pool of coke slurpee on a summer's day?

i'd say how messed up this is, but then again, look at the japanese english learning program i posted yesterday.

o_0

that was a japanese TEXTBOOK?!??!?!?

no wonder japanese anime can be so er perverted sometimes.

i never realized how much easier it was for me to jog when i'm chewing gum.

maybe it's just cause i don't open my mouth at all when i'm eating/chewing, and so i ended up breathing through my nose the entire time, taking away the usual feeling of windiness from my throat.

ninja edit.

anyways, i should've added that i compared apples to oranges slightly in comparing prices of cartoons/anime. the reason is that japan seems to be huge on toys and stuff, especially related to electronics. for instance their arcade scene is still kicking, unlike the atrocity that occurs in the us. but the price of playing is a lot higher. here, most games are 50 cents for 1 credit, and maybe if you're lucky, 25 cents to continue. in japan, one credit is 100 yen. or basically, if the us operated arcades like this, essentially 1 dollar(relatively). although, their arcades are a lot more clean-cut and organized, and they always fix their arcade sticks if broken. but i guess the comparisons still apply a bit.

but i guess this is what happens when japan really wants to make itself this clean-cut high tech country.

---

girl lead guitarist playing santana

see? lead guitarists who happen to be female and look good exist! now i just need to find a video of some female sprinting around the fretboard to some hard rock or j-rock.

mad, mad, tired today...

i awoke suddenly at 5:00 or so this morning and couldn't go back to sleep, tossed and turned repeatedly. i think i was still a bit in my dreamy state because i remember awaking and thinking/seeing a huge spider(think tarantula size) was perched on my ceiling while holding a venetian blind. then i remembered huge spiders like that don't have the mass to hang on the ceiling and covered my face with my arms, fearing it'd drop on me.

from there i just couldn't really sink back into a deep sleep. after a while i saw it was getting light and the birds wouldn't stop chirping. looked at my watch to see it was 6:30. so then i just said whatever, and got up. so even though i had like 3-4 extra hours today, i'm beginning to feel tired real quick. but i guess it might help, since i might be serving on the worship team this sunday. i haven't gotten up early in a long time. then brian calls me at 12:00 to tell me he doesn't feel like seeing transformers today as well, giving me even more time to blow today; bad thing is, i'm starting to get like i said, tired, and it's still 2:00. i think i'll just look at some potential jobs, revise my resume, then go to church around 4:00 and play some(haven't played with music for a long time, and when i tried yesterday, i felt REALLY OFF). then call it a day. maybe finish the robocop dvd i bought tonight.

i seriously get so many dreams now. like one every single night. i'd write them down, but the thing is unlike when i'm wide awake, i don't remember everything; my remembrance of dreams seem like a trail of smoke released from an airborne plane; it stays neat right when it comes out, but over time begins to tail away; my earlier moments of my dreams i can barely remember.

---

you might want to check this out if you're a video game freak of any type

david sirlin is a legend btw; he's one of the first to essentially tell those playing sf competitively to stop whining(especially about throws and block damage) and start figuring out how to play. i haven't taken a listen at the session yet, but i downloaded it to my usb drive today and will give it a listen tonight.

---

i'm thinking back to what either hamlin or bob said about japan's economy not doing so well because asians are so picky about spending. on tuesday. that may explain why everything from japan's so expensive.

for instance, i love watching cartoons. usually tend to like the american types more than the asian ones, but i'm ok with those too. i'm a huge futurama fan. i did buy 3 out of the 4 boxsets at best buy, but they were on sale at 20.00 each(should've bought the 4th too; ah well; some other day). but even if i didn't buy them on sale, they would've been 33 dollars for about 19 episodes per boxset. you could argue futurama's old right now, which meant i might've gotten it a lot cheaper, but even if i got it when it was fresh out of the productions it might've been 40 dollars for a boxset at most.

now compare that to one of japan's most popular anime's right now: the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya. a few weeks ago i was able to watch all 14 episodes on youtube by the contribution of some generous posters. (tried looking for it again a few days ago, and one of the contributor's uploads were all gone due to use violation). i felt it was kinda cool, so i thought maybe in the future i'll go to fry's or amazon.com and buy the season's worth. but i decided to check to see what the price was as of right now, etc.

22 dollars for one boxset. not bad, until i saw how many episodes were on that dvd: four(remember they had 14 episodes this season, and if they continue it, it's most likely going to have more). that's it. and if you want to get the special edition boxset, oh no, that doesn't add to the number of episodes, just the amount of junk you get; cosplay ribbons, music cds, t-shirt iron-on, pencil box, etc. 44 dollars for that.

and it's not just this show. it explains why sometimes when i'm at the library and look at the dvds available, sometimes i'll see naruto dvds, but they too only have 4 episodes per dvd. japan apparently really likes doing stuff expensively, because everybody there doesn't spend freely.

again, it's not a case of the pharisee thanking God that he's not the tax collector(or the publican, if you read the kjv), it's just a sense of it's cool that others like buying so much stuff here in the usa, so that prices are low all-around.

and with that, happy spending.

super nintendo chalmers

i wish i was this happy about mundane events

interesting corollary...

