Wednesday, February 26, 2003

not much going on the last 2 days.

tuesday, i lifted for the first time in one week....wrists still hurt a little bit, but i don't think it got any worse so that's a good thing. after that, i met up with raymond and went to get inn and out. we brought it home, and casey (old roommate) came by. we finished watching american idol and smallville. after that we went to tapioca express and chilled for a bit.



wednesday, i came to work late. then i met up casey, ray and ryan at cozymel. went to my pilate's class. came home and did laundry. raymond came over to watch american idol. after that, we watched some parts of Time Cop...a B+ movie before Jean Claude Van Damn's career went totally downhill. then we went to mc'D's because we saw an ad for the parfeit and i wanted to try it for the first time. yup. nothing spectacular.



today, i decided to make going to bed on time (by midnight) my #1 priority. can't count the chickens before they hatch, but hopefully this means i'll get to work on time, and be more productive at work.



here are some good links.



free maxim and blender magazine



the best torrent sites

http://205.158.61.205 (reliable and fast)

http://www.donkax.com/bittorrent/ (its back!)

http://www.yirp.com/torrents (mild porn warning. this site has a lot of stuff other sites don't have)

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

i have been deleting those .THM files that gets stored in my CF card every time i shoot a video. i thought it was just for internal use. i finally decided to look and see what it is for. it turns out it is a thumbnail of the video. just the first frame. i can definitely make use of these thumbnails. too bad i have thrown all the other ones away. it is usually the first thing i delete. i'll keep them from now on.



here is the play by play of my last weekend

friday i met up with wendy and raymond to get pho at pho hoacali. then we went to tapioca express to chill for a bit. after that, i dropped wendy off, and ray came over to watch american idol. jeff called and wanted to know if we wanted to cruise in his GTR. so we met up. cruised around rancho santa fe. we did some drifting. and on a perfect straight, we high somewhere around 142 - 149mph. that marks the fastest i've done in a car. my car only does 135.



video of our drive through rancho santa fe. [6.35 MB]





we cruised till about midnight then we drove back to IG and played with Raymond's Skyline.....a RC car. :)





here are some side by side comparisons of the real thing and a RC car.





more pics found in my photo gallery



the night was a blast. especially for raymond since it was his first time riding the real thing. we called it a night around 1am.



saturday, i met up with ray, his uncle mark, mark's wife trish, mark's friend, and mark's friend's brother and drove down to mexico. destination: Puerto Nuevo. with scenic stops along the way.



we wanted to get lunch over there, so we stopped at rosorito to get some tacos, and check out the beaches. we got some tacos and burritos at this place.



someone asked me if the burrito was the best i had, and i said it was certainly up there with the best. but now that i think about it, i think it was the best carne asada burrito i've had. the spicy green sauce, and the toasted and crispy tortilla around the burrito were its highlights. now, why don't they do that over here? is it that hard? such a simple idea, and so good. maybe if quiznos also sold burritos. the prices weren't any different from san diego prices. i guess they go for quality. and they are in a tourist filled town.



i think i actually spoke spanish the first time out of need after learning spanish for 4 years in high school. i ordered 2 beef burritos and asked how much it was. and it wasn't a phrase i learned. i assembled the sentences together. and the odd thing is, it felt really natural. and i was picking up on most of the language people were speaking in mexico. it was pretty bizzre. because i didn't think i remembered too much from class, but i guess i do.







that kid in the red apron, reminded me a lot about myself when i grew up. from when i was 7 to when i was 17, i always had to help in the family business wheater i liked it or not. my brother, my sis, and i have all worked a lot in swap meets, and various stores...

thrift store in hollywood. a pet store in anehim. gift shop in gardena. and a few days coffee shop in gardena that my parents still own today. the 2 worst ones in that group was working in the swap meets and the gift store. only complaint about the gift store is that come christmas, everyone has to work there from morning to midnight. so there went my winter vacation. i considered christmas break the worst time of the year for about 10 years (the entire time we owned the gift store). and the swap meets, you basically have to wake up before dawn and sell a bunch of junk....even though we sold junk by choice... my dad is an antique collector...i consider his antiques more of a crap collection......so that's what we sold. he still collects for hobby purposes. and yes, he does watch antiques roadshow on TV all the time. and if all that crap is considered antiques, man, we sure got a lot of "antiques" in our garage. to be honest, for swap meets, i think selling antiques and collectibles are a good idea for a swap meet. its either that or sell generic knock off of something new.



so going back go why i originally brought that up, i kinda felt bad for the kid. working in the stores, i always felt like they were stealing my childhood away from me. and being a kid, i thought it was unfair for us to spend all weekdays in school and have nothing to look forward to on the weekends. most kids sleep in during the weekends right? well, more than half of my weekends from when i was about 8 to 12 yrs old, i had to wake up around 4:30 am to go to the swap meets with my dad. and probably 5 out of 7 days of the week i had to do that if i was on vacation from school. yeah, that's what i did on my vacation. from when i was 13 to 17, we owned the gift store in gardena. and yup, the same routine. we just didn't need to go in as early. just leave later. but when christmas came around, it was mandatory that we were all there working 14-16 hour days. looking back now, i think it was soo unfair. but in perspective, i am soo very lucky. just look at the families you see working the quarter mile stretch at the boarder crossing in mexico. they work in between the lanes. and things probably won't get any better for them.



