my nephew michael turned 3 yesterday....

my mom, errr, turned ?? today... i think i'll just leave the information blank, half because i don't know off the top of my head, half out of respect(my mom doesn't like thinking that she's old). i'll just say my mom isn't much younger than my dad.

i'm the odd bunch out of my immediate family:
dad - born in march
michelle - born in march
allison - born in march
phil - born in april
mom - born in may
michael - born in may

me? i'm waaaay out in november.

---

i forgot just how awesome the masterpiece called "street fighter - the movie" was. i'm sure if you liked commando, this will suit you just fine as well.

ima kick that sonofab****'s a** SO HORD

haha bison's scared now!

fan-fic-based shockwave flash movies by proxicide - mortal kombat vs street fighter series:

mk vs sf 1 - raiden vs ken
mk vs sf 2 - scorpion vs ryu
mk vs sf 3 - khameleon vs akuma

i must say, his storyline's a bit off and stuff, but really, nobody's really watching this for the storyline(akuma must be gay for ryu). really cool fight sequences. he just released the 3rd one yesterday. my only gripes are the gayness, and akuma pulling out iron man's proton cannon. he cuts down on the matrix-y stuff from the 1st two though.

ever wondered what "street fighter" the cartoon was like?

i'm glad i never had cable to watch this crap. i seriously can't stop laughing.

i like the jazz more than the rockets(and you could actually make a case that the new jazz are one of the few teams i really like in the western conference other than the warriors); i love carlos boozer, ak, and okur. that being said, gsw would rather face the rockets than the jazz. for reason that the rockets are less of a 1-2 punch than a 1.5 punch.

but it's not just that; jazz's home crowd is ridiculously solid. that, they just won a game 7(showing they can win on the road), and the fact that jazz's frontcourt is a rebounding machine, means golden state must make sure their 3s must go into the hoop on the 1st try; there'll be no second chance points against the jazz. so golden state must play a lot more sound on offense, which will be hard, since golden state really likes jacking up shots which aren't fundamentally sound. did i mention how ak anchors the defense and boozer is a huge low post threat, 2 things that don't bode well for the warriors.

i'll believe that warriors can advance if they can hang tough(not necessarily win one on the road on one of the 1st two games, but stay close and not get blown out at all) in the 1st two away games.

(btw i don't consider myself a rockets follower, but i feel for t-mac. he truly did all he could to try to win game 7)

lifehouse - first time
adie - your way

granted, i found this on a spurs message board, but some people are really creative with .gifs and images; hope you have a lol of a time(byron should forward this webpage to maria):

official Dallas got owned pics/gifs thread

i love the "beating a caveman - so easy golden state can do it"

and the "objects in mirror are losing"

it's been so long since i've played video game basketball.

nba 07 the life was on display at fry's and seeing a dearth of people there after practicing drums, i thought i'd give it a try. it was only for sampling, so i was forced to play either as the mavs or the heat, nobody else, and only 1 quarter and then maybe 1 minute.

still, if i play any team that has a dominant big man, usually i do well. i decided to go with miami(why use the mavs? gsw just worked the mavs), and i didn't even bother giving the ball to dwyane wade; just tried to create an open passing lane towards shaq, gave him the ball in deep, and then let him bang, and dunk(almost all of the new future-gen nba games' features are gravy, but i really appreciate being able to bang, as well as set screens; in high school those two things in sega's nba 2k helped me understand how important big man play was, how you could create shots almost at will with a dominant big man or free up a fast guard). he scored maybe 90% of the shots i attempted for the heat. i was still getting used to the controls, and probably never really got the hang of it(especially being able to call for screens), otherwise i would've tried dwyane wade. i'm still too used to the nba 2k series in general; i didn't like how "no look pass" was the same button as "block shot." or that "dunk" was the same as "steal." wasn't bad though, the game that is; i might be in the minority who likes the ps3.

btw, i find it ironic that gilbert is the new cover man for ea's next nba live game. i thought he hated ea's nba live in preference for nba 2k series; i do too.

(side fact; arenas is actually 1/2 cuban; not mark cuban LOL)

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!

round @#$@#$#@$$@-ing 2! TWO! TEE-DOUBLE-YOU-OH!
(in other words, FRIED CHICKEN!)

guess bill simmons was right about the crowd at the oracle arena.

(guess we'll be seeing eric's face on the next photo chronicling the stampede to buy tickets for the semifinals, eh?)

new spiderman 3 trailer!

*clap clap clap* brilliant, LOL...

seen on a license plate as i was leaving the cupertino library:
"jesus loves you - everybody else thinks you're an asshole"

got a long LOL from me as i saw that one.

---

i have nightmares more often than i have dreams.

since the warriors are powered by baron, i'd thought i'd link to 2 videos of his; when he was a hornet, of course; that was when he was consistently beating 3 guys on the way to the basket before postering a center:

this one's by yinka dare
(this video highlights baron as a streetballer more)

this one's by shai91cz
(the drive and poster he did on the pistons was nasty at 3:03; beats both ben wallace and tayshaun prince on the way to the basket, and the one on jermaine o'neal is infamous)

7 min video of baron(warrior mix)

there was one i saw maybe 1-2 years back on youtube featuring him solely as hornet, which had dmx - we in here as the bgm; that was probably my favorite one i've seen of baron, but i couldn't find it anymore; mustve taken it down.

pink floyd - dark side of the moon
jimi hendrix - are you experienced
led zeppelin - zoso

if you're not big on internet purchasing, all these albums are 9.99 at target for about a month or so. i also forgot to mention some album of carlos santana is also on sale at target, another really good rock guitarist, a bit more modern than the other three.

these are all really good classic rock albums. though you may not know the titles, i'm very sure many of the songs on these albums might've been in your heads at some point, you just can't remember them(if you remember watching wayne's world, i'd say 2-3 of jimi hendrix's songs are on it). given how i grew up on influences from phil, listening to 92.3 FM when young, i've heard a LOT of classic, hard rock when i was young. can't speak for all of the albums, but jimi hendrix is considered by some to be the best rock guitarist of all time. there were at least 5 oft-played songs on that album alone that still circulate classic rock stations, a testament to how good he was. he would also as a sideshow, play the electric guitar with his teeth during concerts. yes, you read that right; his TEETH. my brother has a poster of jimi hendrix doing just that in his room. he also has a poster showcasing the cover of pink floyd's album in his room. in fact, everytime i go into phil's bedroom, it's like a trip down memory lane; filled with rock posters and sports posters. there is almost no space in his room that is bare wall. none.

and led zeppelin's "stairway to heaven" is probably one of the most famous classic rock tunes of all time.

wow, i'm surprised shawn marion got no defensive team love. considering how well he can guard off his position, you'd think he's get some type of recognition; suns may not play THE best defense in the league, but everybody knows you can't win games and championships without defense and rebounding, both of which marion provides. i'm also mildly surprised, yet happy that coaches have finally recognized how good defensively raja bell is.

still happy that tayshaun made it onto the list for the 3rd time, ben wallace is STILL a mainstay, and that kirk hinrich cracked it for the 1st time. also great for marcus camby to finally get the award.

the official list

1st team:
tim duncan
bruce bowen
marcus camby(dpoy)
kobe bryant
raja bell

2nd team:
ben wallace
kirk hinrich
jason kidd
tayshaun prince
kevin garnett

i love the fact that bulls are now facing the pistons in the playoffs; both teams are almost mirror-images, and both play "the right way;" no superstars, hard defense, unselfish basketball. it's gonna be a great series. plus, both have really great small forwards; luol deng and tayshaun prince. i remember telling jerm that i wanted the bulls to face the pistons for the eastern conference championship this year, and he asked me which team i would've wanted to win; my response was "oooh, i don't really know." my opinion still stands; i want the pistons to win slightly more because i like chauncey billups and tayshaun prince a lot, but how i can hate the defensive combination of tyrus thomas and ben wallace? or the forwards deng and noccioni? or the fact that hindrich probably plays better defense than any other white guy in the nba(kidd doesn't count). nevermind my respect for scott skiles as an nba coach.

go warriors...

audioslave - show me how to live

incubus - pardon me

dennis rodman mix
(if i'm not mistaken the artist bgm is pearl jam - do the evolution; unlike every other modern-day black nba player who likes hip-hop, dennis rodman is a BIG fan of pearl jam)

rock on, squarepants!

japs have...
...waaay too much time.

i was like 0_0 after watching those last two heh

go warriors and bulls.

