12.23.2005

Update From the Front Lines

well, it's been a fast seven days since my last post. i guess i'll throw in a little recap of what i've done so far: i've ran a lot, i'm up to eight miles, i've watched movies multiple times, including army of darkness, you me and everyone we know, and crash, and i've done a whole lot of sleeping. and that's about it.

i'm going to the fresno state vs. ucsb basketball game tonight. i'm planning on wearing a little usc apparel, so it should be an entertaining night in the least.

i guess there isn't much more to report. i've actually had the chance to do a little reading since i've been back. i re-read all quiet on the western front and now i'm working on you shall know our velocity. i'll probably move on to my all time favorite, the stranger, next. i need to buy some new books. yea, so i'll probably be back with more after the festivities.

quote: "all this talk of getting old, it's getting me down, my love." -verve

12.16.2005

Money Money Money Money! Muuuuneeey!

i don't know if any of you caught the season finale of the apprentice, but i thought i might throw in a snarky comment here or there concerning the show. i guess i'd have to say my favorite part was watching rebecca hop awkwardly to the elevator and into the board room with her suitcase in tow and then listen to teammate after teammate talk about how she handled herself with grace throughout the competition. alla's complete degradation of any other woman in the competition continued as she totally lambasted rebecca, saying she saw absolutely no leadership qualities in the 23-year-old financial journalist. and how awkward was trump during the live shots? it was seriously painful to watch. but in the end, the job went to randal, and while deservedly so, i must say my respect for him is wanting. he has five academic degrees, one from oxford, one from m.i.t., he is a rhodes scholar and he needs to go on the apprentice to get a job? yea, yea, he ran his own multi-million dollar company before going on the show. personally, i would've stuck with the multi-millions. it's just such a pain to have multi-billions because the atm screen doesn't have enough spaces so you can't see your account total and then you have to go into the bank and stand in line with the inferiors who are probably there to deposit the jar of coins they've spent five years collecting. it's just a whole ugly situation.

12.15.2005

Best Computer Game Ever

alright guys, here is the lowdown. if you don't know what skifree is, you need to have yourself admitted. the brilliance of this game lives on today. okay, let me backtrack a little and give all you non-skifreers a little background. skifree is a computer game developed by some programmer on his home computer. he happened to be a programmer at microsoft, and they saw him playing it one day and decided to include it with the infamous windows entertainment pack of the early 90s. you can find tons of info. on the author's site or on the wikipedia entry.

anyway, here are a few things you should know about the game before you go download it (at author's site):

make dogs pee by running into them several times:













at the end of the game, the abominable snowman comes and eats you:

12.14.2005

The Aftermath of the Storm

it's all over folks. final week officially ended yesterday for me, and today is actually the last day of finals here at usc. the streets are quiet. no bicycles piloted by clueless and oblivious sorority girls clog the streets. the sidewalks are free from clumps of asians on the way to their secret fraternity meetings at the library. only the occasional drunk scream cuts the night air as the few remaining warriors celebrate their victories over academia.

well, i'm relaxing here until friday, when i head back to fresno for the "holidays." can't say christmas anymore, people. honestly, both sides of this argument are pretty pathetic. really, i couldn't care less if walmart wants to wish me a merry christmas or a happy holiday. actually, i'd prefer neither.

so i don't know how much i'll be posting over the break. i will be stuck with the dreaded dial-up connection, so i may not be able to withstand the slow loading pages without ripping my arm off and beating myself into oblivion. yes, this high-speed internet of conquest housing, however inconsistent it has been, has spoiled me. so if you must have a few simple, intellectual ramblings from my twisted mind, go ahead and give me a call. meanwhile, enjoy your class-free life if you are a fellow colleague, or suffer through these last few days of work before your vacation days kick in if you are one of the working weary.












oh, woodstock. you kill me.

12.11.2005

Might As Well Jump

i'm doing the sunday challenge crossword on yahoo and the clue is "hanging limply". the solution? "loppy"...i guess they weren't lying when they said it was a challenge. google found no results for loppy. to be fair, it did show up at dictionary.com. i'm just bitter.

i love how i have to actually pay to run the l.a. marathon. please, take my money so i can subject myself to 26.2 miles of pure torture. i'll be accepting donations and sponsorships up to the date of the race. any extra money will go toward my hospital bill immediately following the race.

so it's time for me to get my act together and get back to the pool. i've been slacking big time lately, eating a bunch of crappy food. it's time to get back in summer of '03 shape.

quote: "you've got to roll with the punches and get to what's real." -van halen

12.08.2005

Repeat After Me: It's Just A Game

nobody i know got tickets to the rose bowl, which, for you sub-rock dwellers out there, features a matchup of unheard hype: texas (boo) vs. usc (yay). i entered the student lottery, which incidentally boasts the same odds of winning the actual lottery, in hopes of securing tickets for my roommate, but to no avail. my boss at the physics department was on the verge of leaping out of the fourth floor window of the office where i work after discovering that she didn't receive tickets in the staff lottery. she's been "out sick" for the past couple of days, no doubt caught in the depths of a devastating depression after seeing ticket prices on ebay and stubhub.

personally, i'd rather watch the matchup from the comfort of my couch with a brew in hand than from the upper seats of the south section of the rose bowl. if you offered me good tickets, on the other hand, that would be a different story. but seriously folks. $500-2,000 for one ticket?! i'd rather take a week-long trip to europe than spend 4 hours with a crappy view of a game that is going to turn out to be a disappointing outcome following the increasingly overexaggerated hype that is already being pumped out by one sports commentator after another. so everyone just take a deep breath, put down the checkbook and the visa card, and repeat after me: it's just a game.