a picture of ryan, me, and ray at the taco shop.





then we went to the beach in rosarito. me and ray rode atv's. and the rest of the group rode horses. here's a pic of ray doing a jump where he almost ate it.





here's a video of another jump [5.23 MB]



they really didn't give up any jumps or hills to ride in. so we had to manage with what we got and made the best of it (basically we carved our own ramps). but let me tell ya, that small amount of air time is pretty scary when you take it the first time. one thing i found out a little too late is that you can basically make the atv jump by jumping in place with your body weight. and you can put some height in the jumps. too bad i had figured this out way too late. next time i'll know and i can get some serious air.



here's a video of our slow ride back to return the ATVs. [13.8 MB]





after that, we drove through a really rough part of mexico (took the local, non toll road route to puerto nuevo from rosarito. basically a dirt road...and saw some real ramshackle neighborhoods. we were thinking of stopping by foxploration (they filmed titanic and other movies here) but we had spent all our play money on ATVs we decided to pass.



we got to puerto nuevo, and shopped around a bit. then we decided to eat at the restaurant called Puerto Nuevo #2. If we had the choice, we would have eaten at Puerto Nuevo #1...but they had big lines of people waiting outside. so we ate at Puerto Nuevo #2 which was owned by the same owners.



at Puerto Nuevo #2





some mariachi entertainment [16.8 MB]





lobster was good, but it wasn't the best i've had. we asked the waitor if the lobster was fresh or frozen? and he couldn't keep a straight face. actually, he was one of the worst and most apparent liars i have seen to this date. you would think that they'd be good at lying because they have to do it so often. the prices were okay...but wasn't spectacular. even though other restaurants there were offering lobster dinner for as low as $9 a plate, we chose to put our health at a higher priority and went with a place that charge $15-$18 for small and med sized lobsters.



after dinner, we headed back to SD...and everything had gone so wonderful until the drive home. driving back to the boarder, we didn't make a U turn we were supposed to make because it was not clearly marked, and we usually don't expect the road to drop us off in the wrong direction and make us make a u turn to get us going in the right direction. but hey, its mexico. so for a bit, we were driving towards Tecate. if i remember correctly, tecate is known for 2 things. one is the beer...



so we finally somehow manage to make a U turn about couple of miles down (we had no choice), and while driving towards the boarder, a guy washes our windows even though we're both telling him to stop. and when we refuse to pay, his buddy whacks ray's left fender with his fist. ray thought the guy might have slashed his tires. but he didn't cause any damage. and then when we were about 1/4 a mile from the boarder, it took us 2 hours to to cross it. now that i know that you can't avoid this shit coming back from the boarder, even after such a good time, i'll be hesitant to go because of all the hassle. what they need to do is get rid of those window washers...there were about 30 of them in that 1/4 mile strip. because no one really wants their windows washed. everyone has wipers. they are just running an extortion gig. and these guys are totally ruining it for the guys that are trying to sell you stuff. nothing wrong with the guys that are actually selling stuff on the road, even in between the lanes. but by the time you get there, the guys washing the windows have already pissed you off to where you want to go postal on the next guy that tries to put a hand on your car. i hope they know this. it really hurts their business. some actually sell pretty descent stuff. i thought of actually buying the laundry basket (made out of hand woven wooden branches), but i was really out of cash. then there was a ship carved out of wood. then there are some crap that i don't think would sell very well. there are the winnie the pooh porcelain statues...and get this...they were all putting these "cute" statues up to their faces and pressing their cheek to get you to buy it. uh....trust me buddy....you're not making the statues look any cuter. maybe if you were a 4 year old boy doing that to sell the statue...not a 40 year old hevily tanned ugly man with a ugly moustache. we finally got back home about 10pm. and called it a day.



on sunday, i missed church again cause i slept in. i was going to work out on sunday, but the ATV ride really thrashed me around pretty good. my forearms and traps were especially sore. so i passed on the gym as i watched the first season of "24" all day. i had downloaded all 24 episodes through bit torrent (10 gigs total) i watched about 22 episodes of 24 (44 minutes each) until i finally gave up. going through 2 bowls of cereal and 6 protein bars as i vegged in my room all day. in between i had also downloaded the tyson vs etienne fight, and watched that...that was about a 5 minute distraction.



today, i came back from pilates class, still sore from the ATV ride, took a 2 hour nap, and i watched the last 2 episodes of 24. and wow. i loved every second of it. now that i'm done watching, i have to watch the whole thing again because now i know who's a spy and who's not. so it should be pretty interesting the second time around. but i'm not doing another 24 marathon.

Sunday, February 23, 2003

last 2 days have been very cool. i seem to be putting more priority in my photo journal (jusspress). so even on non blogging days (like today or yesterday), check out:

http://www.jusspress.com/latest.php?userid=38

and you might find something. i'll blog about my weekend sometime later.