(and go pistons)

just... watch...

hahahaha

xzibit and tom green

i don't think that's the holy ghost

i love srk.com's official video thread...

i keep forgetting that you don't need a dominant big man to have a low post scoring threat in the nba...

like for instance, i keep wondering why people say the bulls JUST need that low post scoring option, and then they'll jump from being just a really good team to a contending threat. insert talks about possible trade rumors with minnesota or memphis. the dissent comes from the fact that not every team needs to be power forward or center-oriented to be good.

then i watched saturday's game where miami came to town(of course, not "came to town" = whupped them, glad that chicago won), and it suddenly dawned on me that NOBODY on the bulls can post up. at all; we're not even talking about ben wallace or pj brown, but gordon can't do it, deng can't do it, noccioni COULD do it, but doesn't right now. their offense is very fundamental; jumpers, driving and kicking to the open man. it's great when their jumpers are coming down and they're getting wide open looks, but the strength of being able to post defenders up means that you always have a chance of getting an in-close(hence easy) bucket. i guess maybe the suns might qualify, but really they just beat everybody else because they play at a speed no one else can match.

it made realize(again) that you don't need the low post option on an nba team to come from the 4 or 5. when jordan was on the bulls, they didn't have that dominant 4 or 5, but jordan near the end of his run as a bull had developed such a good low post game thanks to his unguardable fadeaway and the options that it created for him that if they ever needed that option, they allowed him to go 1-on-1 deep in the post.

my favorite eastern conference team, the modern-day pistons are also a case in point; while they did acquire rasheed for his low post offense, and he did turn out to be the missing piece, he rarely goes down into the paint to work unless it's really necessary. but chauncey is so bulky, that in many cases he can be the primary post offense for them; i might've been one of the few piston followers who is awed by chauncey's offense more for the fact that he can post guards up and just push them closer to the basket rather than his long range 3s.

you also have the beloved warriors, where baron davis, due to his bulk, is a great post-up player. there were numerous times during game 1 when they wanted to keep the lead, and just isolated davis on one side and let him work, pushing opponents like george and harris towards the basket.


i do though, still struggle with the thought of point guards and shooting guards posting people up though even if they are bulky, because you want to post people up to get a close, hence higher percentage shot. so it works in theory with big men, because they're already close to under the basket to begin with, and don't start the offense, so they can post up in a good position, then receive the ball, so they get a REALLY close shot. but point guards and shooting guards have to start further outside, and usually have the ball in their hands to begin with, not thrown down into them, so due to starting further outside, they have to shoot from further away, or have the entire team on the opposite side so help defense has less of a chance of flustering the posting player. plus, i see many 1's and 2's really liking the fadeaway off of a post, making me wonder why they posted in the 1st place, as they didn't really get any closer doing so.

pbs had a 1-hour program on how the bible came to be around 8:00 last night. i just got out of the shower so i missed a bit of it, but the part i didn't, i stuck around to watch; think william tyndale, martin luther, king james, etc. it was mainly concentrated upon william tyndale though, and gave only a cursory glance to king james, etc. it was interesting, but being the guy that i was, i took it with a grain of salt; i'm running low on internet time, so i'm gonna refrain from commenting in deep some of the stuff that bothered me. they seemed to concentrate upon how the main problem was that only the church could interpret the bible(ie it wasn't allowed for others to interpret), when the reality was more that the church misinterpreted the bible, could say anything that was in it or not or what was in christianity or not, and nobody could prove them wrong, due to an absence of bibles available in the native tongue. also, they referred to the church as the "catholic church," then only sparingly referred back to it as "the church." i thought that was wrong too, as it could lead to mistaken ideas about the church.

that's it for now; 16th notes on the hi-hat call for me.

while looking at the reviews for the 1994 nba championship dvd box set, i found this to be amusing:

"I'll let the Houston fans comment on how important it is to have this series released on DVD. Of greater interest to me is that Game 5, which occurred simultaneous to the OJ Simpson Bronco chase and had NBC switching away from the game to coverage of the chase while showing the game in a corner, is presented here completely OJ free. For the sections of the game where NBC broke away, Marv Albert and the rest of the announcers are silent, but you do see the game action continue to unfold without distraction, and I'm glad they released the game in this way that those of who taped it originally could not experience."

*sigh* but i SO want to see the bronco chase! what's the point of buying the dvd set if it's not going to be shown like the way it occurred LIVE?

btw, of all the nba championship dvd box sets, only the '88 pistons and the '06 heat include all the games of the conference finals; all the others only have all the finals games. my guess is because of those 2 championship teams, it took 6 games, not 4 or 5, to win the conference finals.

after helping serve food today for the homeless and nobody else got in line, i noticed an elder black woman by herself eating a tuna fish sandwich. she was looking at me and smiled, so i went up to talk to her. she told me she actually frequented this area, NOT to get food, but to shower. everyday. my respect for her jumped after hearing that, knowing that homeless are often depicted as having not showered(no offense, but the fact is some of them can SMELL). she went on to say that many of the homeless that we helped serve today probably traverse around, looking for different places to get free food, some even being picky and not liking the food they gave out in certain areas(commented about one person not liking the food and going to hit up a nearby church). me, she said, i know that food isn't the most important thing; i have to do other things each day, y'kno, she commented. i said something to the extent that a person in these circumstances should just be HAPPY to get food at all for free. i tried asking her for her name(so that i could remember her), but she declined, thinking i was possibly one of those spies or what not who could report others.

nevertheless, i was impressed by her thoughts. i wished more homeless people had her mentality in mind. contrast that with the elder taiwanese folks cat was talking to in mandarin while this coversation of mine and hers was going on(don't quote me on that one though; i kinda forgot what cat said she got while talking to them).

when she mentioned the showering, she explained how she had to air out the shower room before showering each day, explaining they spray the area with cologne? each day. she joked how Satan must be in charge of doing it, because it takes so long, the smell's so pungeant, etc. i simply remarked jokingly "that bastard," to which she replied "well, he's always a bastard, but more so here in california."

seeing how the warriors are in the playoffs for the 1st time in 13 years, i'm gonna hold off sharing the pistons dvd until they're knocked out, OR until the nba finals has ended.

---

if you want to know the short end of why the lakers got swept by the pistons, byron scott was out with a left hamstring injury, magic johnson got one near the end of the 3rd quarter of game 2, and kareem was 42 playing in this series. but that's based upon what the lakers did. the lakers also apparently did not face a deep, physical, defensive team in the pistons until they reached the nba finals, whereas detroit had to go through chicago in 6 before reaching the finals.

nevertheless, my respect for joe dumars and dennis rodman has jumped 10-fold after watching most of the games on the dvd set; it's one thing to read about all the accolades that a player has, it's another to watch the tapes and games(i of course plan to someday own some dvds of hakeem olajuwon and bill russell, and maybe a few others, completing my collection of "retired nba players i admire the most."). hubie brown constantly on the games called joe dumars "a coach's dream," pointing out the versatility of him being able to score, play point and defend. and he constantly quoted chuck duly in saying something to the extent of "i wish everybody i coached worked as hard as rodman; he plays as hard during practice as he does during games."

game 2 might've been the greatest scoring exhibition i saw of joe dumars. he got 22 in game 1, but the box score states he got 33 in game 2, at least 20 before ending the 1st half(if pat riley didn't tell his players to lock up dumars after the half, who knows how high dumars could've scored in game 2?), one of them involving him perform 4 crossover dribbles low to the ground(left to right, then through the legs back to left, left to right, then through the legs back to left) on magic johnson before blowing by him and kissing it off the glass with the left hand. did i mention joe dumars was the one in charge of guarding magic johnson? i mean, in the chicago series, dumars also had to guard jordan, but the resposibility of being the main defender was split between him, rodman, maybe vinnie johnson, and mark aguirre. but here in the laker series, all dumars.

and while rodman didn't kill on the boards, again he got like 5-6 charges where he fell down, somersaulted backwards and landed on his feet, pumping his fists. and then there was the play where isaiah fell down on the right side on his knees, but maintained his dribble, saw rodman cutting and threw it to him, where he got an uncontested right-handed dunk. that pretty much brought the house down, and forced riley to take a timeout. when rodman jogged back to the bench, ton of the pistons were mobbing him, he goes up to salley, and then you see them both do an "X" with their arms and lock it together, kinda like how ben wallace used to do on the pistons. haha.

(btw, seems like rodman and salley were close buddies on the pistons)

OMGoodness, it actually has happened

lucky 13 indeed; the good thing also is that golden state is facing the mavs, so there COULD be at least 2 games won for the warriors, and MAYBE(big MAYBE) an upset.

of course, mavs are serious business. no way they'll lose 4 games.

i watched bowfinger a few days back. it's funny, you should watch it. the basic plot is that steve martin is a low-budget film producer, and wants to get eddie murphy, a big-time action star to appear in his new film. however, he was turned down. so steve figures to film eddie unawares on the spot. now, here's where it gets funny; eddie murphy's character is also going through some rehab with a psychiatrist, trying to get himself to believe there are no aliens or strange things occurring around him. guess what steve martin's script includes? aliens.

oh yea, you'll laugh when you see who's in steve martin's production crew. get this; he's short on staff, so he drives near the border and gets a buncha illegal immigrants to hop in his van for work. i love how one of the scenes when the mexicans are by themselves, you hear them saying stuff like "a mi me gusta citizen kane."

