b4 you go on and label this loss against lituania game as a complete loss, i do wanna say that for perhaps for the 1st time, the US was playing this game right for about 90% of the time; rj finally started clicking offensively, even nailing a buncha clutch 3s... just didn't nail the last one. dwayne wade was getting into the action defensively, stayed in front, made a buncha steals. at one point he intercepted a pass to a perimeter shooter, then took it all the way for a dunk. carmelo anthony didn't play too much, but the time he spent in, he nailed every shot he took. basically, everybody on this team except for okafor has now proven that he can play the game the right way. okafor still hasn't gotten any real game time from the coach. while they aren't that good outside and their free throws probably killed them in the end, they're sharing the ball on the offensive end and passing more than dribbling to move the ball. and they're playing defense. i now think they have a legitimate shot at winning the gold. they just need to play hard all 30 seconds of the clock, for all 40 min of game time. otherwise, this is looking more and more like a larry brown team. defense will win it... but you gotta apply it for all 30 seconds, for all 40 min of the game. they had the lituania team on their heels when they brought it up close.

why must i get so uptight over the smallest things? it's like i've inherited all the bad traits from my parents, and none of the good. i bet i'm gonna lose sleep tonight again.

here's something that may make you laugh; google search "all_linkin_park_songs_sound_exactly_the_same.mp3"; don't forget the quotes.

ok, i promised i'd put up daigo's amazing comeback vs east coast's justin wong, here it is:
http://media.shoryuken.com/srk-daigo.zip

watch it and be amazed...
(if you absolutely don't have a clue as to what daigo's ken is doing going all blue flash and stuff, i'll give a quick rundown; he's parrying justin's super; in street fighter 3, parrying is done sorta like blocking, but you have to tap forward on the joystick RIGHT before you get hit; obviously if you don't tap it RIGHT when you're about to get hit you're going to take the damage of the attack, but what it has an advantage over blocking is that you take no block damage(so the opponents can't kill you with block damage if you parry properly), and you suffer no block stun, ie you can punish the opponent right after you parry, sorta like they threw out a move right in front of you and it just whiffed; basically, it's easy to parry 2-3 hit combos, but VERY hard to parry a 15 hit super at a national tourney when everyone's watching you and the pressure's on; also, because chun-li's lightning kick super starts up so fast, you need to tap forward BEFORE the super flash occurs)

man, ppl really did stop caring for the olympics a long time ago. i still watch it, but somehow, it's lost its luster. and i think ppl w/cable watch it even less. it's only now that the us seems down on its luck that ppl start caring. is anyone else irritated that this attitude of ours may have led china(grr, gotta hate this, my taiwanese blood's boiling deep inside) to be leading the gold medal count, let alone the medal count?

if team us bball wins this year, it will be because of the greatness of tim duncan and the combination of some of the best coaches in the nba(poppavich as assistant coach and larry brown as head coach), not cause these guys were the best team assembled. however, give credit to allen iverson for being a very close 3rd reason that this team is in it, as the best guard on this team, and lebron james for starting to really play ball the right way and not caring how many minutes he gets. i am still hoping they win gold, but i'm not too sure the nba committee will learn its lesson unless we go medal-less.

watching olympic swimming has rekindled some fond memories of me being on the swim team:
-the electronic touch pads
-watching the guys in hats walk close to the starting blocks with stopwatches behind their backs to record times; i could never get why ppl did that; supposedly for double insurance, in case the electronic touch pads shorted or something, but really... why?
-the fact that some ppl act like cheering is going to help the swimmers because they'll hear you; i couldn't hear s*** when i was swimming... and it's not cause of the swimmer's ear i got... ok, cheer i guess, nothing wrong w/it; crowd should be having fun too, but in the actuality, i couldn't hear anybody... admittedly, i did see my coach waving me on, alongside of me a few times though.
-i did NOT have a sunnyvale swim team parka; i wore my bro's monta vista water polo team parka instead.

i will be back late thursday afternoon next week. if you absolutely still need a lead guitarist for retreat, please gimme an email by wednesday night.