Friday, February 21, 2003

today, i almost went to go lift, but my wrists definitely could have used more rest, so i passed on the gym. i hope i will be good to go on sunday. i'll adjust my routine to avoid putting a lot of stress on my wrists.



the top 2 of american idol yesterday really was unpredictable. no one really stood out. and i definitely wouldn't have guessed the top 3 that was going to make it. some people they had to drop in the previous episodes were better.



on saturday, i'm going to puerto nuevo to get some really good lobster at a good price and check out the shops with a few friends. if anyone interested, please let me know.



a list of all the torrent sites



harry potter link

Thursday, February 20, 2003

one thing i'm looking forward to doing if we do the RV trip across america, is make daily blog updates. supposedly, people do this all the time when backpacking in europe.



not much went on today. checked out the new and improved oceanview terrace (dining hall). can't really call any of the dining halls cafeterias any more because all the places at UCSD have really improved in the last couple of years. 6 years ago, i would have never spent real cash to eat on campus. now, i actually think there are good things to eat on campus.





after my pilates class, my wrist still hurt too much to lift. so i got tofu and boba with diem. then we watched the best and the worst of american idol. i should have done this earlier, but i'm going to take advil to reduce pain, discomfort, and swelling (if any). hopefully i can start lifting again real soon. maybe tomorrow? we'll see.



checkered shadow illusion

awesome moving illusions

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

prya labs (the blogger company) has been purchased by Google. ain't that cool? i love google!



college athlete dies from supplement. yup, you guessed it. ephedra. hmph.



another related news, i was shocked to read that in this month's issue of men's *health*, they are pretty much advocating the use of steroids you can buy from across the boarder? damn. who's the idiot that approved that article? the article didn't seem unbiased. it seemed like one giant ad for steroids.



today was my workout day, but damn, my wrists seriously need some recovery time. and my pecs are still sore from lifting from sunday (i did a really heavy workout). so i just came home today and watched a lot of tv, and got some rest and relaxation.



looking for a digital camera with all the features and smaller than an altoids box? look no further. Pentax Optio S

highlights:

3megapixel

3x optical zoom

built in memory, and support for SD

video. audio.

3.3 x 2.0 x 0.8 inches...about 35% smaller (in cubic inches) than my s230 (3.4 x 2.2 x 1.1)
saturday, i drove down to gardena, ate and chilled with my bro, watching some tv shows i downloaded that i hadn't got to yet. then i took a nap, had dinner with the folks, then went to tommy's place to play some halo and project gotham on the xbox. we also got some boba at gogo juice.







sunday, i met up with tommy and got some brazillian bbq. basically, every 2 minutes or so, a guy comes out with a stick of meat, bbq'd brazilian style, and lets you take a pick. the choices were, top sirloin, tri tip, chicken, sausages, beef rib, pork rib, and garlic beef. i had quite a bit of meat....probably a good 3 lb of meat at least. then we went to the new 2 story (escalators and all) barnes and noble to see if it looked as good inside as it did outside. unfortunately, it reminded me more of clics at UCSD than an amazing bookstore it appears to be from the outside. still a very good book store. then tommy had some guest passes to his gym so we went to work out at LA Fitness. Then when we approach the building, it was a familiar site. the LA fitness was the former Mann 9 theater in Del Amo mall. this was the the theater i went to during my high school days. all together i probably have seen about 50 moves in there. now it is LA fitness. they have done a miraculous job of tearing the walls down, putting in a basketball court, swimming pool and a massive array of workout machines. after the gym, i went home and had dinner with the folks. they gave me the usual talk about paying off my credit debts, and why i need to buy some real estate. and it's not that they are giving bad advice. they are giving the same advice over and over. so i kinda tune in and tune out to what they are saying while i'm watching the ending of Godfather on TV.



monday, my sister came by and we chatted a bit. then i met up a friend (who just recently got engaged), for lunch. we went to go eat the curry house.





at 5pm, i drove my brother back to irvine. and i drove to huntington beach to see my old roommate andrew. we went to the beach area, and went to this mexican restaurant called frogs.







after dinner, we came back to his place and brainstormed on where we might be able to travel for 2 weeks. the choices were china, hawaii, europe, peru, or a road trip. i think we decided on the road trip because it was the best bang for the limited buck. tentative plans are we are going to find 2 or 3 more people and rent a RV, and do a 2 week trip across the US. anyone interested, let me know. we are estimating per person about 500 for the RV, 120 for gas, and whatever you need for food.



man, people in LA and irvine drive pretty damn agressive. it is just a bunch of agressive people like me on the road. or is it that i'm not really agressive at all. maybe i'm just driving at about the same level of agression in SD as i have learned to drive in torrance? in torrance, i'm just another car on the road. in SD, i probably stick out like a sore thumb. other car stuff. someone put a huge door ding...more of a dent on my drivers side door. i cannot comprehend what they must have done to hit my door that hard to make a dent like that. i don't know when it happened either. it must have been sometime this weekend because you can't miss it.



i actually got to use the service provided by www.imforwards.com today. with iTAP, it actually works quite well. i was able to chat on AIM through my cell phone only equipped with SMS....not like the fancy phones that actually do aim.

