Vergel's Aeneid

One year!

2007-09-28T02:14:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's been a year since I've posted here. And would you look at that, it's about my language studies again! Taking Mandarin Chinese for over a year now has been one of the most challenging, yet rewarding, things I've done in my life.

Being able to sing and understand a pop song in Mandarin has really given me a sense of accomplishment! Enjoy this silly love song (about loving someone as much as mice love rice!).

Two language classes...ugh

2006-09-19T09:27:00.000-05:00

Okay, remind me to never again take two language classes at the same time. I'm absolutely dying here and it's only the second full week of school. GAH.

btw... SIMA.org...you know you want to.

Shoe Bomber = Mr. Fantastic?

2006-08-12T15:33:00.000-05:00

A slight change in the order of their names and you get the same person. Coincidence? I think not. Richard "Crazy Shoe Bomber" Reid uncannily looks like Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards if he would just clean and shave himself once in a while.

I mistakenly reversed the names one night while watching a newscast and hilarity ensued. Yet, upon further analysis of my mistake, I realized that there is more to this juvenile mixup. The Fantastic Four may not be all they are cracked up to be. We must keep tabs on them. We must be vigilant!

Are Video Games too Violent?

2006-08-11T03:52:00.000-05:00

And here it is folks. The "Loop" debate between two titans on G4TV's Attack of the Show!: anti-videogame lawyer Jack Thompson and the iconic Adam "The Sess" Sessler (as well as some other dude from Gamedaily).

I was surprised with Adam's articulation and his spectacular beatdown of the wacky Florida lawyer; someone finally stood up for what the majority of gamers think. I usually think of Adam as this twitchy guy, who's only remembered for his "x out of 5" comment made famous on X-Play, but his points were well-rounded, especially the one about how an increase in teen violence is caused by other, more sinister social ills. It's asses like Jack Thompson who try to limit and censor entertainment because of a connection to a few nutty kids who just happened to like playing video games.

Jack brought up how video games like "Doom" are breeding grounds for school shootings. Seriously, how can "Doom" bring out the mass-murderer in a teenager? I could see how today's more realistic and immersive first person shooters can potentially "train" and educate children about firearms, but that's only been possible in the last couple years. Doom freakin' came out in 1993 where the biggest graphical achievements in gaming were that the level designs weren't rectangular grids anymore and how the weapon sprite of your gun "swayed back and forth" to simulate the fluidity of running. Wonderful!

P.S. Olivia Munn is hawt.

Jack Thompson on tomorrow's AOTS!!!

2006-08-09T21:26:00.000-05:00

Watch as KPer takes down the craptastic anti-videogame lawyer Jack Thompson on tomorrow's Attack of the Show!

I can't wait...maybe Olivia can take a few verbal punches at him too.

And the long awaited first-place winner: Microsoft

2006-08-07T04:07:00.001-05:00

First things first. Now that the total reinvention of E3 has finally hit us all, I’d like to offer a few choice words: what the heck? The show was our gaming oracle, man! We got all useful information from pretty much two big-budget gaming cons; and it was without a doubt that the Electronic Entertainment Expo trumped the Tokyo Game Show every year.

Now instead of filling the LA convention center with 60,000 exhibitors, E3 will now be confined to various Los Angeles hotel exhibition rooms and the invite list will be cut down to 5,000 select attendees. Apparently, the big guys such as Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, and EA felt E3 was consuming a larger and larger portion of their budget each year as they tried to out-flash their competitors. All smoke and mirrors? Yeah, it kinda was, but it’s also what made the expo such a fun thing to follow.

But anyway, in hindsight, the 2006 E3 gaming expo was truly a remarkable event. A landscape achievement in the gaming industry. The next-generation was unveiled at E3, on all fronts. Not one company had a significant advantage over the other as each had their own secret weapons. Even with all the bad pieces of news that came out of this year’s E3, such as the absurd price of the PS3 or the severely lacking visual power of the Wii, console games have evolved from a childish pastime into a sophisticated element of the home theatre and entertainment as a whole.

_________________________

For me, the reason why Microsoft takes number one in my rankings is because of the vision that the Xbox360 will be able to unite all platforms of entertainment in a seamless fashion. From PC gaming to movies, the 360 will be able to achieve the ‘media hub’ fantasy that Sony has been dreaming of since it rolled out the PS1. The “Windows Live” service looks mighty interesting, especially to a person like me, who stopped being a part of the console gaming scene when Half-Life came out in 1998. Online multiplayer matches between PC and console gamers? Sign me up. Sony has tried that model with one game: Final Fantasy XI (of which I’ve invested hundreds of hours in) connected PS2 players with PC players in a MMORPG setting; a perfect genre to introduce this kind of service. But this started back in 2002. Four years later and it’s the only game that seems to enjoy it’s place as the only PC-console cross-platform game out there. The 360 hopes to integrate this kind of gaming across different genres.

The 360’s lineup looks mind-blowing. Gears of War, Shadowrun, Call of Duty 3. One might also recognize that some of these titles will also be seeing the light of day on the PC, not just the console. Let’s see what they want to do with that.

Two words though: Live Anywhere. This idea pretty much sold me and I can’t wait to see how this evolves.

Live Anywhere. Live Anywhere. Live Anywhere. /Ballmer

Updates Coming

2006-07-28T20:43:00.000-05:00

Wow. Long time no see blog. Anyway, updates soon to come; including why I think Microsoft will come out on top in the console wars and more.

Second Place: Nintendo and the Wii

2006-05-16T12:03:00.000-05:00

Coming in second: NINTENDO CO., LTD.

I’ve got to say I was really impressed with Nintendo’s presentation. My only qualm was with their spokesperson, VP of Sales and Marketing Reggie Fils-Aime. It seemed like he was glaring at me, shouting and barking the glory of the Wii at my face. After all, this was the guy who first appeared at the 2004 E3 declaring, “My name is Reggie, I'm about kickin' ass, I'm about takin' names, and we're about makin' games.” Interesting. But anyway, Nintendo’s presentation was not boring at all. It was refreshing and much appreciated, especially after Sony’s bland offering. Nintendo may have very well taken the cake by sweeping E3. That doesn’t necessarily make them number one, though.

Nintendo got right to the point with a movie demonstrating the capabilities of the Wii. It started out like a Wii demo video we’ve seen before, but quickly got into new territory: Super Mario Galaxy, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Excite Truck, etc. All were much-anticipated and I was pleased with how they unveiled the games. And unlike Sony who showcased their hallmark games with a traditional video game trailer, Nintendo showed us how we would be playing these games with the Wii’s intuitive and unique 3D motion-sensing controller.

This was the first time I saw the “Wiimote,” as it has been dubbed by some, used in conjunction with the analog stick attachment called the “nunchuck.” Both aspects of the controller-system have built-in rumble features as well as motion sensing technology. One of the new features of the Wiimote unveiled was the presence of a small speaker built right into the controller. This is so that, for example, when Link shoots an arrow from his bow, you would hear the twang of the bow and the sound of the arrow travel from the controller and straight to the TV. Amazing and innovative, well-done Nintendo.

If the Wiimote style of controlling your games doesn’t suit you, Nintendo also announced their new classic controller, which looks oddly like an SNES controller. It’s very minimalist in design with nice, rounded edges. Nintendo didn’t need to come out with this kind of controller, but it was a welcome change to see a company that knows its player base and the needs of that player base. I wouldn’t have expected anybody else to do this except for Nintendo.

We then saw demos of Red Steel, which looks like an amazing first person shooter experience. I’ve heard reports that the controller layout is too sensitive to the user’s movement, and the sword-fighting is not as amazing as it looks and sounds to be. Ubisoft can probably fix that in half a year, so the game should be a welcome treat come launch time.

Next up: The Twilight Princess demo was amazing. Albeit, I was a little overwhelmed with the complicated ways the game uses the Wii remote controller; so many things to do and keep track of, especially with the “nunchuck” in one hand and the remote in the other. The presence of the little fairy tracking the movements of the controller was also quite distracting. Regardless, I have not played the game first-hand, so I don’t really know how all of these details weave themselves into a unique playing experience.

The DS lineup looks very, very strong. It would be safe to bet that the PSP lineup pales in comparison with some of the individual titles the DS will be offering later this year. Ranging from Yoshi’s Island 2, a new Super Mario Brothers, Final Fantasy III all done up in new graphics (and released in America), MegaMan DS, Zelda DS, Starfox DS, to other import games. The introduction of the DS Lite in the US should boost sales for Nintendo as well. (I want one!)

The Wii is probably going to be much cheaper than the PS3, hovering around the price of around 250 dollars. The graphics are not as great as the Xbox 360’s or the PS3’s, but I think the actual fun factor you would get when playing with the Wii makes up for that lack in technical cutting edge. And what am I saying; the motion sensors in the Wii alone make it one of the most cutting edge technologies out there.

And what about the tennis demo at the end with Miyamoto and Iwata, Miyamoto and Spielberg, or Miyamoto and pretty much any high-level journalist/celebrity? Looks like it’s going to be a workout!

As for the top spot...you can already probably guess who it's going to be.

Third Place: Sony and the Playstation 3

2006-05-12T03:47:00.000-05:00

And coming in last, but certainly not least:

SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT

To be honest, I was quite bored with Sony's press conference. I was eagerly anticipating some big, high-budget show where they would unveil the successor to the undisputed king of the consoles: the PlayStation 2. Why then was I almost falling asleep thirty minutes into their much-hyped presentation? Probably because it was the same old thing. Okay, there is the PS3 that we've seen a lot of times before (nothing surprising there), and there are the landmark games that we would expect on it. Expect is the keyword of this press conference. Everything was expected. Well, maybe not the astonishing price.

Here is the trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4. There is the trailer for Gran Turismo 5. Oh wow, there are some screens of the new Silent Hill, the new Killzone, Armored Core, Tekken, and of course Final Fantasy XIII. Oh, and here are the PSP games coming out. Alright. Some of those games are like on their 6th iterations (oh wait, excuse me, Final Fantasy is on its 13th iteration (or is really like 15th because of FF: Tactics and FFX-2?), hooray!)! Give me something new!

The two most shocking highlights of the press conference were (1) the price of the PS3, and (2) the unveiling of the "real" PS3 controller (no more boomerangs!). These announcements weren't even welcoming surprises. There were purely absurd. I will not lay down 600 dollars for a PS3. Oh, what is that you say? There is also a second model for 500 dollars?! Whoop de doo, it lacks significant features that the 600 dollar version has, so who wouldn't shell out the extra hundred dollars if they were already ready to pay 500 dollars. What exactly do you get when you save a hundred bucks? Let's see:

499.99 vs. 599.99
- Only 20GB instead of 60GB HDD
- No HDMI (High-Def) output
- No MemoryStick/SD Card/Compact Flash slots
- No wireless 802.11 b/g (this feature is worth the extra $100)
- $100 in your pocket.

Uhh, considering all these features you would forego, you might be stupid if you buy the 500 dollar iteration of the PS3, but who am I to judge. You might really really want to save that extra hundred bucks for a game or two.

Secondly, the "new" controller. What the freakin' hell! Sony, that controller is not new. It looks exactly like your Dual Shock 2 controllers. But wait! What's that? No more "dual shock?" No more vibration because of the primitive motion sensors you stuck inside the controller? This is like a ‘de-evolution’ of your controller, Sony. I was hoping for a new, fresh design. But no, your controllers still look very similar to your PS1 controllers. You are working with an eleven-year old controller design! And don't tell me you were seriously going to market that "boomerang" crap. Gah!

Nothing groundbreaking. Nothing spectacular. PSP lineup wasn't stellar. I wasn't even impressed with the graphics of the PS3. Looks pretty much like the Xbox360's graphics, maybe even worse, who knows. And why would I need a Blu-Ray player. Being the primary reason for the high cost of the system, you don't even know if it will be the standard format with HD-DVD still on the prowl. I wouldn't get too cocky Sony. Remember the miniDisc? Mmhmm.

Who's number two? Wait and find out!

The Big 3 at E3: Who's Number One?

2006-05-12T03:04:00.000-05:00

We've seen some great stuff happening over at E3 for the past couple of days. Both Nintendo and Sony unveiled their next-gen systems, Microsoft announced their 2006-7 gaming lineup, and the PC gaming scene was very much alive with its own shocks and surprises. It would be without a doubt, however, that console gaming took center-stage this year. After watching the press conferences of the "Big 3" console makers, who do I think came out number one? Read on and find out.

North Korea: Super Awesome or Super CRAZY?