EWGF, b,f+2,1>2, df+4,4

sick...

right now, srk.com's down, but they had a clip featuring one of japan's best street fighter players, daigo, vs justin wong, one of the east coast's best. it was during a national fighting game tourney called evolution which is always held sometime in the summer around cen cal. daigo just frikkin came back from a virtually 0 pt lifebar against justin wong's 90% lifebar. when he started parrying the super everybody in the crowd started cheering so loud the mic started giving off distortion.

i'll link back to it when it goes back up...

doesn't take that much street fighter know-how to appreciate it; i was just going "oh s***!" the 1st time i watched it. comeback indeed.

koreans won in olympic handball over russia :D looked like a cross between soccer, polo and basketball

my left fingers hurt... yesterday i played on the electric guitar... like, seriously PLAYED... it's been a while since i've seriously sat down in front of the fender and tried to really work on a riff... i was trying to get down the jeremy camp - i will trust in you riff, so as a result, my left fingers got hardened slightly.

next up; i'll have to work on the mark tremonti riff during "open your eyes", alter bridge's flagship song right now. i have doubts about pulling it off though; if you've watched the video for free on their site, you might agree. how the hell does he do that!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!!! this is why i love 70's style rock guitar... it IS talent... period. not this chord stumming you hear on radio these days.

Scott Stapp, 08/04 - Interviews - Christian Music Today

i have found out some pretty amazing things about the creed band recently; call me ignorant if it's been a while, but:

creed broke up(i found this out a while back), but mark the guitarist and the drummer teamed up w/former creed bassist and some other vocalist from mayfield 4 to make another band with a few other guys; it's now called alter bridge(that's where they went!); so i can still relish mark tremonti's guitar work, which i have always admired for a long time.

and...

going by the above link, scott stapp is now a christian; don't assume that's WHY creed broke up though, because while creed was not officially a christian band, scott himself stated that it was because they had other interests. although, take a lot at the below quote and decide whether that means they broke up cause stapp became a christian(you could argue it was like that)

(taken from the alter bridge website about why they broke up:
"Mark and Flip:
We were just going different directions, he had a lot going on his life personally and professionally and we just wanted to play music. After taking a break it was apparent that Scott wanted to make a studio record but not tour as much and we wanted to tour and get back to work. When we got together to do the next record, it just wasn’t happening musically. There was no progress being made so we just decided to part ways. There’s no animosity there. We talked on the phone and wished each other good luck.")

and no, alter bridge is not considered to be a christian band, like creed was:
"Are the band and album spiritual? Did you try to go in a more secular direction? How different will it be lyrically? The album is entitled ONE DAY REMAINS – that seems spiritual.

Flip:
It’s not super spiritual, but the band members are all spiritual. Spirituality will always be a part of who we are but the album’s more about life experiences. You can take from it what you will but it’s not an agenda of ours. There was no difference in opinion between Tremonti and Stapp when it came to the direction of Creed’s message. We’re not trying to be secular or spiritual; we just want to express positivity in our lives."

so we still got 4 more ppls to pray for...

but, let's get back to scott stapp, whom i'm happy for, since he's now a christian:

"What had triggered those spiritual changes in your life?

Stapp: A lot of personal things. I was hurt and beaten down. Five years ago, I had a divorce that I didn't really want. I was so busy with Creed that I don't think I ever really dealt with that emotionally. She [his ex-wife] elected not to be involved in my son's life, leaving me as a single father, and I was really worried about my little boy [Jagger, who turns 6 in October]. And there were other things that came along in the trappings of fame, things that hurt some of my relationships. So when I finally had time to reflect on everything, I was broken down to the point where I had no other way but to look up. I couldn't handle it all. I was asking a lot of questions—of myself, of God—looking for answers.

My dad always said I was hard-headed, that it would take something like that to wake me up spiritually, and I guess it did. My heart had gotten so beat up that I didn't have anything left to give. I was emotionally and spiritually dried up, so I was just searching for God. I reached out to my pastor and my father for some guidance. I was really soul searching and, I guess, on my path to coming home spiritually. And once that process began—and I'm still going through that process, and probably will for the rest of my life—that's when things started changing in my life. I started making some proper decisions, getting things in order. It's kind of like cleaning up your house. I was looking for direction for what God wanted me to do—and that's when I got a call about The Passion."

Prior to this recent renewal, how would you have described your faith?

Stapp: I'd have called myself a struggling Christian who was trying to find holes in everything he had been raised to believe. I was a doubting Thomas. I was raised in a climate where I believed in God because I was afraid of going to hell—and I didn't think that was the right way to fall in love with somebody. I always believed in God and Christ, but I was in rebellion—trying to make my relationship with God fit into my life instead of making my life fit in with him. I was stubborn.

It just took all of that to come to a screeching halt, to get to the point of having nothing, for me to finally realize, Hey, what are you fighting with this for? Until then, I hadn't claimed my faith as my own; I had just grown up with it. But I finally got to that point after years and years of running from God. Christ stepped in when I asked him."