Saturday, February 15, 2003

for lunch on friday, we went to eat at "el mercado" (formerly known as rathskeller), about 50 yards from my work. and wow. i found a great spot for naps. on sleepy days i always wonder if i should just go to my car and sleep there for lunch. but why not do it in front of a big screen TV on a humongous comfortable couch? if napping is not your thing, you can just chill there, eat, watch a DVD. whatever. its great.











after work on friday, diem came over to watch my big fat greek wedding. then we headed out to meet eric, kristine, her sister, her friend, steve, and jason at aesop's tables.





had wayyy too much food there. then we couldn't decide on a movie, so we went to blockbuster next door and picked "about a boy". what was it about? a boy. haha. that was the on going joke for the night. so we came over to my place, and sqeezed in about 7 people semi-comfortably. 5 on my bed.



the movie was pretty good. i wouldn't say it was great. but definitely entertaining. different. and hugh grant plays a character plays a guy that every single guy can somewhat relate with.



today, i'm going home to see visit my parents. chill with my brother (watch stuff we downloaded through bit torrent). i'll probably have sunday brunch (korean style) to celebrate my sister's birthday. and then hang out with tommy before heading back to SD late sunday night.

Friday, February 14, 2003

if lord of the rings was made in china, this is how it would look



well, it looks like my favorite american idol hopeful didn't make it. but i say he will have a good chance at the wild card spot. yesterday, diem came over and we cooked some salmon on my trusty george forman grill. as always, the food was superb. thanks to diem, and george. had it with grilled onions and mashed red potatoes. mmmm...... then we watched the american idol auditions that i had downloaded a few weeks ago.



then i decided to work on my commenting asp script that i wanted to add to my photo gallery. so i worked on that for almost 5 hours. i didn't know jack about databases...so it was going to be more of a lesson on ASP and SQL than anything. and then spent about ~7 more hours today learning how to access, write, update, delete, and just generally work with how the database works. and this is what i came up with so far. please leave some random comments here



yes, i understand how odd it might be (for some) spending 12 hours for such a simple looking script especially when i have a commenting feature that works well in my blog. but it is fully customizable. i basically got almost everything working. adding in fields and stuff will be easy. i can make it look nice. i will eventually move my blog's commenting system to it also. since the current commenting system really slows down the page loading, it would be nice to move it to my server.



after work, i went to work out at rimac.........wasn't a good day. i didn't eat right during the day, and it really showed at the gym. and then i went to get pho and boba with raymond. then i we came home to watch some american idol that i downloaded that he missed.



one of ray's project at work and for school is www.jusspress.com. it is many things centered around a photo journal. he made it possible for it to work on desktop windows machines (it only used to work on handhelds). so i opened up my jusspress account today and unloaded about 1500 pictures into it. (it is still uploading as i type this.) it is really neat. i wish there was a way to marry blogger and jusspress together. then it would be a match made in heaven. because blogger.com is a better text journal, and jusspress is a way better photo journal.



on my last trip to costco, i bought chewable vitamins instead of the regular kind by accident. i always thought kirkland vitamins were pretty top notch....and was surprised to find how extremely large the 500mg vitamin c tablet was (not knowing it was chewable). so i tried to swallow the biggest tablet i had swallowed so far, and quickly learned that they couldn't be expecting to sell them this big. and yup, it says "chewable" right on the front. how did i miss it?

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

smallville had an interesting discrepency in the plot. and the story was not well developed. seemed like a rough draft almost. first thing is that they don't do a good job telling you about lex's brother. at one point they make you think that he might be a fake son conjured up by lionel. then you are left guessing for half of the episode if he's a real son or not. then you figure out that he is the real son. the conclusion is, he was only found when lionel made it possible for him to be found. it didn't feel like the part about the episode trying to make you guess if the he was the real son or not was not intentional. more like bad unstructured story telling. then the there's the part at the climaxof the story, when lex and his brother double teams lionel....it begins with lex's brother pulling a gun on lex after knocking jonathan kent unconscious. so we are supposed to guess that lex and his brother make up then decide to scheme against lionel? sure didn't seem like that was going to happen on how they cut out from that scene...especially when the brother was just about the shoot lex. and even if that is what we were supposed to assume, it seems like jonathan kent got knocked unconscious for no reason.



my american idol predictions. the best singers were from candice coleman, clay aiken, kimberly locke, and ruben studdard in no particular order. i did not think ruben studdard's performance was anything near the praise he got from the judges. and it is my guess that he won't be advancing. my prediction is that clay aiken and kimberly locke will advance. stay tuned. you'll find out 8:30pm tonight.



oh yeah, if you have a current passport, there's a deal to london that you can't pass up. you can get round trip tickets to london for less than $200.