2006-05-06T04:15:00.000-05:00

In East Asian History class today we talked about the evolution of North Korea from fledgling, isolated communist state in the 1950s to the fledgling, isolated communist state it is today. Under the direction of two eccentric leaders (more notably Kim Jong Il than his father), North Korea has gone pretty much nowhere over its more than half a century of existence. It's neighbor to the south, South Korea, has exploded in terms of the economic and political clout it holds in the international scene.

From a purely childish point of view (barring all notions of human rights violations, government corruption, and hostility towards the United States), North Korea is quite a happening place. That is, if your name is Kim Jong Il. This guy kidnaps Japanese film directors and recreates blockbuster American movies with him in the lead role. He has an impressive garage of exotic cars. His culinary taste intimidates even the most jaded of palettes; wines imported (illegally) from Napa Valley, Beluga caviar from Russia's royal reserves, foie gras from the best farms in France. His bodyguards are made up of an elite guard, trained to withstand the harshest conditions and concrete blocks being smashed on their faces. His gun collection is wide and extensive, containing standard issue rifles from the armed forces of more than 25 countries; soldiers and aides also proclaim great respect for Kim Jong Il's marksmanship abilities, they say he is "most deadly." He's pretty much the only person in the country with internet access. He has an assortment of grand villas scattered across the country; one inland palace has seawater pumped in just because Kim wants to swim in sea water sometimes. He's a huge fan of the NBA, always up to date with current standings; Madeline Albright presented him with a souvenir autographed basketball signed by Michael Jordan. He's supposedly has had nine illegitimate children and is constantly seen as drunk or divulging in "sexual excess" affairs.

I want to go to North Korea to see what it's life to live in a country run by this kind of leader. If you get anything out of this post, go to this Flash detailing the Korean Friendship Association...AWESOME music. Believe me, just wait for it.

Oh! And don't forget to pick up your official North Korean badge over at the government's gift shop! Sweet!

Vault: Drinks like a Soda, Kicks like an Energy Drink

2006-04-25T21:43:00.000-05:00

First of all, I'm not really getting the hang of this nomenclature. I keep thinking of “Surge” when I write about Vault. Probably because it is Surge, just with a new name. In the never ending battle to knock Mountain Dew off its high throne, Coca-Cola does something interesting with this new Vault of theirs.

I have to say, I loathe the taste of original Mountain Dew. After drinking several gulps of it, I feel as if I'm going to puke lime-green liquid all over the floor. My gag reflex acts up about halfway through a bottle of it. Everytime I find myself with a can or bottle of Mountain Dew in my hand, I have to ask myself the question: Why? Why am I drinking this abhorrent beverage, riddled with so much sugar and caffeine, you feel like you are going to urinate super-concentrated yellow liquid. I never liked it before, what would have changed this time around?

Well, it's a big hit with the gaming crowd, supplying them with much needed caffeine to last them through the night. And Mountain Dew: Red Code ain't all that bad either. Since it is a soda, many people don't know how much caffeine they are ingesting when they chug down 5 or 6 cans per night. This inevitably begged someone to make a Death By Caffeine calculator, where you choose your caffeinated beverage of choice, enter your weight, and click on the truly macabre “kill me” button.

Apparently, it takes:

136.5 cans of Mountain Dew
or
107.25 cans of Vault

to kill me.

Wow, it's really that potent? Interesting...

But anyway, enough of this Mountain Dew talk. Vault is the relatively new energy soda (well, pretty much the only marketed “energy soda”) on the market, and you'd like to know how it tastes.

Well, for starters, the liquid is very crisp without a lot of lingering sugary slime; compare 7Up's crispness to Sprite's sweetness, and that's how Vault compares to a can of Dew. The all-too-familiar gag reflex was pretty nonexistant, I was surprised. The actual taste of Vault tastes exactly like Mountain Dew to me. Heck, it tastes like Surge, Mello Yello, and whatever other supermarket generic “mountain dew-like” soda is out there. No surprise there. I honestly wasn't expecting much, but I guess it tastes OK. Not awesome. Not Barq's Root Beer awesome. But pretty good nonetheless.

The real kicker is finding out that one bottle of Vault has the same amount of caffeine found inside 1.5 cans of Red Bull. Wow, you should have told me that before I went out and drank one at 2 in the freakin' morning. Hey, I didn't get any warning either, why should you? ;-)

But yeah, I drank a bottle of Vault at midnight (stupid!) one day, and couldn't sleep until about 8AM the next day in which I promptly had to get up at 9:30. Let me tell you, that was a pretty bad day. (Not as bad as today, however, where I did not get a single minute of sleep. As of this moment, I've been awake for close to thirty-five hours minus the three hour nap I had yesterday afternoon. Schweeeet.)

Oh, and get this, since it was from a vending machine, it came out in your standard 20 oz. PET soda bottle. Bwahaha, that means I had ingested ~120 mg of caffeine by the time I finished it. As you may know, an 8.2 oz can of Red Bull contains 80 mg of caffeine, and a 12 oz can of Mountain Dew has 55 mg of caffeine. After thirty minutes or so, I unconsciously started becoming uncontrollably jittery. Although, I also had a renewed vigor to work and I punched out a research paper as well as an analytical paper. All in four hours time! So, yes, I can attest to the fact that the caffeine in this stuff really works. It isn't all talk. It really does have some kick to it. It has become my primary beverage of choice when studying for exams or when I need to write a paper(s). I need to have gotten a sufficient amount of sleep the night beforehand, however, as I do not want to die of heart exhaustion or whatnot.

What would I rate it, you say? Hmm.

6 out of 10.

Naps: part of the devil's toolkit.

2006-04-18T21:14:00.000-05:00

Due to my erroneous poly/biphasic sleep cycle, there are times when I cannot take any naps in order to refresh myself. Usually, I go to class on 3 hours of sleep, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I am able to take a late morning/midafternoon big nap (3-4 hours). But what about the days when I need to attend some sort of event that occurs in the middle afternoon; could be a test or a deadline I have to meet. Today, for instance, I had an Econ test at 4:00 PM. Originally, my plan was to get out of English class around 9:15, sleep until 11:15 and get some studying done before I headed down to the test room.

After a series of surprising events, our English teacher handed back some of our papers and said to us, "On account of it being sunny today, I'm cancelling class." Whoa there. Did I hear you correctly, Prof. NvC? Did you just say you are cancelling class? WE ONLY HAVE SIX CLASS MEETINGS LEFT. WE ALSO HAVE TWO MORE BOOKS TO READ. I'm not complaining, though. Any cancelled class is an awesome class. So I smiled and said, "Thank You!" and waltzed my merry way out of there. So, it was 8:10AM and I was disoriented. What did I need to accomplish today again? Ahhh yes, that's right. I need to print out my two-page rough draft on Mao Zedong and his critique on The Scholars by Wu Ching-Tzu. I e-mailed the document to myself and headed over the computer lab to print it out. I handed it in promply at 8:50AM, a full 8 hours and 10 minutes before the actual deadline. Sweet. I'm ahead of schedule!

I go back to my room. Hmm...it's 9:05AM and I have around 6.5 hours left before the test. Come on, who're you kidding, you're only going to study for an hour at most. Yeah, that's true. Maybe I'll check the various fora that I frequent, check my email, surf the web, etc. Ok, I'll do that. Next thing I know, it's 9:50 and Math class is in ten minutes. GAH. Maybe I should skip it? Yes, that would seem like the more practical choice. I mean, it's just going to be a review of what we did yesterday and so on. And, I really need to be awake for my Econ test. So at 9:55AM I climb into bed and set my alarm for 11:55. That's a good two hours of sleep there. I should be rested. Gah, who am I kidding. You'll probably wake up and say to yourself, "Hmm, I still have a good 4 hours until the test, and since I'm only going to study for an hour, I can allow myself a little more rest." Well, I'd like to give myself the benefit of the doubt. What if I suddenly think of something that I forgot to study and need to allow myself time to learn it? Fine.

ring ring ring goes the alarm clock. Aaarrghhh, it's 11:55 already? DAMN! I'll put it on nap mode for another 40 minutes. I should be awake by 12:30PM.

ring ring ring goes the alarm clock. What the freakin' hell? 12:30 already? Gah, never mind, I still have 4 hours. Plently of time. I'll set it on nap mode for fifty minutes. 1:20. I should definitely be awake then. Yeah, sounds like a good plan.

ring ring ring. Okay, wtf. I seriously just slept 5 minutes ago, how can it be 1:20?! Nap mode. Ten minutes. Give. It. To. Me. PLEASE. Okay, you can rest until 1:30. 1:30 seems like such a better time anyway. I mean, come on, who counts in 20s? What is 1:20 anyway? A third past one? Half past one sounds much better. Yes, 1:30 it is.

ring ring ri---. pllleassee, just ten more minutes! I'll just lay in bed. I won't set anything. I'll watch the clock with my eyes open until it hits 1:40. I just need time to wake myself up. Mmmm....my pillow is so nice....maybe I'll just ---

GODDAMN. It's 1:47PM. Fine. Fine. I'll get up.

I get myself up and take a shower to refresh. Get to the library by 2:15. Only studied for an hour, like I predicted I would, and came back to my room at 3:30 to grab my backpack and headed for the test. Glorious.

Moral of the story? Well, now that I look back at the day, I didn't do anything wrong. I did everything I predicted I would do. I didn't miss anything (with the slight exception of math class), and I didn't get in trouble at any point in the day. I think I fared well...yes, yes I think I did.

So, you want to be like Jack Bauer?

2006-04-11T20:54:00.000-05:00

For 24 updates and more tech stuff, visit my new blog @ SIMA.org (Snakes in My Ass!)

No one can be exactly like Jack Bauer. He's too hardcore. You'd kill yourself by even dreaming that you were Jack Bauer.

You, however, want to be in his likeness. So, I have compiled a handy list for those Jack Bauer wannabes; perfect for a night out on the town or for saving the United States of America from biological or nuclear obliteration.

There are essential items that Jack Bauer wears that contribute to his overall trademark ruggedness and badassness. They are:

(1) his jacket
(2) his over-the-shoulder bag
(3) his watch
(4) his sunglasses
(5) his cell phone
(6) his pistol

If you are able to pilfer all of these items you are one step closer to being similar to Jack Bauer. If you dare claim that you are Jack Bauer, Jack will personally appear at your house in the middle of the night, shoot your loved ones in the kneecaps, kick your dog, smash your fine china, and then personally torture you by carving off a chunk of your FACE. Do you really want to go through all that? No, I didn't think so.

Item 1: the Jacket

Jack uses a variety of suave and sophisticated jackets over the 5 days that we've been following him. A personal favorite of mine is the jacket/hoody. After intense deliberation and speculation, a lot of people have claimed that Jack's jacket is the japanese-made: Supreme Water Proof Hooded M65 JKT Black.Not only will you be stylin', but you'll also be pragmatic with the hood. You'd dare not take your chances catching a cold while saving the world, would you? Of course, Jack Bauer doesn't get sick, he makes other people sick.

Item 2: the over-the-shoulder bag

Pack smartly for any situation with this shoulder-strapped bag: the Heavyweight Classic Messenger and Travel Bag -- Unisex made by Ultra Force.
Jack brings this thing everywhere. Whether he needs a fully-loaded magazine for his pistol, some expertly-crafted C4 demoliton packs, or his freakin' sunglasses, this thing holds it all and more.

Item 3: the watch

Time moves unbearably slow in the world of Jack Bauer. Heck, he needs to stop conniving terrorists in a single day. No bathroom breaks, no naps, no showers, no time to eat, no nothing. Jack Bauer focuses on the task at hand. And what perfect timepiece to showcase than the: Ballistic band MTM Special Ops watch. MTM is recognized for their specially designed military watches: perfect for Jack.

Item 4: his sunglasses

Jack Bauer likes to rock it 80s style with his huge aviator glasses that intimidate even Christopher Henderson (i.e. Robocop "Murphy"). Any aviators will do but as a suggestion: Elite Metal Aviator Sunglasses with Mirror Lens by 80s Purple will do fine.
The mirror effect on these babies will prove handy when interrogating suspected perps. For Jack Bauer, as soon as you can see your reflection in his sunglasses, you're probably already dead and Jack's image is just seared in your mind for the rest of eternity.

UPDATE: If the 80s Purple style doesn't suit you, and you want to go totally official Jack Bauer style, try out the Serengeti Large Aviators...you won't regret buying them. (Thanks Ali)

Item 5: the phone

You find yourself in a ventilation shaft high above some terrorists. You need to snap some high quality pics and upload them to Chloe, but you have no digital camera and/or laptop computer! You also need to dupe German special agents by letting them think you transferred over to them the list of undercover CIA operatives in Europe, but you have no PDA! Also, Kim's birthday is coming up but since you've neglected her, you don't know when it is! You need some sort of calendar/address book type thing! Have no fear. Jack Bauer is a hardcore pirate and can afford a brand-new Palm Treo 650 Smartphone.