"Can you give me a specific example of how that "relearned love" is manifesting itself in your life?

Stapp: It's simple for me: It's giving without expecting anything in return. Prior to this, the way that I loved people around me, I always expected something—even if that was just expecting them to treat me like I treated them. But now I understand that real love is just giving without expecting anything. That's what love is to me, and that's what I feel that Christ showed us."

and later in this interview, he says he now declares himself a christian:

"On Creed's website, you had answered an FAQ in part by writing, "Who are we to say that being a Christian is the only way to heaven?"

Stapp: Well, I can honestly tell you, I didn't write that.

But your name was on it.

Stapp: [Turns to tell his manager sitting nearby to call his record label and "tell them there's something on the Creed website that I didn't write … again." Then he addresses Christian Music Today again.] I didn't write that. I would never answer a question that way. That sounds like something the owner of my record company [Wind-Up Records] would say.

[Stapp, clearly perturbed at this revelation, says something else to his manager, then addresses us again.] I would never say that, dude, because that's not what I believe. We'll be sure to make a note of that. That stuff happens all the time, because my label, you know, they're about making money. They don't want to disenfranchise people. Creed wasn't a Christian band, but I would never insinuate or say anything that would make that kind of a statement. I'm glad you told me about that.

So, where do you stand in regards to that statement?

Stapp: Oh, I'm a Christian. I was a Christian in Creed, but nobody ever asked me.

You've been really open in this interview. Is that because I'm with the Christian media? Or would you answer these questions similarly for the mainstream media?

Stapp: The nature of my answers are a lot different now that I'm no longer with Creed. I'm a solo artist now, and I don't have a band to hide behind. So when someone asks me if I'm a Christian, I have to say yes, because I am. But do you know I was never asked in 10 years if I was a Christian personally? We were only asked if Creed was a Christian band.

Well, you never got interviewed by us!

Stapp (laughs): But I'm glad nobody asked, because my life wasn't right with God. The Christian community latched onto a lot of my music, because there were a lot of things about my struggle they related to. But I didn't really want to come out and be identified as a Christian, because I didn't want to be a hypocrite, because my life wasn't right. I didn't want to make any kind of public profession until I felt like my heart was right.

I've since learned that my life's never gonna be right, and I'm always going to be scrutinized and looked at under a microscope. And it took me, since I was 17 and left home, running from God, to now, as a 30-year-old man, when I honestly feel like I've come full circle and my heart's finally in the right place. I'm still going to make mistakes, but I don't have any problems with publicly professing my faith now. It just took me a long time to get to the right place in my relationship with Christ.

It's just crazy how things have come full circle for me as a solo artist. I kind of look at everything that happened with Creed as a preparation—me going through things to get my life ready for God's plan. It's been a journey and a learning experience.

So, are you now a "Christian artist," or an artist who happens to be a Christian?

Stapp: I'm an artist who's a Christian, because I don't write music to be evangelical. Now, if that happens, it happens. My dad's a dentist, and he's a Christian. Now, does he put in Christian fillings? No, that's just part of his three-dimensional life. Now, there are people that are Christian artists, because they have a purpose to be evangelical for Christ. I don't feel I've been called to that yet. Now, that could change. There's no telling what kind of call God will put on my life."

i like though, how he was hesitant about saying he was a christian, because he did wrong, afraid that he'd give a wrong impression of christians. and the fact that now he learns that's life.

ESPN.com - NBA - Smith: Sacramento's crumbling Kingdom:

"In the meantime, the owners got mad at the city over a new arena. Who doesn't believe they're trying to get the franchise to Las Vegas, where they own a casino? They were among this new breed of owners with a lot of money they really didn't work long to earn and frustrated athletic fantasies. So they said they'd spend whatever they had to spend. Until they found themselves writing $10 million checks after the season to the owners practicing financial stability, like, oh, Donald Sterling. So they gutted their bench for a million here and there and there was no one left when Webber wasn't C-Webb and Jackson was on the bench."

damnit... and i thought the lakers were in disarray... it's like the pot calling the kettle black

Boondocks - Vote Kerry/Edwards!

LOL!