---

game 1 of the 89 nba finals was awesome. so this is a definite must-rewatch. if i don't see another nba finals game in the dvd set where dumars is better than this game, i'll consider this a must watch.

dumars got 22, and there were a couple of shots where he made amazing drives past his opponent. one was a quick crossover, from right to left back to right and then boom he was past his man before the steal attempt was done. the other was backing into magic johnson after recovering the ball, and then spinning past him on the right side. i think there was another one where he drove from the left, and put up a shot as time was running out, and got a high bank to go in.

rodman only got 10 boards, but must've taken 5-6 charges. the last one he got had me rofl-ing, because it's the infamous one i keep seeing in bad boy highlight films, where he takes a charge from one of the laker rookies, falls backwards on his back, then continues the momentum doing a backward somersault landing on his knees, and then pumps his fists(naturally), knowing he got the charge.

john salley had 5 blocks. they don't call him "spider" for nothing. one was particularly nice and sticks out in my head, because he got beat by his man, but then got a horizontal swipe as the laker tried to put up the shot after having past him.

pat riley used a LOT of trapping defense(couldn't use zone back then) after getting down large. i was really impressed by the beautiful passing the pistons used to counter it. can't remember them all, but one sequence had about 2-3 passes before it reached dennis rodman, who IMMEDIATELY made a touch pass down the middle of the paint to i-THINK-it-was-john salley for a layup.

i can't stress how even though detroit didn't score a lot of points(usually that is; they got 109 pts this game), they have an almost uncanny sense of controlling tempo; numerous times they nailed shots as the shot clock expired. and of course, i mentioned the extra passing.
people love watching fast break basketball and think that's the most beautiful type of basketball in terms of scoring, but to me, the most beautiful offensive basketball is half-court basketball with a LOT of passing to move the ball. the ones where one guy creates something, then passes, the defense rotates but seems slightly slow, and then from there the rest of the ball movement until a goal is scored, all the movement is created from passing. a lot of the points joe dumars scores from spot-up jumpers come from bill laimbeer receiving the pass from thomas off the pick-n-roll and then bill rotating the ball over to dumars.

oh yea, 2nd quarter isaiah made a pass down low to rodman, who got the and1 going up from magic johnson. time left on the clock after doing it? 0.0 (insert dennis rodman pumping fist, haha) what's probably funnier is that rodman's followup free throw attempt grazed the FRONT of the rim.

surprised at how little minutes kareem played. was he injured? the minutes he was in, didn't seem like anybody could really defend his sky hook.

i watched kazaam today, and yes, it really is as bad as people make fun of it to be. i still think most of the people making fun of it are doing it without watching the movie, but now i've seen it. honestly, the reason it sucks is because the dialogue between the kid and shaq is terrible; improve the dialogue and the movie could've done THAT much better(i'm being totally serious; the idea for the base of the movie isn't that bad, if you think about the other rediculous plots seen in a lot of movies). dialogue aside, the fact that the kid's TEACHING shaq to do hip-hop and the fact that sha-er-kazaam doesn't know anything about culture(i thought 3,000 year old genies would be able to observe stuff and not like act like a couch potato; how can you be a genie that can do hip-hop, but not understand culture?) kinda pushed it over the edge.

...

but other than that it was kinda interesting. emphasis upon "kinda." now i just need to hope somebody dumps at the library a copy of "steel" or whatever that other movie was called, where shaq plays the black dude in dc comics who carries a hammer and acts like a replacement to superman.

---

ok, game 4 ECF looks REALLY good. considering that rodman got 18 boards total, 12 alone in the 1st half(plus he was coming off the bench on this pistons team), i really like watching this one over and over to learn how to rebound. i would like to consider offering up this weekend to watch 2 of these games, but the playoffs are starting, and that could mean warriors are playing(who knows when the next time warriors make the playoffs? can't take anything for granted). maybe next weekend.

also, while dumars wasn't exactly on fire, you start to see him demand the ball more and more in this game, recognizing that he could beat hodges and vincent(i think, basically the other point guard who was a white guy) at will, since jordan thought it was more important to guard isaiah 1-on-1. you start to see his ability to create by himself a bit more. i love his post into his spin move, it looks so quick.

i didn't notice pistons really start to apply "the jordan rules" until game 5 and then 6(maybe game 4 as well), that was when they thought it was worth it to give him double teams at will, right when he caught the ball. reason was simple; i've now watched all of the ECF games, and game 3 was clearly the best i saw of jordan during the pre-phil jackson years. he scored 46 pts, led a HUGE chicago comeback, and nailed a jump shot beating dennis rodman with help coming too late from isaiah thomas to finally break the tie and win the game for the bulls, 99-97(i faintly recall joe dumars saying something somewhere else that after jordan scored 46 pts on them, the pistons vowed to never let him do it ever again). but you see how it finally worked in game 5 and 6; game 5 pistons mustve forced at least 25 turnovers on the bulls. game 6 they probably got around 20 as well. and you actually see jordan TIRED coming to the end of game 6(OMG! no way!), missing 2 free throws in a row, having to put ice on his groin injury, etc.

FYI, game 5 jordan scored only 18 pts, because he wasn't aggressive with the ball; everytime he was double-teamed immediately, he passed the ball. the commentators couldn't understand it, but one of the color commentators stated that a possible reason was that jordan never takes a really bad shot. i actually have to agree. for all of jordan's incredible offensive skills, he shot over 50% total in his career, something like that. his shot placement is incredible, that's why he never shot 3s unless he was acting as a spot-up shooter. that doesn't mean he won't take shots with 1 guy draping over him if he knows he can beat him, but it's more like he will take shots if he beats one man and the help from another is coming late. but he won't take it if he's got a double team on him immediately, because it will just result in a turnover. after watching all the dvds, i don't think i ever saw mj ever take an ill-advised shot, that's why there were a lot of times he would beat his man, drive, go up for the shot, hang, see the double-team coming at the right time, and seeing he could not draw the foul or make a good shot, rather than force the shot, he made a pass back out before he touched the ground(not in the sense of passing to create oppurtunities, but to preserve possession of the ball).
on the other hand, in modern-nba equivalents, kobe while his talents bear the most similitude to mj(the other being dwyane wade), he's known for MAKING the most ill-advised shots; fadeaway 3s with double teams draped over him, for example. i mean, kobe makes those type of shots more than anybody else; but his fg% is considerably lower than jordan's. kobe's sorta like the nba's answer to brett farve.

game 6 btw showed how much class the chicago fans had; with about a minute left, and the pistons having the series in the bag, everybody at chicago stadium rose up to applaude the bulls until the buzzer sounded(they weren't supposed to make it all the way into the ECF, and then push the series with the pistons to 6). contrast that to today's fans, which would probably get up and leave early if that was the case.

oh yeah, one more thing; jordan made one of his really infamous and1 layups in game 6; i had always thought he did this one during the 91 season when they swept the pistons and won the championship, but i guess i was wrong, y'kno the "steal, he kept it inbounds..." *tweet* "OOOHHH..." "this is one for the books hubie; i've seen him do some really impressive things but never something like this"

'89 pistons may have been offensively deficient in terms of points scored, but they were unselfish. a typical pick-n-roll situation with their starting 5 would be laimbeer setting a screen for isaiah, then fading back. isaiah beats and passes to laimbeer, who refuses to keep the ball, and immediately whips it over to dumars on the other side of the court, who is usually open by then. dumars nails the jumper, or gives it up once more, by this time aguirre is WAAAY open in the corner for a 3.

now i'm going to have to watch the remaining 4 games vs the lakers, and see just how good joe dumars shined when he didn't have to lock down a player's calibur such as mj.

(btw i was at target today, and found them selling wheaties with bill russell on the cover. nice. the picture of him wasn't blocking a shot or curtaining a rebound though, but going up with his infamous left hook.)

lol, white men should not dance...
(don't read the comments; angry people going off about racism)

haha at tom brady and mark madsen; dan patrick's awesome.


-if warriors win both remaining games, they are in
or
-if warriors win the next game and clippers lose the next game, they are in

---

funny 7-up commercials with orlando jones:

7-up taste test - see? 7-up tastes better

make 7-up yours - aw we goin' global with this baby!

7-up at lovers lane - hey i just heard my slogan!

show us your can

marketing location

racing

cute dog

you know how long i wanted to see something like this...

it annoys me everytime sacramento kings fans arrive in droves at the oakland(oracle?) arena.

probably annoyed me just as much to hear the kings network commentators say stuff like "buncha kings fans down here" as well.

well, the arco arena knows the bay area's pain now... so much for the nba's most loyal fan base.

it's not quite PLAYOFFS(yet), but i'll take it for the moment.

---

to put things into perspective whether warriors will make the playoffs:

remaining gsw schedule: 1) hosts minnesota sunday 2) hosts dallas tuesday 3) at portland wednesday
gsw record: 39-40(tied for 8th)
-warriors should get at least two; not too sure about portland, but if they're streaking, maybe they'll win them all.

remaining clippers schedule: 1) hosts sacramento sunday 2) at phoenix tuesday 3) hosts new orleans wednesday
clippers record: 39-40(tied for 8th)
-clippers should get at least 1; not too sure about phoenix; they MAY rest their "7 starters" if they feel the spurs can't catch them, and i don't know whether the hornets are doing well; good thing is that the hornets aren't throwing away games.

remaining lakers schedule: 1) hosts seattle sunday 2) hosts sacramento wednesday
lakers record: 40-40(7th)
-both of these seem like easy wins, but honestly, i'm not too sure; lakers' interior d and their ball movement just outright suck lately.

so in other words, i really have no idea. gsw has a narrow margin to get in, given the clippers just got their closer in cassell back. but given the lakers' problems, they might end up on the outside looking in, with both the warriors and clippers in, which i would find VERY, VERY amusing, that none of the "popular" california NBA teams would be in the playoffs.

on the other hand, the warriors WANT to end up with the 8th spot, because that would mean playing the mavs; granted, the playoffs are always different than the regular season, but given the success the warriors have had against the mavs, why not press the advantage, instead of trying (in vain) to out-run phoenix?