i start studying the bible again, and just when i do, i start waking up late again!

not that i was getting up early to begin with, but my 9:00 turns into 11:00.

i think Satan's up to something...

i re-heard this song on sunday afternoon driving to terman park. good stuff. i wonder how many more classic rock tunes i've heard, but not jotted down the lyrics so i could search the song title later.

boston - foreplay/first time

i'm running around amazon.com deciding what item i could tag alongside the GRE biochem book so that i get the free shipping(the book came up 1 dollar short), wondering that half of the things i looked up aren't worth tagging along(except maybe the daughtry cd which is 11) and i came across this(can't buy it yet):

commando: director's cut

for such a simple to play song, lifehouse's first time is stuck in my head. honestly i just like the fill the drummer does during the chorus.

video

this is also the theme song for the next dodge car commercial, if you're seen it.

they put a fast montage of various activities alongside various dodge cars on top of the chorus part. and then end with the words "grab life" with a color scheme of white on black. kinda cool, except it really has nothing to do with cars.

y'kno what? i'm starting to realize how much it really sucks to feel like you can only hear out of one ear. of all the things i've taken for granted... having a pair of equally workable ears... never thought about it.

but given my circumstances, and seeing what ruth in the community group has gone through, i feel as if i have no right to complain. again, for the moment, i can hear perfectly well out of my right ear, and it's not that my left ear's tone deaf; it's just that everything sounds so much louder in my right ear.

i do wonder though if that means i'm not allowed to ask in prayer. is "acceptance of circumstances" the equivalent of "lack of faith?" certainly not. and yet...

that being said, hindsight is 50/50; i'm not ever going to lap swim without swimming earplugs ever again. i've done it in the past, but i never got swimmer's ear(or earwax after swimming) to this degree, so never again.

EVER.

(swimming otherwise felt good; my arms ached though from not doing it for a long time; guess swimming really did build up my arm strength in jr high after all; i was no buff, but i guess ppls are right when they say swimming is a form of low-impact weight training; ahh, how much i miss swimming. when swimming, i forgot to turn on the jacuzzi though, so it just felt like REALLY hot water LOL)

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(4th of july bbq was fun outside of that incident; when nearly everybody else but me and bill left, i asked john tang if i could give a go at his electronic drumset; it's real nice, and i even passed on some pointers to bill[time flies; if you told me i'd be teaching somebody else to play drums earlier this year i would've LMAO]; my only real regret was not getting to try the ribs during lun-ner; seems they ran out real quick)

this has to be one of the funniest short videos i've seen on youtube in a LONG, LONG, TIME.

just watch

buy a B-O-OKKKKKKAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!

LMAO!

1380 Pear Avenue
Mountain View CA, 94043

any simpsons fan living in the bay area MUST mark this address down and go to it when you have the time sometime this week. this is one of the few 7-11 stores which will be fully changed into the fabled "kwik-e-mart" of simpsons lore.

be sure to bring a digital camera and get your photo taken with the store sign in the background while you're at it.

i don't get why everytime i finally finish a japanese anime or some variant of it, i feel basically melancholy(yes, this is a pun, considering i just finished a series with the word "Melancholy" in the title; keep forgetting the exact title), down, slightly bummed. i don't even know why; often times the final episode isn't supposed to be necessarily saddening. i also think i got the same type of feeling whenever i finished the n64 game "zelda: ocarina in time."

it's not the same feeling compared to when i finish some american cartoon, like say, futurama, justice league unlimited, batman beyond, etc. it's not that i'm grinning ear to ear(although with futurama, that's usually a good bet), it's just that i don't get that saddening feeling.

those japanese people must be stuffing subliminal messages in their animes that i'm just not picking up. making it equivalent to alcohol you cleaned out of your fridge; you feel great til the buzz's over; you then feel terrible, and want more to get rid of the feeling, but there is none left. you gotta wait for the brewery to cook up and ferment a new batch, and who knows how long that'll take?

fyi, i AM feeling kinda down right now.

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i wish i would get calluses on my feet and tanned skin on my chest the way i used to get calluses on my fingers. whenever i got calluses on my fingers playing guitar, they stayed there. but when i get calluses on my feet, the skin falls off eventually, leaving skin that is unused to pressure all over again, bringing on a new wave of pain once i hit the basketball court again. the same with getting a tan-er, sunburn. my darkened skin never stays there; always falls off.

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new drumming goal: work on 16th notes on bass drum.

---

i got the weirdest idea last night, and that is, i would try to become as proficient as possible writing with... my RIGHT hand.

i don't despise my left-handedness. i just think that with so many of my favorite activities favoring right-handed orientation(electric guitar, drums, cpu+mouse setup, playing arcade games, basketball) that i figure it might be cool to do it. ambidexterity is never a bad thing. i could say i can't write with my right hand cleanly and quickly, but i never truly put in a large amount of time practicing it. i'm sure if i did, it could look relatively neat.

i also want to try eating primarily with my right hand whenever i'm eating with a fork or spoon.

the goal hence is to make sure that no one sans those who really know me will be able to figure out i'm left-handed, unless i'm eating with chopsticks.