Item 6: the pistol

Believe me, you do not want to be looking down the barrel of this thing. Jack's H&K USP Compact has the unholy power of not missing. If Jack fires, you die. Simple.

That's it! You're done! Now slap on some jeans, a kevlar vest, some SWAT tactical boots, and you'll be rockin' it like Jack Bauer.

Furthermore, if you want to embody the true essence of Jack Bauer. Here are a few tips:

Be a white guy. Have blonde/brown hair. Be 5'10 and a half.

Get a bachelor's degree in English Literature from UCLA. Get a Masters of Science in Criminology from UC Berkeley.

Get married. Have a daughter in the likeness of Elisha Cuthbert.

Join the military and be part of the Delta Force Counter Terrorist Group. Go to the LAPD Swat School. Be on LAPD SWAT. Get hired by Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU).

Have your wife killed by a co-worker.

Work your way up to be the special agent in charge, and eventually Director of Field Ops. Go undercover in the Columbian drug cartel. Become the special assistant to the Secretary of Defense.

Fake your own death.

And finally, be reinstated into duty by a corrupt President of the United States.

Source: Fox Broadcasting Company

MUSICAL CRITIQUE: Oblivion Title Music

2006-03-23T22:47:00.000-05:00

Wow, sorry about all the Oblivion posts, but I’m just so impressed by its technical, artistic, and gameplay genius. And, though it may be really incredibly geeky and nerdy, I just can’t stop listening to the title music of the game…and I don’t even have the game yet! So, as a precursor to the day (tomorrow) when I can finally hear the music in its original setting, here is a little musical critique and analysis. For the UHS folk out there, umm…think of this like Western Civ turned inside-out, flipped over, inverted again, stretched, and fanaticized. Maybe I should hand this in to Doc, huh? Maybe not. Hehe.

(if you want to follow along with the music, here is the link to the title track (Right-Click -> Save as... to download) in its full glory, or you can click play on this embeddable quicktime player I've provided :-) )

When you listen to the theme music of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, you are thrust into an epic tale that invokes every single emotion within your body to well up and overflow into each of your limbs. It destroys all of your mental faculties and grasps you with the force of unknowing gravity. This is it. You cannot escape now.

The steady bass drum beats and low percussion sound throughout your bones and they resonate with a passion that rivals that immaculate chivalry of medieval knights (a signal of impending battle). The underlying stringed instruments weave a web of uncertainty that is only accentuated by the precise, staccato hemiolas. The homophony present also adds to the whole ideal of mental incapability and the cerebral pushes aside all emotion as you are left struggling to find where you are within the music. The entrance of rolling crash and ride cymbals from a drum kit (as well as traditional cymbals) at 0:10 crescendo into an oeuvre that throws one of his chair after arriving at the edge of undeniable anticipation.

At 00:17 the horns come in with a bright timbre, similar to a royal fanfare, calling all heroes to embark on this journey. At 00:27, violins take up a primary melody with the bass instruments creating a fugal subject underneath; adding more instruments through the fugue acts as a sort of dumbed-down “Rossini crescendo,” adding only strings to raise the volume as the music progresses. The section opens to the deep voices of the bassoon and horns at 00:42 with the steady accompaniment of drums. The base, gruesome quality is centered on a native blend of erratic rhythm and sound. A vocal chorus adds even more color.

The strings are overshadowed by this, playing at forte only to be covered by the tone color of the brass and winds. The emotion is dark in comparison with the previous heroic strings section. When we think the strings cannot emerge out of this mess of volume and sound, a lone piccolo emerges with a harp and solo vocal soprano accompaniment that produces a light and airy, yet bright color. Evolving into a string melody once again at 1:08, the tone turns into a swelling, yet calm, melody, with natural subsets of gloss. After a monumental rollercoaster ride of theme and variation, the piece ends with an afterthought that, should the player choose to, allows the music to be completed in a way that is bound only by the limits of imagination.

Clearly drawing upon all walks of musical history, award-winning composer Jeremy Soule manipulates the score to be the perfect companion to this massive, enthralling story of a game. From Romanticism to the Baroque, the styles are melded into one minute and fifty seconds of pure, evocable genius. The theatricality, though there, is perfect for the setting, drawing upon creative insights from tales like The Lord of the Rings or other medieval fables, fantasy or historical.

Couple this with the excellent voice acting of Patrick Stewart (Emperor Uriel Septim VII), Sean Bean (The Lost Heir), and Terrence Stamp (Daedric Lord Mehrunes Dagon) among others, and you’ve got yourself the kind of story depth that Oblivion offers.

Apple’s foray into the PMP market – why it may not be the next iPod.

2006-03-23T19:17:00.000-05:00

April 1^st marks Apple Computer's 30^th anniversary, and being the great showman that he is, Steve Jobs is planning something big – something really big. Most have speculated (and in some sneaky ways, confirmed) the existence of Apple’s next big move: unveiling the 6^th Generation iPod. No one really knows for sure what kind of breakthrough features this piece of technology will have. It may drop the whole touchwheel and replace it with full touchscreen capabilities, integrate Bluetooth technology to enable wireless headphones, and last but not least, it may be a full-on Portable Media Player (PMP). Being a PMP, the iPod would be transformed into a true video iPod with a four-inch screen.

Treading into the PMP market would make Apple compete in a totally different sector of the market. Currently reigning PMP champs, Archos and Cowon, would have to ramp things up a bit in order for their products to not be overshadowed by the big marketing campaign of the iPod. Making a PMP is not as cheap as, say, making an MP3 player. The prices of current media players range upwards of 400 dollars for a measly twenty gigabytes of storage; the most expensive video player on the market being the abysmal Archos AV4100 going for close to 800 dollars. Apple would need to keep things cheap if they plan to migrate their faithful consumers over to true video playback. The best-selling iteration of the 5G iPod is the 30Gb version, selling for as low as 250 dollars; dwarfing the sales for the 60Gb version aimed towards hardcore music fans and college students with massive media libraries.

With this much money floating around, we can still assume that many people will go for the iPod based on its elegance and design. The concept art that have been floating around for the 6G iPod are truly outstanding and next-gen in its aesthetic. However, many people will be looking closely at alternatives. What sets Apple apart from these other companies that I’ve never heard of, like Cowon and Archos? Intuitive functionality, iTunes synchronization, easy interface. All well and good, but the market for the PMP is dominated by a different age-set; not your typical teenager or yuppie jogger.

Archos and Cowon have relied on the uber-geek, the technical literati, the audiophiles, and the flippin’ rich between the ages of 20 and 35 to fund their PMP device production. And don’t forget the battery, the Cowon A2, a relatively small form-factor in the PMP business, punches out a whopping 20 hours of audio playback and 10 hours of video playback. These people who buy this kind of thing aren’t afraid to carry around a ‘brick’ in order that they get the best possible video and audio quality. I highly doubt, judging from their past offerings, Apple will support Divx, Xvid, and WMV9 video, WMA, OGG, FLAC, and what not on their players. They would keep to their strict adherence of .m4a and .m4v format. Thus, it is interesting to watch what is happening over in France with their piece of legislation that might open up the iPod and iTunes finally.

What I think will happen is that Apple will release their video iPod PMP to much critical acclaim…but they will not totally abandon their mp3 roots, and still offer newer and updated versions of their 5G iPod. Of course, the iPod nano will still be on the market, and who knows how small they can get that thing to be. If I turn out to be wrong on all this and Apple creates a visually appealing, super futuristic long-lasting Portable Media Player that can play anything I want coupled with superb audio and video quality, then sign me up; I’ll drop 500 clams for one.

The Day of Reckoning has Arrived...Oblivion is here.

2006-03-21T19:29:00.000-05:00

Shipping out from Bethesda's factories on the East Coast on the 20th, the 21st (today) will be the day when most people receive their shiny, fresh copy of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on their doorsteps. At the time of this post, the game has only been getting rave reviews, affirming the game's greatness among casual and hardcore RPG fanatics.

Numerous friends have told me of their good fortune, finding stray copies at their local Target, Walmart, and CompUSA. All the top gaming chains have all since but depleted their stocks. EB Games, Babbages, Gamestop, and Best Buy are turning away downtrodden consumers from their doors, leaving them to fend for themselves. Naturally, being the hot commodity it is, Oblivion has shown up on Ebay with markups ranging from 5 to 30 dollars. Numerous bidders have made one Xbox360 copy go for 80 dollars without shipping costs; and the auction isn't even over with two days to go.

I myself was foolish to not preorder my copy sooner. Online reserves from Amazon.com and other online sites are fresh out. It's a good thing I got the hookup at *a place that will go unnamed in order to protect the identity of the employee* which gurantees me a copy when I return back to San Francisco for Spring Break. Bless his kind, generous heart. I haven't been anticipating a game this much since Half-Life 2, and that's a lot of awesome games to be meandering through since it's release. This will also be the first time I've actually...erm...purchased a game since Half-Life 2 (with the slight exception of the expansion pack for Battlefield 2). This game won't suck, I know it, and I want to support Bethesda in developing more of these types of games; thus they get my money. "Tactically acquiring" this game would be a betrayal to them. And if the game does suck, well, I'll still be left with one crappy, but awfully good-looking game.

Chinese Gold Farmers (i.e. Real Money Traders)

2006-03-19T04:22:00.000-05:00

(thanks for the idea Alex H.)

During my senior year at University High School, I took an English elective, taught by teacher extraordinaire Jesse Berrett, called the “Art of Nonfiction.” For our final project, we were able to write about any topic with the only limitation that the piece had to be written in a style comparable to one of the authors we read. I chose David Foster Wallace for his humorous wordplay and very bizarre (yet weirdly open) sentence structure.

Since video games are my passion, I was debating what exactly to write about. Surely a comprehensive history of video gaming would take much more than the allotted 10-15 pages. So I set forth on a journey to narrow down my topics. I had been extensively playing the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), World of Warcraft, at the time, so, naturally, I was drawn towards trying to explain to the gaming-uneducated this huge and dynamic world. Not only this, I wanted to try and show how the image of the “gamer” has evolved over the decades. I would explain how role-playing games evolved with this image and how the MMORPG was a culmination of increased social interaction between the once anti-social “gamer” crowd.

In a brainstorming session in class, we presented our ideas and fellow peers would comment on the topic and make suggestions of their own. One of the people in my class, a seventeen-year old entrepreneur named Ben Casnocha (Founder of Comcate, Inc. Some of the stuff that he has done is truly remarkable), suggested that I focus on how these worlds work…from an economic standpoint. How does this world sustain itself? Explain how auctions are created, item acquisition, crafting, and professions. People need to make money in this game, so how does that mimic the real world? Indeed, a college professor paid for his students to play MMORPGs and to let them report back to him what they found out on how to manipulate the economy in this certain game.

My classmate then touched on the whole business of “Chinese gold farming” or “real money trading,” which is a severe problem in Asia these days. These farmers are not all Chinese as the nomenclature suggests. They can be Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc., it’s just a popular generalization that lumps all Asians into this one group; in and of itself a discriminating effect. Kids drop out of school to get paid to play these MMORPGs. However, they don’t play for fun. All of their game time has to be allotted towards one goal: make as much money as possible so that they can sell the gold to rich American gamers on auction sites like Ebay or gold-trading sites like IGE.

Employers provide the PCs, shelter, and wage for these gold farmers. Albeit, the wages they get are paltry; around 50 cents/hour. The living conditions provided are to be described as inhumane at best. And these people play games for more than 12 hours straight, putting hygiene and sanity on call as they traverse the colorful lands of Azeroth, Vana’diel, Dereth, *insert whatever game world here*. People have died playing these games. You usually don’t hear about them either. What you do hear, however, are stories about idiotic people playing at internet cafes 24/7 because they want to. These people are just like you and me who get so addicted to these games and play until acute respiratory distress or renal failure seizes them. They aren’t paid to play these games on a rigorous, monitored schedule.

Yet no one makes a big fuss over these “Chinese gold farmers.” Racism? Yeah, that’s part of it. Ignorance? Definitely. Don’t tell me to get off my high horse and say, “Well if that’s how it’s gonna be, then leave them to their doing. They made their own choice to get into the line of employment, it should be their lookout.” That would be like telling me to leave the genocide in Sudan alone, acknowledging of course the lesser impact of this. Mostly, people don’t think twice about this because they think that these gold farmers are just like them, sitting “in front of their PCs, with Mountain Dew cans riddled around their room” to quote a friend. 1up.com has a very well-written article about this phenomenon titled "From sweatshops to stateside corporations, some people are profiting off of MMO gold."