I just opened and watched one of the games from the Pistons’ 89-90 championship DVD, game 1 vs Bulls on Thursday. Here’s just some thoughts of mine:

2 CDs are housed per DVD cover. On each DVD cover, they list a TON of statistics for each game. Just to name a few: They list rebounds, assists, blocked shots(LOL! Well, I guess since it IS the Bad Boys) and pts per player. As a team, they also list the FG%, 3FG% and FT%. Score per team, per quarter. And, they have like 1-2 sentences under this category called “Highlights.”

Bulls won this game, because they blew them out huge at the beginning, but then Pistons came back, so the differential was only 6.

The DVDs are as bare-bones as you can get; no fancy recap, no halftime stuff, not even a post-game interview with the players. It’s just the games(although maybe they’ll have something on the DVD where the Pistons get the trophy). (Hope you like the NBA on CBS). Well, except for the 11th DVD, that’s where they give something similar to the 2k3-2k4 Pistons Championship DVD that I have.

I now have a clearer picture of why Rodman is a good one-on-one player; at times, his aggressive use of the hands reminds me of Bruce Bowen, actively swiping at the ball. And then you have his timely charges and his monster rebounding(taking a look at the statistics on this game, it seemed that this was the only game where Bill Laimbeeer HUGELY outrebounded him, although I think that was attested to the Pistons having to try to comeback after being down huge at the beginning, so he remained on the bench for a long time)

Rodman is SO skinny, haha.

I love Dennis Rodman so much more on the Pistons than on the Spurs or Bulls, why? His attitude; you see his love of the game and enthusiasm way more when he was a Piston. Pumps his fists when he gets a block or scores, stuff like that. Oh yea, he can SOMEWHAT score.

LOL at John Salley missing 2 authoritative 2-handed dunks… IN A ROW, ON THE SAME POSSESSION. And I’m not talking about them getting blocked, haha; that rim can be one tough defender, eh Salley?

Pistons’ roster looked deep.

Bill Laimbeer raises both his hands backpedaling everytime he scores a 3. And yes, he IS dirty. Bounces the ball off the opponents when the play has stopped or runs into people, stuff like that, haha. He was a monster defensive rebounder though in this game; reminds me a lot of Rasheed’s game(scores by spot-up 3s, defensively rebounds and sets screens; yup; Rasheed)

Everytime I saw Bill Laimbeer or Dennis Rodman actually flop to draw a charge, it made me laugh, because you could see the windup in their legs, and then their propelling of themselves backward several feet onto the ground. That being said, I liked how back then in the earlier days of the NBA you didn’t need to be standing still to draw a charge(keeps the players off the free throw line, makes people have to work to get points), but I could understand how that would make it harder to determine what was genuinely an offensive foul or just a flop.

Bill Cartwright’s free throw windups look UGLY. UG-LY. I have never seen anybody else’s free throws look so terrible. (Well I guess I should’ve said that one when I viewed the Ultimate Jordan DVD a while back, but I didn’t, so I’ll say it now) He shoots the ball from way above his head, his elbows have no windup so they’re stiff, AND it seems like he tilts the ball to the side. UGH.

Detroit’s backcourt sucked offensively this game. IMO not the best game to watch to view how Joe Dumars played(or Aguirre or Thomas, though Thomas had 10 assists). I still have an inkling of how he plays based off of this game. Not a lot of excess dribbling, tries to run off screens without the ball to create his shot(not as intensely as Rip Hamilton in terms of running around, but it’s similar), if he does have the ball, and dribbles, tries to find somebody open like a sort of point guard. Did a good job being the main man guarding Jordan off the ball and on the ball(well, as good as you could possibly do; Jordan got 32 pts). Bob is right; Joe Dumars’ game is just solid, nothing really weak.
I have a feeling if we watch the games together collectively and have to choose 2, I’m strongly opposed to watching this game(game 1 vs Bulls); can’t see Rodman’s awesome rebounding, and Joe Dumars wasn’t lighting them up either. Well, I guess if you like Jordan, but even then, there’s another game where he scores 40+ in the DVD boxset, so why this game?

"that thing you do" is a good movie. it was based on the band called "the wonders." and their main hit, "that thing you do." i just rewatched most of it. gonna have to "napster" that song in due time.

and it gave me an idea for another basic upbeat drum beat i could use. as well as another fill.

---

i honestly think i have watched every single thing from dc comics on tv that could relate to "batman beyond." i've watched all of batman beyond's original episodes, seen the movie, seen all the episodes in justice league unlimited where he's in it, also seen the episodes of static shock and the zeta project where he's in it as well. i'm not too sure if there's anything else that featured him.

i even have 1 comic book of batman beyond.

i actually found Kazaam at the Saratoga Library(ROFLCOPTEROMGWTFBBQ)... and checked it out.

for all the sports world jokes about this movie, i thought i would watch it and see if it was as bad as people make it out to be.

i would ask whether anybody else would like to watch it, but it's on videotape though, eliminating the chance i can let anybody else view it, since it's a rarity for anybody to own a VCR these days.

---

i'm considering whether to add "Google Adsense" to my website; of course i don't have a job yet, but being able to get SOME money from just a few absent clicks every day i'm at the library wouldn't be too bad.

^___^

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

(crosses fingers)

please don't blow it now... you KNOW how much the bay area wants to see golden state get swept by the mavs!

Your results:
You are Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom 55% Mr. Freeze 50% Venom 49% Mystique 41% Dark Phoenix 40% Apocalypse 39% Lex Luthor 37% Magneto 33% Juggernaut 29% The Joker 27% Riddler 25% Poison Ivy 24% Green Goblin 21% Two-Face 17% Catwoman 14% Kingpin 13%

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test


---

Bow before Doom, you foolish mortals!

it was good for me to meet up again with brandon this sunday. msm sure has changed a bit from what i could tell. and yet i would not be surprised if it was still most likely all the same, since everything i asked him mainly concerned the cg leaders, worship leaders, and their (former) search for a campus pastor.

batman beyond: return of the joker is an awesome animation movie. i just watched it this sunday night. i love the beginning and ending lead guitar work. would you believe that the voice of the joker in that movie is none other than mark hamill, aka luke skywalker? (i always find actors doing voices in animation films that are not so big to be interesting because always they have to impersonate some voice that isn't their own; the guy who does terry mcguinness' voice, aka the future batman is will friedle, aka the best friend of the main character in "boy meets world." i also remember watching "titan a.e." and the voice of the purple-haired asian female who has a low voice was played by, get this, drew barrymore. of course, it seems for the more famous animation films like those by disney, they just have the actors do their original voices)

oh yea, and i watched "commando" this morning. i nearly died with laughter when arnold was asked "are you going to cooperate?" and he replies with "no" and shoots the guy in the head. or when he's getting in the stewardess' car after ripping out the passenger seat. and who could forget him wasting 50+ people with 1 clip of an ak-47?

-are you going to tell me what's going on? [/hysterical]
-no

hahaha... today's "pearls before swine" cracked me up... i don't even know why; there's probably a lot funnier stuff on other days, but the owl just cracked me up today on the very last panel. stephen p.'s funny.

i want to go to the sanctuary today to practice drums after searching for some jobs... but given that today's Good Friday, i'm thinking there might be people praying there when i get there. on the other hand, i only practiced for 1 hour this week.

whew... won't have to think about taking the GREs so quickly now.

at the beginning of the ncaa men's div 1 bball season, after learning that the florida gators kept their starting 5 and none of them opted out to go to the nba draft, i picked them in my head to repeat. not in an expert point of view(i hardly consider myself even truly knowledgeable in ncaa bball). it was just based on these premises:

1) florida's starting 5 is much like the pistons/suns/mavs, where all their strength is spread out amongst them, and not concentrated upon one or two individuals; there's not as much star power on this team, but no duds just the same.
2) they just won with this team, and brought it back for the next season

so put two and two together, and you have to ask yourself why would anybody with half a brain even THINK anybody else could win in dominating fashion?

i wanted ohio state's great duo of michael jr and greg oden to win, mind you. oden was just impressive all-around tonight. but i knew pretty much that florida was going to repeat. and my 2 premises proved true tonight; ohio state's 3-pt shooters were throwing bricks and the gators were just nailing em.