nothing much went on today. went to this place called EZ Take Out Burger for lunch. here are my observations. the burgers and fries smell much like inn and out, except the smell is much stronger. you'll need an air freshner for your car. and i'm not exaggerating. inn and out has bible verses that reveal themselves at hidden locations (inside the drink, underneath the fries, while ez take out puts "Jesus Loves You" right on the take out bag. inn and out has the "double double". EZ's has the "double take".



they have 99 cent hamburger wednesday, kinda like mcdonald's 29-39 cent hamburger tuesdays. inn and out does their best so that the least amount of oil is absorbed into the fries. EZ's does their best so that the most amount of oil is absorbed into the fries....like a hybrid between inn and out and mcdonald fries. are they being competitve or are they out of fresh ideas (more like non existant original ideas.) the burger.....even though the bun was better than inn and out, everything else wasn't as up to par with inn and out's quality. i'd take a double double any day. also, their anti healthy way of doing things (more grease the better) doesn't appeal to me. nothing much went on other than that. i went over to nguyen's place to hang out. he picked me up a copy of my big fat greek wedding at best buy while he was picking up his copy. this should be my last dvd purchase for a good while. i have so many things i wanna do...read all these books i've been meaning to get to, add commenting feature to the gallery (requires installation of mssql), but i never seem to have enough time.

Tuesday, February 11, 2003

forgot to mention one thing about yesterday's drive in the nur. one really cool thing the car does for you is it'll kick the tail out then catch it (drift) for you when you gas it at a sharp turn. we drove around a bit trying to find a good corner to demonstrate it but after 3 attemps and 2 very short drifts (felt more like a fish tail), we decided to try it another day.



not much went on today. i went to pilates. and the nasty old woman that farts in class didn't disappoint any fans. luckily we always sit at the opposite side of the room now. but it was the same rocking back and fourth with our knees at our chest that seemed to trigger a barrage of flabulous trumpet noises.



oh yeah, i fixed the cached image problem on the browser. now the random pics should really change every 5 seconds. i had to set the content expiration on the server....even though it was the browser caching the image, the only thing that did it was on the server. strange. now i'm happy that everything works well in my blog.



there was an apparent sucide at UCSD. 19 year old female visual arts student.



in front of my window today at work, these 4 high school (maybe even jr high) kids showed up on their freestyle bikes, and started grinding the handicap rails outside of ap&m. then one of them damaged one of the rails and a maintenance guy comes out, and tells the kids to stay there while he calls the cops. the cops don't show up for like 15 minutes and these 4 kids on their bikes patiently wait. then the cop gets there and it looks like they're really gonna pursue this (gathering witness and all), and the punk kids were really bummed out when this started happening. if i was them, i would have totally ran. they were on bikes too. geez. someone should inform these kids that half the fun in causing petty damage to public property is the act of running from the authority. it is quite a rush.



after work, i went to nutri-sport, and they were out of glutapro, so i bought this isopure stuff...and man, that thing is disgusting. expensive too. good thing i didn't buy more than one bottle. tastes like cough drops. then i went to bookstar and bought Enter The Zone and Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution. then i went to la salsa (had a craving), and got a burrito. then did my laundry.....i managed to gather 4 loads of laundry in one week as always. how is this possible. i hate doing laundry.......really hate it.

Monday, February 10, 2003

check out my totally improved photo gallery!



i'm pretty tired. this is going to be a pretty messy post....



friday morning, i had a really freaky dream. i drempt that someone was trying to suffocate me to death by putting all their weight on my chest with his elbow. in the dream, i had to overpower the person doing it, so that i can breathe. and after i overpowered the person doing it, i woke up, but got really freaked out, had to catch my breath, then hid under my sheets before i fell asleep again. this is my interpretation. while we are dreaming our brains are really good at making stories from external sensation. so something happened to where i felt pressure on my chest...like a muscle spasm in my abdominal area, and my brain made a story about a guy trying to suffocate me to death. but i told this to tommy and he says that this is really common in hawaii. and he went into it further saying that there's a ghost that everyone knows about in hawaii where he does this to people. and that it used to happen to one of his friends all the time. the strangest thing is the chest area that was the focus of this dream feels bruised. the muscles are sore in that area. and it started appearing around saturday. about 18 hours after my dream. 18 hours is a standard amount of time for soreness for muscle to set in if i had exercised that area. but the last time i worked out is wednesday afternoon. so it couldn't have been the exercise on wednesday that is giving me the soreness on saturday. oh well, i should stop thinking about it. its starting to freak me out.



friday

i met up with ray after work and went to convoy tofu house. i felt like eating a korean dish that was made out of baby octopi.....but when i got the dish, it wasn't what i was expecting, and it was not very good. after dinner, we drove near the hillcrest area and met up with ray's friend peter and his gf. we then headed to an art show thrown by some famous DJ....it was held in a very small art store and the store was at capacity when we got there. we waited outside for about 40 minutes, and then we finally got in. it wasn't much of an art gallery/show at all. it was just about 50-70 crammed like sardines just bumping to the music. i must admit the DJ was good. but then they decided to overamplify the volume, and i basically couldn't enjoy anything from that point. being right in front of the speakers didn't help at all. after we were all done with our budweisers (my first beer of the year), we decided it was time to bail. we headed back to peter's place and watched a DVD about DJ'ing.