This isn’t any different from the sweatshop crisis happening in other parts (and in the same part) of the world. Ge Jin, a PhD student from UCSD, is making a video documentary of the gold farming phenomenon. I really hope that this project of his can help educate people (like me) more about this growing problem. You can see the breaking blog post over at Terra Nova "Disembodiment, Hypermobility, and Labor."

An interesting comment Ge made:

When I entered a gold farm for the first time (Tietou's gaming workshop in the preview), I was shocked by the positive spirit there, the farmers are passionate about what they do, and there is indeed a camaraderie between them ... I do see suffering and exploitation too, but in that place suffering is mixed with play and exploitation is embodied in a gang-like brotherhood and hierarchy. When I talked with the farmers, they rarely complained about their working condition, they only complained about their life in the game world.

Although they have to work/play for 12 hours a day, they take pride in what they achieve and they seem eager to escape into a virtual reality richer, brighter, and more exciting than their impoverished real world lives.

Here is a preview of his upcoming documentary courtesy of YouTube:

It's freakin' snowing (redux)...in San Francisco?

2006-03-13T03:38:00.000-05:00

This pic was sent to me by my brother back in San Francisco. Yes, that's right, that white stuff is snow. "But wait," you ask, "SAN FRANCISCO has snow?" Indeed, it is truly perplexing. Apparently, it hasn't snowed in San Francisco in quite a while...thirty years to be exact; the snow that fell thirty years ago was also very miniscule.

The pic was taken in front of my house, near the base of our massive palm tree. Kind of a poignant image, no? I mean, there you have a palm tree, embodying the essence of hot tropical weather, and at it's base you got snow, the white flurry goodness synonymous with a much colder climate.

On the other hand, here in Maine, we have been having no snow, and temperatures are steadily climbing into the 40s. And thus signaling the end of winter. Let us all reminisce by visiting the original "It's freakin' snowing!" post from way way way back in November, eh?

Tribute to the Intarweb - 2003-2006

2006-03-10T02:39:00.000-05:00

Nihonrobot from SomethingAwful.com put together an impressive montage of gifs, stills, movies, flashes, etc. that have been indubitably some of the most influential stuff among the geek elite. Coupled with some extreme j-pop style music (if you want to know the name of the song, it is Revolution Deathsquad by Dragonforce), you won't be able to look away for the full eight minutes. Absolutely mind blowing! I pay tribute to the internet. So should you!

If you see something in here that you haven't seen before, you are not worthy to call yourself a computer geek. I speak "da truthz."

Natalie Portman: Rapper? A Darn Good One.

2006-03-06T00:29:00.000-05:00

QUICKTIME Version: Courtesy Milk and Cookies

WINDOWS MEDIA Version: Courtesy I-Am-Bored

omg...haha Natalie Portman is actually a pretty good rapper. My favorite parts:

- a little girl in an Amidala costume asks for her autograph on a piece of paper, Natalie grabs the paper and throws it in the air

- Natalie claims she can drink all night (then proceeds to smash a bottle on her head)

- Natalie says "i'll sit down right on your face and take a sh*t"

She looks like she's having fun throughout the whole skit, which is a really big plus to her.

(EDIT 03/06/2006 5:20EST: NBC's lawyers told YouTube to remove the Portman vid from their site. Thus, I had to resort to desperate measures to bring you this classic piece of humor. My apologies to those who do not have the Quicktime plugin. It should be easy to acquire.)

(EDIT 03/06/2006 5:30EST: Ok, this is just dumb. After I found that the embeddable flash video from YouTube was inaccessible by people, I went to a different site and sneakily stole the page source code for an embeddable Quicktime version of the movie. Apparently though, this site does not want 'linking' content from their site. Now I am forced to send you to that site to view it, instead of viewing it from the cozy confines of this blog. GAH! I was able to find an embeddable version after a while of looking, but realized it was in Windows Media Format...so as to not discriminate against Mac users (who make up about 10 percent of my reader base), I shall give everyone the option to choose what format they would like to view the vid in. That is, until NBC gets ahold of these renegade sites and forces them to take off the content.)

Mary Jane's Batcave

2006-03-05T20:49:00.000-05:00

Lol, I guess this is how they roll down in Tennessee. Super elaborate growing scheme that must have cost millions of dollars to put into motion.

"This grow was underneath a house in a cave. The entrance was through a secret hydraulic door in the garage that led to a concrete ramp that went about 50 yards into the ground. Inside the cave was living quarters and a secret escape hatch that led you through a tunnel that exited via another hydraulic door that opened up a rock on the outside. It was very elaborate. The set up allowed them to harvest every 60 days which resulted in multi-million dollar sales. One of the guys busted was living in a house on the water in Florida and had a nice yacht.

One of the agents here in Nashville worked on this for 5 years before the warrant was finally served in December."

These super wily drug dealers...thinking life is like the movies. Pshaw. More pics when you click the link!

I'm the Juggernaut, B!TCH!!!

2006-03-05T04:20:00.000-05:00

(don't hurt me alex)

Not safe for work/school! Do NOT watch if easily offended by profanity or lewd commends.

I laughed much too long watching this. And if you do watch this, make sure your sound is up so you can actually hear what's being said.

The Ocarina

2006-03-05T01:45:00.000-05:00

I was talking to my friend today who was ranting and raving on how he would do anything at that moment to be able to play Zelda: Ocarina of Time again. This brought back very fond memories. I loved playing OOT so much that I actually bought a real, working, exact replica of Link's blue ocarina back in 1999. Apparently, the place where I purchased my ocarina still exists.

Yet, it was disappointing when I looked at the Zelda ocarinas they are now selling. They seem to be highly glossed over and polished, unlike the one that I bought. The one I bought had a very rustic aesthetic to it. The ones they now sell look very "mass produced." Mine was made of rough clay (not glossed or shiny), the holes in the ocarina were imperfectly cut, and the clay was not molded evenly, leaving slight dents and dimples on the surface. To me, this was really awesome. It was like this ocarina that I was playing came straight out of Link's pocket.

In fact, I did play the Ocarina, managing to learn pretty much all of the songs from Ocarina of Time (such as Saria's Song, Song of Time, Zelda's Lullaby). It was quite fun, and now I wonder where I put the darn thing...

Nice day to Kayak...UNTIL...

2006-03-05T01:35:00.000-05:00

...THIS happens. Wow. I just feel so sorry for that guy on the kayak. His day started out like, "Hey Jim, can't wait to go kayaking with you and friend today. It's going to be a blast." Then they get to the dock area, "Wow, the sun is shining and the water is as flat as glass. This is going to be the best day ever!!!"

Then...a freakin' WHALE jumps ON YOU.

Take note of the japanese guy taking the video, he seems frantic as heck.

Change the channel, quick!

2006-02-27T02:45:00.000-05:00

Hehe, kinda makes you wonder if there is softspot in all of us...even the hardboiled 'nothing-to-lose' type.

Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

2006-02-26T21:19:00.000-05:00

So, I was listening to one of my playlists, and the song by Lemon Demon - Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny came on. I reminisced of the first time I saw that famous animation and now want to share it with you. CHUCK NORRIS TO SAVE THE DAY...Here it is:

You can also see the cleaned up flash version on Newgrounds.

Graphical Evolution: The Elder Scrolls Series

2006-02-25T22:14:00.000-05:00

It's amazing to look at how graphics in computer games have evolved over the past ten years. Take the Elder Scrolls series for example. This franchise has been growing since 1993 with the release of Elder Scrolls I: Arena :

Their next installment was Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall in 1996 catalyzing the so-called "RPG Renaissance of 1996-1999." During this three-year period, classics such as Baldur's Gate, Diablo, and Fallout were released. Also significant during this period was the creation of a brand new genre: the 'massively multiplayer online role playing game' with the release of Ultima Online and Everquest. Games in 1996 looked like this:

In 2002, Bethesda Software (creators of the Elder Scrolls series) struck gold with their award-winning third installment in the prominent series: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. This game was originally conceived during the time the released Daggerfall in 1996, but was put off due to creation of expansion packs and storyline add-ons for Daggerfall. Amidst beautiful scenery and intense, deep storytelling, the player was sucked into Morrowind. Conversations with NPCs, descriptions of objects, quests, journal entries...all of these were excrutiatingly detailed with pages upon pages of lore and mythology; they read like novels. This is also not taking into account actual books scattered throughout the game that are novels in their own right. This was the game that never ended. I've been playing Morrowind since it's release and still haven't reaped all that Morrowind has to offer. Morrowind represented a graphical feat not seen before. A true living world, so large, and so huge, that you can get lost and not find any hints of civilization for hours. All of this...in pristine 3D:

One of the most anticipated games of 2006 wants to take this tried-and-tested formula and push it to its limits. In Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Bethesda works in over 1,000 non-player characters who come to life like never before with facial animations, lip-synching, and full speech (yes, they actually talk now, you dont have to read what they speak!). They even engage in unscripted conversations with each other and the player. According to Bethesda, "This groundbreaking AI system gives Oblivion's characters full 24/7 schedules and the ability to make their own choices based on the world around them. Non-player characters eat, sleep, and complete goals all on their own." And don't forget how pretty this game looks. And when I say pretty, my god, this game absolutely blows my mind. Featuring the high-end features of Microsoft's DirectX 9 technology, I'm hoping this game won't bring my system to its knees. I might just have to call up Dell and let them install a 7800Go GTX to replace my 6800Go Ultra in my laptop...which would cost me a pretty penny. (But it is essential!)

Warning: too cute to handle!

2006-02-25T04:48:00.000-05:00

Animals have an uncanny ability to show us humans what the true meaning of 'cute' is. A blog called 'Cute Overload' knows this and barrages us with images too cute to handle! Enjoy!

From their main page:

"At Cute Overload, we scour the Web for only the finest in Cute Imagery. Imagery that is Worth Your Internet Browsing Time. We offer an overwhelming amount of cuteness to fill your daily visual allowance. Drink it in!"

V-dub representing Deutschland

2006-02-25T02:05:00.000-05:00

Haha...peter stormare you crazy fool. pretty sweet commercial if you ask me.

RANT: Think before you speak.

2006-02-23T23:22:00.000-05:00

Ok, this has been bugging me for some time now. It may be construed over the course of this rant that I cannot take criticism…and that I hate people who point out things that are wrong. But, you will be mistaken, as I take all criticism to heart (maybe a bit too much) and I reflect on the reasons why someone pointed out something to me. All criticism is good criticism, as long as you know how to say it.

Now, when someone points something out that is askew to their own notions, you cannot help to be thrown off. This isn’t exactly criticism; it’s more like someone who thinks that their way of thinking is superior to your own. Keep that shit to yourself. I mean, come on, how hard can it be? Being of Asian-descent, I’ve been raised to keep my comments to myself and act nicely…all the time. Be polite. Be kind. Be generous. Don’t look at people in the eye. (there are extremes to this, which will not be discussed here.) Yes, that personality goes quite well with my soft-spoken nature; it might not go well with yours. You could argue that by keeping these thoughts to yourself make you look dark and reserved; even malicious. People will constantly be analyzing what you say…if you have a deeper meaning underneath the premium overt façade that they see everyday. And to be honest, well, maybe you should do that all the time. Maybe then you’ll choose your words more carefully or you’ll try to approach a conversation from a different perspective. Stop being self-centered and try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Have some empathy. Will he/she be offended? How might he take this, how might I take this if it was said to me?

Be careful when choosing your diction. There are slight nuances that people inadvertently show over the time that you interact with them. See if you can pinpoint and try to act in-sync with these idiosyncrasies. Believe me; it’s worked every time I’ve done it. Now, the hard part to detecting these behavioral traits is when that person is of a different culture. It’s kind of easy when dealing with people who come from the United States. But it still presents a whole new set of obstacles that you need to pick apart one-by-one.