(shaq picked ohio state to win. i wonder if anybody on the pistons/suns/mavs they picked florida to win)

espn article on who else should be considered in the hall of fame

man, the fact that the writer considers dennis rodman and bill laimbeer is awesome. i've always wondered whether if dennis rodman did not have his off-court theatrics, whether he'd be in the bball hall of fame right when he ended being a bull. watch the way he rebounds and dominates, and seriously ask yourself if anybody else rivals his ability.

i'm just kicking myself on why the hell i want to finish "interstate 76," "batman beyond season 3" "justice league unlimited season 2" and the 3 movies i checked out from the library before i actually watch the pistons dvd. but it's actually how i feel about it.

fyi bob, chris, tentative idea at the moment, but if you want, and have saturday afternoon free(or maybe next weekend; i know the pastors need to work on their sermons hard this week), i'd be game for bringing the championship pistons dvd over and watching a full game or two of the bad boys in their full out-physical glory. the shooters can learn from dumars, and the big guys can learn from rodman :D

interstate '76 reminds me so much of deathtrack(both coincidently were made by activision; they probably used some ideas from deathtrack to make it). except now you're not racing around on a racetrack blowing people's brains out from an armed car, you're acting as a VIGILANTE on the american highways blowing bandits out from your armed car, and you can even do it drive-by style, by sticking out a handgun from the side window(break yo'self, foo!). i love how the cd background music is all 70s funk too. short spontaneous bursts of trumpets, rhythm guitars(with the wah pedal), keyboards and drums sound just lovely together.

one other "old cpu game" i would love to eventually get is Thief(or Thief 2, etc). always wanted to try it, never got to. that, and Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith(that's the add-on to Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2; i've played the original game and beat the single player both as a light jedi and dark jedi(and just beat it both ways recently), but could never find the add-on)

i never tried the other jedi knight games, but the 1st one multiplayer-wise really has really nice balance. assuming you play at max level, you have 3 main ways to play: light jedi lord, dark jedi lord, and disciple. despite what you may think at first glance, this game at high levels does not degenerate into just lightsabers and force powers(due to force pull pulling every single weapon except the lightsaber away).

to explain jedi knight's balance really quickly(ie 2-3 paragraphs), light side's absorb counters pull and all dark side forces(damage-wise) except for force throw, so light jedi's can use weapons as long as absorb is out. but 3 out of the 4 light side powers use a BOATLOAD of mana, so they must either be very conservative with their force usage, or know where all the light surges are in a level. in short, light jedis do VERY well in open area levels with lots of guns and light surges lying around. because of the large consumption of force power, they concentrate less upon trying to rack up as many kills as possible compared to the dark jedi, and rather more upon staying alive. furthermore, all of the light jedi's force powers used to aid them in attacking(persuasion, blinding) can be countered by seeing, which every jedi should have, meaning they can't use that as often. or you can, but you have to use your ears to see if your opponent is using force seeing to counter it, and then quickly pull it out and blind them. light jedi to me seem to take a bit more work in using effectively, because of knowing your mana, what your opponent is doing, etc, but i like it more.

dark jedi on the other hand almost directly contrast the light jedi; their most powerful force is ALSO the best force power in the game; grip. it is short-ranged, but it uses VERY LITTLE mana, and while absorb will counter its damage, it will not counter its ability to hold the opponent in place, which is the main reason the dark jedi wants to use it. hence, the dark jedi can use most of his strategy surrounding running around with force speed, gripping anybody, then quickly running in and slashing with the lightsaber before running away, etc. grip sounds cheap, but there's a lot of ways to counter it, as long as you know what to do. dark jedi in summary do VERY well in closed area levels(so it's very hard to run away from grip targeting), with little guns. dark jedi will probably die a lot, but also get a lot of kills as well.

and this is what makes the game so great multiplayer-wise. the contrast of these two sounds like whenever a light jedi plays on a level with little big guns, he should die. etc. the mark of a great player is the one who will be able to perform well regardless of the mismatches against him, because of his adaptation.

oh yeah; disciple. disciple is a unique case, in that if you choose jedi lord or dark lord, you get all possible force powers, but only for either light side or dark side. disciple is not quite at that level, so your mana and strength of each force power available is not as high. but you are able to combine light AND dark force powers. at high levels, it's essentially the light jedi, except you trade grip for absorb, and scale down the power of most of your force powers. what you're basically doing is increasing the odds that you can kill somebody off of one grip situation, but taking away the number of times you can do this before you need to retreat to recharge your force power. like, what you can do is blind a person, then grip them while they're blinded, then try to pull away their weapon, and then run in and slash them with the lightsaber. that's what you get to do with this rank.

Explanation of my new journal title

This is depressing...

if you don't know why, look carefully at the up-close of the meal list, look at the size of his mom(is THAT a wheelchair?), and then seriously ask whether she's really TRYING to make him lose weight, or whether she's serious about it herself.

i hope this video "encourages" all of us to live just a TAD healthier now. my deal with trying to live healthy is NOT so i can live as long as possible. it's to avoid the painful slow death. seeing someone close die from stomach cancer can do that to you.

taken from wiki:

"Key to Rodman's success as a rebounder in basketball was his ability to tip the ball countless times if he was challenged."

sometimes i still don't understand how dennis rodman is considered a great defensive player, given how it's just that i've heard he held this person and that person to lows. it's not that i think he sucks on defense. i can understand the rebounding. but when i watch him play, it doesn't seem like his opponents are doing worse offensively(but then again, i was basing this upon what i saw from the "ultimate jordan" dvd, where i think i recently only saw one game of dennis, and that was the one where jordan played his last game)

but given how i'll probably be buying the 1988-89 detroit pistons dvd set soon, maybe i'll understand how good he was. joe dumars and dennis rodman were both named for the 1st time to the all-nba defensive first team that year. in fact, joe dumars was just awesome that year, because he also got the finals mvp award that year. out of all the "bad boy" pistons, i probably have the highest respect for joe dumars and dennis rodman; joe for his solid all-around game and class, and dennis for his tremendous tenacity on the boards.

batman beyond and justice league unlimited, both season 3, come out today, tuesday. 20 bucks each. that would complete my collection of both programs.

a day with terry bogard

roflcopter...

engRish-speaking causasians FTW...

I thought 90s Warrior fans might like this(click on the image to see it in full detail). I took a picture with my digital camera of the poster in my room. It's faded because it's directly opposite my window, which happens to face directly opposite of the sun every single afternoon. And since I'm not anyways around to close the curtains(i think that picture's been up since my early teens when Phil gave it to me), you can obviously guess what happens. In fact, all my posters in my room are faded for that reason.

It's still TMC though. LOL at Manute Bol's height. and is that Tom Tolbert of ESPN?

i wonder once this world passes away and the next one appears, and new jerusalem comes down from heaven, etc, and all good and evil has been judged...

do we get to ask God any type of question we want?

there's many questions i've had regarding what actually took place in history. most of it regarding how the Bible came to be, but there's other questions. i don't THINK they're those weird tough questions some people have like "why did you allow suffering," but simply "did this happen in history or not?" i would like to hear from God himself, but at the same time, i could understand if it didn't really matter anymore. or why i would not care anymore.

---

for some reason, playing first person shooters for extended periods of time can give me headaches and make me dizzy. they didn't when i was a kid.

---

drumming's fun.

sam told me about this one dwight howard play on sunday while we were waiting for the 5 on 5 pickup game to end, and it wasn't the sticker dunk during the all-star break.

i had to check it out for myself, so i visited youtube.

oh, my, goodness...

anybody else realized that it hailed around 2:00 pm today?

i'm thinking, buckteeth may be caused by having really high lips, thus revealing a lot of upper teeth. slanted eyes by very high and huge cheekbones, lifting the face. something like that.

let's ooze some asian fruit knowledge, cause i'm curious about food like that, ok?

i had no idea longan's english name is exactly that; longan. and that it really looks like the same as lychees, but if you dry it, it turns brown. i always wondered what the name of that brown-colored fruit that my mom put in abundance in red bean soup. it was usually that, lotus seeds, or tiny tapioca balls(i made it w/the 3rd in davis, wished i could do the 1st) now i know. i love lychees and longan. good, good, fruit.

oh yeah; those orange, pellet-like fruit my mom used to put in abundance in chicken soup(along with dates and ginseng) are called wolfberries. they're now being sold like they're dried cranberries at costco, called "gogi berries." wouldn't be surprised if they become the next newest thing from china, and then soon grown in the united states(so far, only in china right now i think).

and i tend to like dried dates a lot more than fresh ones, though fresh ones are good too; yes, i've eaten those before. the best way i can describe fresh dates are a dry apple. not a "dried apple," but imagine the flavor, texture of an apple, smaller, brown on the outside, whitish green on the inside, but not as much juice. you bite into it, look inside, the flesh will seem all about the same, except there's a lot less juice. like i said; "dry apple." dried dates are ridiculously sweet, which is why i tend to like them a lot more; they're usually almost syrupy.

and you don't call red bean, "red bean" in english-conversations that don't involve asian topics, since there's too many red-colored beans; you call them "azuki beans," using the japanese term.