saturday, slept in, then woke up and decided to improve my photo gallery. please check it out because i spent a good number of hours this weekend really touching it up, adding features, and improving navigation. just about improved it in every aspect. it should be about 100 times better than what it used to be before. then jeff called me up really enthusiastic because he got his skyline tuned. and he said that he got it up to 165mph. and he says its running so much better. and i jumped at the chance to have some fun cause my saturday didn't seem like it was heading anywhere.



so i met up with jeff, and the first thing he shows me is his dyno graph. before tuning, he was getting 280 at the wheels with low boost. at high boost, his car was pinging (i'll get into this a little later) so he was getting actually lower horses with high boost, but he was still maxing out at 280.



after tuning + computer + new air filter, he now get 360 horses at the wheels.



i don't have much experience in seeing the numbers change in real life (even though it seems like a normal every day thing in Gran Turismo), but i'm going to guess a 80 horse power gain at the wheels is a big deal that would have any rice boy doing cartwheels jumping for joy. especially after only changing the air filters. so we took it for a drive around the torrey pines area. at a good stretch, he decided to let it rip, and it was a good amount of acceleration. then we ran into traffic. i didn't think we got it up that fast, but i noticed we were blowing by cars like they were flooring it backwards. and then i inquired about what speed we might have reached and it turns out we hit 120mph just driving it less than a single block. doing 120 in his car felt like me doing 60 or maybe 80 in my car. the reason his car was pinging (detonating) on high boost was because the car was made to run on japanese high octane fuel (i think 98 octane?). so the 91 octane we can get here won't cut it. the vspec 2 doesn't have problems running on 91 octane because there is something built into the car that will dumb down the timing just a little bit so that it doesn't have any problems. the vspec nur on the other hand, they've taken this feature out without letting too many people know about. maybe they figure if you're going to buy a nur, you probably are not going to go cheap on gas...this theory works in japan, but not in the US. even motorex wasn't aware of it



after a bit of crusing, we decided to get boba. tommy came down. tommy, ray, jeff, and i decided to join 4 of tommy's friends at sushi deli 2. sushi was pretty good deal. the prices were fantastic. we decided to do some light sake bombing (i now had beer 2 days in a row). and then we got the tab, and we were blown away how cheap it was. for 8 of us, it was $47. we realized the bill was so cheap because they had only charged us for half of the items. and it wasn't like they gave us the wrong bill either. our orders were on there. just half of it. it could have been that one of the waitresses were hooking us up, so we didn't question it and gladly paid. after dinner, we had less than 10 minutes to get from horton plaza to clairemont mesa's pacific town square theater. so after doing some spirited driving and running one red, we made it to the theater to watch shanghi nights in time.



sunday, i forgot to set my alarm for church so i didn't make it for the first time in about 2-3 months. ray came by to join tommy and i at da kine in pb for lunch. food was good as usual, and we made 2 stops on the way home. costco and best buy computers. costco has a deal on crest white strips. it used to be that you get 2 boxes with 2 tubes of tooth paste for $35 (a savings of $65), but it was $45 when we got it today cause the deal was over. then we went to get boba, and we stopped by best buy computers on the way because tommy's hard drive had failed. when we got back, i installed windows xp on tommy's machine, and ran the updates. then we went to pampas bar and grill, and we both got bife de lomo especial. i have been there 7 times now and the food has always been exceptional. i always fear that they might mess it up, but they haven't missed yet. by far, one of the best deals in san diego. we got home, chilled for a bit, then tommy headed home as i headed out to the gym to begin another 6 week session of hypertrophy specific training.

Friday, February 7, 2003

a touching story about an obsessed man with his legos, his dead cat, and the church he built for her.



saw the first new dragnet episode today. it's like a less interesting version of CSI with Al Bundy and Nick Papageorgio as the 2 main characters. i totally dig that khandi alexander is in CSI: Miami. you know CSI Miami would be great if they broght in more people like....stephen root, maura tierney, vicki lewis, dave foley, and joe rogan. and totally ditched the whole crime scene investigation gig, and just worked in a classic goofball office enviorment for a AM radio news station. hahaha. oh yeah, and if i'm gonna wish for a miracle that is never going to happen anyway, you gotta get phil hartman back. then i woke up...



if you live in SD, and tune to 87.7 FM, it's the FOX radio station. whatever that is getting played on TV gets played on that channel. listening to news this morning, the newscasters said something that was jaw dropping. they were doing some kind of morning news about some story about how dogs sleep on the bed with the owners, and then one newscaster goes something like, "we're not saying the dogs were doing it doggy style with the owners, even though it involves dogs, just incase you were getting confused." what the f' was that about? it's like Good Morning America meets the minds of jackass. sheesh. i have a feeling that guy is probably gonna get fired.