Being “American” is such an ambiguous term. I’m white. I call myself American. I’m black. I call myself American. I’m Chinese. I call myself American. I’m from Germany, but I recently received American citizenship. I call myself American. I’m from India, yet I’ve been teaching here at MIT for over 20 years now, and even if I still haven’t applied for citizenship yet, I still call myself American. Being American does not have to do with skin color; it doesn’t have to do with race, gender, or anything. If you believe you are American, you are American. That’s the beauty of it. As testament to this just check out the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics: check out the United States team…the “American” team. Different races, different colors, people who just got their citizenship, etc. It’s a melting pot; and using it irreverently as comparing an American to an African just goes against the grain of society. It irks me every time someone uses the term in this way. Fuck you for labeling me because of my race. I’m just as American as you. You can attach little tags like “Asian-American” or “Filipino-American” to me if that makes you feel better. But the word is still there. I am American. This is hard to sense from a person. Especially if you are dealing with international people. Be accepting!

Another obstacle when dealing with someone on the domestic level is to acknowledge the kinds of environments they have lived in. People can be from the rural backalleys, suburbs, towns, cities, metropolises, and so much more. Growing up in each of these places gives you a unique perspective and outlook on the world. However, that doesn’t mean that if you grew up being indifferent to types of people you shouldn’t have to learn to adapt to how society works. I’m talking about political corrected-ness. It wouldn’t hurt to try and learn how society works as a whole. Don’t be ignorant. I’m not one to talk about “being PC.” I have done my fair share of stuff I am horribly ashamed of, but at least I acknowledge it as a problem and not go on being adamant about my horrid ways. (Yeah, that’s another thing. Being stubborn annoys me…but that’s another rant.)

Humor. You can get me to laugh easily. I’m one of those people who finds every little subtle thing funny. I think that contributes to my overall jovial inner-nature sometimes. Even if I may not look it on the outside; inside, I could be bursting out in laughter. I have no problem with criticism meant in a funny way. Sometimes, however, the use of the phrase “I’m just kidding” has a lot gravity every time it’s used. I think that phrase is something of a tool; a cop-out, if you will. You say something snide or derogatory. Wait for the person’s reaction. Then you say, “haha…just kidding!” Well, now that you’ve pointed it out, fool, I guess that’s how you truly feel. You just pointed out to me the kinds of things you think of inside of your head. Now I have this sense of paranoia and awareness. Each successive time I do something (that you said “Just kidding!” to, in an earlier occurrence) that should get a “J/K” from you, yet you don’t say it, wow, that’s a horrible feeling to have. Maybe you aren’t kidding. Maybe you are! Who knows? You know. I certainly don’t. But what good does that do to the people around you? Nothing, except place them in a constant mindset of fear. There are ways of being blunt that are unoffensive. But saying stuff to someone like, "you are fat kthx lose weight nau...justkidding!" is a condescendingly way of being blunt; and is not tolerated by me. First of all, you imply that this person is overweight. Second, you imply that this person is doing nothing to solve this problem (if it even is a problem to that person.) Judging from what I've seen, heard, and/or experienced throughout my life, when someone tells you that you're doing nothing about a problem, it stings. Thus, as a friend pointed out to me, being helpfully blunt is an art form. I could list several examples from high school and maybe even some from college, but I won’t. You know who you are.

Just be careful of what you say. That’s all I’m saying. Don’t be an idiot and blurt out stupid things. I sometimes speak out of line, and I’m not picking on anyone in this rant. Use common sense. I'm surprised at how many people lack this essential skill. And take this for what it is: a simple rant.

+5 to Charisma!!! Crap, it doesn't work in real life...

2006-02-23T09:28:00.000-05:00

“Society has always scorned the truly unique...um...but that s a burden you choose to bear when you can bend the very laws of reality with the power of your imagination. That’s a gift to be respected…and feared.

It’s like we’re waging an epic battle against conformity.

That which does not kill you, makes you stronger. That pretty much describes high school for us…because we almost died.”

Ahh...the stereotypes of olde! This video should be hilarious to those of us who sometimes just want to lose ourselves in a video game, throw our sanity to the wind, and play games for hours upon hours on end. Too bad I cannot transcend my +50 to Dexterity Woolen Emerald Skullcap into the real world. BAH. MAGIC MISSILE!!!

Cat Piano

2006-02-21T17:50:00.000-05:00

"In order to raise the spirits of an Italian prince burdened by the cares of his position, a musician created for him a cat piano. The musician selected cats whose natural voices were at different pitches and arranged them in cages side by side, so that when a key on the piano was depressed, a mechanism drove a sharp spike into the appropriate cat’s tail. The result was a melody of meows that became more vigorous as the cats became more desperate. Who could not help but laugh at such music? Thus was the prince raised from his melancholy." - link

Ahh, Vetrivious, what shall I do today? Hmm, cats you say? Scratching at our ceramic pots in our garden? MESSING WITH MY AZALEAS?! That just angers me, maybe I shall take those CATS and MAKE A PIANO OUT OF THEM?! Yes, it's brilliant. Go, now, leave me be in my workshop of horrors.

An Unmistakable Skyline

2006-02-21T09:32:00.000-05:00

I saw this picture a week ago on the San Francisco Daily Photo blog (that I talked about before), and I just thought it was too good of a picture to not showcase.

Why is that mechanical-looking thing coming over to me...

2006-02-21T00:45:00.000-05:00

Well, good sir, you've just spotted the US Army's brand new toy:

"...an unmanned flying robot that can take off and land vertically, fly for more than an hour, and drop a payload in a specified location without any human intervention. The bot was tested as a system for deploying a communications array dubbed WolfPack, which is used to jam enemy battlefield transmissions and block jamming of transmissions from friendly forces. The unmanned bot can reach speeds of up to 30 knots, and is able to drop its payload within one meter of a predefined target location."

Hmm, I don't think you'd want to see one of these things coming at you at a speed of 30 knots. Just a thought.

Yellow Fever

2006-02-20T23:24:00.000-05:00

To my AzN brothers out there, this video is all too true...I mean, the whole movie is kinda stupid, but the Indian guy's inspirational speech at the end rivals Kumar's immigration speech from H&K Go to White Castle.

It's also one of the most hilarious google videos I have seen; professionally done!

It's coming...just wait a bit longer.

2006-02-18T21:17:00.000-05:00

For those of you that I've told, I'm still working on my review of the Cowon A2: Portable Media Player that I recently acquired.

It's so hard for me to review this thing! I mean, about every two weeks, something that just irked me (like audio codec support, video codec support, etc.) about the thing gets fixed in a firmware update by Cowon. Just today, they released a new firmware update which added FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) support for the A2 in addition to other big improvements (like a new graphical interface, a fix in WAV playback, among other things). You don't know how much I am overjoyed to see this come to fruition seeing as a sizeable chunk of my ripped CDs are encoded in FLAC format! I do have to congratulate Cowon as they are putting so much of their effort and resources into updating and improving their digital audio and video players on a pretty much weekly basis.

And, I've also heard that Cowon is planning to release a new peripheral for the A2: a DMB (Digital Media Broadcast, i.e. TV and HD radio) receiver in Asia, Europe, and Australia (seeing as the US does not seem interested in implementing DMB technology). So, people on these continents will now be able to watch TV in addition to listening to their music (mp3, wav, flac, ogg, wma), watching movies (AVI, ASF, WMV, DivX, XviD, MPEG4, MP@LL), listening to FM radio, viewing pictures from their digital cameras (JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF), and viewing word documents...and don't forget its superb audio and video recording capabilities. Believe me, this thing plays pretty much everything.

I'll have a far more comprehensive review soon detailing its aesthetics, construction, battery life, audio quality, video quality, ease of use, included accessories, and more. Watch for it!

One more thing, Cowon submitted a proposal to the FCC which would bring GPS Navigation to the Cowon A2...::big thumbs up!::

Adventures in OS: Part 1

2006-02-18T20:53:00.000-05:00

This is more of a heads-up, rather than an informational post.

As of late, I have very very very briefly delved into other operating systems other than Windows XP Pro. (In no way am I claiming to have mastered these operating systems and in no way am I claiming to be a technological guru. I just want to share my perception of these two particular OS'es as a person comfortable enough to actually do this kind of thing.) On my Intel Pentium M Dell XPS Laptop, I installed Mac OS X 10.4.3 DTK and Ubuntu Linux ver. "Breezy Badger." In a later post, I will document what I went through in terms of the initial installation and a very short playtime in them.

As a teaser, one major point of contention for both was hardware compatibility and installation...and I'll have more details later.

You + Waterslide + Rusty Nail = Ouchies

2006-02-18T20:42:00.000-05:00

Hehe, a friend pointed me to this site that has some pretty hilarious pics posted by artist Natalie Dee. Go check it out!

I especially like the waterslide/rusty nail one!

SF University High School Day!!!

2006-02-18T20:26:00.000-05:00

Lol awesome.

It has recently come to my attention that February 9, 2006 was declared 'San Francisco University High School Day' by SF Mayor Gavin Newsom. Hmmm....I guess that's what 27k a year gets you...a city-wide holiday and a totally sweet education from the "best high school west of the Mississippi." Amirite? I think so hehe. ;-)

GO BIG RED!

Proposed Summer Project

2006-02-18T20:06:00.000-05:00

Okay guys, here's the deal:

It took me...umm...let's see...about six and half months of living in another place to finally realize how beautiful the City of San Francisco is. Thus, as homage to my great home city of San Francisco, I plan to buy a DSLR camera before summer and document every single part of San Francisco through a photo blog similar to the San Francisco Daily Photo blog. Being a summer project, I only have a short time period of 2-3 months to take pics before I retreat back to the frigid wasteland of the Northeast. Planning will take a couple of weeks and I'm lucky to have some friends to help me with this project.

Notorious MSG is the sheeze...

2006-02-18T00:41:00.000-05:00

Oh god, these guys are absolutely hilarious. The Notorious MSG, a Chinese hip-hop group.

"It's hard to be a g...we all from different ghetto; China."

There are terrorists in our midst!

2006-01-24T02:57:00.000-05:00

CNN Anchor: This just in. You are looking at obviously a very disturbing shot there. That is the courtyard of East and West Quad at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and we have unconfirmed reports that early this morning a man ran up to a snowman and decapitated its head.

CNN Center right now is just beginning to work on this story, obviously calling our sources and trying to figure out exactly what happened. But clearly, something relatively devastating happening this morning there on the north end of Colby College in Waterville, ME.

We are going to join another one of our Maine affiliates, WABC for their live coverage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... plane overhead, and then all of a sudden -- I thought it sounded kind of loud, and then I looked up and all of a sudden it a smashed right dead into a lone snowman. A big flash of flame, fire coming out from all over, then all the snow-- it's a huge hole right now. It almost looks like the man probably went through. I'm not sure.

CNN Anchor: President Bush, as you said, will make a statement here at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota about the catastrophe in Waterville, Maine. Following that statement, the president will board Air Force One and return immediately to Washington. We are told by White House officials traveling with the president in Sarasota that he was notified either shortly before 9:00 or shortly after. We don't have an exact moment of the notification of the president. We believe his chief of staff Andrew Card told him of the events in Maine. The president has been monitoring them as best as he can.

Investigators have two leads at this point. They suspect that this is the work of a duo of internationally wanted terrorists: all the agencies in the world have yet to obtain clear photographic descriptions of these two; most agencies only have two file photos of the suspected team of terrorists. They may be low in quality and we apologize.

Thermite Plasma

2006-01-22T15:23:00.000-05:00

"Thermite plasma incendiary systems can burn hot enough to consume V.X....but they're still in the test phase; it's not operational!" - The Rock starring Sean Connery and Nick Cage

Right you are, General Peterson!

But do you want to know what happens when you burn thermite plasma on top of a car?

Of course you do! Click this link or the picture to see the video!

PDAs and why I cannot use them

2006-01-21T20:31:00.000-05:00

When I came to Colby College last fall, I brought with me a cornucopia of digital devices. Now, most of these devices I interact with and use on a daily basis, most notable are my alarm clock, laptop, digital camera, cell phone, iPod digital audio player (now replaced with my Cowon A2 PMP), and various other household electronics. I also brought with me a PocketPC – an HP Ipaq.

I’m not one of those people who likes to store every single detail of information on someone so that I have a complete database of emails, home phone numbers, work phone numbers, mobile phone numbers, home addresses, vacation addresses, secondary emails, zip codes, area codes, and whatever other codes there are out there. I rely on past messages to give me all the contact info needed to compose and send a text message, phone call, or email. And if they haven’t contacted me with their newest info, then why even bother storing the old one.

Other such applications for these PocketPCs are to jot down notes (like homework assignments) and to remind you of upcoming important events (due dates, birthdays, etc.). I’ve owned three such devices in the past, and all those times I’ve either not had the patience to store all the contact info I had (plus the entry I made would look very barren because I only entered in like 4 fields out of 40), or I accidentally forgot where I placed it only to find it 2 months later with no curiosity as to see what events I’ve missed during that time, if any.