12.06.2005

Up Next, Usher Walks Off Stage!

i know i shouldn't be admitting this, but unfortunately i caught the last twenty minutes of the billboard music awards tonight. following the awards show was the highly acclaimed fox 11 news at 10 o'clock, and keep in mind that "highly acclaimed" is positively dripping with liquid sarcasm. so i was switching to the news while the daily show with jon stewart went to commercial, you know, so i didn't have to stop laughing, and i saw a teaser that i just had to share with you all. for those unfamiliar with news terms, a teaser is a short plug for a story that is running later in the newscast, usually coming before a commercial break to hook the viewer into the show. anyway, here is the teaser, not verbatim, but close enough...oh yea, keep in mind that the reporter had just finished a live shot about the awards show:

female reporter with spastically dyed hair: "now during the show i'm sure many of you saw mariah carey reading a list of names off of a palm pilot when she accepted her award. insert reporter's name here will tell you what that was all about when we come back."

seriously...has the news team at fox 11 never witnessed an awards show before tonight? she was thanking people? with a list? wahahahaaaaat? i regret to inform you that despite it's intense appeal, i did not stick around to hear the complete story, but i'm sure it went something like this:

male reporter with offbeat tie and unlikely name (ex. weatherman dallas raines): "apparently she prepared a list of people to thank in advance, just in case she won the award, to ensure that she didn't forget anyone. you may have noticed that she closed with 'all the fans out there.' it was a risky move, but i think it paid off. now over to sports with dodger mclakers."

12.05.2005

Metal Ring of Deception

why does it feel so great to find a great movie and show it to friends? maybe that's just me.

i've been thinking about running the los angeles marathon, and if i ever actually start seriously training i think i might start another blog about that experience. give me some feedback on whether that would be interesting or not, because i don't want to waste my time. well, i wouldn't be wasting my time, because i think everything i write is interesting, and if you don't, well, i don't know what to tell you. you've got a serious problem, that's all.

i went to warner company jewelers in fresno over thanksgiving break with my family. my mom was picking up some jewelry she was having cleaned and my dad needed a new strap for his watch. anyway, the sales guy was talking to us about watches and my mom noticed an unusual looking one and he took it out and explained the concept. basically, it was a ring of metal where the watch face would normally be. no hands, no numbers, just a ring of metal. he explained that it was a statement that time didn't control the wearer of the watch. but then, hidden on the other side of the watch, beneath the strap, was a tiny watch that did have the time. so i guess the statement is not true and the person who wears a watch like that does not deserve to own that statement, because they don't really believe in it. if you aren't controlled by time, don't wear a watch or wear one with only a metal ring. but don't wear one with a metal ring as a front for freedom while all along you are hiding your secret dependence on time.

12.03.2005

Bruin Fans Are Obviously the Spawn of Satan

first of all, reggie won the heisman tonight. second of all, we absolutely destroyed the bruins. but for the main point of this post, i'd like to talk about the fact that ucla fans are complete dicks. okay, maybe not all of them, but the majority of what i saw this afternoon made me sick.

there were ucla fans lining the walkway to the coliseum, yelling at usc fans walking by, tearing roses away from a middle-aged female trojan fan, and DUMPING BEER AND ORANGE JUICE on anyone wearing red. i can't believe they didn't get totally mauled. then, after an absolutely crushing defeat in the first three quarters, with the score at 59-6, the ucla student section began tearing up their pom-poms and throwing bits of blue paper at trojan fans in nearby sections. it was the biggest display of poor sportsmanship and overall disrespect i've ever seen at any sporting event, and their school should be ashamed of the sort of people that represent them. did we harass bruin fans, soak them with beer and trash their stadium when we played them and beat them last year at the rose bowl? no. it is just proof that ucla fans have absolutely no class and can't admit defeat, even when it is as stupendously obvious as it was tonight. that being said, i would just like to say that even though i'm going to send out a universal U-C-L-A SUCKS! i would never disrespect my school, my fellow fans and my football team by acting the way they did this afternoon.

12.02.2005

Rock You Like a Hurricane

why do i have this proclivity to delay work on even the easiest of projects? sunday i am going to santa monica and that is the bottom line.

this has actually been one of my favorite days of this semester. i don't know why. i got up, went for a swim, came home, played around on my guitar and watched a movie. maybe i'll go for a run later. i don't know. i don't know if i'll have enough time. for those who missed it, that was a rather bad allusion to the cinematic masterpiece old school. i know, it's a shame that such an intellectual blog would contain such childish references. i apologize. to make it up, here is some nietzsche for you:

quote: "Digressions, objections, delight in mockery, carefree mistrust are signs of health; everything unconditional belongs in pathology." -Friedrich N.

12.01.2005

Don't Bruin Your Life

tonight is the big night. huge bonfire in the quad, football team and pete carroll speeches, fireworks, FREE jimmy eat world concert. life is definitely good right now. then tomorrow i go to santa monica to hopefully shoot my final package for broadcast production. then it's saturday and i get to watch usc trounce the bruins.

better get on that holiday shopping, huh? hey guys, do me a favor a leave some hints in the comments section of this post about what you would like for la fête de noël, s'il vous plaît. je suis désolé, mais je suis juste sorti de ma classe française. ainsi, au revoir et bonne journée.