Team USA > Turkey

+supposedly, they did better down the stretch, and rallied to defend well
+one of my fave PF's, duncan, did his thing all over the court
-they almost blew a huge lead; every point, every defensive possession counts
-none of the younger players did their thing offensively; only the guys WITH EXPERIENCE, aka ai and td, did their thing in double figures
-perimeter shooting NEEDS to get better; this is international bball, so you gotta take advantage of the easier 3

"guns n roses - you could be mine" is too good... it's ol skool rock... one of my favorites from the good ol days... but no, i don't throw up the horns, heh heh. i gotta print out a tab of it soon and work on it; i love the riffs. i almost always stop the .wmv file short of the ending though... he seems to stress that one note way too long. good ol feminine rock star singers...

the time at which i took this screen capture was about 3:20 PM in davis. killer weather alright; i didn't know it'd come back w/a vengence; it seemed recently that it was getting cooler, but i guess i was wrong; i need to stop studying and grab a slurpee cause it's that hot outside. 

Penny Arcade!

LOL!

ESPN.com: Page 2 - For Celts, this Glove fits

i don't know whether to be happy or disappointed... rick fox and gary payton are now both celtics??!?!??!?

then again, most bay area ppl don't like derek fisher being on gsw either; we're all in the same boat.

woohoo! i can nail EWGF/WS+2, b,f+2,1>2, df+4,4 a LOT more consistently now. i think i found the MAGICAL TIMING OF HAPPINESS!

saw the most incredible thing yesterday; an ant about the relative size of this -> - was pulling a dry blade of grass the size of THIS -> ------------------- it was more or less attached to his behind as he was chugging it along, but he had no help as he was yanking it along... it totally amazed me... if you think about it, humans have no real advantage over other animals and creatures other than our intellect... if you think about athletic abilities, we simply pale compared to other creatures. if we moved our legs the speed of ants, we'd probably not need any cars.

ai turned out clutch when usa needed it the most, and i'm happy for him, but i think if they were really good, they wouldn't have needed to be clutch like that to win; like larry brown says, this is pretty much their offensive receipe for success:

-give the ball in to duncan deep and let him do his low post stuff
-hit some outside js when ppl are open
and last but not least:
-play some hardcore d(technically, this IS a larry brown team, so they NEED to play some d)

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/040804

there's a lotta points taken from the article about ways to improve team usa, but here's some interesting quotes that had me grinning:

-he recommends our (now departed, *sniff sniff*) brian cardinal as our bench:
"Cardinal: You bring him in when you need an energy boost -- namely, when you're flat, when you're getting out-hustled and you need someone to make a three and run back up the court screaming and pumping his arms."

-like i said, shooters, not gangstas :D
"2. You would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER see someone like Stephon Marbury on our team."

-some quotes that had me grinning, when he talked about guys from the pistons that could've been a great help:
"4. We would play Rip Hamilton more.
He's only the best scorer on a team that just won the NBA championship. You can run him off picks, he's tireless, never takes bad shots, never goes beyond his means. He gets better when it matters. He's been a winner at every level. And he's a good guy.
By the way? He's not on the team. Unfortunately, he turned down our invitation after we waited until the last minute to ask him.
(I will now peel the skin off my body.)"

-prince on bench
"Prince: Put it this way: You wouldn't see Italian guys getting wide-open looks for 40 straight minutes with Tayshaun around." *damn right!*

-now this is where i actually might agree totally
"(Which reminds me: If we really wanted to win the gold, why wouldn't we just send our defending NBA champions? Imagine the 2004 Pistons headed to Athens in 10 days, completely intact with their coach, only with Duncan sliding into Mehmet Okur's spot and Corey Haim filling the role of Darko? Would anyone be against this? Seriously, anyone?)"
the only ppl who MIGHT disagree are the pistons themselves; it's a novel idea, but you're essentially putting the defending world champs 2 steps behind everybody else in the league when the next season starts.

nobody from my class' around dkc during SS2. ok, there's a few. played some stupidly rediculous games yesterday; one was dividing up the fellowship into guys and girls, and both have to write all these names of people on slips of paper, then dump them in a big box. a volunteer from each group represents them and draws a slip of paper and tries to describe the person w/o the actual name; gain 1 pt if you can say the exact name, pass if you can't. timed. so you have all the guys writing down names like "samaki walker" "tayshaun prince" "dwayne wade" etc, and all the girls are writing down names like worship leaders, actors they like, stuff like that. the classic one of the night was when one of the guys goes,
"YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHO RICK FLAIR WAS? YOU COULD'VE JUST DONE 'WWWOOOOOOO!' "
then there's the game where all the ppls was divided into groups of 4. you have to get all your guys onto this one piece of newspaper. then you divide it in half, repeat. here's some classic quotes off that:
"you're using the sacramento bee???? the classified ads? wth? yolo county is nothing! that's like no space at all! you should've gotten the la times instead!"
(one group had 1 guy and 3 girls)
emcee:so are you guys all cuddled up now? let's move on to our next game-
guy: NO MAN! let's keep playing! i think we can still fit ppl onto this paper even if we divide it in half.
(for the last attempt at getting all the ppl on the paper, he had one girl piggyback'd upon him and 2 girls bear hugging him)