But! Fear not, my consumer electronics brethren! I warranted such behavior on my youth, as the first Palm I owned was at the tender age of 12. The Palm M105, compared to the models out today, is like a 386 PC to a 3.8 GHz Alienware Area-51 behemoth; it just doesn’t compare. That was another thing I was hoping; surely by now they must have put better software on these things to make it easier for me to enter data. If you read my blog, you know I love streamlining things.

The screens of the new PocketPCs definitely look better, being all colorful and snazzy, but the functionality was just the same on the HP Ipaq as it was on the Palm M105. It was still hard to enter data and that damn technique of how to draw letters and numbers just irked me. At this point in my life, it is not absolutely imperative that I have the ability to check my email or voicemail wherever and whenever. I also don't need to surf the web "on-the-go," because frankly, I'm on a college campus and there is an ample supply of computers just floating around. Oh well, another couple of bucks down the drain for that device. With a new OS being touted by Microsoft – Windows Mobile 5.0 – for PDAs, PocketPCs, and whatnot, maybe in a couple of years I’ll fall into the consumer trap (for the fourth time) and buy another one of these devices out of pure curiosity. By the looks of the market, though, eventually I’ll have to buy one. Why, you ask? Well, they are implementing this technology into cell phones everyday, and owning a bulky PocketPC cell phone is all the rage these days with outstanding revenue generated from Palm Treo phones and Blackberry mobile devices. Motorola’s new flagship phone named “Q” looks like a winner, and I’ll have to see how that one performs in the upcoming months.

And come on…if Jack Bauer (from TV’s 24) is hardcore enough to carry around a Treo 650 cellphone/PocketPC and take high-quality snapshots with the phone’s integrated digital camera of Russian terrorists that have taken over a Los Angeles airport threatening to blow it to smithereens if their demands are not met, I should definitely own one too. Maybe then I can take high-quality digital pictures of grass, leaves, or maybe some nice, threatening rain-clouds.

Is Classical Music really out of style?

2006-01-17T20:34:00.000-05:00

I don’t know about you, but a well-played Mozart string quartet can really change how I feel. My spirits get lifted and I feel on top of the world. Am I the only one who feels this way? In this day and age, proclaiming that you enjoy Classical Music is like stamping a big red “LOSER” on your forehead. But why? Why does this happen to people who enjoy classical music?

Pretentious? Elitist? Square? Sure, classical music has been the music of choice for royalty ever since Josquin and Palestrina evolved Gregorian chant into lighthearted motets and chansons, but it is first and foremost music. And I don’t even care what kind of classical music you like. You could like Baroque music, Renaissance music, Medieval music, Neoclassical music, Rococo music, Atonal music, it doesn’t really matter. If you enjoy any one of those, you are looked down upon by popular culture. I know that not many people admire Baroque music. I don’t blame them, as Baroque music was supposed to be cerebral and give the person a chance to actually ‘listen’ to the music, rather than to just ‘hear’ it. It places a large amount of mental strain on the listener. I would not berate a person for finding Baroque music to not be particularly interesting. I personally think the Baroque period produced some of the finest pieces of music in the history of mankind. Bach’s genius is evident in his Brandenburg concertos as they still run chills through my bones whenever I hear them. The first uplifting notes of Brandenburg 3, the rousing harpsichord of Brandenburg 5, the mellow sound of Brandenburg 1; they all appeal to a range of senses that other music cannot. During the Classical period, Mozart’s overtures to his famous operas like Die Zauberflote, Idomeneo, or Don Giovanni have the same effect. Full orchestras of 30+ people coming together to make a harmony so wonderful and so praiseworthy should not be overlooked by people other than those who claim classical music to be “an acquired taste.” But it’s not just the sheer intensity of large symphonies that can produce this effect on a person. A cellist such as Yo-Yo Ma can play Bach’s solo Cello Suites to the point where people can feel the notes rushing through their head. Quartets by Mozart and Haydn encourage small-group playing and the combination of instruments produce a quality so textured and refined that every quartet sounds different, even if they are playing the exact same piece.

I’m not saying that everyone should like Classical music. Some people out there just plain hate it. But, people should not be driven away by the common stereotypes that have regretfully hung onto this genre of music for the past 400 years. It’s not ‘high-brow,’ it’s not ‘elite,’ it’s not ‘snobbish.’ It’s music. And one of the beauties of music is that anyone can listen to it and form their own opinions on it. So, try out classical music if you haven’t already. You’d be surprised at what treasures you can find. And by the way, it’s Mozart’s 250^th on the 27^th!

Console Wars and the Switch to PC

2006-01-17T19:30:00.000-05:00

Japan has been the last bastion of hope when you think of Console Games. The "double dragon" Japanese corporate team of Sony and Nintendo continue to rule the console market in Asia and Europe. For us in the United States, Microsoft has worked its way to the number 2 spot ever since they debuted of the original Xbox in the winter of 2001. The decline in popularity of console games since the late 90s due to the advent of PC online gaming has been especially tough on those of us who grew up playing on old Nintendo, Sega, and Atari game consoles.

For me, the switch to PC gaming happened around the time of the release of the original Half-Life; in other words, 1998 was the tipping point. As mentioned in an earlier entry, I was already quite savvy with the whole concept of gaming on the computer. Duke Nukem 3d, Shadow Warrior, Command and Conquer, Doom, Quake, Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, and other such classic PC-DOS games were already fun in my mind. However, to play with other people, I still relied on my trusty SNES, PS1, N64, and whatnot. In 1994, trying to set up a PC ‘multiplayer’ game with a friend induced headaches, and usually parents did not want the house phone line tied up. So games like Super Mario Kart (1992), Starfox (1993), Street Fighter 2 (1993), and eventually games like Goldeneye 007 (1997) were the best and easiest ways to have a fun time with a couple of friends. However, after they left the house, the fun stopped and you were forced to play by yourself. This was of no concern, though, because games were quite well-made during those days and single-player was usually so enthralling that you stayed up till morning trying to “find this,” “get here,” or “kill this boss.”

Then came better graphics cards, broadband connectivity, and Half-Life in 1998. A year later during the summer of 1999, Beta 1.0 of a start-up, unknown mod named Counter-Strike (CS) hit the ‘net. On August 17, 1999 I warily clicked “Download from this mirror!” for CS Beta 2.1 from the original www.counter-strike.net website. The rest is just plain history. I’ve been playing counter-strike for ~7 years. Wow. But I’m proud that I can say I’ve been with CS since the relative beginning, playing through most of its constantly evolving life. (As an aside: CS Beta 6.5 was clearly the best version of the game, nothing has come close.) In 2002, I did it again. I clicked on “Download” for a mod called Firearms (FA). “Firearms” was a HL1 mod originally packaged with Half-Life. I joined gaming groups called “clans,” and by the time of its relative death in 2005, I was proud to retire as one of the top 10 Firearms players in the world. I met a great group of people playing that game, and I respect each and every one of them. To this day, I frequent their forums and await the FA team’s upcoming mod for HL2 called World at War.

I’m especially fond of the First Person Shooter (FPS) genre of gaming and the computer was the best possible vehicle for its evolution. Thus, console gaming lacked a certain quality whenever I tried to play on them. Halo, regarded as the king of console FPS’ is fun, yet I still find myself bored and looking for that “something else.” Whether that “something else” is a mouse and keyboard combo, superior graphics, or better multiplayer support, is indefinable. There are people out there who still like console games because they care for the franchises it was built upon. And I agree. Some games like the Metal Gear Solid series, the Resident Evil series, the Dead or Alive series, and so much more are solid, fun games on the consoles that PC gaming cannot touch. Thus, consoles are in a whole different league from PC gaming entirely. With the next-gen systems, like the Xbox 360, PS3, and Nintendo Revolution, one cannot help but make the comparison that these consoles are beginning to look a lot like PCs in the sense that they stray away from the classic console flavor of games like Chrono Trigger or Ninja Gaiden. Indeed, a lot of the next-gen “launch” games are PC ports in and of themselves. This is very disappointing to see as I would like to see a continuation of this unique cultural entertainment form. But it is a bit too early to make judgments about these systems without waiting until they launch and allowing us to view what they have in store. Microsoft’s latest entry was a tad disappointing, let’s hope Sony and Nintendo can change our minds.

A 24-hour rollercoaster ride!

2006-01-16T01:46:00.000-05:00

Jack Bauer does it again. He comes out of nowhere to kick some ass. The season opener of '24' was pretty darn good, and I hope to see more of it in the upcoming months.

***THIS NEXT PART CONTAINS SPOILERS. SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT, LOOK AWAY!***

I was really disappointed with the assassination of David Palmer. And it happened in the first 3 minutes! When he first came on screen, I was like, "Sweet, Prez Palmer is back!" Then he proceeds to get shot in the throat. Devastating, really. Wayne Palmer is also back, and it looks like he'll play a much more significant role this time around (and he looks useful for once). Michelle is dead, Tony is in critical condition (again). And knowing Tony, he has been in critical condition before, and like 4 hours after major surgery he is running CTU once again. Tony, you are badass. Chloe is back, dull and looking angrier than ever. The usual suspects like Curtis and Edgar still have their positions at CTU. Audrey Raines, Jack's love interest last season, reprises as the Dept. of Defense liaison to CTU. Kim Bauer has yet to show her lovely face, but I believe she will make a four episode appearance in the coming weeks, if my sources are correct.

Now, regarding the plot thus far, I think the nosey kid who tries to follow Jack is a dim-witted fool. He especially seemed worthless at the end of the second hour when he sees some suspicious people getting out of a van and takes it upon himself to go and 'warn Jack.' Come on kid, this is Jack freakin' Bauer, he can take care of himself. Tomorrow's preview shows the kid getting caught by these Russian terrorists and placed as a life-ransom: either the terrorists get what they want or the kid is dead. Wow... :shakes head:

***END of Spoilers***

Looks like it's going to be a quality season, though the beginning of the first episode happened so quickly that the rest of the time seemed like filler. Still, I'm really looking forward to finding out what happens next.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the thriller show on Fox called '24.' I suggest looking into it.

I leave you with a quote from Jack Bauer:

"You probably don't think that I can force this towel down your throat. But trust me, I can. All the way. Except I'd hold onto this one little bit at the end. When your stomach starts to digest it, I pull it out. Taking your stomach lining with it. For most people it would take about a week to die. It's very painful."

Hoowee!

San Francisco to LA in an hour? Not on a plane!?! Blasphemy!

2006-01-14T19:15:00.000-05:00

I was referred to a google video by a friend that showed a test run of a Japanese MagLev (Magnetic Levitation) train. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much. Maybe a tad faster than the bullet trains that continue to define Japanese transportation. But no! This was a train that went a full 60% faster than the newest, most renovated bullet trains out there! This thing had a top speed of 502km/h! How amazing is that! I've looked into the concept of MagLev trains and came across an interesting article that explained Shanghai's MagLev. I didn't even know these things were in production or being built, let alone already used by people.

When talking to my friend about this, he told me that the upkeep of these behemoths would be so gargantuan that making large-scale ones in the United States would be impossible at the moment. Maybe in 10-15 years it might be plausible, but even then it would be hard to lay thousands of miles track without the upkeep costs skyrocketing. Small-scale ones, sure, and I believe the US has already invested into building a MagLev that connects Washington D.C. and Baltimore, one that surrounds the city of Pittsburgh, and one that connects all of Los Angeles' airfields and airports.

This kind of speed with no pollution whatsoever brings us to a new stage of engineering potential. In 20-30 years, intercontinental travel might be possible on these babies and the only barrier to production would be the initial cost of building the track. Just think, New York to London, San Francisco to Tokyo, Miami to vacation spots in the Caribbean. Business and pleasure travel would be so accessible. With no fuel cost, MagLev tickets have the possibility to be cheaper than plane tickets.

Weird Weather

2006-01-14T18:28:00.003-05:00

Explain to me this: how can it be that two days ago it was 10 degrees with severe snowstorms and now be 54 degrees with torrential downpours?! How? I am seriously befuddled! I mean, it's hotter here in Maine than it is in San Francisco. And this is January Maine we are talking about. Not March Maine or September Maine. JANUARY Maine. This is the time when all the horror stories are supposed to come true; when temperatures plummet to -20, the wind is so harsh that your face gets ripped to shreds, and the snow pelts you with the force of a single black hole. But why am I complaining? It just feels more like home!

Why Can't We Be Friends?