"arasol?"("understand" in korean)

you should watch snl's celebrity jeopardy, best of sean connery on youtube. i couldn't stop coughing from laughing so hard from darrell hammond saying,
"will the penis mightier really mighty my penis?"

This is what this year's Evolution tournament's main game lineup looks like
(Evolution is the biggest fighting game tournament event in America held in Las Vegas sometime during the summer; it used to be held in Southern California for mainly SF games, but now it's gone a bit more encompassing and sponsorship has been added)

Main site: http://www.evo2k.com

The main 8 games:
Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike
Marvel vs Capcom 2
Capcom vs SNK 2
Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo
Guilty Gear XX Slash
Super Smash Brothers Melee
Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection
Virtua Fighter 5

I really like this lineup this year. The return of Virtua Fighter for DOA4, ditching Tekken 5 for Dark Resurrection and ST for Hyper Street Fighter 2 were all really good switches. The addition of Smash to the lineup i think is also good. I might even contemplate buying the entire DVD set that comes out after this year.

Only way they could make this lineup better is to add Street Fighter Alpha 3. But that's wishful thinking. They already have 3 of my favorite fighting games in the lineup(VF5, CvS2, ST; I like Tk5DR, but Tekken Tag is better).

---

Sometimes I think I'm like the professor in Simpsons; there was that one episode where he was teaching a class and rolling back and forth that toddler toy which sprinkles balls all over the place. He was then getting technical with the physics of why it works(ya'see, the oscillation and the ma'ouiving produces the...) and one girl asks him if she can play with it. His response is:

"I'm sorry I can't let you play with it; you wouldn't get as many degrees of enjoyment out of it as I do."

---

I got this trolling the SRK.com forums, and one guy essentially said this about games being called a sport.

FYI, if you think about it, the whole reason people want to label THEIR games that they play competitively as a sport(poker, etc), is because they want respect for it. It is; it's the truth. When you think of someone being a professional sports player, you conjure up images of men sweating through hard physical labour in order to win games and be crowned a champion. Without that label, you're left with a bunch of lazy, tired bums earning money through a nerdy medium.

That's why(IMO) you have a lot of things being labelled sports that shouldn't be labelled as such in the first place.

To close on this subject, 2 cents to think about:
1) almost any type of game can be played competitively and takes skill to do. Any time you bring your mindset into direct conflict with another person's mindset, you have to be able to disguise your gameplan while trying to decipher your opponent's. That always takes skill. Not calling something a sport does not imply that it's skillness; that's something the dim-witted joe doesn't seem to get nor the enthusiast championing the game he plays. Chess isn't called a sport. Does that mean it's skill-less?
2) But there's a difference(actually there's many, but this is just one) between an actual sport like basketball and something like poker. In poker, your right wrist can be in a cast, your left leg can be amputated, and you could still play. As long as your brain(and mouth, to bluff and raise, etc) was functional, you'd be alright. And maybe one of your arms to hold the cards, etc. But saw off the left leg of a basketball player, and he's benched. Injure a swimmer's left arm? Can't swim the 100m freestyle no more. Club the leg of THAT FEMALE FIGURE SKATER? Done.

Proverbs 25:2 says it quite nicely; "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter." In other words, when we attempt to head a full-headed search of the truth, using all the resources we can, solely for the sake of searching out the truth, we are acting like kings.

---

i'm pretty surprised how quickly my next batch of books for kjv research is coming in basically half a week(given how i placed the orders maybe a week ago). the last time i ordered i was a bit discouraged from using amazon.com for a while, because it basically took over 6 months before my books arrived.

i wanted to comment on what i've learned in my own time poring over the scriptures regarding what the Lord God meant by resting on the sabbath and not doing work, seeing how this sunday Chris just went over the sabbath, but i was actually planning on including that topic in a mini-article i was going to write in a .doc file(i'll cut and paste the document online once i'm done with it). plus, i'm at the library, writing this inbetween a break b4 i continue doing typical job-searching stuff. but i didn't want to wait too long, seeing that may take too long. 'k, anybody get that rant?

so, in a slight sneak peak to what's to come, basically what i wanted to discuss around what "work" and "rest" on the sabbath, and what God originally did during the 1st 7 days, pertained around these 2 verses(i may not have referenced them correctly, this is off the top of my head):

psalm 7:11
revelations: 4:11

i believe that once you understand the same thing i understood about both verses when put together, you will get what i'm going to say, before i say it, real soon.

---

my room looks a LOT neater now. i got just a few more things to do to tidy it up, but it's more-or-less done.

---

i'll be trying out the digital camera phil gave me for a belated xmas present real soon; haven't touched it at all yet. not opened, not installed, nothing. hopefully i'll know a bit about how to use it before saturday, when the football game occurs(i'm thinking of a catchy name; pre-super-bowl-bowl doesn't quite cut it, but there's not a lotta stuff we can think of at the moment).

but i nominate "post-season bowl" as a good name onward. can't think of anything else. even that one's open to scrutiny, but it's short and gets the point across. you could then initial it as "P.S.B." if you can think of something that starts with "N," then you can tack it on the end as "P.S.B.N." starting to sound like a play on sounds of everybody's favorite sports channel yet? (cue sportscenter theme song) duh-nuh-nuh, duh-nuh-nuh.

(maybe N could stand for nation. Post-Season Bowl-Nation)

---

k i should shut up now.

i logged my longest time spent on the bible today yet...

it's something past 5 hours... total(counting the increments together).

on one chapter... hebrews 9.

i love-hate reading hebrews, because paul goes SO MUCH MORE in depth than the other epistles, and you get deep stuff. for instance, hebrews 9 explains the definition of a testator and a testament, and why it's important in forming the new testament(and if you think about their implications, why it's important having God's words PRECISELY and not trying to mistranslate them all around, which is why we have all these kjv-only and etc debates). it also explains why Jesus Christ only needed to die once rather than multiple times, something which, when i still think about sometimes, continues to boggle me, though it's boggled me less today after my studies. which is again, love-hate because i love how much he breaks stuff down, until i realize i'm still trying to write my 1st notes on the book on a word document, meaning i spend so much time cross-referencing books, hoping that the word searches i punch into e-sword come up with the right verses i'm looking for.

but it's ok; i only have 4 more chapters left of hebrews. then again, revelations isn't too many chapters away. i might have to do some love-hate again real soon.

---

got tony hawk pro skater 2 and tomb raider 2 at fry's(yes, they do sell them new, you gotta look hard at the cpu games section to find sections for old games) last saturday for a grand total of 8-9 dollars. tony hawk 2: 2:90, tomb raider 2: 5-ish. i love liking old games rather than new ones, because then i can score good bargains like this and feel pretty good about it too. the only comparable bargain in video games compared to tony hawk 2 for 3 dollars was when i got virtua fighter 4 evolution for 10 at best buy. good runners up was phil giving me virtua fighter 2 + last bronx for the pc for 20, and of course, me getting jedi knight: dark forces 2 for 10. i've thought it over and over, and it's the truth: graphics in a video game are overrated. seriously overrated. gameplay matters more. both games are great and run well on my laptop. but tony hawk 2 especially is great, mainly because there's tons to do.

Damn it’s cold today… my feet and backside of my hands are perpetually numb… hard as hell to get through the bible readings today, seeing as my fingers kept freezing up, making it very uncomfortable to type.

For some reason, I started thinking about a number of really cool toys in the past or that are currently out, just a few days ago. Not adult toys(like guitars or electronic gizmos for your cpu), or video games, mind you; y’kno, stuff ranging from action figures to dart blasters that were just cool. I talk enough about fighting games anyways, so no video games on the list. So I came up (offline) with a list of 10 toys in no particular order that I particularily thought were cool, and have really good value even as an adult. I’m also excluding board games, because those are a TON of those, although that might make another good top 10 some other day(Othello is still my favorite board game; good combination of game speed and depth). I’m too lazy to add links, so if you want to actually see the products I’m talking about, you’re gonna have to search yourself.

1. Nerf: N-Strike Maverick
I used to be crazy about owning Nerf blasters, so I could put any particular number or item of them on here and be impressed by them(but I don’t want to turn this into a top 10 Nerfs list). However, this one takes the cake. The whole reason is simply because it actually looks like some type of badass handgun; if you’ve never seen one, imagine a revolver, except that the barrel looks a LOT larger in width. Every played in the arcade Sega’s Virtua Cop or Namco’s Time Crisis and seen what the gun you carry looks like? Or seen the Japanese anime Trigun and what gun Vash the Stampede carries around with him? That’s what the gun looks like; like a bad-assed-up revolver. You even cock it the same way, and get to fire up to 6 darts without reloading. When you do reload, you have to press a side button to make the 6-chambered thing holding the darts swing out the side… just like any revolver. And the best part of all is that this toy is still being sold in toy stores all around; it’s pretty recent. So you can get it if you want; I know that when I got mine, its coolness persuaded Jerm and Jon to get their own. I plan on eventually modifying mine by visiting any Nerf-oriented fansite; most have ideas on how to make it shoot further. (I wanted to also modify another weak blaster of mine which some claim can reach close to a football field’s length) The only downside is that it’s not a perfect repeating revolver as of late; you need to cock it in-between each shot, but then if it was, it’d probably be battery-operated, and usually kids toys are best not being battery-operated.