they ended the free 7-11 music dl promotion; but i actually liked the process. and now they have these prepaid cards you can use, so if you're jittery about credit card online purchases, you can now prepay, then go online and dl. the only thing is that i would really like a cd burner so i can actually listen to the songs when in a car.

ESPN.com - OLY/SUMMER04/BASKETBALL - International exposure: Team USA loses to Italy

it's sad really... the only guys it appears from the article on USA who appeared to do their thing on offense was duncan and melo, and even then, i bet they had to struggle to get those numbers.

ever feel like this?

Welcome to uComics Web Site featuring FoxTrot -- The Best Comic Site In The Universe!

Damn! That's some good cheese! Why you didn't tell me this cheese was good? Muthaf***! LOL!!!!!

ESPN.com - GEN - Manute Bol suing cab company over injuries

poor manute...

did you even know you were driving manute bol, former gsw center, beyotch?

i can't cut and paste the conversations i see on mIRC while i'm dling tekken match vids, so i have to take a screenshot instead; click to enlarge; heh heh; WHATHAHTHAHTHTAT! 

still working on ewgf/ws+2, b,f+2,1>2, df+4,4... pathetic... i can't nail the combo. if you ain't fat, i can't nail it with consistency.

i have to drink at least 2 more slurpees before the summer ends... because of these 2 songs:

sugarcult - memory
guns n roses - you could be mine

such a contrast... memory is the typical punk rock song... it's only cause i can't get it out my head that i have to own it... i think it's when the rhythm guitarist starts playing the 2nd verse with harmonics(preview the entire song for free at www.sugarcult.com). and you could be mine is one of my favorite ol skool rock tunes... complete with Slash going nuts on the guitar for some riffs. ol skool rock is awesome... the only thing that puts me off are the vocals sometimes. but you don't know what guitar talent is missing from today's bands til you hear something from the 70s or so. basically anything pre-nirvana.

jon: hey rich are you doing anything today?
me: i might be free tonight
me: does jerm wanna go to jusco again? :D
jon: haha its not open on mondays
jon: we'll probably go tomorrow though
me: heh heh...
me: great...

(jusco is NOT pmt(aka pearl milk tea); it's an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet that's around $8 at lunch in davis; ever since jerm went once he's been hooked; i don't hate sushi, but it's mainly rice, and that's the catch; it fills you up very quickly; i'd rather save up and go to hot pot city; ok so the price is a lot higher, but it's more worth it)

pistons will own rockets on nov 3; but i'm sure the reason why most ppl wanna watch this game is cause of tmac and yao ming... that's ok; i can't wait to see prince d up on tmac just like 2k3 playoffs.

so, what's worse? the fact that the europeans' value of christianity has gone down the drain, or that the way some people are trying to bring it back is by trying to appeal and trying to become one of the world?

i thought the point of trying to become one with the world was that we had to send a message of "hey, we sin just like you; we're only human; but we know that's not the way, and we fight it with all our heart." wasn't that the type of mindset we were supposed to have?

so what's worse? the frying pan? or the fire?

but let's not point fingers too much; we still have to ask yourselves(you, the one who's reading this), if that makes you a better person... because i'm an american? because 58% of us yanks believe in God, whereas the Europeans believe in him about at the 33% mark? hey, demons believe in God; does that make them equal to angels?

well? what's your answer? better answer carefully now...

and remember, if you AREN'T a better person, then maybe you should do some sincere confession.

the deeds don't reflect the heart, but the heart reflects the deeds... think about that...

(btw i love late afternoon davis summer weather... the cool breeze is awesome... being outside is awesome, period)

(i'm chaffing; so much about the hard-earned back-shoulder tan; don't matter though; the skin probably was more BURNED than tanned)

(and tony's coming up to davis around the 15-17; me and jon gotta show this brother of ours around)

(www.jibjab.com; i'm sure you've seen the swf cartoon of bush and kerry; but if not, it's kinda funny.)

(i love the lead guitar riff that the lead guitarist plays on jeremy camp's version of "i will trust in you")