2006-01-13T04:46:00.000-05:00

Left in the wake of CES and Macworld, I just can’t stop thinking about Microsoft and Apple’s bitter rivalry. I really can’t. I really want to cheer both sides on since competition is a wonderful thing when developing new sorts of ideas in the world of technology. However, people seem to choose a company and automatically be it’s elite, super consumer-servant. My gosh man! It’s pretty childish to choose one thing and berate its closest substitute. People throw the word ‘elitist’ around, and the most common elitist out there is the “Mac elitist.” These guys are just so adamant about their holy crusade against Microsoft and anything to do with the Windows/Linux PC world. (Because Apple Computers are still Personal Computers in and of themselves.) Apple CEO Steve Jobs leads the elitist pack with his very condescending remarks about the PC, especially notable in the Apple advertisement they debuted at Macworld showing off their brand-new Intel Processors.

When you throw out the word elitist, however, you automatically define yourself as a person on the other end of the spectrum. Speaking from my own point of view, I really can’t see myself switching over to the Apple-end. I’ve become heavily reliant on my Windows OS and the subtleties that go with 15 years of experience on Windows machines. (Yes, yes, I’ve spent a very long time fiddling around with PCs! I still can picture myself playing the Bialosky Bear program when I was 4 on such a primitive IBM PC. I still can picture the time I played my first direct connect (TCP/IP) multiplayer game using my 36.6k modem!) If you think I am oblivious to the other side, you are wrong. I have been using Macintosh computers ever since Kindergarten and throughout my life in academia I have always befriended an Apple computer. I’ve had plenty of time to discover and explore the Apple OS. It just feels chunky (in the sense that I know where everything is in Windows) to me, and not useable. This is of course, through my computing preference and how I work. With Apple’s newest OS, called OS X, I just feel myself looking at it. Looking at its beauty and how it’s so streamlined and pretty (for a lack of a better word)! So clean, so organized, yet so simple. Windows pop out graphically with an animation, a little “dock” sits on the screen holding any application you want with it just waiting for you to click, little innovative, elegant widgets are scattered throughout the screen. Everything seems so “in-reach.” To me, though, my praise of OS X mostly deals with the aesthetic. And also! How could I forget? The machines themselves are absolutely gorgeous! Sleek and stylish. That’s how I would define most of Apple’s products. Thus, for the looks, I’d definately buy a copy and dual-boot my system with OS X for my internet and word processing needs while use Windows for gaming and other such PC-oriented software.

So whenever I look at that and compare it to my Windows XP PC, I just can’t help to be envious. Maybe that’s why Microsoft’s upcoming OS, Windows Vista, is so appealing to me. They incorporate some of Apple’s strong points and integrate it into their own OS and also making improvements on the basic foundations of any Windows PC (like the Start menu). Many people keep making side-by-side comparisons of Mac’s current OS X and Windows Vista. They make snide comments on how Microsoft “copied this” and “stole this.” Well, good for you. Finally, Microsoft is trying to appease the customer. Can’t you be happy about that? What would happen if they were gone? No competition! Ideas would be churning out slowly, and nothing would ever come about.

One could point out that, “Ooo! Finally Mac made the switch to Intel processors, finally they see the light! Hey, wait a minute, they’re copying PCs now!” Through my internet adventures, I’ve found less people making that comment on internet blogs or newssites and more people making hateful “Micro$oft” ones. Now the focus is on Apple, who, with their new Intel chips, decided they would not hinder the installation process of Windows Vista (WinXp would not work because the new Intel Duo processors are not built upon the BIOS code, which processors traditionally were built upon) on new Intel Macs. However, Mac has decided to let their OS X be made just for Apples; meaning, Windows users like me would not be able to use their pretty OS on Windows machines (unless of course, the OS is hacked). That just angers me. A lot. Why does it have to keep being a battle of rights managements between these big corporations! I just may be naïve or oblivious to the whole point behind this, but I don’t like the fact that one side supports the other’s software (allowing users to choose), while the other side gets no choice. That’s just crude and selfish. Let the consumers choose Apple, don’t be a selfish brute and make our decisions for us.

Will I buy a Mac now that I can run Windows on it? Maybe. They certainly seem faster at the moment, being the first with the new Intel D chips in them, which would mean the new Macs would perform twice as fast as a regular Pentium M 1.86 GhZ chip. But no worries, Apple isn’t the only one utilizing the new Intel D chip with Dell and other PC manufacturers waiting in the ranks. So, at this point in time, I’ll be waiting patiently for OS X to come to the PC. I’m sure someone out there will figure it out in like 2 days.

P.S. By the way Apple, please implement better audio quality hardware into your iPods and don’t force us to convert files to freakin’ .m4a and .m4v files and use iTunes. There you go again Apple! Making decisions for us once again! Shame on you!

Lessons learned from CES

2006-01-10T02:15:00.000-05:00

First off, I’d like to thank everyone that wished me a happy birthday a couple days ago, I really really appreciate it! Thanks! Just to let you know, I had an awesome birthday.

Now, I’ve been constantly monitoring the products and ideas that have permeated out of the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show happening in Las Vegas, NV for the past few days. As usual, all the big guns in the Tech industry (except for Steve Jobs who will make a later appearance at his own Macworld conference next week) made their keynotes and astonished us with their brazen, hard-hitting new ideas and possibilities for the near-future. Watching Bill Gates make his keynote made me realize the kind of breakthroughs that the tech industry has made just in the last 5 years. We are at a point in time where a year can make a big difference in how your lifestyle changes. Acknowledging that the Internet was the single, most pivotal invention in my generation, we can only speculate as what is in store for us over the next 20 or so years. Will it stop? Are we coming to an age where no one will understand what is going on anymore? Where the general public will have to take ‘on faith’ what the scientists and technologists are saying? Will the world become engulfed in a new mind ethos of listening to evangelists and religious fanatics just because it is ‘easier’ to understand and more accessible to them rather than advancing nanotechnology? Sometimes it’s scary to think about these things and they sure are tough questions. No one has an answer to these, and we just have to, ironically, take it upon ‘faith’ to make sure that our world doesn’t become a place of ignorance and a breeding ground for apathy (more than it already is).

But away with this philosophical mumbo-jumbo! CES 2006 really showed off some cool stuff! Wacky designs, innovative functionality, and sleek usability brings us ever so close to the day when our world will look like the one in “Minority Report” or “The Island” or in the future, “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” or “Serenity.” In his opening keynote, Bill Gates himself had these cool prototype sets that envisioned how we would be living in the next 4 years. He had a huge LCD monitor showing how easy it was to track people, call people, make notes, get directions, get news, order food, make business decisions, etc. (all using MS Windows, of course!) Everything was connected seamlessly, his car, his home, his phone, his office, his kids, his wife, the family’s events, his business trips, ways of digesting media…and it all came together to make a web of ease of use. This will be the future in 4 years. It really is hard to believe. But I believe it. And I believe that at the pace the industry is going at, we should be getting holographic communication in the next 10 or so years; now how cool would that be?

This got me thinking. How does it all fit into the family business? How has the medium of audio and the medium of video combined to make a synergy of itself? Consumer electronics seem to be focusing on a more direct approach with the consumer. Acquiring and storing all your precious DVDs, Music, Pictures, Video Games etc. will be on a dedicated machine called a Media Center. With the advent of digital distribution software like iTunes, and Microsoft’s upcoming “Urge”, it is only a matter of time before the living room becomes the center of the home, the center of family, the center of life. Not to be overly dramatic here, but it has the possibility of controlling our lives. One small box will control the means we get our entertainment and will dictate how we can enjoy that entertainment. Of course, this kind of trendsetting will make consumer’s hunger for the best possible home theatre in terms of audio equipment. The best amplifiers, the best speakers, the best mixers will all be used in one harmonic move. People will become ravenous audiophiles, searching for the best one that improves the look of their entertainment center, that improves the quality of the sound, that improves how they live their lives. This is where our company comes in. Focusing on this market will give a larger share of the profits. Yes, we will have more expenses in terms of the margin, but we will have greater visibility, and that is what matters. Karaoke enthusiasts, audiophiles, AV techs, hardcore DJs, and insatiable Home Theatre gurus will be the demographic marketed to. CES is the perfect place to do this. With a radical new change in design and a new outlook on how to market our products, I believe I can help turn the company around and bring back profits in excess. I have just the right knowledge of the industry, of the entrepreneurial side, of the age spectrum, and most importantly, I have the drive to see this company succeed and become larger than it has ever been.

In conclusion, watch out guys, I might just be manning the booth next year displaying our brand new, insanely sweet looking Denon amplifiers at CES 2007. Engadget guys…digg folks…this is a heads up!

Christmas in the City by the Bay

2005-12-30T07:06:00.000-05:00

[A pic of the big Christmas Tree down by SF Union Square.]

Well, I hope everyone is enjoying their respective winter breaks...I know I am.

I had a pretty sweet Christmas, very laid back with family coming over to the house and enjoying a day together.

I've been going to downtown SF a lot these days, I really don't know why, but I guess the allure of an urban setting is getting to me being stuck in the rural backalleys of Maine for some time now. I also had to do a bit of shopping, so I guess that explains it. ;-)

I'm ready for a rockin' New Years...are you??!?!

Voltes V!!!!!!

2005-12-08T03:17:00.000-05:00

[EDIT: This was supposed to be posted a long time ago. I never got around to it, and i never really completed the study. Oh well.]

So, I have been taking surverys of people born over the course of 5 years: 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, and 1990. What I have been doing is typing out words and then letting them respond with a yes or no depending if they recognize that word. If yes, they tell me what it is all about or something they associate it with. Here are some interesting findings from a person born in 1990:

Transformers - child's toy that morph
Thundercats - sounds like a sports team
The Greatest American Hero - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Perfect Strangers - book or Simon and Garfunkle song
David the Gnome - no response
He-Man - anime thingy that i've seen in video stores, a muscular dude
Quantum Leap - very scientific sounding
Growing Pains - old tv show
The Commish - sounds familiar
The Wonder Years - no response
Full House - YES
Voltron - NO
Star Trek: TNG - of course.

INTERESTING...NO?

It's Friday...

2005-11-18T01:30:00.000-05:00

I don't care if Monday's blue
Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too
Thursday I don't care about you
It's Friday I'm in love!

Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn't even start
It's Friday I'm in love

Saturday wait
And Sunday always comes too late
But friday never hesitate...

I don't care if Monday's black
Tuesday Wednesday heart attack
Thursday never looking back
It's Friday I'm in love

Monday you can hold your head
Tuesday wednesday stay in bed
Or thursday watch the walls instead
It's friday i'm in love

Saturday wait
And sunday always comes too late
But friday never hesitate...

Dressed up to the eyes
It's a wonderful surprise
To see your shoes and your spirits rise
Throwing out your frown
And just smiling at the sound
And as sleek as a shriek
Spinning round and round
Always take a big bite
It's such a gorgeous sight
To see you eat in the middle of the night
You can never get enough
Enough of this stuff
It's friday
I'm in love

Yeah, pretty much sums it up. I'm feeling really great today, for some unknown reason. Maybe it's because I got a full night of sleep instead of talking to people in an entirely different time zone*glares at Jess and Byron*. Maybe it's because I did my week's math homework in 10 minutes. Maybe it's because I'm going home in a few days. Maybe because it's sunny outside. Maybe it's becuase I'm listening to some good music. Maybe it's because I'm almost done with my first semester here at college. Maybe it's because life is great. It's a shame I cannot always believe that last one every day :-p. omg so em0.

It's freakin snowing!

2005-11-16T10:51:00.000-05:00

Yeah, that was last week. The first snow of the season. It was awesome. Today, however, looks crappy. Wet, foggy, and a tad cold. Sounds almost like San Francisco, doesn't it?

From now until next Monday, I shall play the waiting game. The "waiting game," you ask? Yes. The "waiting game." Here on out it shall be a blitzkrieg of looking over Calculus so that I can finish a two hour test in a little under an hour and a half. Crazy? Yes. Stupid? Maybe. Foolish? Just a little. Necessary? ABSOLUTELY. You see, I am in a bit of a predicament. My math teacher Monsieur Professor Hideo Nagahashi would not allow me to take the test any earlier than 2:15pm to be 'considerate to the other department professors.' Well, you know what? F THAT. But I could not say that in front of him, so I merely nodded and agreed with him with a twinkly smile slapped on my face. 2pm? That's not too bad, you might think...seeing as your flight might be later that night, like maybe 7 or 8pm. Well, I got news for you, bucko. It's at FREAKIN' 5:15pm. So, as a recap, I got a two-hour test starting at 2:15 (and even that time is going to fluctuate...2:20?, 2:30? Maybe.) and a flight leaving at 5:10. If I was a regular math student, I would be finished at 4:15 which would make my departure from Colby College a bit too late. I don't want to cut it too close, so I want to be done with the test by 3:45. HAHAHA. I have called upon the Math geniuses in the UHS Class of 2006 to will me their math powers for the duration of the test in which I will start to glow an unhealthy sheen of yellow...