(We still need to rent out a huge 3 story building for one last Nerf war; I miss the good old days)

2. Larami: Super Soaker CPS 1000
Almost any super soaker was good to be honest for nostalgia’s sake(assuming Larami made them, and not Hasbro, who now owns the company); these were the standard for land-based water fights, since they were pressure-based, not battery-based, and shot water pretty far. However, if you’ve ever seen the Constant Pressure System 1000, that was the pinnacle for land-based water guns, and for Super Soaker. The thing I would say is sorta like the anti-tank rifle of all water guns. It took FOREVER to pump to full pressure(there was a guage on the side that slowly went up as you pumped, like a super meter in Street Fighter), and there were probably 4-5 full shots if you had a max-pressure shot, cleanly unloaded, then pumped again to max, but when you actually pulled and held the trigger, you got this massive stream of water that went about 50+ feet about a foot wide in diameter… for about 2 full seconds. It’s basically like the Stream Machine, but for land(I own a Stream Machine; it’s probably the best water gun… for water-based fights) I never owned one, but I’ve had a couple of water fights in Jr. High School and one of the guys I went camping with brought this with him. There were also two brothers on the swim team I used to be on which had this. To give you further ideas of how strong it was, there was a wire mesh at the end where the water was supposed to come out, supposedly to tone down the power at which the water came out… didn’t really matter I guess. Another thing was after this gun, maybe because of lawsuits or mothers complaining loudly enough, all following Super Soakers never again had the same power as this one. Sure, the ones you see now at Target during the summer have cool additions that the old super soakers don’t have, like easy hose filling and stuff. But this was the granddaddy of them all. There was no comparison. The size was humongous too and had a shoulder strap, making it even more intimidating just by view alone.

3. Kenner: Terminator 2: Exploding T-1000
A few years after Terminator 2 came out, there came all these companies trying to make money off of the movie, because hey, it was a pretty cool movie, one of the best action movies I might add. I ended up getting 3 Terminator 2 action figures from the company Kenner. However, I NEVER got this one, though it was always in stores wherever I went. I’m regretful of that now; this was clearly the best of the action figures that Kenner produced for the Terminator 2 line. Phil kept telling me to ask Mom to get this, but I never listened, and I think Phil always saw values in toys a little better than me when I was a kid. It looked like the T-1000 in the non-motorcycle police uniform, with the right side of its body liquid metal, and the left side of its body looking like the T-1000 in its regular police uniform disguise. Plus, the left arm was reformed into a huge blade. Of course, like the name suggests, there was a small trigger in the back of the figure, near the lower back. If you pressed it, the figure would explode into 4 different pieces(the figure upward of the legs was made of 3 pieces). I really dunno how you can top that as far as a Terminator 2 action figure goes.

4. Hasbro: GI Joe: General Hawk/Cobra Commander/Snake Eyes(black)/Storm Shadow(Cobra)
I think there were 3 main phases as far as toys that I liked when I was a kid; the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fad, then the GI Joe fad, and followed by the Nerf fad. I, like Phil, used to be big on GI Joe. The difference was that I didn’t take care of them like he did(he has this Storm Shadow one where it has ALL sorts of weapons, and instead of playing with it, he simply wrapped it all up in tissue paper so that it wouldn’t get damaged), I actually played with mine. The end result is many of them are not in good condition; my Snake Eyes has a gimp leg, and etc. It’s really subjective as to which ones of them were the best, because there were a LOT of GI Joe action figures that were out there, which is why I listed more than one, but I would say these were probably the best of them(I hesitate to put Duke on the list, because while the main leader on the battlefield(General Hawk is THE leader of GI Joe), he seems so commonplace nowadays, but then again, so are Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow). General Hawk is so rare(never saw it in stores when I was kid), and he’s the leader, so he goes on there by default. Ditto w/Cobra Commander. If you could’ve found the Black Snake Eyes(the old one), not the Blue Snake Eyes(which was the one I had) in the old days, I think that would’ve been a keeper, given how cool Snake Eyes was. The blue one’s still cool though; it had a TMP(to use CS terminology; at least I think it’s a TMP; small submachine pistol w/silencer), 2 katanas, and a spring-loaded grappling hook that fired(maybe I just think it’s not as cool because mine’s busted up), it’s just that he looks kinda ridiculous wearing a red ski mask and that weird gray body armor, whereas the other one looks more like an actual ninja, being in black and all. Storm Shadow is to Cobra what Snake Eyes is to GI Joe so it’s self explanatory. I actually HAD my own Storm Shadow action figure, when he was on GI Joe and not Cobra, but even then it didn’t seem as cool as the evil Storm Shadow action figure my bro had; only came with 2 weapons, and the spring-winded karate chop was kinda cheezy.
For the record, I think the ones sold today aren’t too shabby either; that is, the Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow one, but there’s two different kinds; make sure you find both and compare before buying.
Lesson I would impart; if you ever want to buy an action figure for yourself as an adult, just leave it in the packaging; don’t even open it; treat it like a collector’s item. Trust me on this one. I finally heeded that advice during the end of December when I thought it’d be cool to actually get the Street Fighter action figures at Toys R Us.

5. Transformers Optimus Prime action figure
Now we’re getting into territory that I’m less familiar with, so don’t be surprised if the following after number 4 get less say and mention. I was never into Transformers, however I did watch enough of the Fox Kids’ new version of Transformers as a late teen to witness the coolness that is the leader of the autobots. So by default.

(That’ll be it for action figures; I think all the other ones are subject to various things; while TMNT’s another good line, everybody has a different favorite turtle, so it’s hard to list the best one, and all others are dependent on whether you liked the series and stuff, such as Justice League, Thundercats, He-man, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, etc)

6. Trampoline(honorable mention goes to Pogo Stick)
Now you’re probably laughing, thinking whether my house is full of asbestos for sticking weird toys in here after number 5. It’s true; I may be running out of ideas as I’m racking my head. But bear with me. How can you not like this? Have a bad day? Go jump on a trampoline. Frustrated? Go jump on a trampoline. Got too much energy in your system? Go jump on a trampoline. Probably the only place in your house you could legitimately jump up and down repeatedly like a sugar-high kid, have more fun than doing the same thing with a jump rope and not break something or fall off-balance and break something else in the process, as long as you watch how you’re jumping(although I usually end up seeing stuff that is AFV material when things like this occur). May not be bad-ass, but way too fun to ignore. Even if you wanted to now, I doubt you could go and jump on your bed repeatedly; the ceiling’s too low for you to let it all out. The pogo stick goes on there for an honorable mention because it’s essentially the same thing, and probably cheaper, but I’ve never owned one.

7. Rock Em Sock Em Robots
Street Fighter before it made your local Golfland; heck, this is Karate Champ before it made your local Golfland. Try to punch your opponent’s block off; your opponent tries to do the same. How can you not like that? I was reminded of this awesome toy when watching some Justice League Unlimited episodes and seeing the Flash play with somebody else in the Justice League Watchtower over something that looked like this(“Yo Flash, do you think the rest of the League thinks we’re too childish?” “No way man” * zooms out to show the two playing this game * “Yes, I win!” “No fair! Your guy has a longer reach!”).

8. Boomerang
Most people I know have never played with this toy. If you have one, and know(I stress, KNOW) how to use one, it’s a blast; it’s like playing catch with yourself. I have one. Problem is, I could never get it to work right; actually as a kid I usually got it to work right to make it come back; it’s just that I was afraid to catch it as it was coming back at me(imagine me as a kid winding back and throwing this on my driveway, then my eyes getting wide and backpedaling really fast half-trying to avoid it, half-trying to catch it as the thing’s coming back at me). I plan on getting a new one soon enough, the company that makes those weird light neon rings as Frisbees(those are cool too) makes a boomerang that looks like an outer tracing of a triangle.

9. Winchester rifle/AK-47
This one’s actually two different products. I think both of which were cool. However, they’re essentially the same thing; replica guns that make replica gun sounds. When I saw a toy version of the Winchester rifle at K-Mart in Cupertino(it’s now a Home Depot), they used to sell this toy when I was a kid. No batteries required or caps required. You cocked it using the lever on the side, much like a regular Winchester rifle. When you pulled the trigger, you got a sound that sounded very much like the actual Winchester rifle(the best I can describe it is like a “PA-CHUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…). I think Counter-strike fans that loved using the AWP sniper rifle, would’ve gotten a kick outta owning this.
The AK-47 I saw once at a toy store in Gilroy shopping center. Pulled the trigger, you’d get a 3-shot burst like sound. I just thought as far as replica gun toys making gun sounds, these were very cool, and they required nothing else; no batteries, no exploding caps. Never got either when I was kid, and both aren’t sold anymore in stores.