i watched a lot of TV today....both csi's, the new twilight zone episodes, dragnet. i gotta express my disappointment with twilight zone again. it looks like they have plenty of money to hire big actors and get nice sets, but the writing is absolute gastly (as simon in AI would say). they keep repeating hints over and over again where you're basically screaming at the TV going "alright alright, we know what's gonna happen already! damn!") i like mysteries where you guess what's gonna happen, and they make you believe you have it figured out, but it turns out to be completely wrong and even a better twist at the end. this was what was good about the twilight zone series back in the 50s-60s. but the new episodes are horrible. they are for the Goosebumps generation. where these mysterious could be solved by maybe 8 year olds.



the novelty value of the single life sure has worn thin. i'm not sure if it is from living pretty much alone (since i don't hang out with my roommate much), or maybe i'm just getting old(er)....but coming home from work to what felt like a big empty void (my apartment, which i once considered a sensory overload that i'd never thought would bore me) was very unfullfilling for the first day in a looooooong time. i envy those who come home to a companion on a daily basis. i think i finally feel that i'd rather not be single. it used to be that either being single or not single had its equal amount of advantages and disadvantages. unfortunately being single is not something you can change just because you would rather not be single anymore.

Thursday, February 6, 2003

well, what do you know? my final prediction for American Idol 2 for the first round of finalists were correct. i should have taken some bets.



today after pilates i hung out with diem. we cooked up some top sirloin steaks topped with sauteed mushrooms and onions. we also had some salad with steamed broccoli and carrots. pretty damn healthy, and pretty damn good. we watched the latest 2 smallville episodes, and tonight's american idol.



i've been debating whether i should work out thursday or wait till sunday. it is supposed to be a week of rest...but does that mean a week after your last workout, or a week off the routine? i feel like my muscles are shrinking at an incredible rate. plus i'm off creatine so that will add to the shrinking affect. i can't wait to start lifting again. i have decided what i am going to take next quarter. i'm going to take a CPR class and an abs class. this way, when i am done cutting up, i should have some nicely chisseled abs. but the key to getting a six pack is in the body fat loss. hopefully if they are teaching this class right, half the class will be about reducing body fat.

Wednesday, February 5, 2003

my american idol analysis and prediction.

http://www.idolonfox.com/contestants/



weighing the performance they gave, the choice of song, their talent

the two i would pick is Charles Grigsby and Trenyce. Julia DeMato came in a very close 3rd. if she could have chosen a better song to show off her voice, she could have easily been my #1 pick. and what Kimberly Caldwell has more of compared to everyone else is the star appeal. Trenyce and Julia DeMato doesn't have much of it. I would be surprised if the chosen ones are someone other than these 4 mentioned. weighing in the star appeal, my final prediction is that Charles Grigsby and Julia DeMato will advance.



one person that i would like to see advance is clay aiken. if we were to judge soley on voice alone, he would be my #1 pick. just doesn't look like an american idol. will his voice make up for his lack of star appeal? we'll see.



so after work, i came home and watched smallville. it was disturbing to watch. lana needs to get treated better. she doesn't deserve it. and pete has never made me more mad than before. according to the past episodes, when you remove pete's inhibitions or add to his adrenaline, he's an evil sadistic murdering rapist control freak with serious insecurity issues. then i went over to nguyen's place to watch american idol, then took his integra out for a spin. it was my first time driving a stick with other cars on the road. overall, it was good practice. i worked on letting the clutch out more smoothly. and finding the right gear to go into when i had to slow down to a red light that changed into a green before i got there. i still need to work on getting the car in gear from a stand still more smoothly. still a bit jerky. nguyen didn't have the light clutch that eric told me the integras had. he had that adjusted during one of this maintenance jobs to where it was actually a bit heavier than eric's clutch on his eclipse. i did manage to stall it 4-5 times just trying to get it in first gear from a stand still. what is amusing to me is that whenever that i don't have the option to drive a stick, i fantasize about how great and fun it would be to be driving a stick all the time. and then i finally get around to driving a stick, and always end up questioning myself, "damn this is sooo much work. is it really worth it?" then i don't get to drive a stick for a while and this cycle just repeating itself. but i'm going to guess that this effect is less dramatic and my enthusiasm will grow as it becomes more natural to drive a manual.



after an hour of crusing scripps ranch, we went to get boba at mira mesa. then we watched an hour of Lord of the Rings 2 (DVD screener) that a friend copied for him.

Tuesday, February 4, 2003

just came back from watching catch me if you can with diem. it was a good movie. but what really did it for me was that it was based on a true story. and what makes it extra special is that through all that, they became friends at the end. watching that movie reminded me of the abandonment issues i had as i was growing up. i would have nightmares about waking up to an empty apartment and all that would be left would be mounds of food that would rot eventually, and a note saying how us 3 kids should fend for ourselves. because at the time of these nightmares, my dad was establishing something in the US, while my mom took care of the kids in korea. the interesting thing is unlike people with abandonment issues, mine seems to have pretty much disappeared once my parents were reunited after a long story that i will maybe tell one day. even sometimes i sometimes forget that i had a step mother for 6 years. i always thought she was the evil in the family as my dad made her out to be. with her in the picture we were a very disfunctinal family. but what i should be doing is giving endless thanks to her for reuniting my family. maybe even against her will. i may never know the truth, but she got the short end of the deal. i really hope she's doing well. the last i heard from her was about 10 years ago when she moved to vegas to be closer to her biological son she had with her first husband. some white guy.