Starscream was a whiny bitch.

2005-11-07T15:09:00.000-05:00

In order to celebrate my coming back, I shall give you a great pic:

I present you with the most awful costume ever! That is supposed to be Starscream from Transformers. Now tell me this, did Starscream wear a black-shirt and jeans? No, I don't think so.

I've had a lot of work over these past few weeks...I'll get back into posting, I promise!

Parents Weekend

2005-10-25T16:48:00.000-05:00

Ok, I just finished a crapload of Econ homework. I should be set for the next week or so. Math homework is a different set of problems though (no pun intended), although that’s due next Thursday, so no rush. I also just realized that it is going to be “Family Homecoming Weekend” this weekend. Oh, what fun it’s going to be! No, seriously, I really want a change of pace in my life right now, that’s why I really can’t wait until it’s Thanksgiving break in which I can take a break and step outside of this college campus and back into the swing of city life.

But I was thinking about “Parents Weekend.” I mean, how is that going to be like? My roommates and I have already cleaned up our room (pretty much) and it’s definitely presentable. I little more tidying up and we’re set for cleanest room in the dorm. I have to admit, I still need to get on vacuuming the dorm. You see, I went outside to play some Frisbee on one damp day (it wasn’t raining outside, it was just damp because it rained the day before), and I was wearing my boots. So, naturally, the little pieces of grass stuck on to the sole of the boot and I didn’t realize this as I was walking down the stairs and into my room. Until one of my roommates pointed it out, I was just haphazardly spreading little pieces of green grass all over the dorm. When I went out of our room to survey the damage I had caused, sure enough, there was a trail of twigs and grass coming from the side entrance, down the stairs, and into our room. (Sorry dorm custodians! My bad!)

But it’s not just the cleanliness of our room that bothers me. It’s the cleanliness of EVERYTHING. And by everything, I mean, cleanliness of one’s white board outside his/her room (I mean, no words like “bitch I’m working,” or some kind of variant along those lines), cleanliness of one’s diction, cleanliness of the diction of those around you, etc. To Asian parents, that is surely the mark of how you’re living. If you’re living in a clean environment with ‘upright, decent people’ then you’ve been living a great life. Sadly, this is not the case anywhere except in places like…uh…Singapore. Thus, I cannot wait to see my parents’ reaction to the environ that I live in. I’m assuming that most people will clean up before their own parents arrive, but I don’t know. When visiting Fordham University in New York City, the god-awful smell emanating from the dorm that me and my parents went into was a turn-off enough to put that college on the lower end of ‘places I would want to go to school.’

Then, there comes the necessary trips to Wal-Mart with my parents. That’s going to be one hell of a shopping spree, I can already tell. I’m going to need to buy this, buy that, and buy everything in the store that will help me either: (1) be more productive in my studies (like a chair), (2) help me clean my environment in which I live (like some Lysol or Tilex), (3) some cold weather things (like gloves or a hat), or (4) something that should ‘keep me happy’ in their minds (like more food). I do not mind any of those things, and I shall just let them buy me things and I shall be happily grinning as I think about the upcoming Econ test I will be having or the upcoming rough draft of my East Asian History paper. All in all, I’m happy, I’m content, and I’m glad my parents are visiting.

What is this? Is this...wind?

2005-10-25T13:18:00.000-05:00

So, I'm going to be taking a cue from one of the blogs I follow online and start out all my blogs in a chronological time sequence, starting with the description of the weather. (I know, I know, Kojima is an idiot, but he still writes a nice blog.)

The rain is coming down horribly today. Torrential rainstorms and 50 MPH winds. Wow. Plus, to make it all worse, it's like 30-40 degrees outside, and that's not even taking into account the certain windchill factor that makes you swear it's 20 degrees below the actual temperature! This must be the remants of Hurricane Wilma which ravaged Florida, Mexico, and parts of the Caribbean these past few weeks. But yeah, the weather was just so goshdarn shitty that I didn't even want to get up for my 9:30 class. I wanted to get breakfast with my roommate, however, so I diligently strapped on my boots, put on my rainjacket and prepared to go out into the unknown.

This week is going to be a fun week. We will probably get back all our midterms at our class meetings. Thus far, I have received two of my midterms, both of which apparently gives me an obligatory ticket to ride a rollercoaster. I don't know what rollercoaster. How is my emotional state today? Rickety like a wooden coaster? Or squeaky and imposing like a metal one? Who knows? I certainly don't know. But yeah, I was totally disappointed with my Government midterm. I thought I had it down, and that my minor mistakes (which I knew I made) would not bring me down so much. But I got a "B" in it, and since it's 30 percent of my grade, I guess that sucks. My professor tried to get the whole classes' hopes up though, when he mentioned that these are usually the lowest grades of the semester. He better be damn sure about that. Better news came when I got my Math midterm, I got an "A" in it, but that was not surprising. Coming from AB Calc AP with DeAndre Calhoun can prepare you for even the toughest math course. (As an aside: we were learning rectangular approximation methods today. I was just laughing to myself the entire time as my professor described LRAM, MRAM, and RRAM in extreme detail. I was like, F this, I can do this in my sleep!) I should be in Calc Honors or Multivariable Calculus at the moment, except I didn't want to weigh myself down too much at the beginning of my Colby career and I determined that a little review wouldn't hurt. So, only midterm left is East Asian Studies. I believe I got an excellent grade in that, seeing as my short identifications of terms were short essays in and of themselves. Except for the last identification of "Tang Taizong." I just blanked out on the important details on him, but I managed to eke out his dates and his biographical detail. However, I didn't explain his significance to Chinese History all too much. I hope the professor will be in a good mood and just say, "Oh well, this test would be marred if I made such a grievous markdown on this last ID. I shall give him an 'A.'" Yeah, like that will happen. o_O

Google and its effects.

2005-10-23T15:13:00.000-05:00

So, Google has been in the news as of late. People are beginning to realize the genius behind the two guys behind it all. Having been first exposed to Google in my 6th grade computer lab class, I have seen their roots and I have seen how one little search engine could grow and transform into a 100 billion dollar empire. If you think about it, their goal was just to 'rank' pages according to how many weblinks that particular website had. The more the weblinks, the more relevance it had in your quest for the best website that would fit your needs. Simple really, but why couldn't anyone construct a web search engine that did that earlier? Why did it have to come down to two Stanford University students to build it from scratch out of their garage. Seeing as neither of them knew simple foundation coding, it was a recipe for impending disaster. Hence, that's the whole reason behind why Google's main page is so scarce and aesthetically unappealing. Pretty interesting stuff, huh?

But coming down to it all, Google made their big bucks when they
expanded out of the search engine market. The technology industry is
wide and ranging. Like Google, one can construct a tech firm focusing
entirely on one aspect of the industry (such as search engines, web
hosting, photo hosting, etc.). In the 7 years that Google has been up
and running, they have been expanding out and trying their hands at
somewhat crazy ideas like Google Earth, Google blog, Froogle, Google
Scholar, etc. Sure, some of these have been in R for a while,
but a few of them stand-out of the crowd. Larry Page and Sergey
Brin's "Blitzkreig" tactic against the tech market was unheard of and
unabashed to the whole community. Their grasp on the industry is tight
and they have no signs of letting go. Hiring 10 employees every day
for the past year or so is impressive, and this 'spree' (as one tech journal calls it) has no signs of letting up either. From a garage in Palo Alto, CA, to a multi-million dollar Google complex in the heart of the Silicon Valley, Google certainly has come a long way in its 7 years of life. The Google campus rivals that of Lucasarts and Hewlett-Packard, both companies which have been in the business for a much longer time than Google has, Lucasarts for ~30 years and Hewlett-Packard for nearly 90. Sergey Brin and Larry Page are worth about 17 billion each and their stock keeps climbing with revenues that continue to baffle financial analysts.

People should look to Google for creative inspiration. People
should look to Google for a tight business model. People should look
to Google for the next revolution in technology. People should look to
Google to give them news and stock market updates. People should look
to Google for just about anything on the Web. I certainly will be
doing so, and I hope that more companies follow in their footsteps and
help bring up the US economy to its previous high point in the 90s.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, I salute you.

UPDATE: Optware Holographic Card

2005-10-22T17:31:00.000-05:00

Holy crap, and I was just talking about this earlier. Seems like this will be such a revolution, eh? 30GB for less than a buck. This is some interesting stuff. Damn, I just bought a 250GB external HDD as well.

Investing in new technology. Good idea?

2005-10-22T14:06:00.000-05:00

I recently read an interesting article from engadget on HVD/HVC or Holographic Versatile Disc/Card format.

The article tells people to invest in this particular company because they promise better storage than the current next-gen media of choice: Blu-ray or HDDVD. The company is looking for venture capitalists and investors to take stock in their company, especially since many big names like Fujifilm and Verbatim are already staking their own claims in HVD/HVC technology. Since they are finally taking the company States-side, we will be able to gain some profit from this. "Buy low, sell high."

However, with the advent of digital distribution, Bill Gates made a recent speech stating that Blu Ray and HDDVD are doomed anyway. This is of concern to me, especially since my parents are in the audio-visual market. How will this affect us? How will this impact our profits? How will this influence our future product lineup? Time will tell. However, I have been gearing up some business proposals that should lick the bottom of the barrel of High-quality consumer-grade entry-level consumer electronics.

Another piece of technology that I have been looking at is the Matrixview company's photo file extension. With better compression than JPEG, BMP, or GIF, it will save space on users' HDD for more important items. Plus, digital camera manufacturers will be able to implement these into cameras allowing for more room to take pics. Sony's memorystick and SD cards will be able to hold more and more files until the space becomes absolutely unlimited. A great outlook on the industry, although one must be wary with all these good ideas floating around. One never knows what may happen to these technologies, they might exit the market with the same stealthiness they used to enter the market in the first place.

Ping? Pong?

2005-10-22T01:19:00.000-05:00

After an exhilirating match of ping pong with my roommate, I have to wonder. Okay, I haven't played ping pong since the 2nd grade at Raymond Lee's house, and now, about 45 minutes after I picked up a Ping Pong paddle, we're going at it like a scene out of Forrest Gump. What is this? Seeing as it is "our first night, first hour, first day, and first year at Colby" how the hell do you think we will fare at the end of our senior year. Honestly, I think we can do pro.

I have to analyze ping pong from a tennis players point of view. All it is is relaxed tennis. You sway back and forth and your hands move in a mechanical fashion, hand to and from your chest, your left hand doing what it usually does each and every time the ball comes around to your side of the net. Spins, lobs, forehands, backhands...all are irrelevant. What is cool about ping pong, though, is its speed. It really gets to you after a while. Seeing professionals play it seems like they are on crack or speed. Once you get the routine down, it all becomes second action. Flick of the wrist here, tap of the paddle there, you get to know all the nuances of playing a good game of ping pong. Unlike tennis, there is no steep learning curve, and it is not as tiring as badminton or tennis. Have I found my new sport of choice? I do not want to be caught up in all the Asian stereotypes and all, but hey, come on now, what do you want me to play? Football?

Sometimes...you just wanna have fun, eh?

2005-10-21T22:22:00.000-05:00

I really don't know anything about blogging or what I should put in a blog. Hell, I don't even know where the word 'blog' comes from. What I do know, however, is that most of the major minds in business and technology are utilizing blogs to get out their thoughts and to reach out to the general public, giving them you a mix of opinion and real fact.

What I plan to accomplish in this blog is to give you a taste of what's in my head. Give you a little window into my world, if you will. This won't be like a mySpace account or Facebook account. This site will have real info and you will enjoy reading it! Damnit!

First order of business: I finally received my 250 GB Lacie External Harddrive designed by F.A. Porsche. I also got a PCMIA Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card for my laptop. Honestly, it is SO much better than the generic soundcard that Dell stuck into my computer. I can't believe how long I have lived without it. And, yes, if you couldn't tell, I have become an extreme audiophile over the past couple of weeks here in lovely Waterville, ME. The cold must be getting to me? Well, sonny, the cold is yet to come biting at my ass. I'll tell you when this happens. Probably when I'm stuck in an igloo somewhere out there.

Ahh...today is a good day.

2005-10-20T23:15:00.000-05:00

Well. So it begins...my first step into the wonderful world of blogging. Wish me luck!