(I’m really out of ideas, so number 10’s sorta weird)

10. Record player(was called a phonograph)
Lemme know if you can actually think of something that was MEANT as a kid’s toy for number 10 that was cool; til then, this is my entry; hey; sometimes when you were a kid, the best toys were the things you abused, no lie.
For those of you who were old enough to either own a phonograph or have parents own a phonograph, as opposed to a CD player, there was way too much fun you could have with these shenanigans while 10 inches of vinyl was rotating(much to the risk of actually ruining the record permanently you were playing, but you were a kid, you weren’t worried about things like that happening). You could turn it off while it was still midway in playing a record, and the sound would SLOOOWLY grind to a halt, which usually got giggles out of me. You could jump up and down while it was playing, seeing if you could jump the needle to another place on the record all the while causing scratching sounds to come out. I loved turning the rotating contraption off, but not the amplifer, and then spinning the record backward quickly and giggling at the sounds that came out. And then, if the record was busted, usually what would happen was when the needle got to the place which was busted, it would just keep repeating that area over and over, and over(I fondly remember the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” record would always get to the part where Indiana Jones picked up the relic and then the announcer would be stuck saying “the walls began to shake… began to shake… began to shake… began to shake…” ad infinitum, usually stopped when Phil would go over and jump up and down violently near the record player, causing it to jump)
I make it sound like I ruined all the vinyl records my family had on this, and that’s not true; my mom and dad probably would NEVER let me abuse the records that long, or at all. However, there were very rare periods of time when they were not in the family room, my inner child would emerge, and the above would happen, and those times usually got laughs out of me. Good times.
(If you want to recreate this feeling, go download Ots CD Scratch[a free turntable software], pop in a music CD, take the virtual needle and just run it SIDEWAYS across the virtual record; don’t tell me you won’t laugh at the sound; you’ll never be able to ruin the CD you’re playing this way, nor be able to change its position by jumping up and down next to your cpu, though, although I suppose that’s a good thing)
FYI, the phonograph we had was not only a phonograph; it was also an AM/FM radio player and a cassette player. Incidentally, my brother beat me to breaking the tape player part because he stuffed coins down the tape opening when HE was a kid. Heh heh.

Ok, that’s my list. To be honest, there’s probably some toys that I missed that were just cool, and I’m sketchy on number 10, as I was running out of really good ideas, but I’m only one guy, so please comment away, or write your own list; I would love to see what toys I didn’t list(or in the case of number 10, things that could’ve been abused as amusing toys).

health insurance is still in the process of approving my application, which is why i've practically been seen nowhere out of my house since tuesday. could get approved on tuesday, but could take til thursday or so. no phone calls yet. could be anything in between, so i could end up missing another bible study.

which is why i haven't really done anything for the past week or so; if i can't go out, i can't really do anything job-wise yet. the constant is that i've been getting back towards reading my bible a lot more consistently now. ever since summer 2006, i now take all my notes for the bible onto word documents; i used to take them on just plain paper. and i still have those pieces of paper, but it's so annoying leafing through them. and while i can read my handwriting, it's still annoying, because of the inconsistencies of handwriting, especially when writing hurriedly. plus, since i switched from the NIV to the KJV, i may glean different thoughts and reflections from the same verse. so. all the more reason to keep the notes on word documents. i basically have about 70 word documents, one for each book of the bible(66), each numbered. the other documents are for keeping track of which book i'm in, charting how long it takes me to read 1-2 chapters in the new and old testament each day(to see if i'm slacking when i'm reading or getting sidetracked), and 1 i have for writing down background information regarding how the KJV bible came to be. downside is of course, i need to be near my computer to take notes. but i think it's worth it. and the price of the printed paper would be free; just need to bring a disk to the local library.

i've been thinking though; i usually divide the reading plan into 1 new testament verse and 1 old testament verse per day. that sounds good. except the old testament has 39 books, the new testament has 27 books. at this rate, i would probably never get to ever diving into the books of the prophets by the end of this year, a place i have never gotten to; i've gotten somewhere into jeremiah the last time i was deep into reading the bible each day. hence, a better idea would be to divide between books 1 and 33, and 34 through 66. book 33 is micah, and book 34 is nahum. that sounds good, except most of those books are about 3 chapters long at most; a lot of the books of the OT are still much longer; isaiah places in at about 66 chapters, followed by jeremiah, which is pretty long too; ranging into the 50s or so. so i would argue making the cutoff at daniel(book 27); daniel through revelation for the "NT;" (which is good b/c daniel has a lot of antichrist prophecies as well), and genesis through ezekiel for the "OT."

i HAVE however, resumed looking into the whole KJV debate; i sorta ended up putting that stuff on hiatus somewhere in the summer of 2006, late summer. never got around to finishing the 2nd of the 2 books i had bought a long time ago. nearing the end, so that's got a lotta juices turning again. i'm thinking of buying 2 or 3 more books.

my mom checked out the entire simpsons dvd from the library, season 2 today. the simpsons of old is SO much better than the new ones; takes a lot more thinking, but the jokes are a lot funnier. i still love when homer tries to jump the canyon on bart's skateboard, falls, etc. doh xn. the lion in the water during the stuntman's routine was great too; couldn't stop cracking at that.

my laptop's sound card is totally messed up. if i'm not using the "iMIC," i can't hear anything; sound is very inconsistent; sometimes it'll come out like someone's trying to scratch a record on a turntable. really, really slowly. i knew someday i would eventually have to buy a preamp or something like that to my computer for making song recording better and easier, but didn't anticipate that the time would come a bit sooner than previous; i can still hear sound if i plug the iMIC in and stuff. however, i can't really record using the iMIC; the sound output and input is a LOT lower.

that's it for now.

more tattoo assassins hilarity

lincoln brewster's "what kind of man" sounds like a song "the violet burning" wrote and played; "the violet burning" is a christian alternative band my brother is quite fond of.

i think i have a youtube video that will make your MONTH...

tattoo assassins

i've never laughed harder at a fighting game... and final fight revenge was pretty lol-able... enjoy the fatalities...

---

fyi, lincoln brewster's vocals sound slightly like chris tomlin's... you'd think it'd be him, if you weren't hearing the electric guitar fills that is signature lincoln brewster he was playing in between the lyrics...

(i love his "best of" cd... i've been listening to it nonstop this week so far; majestic is so far my favorite song on it, and i still regret not visiting his church while up in davis... yet)

i wish i would approach life the way i defend off the ball during basketball when i feel like i'm going to lock somebody down, give them close to 0 touches, close to 0 pts...

that revelation came to me today when i was contemplating why it is so hard for me to change my bad habits, my bad personalities, my laziness. and i wondered why God would not make it more specific how to change your bad habits in the Bible. write it down. if it were there, it would be so easy to just follow it.

well, part of it is because everybody is different; different in being motivated. i realize that i probably get more motivated over negative feelings more than positive feelings. that may not be the same for the next person. times and cultures change too. 2nd of all, i believe it's because i half-heartedly ask it in prayer. you pray, maybe have a plan figured out, but lack the mentality to see it through. i realize that just like how a great defender defends and locks down, it is part ability, part mental. you can have the longest wingspan in the world, the quickest feet, more hops and height than your opponent, it does not matter. if you don't come in with an INTENSE mentality that you are going to lock down your opponent, it will not happen. i realized the value of that mentality yesterday, and how it produced crazy results for me on the court, especially that last game.

today, i realized that it i wanted to change the areas that i felt were lacking in me as a Christian, it seriously would not be a bad idea to go into each area that needs work with that same type of mentality. how i'm going to be able to do this i have yet to figure out(how am i supposed to become less angry to others by being INTENSE?)

btw, i'm not really keen on this whole "new year's resolution" thing. not b/c it's not a good idea, but because you should be ALWAYS thinking of what you can do to improve yourself. i am not writing the above b/c this is close to the new year resolution time. but because the above came to me today.

---

i'm a prison in my house for about 6 days b/c of lack of health insurance. i dislike my mom for making me stay at home, but i really don't fault her for it; she did try to pressure me to get the forms finished on time so that my health insurance could begin as soon as possible and not be cut short, it was just that the post office was closed due to power outages when she went.

i do have things i can do that are in the house, i just don't exactly feel like doing a lot of them. like, cleaning my room, and taking some of my packed things out of phil's room, so i can finally set up my guitar and relearn it(i had a booklet + cd bought from guitar center that i never used on how to increase speed for lead guitar; it was written for metal players, but it was still a good thing; i eventually want to crack that out and go through it)

there's also writing a resume. and then actually starting on that whole novel thing i wanted to do.

---

verses that i want to memorize soon:

2nd thessalonians 3:14-15
1st timothy 1:18-19

both are really good. i think the 1st explains how you are supposed to deal with fallen brethren. be hard on them, but love them. most ppl tend to only do one. and forget the other. i would argue that most people in this afraid-to-hurt-others'-feelings-world do too much of the 2nd, but there are many who try to overcompensate by doing the 1st without the 2nd.

the 2nd is because i realized the value of faith and conscience going hand in hand. think about all those apologetics books, or the various bible research books i have read. these are all dealing with increasing your confidence, which is tied to your conscience. as it grows, so does your faith. you hear about bible skeptics asking bible experts what they thought when they examined the facts, they will often say their examining of them actually confirmed and increased their faith all the more.