anyway, when i start cutting up maybe in april, i'm going to try 2 different diets....one after another. i'll first do the zone diet, then i'll do the atkins diet and see what works better for me. i have built my my discipline in the last year to where this is possible. i also am pretty set about taking a CPR class next quarter on top of another class i'll probably take that'll have to do with body building, body sculpting, weight training, or core building. i'll take the CPR class to become CPR certified. and that means i'll be one step closer to becoming a certified personal trainer. i'll first become ACE certified. then after 2 years in the field, i'll become ACSM certified. i'll be looking to do some part time work at 24 hour fitness. maybe i can even score me a free membership. :) since i really have a lot of interest in this stuff, studying this stuff is going to be probably way easy.

Monday, February 3, 2003

on saturday i went to go get a haircut, but the guy that cuts my hair was taking the afternoon off, so i decided to put that off for another day. then i went to costco and along with my usual purchases, i bought 16 mach 3 turbo blades for $27.



i've been putting off buying them for a while because of the high cost. it was either get 4 for $10 or 16 for $27........but my last shave was pretty damn irritable (the blade was 3 months old) ..........so i bit the bullet and gave into the grossly overpriced razor blade. i guess i'll be shaving with the mach 3 turbo for the next few years. :) the thing is, i think the mach 3 non turbo blades might be more durable and less irratable....just offeres a tad less close of a shave. oh yeah, and much cheaper. about a dollar a pop. but it's the model name that gets me. gotta get the turbo.... i also got the back to the future trilogy.



i've been hesitant to get it until i read the reviews for it, so i finally purchased my first dvd for this year. my next one will be my big fat greek wedding. and hopefully i'll be set for a while.



simpsons was interesting. i was able to watch it a few hours in advance thanks to bit torrent. and it was about an episode about marge who started to lift weights. and then after a while, she gets pretty fit, and then lifts up her shirt, and shows bart and lisa her six pack! i thought it was hilarious. and then it moves onto how she starts taking steroids, and becomes muscular like a man. it was pretty gross. her deer in headlights look and the twitching she got when she was taking those drugs reminded me of the time when i was taking some hydroxycut. i thought i point this out before someone else did.



what's up with the movies that have come to the theaters recently? the top 5 grossing films this weekend are rated extremely low. and how is kangaroo jack able to stay up there? it's not word of mouth, that's for sure. after costco, i met up with wendy and went to eat at Fandango's with her soccer buddies. i thought my carne asada with shrimp was pretty good, but wendy wasn't too impressed about what she got (same thing except with calamari).



sunday, i woke up early for a change, took my time to get ready for church. then after church, i met up with jeff and got some pho and boba. got the red bean icy again. i'm a big fan of that now. after that, i watched part of the back to the future dvd, and took a nice afternoon nap.



i wonder if i should change my diet for this week to take into account the strategic deconditioning i'm doing. i'll play it by ear. back to the grind i guess.

Saturday, February 1, 2003

at lunch on friday, i went to leucadia pizzaria with erik, nguyen, and claire. most of the conversation was about wills, trusts, and passing away.





there is this professor at UCSD that works at ap&m. his wife is this japanese musician that likes to audit the music classes. i've seen her at some of my classes a year or two ago. anyways, after work, they walk towards the parking lot from ap&m, and they have this really weird ritual. he'll walk her out to the brim of the parking lot, about 20 foot from the car, then he'll make her wait there, while he comes to pick her up (making a big circle around the parking lot because the exit is at the opposite end of this where she is waiting) and picks her up where he left her (not a good place to pick people up since it's a one lane road.) this happens in front of my window on a daily basis. what's also weird is that since he has to take this one lane road to pick her up, they need to travel an extra 100 yards to exit the campus loop, rather than making a quick exit from the parking then off the campus loop.



now that's one big pizza. i placed a pepsi can on top of the box to have a reference for size.





once again, i'm so glad i found bittorrent. it's my magical tivo. i leave my computer on at home. and then at work, i'll access it and make it go to a few url's, and when i get home, all the shows i missed the a night or two ago are there, in high quality mpegs and avi's. i went from only watching smallville on a regular basis to now watching smallville, CSI, CSI: Miami, american idol, simpsons, naruto (japanese anime) at my convienience with all the commericals edited out. also, this being oscar season, you can basically find the DVD screeners of all the movies that are in the theaters right now. sometimes they are straight dvd rips, not even encoded into divx. you download so fast anyway, downloading a few gigs for 2 hours of enjoyment doesn't seem like more trouble than its worth.



after work, i came home and was eager to watch the last episode of american idol. i can honestly say i have loved all episodes this season so far. i think i'm going to try to phone in this time. then took a nap. then went to a party that one of my church members were throwing in national city area. had some good laughs, then came home to watch the rest of the shows i downloaded (naruto, csi, csi miami).



i gotta go to costco, whole foods, and get a haircut today. then hang out afterwards.